We as humans walked and ran for majority of our history. Then, the invention of wheels disrupted our lifestyle and allowed us to be much more mobile. The Mongols disrupted the world by using horses in warfare. The US became a connected nation through the disruptive force of rail roads.

In modern commercial context, everyone now understands how disruptive the iPhone has been to the mobile industry. It changed the positioning of mobile carriers upside down. Another obvious example is the internet. The world wide web, which started as a place to put your company brochure on a web site, has changed how retail, customer support, and almost every aspect of businesses are run. That’s disruption.

In business, we constantly look for those disruptions. They represent opportunities for innovative, smaller companies to take market share. For forward-thinking entrepreneurs, these times are fertile ground to create something big. Too often entrepreneurs look for opportunities just to fill the void within the inefficiencies of large, bureaucratic organizations. Building a company during a disruptive period in any industry provides greater, richer opportunities.

Intrepid is building a company within the social media space, which is a disruptive force in of itself. Right now, I see great opportunities to apply social media data into the rigor of academic market research. Others obviously understand this as well. Forrester just came out with a report on integrating social media to research. The disruption in this space is being validated.

As a person interested in company building, such opportunity is all you can ask for. Now, we just need to out-execute competitors who see the same opportunity. That, my friends, is the game that makes everyday so much fun.

Since we were little kids, we learned to project different persona’s depending on the situation, environment or the company around us. I know I certainly projected myself differently in church than I did around my jock friends in a locker room — and still more differently around girls whom I liked. That’s part of being human. We project ourselves differently depending on the environment and one personal persona doesn’t have to be any more real than another.

Think about how that translates to the social media platforms. They allow us to have various persona’s. I tried once to consolidate my persona’s and have standard status updates. Failed. It bothered me to compromise one persona for another. I felt more unauthentic trying to standardize my persona’s than when I really had differing ones.

Here are my current standard social media persona’s:

Facebook (Friend) Persona: A friend. A family person. Share personal characteristic as a guy’s guy who is a bit of bully, fun-loving, thrash-talking but genuinely engaged with friends and family.

Twitter (Tribe) Persona: An entrepreneur. A social media enthusiast in Seattle. Want to give personality to my company and its work environment. Share thoughts and information about digital marketing, especially around social media. Share thoughts on company-building and leading people. Those interested are my tribesmen.

Blog (Kool Uncle) Persona: Meet John Song, your uncle, big brother or your boss. Mentor. Story teller. Like to give advice. Interpret my experiences. A discussion over coffee or a drink.

LinkedIn (Resume) Persona: An Executive Networking. Work history and recommendations. Updates relate to the progress of my company or insights around my work, or to recruit talented people.

Foursquare (Food Critic) Persona: An urbanite who loves getting together for happy hours and after hour hot spots. You should almost hear my laughter with friends. I must admit this is relatively new platform for me.

Xbox Live (12-year-old) Persona: PES2010. Madden2009. Thrash-talker who CANNOT back up all the talk with his game. Silly, but competitive.

What are your persona’s? You need more than one. When you are comfortable with that, you will enjoy social media (and yourself) much more.

After coming up with a business plan in July and finding the right partners, we started hiring and building a social media research center in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. That has been,and continues to be, a tremendously rewarding experience. Our staff there has exceeded all my expectations not only in ability, but also in their embrace of our company vision and culture.

After a couple of months of ramp, we started to offer our services here in the US to forward-looking brands. Our traction really started to take hold this month in December. We are closing out 2009 with great anticipation for the coming year.

Amongst friends, however, some still have a difficult time grasping what it is that Lift9 does. This is not surprising given the newness of our industry in social intelligence. Recently, Lift9 posted one of our research reports on Slideshare (see below). This report measures the sentiment and reaction on social media to Nordstorms’ New Moon Sweepstakes campaign and its Twilight Fashion Line.

Our reports require a lot of data cleansing and validation, but the findings are very interesting. Also, we try to have tangible actionable takeaways from each page.

I hope this helps everyone understand the value that Lift9 is providing, and why we are all so excited about our future.

Peace everyone!

You saunter toward an interesting circle of people conversing, and at an appropriate opening tell everyone that you are a mortgage consultant who can help anyone refinance their houses. And before anyone can respond , you explain how mortgage rates are the best ever in history. In fact, you check your iPhone, the rates just came down again today. And you had a double tall, skinny latte this morning.

No? Obvious faux pas? Then, why do so many people and brands behave so ignorantly? With so much information about social media etiquette, why do brands with serious capital act gauche online?

Whether it’s a personal brand or a corporate brand, present an authentic personality. Humans are innately social beings and react well to others with personality and social graces. You need that credibility before you start telling tastefully the additional values you can bring for them. Over time, appropriate people will be attracted to your social personality and listen, engage.

Remember that social is an interactive platform, not a blow horn to get your message across.

Vietnamese fish hot pot

I just spent a week at our Ho Chi Minh office, aligning our company’s vision with the research team there. It was fun and rewarding.

First of all, young people all around the world understand the potential marketing power hidden inside the walls of social media sites. Social media is intuitive to all people exposed to it. That’s why its adoption is growing at such a phenomenal global rate.

The Vietnamese team needed just some clarification to be fully aligned. Having all employees who believe in a shared vision is a huge step toward our eventual success.

Research work, however, can be demanding and at times somewhat tedious. Building a work culture that is conducive to creativity, collaboration and high production requires some thoughtful planning and constant tweaking.

In my other ventures, our teams had built employee-driven work environments that resulted in high retention rates and high output. At ZeroDash1, for example, we had competitive video game matches to break up the days. Because the staff enjoyed those matches, they made sure that deadlines were always met, so that the matches would continue. However, in other cultures, trash talking video matches with one’s manager may be counter productive, as “saving face” and respecting elders trump an appreciation for  ”fun-loving” bosses. This would certainly be the case in the Korean culture, for example.

In the Vietnam office, we want to bring over the “spirit” of our headquarters in Seattle. But we also want a local favor to creating a nurturing, collaborating, and rewarding environment.

I don’t have all the answers as how to create such an environment in Vietnam yet. Acknowledging that, however, is the first critical step. We expect to turn to our local employees for input. They will be the ones to create such an environment WITH our support.

On this trip, I learned a lot spending time with the team. I know that they believe in our vision and have the same passion for life and work as I do.

On my last day, we went out to a group dinner at a “local” restaurant, owned by a friend of one of the team members. It’s a covered patio-style restaurant that specialized in a certain fish (looked like smelts). The place was packed with loud chatter of people enjoying meals with their friends and family. It excited me to be off the beaten path of tourists and in such an authentic environment.

We first got some deep-fried fish (smelts), then some grilled ones. We topped off the meal with a delicious community hot pot of fish soup.

I’m certain that I would not have wondered into this restaurant alone. The experience is one that I will keep for a lifetime. In the end, the meal symbolized how we can learn so much from each other. We are not there thinking we will be only teaching our business methods, but that we will be learning much as well and tasting the local culture.

I have some young people helping me with a Lift9 video. They are creative and energetic, but not very responsive to email. So, I texted them for updates and got immediate responses. My conclusion is that these young people are not used to opening their email accounts.

Even among my “older” friends from Gen X and some baby boomers, I communciate much more regularly through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instant Messaging than through email. While inside the corporate environment email is still the communication of choice, there is fundamental shift happening in the way people communicate.

Understanding this new shift is critical to marketers. Email and direct marketing having been losing their effectiveness. What will replace (or augment) them? Text and social media marketing? Many people think so, but no one has come up with a solution that is viably measurable or one that can prove tangible ROI.

Here is your (our) opportunity.

Let me use my friend, Kendall Kunz, a well-known entrepreneur and executive in the Seattle area, as an example.

Recently, he tweeted:

Kendall is a Lexus owner, expressing a perspective that many would agree with. So, why would Ford not contact Kendall? He is most likely not a credit risk. His Lexus is being serviced for reasons unknown. Why not at least engage and build rapport?

Here’s another tweet:

I get Nordstorm emails, most of which are not even relevant to me because they consistently send me information about women’s apparel. I think both Nordstorm and Macy’s has a chance to step up and not just get Kendall’s business for the day (or a shopping trip), but to build a ongoing rapport with Kendall. Again, it’s an opportunity for getting involved in the conversation for the brand(s). What’s the lifetime value of a customer like Kendall?

Later, Kendall tweets:

Ok, Ford is now out of the conversation and Lexus gets a big kudo from Kendall, who by the way has a lot of friends with high-end cars. You can’t buy these types of advertisements.

Finally, here’s another tweet from Kendall:

Crimson C is a lounge in Pioneer Square trying to get more visibility. It actually has a promotion for drink vouchers if you introduce the lounge to 20 friends. Kendall wasn’t aware of the promotion, but really just wanted people to stop by.

These are authentic conversations on social media. Kendall is peddling brands without even thinking about it. One man, a few examples, imagine the possibilities that are out there  in social media for brands to be so much more engaging.