All the Buzz buzzing makes my head, well, buzz a bit

Seems like there is a lot of buzz about buzz, buzzing everywhere these days. The world moves so fast already; why are we making it move even faster?

One would think that after growing up and working in Silicon Valley, and after a stint working in NYC, I would be used to a fast pace. Well, I am. We move pretty quick around here at FohBoh. But last week, I took a pause and felt a bit winded by all the new stuff; the new ideas, the new media, all the new social media tools and networks, technologies, meeting companies breaking into social media and all the experts the agencies, reading tweets and status updates and blogs and photos and listening to all the online chatter. I have to tell you: I am exhausted by the amount of content flowing into our lives.

I just returned from speaking at SFM's regional event in Seattle, where I met some more great foodservice industry professionals and got to know Karen Willison from Fishbowl and Linda Femling-Nelson from Google better, and I am grateful for that.

The conversation was centered around social media-of course, why wouldn't it. But my take-a-way after this event was how we have yet to crack even the first layer of the outside surface of the opportunity for foodservice in social media. My other take-a-way was how much stuff there is coming at us every day. No wonder people are in shock-social shock. Social media is a powerful force and can be overwhelming even for those that work in social media. So, how do you manage the content flow and organize the bits to work for you?

Here's my secret and trust me this is a work-in-process:

#1. I choose wisely and carefully which social networks I spend time on. I have one for personal and family life, facebook and another, FohBoh, for professional life. That's it, two communities for my two lives. So far, so good and manageable.

#2. I use tools to bring information to me as a way to control the feed. I use Google Alerts for topics, companies and industries I am interested in following and Google Reader as my personal Barnes & Noble blog and news feeder. I select the sits and feeds I want and the bits come to me.

#3. Email is a big problem. I have an average of 300 emails that are always unread. I just haven gotten to them yet. Spam is a problem so I chucked the email clients that Microsoft produces in favor of Gmail. I use Postini at our email server to reduce spam and then created filters in Gmail to sort and tag my email based on relevance. I also prefer IM (Gmail or Skype) and SMS over email and social networking over email. Sounds like I don't like email, eh. You are correct. It's not a current technology and just doesn't work for me. Email is in control not me.

#4. Twitter. I go through @michaelatkinson about once every couple of weeks and clean house. I really only want to follow a small number of people who are relevant and whom I find interesting to me. I am not interested in a popularity contest. I am not a brand. The last thing I need is more content that isn't relevant or contextual. Less is more manageable. Remember, I use tools to bring content that I WANT to see. This is how the social web is shaping up anyway. All the more reason to have a solid plan of attack to find and nurture your influencers now. I hope over time to use Twitter as my preferred way to contact with me via direct messaging. As Twitter finds their power, I hope to dump email completely and just use SMS and Twitter for personal and FohBoh and Twitter for professional communication.

#5. Telephone is a hassle, but one number is all we need. I have an office line that rings on my desk. After 4 rings, it finds my iPhone, which is my Swiss Army Knife. I am hard to reach by phone, as I prefer to be in control of when I make calls. I receive dozens and dozens of voice mails a day and return everyone in order based on the order my iPhone puts them in. Again, I am in control.

So, multi-media management help keep me sane and able to manage the fast pace. Find your own media management tool set, it save me at least 5 hours a week.