For years when I was young my father and I ran the canal banks of Tempe, Arizona together, and we competed in 10k races.  I developed a love of running greatly because I did it with my father.  This has been a huge blessing in my life.  I still love running, and exercise regularly. Last year I ran a half marathon and did a couple of triathlons.  I am much healthier because of my father.

When we were young, my father built garden plots in our back yard and my siblings and I each had our own plots in which we could choose what to plant.  I grew to love eating vegetables by growing them, and working in the garden helped me to learn to work. My family today has large garden plots, and each of my girls has their own plot.  This week they have already been planning what they are going to plant in spring.  Our gardens have helped my daughters enjoy eating vegetables, and helped them learn to work harder.  My life and my daughter’s lives are better because my father gardened with me.

Growing up my father was the exemplar scoutmaster. Not only was I an Eagle Scout at age 12, but almost all of the boys in my age group also earned their Eagle Scout awards. I grew to love the outdoors.  We worked hard to earn merit badges that taught us to do hard things.  I remember a 50-mile bike ride we did as scouts, and I still love cycling today.  I have been a scout leader as well, and tried to be a scout leader like my father was.  I take my girls on a daddy-daughter campout each year.  I love the outdoors so much more because of my father.

My father helped coach several soccer teams on which I played as a young boy.  I grew to love soccer.  As a parent, I have followed my father’s example and coached the soccer teams of my two older daughters, and this season I plan to help coach my youngest daughter, who will be playing for the first time.  The memories with my daughters playing soccer are a result of my father.

In my father’s home, we went to church every Sunday we were in town. Now, as a father, our family goes to church every Sunday.  My relationship with God is much stronger because of my father.

Growing up, we didn’t receive allowances, but I could earn money based on my grades each time I received a report card.  That prioritization of academics helped me to get much better grades, which helped me receive large college scholarships.  As a result, I had no student loans from college, and I was able to receive an education I treasure.  I’ve followed my father’s example with my girls.  They earn no allowance, and earn money based on their report cards.  My girls are excited to bring me their report cards, and work to get good grades.  This prioritization on academics will be a huge blessing in their lives, as it was mine, because of the example of my father.

Thank you Dad.  My family and I have been richly blessed because of the good that you have contributed to my life.

Seasoned marathon runners would not need to implement an energy efficiency strategy such as this because they have plenty of energy to run up and down all of the hills. Because this was my first half marathon and because it has been many years since I have run a competitive race, this was an effective strategy for me today.

Effective small or start-up businesses also often walk up hills and run down. Large, well-funded businesses are like the seasoned marathon runners. These businesses have plenty of capital to effectively staff and fund projects. However, small or start-up businesses usually always are forced to make difficult decisions about allocating woefully inadequate resources to bootstrap their ventures.

When there aren’t enough hours in the day or enough resources for small businesses to do everything that needs to be done, to succeed these small businesses often need to consciously choose to walk up hills and run down. This means choosing the places where the limited business resources can be used most effectively and putting more resources towards those projects. It also means effectively identifying the places where the limited business resources are not producing the most effective results, and eliminating those projects, or reducing the resources focused on them.

However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Facebook to be all things to all people. Facebook is designed primarily to help us connect with our real-world friends. For example, when we try to add a friend on Facebook, we receive a pop-up warning, “Please only send this request if you know her personally.” Facebook considers too many requests to unknown people as spam and has shut down or suspended many accounts of Facebook users for doing this.

Many people are looking to connect with people within social networks focused on specific professions or interests. This unfulfilled need with Facebook has created huge opportunity for entrepreneurs to create vertical social networks. I’ve developed several vertical social networks, such as AdoptionVoices.com, GenealogyWise.com and Viajamos.com.br (a Brazilian travel social network). These vertical social networks can provide features that will likely never be offered by general social networks. For example, a cooking social network such as BakeSpace.com has functionality to facilitate recipe sharing.

Mark Evans from Sysomos (a Marketwire company), recently said that, “Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace dominate the social networking landscape but there are many people looking for a more relevant place to digitally network… If everyone is partying at the same place, there may be opportunities for other places to establish themselves as the new, cool place.”

It would not be surprising to hear an adoption attorney say ,“I already have an account with Facebook and LinkedIn, but I don’t need another social network.” If this attorney was referring to another general social network, I would certainly agree with him. However, if the attorney discovered a popular adoption social network, he would probably have a strong interest in joining. In that example, adoption is a much deeper vertical niche than a general social network. Generally, the deeper the niche, the greater the levels of passion and engagement will be for people who are interested in that niche.

Many of us have joined vertical social networks to find more relevant sites to digitally network with others who share our interests. According to a Nielson report in June 2010, 22% of all time online is spent on social sites, such as social networks and blogs. ¾ of global consumers who go online use these social sites. The number of people visiting these social sites increased by 24% over last year, and the average visitor spends 66% more time on these sites than a year ago.

A writer on Hover.com recently wrote, “I personally love the niche social networks I use. They allow me to meet more people who share a stronger interest with me about video games. You may not get the quantity of advertising & people on these niche social networks like you do on Facebook. However, the quality is higher and having a relevant offering for the people is going to make your brand stand out more.”

Janet Teo from FutureLab recently wrote, “Where I do spend a lot more time is on vertical social networks. Nike Running is one of my favourites. I am training for a run and it allows me to compete with friends and people from around the world via my iPod. It keeps me motivated and offers a real world linkage that Facebook doesn’t have… Vertical social networks will have smaller users in total, but will allow those users to engage with each other in a much deeper way.”

Also, vertical social networks can often provide better monetization opportunities than general social networks. Andres Chaves from the TCU Explorations in New Media project wrote, “Because these networks are so focused they’re also going after a different type of advertising, often at a higher price.” Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research said, “Companies are learning that these smaller communities may reach people that are more valuable to their brands.”

Vertical social networks can provide deeper passion, engagement, content, monetization per page view, and networking relationships. As said by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing, “The Future of Social Networks is Vertical.”

(1)    Viral Coefficient of 0.5 – If a community has 100 members and a viral coefficient of 0.5, then those 100 members will bring 50 new members to the site.  Those 50 members will bring 25 members, and so on, and the community will ultimately plateau at about 200 members (after 10 periods of time). A social network with a viral coefficient less than 1 will stop growing on its own.

(2)   Viral Coefficient of 1 – If a community has 100 members and a viral coefficient of 1, then those 100 members will bring 100 new members to the site, and those members will bring another 100 members to the site.  This will result in linear growth from 100 to 200 to 300 until the community has reached 1,000 members in the same 10 periods of time as the first example.

(3)   Viral Coefficient of 2 – If a community has 100 members and a viral coefficient of 2, then those 100 members will bring 200 members, who will bring 400 members, who will bring 800 members, etc.  By the 10^th period of time, this social network will have 51,200 members.  Having a viral coefficient is like compound interest for social networking.

Fast-growing social media sites, such as Twitter, sometimes forgo advertising during their growth stage in order to maximize their viral coefficient and accelerate their exponential growth. Here are a couple of core principles to improve and maintain strong viral coefficients:

(1)    Create something useful that people want to share with others: The viral coefficient will improve if sharing the information will make the sharer look better or improve their relationships with friends.  Also, if the product is simple, easy-to-understand, free and web-based the “barrier of entry” and “friction” will be reduced and the viral coefficient will generally increase.

(2)   Create a reason for people to share the message with others:  FamilyLink.com members want to invite more family members so that they can know about important happenings in the lives of these people.  Fans of a charity may be motivated to solicit their friends to donate to a charity about which they are passionate.

(3)   Make it easy for people to share the message with others. Viajamos.com.br allows members to easily invite friends from their email or easily post a cool piece of content to Twitter.  FamilyLink.com makes it easy to invite family members on Facebook, and also suggests other members to whom members may be related.

Here’s an article explaining how to calculate viral coefficients.

These trees have enormous, trunks and live for thousands of years.  One Boabab tree has a trunk with a diameter of more than 25 meters, and was dated to have been living at the time of Noah’s flood (source).

These trees teach about how businesses, countries and families can survive hard economic times.  The Boabab tree can drop it’s leaves for up to 9 months of the year to survive drought.  So, one of the secrets to the longevity of this tree is that it can dramatically reduce it’s consumption of resources when those resources become scarce.  When economic conditions get tough, do our families, businesses and countries have the wisdom to do the same thing?

Did you know that for each dollar Obama wants to spend in 2010, more than 30 cents are borrowed?

When times get tough and income shrinks, the companies, families and countries that have the discipline to proportionally reduce expenditures in a timely manner have a much greater chance of survival.  In short, strong companies, families and countries know that they can’t spend more than they make for long, or they are dramatically increasing the chances of economic failure.

The site was launched at Campus Party, a huge technology event in Sao Paulo 11 days ago.  Since that time, we have seen exciting viral growth.  Within the last hour, the 30,000th person registered to be a member of Viajamos.com.br.

Members are also actively engaged with the site.  For example, 63,000 photos have already been uploaded to the site, nearly 1,600 topical user groups have been created, 1,500 blog entries have been posted,  500 events have been added to the site, etc.

Sonia and Everaldo,  dear friends in Brazil, adopted the baby boy and named him Miguel. The Brazilian adoption program closed.

A few weeks ago I visited Sonia, Everaldo and their family in Aracaju, Brazil.  I spent a delightful time with Miguel, now 14, who is pictured above with his adoptive mother.

Miguel wants to be a chef and open his own restaurant some day. I’m teaching him how to make Mexican food because there are no Mexican food restaurants in his city.

Everyone loves Miguel.  He has a huge heart.  Miguel has a great family who loves him.  Sonia told me how grateful she is that the U.S. adoption of Miguel fell apart. At the time the Brazilian adoption program fell apart it was a huge set back for me, but the next year Adoption.com was created.  Much more importantly,  Miguel was adopted by the right family, and is exactly where he’s supposed to be.  I’m so grateful that things went wrong with the Brazilian adoption program, but turned out perfectly right.

I need to remember this important lesson to help me keep perspective when other things go wrong in my life.06

One of the keys to successful launch of this social network was that a list of “key influencers” in the genealogy sector was developed.  Then, we reach out to those key influencers when GenealogyWise was in beta and invited them to be the first members of the social network.  Not only did many of those key influencers join, but they also invited their friends, posted on their blogs, and told others about it on other genealogy communities.  

Yesterday I read a blog entry about a Broadway musicals social network, BroadwaySpace.com.   Much of their success is credited to getting Broadway actors and other celebrities to join their social network.

The book Influencer contains the story of a PhD who took a job for a university trying to get local farmers to adopt new, more effective wheat seed.  The PhD was able to get one farmer to test the new seed.  That farmer had a bumper crop, however, the other farmers were still unwilling to use the new wheat seed.  The PhD had made the mistake of selecting a test farmer that was not trusted and actually hurt the wheat seed adoption instead of helping his efforts.

It is important that the first people to test a concept are “Influencers” who will give the concept credibility. It is very important that the first members of a social network are the right members.  If they are true “Influencers” they will serve as a large part of the catalyst for growth.

“Approximately once a decade, a radical new technology emerges that fundamentally changes the business landscape.  In every case, regardless of prior competitive dynamics, businesses that understand and appropriately adopt the technology win, while those that fail to do so lose.  In the 1970s, this was mainframe computing.  IN the 1980s, it was the PC. In the 1990s, it was the Internet.  And today it is the online social graph.” (Clara Shih in The Facebook Era)

The social graph is the world wide web of people.  It is the map of everyone on the Internet and how they are interconnected.  The social graph is for people what the Internet is for interconnected webpages.  Social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace are helping to construct this social graph.

Each of these radical technology evolutions has been punctuated by a cycle of innovation, commercialization, emergence of new applications, and then large-scale impact on business.  The online social graph is following this cycle, and is facilitating a “new, more nimble, and more efficient class of businesses that outcompetes those using technology from the previous era.” (Clara Shih)

I started working with the Internet and online communities almost 13 years ago in 1996.  I created Adoption.com, which became the world’s largest adoption service of which I’m aware (measured by the number of people using its services each month).

As my first consulting project I created the initial vision and directed the creation of the first website for Law.com, which I have been told sold for about $20 million within approximately 2 years of launch (unfortunately, I didn’t get any equity in the project).  I also built the Families.com online community and sold it in 2007.

During the last two years I have been doing consulting work for next-generation digital media properties, such as a large iPhone application and the 4th largest Facebook application, with 54 million registered members.

I have also built niche social networks (such as GenealogyWise.com) to leverage the social graph within niche industries.  These niche social networks provide tools that enable members to connect and share content with others who share similar interests.  GenealogyWise is just a few months old, but it already has 13,000+ members, 3,000+ sub-groups on genealogy-related topics, 700+ blog entries, 350+ videos, etc.

How could a social network help your business to seize your opportunity within the social graph?  If you are an accountant or attorney who practices a specific type of law, you could build a social network for people interested in your areas of practice.  If you own an emergency preparedness company or a manufacturing company, you could build a niche social network of your potential clients.   If you are part of a membership organization or are planning an event, a niche social network can help you recruit and develop stronger relationships with members and attendees.  If you are a politician, the social graph is an essential element of your campaign. President Obama’s social media strategy was given a large portion of the credit for his election victories.  If you are interested in sewing or if your child has a health condition, you can build a social network of people who have similar interests.

Then, once you have developed a successful social network, you can generate revenue in a variety of ways, such as selling advertising, directory listings,virtual goods, classified ads, e-commerce and subscription sales.

I have expertise in creating niche social networks, developing social media strategies for businesses, and helping organizations to better monetize their digital media properties. If your business could benefit from qualified, seasoned consulting to better seize the opportunities within the social graph, I would love to help.

Today FamilyLink became the #99 most popular US web property, according to Quantcast:
http://www.quantcast.com/p-86YkM5oSeBMSE#summary

Congratulations FamilyLink for your phenominal growth.  Thank you for letting me part of this amazing ride.