My friend sent me a text a few days ago saying it was time for me to write about Jeremy Lin, the new star of the New York Knickerbockers in the NBA. I responded and said “everyone’s writing about Jeremy Lin, I don’t think I can add anything.”

Well, now I think I can after some reflection.

Jeremy Lin’s rise to celebrity, prominence and star status in the country’s largest market, New York, has been well-documented. Flip on ESPN or pick up a newspaper or check out any sports-oriented website. Everyone knows Jeremy Lin at this point, and knows his story. Rags to riches doesn’t even do it justice. This kid was on the end of the bench, multiple times, and came out of college (Harvard) totally unheralded. In fact, if it were not for other player’s injuries, we never would have known Jeremy Lin like we do now. It’s true. Google it. The guy is damn good, and caught some breaks just recently. Persistence exemplified.

So I don’t want to rehash the obvious with this column. But I do want to stress something that I believe translates to business, leadership and motivation. This is an angle that has not been covered. Everyone is so caught up in how good a player Jeremy is (these accolades are well-deserved). Yet, no one talks about what I’m about to.

He makes everyone better.

Two things happened today which drove me to write this. 1) I was at my health club, just finished a workout. They had a TV in the lounge and the Knicks vs. Mavericks game was on. I was cooling down and sat down for about 5 minutes to watch the game. A random guy came up to me and sheepishly asked me “I’ve seen this guy on TV, but don’t really follow sports. What is the deal with this guy?” I thought for a good 5 seconds before responding and said “they were losing all their games before he got here and their two star players were out. Now they’re winning all their games.” This random guy said “so does he just take over and win the games himself?”. I said, “he CAN, but a lot of times he sets his team up really well and they contribute to it.”

2) I thought about this discussion on my 15 minute walk home, and then finished watching the game at home. I watched as two Knicks players had huge games. One guy, who was in China until two days prior to the game and just got signed by the team, and the other guy who was a “journeyman” and never really impressed anyone through years in the league. These guys were now thriving. THEN, I thought about the team’s record since Lin came in, and realized their 8-1 record has been largely without the team’s two biggest stars. It has been done with a relatively non-descript bunch of role players (previously) perhaps with the exception of their Center, Tyson Chandler, who has an impressive resume.

So the beauty of this story about Jeremy Lin, in my eyes, isn’t that he slept on his teammates’ couch, or got cut from a bunch of other pro teams, or graduated from Harvard, or anything having to do with his race.

It is that he makes those around him feel better, perform better, and do better. He elevates people around him. People who were on a course of anonymity in the NBA now have a course. They have a leader, a partner, a friend. Jeremy Lin elevates people and elevates those around him. In the cliche business world, “Jeremy Lin rises all boats higher.” Oy. VC’s and PE folks know that term well, and I can’t believe I just used it because I can’t stand such cliches. Yet, it fits.

I got asked about Jeremy Lin a week ago, and I didn’t want to be one of those people who rehashed the same stuff everyone else did. It took me a few days. Then, I realized. Jeremy Lin is a special person who has leadership skills and who flew under the radar for so long. Yet, he’s not an outspoken personality. He’s a silent assassin. His teammates, again, those who probably could have suffered a fate worse than his in terms of devolving to a C or D league, love him. The stars of the team love him because he is humble. Whichever side you’re on – star or role player-slash-bench warmer – they like this guy because he makes everyone better and feel better and doesn’t seem to care who gets the credit.

That’s what he does. There are great point guards in the NBA already. There are nice guys (really, there are, look closely) in the NBA. There are guys who can lift a team up on their backs, but most do it individually by hitting game-winning shots (and Lin can do that too). But Lin makes people better and gives them confidence. And confidence is what it is ALL about in anything competitive. It starts with confidence. Don’t believe me?

Ask Steve Novak. Who??? He scored 14 points today off the bench. I would venture to say he never would have been on the floor, hitting shots, if not for Lin and the confidence he exudes. I mean…if you’re the Knicks’ coach, why wouldn’t you start giving other guys a chance after seeing Lin? Why wouldn’t you believe that the bench-warmer couldn’t contribute?

So, I believe what we are all to learn from this, is that Jeremy Lin is not only lightning in a bottle, but he is one of the rare people that leads by example and leads by his aura. By aura, be careful you do not think of that as hubris or some outsized personality. Aura can be good and aura can be understated.

That is what we’re witnessing here, and I think it is a good lesson for us all. Jeremy Lin is not Lebron James. He’s not Kobe. He’s not D. Rose. But…he wins and he makes those around him a whole lot better. THAT is what I’m talking about, that is aura, and that is what sticks. That is what builds a legacy for those around you. And that is what people in business or anything that has to do with people should take from this. He makes people around him achieve greater things than they thought they could, or had done previously.

Keep that in mind. Even if you’re not a “Jeremy Lin” type, are you hanging around with people like that? Are you thinking about what is making you better every day and who to associate with? Not everyone has those qualities – but most people can benefit from being around those qualities.

I think this is an important leadership lesson more than anything. I mean, the talent is something to behold. But I think more than anything, this is about leadership, confidence and an ability to impact others in whatever your role is.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, has a role. The secret is in finding out what that is and how to utilize it. Jeremy Lin, it seems to me, has figured that out in short notice. We could all take a page from that book, and regardless of where you think you sit in this world, you can too.

For most of us who have spent time in any type of advertising or marketing profession, think back to the old days. By that, I mean five years ago and prior. For every specific discipline under the marketing umbrella, you had specialists or experts in that particular area. Public relations? You either had internal people handle PR or you hired an agency. Creative services? Same thing. Then, there has always been the famous turf war between traditional “brand people” and “direct marketing people”. There were always stark contrasts between people of a different “type”. There was no marketing continuum, rather, sharp lines that were drawn between people with very distinct skills, expertise and ways of thinking. Some businesses even had multiple agencies working on their behalf. You know, to keep the left brains away from the right brains or vice versa.

The list of strategic elements underneath the marketing umbrella goes on, and right alongside each one, you have actual practitioners of each discipline who had previously fit nicely and neatly into that element. I look at my own experience and can remember how people referred to me at varying stages of my early career: the e-commerce guy, the direct response guy, the branding guy, the events guy, the Sales guy, the social media guy, the Tech guy, and the PR guy.

My point is that, like marketing itself, people – up until this point in time – were classified to fit into a certain aspect of marketing because it was easier that way organizationally or because it was based on a particular core competency that others saw in you. I would bet, if you have been a professional for over five years, you have been labeled many things too – some of which never really made sense to you or maybe short-changed you.

Last year, it got me thinking about something no one had yet pointed out to my knowledge. Again, using myself as the barometer, I got to wondering how it was that I was perceived to have worn so many hats in my 15 year career – yet, had always made my career in something called, broadly, “Marketing”. It couldn’t have been simply that I was well-rounded, and I began to realize that it said less about me as a professional than it did about the nature of the profession itself and how it has evolved. I went from being an expert in direct mail, to e-commerce, to online direct response, to social media guru before that was en vogue (mid-2000’s as a matter of fact), to brand marketer, to PR guy, to event marketer. The point is that somehow I always fit broadly into the term “marketer” regardless of the hat.

Fast forward to a few months ago as I got seriously close to finalizing the business plan for this new and fruitful journey I’m on now. The realization that most marketers either 1) get willingly placed into personal silo’s as described above or 2) manage their marketing practices in silo’s, was never more evident to me. What was even more evident was how incredibly inefficient and functionally incorrect this was in today’s world. I put myself in the shoes of most CEO’s and CMO’s who I know, and thought about how everything is completely and totally different nowadays because of the interconnectedness of marketing which did not exist in years past, and that there are very real impacts to this which can be good or bad.

One can probably thank one of a few factors for why this is. Technology.  Perhaps social media itself. Perhaps technology companies like Google or Apple. The reason, whichever one you subscribe to, is less important than the point: which is that marketing doesn’t fit neatly into buckets anymore. Crafting a narrative for your product or service on one media platform for one set of customers is no longer good enough. The narrative, story or value proposition has to be bulletproof across all marketing platforms, and marketing professionals themselves can’t think in terms of being specialists in the traditional way. They have to be specialists in the overall discipline of marketing, which includes every single thing I noted above and more, not simply one or a few functions of marketing.

Two more points on this which I think will unveil trends which are starting, and will only continue, to gather steam. The first is the elevation of strong marketing professionals and CMO’s up the food chain with prominent Board seats and CEO posts. The day after I launched my company, I got a phone call from a journalist I’ve been friends with for years. He asked me if I thought CMO’s in the future would be taking broader roles and taking over CEO roles. I said that it depends on the CMO, and whether he or she has the skill set to understand the interconnectedness of marketing. Some are still stuck in the old bunker mentality of specializing to a fault rather than seeing the big, strategic picture. Others are well ahead of the game. I do believe marketing and its interconnectedness will eventually be seen as so central to a business that the opportunity is there.

Number two is that marketing has always paralleled media consumption. This makes sense, because a small part of being a strong marketer is knowing when, where and how to reach your target audience. Before there were iPhones and Blackberry’s, there was a whole lot of direct mail because that’s how people were consuming information. People are still consuming information that way, but about three dozen other ways too. Hence, the best businesspeople will understand that they too have to have a heavy marketing bent on their business, with a keen sense of every platform and how they interconnect.

In the simplest of terms, think about it this way. If you’re running a company or business, some of the assets you might have include your brand, your customer service, your unique product(s) or service(s), your database or “list”, your technology and your reputation or track record (which closely parallels your brand).

Likewise, now think about how your customers and prospects might interact with your company or business assets. Via social media. Via mail. Via email. Via TV & Radio. Via mobile devices. Via daily deals sites. Via Google. In person via retail. I could go on, but people can interact with your assets in a dizzying array of formats. The point is that what happens on one platform immediately affects what happens on all the others.

Take it from a consumer’s point of view and think about what happens when you get a spam email. You might go onto social media, “out” that business, talk about how displeased you are with it, and share it with your friends. They share it with their friends. Pretty soon, what happened in one platform (email) has now expanded to other platforms (social media, for one, but then the immense fallout in your Google search results). The chain of events and negative impact doesn’t stop there, maybe what happens in the online environment drops your retail store foot traffic; in this example, you can see the interconnected nature of things start to play into the equation in a big way.

The flip side to that is when things go right and there is firm strategic thinking in place which covers all aspects of marketing, with a consistent narrative being told regardless of platform. Managing and thriving under that scenario is the terrain that we as professionals have to cover in the coming years. No longer can you expect to be just a brand expert with no expertise in direct response or social media. No longer can you be an online junkie with no expertise in any traditional forms of media. No longer can you be an etailer and not a retailer.

You need to have it all because your customers are everywhere and consuming your product, service or brand everywhere and telling people about it. And remember what I said above: marketing always parallels media consumption.

And if people aren’t consuming your company’s assets in silo’s, then you sure shouldn’t be thinking about marketing to them as such.

Let me make this clear: there are in some instances very valid reasons to utilize Facebook Ads. This is not a Facebook or social media bash.

But when #5 on the slide deck reads: “Everyone Else is Doing It”, I pull whatever stubble that is on the top of my head out.

Has our profession – the marketing world at large, including businesses, agencies, etc – come to this? That someone pretty well-respected would use this as an actual reason to use Facebook Ads?

It is scary on a few fronts: 1) It leads people to believe that all we in the marketing profession are are robots when in actuality there are some folks in the profession that do utilize some thought and creativity and don’t just follow some herd; 2) it is overly fatalistic – in other words, it reads as if one who doesn’t use Facebook Ads will be somehow left behind or have no chance of marketing success; 3) most importantly, as a general rule, it is just dead wrong. If everyone’s doing something, especially in the advertising world, you do NOT want to do it too.

So when I read this, I almost spit out my morning Diet Pepsi. It really disturbed me, because when someone in the profession circulates something like this, it brings everyone down.

“Everyone Else is Doing It” is not a strategy, just like “Hope” is not a strategy. If you use Facebook Ads, please use it for the right reasons not because it is as simple as “if everyone is doing it, it must be right.”

In this era, whether you want to call it the “Digital Era” or the “Social Media Era”, status, celebrity and achievement seem so easy to come by. One study I read about social media said that a majority of people that are digitally-connected actually feel worse about themselves because too often social media is used to tout one’s own achievements and successes to the detriment of others less fortunate.

I don’t see a whole lot wrong with talking about what you do, as long as its true, and as long as there is some substance behind the assertions.

Or, in other words, if people don’t lie. Which is a big “if”.

So back to this one tweet. An old associate of mine, a fellow marketing pro – going back about 10 years – tweeted the following:

“Killing it. Nobody can stop me.”

Intrigued (because isn’t that what this digital era does…intrigue?), I sent a good old-fashioned email to my old friend asking what was up. He responded that he got a meeting with XYZ Client (protecting the innocent here) AND that he thought he had convinced said client that his expertise was the missing ingredient for their entire business, and  they were going to bring him on (his words).

I responded: “Sounds amazing! Did you sign a contract? When do you start?”

He responded: “Well, I haven’t actually met with them or spoke to them. I just got an email back that was resoundingly positive.”

I responded: “Oh. Good luck. Good job killing it. I need to write about this, because this is so wrong on many levels.”

I recount this exchange not to jab my old friend. He knows I’m writing this and I told him verbatim what I thought.

I do this because it reminds me that too often we think we’ve actually done something when we haven’t. This era, however you describe it, is long on talk and short on delivering. Not all the time, but often. For me, “killing it” means that I’m actively demonstrating my skills – whatever they are – to people who need my expertise, welcome it with open arms, and pay me the value I deem to be the market price. Or, the short version, I’m doing well communicating to others what I’m good at and where I can be a change agent for the better. Call me a realist, but getting an email from someone does not qualify as “killing it”.

In Marketing especially, I think we’re all guilty of a bit of hyperbole from time to time. And I think that is our collective Achilles’ Heel sometimes. We might think that one tweet will strengthen our own personal brand, make us seem larger than life, and that that constitutes “marketing”. But it doesn’t. Marketing requires substance, or at least effective marketing does. Taking it a step farther, marketers are usually hired or paid to market a product, good, or service to the right audience at the right time in such a way that it generates demand. There is often a lengthy cycle to that, one that includes many steps. Claiming a “kill” after not even one step in the cycle is nothing more than hollow grandstanding even if you’re marketing yourself. Perhaps this is what the new era is all about, but I don’t buy it. Yet, it happens…all…the…time.

Marketers, as much as anyone, have a challenge. That challenge is how to navigate the broad, sweeping, grandiose statements made every day across numerous media outlets which attract “ooh’s” and “aah’s” in the absence of real substance sometimes. If you’re interesting enough, and make crazy enough declarations, well, then it must be true. Or so the story goes. It is so easy to be a marketer for yourself or for a business or a brand, it seems. But the reality is that such clutter makes it tougher than ever to know what’s real and what’s not, at least for an audience.

I’m not qualifying these dynamics as good or bad. It is what it is. I will say that Tweets or posts or messages that make seriously hollow exclamations might work for a while, or reel some people in, but eventually they are uncovered and followed by a Day of Reckoning of sorts.

After all, in this Digital/Social/Interactive/Engaged/AlwaysOn era, it’s all out there. So you better be darn sure you can back it all up.

To my old friend: shut up until you actually do something, buddy! You’re better than that.

We don’t feel like working. Don’t have the energy to go to the gym. Can’t imagine a scenario where you can once again feel inspired about anything. Don’t feel you can believe in, or trust, people. Have a list of goals or dreams and think “there’s no way I can get from point A to point B.”

The list could go on, I’m sure. We’ve all been there.

For some people, there is a genetic code built into their psyche that is too scientific and too steeped in biology for me to get into. But, we all know someone who seemingly floats along every day equally as inspired as the day before. These people are the relative minority, in my experience, yet, we can learn a few things from them.

Less than two weeks ago, I sat in a room full of entrepreneurs – very accomplished entrepreneurs – from all walks of life and from all industries. No one in the room had my exact background nor “did” what I did. In fact, if you didn’t know any better, you would think this room full of people had absolutely nothing in common in any way, shape or form.

But they did have one thing in common. They were all inspired people. Inspired about their lives, their business, and the direction they thought they should be heading in general. You could sense it; it was oozing out of people. It got me thinking. Does inspiration lead to success? Or does success lead to inspiration?

You’re probably thinking: “the reason everyone was so inspired was probably because they were all rich”. Wrong again.

For better or worse, most people in our society deem success to be financially-based. Don’t believe me? The next time you ask someone how “so and so” is doing, listen to the first sentence out of their mouth.

“How’s Bob doing these days?”

“Bob’s doing great, he made twice this year what he made last year, he’s got a 4-bedroom house with a white picket fence and has all his kids at private school.”

This was an actual response I got recently (though “Bob” is an alias to protect the innocent).

The answer was not “Bob is healthy, inspired, and he’s really happy working on his business and spending time with his family.”

I think financial success is a part of the inspiration equation, but if you were to ask the people in the room with me two weeks ago, they would say it is a small part. None of the folks in the room were multi-millionaires (yet). Still, they were pretty comfortable and had achieved financial success to the point that they could support whatever lifestyle they chose albeit not a flashy one. No one would ever say they were “rich”. Successful, yes. But not filthy rich.

Yet, this was the most inspired group of people I had been around in recent memory. The point is: inspiration does determine success. Not the other way around. Were the prospects of financial freedom a catalyst for why there inspired? Maybe. But it was something much deeper than that which resoundingly came out the second I shook people’s hands.

My conclusion is that financial success is a result of inspiration, and while you can use financial success as a goal (which is great), we need other sources to get truly inspired in the first place. The next time you find yourself in a rut, take a look at this list to help you gain some needed inspiration:

1) Hang out with other inspired people. If you hang around with criminals, it’s likely you are one or will become one. If you hang around with people who are inspired and motivated, chances are that will rub off on you even if you’re initially annoyed that they’re so positive and chipper and you’re not.

2) Give yourself a deadline, and tell the person closest to you about the deadline. I know nothing inspires me more than to have a deadline in something. The person I don’t want to let down most is me, so inspiration comes for me when the clock is ticking. If this doesn’t describe you, then tell your spouse, best friend or someone close to you about your deadline and ask them to help you hold your feet to the fire.

3) Go out. Yep, go outside. Get out of your apartment or home. Mix with people. Walk around. If you’re sitting at home on your computer or iPad, there are a finite number of things that can inspire you based on what is on your screen. If you expand your surroundings, the list becomes infinite and three-dimensional. Billboards, people, buildings, other businesses, cars, architecture, you name it, and any one of a number of things could rev your engines without even realizing it.

4) Wake up early. My night owl’s are going to hate me for this one. But for me, this has always worked for me going all the way back to college when I made the conscious decision to take 8AM classes. My roommates hated me for that, too. The point is that I have always had a sense of accomplishment, and yes inspiration, simply by getting out of bed before anyone else. Further, I felt like I was starting the day with a competitive advantage over people who were still sleeping. Sometimes,the simple act of doing something no one else is, is inspirational.

Last) Rely on old friends. Call them, email them, get in touch with them. Your oldest friends know you best and therefore know your core and what you’re all about. Likely, they know best what inspires you. If you’re one who thinks back on the “glory days” of playing high school sports, for instance, call your old teammates and tell stories about the old days. Reliving your glory years can be incredibly inspiring because it allows you to remember a point in your life with fond memories and positive feelings that you can use going forward.

The game itself provided high drama. Yet, the Super Bowl commercials didn’t. I watched the game, and commercials, closely with a group of friends. After every commercial spot, we kind of looked at each other and said “Meh”.

Meh.

That was our reaction to most of the commercials we saw. We didn’t hate any of them; but we didn’t love many of them either. The ads conjured up more apathy than passion, laughs or tears. Isn’t that the worst possible outcome for advertisers who spent millions of dollars on these things? Absolutely it is. Apathy is the worst outcome for Super Bowl commercials.

Most advertisers strive to get positive reviews, exposure, good social media buzz, strong engagement and ultimately positive brand building out of their spots. The flip side of that is when people absolutely despise the ads, and they get negative reviews, poor buzz, etc. This isn’t nearly as bad an outcome, however, as people saying “meh” to your ads. If your ads are deemed negative, at least people are talking about them!

Even the Acura ad with Seinfeld and Leno didn’t really conjure up any sort of emotion. That’s saying something since I’m a fan of both comedians.

I’m not going to do a complete rundown of every single commercial. If you’d like to watch them again, you can find them here.

My point is that taken together, cumulatively, this was the worst year for Super Bowl commercials that I can personally remember. Not because of production values, or celebrities, or anything lacking in terms of effort. I just think the execution by and large was “meh”, and that reaction (if I’m not the only one who feels this way) is not one I would want to explain to my client as an agency if I produced their commercial. This year, there was somehow a chasm of creativity almost across the board. For every new commercial, there were two repurposed commercials stemming from the same initial concept. Really, are the GoDaddy commercials interesting to anyone anymore?

That one is the perfect example of “meh”. The ads are not awful, but they’re certainly not great and not memorable. The first ad they did was very memorable years ago. Now? Stale. The ads elicit a roll of the eyes.

This seems to be a problem most advertisers running Super Bowl commercials had this year. Let’s hope the trend is bucked in 2013.

Well, with this Super Bowl prediction, biases are nowhere to be found. I’m a die-hard New York Jets fan. Sunday signifies somewhat of a football hell for people like me. You have the NFL’s version of the Evil Empire and our most despised rival (Patriots) playing our cross-town rivals who ripped our season apart (Giants) playing for the world title.

Let the drowning of sorrows commence.

But, I promised a Super Bowl prediction to a bunch of people, and given that I’ve watched every play of the playoffs and a ton of snaps from both Super Bowl participants throughout the year, I do feel as qualified as any to make a prediction. So here’s your lead-pipe lock.

First, let’s look at the Patriots. It starts and ends with Tom Brady. It is difficult to bet against Brady in any pressure situation. Best QB in the game. Perhaps the biggest advantage they have on offense is with Gronkowski at TE. By the way, he will play. I know he’s got a high-ankle sprain, but he will play. The offense revolves around a potent passing attack and an opportunistic running game. The offensive line is unheralded every year, but arguably, they have kept Brady healthy and relatively unscathed for as long as I can remember. Ever wonder why it seems like Brady has 5 minutes to throw the ball? That’s the offensive line, it certainly isn’t because Brady is nimble. How effective their offense is against the Giants vaunted defense will largely determine the outcome.

The Patriots defense is the weak link here, perhaps the weakest unit on the field for either team. Can they step up and have their biggest game of the year? If not, the Giants offense has shown themselves fully capable of putting up points. Great WR crew, two strong running backs, and a solid offensive line. Eli Manning is finally getting the recognition he deserves for being a clutch performer. In fact, if there is a tier just beneath Brady in the QB rankings, you’d have to put Eli in the same class as Brees & Rodgers. If Eli wins, it elevates him as a two-time Super Bowl champion with a majority of his wins on the road.

Really, how I look at it, it comes down to the following: 1) Patriots offense has a slight advantage over the Giants offense; 2) Giants defense has a major advantage on the Patriots defense; 3) Special teams would be “even”, given the fact that the game is indoors and each has good special teams units, but for some reason I think Belichick will have a trick or two up his sleeve and that will give the Patriots a slight advantage there.

The question is: Can the Patriots offense do enough damage to the Giants defense to outweigh the Giants obvious advantage over the Patriots defense?

I say no.

I think this will be a Super Bowl that is memorable, similar to the initial game between the two teams four years ago. Close ball game, fun game to watch, but I’m going with:

Giants 27, Patriots 24.

Prior to today’s filing, I’ve written before on this blog about my feelings on the service (that it’s “good, not great” and that it faced many more long-term challenges than people may assume especially from an advertising perspective). I still have the same opinions, though they now fly in the face of a truly substantive body of work built by Facebook over the last 8 years. I suppose their immediate (and 2009-2011) position is undeniable. But what does the future look like for marketers? What are the myths from today that might play out later if Facebook is not vigilant? What are Facebook’s challenges?

Right now, 83% of Facebook’s revenue is tied to advertising. Where there are audiences, advertisers will flock (as the saying goes).

Myth #1: That advertisers will flock to the service more than they do today. One person was quoted by saying the following:

“As the integration between earned and paid media becomes tighter, brands are going to need to advertise more with Facebook to spark conversations and draw attention to the increasingly interesting experiences they’re creating [within Facebook].”

If you’re an advertiser, wouldn’t you want to find a much less competitive environment in which to get your message across and still reach your audience? In layman’s terms, if everyone is going right, doesn’t it make sense to go left sometimes and own your audience and/or your communication platform? This is what I’ve never understood. When demand for advertising increases, prices increase, and competition goes through the roof. Sometimes, it is good to compete and advertise anyway. Sometimes, you have to because there is no other place to advertise. In this case, there are tons of other outlets for advertisers to communicate to customers. Choice is always underrated for some reason when it comes to advertising.

Myth #2: That the service will stay relevant and that no competitors will create anything better.

I won’t bring up MySpace here, everyone knows the story and you can’t compare that to Facebook. That service did not stay relevant for myriad reasons in hindsight. Different time, and much different service. Yet, there are large businesses and companies who I’d bet are hard at work at a competitive service. Google+ is actually growing much faster than Facebook did in its early days, and they have deep pockets. Further, to say that Facebook definitely will remain as relevant three years from now as it is today is an unknown. No one can say that with certainty.

Myth #3: The timing of Facebook’s filing is immaterial and doesn’t mean anything.

Quite the contrary. The company will likely be valued at $100 billion (with a “b”). In their public offering, they’re looking to raise $5 billion. That’s a 5% float, and certainly the company does not need cash at this time. To file now could mean a couple things. Perhaps they’re getting close to the 500 investor limit. Or, perhaps they know something about their business we don’t (like that they feel momentum slowing). I realize this last statement is guesswork, but for a company so calculated in everything they do, the timing bears questioning.

Myth #4: Nothing will materially change with the service, and therefore the same strong metrics will hold up over years.

Actually, Facebook users hate change. One little, tiny change to the interface sparks uproar. Can you imagine what may happen under the burden of shareholders? Comparing the pre-IPO Facebook to the post-IPO Facebook could be significantly different. Today, as they have rolled out the new “timeline”, 45% of respondents to an independent poll said the changes made them question using Facebook to begin with. If the pressure was high now, it will be exponentially higher later. And we’re not even considering the company’s data practices which have come under scrutiny to this point. In short, there could be massive change in the future and who knows what effect that will have on its user base.

Myth #5: Revenue through Mobile will do nothing but grow and will help sustain the company if #’s 1-4 above start to recede.

Well, mobile revenues pretty much can do nothing but go up for them because they’re at $0 now. This is an opportunity and a challenge, obviously. Yet, it remains to be seen if this is an area they can scale before it passes them by. It makes sense that it should be an obviously major revenue stream (remember the old “So-Lo-Mo” slogan – short for “social, local, mobile” I’ve talked about?), but it will all come down to the execution.

I don’t think anyone can argue the massive success of Facebook. Congratulations to them. For today, and for the immediate future, it is a social network that has changed personal lives, businesses and the way advertisers think and spend. Even skeptics of the service, like me, can’t deny that. Beyond the immediate future, I’m not sure. It would be crass to call it a “fad” (it’s not) and it would be hyperbole to call it the biggest and most important company ever right now (it’s not). It is likely somewhere in between, and I believe three years from now, things will look drastically different for the service and in my opinion, it won’t be rosy.

Regardless of what I think, the world will be watching.

Sure, there is a lot of excitement around this IPO for good reason. Lots of people are going to make lots of money. Hundreds of millions of people use the service. It is a good service, not great, yet a popular one at that.

Still, I have to wonder if the utility is wearing thin. (Think: Timeline. Ugh!) I, for one, think we’ve been in the “social era” for years and didn’t need Facebook to tell me I was.

Case in point. The minute our society became mobile, we became social. Mobile = social. And that happened before Facebook, only people don’t like to talk about that. In fact, lots of companies out there selling digital advertising are using the slogan “So-Lo-Mo”. Social, local, mobile. This slogan is not cutting edge and has been around for years. What people refer to as social media, which let’s face it – is inclusive basically of Facebook and Twitter only (I boost LinkedIn above those because it actually has a niche) – means that you’re able to connect and interact with people easier than you could years ago. Want to find that old high school sweetheart? Easy. How about your old prom date? You can easily find him/her too.

All of this is great and certainly an advancement over what we’ve had before in terms of connecting and socializing with people. My question is: is this “social” or is it “anti-social”? Is the act of typing on a keyboard, facelessly, to someone you haven’t seen in 10-20 years, “social”? I suppose the answer to that question is how you use computing and social media to begin with or what your perspective is. But, I would say by and large, social often really means “anti-social”. Why?

Because when I think of someone or some cause or something as “social”, I think of being out and about. Physically with people, because nothing takes the place for in-person communication. Certainly Facebook does not replace that, and no one can convince me it does. Social refers to someone that lives the life amongst the masses, or at least groups of people they like to socialize with. Someone who frequently goes out with friends and is actually – physically – social. I guess I side with the tangible nature of being social, not the intangible. I never have bought into the idea that you could sit at a keyboard and be considered the most social person because you had the most Facebook friends. It doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe I’m old in my 30′s. I’m not even pushing 40 yet.

Now, this is not at all what people who live and breathe social media – and just social media in their bubble – everyday would want us all to believe. Quite the contrary. Why do you think Facebook spokespeople said just today that their goal is to get people to use their service much more frequently, and to turn their users into power users? Is it because they really and truly want the world to be more social and believe in the cause? Maybe. But probably not. They want to make more money. Which is fine, I’m all for capitalism. But I think hiding behind smokescreens, and saying they’re creating this new era (which by the way has been around since the early 2000′s) just because they have a massive platform to do so is inaccurate.

I use Facebook, I like it. I don’t love it. It doesn’t consume me. I don’t think I’m any more or less “social” because I use it or log in 2x/day versus 18x/day. There are things I enjoy about it, but things I dislike about it. It is a good communication platform and allows you to easily connect with people you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to.

The major grievance I have is calling this platform a “new era” based of the hundreds of millions of users, right now. Having users doesn’t make you a movement unless you convince them so, and maybe Facebook has what others 8 years ago didn’t. It is popular for sure. But not everyone gets the same satisfaction out of it. I would even go so far as to say that Facebook makes people anti-social. I know, I know. It depends on how you refer to the word social, because people communicating with massive amounts of people online might think it is social.

I simply disagree with that. Not to mention, the social era arrived years ago. We just didn’t have a huge IPO in the mid-2000′s labeled social media or “new era”.

Not to mention x 2 , I’ve always believed anything that has such wide adoption has to be flawed. If too many people are behind it, we’re missing something. I know we are. It’s a sign to run the other way, IMO.

This blog post is coming to you from Indianapolis, IN – also known as the home to the Super Bowl in about a week. By the way, in case you’re wondering how early the parties and festivities start prior to a Super Bowl, it is about 10 days. At least in Indy. Incredible to see the excitement and energy on the streets this early. But, I digress.

I just completed the first day of a seriously great CEO Mastermind Group, with another half day tomorrow to finish it up. I’m a participant for this mastermind so I get to present my business and talk about my challenges confidentially to the rest of the group; I do also host my own elite mastermind group 2x/year, called The Power of 11, which I obviously recommend though it is very exclusive and only for serious candidates.

What is this thing called a CEO Mastermind Group? Well, it is obviously an event catered mainly to CEO’s or solo entrepreneurs building businesses or companies. Some people try and call it a series of brainstorming sessions, but that’s not accurate because most brainstorming sessions lack structure and any real agenda. Mastermind groups have structure and agenda. Some people try and call it group therapy, but that’s not accurate because most group therapy is somewhat depressing and down. Mastermind groups have amazing energy and they’re very fun.

What a Mastermind Group really is is a (usually) 1.5 day gathering of a group of high-powered, smart people. Groups I’ve hosted and attended range anywhere from 8 people to 20. Each CEO has a chance to “present” their business, business model, challenges, strengths and weaknesses for about 45 minutes typically. Though it is a presentation, it is usually very interactive which is where all the value comes in. You get a group of insanely bright people punching holes and making suggestions about your business. And when you have all of these other people present, you get to hear everyone else’s ideas that you can adapt to your own business too. However many participants are in the group is how many different sets of ideas you take away from it. It is like having a room full of “best in breed” people as your personal consultants for 36 hours.

I was fortunate to participate in this one in Indianapolis, and in general I believe these are invaluable to do. If you’re serious about growing your business, becoming a better businessperson or anything close to that, I would recommend participating in at least one CEO Mastermind Group. It keeps you sharp, and on your toes, and eliminates your blind spots since no one in the group is ever a competitor.

Participating in a CEO Mastermind Group is not cheap, typically, not by any means. But you get what you pay for. Never once have I regretted forking over the dough for participating in these.