On Saturday I had the pleasure of attending yet another great Think Visibility conference. My talk, How To Make Social Media Suck Less, was based on an ongoing discussion with Andy Theyers of Isotoma about trying to work out what makes some social media sites really work and some not.

Around a whiteboard we attempted to come up with a “Social Media Theory of Everything …. in a diagram”. We might not have THE answer as such, but we do have some inklings about what might be called (loftily) Engagement Architecture… about many sites fail to offer any form of interaction/engagement unless you are registered.

We also “discovered” that maybe, a social media’s strapline or branding message or proposition, should have a motivation that is ENTIRELY SELFISH and that the social aspects of your site should be a deferred benefit (not the reason to join).

I enjoyed Julian’s (from The Telegraph) talk because it reinforced some of my beliefs about the people-oriented aspects SEO. The Telegraph has seen a phenomenal growth adding a million unique users, month on month on month. He (rightly) says that using “traditional” SEO or PPC practices that this would at best be expensive and at worst be completely unsustainable.

So, how did The Telegraph achieve this ridiculously huge growth in visitors and rankings? By setting up what was effectively a very small in-house team whose job it was to “coach” the entire organisation on SEO concepts. It’s as simple as that. Reporters, understanding SEO basics and then doing the things they do ever so slightlyly (is slightlyly a word?) differently has made all the difference. A million users a month, every month difference.

I felt Julian’s (and my) talk might have been better if a little shorter (to be more punchy) but was kept entertained by his red trousers. I guess everyone needs a cheap gimmick

Of course, the real work and insight of any conference happens in bar afterwards and I vaguely remember being involved in the development of a genius screenplay (remember 5% of that idea is ours!), the birth of a public toilet doors that make fart noises and an art concept that involved wheelie bins…. and much, much worse!

The Think Visibility crew are now looking for speakers for the next conference, so if you know anyone with something to say about “the things that usually get left behind in the web design process”… give them a nudge. They’ll enjoy it!

As you are leafing through this month’s copy of Cosmetic Surgery Times ( April 2009 ) you might notice that they’re done a feature on using Social Media and that they’ve used a few of my doodles from Nowhereware to illustrate their articles. It’s really enjoyable to see my doodles “in print” - some hard copies arrived yesterday by post .

It’s been lovely to work with Teresa, one of the few people that seem to get my ahem, random sketches. I’ve even discovered what words like “Surgetiquette” mean ( find out here… @TAMatCST ). But the best part, for me at least, was that this was an enjoyable seed that grew in the rich compost that is social media.

You see, it all came about like this…

I wrote a blog article about Twitter which got taken up and passed on by a social media site. It then got linked to by a blogging surgeon ( who knew they existed? ) which somehow got my details in front of Teresa, the Editor at CST. Teresa, using the undeniable linky powers of hyperlinks then found my doodles, many of which are about social media and read them (all) and thought they’d be great to use in this month’s edition of CST. After a flurry of hand-written letters delivered by hand discussing terms we were ready to go (or maybe we used email).

The rest, as they say, is history… or in this case, doodles about social media in a magazine for cosmetic surgeons. Stranger things have happened, just not to me this week.

Inspired by a number of strange things, like events and other people … I’ve done a few new social media-ish doodles over on Nowhereware.com ( done with the new drawing app for Mac, Scribbles ).