Social media practitioners must understand what not to do in the space, as the grassroots are extraordinarily unforgiving and interconnected. Don't be a weed. To wit, I received a message from a friend on Facebook, and immediately it struck me that he was shooting himself in the social media foot with an uzi. The message which I received was sent to 18 persons whose first name begins with the letter R. One can only assume that this instance of his message recurred many times, hence the uzi. It comes across as spam, however well-targeted it might be. It is a formula for failure.

Last week, while attending the Online Community Roundtable at Forrester Research, with encouragement on the spot from the organizer, Bill Johnston, I signed up to lead off the evening and pitch the N2Y3 Mashup Challenge. No sooner then I had put my name onto the agenda, I was approached by Jeremiah Owyang (Forrester's Evangelist for Social Media), our venue host. He asked me for a quick summary of why I was there, and what I would be sharing with the audience.