Ok, since this conversation originated on Twitter I thought that the most appropriate tool to use to adjudicate the decision was Twitter. Earlier this afternoon, Ben Martin aka @bkmcae, the boy genius of the A-List Blogosphere as recognized by Mensa, proudly stated that he was “being good today“. A short while later he had a Fogdirog outburst.

I raised the question to him on how he considered himself on good behavior if he was Fogdirogging all over the place to which he responded that it “was just an outburst“. The whole conversation got me thinking about what the proper terminology is for a Twitter-powered outburst should be really be called and I asked the question, again via Twitter.

Matt Baehr aka @cardcat suggested that the most appropriate term to describe a Twitter-mediated outburst should be “fogdirog” in honor of our good friend and A-List Blogger Jamie Notter, and went so far as to update the official Fogdirog wiki to reflect this new usage. @bkmcae came back and suggested “Twirade” to which Mickie Rops aka @mickierops was non-committal stating that she liked “Twirade” but that it was also hard to go wrong with “Fogdirog”.

So my question to all of you is what is the best term to describe a twitter powered outburst? We’ll use Twitter to help me to facilitate this highly unscientific poll.

If you believe that it is indeed Fogdirog send an @tweet to me in the following format:

@desabol Fogdirog

If you believe that is is a Twirade send an @tweet to me in the following format:

@desabol Twirade

If you believe that it should be something else send an @tweet to me suggesting the recommended alternative in the following format:

@desabol Alternative term

I will keep the poll open for the next two days at which time I will post the winning term forever to be committed to our official lexicon of Twitter-related terminology.

There is no doubt that social media has gained a foothold in our personal and business lives. Yet despite the fact that many businesses and associations are embracing it’s use and realizing the qualitative and quantitative results/benefits from adopting specific tools for specific purposes, for many the decision and choice are still a crapshoot. Having a clearly defined objective is essential for choosing the right tool/service/media.

This video from Will It Blend with special guest Forrester analyst and Groundswell co-author Josh Bernoff reinforces that thought.

It’s all about having clear objectives and using the right tool for the job. Otherwise, as the video illustrates you end up with nothing more than a pile of dust. If you need a refresher to help you get focused or even a starting point take a look at a few of these eBooks:

• Geeks Guide to Promoting Yourself With Twitter - Geekpreneur
• The Zen of Blogging - Hunter Nutall
• What is Social Media - iCrossing
• A Primer in Social Media - SmashLab
• We Have a Website. Now What? - Craig Rentmeester
• Social Web Analytics - Social Web Analytics
• Blogs & Social Media - PRSA

For a number of other great eBooks on Social Media, check out Chris Brogan’s recent blog post: 20 Free eBooks About Social Media.

Lee and Sachi Lefever of Common Craft are it again. This time on the broad topic of Social Media:

Social Media in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

Speaking of social media, my fellow association professional, blogger and good friend Jeff DeCagna of Principled Innovation LLC has launched the first-ever survey designed to capture information on the state of social technology adoption in the association community. He is are conducting this survey with the financial support of Omnipress, one of the association community’s leading producers of meeting materials in print and digital media. You can learn more about Omnipress at www.omnipress.com. The purpose of the survey is to gain a better understanding of how associations are using social technologies today, and how they plan to use them going forward. The survey will be open for responses until 11:59 pm PDT on June 30, 2008 and they are seeking only one response per association. It is worth noting that the survey is quite comprehensive (read long) however in return for your time and participating each participating association will receive a copy of the survey report which will be available in the September/October time frame. Additionally, All completed surveys will be entered in a drawing for five $100 Amazon.com gift certificates. The drawing will take place in early July.

While the incentives are really generous, do it more for the betterment of the association community. This is something that you can do to give something back and in return help provide a better understanding of the state of social media in associations today. If you are interested in participating, please check it out here at http://www.socialtechsurvey.org.