Social Media: Lessons from Travel & Pirates

I am happy to be back in Seattle after 10+ days of virtually no [or snail slow at the best of times] Internet connection while I was out of town/out of the USA. Being unexpectedly “unplugged” was maddening, frustrating, educational, enlightening.

The educational and enlightening part came out of the same thing that most of my learning in this class is springing from: being totally out of my comfort zone and simply letting go of my plan and using whatever I can grab or do that is at hand.

I had not realized quite how dependent I have become on my technology devices until they became useless dead weight in my backpack. It was a jolt waiting 15 minutes to log into the Internet just to get kicked off, sitting waiting 20 minutes for one short text email to send itself, seeing that good ol’ error message 404 “Page not Found” thousands of times.

I have come to deeply appreciate exactly what I am doing right now – sitting on my couch with 6 different windows open wallowing in high speed connectivity. It feels like how a nice long hot shower feels after a long sweaty August camping trip. Aaaaaaaah!

I returned to the US on a Saturday and I could not WAIT to get into the hotel Internet connection.

Which was down, as it happened. Incredible.

For lack of any other ideas on how to be productive for the next few hours, I decided to go out walking in New Orleans with my digital camera and my video camera. I went in search of footage for our Social Video. I captured some video footage of metal water utility covers in the sidewalks, and was shooting water bottles in refrigerated coolers in tourist shops. Nothing seems odd in the French Quarter.

Meet my new friend Captain Stephen Twist, “New Orleans’ French Quarter’s only full time Pirate”. I literally almost bumped into him with my camera as he was hailing a taxi for some tourists outside an Irish bar.

I asked if I could take his photo, bought him a shot and a beer in that most excellent Irish bar, and we talked about Social Media. What I learned that night about the Pirates is they are VERY connected. They are some of Social Media’s Kings and Queens and they are relatively new at all of this technology stuff.

It’s a long story that I’ll skip here, but Pirates are one of my newly identified target customer segments for a cultural/music event I am doing in Louisiana in November 2010.

As it turns out, all I need to do it turn on the “On” switch to the Pirates social network, and I’m at least halfway done.

They will do nearly all the rest for me marketing-wise once I provide them with a destination/website, and I engage some more of the key Pirate and Wench personalities in New Orleans.

A Google search of the 4 term string pirates pyrates wenches blog returned 26,300 results. These people are seriously dialed in. My new pirate pal, Cap’n Twist, told me that the normal weekend Pirate routine in New Orleans is to stay up late, mingle and socialize with other Pirates and/or Wenches (who are VERY organized and social – they have formal Krewes, similar to New Orleans’ Mardi Gras Krewes) and then sleep as late as possible. Captain Twist’s afternoons are spent online as much as possible, chatting, building connections, commenting on the activities and writings of fellow Pirates and/or Wenches, and preparing for the next evening’s activities.

VERY online. VERY organized. VERY connected. VERY interactive.

I now own a new Twitter account, Facebook username, and a new web domain, all designed to make it easy for socially networked Pirates like the elegant Captain Twist or my other new friend, The Diamond Queen (aka Susan – see the Wenches' brand new website at www.nolawenches.com) to spread news of my event and to rally their local/actual friends and their virtual social connections to come along with them to my event.

These Krewes are highly sophisticated Social Clubs with an embedded service/charitable function. Krewes have been around long before there was the internet, but they take full advantage of Social Media now that it’s here. I have a whole lot to learn from my Pirates and Wenches, in all seriousness.

Last summer when I came up with this Pirate idea, I read Pirate websites for several days and found out that “International Talk Like a Pirate Day” (September 19th) was granted to 2 very creative guys from Portland who wrote a software program that automatically converts normal writing into “Pirate talk”. They own the rights to the incredibly popular software, and they wrote 2 best selling Pirate-themed books on how to talk like a pirate -- then they both quit their day jobs. Something to think about.

Would any of this exist without Social Media? Maybe. But not like THIS.

Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, are all at the heart of the success and strength of the Pirates and Wenches feeling of belonging and connection to each other, along with fueling their charitable efforts and successes with one of my pet causes: post-Katrina rebuilding efforts.

Just one more crystal clear example of a powerful niche market that is almost completely fueled by that magical combination of heart and social media.

Good lesson for me that I never quite know where my teachers will pop up -- always a good idea to be paying attention, watching, listening.

Aaaaaaargh!