Connie Bensen

I was tagged in a photo, so I knew Clay Newton was playing in Facebook again. To be honest I’m not really big on many of the app’s, but this one was quite interesting! Facebook totally intrigues me because when befriending people or thru random befriending, I see the SAME mutual friends over & over!

Today Robert Scoble blogged in disagreement to Dave Winer saying that social graphs & social networks are one & the same. Scoble says that a social graph is the study of people’s networks. I have a math degree & so this is an interesting debate. The Touchgraph app showing how my friends are interconnected does point to the answer, I believe. Let’s see if you agree?

Do you see immediately what happened? I have two factions: networking friends & digiscrapping friends. Isn’t that fascinating?!! I have 175 friends by the way (not all are here do to privacy settings). It may tell me that I need to increase the diversity of my friends.

Robert Scoble has 5000 friends so it’s not surprising to see his connections. But I didn’t know that my techie friend Hummie was his friend, but I do now! We are the only 2 digiscrappers following him. By mousing over my digifriends I can see who’s connected to each other.

This app also does a lot more. The panes on the left provide a lot of info. By viewing by list the person’s profile is displayed along with their rank. The app defines their rank as:

TouchGraph gives the highest rank to friends who are connectors between different cliques. Finding connectors involves a metric called Betweeness Centrality which is an established measure for a person’s importance within a social network.

So Hummie (at #2) & I are the most closely connected by virtue of our social networks. And I agree with Robert Scoble that this a social graph when you can see other people’s network info. What do you think?

Finally I want to post the video Robert Scoble had of the sister of the owner of Facebook. They use the terms social graphs in here. It was quite interesting.

So what do you think? are these social graphs or social networks?

Update: Dave Winer commented that his commentary has been #1 on Techmeme for 24 hours… and I agree it’s worthy of discussion.

Chris Brogan listed 100 topics to blog on & it’s a very inspiring list! It made me realize that our readers over at DigiScrapInfo.com log far more hours than many of you I bet! They are passionately involved in online communities & utilize social media & networking for a variety of reasons & in a complex manner. Their goal is to combine their digital photos with journaling & embellishments to preserve their memories.

Digital Scrapbooking is more practical than paper scrapbooking: I have seen the digital scrapbooking community grow exponentially in the past year! Why is this? Well the answer is obvious – imagine toddlers & scissors & mom’s pretty papers for paper scrapbooking. Working on a computer is just so much more practical because they can hit save & walk away. And creating pages digitally simply allows for more creativity!

Online social interaction: Many of our readers are stay at home mom’s & the web allows them to interact with adults. Hence the need for communities with activities! The virtual world is very real & offers an escape from the everyday routine with young families. They can make social connections without the hassle of taking their children out. Visiting a library or going shopping is a lot of work with little ones

Community is based on learning, sharing & teaching: Everyone helps each other to learn to use the software, post pages to online galleries to share their work. People comment on each other’s work & provide constructive criticism. They play games, have celebrations & the intensity of the community building is incredible! These women are detail oriented, excel at multi tasking, & highly educated. They are experts at building community (it comes naturally).

e-commerce – purchasing: There’s a joke about not sharing the paypal account with the husband due to the amount of items purchased online! To participate in digital scrapbooking purchasing some of the pretty supplies (papers & embellishments) is a must. I’ve spent $25 on a set of papers. Most kits cost $4-8 though. And the beauty is that they’re non-consumable. The reality is that these ladies create & support their own economy online.

e-commerce – selling: There are many ladies that are creating digital supplies using Photoshop & other programs. They sell them & provide a supplemental income. Some make their living by it & others work a day job & do it as a hobby. But they are all entrepreneurs & need an outlet to sell their creations. So these sites also cater to that. A few have their own stores & others sell at consignment stores. In another post I will outline how complex the structures of these stores are & the unique ways that they promote their goods.

how much time spent? That is a good question. A poll shows that 29% of these ladies spend 2 hours online (reading their comments provides an overview of what some admit to!). For our site I’ve noticed usage peaks in the evenings & weekends which makes sense. That’s when hubby is home to help with the kids. And look out on the holidays!! On New Year’s Eve my sister came back & was laughing at me – I had sat for 5 hours straight offering tech support for ACDSee products!

I am quite proud of the digiscrapping community. It has been evolving & growing. There are hundreds of independent sites with membership ranging from a few hundred to 120,000! and people continue to believe in their abilities & create new stores. The level of entrepreneurship is phenomenal. I have been helping them explore the networking & marketing opportunities at Facebook & Kaboodle (a shopping social networking site). Then Kaboodle created a killer app for Facebook that perfectly melds the two social networking worlds. Dianne Rigdon commented that she had looked for that when she first registered at Facebook (click on her name if you want to see the level of designs these ladies are producing!). So intuitively customers know what they want! Keep that in mind if you’re creating a social networking site or a Facebook app. Ask the users what their needs are!

I am excited to announce that on Monday, I will begin a new position as Community Manager for ACD Systems! It is a wonderful opportunity for me to expand my support of their products & community. I will also be able to follow my passion in exploring social media, it’s tools, the various aspects of social networking in depth and web strategy.

ACD Systems is an industry leader in digital imaging systems. They have many great products: ACDSee Photo Manager (available in both standard and professional versions) is my favorite photo management program for organizing, enhancing and sharing digital photographs. ACDSee Photo Editor offers creativity that’s unbelievably easy. Canvas combines all the features of other graphics editors, technical illustration programs, and publishing tools, enabling users to create professional and precise images and graphics, and a superior Web presence.

For almost a year, my sister & I have been creating third party tutorials, videos & plug-ins that are available at our site at DigiScrapInfo.com. We have provided tech support & connected users to ACD when necessary. I have utilized our blog for fostering community, exploring creative marketing strategies, and software solutions to make everyone’s busy lives easier. Recently I’ve helped our community explore social media & its tools as avenues to maximize their hobbies & online businesses. In this new role I look forward to communicating your needs as digiscrappers, photographers & tech illustrators to the company for new features & improve product functionality. Together we can make great products even better!

My responsibilities will be:

Connie Bensen will serve as Community Manager for ACDSee. In this role, she is the “voice of the customer,” maintaining a constant dialog with photographers and memory keepers to ensure that the company’s products and services are directly in line with the needs of the people who use them. This conversation is fostered through regular engagement in community events, as well as her enthusiastic participation in online social networks. She also shares her passion, ideas and discoveries related to digital scrapbooking and photography through the ACDSee blog.

My blogging will continue at each place as it has been. I will continue teaching & sharing with my sister at DigiScrapInfo.com This blog will be for My Conversations, a place to explore ideas with everyone. The ACDSee blog will continue to be a group blog.

I have so many people to thank!

• Jason Kiwaluk – who introduced to & got us hooked on SEO & utilizing social media
• Heidi, my sister – of course! I keep telling her she’ll have a city built on the web soon & now she’s building for other people – you go girl!
• My staff that I’ve just left – thank you for your support & I’ll come & use your wireless that I pushed for for so many years! Love you guys!
• Sue, Cam, Nav, Paul, Gen & Mark – you guys are the best & I look forward to working with you!
• The digiscrapping & blogging communities – thank you for teaching us so much & Heidi & I look forward to continuing to give back!

How’s that for a name? It’s a result of our brainstorming session … for my sister’s new business! I’m so proud of my little sis! I’ve converted her into a blogger now!

So why did Heidi need a business name? Well people have been asking me to do technical work. Ahem, you really don’t want me doing that, guys. Heidi has a tendency to say to me, ‘I have it backed up so it’s ok if you break it’. I love to play with widgets though! And when she goes on vacation I tend to move categories around in our forums.

So I referred these requests to Heidi (good sister that I am!). She IS very good at what she does! This blog is her third site that she’s built. I was impatient to get blogging & she rose to the occasion (I have things to say!). Her side of the story is:

Connie started blogging within 24 hours of it being installed. I told her to wait but she wouldn’t listen. (Since when does an older sister listen to a younger sister?) I scrambled to get the theme customized, statistics in place, SEO’ed and also worked out some host delay problem within a week. There is still a few more tweaks to do but for the most part it is complete. Well, until dear sister goes and breaks it and I get a panic email or call.

Have you noticed how much faster my blog is loading now? Last Sunday we spent a lot of time on the phone because it took up to 30 sec’s for this blog to load. I’m glad that Heidi pressed the issue & resolved it because it’s SO much better now!

So if you are looking for some technical assistance, I highly recommend my sister’s work. She customized this blog for the brand I wanted. She’s quite patient (even with my foibles).  If you’d like to enquire about her services or see her work, check here Solutions by Heidi.

On a side note, I purchased the domain www.conniebenson.com so go ahead & spell my last name however you want to! I see that Heidi has redirected it already. It’s awesome to have such a talented sister!  So now I wonder how I get her on Twitter?