It's Official: Empire Avenue Knows I Was Adopted [SATIRE]

No, seriously. I think I may have been born in the United States and adopted by a nice Canadian family. It amazing I turned out to look exactly like my "adopted" Father. Look at us! There's no way we aren't related right!?

Ok, Ok, The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.... but maybe the conspiracy is deeper? Maybe the stork society just totally dropped me off on the wrong side of the Detroit River? Heck, maybe the stork even mistook Windsor for Detroit... I need to write a letter to the Stork council or something.

Growing up in Essex Ontario, I always knew about a saying that says "Ontario stops at London". I never really knew what this meant until I moved away for university.

Example 1: Despite being a huge music buff my whole life, I was not privy to many of the great Canadian bands until I made the move to St. Catharines for school. Can you believe I only knew 2 Tragically Hip songs!? And to top it off, most of my friends from the Toronto area didn't know who Bob Seger was... BOB SEGER.... CMON PEOPLE!!!!

Example 2: Every single one of my university friends lived out their childhood experiences using Toronto as a home base, whereas my home base was Detroit. In 2nd year my friend and I were talking about how awesome the Zoo was as a kid. At the end of it all he commented on how amazing the Toronto Zoo was. I paused for a moment, and then realized I had never been to the Toronto Zoo and I was picturing the Detroit Zoo in my head! The same was true for Hockey Games, Monster Truck Rallies, and even Science Centres*.

*I did visit the Ontario Science Centre as a child, but my most vivid memories are of the one in Detroit.

Example 3: When I first took my internship at P&G (an American-owned company I might add), I consistently got asked if I was from the US. Somewhere between the "accent" that I had and my passion for NASCAR, I guess I was giving myself away! I believe both my accent and passion for NASCAR have waned, but the memories of this time still persist.

Example 4: During my internship I had the opportunity to visit Fayetteville, Arkansas to check out our sales office there. Anyone who knows anything about the consumer goods industry knows we have a little company down there we sell to, so I won't bother mentioning it. :)

Well, while I'm down there eating a $5 steak that is more delicious than any $50 I've ever had in Canada, I am telling someone about how I'm on the Canadian sales team. What's the response you might ask? "Oh, but you aren't originally from Canada are you?"

The way I see it, if the folks in Arkansas mistake me for American, I'm either doing a really bad job at being a Canadian, or I've been misplaced somehow!

My 5th and final example: I've denied it for a long time, but it's official. Without any effort of my own, social media has now classified me as an American. On a little site I've mentioned before (www.empireavenue.com), they just implemented some new leaderboards. The are organized by your default country. Sure enough, I look on there and I wasn't showing up in Canada, but I WAS showing up on the global list. Turns out, even though my location is listed in Toronto, the leader boards have me showing up in the US list!!

So Dad, your little secret about how you smuggled me across the border as a young child is safe with me. I suppose it was a lot easier to do such things back then. Somewhat ironic, because with an economic situation like we've seen lately, I hear it's a pain in the butt to go back the other way.

UPDATE: @dups has shared with me that the location for that feature is actually determined by your IP address so that people can't toy with their location to get a good spot on the leaderboards. I have a sneaking suspicion that my VPN to Cincinnati is likely what put me in the US list. Either way, it has been fun being an American for this short time! 

Online Analytics: You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

Facebook, Twitter, Posterous, LinkedIn.... These are all common social networking sites that millions of people visit everyday. While of course the key benefits to these networks is networking, engaging in conversation, and spreading your influence in the world, that's not where the real "power" of social media may lie.

In fact, those who operate their own websites and use Google Analytics have known the dirty little secret of the online world for some time... data = power.

I don't mean power in some draconian sense of the world, but data is what enables analysis and understanding of behaviour, which then in turn can help you influence that behaviour and monetize it.

There are many sites that an average consumer can use to access online behavioural data, including Google Analytics, HootSuite, and Facebook Insights. There is also a premium class of analytics tools, generally used by enterprise customers including SocialTalk, Radian6, and Spiral16 to name a few. Not sure what the deal is with the sixes in the names, but I assume it would make a good conspiracy theory.

These enterprise class software packages are very powerful, and are getting moreso by the day. Take a look at this video of how Spiral16 can map out the relationship between two political campaigns.



Of course, it's a cool feature to map out a network in 3D, but what real use does it have? This is where it begins to get exciting. This type of technology could previously only be discussed in theoretical networks or carefully controlled studies in universities, but now real data can be used in real time to analyze real networks. This has implications on how we divy up public resources like healthcare, how we target new products, and even how we share news on a natural disaster in the most efficient way.

Nicholas Christakis, a Harvard sociolist specializing in networks explains it all in the following video. It's a long one, so I'll give you the shorthand too.

The most efficient way to spread something through a network is to pick people at random and then ask them to select a friend. That friend will inherently be closer to the center of the network, and that's where you should focus your message/product for most impact.


Nicholas talks about many of these ideas in terms of the flu, but it can apply to anything that spreads through networks including ideas and product innovations.



Net: If you think social media and the web are important to business in the future, I highly suggest you dabble in the analytics space at least part time. As they say in business, 


You Get What You Measure.

What Is Your Lighthouse Product?

You never actually reach the lighthouse, but you use it as a guiding principle every step of the way in order to dock your boat in the harbour successfully.

I heard this very interesting idea in a meeting when the concept of a lighthouse product was shared with me. A lighthouse product is something that will likely cost too much money and time to ever create, but everything you do should be moving you in that direction.

To that note, my friend Bill (owner of www.empirebuilding.net) and I have begun a new Facebook community page called The Social Branding Network. It essentially replaces my experiment of the coreytyhurst.com fan page, and has a focus on discussing issues surrounding personal and professional branding in everything you do, particularly online.

The name is very deliberate:


Social- This is a place for conversation, debate, and asking questions. I've learned from my mistakes that there is no point in having a community page unless you are active in it!


Branding- It's all about branding; personal, professional, location, product. You name it, we want to talk about branding it.


Network- You cannot have a conversation without a network. As such, this is a place for those who may or may not know each other to meet others and explore what different perspectives have to offer.

You'll also note that the logo design is very similar to the Empire Building Network. This is deliberate as well. Bill and I are working together to help promote our social networks, and we wanted that to be clear to everyone involved.

If you are interested, you can visit the page or "Like" it via the big box on the right, or by clicking here. I expect it will often contain articles from your favourite sites like Mashable and Digg, but we also hope that it can have some unique content; be it user created or even pictures and videos that exemplify how important it is to take your brand by the horns and actively manage it.

There is still much work to do on www.coreytyhurst.com as well as on my personal blog to be sure. However a career in brand building can take many paths, and I feel like this step is moving me a little bit closer to my lighthouse product.