Why you should give a whuffie

The Whuffie Factor author Tara Hunt (@missrogue)

Last night we had the first meetup/Twitter chat of the RedWire book club. In case you missed this blog post about the book club, I started it with Aaron Kaufman from 5th Element Events after he asked me if a certain book was worth a read – I had in fact been meaning to read the same book, and decided there were probably others in the community who read social media/entrepreneur-focused books on a regular basis and who would want to get together and discuss. The book in question was Tara Hunt’s recently-released book about raising social capital, The Whuffie Factor. I first met Tara at the South by Southwest conference in Austin last March – I was introduced by my friend Saul Colt, and he told me about the amazing work she’s been doing over the last few years and the large community she’s built around herself and her company. It was an obvious step for Tara to write a book about social capital, given her work with Coworking spaces, BarCamps, & building communities. If you’re wondering, the phrase whuffie was coined in Cory Doctorow’s science fiction novel “Down and out in the Magic Kingdom” – in the novel money is replaced by whuffie, a constantly updated rating that measures how much esteem and respect other people have for you. You can download Cory’s book here for a closer look.

I read the book last week, and thought it gave great insight into building social capital, both on a personal and professional level. It really encapsulates the key aspects of the social media climate today, and outlines several case studies of companies who are building whuffie both the right and wrong way. One phrase in particular stuck out, and to me represents how social media is changing the way we view personalities and celebrities – it says that Andy Warhol’s saying “everyone will be famous for 15 minutes” has been changed to “everyone will be famous to 15 people.” It’s not about creating a large, passive audience; it’s about creating a passionate community of people that believe in you and your brand. In the book Tara outlines the five principles to building whuffie, outlined below:

1. Turn the bullhorn around – stop talking & start listening
2. Become part of the community you serve
3. Be notable – create amazing experiences for your community
4. Embrace the chaos – don’t overplan and be agile
5. Find your higher purpose – find out how to give back to the community

Based on these five principles Tara graciously sent us five questions to discuss at our book club meeting, which we also opened up to the Twitterverse. Below are the questions and some of the answers we talked about/received:

1. Is “personal branding” a whuffie building or a whuffie damaging exercise?

2. How do you feel when people auto-DM when you follow?

3. Name 2 ways u can give to your community without going broke?

4. When you do something nice for someone in private, does that build whuffie?

5. If there were such thing as a whuffie index of companies, who would be in the top 10?

Some of the companies we discussed at the meeting were American Airlines, JetBlue, and Zappos.

Book club co-organizer Erin Bury

What do you think? Do you agree with the concept of whuffie, and the five principles to building it? Do you have your own take on the questions above, and do you agree or disagree with the answers provided?

Thanks so much to Tara for supporting our book club this month, and for sending us questions to discuss. Also a huge thanks to everyone who came out in person or participated on Twitter – it really helped the conversation progress. The idea behind this book club is not just to share thoughts on the book, but to open up a bigger dialogue about the thesis presented in the book. Last night we discussed the book and the questions, but also some of the larger issues around social media and building social capital.

We’ll be announcing a September book club pick soon – hope you’ll join in by reading the book and either joining us in person for a discussion, or contributing your thoughts online. And just like this month we promise to get the authors involved and pick books around hot topics, so there will always be something to discuss!