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Fargo is a hopping town. I went out last night instead of staying stuck in a hotel room out by the mall and ended up at the HoDo Hotel and Lounge. I went, based upon the recommendation of  new Twitter friends, especially someone who  goes by the handle @FargoMoorehead and is part of the local CVB. I love how this works. I roll into town, announce I am here and all of a sudden I have good recommendations for places to go.This, by the way, is a great example of how a CVB can be extremely responsive to the the needs of a visitor. Using social media they responded immediately by giving me information I needed. Way to go Fargo-Moorhead CVB!

The Hodo was a really cool place. Warehouse, lofty feel with big windows to the outside, a lot of original art, and a hip music background, part hip-hop, part Johnny Cash. Has anyone taken a Cash track and done a hip-hop/country mashup? Hmmm, interesting. Next time I am in Fargo I am staying at the HoDo.

Downtown Fargo as a destination looked pretty good . It was a good mix of nice restaurants, sports bars, pubs and  dives. I think they like their neon signs in Fargo, for each interesting place has a good looking neon sign that borders on kitsch art.

I met Dave the attorney and Bill the Banker at the HoDo lounge after I had eaten a really yummy Asian stir fry, and consumed a couple IPAs’. By the way I was a little disappointing that Fargo, according to the bartender, didn’t have a local micro-brew. I hope Amber was  wrong and under informed ( like the hotel clerk who scrunched her face when  I mentioned downtown). Having said that,  the IPA from some micro-brew in Minneapolis was quite tasty. Dave and Bill were two guys close to or  around my age. We had a great time talking about the differences and  similarities between Bloomington-Normal and Fargo. They were obviously well-informed and understood their community very well. They had pride in their area and it wasn’t blustery or boisterous, which was good.

By the way, no one I met talked like they do in the movie. Ok, the hotel clerk came close, but truthfully, Fargo people are full of the Midwestern charm and helpfulness one would expect. One more thing: According to those I spoke to last night and the local Arts paper Fargo apparently has a thriving art and culture scene.

I head for Omaha today. Looking a the interstate, it looks pretty long, straight and boring. I hope the worlds largest ball of string is on this leg of the journey. I will need something to break up the day.  I will travel through and hit parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska. Follow me on Twitter @bnedguy, I will tweet along the way.

So many of you are sitting in your office or at home wondering what Twitter is all about. Yesterday, Oprah opened her twitter account and will probably have over a million followers very shortly. She will probably get to one million followers faster than any Twitter user out there. If Oprah is doing it it must be right.

Seriously, is this hype about Twitter worth it? What is the business case for Twitter or and other social media tools? Is it worth the time and effort for business, large or small to have a presence in the world of social media? If you know me or work with me in any way, you will know that I have embraced this world of social media, because I think I see something compelling and interesting coming down the track. Are you convinced yet?

I am convinced. I am convinced that social media and the many forms of interactive communication we have yet to see or conceive is one way, perhaps the dominant way people will get information in the future. There are many trends and cultural reasons why this will occur. Many of them are outlined in the book I recently read, Grown Up Digital, by Donald Tapscott (and is reviewed here). The NetGeneration is different. If you have teenage and young adult children like I do, I don’t have to tell you that your children are different, and every generation is, however the way our children have grown up is different than the way Baby Boomers or even GenXers have been impacted by technology or media. The world is different and changing fast… very fast.

It would be easy to dismiss it with a hmph, and say, “this isn’t for me”, but if you are in business, and you expect to grow and attract new customers, assuming your new customers are under the age of 40, then you need to wake up to the changing landscape. Throw away the assumptions of marketing, communication and how to reach your customer. Yes, some of the old ways will still work and reach customers, but I am going to place my bets on a younger generation that will hopefully “buy” my authenticity and willingness to embrace their generation and their ideas. Maybe this is my way of avoiding growing old.

Over my next few blog posts, I will spend time looking at Tapscott’s eight norms of the net generation and see how they impact business. I hope you learn from my research and curiosity. For a preview, here they are:

1. NetGeners want freedom in everything they do, from freedom of choice to freedom of expression.

2. NetGeners love to customize and personalize: NetGeners want to be able to customize all their “stuff.” After all, that is what NetGeners have grown up with.

3. NetGeners are the new scrutinizers: NetGeners are, perhaps, the most skeptical generation ever. When they can look up anything on the Internet, they will. There is little you can put past them. NetGeners are only harnessed by their desire.

4. NetGeners look for corporate integrity and openness when deciding what to buy and where to work.

5. NetGeners want entertainment and play in their work, education and social life: NetGen wants their lives to be entertaining and fun, not only when they are home, but also in the workplace and everywhere else they go.

6. NetGeners are a collaboration and relationship generation: The NetGeners want to collaborate on everything. Think of their participation in texting, communicating, gaming and all things Internet. Social sites are all about generating cooperation and teaming up.

7. NetGeners have a need for speed, in everything: Again, re-telling stories about dial-up service and other inconveniences of the early net age are not interesting to the NetGen group.

8. NetGeners are innovators: NetGeners want the latest and greatest innovations. NetGeners want to work for companies that are interested in innovation and can deliver.

Watch for my analysis of each of these norms over the next few months. If any of you have an opinion about this topic, please provide a comment or get a hold of me directly.