Work in progress!!!
I always wanted to post that!
Seriously though, I’m in the middle of switching hosting providers and obviously I hadn’t finished by 1pm last night… so check back tomorrow and see how things turn out!
-Rick
Unlock creativity by taking direction
Working on something with actionable tasks, and tangible outcomes can be highly rewarding for the creative mind. The trick is to realize the need to back away from a roadblock and do something that helps you get past it. Turning to a task that someone else has given you, or that you’ve taken up responsibility for can sometimes be the ticket you’re looking for.
So go ahead, do something else for a day, a week, a month or more. Let the experience help generate new ideas, and rekindle that creative soul lurking inside.
January 2011 SMBMSP ListenUp Podcast
Just in case you’re interested, the January SMBMSP ListenUp Podcast is available! Mykl Roventine and I talked with Pamela Muldoon about the challenges and opportunities of social media to the publishing industry. Pamela was also the moderator at the January SMBMSP event on the same topic.
Head over to www.smbmsp.org/podcasts to subscribe to the SMBMSP ListenUp via iTunes or RSS!
The Winding Road
Ever have a plan? One you are sure is the one you’re destined to follow? Did it work out the way you thought?
Yeah, same here. Though its becoming less surprising as the years pass I think. The great part of following your gut and your heart in life’s great adventure is that you’re guaranteed an exciting one.
Its been awhile since I’ve talked here about the exciting challenges I’ve run into, and this year has been filled with a number of new ones. Events, people, and situations that make you think hard about what you’ve chosen to do. They give you another perspective that you may not have had when you started.
I speak, of course, about the challenges and choice of freelance consulting. Taking the world by the tail and making the most of your skills and knowledge in a new and exciting way. The great things about plans is that they always tend to deviate… to zig when you plotted a zag, or that the situation you thought would take place doesn’t seem to develop.
For many who attempt it, this is simply known as the Plan B effect. Of course, “The Plan” didn’t require a Plan B… so we never develop one. They tend to develop themselves, and that’s where the real excitement comes from.
In my case, I’m talking about SMBMSP, and there is so much to tell, so much to share on that front that I’m going to cover some of that over the coming months. What I hope to do is share a bit of the back story, some of the perspectives from my viewpoint on how we’ve got to where we are today, and what’s happening next. I guess I should call it “Plan SMBMSP”.
Its interesting to see where the long and winding road will take you.
Bringing Small Town Back
Small towns. I grew up in one, and wish many more folks had that opportunity to really get to know the people in your community. Unfortunately, that’s not the reality in our neighborhoods today, where the urban landscape seems to run unendingly into the horizon.
It was in small towns that communities were, more often than not, strong and supportive. In these small communities, people looked out for each other and most of the time made it easy for people to succeed. You relied on your neighbor because of the challenges and demands that were common to everyone.
For many of us, this kind of community didn’t exist. Or some of us started in those small communities and moved to much, much larger ones. The differences are profound and complex. Large communities tend to seem about numbers rather than people, and coming from an environment where you know everyone to one where you’re lost in the crowd can be overwhelming.
However, we’ve found another way to create unique, small communities that have tremendous value through the Internet. These innumerable, special-interest communities are not unlike small towns. They’re made up of many different individuals with wide-ranging perspectives and experiences, and they are the better for it.
I very much like to compare online communities to those small towns I speak so favorably about. Mainly because they reward the members as they participate and interact with each other. They open up new worlds of opportunity and knowledge that seem daunting at the outset, making friendships and acquaintances easier for many people lost in larger physical communities.
I see a number of small communities I belong to today, each one unique, offering something the others do not. These communities help define and direct who I am and what I do much like the small town I grew up in helped shape my world view and direction in life.
I truly hope you have great experiences with your small communities and help others to discover theirs.
Photo credit: Kodama (home)
Interview with Bryan Person at SMBMSP 29
Every time we wrap up a Social Media Breakfast – Minneapolis/St. Paul, we learn new things. Fortunately, this time we had the pleasure of sharing the morning with founder of Social Media Breakfast Boston (the original), Bryan Person! Here’s a quick interview we had.
Interview With Justin Ware
Yesterday must have been one of those days that I could keep the Flip cam in the pocket. There were too many good reasons to use it, one of which was the opportunity to talk with Justin Ware.
Justin is a local Minneapolis video production professional who not only embraces the ideals and tools of social media, but looks for creative ways to tell his client’s story. We met over coffee to talk about the opportunities, challenges, and rewards of working as independent professionals in the social space.
You can find Justin on line at:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/WarehousMedia
The #140Conf–Mini Interview with Jeff Pulver
What a great day here in Minneapolis yesterday. Along with about 50 other great folks, I had a chance to chat with Jeff Pulver about his 140 Conference and his current #140Conf Roadtrip throughout the Midwest.
After the meetup, I had a chance to chat with Jeff and grab a quick mini-interview before they jumped in the car, bound for Iowa and ‘Field of Dreams’.
Why We Need Peers
Ever take a minute and think about all the people in your life? Often we recognize so few – mostly family and friends. In life, though, there are many, many people who we interact with, are influenced by, and work with.
The people we know and interact with bring so many things to our lives. What we think, how we do things, the way we learn. It’s these things that expand our horizons and allow us to grow as individuals.
Our peers are not only our friends and coworkers. They are clerks at stores we visit and buy things from. They are our mail carriers and delivery people. They are our representatives in government, and teachers in our education system. They are leaders in business, and in faith. They are the women and men who protect our country, and help us in emergencies.
Each of the people bring something unique, something special to the mix. Knowledge, leadership, compassion, guidance, strength, or camaraderie – our peers provide all this above and beyond our friendships.
In short, our peers make up the communities we participate in, both offline and online, which give us all such great resources to do great things together. I’m grateful to have so many people in my life, and to have the privilege of learning from them and with them.
Photo credit: johnko
Communication, or the lack thereof
So an interesting thing happened yesterday. I failed at something I know how to do.
It’s easy to let happen, get too many things demanding too much attention and you take your eye off the ball. Something we help our clients work through and watch out for, and here I did the classic lack of communication mistake.
It should be okay, I mean, that happens to everyone.
And it does. However, the real issue here is that I let myself get distracted from what I’ve been thinking about for some time, and that’s really the ‘shame on me’ part.
When you’re passionate about something and really want to make something more of it, you need to communicate, and do so often so there’s no confusion to the intention and direction you’re going. That is the classic, ultimate rule and one should stick to that as closely as is possible.
So, instead of working on those things that would move the ball down the field, I spent yesterday answering questions and putting out fires that needn’t have been. A blog post, an email blast and some tweets pointing folks to that information would have put much of the discussion to rest before it started.
Live and learn I suppose. Take my lesson (really, please take it – I’ll sell cheap) and learn from it instead of making the same mistake yourself. Call if you have questions, I’m still always learning and love to share those things I learn.
Photo credit: JoshFassbind.com
About Me
Rick Mahn is the Founder of SMBMSP, Principal of Rick Mahn & Associates, and a Sr. Information Technologies Architect with Experis. With over two decades in Information Technologies Architecture and Social Media, Rick connects people & organizations by embracing new technologies and open standards.Learn more about Rick.
