Blog
Thoughts and things I care to shareTrue Tools
True Tools. That’s how I think of software & utilities that end up being indispensible. From Microsoft Windows & Office to Google & Expedia, to Gmail to Twitter. These are solutions that simple do what they were supposed to do without any fuss or muss.
We all have our favorite tools that end up work out well for us, some may prefer Linux or Mac over Windows, or Yahoo! over Google, or OpenOffice over Microsoft Office. The point being that once we stumble upon something that simply works and really solves a need we have for a task, we tend to stick with it. There are many good reasons for this, the most important one being that they save time.
That doesn’t exclude us from exploring new options, which is how we find the hidden gems anyway. There’s always going to be a better way, sometimes it takes longer for a significantly improved solution to evolve.
Take office productivity for example. For my purposes, Microsoft Office has no equal. That’s not to say there isn’t competition. Only that for the work I do in the time I have available to do it, there are few viable options. The few options that exist require compromise in one way or another that I simply can’t accommodate at this time.
Social tools are a neat example of continuously experimenting with new ideas as well as technology. For the last couple years, social media types have been watching for that next big, better social network to join. The reality is that there may not be one for some time. Looking at the main options that have any value, it’s clear that Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn are the heavy hitters. Because of the number of people (user base), you can get value out of these networks. It’s likely that you’ll find associates and friends on these networks.
So, while it’s fun to explore and discover new software, new ideas, and new tools, it’s the ones that get the job done with the least amount of effort expended that we stick with.
Photo credit: Jim Frazier
Extra special people make extra special events
So I’m sitting here this fine, cool, wonderful Saturday morning, working on plans for the next four Social Media Breakfast – Twin Cities events thinking. There’s an energy here in the Northland that is hard to describe, but I know our fellow social web enthusiasts know what I’m talking about.
Even with the issues in the world-wide economy, I see energy and optimism that is a component of every entrepreneur. The ideas are fresh and honest, the kind that make you say “why didn’t I think of that� The atmosphere of these events engenders this kind of creativity, the kind that allows you cheer them on. The real work of meeting people, exchanging ideas and making things happen are as timeless as they are productive.
It’s because of these extraordinary meetups that drive me to continue to help make them happen. Realizing that this is something I enjoy only makes the effort that much more rewarding. So as we roll out the next several events, I wanted to take a minute and thank all the folks who visit and participate in these social media events. You are the reason we find value in getting together and sharing those ideas.
Social Media Breakfast – Twin Cities 8
It’s time to start talking about the next SMB in Minneapolis/St. Paul! We’re going to be meeting at the Deluxe corporate headquarters in Shoreview, MN on Oct. 31st.
What better way to wrap up the month of October and start your Halloween weekend than to meet up with your local social media peeps? How about how about a chance to talk social media with the bestselling author of the hit book The New Rules of Marketing & PR: David Meerman Scott? In addition we’ll have a chance to talk with startup entrepreneur Steve Nielsen, President & CEO PartnerUp, a Deluxe Corporation Company.
The fine folks at Fallon will talk about their Twitter campaign for SciFi’s “Eureka”. Each attendee will get a free copy of David’s Book (up to 100 attendees), which he’ll be happy to sign — courtesy of our friends at New Horizons Computer Learning Centers.
Event Info:
- Where: Deluxe Corporate Headquarters, 3680 Victoria Street North, Shoreview, MN 55126 (Map it!)
- When: October 31st, 2008 from 8am to 10am
Agenda:
- David Meerman Scott – “Thought Leadership & Viral Marketing Strategist”
- Each attendee will get a free copy of David’s Book (up to
100 attendees), which he’ll be happy to sign — courtesy of
our friends at New Horizons Computer Learning Centers.
(link: www.nhmn.com)
- Each attendee will get a free copy of David’s Book (up to
- Steve Nielsen, President & CEO PartnerUp, a Deluxe Corporation Company.
- Fallon folks talks about their Twitter campaign for SciFi’s “Eureka”
- Post-Networking with David, Steve, and everyone else!
- Our continuing conversation on social media in Minneapolis & St. Paul
RSVP at our EventBrite page:
Sponsors:
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Mobile again…
It’s been awhile, but I’m using my mobile kit again for blogging. This is made up primarily of my old T-Mobile MDA, ThinkOutside Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse.
We’re off to find adventure in the afternoon in front of us, be it large or small. I’ll have to take a picture of the entire kit later, but we’re heading out the door as I write this. Until later!
Take my post ideas. Please!
Sometimes I spend time just generating ideas for blog posts, and they make it into this list or that notebook (though you couldn’t tell by my current lack of posts ;). While I can’t claim this idea is original, I do indeed want to share this list – I’ll probably not use them in the near term and it may be inspiration to someone to write a great post that I’d love to read.
So without further rambling, here is a list of 50 blog post ideas (kinda heavy on social media), for you to take and repurpose for your needs.
- Working your social media juju
- Training your ninjas
- How organizations can’t succeed with the social web
- How organizations can succeed with the social web
- Why don’t we "offshore" to middle America?
- Looking for the fast buck? Try looking for fast customer satisfaction instead.
- Don’t wait for your brand to succeed, make it succeed
- Internet Rock Stars and other fairy tales
- Like the A-List? It gets even better on the Z-List
- Don’t read the news, make the news
- Your time is now
- Success is defined by those wishing to achieve it
- Success doesn’t define you, you define success
- Social media is like good BBQ, mmmm
- Have a product? Build a community.
- Blog your way to a better job
- Yes, it’s easy to say…
- It isn’t about social media, it’s about being social
- Why social media isn’t about selling anything
- Building a better branded you
- Host an event – here’s how!
- Social Media Ninja – Tools of the Trade
- Wishing is good – doing is better
- Walk tall, blog proud
- Taking the work out of blog ideas – 100 topics for your blog
- Personal Brand: It is about you
- Corporations and Facebook: They do mix
- Getting Buy-In from the Mail Room: Why it’s important to include people who do real work
- Hosting an event? Check in with these folks.
- I’m not dead, I just don’t blog
- You’re Dad’s blogging – what do you do now?
- Things social medians could learn from an old-time community social
- Your Grandparents Were Social Media Gurus – Here’s Why
- Busy? Just press pause.
- We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.
- Are you a social giver or a media taker? Here’s how to find out.
- A bridge to nowhere – the promise of social media that was.
- Social Media’s Red Light District – Beware
- Following the white rabbit of social media
- Brand identification – why your picture is important
- When it rains in social media land, do you build an ark?
- Giving 100 ideas away
- But wait! There’s more!
- Things I wish I had known when I started blogging
- Things I wish I had known when I started social networking
- Corporate social media and other oddities
- Changing the focus of your blogs topic
- There’s a blog post in here somewhere
- Wishing isn’t as good as doing
- Social Media Success Stories from the Road
If you don’t mind, I’d love a link back to this post or my blog if you use one of the titles verbatim, if only so I can follow up and read yours. Don’t sweat it if you don’t want to. Have fun!
Be the flash point for social media in your city
Wondering when an online-oriented event is going to pop up in your area? Why don’t you make it happen?
While “social media†is every today, it’s as important as ever to get face 2 face with folks you know online. The adage “it’s not what you know, but who you know†is as true today as it was to previous generations. While technology is tearing down the barriers of time & distance, as humans, we crave real-time interaction.
Being an organizer of events in your town or city has some advantages – you get to pick topics that are interesting to you, you get to help get people involved, but mostly you get to meet lots of people. That’s probably the biggest reward of all the work that goes into these things.
The other thing is simply getting things started. Why wait for someone to get things started – you could be that person. It’s not hard, and I know that most everyone that’s worked on getting organizing and hosting events would be happy to share some tips to making it all happen.
Are you ready to start something?
Photo credit: Katie Blanch
Short And Sweet
About a year and a half ago, I started experimenting with the Aside feature of WordPress, and thought it was neat. While I didn’t like the way they lacked titles, I did like how they were supposed to be concise and to the point.
What came out of it for me was a growing series of posts entitled "Happiness". These posts started as Asides, mainly from a point in my consulting career where I was a little disillusioned as to the amount of success I was having at the time. Which is to say: "not much".
I started using these posts as inspiration, to point out to myself what made me happy at that moment in time. In the beginning, I truly just picked the first happy thought that passed through my mind and posted it.
Since then, I’ve done much the same thing, though from time to time, I do struggle with a "good one". I don’t like to repeat myself, though I know I do. Also, I’ve tried to be inspirational to others when the muse strikes. I succeed in that maybe 20% of the time I think. My real inspiration to continue these posts is that they continually reward me, and that’s all it needs to do at any rate.
So I hope this helps answer questions as to why I post "Happiness".
Oh, and you can get the "Happiness" RSS Feed here!
Photo credit: Amy Gwen
Launching your brand, 3-2-1… ignition
New to personal branding? No you’re not!
You’re well aware of your reputation, and probably work hard to make sure it’s what you want it to be: a reflection of you and the work you do. Of course by now you’re aware that in this wonderful social media-web 2.0 world, that you are your own brand.
I was talking with a co-worker at lunch yesterday about things to do to get recognized within the company. It’s plain to me, but somehow wasn’t as obvious to my friend. All the work you put into getting noticed within any one organization, to "climb the ladder" as it’s put, can also be focused on building your brand outside the organization and can ultimately be put to better use as a foundation for your brand.
So, you ask, what can you do to start promoting my brand and how is it different than building your reputation? Glad you asked!
Like most things in the online world, it’s both very similar and rather different than what we do offline. Start thinking of yourself as a brand like your favorite cola or automotive company and you’re off to a good start. At the same time, you need to be as diligent and aware of the record you leave behind as you did about your reputation. By working to promote your brand online, you’re going to be leaving behind a permanent record that is easily searchable by anyone.
That can be a double-edged sword of course. If you’re not consistent and follow through, it’ll be remembered, likely written about at some point. It all comes back to word of mouth – the best & hardest type of advertising one can hope for. In the case of personal brand in the 21st century (heh, don’t you just love saying that – so futuristic), it’s a fully indexed and archived word of mouth – and that is the biggest difference. Our memories are now much longer because of the technologies we use.
My biggest tip is to check out resources on the ‘net to start learning more about personal branding and how to go about building a successful one. Starting with Personal Branding Magazine (and it’s fine contributors), and moving on to Googling "personal brand". That’ll get you to the best initial places to start reading up on the topic.
It’s really up to you to make it work. Start filling out some social networks, decide if social tools like Twitter, FriendFeed, Flickr, Brightkite, are for you, start blogging or podcasting. Whatever direction you decide works for you, the key part is to participate and give back as much as you can to the communities that help you build your brand.
(Disclosure: I write the "Social Media Exploration" column for Personal Branding Magazine)
Photo credit: BlueMoose
Why the sudden interest in Twitter?
I’m curious (and cautious) about the sudden business interest in Twitter.
Don’t get me wrong, I truly believe that Twitter is a great tool for businesses to listen to customers, even forge new relationships with them. I’m just curious if it’s due to real acceptance of the concepts of social media, or the more likely scenario of upper-level interest because of buzz in the usual places.
Either way given a chance, social media tools such as Twitter can make a difference and prove themselves. The difference is that organizations looking to build relationships through the tools will have successes much quicker than those that "don’t want to be left behind".
Through this sudden interest, I do believe that any organization willing to listen, engage, and learn from & with their customers will have great success. What’s your take?
Pros and Cons of the Office
You know the place, the one we all crab about, the one we all supposedly hate to go to every morning? Yeah, the place where the coffee sucks, your desk is too small, and where traffic is always a pain to get through. It’s the office – the one your employer has graciously equipped and staffed for your working pleasure.
I know exactly what many of you are thinking. We all seem to dread heading to work in the morning, knowing that there is a "pile of work" ready and waiting. It seems we associate the negatives of the work we do with the place our employers house there workers and rarely associate the positives of the office itself.
What if you could separate those feelings? What about all the work and preparation that goes into that workplace? The costs involved for employers to provide a workplace for each employee are substantial, and the goal is ultimately make it as easy as possible for you to get your assigned tasks done. Most of the time it works, though our perception is usually clouded by co-workers, outside influences, business climate, workload, and many others.
Many folks talk about working remotely, or from home. It seems that lately we’ve become so enamored with this idea that it’s like the end-all solution to our working woes. As if, just getting out of the office will make all the difference by itself.
This simply isn’t the case. You can change the scenery, but that doesn’t always solve the issue. There are great things about working from home, or being able to set up at a coffee shop for the afternoon. Getting away from drive-bys and the daily routine are highly effective ways to GTD when you need to.
Just don’t forget that on a regular basis, those remote locations, or the home office also have their distractions. Whether it be sick kids home from school, household chores that seem important during the day, or just the noise and music at your favorite coffee shop – they are distractions too. Start taking a look at your employer’s office as a space designed specifically for getting things done. The resources available far outstrip what you can set up at home, or find as a secondary workplace.
From people resources to copiers, take a fresh look and try to separate out the workplace from the work itself. You may be able to discover unused offices or conference rooms to skip off to for an hour. Or find that color printer that does 11×17 landscape that you need for your presentation – you don’t always need to go to Kinkos! Your company is paying for resources to enable you to do your job, finding out what’s available and using the existing space more effectively could make a bit of difference in your productivity and perspective. Give it a try and share your tips if you have them.
@MAC_Arms Pay taxes when you make your money, pay taxes when you spend your money, pay taxes when you successfully invest your money, pay taxes when you save enough taxed money to afford a house, pay taxes to live in your house, pay taxes when you sell the house that you paid taxes on to
Yup, taxes are criminal and we need serious reforms. I've always said that if you want to see a tax revolt, make withholdings illegal and have Americans write a tax check every payday. They'll revolt for sure. You don't miss what you never had.
I think it’s safe to say that @GovEvers should stop blocking audits in Wisconsin and open the books…
“Only AMERICAN citizens should vote.”
Sen. @berniemoreno says voter ID and proof of citizenship are simply common sense.
“We’re talking about a very low threshold — identify who you are and prove you’re a U.S. citizen when you register to vote. I think we’re getting closer to
Wrong. Democrats are solely responsible for hours-long airport lines.
They voted to defund TSA three times and won’t even entertain a conversation about reopening it. Why?
They’re using it as leverage to stop enforcing immigration laws.