Blog
Thoughts and things I care to shareBlogging – New Phase, New Theme
Wow, what a wild ride the last few months have been. I’ve been planning to refine the direction of my blog and revamp the appearance for some time and it’s finally completed!
Well, it’s almost completed – I’ve got a replacement for the About page almost ready to publish, and I’ve got one last page that I’ll add a little later. Seems I just can’t get it to come out quite right in the past week while working on other things – so I’ll get to that real soon.
Direction
The great part is that I’m refining my direction. Since I’ve come out of corporate, with a strong background in information technology, I’m going to focus on helping those organizations with social media. I’ve changed the description of the blog to "social web & the enterprise". I believe that to better describe the direction that I’m going.
Friends
First, I really respect a number of bloggers for their work & influence on me. So, instead of the old blogroll, or a list of links, I created a new Friends page. This page is people I have come to know, respect, learn from, work with, and I wanted to do more than just link to them. You’ll find a description of each blog and a thumbnail of their landing page.
Resume
Also page that can now be found in the top navigation area is the Resume page. I’ve had a variant of this Social Media Resume up for about 9 months, but never advertised it on the blog. I’ve revamped a number of pieces of the page as it used to be a completely custom HTML page forced into a WordPress theme template. Now it fully fits the theme, with a special resume.php template that allows different sidebars and such. Much better. I’ve pulled the video that I had on it, but will replace it with another one to fit the direction of the blog shortly.
Advertisement
You’ll also notice that all advertising save two things have been removed from the blog. While I make enough to pay for hosting, I believe that the ads detracted from what I’m here to accomplish, so they’re gone. The two items I mentioned that remain are badges for Personal Branding Magazine, and for Avatar Consultants. Their of personal interest to me, I’m involved in writing for one, and the other is my consulting firm.
Nowhere But Up
So if the picture in this post didn’t give a hint, my motto as I revise my direction and enter a new phase, is that there is nowhere to go but up. Join me as we bring the benefits of the social web to organizations of all sizes. Come along and help individuals realize the power and strength of their brand. Let’s make each day the best it can be!
I want to give a special thank you to Mykl Roventine for patience, ideas, and a great design – I wouldn’t have gotten this completed without his work. Thank you.
Got feedback? I bet! Don’t hesitate to leave your thoughts in a comment below.
Photo credit: Leo Reynolds
Blog Updating – Watch for falling posts
Just want to share a bit of news. I’m in the process of updating the theme & design of the ol’ blog tonight, so if you see anything odd, broken, or inoperable it’s probably being worked on. A teaser thumbnail of it running on the development system is included just for fun. 
However, if you want to let me know of specific things that aren’t working and such, please feel free to do so. You can ping me on Twitter (I’m @rickmahn) or via email (rick {at} rickmahn.com).
This is pretty exciting for me as I’ve been planning on a new design for several months. I’m very glad to have had Mykl Roventine heading up the redesign based on a free theme called WP Premium. The look & feel is clean and simple and suits me quite well. A big thank-you to Mykl for the great work.
That’s it for now, I’ve got a couple of things to finish up before flipping the switch so I’m off to get those done! Talk soon folks!
Rick
Corporate Blogging – What’s The Plan?
It’s been awhile since I’ve written a post on corporate blogging, and I thought it was high time to continue what I think may become a series. The needs of many companies are little different than the needs of an individual. However, the process in which most should approach blogging is as unique as the organizations themselves.
For the most part, it’s like most other business decisions. Decide what the purpose is and what the organization expects to achieve by doing it. Many businesses are not ready to use social media on external facing systems to engage customers. Some are almost ready to use it for internal continuous improvement processes that engage their employees. Both these models require that the organization accept negative feedback along with the praise, and that is a very bitter pill to swallow for anyone – businesses or individuals.
If you are an agent of change in your organization and are trying to figure out how to approach the business with a blogging or social media proposition, you need to understand how to present the idea. It’s not unlike trying to sell a new business strategy.
Here are a few tips on preparing to present blogging or other social media ideas to your company:
- Learn about social media by participating personally
- Research similar companies in size and target market to see how they’ve used social tools
- With these learning’s in mind, determine if it’s the right time for your company to invest in social media. Is the climate right, are they receptive to new ideas, are they looking to improve service?
- Identify areas, or even departments, within your company that could benefit by using select social media tools. Be specific about the benefits. Understand the negatives.
- Write a simple overview to capture these things and provide a structure for you to build a case for using social media to augment the business.
- Have samples ready to demonstrate, and be able to talk about how these new tools and ideas help solve real business problems.
There are many ways to pursue social technologies for your company, and many tools, services, and software to choose from. What works for one company, doesn’t always work for the next. Keep looking for the right fit, not necessarily the biggest, or most well known of them are best for your business.
What successes have you had in bringing social media to your company? Does your company actively engage in the social media space? What can you recommend to others who are exploring these tools for their company?
Photo credit: juhansosin
Delivering A Consistent Message
One of the toughest things for bloggers starting out is staying on topic. The free-form aspect of blogging, of having a public soapbox of sorts is the desire to start talking about just about anything that comes to mind. Actually, I’ll contradict myself here for a minute and say that doing just that is good for bloggers, and should be done before you pick a blogging genre to dive into. Heck, you can find my first three blogging attempts here, here & here.
Once you find a topic or genre you are passionate about, it’s really important to remain true to that area of interest. There is a wide range of things to write about in your genre, so you shouldn’t need to try to combine two disparate topics. Trying to write about bicycling and fudge making for example just wouldn’t make a lot of sense.
It’s also hard to find topic ideas that consistently cover new areas or explore more detail on a regular basis. That is the more difficult part of blogging. Finding the topics that don’t seem to be repeating previous ones or feeling that you’re writing to too low an interest level. It’s easy to second guess yourself and simply not write because of it. That seems to be a common affliction too many bloggers, even one’s that have been blogging for awhile. 😉
A tip to combat that problem is to simply sit down for an hour, even 30 minutes, and brainstorm on things you want to talk about related to you topic. Do it once a month and reduce it to a reasonable number to accomplish in 30 days for your schedule and genre. One of the tools that I’ve recently been introduced to is mind mapping. There are many online and software-based tools to accomplish this, but it can easily be done with pen & paper to great affect for the needs of most bloggers. Starting with a central topic or theme, you can quickly map out interconnected ideas and develop an outline of topics very quickly. Highly recommended.
Since there are many different perspectives on this, I’m interested in yours, what would you add to this?
Photo credit: gaurang
The Art of Listening
Sometimes it’s good to just sit back and listen to the conversation around you. There are many voices out there, and many stories to be told by those voices. One of the best skills to have is the ability to listen.
It’s a hard skill to learn too. How often do we jump into a conversation, with the intent to add our experiences and perspectives? Its human nature to share, to participate, to interact. So it’s important to make sure that you take the time to listen to what people are saying.
The benefits of becoming a better listener are not simply limited to hearing what people have to say, it’s letting them to tell their stories in their own words. It’s the people and their stories that are important. Learning about them and what they need is how you can better offer services and products to them – if at all. After all, not everything we do, or service & products we offer are needed by everyone.
Taking the time to learn about people, their stories, their needs, concerns, and wishes help us build not only a better community, but a better understanding of what we can do to be a productive part of that community. All that can comes from listening.
Photo credit: JosephGilbert.org
Google’s Missing Sync: Contacts
Ok, I’m quite happy that Google released a Google Calendar Sync tool for Microsoft Outlook. Really happy.
Sure, I’m a Microsoft guy and have been for quite awhile. Because of that I’ve got significant investments in money & time in the mainline business products, namely Windows, Office, and Windows Mobile.
On the flip side, I’ve moved a number of tasks and work that I do to web based systems. GMail is obviously one of those, and earlier this year moved my calendar to GCal.
Since late March it’s been great to sync GCal with Outlook – works darn well. Now, since I use GMail (and Google Hosted Domains), I need to have all my contacts there & up to date as well. Also, there are dozens of contacts in GMail that I would like to sync to my Windows Mobile phone via ActiveSync. Currently, there is no easy way to do that.
Nearly the same time that Google released it’s GCal-Outlook sync tool, it announced a Google Contacts Sync API. I’m sure there are good things coming for everyone on nearly every platform for syncing Google Contacts with the major mail clients – at least I hope there is!
So Google, can you drop a few hints, or some info on plans to release a Google Contact Sync tool? We’d be very grateful.
Sample the Local Flavor
I’ve been doing a lot of local networking this past month & and have met so many talented people. With the exception of SOBCon08 at the beginning of the month, most of the events I’ve been to and people I’ve met have been local.
What I’ve found in this very busy month, has been a consistent mix of people from all sorts of industries and business fields all looking for new ways to connect with each other. The main interest these folks have, is to find better ways to connect with their audience.
The most fascinating part for me recently, is just how much talent there is right here in my home town. I’ve no illusions of Minneapolis being a center of cutting edge web 2.0 startups. However, there is a rich history of successful, community-oriented and customer focused organizations that developed here and still call Minnesota home.
That, in combination with strong focuses on healthcare, non-profit, educational, and retail markets makes it a progressive environment. Minneapolis has a diverse, knowledgeable, community-driven population of professionals that are looking to enhance their interactions with clients & peers. They’re engaged in improving their game and providing improved services to their customers.
It’s this excitement that I hadn’t seen until recently. The interest in making things happen is here, the knowledge to do it is here, and the determination to push boundaries is also part of this community. I’m looking forward to continuing to look for ways to make things happen, to find those talented individuals who share this vision. To make sure that they find ways to reach the right people with their ideas, and solve real problems that aren’t being addressed today.
Have you tasted the local flavor in your community? I urge you to get involved. Find a way to get yourself in the process, find how you can bring value and help build something for your community or customers. How are you getting things started in your community?
Photo credit: strange librarian
Weekend Work
Hi folks, hope everyone is having a good weekend everywhere! I’ve been quietly busing working on some improvements for the blog here and getting ready for my wife’s birthday today. So, I’m a little thin in the post department this weekend, and I apologize for that. Have been finding a lot of organizational work on the back end, thinking, coding, and a little writing.
It’s been three weeks since SOBCon08 and a lot of what I learned there and talking with folks has started to coalesce and become clearer. So that thought process and the results are taking up quite a bit of time to organize and plan around. Thanks to all the folks who I’ve talked with and learned from this past month, it’s been really fun.
Now, make sure you get out and do something this weekend – have fun!
Brainstorming – Learning the Power of the Mind Map
So I was working on some planning for various things when I ran across this post by fellow blogger Joanna Young. It really got my attention on planning and generating ideas.
I’d heard a lot about mind-mapping and the great results that many accomplish by using the technique, but for some reason over the years, I’d never tried it out. Sure the odd brainstorming session at work, but nothing to promote my own agenda. Aha! Another tool to use for my own purposes!
So being the typical geek I am, off I went to find a simple, inexpensive (read: free) tool to do this with. I’ve found a few to try and will do a roundup of what I found – but won’t try to do a review by any means. However, the consensus from my Twitter friends is that pen & paper rules the day.
With that said, here are some mind-mapping sites & software that my Twitter query came up with:
There may be one or two I somehow missed – but that’s what I find in my Replies & DM pages.
I’d like to thank Twitter friends @inkedmn, @andytinkham, @suzemuse, @joannayoung, @amypalko, @rosasay, and @pfhyper for their suggestions and sharing their successes with me! You guys are great.
I happened to work through two mind maps in an hour or so that got a great start on direction on business plans, and some post ideas. Have you tried mind-mapping? What were your results? What tools did you find that work best?
Just Go
So, sitting outside during lunch today led me to think again about the opportunities presented to each of us for improving our working conditions. It’s not entirely our employer’s responsibility to improve things.
Ok, maybe you don’t have the kind of job where you can walk away from the desk and still get work done. Maybe you should look for one! Regardless, many businesses have remote work opportunities via remote access technologies. Take advantage of them when you get a chance.
There is nothing worse than having the opportunities in front of you and not using them. Get out there! Take your laptop, a notepad, your phone or whatever the minimal toolset you need to do some work for an hour and just GO.
Grab an iced latte, take 15 minutes to unwind, and 30 minutes to brainstorm, organize, think, ponder, work, or whatever. You’ll be refreshed and the 2nd half of the day will go much smoother because of it. Trust me.
Now go!
@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.
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