Jun 24, 2008 | blog
Mark Evans has a post today in which he talks about the importance of thinking through our contributions to conversations. It’s something that I’ve learned myself in various businesses & projects that I’ve been involved in.
Taking even a half hour to contemplate and let the questions or ideas rattle around in your head allows you to better understand what was sent to you. It also gives you the time to formulate a more informative and relevant response.
Since we’re so connected and probably overloaded with communications, it’s too easy to simply reply right away. Sure, in doing so we demonstrate our ability to respond, we show that we’re connected and are willing to participate.
However, do we really give every communication we receive the full attention it deserves? How often do you take the time to fully contemplate the full context of what someone is asking? Do these quick replies really add value to the conversation or to the person who sent the message?
I think Mark is onto an interesting line of thought lately. Thinking about blogging, conversations and the quality involved simply in communicating with each other. Sharing information is a great thing, and we can do it so easily these days. The responsibility is upon us to use these opportunities of sharing information in a useful way. That means not sharing incorrect information, or being too verbose in our replies, thereby wasting time in misunderstandings.
What else fits in this area? What more can you add to what Mark is pointing out? There are many great tips that you have to share – leave one here or on your own blog. How do you handle replies? Quick or thoughtful?
Jun 8, 2008 | blog
Awhile back, I’d started a list of "101 Uses for Twitter", but never seemed to get past 27 for some reason. Of course, it had been last autumn since I brainstormed on it. While I don’t think that I personally could come up with 101 uses, I’m sure there are many more than that.
So I thought about this again for awhile this morning and did think of 50 uses that I’ve seen or participated in. So here is a list of 50 uses for Twitter, I’m thinking of more as I write this, so maybe there is a chance at that "101" post sometime.
- Keep in touch with my
Twitter peeps friends - General news item links
- News & links on my industry or area of interest
- Fast answers to quick questions
- Professional networking
- Links to nearly everything
- Marketing
- Personal branding
- Corporate & product branding
- Haiku’s
- Making friends
- Feel "plugged into the web and it’s various personalities"
- Replacement for instant messaging applications
- Chat tool
- Promotional tool for my blog
- Providing new reading opportunities
- Fun stuff!
- Meeting new, interesting people to communicate with
- Collecting links
- Finding sites related to social networking
- "To listen in on my contacts rants"
- A web worker "water cooler"
- Micro-blogging
- A personal "techmeme"
- Lightweight text broadcasting tool
- Easy way to annoy your spouse
- Promotional tool for my brand
- Ranting
- Idea generator
- No-cost non-profit announcement system
- Bring a sense of community to your home office
- Tracking status of friends
- Status message generator for other social networks
- Frustration generator (at least when it is down)
- Thought publisher
- Promotional tool for my organization
- Following public discussions
- Travel guide
- Controlled discussion between friends
- Uncontrolled discussion between friends with viewers
- List generator
- Meeting agenda generator
- Coffee shop locator
- People search
- Promotional tool for my company
- Product reviews
- Trip planner
- Backchannel for events
- Feedback generator
- Authentication mechanism
So what are you uses for Twitter? I’m sure I didn’t capture them all, so add your ideas and things you use Twitter for below.
Jun 1, 2008 | blog
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
May 22, 2008 | blog
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?
Technorati Tags: Mind Mapping, Organization, Thinking, Brainstorming, Twitter, Rick Mahn
Apr 24, 2008 | blog
No, not in a physical sense. Though, I’m off to find unique and new blogs, bloggers, writers, thought tweakers and twitters. Sometimes it’s interesting how you find new people to read and follow. From a reply by one of the people you follow in Twitter, it leads to finding new Twitters. That in turn leads to their blogs or websites, and from there to LinkedIn, Facebook, FriendFeed and so on where you keep finding more.
At times this can be a timesink when you don’t put a cap on your exploration of friends and feeds. On the other hand, some of the most valuable finds are from these totally “organic†or spontaneous surfing sessions. I happened to find a few more tonight and thought it was worth think a bit more about.
So I’m off on a blog & Twitter roadtrip, looking at the sights & sounds of the blogosphere. Where will it take me and what will I find? I hope it’s you!
What are you off to do tonight?
Photo Credit: Faded Photographs
