Rick Mahn | opportunities

Happiness CCCLVIII

Aug 12, 2010 | happiness

Growing connections with new people and new opportunities is always a great feeling.

It’s been a long time coming, but there are significant changes taking place here this week. The first change being a new look^* and updated layout here on the site. The current design was done almost two years ago by Mykl Roventine, a great designer & creator of things ;-), and has served this blog well during that time.

The next evolution of this site, needs to support the evolving needs I have online and in working with clients and organizations. More information on resources, ideas, offerings, services, and such are part of that plan, and I think the new design is going to fit those needs nicely. In addition to that, it’s just time to freshen things up a bit to go along with that new direction.

The other portion of the refresh is around opportunities. The growing Social Media Breakfast community here in Minneapolis & St. Paul is one part, but also the national organization is working together as it grows. The education needs of our communities are growing, the number of businesses both large and small in need of advice & direction is expanding along with the opportunities to mentor folks who need it. All these things are part of my thinking in this redesign and direction for the future.

So when you ask? This week I say! Much of the new design is ready to go and I’ll be working into the wee hours here & there to bring it live, but it will be done by the end of the week. Gotta go now though, still much to do, and still more to share later.

🙂

^* New design now live, the old one looked like this.

Undiscovered Opportunities of the C-Suite

May 4, 2009 | blog

Sometimes you don’t know what you have in front of you. The opportunity to change.

That’s what lies before today’s C-Suite executives if they choose to explore it. What I’m talking about here, of course, is really about relationships. With the advent of social computing in the second half of this decade, the power has shifted from producers and marketers to people.

The challenge, of course, is for today’s executives to leap into the deep end of the pool and embrace these new relationships. To build new loyalty into their customer base, by demonstrating the ability to listen, learn, share and improve.

This is a great opportunity that current executives and VPs have that their predecessors didn’t have.Â The ability to change the relationship and make it one built on the trust and respect of quality products and honest interactivity.Â This goes equally for internal communications.Â The opportunity to use these same open and trust building methods within an organization is huge.Â Especially with organizations that are struggling with employee engagement and moral in these trouble economic times.

It goes beyond displaying good will, however.Â Any effort in using social computing for building new relationships requires a commitment to open dialog, acceptance of public feedback (both good and bad), and the willingness to discuss this in a public venue.

The point here, is that our current executives have this powerful new option that their ancestors did not.Â The question is, how many are of strong enough to take that bold step?

Image credit: Envios