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I’m expanding on my thoughts from a few weeks back.

LinkedIn functions as an afterthought for so many. Sharing of personal stories happens on Facebook. Well, most internet interaction seems to happen on Facebook. It had games, myriad other apps for consuming time. Yet, if you’re like me, you have a career to manage. I value my career, even though I’m trying to find a unique path through my work life. So, I’m trying to nurture my LinkedIn account.

Maybe I should call it “curate”. Immaterial, really, the label. What’s important is deliberate focus. I seek to expand my influence. Thus, connecting with new people consistently. At least weekly access, though I shoot for more. Sharing relevant articles. And, though seeking to expand my network, not add everyone in the world. Additionally, I want the heavy lifting done before I’m seeking a new job. That’s one of the cynical parts to LinkedIn. People don’t use the tool extensively until they’re job hunting. True or not, there is that perception. I have noticed more users sharing content, though, and with greater regularity. LinkedIn’s potential should really expand over the coming year.

These are just a few thoughts on what I’m doing with this interesting tool. I don’t think I’m utilizing it to it’s full potential, yet I’m doing better than most.  What are you doing with it? Live it? Hate it? Let me know in the comments. 

Hey everyone,

Point your browser over to my new site: www.NotJustSeattle.com. I’m exploring life in the region, but trying to expand past all the Seattle-centric messaging.

Let me know what you think.

Answering this question seems easy, however it’s proven a deep challenge for me. Too much of my life has been paralyzed by the “need” to earn money. The roots of this, I’m certain, is fear. My challenge, and perhaps yours, too, is to defeat that fear. Only then are we truly alive.

Thanks to Successify for helping me find this.

Just my random thought of the day.  There are ways to build demand without creating suckers. Only focusing on maximizing profits from your customers can’t be sustained. Once a critical mass has been reached, you will have a growth rate the approaches zero rapidly

Go forth and do great things.

I assume all of you readers are using LinkedIn. Do you have any strategy? At this point, my main focus has simply been to connect to >1 person / week, which I’ve had no problem accomplishing. However, I’m confident that there’s much more I could be doing. I’d love to hear what success you have, ideas, etc.

Just over a week a ago, I attended at social media workshop hosted by Lori Ballen. Covered a great deal of content that I deeply care about, thus there’s tons to write about. There’s one piece that really struck me, though. Her ability to connect.

One thing that happens regularly for her: people who she’s never met treating her like she’s their best friend. These are people who have only connected with her via social media. For all the criticism about social media destroying society, clearly these tools still enables us to bond.

Utilized well, people can connect solidly to brands, ideas, individuals. This gives communicators powerful ways to affect our audience. And elicit cynicism. If we’re not careful, these tools will end up viewed simply as deceptive marketing tools, building a false sense of connection and, thus, exploitive.

We need to be vigilant, ensuring we strive for genuine connection. Respectful, solution driven, thoughtful, and focused on our customer more than on driving cash-flow. Once your audience becomes jaded, rebuilding that trust is painfully slow and, perhaps, impossible.

One thing that often happens with me: odd hour wakefulness focused on organizing. Not out of any sense of anxiety, mind you. Rather, my brain comes alive with ideas. I find it amusing.

My current focus when it comes to personal organizing: realistic daily loads. I’ve been using what I’ll call a “day dump”. I throw most of my outstanding workload into “today”, then shift the un-done into tomorrow. That’s quite frustrating. It makes it look like little gets done. And organizing starts to take much longer, especially as time oases. Plus, when you scroll thru a huge task list, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

I’m trying my best to build my task list into something that has a real chance of getting accomplished. Helps keep my main foci on page one, and not scroll around looking for sheet I should do next.

Spent all day yesterday learning how to generate leads using social media with Lori Ballen. Lots of good ideas, lots of things I want to implement over various projects. Though we had a real estate focus, the ideas are implementable across a wider array of sectors.

Learned tons, but haven’t had the chance to process it all. I’ll post more as soon add I make that time.