Category: Personal Reflections

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.

Let’s all agree to start using the “To:” line correctly.

Senders:

•  Put people in the “To” line who have action items, or are otherwise the direct focus of the email. E.g.: “Carl, please take care of this”…blah, blah. Use the “CC:” line for people on the email for informational purposes. 

Readers:

• Look in the address header to see where you fit in before you read. Then you’ll have a solid idea of whether you are being asked for information or action, or whether you’re being informed of a status, data, what-have-you.

 If we can all start following email 101, maybe we can de-confuse the world some.

Maybe…

I’ve been considering my blog theme for some time. Though I love poetry (and still plan on writing), my interests are much more varied.

My career has progressed over a wide array of industries and functions, all within the basic “general business administration” category. I’ve worried about shifting my focus, though. I’ve never been much for “profit hunting”. Business, though, impacts so many areas of our society, and we all are impacted by this institution. The variety in my background, from differing sectors (non-profits, Fortune 500, small and mid-sized business) to types (retail, technology, religious, advocacy, distribution, wholesale….) provides me with a remarkable perspective.

All this blends into a particular viewpoint. I take a long-term view. Sustainability is critical (both for individual institutions and society en masse). Project management tools and disciplines are master strokes of intellectual achievement.

https://twitter.com/aesthethica/status/287692133371109377

This troll’s comment gave me pause. What’s the best response? Public humiliation & shame? Just ignoring them? Gentle correction? Or???

I find it hard to sit silently when I witness cruelty, even as I recognize that response is exactly what the troll seeks. Certainly don’t want to reward deviant behavior. However, what’s effective?

Our culture promotes fame. I’ve never understood the why. Why are we compelled to garner as much attention as possible?

Fame is so compelling that we’re quite comfortable with infamy. We’re comfortable with the horrified gaze, or at least the incredulous one.

My main evidence? The full spate of “reality” tv stars. Whether Honey Boo Boo right now, or what’s-his-name Huang American Idle, er Idol a few years back. Both people willing to abandon every shred of dignity for attention. Though annoying on so many levels, it presents for fascinating psychoanalysis. If you’re geeky like me, that is.

Came up with a new word.

Gesticfoolcate – those bizarre gestures meant to intimidate but actually make you want to howl w/laughter. I mainly am thinking of those gangster poses.

Yep, the wonderful things that come out if my brain at 2:00 am.

Enjoy!

“When you wish to achieve results that have not been achieved before, it us am unwise fancy to think they can be achieved by methods that have been used before.”

– Sir Francis Bacon

It’s critical, then, to expand knowledge. Study areas and ideas unrelated to your focus. Only by expanding your understanding of the world can you grab new ways of looking at the problems we are attempting to solve.

A few thoughts for your Monday morning. May your week rock n’ roll and transform the world.

Gaza is erupting into conflict, and my Twitter feed rolls along, snippets hitting every second. I have connections on both sides. One twitter friend in particular is making a point to retweet both sides of this conflict. That morphed into an idea.

This idea: a project capturing the myriad sides to a conflict, whether violent, political or cultural. First notion was to actively research, tweeting to the hashtag
#AllSides____ (adding the issue in the blank. i.e.: #AllSidesGaza. Spend, say, an hour of focused time just tweeting every article, RTing personal perspective, all into this one stream. My goal? Capturing as many perspectives on that issue as possible in one place. Collating/curating perspectives personal and analytical.

I feel a simple hashtag feed, though, isn’t enough. Yet I’m unsure what to add. Build some kind of analytic tool? Infographics? Probably would be something to consider after to curation is complete.

Or maybe not. If done right, this would become continuous, organic. Then an analytic tool that continuously analyzed and restructured the report would be fascinating. I think grabbing snapshots at specific moments would be grand.

So, any thoughts? I’d love to hear your ideas.