Last week I announce a new way to highlight Authors who engage with their readers. I have had a twitter list of them for a while. I have become disatisfied with how that list is randomly highlighted via paper.li. So I ceased those updates altogether. Instead I wil post daily something one of those authors is saying or posting (I may miss a few days here and there).
Here is the first installment:
Chris brogan is a great writer and thinker. He has continually added value to my business life. Today he popped up on my radar with a really good post about experts and trying new things called We’re No Experts. I hope you check it out.
Here is a list of Chris’s books. I hand out copies of Trust Agents all the time. If you have not read it, you should. It will revolutionize how you connect with others. Chris’ new book is all about Google Plus.
Was the driver moonlighting as a guru or VC. Regardless it reminded me of all the great conversations I have had with taxi drivers.
This isn’t about taxi drivers though. Really it is about being present enough to your surroundings to engage in conversations with everyone you come in contact with. I think we miss so many opportunities to learn from others by just ignoring people throughout our day.
My stepdad Glen, who I count as one of the most influential people in my life, led by example in many ways but this was one that I love to practice. He would engage with the grocery clerk, gas station attendant, janitor and anyone else that came across his path. What stood out to me were the people who could not possibly benefit him as a salesman. And a good salesman he was. Better yet though he valued people. Over time all of these people came to know his name. So when I would travel with him it seemed he knew every one in the world. Now I do know this. He always got the best service wherever he went because he had invested in people that served him.
Now back to taxi cab drivers. It is very easy to ignore them. When I get into a cab, no matter what my first impression is, I strike up a conversation and usually try to learn a bit about the driver. It has been rare that I have been disappointed. There have been times that I have been disturbed by the cab driver. One in Vegas stuck with me. He gave my business partners and I a history (his own sordid version) of the decline of the city since the mob lost control. Oh the good ole days. I was hoping not to see a shovel in the trunk when I went to get my bag. Yeah. Mostly the drivers are great.
So next time you take a cab surprise yourself with an opportunity to connect. Try to learn a little something about the person pumping your gas (we can’t pump our own where I live). When the check out clerk asks you how your days was, reply and then honestly inquire about theirs.
Share some of your cab stories (both great and crazy) or how you have connected with people you encounter throughout your day. I would love to hear them.
Do you use a professional theme for your site? In the three years this blog has been up I have gone through four WordPress themes. Each of them have been great for the publishing needs I have had up until now. Those needs have changed. I realized I was spending too much time on site maintenance and not enough writing. I needed a theme that offered three things: SEO and connection tools built right in, a clean design and most of all clean code that simply worked. I was having to tweak plugins or edit a theme’s code to make it work best. Updates would often break key functions. After a conversation with Justin Lukasavige I decided to buy and install Standard Theme 2 from 8bit. I have been a fan of other bloggers that use Standard Theme for a while. To say the least I am very pleased. I had the new configuration up and running including all the new setting changed in just under two hours. Standard I think will be my theme of choice for a while. If you do go Standard, spend the extra investment and get the forum and tech support. The bundle is well worth the price.
So consider a professional them like Standard and get back to writing. Isn’t that why you started blogging in the first place.
One last note. Before you pay for a theme ask around. Many have minimal support and sloppy code. The research will pay off.
People ask me two questions about location-based tools like Gowalla, Foursquare, Whrrl or Yelp. The first question is: why use them? The second is: how do you choose which one to use?
The answer to the first question has three parts.
The thank you shout out
I like to highlight businesses that are pretty remarkable. When I visit them I like to give them a nice shout out as a way to say thank you for doing good work.
Shared experience
The next reason I use it is to share with others cool experiences I am enjoying. I like to hear about my friends experiencing interesting things so in kind I hope they like to hear about mine. I can’t remember who said it (and please leave a comment reminding me) but they said that today wealth is being gained more in experiences than money things.
The joy of unexpected meetup
The last reason is so that I can have chances for others to meetup with me or visa-versa me. Two weeks ago I was on a business trip, travelling to the Content Marketing Retreat held on Whidbey Island. My friend and business partner Chris Skaggs decided to tag along and go to the conference as well. About twenty minutes from the Seattle train station, I saw that our friend Jen Grant had checked into her client’s restaurant Art at the Seattle Four Seasons. Jen and I live only about 10 miles apart but it might as well be around the world due to our busy schedules. I showed the checkin to Chris and we both had the same idea. We decided to surprise her for lunch. Minutes before we had been talking about how we have not seen her in a while.
After getting off the train we walked up to Four Seasons and surprised her as she was walked out the front door. We ended up having a great lunch and caught a rare chance to catch up. All of it happened because we both use Gowalla.
Last, to answer the second question. How do you choose which tool to use? This comes down to convenience and utility. When I am trying to check-in someplace I want to be able to find the location easily. I don’t usually have time to add a place if it is not currently listed. This is very important if I am with others. I try to post discreetly since my experience I am posting on is with friends in meatspace. I want to focus on them and not technology. Second, it depends on what I want to do when checking in. Often I take a photo to or leave a useful tip to others that will follow. Whichever tool makes the easiest is the one I choose.
Jen Grant shared a great article on how diners are using location-based technology. It is a good read. Remember though that they are tools, and you the user are showing us all their real value.
I have written a couple times about the usefulness of tools like Paper.li, Flipboard and Alltop. They help me stay engaged and informed. Â (You can read about this process here. Â I update the blog post as the way I get my news changes.) When Flipboad came out for the iPad, I added my favorite public lists to it and used it for a while. I used Alltop to get my news. Â I don’t anymore. Â Now I only use my Facebook friends updates and four lists on Twitter. Â As you can see, this is a process. Â And like any process, there will be bumps and misfires along the way to finding something that works well.
I believe we need two things to succeed today.  We need to continually learn and we need to lead a thriving tribe.  So with those two, there is a need to both consume and engage.
So back to the tools I mentioned above.  Do they work for you?  Are they helping you carry out those two goals?  For many they help synthesis lists and friend updates into a formats that are both visually pleasing and easy to read. They have even changed the way website design.  I changed my WordPress template to look like a Flipboard magazine because I found it easier to process.  Hopefully it is easier for my readers to read as well.
Are you using any of them? Â Are you sharing your lists via Paper.li and is your tribe reading them?
I first found this great WordPress plugin tool via Chris Brogan’s post. To be clear, Editorial Calendar changed my blogging habits completely. I went from posting sporadically, which is too common for most bloggers, to posting consistently three times a week. Today I asked my friend Justin Lukasavige to do a quick video showing how he uses it. Thanks Justin!
One last note: I use the tool on the fly every-time I get a post idea. I get them in the middle of conversations, while travelling, watching a movie, you name it. Instead of making a note on my iPad, sending myself an email, writing it on my hand, I now open up the Editorial Calendar, think of a quick title and maybe write some notes or add a link. That is it. I think I have nearly thirty draft posts waiting for me to finish. This has given me plenty of material to work with. I absolutely love it and recommend it.
There is really so much I want to say about Eric Alexander’s Book “The Summit”. It is one of those books that you want to read slowly over a few weeks and a short blog post seems out-of-place. For me it was more of a devotional, and actually a book I will probably keep by my bed and process slowly again. Eric’s writing is unpolished and authentic. I felt as if he was sitting there telling each story in person. Eric has led many expeditions, over his career as a climber and outdoor guide, including several with people of various physical disabilities. However, after reading his accounts about these people, the word hero seems more appropriate than the word disabled.
The bulk of the book retells stories of Eric’s climbing the Seven Summits, bookended by the beginning and then the summiting of Everest by Eric and his blind climbing partner Erik Weihenmayer. If you have ever been told you could not do something, The Summit will inspire you to shed all that binds and climb your own Everest.
As a novice climber, I was fascinated by the stories of so many high altitude adventures. One chapter describes Eric and Erik’s climbing Russia’s Mt. Elbrus, and then skiing off the summit in a 9,000 foot run. Descending any alpine peak is a challenge, even when done the conventional way. There are so many stories like this that Eric’s faith in the impossible truly is driven home.
The Giveaway:
At first I had planned to give a copy of the book away with this post, but for a while I have wanted to give something special away. So I decided to make it a new wifi Kindle. The Kindle will have The Summit installed.
Here are the details on how to win: (some methods are borrowed from Scott Williams)
1. Leave a comment here stating that you would like to win the Kindle with the Summit installed. Feel free to share a story of your own overcoming an impossible adventure. The story is not required to be an entry though. To be able to be entered you need to leave a comment on this post or I won’t be able to find you.
2. Post a message on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn with these specifics.
-On Twitter: This url http://bit.ly/f5jMt4Â mention Eric’s twitter name: @highersummits the term #thesummit, and that you have entered to win the kindle with The Summit installed.
-On Facebook: Mention the Higher summits page url http://bit.ly/f5jMt4 http://www.facebook.com/highersummits, this url and that you have entered to win the kindle with The Summit installed.
-On Linked: Mention Eric’s site http://www.highersummits.com/ this url http://bit.ly/f5jMt4 and that you have entered to win the kindle with The Summit installed.
Also, If you are not on any of the above mentioned (this is my favorite of Scott’s ) please state that in your comment here. I would love to interact with you and find out why.
3. Watch the book trailer here or on youtube and share with your friends.
Note: Winners will be selected from the comments on Flurrycreations.com/theblog. Please only leave one comment per person. I will randomly choose one name to win the Kindle, from those that followed the steps mentioned above by 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time 12/27/10. I will then announce the winner here and ship the Kindle Thursday December 30th. Good luck and thanks for reading! Â Also, Merry Christmas!
This weeks tool highlight comes from Productivity Maven, Tara Rodden Robinson.
As a connector, you’ve got a lot to keep up with. To make the connection magic happen, you need the right tools so you can capture what you want to know (like contact info, interests, and so on) as well as the information that comes to you. In this post, you’ll learn about a powerful software tool that allows you to capture information easily and cross-reference that information quickly so that you can connect people and ideas and each other with ease.
Personal Brain is a mindmapping software tool for Mac, PC, or Linux. Unlike other sorts of mindmapping tools, which produce flat, one-dimensional diagrams, Personal Brain creates deeply connected, almost three dimensional, storage structures. What this means is that information can be cross-referenced in endless ways, yielding connections wherever and whenever they’re needed.
For a connector like you, you can use Personal Brain to capture contact information, interests, and relationships between people. At the same time, you can be combing the web for resources (captured as URLs), ideas, photos, and anything else you can possible imagine. When you see a thought that you want to link to a person in your network, you simply draw a link and, poof!, you’ve related those two things together.
Personal Brain takes advantage of how thinking works–that is, by making associations. Thus, it’s the perfect tool for someone who wants to associate people and ideas and each other. A great way to see this in action is to check out this blog post (http://blog.thebrain.com/peoplenetworks/) by Shelley Hayduk where she gives you a guided tour to mapping social networks using Personal Brain .
Disclosures: This is an independent review. Tara has no financial or material interest in Personal Brain. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Two years ago I wrote about JCPenney’s viral ad campaign known as the Dog House Video. As the video began to spread around the internet again this Christmas season I took some time to revisit the campaign. Once a company has gained the customers attention, engagement should follow.
Now that the video has millions of views and that the company has established itself as a brand that can make a viral video, customer interaction needs to follow. Like the citizens and travelers in the Wizard of Oz, people have accepted a new type of advertisement where there really is no personal touch. We watch the add, think it is cute and then like they hope, make a purchase. In the meantime the brand does little to secure long lasting trust and loyalty through any sort of interpersonal relationship or reputation.   This is the problem.
Advertising alone will not insulate a brand from fading into mediocrity. The brands that are leading the way have stepped out from behind the curtain. They have trained their staff to engage. My favorites, and the ones I argue will win the race, even have C level Executives who connect with costumers.
Don’t get me wrong. They really did score a hit with the ad. How much more would it succeed if they embraced the new way, and made those customers that were dazzled and entertained into their greatest assets by building long lasting commitment through interpersonal costumer service and engagement.
My friend and one of my personal tech guides Andy Traub gives us a walk through video of Rapportive and “raplets”, an add-on to manage social media connections and contacts simultaneously. Managing your contacts is probably one of the most important things a good connector can do. I will have more on that in the coming weeks. For now learn from one expert I enjoy learning from. Please leave a comment if you have a question for Andy or a tip of your own. Also if you need help you can contact Rapportive via Twitter here as well as the CEO Rahul Vohra.
