One of the powers of YouTube is to create commercials that people actually WANT to watch and distribute while avoiding the constraints of television advertising which most people ignore anyway!
30 years ago this summer I attended the Aetna employee benefit division training school along with some of the best people I’ve met in my business career and my life. We spent all summer long learning about dynamic asset management for pension plans and on the weekends [and sometimes during the week] we partied hard…
For the end of the summer the vice president of sales — a gentleman named Sam Keyes [thanks, Spanky!] — descended from on high to impart some words of wisdom to us before we went off to our respective assignments. 30 years later I can still see him sitting at the edge of the desk and telling us that that the most important thing he learned in his business career was the simple adage “be there on time dressed to play”…
I remember feeling, well, really ripped off! This guy is a major vice president with the major insurance company and the only thing that he has to tell us after his long career is be there on time dressed to play? Well 30 years of living and working has taught me how valuable the wisdom in this aphorism is! And, it is a unique phrase to Sam; in all the wide world of Google, that phrase only appears on one web beside mine.
Tonight as I begin a new phase of my career as an adjunct professor at Northeast Wisconsin technical College I will repeat Sam Keyes immortal words to my class. Sam, wherever you are your spirit lives on…
With each and every passing day, we’re seeing more and more people build networks of trust through the creation of content that adds value and – by doing so – wind up in some pretty spectacular positions. It’s easy to be negative and see these individuals as some kind of exception to the rule or an anomaly, but that is shortsighted. These individuals are doing what most brands (and individuals) don’t have the ability or integrity to do: spend the time to actually build the trust first, instead of looking for that quick, big fix. It also speaks volumes to what the future holds for those eager to become entrepreneurs. There Is A Bigger Picture (And It’s Worth Thinking About) | Six Pixels of Separation – Marketing and Communications Blog – By Mitch Joel at Twist Image
This year has been a difficult year for knowledge workers and content marketers what with the shuttering of Google Reader and the removal of RSS feeds from Twitter and other similar moves on the part of major technology companies. Major players like Google and Twitter are engaging in shaping strategies to force us to use their products in ways they want us to, not which are best for us…
Thank goodness then for people like Amit Agarwal who generously share their brilliant thoughts with us and enable us to circumvent the powerful forces in technology who are looking to dis-empower us!
Let me back up for a moment and talk again briefly about the topic of thought leadership. To me, the Internet provides an opportunity to offer social proof of one’s expertise in any given area. In applying ‘Einstein’s Razor’ of “things must be made as simple as possible but no simpler” to the problem of social proof of thought leadership, I say that thought leadership on the Internet boils down to two basic activities; finding and sharing good information. You need to feed your expertise before you can feed your followers. RSS is a critical part of this process and Google, Twitter and others have been making it difficult to use RSS so that you have to go to their site in order to read content. First Google killed Google Reader and then they removed RSS feeds from Google Alerts.
Where does Amit fit into the picture? Watch this video in which Amit shares a way to get RSS feeds from Twitter again, ironically via Google scripting:
The great news is that I can now track Twitter topics, lists, and users via feedly, my RSS reader again! Thank you, Amit, for the valuable work you do…
Michael Moon – author of the book Firebrands – hypothesized prophetically and correctly 15 years ago when he stated that we had moved beyond the information age to the age of trusted relationships. I always found this curious because we had just entered the era of the personal internet – surely THIS was the information age! What was Moon thinking?
Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003, according to Schmidt. That’s something like five exabytes of data, he says.
Let me repeat that: we create as much information in two days now as we did from the dawn of man through 2003.
“The real issue is user-generated content,” Schmidt said. He noted that pictures, instant messages, and tweets all add to this.
So apparently Moon really nailed it when he said that we would need to rely on trust networks in order to manage all the information we need to do our jobs; networks of trusted sites, searches and sources that would wade through all these exabytes with surgical precision and deliver the goods we need to do nourish our expertise.
Recently, author Nilofer Merchant added a new aspect to the ‘trust network’ discussion in her book 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era [affiliate link] when she pointed out that another aspect of work in the #socialera – work is now freed from jobs:
“This means that human resources change when most of the people who create value are neither hired nor paid by you. And competition has changed so that any company can achieve the benefits of scale through a network of resources”.
Merchant, Nilofer (2012-09-12). 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era (Kindle Locations 665-676). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.
As Schmidt says the real issue is user-generated content. People all over the internet are posting, pinning and tweeting up a storm! We can leverage all this activity for our own thought leadership if we simply track the sites, searches and sources that publish in our brand space and then leverage that content to provide social proof of our own thought leadership…
I’ll try to explain it better here:
Here’s a growing list of tools that help me track the sites, searches and sources I need to nourish my thinking:
[listly id=”6P9″ layout=”full”]
This list will have a permanent home on the site here. Questions? Feedback? Specifically, do you have a cool tool that I missed?
Your world suddenly shifts completely to the other person. You pay them undivided attention, listen to what they want, and try to give it to them.
Your heart opens.
You want the best for them.
You become wildly generous in all ways.
You show patience, tolerance, and understanding.
You give them the benefit of the doubt.
You focus on their best qualities and ignore the rest.
You are affectionate, considerate, complimentary, and loving.
You crave their company.
You trust them.
You even like their quirky behaviors.
You support and encourage them.
You feel protective and have their back.
You forgive easily.
Now, imagine giving all those wonderful things to yourself.
Really imagine it.
Slowly.
Meditatively.
Each and every one.
How does that feel?
If it’s fabulous, turn your reverie into action. Do everything you possibly can to show yourself tenderness, consideration, patience, and compassion.
Now, watch how your relationship with yourself changes.
Lest some of you think this is narcissistic, it is not. Falling in love with yourself doesn’t mean you think you’re better than anyone else, just equally deserving of kindness, compassion, and time. You realize how wonderfully healing it can be to appreciate and care for yourself. Paradoxically, the more lovingly you treat yourself, the more tenderness, compassion, and patience you will have for others.
Doubt has been a constant companion, a shadow friend I could not escape. No matter how hard I tried to see if anyone else stood behind her, she’d contort herself in strange ways to block my view. Continue reading “The Opposite of Doubt”→
Psychologist and writer Barb Markway shares this this ‘Independence Day’:
The Self-Compassion Bill of Rights
Today, this fourth day of July, year two thousand and twelve, I, Barbara Ellen Gerth Markway, do solemnly declare these inalienable truths and freedoms for myself, and for my Self-Compassion Project friends. Continue reading “Hearts Set Free…”→
Bright, shiny objects! 
You must be logged in to post a comment.