How to Build an Online Community for Your Business

I encourage you to read the full story at: How to Build an Online Community for Your Business | SEOmoz.

April 16, 2013 0

Why It Doesn’t Matter What People Think

One of the hardest aspects of making positive changes in your life is dealing with other people. Mainly your family, friends, and colleagues who believe that, because they’re in your life, they have a say in what you do and that their opinion should always be considered.

But when it comes to YOU and YOUR life, YOU are the only person whose opinion matters.

If you make the choice to create positive changes, FOR YOURSELF, that is all that matters. You don’t need anyone’s approval, validation, or support, and most of the time, you really should avoid it.” Get more here: Why It Doesn’t Matter What People Think « Positively Positive.

August 14, 2012 2

What Would You Do if You Could Take a Year Off?

Mallika Chopra poses an interesting question:

What would you do if you were given $100,000 to take the year off?

Would you quit your miserable job, buy some cozy sweats, redo your bedroom and chill at home watching movies, eating good food, sleep and get back to a state of balance?

Would you travel the world and see those places on your dream list?

Moms: Would you hire a good nanny and a housekeeper and treat yourself to spa days and getaway weekends with girlfriends?

Would you decide to volunteer for a year — perhaps give back to your community with money and time?

Would you go back to school? Pay off your loans? Start a college fund for your kids?

Pursue your hobby or lifelong dream to become a filmmaker or guitar player?

Would you take care of your health? Perhaps you need to learn how to meditate, get a trainer, and revamp your eating habits. Or, as a caretaker, perhaps you can help someone you love heal and find comfort? How could $100,000 bring healing into your life?

Posed with this question, my mind began racing with the infinite things I could, should and would do with $100,000. (FYI, I was inspired to think about this by a promotion by Gold Peak Tea, which is supporting someone to take a year off — to enjoy the comforts of home, rejuvenate and do whatever they want — with $100,000.)

An interesting Gallup study from several years ago distinguished “life satisfaction” from “enjoyment of life.” This amount of money definitely can give most people in the U.S. the day-to-day security (life satisfaction), which leads to happiness. But people who “enjoy life” don’t necessarily find it with more money. Enjoyment of life generally includes being socially connected, having fun, and feeling a sense of purpose.

So if you were gifted some money, how would you decide what to do with it?

Here’s how I would decide: what would make me feel happy and more balanced in my life. Here’s a model of balance I have been using to make choices about how I spend my time and financial resources. In each bucket, I think about where I am thriving, struggling or suffering:

Rest and Sleep

Good Nutrition and Exercise

Relationships (Family, Friends and Community)

Work, Financial, Career

Intellectual Stimulation

Creativity and Play

Spirituality and Sense of Purpose

Be honest with yourself about those buckets where you feel balanced and those you need some help on. Think about if you had more resources how could you use them to bring your life in more balance. And decide which ones you can improve right now, by making an intent to embrace what makes you stronger, happier, more purposeful and fulfilled.

For more by Mallika Chopra, click here.

For more on happiness, click here.

via Mallika Chopra: What Would You Do if You Could Take a Year Off?.

Me? I don’t even know where to begin…

June 26, 2012 5

The Future of Social Media in Journalism

: Image by fredcavazza via Flickr

The future of social media in journalism will see the death of “social media.” That is, all media as we know it today will become social, and feature a social component to one extent or another. After all, much of the web experience, particularly in the way we consume content, is becoming social and personalized.

But more importantly, these social tools are inspiring readers to become citizen journalists by enabling them to easily publish and share information on a greater scale. The future journalist will be more embedded with the community than ever, and news outlets will build their newsrooms to focus on utilizing the community and enabling its members to be enrolled as correspondents. Bloggers will no longer be just bloggers, but be relied upon as more credible sources.

via mashable.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go directly to the source and get the rest of the story if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

September 20, 2010 0

Four reasons your Executive Director should be on Twitter

: Image via CrunchBase

Executive leaders at nonprofits should put community engagement via social media as a top priority in their job descriptions. They need to get their hands dirty.

But more often than not they don’t.

A broken model?

Usually, staffers do the “dirty work” with social media while management gets a debrief on ROI.

This is like having a nurses aid listen to a patient’s acute cardiac symptoms and tell the heart surgeon where to operate. A lot of critical information would be lost without the surgeon using her own stethoscope to listen directly to the patient’s heart.

Listening to your community is no different. Your community’s voice has a particular rhythm that can only be understood firsthand.

Four reasons EDs should be on Twitter

Executive leaders can understand the community better through unfiltered direct access

They can create greater trust within that community by demonstrating the orgs commitment to engage

Respond faster to the community by eliminating the time it takes to play the telephone game

They can anticipate needs that less experienced staff members might miss

But what if our executive leaders are too busy?

Too busy? If they aren’t willing to make an effort to hear firsthand from the people they serve, maybe they aren’t the right leaders for the organization.

via johnhaydon.com

…or maybe they don’t have the right tactics & tools. You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested in learning more…