Conversation Agent

The Myth About Change

If change were easy, we would have new marketing that is interesting, new topics at conferences and events, and plenty of new ideas and novel executions to feed on. We would also have little room for echo chambers. The truth is that change is easier to talk about than it is to do. Execution is vital, and willingness is crucial.

A few years ago, Fast Company was undergoing a lot of change. In many ways it and plenty of other publications still are. Change was one of the topics they chronicled. There was a whole series of articles and conversations dedicated to change. Yet, when change became necessary it was hard to implement. Remember Alan Deutschman's book Change or Die?

The client tells you that they'd like to see something very different. "We've been doing the same old thing for years," they tell you, "why don't you show us something else?" The trouble with that is often something else is quite vague. It means anywhere from "I'll know it when I see it," to "it does not look like something we'd do and say." Or, in the best of circumstances, the answer has been staring them in the face for years. They just need you, a third party, to tell them it will work. Be prepared to fight them on it, it will look and sound too easy. It's not. Execution matters.

All leadership comes down to this: changing people's behavior. Why is that so damn hard? Writes Deutschman. What happens when it is the leader who does not want to change? When he is hiding behind the idea of wanting to make a clean breast of things while he is paying lip service to giving the example. That is tricky territory. Change is not a prescription you give to others.

Choice gives us the illusion of change. I cannot recall when was the last time that an agency could propose only one recommendation. Richard Huntington at Adliterate puts it so well: we are spoiled by choice. Having lots of options only means delaying the moment of truth, when we will need to make a decision on direction. Would you much rather be exactly wrong or be surprising and interesting? Your choice.

[Michelangelo in the Agony and the Ecstasy, viewing time 2:46. Hat tip to Brian Millar]

Make Your Web Site Sticky: 10 Ideas

This is the prepared left brain part of our conversation at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum yesterday. I created an eBook you can download here as a way to take some resources back to the office and share with your team.  

Whether you were in Boston or not, we can extend the conversation here. If you were in Boston, you would  have also gotten the right brain side of my presentation - with all the accompanying Italian-style body language, visuals, and marvelous participation from the audience.

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About Your Web Site

Web users are becoming more harried. The annual report into web habits by usability guru Jakob Nielsen shows people are becoming much less patient when they go online. They are like modern shoppers - they want to go in the store and get out holding what they were looking for in the minimum time required.

The good news is that today 75% of the people achieve that goal compared to 60% in 1999. There are many reasons for this increase:

• better design and usability;
• more Web savvy people:
  • see what they are looking for faster;
  • know what to look for (which also makes people less tolerant of searching for what they cannot find).

Summarizing:

• be engaging using the benefit to the visitor vs. your feature;
• be succinct by getting to the point up front;
• make it easy to want to find out more through built-in interaction.

Bottom line = less fluff, more substance.

1. Who are you talking with?

To drive traffic to your Web site, you first need to know who you'd want to attract. The first thing you need to decide is with whom would you like to talk? Who is your ideal readership?

Then right after that you will need to decide what you want them to do. That is what your home page should help you with - showing your readers and potential buyers where the banana is (this is a Seth Godin expression). That means what is it you want them to do.

It starts with who, then what.

• Who do you want to engage?
• What do you want them to do?
• Then ask: why?

2. Tell them something they didn't know

In many business models, especially for companies that have been around a while, but also in younger firms, there is this belief that your ideas are your currency.

You charge good money for your IP, why share it?

Because ideas are free and $0.00 is the future of business.

The psychology of free is very powerful. Give something away for free, and it has the potential to go viral. The execution still matters, as long as it's not entirely about you. It's about what all that brain power you have, deployed, can help your customers solve a problem.

Why should they be reading? Tell them something they did not know, let your customers look smart in front of their bosses and they will in turn tell everyone what they learned using your tools. 

3 Give them something to talk about

With free as the center of today's attention economy, the focus shifts to what is useful to your customers, what they value, truly. They in turn will let you see who they share what they learned from you with. Track it using Google Alerts with keywords to find out what people are saying about your company.

Blogs, message boards, even emails can spread ideas faster than we ever hope to. The trick is to be where the conversation is. And to do that, you've got to create something they will talk about.

Give your customers tools that will help do their jobs better and you gain two scarce currencies - attention and reputation, plus you get to see what works and sticks and what doesn't, then adjust, repeat.

4. Content = nourishment = marketing that works

Content matters. Let's make that count. We said give it away for free, focus it on helping them, use the appropriate human voice and tone. Content marketing is the only marketing left that really works - online and off line. When you decide who you are talking with, who you are trying to attract, you write that content so that it addresses their specific questions, concerns, issues, what they are seeking to learn.

Then you earn the right to invite action at every step of the way.

An example from our site:

You're certain business continuity is a strategic asset making operations and revenue possible.

Are you just as certain that your disaster recovery capabilities are keeping pace with the demands for higher levels of information availability?

Business continuity is a strategic imperative and a competitive advantage in an environment where you must plan for the unexpected, maintain operations, and meet regulatory demands. Just think of the daily volume of emails, transactions, and archived data that have to be secured and readily available. And all of this against shrinking recovery time and recovery point objectives (RTO and RPO).

5. Affirm their product choice

People want to feel they've made the right decision about what they consume. The most powerful way to affirm this is by showing that others have made the same choice. Put customer feedback, names, and activity where they can be easily noticed.

There is another aspect of the conversation that you can borrow from social media - and that is to use feedback to show you are listening. Make it personal, it is.

6. How are you different?

Tell your story. Today writing with a human voice and letting the personality of a company come across are considered the price of entry in consideration. Who wants to dig through a site filled with impersonal expressions like: "we are the leading company that does X," "our cutting-edge technology is unique," and so on?

Tell me exactly why and how you are different. What is your brand ownership strategy? Finding out what your personality is means figuring out how you are different. As you go through that exercise, remember that your customer does not hold all of the things you hold in your head about your company - and chances are, he/she does not care.

You will need to do the heavy lifting with your words, your tone and how they wrap around her/his problem. Then go head and write with a voice unique to your brand.

An example from our Web site:

The Value of Information Availability

Having information always available isn't just an IT issue anymore—it's a business issue. It's about remaining productive, viable, and competitive. It's about customers, business partners, and employees at every level. It's about anticipating threats and maintaining uptime. It's about the readiness to exploit opportunities and grow. That's the value of Information Availability.

7. Does your site make you heavy?

According to Web site optimization, the size of the average web site page has more than tripled since 2003. During the same five-year period, the number of objects in the average web page (texts, images, ads, audio, video, applets, etc) nearly doubled from 25.7 to 49.9 objects per page on average, with top sites including generally more objects. As broadband becomes more widespread, web designers have created more elaborate designs, and Web2.0 technologies such as AJAX certainly contribute to the increase in the number of objects per page. Longer term statistics show that since 1995 the size of the average web page has increased by 22 times, and the number of objects per page has grown by 21.7 times.

Bottom line: stay light.

8. Is that video adding value?

This is not to say that animation and dynamic elements like flash are not welcome, or useful. Yet, before adding all those bells and whistles, you should ask yourself if they will be a distraction (and in some cases an annoyance) or if they truly add value.

Can you provide value beyond the sales pitch?

Some ideas on adding value:

• editing that testimonial down to the story and the sound bites visitors can share (distill it down for them);
• providing a write up, a schematic, an eBook that can be customized and used (help them sell);
• providing a PowerPoint presentation with ROI models for your type of service that can be used by your customers and prospects to build his/her case on buying the service;
• updating your content frequently. A good rule of thumb is 10-15% per month.

9. Use the news area as a hub to invite inquiry

What we have done in the past eight months has been to consolidate all of our company's media activities in the news and events area of our Web site. When we have major stories, podcasts, and bylines published in the trade press, we have taken the time to summarize the payout and included that on our site with the link to the original story.

To highlight our expertise in and passion for technology, instead of writing "we are experts" all over the site, we've created biographies for our speakers that detail very specifically what they know.

By virtue of using the industry terminology, that which maps to current conversations in the marketplace, we have increased the number of visitors from search - by more than 100% over the same period last year. That, in a competitive space like technology services, is nothing to sneeze about.

Organic search engine optimization (SEO) is allowing us to use the news areas as a hub to invite further inquiry. You can also use the news area to help your customers come back for the next compelling story.

10. Help them to come back with RSS and newsletter sign ups

This is something you can do once you have a reservoir of content you feel confident you will be able to stream. Individuals who sign up though an RSS reader, will expect to see new content from you regularly. Whether you decide to make refreshes weekly, monthly, or every two days, it's a good idea to set expectations up front and keep pace with them.

Creating a custom newsletter works very well in helping your readers stay up to date. The benefit for you is that you collect email addresses, but with one caveat - make it explicit how you are going to use that address. And do not deviate from your promises about that.

Newsletters can be tailored to different audiences. For example, you could gear one version to the needs of small businesses, just like MarketingProfs does, while customizing one for enterprises to address their needs.

In addition to helping people sign up for news items, help them email, bookmark, and forward your content by integrating social media elements with your site.

No matter what you decide to do, remember that communication takes a while to open a two-way channel, stay with it.

10A. Appearances matter

No site can be "sticky" if it's too cluttered to scan. At the same time, a site will not stick if it is merely a page of bulleted lists. Be smart about your design elements. Use lots of whitespace, muted (but modern) color combinations, and readable fonts.

Fine tune your content, links, and labels constantly. Use the Web site metrics as a way to monitor which pages and areas receive higher traffic, retire or rewrite those that don't.

The future

The Web presence of the future may be organized completely in thirds - part editorial, part community, and part marketing weaved throughout the site; without needing to separate them in a blog, a forum, a customer idea space, and the corporate brochure-ware. This is how we do business - through relationships and connections.

• 1/3 editorial impact - make the content efficient while still effective; say enough and not too much, talk about the customer and what they think (or worry) about and offer paths forward to action
• 1/3 community building - what we in social media have come to refer to as conversation, engagement, creating the connection; before it does that, it needs to be a space where someone knows our name (outside of Cheers)
• 1/3 marketing principles - the value-based bread and butter of why we buy and how we sell; I could call this positioning, except for there is a lot more to it than that

Questions, thoughts?

Revisiting LinkedIn

In the last couple of weeks I spent more time learning about how new LinkedIn functionality can help me become more attuned to my professional network.

It's important not to lose touch with the people you meet at events, for example, yet the connection tends to become more tenuous as time goes by - unless there is a way to continue staying in touch that does not mean an automatic subscription to a newsletter. Has anyone thought of asking for permission to send the newsletter, by the way?

There are many reasons why LinkedIn can be ideal for maintaining and possibly developing the loose ties or weak links you have in your network:

• The interaction can and does happen online - although the tool generates emails to the members of your network in some instances (profile updates, new questions, etc.), the email comes from LinkedIn, not from someone to you specifically. It seems like a subtle distinction since you gave them permission to keep you up to date with the initial act of linking. Somehow it feels good to be able to delete that email immediately and know that it is still stored in your LinkedIn home page to deal with it later. The tone and layout of these emails is less annoying (as well as less frequent) than the ones I used to get from Facebook. No pokes on the shoulder here, either.

• You can ask and answer questions - I tried it last week when I was doing research for a story and it worked beautifully. In the space of a couple of hours, I had solid business advice from professionals in my network. The beauty is that the content in question and the answers allowed me to meet a couple of new people who would have probably never crossed path with me in the blogosphere. This might be true especially of people in the B2B world. Asking and answering questions also gives you the opportunity to become a thought leader in a subject matter.

• The weakest ties may be the most active in your network - if I have a pretty close business relationship with someone, chances are our day to day communications happen on other platforms. We may meet face to face, on the phone, or correspond by email. LinkedIn is very useful for staying aware of what those others are working on, with whom you would not have a day to day or frequent check in otherwise. On more than one occasion, I have forwarded introductions from people in my network to others. This is much more powerful than just trying to reach someone you don't know directly - it comes with a cover note and the recommendation of a person whose brand you trust.

• You can see who checked your profile - on the right sidebar in your home page, you will see a box titled "who has viewed my profile?" I've had a couple of surprises there, too. Maybe you came up in a keyword search for someone who is looking for talent in a specific area. Or perhaps you know someone that someone else would like to get in touch with. You have probably noticed the "people in your network are hiring" towards the bottom of the page, too. Recruiters have a special way of using LinkedIn. Harry Joiner recently wrote about recruiters and LinkedIn at Marketing Headhunter.

• There's a beta news service tailored to your industry and company - I am liking this a lot. It allows me to see what my colleagues are reading. So far, I have found several articles of interest and the beauty of it is that nobody had to lift a finger. The system put them in rotation whenever I visited. Under the news section, you can now see all the network updates. Most of the time I scan these. LinkedIn also sends an automatic "updates" email periodically, in case I missed something.

There are professional groups and networks on LinkedIn. To date I tried only one, so I do not have a good idea of the amount of communication and activity those generate. All in all, this is my online professional networking tool of choice - it keeps things clean and simple.

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I would be curious to learn how you've used LinkedIn. Do you check to see if someone has a profile there before interviewing them? Have you researched providers in your area? I've seen many recommendations. How are those working out for you?

UPDATE: LinkedIn has a new (beta) home page. Check it out. It seems they did away with the "see who checked out your profile" function.

Marketing's Killer App: Active Participation

The marketing group inside organizations used to put together lavish experiences and was funded to really get the word out there. Those were other times. By the time I arrived in a company, the funds had been cut down to starving conditions.

The opportunity to be creative and stretch both the dollars and the work to affect the maximum impact is very real. When people say "it's not about working hard, it's about working smart," they only capture a tiny part of effectiveness. Being hands-on continues to be a good quality to have for marketing professionals.

Plus, in the rush to prove ROI with every single activity and piece created, we may be jettisoning activities that build a more robust body that can be the basis for conversation (and reputation) over time. As well, integration is much more difficult when everyone has a different project and outcome to measure to. We do marketing a disservice by implying that no immediate ROI equals no value. Have you seen finance and human resources measure the bottom line impact of the service they provide to the organization?

To be sure, today we have many more tools at our disposal. The most important of them all is active participation in conversations with peers and colleagues from all types of organizations -- companies, agencies, partners, consultants, technologists, innovators. I find more and more that there is no silver bullet, yet there are plenty of ways to make a difference.

In the next couple of months, I will be participating in a number of activities.

In early February, I will attend a conference and CMO Summit at the Center on Global Brand Leadership, Columbia Business School in New York City. It will be interesting to be at the roundtables, group exercises, and peer-to-peer discussions of the key challenges for innovation and brand building in organizations today.

What challenges are you facing in your organization, agency, practice? The point of view is a portal for broader awareness when we have conversation as a foundation. I thank Francois Gossieaux for inviting me to participate to this event.

In early March I will be speaking about The Future of Advertising at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association where I will be conversation #2.

A few months ago, Tim Brunelle who teaches this program, solicited feedback and comments at his blog. Tim posted some ideas on his curriculum and I offered my take from the client side, edited here:

"Since you received such strong suggestions on the agency side, I would like you to consider the client. Although the words and nice capabilities graphics are very good and some even perfect, often it all falls apart when we look at case studies. They do not match the promise made in the pitch.

Why? Was it client who held the agency back? Maybe. Or maybe there was nobody inside the agency who thought of starting the meeting by listening to what the client is wrestling with, then adapted the conversation to the why, what and how the agency could provide.

Think market-driven, problem-solving, big picture attitude based on the business the client is in. How can the agency's work apply to the client's business more closely?"

We continued the conversation off line and Tim was kind enough to invite me to participate even more closely -- face-to-face works for me.

There is work and play in my future. I will be at Blogger Social 2008, joining a fun, smart and diverse group of bloggers from different cities and continents. We all have one thing in common -- the desire to help companies grow and to make a difference in our own unique ways, together.

It's exciting to think that I will meet in person professionals I have had a dialogue with for months -- Connie Reece, Anna Farmery, Gavin Heaton, Kris Hoet, Rohit Bhargava, Sean Howard, Seni Thomas, Tangerine Toad, Ann Handley and many more I have not met. As well, I look forward to be reunited with many I have had the fortune of meeting face-to-face this past year.

From my experience with communities at work, these are the best kinds of get togethers as there is enough flexibility and social action to facilitate real connections. Trying to do it all -- content and fun/personal connections -- at an event can lead to late nights and a tired mind during the day, plus a five-minute hallway chat will not produce connection. It's what I call ships crossing paths in the night.

Today's experiences (less lavish but all the same enjoyable) can be had by participating in marketing conversations with your peers and setting aside the time to give back to the profession. Mentoring is also a high priority for me.

This year I will continue helping students of The Fox School of Business as an Advisory Board member of The Global Entrepreneurship in Technology (GET) course that is part of the Enterprise Management Consulting Practices and the distinguishing core of the Fox School's International MBA program.

I liked Greg Verdino's response to Seth's post on being a workaholic, even though I got what Seth is saying. I would not define what Greg, and many of us do as being addicted to work -- I for one am more on the passion side of things, especially when it comes to participation.

The best way to lead and manage a work force of passionate people is to let them do their work and let them participate to the market conversation. That's when they can bring those valuable learnings back to your organization and help move it forward... if you are listening.

The Big Switch

It's very tempting to think that change will happen quickly. That's probably because we seldom notice all the things that shift in small and sometimes hidden ways to conspire for the change that will take place.

As well, predictions are always long while time seems short. Yet, change happens and when it does in substantial ways, our lives are swept along with it as entire industries seem to disappear overnight.

My great grandmother was born in 1889. When she was young, she saw the first steam engine cars and thought that they would not take hold. She died in 1989 after witnessing two World Wars and the rest of transportation technology that filled the world she knew.

"There’s a paradox in all disruptive new technologies. The powerful lure of new ideas can make them seem inevitable. Yet it often takes very long for these ideas to have an effect. Large sums have been sunk in the existing infrastructure, behaviours change slowly and smarter new ideas may come along. That makes it hard for the layperson to distinguish between the true visionaries of the Information Age and the hype merchants who are simply riding the latest tech bandwagon."

This is the introduction on "cloud computing" in a recent article by the Financial Times. Utility computing, the main concept behind the book by Nicholas Carr, The Big Switch, is a flavor of the same idea. Carr uses the metaphor of electrification to explain the evolution of computing. Computing is turning into a utility. Cheap, utility-supplied computing will ultimately change society as profoundly as cheap electricity did, he says.

Carr uses historical analysis to build the ideas that the Internet is following the same developmental path as electric power did 100 years ago. In the second section of the book, he discusses the economic, social and other issues associated with the Internet becoming the platform and marketplace for commerce.

The book starts with the historical position of water power, the precursor to electricity, and then explains conceptually what these different technologies mean. In Burden's Wheel Carr points out the unique economic impact of General Purpose Technologies -- the few technologies that are the basis for a multitude of other economic activity.

That is followed by The Inventor and His Clerk, which is a historical account of the early days of electricity. The chapter focuses largely on the development and adoption of electric power. It points out that electric power had some false starts such as Edison's instance on local DC plants -- it needed the development of some additional technologies to take off. This chapter is well researched and was fascinating to read. I would refer back to the argument laid out by the Financial Times writer here, sometimes we can prove something just because we want to.

Digital Millwork discusses the recent history of the computer. Carr sees bandwidth as the savior of computing much in the same way that the dynamo and Tesla's AC power turned electric plants into regional power companies. Here Carr connects the history of the electricity at the turn of the 20th century with the development of computing at the turn of the 21st century.

A future of virtual computing where physical location and device based software licensing no longer exist is the central idea of Goodbye, Mr. Gates. In this chapter Carr introduces Google with the positive voice I noticed in an article he authored for Strategy+Business titled The Google Enigma.

In The White City Carr turns away from a continued development of the technical ideas of virtualization and grid computing and moves back into a historical discussion of how electricity changed people's lives and societies. He provides information to set the reader up to make a comparison to what the switch to the Internet might be. His discussions of Insull and Ford are interesting, if brief.

The central chapter of the book, titled World Wide Computer returns to the notion of what the unbridled possibilities of the programmable Internet might be. We take a peak, albeit brief, on the future of corporate computing. The IT we know today will go away and end users will be in charge. I do wonder if the individual with (potentially) infinite information and computing power available to them will enjoy that power.

One question to Carr here: why coin a new term, world wide computer?

From the Many to the Few is a discussion of the social impacts of a programmable Internet where each runs their own personal business and is a brand. The example he chooses is the video Chad Hurley and Steve Chen shot to thank the YouTube community for essentially making them rich with the Google buyout.

I could not help but think about the first bubble. Washington Post Steve Pearlstein's quote sums it up nicely,

"More powerful computers and software and the Internet have reduced demand for travel agents, retail salesmen and inventory control specialists, while making it possible for companies to outsource to India and Poland work like computer programming, tax preparation and customer service."

In this chapter, Carr also highlights that the availability of free resources, in addition to automation are eroding the economic power of individuals.

The Great Unbundling talks about the move from mass markets to markets of one. To do that, Carr uses the example of the forced unbundling of the news business online. Similar to the post I mentioned recently by Dave Morgan at AOL. For example, to gain traction in a crowded marketplace for ideas, The Times of London admits that it has already begun training its reporters to craft their stories in ways that lead to higher placements in search engines. While the financial return in print is part of the magazine or paper, online each individual story needs to earn traffic on its own. The compromise that many journalists may have to make subtracts to all of us.

The chapter also talks about the social implications of a web that connects like people creating a tribal and increasingly multi-polar world, rather than the world wide consciousness assumed to arise when education and communications levels increase. This is the same argument Stephen Baker at BusinessWeek used to counter one of the ideas I exposed in the post Artificial Intelligence agents as conversation agents to which I countered with AI Agents as Discovery Channels.

In Fighting the Net Carr discusses the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of free flowing information and the structural integrity of the net. He does not include public policy recommendations to address the points he makes. These policy recommendations are important especially in the light of an increased need for security and the desire for privacy.

Which he addressed in A Spider's Web. Here he shares the realization that as Richard Hunter says "we live in a world without secrets". This chapter is a warning about the issues of privacy and what it means to do business where everything is recorded and tracked. I've been on the soap box on privacy issues in many posts from Trading Trust for Cash to Facebook Beacon: Brands Guilty by Association?

Finally, iGod talks about the fusion of human and machine consciousness. What is possible when the human brain can immediately access infinite information and the machine gains artificial intelligence? These are the questions raised but not addressed. It indeed reminded me of Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey as Brin (Google) is quoted mentioning the film on NewsHour.

Overall the book reads very well, even though I am left wanting more in depth analysis of the implications. Carr could have also researched and expanded upon the role that gender equality brought to the thinking in the workplace -- particularly since women tend to think more connectively. I bring it up because the only mention of women in the book is relegated to the history of housekeeping and cleaning. 

I recommend the book to those of you who are keen on ramping up quickly to where we are today on technology, namely the announcements by Google, Microsoft and IBM among others, that they are entering The Wisdom of Clouds as Stephen Baker puts it in his in depth article at BusinessWeek.

Think Different! About Changing Minds -- Are we Commoditizing Connections?

We change brains as we exchange information, yet we rarely change minds. Joe Raasch -- a conversation partner and frequent contributor to this blog -- tagged me with the Think Different Challenge.

My challenge back to you is to think different about changing minds in your connection-making activities. The more tools we have to become connected, the less we learn to value the true meaning of connection. Are we in fact commoditizing connection? LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and heaven knows what else next -- knowing how to connect with the human being on the other side of the conversation requires more respect, tact, sense of timing and purpose than ever.

We can throw words out in the excitement of potentially greater visibility, but are we truly adding value? Think different about how genuine you are as you leave comments on blogs -- who is the comment for?  What to make of the heated discussion between Chris Anderson and readers about PR blockage? Were people trying to think different about changing minds?

How about when everyone gets in your way of getting your own blogging done? Rebecca Thorman shares from her experience -- it could be any of us. The only mind that matters is the one that wants to change itself, whether that be ours or someone else's is a matter of individual choice -- the point is "want to", not have to, must, need, etc.

And something in between PR and leadership. Because brands give us identity, stimulate our senses and enrich life experiences, it's human to affiliate and surround ourselves with things we know, trust and aspire to be. There is great resistance to changing minds even about brands, as Jack Trout writes.

My work sits at the intersection of all these disciplines, where the conversation is a departure and not an arrival.

"Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it." [Herman Hesse, Siddartha]

The Challenge

The Think Different Challenge is all about finding something in your life you currently have negative thoughts or feelings toward (e.g. work or your mother-in-law), and deciding to look at it differently. It is about realizing that some things are just a part of life, so we may as well try to find the positives in them. Follow the link to Joe's blog up top to find the rules for this writing project.

And now the fun part. I tag:

• Skellie at Skelliewag -- if this blog is not in your RSS reader, check it out
• Ann Michael at Manage to Change -- motto: ideas need to add up before the multiply
• Liz Strauss at Successful and Outstanding Blog(gers) -- because she can think different

I'd love to continue the conversation on thinking differently about changing minds here.

Man's Search for Meaning

"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life -- daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." [Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning]

Life is meaningful, yet the meaning is different for each person and it changes more often than one might think. Recognizing that life is meaningful is important for a successful navigation on the road to happiness.

People's ultimate quest is to the fulfillment of their personal version of what success looks like. Part of that conversation revolves around where people spend their time -- that's why culture is such an important part of work.

They call it the soft stuff, the touchy-feeling thing that at best gets a summer picnic and a holiday party in the winter. While it's great to have opportunities to come together in informal settings and celebrate, culture is so much more than that. If we take a look at the definition on Wikipedia (emphasis mine):

Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate,") generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance and importance. Different definitions of "culture" reflect different theoretical bases for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity.

Anthropologists understand "culture" to refer not only to consumption goods, but to the general processes which produce such goods and give them meaning, and to the social relationships and practices in which such objects and processes become embedded. For them, culture thus includes technology, art, science, as well as moral systems.

We spend a lot of time at work, some spend a lot of time creating new ways of working that affect social changes. A company's culture matters to its bottom line -- whether people have a way of employing skills, talent, technology and processes to advance ideas in products and services and can use values as a compass to gage direction is vital to the health of a business. Mike Wagner calls it Own Your Brand!

The interesting discussion on the Web 2.0 World being skunk drunk on its own kool-aid launched this week by Steve Rubel has inspired many comments from people to define and find meaning of actions with words. One comment by Evelyn Rodriguez really struck a chord with me:

About 18 months ago, it seemed to be a pivotal point here. Historically I thought it was like Florence maybe before the Renaissance. After a while you have so much wealth and so many riches from wool trade and the new world of banking finance, that they started applying that wealth towards the beautification of the city spreading the abundance into artistic, spiritual, and cultural endeavors too. However, as the economy (particularly Web 2.0 / VC-driven) kept getting better over the last 18 months that is not at all what happened here -- it seems rather that those with the cash use their wealth to pour it back into other startup ventures -- either their own, or as an angel.

To those who think that culture is the soft stuff, that culture can be dealt with if there is any time left over I say -- boo-ho. Culture matters a great deal. This whole conversation on social media is not about new shiny tools, it's actually about how we find meaning within new dynamics for relationships, connections, friendships, and markets, even the news cycles -- globally. The catalyst that allows so many people to start their own business today is technology; the reason is meaning. They are busy leaving behind bureaucracies that do not serve the people they were created to assist right when and where they need assistance.

"Everything can be taken from a man but ...the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." [Viktor Frankl]

Connection Kata: Your Blog Ecosystem

You may have noticed that my blog roll has some recent additions. There's a whole new section on relationships -- these are the bloggers who connect with people and with ideas. New links are Dawud Miracle, Tim Johnson (Carpe Factum) and Terry Starbucker (Ramblings from a Glass Half Full). I added a section for online publications I read and a brand new section of blogs written in Italian -- time to crank open those dictionaries; these writers are very well rounded.

If you don't notice that sort of thing when you visit other blogs, try doing so next time. The blog side bar says as much about the blogger as the content itself -- notice who they include, how frequently people update their blog rolls, and where the information is displayed.

Just like I put forth when I talked about LinkedIn, I add bloggers and publications only after I develop a relationship with them. That means I do one or all of the following -- read, comment, correspond and connect off line, or engage in a project like BrandingWire. There is a feedback loop with collaboration and conversation. My sidebar also mirrors the topics that are of interest and reflects the way I think.

One word about the dynamics of ecosystem -- whenever you introduce new elements into it, you may have a disruptive effect on the components of the existing environment. I would wager that if the new element is introduced as part of a strategy that adapts to the center and context of that ecosystem it makes the learnign curve less steep and the system itself more resilient.

The blog ecosystem illustrates how to maintain a very large network utilizing your personal resources in time and effort while making sure that everyone benefits. Hence why this post belongs to the kata series.

The Bow

Exchanging cards or greetings in blog terms may be an inbound link or one you followed on another blog you were reading. This is the equivalent of being introduced to someone by someone you know or know about. My stance is to listen, read, become familiar with the other person's environment and make mental notes of their expertise and interests.

During this phase I recommend being slow -- do take the time and if you don't have the time right now, make a point of coming back to it. Remember this is about the other first, then about how it relates to you. If content in blogs is king, attitude is queen; the connection happens somewhere in between:

• A well written piece contains an opinion -- and the voice of the author is all over it thus
• Interest and chemistry spark and
• The basis or foundation for an introduction begin to form

In some instances it takes upward of six months to a year to begin to approach a topic with someone new. Contrary to widespread perception, this does not depend directly on the number of inquiries a person receives; it is directly proportional to the quality of the inquiry as it relates to them.

The Practice

I am using the blog roll as a mini example of the way I have grown and assisted my network over the years. It is not possible to think that you'll be able to be in touch with everyone on a regular basis. Consider also that your interests and growth over time may take you farther away from where the connection began. This may not be very scientific, yet it's human nature. The brain loves novelty and will pay more attention to someone new at first.

At the roots of my blog ecosystem are the publishers who become friends and mentors -- these are the people who nourish and help me refresh my knowledge time and time again. In my case, love of learning is a number one strength. [To discover your strengths, take the VIA Signature Strength Questionnaire  that is part of Dr. Martin Seligman's Authentic Happiness project run at University of Pennsylvania.]

The categories are a way to introduce like-minded bloggers to each other more than an attempt to provide an exhaustive description of each blog. I think connectively and I see the patterns between groups; as well, each grouping includes one or two anchors -- bloggers who are more social, extroverted, available to a proactive conversation, connectors themselves.

For example, to pick just one -- David Armano among the essential blogs, Anna Farmery on branding, Mike Sansone for business, Geoff Livingston for communications, Connie Reece for ideas, CK and the Diva for marketing (my largest group), Kris Hoet for new media, Liz Strauss for relationships and Maurizio Goetz for the Italian blogs. Each group also includes deep researchers, original thinkers, thought leaders in their field, etc. They share with me curiosity and a bias for action of the connective kind.

Going back and thinking about professionals in your network in this new light, I bet you can come up with one or two ways to help the people in your network meet others with complementary skills and like minds. The point is that although you are at the center of your network, you are there only in your own view. This is one way to put others at the center of smaller networks of practice that are still within your ecosystem.

Do you use your sidebar as a strategy? Is that consistent with your brand and message? Do you have criteria you use to add people to your blog roll? 

Connection Kata: TLC for Your Network

A network doesn't just grow on trees, although the image can help us remember how it is maintained. You are the life force that helps it stay green and strong through its cycles. Expecting that others will do it for you is a recipe for disappointment.

The title of this post says it all -- your connections need tender and loving care (TLC) to flourish. This means attention, time, and the secret fairy dust: interest. In other words, it's not about you, it's about them. Before you can have a return on involvement with any activity, you need to have involvement. A connection is not a one time deal, it actually develops from an initial spark of interest. Imagine the life force of your connections as a positive spiral.

The Bow

At the center of that positive spiral (the roots of the tree) is the occasion that led to your coming in contact with another person. Maybe you were introduced by a common friend or acquaintance, maybe you just happened to be commenting on the same blog post. The mental bow is the personal acknowledgment of the other as a definite and distinct presence vs. an extension of us.

Let's list a few expressions of that:

1. while we talk, we remain present to the other
2. we try to figure out ways to help them
3. follow through with questions to clarify our interest

The Practice

I wrote that to go from start to success in creating a new network you must pass from quitting. What self-centric behaviors do we need to quit to be receptive to the other? I used to have a hard time remembering people's names. Although that was the product of my being a visual learner and not getting the pronunciation of a name right in my head, to others that might have seemed like lack of interest.

I learned to ask for a business card early on so I can give myself a visual impression and associate it with the person and story. My follow through is to wait a couple of days before entering their information on my Palm along with notes of resources and people they might enjoy. Depending on their communications preferences (when in doubt, just ask) I follow up with either a paper thank you card, an email or a phone call containing information about an event, a resource, or a person that might be of interest. On some occasions, I even sent a book. This is what I call putting 'skin in the game'.

Let the other person guide you in your choice of medium and timing. In the same breath, show interest early on and stay present to what you learned from the other in your follow up. There are times when I will pass on an idea for a blog post to someone whose sweet spot is that topic instead of publishing about it myself. Show interest in developing connections over time and you will go from start to success.

What questions have you not asked me? How can I help you go from start to success?

Connection Kata: The Gift

How can you always figure out what I needed and wanted? That is a comment I hear often from my family. My niece was born and grew up while I lived in another country and to this day, more than fifteen years later, she still says my long distance gifts are spot on.

Knowing what someone else will find useful requires a modicum of observation skills. It means taking the time to stand back from the other and see him/her as part of the canvas that is their context. In our haste to get close sometimes we may be too close to see and all we see is us watching. While it's also about you as the one making the gesture as a form of gift -- material or not -- mostly it's about the other.

It starts with being centered. This is the second installment of the new series I called connection kata after the honored tradition of Karate-dō, a martial art for the development of character through training. I'm sure you have noticed -- when you're relaxed, at peace with yourself, confident, emotionally neutral, loose, and free-floating, you are also this way in the world. What a gift that is to everyone.

Learning to observe and notice what others may need and want begins with self-awareness -- putting yourself in their shoes.

The Bow

We communicate a lot with our presence alone. Whether on the phone, by email, social networking tool, or face-to-face, the stance we have speaks volumes about us. Good dynamics when we enter conversations stem from remaining balanced in our core -- values and philosophy -- expressing good coordination of movement -- integrity as in keeping your promises and making meaning -- while remaining open to the same from others -- receptivity and learning.

Having good chemistry with someone also means there is balance in the conversation -- we feel we make an equal amount of gestures towards the other throughout. The consideration of who gives to whom is secondary when the emphasis is in meeting in a space in between.

What is the energy we carry with us? Is that a gift to the other?

The Practice

Clearly you have incomplete information about the people you meet, especially online, and you're not going to solve problems you may not know about just yet. So you start small and then build from there. The gift, or gesture, speaks as much to your contact as it does to your personal brand. Let me give you a quick example.

While networking with peers and local professional leaders I met with a senior level marketer at his new office -- he had been in the job for short few months and was quite enthusiastic about the company and its offerings. As those conversations go, we exchanged information about resources, people, and places to better our mutual opportunities.

I followed up with a thank you note the next day that included a set of coasters. I could have easily sent links to papers and studies we had discussed. Would he have had the time to read them? Would he have felt overwhelmed by too much information, especially since he was still new on the job? At that stage we did not know each other at all; I could have also sent a different message by assuming he had not found and used that same research.

During my visit, he offered me a glass of water and then a pad to put under the glass as not to put a ring on his nice wood desk. The set of coasters was appropriate to satisfy an immediate practical need and simple enough to send. That's where the opportunity was, with no strings attached. As it turns out, he was thrilled by the gesture.

Last holiday season at my (former) company we arranged a customer gift that was designed to help our customers succeed while at the same time give to the greater community. To sell it internally, I had to wrap it around a company-sponsored piece. Guess which part of the gift resulted in connections? Read more about the gesture here and the results here.

What do you communicate with a gift or gesture? Let others teach you what they need and want and keep observing how you enter the conversation and you'll be well on your way to connections. I have tons of examples, yet I would love to feature your questions. If you have a situation you'd like to inquire about, submit it as a comment here.

Next appointment we will talk about sustaining over time the connections sparked through a gesture.