Focus is Good for You

People have always used used metaphors to help them understand their world. As we became and industrial society we used to speak of the universe as running like a fine watch. Today, considering the influence of computers it’s no surprise that we speak of our mental capacity in terms of bandwidth. It turns out that neuroscientists have determined how fast our brains process information and it’s a finite amount in terms of bytes processed per second. That number is not the focus here, but the fact that it exists.

There is another similarity between our brains and computers. Just as when we switch from one program to another on our computers our brain must power down one form of application and then “boot” another application to perform disparate tasks.

Now, granted, for most of us this may happen faster than our awareness. None the less, that does not mean the process is not happening. Hence, when we multi-task (a misnomer in itself as we are simply performing series of sequential tasks) our brain must shut down and reboot between each unrelated task.

Research has shown that long term this behavior deteriorates the brain. So, let me encourage you to take or should I say, retake control of yourself. Instead of attempting to perform multiple tasks “simultaneously” give your complete attention to each task at hand. Contrary to popular belief, you’ll get more done and your brain will perform better, longer.

After all in the knowledge economy our brains are our only truly competitive advantage.

I Want My SM

President Obama’s use of social media (SM) in the campaign and now in his administration is getting a lot of attention. Everywhere I turn people are talking about SM. It reminds me of years ago when people were screaming “I want my MTV.” It appears SM is the next big thing. It is IT. I hear everything from SM is worthless to it’s priceless. I hear people asking “Why would I want to Tweet, Facebook, or get LinkedIn?” Other people claim their spouses are “addicted”. Still others preach the gospel that SM is the new communication Holy Grail. After all, look how successfully President Obama uses SM. The margin between Senator, now President Obama and Senator McCain mirrored the gap between the numbers of people registered on their respective SM sites.

May I encourage you to step back for a moment and recognize that SM is simply a collection of tools? In that sense it’s no different than print, broadcast and other online media. It has different characteristics and features, but in the end it’s simply a collection of new communication tools.

What set the Obama campaign apart from the McCain campaign wasn’t how they used these new tools, but why. It was about what they were trying to accomplish. Historically, market communicators tell people a message about their product. In the case of the election, Senators Obama and McCain were the products. Traditionally, it’s standard operating procedure to develop a series of talking points and to educate the sales/campaign staff to be able to consistently tell those points to everyone.

The Obama campaign did this. It also, asked people what was important to them. Then the campaign took action to address those issues locally. One of the most important responsibilities of leaders is to tighten communication between their followers. Senator Obama used SM not only to talk to his followers, but also to listen to them and then the campaign used SM to organize his followers to take action. His new media team made it easier for people to create the change they wanted.

I think SM has great potential for initiating and strengthening relationships with prospects and customers alike. So, let me encourage you to open a Facebook or a LinkedIn account. Play around for awhile, lurk, and watch how people are using these new “toys”. Once you’ve experienced them you’ll start to think of ways to use these tools strategically. It will take patience, but remember it took time to learn how to effectively use radio and TV to achieve marketing results.

Look for me on Facebook and LinkedIn and thanks for reading this blog.

Realizing Insight by Stating Unstated Assumptions

The field of Economics can be summed up in one sentence: people respond to incentives. This premise coupled with the ever constant pursuit to understand the cause and effect relationship of events are foundations of western thought. It’s this drive to discern the causes of behavior that drives people to search for answers when predicted behavior fails to materialize.

One of Mark Twain’s more amusing quotes is, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.” That quote never fails to bring a smile to my lips. Not because I believe numbers lie; given our business of course I don’t. But because, numbers can be manipulated to serve whatever position someone wishes to support.

I bring up these three isolated concepts not to debunk them, but to raise our consciousness as we pursue understanding our customers. Many of us have built huge repositories of data chronicling the behavior of our current and prospective customers. We believe that within these oceans of data lies hidden the keys to understanding their future behavior. And, perhaps, it does.

In his best seller, Freakonomics, Steven Levitt encourages us to pull back and look for relationships between apparently unrelated subject areas. Some of his insights about such varied topics as lowered crime rates, the motivations of salespeople and parenting all required the willingness to consciously examine and then question unstated perceptions and commonly held explanations.

So, let me encourage you to examine the obvious. It’s difficult, because most unstated assumptions seem so obvious that it feels condescending to even mention them. Taking the risk to seem foolish stating the “givens”, questioning their current validity and then looking at all of our data can be the beginning of discerning earth shaking new insights.

We are finding that given the current economy getting the basics right is now more important than ever. Remember, at one time it was common knowledge that the sun revolved around the earth.

It’s a Matter of Attitude

I admit it I was eavesdropping. I couldn’t help it. They were talking right next to me and they weren’t being very quiet. It was a couple of small business owners. They looked to be in their late thirties or early forties. The woman was talking to the man about the struggle she was having growing her business and he was offering what seemed like helpful suggestions. Now, I’ve already admitted I was listening what I haven’t told you is how hard it was for me not to join in.

Relax, I didn’t chime in, but I wanted to. Why? Well, because the man was offering some sound suggestions about how the woman could take advantage of social media to reach her target market. She was polite, but she wasn’t having any of it. Every tool he suggested she dismissed. “I don’t have time for that.” “What am I going to say?” “That’s a waste of time.” “They’re just kids online anyway.”

Now, this isn’t about age or gender. I’ve heard enough of these conversations where the woman was advocating the new social media platforms or where an older person was engaged with new tools and a younger person was resistant.

No, what this is about is resistance to change. I’ve heard it said that when
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone people thought of it as a novelty. Why would anyone want to talk to someone 100 miles away? You can write them a letter. Seems absurd in our world today where we use mobile phones to talk to people in the same room. Good or bad, the fact is you reach people where you can and if you can’t be bothered to reach out to people where they are you’re unlikely to reach them at all.

The new social mediums are unfamiliar to the majority of people. It’s no different from the early days of radio, TV and for that matter the Internet itself. There will always be a next new thing. That’s just another fact in our ever changing world. That does not alleviate the need on the part of business people to keep abreast of the new media. As business owners we need to build awareness of our goods and services with our target audiences. No awareness, no interest; no interest, no desire; no desire and nobody will do business with us.

Don’t let your lack of familiarity stop you from exploring the new social media. One of the greatest challenges that all business owners face today is remaining relevant to our customers. Overcome your discomfort and investigate Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter, and Delicious, et al. You figured out how to drive a car because you were motivated. You can figure this out, as well. It’s just a matter of deciding you’re going to do it.

A Delicious Idea

The media is a buzz these days about Social media. So, I’m going to try and
offer some guidance about one of the new tools. Seth Godin says one of the prime responsibilities of a leader is to make it easier for followers to communicate with one another; to tighten up the tribe so to speak. Delicious
is a cool tool for allowing people to manage their own information and to share their “library” with one another.

I’ve heard the Internet and the World Wide Web described as many things over the years. The one that has stuck with me is, “The World Wide Web is like the Library of Congress with all of the books thrown onto the lobby floor and no card catalog.”

That’s what makes Delicious, so delicious. Among other things; it’s the missing card catalog.

Delicious is a self-proclaimed “social bookmarking service that allows you to tag, save, manage and share Web pages all in one place. With emphasis on the power of the community, Delicious greatly improves how people discover, remember and share on the Internet”.

Delicious has four main components: Bookmarks, People, Tags and Search.

It uses Bookmarks to archive information just like your web browser.

It has a People section, like Facebook. It’s called your Network and it’s a people aggregator. It allows you to see what people you respect feel is important and provides a venue for you to share what you think is important.

It allows you to Tag articles. This is the card catalog feature. You get to attach multiple designations or categories to individual articles.

Then there’s the Search engine which allows you to search the articles you’ve tagged, those tagged by the people in your network as well as those articles tagged by everyone who uses Delicious.

When I decided I wanted to write about this I searched “Delicious” and over 9,000 articles appeared. That wasn’t helpful. So, I added “useful” to my search and the results were narrowed down to just over 2,000 articles. Now I could have continued refining my search, but after a quick scan I found an article that interested me on the first screen.

Now, there is no such thing as a free lunch. It will take a few minutes to set up your account and a little trial and error reading the very helpful Help section, but the payoff is well worth the investment. I’m sure there will be additional big things coming along any day, but in the here and now; Delicious is our flavor de jour. You can find us on Delicious at http://delicious.com/Mindspot or by clicking on the Delicious badge to the right.

Meaningful Work

In Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers, The Story of Success, he makes a few points I think we’d all benefit from recognizing.

Success is a combination of talent, hard work, and opportunity. There’s an old saying that luck is where preparation meets opportunity and in each of his stories this holds true.

Every one of the stories is about people who had an interest in something and they worked at developing their skills. In the case of the musicians, programmers and athletes; our heroes were passionate about what they were doing. Honing their skills was play.

In every case, the protagonists were doing meaningful work. Whether they were farmers, lawyers or tailors they invested time in getting good at what they did. How much time? 10,000 hours. In all of his examples Gladwell found that his heroes had worked for ten years developing their skills before opportunity knocked.

Ten years? 10,000 hours? What a daunting thought. Surprisingly not when you consider that Bill Gates was just 14 when he started playing around with a computer. What do you enjoy doing? What skills have you developed? Take some time for self reflection and inventory your skills. Pay attention to those things that your interest and hopefully passion have led you to invest your time.

Then take a look at the world today. I call it market research; you might as well, too. Look and see where your skills, those talents you’ve honed, can meet a need or better yet fulfill a desire.

You never know, you may have unconsciously been preparing for today. You may have to invest more time, but when you develop the level of proficiency we’re talking about here, putting those skills to work feels like play.

Success for all of us is within our reach, today. Assess your skills and look for the opportunity to apply them to meaningful work. A good place to start is Gladwell’s new book. Listen to it on your iPod if you can’t find time to read.

There’s meaningful work out there for all of us.

How Does Your Social Media Brand Stack Up?

Do you know what’s being said about your business? Do you know whether people think your latest product launch was a success or a big flat-out fail? If you think you do know what’s being said about you online, if you’re not using social media then think again.

Far from being an Internet fad that only a select few use, social media and its list of tools and applications is fast becoming the most important business tool online. Not only can it let you know what’s being said about you, it can also help you with market research, sales, PR, customer interaction and much more.There are many different sites and tools available to help businesses get the most out of social media, some better than others. But one that is beginning to stand head and shoulders above the rest is micro-blogging site Twitter.

Business in 140 Characters

The beauty of Twitter and its use to businesses and professionals is the simplicity in which it works. Users open a Twitter account, choose a username, set up a profile and that’s it – you’re ready to start communicating.

By only allowing a maximum of 140 characters to converse with at any one time, Twitter also ensures that the majority of its users converse effectively. Yes, there will always be the odd, “My cat’s breath smells of cat food!” moment but you can filter these out. If you want Twitter to be used mostly as a business tool, then you can choose who you follow and who follows you (“follows” are your connections).

For anyone that hasn’t used Twitter yet because they don’t feel it offers any value to businesses, consider this:

• An advertising campaign by pharmaceutical company Motrin (part of the Johnson-Johnson brand) had to be pulled after complaints from the Twitter community that it was demeaning to mothers.
  
  
• Charity fundraisers on Twitter alone raise thousands for good causes like the 12for12K Challenge and Tweetsgiving.
  

When these types of results and other like them happen because people are simply conversing online, that’s the sign of a powerful business tool. Yet like the best tools, there are ways that Twitter should and shouldn’t be used.

DO:
- Converse with your audience.
- Offer quality input and share advice.
- Listen to what’s being said.
- Mix the people you’re following as opposed to just your niche.

DON’T:
- Use Twitter simply to broadcast your own message.
- Add followers by the hundreds at first – take the time to add quality contacts instead.
- Direct Message people with a link to your website or sales product immediately after you’ve connected.
- Forget that everything said on Twitter always has an audience somewhere.

There are many tools that you can then use when you become used to Twitter to enhance tour experience of it, both business and personal. But that’s another blog post. In the meantime, if you’re not using Twitter already it’s probably about time you saw what you are missing.