Archives for July 2010

What if I Want to be Invisible?

July 29, 2010 by Ian 3 Comments

You’re a creative for a large corporation – a community manager perhaps, or a copywriter. Even a developer of internal documents and programs. A knowledge worker. You’re exceedingly good at what you do – you’ve been called into the C-suite a number of times to help out with disasters, and people in general respect you.

You work from a coffee shop off the main roads. You bring your laptop, your notebooks, your very high quality headphones. You go early, set up near the power outlet, and dig in long before the staff even has the sleep out of their eyes. You take your time – sometimes your day is ten hours long, but you bill the company for eight, reliably. You work, you watch. You’re the quintessential cafe witness.

You want to be invisible.

Why? Beyond being a leader in your workplace, you’re a thought leader in your industry. You’re on Twitter – TweetDeck, or HootSuite, or whatever you’re using to broadcast/aggregate never closes. You’re even penning a book. You’re on the verge of celebrity. Why would you want to downplay your achievement by sitting in a coffee shop silently, away from the office where you are respected, and tap away silently at a laptop for ten hours every day?

Because you want to do your work.

Not everyone is motivated by achievement. Some people are motivated by quality, production, and the satisfaction that comes with results. Not by the visible marks those results make on the world. Community – that amorphous, diverse ideal of ongoing human interaction and interpersonal support – requires so thoroughly the work that these people do, but has no accurate compensation for them which does not strip them of their self-defined invisibility.

Our rewards for good work are fairly one-dimensional. Money. Fame. Notoriety. Power. All of these things are seen as just rewards for ongoing contribution to a community. But how do we ascribe power to those who choose to abdicate it? How can we respect people who walk away from what the rest of us see as opportunity to shine, to be heard – to be seen?

Invisibility can be a great ally, especially for knowledge workers in large communities. How do we encourage our people to discover whether this is a tool they can use effectively?

The Power of Observation

July 28, 2010 by Nic Wirtz 6 Comments

This is a guest post from the brilliant Nic Wirtz – if you’re not familiar with Nic, you’re missing out.

If you have ever tried to learn a foreign language you will know the frustration of reaching a level of comprehension where what you understand is greater than what you can say.

After five years experience of both French and German it was one of those cruel twists of fate that at 17 I decided Spanish was a step too far and being trilingual was sufficient. Trilingual being defined as getting good exam marks but having the grand total of two weeks’ worth of in-country experience. Clearly my crystal ball was out of order that day as 13 years later I found myself on a Spanish-speaking island, engaged to a thankfully bilingual native Spanish speaker. Hindsight’s smug, contemptuous wave reinforced thoughts that the decision to ditch Spanish was not the greatest I’d made.

In a position where the normal skills you possess were fairly useless, base instinct and observation proved a fine alternative.

It seems oxymoronic that a passive skill like observation can have power. We are constantly bombarded by demands for activity. Social media enthusiasts are keen on “ENGAGEMENT”, chanting it like a deranged, but social media aware, Dalek. Engagement is the key to success, everyone from an individual through small businesses to multinationals should be engaging people to progress. The ENGAGEMENTdb report claims that engagement is directly linked to financial success.

Taking a step back and creating time to reflect is akin to dropping out and leading an alternative lifestyle and this is where proponents of engagement miss out. Where is the analysis? Where is the relaxation time where we are at our most creative? Where is the chance to reflect on a problem rather than outsourcing it to our network?

We learn more when we our taken out of our comfort zone than when we are enmeshed in it. The computer screen for many of us is our comfort zone, perhaps to the extent of creating different off/online personas in some. I am happy to describe myself as a homebody but leaving England and living in a foreign land has been the biggest confidence boost I’ve experienced.

Actual living, not location independence living with weeks here and there, generally at a tourist trap, but actually living. Seeing the day-to-day struggles of a country where 56% of the population live in poverty and 17% on less than a dollar a day. Observing basic life where getting to the next day is a triumph in itself is humbling.

Doing business in a foreign land is a race to understand culture, language, history and more. The empowerment occurs when you don’t have a fancy command of a language, all the latest electronic toys and whatever business trend is all the rage. Observation is empowerment, when you and your gut is the only thing you can rely on.

Having spent five years with a gradually increasing command of Spanish, I’m happy to report that I rely much more on my observation and instincts than I do what people are saying to me. Although there have been moves to debunk the 93% of communication is non-verbal myth, the myth originated from a UCLA study that said up to 93% of communication effectiveness is determined by non-verbal cues. Another study concluded that non-verbal communication was closer to 55%.

How often do you test that theory?

Why are we so hooked up on what people say or write? Adults train themselves for years on how to lie verbally, whether it is in business, to their spouses or to their kids.

Observing gives many advantages to those that do it well. A better understanding of our relationships, improved decision-making skills, problem solving and problem awareness. Arguably the greatest skill to have in any customer service business is the ability to listen. From listening we can find the best ways to help and influence our clients. If you see your role as a blogger or manager as a facilitator or knowledge steward, observing is imperative. Collaboration is another keyword in progressive business and if this is to continue, an observer is necessary to collate and dispense shared knowledge.

Two of the most passive skills we have are incredibly important to our continued success. Coincidentally one benefit of passive skills that most bloggers practice regularly is an observational one – recognizing and emulating successful behaviour. The influence that the high profile bloggers have rubs off on others, so in our rush to engage we are also absorbing

Has my reliance on observation been a success? Perhaps personally more than business-wise, although that is coming now social media is filtering out of the North America/Asia/European bastions. More and more business are asking what is this Twitter or Facebook thing and how can it help us? Currently I am aiding a UNESCO city of culture in its attempt to re-establish itself as a tourist destination. This has been a detour from my past experiences but a fascinating opportunity for highlighting social media.

In future, if it gets to a stage where I am going to have to take a more active part in meetings, I will be using a colleague to just sit in on them. No participation, little if any note taking, just observing.

Now over to you. Is your business actively promoting passive skills? What success stories have you had from doing so?

Image by cvander.

If you have read this post and still want to connect with Nic, he’s currently camped out on Twitter @nicwirtz.

Notes from #blogchat – Open Mic Night

July 25, 2010 by Ian 7 Comments

Tonight’s #blogchat was Open Mic! Anything goes! A reminder – here are the details about #blogchat, from the Mack himself.

First off, @salamicat asked – how do you build your blog’s audience? It turns out @prosperitygal has a radio show, which is awesome, but for the rest of us – a lot of cross-platform promotion is in order. Promoting blog on twitter and Facebook is much easier than promoting on your own space. If no one’s around, who can hear it? Organic growth through 360 degree engagement is the key.

(In an aside, Nic Wirtz and I joked about Social Media Daleks spouting ENGAGEMENT! ENGAGEMENT! – we’ll explain this week.)

Then @cherylfenton asked how big a deal comments were. Of course, there was a lot of discussion about how to go after comments, but at the end of the day, comments are only handy if you’re looking to foster a discussion. Otherwise, writing for comments – or even encouraging them – is useless for some “hard declarative” posts.

There was a question about exploring archives – I’m a huge proponent of this! For you WordPress people, there’s a plugin called Insights – gives you an in-blog search right on the post page to allow for easier archive searches. very handy, especially for drill-down referencing.

There was also a question about self-editing. I wrote something for this – but decided it needed to be redacted. (consensus; self-editing is good until you hit publish. Then, it’s “Typos Are Forever”)

15 minutes in and I’m lost! Tangent time! 3 Guest Post coupons into the water!

Oh yeah, organized posting times. I try to drop at 8am, 4pm or 10pm, and retweet the posts during the remaining available slots of those beofre my next posts. I spent the last week dropping posts at 4pm, and saw a significant increase in traffic. This week, it’ll be 7:30am as a control to see if the time actually meant anything. @danperezfilms tweets his posts hourly and sees good uptake – I may give this a shot too, but keep worrying it’ll annoy people. Would it annoy you?

And then this happened:

@MackCollier: If you got invited to speak at a major SM conf, what would your topic be? Make that your next blog post #blogchat

What a challenge! I may just take it up this week.

Open Mic night is always unpredictable. this week, people were going nuts – in the best possible way! Unfortunately, my head exploded halfway through, meaning I missed the storm of awesomeness.

So, yeah. I totally lost track of the chat. What kind of gold did I miss? What else can we add to what we learned?

TweepML Participants’ List for #blogchat, July 25th 2010

What the Hashtag transcript for #blogchat, July 25th 2010

Image by Tanki.

The Full-Circle Approach – SEO for Bloggers Part 7

July 25, 2010 by Ian Leave a Comment

As much as we bloggers love to focus on it, SEO is really a small consideration for us – or should be.

The heck, you say! Getting found is the paragon of publishing success!

Yes. It is. But let me explain.

Search Engine Optimization, as a process, is fairly straightforward. It’s about giving a robot, like Google, a very precise, very clear view of what your content is, how it relates to the rest of the web, and why you deserve more points for quality and relevance on certain subjects than other websites do. It’s an almost religious-scale obsession for some web workers, because we know so little about how the robot works, and what really has an effect on the rankings.

Bloggers have it fairly easy. Where some sites struggle for rankings on their own business names, we have an opportunity to work both towards our readers’ benefits, and align our sites with the robots’ required signs of quality. How? Because we know the following;

The robot loves content. New, fresh, refreshed sites draw the robot back for more. If we’d just write our darn blogs, we can already have a head start over other classes of website.

The robot loves consistency. If we make sure our content is on purpose, rather than shooting off on tangents, we’re sending signs that we’re worth authority.

The robot LOVES consistency! Schedule, will you? Keeping on top of our internal calendars gives us yet another advantage.

People love taking action, and the robot loves seeing action taken. Bookmarking, revisiting – any actions the robot can tell are available to the visitors of a site send signals that interactivity is available. It’s good for the people, thus good for the robot.

People like to share – and when sharing happens (in certain ways) the robot takes notice. Having your pieces passed on, or passing on the work of others, sends yet more signals that your site is worth paying attention to – not just to the robot, but to the people who are looking for something to pay attention to!

We all love to talk, especially to each other. Content is relevance. Updated content is increased relevance. Discussion on, around, or about your site is a huge indicator that you may be engaging with people, and the robot loves signs of interactivity. So do people, by the way. don’t we?

Back up and thing about that for a second. Content is relevance.

Bloggers have unique opportunities. Where business, individuals, and all manner of website creators have to think about information architecture, content strategy, and minutiae of all kinds, for the blogger, the content IS the strategy. We can say whatever we like, sure, but building a set of guidelines for ourselves, encouraging people to get on board with what we’re saying, and over all making our blogs useful, puts us far ahead of the game.

How can you put this into action for yourself?

Like this? Get more! Subscribe by RSS and never miss a post.

Or, read the entire SEO for Bloggers series from the start to see where we’re coming from.

Just Write
On Purpose
The Editorial Calendar
Get More of This
Let’s Share!
Join the Conversation

I’d like you to join the conversation. What have we missed so far? What needs revisiting? What kind of opportunities can we take from developing our content intentionally?

Image by Frerieke.

Join the Conversation – SEO for Bloggers Part 6

July 24, 2010 by Ian 1 Comment

I want to hear your story, just as much as you want to hear mine.

It’s not creepy. It can be – but inherently, keeping up with people is not creepy. Community is about sharing. We need things to share – they have to be worth something, and we need to give people permission to get more. But at the end of the day, there are basically three modes of communication we have access to.

Listening – where we take things in
Broadcasting – where we put ourselves out there, and
Conversing – where we do both.

Broadcasting is very mechanical. Throwing information over the wall requires effort, which is good. However, when nothing comes back in – or when we create the expectation that we’re only encouraging others to listen – we’re not engaging in community.

Listening has a similar problem. You can aggregate all the data you want, but if you don’t allow for analysis, for communication back to the data’s sources about it’s meaning, you’re still not engaging in community.

Conversation is an ongoing exchange that’s impossible to mimic by only listening or only broadcasting. Eventually, to converse, you have to switch between the modes, and play with the results of reversed flow. And, in order for the conversation to continue, the party you are engaging must reciprocate and reverse their own flow at the same time. Otherwise we’re either listening in mutual silence, or broadcasting toward each other. Not constructive.

Businesses are accustomed to broadcasting. For years, it’s dominated how they get in front of existing and potential customers. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this – except that it’s limited and limiting for both parties involved.

There’s a movement toward communication with business, instead of communications from business. From an SEO standpoint, this is good – conversation means fresh content. Fresh content means food for the Great Index. Feeding the index means higher relevance.

All business – all people – want to be relevant. Conversation directly increases relevance.

So how can businesses – really, how can any broadcast medium (bloggers included) find opportunities to reverse the flow? Simple;

Listen for answers to the questions you will ask,
Publicize the answers for questions you are asked,
Engage with people at the same pace with which they engage you, and
Look for every opportunity to reverse the flow – from whichever direction you are currently taking.

In the case of communication beyond simple listening and broadcasting, adaptation is highly desirable. We need to take action on a consistent basis. Sometimes that means halting the broadcast, and listening to criticism. Sometimes it means listening to praise. Sometimes it means speaking up, getting your word out in a new area. there are opportunities all over the place.

Bloggers can take advantage of this in a lot of ways. I’d love to know some of your tricks. How do you encourage conversation? And, what do you do with what’s being pushed your way?

Image by woodleywonderworks.