The Most Treasured Gift

In the Information Age the most treasured gift is information.

Blogging, information is often a unique definition, your point of view.

Post!

Comment!

Do It Now!

Why We Comment

Commenting is an honor and a privilege. What readers often don’t realize is how much they can add to a post by commenting.

The old model was “broadcast.” Your radio, television, or newspaper communicated “at” you. The result was lowest common denominator news, education, and entertainment.

In 1999, the Cluetrain Manifesto started with “All Markets Are Conversations” (meaning two-way), and the genie was out of the bottle. Today, those traditional broadcast channels are adding conversational opportunities to halt their audience erosion.

Most of the comments I get on my posts expand and enrich my understanding of each subject. I am grateful.

When I see comments on other blogs, they usually increase the believability of a post while adding new data.

Commenting is an acquired skill. We get better with practice. Commenting seldom takes much effort, and a thoughtful comment improves understanding.

In the future, when you have the opportunity, please comment.

Might as well start here! *grin*

Cirque du Soleil's social media balancing act

A post by Jennifer Leggio, ZDNet

How Cirque du Soleil is using a mix of blogger relations and social network outreach to help grow attendance for all of its home and traveling shows.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/feeds/?p=2551&tag=nl.e539

Building Better Blog Posts

Just read a great blog post on “It’s A COBOL World” called “A Customer Visit” by an old friend. “It’s a COBOL World” is about COBOL, the workhorse of business computer processing, and the team of writers on the blog are passionate about getting more out of the code.

“A Customer Visit” addressed people’s attitudes going into a project and how good attitudes improve the value of the project. As General Colin Powell said, “Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.”

So what did I learn about better blog posts?

A better blog post will expand our knowledge either by showing something about the main subject, or more often by bringing a side issue or a part issue into sharper focus, defining the value.

That definition is best presented as a story.

How many examinations of almost-the-same subjects are worth writing about?

All of them. Different readers find different value, see “One Man’s Wingnut Is Another Man’s Guru.”

General Powell said it one way, “A Customer Visit” said it a different way. Maybe the third way will light the spark for someone, maybe it’s a cumulative effort. It doesn’t matter. Figure your readers are interested in your subject. Concentrate on making the story interesting.

And now, the next step…(comments?)

Social media = letting others in

"You can't take advantage of the connectivity, reach and viral nature of the beast without also being willing to connect, reach many people and let others share. It's like wanting to enjoy the sensation of flying over the water in a boat at high speed but without the engine noise. It's the "other people" part of social media that provides its power."

From "Drew's Marketing Minute," Drew McLelland, proprietor. Read the full post at http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com/2010/01/social-media-letting-others-in.html

One Woman’s Wingnut Is Another Man’s Guru

The Alexandria Chamber’s Internet Engagement Forum is a project Joe Shumard and I are leading to see how far we can get Chamber members to take advantage of the Internet.

At our meeting yesterday, there was a lot of interest in moving forward…by extending current practices.

We had several people who were experienced in email broadcast marketing, looking forward to finding better ways to do broadcast email marketing.

I remembered the first time I read Doc Searle’s, “Marketing is a conversation” in The Cluetrain Manifesto. I didn’t get it.

People I respected told me it was important, but it wasn’t until I tried it that I began to understand the incredible power of this new paradigm.

Let’s say I want to get an audience for a show. I can send a bunch of emails (control the message, control the platform) and get a small response. As an alternative, I can send the same message to people and let them comment. What happens?

Turns out the feedback has been a better title, some ideas of who else to approach, some stories that make my point, and finding out I may have forgotten to include price, location, or time.

My readers are improving and expanding my message. Sending a broadcast instead of a conversation means I would miss these valuable tips.

What happens if someone writes something awkward? Well, first everyone else can see it is awkward. Second, I invoke Sturgeon’s Law, “Ninety percent of everything is crud.”

However, I have also seen that people find important revelations in the crud, leading to Dick’s Assertion, “One Woman’s Wingnut is Another Man’s Guru.”

But ah, when a new idea gets up and is adopted by hundreds, when that idea changes some part of society, that’s why we are playing. That’s learning how to play this instrument.

The AlexChamber Internet Engagement Forum meets monthly and is open to all members of the AlexChamber. We are encouraging more participants.

Programming Note - Over the weekend I put up a new page showing some of the best “How To” posts on Through The Browser at http://www.dickdavies.com/blog. Please take a look!

What do you think?

Fail Forward Faster!

Attended an impressive meeting of the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce Small Government Contractors Consortium. Had some 20 companies represented.

We developed a series of ideas for integrating Web 2.0 into existing businesses and I was amazed by how everyone seemed to like someone else’s idea better than their own.

This was practical thinking by people running operating companies. None of the solutions would take more than a day to implement, and they seemed to be ideas they had been considering for some time.

The biggest hurdle was writing the page of what to accomplish.

My favorite ideas were how to strengthen a LinkedIn page,
Joining the AlexChamber LinkedIn group, and
Setting up a web page.

If you had one thing you could do to improve your business, what would it be?

Rethinking Quality of Knowledge

The other day Joe said, “I like your posts. I was there when some of the events you write about happened, and the others fit my philosophy. People need a philosophy to understand what they learn.”

Stoat told me about a study that showed that a high percentage of Marine Corps officers never achieve the same level of responsibility and compensation as their final positions in the Corps. They had a framework for the Corps that didn’t transfer to civilian life.

An IDE (Integrated Development Environment – Software where programmers build code) costs about as much as a car and lasts about as long.

I step in front of education as much as I can. I find I get the most value when it is practical and when it is something I care about.

Saint Bumpersticker had two pronouncements on knowledge. First, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance,” followed by, “The problem with ignorant people is not that they don’t know enough, but that they know too much that is not true.”

I think we are in a time when our roles and responsibilities are changing at a speed we have never seen before. Think about what it means when your last name is Carpenter, Fisher, Mason, or Farmer. Families were doing the same jobs for generations.

We may be working more hours than we imagined, but there is so little physical exercise, we have to schedule that separately or lose health and mobility.

We have to rethink our acquisition and use of knowledge.

What are the best parts of your knowledge strategy?

The Value of Commenting

We had a fun presentation last week, “Building Your Social Media Platform” at the Leadership Breakfast of Maryland. As part of the presentation, we asked participants to post on my blog, Through The Browser. So far we have 13 comments.
One of the organizers expected more comments.
“How many were you expecting?”
“I was expecting more.”
I have been thinking about that for a few days.
First, we already have a one-out-of-three response rate. Direct mail measures response in hundredths and thousandths. Print advertising is less.
Second, as usual, the commenters educated the presenter. I was amused, provoked, and moved forward by the thinking in the comments.
Third, our combined information is now available to others. I plan on making this presentation several times next year and adding to the comments on this post. I might like to know about a presentation before I attend, I may have a better informed audience in the future, and I expect further comments are going to expand our knowledge of the subject.
Finally, I was already in a meeting with these 40 people for almost two hours. I don’t believe I learned as much through the conversations in person as I learned from the comments.
Your comments? *grin*

The Best Defense Is NOT Being Offensive

Two “hunh?” experiences last week.
A friend was meeting another friend for the first time to discuss an opportunity. While prepping for the meeting he got off into, “Well if he even thinks of saying that, I’m gonna…” building a fantasy disaster.
I thought of that smart guy who said “of all the horrible occurrences in my life, very few of them actually happened.”
If I expect the worst, anybody around me who is paying attention knows it and adjusts. Every time.
Then there was a reader who got quite exercised by my ceaselessly promoting my financial business. Wow! I learned a long time ago that there are words people and numbers people and I am most definitely a words people.
I searched for some other posts from the guy to get an idea of where he was coming from…couldn’t find any other posts. Looks like his first comment in this marvelous new world was a flame. I am so sorry.
Thinking about it, I’m going to deny that the best defense is being offensive. Sure you hurt people when you catch them by surprise, but it’s not sustainable, and I can’t think of a valuable lesson I learned from someone expressing their anger.

The Alexandria Experiment

Joe Shumard and I are planning an experiment to encourage the members of the Alexandria, Virginia Chamber of Commerce to adopt Web 2.0 technology for their businesses. Joe was one of the original Sales Lab Irregulars and now does Membership for the Alexandria Chamber.

Joe found me when he was developing a tag line for the Chamber. He remembered my tagline and searched to see whether it was still being used. I was all over the page. That search and Joe's deal-making skills produced this assignment.

I think we are in a renaissance of how business is being done, and as more and more people use the internet for research, mastering internet marketing becomes increasingly important.

We both believe that asking business owners to invest in untried technologies is hard on the salesman, so we will be showcasing successful free and low cost ways to build new business channels.

My post Friday on the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce LinkedIn Group was about how I built a free website using Google Standard Apps.

We will be discussing how websites, blogs, and social networks are used together to create extraordinary marketing. The technology is here. Let's use it now!

Comments?