Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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July 6, 2009

What We Gotta Know about These Tools

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 1:14 pm

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It’s Not What Comes After Twitter …

With the advent of SOBCon Hands-On event partnerships, I’m enjoyng the pleasure of forming relationships and working alongside people who share my business passions organizations, businesses, and individuals learning to serve their markets by working online and off seamlessly. Watch for them in the next few weeks.

The authentic candor of the conversations with Susan Kuhn Frost, Gio Galluci, Erica O’Grady, DDGriffith and Starbucker has totally convinced me that teaching the tools isn’t an end in itself.

Businesses of every size seem confused about integrating the Internet — they see social media tools as key drivers of business. Social media tools don’t build a business.

I keep thinking of an editor with a writing assignment. She had talent, experience, and the best equipment to use to write the piece she was assigned. She came to me on day three, saying that she just couldn’t do it.

After a few minutes, the problem was easy to spot. All of the tools in the world wouldn’t fix it.

She hadn’t decided — didn’t know — exactly what she wanted to say.

You can’t use the tools of a writer if you don’t know that.

Gotta Know the Goal Before the Tool Is Gonna Help

To bring it down to it’s most basic form, the business that picks up the tools first without setting goals first won’t don’t do well.

Email, telephone, Twitter, any tool is only as useful as it match to the purpose. Not the other way around.

If we want to be successful using social media tools, we need to know a few things to make the tools work:

Just like the editor, who had to know what she wanted to say to use the tools at her disposal …

I’ve decided to let the other guys worry about what comes after Twitter … from the pencil to to the typewriter to the telephone to the computer … they’re all tools.

We gotta know what we’re using these tools to do.

Have you seen people get so involved in a tool like Twitter that they’ve used it without really having a goal?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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10 Comments to “What We Gotta Know about These Tools”

  1. July 6th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
    Max said

    how come it says: “The snacks and beverages are keep in sidebar” I looked twice and could not find any snacks or beverages.

  2. July 7th, 2009 at 12:03 am
    Tim Bursch said

    Yep. I would be guilty of jumping in without a goal. At least at first. The thing that is attractive is the people factor and connecting with really cool people. But that alone does not pay the bills or keep companies running. So, yeah we need to know why first and remember these are just tools.

  3. July 7th, 2009 at 4:45 am
    Karin H said

    Hi Liz

    Have you seen people get so involved in a tool like Twitter that they’ve used it without really having a goal?

    Happens every time a new tool is raved about. Like the arrival of the ‘band-wagon’, everyone wants to jump on because it sounds so good. But only the driver of the wagon and the band members know where it’s going and jumping on might bring you where you had no intentions at all of going.
    Done it, been there too.

    Now I listen to the music and see if it is in harmony with my own tune. If so, I jump on.

    Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)

  4. July 7th, 2009 at 6:38 am
    Jim McGee said

    You’re absolutely right about the primacy of goals over tools but…

    There’s also an important dimension with all tools of becoming comfortable with your tools before you can use them to full advantage. Someone who cares about their craft needs to set aside time to play with and experiment with new tools to become proficient with them before they can apply them to their goals.

    Word processors and mindmapping tools, for example, let you write in different ways than paper and pencil or typewriters. It’s very hard to learn that if you leap directly into a goal-driven use of new tools before you’ve played with them.

    Goals come first, tools come after. Serious play with the tools has to happen in between if we hope to take full advantage of the tools in meeting our goals.

  5. July 7th, 2009 at 10:13 am
    Allen Mireles said

    Excellent reminder for all of us. Goals first and tools come after. And, the tools will change while the benefits of two-way conversation and sharing information remain.

    I also appreciated Jim McGee’s comment that serious play with the tools has to come in between.

  6. July 7th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Tim,
    I think at first when we discover new tools … like when we first found crayons … we go search around for a way to use them. Then as the tools become part of our environment, we realize that they particularly suit certain goals and situations far better than others. That’s when I think we really start using them.

    I agree that the rent and positive outcomes are great drivers to getting the useless tool time out of the way. :)

  7. July 7th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Karin,
    Your bandwagon analogy is so perfect for the movement on the Internet these days. I sit here chuckling and enjoying the picture. I’ve been on a few in my own days. Like you now, I mostly watch the parade. :)

  8. July 7th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Jim!
    So great to see you!
    The idea that we need to learn our domain before we can get creative is basic and important … learn the scales before you try to be a jazz musician. Once there were people who made a living teaching companies how to use word processing programs. Now knowing the software is an expectation and we’re back to worrying about how well we contruct our messages.

    I agree we have to know how the tools work before we can apply them to our goals. I am also with you in that we can fall in love with the hammer and turn everything into a nail. heh heh

  9. July 7th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Allen,
    I appreciate your comments. When we’re ready to work we need to know where we’re going. I also love Jim’s gentle reminder that we don’t want to get behind the wheel of a car and start driving when we’ve never done that before.

  10. July 12th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
    what do you expect « Levite Chronicles said

    [...] behind the technology tools, behind the broken doors, behind the apparently carefully built brand, are people, not shiny [...]

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