Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You're only a stranger once.

What Twitter Talk Is Good for and What It’s Not

Filed Under Marketing, Successful Blog | 6 Comments

cooltext443809602_strategy

Twitter Talk is great for a fast moving volley around a narrow idea or collecting the opinions of a crowd. But the very speed and compactness keeps the rich and telling details out — the details that explain why and how. If an idea or a problem takes exploring or discussion, Twitter doesn’t measure up.

If I’ve made assumptions about you, the message I get won’t be the one that you sent. If we use language differently our communication can go woefully wrong.

Sometimes whole conversations are important

and in many other situations.

Twitter doesn’t do whole conversations well. Nuance, clarification, details all require more than 140 characters. Such interactions require fuller conversation. Fuller conversation needs other tools.

Where do you go when Twitter needs to change to a fuller conversation?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

I’ve spent a couple of days on Twitter. Actually too many to count. My first tweet was March 16, 2007 and

Ideas & Infographics: Is Social Media Ruining Our Minds?

Filed Under Marketing, Successful Blog, Trends | 6 Comments

by Mihaela Lica

cooltext443809602_strategy

Social Networkers and Social Conversations Everywhere

Social media is going stronger than ever, Google + now seizing the forefront of all our frontal lobes, or at least resting on the minds of networkers everywhere online. The power of that so called “conversation” we all adopted as a fact of life though, does not come without a price. Along with the profound positive effects Facebook, Twitter, and g+ afford us, there appear to be some “less than positive” effects you may not be aware of.Scientists now believe social media may impact cognitive function and development negatively. From multitasking to other focus oriented skills, it appears a sort of transformative process is occurring – in short, our brains may be adjusting. The infographic courtesy Assisted Living Today below is demonstrative of this theory. You may want to investigate this.

[Click the image to see the isolated infograph and again to see it full size.]

Let’s Move Some Ideas at a Human Pace

As you can see, How Social Media is Ruining Our Minds opens up a bit of a can of worms where knowing what’s good for you on the web goes.

What?

Did we all assume pecking away at our keyboards, smacking those barriers with a slingshot and Angry Birds, endless hours of looking at crazy or not so crazy video would have no effect? The bigger question is, “Just how rewired have you become?” Our attention spans have become so short (perhaps) that soon a friend will have to get even the most “fuzzy” feelings across in microseconds. I don’t know about you, but I like my kindness and consideration delivered at a leisurely pace. That goes for absorbing other wonderful things on and off the web. Of course, those pesky “scientists” don’t know everything yet. Let’s hope so anyway.

—-

Author’s Bio:

Mihaela “Mig” Lica founded Pamil Visions in 2005 where she uses her hard won journalistic, SEO and public relations skills toward helping small companies navigate the digital realm with influence and success.

You can find Mig on Twitter as @PamilVisions

Thanks, Mig! Thank you, too, to Assisted Living Today!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

4 Steps to a Job When You Graduate

Filed Under Business Life, Marketing, Successful Blog | Leave a Comment

A Guest Post by
Darren McCloskey

cooltext443809602_strategy

Fully Prepare

Dissertations have been handed in and the months until graduation are quickly slipping past – but what next? It won’t be long until graduates start out on their intrepid job hunting adventures and companies begin to snap them up into employment. It’s now time to sit back and begin to plan your next steps. Finding a job is a time investment and you’re going to need to be fully prepared. Thankfully, we’ve created an expert guide on graduate job seeking so you know how to move onto the next stage of your life.

The Bottom isn’t so scary

For those of you are who are lucky enough to know what you want to do in the future, the best first step to take is to make note of organisations you would love to work for. Whether it’s because they offer high wages or just seems to have the best cultural fit, make a list of them all and spend some time looking up the various roles they offer. If there aren’t any at your graduate level, look at roles that are lower down – even if this means starting at the bottom. If you can show passion and a great work ethic at lower levels, why would they hire someone else when an opening for your ideal role appears?

Head to your chosen employers website and try to glean some information regarding their recruitment process. If they use a particular recruiter, make note of their name or find out the names of the in house recruitment team members. Remember not to dismiss any role that you can apply for – it’s not just a job but a networking opportunity, a valuable asset when only 40% of jobs are openly advertised to job seekers.

Internships aren’t always Unpaid

While unpaid internships seem to be floating around at an increasing rate, there are ways to make them work for you if you don’t live at home or have savings to support yourself. Internships are a valuable way to get work experience and gather a number of industry contacts for later use in your career. If you can’t manage to work unpaid for a month or so, ask if you can work on a part time basis, so you can balance unpaid work with another paid part time job. Even asking for an afternoon every week to do some work experience will be beneficial to you in the long run and allow you to get a grasp of job roles and contacts in the industry.

There’s Plenty out There

There’s a whole industry of recruiters devoted to placing graduates into suitable roles, so don’t fret, there’s definitely a job out there for you. Of course, there may be a higher amount of competition for certain roles, but determination and persistence can get you anywhere. On average it takes around 60 job applications to get an interview or two, but if you’re still struggling to hear anything then perhaps you should consider getting your CV checked over, or downloading a new CV template.

Your university should offer careers advice and set you on the right track. They may even advise you on contacts they have so you can call up for an impromptu chat or networking events that you can attend to widen your horizons.

Always make sure you have thoroughly researched the company that you’re sending an application to. Considering the amount of competition your application might have, it’s best to be right the first time and show you have commitment to learning more. For instance, looking up potential colleagues on LinkedIn or finding their blogs online will be another point you can cover in future interviews and make you memorable.

Companies want to know about YOU

Reports have shown that the quality of applications that employers have received has improved. Graduates have proven to be adept at answering competency based questions but seem to falter when it comes to what motivates them! Beware of tricky questions such as “Where do you see yourself in five years time?” and “Why do you want this role with us?” as questions such as these cannot be blagged. They require preparation and a thought as to what your goals in life are. Once you have an interview set some time to sit down and go through as many possible questions you can think of. Make sure you know what you want and why you want it – if you can’t explain why you want a job, why should they give it to you?

So there you have it, four simple pieces of priceless advice to get you on your way to graduate employment.

—-
Author’s Bio:
Darren McCloskey is a freelance writer working within the recruitment section with the people of monster to help promote how employment agencies can help find engineering jobs

Thank you, Darren!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Have You Found a Way to Make Small Talk Work for You Yet?

Filed Under Marketing, Successful Blog | 6 Comments

Could We Just Get On With It?

cooltext443809602_strategy

The holidays come with their obligations. The running, the gathering, and the inevitable holiday parties. The parties with friends and families can be true memory makers, filled with traditions and great reunions. The parties with coworkers and strangers can be a little intimidating, filled with small talk and expectations.

Small talk used to make me crazy. It was painful to listen to the ritual, empty conversation that didn’t go anywhere. It felt so inauthentic — people saying things and pretending to care about them. I’d try to participate but it was energy draining. “Could we just get on with it?!!” Small talk seemed such a time waster. How could so many people spend so much time getting no where, talking about the weather?

Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything. — Mark Twain

I admit I didn’t understand. As a result, I not only wasn’t good at it, but I was disruptive.

I’d try to add humor, switch it up a little, and every attempt would fall flat. People who small talk like their small talk a certain way.

My aversion to small talk made networking events and big company meetings excruciating. An introvert with a mile wide shy streak, I could sense a small talk conversation 60 seconds before it started. I practiced defensive networking. I’d walk around, smile, and hope someone as uncomfortable as I was would discover me. My fear of babble was getting in my way. Worse, I was probably telegraphing something like disdain.

My inability to small talk wasn’t working for me. It was time for a new view: If so many people found it useful, maybe there was something to it. Maybe I should pay attention, do some observing.

What I found out is that small talk comes in more than one flavor. The second flavor might be what has left many of us with a bad taste.

Don’t Let the Small Talk You Hate Ruin the Small Talk that Makes Relationships

The first thing I noticed when I started observing is that small talk has a pattern and purpose. You’ve probably noticed it too. Small talk is used to fill silences. What I didn’t catch for quite a while is that small talk comes in two forms — one that serves people who already know each other and another for people building relationships.

The Small Talk that Builds Relationships

Small talk is a space filler and a social lubricant. People use conversation to move together over time. It’s a social bonding ritual in which people define relationships, set boundaries, find similarities and differences. Small talk enables people to learn another’s social position, validate similar interests, and establish a platform for a continuing conversation … “Oh yeah, Jesse is my movie buddy. Love talking movies with him.”

When relationships are new, small talk is how people learn each other’s boundaries.The opening remark and it’s response follow the rules of a conversational dance. It really works so easily and doesn’t have to be insincere or shallow if you know these rules.

  1. Small talk starts with an agreeable statement or question. Start a conversation by noticing something, such as “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” or “That’s a stunning necklace!” Smile and make it easy to talk to you. A simple agreeable statement or question is a way small talkers of making a positive initial connection. If you don’t feel comfortable talking about the weather, or the food, or the latest techie gadget, comment on something about the other person. Share something you’ve noticed that you’re enjoying at that every moment
  2. The response to the first question or statement usually builds on the first question or statement. Respond with a little more than was asked for … “Yes, I live for the tulips on Michigan Avenue.” or “Thank you! It attracts amazing people. Are you always so great at noticing nice things?”

    3. Accept the invitation the opening agreeable statement or question offers you. Continue the conversation by sharing something, passing the conversation back, and listening to your new acquaintance. Offer only as much detail as fits your new relationship.

Starting the conversation is actually the easier way. Notice something worth commenting on in an agreeable way.

If you’re at that holiday party with strangers and coworkers, remember this to have more success in starting a conversation. Don’t approach two people talking, they’re probably having a deeper conversation. Look for a group of people standing together. Then look at their feet. The way we stand gives away how engaged we are. The person most open to a new conversation will be the one whose feet are pointing away from the conversation.

A little practice at the agreeable opening statement or question made my experience of small talk so much more refreshing. Now I find it’s a great way to open doors to new relationships with amazing people. I highly recommend it.

If Small Talk Is So Good, Why Does Everyone Hate It?

Small talk shows up in other situations. One in particular may be what has earned small talk it’s bad name. That would be the small talk that happens before someone, particularly someone in authority, uses to find a common ground and an even relationship right before he or she delivers bad news. I call that “the three things before the but.” You may have experienced it. For the naive or new to the experience, it’s a kind of being blindsided. To those who have previously experienced it, it’s still painful because once burned it’s easy to recognize what’s next. An example might be …

You’re a fabulous writer, a charming person, and very charismatic, but … you’re fired.

The worst part of this version of ritual, warmup conversation is that it doesn’t matter how true the “three things before the but” may be, the way that they’re used to deliver the hard news renders the three compliments unbelievable. The three compliments were pulled together to manipulate the tone and smoothly move the conversation. This conversational tactic destroys trust.

Have You Found a Way to Make Small Talk Work for You Yet?

People who say the “three things before the but” aren’t building relationships.
People who smile and talk about the weather while shaking hands and stealing your wristwatch aren’t building relationships.
People who smile big, talk about the weather, ask about your kids, but forget your name over and over aren’t building relationships.

They all may be using the art of talk as a social lubricant, but their using it to serve themselves not a relationship.

It’s not the small talk that’s the problem or the opportunity. It’s the motive that drives it.

Choose wisely and you’ll find that small talk can open a world of new relationships. Break the ice, invite others in, and sincere small talk can build you a network of amazing people.

Though I never think of it as small talk when I do it. I think of it as fun conversation.

Have you thought about small talk lately? Have you found a way to make it work for you?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

I’ve spent a couple of days on Twitter. Actually too many to count. My first tweet was March 16, 2007 and

Whose Values, Rules and Ideas Are Running Your Life and Your Business?

Filed Under Marketing, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 4 Comments

Other People’s Values, Rules, and Ideas

cooltext443794242_influence

We all grow up to be leaders on someone else’s path.
That’s not a bad thing, but it’s a reality that builds our world view.
We need to learn how the world works … how to stay alive, how to access food, how to win respect, influence, and trust. The first values, rules, and ideas we learn teach us that. They set a foundation for building character, setting boundaries, and making decisions for ourselves.

Our First Values, Rules, and Ideas Come From Our Family

Most of us are born into a top-down organization called a family. Our parents (or older, bigger significant others) teach us about good and bad behavior. At the same time we literally find our hands and our feet. Before we learn to talk, we know some things work and others don’t. We’ve already figured out whether a smile or a crying fit gets us what we want. If we didn’t know that, we’d have died of hunger. As we find our way to standing in the world, values, rules, and ideas help us find the place for our feet.

Family values, rules, and ideas start simple. They come from our caregivers. They sound like “Love your brothers, Don’t take what’s not yours. Don’t hurt other people. Don’t yell indoors. Be nice. Do well by doing good. Think.”

We learn to navigate when those values, rules, and ideas conflict.

When my older, older brother was three, he tried to put his hand in the sugar bowl. My mom reached out to slap his hand.
My dad said, “Wait!” Then he turned to my toddler brother and said, “You won’t do that again, will you?”
My older, older brother agreed. But the very next day, he tried the sugar bowl again and my mother slapped his hand.
He said, “I’m going to tell Daddy you did that!!”
My mother slapped his hand a second time and said, “Now you can tell your Daddy I did it twice.”

We learn early to sort whose values, rules, and ideas are more powerful.
It’s a self-preservation skill.

The Next Values, Rules, and Ideas Come From School

At school, we learn to be a leader on someone else’s path. We learn values, rules, and ideas that engage us in a manageable way. Some kinds of creativity and leadership are rewarded because they help the school run better, faster, easier. They give the school more meaning. They make it more fun. Other forms of leadership and creativity are brought back onto the path, because they make things harder to manage. Some behaviors don’t fit.

Conflicting values, rules, and ideas come from the same source.
Some sorts of curiosity are good. Some sorts are disruptive.
Asking why is eager participation in some situations and defiance in others.
Some sorts of helping others are applauded. Other helping is called cheating.

It’s good to ask what would happen if you don’t brush your teeth.
It’s not so good to ask what would happen if you don’t go to “time out” when the teacher sends you there.

Add the exponential complication of the values, rules, and ideas of our peer group.
The simple values, rules, and ideas require interpretation as we get older.
We learn that some rules interpret our actions by what that action “most often means.”

We graduate and fit ourselves into yet another set of values, rules, and ideas.
The more people we meet, the more complicated the values, rules, and ideas become.

Why We Trust Other People’s Rules

The tricky thing is the way our brains build abstract thought. We construct our understanding of values, rules, and ideas through experience. We construct our world view, our basis for making decisions, the same way we construct the idea of blue — it all starts with someone else’s idea of what blue is. We learned our idea of blue by trial and error.


What color is this?
Blue.
No, honey, it’s red.
What color is this?
Blue.
No, dollface, it’s green.

We learned blue by learning what’s not blue at the same time.

We learn what to do by learning what not to do — by doing things wrong — by finding out that our inclinations and instincts have lead us astray.

We learn to trust other people’s values, rules, and ideas more than our instincts.
That’s a problem.

Most of us don’t realize where doing that.
That’s an even bigger problem.
In fact, it’s dangerous — so dangerous, it can cost us our life.

Whose Ideas, Rules and Values Are Running Your Life and Your Business?

How many of your decisions come from habits set years ago and never challenged. If you’ve been feeling like you’re not on the right path, I’m betting it’s because you’re working under some old rules — rules that don’t fit, rules you don’t need.

What are the values, rules, and ideas that run your life and your business? Who inspired them and are you ready to decide which are your own?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.
« go back — keep looking »