Successful Blog

Cool Tool Review: Weave the People

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools, products, and practices that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks in a business environment.

Cool Tool Review: Weave the People
A Review by Todd Hoskins

A few years ago I attended an intimate, oceanside conference outside of San Diego. The 70 of us in attendance spent the weekend participating in roundtable discussions, eating, and sipping cocktails. Sunday afternoon, while checking out of the resort, I met the people I wish I would have connected with on Friday. We exchanged contact info, but the opportunity was largely lost, as we live on opposite ends of the country.

This is a common frustration with meetings and conferences. How can people with matching interests, needs, and talents find one another?

Despite the growth of social technology, there is no replacement for the value and possibilities that can emerge from meeting face-to-face. Gladwell is right – there are limitations inherent in the “loose ties” of online connections. There is a reason that tweetups are popular and location based technologies have taken off. People want to meet, and any “friend” or “connection” is peripheral until you shake hands, share a meal or drink, and can establish trust looking at each other directly. Albert Mehrabian has proposed that words constitute only 7% of communication – the rest is tone and body language.

So, the Internet is an incredibly powerful medium for exploring, finding, and learning about people. Then, at some point, the relationship has amplified possibilities when we move from cyberspace to sharing physical space. This is exactly why Weave the People is such a valuable tool, by accelerating the discovery process, allowing organizations and people to connect with their wants and needs in group settings.

It works like this: If you are hosting a conference, meeting, or event, contact Weave the People, and they will work with you to develop a series of questions. These questions are designed to help you meet your goals for the event, whether you want to increase the connectivity of your employees, match vendors and buyers, or just help people have fun.

Weave will help you poll your prospective attendees, then “weave” together profiles in a simple, visually appealing layout. Send the link in advance of the event, and the people who are attending have a chance to navigate through the profiles and make decisions based on their motivations for being in attendance. For the less-socially-gifted, this is a gift in itself. You automatically have conversation starters that are pre-approved.

weave

I love the fact that Weave has a high-minded mission and philosophy, getting to an “authentic we,” utilizing technology to increase our humanness rather than our isolation. But it just works as well, making meetings more enjoyable and a better return on investment.

You can watch some demos here.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 4/5 – Very reasonable in cost. Mobile app (in planning) will make this even better.

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – Finding employees, partners, investors, and advocates at events just got easier.

Personal Value: 5/5 – Not all questions need to be business-related. Bringing the personal and professional profile elements together creates deeper, more sustainable connections.

Let me know what you think!

Todd Hoskins helps small and medium sized businesses plan for the future, and execute in the present. With a background in sales, marketing, and technology, he works with executives to help create thriving organizations through developing and clarifying values, strategies, and tactics. You can learn more at VisualCV, or contact him on Twitter.

Quality Or Quantity – Which Ranks Higher On Your Blog?

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By Terez Howard

You’re probably staring at your computer, thinking what is this girl talking about?  Of course, quality is more important than quantity.

I agree that a high quality post, one that is well-written, well-researched, extraordinarily helpful with a dash of entertainment, is more important than pumping out one garbage, cut and paste post after another.  Every blogger strives to share tidbits of knowledge with her readers, so people make it to the last period of the last sentence in a post.

That said, I think there’s something to be said about quantity.  How often have you come across a superb blog post and you’re dying to read the latest and greatest post only to find the author’s most recent work is from April?  Sigh.

If you really like a blogger’s work, you go to the About page and business website to find some reason why this excellent blog became defunct.  That’s what I do, hoping there is some hidden link to another, updated blog.

Did you ever think the blogger does not consider her blog to be dead?  Maybe she’s thinking that she will return to it when she finds the time.  Maybe she’s procrastinating over her writing skills.  Maybe she plans on hiring out, but hasn’t found the best person for the job.  Maybe she hasn’t realized how much time has elapsed since her latest and greatest.

Quality posts versus quantity

Let’s take a look at these two points and see which one tips the scale.  Please feel free to add to my small list.

If you focus on a high quality blog, you

  • Stand out as an authority in your niche.
  • Feel more focused as a writer, rather than meandering from pillar to post.
  • Are likely to gain a dedicated following because readers expect valuable information.

When you stress quantity, you

  • Will have a wealth of information on your blog quickly.
  • Are likely to gain a dedicated following because readers can tune in often.
  • Get some Google love.

Both have their strong points.  But what do you want more?

Which ranks higher, quality or quantity?

My answer is that both should walk hand in hand.  One cannot and should not function without the other.  When I write, I bring quality to the table by being as resourceful as I can be.  I don’t do as much as others.  My posts aren’t flooded links, tables and video.  (I’m not saying these things are bad; they just aren’t what I do… yet).  My point is: I do my best.

As far as quantity goes, I have a set writing schedule that I can keep up with as a busy stay-at-home mom.  I’m not writing every single day.  That’s impossible for my life.  Once again, I do my best.

Quality and quantity have their places in a blog.  You have to strike a balance that keeps you regularly writing high quality posts.

How do you strike that balance?

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Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility.  She has written informative pieces for newspapers, online magazines and blogs, both big and small.  She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez!

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

Beach Notes: Playing With Unpredictability

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At the Swell sculpture festival at nearby Currumbin Beach we saw, and loved, this work, titled Fiddle Sticks, by Col Henry.

fiddlesticks

We think the name might not translate universally. The “sticks” relate to a game Suzie says is called Pick Up Sticks and Des recalls being Fiddlesticks. This is a game where you throw down a bunch of colored sticks and then use the black stick to lift other sticks off the pile successively. When in the process you make another stick move you lose. Points are scored on the basis of the colors of the sticks you have retrieved.

The term “fiddlesticks!” was sometimes used by our parents’ generation as a socially acceptable expression of disbelief in some other person’s utterance with which they disagreed strongly: nicer than “what unmitigated rubbish!” or some other, more vulgar expression that might spring to mind. That usage seems to go back to at least the 18th century – http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-fid1.htm

The artist of the sculpture, Col Henry, clearly has the game in mind. He says the sculpture “plays with the concept of unpredictability”.

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

Cool Tool Review: Personality Inventories

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools, products, and practices that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks in a business environment.

Cool Tool Review: Personality Inventories
A Review by Todd Hoskins

A few years ago Liz looked at the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator through the lens of personal productivity. For years, organizations have used personality tests to evaluate leadership styles, workplace interactions, and for team building. I think personality inventories are a great tool for examining interpersonal relations within a company, and can be a valuable tool for personal growth as well.

What I do not like . . . Companies that make hiring decisions based on personality test results are trying to mechanize their workforce. It is a bad practice, regardless of the research that supports it. If you have a role and need it to be filled by a “type,” then you will likely not get more than the type. The best hiring managers I’ve known make decisions based on qualifications, proven work experience, cultural fit, and gut instinct. The “ideal candidate profile” is just a way to expose your own needs. At some point, it needs to be questioned. (Don’t we all have stories of the “crazy hire” that turned out to be brilliant?

So, let’s be clear. You are not a type. You are a person who has patterns of behavior and preferences that can be categorized, but there will always be anomalies. No test can tell you (or your boss) who you are, but it can be an effective:

  • Conversation starter
  • Evaluation of biases and prejudices within your organization
  • Tool for evaluating work styles
  • Impetus for individual growth

Personally, I am a fan of Carl Jung, so I do like the MBTI. You can take a quick online test here. The online tests (especially the free ones) are not comprehensive, but every online test I’ve taken over the past eighteen years has confirmed the results of the first professionally administered test: I am an ENTP. Some would say this would make me an excellent dictator, assassin, CIA agent, or freelance writer. After taking the test, here is a good place to start looking at the type.

What can you do with it?

  1. Have a conversation: Does your office environment respect and nurture the various types?  Or, do you prefer some qualities more than others?  There is strength in diversity!
  2. Do you know how to talk or work with your boss in ways that are effective?  Peers?  Employees?  Customers?  SpeedReading People has made a business out of this, and I recommend their services.
  3. What are the strengths?  What areas are lacking?  Both organizationally and individually.

To a degree, you are who you are.  But there’s also great power in learning how to stretch and expand within the areas you gravitate to least.  For example, I am very, very strong on the “N” of intuition within the MBTI.  I am working on the sensory perception – this column represents some of that work.  How can I be more practical?  I may be good at integrating theory, but I put conscious effort into grounding myself in the concrete world.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 4/5 – If you can afford it, hire a consultant to do this right.

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – Know your people, and let them know you.

Personal Value: 5/5 – Don’t stop with the MBTI.  There’s lots of great resources out there.  And remember, it’s just a starting place – data before insights.

Let me know what you think!

Todd Hoskins helps small and medium sized businesses plan for the future, and execute in the present. With a background in sales, marketing, and technology, he works with executives to help create thriving organizations through developing and clarifying values, strategies, and tactics. You can learn more at VisualCV, or contact him on Twitter.

Cataloguing Creativity: How Do You Organize Your Ideas?

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Are you a collector?  Do you see something on television or while you’re out shopping and just have to have it?  Perhaps this scenario sounds familiar: You pick things up, here and there, and over the years you;ve acquired quite a collection.  Then, one day, you’re inspired to use one of those handy-dandy items and you can’t find it anywhere!

I am not a collector.  That isn’t to say that I don’t have a collection.  Through the generosity of various relatives, I have stacks of cookbooks, fancy kitchen tools, and  various odds and ends.  These items are carried in by the truckload by the helpful relatives and deposited in my house, where I am left to stash them away for future use.  And stash them away I do, here, there, and everywhere.

Days pass, sometimes weeks or months.  Suddenly, I’m inspired.  Where’s that Super Doodle Noodle Maker Aunt Bonita gave me?   Where in the world did I store it away?    I want to make Super Doodle noodles and my Super Doodle Noodle Maker is nowhere to be found!

Do you catalogue your creativity?

What’s the point?  Most of us collect blogging ideas as we go through life.  Our great, creative ideas for our blogs  can get lost in the hodgepodge of daily life if we don’t develop some way to catalogue them.   Finding a way to organize those ideas is a essential to having them when we need them.

There are many ways to keep track of those great ideas.  One tool that has helped me is a small notebook.  I carry it around in my purse and when I hear or see something that I think I could use later, I jot it down. Sometimes, the little notebook isn’t on hand, so I grab a piece of paper and write it down there.  So, now I have a small stack of papers and notebooks that I keep beside my chair, on hand for when I need to find that great concept from the past.

A little notebook is a start but it certainly isn’t going to keep things organized for future reference.  To keep things on track, I divide my concepts into categories for quick reference.  Ultimately though, something more will be needed.  Ideally, a file drawer organized alphabetically and divided by category would work best.  Being able to access information quickly and accurately when needed is an absolute necessity when you need to recall that one great idea or when inspiration runs out and you need to pull from your catalogue of creativity.  If my kitchen were as organized as my blogging ideas it would be a cinch to find my Super Doodle Noodle Maker when I need it!

How do you keep your ideas for blogging organized?  Let us know what works for you.  

Jael Strong writes for TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility.  She has written both fiction and non-fiction pieces for print and online publications.  She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas .

Thanks, Jael

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

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Beach Notes: Sandgroper

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“It is not always an east task to create a piece of artwork to look enjoyably simple. But there’s enjoyment in task”- Verner Neilsen the artist of Sangdgroper

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This sculpture is part of the annual Swell Sculpture Festival at Currumbin Beach. This is an ironic play on words: a sandgroper is aburrowing insect found in Western Australia and the term is used by other Australians as a nickname for people from Western Australia.

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh