One 12-Step Process . . . What Process Is This?

January 22, 2007 by Liz

Complex Activities Need Process

When we use a process to structure our thinking, we provide strategy with a safety net. Here’s one 12-step process. Can you name the effort, action, or project that it describes?

Find your big idea — one that uniquely fits you.
Narrow your focus so that you can be more effective.
Organize your thoughts.
Make a plan.
Ask for feedback from folks with more experience.
Adjust your plan in response, as you see fit.
Execute your plan. Let the word out.
Celebrate your accomplishment.
Listen for feedback from folks who find out.
Use the feedback to make more revisions.
Spread the word about the new and improved version.
Celebrate again, but keep testing, listening for feedback, and adjusting. Know that you’ll never be fully finished.

It goes without saying that you can’t develop my plan, and I can’t develop yours.

What process is this? Did I miss any critical steps?

–Me “Liz” Strauss
If you think I can help with your writing or your business, check out the Perfect Virtual Manager on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: Pixel Ruler

January 21, 2007 by Liz

Need to measure graphics? Here’s a great tool . . .

Great Find: Pixel Ruler v3.1

Permalink: http://www.mioplanet.com/products/pixelruler/index.htm

Target Audience: All Windows users

Content: This week I want to tell you about a tool I use a lot. It’s a virtual ruler for your desktop that you can use to measure pixels. What are pixels? They are the tiny colored squares that make up a web page. It helps to communicate with others if you speak the same language.

I also worked in the print world, and it’s an adjustment to switch from thinking about inches to measuring in pixels. So I looked for help. There’s plenty of tools out there, but this one works great, the price is right, and it’s simple. Click the screen shot to take you there.

Here are three things I like about Pixel Ruler:

It’s handy for reading large tables and spreadsheets.
You can change the color of the skin.
It’s free.

The next time someone asks you the size of a banner or graphic, use a ruler that floats on your screen. Keep a shortcut to Pixel Ruler handy so you can open it quickly. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Stay tuned… next week is another tool that’s free!

–Sandy, Purple Wren

Change the World: Personal Service Counts

January 21, 2007 by Liz

Hey, Scot, How Can We Change the World?

Scot Herrick has been a friend of so many in so many ways for so long. He has a natural sense of people and how they work together. Scot also pairs this sensibility with a business view that brings a well-rounded, real-world focus.

When Scot sent a post for adding his voice to this series, I knew that I would use it — even before I read it. I knew that Scot would offer a work of substance and value, a practical, personal way that we might change the world. I wasn’t wrong about that.

Change the World: Personal Service Counts

Guest Writer: Scot Herrick

Have you noticed the large increase in self-service options available to you? Sometimes the only option?

ThereÃ¢â¬â¢s a reason for that, you know. Self-service is the least cost option available for companies to provide you service. ThatÃ¢â¬â¢s because it is your time spent searching for answers and a small group of people pumping possible answers into a database to present to you when you check things out online.

Now, I like doing business online. Usually, the process around purchasing or servicing or finding out about stuff is pretty straight-forward and now almost standard between sites. For example, IÃ¢â¬â¢d much rather order online than go to a retail store and buy something or call someone up and order something.

Most of the time.

IÃ¢â¬â¢d contend that we live in a self-service planet Ã¢â¬â but we need to live in a service-rich world, one where self-service is merely an option to all different kinds of service levels.

After researching products on self service sites, for example, I walked into a retail PC store to buy a high-end laptop PC and spent an hour trying to get an answer or two from a salesperson, who was one in name only. I wanted to spend the money. I couldnÃ¢â¬â¢t because I couldnÃ¢â¬â¢t get a tiny bit of professional knowledge and service about what I was asking.

I contrast that with the same self-service information, moving up the service chain by calling a professional salesperson 1800 miles away the next day who supplemented an online ordering site, having a good 15-minute conversation about my computer needs and mutually determining what fit the best for those needs with the products they offered. I then confidently ordered a laptop that met them Ã¢â¬â for about $300 more than the one I was trying to buy in the retail store.

The entire service chain Ã¢â¬â from self-service, to personal service, to fulfillment of an order, to servicing the order Ã¢â¬â counts as part of your service experience. Have anything fail in the service chain and you are left with that bitter feeling of not getting what you needed.

ItÃ¢â¬â¢s not hard to be of service to others: simply listen to the other person and think through the fit of your products and services based upon the other personÃ¢â¬â¢s point of view. Not having a service that meets the specific needs of a person is a legitimate answer. Referring another who can provide the service means your person will remember you — who referred well and received no gain. The person you referred to will remember you as well.

This is true whether you work for a large corporation, are a self-employed home worker, or helping your friends.

People looking for help remember professional, expert people who helped them Ã¢â¬â not systems, not databases, not knowledgebases, not tools, and not the Internet. People remember great people.

Self service can be the lowest cost service option. But lowest cost doesnÃ¢â¬â¢t figure in the price paid for not offering great, professional service.

Help others by providing personal service. We can change the world if we do.

Scot Herrick writes at Cube Rules: Career Management for Cubicle Warriors

Thank you, Scot, for showing us how.
We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

______________
If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

Thanks to Week 65 SOBs

January 20, 2007 by Liz

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this badge’s validity, send him or her directly to me. This award comes with a full “Liz said so” guarantee. It is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame. Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Ideas? 20 Questions to Kickstart New Thoughts

January 20, 2007 by Liz

(Updated in 2020)

Get Curious – Ask 20 Questions

What are you thinking right now? Are you thinking about your answer to that question?

We’re good at answering questions. We learn that in school. Sometimes we get so busy preparing our answers that we miss what’s going on around us.

10 Questions to Kickstart New Thoughts

Imagine you just landed on this planet. You’d have a passel of questions and a totally beginner’s view. The key is not to fix things, but to find new reactions to what you encounter.

Take that beginner’s view. Get curious. React and respond to what you encounter. Ask questions about everything and the ideas start showing up. Start with these 20 questions to kickstart new thoughts.

What do you see what you look at me? What do you see when you look at yourself?
What do you hear when you listen to all of the sounds around you?
What is it that everyone wants to know, but is afraid to ask? What are the silly things we don’t tell people that they should know?
What do we do that is touching or ridiculous?
What do we take for granted that seems to have no logic?
What would you do if you had only one day to spend here?
What of our ordinary buildings, machines, and gadgets would stymie and fascinate you?
What about our planet would amaze you?
What about humanity would inspire you?
If you had a conversation with yourself, what would you talk about?

The ideas are waiting in the details. Twist your view; add a dash of imagination; and take a look.

10 More . . .

I have 10 more questions. They’re all about you.

Do you do stuff like keep your ketchup bottle upside down or choose songs based on what others are listening to online?
Do you find money that you forgot about in a jacket pocket?
Do you get nervous when a boss starts a friendly conversation for no apparent reason?
Do you know a story that people ask you to tell over and over?
Do you wonder what else you might have done with all of the time that you’ve been blogging?
Do you know the most important thing you’ve learned?
Do you know what gadget you would invent if you could?
Do you have a secret for dealing with folks who cause stress wherever they go?
Do you know what you want to be if you grow up? Will you share an idea or two?
Do you wonder what it’s like to be me the way I wonder what it’s like to be you?

If you answered “yes” to any of those, and you decide to write a post, I’d read your answer. I bet that lots of folks would.

Remember react and respond to what you encounter. Ask questions about everything and the ideas start showing up.

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Photo by Zach Lucero on Unsplash

SOB Business Cafe 01-19-07

January 19, 2007 by Liz

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.