My business roots are in product development. To make irresistible product, you have to be close to the people who buy and use what you’re making. To be close to anyone, you have to listen to what they’re saying.
Social media starts, moves, and fully connects through listening.
Listening is marketing. It connects us to customers, clients, readers, critics, innovators, and folks we meet for the first time. It takes an open mind to listen and an open heart to hear.
Who’s Worth Listening To?
Everyone.
Some of us get that. Some of us forget that.
But most of us don’t listen enough to one person in particular.
Do You Listen to Yourself?
Doctor, marketer, product person, human being know thyself.
In order to be accountable and be present in a conversation, we need to know ourselves. We can’t share our values if we don’t know what they are or why we hold them. We can’t respond naturally, if we don’t know where stand when we’re alone with ourselves. That’s the essence of character and personal brand.
So do you take time to listen to
what you’re thinking? Reflecting on what we hear and coming to our own thoughts, decisions, and conclusions makes a solid personal platform for filtering the noise from the signal.
to your hesitations? The daily tasks of navigating the world and responding to other folks’ ideas can easily take us from our personal path. Deeply knowing where you’re going IS irresistibly attractive.
to what you’re saying? Do you say the same phrases often? Do you argue for why your problems can’t be solved? Do you say good things about who you are or do you flinch when you talk about yourself? What is your word choice or tone of voice revealing?
When we take time to listen to ourselves, listening to other people comes easier. We’re not waiting to be heard.
No apps necessary. Just time focused in another direction … reflection.
How often do you listen to yourself?
I make connections.
–ME “Liz” Strauss This post was updated in July 2016 by Jane Boyd & Liz Strauss. It has been listed as a suggested resource in a recent GeniusShared newsletter article by Liz entitled “Owning Your Voice”.
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 SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.
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This Week Featuring Design and Presentation
imjustcreative This is Part 10 of the Logo Design RoundUp series. A special edition, with a whopping 27 logos shown below. This series showcases a collection of logos and brand marks, self submitted by a bunch of freelance designers and creative folk in many creative areas. These designers use the logos to sell, promote, brand and market their various skills.
design sponge sometimes i fall in love with product photos as much as the product itself. these photos from the new collection of toldbod 120 pendant lamps from louis poulsen lighting are just too lovely to ignore.
Blog. Spoon Graphics Retro Futurism is the term used to describe artwork depicting a view of the future, from the eyes of the past. The artwork itself also has the appearance of something old and vintage, basically blending both past and future into one style of artwork that blows your mind!
graphic design blog To succeed in the world of Graphic Design, always exhibit you creativity skills in a tempting and presentable manner. If you are a fresh graduate and looking for a job as a graphic designer, the first tip to success is to create a “smashing portfolio” …
2EXPERTDESIGN Below you’ll find a collection of 40 beautiful and creative typography designs to inspire you that will allow you to expand your knowledge base of what typography really is …
Web Design Booth In the previous post, we showcase 50 creative portfolios and soon there are readers who request us to share beautiful blog designs. A great portfolio will attract more clients to a designer while great blog design will bring you more visitors too.
Hongkiat When we talk about design, the key word is ‘impression‘. A visually attractive blog leaves behind a deep impression among people such that the person remembers it enough to actually revisit the site another time. This list of absolutely gorgeous-looking blogs below was compiled to provide you with some ideas on what you can do to come up with an attractive and well-designed blog.
freelance folder In this list we’ve compiled 30 of the most gorgeous navigation menu designs — all of which are big, bold, and beautiful. Take a look and see what you think:
Functioning Form Today at their headquarters in Palo Alto, Facebook’s design team walked through their philosophy and approach to designing for a quarter billion users. In particular, they emphasized the importance of writing code, sharing designs early and often, being involved with a project from start to finish, and not falling in love with your work.
Katie Renn prepares for her class, "History of Photography," in Ernie Pyle 210.
Last week, Shel Holtz delivered a keynote talk to the faculty of a university Journalism department. He went out onto Twitter for some ideas and put together a really impressive list. I believe that these skills have a much broader application than simply for Journalists…
Whatever those jobs are, journalism students will be better equipped to qualify for them if they have learned the following as part of their education:
* SEO—Most of what I remember about writing a basic news article is consistent with the principles of on-page optimization, but the importance of writing so people can find your articles shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s particularly important since students in journalism classes today don’t have a clue whether they’ll be working for a centralized news organization or some kind of distributed network. This synchs nicely with my next point:
* How to think like a freelancer—With nobody certain what economic model or (more likely) combination of models will pan out for professional news, journalism departments need to instill a mindset in students that will allow them to tap into whatever opportunities arise. That’s quite a shift from the view of professors when I was in journalism school: If it’s not a daily newspaper, major newsmagazine or network TV news channel, it’s not journalism.
* Flexibility—Print, broadcast, radio, online…journalists had better be prepared to report anywhere. When I worked in journalism, I was a print reporter with no interest in electronic journalism, which was a whole different ballgame. Those lines are gone and today’s students need to be prepared to do it all.
* A continuum of reporting—When I was a reporter, I filed a single story following on-site reporting of news or research for an investigative piece. Today, a single report is inadequate. Read more >>
What other applications could these skills have? Discuss in the comments.
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