I’ve tagged by my friend Marc Meyer. He’s made it clear that the time has come for me to reveal my deepest, darkest 7 secrets that he might or might not want to know. I’ve this once or twice and so the challenge goes deep to bring up something that I’ve not revealed before.

For this round, I’m going to travel back in time to the early years … we’ll look at how them fits in with now.

1. The early years: I was born about 85 miles from Chicago in a town of 20,000 people. We lived on a wide street in a quiet part of town, but our house was backed by the Illinois River. So I never had a rule that said, “You can’t cross the street,” or I’d never been able to go anywhere. I grew up to get a job that let me fly around the world every year. Some kids who had that “don’t cross the street rule are still living there.”

2. Age 5: My Kindergarten year book says that all the kids in my class were Pat Boone fans by I was a fan of Elvis Presley. My teacher writes of how surprised she was the day this painfully shy child got up and sang “The Good Ship Lollipop,” the way that Elvis might have done.

3. Age 6: “Be home from school by 4:30 was another rule.” School got out at 3:00, and I walked about 2.3 miles. I should say I could have walked it in that. I tried my best to take a different route whenever I might. Maybe that’s why my problem solving never seems to happen in the usual way. I don’t think or walk in a straight line.

4. Age 7: I used to draw huge murals on the long graphite bar at my dad’s saloon. Everyone who came in talked to me, and though I was shy, it was my job to talk to them. Drawing made it easy to have something to talk about. To this day, I’d rather talk about what I’m working on that talk about how I am.

5. Age 8: I spent my summers in a town of 1300 people staying with my Aunt. The town was so small was like a living city made just for kids — we could wander wherever we might want. I had a whole set of friends there. One was my “summer boyfriend.” We knew that was the case because we had a “boy’s fight” in the street. We fought because he wouldn’t be nice.

6. Age 9: My best friend Craig and I put on carnivals and plays all summer in my yard. We had penny games and gave out prizes that were things my older brothers donated to the cause. The neighborhood was filled with kids so we had an audience.

7. Age 10: The first grade teacher enlisted me to work with the first-graders who were having trouble learning to read. That became my job at the school until I left when I was 13. I actually worked at another school doing similar things when I was in high school too.

In later years, I taught at a dancing school and was an art director at camp for kids who have emotional, behavior, and severe learning disabilities.

There you go. I guess a lot of me then is still showing up now.

I pass this challenge along to my dear friends
Amy,
Richard,
Lucreita
Kathryn
Chel
Robert
Karen

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

A community isn’t built or befriended,
it’s connected by offering and accepting.
Community is affinity, identity, and kinship
that make room for ideas, thoughts, and solutions.
Wherever a community gathers, we aspire and inspire each other intentionally . . . And our words shine with authenticity.

Nobody’s Perfickt

Learning a new culture is something that comes in bits, by listening, trying, making mistakes and adjusting until we get it right. It’s like learning to sail, play a guitar, or ride a bike. Not many, maybe not any, can do it from the start. No one can do it perfectly all of the time.

Here’s what Mack said . . .

“The expectation that a company will adapt immediately and seamlessly without error to new culture is unrealistic. You and I didn’t. Did we? What a business moving into social media needs is a way for people get to know them.”

And I think that companies need to also know that getting started using the tools is more important than using them perfectly. Companies need to understand that they WILL make mistakes when they first start using social media, and that that’s ok. And we as bloggers haven’t done a very good job of getting this message across. We too often tend to have a ’shoot first, apologize later’ approach to a company that makes a first-move blunder in this space. I still remember the outcry about how Dell’s first blogging attempts in 2006 ’sucked’, and the criticism was mostly coming from the same bloggers that previously had said that Dell ’sucked’ cause they weren’t blogging. Then as soon as they started, they got attacked anyway.

Companies need to know that it’s ok to be less than perfect when it comes to using social media to connect with their customers online. And we need to make sure they get this message, and re-inforce it with our actions when they do join us.

Mack Collier from a comment on December 9, 2008

A successful and outstanding blogger said that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss