Successful Blog

Change the World: Let People Out of the Boxes

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They Had made Up My Mind

Change the World!

I once worked in a highly political culture. It took a while to know that politica played a huge role there. I had moved to a new city and a new job. I had to sort what was the company and what was the culture in part of the country.

As any new employee, I got to know the folks in my department. They showed me the “ropes” of the company, how things worked, and who was who. I took what I was told on face value.

Time went by. I found feet and my way around. I got to know what worked for me. I got to know what didn’t work too. I figured out that some of those folks who showed me around in the early days had political reasons for telling me things they told me.

I didn’t take into account how my beliefs about the company had been affected by conversations with those political people. It was a while before I woke to realize something about me I didn’t like.


I had opinions about people — people I didn’t know. I had become part of a culture that put people in little boxes.

My mind had people organized by one or two traits and their political clout within the company. It was part of the cultural organizational chart, the oral history handed down to me when I arrived there. I had bought it, as fishers say, “hook, line and sinker.”

That morning I started over. I started talking to all of the folks at work with clear intent of getting to know them. The more I talked, the more I enjoyed the folks that I was getting to know. I found that I’d been missing out on some pretty cool, intelligent people.

The world changed that day, when I let the people out of the boxes.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

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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.

Change the World!.

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.

Change the World: Share a Mini-Vacation at a Favorite Place

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Meet Me in Tuscany — the Restaurant

Change the World!

When I commuted to Massachusetts, I often spent the weekend there. Every Sunday I was there, a couple of friends would plan a drive to show me one of their favorite spots in Maine or New Hampshire. We called it “airing out our minds.”

Last Saturday, I got the chance to do the same with two incredible women and blogger friends, Wendy Piersall and Jessica Duquette. They drove into Chicago, and I got to share a favorite place — a restaurant called Tuscany.

The cool thing about inviting folks to a favorite place, especially if they help choose which one, is that I’m inviting them into a part of my life, and they’re saying they want to come. I get to discover my favorite place again, this time with them and through their eyes.

Jessica and Wendy brought a feeling of family and an anticipation of a night that would be enjoyed. That was perfect because I had done the same. The change of scenery, the fine company, the laughter, the conversation, the food, the wine turned a simple blogger dinner into a mini-vacation.

Three bloggers talked about our blogs, our goals, our lives. We asked questions. We challenged assumptions. We told silly stories and important ones too. I doubt that any one of us could describe the other people in the restaurant — except the lovely lady who was our server. She seemed to understand that something important was happening between close friends. That’s right, we skipped the showier, more surface, poking-around sort of talk that comes before the authentic and real part. Bloggers are good at doing that.

We shared food off common plates while we shared moments of each other’s lives. Jessica and Wendy touched my world and made it better in so many words and smiles that night.

WendyPiersall, Jessica Duquette, Liz Strauss, Chicago 01-20-07

It’s that easy to touch a life.

We can change the world today — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

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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.

Change the World!.

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.

Change the World: Personal Service Counts

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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

Change the World!

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

There’s a reason for that, you know. Self-service is the least cost option available for companies to provide you service. That’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, I’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.

I’d contend that we live in a self-service planet – 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 couldn’t because I couldn’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 – for about $300 more than the one I was trying to buy in the retail store.

The entire service chain – from self-service, to personal service, to fulfillment of an order, to servicing the order – 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.

It’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 person’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 – 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 doesn’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

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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.

Change the World!.

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.

Change the World: A Small Generous Act that I Didn’t Expect

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Thank You Is a Better Response

Change the World!

It was coffee at Starbucks with friend that I don’t get to see often enough. How cool is that? I was adding milk to my coffee, pretending it was real cream. She reached over to get me a napkin and a stirrer. For a split second, I stiffened. I wanted to say, “i can do that!”

Then I caught myself. At least, I think I did.

This was a friend who was doing a kind thing for me. She wasn’t trying to make me feel “less.” She was showing I was “more” to her. I hope I said, “Thank you.”

“Thank you” is a better response than “I can do that!”

I almost ran over her small generous act by not seeing it, by being tied up in my independence and my history with two big brothers. That would have taken something from both of us.

That “I can do that!” feeling is easy to watch for. It usually comes in response to a small, generous act that I didn’t expect.

Be on the look out for the small, generous acts of others. People are doing them all around us every day.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

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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.

Change the World!.

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.

Change the World: Each of Us Can

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Hey, Ben, How Can We Change the World?

On Monday I had a conversation with Ben Yoskovitz about changing the world. I figured that Ben, who is a quiet force behind Gifter.org, and who is always finding new initiatives such as Global Voices Online, would certainly have ideas worth sharing.

Ben responded with this simple and elegant piece you find here.

How Each of Us Can Change The World

Guest Writer: Ben Yoskovitz

Change the World!

You need a world view. You need to understand what’s going on out there. The world’s a big place, but as you shape your world view, the world itself gets very, very tiny.

Suddenly, the world is in your backyard. When that happens, you can start to change it so easily.

Getting a world view is easy. Go online, read and learn. Countless websites and blogs are out there. News-related. Personal. Get a feel for what’s happening.

Talk to people. Reading and learning isn’t enough. You have to speak with people to understand their experiences. Let them take you on a journey through their life, through their world.

When the world shrinks into the palm of your hand, you’ll know what to do to change it.

Benjamin Yoskovitz

Thank you, Ben, for showing us how we might start.

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.

Change the World!.

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.

Change the World: Use and Interpret the Data

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What Will You Do with the Data?

Change the World!

A colleague calls you. She’s cranky and to the point. She doesn’t offer a greeting. She just starts right in with what she wants you to do.

What she wants you to do isn’t your job. It isn’t something that should naturally go to you. She’s demanding a huge favor, without even asking. Someone listening in would think you were being paid or that you’d already said, “yes.”

Of course, you have choices here, but the big one is.

How will use and interpret the data you have?

We can change the world by finding out more — more than what we think we know, more than the surface shows. Imagine the reasons, the ways that we might want to help.

You can change the world today — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

______________
If you’re ready to change the world, 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.

Change the World!.

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.