Monkey on Your Desk? Morph It, Mosh It, Write It Up

March 27, 2006 by Liz

Boring, Broken, or Both.

“The only thing an intelligent child can do with a complete toy is take it apart,” a kindergarten teacher told me. “An incomplete toy lets children use their imaginations.”

–Todd Oppenheimer, Schooling the Imagination (About the Waldorf Schools)

Some days it’s a “have-to.” A monkey crawled on your desk that you don’t want to fix or write about. You’re face to face with something that is boring, broken, or both. You can do the grown-up thing. Dig in, reach for a bandage to fix it, and get things done. OR You can do what a kid would do–pull it apart to see how things work.

Be a Genius–Morph and Mosh It

Take it a part and see what it’s made of. That’s what Leonardo would do. That’s what most curious kids would do too. Don’t put a band-aid on it. Morph it into something else. Mosh parts of other things into it. Make it into something new. Here are some ways that you might do that with that problem or a boring idea that you have to write about.

1. Find the parts. Breaking things down into manageable chunks makes the most boring, broken, or beastly task less powerful. It puts you in charge. It also gives you a chance to see how things fit.

2. Identify which parts need attending to and which do not. When we look at a whole, the details can be a distraction. Push those details out of the way. Pick three things that deserve attention and focus in on only them. Let me track this with two scenarios.

Scenario 1–the article: You need to write an article on the vision of your brand. Pick three main ideas you want to share. Set the details aside.
Scenario 2–the client problem: You need to unravel a misunderstanding that has cost money and caused damage to your relationship. Define the damage that has occurred. Don’t spend any time on the causes now.

3. Morph it. Arrange and rearrange the parts you have identified. Decide how those parts fit best together. Do it as if you were rebuilding a toy–What if this went here, or here, or here?

Scenario 1–the article: Play with how you might order the ideas of your vision–short-term to long-term; easy to more difficult; altruistic to bottom line; head to heart.
Scenario 2–the client problem: Set goals for how you repair the damage and decide which goal should be the first that you address. Think about who should be part of the repair crew and what piece of the picture they each add.

Think of the outcome each time your rearrange things. This sounds like a lot, but we’re only talking a few seconds here.

4. When you have the parts where you want them, look for a pattern in what you’ve got. What you’re looking for is the big idea–the whole behind the parts you’ve made. This is the “putting things back together” stage.

Scenario 1–the article: Are the ideas for the article about how your company is going to grow? Do they arrange themselves as a statement of altruism, or innovation, or point to an idea that will change the fabric of business?
Scenario 2–the client problem: How do your goals frame the action you will take? Is your planned response that of a thinker, a feeler, one who delegates or one who takes the bull by the horns? Did you choose a team who can execute your plan?

If you can’t find a pattern in what you’ve got, rework your parts until they gel. It won’t take long now that you know you’re looking for a cohesive whole.

5. Mosh it. Add some spark from the outside. Ideas from outside the situation add energy and change the way you feel about the task at hand. Re-introduce the details that were there, if they’re pertinent, but be sure to include something totally new.

Scenario 1–the article: You might add an anecdote or an analogy to frame the vision, or speak to how the vision came to be. You could include your statement of what the vision means to you personally, or talk about how difficult you found it to write down the vision for others to read. Sometimes I just relate the process it took to get an article done. Other times I choose a TV show or character that readers will know well and let that image, and what it stands for, carry the article along.
Scenario 2–the client problem: The way you framed the problem will say a lot about how you want to repair the damage. Before you move on what you’ve found, consider how the client and the others involved might also frame the problem. Are they thinkers, feelers, those who delegate, and doers too? Use that answer to form a more thorough plan of action.

Write It Up

Can’t avoid it any longer. It’s time to write things up, but that boring, broken or both “have to” is under your control. Now you have a plan for what you want to say or do. So writing should go easy on you, and the little voice that would have been whispering in your ear, “I hate this. I hate this,” should be quiet too.

Looking at this process on paper may seem a lot, but actually, it takes far less time than most folks I know spend thinking about how much we don’t want to deal with that “have to” on our desks.

And the payoff is you feel so good when you’ve made that monkey go away, and you know you’ve thought it through so that the hairy guy isn’t going to come back.

I hate monkeys on my desk.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Writing Ugh! 10 Reasons to Get Jazzed about Writing

March 26, 2006 by Liz

Writing Is Easy When It’s Over

Writing is easy. All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.

—Gene Fowler , Screenwriter, Director, Author

Let’s face it. Everyone can think of things we’d rather do than write. Writing is work, even when it comes easily. We have to get the words down in the right order. We have to check that they’re all there and spelled correctly. We have to make sure that they make sense to people who aren’t us. Those are a lot of things to do when we might be doing something more fun, such as having a life.

Why do I write?

I just can’t let opportunities fly right by me.

10 Reasons to Get Jazzed about Writing

Why do folks write? They know that words have power. That a word well-placed and well-written can bring visibility and attention to them, their business and their brand. They know that writing is an incredible tool that reaches farther than other forms of conversation do. Even video, well-done, is written first.

We write because writing is power. Here are 10 reasons to get jazzed about writing.

1. In today’s universe, writing is your voice. Not to write is close to having laryngitis. The ability to write is critical. You learn it same way you learn to play the guitar–by practice. If you want to communicate when the spotlight falls your way, you need to be writing “solos” now.

2. Writing can reach an unlimited audience. More people can access what you have to say when they can read it. Your audience can read what you write on their own terms, in their own time frame.

3. Writing allows you to think before you speak. One beauty of writing is that you can edit before people hear what you say. The uhs and ums, the wild digressions, and off-base thinking can stay a secret between you and your delete key. You end up looking smarter, and your audience ends up thinking you are too. That’s power.

4. Writing lasts to become an asset. The words you craft today will still be available to you again and again. One investment pays you back with many returns. You can repurpose your writing to fit new situations. You can make it last to serve you and your business as long as you need it to.

5. Writing is free promotion. Offer quality, relevant content to an audience who needs it, and they’ll be coming back to see you again. Your name, your business, and your brand will gain a following from the writing that you did.

6. Writing increases the visibility of your brand. Writing great content means search engine ranking and link popularity. Whether you’re looking for a new job or promoting your business, high visibility is currency in the knowledge universe. Employers and clients are using search engines to check out relationships. You do it. Don’t you?

7. Writing lets people know you as an individual. You become the one and only you. If I never wrote a word on this blog, how would you know who I am? Need I go on?

8. Writing forces you to think through ideas. When you leave your ideas in your head, it’s easy to think you know them inside out. Often after writing something, we know it better than before we started.

9. Writing lets you define the big idea of your brand. Whatever subject you write about will soon become what you are thought of as an expert on.

10. Writing is networking with content. Writing opens doors. People read and answer back. All people tend to see others who think like they do as being smart. Some of those readers will become friends and business contacts.

I can think of so many reasons to write, and I get jazzed about the doors that each piece I write might be opening. Now as I finish this post, I have one more page in my archives. It’s like one more dollar in my promotional bank account. I can repurpose it and use it again and again. People can read it whenever they want to find out more about who I am.

Funny . . . . I’m even more jazzed about writing now, than I was when I started this post.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Brand YOU–You Are What They See

March 24, 2006 by Liz

Covers Sell Books

People say, Don’t judge a book by its cover. People judge books by covers. Covers sell books. We only have so much time to look at books, and the cover is what gets our attention. This photo lets you know how important a cover can be. As a publisher, I’d edit that old advice to say, Judge a book by its cover, but also judge the book builder too.

A book cover makes a promise about what you will find when you open the book.

Your image works the same way for you.

What’s Your Cover?

What people see about you, your first impression, your image, is like the book cover to your personal brand. Your first impression literally makes a mental image. Your image makes a silent promise about who you are and what people can count on when they get to know you. That mental image lasts. Pictures stay longer than words.

When there’s a question about what to believe, your image might just tip the balance. That’s a powerful reason to be sure that the big idea of your brand carries through into all things that people see around you. Here’s a checklist that might help you make sure your image supports your personal brand.
For the sake of this checklist let’s imagine that you want to be known as one who is always on top of information.

Your personal image. Do you dress the part? Do the clothes you wear and your haircut look pulled together? Do you sit and stand like one who is always ready to take notes? Have you got the right energy level? Do you carry the tools you need? Notebook, pens, list of phone extensions to use when outside your office? When you’re asked, can you look things up and find them?
Your workspace. Is your workspace organized? Is your computer desktop organized too? Have you put the things you use most often closest to where you use them? Have you placed the things people are likely to ask for in a place where you can find them quickly? When you stand at your doorway, does your space look like the workspace of one who handles information well?
Your skills. Have you mastered information software programs, such as spreadsheets and databases that might be useful in your job? Do you know more than usual references that people might use to answer questions that come up?

Once you start thinking in this direction, you’ll start to see that everything you do is an opportunity to enhance the big idea of your personal brand. It’s not so hard to develop habits that form around your big idea. That’s the key learning to live your brand.

People do judge books by the promise of the cover. Make a promise they will value. One that you will keep–and they’ll notice it for sure.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Eye-Deas 3-Photo Content Checklist

March 22, 2006 by Liz

Seeing your Work

Images–photos and artwork–can be used in two ways: as illustration–to extend or explain the content–or as decoration–to bring readers in and add interest to the page. Either way, choice of images reflects your personality, your thoughts, your brand, and your business.

Decorative Images Versus Illustration

If you’re using images solely for decoration, you can wander outside the box fairly far and folks usually will call what you do “art.” Even if your readers don’t like your choices, they will most often glance over and then continue reading, unless your choice is something that makes readers uncomfortable–say, a giant eyeball that seems to be watching them. It’s possible that a choice such as that will make them stop reading and move on.

Images used as illustration might show how to do something or how something looks. Readers rely on illustrative visuals to get more meaning from the words. Visuals can bring an idea home, by making it clearer or stop the reader cold by being a distraction. Placement is important here. The image should be close to the words that talk about it, so that readers don’t have to work to make the connection. A caption helps readers in the same way.

Photo Content Checklist

Content is king and images have content too. It’s not hard to underscore the impact images can have on your writing. They can kick up a notch and be the added value that brings readers back to you. Here are some rules about what you might consider when choosing an image to support your words.

When showing people, look for a diversity that reflects the culture around you. People are used to a certain level of diversity. Straying too far from what folks are used to can lead them to subconsciously discount your message as biased, or to see it as less than authentic.
Stereotypes just aren’t cool. It’s true that Mom often cooks dinner, but lots of Dads do it too. This is not being politically correct. It is choosing to show the exception, rather than always showing the rule. The folks who are the exception will thank you.
Keep in mind your readers are not you. They’ve had different experiences; might use different currency;, could be in a different season of the year. Making room for the differences without making a big deal of them can show you are inclusive–rather stuck in your own world view. Opening your view helps them feel comfortable. People everywhere like to see positive images of people who do what they do–who wouldn’t?
Watch for other unconscious bias in your choices. As humans we are drawn to the things we like and away from those things that we don’t. This could be happening in the images you choose. For example, a gardener may too often choose gardening photos. Go back through your blog and check the photos you’ve used. Is there a particular bias–beyond that required by the content you write about–that shows in images you use?
Look for “photo no-nos”–unbecoming details within photos that could be distractions, particularly if you are using photos taken by an amateur. Some examples might include hands with dirty fingernails, any animal’s posterior right in the camera, animal sex organs, action in the background that is unwanted or distracting. Read the words in every photo. Sometimes they say something rude.
Take care when cropping. It’s easy to crop out the interest. Any object by itself is rarely of interest. When cropping, try to put the main idea forward and just a hair off-center. A well-composed photo takes the eye from the upper-right corner area in a c-shaped counterclockwise spiral into the center.
Size the photo to fit the piece that you’re writing. Use the “Goldilocks Rule”–not too large, not too small, but just right. Look at your favorite websites, blogs, and print materials to get a sense of what works for you. Keep in mind if you have a huge splotch of color or a photo in your blog header, you already have a large image on the page.

Keep those in mind when using photos to illustrate and decorate your writing. Readers might not be able to explain what has changed, but they’ll notice it just the same. You’ll probably hear more comments about how wonderful your writing is.

See what I mean?

Photos are the fastest ways you change the look and feel of your blog. You can change your blog daily and signal your readers what’s in store right now. With great photos, you add depth to your readers’ understanding that your brand stands for quality in every way.

I’m sure you check photos for other “photo no-nos.” What are they?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Brand YOU–Making Your Weaknesses Irrelevant

March 20, 2006 by Liz

Identify Your Weaknesses

Often the easiest way to see your weaknesses is by looking at the flipside of your strengths. For example, if a strength is that you are detailed-oriented and accurate at checking specs, it’s likely that you’re not strong at seeing the big picture. Developing process models probably isn’t what you do best. In another scenario, if you’re innovative, you might take too many risks. If you value hard-won knowledge of the fundamentals, you might take far too few. Identifying your strengths is only half of the story. Next you need to be real about your weaknesses. Start by knowing everyone has them, and that knowing yours is the first step toward managing them effectively.

Get Curious to Shore Up Weaknesses

One of my weaknesses comes from my strength in perception. Information about people and how they think comes easily to me through normal interaction and conversation. It’s almost as if I can pick up signals from the air about who they are and what they think. Unfortunately the skill is not reciprocal, it puts the other person at a disadvantage, often making that person uncomfortable–uncomfortable being with me.Now that you’ve found your weaknesses. Look at the skills that stand behind them. If you have trouble with the big picture, get curious about it. Start asking folks who like the big picture why they go there. See what values there are in having a strength in that area. Here’s an example of how just that helped me.

My corresponding weakness is I’m the poster child for small talk. I’ve never developed the skill or the habit. Until I realized I had the weakness, I saw absolutely no purpose for it. Then I got curious. I watched and talked to people who do small talk well. I saw how it helps establish personal relationships and boundaries between people–sort of mini agreements made by conversation. I still don’t start conversations with “How’s the weather?” or “How about them bears?” But I’ve learned not to jump right in with “on page 32 you can see where I . . . ”

No matter how good I get at it, small talk will always be an acquired still not a talent, but a skill that I work on when I can. These days it’s far less of a weakness and now it’s at least an option when I need it. Folks aren’t so uncomfortable when I start talking . . . I say a few things before I get to page 32.

Then Make Your Weaknesses Irrelevant

In like manner, no one–except my oldest brother, who’ll tell you he’s perfect already–will ever be free of weaknesses. No one can make them disappear, but anyone can control and shore them up. You can minimize their impact and make them irrelevant. They don’t need to be a burden in the marketplace, in your business or in your job. Here are some ways you might do that.

Always volunteer for jobs that play to your strengths. Taking advantages of such opportunities gives you a chance to showcase your strengths in new ways–to be known for what you do well. Volunteering to your strengths is a fabulous way of promoting your personal brand.
Go into a learning mode about your weaknesses. Be honest about where you do better with support. People see that as integrity. In other words, avoid the temptation to oversell your skills. People find out soon enough what you can’t do. Overselling your skills only makes your weaknesses seem larger. That’s the quickest way to kill your personal brand.
Value people who have strengths that correspond to your weaknesses. Look first at the ones who make you crazy. Usually the reason folks drive us crazy is because they care deeply about what we hate. That fact makes them exceptional at tasks that we don’t do well. As a big-picture person, I’m wise to value detailed-oriented people, and always seek them out as partners. That makes us both stronger. It puts my big picture strength and their detail competency together and makes our weaknesses irrelevant to the task we do together.
Add extra check steps for any task that involves your weaknesses. Know that those tasks will require more time for you than they do for folks who have those skills as a strength.
Within any situation, you can probably think of several ways to keep your weaknesses in control, if you stop to assess what strengths and weaknesses you’ll be working with before you start the task.

Now you’ve established the core of your personal brand. You know your strengths and weaknesses. When you’re asked about them in a first meeting–with a client or at an interview–you can articulate how you play to your strengths and manage your weaknesses.

You can articulate the unique value of your strengths and how they meet real needs with actions and benefits. You have strategies for minimizing the impact of your weaknesses. You can talk about your competencies with competence, clarity, and confidence. That’s a dynamic personal brand.

You’re well ahead of the game already. All it took was a look in the mirror and using what you found there.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

The 10 Skills Most Critical to Your Future

March 16, 2006 by Liz

Thinking in the 21st Century

Thinking cannot be separated from who we are. In the 21st century, the age of intellectual property, the way we think is crucial to having a place in society. What we think and how well we express those thoughts will determine where we fit and how well we live. Thoughts, ideas, processes, intangibles–all have value in a world of constant change where knowledge is an adjective, a noun, and an asset–in the form of intellectual property–on balance sheets.

In the largest sense, American society is breaking into two classes:

The first class are people who know how to think. These people realize that most problems are open to examination and creative solution. If a problem appears in the lives of these people, their intellectual training will quickly lead them to a solution or an alternative statement of the problem. These people are the source of the most important product in today’s economy ideas.

The second class, the vast majority of Americans, are people who cannot think for themselves. I call these people “idea consumers” — metaphorically speaking, they wander around in a gigantic open-air mall of facts and ideas. The content of their experience is provided by television, the Internet and other shallow data pools. These people believe collecting images and facts makes them educated and competent, and all their experiences reinforce this belief. The central, organizing principle of this class is that ideas come from somewhere else, from magical persons, geniuses, “them.”

. . . My purpose in this article is to undermine that belief.

–Paul Lutus, Creative Problem Solving

Most Schools Are Inside the Box

When I was in school, it was weird and unpopular to think outside of the box. But there I was. It’s not something I learned to do. It’s how I came into the world. Much like a left-handed kid learns to use right-handed scissors, I learned to figure out how everyone thinks. I learned to observe so that I could understand them. Knowing how other people think was a survival skill for me. For them, learning how I think was a gesture of friendship.

That was then.

In school it’s weird not to think like everyone else.
In society, outside-of-the-box thinking is a prized commodity. Innovative thinking is essential to any change-based leadership brand.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

My experience of school, both as a student and sadly as a teacher was not, in the most primary sense, geared toward developing new ideas. It was centered around teaching and learning what had already been done, without taking that next step to challenge the past with how it might have been done differently or better.

Thinking Outside of the Box Is Critical

The world economy has changed to one of service and ideas. Conversation is digital and content is king. The ability to work with ideas has become crucial to having a place in society. Thinking outside of the box is no longer a weird personality trait, but something to be admired and valued. It’s a key trait necessary to modern-day strategic planning and process modeling.

Intellectual property–content–is an asset that not only gets produced, but reproduced, reconfigured, and re-purposed for variety of media. Those who produce intellectual property are builders of wealth. An original idea that solves a problem or presents an opportunity is worth more now than it ever has been. Those who develop and mold original ideas are the new “killer app.”

10 Skills Critical to Your Future

These are ten skills critical to your repertoire. They have indelible impact as part of a resume, a personal brand, and as a skill set. They compound in value each minute in the marketplace. Though it can be done, these 10 skills are difficult to cultivate inside the proverbial box. Yet they are critical to your future, if you want to be an idea creator and not an idea consumer. These are

The 10 Most Critical Skills for the 21st Century

1. Deep independent thinking and problem-solving — The ability to understand a problem or opportunity from the inside out, vertically, laterally, at the detail level, and the aerial view.

1. Mental flexibility — The ability to tinker with ideas and viewpoints to stretch them, bend them, reconstruct them into solutions that fit and work perfectly in specific situations.

1. Fluency with ideas — The ability to describe many versions of one answer and many solutions to one problem set and to explain the impact or outcome of each both orally and in writing in ways that others can understand.

1. Proficiency with processes and process models — The ability to discuss a problem in obsessive detail and to define a process, linear or nonlinear, that will solve the problem effectively within a given group culture.

1. Originality of contributions — The ability to offer a value-added difference that would not be there were another person in the same role.

1. A habit of finding hidden assumptions and niches — The ability to see the parts of what is being considered, including the stated and unstated needs, desires, and wishes of all parties involved.

1. A bias toward opportunity and action — The ability to estimate and verbalize the loss to be taken by standing still and missed opportunities that occur by choosing one avenue over another.

1. Uses all available tools, including the five senses and intuitive perceptions, in data collection — The ability to weigh and value empirical data, sensory data, and one’s own and others’ perceptions appropriately.

1. Energy, enthusiasm, and positivity about decision making — The ability to bring the appropriate mindset to the decision-making process in order to lead oneself or a team to a positive decision-making experience.

Self-sustaining productivity — The ability to use the confidence gained from the first 9 skills to establish relationships with people at all levels–from the warehouse to the boardroom–knowing that ideas are not the pride and privy of only a gifted few.

Innovative, imaginative, inventive, mind-expanding, playful-wondering, what-if, how-come, dramatic-difference, find-the-wow, visionary, killer-app, I-want-one, no-more-stupid-stuff, nothing-in-moderation, bet-the-farm, incredibly-sexy, please-please-can-I, that’s-so-cool, couldn’t-knock-it-off-if-they-tried-to, able-to-see-better-than-the-best, no-more-move-here-today-move-it-back-tomorrow, stupid kind of thinking happens outside of the box.

The skills that you develop from outside of the box thinking stay with you for a lifetime and are transferable from one job to another. You don’t need them to write every shopping list, but they are there whenever there is a problem to solve or an opportunity to take advantage of.

It doesn’t take a genius to become a fluent, flexible, original, and creative source of ideas. It takes a person who can develop habits of thinking in new ways. What actually happens is that you find out how you really think, rather than how you were taught to.

You become uniquely you–BRAND YOU–the only one–priceless.

Who wouldn’t want to work with a person like that?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

PS We’re going to go down the list of all 10 in the Finding Ideas Outside of the Box series. Let me know if there’s one you’d like to do first.

Boring, Broken, or Both.

Be a Genius–Morph and Mosh It

Write It Up

Writing Is Easy When It’s Over

10 Reasons to Get Jazzed about Writing

Covers Sell Books

A book cover makes a promise about what you will find when you open the book.

What’s Your Cover?

Seeing your Work

Decorative Images Versus Illustration

Photo Content Checklist

See what I mean?

Identify Your Weaknesses

Get Curious to Shore Up Weaknesses

Then Make Your Weaknesses Irrelevant

Thinking in the 21st Century

Most Schools Are Inside the Box

In school it’s weird not to think like everyone else. In society, outside-of-the-box thinking is a prized commodity. Innovative thinking is essential to any change-based leadership brand.

Thinking Outside of the Box Is Critical

10 Skills Critical to Your Future

The 10 Most Critical Skills for the 21st Century

In school it’s weird not to think like everyone else.
In society, outside-of-the-box thinking is a prized commodity. Innovative thinking is essential to any change-based leadership brand.