Successful Blog

How to Blog Like a Beginner …

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A few words I’ve said before that I want to share on my birthday …

Something blogging has taught me a lot about — not just the beauty of paying attention to one thing at a time — but the fulfillment of offering other people a chance to talk.

Half the show is in the comments. Thank you HART for saying that!

That was one of the first things we discovered here.

When I first started blogging, I often tried to do too much. I’d write a post that carried the load of too many thoughts at one time. Those blogging posts went both deep and wide. They were so complete, I left no room for readers to add their thoughts.

It’s not a conversation when all a reader can say is I agree with you, Great post. or You covered that subject really well. There’s just nowhere for a conversation to go, if I don’t leave room for a reader’s thoughts to squeeze in between my own. Now I know to think about the conversation when I write.

Here are a few things that I do differently now. What they add up to is staying in the mind of a beginner.

  • I ask more questions without answering them.
  • I don’t try to think through every possibility as I used to do. I write what I know and I let other folks add what they know to that.
  • I’ve backed off on holding myself accountable as an expert on the what I write about and instead, think of myself as one of the audience talking to another reader about an idea, waiting to hear his or her point of view.

The result? This social media beginner is having so much more fun than any teacher … and feeling so much more authentic.

What do you do to stay a social media beginner?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Online Culture: Is Your Definition of Real Life Out of Date?

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In Real Life

I keep encountering the phrase “in real life.” People use it often to talk about the offline culture. Most of probably first heard that phrase as small children. Our families use it to help us differentiate between fantasy and reality, fact or fiction. It’s education curriculum — a skill essential to literacy and critical thinking — teachers help children sort real versus make believe in schools all over the world.

Out of school and grown, we rely on that skill to navigate information and relationships — to identify competence, credibility, relevance, predictability, integrity, authenticity. We trust what is “real.” We look to uncover fallacy.

It’s how we learn to trust who and what we know. But reality is perception and perception is made of more than information — personal filters and cultural beliefs change our view of what’s authentic.

Hopefully with new information and new experience we changed how we see and what we know.

Culture Shock

Lately I’ve realized that my definition of real life and the words around the online experience need to change. My view hasn’t kept up with the new seamless online and offline line communication world. Here’s how I got to that thought.

When we go to another country, we find another culture. It’s just as likely that we’ll find another culture in the next neighborhood. Culture is a context that frames our reality.

What’s fine and natural in one context can be a reputational blunder in another. We start to “get” this the first time our peer group has different values than our family. Peer culture has different rules.

Vocabulary changes from one culture to another too. The most used definition of community can be a group of like minded thinkers here, a church group there, or a small town depending on the group we’re talking with.

Even the mode of communication has its effect. We dress and act differently in person than we might on the phone. Without the visual input our words have more power and are offered in a verbal behavior set. This tool changes the culture in which it works just that much. Yet we never say that we’re in another world when we talk on the phone or when we text.

AND it’s a new cultural fact: No one wants to hear our cell phone convervastions.

Similarly, online culture is developing rules of behavior that change in different situations too.

Yet because folks have imagined virtual reality that is not all true, we’ve developed this mindset that being online isn’t the real world when in fact, the Internet is just another set of tools.

Being online isn’t another world … it’s a set of tools in another culture paradigm. It’s no less the real world than being on the phone.

To be visibly authentic in every conversation in every every culture, it’s important to be aware that media only mediates relationships and it only causes contextual cultural shifts. .

The media we use doesn’t define real life.
Media doesn’t change the world, people do.

Is your definition of real life out of date too?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Blog Potomac & 140Conf: If You Had 10 Min to Talk What Point Would You Make?

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Just as my blog decided I could work again, I left town for a road show. I had the pleasure of speaking at Blog Potomac in DC. Then I drove north with my son to the 140 Characters Conference in NYC. The week was filled with opportunities to talk at length with dynamic and interesting folks.

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Words and phrases that kept coming up — beyond the names of applications — culture, cultural, news, tools, relationships, crowdsourcing, barriers and boundaries, branding, the importance of story, unplugging and taking time off …

Blog Potomac

The first conference was Blog Potomac in Falls Church, VA.
Liveblogging BlogPotomac in Falls Church, VA, and this photo were provided by Mahdi Gharavi.

And here are The Ten Best Ideas from BlogPotomac

140 Characters Conference

A few days later I was in NYC for the 140 Characters Conference.
Becky McCray (@BeckyMccray) did a great recap called Overheard at the 140 Character Conference

As Jeff Pulver says, the panel on News Gathering Stands Out. What follows is my own ten minutes.

Short Format Conferences

Truly remarkable conversations and questions happened at two conferences that held to a short-speaking format … Blog Potomac rules were speaker had 10 minutes to present and 30 minutes for Q&A. 140 Characters offered speaking times of 5, 10, 15, and 20 minutes. Most Q&A was in the hallways. The between-session questions at both events fell seemed to fall into two categories:

  • How are you using social media tools to gather information, implement ideas, and build relationships?
  • What’s next after Twitter?

The most tweeted phrases from my talks included …

  • If you want to use social media well, Don’t lead with the tools, lead with relationships.
  • Good companies have always been doing this.
  • Was there ever a conference as this about the telephone – are we getting to precious about our tools?
  • Twitter is the world’s lagest networking room. Get a friend to introduce you
  • Was there ever a conference as this about the telephone – are we getting to precious about our tools?
  • Blogs let me go deep – Twitter lets me go wide

If you had 10 minutes to talk on social media, what point would YOU make?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Social Media Road Trip

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I’m going on a road trip in the next few weeks. I’ll be traveling around on roads and paths that many have been traveled on by many others before. I will be on the same road but not for the same reasons. My reasons, my path, will differ from anyone else taking the same road.

I will, no doubt, meet many others traveling the very same roads I am taking. Those I meet may not be able to help with the path but they can help me with the road.

Along the way I will stop at cafes, rest stops, garage stations, shops and wonderful places to sleep. Each of those places will provide me with opportunities to meet others and engage in conversations. These people that I meet probably won’t be aware of the path I’m taking but they will know the road.
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The road they just came down might be the road I need to be on. More importantly, I can give them tips, (destinations, distances to places to see etc.) about the road I just traveled.

These roads I will travel are very much like social media tools.

We all have different reasons, approaches and things we wish to accomplish on our path, but we all use the same tools – road, to get there. Each of us, on our own individual path, has something to offer others traveling the same roads, or using the same tools, as we are. No matter what path you’re on, or even if you get stuck, there will always be someone coming along that can help you.

Have you stopped and helped someone lately?

from Kathryn Jennex aka northernchick

Thanks Joel Kelly for offering to drive.

Why Hire the Blog When You Can Hire the the Brain Behind It?

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A Photograph or a Photographer?

This week, I sat with a client who sings with an elite choir. The quality of what they do is outstanding. They’re known for loving attention to every detail. When they sing Russian opera, they study the deep meaning of the words, not merely clear pronunciation. It comes through in every blissful sound they blend, share, and offer. Their musical director is exceptional. Their production staff is to die for. Their board is prestigious and powerful.

The music they make is heavenly.

But aside from an occasional sale to a friend in Japan and the many CDs sold go to friends and supporters. The choir is hardly known outside of their personal and professional network.

That’s why my client was meeting with me.

“I was thinking we should use the Internet. I thought maybe a piece of your blog or some others,” he said.

I said, “What do you want for the choir? What’s your goal?

He told me without hesitation. “We should have a grammy — more than one.”

“You could do that. You’ll reach my audience and they’ll love you. But I’d like to suggest something more and more lasting. Why not build an audience of your own?”

Hire the Brain Behind the Blog

Often first conversations with clients start with how to get their information on many influential blogs. That leads to discussions of buying, renting, or borrowing bloggers’ influence, determining the right audiences, and how much information on the Internet is misstated, misdirected, or outright ignored.

Boring products need to be “pushed” or “seeded” into the market.
Compelling valuable resources don’t.
One look at Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, or FriendFeed shows that we like to share great things with our friends. Susan Boyle’s YouTube video is an example of great content that didn’t need to be pushed or seeded. It felt good to share it. It made us feel part of something bigger than ourselves.

Using those thoughts and basic strategy — start with the reachable and move out with purpose and logic — we scoped out the existing and realistic possibilities. The plan my choir friend and I started looked something like this one.

Great word of mouth depends on three things:

  1. The product has to be outstanding — and the vision has to be clear.
  2. The way to share it has to easy, growing from the community’s natural connections.
  3. People need to feel proud that they were part of the process.

It sure seemed that my choir client had step 1 — an outstanding product and vision — covered. We moved on to the strategy for building out the community and letting them enjoy the process. We set out to make it easy, meaningful, and about the folks who would help. We were building a movement more than a strategy.

  • Start at Home.. Identify the offline network the choir already reaches. Determine best ways to leverage and expand it — keep the offline connections strong and growing. Keep the offline community engaged and participating in fun, meaningful ways.
  • Learn from, Listen to and Engage the Energy. Find and have dinner with the champions of the choir in the offline community who are already engaged in online social endeavors related to music, the choir, and possible connections for the choir.
  • Let the Leaders Lead. Join and enlist their armies and networks. Let those champions lead their own initiatives in the name of the choir.
  • Momentum Drives Building. Using what we know of our network and their skills, now is finally the time to put up build and release that YouTube video of the choir. They’ll already be part of the endeavor and their armies will know about it when it goes up. Sharing will be fun.
  • Celebrating and Sharing Are Natural. Our friends on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and the music sites we’re already on will be delighted to hear about it too.
  • Reporting Results. At the end, what we about on our blogs will have the power of our community as well as the single event.

And we’ll be well on our way to a network, a community that loves the choir, not one that was borrowed from a network of blogs.

You can hire the blog or you can hire the brain behind it.

It’s a matter of short-term or longer-term thinking.

Do you look at your blogger relationships as a chance to tap into new strategic ideas?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Buy the ebook. Learn how conversation is changing the way business works.

How Do Get You People to Stop Listening to Words and Start Hearing Ideas?

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Semantics Isn’t Conversation

In any conversation, a simple word I choose may have an unexpected effect on you. I have no way of knowing when you have “history” with ordinary words I regularly use.

A word such as curiosity, or money, or gorgeous might trigger a specific and negative response. I’ll have no clue that I’ve touched off feelings, negative feelings. I won’t suspect that one word has changed the tone of my presentation from neutral to negative.

It’s an accident because of something or someone in the past.

Looking for the Wrong Words

What folks encounter negative words it’s easy for them to have negative thoughts. They transfer their experience to the the person who said them, even when the words said aren’t thought of as hurtful, negative, or mean to most people. Communication breaks. Those listeners get distracted in that way.

It’s confusing when folks flinch at something we think is innocuous. We often feel misunderstood and try to explain that we meant no harm. It’s a defensive posture that rarely works. Rather than getting caught in explanation, looking for the tripwire word can be most helpful. If we ask about the message received, we avoid the risk putting our focus on our own intentions, but on the hearing the person who feels something wrong was said.

Here are some ways to bring the focus back to listening — when it seems that we’re getting distracted by words, and not hearing ideas.

  • Know what you want the outcome to be That means listening to the people — their tone, their pauses, their enthusiasm level — not just the words they’re saying.
  • The fear of negative comments — in person and on our blogs — is over-blown. Allowing people to play with language and to enjoy the conversation can be a conceptual collaboration.
  • Giving up the need for control — making room for tangents — can reap great benefits in involvement.
  • Look at faces when the eye contact is too intense.
  • Notice how your conversation partner sits and moves. Lean into the conversation, literally and figuratively.
  • Ask questions about points that interest you. Find many of them.

In other words, let the person talking know you value what he or she is saying. Signal everyone around that person’s importance to all who might be around. Listen actively. In other words, pay attention with the expectation that you will be asked to solve a problem with the very next question.

Conversations sometimes derail over words that we think about differently. When that happens how do you get people to stop listening to words and start hearing ideas?

–ME “Liz” Strauss