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5 Creative Ways to Faster More Effective Problem Solving

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Whether we realize it consciously or simply move through process without thinking, the act of getting new ideas is an act of problem solving. We don’t have something we to do something we want to get done. The idea is the solution. But like finding lost keys or finding a job, the solution is always in the last place we look … mostly because we stop looking once we’ve found our solution.

On the first day back from vacation, getting into the rhythm of solution thinking might take a little more creativity than most days. Yet, in a short work week, we need to get a faster flow and wider choice of ideas in less time than usually. One way bring the vacation experience into the workplace and have it help us is trying what we learned to do as kids (often to explain our failures) — make up fantastic stories — with a little practice we can use that same ability to push us to faster success in problem solving. Here are a few techniques that will help you do that!

  1. Look for the questions presented not the answers. When we’re looking for ideas, we focus too narrowly over answers. Turn into a 3-year-old and ask relentless questions. What are you doing? What’s a blog post? What if you wrote it as another person? Suppose an alien kidnapped you just when you started writing? Use the questions to move your brain into the ridicucous and when you’re sure you’re there. Then work on the problem.
  2. Get obsessed and curious about one detail. The one weird detail of leaf on tree that is an entirely different color raises curiosity that leads to questions. Make up several stories that answer the curious question. The solution to your problem may occur to you as you explore the stories that you’re spinning.
  3. Take a vacation in your mind. Get some perspective by being reflective. Take your question with you as you imagine yourself in your most favorite habitat — on the beach, skiing, in a beautiful forest, In 5-star restaurant with a fabulous view — maybe even the edge of the Grand Canyon or under a starry night. Give yourself a mental that allows your ideas to expand and grow.
  4. Use music to go back in time. Put on it on softly and remember who you used to be. Ask yourself what would that you be thinking was important about current events and situations? Have a conversation with the person you once were about the problem that you’re now facing. Think about the most interesting characters — artists, writers, musicians, dancers, engineers, coders, designers, contractors, mathematicians, boring teachers, and bartenders — who you’ve shared your life with. How would they approach the puzzle you’re facing?
  5. Turn your situation into a disaster movie. Take the problem to world-ending proportions. Invent an action hero to save the world by delivering the solution you need at the very last second.

The process of linking your ideas into an ordered sequence of curious questions or an amazing plot line breaks down the false barriers that prevent us from seeing other ways to approach the answers we’re needing.

Which of the five ideas seems most up your alley?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Thanks to Week 303 SOBs

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Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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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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Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Simple and Basic Ways to Get Your Blog Noticed

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A Guest Post by
Susan

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Promoting your personal blog

With the constant expansion of social networking, there are plenty of ways to promote your personal blog to the right people who have an interest in what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Online pinboard tools

Whether your blog is about parenting, business skills or DIY, online pinboards can be an excellent way of attracting followers that have similar interests to yourself. This type of publicity is free and worldwide. Sites such as pinterest.com allow you to create an online pinboard and post pictures to it from your blog using a simple application added to your tool bar. You can have as many online pinboards as you wish (within reason) each with different subjects or themes. The site will then allow you to follow the pinboards of other users that have similar interests to yourself and in turn to follow the things that you post. Your followers can then re-pin your images to their own boards creating a whole large network. Your images will be available to your followers’ followers and so on.

Include relevant links in your blog

Including relevant links to other products and businesses within your blog can help create a network of interest and create new followers. For instance, when writing about an arm chair, use a hyperlink to create links to other relevant businesses and pages. This is a good an easy way to create an interesting and informative blog.

Facebook

There are many different ways in using Facebook as an excellent tool to promote your personal blog. Facebook groups are there to join together users that have similar interests and want to join discussions on matters that are related to you. It is always beneficial to join groups that can help you forward your ideas and create a good buzz about your blog.

Following other users, pages and businesses on Facebook will often give you the opportunity to promote your blog. For instance if you keep a personal blog regarding crafting, you may want to consider following businesses and even magazine publications that are about the same or similar subject matters. You will often find that like-minded people will be following the same pages as you and will pass on links to your blog.

Finally never underestimate the power of sharing your personal blog with family and friends. These loyal followers will often share your links creating a web of interest stretching out across hundreds of people and businesses.

Twitter

Twitter is an excellent way of promoting your personal blog in an unobtrusive way. Expand the list of other users that you follow to again include people and businesses that have similar interests to yourself. You will find by doing this that Twitter will begin to recommend your tweets to a wider range of users on the site.

Joining blogging sites

By joining a blogging network you will make your blog available to thousands of other users. You can use an RSS feed to automatically update your page on the blogging network so that when you create a new post or make a new tweet. This will work in your favour if you are a frequent blogger.

A good blogging site will also give you access to hundreds of blogs that are on a similar subject to your own. By following those, not only will you be able to find new and interesting ideas to help you along the way, but also attract followers from these blogs in your own right.

Effective use of search words

Most internet users will search for certain words and phrases if they want to find out information. If you are writing about a certain subject matter, make sure that you mention the subject frequently within your blog, this way it will be picked up by the search engines and your blog will increase in popularity.

StumbleUpon

Stumbleupon.com is a very good website searching tool where users can recommend sites that they have found to other like-minded people. When you register an account users can set their preferences to help them find blogs on the subject matters that they are interested in. Whenever you create a new blog post, by adding it to the Stumble Upon register you will make it available to thousands of people who are looking to read articles and information on the things that you are writing about. They will also be able to ‘like’ your blog in turn passing the link on to other users and increasing your bloon behalf of her favorite catnapper recliner specialist.

Thanks! Susan!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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How to Protect Your Web Reputation and Promote Yourself Online

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Guest Post
by Riley Kissel

Job hunters with unchecked Internet existences should worry: an increasing number of employers perform DIY background checks on prospective employees via the World Wide Web. Specifically, they’re running applicant names through search engines. From there, they uncover social networking profiles and anything in which the applicant is attached to that has been published in some way on the Internet. If you haven’t cared about online reputation management yet, you need to.

But hold off on merely deleting your Internet existence all together, because if there’s one thing employers use their investigations to do besides find reasons not to hire people, it’s to hire them. Social network profiles let employers see a glimpse of the “real” you, or at least, see if there are any discrepancies between your resume and what your profiles say about you. Finding information that backs up your claims, or simply confirms that you are indeed a worthwhile individual, are aspects of the hiring process that encourage prospective employers to perfect, not eliminate, their web-based details.

So it’s vital that you go through Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and adjust your privacy settings so that no friends can potentially post damaging information that can be seen on your profile. In addition, sweep through your submitted information to weed out potential red flags – such as any posts that could be construed as offensive. But the essential aspect of making sure you look good on social networks is to constantly monitor your profiles on them, as well as staying up-to-date on privacy changes while job hunting.

It’s also important to become a member of every social network that you can. When mixed with proper monitoring, having multiple accounts may seem like a lot of work, but doing so allows you to immediately take control of the first results people are going to get back when they type your name into a search engine. In addition, if your name’s reflected URL has not already been taken you should buy the rights to it as soon as possible. Having YourName.com is a great way to make your resume readily available plus additional information of your choosing and eliminate confusion stemming from someone else using your name domain for purposes unrelated to you.

Don’t be intimidated by an Internet presence, but don’t disregard its benefits either. It has much to do with the chances of you getting a job as it does with you losing the opportunity to get hired. It’s not outside the realm of possibility for those adamant about finding work to improve their Internet-based reflection. It just takes patience and diligence, two attributes the modern job hunter surely must have.
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Riley Kissel is a freelance writer who covers many industries with style. You can find out more about him at RileyKissel.com

Thanks, Riley, for this few moment of clarity..

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

How to Spot a Micromanager

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We’ve all been guilty at one time or another of being a micromanager whether it was in the workplace or other facets of our lives.

You can usually spot a micromanager a mile away – the individual who wants to be a good leader but goes about in the wrong manner. While trying to better their workers, athletes, students, loved ones etc. they end up creating an issue that was not there in the first place.

The micromanager in many instances becomes just that because they want to make sure everything goes according to plan, their plan.

Whether it is the boss who doesn’t have enough faith in their workers, the teacher who strays from the lesson or the coach who doesn’t trust his team, they end up micromanaging and with it bring added stress to a situation. Another way to describe it is the micromanager wants full control and will accept nothing less.

Most micromanagers come about their title unbeknownst to them. They oftentimes don’t go out of their way to fill this role, but once it consumes them they know nothing else. Like it or not, they have programmed themselves for this part and they are unlikely to change unless called on it.

 

Dangers of Micromanaging

For those individuals who have willingly or surprisingly become a micromanager, there are options. They can continue to let this role define them as managers, coaches, teachers, etc. or they can do something about it.

One of the first things the micromanager needs to assess is how their actions are impacting not only those under them, but themselves. For many micromanagers, their leadership skills or lack thereof eventually lead to them burn out, taking some of those under them along the way.

While some micromanagers need to assume that role for a while if those under them lack certain skills and/or experience, others run the potential of alienating the very individuals they spend time working with, teaching and coaching.

No one wants to feel like they are somehow inferior to those above them, made to think like they cannot make a decision or carry out a project. The person in many cases will eventually tune out the micromanager, leading to an awkward relationship at best among the two.

Having discussed the dangers, how do you know if you in fact are a micromanager?

Among the telltale signs of this problem are:

  • You decide that instead of working to educate others and provide constructive criticism , you in fact treat them as inferior, being fast to highlight their mistakes;
  • You find the need to order individuals around;
  • You have a short fuse and become frustrated, defensive and/or lash out at those who contest something you did or said;
  • You are upset when someone goes above your head to deal with your micromanaging issues.

Given the fact we all have been guilty at some point in our lives of micromanaging others, it is important to not immediately play the victim game. Whether it is in the office, the classroom or other walks of life, micromanaging doesn’t serve either the person in charge or those under them any good.

Many of us are taught from an early age that we are either followers or leaders. For many micromanagers, they take the leadership role a little too far, eventually isolating themselves as someone who others do not want to deal with.

In the event you’ve been labeled a micromanager or feel some of the above items may actually describe your leadership skills, don’t think that you cannot change things. The benefits to removing the micromanager title from your resume are numerous.

Remember, an even bigger and better leader is one who can admit their deficiencies and learn from them.

Photo credit: smh.com.au

Dave Thomas is an expert writer on items like online marketing and is based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.

The Most Important Question to Ask a Social Media Advisor – Bar None

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It’s More Than Knowing the Tools

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My first four years in publishing I learned everything I could about making books. I could write, edit, proof, keyline, set type, layout a page, plan a bookmap, develop a prototype, and conceive ideas for books, series, programs that were unique and loaded with value.

Until I was responsible for growing the business, I never fully understood that some great ideas aren’t actually so great.

Take, for example, what makes a great business website …

A coder has one definition of a great website.
A designer has another.
A writer defines great in yet another way.
An editor has still another.
A marketer will point to yet another.
Yet if customers or clients are looking for something other, then none of those definitions count.

A great book isn’t great if no one wants to read it.
A great game isn’t great if no one wants to play it.
A great business website isn’t so great if customers don’t participate and buy from it.

If our strategies and tactics don’t align with our customers’ missions and goals, then businesses close and people lose jobs.

So understanding the tools and tactics of social media is critical – you wouldn’t want an advisor who didn’t. Understanding the strategy and culture is crucial too – don’t take advice from someone who can’t explain the why as well as the what and the how. But experience is a key component to expertise in any field. And if growing your business is what you want to use social media to do, the most important question you can ask a social media advisor — bar none — is …

Have you ever been in a position where people would lose their jobs based on decisions you made?

Because you really want your social media advisor to be able to tell a great idea from a great idea that isn’t so great.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!