Successful Blog

Cool Tool Review: Buffer – Get More Done on Twitter with 1 Simple App

by

A Guest Post by Leo Widrich

cooltext451585442_tools

While writing this headline, I was a bit worried. Getting things “done” on Twitter can easily be misunderstood. After all Twitter is a place to build connections and meet with great new people. Optimizing things on Twitter has to be done with particular care I think.

Let me therefore introduce you to Buffer – a new Twitter App I have been using a lot recently which does two very important things for me:

  • It integrates seamlessly with my work flow and lets me share on Twitter in a consistent and time saving manner.
  • It doesn’t turn me into an “auto-bot” throwing tweets around without any connection to my followers.

How does Buffer work?

The core functionality of Buffer (http://bufferapp.com) is super simple. All you do is you throw a few tweets in your Buffer and the App then schedules these Tweets for you throughout the day. That’s it.

How will I get more done?

The great thing about Buffer is that you can add lots of tweets in at one point without fiddling with individual scheduling. Also you won’t ever overwhelm your followers with too many tweets in a row.

The way I use it is like this. As Buffer comes with a browser extension (Chrome, Safari, Firefox), you can add tweets to your Buffer from any page you are on.

On top of this you can even add tweets from inside Google Reader, which is a big winner for me. Whenever I like an article I hit the Buffer icon and add it to my Buffer. Here is how this looks with one of Liz’s posts:

pic-1


Add tweets from anywhere on the web.

Make your Tweets truly unique

Now, there is even one more functionality I want to mention here, which allows you to make your tweets really stand out from the rest.

Whenever you read an article and find a good line, just highlight the text and then hit the Buffer icon, here is what happens:

pic-2

Make your tweets unique

Timing of your Tweets

By default Buffer will send out your tweets well spaced out over the day, so you will never have too many tweets sent in a row, flooding your followers with tweets.

Of course you can always go back to your home account, click “settings” and adjust the timing to your needs. You can add more daily tweeting time slots or decrease them. Oh and as of recently there is also a “Tweet Now” function.

Add tweets to your Buffer from your mobile

What also comes in very handy is the option to add Tweets to your Buffer from your mobile. Whilst browsing an article you can simply hit the “mail link to page” or similar button.

Then you add in add@to.bufferapp.com and voila you have one more tweet scheduled where the link is automatically shortened and the title is in the page:

pic-3

Caption: Add to Buffer from your Mobile

Wrap Up

Even though Buffer is such a simple tool, it helps me a great deal to stay on top of Twitter. I can add tweets from anywhere with just one click and will make sure to add all the great articles I am coming across each and every day.

I have also started to use the mobile function whilst waiting in a queue or whilst sitting on the Bus and it is a great time filler, which actually gives me some results

.

I hope you give Buffer a go. Would love to hear your views about it below.

Leo Widrich writes Tips for Twitter on his blog. You can visit his website, Bufferapp, or find him on Twitter as @leowid.

_________

Thanks, Leo, for checking out bufferapp.com for us!

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

When people steal your ideas…

by

by Patty Azzarello

cooltext466496263_leadership
screen-shot-2011-04-20-at-51019-pm

Look at MY great idea…

It’s really frustrating when someone steals your ideas or work.

1. You say something in a meeting, no one reacts, but then later someone else repeats the exact same thing and suddenly gets all the credit.

2. You achieve a breakthrough or invent something, share it with others, then find that someone else is presenting the idea as their own.

3. You deliver a bunch of great work to your boss, the he puts his name on it and doesn’t mention you when presenting it to others.

It’s at a minimum super-annoying, if not downright unethical.

So what do you do about it?

I am an advocate of staying on the high ground. I have done this in my career when someone else absorbs my work with no credit to me.

1. Take advantage of the difference between talking and doing

When someone re-packages your idea and gets all the glory, it is my experience that they are now out of moves. People who have to steal good ideas don’t typically have the capacity to do anything about them — they max out at recognizing and repeating a good idea.

It can be fun to ask them, OK, so what will you do next to make this happen? While they are giving a shallow, hand-waving, “we’ll need more input, or put it to committee” kind of answer, just take control of the next step.

You be the one to develop the idea to the next level and take decisive action on it. Create a communication plan around the action and the outcomes.

You will get known for the important part – doing something. And the moment in the meeting when he stole your idea will fade into the background. Also take some comfort in the fact that others recognize this idea-parroting behavior too.

2. You are supposed to make your boss look good

I remember the first time my boss absorbed a big project of mine. He put his name on it and the CEO thanked him for the amazing job. I was invisible. I was crushed. This was early in my career.

Later I recognized that you are supposed to make your boss look good.

But you need to make sure that between you and your boss, it’s clear the work was yours.

Write up a case study of what you did to be included in your next review. Document how things were when you started, what you did, and what the outcomes were. Document the benefit your boss received.

If it’s all true you are not doing anything controversial. You are just letting your boss know you are happy for him to have the glory publicly, but expect him to acknowledge your work, and not walk all over you.

Sometimes this is inadvertent, and your boss is actually happy to give you the credit publicly. Ask your boss if you can join him and do part of the presentation. Ask your boss to keep you visible. Tell him that this visibility with his peers will help you deliver the next set of outcomes that he needs (that will also make him look good).

3. Don’t confront in public

Whether it’s your boss or your peer that stole your work, don’t do the confrontation in public. If it’s a peer have a private meeting where you say something like:

I am pleased that you were able to run with my idea. I have documented my work for my boss and his peers in other organizations, so that they may also benefit from this idea.

Let them know that you have let other people know behind the scenes where the work really comes from. They will be less likely to continue to advertise their ownership of it, when they realize that lots of people other than you know the real story.

4. You can’t stay invisible. You need to talk about it.

One big reason I see that people get their ideas stolen is that they are not comfortable talking about them.

I know one person who was repeatedly given opportunities to share an invention, and because he did not enjoy public speaking, he didn’t do it. Someone else stepped in to do the presentations and ultimately the idea became credited to the person doing the talking.

Communicate about your work

You need to stand up for your ideas, your work and your team. When you do something good, you need to make sure that you create positive visibility for that work with the people who care about it.

By staying invisible you are just inviting your ideas and your deserved recognition to be stolen by others.

What about you?

How do you share your ideas? What do you do when some takes credit? Please leave your thoughts in the comment box below.

—–
Patty Azzarello is an executive, author, speaker and CEO-advior. She works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. Patty has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello. Also, check out her new book Rise…

Successful-Blog is proud affiliate of

third-tribe-marketing

The Book List: Relationships Made Easy for the Business Professional and The Corner Office

by

The Book List: a weekly series by Teresa Morrow

I’m Teresa Morrow, Founder of Key Business Partners, LLC and I work with authors & writers to help them with their online book promotion and marketing. As part of my job I read a lot of books (I love to read anyway!).

The books in The Book List series will cover a range of topics such as social media, product development, marketing, blogging, business, organization, career building, finance, networking, writing, self development, and inspiration.

‘Relationships Made Easy for the Business Professional’ by Dr. David Fraser

relationships-made-easy-for-the-business-professional

David Fraser gets it! The struggle out there is the projection of the struggle in here. We can’t begin to heal the world until we heal in here.
Stuart Hepburn, NLP Trainer

In addition to being a good ‘read through’ this book is great to dip into when searching for some insight into what may be holding you back – there is a wealth of great content to help increase personal effectiveness.
Ian Laird, Managing Director NiTech Solutions Ltd.

About the Book*:
The ability to relate to other people is the most critical skill a person can ever have – at work, at home or anywhere else – and strong people skills simply make everything else easier. With the right approach, developing relationship expertise is an easy route to success and one of the few reliable and enduring ways we can improve our lives. But we need to take the task seriously.

Drawing on practical psychology, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and other wisdom from various philosophies, as well as first-hand experience of organizational life, David Fraser, Ph.D. offers a systematic, practical and intelligent approach to achieving success with other people. Packed with real-life examples and tried-and-tested steps to take, this book is for business professionals who want to develop their interpersonal relationship skills as a key strength.

In his “very positive, helpful and enlightening” and ultimately “uplifting” book, the author sets out the 12 essential areas of interpersonal insight and growth: (1) Attention to others; (2) Attitude; (3) Self-control; (4) Tuning in to people; (5) Personality; (6) Connection; (7) Values – working with what matters; (8) Language; (9) Self-awareness; (10) Attention to yourself – clarifying what you really want; (11) Balance; and (12) Love – the power of care.

The author includes with honesty a flavor of his own learning journey, and in the words of his readers, the result is “accessible and relevant,” “simply fascinating stuff,” and “very easy and interesting to read.”

Here are a few summary points I would like to share with you from each step in the book:

~ Persuasion, assertiveness, and logic aren’t in themselves the answer.
~ We can have a systematic approach to relationship skills using NLP as the basis.
~ The meaning of any communication is indicated by the response it gets.
~ Listen mindfully for maximum attentiveness.
~ Our habitual choice of visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and auditory-digital thinking affects our lives and our relationships much more than we probably realize.
~ We unconsciously filter the information we receive and have different preferences about what we filter for.
~ Remember: about seven percent of the meaning of what we say is conveyed in the words themselves. The rest of the message is in our voice and other non-verbal communication.
~ We delete, distort, and generalize information going from our own internal thoughts to what we actually say.
~ We project onto other people things about ourselves, good and bad, as they do on us

About David*:
Dr David Fraser has a track record of pioneering new approaches to old problems. He has delivered major projects for government and private sector clients in complex and challenging situations and set up a number of entrepreneurial ventures. He is a company director and Chartered Engineer with a First Class Honours degree and a PhD from Glasgow University and an MBA from Strathclyde University.

He is a qualified commercial mediator and a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Master Practitioner and has trained with leading proponents of these disciplines. David has taken a particular interest in the skills we use to relate to other people, continuing this study over a number of years and through the highs and lows of professional and personal life.

David applies his unusual blend of expertise as a project manager and facilitator to support disparate groups working together in complex circumstances, including major collaborative projects and matters of national importance. He has also found the approach set out in Relationships Made Easy for the Business Professional to be extremely helpful in his home and family environment. David runs workshop and coaching programs for both organizations and individuals.

With his breadth of knowledge, an engineer’s talent for organizing systematic and reliable solutions, and an ability to write in an interesting, direct, and readable way, David is well positioned to address the age-old problem of how to build effective relationships with other people.
David lives with his wife and three children in Glasgow, Scotland.

You can order a copy of ‘Relationships Made Easy for the Business Professional’ online at Amazon. *this information came from Amazon.

Next, I would like to introduce you to a book on the business book list on Amazon: ‘The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed’ by Adam Bryant.

‘The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed’ by Adam Bryant

This book came out recently on the new releases (business) list on Amazon.

“The Corner Office is a modern management masterpiece. Adam Bryant distills and weaves together hundreds of gems from some of the most successful and intriguing executives on the planet. The result is one of the most delightful, readable, and useful business books I have read in years.”–Robert Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University, and bestselling author of Good Boss, Bad Boss

“Compelling advice for the aspiring executive.… The conversational format makes these valuable lessons easy to comprehend and digest, and readers are left with a new understanding of leadership–why it’s important, how these experts have worked to attain it, and how they can do the same.”—Publishers Weekly

About the Book
Bryant, deputy national editor of the New York Times and writer of the “Corner Office” feature in the paper’s Sunday Business section, offers compelling advice for the aspiring executive. With interviews with more than 75 CEOs and other top executives at companies of all sizes, he compiles insights on such questions as what does it take to lead an organization? what are the keys to achieving the highest levels of success? Business luminaries like the CEO of Disney, the COO of Qwest Communications, the CEO of Continental Airlines, a vice chairman at Wal-Mart, and the founder of Zappos speak thoughtfully about team creation, keeping the mission on target, management, employee relationships, the importance of feedback, and the creation of an efficient corporate culture. The conversational format makes these valuable lessons easy to comprehend and digest, and readers are left with a new understanding of leadership—why it’s important, how these experts have worked to attain it, and how they can do the same. (Apr.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

About Adam*:
Adam Bryant, the deputy national editor of The New York Times, has been a journalist for more than two decades. He was a business reporter for The New York Times during the 1990s, covering a variety of industries and topics, including airlines, aviation safety, executive compensation and corporate governance. He joined Newsweek in 1999 as a senior writer, and was promoted to business editor. After six years at Newsweek, he returned to the Times as an editor in the business section, where he oversaw coverage of the collapse of the Detroit auto industry, among other stories.

Adam was the lead editor for two prize-winning series: “Driven to Distraction,” about the dangers of cellphone use behind the wheel, which won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2010, and “Toxic Waters,” about water pollution, which won a number of awards.

In March 2009, Adam started the weekly “Corner Office” feature in the Times’ Sunday Business section, and it quickly attracted a large and loyal audience for its insights about leadership and management from prominent leaders. For his book, The Corner Office, Adam studied the transcripts from more than 70 interviews, and looked for patterns, broader themes and lessons. He wove together their candid and wise insights into a book that offers timeless advice on how to succeed, manage and lead.

Adam lives in Westchester County, New York, with his wife and two daughters.

*courtesy of book website and/or Amazon

You can purchase a copy of ‘The Corner Office’ at Amazon.

Stretch Your Style

by

cooltext455576688_blogging

By Jael Strong

When I was growing up, it was a family tradition to gather around the television set on Tuesday nights to watch Matlock. We’re suckers for a good who-done-it, but we’re also suckers for a quirky character. And there were certain things about Matlock that were certainly a bit odd. Today’s subject: Matlock’s suits, a quirky element to the brilliance that is Matlock.

If anyone out there is a Matlock fan (and I know that planet is crawling with us!), you know what I am referring. Matlock had plenty of suits, a rather large closet full if I remember correctly. But here is the clincher: They were all identical. This light grey suit, unremarkable in so many ways, was a hallmark of the show. When I think Matlock, I think “grey suit.”

Choose your style

Most of us do not wear the same clothing every day. We have varying outfits and styles. On the other hand, though we may not stray too far from the mainstream, we do tend to take on a style that is uniquely our own. People are able to say, “Sue would love that dress” or “Steve would never wear that tie.” The fact that people are able to say these things means that we have, even unintentionally, projected a style.

The same is true when it comes to our blogs. We may be known as a straight shooter. We could have the reputation of striking up controversy. We may be flamboyant, creative, or humorous. These are generalities that become more fine-tuned as we add certain lingo to our blogs, images, and concepts. Over time, our blog develops a style that is readily recognizable as our own.

Is this a good thing? Absolutely. Developing a style that is uniquely your own as a writer is a must. There are dangers of course. For example, not everyone can pull off the proverbial grey suit. If your style never varies, this could go one of two ways. One, people get tired of seeing that grey suit and eventually they tune you out. Two, they only want to see you in that grey suit; they love the way you wear it. If you insist on keeping your style narrow (à la “the grey suit”), your preference would be for the second option.

Now, stretch

Stretching your style is a great idea. Matlock did occasionally don a plaid shirt when he sat on the front stoop and serenaded us with his guitar. There is a lesson here for us (yes, we can learn so much from this show). Don’t avoid other styles of writing. In fact, make it an exercise to include variations to your style in your blog. Add humor. Don’t shy away from controversy all together. Be straight forward, but don’t fear complex topics. Identify your style, then grab it at both ends and stretch.

As you dabble in varying styles, you may discover that your style needed a change. You may find that you like some styles of writing better than others and that people seem to be responding more to your varied approaches. Or you may discover that the grey suit is perfect for you, just don’t be afraid to toss in some sequins from time to time!

—-

Jael Strong writes for TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She has written both fiction and non-fiction pieces for print and online publications. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas.

Thanks, Jael

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

Leadership … It’s All in Your Head!

by

cooltext443809437_relationships

The theme of SOBCon this year, The New Leaderrship and Loyalty Businesss, has me thinking, why do we work so hard to do what we do? … and how much of our success and leadership is in how we see ourselves?

It can’t be solely economic. We could find easier ways to put in a good day’s work for a good day’s pay.

It’s not just political. We can raise our station in life and our job roles by trying less visible, more traditional ways.

It’s a reaching out to leadership. Leaders are givers. Leaders give their learning, their loyalty, their love to build something lasting and solid with others that no one person can build alone.

Why do we choose the road less traveled, the rockier road that’s bound to be just that much harder if only because it’s not paved? In the end does that make us leaders or victims of the route we’ve chosen to take? At it’s core, it’s the “what” or even the “how” of what we do that makes a leader, but the “why.”

Leadership … It’s All In Your Head

Still, the calling to build something lasting and solid is simply a calling without the leadership thinking to fuel the “what” and “how” of making that vision a reality. To attract those other someones who help build that solid something a leader has to have the right “why” working. the right “why” is leadership thinking. Leadership is really all in our heads.

Did you ever notice that what people value most is what they give away?

Leaders understand that giving to others won’t get us what we not given to ourselves.

I have a friend who is a promiscuous truster. He extends his trust almost immediately to everyone he meets. He NEEDS to trust other people in order to get their trust back. His need to feel trusted gets filled that way. He’s often the victim of untrustworthy types find him attractive and find it easy to take advantage. He often burned, sometimes badly. My friend’s problem is that he doesn’t trust himself first.

The “why” he’s doing it is because he NEEDS to be trusted that is what undercuts his leadership.

Suppose that he decided (killed off all other options) to find himself trustworthy first?

That would simply be a change in thinking — all in his head.

He would move from possible victim to leadership.

If he found himself trustworthy, he wouldn’t NEED to trust other people almost immediately but he still could.
Now he would be doing it from a position of strength. Now he could trust almost everyone until he got to the untrustworthy takers. Now, because he didn’t NEED their trust (which he wasn’t getting anyway) he could smile and leave them alone.

Leaders own what they give away.

Doing that is all inside our heads. How is the leadership inside your head going?

Be irresistible.

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

See also:
Top 10 Ways to Start Living Your Life

Tailoring Twitter: Get Busy Folks to “Get” Twitter in 2 Minutes Flat!

by

I’m Too Busy for Twitter

insideout logo

Last I worked the social media station for McGraw-Hill Education at the National Conference of Teachers of Mathematics, a gathering of about 9,000 attendees. As it happens this attendee group is math teachers, school superintendents, math tutors, and people who build products for, consult with, and sell products to the education industry. Every administrator, every teacher, every editor, designer, consultant, sales rep, and presenter I spoke with has a huge job — days filled with helping others gain expertise and find knowledge, breaks and evenings filled with planning how to do that more effectively.

Sounds a lot like every client, customer, web publisher, manager, and business person I know.

I bet you know a few people like that too.

And I bet you’ve heard these words more than once, “I’m too busy for another social network.”

Here’s how I was able to change that view for over 90% of the folks with whom I spoke in less than 2 Minutes Flat!

How to Get Busy Folks to “Get” Twitter in 2 Minutes Flat!

My purpose for being at the event was to show every version of busy people how Twitter can make their jobs easier, faster, and more meaningful. Naturally, I’d start by asking questions and listening. The conversation would go something like this.

“Are you on Twitter?”:

“No. I’m too busy. I don’t have a smartphone. I don’t need another social network.”

“Oh, don’t I get that. Time is so important to all of us. By the way, you do this on your computer, whenever you feel like it. There’s no obligation to show up. Will you give me two minutes to show you how I think Twitter will make your job easier?”

“Okay I’ll listen for two minutes.”

“Let’s start with your job. What is your role in the world of mathematics?”

Then I’d point to a Twitter screen loaded to a hashtag … in the is case it was #mathchat And say, “let me show you what’s happening here.”

mathchat

[click to enlarge image.]

I’d go on …

“All day long people who care about math post resources, questions, answers, ideas, insights, best practices and they tag them with this hashtag #mathchat so that other math folks can see them.”

I’d fire off a few examples and point to some in the stream, such as

  • The teacher who asked “Is anyone at a school that’s giving students iPads, I’m wondering how that works.”
  • Here’s two activities for the classroom.
  • Here’s an article on how a teacher made Calculus the most popular class in the school.
  • Look at that! There’s an event for middle school teachers in your state next month.
  • Yesterday I saw a tweet from a teacher who was looking for a video on nanotechnology for his students.
  • And did you see the Tweet right there, where @mheducation is offering their Math Apps for free during this conference? .

    • When I asked the question on #mathchat, why might a math person want to use Twitter, they said

    • So you don’t feel alone.
    • To get ideas.
    • To ask questions and get answers.
    • To get insights and best practices.
    • To connect with math people all over the world.

“And don’t worry about time. You don’t HAVE TO be there. Twitter is like this conference exhibit, the resources are available when you need them. They don’t come bother you. You go visit them when you can.”

The other things that’s really cool is that every week for one hour math people from all over the world meet at the same time under this #mathchat hashtag to talk math in real time — it’s like a mini math conference every week online — you can just listen in or talk and make friends who do what you do.

That’s when I handed them a sheet with the information from these two blog posts.

Tailoring Twitter: Does Your Twitter Profile Attract the Right People?

and

Tailoring Twitter: Building a Powerful Network that Fits You Perfectly

and some information on how to find a list of the most popular hashtags in their industry.

Now you see how a single hashtag can get right to the deep value of Twitter for almost anyone one.

How can you use this to tailor Twitter — to make it faster, easier and more meaning — for the folks you know?

Be Irresistible!

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

Related:
Tailoring Twitter: Does Your Twitter Profile Attract the Right People?
Tailoring Twitter: Building a Powerful Network that Fits You Perfectly
Tailoring Twitter: The ROI of Curating Content on Twitter