Successful Blog

9 Types of Listeners’ Responses – on Twitter and Everywhere Else

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I’m a curious observer. I look, listen, connect things and identify patterns. Then I ask questions to test what it is that I think I’m finding. That’s one way that I keep learning new things about how the world works and how the people in it decide to do things.

Recently on Twitter, Calvin Lee @mayhemstudios posted an link to an article on Business Insider revealing data about Twitter users who don’t listen. Derek Overbey @doverbEy read it and retweeted it. As did I.

twitter_users_never_listen

As you can see by the image, four people passed it on again.

What to Do About People Not Listening – on Twitter or Anywhere

Reading the data about people not listening on Twitter got me curious and turned me into an observer. As I looked, listened, connected things, and identified patterns, I asked a question to test the ideas that we’re coming together.

my-listening-question

Asking questions gives me a chance to listen for myself. Question influence people to respond and in their response are hints and clues to how they think. The response I received fell into a pattern I’ve found predictable when I put an open ended question to the group. I’ve named the types of responses to reflect the group they represent.

  1. The observers retweet the question without sharing their response. Obviously, they’re listening. It would seem that they find the question interesting to pass it on. But they’re not sharing their own opinion on the thought. Maybe their objective is to spread the conversation and listen in to what other folks think. Or maybe they just want to raise their retweet count.
  2. The responding retweeters add a word or two to state whether they agree while retweeting the question to include the reference. They add value with their answer, offer it quickly and share with their friends it in a way that invites others to participate.
  3. The conversationalists add a new thought on the question.They extend the thought with an experience or an additional idea. They’ve considered the question and bring their own thinking to it to share with the group.
  4. The clarity checkers ask for further information about the question. They want further explanation to be sure they understand the question before they join with an opinion.
  5. The controversy seekers find what’s wrong in the premise of the question. Their response is not to seek further understanding or explanation, but to call out the the question itself as wrong.
  6. The contrarians find an answer that’s outside the scope of the question. If you ask whether they prefer fruits or vegetables, they’ll answer steak.
  7. The opportunist teachers see the question as their chance to show how smart they are. They start by answering with what they know on the subject, whether it answers the question or not. Then they continue for several tweets asking questions for which they already know the answers.

    8. and of course,

  8. The spammers find a keyword in the question or an answer to drop a highly promotional link in as if they’re commenting on the conversation. They are people who don’t follow anyone in the tweet stream. They use keyword search tools to interupt for their own spammy purposes.

    9. and the

  9. The lurkers who heard you but choose not to respond They hard to differentiate from the ignorers and the folks who just didn’t show up, but don’t make the mistake of assuming they’re the same.

It’s been said that we can’t talk without talking about ourselves. The words we choose, the metaphors we use, the choices we make of what to respond to and what to leave there all reveal things about our own view of the world and ourselves.

Paying attention to the listens on Twitter is a great way to learn how people think and respond uncovers valuable information that strict data reports cannot – valuable information to any product or marketing person, no matter the conversation or the question at hand.

What might be more important to keep in mind is that we find every one of these types of listeners in every walk of life online and off. If we listen to identify them, we soon some to realize that every kind of listener is looking for a different sort of response and a new question arises …

Some listeners seem to signal by their response that they’re better left to have the final word. What do you think on that?

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

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Beach Notes: Did Santa Surf Here?

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by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

We saw this Santa hat on the beach at world famous surfing spot Snapper Rocks. The amusing thought of a portly Santa on a short board was quickly dispelled by realising it was probably just a leftover from a Christmas Day lunch.

Strange as it may seem to those who live where Christmas means cold and maybe snow and ice, in Australia it is the height of summer. On Christmas Day on the beach here it is not unusual to see people having a family picnic, celebrating in swimsuits, sunburn cream and Santa hats.

-Suzie and Des

Thanks to Week 272 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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big-girl-branding
the-oatmeal
trends-and-outliers
wellbeing

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

SOB Business Cafe 01-07-11

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Business Insider
First, only 8% of American adults use Twitter. This is more evidence that, despite its enormous popularity among tech and media folks–and its massive global user numbers–Twitter has yet to go mainstream.

Second, fully half of these Twitter users basically never listen to a word anyone else says. In other words, half of Twitter users use Twitter as a sort of digital closet that they go into once in a while to mutter to themselves, with no one else listening.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-usage-2010-12#ixzz1AH3h8pV0

Top Rank
I know the right thing to do is talk about social strategy and broader level considerations before getting into the tactical details and specific tasks. Sometimes showing minute by minute examples of what a Community Manager does is jumping the gun for a new discussion on social media but it might be the only way to reach those that will perform the new role. Think of it as bottom up social media strategy if you have to. The more front line and middle managers that “get it”, the more powerful winning executive support will be.

Cloud Ave
Yet in 2010 I noticed the impact that Technology/Brand Evangelists are having on their companies. I noticed how they’re using social media to create real sales opportunities. I noticed how they’re creating exceptional buzz around their brands that was once the domain of the world’s largest media powerhouses.
And I noticed why Robert Scoble exemplifies this phenomenon.

Bottom line: These Evangelists are creating real shareholder value. Allow me to make the case.

eMarketer
“Bringing Facebook profile data into retail sites makes sense because it influences consumers when they are close to conversion,” said Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer principal analyst and author of the new report “Social Commerce: Personalized and Collaborative Shopping Experiences.” “In contrast, many consumers on Facebook are mainly socializing with friends and further removed from making purchase decisions.”

Ask Spike
The one point that I would like to make is this: the words are gone. And ultimately, don’t you want your icon – your company – your brand – to be so well-known and ubiquitous THAT YOU DON’T NEED YOUR COMPANY NAME in your logo any more?

Smashing Magazine
The performance of a website including a background video depends significantly on the speed of the user’s internet connection. Video backgrounds certainly do not fit in every setting; they wouldn’t be meaningful in online magazines or blogs. However, they can work really well in entertainment and certain corporate settings which are supposed to communicate artistic qualities, exclusivity, branding or even high quality standards.

Related ala carte selections include

Adrian Chan at gravity7

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Be Less Busy

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by Patty Azzarello

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Chances are, you have no extra time.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post called
WHEN do you think? about the importance of giving yourself time to think strategically.

As we begin the new year, it’s a great time to spend time thinking and planning how to make this year better than the last one — in your work and in your life.

As a leader, it’s critical to not just get the work done, but to make sure that you and your team are more capable next year.

If you don’t grow capability, you get stuck.

Your main job as a leader is to build a highly capable team beneath you so that you free yourself up to solve higher order problems.

You need to always be finding new ways to add value to the business.

But to do that requires you to make sure you have time to do the longer term tasks that build value and capability — things that will create a meaningful, strategic difference.

Some examples:

This year…

  • How will we improve our ability to get customer references?
  • How will we deliver more quickly or at less cost?
  • What new process will improve our quality?
  • What new behaviors will eliminate chaos in our business and create more time?
  • How will we learn more about our customers really care about?
  • What new way of serving customers will differentiate us from our competition?

To work at this level requires time.

If you have no time, YOU need to make yourself less busy.

Here are a few realities to consider. I call this my Over-busy Manifesto.

The Over Busy Manifesto

No one other than YOU has any motivation whatsoever to make you less busy. Your boss, your peers and your team only benefit from your endless work output.

If you are overwhelmed by the activities of your job you are not ready for a bigger one.

The most successful people were not the ones who were less busy along the way, they figured out how to rise above it.

The Hard (but important part)

No one will ever give you permission to be less busy. It can feel scary to stop appearing really busy if you associate your value with the amount of time you spend working.

Just know that it’s not the “work” that matters, it’s the outcomes you deliver. You don’t win the game for running up and down the court, it’s the points on the board that count.

Refuse to burn all your time up on things that are not so important.

Trust that giving yourself time to think will help you find ways to deliver higher value business outcomes, and get the right work done in less time.

People will see you delivering real value, getting smarter and faster, making strategic advances — not just working really hard. It will get less scary.

My New Book

I wanted to give people a useful framework to take more control of their success.

The book is filled with big insights and practical things you can do right away that make all the difference between getting ahead and just working really hard.

You can get the book or take a look at the reviews on Amazon, and here is a short video of me talking about what’s in it.

Please share this with anyone whose career you care about.
Thanks!

—–
Patty Azzarello works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. She 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

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Social Media Book List: How Reliable is your Product? and Stop Workplace Drama

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A Weekly Series by Teresa Morrow of Key Business Partners, LLC

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 social media marketing. As part of my job I read a lot of books (I enjoy reading anyway!).

This week I will be highlighting two business books; ‘How Reliable is your Product’ by Mike Silverman and ‘Stop Workplace Drama’ by Marlene Chism.

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

‘How Reliable is your Product: 50 Ways to Improve Produce Reliability’

by Mike Silverman
How Reliable is your Product book

Product developers now have many tools–software and hardware–at their disposal for building reliability in from the get go. From the organizational point of view, what better way to design in reliability than to make designers themselves responsible for the reliability of their designs? As Mike Silverman explains in How Reliable is Your Product?, this is why the role of the reliability engineer is changing to one of mentor. He or she is now responsible for going out and finding the best testing tools and then training the designers on their use, so that designers factor and build in reliability at every stage of product design.

Mike has focused on reliability throughout his 25-year career, and has observed the position of reliability in the organization evolve. In this book, he condenses his expertise and experience into a volume of immense practical worth to the engineering and engineering management communities including designers, manufacturing engineers and reliability/quality engineers.

Among other things, Mike discusses how reliability fits, or should fit, within the product design cycle. He provides a high-level overview of reliability techniques available to engineers today. He lucidly discusses the design of experiments and the role of failure management. With case studies and narratives from personal experience, Mike discusses optimal ways to utilize different reliability techniques. He highlights common errors of judgment, missteps and sub-optimal decisions that are often made within organizations on the path to total reliability.

“’50 Ways to Improve Product Reliability’ is a great collection of ground-rules that are based upon experience. It describes a number of situations and presents practical examples of what engineers should do to be successful in the area of reliability. In a few examples it also indicates what should not be
done in order to avoid problems. The book is organized according to the phases of a project and a maturity matrix is presented as a means to measure progress. Many examples show proactive use of reliability tools for hardware and software. All are accompanied by concise case studies showing how to
apply tools and handle common situations. It is a must read for all engineers and managers who are involved with corporate-wide reliability improvement efforts.”
James McLinn, CRE, Fellow, ASQ

About Mike*:

Throughout his 25-year career, Mike Silverman has maintained a singular focus on reliability. He is Founder of and Managing Partner at Ops A La Carte, a reliability engineering consultancy that helps customers build end-to-end reliability into their products.

He owns and operates HALT and HASS Labs, a reliability laboratory in Northern California that has now tested over 500 products. A Certified Reliability Engineer with over a dozen technical papers under his belt, Mike is currently President of the Silicon Valley IEEE Reliability Society.

You can purchase a copy of ‘How Reliable is your Product’ online from the publisher site, Superstar Press. . *I did receive a digital copy of this book from the publisher to help in the promotion of the book.

Next, I would like to introduce you to a book coming out in February 2011 – ‘Stop the Workplace Drama’.

‘Stop Workplace Drama’

by Marlene Chism

“Stop Workplace Drama offers practical ideas to improve communication in the workplace to eliminate power struggles, backstabbing and office drama.”
-Michael Linenberger, author of Master your Workday Now!

“Stop Workplace Drama is filled with fresh strategies to help leader navigate change, reach their objectives and create a positive work climate-all at the same time!
-Jill Konrath, authof o SNAP Selling and Selling to Big Companies

A few words I have to say about this book:

Right off the bat in the introduction, Marlene is great about engaging the reader to explain about what drama is and how most of us (even if we deny it) have drama in our lives. And even if it is personal, it does tend to creep into the workplace.

As Marlene states, “Drama is any obstacle to your peace and prosperity.” I say, you can get any more real and to the point than that, right?

She goes onto explain, the drama is the situation, your drama is how you react to it. Again, great precise explanations.

And throughout the book, she put the “mirror” up to the reader and allows each of us to see where we can shed the drama and bring ourselves to a more balanced and peaceful living through, telling yourself the truth, mastering your energy and release resistance.

About the Book*

Is your workplace riddled with gossip, power struggles, and confusion? Do you seek clarity in your management and cohesiveness in your team? Do you have a personal obstacle affecting your professional success?

If so, there is good news-help is on the way. Stop Workplace Drama offers down-to-earth, practical methods to help business owners, entrepreneurs, and private practice professionals maximize success, increase productivity, and improve teamwork and personal performance.

* Identify “drama” barriers and help your employees break free to experience higher personal effectiveness and increased productivity
* Each of the eight points is full of universal and practical principles any business leader, sales director or entrepreneur can put to use immediately
* Author Marlene Chism has shared her signature process with organizations such as McDonalds and NASA

When you’re in the thick of business competition, you and your team need to function freely without internal conflicts, confusions, or rivalries. Stop Workplace Drama ensures that your employees will be able to give their best to create a healthy, profitable workplace.

About Marlene*:

Marlene is a speaker, author and communication consultant who works with high level professionals who want to increase personal performance and break through the obstacles keeping them from living a life of passion and purpose. Marlene says, “Everyone has drama and drama manifests in various ways. Marlene’s signature process is known as “The Stop Your Drama” Methodology, a system to help companies and individuals align with purpose to achieve higher levels of success both personally and professionally.

You can purchase a copy of ‘Stop Workplace Drama’ on her website, Stop Workplace Drama or on Amazon.

I truly hope you will check out these books and please comment and let me know your thoughts on them.