Write Better, Live Healthier #2

February 19, 2013 By Leave a Comment

 

Packing serious power.

In the Write Better, Live Healthier  series I’m giving you practical advice on ways to improve the quality of your life. Creativity, happiness, success — there’s never a bad time to think more about it and go get it. It’s also a forum to explore and debate topics that we all care about but rarely have time to stop and consider amidst our busy lives. Think of it as a quick push notification for your life, full of little nuggets of byte-sized wisdom nudging you to tap into something new and good.

 

#2… Stop training for marathons, start training your mind.

Austin is my new favorite hot spot — not just for reasons some may think. Sure, it can be a mighty fine non-stop culinary and cocktail rodeo. But it’s also a place with people who live healthier lifestyles. That’s hard to do in the Everything-Is-BIG Texas.

It’s also home to two very cool and inspired people who I’ve come to know as great friends the last year — Andy & Nichole. You can read about their amazing story here. I recently was down in ATX to handle some business, surprise Nichole for her birthday, and retrieve my favorite burnt orange “trainers” (running shoes in the standard British-American English translation). Andy and I were having a discussion about what it takes to make a difference physically in your life. Nichole knows this like the back of her hand, so if you want to know more about her new project “The Real Lean Startup”  you can go here.

Back to me and Andy’s chat…

I was lamenting how I’ve known so many people that train for marathons, run in them, but never really seem to make much of a difference with their physical fitness. They still physically look the same as they always have. Conventional wisdom would tell you otherwise. But Andy reminded me what Nichole said once that stuck with us both, and that was “80% is your nutrition.” What I really worry about is all this focus on excessive cardio starting to eat into our muscles — the lean fat burning machine of our bodies.

About seven years ago, my doctor told me I was a little “fat” for my age and height whilst still being an athlete. I always tell this story to people, and might be a bit ridiculous. But I tell it to remind myself to stay on track. I played basketball in a fairly competitive pickup league every Tuesday night. I’d run up and down the floor for two hours, burn a ton of calories. I’d go to the gym a few days a week and run once a week on top of that. Here’s what happened. Amidst all the physical activity and exercise I was repeating some of these bad habits:

  • staying up too late and getting less sleep
  • neglecting my down time, i.e. no relaxation activities, but finding more work to do
  • eating like a buzzard while traveling on the road
  • stressing out too much about dumb shit

Whenever I visit Austin, I make a point to spend time with Andy & Nichole. We share a nice ritual of going to the store and picking up fresh ingredients for dinner. Then we go back to Bevanham Castle and cook an awesome fajita dinner. It’s good to slow it down a bit. Eat later. Do some food prep, open a bottle on wine, rap about life and business, and put on some crazy Swedish house music on the iPad. This is what my friends might call a “cheat” day. It’s never really a big deal because you’re doing the all the right things the rest of the week. And this is my practical message to anybody, but specifically to entrepreneurs  moving at a constant ludicrous speed:

It’s not about the bad stuff, as much as it is about not doing enough of the good stuff.

  • Eat right more often than not – Dave Thomas and Colonel Sanders are not your nutritionists. Neither are Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy John and Cinnabon. So don’t let them take over your crammed and slammed week of pitches, meetings, and hackathons.
  • Get out from under the laptop and get active — Surely. But don’t amass days and weeks of bad habits and think you’re rewarding yourself with a fun run or a marathon. That’s just backwards thinking. Instead…
  • Start training your mind to think ahead — Moderate exercise is a healthy habit to take up. No argument there. But stop for moment and think about what will take your mind and body farther and higher well into your best years. It’s the nutrition stupid.

Try this routine out. One weeknight a week. Work later (yes, I said work later). Go home around 8 or 9. Slow down, take the rest of the night off and cook yourself a healthy meal. Fajitas are great (Andy puts too much guac and sour cream on his), or try one of my all-time favorites. It’s fresh Wild Alaskan Salmon with sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts (use olive oil instead of butter, substitute prosciutto for bacon if you must!).

Little victories like these throughout the week will begin to train your mind with healthier habits. Watch your body become your new best follower.

Filed Under: Ideas, Life, Live Healthier, Marketing, Product, Sales, Success, Tech, Tim, Write Better

Write Better, Live Healthier #1

January 27, 2013 By Leave a Comment

 

Lettuce, begin.

In the Write Better, Live Healthier  series I’m giving you practical advice on ways to improve the quality of your life. Creativity, happiness, success — there’s never a bad time to think more about it and go get it. It’s also a forum to explore and debate topics that we all care about but rarely have time to stop and consider amidst our busy lives. Think of it as a quick push notification for your life, full of little nuggets of byte-sized wisdom nudging you to tap into something new and good.

#1…You need to make an effort to Write Better stuff.

I see a lot of poor writing out there. I see it in business — RFPs, emails, docs, Powerpoints, product specs and other things. I see it online — web copy, UI, blogs, profiles, social media posts and comments.  I also see out there in general, in the wild — ads, billboards, industrial designs, instructions, signage, even menus at bars and restaurants.

Nobody’s perfect, and I’ll certainly carry the torch for imperfection. Maybe at some point I’ll put up a few examples. But to quote a famous line from a Supreme Court judge and James Bond, “I know it when I see it.”

There are three reasons it’s important to Write Better:

  • Write Better to organize your thoughts. We all have ideas that pop into our head all the time. Use whatever system you want for getting these into some recognizable and referenceable format. I like blogging them, but I also like recording them on paper. For the latter, it has the added benefit of always being “wireless.”
  • Write Better to reuse your content. Time is precious. Why waste it on trying to recreate something every time you want to reference it, link to it, or expand upon it. I like this idea of becoming a buffalo content maker. Don’t waste anything. If you write it better the first time then it will be much easier to call-up and reuse again for maximum impact.
  • Write Better to inspire yourself and others. Make it memorable, and fun. How cool would it be to have a running catalog of stuff you wrote that gives you or someone else a lift in their day? Very. There’s an amazing thing that happens when you write in an inspired voice, a bonus. You often end up with content that can easily work into a verbal communication on the subject. This is because it was written in a conversational style that is a natural for connecting with the listener.

I leave you with this poster called 10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer to get you pumped up. It’s from Copyblogger Media, makers of the StudioPress Genesis Framework. They make awesome WordPress themes. I am a big fan.

In future installments, I’ll cover specific tools and techniques for Writing Better for different situations in life — professional and personal. And of course I’ll be diving into the Healthier  side of this series. Topics for that one are top secret at the moment. I might need kid gloves.

#2… Stop training for marathons, start training your mind.

 

 

Filed Under: Ideas, Life, Live Healthier, Marketing, Product, Sales, Success, Tech, Tim, Write Better

Un-Predictions 2013

January 5, 2013 By 2 Comments

 

Bark park

Off the leash.

 

With so many predictions flying around out there, I’m taking a page from the unconventional and making this post about the things that I believe will not be changing — the “un-predictions”  for 2013.

I heard once in a great talk from Jason Fried of 37signals quoting Bezos wisdom, ‘focus on things that don’t change in your business.’ For example, a product needs to be slower and harder to use…said no customer ever! You get the idea. It’s in these tiny oft-overlooked realisms that we find our focus and keep delivering value.

My New Year’s gift to you:

pinstagram.ly…ify.io

Companies will continue to pop onto the scene with these uber crazy tech sounding names. If they’ve actually got something then these cheeky monikers will help them stand out for a little while. After their coolifyness wears off they’ll need to be tenacious about reinforcing their brand and value as more pop-up around them. Or, worse, this might happen. It’s true that slowly and certaintly the universe of possible legit sounding dot com domain names are dwindling down. But companies that opt for the other side of creativity — the bold and abstract, utilitarian, or sometimes ironic — still have a place in the market without going all creatify on it.

G+ Identity Crisis?

The tech press will continue to beat the living Internet out of Google for their supposed FAIL on an unrelenting effort to create an alternative to the Facebook social network. What will also continue over at the “Gplex” is their undying focus on building great context into networking and productivity tools for account holders of their service. The digital world is largely an impressions economy, not a winner-take-all moat. Information and people will always find ways to move about their pipes freely. We want context. It’s not about the plus one. It’s about the plus done!

Small Keeps Winning

Somebody asked me recently to sum up the “mobile revolution” and what it means for content. I politely mea culpa’d that I’m probably not the best person to answer that question despite being an early adopter at most things tech. Here’s one simple idea. Content makers will need to continue taking a hard look at how many impressions they can get from content that’s smaller versus bigger, longer form, etc. The context of how and where people are consuming information is constantly changing…and that will not change.

foursquare Quietly Eats the Physical World

“Excuse me while I check-in before we order” is NOT what foursquare is all about, or what makes it still very much relevant. To paraquote its founder, Dennis Crowley, foursquare is ‘making the world around us easier to use.’ It’s a discovery tool  for people that get out of the house and want to experience the world around them. foursquare’s new UI is slick for sure, but two enhancements pushed out this year are a sign of more goodness to come. Users can now synch an AMEX card with their account and get the deal auto-magically when using the credit card at those venues — check-ins not necessary. This takes foursquare more mainstream and further closes the data loop so many deal sites have been struggling with to date. There’s also a slew of new services presenting foursquare businesses with a customer dashboard where they can make quick decisions on data and push out relevance to their best customers. This is customer enchantment at its finest, and signals a sustained focus on value-add for their most active users and the businesses they frequent.

Impressions Not Emails

I’m on a bit of an email crusade these days. I’m both fighting it and on the hunt to improve it. It’s an odd pursuit trying to justify the value of something that’s still very practical but yet has become increasingly irrelevant in my connected life. Which leads me to a brief thought on marketing. How much value are you really creating in your audience’s inbox? Did they convert because of your email, or because it was just one of many impressions that collectively moved them to take action?  I ask this question of every marketer from the tenacious blog owner to the big brander. I’m almost not sold anymore on the email “subscriber” model of online marketing. #11 of on this prediction list especially got my attention. These are important and honest questions we will continue to tackle together in the coming year.

Simple Explanations Rule!

Need a New Year’s resolution? How about practicing explaining complex things in simple ways to non-techy people. It’s fun and challenging. It will ultimately help you become a better communicator. Most of all, it’s a great gift to offer those among us that haven’t yet figured all this new stuff out yet. Here’s a free sampler. Mom: “What’s the point of PayPal anyway?” Me: “It’s so I don’t have to do this every time I want to pay for something”…as a I pull my wallet out of my pocket. The people that fervently push SIMPLE on a complex world will continue to lead the pack of ideas in 2013 and beyond.

 

 

Filed Under: Ideas, Marketing, Product, Startup, Tech, Tim

Personal Branding: Are You @GaryVee or The Stealth Bomber?

December 16, 2012 By 1 Comment

 

Say something.

 

[Editor note: This post is related to the article "Founder to CEO: Mastering the Unnatural" that I wrote for Entrepreneurs Unpluggd. They share entrepreneurs' stories and advice to help you build your startup. Check them out!]

This is a quick post about branding. Personal branding. I’m not going to cover the “what” of personal branding, i.e. tools, techniques, etc. Instead, I’m going to talk briefly about the HOW. Use this as a quick gut check on where you are with your own personal branding.

Let’s talk goals first. Are you looking to get a lift in your job search and networking? Become a better thought leader in your space of learning and expertise? Get the word out about your new startup? The main question you must constantly ask yourself is, “What am I comfortable with out in the wild?” For some, it’s a series of baby steps, walks or skips. For others, it’s big leaps at every turn. Virtually all of us are looking for the same thing. We want our message to be seen and heard by people who care.

Most of us will fall somewhere in the middle of these two approaches, blend them at times, depending on the challenge or opportunity that’s in front of us. This is practicing situational awareness. I’m fairly new to personal branding and admittedly still finding the right mix. And that’s ok. The problem comes when your goals, expectations, and aspirations are out of alignment with your approach. For example, if you’re a soft-spoken entrepreneur and have big, lofty expectations for your idea in the marketplace you want to seriously consider turning up the volume on your personal branding even if it takes you out of your comfort zone.

Now, this doesn’t mean you will instantly gravitate to either extreme outlined below. But it does mean that when you decide to say something big, you should consider how big you want to say it. You’ll need to eventually put most of your personal branding chips into one of these two pots.

The Stealth Bomber

You’re a bit of a lurker. You smartly poke around different environments and platforms making incremental gains in building up your sphere of influence and network. You might even take center stage sometimes. Not a bad play. When played right, this strategy allows you to fly under-the-radar but still be visible when you need to be. You’re usually well-connected. It’s also handy for using the element of surprise when the right opportunity presents itself. You strike when the iron is hot, and do so decisively.

“…featuring low observable stealth technology designed for penetrating dense anti-aircraft defenses; it is able to deploy both conventional and nuclear weapons.” — The Stealth Bomber

Personal branders should always strive for congruence. How you say something should align well with how you actually are — your authentic true self. Let’s say you’re known as somebody that doesn’t speak up much, but when you do, you do so confidently and decisively. Your personal branding should reflect this. That’s an example of being congruent. Conversely, if the same person is all over the map and offers no conviction in their personal branding, they are out of alignment with their true authentic self — and it will show. This is where being a stealth bomber can blow up on you. Let authenticity be your watchword with this approach.

@GaryVee

If you follow social marketing trends and aren’t familiar with @GaryVee of Vayner Media and Wine Library TV, get on Twitter or YouTube right now.  He advises some of the biggest consumer brands in their world on their customer engagement and marketing strategies. What sets him apart is his ability to put himself virtually/completely out there for mass consumption in his personal branding. It’s an integral part of his business branding too. This is a far cry from the stealthy approach outlined above. This approach requires a unique set of attributes, featuring thicker-than-concrete thick skin, laser-like focus of message, and less than zero personal inhibition. You must be comfortable in your level of exposure out in the wild being somewhere higher than the moon and stars.

“…featuring thicker-than-concrete thick skin, laser-like focus of message, and less than zero personal inhibition.”

I think you get the point with this approach. You’re putting your personal stamp on just about everything you’re putting out to the world. And you’re doing it in a very BIG and memorable way. If you buy into this approach, you are telling the world you’re confident that your message will persuade them to move in your direction.

The biggest difference between this approach and the previous one? In the @GaryVee approach, you’re putting all your chips into this pot, ALL the time. There is very little, if any, filter when it comes to your strength of conviction. Congruence is equally important with this approach to personal branding. But if you currently fall into this camp or are contemplating it, chances are you’re already the type of person that can pull this off.

Your Homework

To get you warmed up and inspired for how you’ll tackle personal branding in the New Year, watch this short video on marketing by the late Steve Jobs. In it, Mr. Jobs explains that ‘this is a noisy world, be clear on what you are about.’ It will challenge you to think differently about what you are currently doing. To say nothing is no longer an option.

 

 

Filed Under: Biz Dev, Ideas, Marketing, Product, Sales, Startup, Success, Tim, Unpluggd

Creative Collision in the Startup Ecosystem

November 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

Pink'n'blue by futhark, on Flickr

Let’s collide, thrive.

 

[Editor note: This post is related to the article "Going #Badgeless at SXSW" that I wrote for Entrepreneurs Unpluggd. They share entrepreneurs' stories and advice to help you build your startup. Check them out!]

What a last few weeks. I live in the Silicon Prairie. Home to many new upstart software companies within the Omaha-Des Moines-Kansas City triangle. It’s also home to the Kauffman Foundation. If you’re not familar with @KauffmanFDN, to use a college football analogy, they are a veritable “Entrepreneur U” for the World. It was a pleasure to be part of #GEWKC and all the events that took place. It got me thinking about creative collision and how important it is to building a thriving and sustaining community of innovation.

People who run in these startup circles will talk about Brad Feld’s new book “Startup Communities” and what he’s done with Tech Stars and the Boulder community. An exemplary case study. There was also a recent guest post by Phillip Rosedale in the Silicon Prairie News that essentially asked the question,  ’How can a tech ecosystem like Silicon Valley/San Francisco take hold in cities like Omaha, Des Moines, and Kansas City?’ The big takeaway for me is DENSITY. Not the sheer population size. That’s just false hope. But a higher concentration of the ecosystem components in a defined area. The area should not only be defined, but branded. Let creative collision ensue.

Here’s an all-time classic scene to get us started on the idea of density.

Density is EVERYTHING. And it could very well be your destiny, if you play your cards right. Here’s the deal. Nobody’s gonna fund a light rail project through a dead downtown. Nobody’s gonna eat in an empty restaurant. Nobody’s gonna join a movement if nobody knows about it. The capital will be there. Yes it will. So, continue to fill your community with entrepreneurs, connectors, and service providers. Make bold moves.

Entrepreneurs

A curious, passionate bunch. Many have eschewed their corporate pedigree and aren’t looking back. Others are starting early, even skipping the traditional college-then-go-find-a-job plan. They seek comfort in ambiguity and risk taking. They are connectable. Meaning, they have a strong social API (Attitude Performance Index). All of these attributes are hard to find in one person in any community. So unique, and so vital. The DNA of this whole thing.

Action item for those still on the sidelines: Help cultivate and celebrate the entrepreneur ethos in children and young adults.

Connectors

One of my former bosses used to always say “success breeds success.” I’ll take it a step further and say that successful people breed successful people. These breeders are the connectors, and they are everywhere. Some may never take the leap into the great unknown of entrepreneurland. But they’re ready and able to help you where they can.

Action item for those already embedded in a startup community: Get the word out to more  potential connectors about the opportunities that abound for them. Bring a non-startup person (whatever that means) to a startup event or scene.

Service Providers

Not everyone is a product person. Service providers above all else are about RELATIONSHIPS. In many cases, relationships your startup doesn’t have. They also have expertise you don’t have (yes, it’s true), and a healthy distance from your product that allows them to truly think outside of the box for you. They ARE outside of the box. And they should be valued higher in the ecosystem.

Action item for startups: Stop trying to do everything yourself and embrace the service providers in the ecosystem.

Let’s collide, thrive.

You’re a bank? Consider making a loan to “startups” that are actually making money right now. You’re a large employer in the region? Consider looking in your own backyard, and give that innovative upstart a REAL chance to earn your business as one of their first customers. (Best line of any panel this week, by the way.)

Oh, and thanks Google. Welcome to the Fiberhood!

 

Filed Under: Ideas, Product, Software, Startup, Tech, Tim, Unpluggd

Crack Your Creative Code

October 30, 2012 By 1 Comment

 

It’s your code.

 

[Editor note: This post is related to the article "2 Must-Have Habits for High Value Networking" that I wrote for Entrepreneurs Unpluggd. They share entrepreneurs' stories and advice to help you build your startup. Check them out!]

Creativity is the spark plug to your entrepreneur engine. It doesn’t matter where you are in life or what you’re doing for a living. I’ve often been asked “why are you always coming up with these crazy ideas?” Does this sound familiar to you too?

If you find yourself in this camp then you absolutely understand that your own creative process is filled with lots of a really bad or “out there” ideas at first; and then over time they become refined to the point of sometimes being insanely good. There’s no secret to this process. In fact, most who practice it plead ignorance. They’re actually right. This idea was captured in a great quote I found by the late Steve Jobs:

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. [via BrainyQuote]

Code Your Dots

There’s a sea change going on in the world right now. Information is so readily accessible to anybody, at any time, and it moves at lightening speed. This is taking our lives by force and making it necessary, not just optional, to think more creatively in our endeavors. What’s the point of being creative if we all have the same information? Think for a moment about the idea of connecting things — those THINGS are the dots of your life and experiences. And only you have access to how they all relate to your view of the world. You own that code. That’s your edge.

There’s a cool hashtag campaign happening over at Fast Company called #genflux. I encourage you to check it out.

 

There’s a conversation going on there about what talent looks like today. It’s an important conversation. Especially, if you find yourself moving in your career or building a company. I personally don’t think it costs you anything extra to be more creative. All it takes is connecting a few dots to create some new things. And you don’t need a certain look, job, title, or any permission to connect the dots and unleash the creativity within. It’s all right there.

Filed Under: Biz Dev, Ideas, Success, Tim, Unpluggd

Why Your Redesign Just Failed

October 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

Beautifully maintained.

 

What’s the #1 reason most organizations want to redesign their website? At some point the law-of-new-shiny-objects kicks in and someone in charge decides an “updated” look and feel is needed. The site is ugly and outdated, therefore it’s not producing any results. A new redesign is worked and launched, the hour glass is flipped, and the count down to the next redesign begins. The truth is redesigns have a high probability of failure within the first two to three months, sometimes sooner.

A fresh coat of paint, a little nip/tuck, or a make-over does not equal success. Better serving customers and generating more leads does. This is ALL that matters, and the rest is just window dressing. Making it as easy as possible for a customer to do business with you is the essential #JTBD.

Creating vs. Maintaining

So, why then is this type of thinking perpetually missing from the strategy? One idea is that maintaining something is now perceived as harder than creating something. And because most organizations aren’t confident they have the resources and expertise to maintain, the strategy becomes how long they can get by with what was created. This is why so many redesign projects are front-loaded with every ounce of cool imaginable. But don’t be fooled. A maintenance strategy is both attainable and profitable when done right.

At Green Tie Marketing (disclosure: I work with this agency), we’ve learned the marketplace has a big education gap when it comes to understanding how to manage their online strategy over time. It’s not for a lack of smart and dedicated, mission-driven people, or even budget for that matter. These are the caliber of clients we prefer to work with, and they inspire us everyday. It’s really about how they’ve traditionally defined success in their organization, and how that mindset has bled into how they define success in the online channel.

We find most clients are more than strapped for time and resources. So, everything becomes time-boxed — i.e. X needs completing by this date, Y event is happening on that date, and Z can’t begin until we’re done with X and Y. Think about a component of a larger strategy, like a redesign, and how it looks in this context. The thinking often becomes ‘if we can just get something new up there, our job will be done. Until the next time.’

This is the challenge we see with the redesign as THE strategy. All the perceived value and return on the investment is tied up in the creating not the maintaining. The reality is that marketing teams that invest in a specialist, whose sole job is to consistently refine and execute the online strategy achieve high levels of success and return. And when they outsource to an online marketing partner (if they lack the in-house specialist) they achieve even higher levels of success and return for as much as 25% the cost of an FTE. Maintaining a strategy requires laser focus, and for that you need dedicated experts that can guide and execute.

Deliver the goods, consistently good.

Let’s look at a couple extreme examples to illustrate the point of focus and execution. Have you seen craigslist before? How about Drudge Report? I love bringing up these two examples because you don’t have to know ANYTHING about website design to understand that their visual style is epically craptastic! But they do one thing better than most beautifully designed sites on the Web; and that is for years now they keep chugging along and delivering the goods. The results.

According to their site, CL has about 30 people curating, monitoring and approving content at any given time across 700 local websites in 70 countries. In the US alone, about 60 million people use the service each month. At Drudge, it’s a smaller staff (about 3-4) and their headline content is highly curated by its editors. The design of one of the most popular political news sites “remains entirely written in unscripted HTML with a mostly monochromatic color scheme of black boldface monospaced font text on a plain white background [via Wikipedia].” And Jason Fried of 37signals once called it “one of the best designed sites on the web.”

Now, this isn’t a recommendation to suddenly ditch your brand identity and personality in favor of designs like these. But the examples are living proof that the most critical piece of your online strategy is not in the creating but in the maintaining. Consistent focus over the long-term. Don’t undervalue it. If anything, over plan for it.

You bought a new wardrobe of clothes, wore them once and then neglected their up-keep. You bought the gym membership and never had a set schedule for going. You started a new diet but still kept the bad stuff sitting in your fridge or in your pantry. When you decide to pursue a redesign, make sure you have put in place the right engine for ongoing success. Otherwise, you’re just another pretty website. Until the next redesign.

 

 

Filed Under: Biz Dev, Ideas, JTBD, Marketing, Success, Tim

Inbox Love: Healthy or Hopeless?

October 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

Perfect storm?

 

I’ve been obsessed with the INBOX for the last year or so.  Not actually checking it or reading the emails it (that shark was jumped a long time, I’ll explain later), but understanding our relationship with it. This has led to researching everything from its earliest beginnings to —  fast forward 40 plus years later — it’s impact on our daily lives.

The picture above really sums it up. It’s like we’re all caught in the rain without an umbrella. Information overload, Inbox fatigue, whatever you want to call it. Yet, because it’s become such a fixture in our connected lives, we might as well just accept it for what it is and have a laugh. The perfect storm for marketers. We’ll create some plugins to try and keep ourselves a little dry sometimes. I’d call this the HOPELESSLY in love camp.

All of this time spent outside of the Inbox trying to understand what’s in it has resulted in a few key learnings. I’m sharing these insights here because I think they could  A) help untether ourselves a little from the psychological pull of the Inbox, or B) spark some bright, dangerous and ambitious minds to either re-invent it or replace it with something else altogether different. It’s a hard problem and there are signs that it’s already underway. I’d call this the HEALTHILY in love camp.

1. A lot of spam now comes from board rooms, not boiler rooms

By now, you should realize some of the biggest spammers out there today are the actual brands and causes you trust. Take a look at your Inbox and you’ll see this. I have no time personally to keep up, let alone opt-out of the emails pushed to me on a regular basis. The bigger dilemma is whether opting-out/unsubscribing or unrolling is even a good option. If I do, I may not get that killer deal or that important notice about my account when I really need it most. Why can’t I still be on the list but only get the content I want?

(Note: Filters are too hard to figure out for most people, and most lists do a horrible job managing subscriptions. Some lists even try to undermine the preferences set by people who do take the time to use them.)

2. A “Save” button seems more practical now versus the traditional “Delete” button

Would you care if, for example, your Inbox deleted anything you haven’t read that’s not  from somebody in your contact list every 30/60/90 days? I have thousands of unread messages in my Inbox. My visual workflow is now simply:

A. Is the message unread?  i.e. in bold.
B. Who’s it from?
C. Subject line, my de facto BS meter.
D. Skim ALWAYS to personal messages first.

Anything that gets missed in the algorithm above lives on in unread bold forever. Time is precious.

The first thing I do is scan down about halfway above the fold to see if anything catches my attention. Priority Inbox: Really? Who has time and how accurate is that anyway? Labels: Fun for the first day or two. Next, I begin opening the personal messages first (i.e. the ones that don’t have a “noreply@” in their message header), then close it, send a quick response or save my draft response for later. Finally, I go on a binge of open and click back, open and click back, and so on. Eventually, I get through my daily digest of emails this way. I do it over and over again like a hamster. Some I don’t even open, or delete.

Note to marketers: Your confidence interval with my Inbox affinity to your brand or cause is simply my ability to see a bold subject line and either keep moving or clicking on it. It really depends how busy I am at that moment, if I’m on my phone, or at my desk. Think Twitter, except you might already be six feet under…

I stopped this insanity several months ago. For me, this was the moment my Inbox had Jumped the Shark. Now, most of my unopened/unread messages live on in Gmail’s eternal gift of ginormous Inbox storage.

3. Less Time + More Information = Less Control.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what matters most in an Inbox to me. How could I regain some control of my Inbox, considering:

  • Connection: How integral is the sender of the message in my life (social/interest/commerce graph)?
  • Urgency: Did I just meet them at a networking function and get LinkedIn? Did I just book a ticket to that city, and I am now in that city?
  • Content: How relevant is this content to me, based on the rest of my Inbox? How about my previous history with this sender’s content? Did I open/click on that type of content?

When it comes to our technology, we are total control freaks. Think Apple.

4. Email is old tech, and our imagination needs to catch up with the new tech

Case in point: Folders. A desktop metaphor layered on top of a time-sensitive, to-do list manager. For many, that’s really what an Inbox has become. Managers are great at last in, first out. Folders are where messages die a slow death. Search works just fine. As does…

5. The Inbox should really just be ONE BIG NEWS FEED for our connected lives.

That’s a pretty good start right there.

Let’s get to work on this idea. The irony is both camps could be helpful in this movement. It’s time to unfrazzle our connected lives.

 

 

Filed Under: Ideas, Product, Tech, Tim

How Deep is Your Bench?

September 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

Stay balanced. It’s a marathon out there.

 

I live in a perennially mediocre professional sports town. Every year ‘if only we had X, we could be Y’ seems to be the strategy for producing a quality product. This is the typical refrain from fans to front office to media pundits looking for a solution. The football team, for example, suffers from a perpetual cycle of good offense/bad defense one year, and then bad offense/good defense the next. I heard a few people in my neighborhood lamenting the team’s most recent loss. The conversation went something like this:

They didn’t have their two best players on defense playing in the game.

Yeah, they have one of the best defenses in the league when those guys play.

I hope they get healthy soon.

What struck me about this exchange is it’s almost EXACTLY what I heard a year ago about the team’s offense after a recent loss.

I’m a big believer in lynchpins, in missing pieces to the larger puzzle. Getting to the core of what’s needed to help the equation. Hopeful inertia, effervescent apathy, a beautiful river of denial – as comfortable and temporarily satisfying as they can be — are all just clever ways to avoid the practical realities. A lynchpin is something that holds together a bigger thing. The physical definition is a pin or fastener that prevents a wheel from sliding off its axle. When it feels missing, it can be tempting to not drive too fast or drive only on certain roads so the wheel won’t come off.

I’m not suggesting any of this is easy. We are all faced with these certain, nagging challenges. There may not be a perfect solution. But one place to start might be to first ask if there is an opportunity to throw a change-up  at the challenge that faces you.

Start building up “Your Bench”

You aren’t learning anything new at work? Start expanding your creative pursuits outside of work. Your friends drain you of positive energy? Start taking chances on meeting new people. You need a confidence boost? TRAVEL. There are tons of areas on Your Bench that you can start building up. It could be new learnings, it could be new support systems. The point is you’re trying something different, and moving beyond the constant getting-of-the-thing-that-will-get-me-the-next-thing  cycle of thinking.

For years, I spent way too much energy on trying not to be typecasted. Some days, I wanted to be the best athlete. Other days, the best student. Then one day I stopped focusing on the X/Y rat dash. I just started taking better care of myself. This rising tide lifted all my boats. I even joined a gym called Sound Mind & Body (free plug).

Your Bench completes the whole package of who you are, what you’re capable of, and where you spend your time. Your depth as a person. And the PROCESS of building it up for yourself could very well be the lynchpin for overcoming some of life’s greatest challenges.

 

 

Filed Under: Biz Dev, Ideas, Success, Tim

Get Unplugged in Your Presentation

September 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

What’s a slide? You mean on a guitar?

 

This is some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten on presenting material. Whoever gave this advice, you know who are and I thank you.

In 1989-1990, MTV began a series called “MTV Unplugged.” (If you graduated college in the last few years then hit the YouTubes and explore this media genre that got its legs around the year you were born.) The concept behind unplugged was showcasing informal musical performances by popular artists in an intimate concert setting. The instruments are always done acoustic, or on piano, with typically only the vocals amplified by a microphone. There are other names for this kind of format. The acoustic set, unscripted, and my favorite “the afterparty.”

Becoming unplugged is about doing informal awesome.

This isn’t a pep talk for getting rid of your nerves and jitters because you have to get up and perform in front of an audience; and nor is it another sound byte on how to pitch. You’re an entrepreneur, and you’re way past that stage and just doing the best you can by the seat of your pants. This is about rocking out your content…unplugged.

Become the MC of your own AFTERPARTY.

Start getting in the mindset of the afterparty. Tell yourself you’ve already done the big cat and rhino show. Your audience are all VIPs in attendance, friends of the band. They already heard the war and peace version at the chicken or beef luncheon. They came to your talk/meeting/call for the good stuff, the secret material, the insights. Serve them a few killer drinks. You know your material backwards and forwards. This mindset will relax you and help you get down to the salient points in your message.

Now, you’re gonna have some important presentations with a lot on the line. This doesn’t mean you throw all formality out the window. Be respectful of your audience and their time. Don’t always show up in jeans, drop a few f-bombs and call people out on their BS. Only a select few can pull that off. But do strive to be memorable in your own unique way.

When you adopt this frame in your presentations you will instantly be received as more confident and credible. You’ll be more relaxed in your delivery and make a genuine connection with your audience — allowing you to slow down and be a good listener as well. It’s no surprise these are some of the most important ingredients for a successful presentation. Becoming unplugged is about doing informal awesome. Hopefully, this subtle tweak in your approach will give you a compass to get there without all the stress.

 

 

Filed Under: Ideas, Preso, Success, Tim
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