Social Media and IRL Lessons from Chris Brogan

Social Media and IRL Lessons from Chris Brogan: "

I’m excited to see “Trust Agents” co-author Chris Brogan present in person for the second time this year at the BMA Engage conference tomorrow. Having seen him earlier at the Kansas City IABC Business Communications Summit in February, his innovative presentation style is one unlike I’ve never seen, and I really can’t imagine anyone else pulling it off successfully.

Speaking from what seemed to be a handwritten “set list” on a folded up piece of paper, Brogan spent an hour sharing his strategic perspective on how people behave, interact, and expect to be treated. Quite frankly, he struck me like the smart, quiet guy you see in a corporation who observes everything, sees the strategy gaps the big business so obviously misses, and figures out all the answers while hardly ever getting the chance to share them.

Through a patient strategy of freely sharing insights and perspectives from his innovative viewpoint, Brogan has created the opportunity to share his strategic wisdom in increasingly rarified venues. For all the “GET MASSIVE FOLLOWERS, BE A SOCIAL MEDIA ROCK STAR QUICK ” scams floating around the web, Chris Brogan has transferred a consistently, strategically constructed online platform to an IRL business where he routinely gets the chance to share his much sought-after answers.

Among the great strategic insights at his Kansas City presentation about better cultivating and growing customers with the help of social media:

• A company can best help its people understand what it means to represent the brand by providing some level of media relations training to every employee.


• The best social media people come from customer service. They’re used to talking with customers and representing the business across many situations.


• The first steps in social media strategy should focus on prepping for crisis communication, marketing at the time of need, better addressing customer service, and conducting research on customer needs.


• Don’t spend so much time on yourself. Brogan tries to communicate 12 times more about others than about his own stuff (a remarkable strategy considering some of the authors who pound relentless tweets and Facebook updates all about themselves).


• A brand lives or dies by its database and how the company cultivates it between the times it is marketing to people.

His most important statement? The importance to Brogan of keeping people who matter to you when you don’t need anything at all from them. It’s an important life lesson, irrespective of whether you use social media or not. – Mike Brown

"

Conference Call - Social Entrepreneurs

Dear Strategists,

We are organizing a conference call with brilliant people, for posting on our blog. If you are interested in attending, here you have the agenda:

Starts:	Sunday October 11, 2009, 04:00PM
Ends:	Sunday October 11, 2009, 05:00PM

Conference Dial-In: 1-218-862-7200
Conference Code: 802305
Time Zone: GMT Login: 10 minutes before to organize the call.
Agenda
- web 2.0
- Linkedin
- Global Entrepreneur Movement

Have a great month.
Look forward to hear your voice on the call.
MBUintelligence

Where did I put my keys?

And I search and search and finally find them.

It's every time the same. We need to use our keys to unlock certain things in our life's. And when we need it we can't find them. Or not few times we aren't able to identify those keys that allows us go through our needs and goals.

There are great human beings on this planet. But the opposite is also true.
There are great professionals on this planet. But the opposite is also true.
There is a small number of great sources of information available and a huge number of bad ones. The answer is easy to understand: Money.

How can we deal with this in a beneficial way?

Every individual possess his own keys to succeed in life. What has worked for someone may not work with another. That's the human nature. The good news is that everyone can learn everything they really want to. Depends on him/her.

I don't really like the word success because it is too difficult to measure and depends on subjective judgements. I prefer to talk about a different approach that is responsible for you to experience some success. Are you happy? Doing what you do. Is your effort recognized by you, your boss and your family? Are you really happy? If not, at least professionally, change.

Success will be always the consequence of doing something right. I don't really know to describe success using a different group of words.

It's much more important to look inside for something that you would love to do as a professional than trying to find what others did to excel. This approach may not work with you, regardless the importance it has for helping us in drawing a better way of doing it.

Until today my keys are these:

-Realize that YOU can’t know about everything in this life. It is just impossible-

1. Realize that half of the planet knows more than YOU around your core skills.

2. Learn how to improve your skills by focusing on the strengths of the people you meet during your life, personally and professionally. And practice every day.

3. Learn how to be flexible. If YOU are not able to change, YOU can’t launch any new projects. YOU will learn how to change, if YOU practice receptiveness. Receptiveness is the need YOU should have to understand the point of view of others. And practice every day.

4. Learn how to integrate others strengths into your way of seeing the exact same problems. Integrate rational and logical thinking processes and ignore superficial issues. And practice every day.

5. Apply what YOU learned in the previous points and measure the results (good or bad). Practice every day, focusing on the good and don’t forget to excel in the bad. And practice every day.

6. Help others and involve them in your decisions. YOU will get more knowledge. This will give YOU real oriented knowledge to implement in real life. Forget the theories. Life is a practical field. Practice every day with someone.

7. Study and Teach. It will make a life that can be really interesting. Your body will die one day but YOU may remain in the mind of millions.

This is a personal perspective and it is a small part of the book I am writing.
My best regards,
Ricardo Andorinho

Strategic Planning Success Story

Years ago i was asked to step into a Biotech firm that had just been taken over by new management via a hostile takeover. The place was a wreck. It had been started via a small IPO, and the management team squandered the money on overblown facilities & unproductive staff. My first task was to stabilize cashflow, which I did by collecting past-due receivables and renegotiating just about everything. I then focused on the larger picture of redeveloping the company into a winner (note: they had never made a profit up th this point). I dumped the fancy facilities, reduced the staff to a small key group, outsourced production at reduced cost, and developed a marketing strategy that got the company into profitable status. Meanwhile, I courted a venture capital group who injected cash and took the company private. Ultimately, the company was consolidated with another firm which had national distribution channels. They went from being a near-bankrupt small-cap loser to a vibrant mid-cap winner. I'm proud of that and the many other contributions I've made over my career. There were many lessons to be learned from that experience, but the key lesson was to "get off my butt and do something". The biggest mistake of all is inaction; a lesson the old management learned when they sat on their butts while the company crumbled around them. The second-most-important lesson was to have a plan. Planning forces one to exerise the discipline of developing & thinking through their strategy, and provides a "bible" for running the business. Without a plan, most people are just throwing money away. I've got a great story about an Aerospace company that I'll tell another day.

Regards,
Al Walsh, CEO
Walsh Enterprises, Business & Financial Advisors
http://www.awalsh.us

Go to http://www.walshal.wordpress.com where you can access:
* Articles on Business, Economy, and Career
* Presentations I've written on various business topics
* Information Resources on varied business topics

what makes you a success - how to start?

In the last few weeks, I have been amazed at the amount of traffic and emails, spam, sells, contact me's etc I have received and it suddenly struck me that it seems without doubt, everyone wants to be a success.

Do you?

Exactly - who ever answers that question with a ' well I’m not sure, if I want to be successful, provide for myself and family, have loads of great friends and a really good lifestyle...aherm ...let me think about that!!! And I’ll come back to you. It also seems to me that many people who are great at MLM and marketing and selling themselves also have some fantastic programmes to tap into this natural human desire to succeed and basically sell you 'how to' packages on how you can match their number of friends, make millions and sit on a yacht by a fantastic sunset sipping a cocktail while surrounded by loving admirers ....oh and by the way you can stay sat there by getting loads of other people to do the work for you and re-sell their amazing products and lifestyle while you endorse even more of their products...... and then give great testimonials as to why and how you did it and then everyone can copy your success.....BUT, and there is still truth in the adage that nothing is really for free, it's just a pull line to get you hooked, revved up, jealous ...whatever lights your fire and gets you motivated to buy in to them.

Now, I am not in any way decrying some of the really generous, genuine people out there who really do share their knowledge and success in a meaningful way but what I am saying is DO NOT go into anything blindly without really using and answering some basic questions about yourself and what you really want in your life. It used to be that success was measured by what you had (very firmly); even when people deny they are materialistic , it is human nature to want to be in a good place and have a good life - the key is how YOU measure success and what it means to you. You can feel hugely successful in your life because you have always paid the bills, you have a steady comfortable life and a loving long term partner and great kids who love you OR it might be that you are the CEO of a global company with a fantastic retirement plan and a holiday home in a beautiful place and are on your 3rd beautiful wife who is an ex-model!

The point I am making here is that success is also relative and although we can't help ourselves, affected by outside influences and opinions.

To really get back to basics I refer back to my earlier comment of why am I doing this? what do I really want and what am I going to do to get where I want to be....it's not about the what I haven't got, what everyone else has and what I think I should have....it's all about the basic understanding of who you are and what you can do. So without waffling on further - here are some really basic questions to ask yourself before you sign up to every fantastic offering out there and set yourself up for a fall.

1. What would make me really happy? - Security? Risk? Challenge? Teach? sell? Grow? Develop? Money?

2. What do I really know about myself? - Risk taker? Implementer? Planner? Introvert? Extrovert? Decisive? Team player? Solo? Tough? Emotional?

3. What do I want to achieve? In other words what does success look like to YOU!

4. What are the key drivers in my life? Family? Friend? Position? Title? Security? Money? Emotional satisfaction?

5. What do I really love doing or feel really passionate about? Selling? Talking? Gardening? Reading? Family?

6. What skills do I have that I can use? Admin? Language? Facts? Figures? People? Creativity?

7. What skills don't I have and how/where do I get them? - Knowledge base? Who I know and what do they know? Learn new skills? Copy and expert?

This is fairly basic thought provocation, but once you have answered these you will find that you have a lot of information and will ask yourself even more questions and automatically want to search for more answers BUT at least from a base of understanding yourself and your real desires and needs to be truly happy.

I have seen so many people measure their success on 'been rich' having a great title and good position, only for them to realise when they have all that, they really just wanted to be a gardener or a writer etc and now feel trapped by all their hard work and success.

What really makes you a success is to be passionate, because once you have that fire in your belly, nothing will stop you - no matter how many knocks you get and how many failures you learn from and how many people tell you that you're barking MAD, YOU will get through it with passion and belief and as you know yourself better than anyone else...YOU know what you want and where you are going with it and your intuition will grow and YOU will succeed!

So get out there and put some real thought into who you are and what you want, don't be afraid to be you, set yourself some short, medium and long term goals, don't be afraid to ask for help or learn new skills and JUST GO FOR IT!!!

ps - By all means ask me some questions!

Tracy Sheldon

Cristiano Ronaldo, Team Building and Results

Hello Top Strategists,

I am really surprised... 90,000 people in and outside a soccer stadium to present the new Portuguese player that was hired for Real Madrid, Spain. In this event he was not playing, just being presented.

I am a proudly Portuguese citizen that met Cristiano in the year 98, maybe 99, when we were both playing for Sporting in Lisbon. I must say that he is one of the best competitors I ever met. Their team mates were loosing with him in everything, not just in soccer. I played with him table tennis, and... I lost. And I was practicing with professional players almost everyday... Or I was really bad. That can be true too... He prepares himself to compete like few others. You can judge him in every field you want but I saw him practicing, and his focus on his professional goals is something to be commented. However the goal of this post is not running away from my field (Business Strategy and Organizational Development).

My question is:

• Do you agree that Media, as well as the sport industry is giving more importance to individual performance than team (brand) performance?

The result is that one team mate, without playing for this club, alone is able to bring 90,000 supporters to the stadium. I am not sure of what I say but I believe that last season the whole team of Real Madrid didn't had in every match they played in Santiago Barnabéu 80,000 supporters (the full capacity). In this specific case Cristiano Ronaldo won alone (in number of supporters) against Real Madrid, and without playing. And I don't really know if this is good or really bad in Real Madrid team building process. It's not my problem too, which is good.

I could talk about this issue several hours, however I can't loose focus and I don't want to be miss understood.

• Is it possible to build a Team to produce results when some members without producing any result for that company, are seen as "Gods" while others are "Nobody"? (I am being here too extremist, however today's leaders are facing these scenarios.)

Please feed us back about this article.
Best regards,
Ricardo Andorinho
MBUintelligence

Melanie Jordan

I met Melanie Jordan through a trusty (at least in my opinion) vehícle: internet.
It would be easier for me to write her link here and let the reader search for further information about the work of someone that really cares about us. Helping everyone to understand the principals of Infopreneurism.

I actually prefer to address these words in an attempt to drive you through this way of earning knowledge and in consequence Money.

What You Know Is Worth more Than You Know™ allows you to discover a new way of sharing expertise regarding each one's activity. It’s a powerful approach that excels your counciousness misspelings about the impact you might have on others (your followers). The ones that seek that specific information, on the Web or in real life.

Seth Godin is telling us that we are living in a tribus modus. I agree. We are organizing our lives and technology misspellings. Finding leaders and followers is becoming an everyday task. This is where the markets currently are: inside your network. This is the market that trusts you. Other martkets a re difficult to conquer and require financial and marketing efforts substancially more expensive.

Melanie main sources of knowledge:
The Podcast
What you Know is worth more

Melanie on Facebook
Melanie on Linkedin


Please feed us back about this article.
Best regards,
MBUintelligence

The Power of One

Dear readers,

I am now confident in addressing this article, talking about ILearning Global.TV.

I joined ILearning Global 8 months ago as a marketer and till today I was shy in my attempt of communicating the platform. I was afraid of being miss understood about the venue of the system and about the capabilities that we offer inside. This days are over and I would like to share my experience with you.

Before everything in my life, I consider myself a continuous student, and I deeply believe that just continuous learning can give you the preparation needed to compete in each market we are into. As I tried to prepare myself in the sports field, I believe that I need to do the same in my current professional life: MBUintelligence

The day I join ILG I didn't imagine what we were talking about. I joined because I research every material available over the web and I was very curious about it. I wanted to see the other side. I joined even before the access was available outside US. Today everyone around the world can join.

ILG is nowadays the web platform that incorporates more content on management education. The members of the faculty are people that worked or still work for one the best 500 companies in the world.

I am telling you this story because, when I started MBUintelligence I felt that I was missing my agenda on the time I had available for self-study. I need to study almost everyday.

Today ILearning Global allows me to have access to a knowledge that would be impossible for me to incorporate if I was doing my research by my own. So I strongly recommend that if you see continuous learning the way I see, please research over these links.

The tittle of this article is the power of one. Brian Tracy coached more than 2 million people over his life... Google was created by Page and Brin... Einstein was not an university. And I strongly believe that are people in today's world more brilliant than Einstein. Why? Because technology is allowing human brain to go faster. Do you agree?

Here you have some free resources to see how easy it is the interface usage:
Portal
To learn:
Platform
Global Presentation
To join:
MBUintelligence

All Top

I wanted to share with you a resource very well organize that put their users ahead of the curve.

Thanks Gui Kawasaki.

Best regards,
MBUintelligence

The vision behind the scenes

Hello TSN,

We would like to share these strategical views that have impacted our society and were recognized as success for a huge number of people.

We think everyone knows Eric Schmidt, however we are not so sure that everyone saw this interview... The vision was here... Much before Google... He is just one of the men.

We don't know the future of Google as we don't know the future of anything... The future is uncertain. There's a lot of information about Google's future, however we prefer to lock the keys that allowed the Google culture that we know today.



Another example we would like to share is Rolling Stones. Do you know them? Well, may be you didn't see this:



Well, we think leadership is on both example as it is on thousands of others.
Thanks to them we are able to study each strategy behind the scenes.
Every leader makes his vision so strong that influences not just the ones that follow them without significant effort.

Regards,
Top Strategy Networkers

Announcement from Top Strategy Networkers

Dear Strategists,
We are 630 members. Thanks for your support.

We would like to:
1- Spread the word, if you really think this group adds value around business strategy issues. To do so, please use this link to invite Top Strategy networkers: http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=80341

2- We are always looking for new materials, articles, videos, etc. If you think you can deliver some of your time in helping us to growth as a family, please send us your opinions, thoughts and sources.

3- We are publishing the best content we receive and we are competing with the most innovative blogs I am aware of. Please visit: http://www.ideaconnection.com/innovation-blogs/ You will find us there. You can vote!

Thanks for being here.
Best regards,
Top Strategy Networkers

Lost Genertation - Word Strategy to deliver an important message

A special thanks to Andreja Lajh

Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better

MBUintelligence countdown

Dear friends,

MBUintellenge web site is already structured in his spanish version. In January the english version will be available.
Thanks for your help and support. During the next week you can visit www.mbuintelligence.com

Best regards,
Ricardo

Timing is Everything

Dr. Denis Waitley taught us that,
"Timing is Everything"

It is true with regard to Strategy. Ricardo has found the perfect time to explore a topic that is very near and dear to my heart. I look forward to contributing as time permits, but more importantly, to learn from Ricardo and those that he invites to share their unique insights.

This morning over coffee, I had this timely thought:

How many of my clients understand Strategy?

May I suggest few. Very few. Me included!

The word may roll off our tongues, but talk about a "deep" subject. One where we ought to start with a textbook definition. So here it is (from dictionary.com):

4. a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result: a strategy for getting ahead in the world.

That makes sense. A series of maneuvers... for obtaining a goal. I trust that everyone would agree that a goal without a timeline is simply a wish, or a pipe dream. So, my thoughts this morning centered on how important is the timeline to strategy?

Can you have a strategy without a timeline? Methinks not.

Okay, so a strategy (a series of maneuvers to obtain a goal) must include due dates. Fair enough?

Those that read my blog (SKI on Throughput) know that I preach posting one's strategy on their office wall. Both the office and home office wall. So, lets do this next exercise together:

1. Walk over to your office wall
   
2. Review your Strategy
3. Does it have a timeline?

Game over

I have this large poster on my wall (56x71cm) and not one date anywhere!

Okay SKI, if you are so smart, how did you let this happen to yourself? Poor time management! I let the urgent (affairs of life) crowd out the important things... like integrating a timeline in my strategy. What if this simple fact is preventing me from breaking through to the other side?

You know, the side where I am driving that new Cadillac CTS to my next assignment! Remind to wax poetic on the importance of dream building as a tool to accomplish the mileposts of one's strategy... but I digress.

"When the student is ready,
the teacher will appear."
—anonymous

Ricardo, I already owe you a great debt. I taught for ten years (computer science), and the best teachers always learn more when presenting to others. By sharing on this simple topic of "strategy" I have learned of a very serious shortcoming in my own strategy.

And here I had this (misguided) intent to chastise my clients for not getting more done!

Before day's end, I will completely and thoroughly update my SIO Map (Strategic Intermediate Objectives Map) to include all relevant times.

What will you being doing this afternoon?

-ski

P.S. I love it when a plan comes together!

----
Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah
ski@throughput.us
(330) 432-3533

tag: Timing Really is Everything

Greetings from Hilton Head Island

"Thanks Ricardo for the invitation"
— SKI

I consider it an honor to be invited to participate on your Top Strategy Networkers blog. Recently I made some general observations on strategy in my blog that I would like to share:

Riding in the Limo

Strategy can be a very personal concept and yet it must by definition touch one's entire organization. Allow me a day or two to come up with some pointed thoughts. Most likely over coffee tomorrow.

-ski

P.S. As I like to tell folks, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina is a great place to vacation. It is a better place to live. Do give me a shout if you get over this way. Call first, I am doing a lot of traveling of late.

----
Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah
ski@throughput.us
(330) 432-3533