P/PC Balance in Social Media
March 11, 2010
It’s impossible to be on Twitter or Facebook for 5 minutes without learning something new. People across the world are talking about all sorts of things, and providing useful links to pretty fantastic websites. This is occurring literally all day and all night, without exception. It’s quite fascinating actually.
General browsing will bring “random value” – value on all sorts of subjects. You can also be specific and dig into topic areas and really get exactly the information you want. Tools like TweetDeck work like a dream when trying to do this. It’s no wonder that Sky News rolled it out to its staff recently.
Executive producer of Sky News Online, Julian March, said this about the TweetDeck rollout:
“The big change for us in 2010 is evolving how social media plays a role in our journalism. We no longer ghettoise it to one person, but are in the process of embedding throughout the whole team.”
With all of this information, it’s extremely easy to get sucked in. It’s easy to spend all day reading, collecting information, bookmarking, and filing. But doing only this will get one nowhere. There has to be a balance between collection data, and using data.
Stephen Covey explains this principle very accurately in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He calls it the P/PC Balance. P is Production, and PC is Production Capability.
You have to keep Production (using data to produce workshops, products, etc) and Production Capability (research, crafting your skills, etc) in balance – otherwise you won’t be effective.
His words:
Effectiveness lies in the balance. Excessive focus on P results in ruined health, worn-out machines, depleted bank accounts, and broken relationships. Too much focus on PC is like a person who runs three or four hours a day, bragging about the extra ten years of life it creates, unaware he’s spending them running. Or a person endlessly going to school, never producing, living on other people’s golden eggs – the eternal student syndrome.
In the Social Media space, it’s very easy to be a victim of the eternal student syndrome. Our industry literally changes daily. New developments at Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc shift the way we do things every so often. Company buy-outs and mergers are pretty common and no longer surprising. It’s easy for us to consume all of this information disproportionally to our actual use of the information.
I have learnt, from Covey’s teachings, to adapt this principle to every area of life. And I would recommend that you consider the same.
Covey:
The P/PC Balance is the very essence of effectiveness. It’s validated in every arena of life. We can work with it, or against it, but it’s there. It’s a lighthouse.
Social Media is very powerful. But a low-information diet will help us keep the P and PC balanced.
Photo credit: johnjoh
Get your head out of the clouds – no, don’t!
March 10, 2010
“Get your head out of the clouds” is a famous saying that I’m sure we all know all too we ll. Having your head in the clouds was seen as a bad thing, when someone was daydreaming, etc. But, it’s 2010. And I say: don’t only get your head right up there in the clouds, but get your entire business up there too!
The 2 terms used to describe what I’m referring to are: “Cloud Computing” and “The Web as a platform.”
Let’s look at the evolution of computing (in a very over-simplified manner). First there were none. Then there were very big computers, mainframes, which were in the hands of a select few. Then the desktop computer was born. Then networks were born – a bunch of computers connected to each other. First you could only connect to the network’s server by physically being in the building. Then you could connect from any location by dialing in. Then national and global networks emerged. Then the Internet was born.
The Internet is, metaphorically, the cloud. More and more, all our information resides online. Less and less are we dependent on servers, desktop computers, or laptops. We are dependent – more and more – on the Internet though. But that’s okay, because access to the Internet is becoming more easy, and less costly.
If you’re a Facebook user (and I’ll bet you are), you’d have experienced the power of the cloud. Logging into your Facebook account from any computer or mobile phone provides all your Facebook information – contacts, messages, news feed, etc. The same with Twitter.
I think Internet banking was the first significant cloud service. Firstly, being able to bank online revolutionised business, in my opinion. Being able to access your bank account, and make payments, without going into a bank – changed the game forever. And if you had a bad experience as I did of having being arm robbed after leaving a bank, it tends to be one of your least favourite places to visit. Secondly, you could bank from absolutely anywhere – as long as you had an Internet connection. Phenomenal!
Today there are so many cloud services which make our lives much more productive, much more fun, and much easier. Google Apps (used by 2 million businesses worldwide, including ours) is a communication suite from Google – providing email, online documents, calendar, and more. Freshbooks is an online invoicing system – also providing time tracking, expense tracking, and quotations. Evernote, Basecamp, and many other online applications now make us more mobile. We are no longer dependent on computers or locations, we’re only dependent on the Internet – and that’s not too hard to come by these days.
It’s not easy to give up control of your data, and move it to online locations – but it’s a move we must make. And once we’ve made that move, we never want to go back!
Photo credit: kables
Are you a Mona, or a moaner?
March 10, 2010
I firmly believe that there is more – MUCH more – good in the world than there is evil. If we want to, we will find goodness and pleasantness all around us, wherever we go. And the bad that we discover will not affect us in any major way.
Yes, the world is not perfect, and we are frequently faced with unpleasant experiences. These may take the form of unfriendly people, bad service, etc. I believe that what happens to us is irrelevant, but how we respond to it is the matter which is important. I’m not implying that I don’t care if bad things happen to myself or other people, but I’m saying that bad things are going to happen. The trick is to handle them effectively.
Social Media has given everyone a voice, a loud hailer if you will. This is powerful, because it has changed communication and marketing – and business as a whole – from what we once knew. People are talking all the time, about everything. Twitter is active 24/7 – literally – so is Facebook. People are talking about everything.
What are you talking about? Are you adding value, providing good information, sharing valuable insights? Or are you whining about every bad thing?
This is really an important choice to make prior to – and during – Social Media engagement. So many people are creating value and being positive “online citizens” – we value them. Others complain all day. For example, there is someone that complains about Social Media all the time – saying that it doesn’t work and that it’s useless. But where does he complain? On Twitter. The hub of Social Media. It doesn’t make sense.
In both the online world and the offline world there are positive people, and negative people. Monas, and moaners. The thing is, in the online world everything is amplified, made larger, expanded, extended. So if you’re a positive person – many more people will know about your positivity due to the vastness of the Internet, and the rapidness of information flow. If you’re a negative person, more people will know too. And you’re doomed. No one wants to work – or associate – with negative people.
So you choose. But choose wisely.
Photo credit: click here
Pick up a jersey
March 10, 2010
If you know me personally you’ll know that I’m not that much into sports. I played soccer in my pre-teen years, but not much thereafter. I enjoy watching a good game of soccer, tennis, and other sports – but that’s only if I happen to come across it playing on tv. I don’t really schedule this into my calendar, if you catch my drift.
What I do prefer is activities that get adrenalin pumping. So I’ve done bridge jumping, recently been on a (mega fast) speed boat, and sky diving and other items are next on the agenda!
Team sports interest me though, because I am fascinated by the team dynamic. Every person is important in the team, and working together is essential for success. I believe the same is true for business, as well as social communities. In this regard, John Wooden comes to mind. I first heard about him on a talk by Anthony Robbins, and then I saw this video of him at TED.com. Wooden (now 99 years old) was a phenomenal basketball coach. He was the first person ever (and then followed by Lenny Wilkens and Bill Sharman) to be a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player (1961) and as a coach (1973). As a coach, he is still unmatched for winning 10 NCAA National Championships in a 12 year period while at UCLA. The significant difference about Wooden is that he focused on “coaching for people, not points” – so it didn’t matter if the team won or lost – he was interested in whether the individual player won or lost. Did that player play his best game, even if the team lost? Did that player play his worst game, even if the team won? What an interesting perspective!
A few months ago I attended a soccer match with my cousins and their kids. We watched a bunch of kids – around 10-12 years old – enjoy their Saturday afternoon in the best manner they knew how. Someone (I think it was a parent) yelled to one of the kids “Pick up a jersey.” Perhaps I had heard the phrase before, but that was the first time I had actually taken serious note. Immediately, I made a note on my iPhone, under “Blog Post Ideas” – yeah, I’m that type of geek!
The little kid was told to “target” a player of the opposing team, to focus only on that player. The opposite of this would be to tell the kid “Target everyone” – forcing him to run all across the field like a maniac. This is not the way team sports are played. I think businesses should learn from this. Too often we try to “Target everyone” instead of using the “Pick up a jersey” strategy. We’ve all fallen into this trap – at some time or another.
When trying to win clients, we sometimes “adapt” just so that we can get the business. This – in the long term – is not good. We lose focus, and we spend time building experience in areas which are not part of our purpose and ultimate vision. Anthony Robbins refers to this as trying to speak to all the trees in the forest – instead of the biggest trees, and the trees that are the best fit for us.
A very bold woman, and a very dear friend of mine, Jo Duxbury, has conquered this. Jo runs Freelancentral as well as Peppermint Source (please check out these websites, Jo really rocks!). A few days ago Jo said this on Twitter: “Turning away work because the clients do not fit my target profile is a uncomfortable, but sticking to my guns is best for both me and them.” You can view the original tweet here.
This idea is so essential as business advances and as global markets open up. All of us can’t be everything to everybody, we really need to focus. We need to find what it is that we do best, and then just do that!
Photo credit: bethcanphoto
Exploring rejection
March 9, 2010
A few days ago a company rejected one of our proposals. It was quite a decent-sized project which we pitched for, and the rejection certainly came as a disappointment. In the past, a situation like this would be met with assumptions of why we did not get the work, and then we’d just go on with business as usual.
I had 2 assumptions about why we did not get this particular project. The first was price, and the second was that I thought the client didn’t see the value that we would add to their business. So I enquired, politely, as to why we didn’t get the work. To my surprise, the company presented 2 reasons for the rejection, and neither was related to price or value. In fact, they thought the price was right, and identified the value – but they had 2 other concerns. This was totally enlightening. Now there is an opportunity for dialogue! The first of their concerns is valid, but we might be able to convince them that it should not really be a concern (due to the nature of the Web and Social Media), and their other concern – we think – is invalid and we can probably come to an agreement on this one.
How many times – in business and outside of it – do we accept rejection and not explore the reasons behind it. I think that most times we will be amazed that our initial assumptions about being turned down are far from the truth. Sometimes we’re so afraid of the truth, that we fail to see the potential benefits which lie in the truth.
Communication is so easy today, and all we really have to do is talk! I believe that talking is the essence of relationships, and relationships are the core of business today.
Gina Smith wrote a very interesting article about communicating and connecting. Read it here. Thanks to Sheraan Amod for the link.
Photo credit: quinnanya
