Reading Rules!

Teaching is my biggest passion, and each time I teach I get a tingly feeling inside. That’s when I realise that the bit of information I just shared came from a book I read a few months back, or a podcast I listened to long ago, or a video I saw, or a conference I attended. In that very moment I yearn to learn more. So that I can teach more.

I’m old fashioned, so I still read books, the old…paper kind. People in my industry keep saying books are done, books are last century. I don’t buy that theory. I only see books going one of two ways: They’ll either be around forever, or they’ll at least be around for a very very long time to come. Either way, I’m keeping mine! I rarely travel without a book in hand, even if that travel is just into the city for a business meeting. When I deliver seminars I always have books in my hand, I think it’s effective to inspire people to learn.

I’ve taken a small selection of books from my bookshelf, and made a list. These are books that I think might benefit you in business. I have a very long “Book Wish List” – but I have not included any of those books simply because I don’t have them…yet! You can find the list here: http://www.jayz.co.za/books/.

I’ve also made a list of 65 eBooks which I have collected over the the past few years. I think they’re good, and they’re worth looking over when you have a chance. Very large eBooks I print – I simply cannot read on a screen for very long. Smaller ones I read on my laptop, but I have them on Dropbox, so they’re accessible on my iPhone from anywhere. So standing in a queue, waiting for someone, etc is never a problem for me – there’s always some reading to be done. You can grab them here: http://www.jayz.co.za/ebooks/.

Happy reading!

Social Media Revolution

Have you seen this video? It was published on 30 July 2009, and has been viewed 2,015,452 times to date. It reveals some interesting statistics, and I think it’s worth spending a few minutes to watch.

Where are your videos?

We spoke to a company today about doing Event Coverage for their workshops. They responded by saying that they have an internal video team. Good. Where do they publish their videos? On their website. Good? Not really.

Firstly, their website is completely built in Flash. Flash is yesterday. Ask Steve Jobs. Then, the videos on their website do not play. They have a video player, but clicking play does not seem to feed the video. That’s one of the many disadvantages of hosting your own videos. That’s yesterday too. Online video hosts such as YouTube are where videos should be. Online video hosting means no strain on your own servers, and you also have the advantage of reaching the huge YouTube community, as well as the opportunity for others to embed your videos into their websites. Viral possibilities. Powerful! CNN, The White House, and BMW would not have their own YouTube Channels unless they saw the value of the platform.

I can’t find this company on Facebook, nor on Twitter. Maybe they’re there, hidden? Their website doesn’t have links to these social networks either. Sad.

This company is doing stunning work, but they fail to see the value of Social Media.

We don’t need YouTube. We have our own website. We have our own web servers. CNN has their own news network. Yet they’re on YouTube. And on Twitter. And on Facebook. I think that’s worth considering.

What are you doing online? Are you ‘playing’ where your potential clients are ‘hanging out’ – or is your head still somewhat stuck in the sand? Is control still the highest priority for you? Even when it damages your brand?

Google Chrome Speed Tests

Yesterday Mashable reported that Google’s web browser, Chrome, was increasing it’s market share while Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was losing ground. Chrome holds 6.73% of the market, while IE holds 59.95% – but the downward trend should still be concerning for the big M. You can read the complete story here.

This is actually just a quick post to share with you the new YouTube video released by Google today, emphasizing the speed of Chrome. Very creative. Very innovative.

Why do you blog?

I love blogging. Actually, I love writing. I have been writing for years. I love expressing myself. I love sharing. And I hope people find value in that. I find value in what other people share. Books. Videos. Blog posts. One famous person said that if one day is not an improvement from the previous, then you’re better off dead. So we must learn. We must learn from each other. From each other’s knowledge, thoughts, and experiences. We’re all unique. And we’re all interdependent.

Seth Godin talks about blogging in this video. I think it’s powerful. I’m going to play this video at my next blogging workshop – it’s extremely insightful. I hope you’ll watch it.

Yola got it right!

Yola, an innovative web company founded by South Africa’s own Vinny Lingham, has a very striking slogan. It says: “stop browsing. start building.” I get caught up in this all the time. I’m browsing, reading, researching, reading some more, filing – and I’m spending too little time building. Too little time producing. Too little time creating new products. Too little time developing new seminars and workshops. It’s my avidness to learn that does this. But it’s not a wise thing. I need to have P/PC Balance. P is Production, and PC is Production Capability. You can read all about it in this post. I have my scale titled more on the PC side, when in fact the scale must weigh evenly on both sides.

I’m not always out of balance, sometimes I get some good balance. But those times are too few and far between. This morning I posted a message to Facebook and Twitter. Here is the Facebook version:

Twitter and Facebook are immense resource pools. The information is there. But in order to build, we need to switch off these pools for a while. I find this hard, but I need to correct this. I find many people do.

Billboards are like sea turtles

I recently learnt about sea turtles, what a fascinating creature. Did you know that they are almost always submerged in water? It is for this reason that they have developed an anaerobic system of respiration. Although they breathe air, under dire circumstances they may divert to anaerobic respiration for long periods of time. They quickly refill their lungs with a single explosive exhalation and rapid inhalation when surfacing to breathe.

The sea turtle pictured here is called the Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle. Beautiful!

My first time learning about this creature was on a tv documentary. They showed how the eggs are laid in the sand, on the ocean’s shore. Wikipedia states that:

The mature nesting female hauls herself onto the beach and finds suitable sand on which to create a nest. Using her hind flippers, she digs a circular hole 40 to 50 centimetres (16 to 20 in) deep. After the hole is dug, the female then starts filling the nest with a clutch of soft-shelled eggs one by one until she has deposited around 50 to 200 eggs, depending on the species. Some species have been reported to lay 250 eggs, such as the hawksbill. After laying, she re-fills the nest with sand, re-sculpting and smoothing the surface until it is relatively undetectable visually. The whole process takes thirty to sixty minutes. She then returns to the ocean, leaving the eggs untended.

Now this is not a simple process. Due to the physical design of the sea turtle, movement out of the water is not very fast. It sort of crawls to move forward, and digging the hole to lay the female’s eggs is also a slow process.

After all this effort, the mother returns to the ocean, not knowing how many of the eggs will survive. And it has been statistically proven that only a very small proportion of each hatch – usually .01% – succeed.

God has designed nature and the universe with perfection – we all agree on that. But if we had to apply this type of process to business, it would be akin to shooting in the dark.

I think that is what advertising is, particularly big spend advertising like billboards. Advertising is shooting in the dark. It’s like dumping a whole lot of money in a hole, and expecting about .01% success. And if you have the opinion that advertising for branding is a smart thing – its not. And Chet Holmes will agree with me on that.

How do you know how many people viewed that billboard? How do you know how many people purchased your product due to that billboard? Measurement = impossible.

Did you know that $220 billion is spent on unmeasured advertising every year – in the US alone?

There’s a saying that advertising is the price you pay for not being remarkable. I’m sure you’re remarkable. We all are. Or more accurately, we all can be remarkable – but it takes some work. Advertising is the easy way out.

I’ll leave you with words by Seth Godin on this topic: “Do you want to bet your future on a process [that of advertising] that’s getting less effective every day?”

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Who’s watching?

Do you remember the movie Ocean’s Eleven? I’m sure you do. Right at the end, Tess (played by Julia Roberts) says to Terry (played by Andy Garcia): “You of all people should know Terry, in your hotel, there’s always someone watching.”

She’s referring to Terry’s earlier comment that in his hotel someone is always watching, referring to the surveillance cameras everywhere. At this juncture of the movie, Tess has just witnessed Terry – via one of his own cameras – saying something which ended their relationship.

The Internet is moving to that level. Someone is always watching. Someone is always ready to write a blog post, or to tweet, or to update their Facebook status. Mobile phones make photo and video sharing child’s play.

Now, more than ever, it’s important to act and speak with integrity and good character at all times. We should be true to this standard of ethics even if no one is watching, of course. That is the ultimate model to strive for.

Gary Vaynerchuk was prank called at SxSW a few days ago. I think Gary’s a great guy, and I think his videos are brilliant. Someone called Gary in his hotel room, at 5am in the morning. Gary did not know it was a prank caller, and Gary did not know that the caller was video recording everything. Gary did, however, act with integrity and not lose his temper.

Watch the video…

Photo credit: ell-r-brown

Are you willing to pay for online content?

On February 6, 2010 Mitch Joel wrote a post entitled “There Is Nothing Wrong With Making Money” – you can read it here.

Some people think that content – all content – should be free from start to end. This includes people providing content, as well as those consuming that content. I think that’s ridiculous. A lot of content should be provided for free, as is the case currently, but with all types of media and content moving online, it’s inevitable that premium and selected content pieces should carry a price tag, even if only a nominal one.

This discussion has been becoming more and more frequent, because it’s becoming more and more important – for all concerned.

Mitch says:

Free is great, but at a certain point that well runs dry. People are willing to pay for things like access, unique content, premiums, artefacts, etc… Creating platforms that add value to a community is worthwhile (and worth the cost). No one ever said that everything in Social Media has to be free… and even free has a cost associated to it.

I totally agree with this. In fact, let me share the comment I posted on Mitch’s blog post:

I agree that money should be made online. I particularly favour the Freemium model. I plan to apply this to my seminars and webinars, as well as online content. Right now what I give for free, which I see as sharing and adding value, is totally separate to the things I charge for. I need to change that.

I like what Andrew Warner has done with his interviews on Mixergy.com. First all his video interviews were free (and they’re about an hour long each). A few days ago I discovered that interviews are now only free to view for a week. Anything older than a week can only be viewed under a paying membership. I like that model. It allows people who don’t want to pay 1 week to view all the videos, and it allows serious visitors the opportunity to pay for content to view and browse at leisure.

What do you think? Are you prepared to pay from premium online content?

Photo credit: stevendepolo

The Karate Discipline

I’m sure we all remember the movie The Karate Kid, an all-time classic. I watched a rerun a few months ago, and realised that each wisdom from Mr Miyagi is worth exploring – in a blog post or video. Karate means “empty hand” – and is a defense strategy. I did a bit of karate at school (many moons ago), and I got to yellow belt. Karate and martial arts teach us discipline. In business we also require discipline, and I think that as entrepreneurs we can learn a lot from these art forms.

Mr Miyagi says in the movie: “First learn stand, then learn fly. Nature rule, Daniel-san, not mine.” This is very important. In business (and in life, even) we sometimes put the horse before the cart. We don’t adhere to due process principles. We’re too impatient. Mr Miyagi’s anecdote is similar to Covey‘s “Law of the harvest.” You reap what you sow.

Chet Holmes has worked with over 60 of the Fortune 500 companies as America’s top marketing executive, trainer, strategic consultant and motivation expert. He’s done work for Charlie Munger (one of Warren Buffet‘s partners), and has recently also started to do projects with Anthony Robbins. He has also studied and taught karate for 23 years.

Chet says:

The lessons we’ve learned about consistency have taught us that it is the only way to really improve anything. The secret to great accomplishment in karate is not in learning 4, 000 different moves. There’s aren’t 4, 000 different moves in karate. There are 12 moves. Becoming a master is not about doing 4, 000 different moves; it’s about doing 12 moves, 4, 000 times each. The same is true for all areas of accomplishment. Golf, tennis, sales, customer services, ALL areas of competency require repetition of fundamentals.

We need to apply this discipline to our businesses when it comes to Social Media. There are just too many tools and applications out there. And we cannot use all of them. Everyday we see people on Facebook and Twitter saying “try this new tool, this that new tool” – and for the average entrepreneur this is just as a liability on time. For most businesses, Social Media is a tool, it’s not their business. Social Media is our business – and more than just a tool – but I’m talking about those outside of this industry.

One Social Media tool is not enough though. Facebook alone is not enough. Twitter alone is not enough. LinkedIn alone is not enough. There must be a decent mix of online tools – a mix that’s right for your business. Not every business is the same. Once you’re identified the mix that suits your business, you have to be consistent in using those tools. Using a tool once every two weeks won’t result in any true value. Once per week is also too minimal. A few times per week is required, and with tools like Twitter, daily activity is required. This all might sound very time consuming, but it does not have to be. There are tools that can help you manage your online activity.

For example, here is how I use TweetDeck and HootSuite.

TweedDeck is essentially a Twitter tool, but I use it for more than that. I use it…

1. To track the people I’m following on Twitter and respond to them
2. To conduct multiple concurrent Twitter searches (for research and tracking purposes)
3. To track and respond to Facebook status updates
4. To track and respond to LinkedIn status updates

HootSuite can be used for a number of purposes, but I simply use it to schedule updates. I can spend around 10 minutes and schedule updates that will be broadcasted over one or two days. This is quite fun because even if I’m sleeping or in a meeting, my messages are going out to the world.

So I don’t even need to be on the actual websites of Facebook and Twitter, and I can still be managing my activity there.

It’s not about working hard so much. Sure we have to work hard, but we can be smart as well. And all of this can be fun, while still getting to business results that we want. But we have to remain disciplined.

Photo credit: andrew_mc_d

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