Trustworthy

I was reading Reagan In His Own Hand, a collection of drafts Ronald Reagan wrote for his radio show and other presentations. The premise of the 550 page book is that since the talking heads knew Reagan was a dolt, it might be interesting to see what he actually wrote.

I never heard his radio show, and even today I would rather read a transcript than listen to a podcast, so this was fun for me.

I saw how Reagan developed a strong sense of what worked and what didn’t in this world interviewing and analyzing people who were making things happen. How he adjusted his views as he discovered new data.

When he later had an off-the-cuff observation (or “soundbite” as the talking heads say), it wasn’t a first time thought, it was the result of years of study.

Can’t Get A Break Department:

From Praise for Reagan, In His Own Hand (blurbs in the front of the book),

“These speeches certainly show what the (book) editors contend: ‘The wide reading and deep research self-evident here suggest a mind constantly at work.’ How come I – and my colleagues – never discovered these Reagan depths? To use another response that sounds like Reagan: ‘It beats me.’”

- Godfrey Sperling, The Christian Science Monitor

No shame, no embarrassment, no outrage at revealing yourself as a lightweight. My spiritual counselor calls it “surface thinking.”

Back in the late ’60’s, I was a journalist, and the only way I could get accurate reporting on Vietnam was Nat Hentoff in the Village Voice. A jazz columnist, fer cryin’ out loud, who was angry enough to wade through the disinformation to get pieces of the story.

Knowing more didn’t make me popular, kinda made me sad, and greatly reduced the surprises. Same way I felt reading Reagan In His Own Hand.

Today the trustworthy news I find comes largely from bloggers. Solution oriented thinking comes mostly from bloggers. Examples of good behavior comes from bloggers.

But if you want to have a simple solution that exercises your emotions, without getting the details right, try a news outlet. They are in the business of selling hope and pills.

The Internet makes everything available, Finding trustworthy information takes work. Why would you want the right stuff?

WordPictures – Phrases That Lit The Bulb

Learn...And Share

I spend a lot of time reading on the internet, while that little voice in my brain is haunting, “Is this a good use of your time?”

Suw Charman, one of my first favorite bloggers told of one of her editors asking, “Why do you read so much? Just write something.”

I have written about the best ways to generate useful knowledge on a reliable basis.

We need to learn more, including better context for what we already know. When I am reading, I am first looking for solutions to my current projects. Then solutions for my coming projects.

Because I don’t work alone, I also find things that will help the people who help me. Many things I read I send to people I am working with.

That has a nonobvious advantage of over time giving us a common base of reference for what we are doing.

When I am starting a new project, I read up on it. I’ll even crack open a Gmail and write the terms I’m researching, and then follow the ads that appear.

Once, when I was selling a company, the owner told me there was one industry analyst firm for that vertical. Using the Gmail ad research approach, I discovered that there were three, and we were using the one who had a 12% market share. That was a useful six minutes.

A twenty year client is switching from selling financial products to publicizing early human origins. We’re both reading a lot of new books. I’m getting a lot of valuable information on successful organizations, some of them 200,000 years old.

He complimented me on my discipline sharing things I was learning that helped him, which was how I started thinking about this post.

Peter Drucker said that in the manufacturing age, power came from hoarding information. In the information age, power comes from giving it away.

The first time I read that I liked it. Now I’m starting to understand it.

What is your learning regimen?

Sales Lab Resources Hidden Treasure

Do You Blog?

Fred Wilson, A VC in NY, wondered how many of his readers had blogs. He set up a poll and a hackpad to collect readers' blog, url and author, comma delimited There are hundreds of really interesting blogs listed. I put in two.

Browsing the list, I punched on Punctuated Equilibrium and got this:

ttfn,

Ten Principles of Sound Public Policy

1. The government should only do what people (individuals and associations) cannot do for themselves.
2. A sound public policy would impose the same standards, norms and punishments for non-performance on government as are imposed on the non-state providers.
3. A sound public policy will enhance:a. Choice    b. Competition     c. Freedom
4. A sound policy would consider long-term consequences over all groups of people, not just the good intentions behind the policy.
5. Subsidiarity: A sound policy would enable governance (decisions about taxes and expenditure) closest to the people.
6. A sound policy would place incentives according to Friedman’s Law of Spending:
   a. Spend your money on yourself.    b. Spend your money on someone else.    c. Spend someone else’s money on you.     d. Spend someone else’s money on someone else.
7. A sound policy would rely more on participatory instead of representative democracy (referendums, tax allocations by citizens’ choice).
8. A sound policy will not sacrifice the rights of an individual for the interests of many.
9. The premise of sound public policy should be that people are responsible, resilient and self-governing given the right set of incentives and framework of law.
10. A sound policy should have an expiry date (sunset clause). 

Check out the list of blogs!

Breaking A Bad Decision

I was working with a board faced with a major problem...with no workable solution. These are good people, who understand their business, have been at it for a long time.

They completely understood their situation, and for the last six months no optimal, hell, no viable solution was available.

This particular problem had colored all other actions, made what had formerly been a fun operation a death march.

As their consultant, I wanted to bring some light. I’m supposed to be the magic man.

We’d been through worse before. But the business has changed. Their reason for being is now called into question.

I had an opportunity to sit down with the owner. He’s a long time friend and supporter.

We agreed we weren’t making progress and we weren’t liking the results.

I suggested that since the old tools weren’t working, why not set up an internal blog, just for the board, get a promise to have each board member post their thoughts twice a week for two months.

Nobody on the outside would see our work, but maybe we would get to a different place. I would go first.

Writing a blog post requires a couple of things. One is writing, two is finding something to write. That requires getting out of your rut, finding something new.

The happy news is that a number of erroneous preconceptions got defined and fixed. Not by the readers, but by the writers.

And sure enough, it turned out that all the trust we had been building with our customers had created some requests for help. We’ve got some promising work to provide.

Will it work? Who knows? But we are getting the snap back, the confidence to create for an appreciative audience.

The original problem? It’s still there. But it’s a lot less important. If we keep doing something else, it may well go away.

New problems require new solutions.

Tips 4 The Big Chair – Get a new perspective

LinkWithin Creates Reads and Comments

Last week I got a valid comment on a two year old post. The same commenter also posted under a current post.

LinkedWithin is a widget that shows a changing choice of three stories at the bottom of each blog post.

I first saw it on A Suitable Wardrobe, and even though I feel tremendous pressure to get off the  internet, I would read three or four previous posts, both those that were new to me and some I had forgotten I had seen.

Recalling that R&D means Research and Duplicate, I installed it on Through The Browser and Sales Lab Posts. Occasionally I get lost in past posts on my own blogs.

LinkWithin Creates more Reads and Comments

How are you increasing flow?

February 22nd Sales Lab’s Rainmaker 12 is WhatHave I Done for You Lately? at the Capital Technology Management Hub on Wednesday, February 22^nd. The featured CTMH speaker will be Sean Crowley on the topic of The Open Source Web Content Management Platform, Drupal, and its Momentum.

Editing Social Media

In snail mail times, published exposure was expensive and constrained. “Editing” was selecting the best offering and making sure it was centered on message.

With social media, exposure is easy and infinite. “Editing” is delivering everything that might be interesting to your audience as quickly as possible.

Underestimating audience interest is one of today’s most repeated mistakes.

Upgrading your social media strategy? Come to BlogLab, from the Web Managers Roundtable, this Tuesday, August 16!

School Of Blogging

Fred Wilson of AVC – Musings of a VC In NYC has a great post, The Fred Wilson School of Blogging. He has old truths and new ideas, and details to check to make sure I am doing them.

Then I started to think about my School of Blogging. I’ve convinced a number of smart people to start (and continue) blogging. I think that Fred is more expert, my posse more experimental, discovering and implementing new things with every post.

I don’t think my school requires “rules” as I am already busy with my day job. Targets or milestones are better things for me to measure against, because once I have achieved them, I can go on to other things.

I experienced the awesome power of infrequent blogging during a previous project, and afterward set a goal of two posts per week. That was pure declaration. I didn’t know if I could, or what they would be, but either I could do two a week or I couldn’t. Turns out I have.

Next question was, “What is a blog post?” Early on a reader sent a comment, “I understand your short posts better,” so that became important.

I figure the target is ten sentences/five paragraphs. If I go longer or shorter, fine, but the target is ten and five.

What to write about? That is my biggest challenge. I have ideas all the time, so to harness some, I decided to write all my ideas in my regular notebook, red ink when I have it, so I have an inventory. It’s not uncommon for two or three ideas to come together for one post.

Keith Richards noted how when he admitted to himself he was a song writer, he became a sharper observer of what was around him. Still a player, but now also an observer.

I want to be positive. I proved to myself a long time ago, there is no solution in the negative, or at least I don’t have much interest in being a part of it. I find that when I am upset, if I take some time and look at what I’m upset about, I can often find a positive expression, which often leads to the value of the post. Ted Anderson writes, “Wartime is only, the other side of peacetime”

I also want to write about things that really happened. I can convince myself of way too much theoretically, and if I describe something that occurred, I won’t forget something basic, like gravity, which has been a loud limiter for many theoretical builders.

Finally, I was sitting in the audience at the Web Managers Roundtable when Jim Sterne asked, “Do you want to control the platform or the conversation?” I thought it was an excellent question, along the lines of Dana’s distinction about journalists and publishers. I decided to syndicate off my own platforms to other outlets. I personally choose to emphasize outlets where I have been a member, held office, or performed, so I imagine I’m posting to a familiar audience.

What are some of the targets or milestones you’ve made for your School of Blogging?

Check out Blah, Blah Blog at the Web Managers Roundtable, on August 9, and BlogLab, coming August 16.

Story Frameworks

The right framework to organize a story can go a long way to improving its value.

Dana Blankenhorn buzzed: Notice the new way of newswriting? Inverted pyramids out. Now news stories read like live blogs Feb 4

Dick Davies - And how is "blog writing" different?Feb 5

Dana Blankenhorn - A single blog entry is more like an opinion column to me, some coherent whole meant to engender a response. Have a take and don't suck, in other words.

A live blog, by contrast, piles minute-by-minute facts together and, while it may contain a summary at the top (after everything is done) there's often no coherence. Feb 6

When I was a journalist, the inverted pyramid (write the most important first)was taught as Who, What, When Where Why, and How Many? That was how the editors and teachers defined it.

The writer (me) saw the inverted pyramid as, “How do I prioritize my facts, most important first and do it quickly?”

The inverted pyramid is a good, if basic, starting framework.

A second framework is a timeline. What happened first, second, third, fourth? I believe our mind's operating system is a timeline. Excess processing power produces queries like, “I wonder what was happening in China in 1066?”

A flashback, buggering the time order of a story, is a conceit (An extravagant, fanciful, and elaborate construction or structure), I guess showing the attitude of the author.

Bill Bryson's At Home, uses a framework of each chapter examining a room in his house, a rectory from the 1700's. He goes from prehistoric times to speculation about the future, cramming a wealth of disparate facts on every page. I can't think of another way he could have built such an entertaining book. A dense and entertaining read!

What is another good framework for organizing stories?

Why Blog?

Had another request to “ghostblog” for a CEO. It usually goes like, “Well you started us on social media, you know what we do, why don’t you write it for me?”

I’m starting to think that if someone has the ability to do the CEO blog, maybe they have the ability to be the CEO. It’s a new time, calling for new skills.

I’ve gained several advantages from blogging.

First, I have to figure out what I believe a couple of times a week. I can remember when strategic planning was a one time, off-site boondoggle, then we made annual binders that sat on the shelf. Today, strategic direction should be meaningfully altered quarterly.

What if a regular blog was your opportunity to update your strategic understanding of your situation? Certainly things are changing faster.

I find the ideas and words people put in a post subsequently show up in their conversations, become a part of their culture.

Remember listening to some “legend in his own mind” hijack a group meeting? Something about the prospect of showing up foolish in front of a hundred thousand interested stakeholders concentrates the mind.

Sure blogging is a new skill, and sure you can expect to get better at it. But it’s fast  and quickly becomes a potent channel for getting the word out. 

I’ve heard ABOUT the FUD, what could happen, but I haven’t seen anything other than new, better understandings of reality from bloggers. (If you go to the link, browse around to learn about ESR, one of my heroes, and CatB, his baby.)

Today is Veterans Day. The Veterans Administration is working full bore to improve service to veterans. One new, high possibility service is their new blog, VAntage Point. In spite of what COULD go wrong, they are already accomplishing for their people.

Today is Veterans Day. Head over to VAntage Point and support them with your comment. Start your blogging there. 

Thank you,

The New Prospecting

I was introducing myself to a local CEO when she said, “Oh, I know you, Dick. I read your blog posts. I’m a lurker.”

The World Changed Right Then!

First, she knows what I am writing about. Second, even if she doesn’t blog (yet) she knows the blogger term “lurker,” a person who reads but doesn’t comment.

We had a fabulous meeting.

What does this have to do with prospecting?

Theo was giving a talk about prospecting to a financial salesforce. He asked what I was thinking. So I started putting this together. His talk came and went, and we decided this wasn’t what his audience wanted to hear.

The textbook definition of prospecting is to assemble a list of prospects.

Well, that Nigerian Prince conclusively proved you can contact almost everyone by email. But he didn’t make many sales, and sure didn’t create happy relationships.

It’s not classic prospecting, but what is required today is making people predisposed to buy your offering. That takes communication.

One way is blogging. Another channel is events.

I use events three ways. I remember being introduced in a new territory and one of the top customers was remembering the long time gone local users group.

“I’d like to help you with that.”
“Well, you can’t come, it’s for customers only.”
“Fair enough. How about I drop off your projectors, handouts, and breakfast and then leave?”
“What about lunch?”
“I’ll get that too.”
“Well then, you might as well come to the meeting.”

That user group was very good to me.

I take a leadership role (usually starting in Membership) so I get to know everyone, AND they get to know me. Second, I’ve been called “A “Loud and Frequent Speaker.” Some wag wrote that and was surprised I won’t let it go.

A third use is getting my customers to speak. I’ve noticed I do better when my customer tells the story.

All of these are “pull” prospecting activities rather than interrupting people you don’t know when they are doing something else.

What's your most successful prospecting technique?