Girl in the Digital World

Reading for Growth

2012-01-14T07:03:00.000-06:00

In 2003, multiple members of the team from my day job attended Leadership Network's Camp Improv and heard Jim Collins speak. It inspired us all to read Good to Great. The book was transformational to our language, methodology and thought processes. But more than that, we learned just how much a good book can impact growth...and we began reading.

Reading for entertainment can be a great way to spend a weekend, but reading for growth is something different. In looking over what I read in 2011, it was interesting to me that I averaged two a month. These were the titles that were the most significant for my growth professionally:

The Naked Presenter: Delivering Powerful Presentations With or Without Slides by Garr Reynolds
Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences by Nancy Duarte
Architect's Essentials of Negotiation (The Architect's Essentials of Professional Practice) by Ava Abramowitz
SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham
The SPIN Selling Fieldbook: Practical Tools, Methods, Exercises, and Resources by Neil Rackham
Reworkby Jason Fried
Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Richby Duane Elgin
Perseveranceby Margaret Wheatley
Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals by Temple Grandin (I know this one seems irrelevant, but her thinking in this context helped me with a marketing challenge.)
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

So, what do you plan for your reading list in 2012?

© Cathy Hutchison 2012

We have symbology for pauses

2011-12-28T13:31:00.002-06:00

There is a musical symbol for a rest. Sentences have commas.

When it comes to pauses, we have symbology.

Why? Because rests give meaning to the content. Run on sentences are hard to understand. And music without separation is simply noise.

I think this is true in life too.

We need items on our calendar that are simply rests. And they should be as non-negotiable as they are in sentences and music. © Cathy Hutchison 2011

Communicating visually...

2011-12-12T16:58:00.002-06:00

A "must-have" skill for the digital world is the ability to communicate visually. This slide deck by Brian Halligan on inbound marketing is impressive in its ability to communicate big concepts with simplicity and style.

Killing It! How to Crush the Competition with Inbound Marketing

View more presentations from HubSpot Internet Marketing

Developing personal rhythms

2011-11-20T06:26:00.000-06:00

Everything in nature has a rhythm. Sunrise, sunset. Seasons. Moons. (I watch the squirrel outside my home dash off every morning and return to the tree in the evening. Usually complaining at me if I am in the chair swing.)

The thing about rhythms is that they actually seem to be good for us.

One of the challenges of the digital world is that everything is 24/7 which creates work environments that make it easy to live in reactive mode. Which can leave us responding to requests and challenges, rather than proactively creating.

Rhythms can help with this.

I once helped a friend by participating in her research project which looked at life in 30 minute increments. My big epiphany was that if you start logging what you do every 30 minutes of every day, you find that most every day is exactly the same. It doesn't feel the same because the conversations are so different, but the type of activities that you engage in on a daily basis are actually shockingly homogenous.

Most of us drive to work at the same time each day. Answer e-mail at the same time. Eat at the same times (and often the same types of food). Brush our teeth at the same times. Watch TV...yada, yada. The point of the project was that if we really want to experience change in our life, it starts with changing what we do with the 30 minute blocks.

Maybe today is the day we start looking at the rhythms in our life. Which of the blocks do we need to change to take us out of reactive mode? Because to live our dreams, most of us have to create. It is up to us to find the time for it.

© Cathy Hutchison 2011

What if you only had 2 years?

2011-11-02T08:29:00.002-05:00

I had a dream the other night that a friend of mine learned he only had two years to live.

In the dream, he scaled back all of his goals to what could be done on that timeline and arranged everything to accomplish them in the time he had left. His wife and his friends helped him. It became a grand adventure that we were all part of.

All of the things that were limiting his dream had to be figured out. He had to make it happen within the constraints of current cash flow and with the talents of the people around him. There was suddenly no more waiting for additional funds, skillsets or for the market to change.

What would you do if you knew you had an expiration date in two years?

Could you accomplish something?

Would you have fun trying?

© Cathy Hutchison 2011

SEO for Beginners

2011-10-10T05:00:00.000-05:00

There are whole firms dedicated to consulting on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so the topic is pretty broad, but there are some simple things you can do to improve your ranking in non-paid search.

If your goal is to be the first site listed whenever someone types in “company + your city” then chances are you should hire an SEO firm to go through your site and build strategies for on-page SEO (keywords and content) and off-page SEO (links and social media). However, there are some simple strategies for beginners that can improve your ranking in the search engines simply by understanding what influences your positioning.

The most important concept is that search engines read text in HTML. (Which means if you have a beautiful flash site, it may be invisible in search if there is no text to read. ) The more words you have relevant to the search term, the higher you come up in search. For example, if your company’s name is “This Amazing Company” then the more times you say the term “This Amazing Company” in your content the more relevant you become to the search term “This Amazing Company”.

With that in mind, search engines prioritize beyond simply how many times a search term is used on your site. They prioritize titles of pages with the home page being the most important. So, if your home page is simply titled “This Amazing Company – Home” you are missing the opportunity to reach people moving into your neighborhood who may be searching for “your service + your city.” A simple fix is to change the title of the home page to “This Amazing Company – these services in your city.” (My guess is that you can be more creative than that.) Search engines also care that you have unique titles for the different pages on your website.

Another opportunity is to add keywords in your footer. If your company’s address is in the footer of each page, then your city suddenly shows up on your website…a lot. You may choose to add a sentence on other things people may search for where you would like to show up in the rankings.

Page descriptions are another under-utilized item. You have the opportunity in the meta-tag to write the content that comes up in the preview of your page. In HTML, it looks something like this:

<head>
<title> This Amazing Company | a service provider in Your City</title>
<meta name="description" content="This Amazing Company is passionate about connecting people and doing wonderful things in our community. We can help you with this service, this service and this service.">
<meta name="keywords" content="amazing company, your city, community, wonderful things” >

When you first make changes, it isn’t unusual to get a bump in how high you show up in natural search, and while you may mistakenly attribute that to the brilliance of the changes you’ve made; more likely, it is because the page was “fresh.” It isn’t unusual to check back on that search term in a few months to find you’ve fallen in the rankings. Search engines are much more interested in recent content than older content, so the “freshness” of your pages actually matters. Structuring your website in a way where new content is added frequently makes a big difference.

Google has some fantastic tools which can read your site and provide feedback on things as detailed as the most used keywords on your site and duplicate titles of pages. Check out http://www.google.com/webmasters/ and begin to explore.

=============================
Many thanks to Mark MacDonald at PinPoint Creative Group who inspired me to do my homework on such things! If you do decide to begin improving your web presence his firm is a great place to start.
© Cathy Hutchison 2011

Human-Sized Corporations

2011-09-16T06:24:00.000-05:00

I've been reading the book Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin. The book is about sustainability, but in a holistic sense--one that starts with our own personal choices. Not just about using compact flourescent light bulbs or recycling, but where we choose to live, how we work and what we own.

In the "living simply" chapter, Elgin expresses an idea I'd never considered before--mostly because I didn't think it was possible.

Simplicity is also manifest in more human-size places of employment. Many people work within massive bureaucracies: huge corporations, vast government agencies, enormous educational institutions, sprawling medical complexes. These workplaces have grown so large and so complex that they are virtually incomprehensible both to those who work within them and to those who are served by them. Not surprisingly, the occupations that often emerge from these massive organizations tend to be routinized, specialized and stress-producing. Simplicity in this setting implies a change in favor of more human-size workplaces, by redesigning organizations so they are of more compehensible size and manageable complexity. By consciously creating workplaces that encourage meaningful involvement and personal responsibility, the rampant alienation, boredom and emptiness of work could be greatly reduced.

I work in a human-size place of employment. There is personal responsibility because if you drop a ball, you know the person that it falls on. But I also deliberately sought that out. I've worked in a large corporate machine before and I always felt like I was playing a game where no one would tell me the rules.

What I didn't think about was what these machines--which provide the lifestyle of a majority of the people we know--do to the soul. Yet when your job feeds and houses you and there is no way to opt out. Moreover, we've become so specialized that few of us can pack up and work somewhere else.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I do believe a reingineering of corporate America is inevitable. With the web providing tools that allow small companies to function like large ones, maybe the shift to smaller is possible.

© Cathy Hutchison 2011

The importance of becoming a content creator...

2011-09-10T07:34:00.000-05:00

The digital world thrives on content creation. Whether you post a "how to" to WikiHow, update an entry in Wikipedia, start a blog, or simply add interesting status updates to Facebook or Twitter, to truly participate in the digital world, you have to contribute. And the best part is, there is something in this world that each of us is an absolute expert in that we can share. You are unique, and in the digital world you don't have to be approved by a publishing house, movie critic, music label or corporation to have your contributions seen. In fact, it is easier than ever before for smaller, unique interests to connect with a much broader audience.

Whether you are a regular contributor trying to increase the quality of your content, or if you are simply trying to get started, consider the following...

1) Create the personal connection. What do you care about? Enjoy? What activities do you truly love? What do you want to be identified with? The digital world connects the story with the storyteller, so make sure that whatever it is you are putting out there has a personal connection to yourself. It's the difference between content that sounds like a theme paper on a subject or the personal journey of someone living it.

2) Think in real-time. One of the beauties of the digital world is that content can be posted in real-time. You can post live from events, put up pictures as something unfolds, have teams of people posting so they create the content together. Real-time can create a sense of urgency and experience to your content that you may have overlooked.

3) Invite a response. One of the things that differentiates the digital world from the broadcast world is that bi-directional communication is possible. You have the power to engage your audience. Look for opportunities to do so.

4) "Package" your content. Sometimes the level of interest generated is all in the spin. For example, I can write about a week of goofing off, checking out spas and having lunch with friends, or I can tell you about the week I spent living my life as a "trophy wife." I guarantee the "trophy wife" get's better play.

5) Just do it. Not everything you produce will be a masterpiece. And in fact, if you wait until it is, you will likely find yourself unable to produce anything. The digital world votes with its fingers, so it won't take you long to find out if the content you are producing is being followed or not. Check your analytics and tweak accordingly. Of course, if you enjoy what you are producing, then the analytics may not matter at all, because joy in creating the content is a reward all its own.

© Cathy Hutchison 2011

Catching up with the tools

2011-08-23T08:00:00.003-05:00

When is the last time you went to an inefficient meeting? One that made you feel like you were wasting your time?

Meetings used to be about the exchange of information, then about the making of decisions. Except that now—with all of the communication tools available—you have the opportunity to exchange information ahead of time, then efficiently focus the meeting time on discussion and decisions.

Yet few of us do that. Why?

One of the challenges of rapidly changing technology is that it takes time for the behaviors of the people using the technology to catch up. There are many things we do simply because we’ve always done it that way.

I work in the design/construction industry. There is a lot of discussion about BIM (building information modeling) and the promise to revolutionize the way buildings get built. (If you are interested, there is a fantastic book by Rex Miller on the current revolution.)

The challenge is not with the technology. The power exists right now to build a building virtually testing out every piece of the design—the ultimate in ‘measure twice, cut once.’ But the challenge is that the process of designing and building facilities is a complex one, so there is a lot of the process that has yet to be changed. There is still waste in the system.

Not only that, but BIM is also designed to facilitate collaboration. Yet the process developed during a time when people—through the necessity of dealing with hand-drawn blueprints—worked in silos. As it turns out, silos crumble slowly.

Have you looked at your world lately for the gaps in what is possible and what is actually happening? Are there places technology could facilitate ‘better, faster, smarter’ but old behavior patterns are acting as a governor? It might be time to work on the people side of technology. Because there are likely ways you and your team could improve to catch up with the tools.

The Social Media Audit

2011-07-06T05:21:00.000-05:00

Social media is most effective if you zoom out periodically to evaluate its impact. The following is a list of talking points to discuss with your team as you evaluate your efforts:

1. Re-evaluate your mission. When you started this, you probably had big plans and goals. Maybe you even had a certain number in your head for desired followers on Twitter or likes on Facebook. Look at the activity as a whole. Is there a correlation between the effort and the return? Are responses personal enough and in real time? Are your followers creating content and doing things you didn't expect? Are you creating community? Your team is the only one who can set the mission for this. It's a good idea narrow the gap between the romance and the reality.

2. Create a 'portfolio' with the platforms you are using. Take some time to document all of the platforms you are using--including staff blogs and your current website. Are there things that could be consolidated using aggregators like Hootsuite or TweetDeck? Do you have a place where you have all of the links, passwords, profile information and other basics saved to make it easy to get onto new platforms or to manage the ones you have? Look at the mediums you are using and how they connect to each other and make sure it makes sense.

3. How steady is your content stream? How well are you doing at creating content? Are there enough people helping with the effort that your creative well isn't running dry. What content have you learned connects in your context? Brainstorm ideas to improve your stream and create further engagement and find ways to maximize content across platforms. For example, are you writing articles that could be broken up into tweetable bites? What about webinars? Anytime you can create content once and get more mileage out of it is a good day.

4. Is your "brand" consistent across all of your efforts? Chances are there are tweaks you could make to get better continuity. See if there is harmony between the different platforms.

5. Check your response time. How long does it take you to ping someone back who leaves a comment? Do you need additional people to be part of this? Are you fully leveraging the social media aggregator tools to make your life easier in this area?

The goal of the audit is to find ways to make your efforts more effective...to figure out how to do more with less. And, hey....it isn't easy. Many companies and organizations aren't even in the game because it is hard. So, social media jedi's...keep on keeping on. (Did I just mix a Star Wars reference with a bad line from a 70's sit com? Yes. I think I did.)

© Cathy Hutchison 2011

Iron Sharpening Iron

2011-06-13T10:39:00.000-05:00

I was talking with a co-worker about some of the intangibles we enjoy in our day job, and we discussed that probably one of our favorites is the iron-sharpening-iron factor. I am smarter because I've worked with some of the brightest people I know for the past 15 years.

It occurs to me that this "iron sharpens iron" factor touches a lot of areas of our life. The people we spend time with can either inspire us or discourage us.

For example, one of the firms we work with in another state is full of incredibly fit people. They eat well, play hard, and take their health very seriously and it shows. Iron is sharpening iron at a physical level. When I think about the celebration of artistic inspiration that happens in the people I know through ArtLoveMagic, it occurs to me that each of the artists in the collective improves their talent because of the talent and encouragement of those around them. The factor works on a creative level.

Every once in awhile it is probably a good idea to look at the people we surround ourselves with and see if they are inspiring us. I once heard Anne Lamott say at a conference that if as a writer you found you didn't have good material, then you needed to get more interesting friends. I have to say, there is something to that.

I am also fairly confident that the process of improving our influencers doesn't begin with subtraction but rather with addition. The surgical process of quitting a bad job, divorcing a spouse, abandoning your best friend, unfriending on Facebook is almost never the place to start. Instead, we need to seek bringing people into our lives who inspire and encourage us. (Which is almost always about beginning to look for them rather than grousing that they aren't there.)

After all, if we start spending more of our life with those who make us better, then we become iron for others around us too. To mix metaphors, "a rising tide lifts all boats." And that changes everything--especially our existing relationships.

Side note: I just did a word search to find out where that phrase "iron sharpening iron" comes from, and as it turns out it is from King Solomon's proverbs: "As Iron sharpens Iron, so one man sharpens another." An ancient observation, that seems to still be true some 3,000 years later.

© Cathy Hutchison 2011

Smart people in a room discussing big ideas

2011-05-06T10:25:00.000-05:00

I'm in Omaha this week with my day job The gig is pretty cool, though. We are leading a session of 100 shareholders in a brainstorming exercise on leveraging the power of data.

I love the iron-sharpening-iron component to these types of sessions. Each time we are exposed to someone with a slightly different perspective than our own, something in us shifts. We grow. Put a hundred smart people in a room all with different perspectives discussing big ideas and something happens.

For organizations intent on navigating the creative destruction of existing industries, this type of exercise matters. If too much of our day-to-day is spent surrounded by those who share our opinions and ideals, then we can be blind to things that aren't directly in our field of vision.

Both our eyes and hearing function by perceiving things from slightly different angles. Sometimes we I need that reminder. (And packing your stuff in a suitcase and changing venues almost always manages to provide it.)

© Cathy Hutchison 2011

Beauty

2011-05-03T12:44:00.002-05:00

I looked up the definition of beauty today:

beau·ty [byoo-tee] - n. the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).

I think it is sort of amazing that not only do we live in a world where there is beauty, but that we are designed to respond to it.

And beyond that, that we have the power to create it.

© Cathy Hutchison 2011

It is interesting how the analog world thrives in a digital one

2011-04-13T06:10:00.000-05:00

Ever since my friend, Robin-the-Artist, introduced me to the idea of Artist Trading Cards, I've been a fan. She took me to a gallery show focused on it and I was inspired.

The idea is that the art is small and mailable. It is a way to share little pieces of your creative spark and to receive them from others. (I've saw Robin leave one once for a waitress that was really great when we went to dinner.) Artist Trading Cards or ATC's can say a lot about the person who sends them.

The "rules" for artist trading cards are simple. The piece must be 3.5 x 2.5 and mailable; and ATC's must be traded and never sold.

I did a blog post about it on a different site, and was approached to join an ATC swap. The groups typically run for six months with each month having a theme. For me, the creative discipline of having to produce a deliverable on a deadline became a healthy challenge. On the receiving side, seeing a simple theme interpreted in so many different ways is inspiring.

It is interesting to me how the digital world has sparked opportunities to participate in the analog one. In my case, the very tactile experience of playing with pencils and inks to produce something I have to physically mail is enjoyable--especially since most of what I produce creatively is online.

On the digital side, the artists who participate (who happen to be geographically diverse) connect in a group on Facebook so I can "see" the other artists and get to know them beyond their art.

If you are interested in exploring ATC's it is a simple Google search away to learn more. Who knows, you might even find a group and join in. Or, start your own.
© Cathy Hutchison 2011

Applications for Managing Social Media

2011-04-04T07:27:00.000-05:00

Social media thrives on real-time interactions and current content making management of multiple social media outlets a real challenge. Luckily, the digital world has a variety of applications to handle all of your social media streams in a unified way. Here is a look at some of the tools you might want to explore:

- AtomKeep focuses on keeping your social media profiles synced. Rather than updating your profile information in every single social media outlet, AtomKeep does it for you making it simple to implement an address change, include a new service, add a website, etc. Note that AtomKeep is designed to be used by individuals, but can be leveraged by companies and organizations as well.

- Hootsuite is a social media aggregator which allows you to create a social media dashboard to look at a variety of media all at once. It supports Twitter, Facebook (and Facebook Pages) LinkedIn, WordPress, Ping.fm, MySpace, and Foursquare. The beauty of Hootsuite is that you can customize how you view all of the streams, and it keeps track of your responses. It also allows you to schedule posts for delayed posting so that you can enter content all at once and allow it to roll out. Links are transformed into short links to help you easily stay within 140 characters or less. Hootsuite is free, but you will need a premium subscription to be able to set up multiple users with different logins--helpful in corporate tweeting to keep credentials safe.

- TweetDeck is a personal real-time browser that connects you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Google Buzz and more. It has similar features to Hootsuite and works across iPhone, iPad, Android and Chrome.

- Ping.fm is a free social networking and micro-blogging web service that enables users to post to multiple social networks simultaneously. Their slogan is "post from anywhere to anywhere. " Ping.fm is primarily about content distribution. Post once, and it goes to all of your supported accounts.

- Hellotxt is an aggregator designed to be used via web or mobile--so it is especially sleek and easy to use. Just like HootSuite, Hellotxt allows you to schedule status updates (aka “future post”) and have them delivered to your blogs and social networks. It also allows you to individually select the social networks and blog platforms you want to update--which can help you cater messages to specific audiences. Another feature is "doodrama" which allows you to upload and doodle on an image before sending to the masses. This could be particularly useful in our industry to highlight certain architectural features on an image or highlight "what is going to be" on a site plan.

- SocialOomph (previously tweetlater) is one of the few platforms designed for professional rather than personal use. While there is a monthly fee to unlock all of the features, it has items attractive to marketers that some of the other applications do not such as allowing you to manage many accounts with an integrated console, delegate account management, send DM's to new followers, set up recurring updates and find your "power followers".

The good thing is that most of these applications have a basic service for free charging only to add premium features. That makes taking one for a test drive an easy thing to do.

© Cathy Hutchison 2011

Did you see Google's big announcement?

2011-03-31T15:06:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Google announced what promises to be the most important digital world leap yet. And it is starting in Kansas City.

Twitter 102 - Using Twitter for Companies and Organizations

2011-03-25T11:30:00.001-05:00

While many of us are using Twitter personally, there are reasons to use it for organizations as well. Here are some options for Twitter that your company or organization may find useful:

Encourage members to subscribe to information via text. Anyone can receive a twitterfeed via SMS to their phone simply by sending a text to 40404 with the words "follow @twittername" Organizations may decide to set up a separate Twitter account to stream information about events or announcements. For example, ABC affiliate WFAA runs multiple streams from @wfaaweather, @wfaasports, @wfaagreen and @wfaacoolstuff giving people options in the type of information they want to receive.

Use Twitter to create a stream of real-time content on your website. Twitter makes it easy to incorporate your streams on your website. You can set the parameters of the widget to show your organization's stream or all tweets with a certain hash tag, or a list that you define. The widget can be animated as a feed--such as the one used by the Global Design Alliance to show the streams of its members or static such as the one at acousticdimensions.com. There are options to customize size and color.

Improve customer service. When my firm first joined the conversations happening on Twitter, we discovered that people were mentioning us--in really positive ways. We saw when people recommended us and when they celebrated our projects. We even found people mentioning individual consultants on our team--even posting photos of them working late into the night. Joining Twitter allowed us to respond. To thank people. To celebrate their project openings and congratulate the design teams we work with. The thing is that the conversation is already going on, but you will miss it if you don't engage.

© Cathy Hutchison 2011

Using Digital World Tools to Improve Meetings

2011-03-12T07:22:00.001-06:00

I'm embarassed to confess how many times I've gone to meetings unprepared. Too often, I remember a few minutes before, then scramble to get there. Worse--because I'm not the only one who approaches meetings this way--a lot of time is lost with small talk, recaping the agenda, and catching up people who missed the last meeting. If we are lucky--we get 15 minutes in the heart of things where the real work is done.

Because meetings require one of our most important resources--time--they should be prepared for and treated as valuable. However, because they don't typically require a lot of another resource--money--we tend to schedule far too many and aren't always disciplined to make them efficient.

Luckily, the digital world offers tools to ease preparation and make meetings more effective. Here are some things to consider:

1. Digital Reminders. Simply sending a reminder can improve attendance and help people accomplish tasks they promised to do before the meeting. Scheduling your meetings through Facebook or E-vite handles the reminders automatically. Or, if inviting people via e-mail, you can create a second e-mail scheduled to "delay send" so that people receive the reminder (or a series of reminders) ahead of time (including yourself).

2. Survey. The chair of one group I'm part of always sends a survey via Survey Monkey survey a few days before our virtual meeting to "help get everyone's head in the game." Our meetings became much more focused when he began to do this because it forced us to do some thinking about the topics before the conversations actually began.

3. Wikis and Discussion Groups. The most effective meetings are those where the issues and research are done ahead of time so that the meeting time is used only for discussion and decisions. Leveraging online tools like wikis and discussion groups maximizes the "in between meeting" times so that the face-to-face can be more effective. PBworks.com and LinkedIn are great platforms where you can set these up for free. A highly prepared organizer may also choose to encourage use of these platforms by sending out communication prior to the meeting capturing some of the highlights in a personal way, such as "Jim had a great insight when he posted...." or "Amy shared a fantastic link about...."

4. Visuals & Scribing. Whether in a face-to-face or virtual meeting, having someone capture the discussion live in a way that the group can see it can bring about understanding and concensus more quickly. Often, groups will simply have someone in the room taking minutes. More effective is doing the notes live--either graphically or typed to a screen. There are several tools for this. You can take an analog approach and simply write to a white board. (Make sure that someone snaps the image with their phone so you have the digital version to share later.) You can scribe live either on top of Powerpoint using a tablet PC or with Alias Sketchbook pro. You can use a mindmapping software to simply capture the thoughts, then find the connections between them in real time. (I happen to like Inspiration software because it is less expensive than some of the other options and works well in real-time.)

Non-digital bonus: always starting with the 'mission' of the meeting creates engagement and reminds people why they are investing their valuable time resource with you. Never let people forget why they care about being part.

© Cathy Hutchison 2011

Risk

2011-03-01T02:01:00.000-06:00

There is always risk involved in things worth doing. We can play it safe. Hang out backstage. Wait for someone else to say their lines so that we aren't out there improving.

We can parrot others ideas. Play the prescribed roles. Make sure we are always dressed in costume.

To be who you really are and to do the job that you are uniquely wired to do requires you to go off script...and sometimes that creates tension between ourselves and others or fear within ourselves.

© Cathy Hutchison 2011

Only you can decide your priorities

2011-01-20T06:36:00.000-06:00

Ask any gardener and they will tell you that most flowering plants need to be pruned. The thing about pruning, is that you often end up cutting off good stuff: roses that are blooming, grape clusters, budding peppers...

In deciding about opportunities, the reality is that many times you will be saying no to 'good stuff.' Turning down a speaking engagement because it isn't strategic for you, deciding not to read a certain book or take a class because it is simply one more thing in your schedule.

It is hard to say no to 'good stuff.' But it is the only way you can get to 'better stuff.'

© Cathy Hutchison 2011

Top 5 Mistakes Made by Webinar Presenters

2010-11-11T06:46:00.000-06:00

As part of my day job, I've presented, organized and attended many webinars. After sitting through one yesterday, I realized that many webinar presenters make the same 5 mistakes:

1. Too much time spent on introduction and credentials. If we've tuned into the webinar, we believe you have credentials. We've either looked them up ourselves or respect the organization who asked you to present. Also, we likely have some idea about what the topic is going to be (again, we signed up). Don't waste time here.

2. Low energy. Most experienced presenters get energy from the audience. However, in a webinar, there is no audience, so it takes double the effort on the part of the presenter to project that physical energy to a virtual audience. Practice channeling your inner radio DJ.

3. Treating the webinar like a college course. You are likely presenting to bright professionals who tuned in because they believe you are going to tell them something they don't know. Make sure it is worth the hour your very busy audience is giving to you by ensuring your presentation is high value information presented in an engaging manner. This isn't college where we need the credit and have to attend. If the presentation doesn't contain new and useful information or if it is dry and pedantic we tune out...and worse, you lose credibility as a knowledge-broker.

4. Slides that contain every word you are saying. Having a presentation essentially 'read' by a presenter is a mistake. Use the visuals to present concepts that work better when shown visually or that orient the audience as to where they are in the presentation. Workout videos do this all the time. There is a timeline so that you can see what has gone before and what is coming up. It gives your audience a mental device to retain the overview of the topic and hold it in their minds.

5. Too much content for the hour. Plan to fill 3/4 of the time of the webinar with the main content and have a couple of 'modules' you can add in or leave out that will help you manage the time slot. Webinars run more like television than a presentation at a conference. You can't afford to run long.

I believe there is one common thread to all of these mistakes...a lack of preparation. It takes a lot of time to really think through the audience, the method of presentation and the development of content to make it really great. But consider this...someone has invited you to do a webinar. Do you really want to be known as the mediocre one?

© Cathy Hutchison 2010

Digital World 101 | Culture Shifts

2010-11-01T05:20:00.003-05:00

Part of the talk I'm doing this week at WFX covers the culture shifts that the digital world is causing. Since I'm currently enamored of Prezi for presentations, I decided to take that portion of the presentation and create a stand-alone to illustrate the concept.

Digital World 101 - Culture Shifts on Prezi

Digital World 101 | Overview of the Social Media Landscape

2010-10-29T11:34:00.000-05:00

No matter how 'digital' you are, there is always a site you haven't heard of or a tool you haven't used. I thought it would be interesting to set up a bit of a digital world 101 presentation using Prezi. (And since most of this is part of the talk I'm giving next week in Atlanta, it was easy to share.)

Digital World 101 - Overview of the Social Media Landscape on Prezi

Just finished a great book...Beyond Reason

2010-10-13T20:24:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Beyond Reason--by Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro. Craig Janssen picked it up as he was traveling and gave me the heads up that it was a good one. (Now, I'm passing that on to you!)

Fisher and Shapiro give a surprisingly simple framework for the core concerns that can be the success or failure of negotiations. The premise is that you can't manage or predict all of the emotions in a situation, but you can work to make sure five core concerns are met--which will influence people's emotions...including your own.

The one core concern that surprised me was the one dealing with roles. You know how sometimes when you are introduced to a concept, you begin to see it all around you? Well that's how it is has been with the idea of "having a personally satisfying role."

We all have temporary roles that we play. Some are satisfying and others--not so much. For example, a spouse who has to ask the other to fulfill an unfilled responsibility over and over again, winds up playing the role of a parent/teacher/nag. Not particularly satisfying in an adult-to-adult relationship. Or in a work situation, one person may be the one who is always being given the menial work....the 'intern' role. (Again, not very satisfying.) However, roles like co-collaborator or mentor or champion can be very satisfying.

It occurs to me that you could easily reverse an 'intern' role by finding areas where it would be useful to reverse-mentor. (Where the younger/less experienced coach the older/more experienced in areas where they are the expert.) A nagging role could be reversed by simply refusing to step into it. (Yeah, still considering that one.)

The book is concise and well-written. I particularly enjoyed the perspective of the past president of Ecuador in how these concepts related to his relationship with the president of Peru over a land dispute.

A fantastic read and well worth your time. Pick it up for your next plane ride.

© Cathy Hutchison 2010

Celebrating the Hyper Local

2010-09-16T06:56:00.000-05:00

Blogger now has the ability to add locations to posts; Twitter can show you the feed by zipcode; and the Facebook app for iPhone now has a 'places' feature allowing you to 'check in' to a geographic location.

Not only that, but there are a host of new news and review websites which center around geographic-based content like EveryBlock, Outside.in, Patch, and Yelp. They might let a visitor know about an arrest a block away, the sale of a home down the street or reviews of nearby shops or restaurants.

As effective as the digital world is in creating community in cyberspace, web applications are morphing to match the desire for tangible, local communities. This trend is intersecting with another interesting trend--the decline of the local newspaper. The result is a change in the vehicles we use for the expression and characterization of geographic communities.

Back when I was in elementary school, the local paper was The Crowley Beacon. It covered everything from local crime, to high school football scores, to students who won ribbons at district UIL competitions. Advertisements were for businesses you could actually drive to in the course of your day-to-day errands. People read that paper because it was relevant to their life. In fact, it wasn't unusual that they--or someone they knew--might be in it, which gave it a different purpose than the newspaper of the big city next door, The Fort Worth Star Telegram.

In many ways, blogging and social networking has eclipsed the need for local papers with each person in a network acting both as journalist and subscriber. Yet there is still a void to be filled in celebrating the hyper-local. And with this trend of digital tools adding geographic capacity, there is an opportunity for companies, churches and charitable organizations to step into the gap and play a role in connecting with neighborhoods and communities.

Consider adapting your online tools to leverage the following strategies:

1) Create community identity. Strong communities typically have a defined look, shared values and visual icons. (It is the reason towns spend so much money on large art pieces, signage or iconic public buildings.) In some communities, this will be about branding your online properties (or develop new properties) that match the existing ‘brand’ of the community. In others—where community identity is weak—you have the opportunity to help define it.

2) Give people community reasons to engage with you online. If you structure your website as a ‘one stop resource’ for people moving into the area with links to everything from electricity service to change of address at the post office; or if you create a site that is effectively the new small town newspaper for your zip code; or if you spotlight local businesses/people/activities giving them exposure they wouldn’t ordinarily have, then people will have reasons to engage with you. (Consider that visitors to a website who encounter content that meets their needs are much more engaged than people who encounter content that only meets the needs of the developer of the website.)

3) Be a reliable source of fresh, accurate, timely content. The most difficult part of being a community resource is that you have to be dependable. Consistent quality content is key. You can produce this by having a team of people generating new content, or you can structure yourself as an aggregator of existing local content. Both of these approaches require a focused commitment to both quality of information and rhythmic posting. The first time someone hits a broken link, encounters stale news or finds your content irrelevant, they will ‘vote with their mouse’ and go to a site that does it better than you.

4) Use the online to go offline. As you establish yourself as a destination online for the hyper-local, you earn the right to invite your audience to engage with you offline and can create events and opportunities to do so. The best part with the hyperlocal is that proximity makes it easy for them to do so.

© Cathy Hutchison 2010