During this time of finding happiness, I decided to start writing a new blog.  I want to share some of my thoughts on happiness with others.  And the thing that helps me stay happy is bringing some Zen goodness to my life.  Finding balance in everything.  So, now I have theme: How to use Zen in your daily life, on your bike, while you’re running….wherever.  It’s all about helping others keep things in perspective and keep smiling.  Simple and to the the point.  I originally was going to call it MyZenLife.com but someone beat me to that gem.  So, to all of my awesome Edgehopper readers, I have a question to ask: What should I name my new blog?  If you have ideas, let me know.  I value your opinions very highly! And I promise, if I pick your name, I will find a way to repay you personally somehow.

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2. The US Open: How to “Grand Slam” an iPhone App

The 2009 US Open iPhone app has just about everything you need to follow the tournament except for live video coverage. Other than that, you get live scores, completed scores, US Open news, a full interactive schedule, interactive draws, video highlights, a photo gallery, player bios, Twitter integration, live US Open Radio broadcasts with “Ask the booth” interaction, and complete spectator information with seating charts, transportation options, dining options and more.

Hopefully, other major sporting events take notice of this app and understand that this will be the way fans follow events. Although other events have produced some really good iPhone apps, most notably the 2009 Masters and the 2009 US Open Golf Championships, the 2009 US Open Tennis app has set a new standard. Oh, did I mention that it’s FREE? Game. Set. Match. The 2009 US Open iPhone App!

Check out this Flickr photo album of screenshots from the 2009 US Open iPhone App. (Click a photo to open a Lightbox Slideshow).

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Let me just say that I love crowdsourcing and crowdsourced projects. With all the things that are being crowdsourced today, one of the most interesting is the trend toward crowdsourcing journalism. On the forefront of this effort is HARO….or Help A Reporter Out. HARO is the brainchild of Peter Shankman, an entrepreneur and the CEO of The Geek Factory, a PR and Marketing boutique firm in New York City. Essentially HARO connects journalists who have questions or queries for their stories with YOU. It’s such a simple but amazing way to connect journalists with the widest possible selection of sources available to them. They ask a question…you answer it. As I said, I absolutely love crowdsourcing and I think that HARO has hit it out of the park with this one. As for rules, HARO has just this simple advice (and you might apply this in other areas of your life/business as well):

“Just promise me and yourself that you’ll ask yourself before you send a response: Is this response really on target? Is this response really going to help the journalist, or is this just a BS way for me to get my client in front of the reporter? If you have to think for more than three seconds, chances are, you shouldn’t send the response.”

That’s it. It’s simple, it’s effective and it requires very little effort…oh yeah, and did I mention it’s FREE. That’s what makes crowdsourcing work the best! Four letters: F-R-E-E.

Here’s how it works: After you register on HARO’s website, you receive a simple email a few times a day with questions and queries from legitimate reporters around the globe (totally not spammy either). If you are really able to answer the questions or are a qualified expert in an area of need, you can become a real source for the reporter. Today, there are 30,000 journalists who have used HARO, sending out more than 3000 queries per month to over 80,000 members. That’s a great network and a tremendous crowd to source from.

Right now, the emails contain queries for all sorts of categories. But, future plans are for additional break-outs with specific HARO notices for specific industry verticals.

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Something incredible happened to me a few weeks ago. Something life changing. Something that gave me a lot of clarity. Something close to miraculous. I lost my job. That’s right, I lost my full-time job. And do you know what? It was one of the best things to happen to me in a long, long time! In all the hustle and bustle and “busy-ness” of keeping my career going on just about a 24-7 basis, I lost sight of a lot of things.

Since I lost my job, I’ve had a lot of free time. And free time is a good thing. Maybe the best thing in life. It gives you time to slow down and actually see the things that surround you everyday. Things you take for granted. Yup, I’m talking about family…wife, kids, dogs…you remember them right? Well, it’s been amazing spending entire days playing with my kids. Noticing how much they smile and laugh. How big they’ve gotten. How much fun they are to be around. And it’s been amazing spending time with my wife. Realizing once again why it was her that I married. She’s the most supportive, positive, amazing person in the world. And it’s been nice getting to know that again (although I’m not sure I ever forgot that or doubted it).

Besides spending time with family it’s given me a lot of time to do what I love doing most, riding my bike through Colorado’s beautiful mountains. Cycling is a meditation time for me. It’s when my mind finds the most clarity and everything starts to fall into place for me. During all of my recent cycling, I’ve found a lot of clarity in my life. I’ve thought a lot about the direction my life and my career should go in next. And I’ve realized that where I was may not have been the healthiest place for me mentally, physically, spiritually or even career-wise. I’ve been given a great opportunity to really think through the choices I’ve made in my life and reevaluate them. I have the time now to decide what will make me and my family the happiest. And I believe that if you’re happy with your life and your choices, then that’s as good as it gets. As Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com said: “When your work is an extension of who you really are deep down inside it’s no longer a job or a career. It’s a calling.” I think it’s time I found my calling.

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Guest Post from Jake Jacobson

Jake Jacobson with Jim Felt of Felt
Bicycles in Monaco prior to the start of
Stage 1 of the 2009 Tour de France.

Flashback one year to July 2008, and I was faced with an exceptional opportunity and exciting challenge as an outdoor/fitness PR specialist and blogger for Garmin International . I was sent to the first week of the Tour de France to promote and chronicle Team Garmin, the world-class professional cycling squad founded by Slipstream Sports that had just taken us on as title sponsor the month before. Armed with a laptop and the assumption that every worldly hotel has wifi, I set out to share news and insight about Team Garmin’s Tour debut.

The first of several shortcomings in my quickly hatched plan was clear from the start. Though it ends in bustling  Paris , the Tour often starts in much smaller towns. And we were in an even smaller town outside of that small town. The hotel lobby had wifi. But not the hotel I was staying in. So the morning of the first stage, while I was feverishly mooching wifi, Slipstream chairman Doug Ellis made a short, prophetic suggestion. “You should try Twitter.” He explained that with Twitter, you don’t need a laptop, a global aircard or a neighboring hotel lobby. All you need is a phone and something to say in 140 characters or less. For a username, we landed on @JakesJournal as a reference to a familiar section of Garmin.Blogs.com and a reminder that readers were following the actual person doing the talking. My crash course continued as we loaded into the van until I finally felt comfortable typing my first safe but somewhat intriguing Tweet: “driving stage 1 of tour de France with Team Garmin”.

That first day, six people started following me. I was elated. Someone was listening. I tweeted from the finish line, the pressroom and helicopters high above the peloton. By the time the Tour wrapped up, I had around 60 followers. I cheered when another would sign up. I cringed when the number would drop. With each emotion I wondered what I had said to cause the action. Fortunately I had Ryan Ressler – good friend, brilliant writer, dedicated colleague and early adopter – to help. He reminded me that personality and transparency are crucial in social media, while salesmanship and  advertising are better left to their respective departments.

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Last week, my local public radio station (KCFR) was holding its annual pledge drive. I love NPR and local public radio and always give to support it. But, it’s kind of annoying when they spend an entire week asking for pledges, making me feel guilty if I don’t give, and worst of all, providing just about zero value for the entire week. That’s right, in the usual 12 hours of listening that I do each week, it turned out that the local station asked for pledges about 90% of that time and provided programming that was valuable to me only about 10% of the time. So yes, I tuned out.    

Now, I completely understand, this is public radio and this is how they get their funding. They have to operate this way. But you are not public radio and you don’t have to operate this way. So why is it that so many companies and organizations spend so much time asking for your money, your time, and your commitment and focus so little on providing value in return? Constantly selling to me and constantly asking me to help you makes me tune you out. You’re just part of the static.

Turn the balance around and focus on providing value constantly. The return will come when people start talking about how great your product or service is. They might even start talking about how awesome you or your company are. Word of mouth is priceless! And in defense of NPR, in reality, they only spend 5 days out of an entire calendar year asking me for pledges to keep them going. The rest of the year, they do provide incredible value on a constant basis. That translates to just over 1% of their time spent asking me to help them, while 99% of the time they’re providing valuable programming that I can’t get anywhere else. And that’s why when NPR has a pledge drive, I’m always willing to pitch in. Do you provide value 99% of the time?

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If you didn’t get your Facebook user name yet, you still can at http://www.facebook.com/username/. And if you did already get you user name, why not post it here for everyone to see and let us all know if you got the name you wanted.

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“Consolidate your debts and grab your copy of the Sexy Twitter Secrets at www.bz9.com/debtconsolidationunsecured” (Sexy Twitter secrets? Really, hmm, I’ll have to head over there immediately!)

“Don’t worry about managing your debt payments individually. Visit www.personal-loans-united-states.com and learn how” (Seems to be a recurring debt theme in this country these days eh?)

“I’ve enjoyed your tweets! I’m looking for help! Please refer your friends to http://GreatAgentsWanted.com if they want to make more money!” (Who doesn’t want to make more money? Good tag line, I’m there and so are all of my friends that I’ll refer!)

“Step Towards a Better Financial Future @ http://www.kooko.ws” (Not as good as make more money, but wow, sounds great!)

“Please join me. I’d like to recruit you as a spymaster to my spy ring – http://playspymaster.com” (I spy something very annoying. I don’t want to play, please stop asking.)

“good morning an thank you for the follow. please review my website at www.attainresponse.com/javau. tell me what you think” (just a bad attempt to drive traffic in lowercase. my thoughts: you should try using some capital letters and proof reading your tweets.)

“Join me on Blip.fm, it’s like Twitter for music” (I wasn’t sure if Blip.fm was like Twitter for music after getting this a thousand times. Now I’m convinced. Thanks!)

“Your small business can grow much larger if you had a bigger client base http://twttr.me/dS4″ (It’s always about size isn’t it?)

Sorry for the little rant (again), but if you want to be effective at marketing or getting me to visit your website, try building a relationship instead of getting in my face as soon as we meet. You wouldn’t do that in person (I hope), so why does it seem alright to do it on Twitter?

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I also get lots of emails with subject lines like “Time to Sleep Well” or “Succeed in a BIG Way”. And wow, to my surprise, when I opened these they were ads for, you guessed it, Viagra and Cialis that looked like this:

Tricky eh? I would have never expected a Viagra ad with the word BIG in the subject line. So, OK, this is really lame spam and I don’t think anyone reads these and I don’t think the senders really expect to get many responses either. But what about “spammers” who expect to get responses to their unsolicited ads they send to us. I get plenty of email from advertisers who believe that I’m really interested in their products or services. They may be a legitimate company selling a real product or service, but did I ever ask for this? No I didn’t. So why do companies waste their time trying to sell where they don’t have permission to sell? The better question is, why do companies try to sell to me if we don’t have a relationship?

This little romp through my junk mail folder made think of how companies and individuals are trying to sell on social networks these days. I can’t tell you how many people follow me on Twitter and lead off their conversations with me with a direct message that reads something like: “Thanks for following me. Now turn your Twitter account into a cash machine! http://somelamelink.com” or “Want to know the secret to SEO success, check out http://seo_loudmouth.com” and my recent favorite “Thanks for following me, Chris! Squirrel Chair Feeders are both entertaining and I donate proceeds to Make-A-Wish”.

I mean really, what’s with the rush to sell to me or anyone else on Twitter? Why is it that so many people and companies think that their very first interaction with folks on Twitter has to be an opportunity to sell? Why not get to me know me first? Chris Brogan put it very well when he Tweeted this about to trying to sell too soon: “In relationship terms, I’m reaching out to shake your hand and you’re trying to put your tongue in my mouth.” I couldn’t have put it better myself. Slow down partner, can’t we just be friends first?

So here’s my message to social media marketers and those who are trying to sell on Twitter: Do me and everyone else on Twitter a favor; we don’t mind if you’re trying to sell or do your marketing using Twitter, but please stop sticking your tongue in my mouth every chance you get. I’m just going to end up ignoring you anyway and you’ll be wasting both your time and mine. The better approach would be to work hard on building trust and relationships in the social media world. Then, if I really like you and what you have to say, I’ll come to you for whatever it is you’re selling…and maybe I’ll even kiss you.

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Back in February, I spent a few weeks on my back with a herniated disk and pinched nerves in my neck. (Yes, it hurt). One of the worst parts of spending time in bed was missing my daily indulgence of visiting Starbuck’s for my coffee in the morning. One morning, my amazing wife brought me home a nice, hot Starbucks mocha. I usually don’t look to my coffee cup for inspiration, but laid up and having not much else to do, I started reading “The Way I See It” on the side of the cup. I really liked the quote, but, in a Vicodin-Espresso induced haze, I lost track of the cup and forgot the quote. Well, here I am a few months later sitting in Starbuck’s sipping a mocha and what do you know, I got the same cup. Well, not the very same cup, that would be kind of gross, but I think you get what I mean. I thought, hmmm, maybe karma is telling me something. Here’s what my cup said:

“The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating – in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.” – Anne Morriss

Well, I’d have to say I’m glad I found this cup again and I’m glad I found it now. I’ve been very non-committed to writing my blog in the past few weeks. Things have been swirling around in my professional and personal life and I just couldn’t focus. My blogging and Tweeting had been taking too much time away from my personal life. So, I stopped really putting my all into my blog. In fact, I stopped writing all together for almost a month. Then I realized I missed it. Somehow, I needed to commit to a better balance between my real life and my “online life”. So, that’s commitment number one: I’ll continue to blog and Twitter but with a much greater respect for my personal time. It’s a commitment to those that I love and a commitment to all of you who read my blog (and yes, I love all of you too, but in a different way). OK, got that out of the way and I’m feeling good. I’m breathing again!

But more than that, this cup really woke me up (and not just from the double espresso) to my growing desire to write a book “one of these days“. I’ve had this idea in my mind for a book about the power of collaboration and it’s impact on innovation in successful organizations for some time and I’ve kept putting it off for a variety of “really good” reasons. Hmmm, can you say internal critic and fear? Apparently I can’t, so I did what Anne Morriss said, and I dressed it up as rational hesitation. I had a million excuses why I couldn’t start writing it. Well, I think I’m going to go out on a limb here and free myself by finally, openly committing to writing this book that I’ve had inside me for a long time. Aaaah, I feel better already. Two big commitments and I didn’t die, I didn’t implode, I’m still here. And because I believe deeply in commitment, I feel deeply liberated by openly making these commitments. Wow, what a great feeling!

So, what’s holding you back from doing something you’re passionate about? Maybe today is your day too. Maybe you just need to make a commitment and go for it. I promise, it won’t hurt (unless you’re committing to finally getting that tattoo you’ve always dreamed of). Go ahead and make your commitment right here for everyone else to read. Tell us what you’re passionate about and what you’re going to commit to.

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The Whuffie Factor from Tara Hunt.

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Over the past few months, I have had the good fortune to get to know Bert Decker. He is an amazing person with an incredible background. If you haven’t heard of him before, Bert Decker is a national communications expert, best selling author and entrepreneur. He founded the 100 person communications training company Decker Communications, Inc. He has been featured in the NY Times, Business Week, and on 20/20, as well as being the communications commentator for the NBC TODAY Show for the Presidential Debates. He has been a communications coach to Charles Schwab, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Mattel CEO’s John Ammerman and Jill Barrad, Olympians Bonnie Blair and Tom Dolan, SF 49er All-Pro Brent Jones, and dozens of other executives And he is the best selling author of “You’ve Got to Be Believed To Be Heard” and “Speaking With Bold Assurance“. Bert graciously agreed to do a ten question interview with me and here are his insights on a wide range of topics.

(1) In your book “You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard” you refer to “The New Communicators”. Can you explain what a new communicator is? Can you give an example of your favorite New Communicator?

New communicators connect with EVERY audience – no matter the setting – in:

• behavior

• content

• interaction

In our Decker Method courses we call it the messenger, the message and the medium – they all are one. A new communicator creates a communication experience that is energized and action oriented.

Three great New Communicators are Steve Jobs (business world), Guy Kawasaki (tech/author world) and Bono (celebrity world.)

(2) So, that covers the good communicators. Who would say is having the most trouble these days as a communicator and why?

• Richard Fuld, Lehman Brothers CEO – closed, arrogant and aloof when he testified to Congress.

• Caroline Kennedy – she lost her bid for the NY Senate seat with a monotone, halting delivery, unfocused message and a mess of ‘ums’ and ‘ahs.’

• Timothy Geithner – stiff and cold. He is not a good messenger for this very important and controversial message.

(3) There has been so much said about Barack Obama’s oratory skills in the past year. Would you consider Barack Obama to be a New Communicator?

No, he’s a good orator, not a great communicator. I’ve reviewed him often (check out Bert’s review here) and it’s fascinating – Obama is President largely because of his 2004 Convention speech, but he STILL does not use the teleprompter well (here’s Bert’s detailed take on Obama’s use of the teleprompter) And when not speechifying, he usually communicates in a professorial manner, with a halting cadence, and also many ums and ahs. Occasionally he is energetic and open and light – but rarely. So ironically, the one who became President because of communication (read oratorical) skills needs to increase his connecting skills.

(4) If you could give one bit of advice to Mr. Obama, what would it be?

• Learn to use the teleprompter so it’s not a ping-pong match – 4 seconds to one side and 4 seconds to the other.

• Leave pauses instead of filling space with non-words.

• Vary rhythm and pacing of voice – energize not professorialize.

(5) You have become a fixture on Twitter in the past year (BTW, I love your Tweets). How do you see the rise of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook impacting communications over the next few years?

I see Twitter (not Facebook) as the dominant communication tool for both text and speaking. It’s a powerful business/personal communication medium in it’s current form as text only, and will become EXPLOSIVE with the right app (the new Nambu is promising – that’s the direction it will be going.) But it will change the face of the speaking environment.

(6) Do you believe there is going to be a new breed of new New Communicators who will use social media tools to connect with people?

Yes and no. First the no – the majority of people will use the text only email/Linked-in/Twitter etc as text only – will not incorporate it holistically.

And yes, the New Communicator will embrace the social media tools (Twitter mostly) in ALL of their communicating environments – but they will be smart about it, and understand there is a difference in text, voice and in person communications – learn the differences and use them intentionally. Most people communicate at the unconscious level – our goal is to make it conscious.

(7) It seems that a big buzz these days is about the use of Twitter at conferences and presentations. What are your thoughts on the rising use of Twitter during presentations?

Twitter is going to be very powerful in expanding (or disrupting) the conference and formal speaking environment. I blogged on that here – but more is yet to come. Big business (most of our clients) are not used to using Twitter in meetings and speeches, but no longer can anyone say ‘laptops down.’ People will Twitter whether you like it or not, so you have to incorporate that in your ‘experience’ and be intentional. Those who become good at it can enhance and expand their speaking – but it will be a rocky road for awhile. Those who use it well will succeed mightily.

(8) You attended SXSW in Austin, TX earlier this year. What were the top insights you gained at SXSW this year?

One of the most amazing conferences I’ve attended (out of thousands!) SXSW Interactive was peak energy, peak connections and peak engagement. 30 meetings going on at a time, 50-75% of people in most meetings/speeches were tweeting on laptops or cells. Podcasts and audios, twitpics and Flip videos and of course tweets were going out to the world by the thousands every minute. More and more conferences will become more like this.

Again, New Communicators must have not only the messenger and the message at peak performance, but also the medium.

Critical point though, that almost ALL neglect is getting video feedback and seeing themselves – so many at SXSW have distracting and nervous habits that it doesn’t matter how good their content or medium use is – they get in their own way. Observed behavior changes. The smart New Communicators at SXSW and all conferences will get themselves on video!

(9) What blogs are you reading most these days and why?

• Well, this one: EdgeHopper - Always well written and lengthy posts on relevant communication subjects – interactive media and personal behavior.

• Presentation Zen - Garr Reynolds is the leader (along with Nancy Duarte) of slide design and communications quality. His posts are in depth, and insightful.

• Seth Godin’s Blog – At first I didn’t like Seth’s text only posts, but then they grew on me for two reasons. They are short and pithy. 80% of them are original and thought provoking. (Pareto’s Law comes into play.)

(10) Who are your favorite follows on Twitter and why?

@ed – a very unusual man of integrity, insight and influence that I have gotten to know well on Twitter.

@OliviaMitchell – great communication research, tips and blog.

@Mashable – always good, up to date links and info on Twitter and the tech world.

But it’s a very tough question because there are so many Twitterers AND blogs that are good. [Chris' note: If you want to follow Bert on Twitter, and I highly recommend it, he's @BertDecker]

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I was working from home yesterday and my 3-year old convinced me to go with him to Story Time at our local library. He’s so cute, I couldn’t resist. I hadn’t been to Story Time in years. In fact, the last time I was at Story Time was back in the early 90’s when I was a regular guest reader at the New York City Public Library. I went to Story Time thinking this’ll be a great half-hour with my little guy. I never thought I’d walk away thinking that I learned some valuable lessons myself. Ah, the expert mind…it always convinces us that we can’t learn from “simple” experiences. But after it was over, and I reflected a bit on Story Time, I realized that there were valuable lessons to take away from it that we can all use in our presentations. Believe it or not, librarians and others who read to children at Story Time may be some of the best presenters in the world, and we’ll never see them on TED or hear much about them (plus they have some of the toughest audiences in the world). If you really want to get your presentation game on, maybe you should start reading books to the itty-bitties at your local library. In any case, here’s what I learned from my trip to the library with my 3-year old:

1. Know your audience

Before you ever even head into your presentation, know who your audience is. In this case, it was 2- and 3-year olds. Understand why they’re there, what they’re hoping to get out of their time with you. And understand who they are. Don’t deliver the same canned presentation to every audience. Work at it, put some energy into it and craft your message and your presentation to your audience.

2. Say hello

You don’t have to sing the hello song to get everyone on the same page, but say something to get your audience into listening mode right off the bat. It doesn’t have to be a formal introduction of who you are; they probably already know that, otherwise they wouldn’t be sitting in the audience. But say or do something interesting to get everyone ready to listen to you.

3. Have a good story to tell

Presentations are about telling stories. We loved stories as kids and we still do as adults. Stories make an impact, they’re memorable. Maybe your entire presentation is one big story or maybe it’s made up of lots of little ones. Either way, it doesn’t matter, but just be sure to tell stories. They sink in much better than facts and figures. Imagine if Goldie Locks were told the same way we present our talks. There would be detailed descriptions and charts about the size, weight, age, and gender of each bear, their general disposition, the specific types of foods and beds that they liked, etc. Boring! Just tell the story already.

4. Use pictures

Your favorite stories when you were a kid had pictures. Imagine a Dr. Seuss book without pictures. Not quite as much fun right? And what exactly would a Crunk-Car, or a Lorax, or a Zumble-Zay mean to you without the pictures to connect the words to your emotions. News flash: We don’t change when we grow up. Vision is our most dominant sense and when you use great pictures and visuals to help your audience emotionally connect to your words, you win and more importantly, your audience wins.

5. Invite audience participation

Show of hands: How many of you have ever been to a presentation where the presenter rambled on and never engaged his or her audience? Oh, that many of you huh? It’s that easy folks. Want to involve and engage your audience: Ask a simple question.  At Story Time yesterday it was this simple to get the kids engaged: “How many of you know what a koala bear is?” The kids were instantly engaged.  For those who knew what a koala was, the anticipation of a story about a koala grew. And for those who didn’t, it was “Wow, we’re going to learn what a koala bear is!” The same thing applies to your audience even if they are all old, balding men. Engage them, get them interested in where you’re taking them.

6. Get your audience moving around

We don’t have to all get up and do the kangaroo dance, but get your audience doing something. Clapping, raising their hands, standing up…anything to keep the blood flowing. And if you’re doing anything for more than an hour, give them breaks to move around. If you’re teaching or doing a workshop, make your exercises include lots of movement. Keep the blood flowing.

7. Have a consistent theme

At Story Time yesterday, the theme was “Pockets”. We read lots of stories about things with pockets. Upon signing in, the kids got nametags shaped like pockets. The songs we sang were about…you guessed it, pockets. The reader was wearing an apron with pockets and so was Moe, her little monkey puppet. While you may not go to these extremes in your presentation, you should have a consistent theme. And by that I mean, have a key point that you’re trying to make. And, make sure that the visual theme of your slides or other visual aids is consistent and compliments your narrative theme.

8. Use your voice(s)

Oh the drone of that monotone speaker! How long can you listen to that for? Listen to a great storyteller and see how they use many voices to tell their story. I’m not implying that you need to be Rich Little or know how to do 100 impersonations. I’m talking about your own voices. Don’t use the same tone and volume throughout your talk. Whisper, shout, talk faster, talk slower. Use your own voices to emphasize points or to grab the attention of your audience. Without even trying, I bet you have at least 8 voices that you can use in your next presentation.

9. Use drama and suspense to create tension

The reader yesterday had a little monkey puppet sidekick with her named Moey. He was wearing an apron with a pocket in front. Here’s how the reader created tension and suspense with the monkey: “Do you know what Moey the monkey likes to keep in his pocket?” You could the see the tension and anticipation build immediately. The kids were all like “What, what, please tell us!” Now for the slow reveal to really create drama and suspense: “He keeps a gemstone…(she slowly takes the gemstone out)…he keeps a cookie…(oh boy, here comes the cookie)…and he keeps…a Golden Key! (using the whispering by the way)” Now the kids are like: “Wow, a Golden Key…I wonder what that’s for!” In your presentations and talks, don’t be in such a rush to pull out the Golden Key. Build some suspense, some tension. It keeps your audience focused on you and what you’re going to say next.

10. Have a memorable moment

Oh, so about that Golden Key: it opened a treasure box where Moey kept all of his favorite toys (see, wait to pull out the Golden Key…it works well in writing too). My little guy is still talking about the treasure box today. It was the single most memorable moment of Story Time yesterday. He didn’t forget it. When you do your presentations, does your audience walk away remembering that treasure box moment or do they walk away with far too much information crammed into their heads to ever remember anything. Make sure you have that magic moment in your presentation that everyone walks away with.

11. Keep it short

Story Time was a mere 20 minutes yesterday. Guess what? That’s about how long the best presentations I’ve ever seen have been too. Take a look at all of the great talks on the TED site. Guess what? They’re all less than 20 minutes! It doesn’t matter if you’re 3-years old or 30-years old, as a species, we tend to have a very short attention span. Depending on the source, the average adult attention span is somewhere between 7 and 9 minutes. John Medina of Brain Rules fame calls it the 10 Minute Rule . According to John, “What happens at the 10-minute mark to cause such trouble? Nobody knows.” We may not know what happens, but it happens. Keep it short, and keep it interesting.

12. Wave goodbye

So maybe you don’t sing a goodbye song, give Moey the Monkey a hug, or wave goodbye to your friends, but you should have a concrete, definite ending to your presentation. It’s part of the natural arc of a story: beginning, middle, and end. Don’t end by saying “So, um, that’s it” or “Well, that’s all the time we have“. End on a strong note that lets the audience know it’s over. And end early if you can. It’s the old performer’s saying: Leave them wanting more. At the end of Story Time my little guy said to me “I can’t wait until the next Story Time.” That’s how you want to end. Make sure your audience leaves saying, “I can’t wait to see that guy present again!”

Related posts:

1. Presentation Reboot

GUEST POST FROM LISA BRAITHWAITE:

Lisa Braithwaite

As a blogger, I am constantly needing new ideas for my public speaking blog. Some time ago, I committed to writing six days a week, and I’ve mostly held up that commitment, except when life has intervened, as it so inconveniently does from time to time.

As a speaker and trainer, I’m constantly trying to come up with ways to make my presentations more engaging and to get my message across to my audience. I may use the same basic structure for each presentation, but I’m always tweaking, customizing and making improvements on each one, and looking for good stories, quotes and analogies to bring my message to life.

You might find yourself with mental blocks from time to time when writing and creating, and the frustration can be all-consuming. In fact, that frustration probably sucks out your last little bit of inspiration by focusing all your energy on the black hole in your brain.

I thought I’d share some of the places I get inspiration for my blog posts and presentations, and maybe these ideas will inspire your inspiration!

1. Working out

I work out at a local community college track with killer stadium steps. I’ve also been training to throw discus for masters track meets, reviving the love of a sport I competed in during high school. My discus training has inspired several blog posts about holding yourself back, using practice to train your “muscle memory” for public speaking, and putting all the pieces together when you feel overwhelmed by details.

I’ve been inspired by people at the track who are completely out of shape, working their behinds off in search of fitness. You don’t get better at anything without working at it, public speaking included. I was even inspired once by a saying on a runner’s t-shirt to write a post on giving it all you’ve got as a speaker.

2. Athletes

To take the workout analogies a step further, I love finding similarities between athletes and speakers. During the Olympic trials, I wrote about dealing with failure, trusting your gut, fighting misconceptions, and resting on your laurels.

Other athletic inspiration has come from track meets (psyching yourself up and self-pressure to perform), football (”leaving it on the field”), cycling (the fabulous metaphors of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen during the Tour de France), and basketball (Pat Summitt’s 1,000 victories in relation to goals, vision and persistence).

I use athlete analogies in my presentations as well, for example, talking about adrenaline and the fact that elite athletes don’t feel pumped up and ready to compete if they don’t have that adrenaline rush and accompanying pre-performance anxiety.

3. Entertainers

I’ve written and spoken about actors who are afraid of public speaking, comedians who cleverly acknowledge when they bomb, and American Idol contestants learning to believe in themselves. I write about performers like Eddie Izzard, David Lee Roth and Rufus Wainwright being memorable, being original and staying focused. Entertainers have many lessons for speakers, and whether I’m watching TV or a live show, I’m always taking notes on how they connect with their audiences, how they prepare, and how they themselves are inspired.

4. Language

I’ve always been fascinated by language, grammar and spelling, so when I come across examples that relate to public speaking and communication, I’m thrilled!

I talk about jargon, clichés, misused words, mispronounced words, and overused words. I’ve discussed metaphors, idioms, analogies, gibberish, and language that confuses rather than clarifies. Speakers need to communicate clearly, concisely and precisely, and paying attention to nerdy topics like these can help accomplish this goal. I read grammar and communication blogs for this inspiration, as well as watching and listening to speakers and performers and watching TV commercials!

These are just my most common areas of inspiration. I’m always noticing what’s going on around me and picking up ideas from what’s happening in my life, so mental blocks are actually quite rare.

I hope you’ll find some inspiration in *my* inspiration, and open your mind to the world around you when searching for topics for your presentations and your writing.

ABOUT LISA BRAITHWAITE

Lisa Braithwaite is a public speaking coach working with individuals and groups to build their skills and confidence as speakers. Her philosophy of public speaking is that it’s fun, it’s an awesome way to express yourself creatively, and that authenticity and passion are worth more than a thousand techniques. She is also the author of Speak Schmeak, a blog about speakers and public speaking.

Before launching her public speaking coaching business in 2005, she worked in the nonprofit sector in Santa Barbara for 16 years as an advocate, educator and trainer, creating and implementing programs, curricula, and training materials for nonprofit organizations. Her areas of expertise in the field of training and education have involved gender equity, domestic violence prevention, media literacy, adult learning principles, and communication skills development

In 1997, she co-founded Body Electric, an organization promoting sports, physical activity and gender equity for women and girls. In 2003, Lisa was honored for her work with Body Electric with the Louise Lowry Davis award, named for a pioneer in women’s sports.

Lisa received her B.A. in Theater from Pomona College and her M.A. in Education from UC Santa Barbara.

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The coolest thing about this workshop was that there was not a computer in sight. The workshop didn’t focus on how to do things in PowerPoint or Keynote. It was not about the tools. It was about learning how to design an effective presentation. In fact, every exercise we did in the workshop was done in analog mode. Garr and Nancy did an amazing job of making people stop and think about the design and content decisions that they make even before they fire up PowerPoint. Garr kicked the workshop off by helping us to understand how to think like designers. His main point was that we are all creative, we are all designers…we just don’t know it. He talked about the beautiful Zen idea of beginner’s mind and how we can use it to unleash our creativity. And by the way, if you’ve never heard Garr’s impression of Yoda, it’s spot on. Here are Garr’s top ten tips on how to think like a designer:

1. It’s not about tools
2. Start in analog mode
3. Lose the fear and take a risk
4. Look for the story
5. Put yourself in their shoes
6. Show restraint
7. Vision trumps all other senses
8. Aim for a high signal-to-noise ratio
9. Embrace empty space
10. Learn to see the lessons all around you

Nancy took over the next session and talked about the value of stories in your presentation and how they connect you with your audience. She emphasized that presentations are about creating ideas, not creating slides. The best takeaway from this session was the Presentation Slidemap. It’s a very simple tool designed to make you think about who your audience is and who you, as the speaker, are to them. The tool also helps you to map out how to best reach your audience before, during, and after your presentation. But my favorite part of this tool is the section of it that deals with the Big Idea…the story and call to action. It makes you think about where you want to move your from to where you want to move them to. It’s the story arc of your presentation. The other cool thing this tool helps you do is identify where in your presentation and slide deck you have your analytical information, your emotional spots, and your S.T.A.R. Moment (Something They’ll Always Remember). This really helps you understand the flow of emotion and information during your presentation and helps you arrange your analytic and emotional components for the most impact on your audience. Between Duarte’s Presentation Slidemap and the Decker Grid that I learned about last year, you can’t go wrong in your presentations.

After a nice lunch with some other workshop participants, I took a walk around Duarte Design’s building to see how they worked. It’s an awesome collaborative workspace and you could easily see teams of designers working closely together. Someday, I’ll have to ask Nancy to if she’ll do an interview on the use of collaborative spaces in building successful businesses and designs, but that’s a topic for another blog post.

In the next session, Nancy dove head first into how to display data, how to use diagrams, and just some general design goodness. One of my favorite exercises in this session was a wordstorming exercise. The class was divided in two and each half was given a typical slide cliche…our group had the water ripple cliche. The idea of the exercise was to have our group use a whiteboard and pen to write down words in a free association manner that led us away from the cliche. Very cool exercise. Some of the words made no sense but you just throw them up them and try to get away from the obvious cliche. What this does is help you stop, step away from the computer, and really put some energy into thinking about your design decisions. It’s helps you get out that box of stereotypes and into the creative solution. And when you do that, you really stand out from the crowd when you’re speaking.

Garr wrapped up the day talking about the actual delivery of your presentation. In addition to all of his great stories, he also showed quite a few of my favorite TED videos to demonstrate how the best-of-the-best present. What I love about Garr, and Nancy for that matter, is that neither of them ever said “This is good” or “That is bad”, they simply presented a framework or structure to work within that really creates the freedom to explore your ideas. There were no formulas, no processes to follow, but instead they presented an approach for how think about your ideas and presentations from a different point of view.

It was really a great workshop and both Nancy and Garr are very engaging presenters as well as excellent teachers. They’re both extremely knowledgeable about their subject area, but both also have a great sense of humor and calmness that really helped them connect with the class. Nancy and Duarte Design have ongoing 1-day Slide:ology workshops throughout 2009 and I would highly recommend that if you missed Presentation Reboot, you try to attend one of Duarte’s workshops this year, you won’t regret it.

Here are some interesting resources that I found about during the workshop from Nancy, Garr and my classmates:

Websites:

Presentation Zen: Garr’s blog

Slide:ology: Nancy’s blog

iStockphoto.com: Great resource for professional stock photos

GraphJam.com: User submitted graphs and data.

BrainRules.net: John Medina’s awesome blog and website about his 12 principles for thriving at work, home and school.

Kuler: An awesome place to pick up some great color palettes

VoiceThread.com: A great tool for collaborative and distributed teams

The Best Job in the World: Check out the shortlisted applicants

Books:

Of course, Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds and Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte

Show Me the Numbers by Stephen Few

Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath

The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda (one of my favs)

Related posts:

1. Abe Lincoln: The Original Presentation Zen?
2. Guest Post: 7 Ways to Use Twitter to Engage Your Audience
3. Friday Freebies Vol. 5

Seth is an amazing guy and it’s statements like these that make him so likable and so successful at what he does. He’s a great storyteller and has been an absolute inspiration to me. So, please, enjoy the video, and if you read yesterday’s blog post, take my advice and listen. Thanks for the great interview Andrew.

Andrew Warner

Andrew Warner is an ambitious internet entrepreneur. In 1998 he used credit card debt to launch Bradford & Reed, an online greeting card company which reached annual revenues of over $38 million. After selling the company in 2003, he launched Mixergy.com, where ambitious startups learn from experienced entrepreneurs.

This video is also available on Vimeo.

Click to SUBSCRIBE to the EdgeHopper Podcast in:

Related posts:

1. Guest Post: 7 Ways to Use Twitter to Engage Your Audience
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3. Guest Post: Pedaling “Pay What You Like” Pricing on the Streets of D.C.

Maybe we can learn an awful lot from Emerson’s words. And maybe we can apply these words on a less ethereal level. Let us be silent that we may hear each other. As executives, managers, mentors, and team members our silence can be an incredibly powerful tool. Sure, I like to write a lot about presentations and speaking, but sometimes, allowing silence to fill the room allows for other voices to be heard. Important voices. Those of your staff, your peers, your teammates.

I think that today, it has become commonplace to value the sound of our voice and our own opinions over those of others. Most people want to be heard more than they want to listen to others. We do it in meetings, on our blogs, on Twitter. It’s all about us isn’t it? Well, not if you want to be really successful. By quieting our anxious voices and letting silences exist in our daily conversations and meetings, we allow others to be heard and to fill our own world with new information. It allows us to widen our world view. We gain insights we wouldn’t have if we didn’t take the time be quiet and listen.

This skill, or rather, this discipline is really important for managers. In an article for StickyMinds, Esther Derby once wrote:

“In a social situation, a 50/50 balance between talking and listening feels comfortable. But management conversations are different. Managers need to understand how people are working, and where they need help. Managers need to understand the status of work, risks, and obstacles. 30 percent talking and 70 percent listening is a more appropriate balance for management conversations.”

I think Esther hit on the head in her statement. As managers, we should be listening more than speaking. Now, that doesn’t mean you wait around for others to say something. You have to engage people to get them talking, and that means asking questions instead of dictating answers. When you ask your questions, allow silence to fill the space to allow the conversation to breath naturally instead of forcing and rushing answers.

By using silence and increasing your listening skills, you can help create a dynamic, innovative environment.   If people don’t think their ideas are heard or accepted, they’ll stop presenting them, effectively reducing your team’s knowledge base and innovative ideas. You want to open the space up to allow innovative ideas to flow, and by talking less and listening more, you can do it. And if you’re still more concerned with your own success than that of your team, here’s a nugget for you too, a key trait of the most influential people is facility with listening and understanding another’s perspective. So, maybe it’s time we all started talking a bit less and started listening more.

So, how do you start listening better? Here’s some great advice from Jamie Walters, the founder and Chief Vision & Strategy Officer at Ivy Sea, Inc. in San Francisco, CA.

Be present

• Resist distractions (noises, interruptions, fidgeting, prejudices, etc.).
• Don’t do five things at once. Do one: listen to the person with whom you’re speaking.
• Demonstrate your full attention by leaning forward slightly, focusing your eyes on the speaker’s face, and trying not to fidget or glance away too frequently.
• Follow the golden rule. Take a moment to realize that every person is important and deserves your attention. How does it feel to talk with someone who doesn’t seem to be listening, or be ignored or treated disrespectfully?

Bracket

• Keep an open mind and be flexible to others’ ideas; release your need to be right, if only temporarily. Our need to be right can cause us to be contentious, or even inflammatory.
• Don’t tune out because you disagree. You just have to listen and understand, not agree.
• Don’t jump to conclusions before you’ve heard the whole message.
• If you find yourself reacting to what another person says, your body language will communicate your reaction. Try saying, “You can probably see I’m reacting a bit, but it’s important to me to understand your point of view. Please tell me more about ?”

Reframe

• Ensure your understanding by saying something like, “I want to make sure I understood you correctly. You’re saying ?” or “So your concern (or idea) is ?”

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Guest Post by Jurgen Appelo:

I once read that “managing is harder than programming, because making people do what is needed is far more difficult than making computers do what is needed”. (Don’t flame me if you don’t agree. I’m quoting from an unknown source here.)

This quote kept running through my mind when I recently encountered a number of, well… let’s call them disciplinary challenges, like…

• Not being at a meeting, without notice, despite having accepted the request,
• Not keeping systems or task boards up-to-date with latest task/story statuses,
• Not linking code or time registration to issues or user story numbers,
• Not actively checking if there’s overrun on a budget,
• Not responding to a show stopper problem within promised response time,
• Not storing project documents in the shared repository,
• Etc…

Is this a case of hanging out the dirty laundry? Not really. We’re all people, employees and managers alike. We’re not computers, we all make mistakes. If you don’t have similar problems in your organization then I will assume you’re working with robots, not with human beings.

Still, they are problems nonetheless. If my computers were this unreliable I would throw them out the window. No, actually I would carry them all the way up to the tea room in our office building, and then throw them out the window. But we don’t do that with employees anymore these days. That’s because managers have discovered how to be humans themselves, and they can understand the reasons for people’s non-disciplined behavior, with excuses like: I-Didn’t-Know-This-Was-A-Rule, Sorry-I-Forgot, There-Was-Too-Much-On-My-Mind, I-Was-Kept-Busy-With-Some-Major-Problem, I-Was-Sick, My-Dog-Was-Sick, My-Dog-Ate-My-Agenda, My-Dog-Ran-Away, and of course My-Dog-Died.

So, we all understand being human. But what to do about the problems?

One solution that people often come up with is that some supervisor should be made responsible to inspect everything. This is of course step 1 on The Road To Bureaucracy, and it is a direction that agile and lean people fervently argue against. However, other people argue that some of those steps are nevertheless very useful.

For example: Mary and Tom Poppendieck, famous for their books on Lean Software Development, argue that inspection to find defects is waste, and they call for zero-inspection. They claim that resources should be spent on preventing problems instead of fixing them, because it’s cheaper.

On the other hand: Tom and Kai Gilb, famous for their work on Software Inspection (among other things), teach people how to inspect documents to find and measure defects. They even have certificates for inspection, like Inspection Leaders and Inspection Process Owners!

What’s going on here?

Can these different viewpoints be aligned? Can I earn myself a certificate for doing zero inspections? Or do we have a chance of witnessing a clash between the two most celebrated family duos in software development? An epic battle between father and son Gilb against husband and wife Poppendieck?

Well, I admit that would be a sight to see, but my guess is that their viewpoints are simply two sides of one and the same coin. Yes, preventing problems is cheaper than fixing problems, but only for 95% of the problems. In fact, it has been noted before that zero defects is the wrong approach, because preventing those last few problems is far too expensive. Which means that we have to allow some problems to flow to the next phase in the process, where detecting and fixing them can be cheaper. I discussed the staged approach to discipline in one of my earlier articles:

1. People have to show a high level of self-discipline;
2. They have a coach to help them in becoming more disciplined;
3. Their discipline must be subjected to peer pressure;
4. There should be tools to assist in mistake-proofing the process;
5. Last of all, there might be some supervisor doing regular inspections;
6. And if everything fails, the dirt will land on the manager’s desk.

It is almost always cheaper to solve problems higher up in this stack. Supervising and inspecting is the final gate where problems can be detected and prevented from ending up at the manager’s desk, or worse… the customer’s desk. Fewer inspections are better. But zero-inspection is like full code coverage. It is a lofty goal that, in practice, is unattainable because of its exponential costs. There will always be some work left for some supervisor to inspect, certified or not.

So, in solving the problems I mentioned earlier, before giving work to a supervisor, I will try and make sure that I have done all I can to prevent needing him in the first place!

And of course, the principles of discipline apply to my own work as a blog writer as well… juicy title: check… teasing opening paragraph: check… re-reading ten times: check… silly jokes: check… spell-checking: check… hyperlinks and mark-up: check… great pictures: check… making fun of celebrities: check… conclusion: check… OK, ready for the next phase… Chris, will you inspect this post please?

About Jurgen Appelo

Jurgen is the Chief Information Officer at ISM eCompany, rated (a while ago) as the #1 fastest growing technology company in The Netherlands. As a manager, he leads a horde of 100 software developers, development managers, project managers, business consultants, quality managers, service managers and kangaroos, some of which he hired accidentally.  He also write a blog called NOOP.NL: A Guide to Development, Management, Things & Stuff.

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3. Guest Post: Andrew Warner and Seth Godin Talk Tribes and a Whole Lot More

Most people associate improv with acting or comedy. But, you don’t have to be an actor or a comedian to apply improvisation to your work. In fact, I think there is more opportunity for improvisation in the professional world than most people think. Gary LaBranche of the Association Forum of Chicagoland says:

“Board meetings and committee meetings, dialogue with colleagues and other everyday situations give professionals plenty of opportunities for improvisational responses. Improv is all about adapting to constant change and unexpected situations, which is familiar territory for most professionals.”

I think Gary’s statement is right on the money. We have more opportunities to use improv as professionals than we realize. In fact, a few weeks ago, I wrote about Pixar and their use of improv in their creative process. Pixar boils down their use of improv to two essential principles:

1. Accept every offer. You don’t know where that offer is going to go. But one thing is for sure: If you don’t accept that offer, it’s going nowhere! So you have a sure thing on one hand: a dead end. And you have possibility on the other.

2. Make you partner look good. That means that everybody on your team is going to try to make you look good and vice versa. It’s about saying “Here’s where I’m starting. What can I do with this?”.

I think Pixar was able to break down their use of Improv into these two principles because of their long, shared experience with improv. I like these two essentials principles of improvisation for innovation, but wanted to expand on a few other principles for teams and organizations that are just starting to experiment or have never used improv before. So, to add to Pixar’s principles, I would advise those new at improv think about these as well:

1. Keep questioning what works. Good is the enemy of great. When something is really awful, we know we need to fix it, and we usually do. But when something is good, we settle. We don’t necessarily think about how we can make it better. So, take a look at what you do everyday. Consider the things that are good and ask yourself or your team “Can this be better?”

2. Be a risk taker and take chances. Sure, you can do things the way you’ve always done it. And you’ll probably get predictable results and that might be good enough for you. But if you want to be innovative, you need to break through barriers, take risks, take chances. You may not always be successful when you take chances, but if you don’t, you won’t ever have the chance to really innovate. The most innovative companies and creative people have failed more than they have succeeded. But, when they did succeed, it’s been with market-changing and world-changing innovations.

3. Always be changed by what is said and what happens. Innovative people and innovative teams always uncover new information. But more than uncovering new information, they learn to react to that new information. Instead of locking up when change comes along, these innovative people let that change inspire new ideas and let what unfolds next guide them on. They welcome and thrive on change. And they allow themselves to be changed. They have the beginner’s mind and are always able to learn and change.

4. Create shared, dynamic plans and agendas. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry right? We’ve all heard that a thousand times before. So, why stick to a plan that is going awry? The answer…DON’T. Abandon them to serve the reality of what is right there in front of you. That’s right, ABANDON them. Let your plans and agendas emerge in real-time in response to what’s right there in front of you.

5. Be fully present and engaged. So, you get your team to abandon static, concrete plans. You’ve gotten out of planning and into being. But, this comes with a caveat. To do this, your team has to be completely engaged and have their attention completely focussed. You have to always be ready and able to ask the question “Yes and?“. You have to be engaged and present to always be asking this question. 

6. Keep moving forward. When you’re constantly in the flow of improv and innovation, you can’t stop to analyze. It slows you down and stifles creativity. When something unexpected happens, take advantage of this new situation and move forward with it. If something goes wrong, learn the lesson and move forward. The whole idea is to keep moving forward. The road behind you is not the road that leads to innovation. Keep moving forward.

7. Understand the good of the whole. When you personally understand what is good for the whole, you have a deeper understanding of when to hang back, when to grab the reigns and how to grab them, and how to support the other members of your team. When the whole team has this attitude and understanding, it creates a truly collaborative, improvisational environment.

8. Lose control. We don’t want anyone on our team to be the star or orchestrator. We want to make sure that no one gets into the “controlling mind“. As soon as one person assumes control or seeks the spotlight, the creativity, improv, and innovation of the team suffers. We need to lose the control aspect of the team and allow everyone to respond to the moment.

9. Self-organize. Creativity is naturally a self organizing system. Teams that allow themselves to explore and play find this self-organization with ease. The team may set some very basic guidelines of play, but once they do, their roles and organization emerge naturally and creativity flourishes. This type of self-organization allows all kinds of things to be possible.

From my own personal experience, the most innovative teams I’ve ever worked on embraced these basic principles of improv. In fact, a few years ago, I worked on a truly creative, innovative team. That team always asked the question “What else can we do with this?”. We opened our minds to all possibilities. There were many times we said, “We’ve never done this before”. Often, we had no idea how the idea would play out. But we always accepted the offer to see where it would go. Sometimes we failed. But, we learned and moved on. And, when we were successful, we produced some of the most innovative software the mapping world had ever seen. I don’t think we ever tried to be improvisational or purposely forced these improv principles. It emerged naturally on a team full of incredible talent with no egos, and I think that made all the difference in the world.

Related posts:

1. Innovative design is simple
2. Pixar’s Randy Nelson on Learning and Working in the Collaborative Age

Today, the incredible organization Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) is trying very hard to bring attention to this tragedy in the Congo through their program Condition: Critical, Voices from the War in Eastern Congo. Condition: Critical is a multi-media initiative launched by Doctors Without Borders aiming to bring global attention to the humanitarian consequences of the intensifying war in the Congo.  Through testimonies, photos, and video, Condition: Critical goes beyond headlines and news reports to document how civilians are struggling to survive in Congo’s North and South Kivu provinces, Ituri province, and the Haut-Uélé region – where violence, displacement, and sexual violence are mainstays of daily life.

In addition to these efforts to bring this crisis into view for the world, Doctors Without Borders continue to carry out emergency surgery, treating injuries including gunshot wounds and burns; run mobile clinics to reach those who have fled to safer, more remote areas; provide health care in hospitals and health centers; respond to epidemics like cholera; provide medical care to victims of sexual violence; and provide psychological support for those traumatized by what they have experienced. The scale of this humanitarian crisis in the Congo is extremely large. In 2007, Doctors Without Borders employed more than 2000 field staff and spent more than 39 million euros to fund its projects in the country, most of them coming from private donations.

I personally implore you to please, at the very least, watch the video clip here and if you feel moved to help, please visit the Condition: Critical website or the Doctors Without Borders site to volunteer or donate whatever you can to help these amazing people on their difficult but important mission.

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” – The Dalai Lama

The Girl Effect.  Global Oneness.  (Red)Wire.  Starbucks. People Doing Good Things.

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Profile Dashboards

For each of your multiple-profiles that you manage with HootSuite, you can view an individual profile dashboard:

There are some basic tabs in the dashboard that allow you to view all of your updates, replies and direct messages related to each profile. For each Tweet in the list, you can reply, direct message or retweet easily using the small icons on the top right of each Tweet. You can also view all of the updates you’ve sent and filter the results by those you sent today, this week, this month or this year. And, you can filter the Tweets you see in the Sent tab by specific date ranges.

SCHEDULED TWEETS

You’ll notice a Pending tab in the profile dashboard. This allows you to see all of the pending scheduled Tweets related to this profile. You can see what time the Tweet is scheduled to be posted and you also have the ability to edit the Tweet before it is sent, set an e-mail notification for a scheduled Tweet or delete it before it’s Tweeted.

Speaking of scheduled Tweets, yes, you can schedule Tweets with HootSuite. It’s very easy. Simply create a new Tweet from a profile. In the new Tweet dialog, enter the text for the Tweet, enter a URL to shorten if you need to, and then use the scheduler at the bottom right. Click the Later radio button, set the date and time for your Tweet and if you want an email notification when the Tweet is sent, check the alert me box. Click submit and you’ve scheduled a Tweet to be sent. The newly scheduled Tweet will now show up in your Pending tab on the profile dashboard. This is a great feature if you have specific times you’d like to send Tweets. I’ve used it to send Tweets at times when I’m flying. I can still Tweet even when I’m not there!

TWEET STATISTICS

One of the coolest features of HootSuite is its statistics about each of your Tweet’s click-throughs. When you create a Tweet, you have the option of using HootSuite’s URL shortener ow.ly. If you shorten your URLs with ow.ly, HootSuite can track the number of clicks each of these shortened URLs receives once it’s been Tweeted. When you click on the Stats tab in the profile dashboard, you get a view of of the aggregate statistics for all of your Tweets. These can be filtered by stats for today’s Tweets as well as Tweets from this week, this month, and this year. You can also filter Tweet statistics by specified date ranges.

You get some cool stats like total daily clicks on all of your Tweets, where those clicks came from, and what the top referrers were. It’s not overly robust, but if you’re looking to get an idea if your followers are clicking through on your URLs, this will get you there. By the way, thanks to the Twitter army for clicking some URLs for me so I could show you this sample click data (you know who you are, so, thank you). In addition to getting some basic stats, HootSuite also shows your most popular Tweets based on clicks.

If you want to dig in deeper on your Tweet stats, you can get statistics for individual Tweets as well. First, go to the profile dashboard, and click on the Sent tab. On the right side of each Tweet you’ll notice a little blue bar chart. Clicking on the bar chart brings up the statistics for each individual Tweet. In this example you can see a few days worth of data for a single Tweet.

You can mouse over the days to see specific stats for each Tweet. You can also click and drag over the chart to dynamically define the date range on the statistics chart.

TWEET SEARCHES

HootSuite has integrated Twitter’s search functionality. You can use the HootSuite search to search through your own Tweets or the entire public timeline. If you’ve used Twitter search before, this shouldn’t be too foreign for you. The nice thing is that HootSuite saves your keywords as buttons so you can use them again for future searches. It also provides some out-of-the-box buttons for replies (@yourprofile) and Tweets from your profile (from: yourprofile).

If you’ve never used Twitter search, here are some ways you can used Twitter’s search syntax to find what you’re looking for:

The HootSuite Hootlet

The last cool feature of HootSuite is its Hootlet bookmark toolbar applet. To install the Hootlet, just drag the Hootlet logo to your bookmark toolbar. Currently, Hootlet works in FireFox, Safari, and Internet Exporer.

Once it’s on your bookmark toolbar, just click it to quickly Tweet about the pages you’re browsing. When you click the Hootlet, it will open a Create Tweet window. First, select the profile you want to Tweet from if you have multiple profiles.

After selecting your profile, HootSuite pre-populates the Tweet dialog for you with the title of the page you are browsing, it automatically shortens the URL with ow.ly and appends it to the end of your Tweet. You can edit the Tweet and the URL if you want. You can also decide if you want to send the Tweet now or schedule it for later. Click on submit and you’re done.

So, there you have it, a guided tour of all of the features in the current version of HootSuite. Hope you start using it soon.

Related posts:

1. How to Use HootSuite: Part 1
2. How to Use Tweetdeck: The Ultimate Twitter Client