In the pursuit of qualified leads, marketers, when they’re not getting the response rates desired, are compelled to shout louder. To make bigger claims, so-called stronger offers and calls to action. Maybe inject a starburst or two. At the very least you’ll find one of these: !.

Yet still there’s no response. Why?

Because your customers are smart. They can smell your marketing – speak a a 1,000 pixels away. They see through your hollow claims and puffery. And ignore you. Because they know that once they fall for you flimsy claim, they’ll be disappointed. And even more jaded than the last time.

If it weren’t for the years they’ve been pounded with messages, you might have a chance. If it weren’t for the infinite number of channels they can go to, you might have a chance. It’s too easy to tune you out. And they know it. They have the power like never before.

When TV was born, advertising was new and shiny. The channels were few. Customers had to listen. It didn’t take long for ‘commercial’ to equate to bathroom break or time to make popcorn, but you didn’t have the clutter.

Now you have to work harder. Much harder. You have to make claims in plain, human language. Next generation, industry leading goodness doesn’t cut it.

No one wants to be sold.

The new buzzwords are join the conversation, engage and let’s have a relationship. Sounds warm and fuzzy – the right thing to do. But then again, customers don’t always want to have a relationship with you. They can’t have a relationship with every brand and service they purchase. Nor do they need one. Some are meant to be purchased and consumed.

I’m certainly not looking for a relationship with my olive oil of choice. Or my oil change service.

But a contractor? Or an accountant? Now that’s someone I want to get to know. And who I want to care about me. It’s tough to find a good one. Horror stories abound of contractors gone bad. Just ask Mike.

You still need to get the word out about what it is you do. You still need to confidently state why you’re the one people should choose. But it’s time for a much different approach. Forget SPAMMING and Screaming.

It’s time to shout quietly. What? A twist on the old show, don’t tell approach. Make every word count. Make your typography sing with  fine craftsmanship. Show that you care. As if you pasted each pixel on the page just so. Use images that not everyone else is using. How often do you see the same photos from iStockphoto used in a presentation? Or an ad? A lot. In fact, pay attention to the number of downloads on an image you’re thinking about. If it’s a lot, maybe you should find another one.

Keep it fresh. You know how a bowl of fresh fruit and fresh flowers make a room seem cleaner and shinier? Same goes with your marketing. We respond to what’s different.

When you pay attention to the craft – people notice. There’s a LOT of really GOOD stuff out there. The smallest details matter. Invest in them. Sweat them.  It’s the way you can shout quietly and still be heard. In fact you’ll be heard even more . . .

We marketers are a funny bunch. At the beginning of each year we layout our grand plans for generating leads and growing revenue. We look at our wins and losses during the past year and project a nice increase for the new one. That’s our job, isn’t it? Always growing, always at the leading edge of our market? Last time I checked it was. We’re mostly optimistic about our prospects of hitting our targets.

So we create our media plans, craft email and direct mail campaigns and weave in a little social media to round it out and off we go. Through the internal review process making sure all stakeholders have an opportunity to weigh in. We agonize over each point. Each word. Hoping for the best, we launch then wait, measure, rinse and repeat.

And when we don’t get quite the results we’re looking for, we come back stronger, shouting louder and louder. Like a classroom of 28 Third-graders hopped on sugar at their Valentine’s Day party all talking at once.

It’s a cycle that plays out in companies around the world year after year. Each year it gets harder because our customers are getting smarter. And they have the tools to tune out everything we say on a whim. At best we’ve got a couple of seconds to grab their attention.

Part of the problem is that there’s simply too much of everything. Products, services, information – you name it. None of us really needs any more stuff. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show an estimated 20,000 new products were introduced. TWENTY THOUSAND!!! And that’s just the new products. Nevermind the line extensions and new versions of the old. Talk about competition.

I’d argue though that your toughest competition is time. You don’t have enough time to do everything you want. To read and learn everything you could to get ahead. Neither do your customers.

So what’s a marketer to do? Get clear on what it is you want to accomplish and now. Get tough on what you communicate in each of your initiatives. Take time to get to know the customer that means the most to you. And I mean really get to know them. Their aches, pains and why they get up in the morning. Only then will you know what you need to say to them to get their attention and have a fighting chance to win them over.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? Getting down to one single but oh so important point. It’s not fancy nor requires any secret formulas. But it requires a strong, steady hand at the wheel to convince your internal stakeholders exactly what that point is. Everyone will have a different one. But someone – and that someone is you – needs to take all these internal inputs, compare against the external inputs and choose. And when you choose you put your reputation on the line. You’re taking a risk. If you’re right, you’re a hero. If you’re wrong, you have an even tougher job the next time.

It’s because few can do this well that there’s so much clutter and mediocrity in our messages and products. It’s why products are crammed with features we’ll never use.

What will it take for you to get to your single most important point?

In 2010 I captured the sky each day from wherever I was. Last year I started posting one image combined with the word that image evoked over at Mundaily. It’s where I captured the random details of daily life – nothing fancy or pretentious. Just whatever I came across each day. All captured with my iPhone. A snapshot of each day to form a snapshot of a year. I’ve now put it all365  together in this little film:

It was hard to limit my thoughts to just one word, but that’s the constraint I put on this project. For 2012, I’m loosening that up a bit and participating in Cowbird. A storytelling platform by Jonathan Harris, creator of some pretty interesting projects. Everyday I’ll post an image and short – sometimes VERY short – story. The goal is to be spontaneous and free form – much different than my more business-oriented writing.

These little projects exercise and sharpen the brain. They force you to focus and think quickly. Keeps the brain nimble and I hope infuses my other work with more creativity and perspective.

Last summer after a year of thinking about it, I began photographing the Twenty Bridges Project. Choosing film over digital for the slower pace it forced. The preciousness in that it’s not cheap so you must think about each frame. The trips to the lab. The waiting and anticipation. The hope that the images I created reflected what I saw in my mind. Film also offered the versatility of making really large prints compared with a typical 16 – 20 MB digital camera.

At the end of November I launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to create a gallery exhibition, book and short film on the twenty key bridges connecting the communities on the Oregon coast. The goal was to raise $5,000 to cover the costs of film, processing, scanning and printing of the show, as these costs were not insignificant and tough to justify in a digital world. Finding a publisher for the book would come later.

19 people backed the project, with $1,005 and I owe each of them a huge thanks for their support. It really meant a lot to me. Particularly CASUDI who not only backed it but wrote an incredible post about it. And Jackie, Jill and Mila. And then there were the backers I didn’t know who discovered the project during the 40 day campaign. Like Michael from The Lighthouse Gallery in Astoria expressed interest in hosting the exhibition.

A Kickstarter campaign is not just an opportunity to crowd source funding for a project, but to test proof of concept. Raise the funds and you know you’re on the right track. Fail to do so and you know your concept either needs to change or killed. Or do you?

43% of Kickstarter projects are successful. There are some incredible success stories like this project for an aluminum iPhone dock. But I don’t think that all of the 57% who don’t make it are completely flawed. This one has about a week left and likely may not make it either.

CASUDI once wrote about a successful fail which is about one of her projects – much more ambitious than mine. Everyone who commented to me about Twenty Bridges had positive things to say. Made me think I was on the right track. So why did it fail?

I think in part that I didn’t have a broad enough community to reach out to, particularly in Oregon. It was centered in Oregon versus something with broader human interest appeal. Or maybe it wasn’t packaged as well as it could have been. There are any number of reasons one cannot know for certain.

Everyone is also faced with many competing priorities. Demands for our attention, time, hearts and money. Each of us must choose carefully what we support and accept that there are many things that we must pass on.

While I certainly hoped for a positive outcome, it’s been an interesting experience. Forced me to put something out there. To take a risk. To ask my community for support. Not something I found easy as I prefer helping to asking. I always tried to be careful about how often and to whom I shared the project to avoid coming across as a spammer. Just as I dislike being spammed or coerced into action. I believed and continue to believe that on a project such as this, it either elicits an emotional response and support. Or not. And one shouldn’t try too hard nor force it. Just accept the outcome.

Same goes for brands. It’s about respect and relevance. Shouting louder only pushes people farther away.

So what’s next for the Twenty Bridges project? Kill it? Proceed as is but on a much slower, self-funded pace? Change it moving from film to digital, saving significant costs? I’ve found the work so far a wonderful break from my daily focus on B2B technology. Diverse projects add color and perspective to others. Everything is interconnected and you don’t always know where.

So we’ll see where Twenty Bridges will go from here. Whether it continues or morphs into something entirely different. Certainly there are new bridges to build. New bridges to cross. Stay tuned!

Technology is a great thing, providing so much we take for granted. Like having the world at our fingertips. But I’ve noticed of late how much it can get in the way of actually living, creating barriers between the people around us and the natural world.

We’ve digitized, monetized and otherwise ized up every aspect of life to the point that it’s becoming less and less real. Our Smartphones keep us connected 24/7 with anyone we want around the world other than those standing beside us. We can watch, publish, share, buy and search for most anything anytime. But technology is like a glass wall that prevents you from dipping your toes into freshly mowed grass or feeling a cool ocean breeze.

Part of my motivation behind the Twenty Bridges project is to reach out into the world. To experience it a bit slower, more methodically. Choosing to shoot it on old-fashioned film is highly inefficient. I have to buy the film, shoot it, drop it off for processing and wait. Then take the frames I want to another place to have them scanned so I can work with them – in the digital world. You’d think it’d be so much easier to start digital and skip all that time and running around. Not to mention money. Yes, it’s completely unproductive, inefficient and expensive. It’s why I launched the Kickstarter Campaign to help fund it.

But it makes me think. I cannot afford to shoot with reckless abandon. I have to think more about the composition and lighting. To choose my vantage points with care rather than shooting 20 different angles. No, I must choose, shoot, then wait. Since I cannot see the image on the spot, I have to trust my instincts and experience that I captured my vision for the shot. But I won’t know until long after the light’s faded and I’ve returned to the city. Too late to correct. Loading film after every 12 frames means I might miss a shot. Once again I have to pause, package up the last role and load another. Advancing it to the first frame to start again.

With digital I could see instantly whether I got the shot or not. Much more efficient. Using film is a different way of working. One that has forced me to think more. To trust and anticipate. Gratification comes later. And so does the delight seeing the rewards of my effort.

More important, though is what happens in your head.

That’s where technology gets in the way. Because it’s fast and immediate we don’t have to think much about what we’re doing. We don’t have to make careful choices. We can pull the quality out of the volume, in theory. A slower, methodical process stimulates the brain. It alters the creative process. Works the same in other pursuits as well.

Writing something down makes it stick in your brain. Helps you connect the dots better. Puts you more in touch with your thoughts. It, too, is slower. You can also see how your writing changes with your thinking. Are they letters madly scribbled down in a burst of creative stream of consciousness? Or are they hard fought words you pulled from the deep crevaces of your brain to tell your story? While searching on Google provides instant answers – the most popular, most superficial for the most part – searching through a library opens the opportunity to discover work you otherwise wouldn’t. It introduces serendipity in the process. New thoughts. New connections.

In the digital world, words are plentiful cheap and free.

costs so little so again, we can be reckless with them. But what’s the end result? The recipient recognizes whether these are carefully reasoned thoughts or just a careless message delivered in haste. And they react accordingly. It’s about the craft. And finding the very human connection that enriches our lives that technology gets in the way of.

Technology removes emotion from our communications. How often do you find drama or hurt feelings as a result of a hashtag conversation or hastily written email? You miss 90% of the communication this way. There’s no substitute that I know of for face to face communication.

After a week of work with technology, I enjoy working in the garden or even doing a little manual labor like building a stone wall. Puts me in touch with a different type of energy. And whether writing or retouching a photo, I’m still touching the same keyboard and mouse. Removed from the process.

Our most creative, meaningful work comes when we think a little slower. That phone that you constantly check every time it buzzes with a new message prevents you from making deeper connections. You spend your time on the surface rather than exploring the why that matters. Innovating. We’re not designed to multitask. Although some people have mastered the art, what really happens is your brain switches on and off each task, losing focus.

We can never go backwards. And I don’t think we’d want that. Technology isn’t going to stop moving forward. We’ve tasted the nectar and it’s addictively cool. So far Moore’s law continues to hold true. But at what point do we have too much? How much can people absorb?

My hope is that you will think about how you interact with your technology. Recognize how it influences the choices you make and how you work. Then try doing things without it. By increasing your awareness of how technology can get in the way of really experiencing the life in front of you, you’ll be better prepared to control it. Before it controls you.

This post was inspired by Margie Clayman and Mack Collier who ignited thoughts I’ve been thinking about technology – something I’ll explore more here in the future.

Anyone who’s known me for any length of time has seen me with a camera or two. Since I was given one at age ten, it’s been an integral part of my life. I’ve grown up seeing the world through a lens. I originally started out shooting nature, but a two-week workshop with the legendary Jay Maisel transformed my work. No longer content creating beautiful landscape imagery, I’ve been interested in capturing emotion and how the ‘hand of man’ impacts the environment.

Although I complain about our persistent gray skies and abundance of rain, I love Oregon. It offers an extremely diverse range of terrain from the rugged coastline and lush rain forest to the arid high desert of central and eastern Oregon. If you don’t like a particular type of landscape, drive awhile and it’ll change. Crossing the state on Highway 20 from Newport on the coast to the Idaho border is proof of the amazing diversity in Oregon’s landscape.

But it’s Oregon’s Highway 101 that dazzles with incredible beauty around virtually every bend. As a driver, it’s a tough road to focus on the task of actually driving as the eye is captivating by the crashing surf, jagged rock formations or monstrous sand dunes. The many waysides beckon you to pull over and to take it all in, reminding yourself how insignificant you are against nature’s power. Unlike many highways, there’s never a stretch of road that doesn’t delight the senses in some fashion. In fact, it’s arguably one of the most beautiful drives in the world. It’s only of late that I’ve come to truly appreciate just how grand it is. Just how special. There’s something about its mighty power that lures me back and am always in awe of it.

There are 20 key bridges connecting the communities along Highway 101 from Astoria to Brookings.

On a calm day with soft coastal breezes lapping at your cheeks, you feel as if you’re on top of the world. These special bridges connect us and allow fluid travel to our next destination. Often, however, we don’t always notice them as we’re taken by the shear beauty of the natural environment. Look closer and you realize they’re not just utilitarian structures carrying us from points A to B to C and so on, but designed to delight the eye and complement the environment they inhabit each in their own way. 11 of these bridges were designed by world renowned engineer Conde B. McCullough and built in the late 20s and 30s. They allowed efficient travel as before you had to be ferried across. Sadly, the Alsea Bay Bridge, succumbed to the elements and had to be replaced in the mid-90s, however the new structure echoes the beauty of the original. The Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport – now 75 years old features concrete and metal arches dancing across Yaquina Bay like a pebble skipping across a still lake. Because he knew people would be below just as much as on his bridges, McCullough infused careful details in the understructure to please the eye. And he didn’t disappoint. Time Magazine once noted that it was one of the most beautiful bridges in the world – and most photographed.

Twenty Bridges is a celebration of these graceful structures that bring us closer together. I’ve tried to capture them in the context of their environment as well as the details that complete the whole. Each has many stories to tell of the people who’ve traveled up and down the coast. Residents and tourists. Kids and families. Couples on a romantic getaway. Starting with the Astoria-Megler bridge at the top of the state and ending with the Isaac Lee Patterson Bridge crossing the Rogue River in Gold Beach, come along with me on a trip down the Oregon Coast.

Twenty Bridges will be a gallery exhibition in the fall of 2012 featuring a mix of large prints of each bridge and smaller prints that showcase each of these bridges in their environment. There will also be a finely-produced coffee table book plus a short film about driving down the Oregon coast. Your support will help cover the cost of film, high-resolution drum scans and gallery prints. Anything additional will go into enhancing the gallery show and production of the film. Below is a working cover and select images from the project along with links to each of the bridges I’ll photograph for the project. I aim to complete shooting by late Spring, 2012, working through winter and a mix of the always unpredictable coastal weather.

As always, I welcome your feedback, appreciate any support whether backing this project or simply sharing it with those you think might be interested. I look forward to delivering an incredible end product that shines a light on the brilliant work of the designers and engineers of these beautiful bridges.

Every marketer’s dream is for their content masterpiece to go viral. They shout from the rooftops as loudly as they can, “Pick me! Pick me! Oh, Pleeeeze, won’t you please Pick meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” More than likely, said masterpiece suffers a quick, unremarkable death after a couple Tweets. Lost in the scrap heap of forgotten content. You just can predict exactly what’s going to go viral. No matter how hard you try.

Or can you?

Dan Zarrella thinks you can. In fact, in his latest book, Zarella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness, he outlines a scientifically repeatable process for creating and delivering content that has more than a fighting chance of sticking. While debunking a few myths along the way.

Social media is still a wild frontier that most companies don’t yet get. Yet like anything on the web, just about every interaction is measurable. Dan’s done a great job over the last few years analyzing and reporting on the science behind social media.

He developed a model for decision making before an idea is spread:
1. The person must be exposed to your content (i.e. be a follower or fan of you and your brand)
2. The person must be made aware of your specific content
3. They must be motivated to act in order to want to share it.

You can increase your odds of the above happening by increasing your reach, creating relevant, provocative content, and finally, including a valuable call to action. I recommend you grab his book to see how he dissects each of these areas. Just like in traditional advertising, the size of your audience matters.

What’s interesting, though are some of the myths he shreds in the book. Like it’s okay to call yourself a guru, expert, authority, etc. In fact if you do, you’ll have an average of 100 more followers on Twitter. This has been one of my hot buttons as I’ve often said that if you have to call yourself a guru, then most likely you aren’t. It’s the principle of show don’t tell. I always think it’s better if others figure that out for themselves. And he does clarify that just adding the word doesn’t make this happen – but having the confidence to do so (meaning you can back up your claim) – makes a difference.

Talking smack doesn’t work. In fact it pushes people away. People hanging out in social media want to be uplifted, helped. Not depressed. Plenty of other places to get the bad news.

Nor does talking incessantly about yourself. Quite boring. Instead, have a point of view and share it. That’s what people want.

If you get nothing else out of this book, what people want is interesting content to share with their followers. It makes them look good and enhances their reputation. No one wants to share what’s freely available. They want the scoop. They want to be perceived as breaking the news rather than rehashing it.

The more personal your content, the better. And think a lot about when you send your content. Turns out weekends are a great time to do so. Why? Less Clutter. And people have more time to snack on it.

“Messages sent over weekends had click-though rates twice as high as messages sent during the week. And the messages sent on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday had the highest unsubscribe rates.” – Dan said.

Don’t be stupid with your writing but don’t be pompous either. His research shows that the best content is simply written. Makes sense when you consider how little time you have to capture attention. If a reader doesn’t grasp your message quickly, they’ll move on to the next competing for their attention. Make your point and make it clearly. Don’t make someone work too hard to decipher it. There’s a difference between communicating simply and talking down to your audience. Treat them with the respect they deserve and give them credit. They’re not stupid.

If you haven’t read Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence, there’s no time like the present to do so. The principles of reciprocity and social proof also apply to creating viral content. We’re imitators and tend to follow the crowd. People want to know that the content they share makes them look good and that it’s something others do to.

If you want something to go viral, you have to create something that’s relevant, compelling and newsworthy. Dan’s provided a good framework that gives you a leg up on most marketers who ignore the data and science, preferring to focus on chance. Because we’re irrational right? We may be irrational but people like Dan Zarella and Robert Cialdini among others have analyzed our irrationality and uncovered the patterns in our behavior.

It’s time to get strategic in how you develop content, using the data and frameworks available to give you a better chance of success.

There’s a balance between being open to the new opportunities we’re not pursuing or seeing and focus.

What matters is looking at your current quest and validate against what else you could be investing your time in. Because always looking at those alternatives can be a distraction preventing you from fully committing and executing on your core vision. Yet making a choice and blindly following it is definitely not the way to go. I know this to be true. Because over a decade ago I fervently pursued a photography career, diligently researching the market, developing my skills and connecting with prospective buyers. I had a first-rate portfolio that resonated with many creative I connected with. Creatives that many of whom soon lost their jobs in the dot com crash. I can blame the economy and the rapid change the profession saw as it transformed to digital and it become easier and easier for anyone to make good pictures. To make it you had to be so much more. The pie was shrinking. Just as it is in so many other jobs that are disappearing today.

The other piece was me. I recognized that I wanted to do more than just make pictures. To play a bigger role in the process of building and leading creative teams. It took me awhile to recognize this because I was blind to it. I also didn’t trust myself to shoot the images I really wanted to shoot, focusing instead on what I thought the market wanted. Big mistake. I was slow to recognize where I really excelled and belonged.

I also know distraction. As someone who thrives on new opportunities, who wants to explore all the options before choosing, I’ve often found myself distracted and paralyzed. Especially since my first big commitment failed. It becomes easier not to choose or to put off making a choice until tomorrow while I continue looking at the possibilities. So days become weeks, weeks become months, and the months become years.

Lately I’ve come to think it was because I hadn’t settled on what that quest should be. My focus is on circling around, testing, validating, rejecting and iterating. More quickly and decisively. Absorbing the lessons I’ve learned before and allowing things to sit a bit – especially the euphoria of a new idea. If it’s still there in a month or mutates into something different but related, I know I’m getting closer.  I’m a late bloomer and know that the path I’ve taken thus far – bumpy, turbulent and haphazard has shaped me. It’s setting the stage for what’s next and I’m arriving at a new level of purpose and confidence and sense of forward momentum. I can see the path I need to choose and am taking it but remembering to enjoy the journey along the way. Because as Nike said long ago, there is no finish line. When we get where we think we want to go, the bar is raised, the goal moved and a new challenge awaits us.

Collaboration is good thing. You get people working together, you get a company aligned around shared goals and ultimately higher productivity. With collaboration, people are not pursuing their own agendas, wasting company resources and blocking important initiatives. Cross-departmental silos fall and you have corporate bliss. Or so we think.

Collaboration has a dark side too.

Projects can take longer or stall out while you seek buy-in from all of the stakeholders, and creative concepts get diluted in the process of making everyone happy to GET the buy-in. You can also, in the case of web and product design, end up with increased complexity and a diminished end-user experience. Everyone wants their idea included. Everyone wants their features. Everyone wants all things for all people. And collaboration can make that happen.

Problem is, you rarely end up with an elegantly simple solution or compelling creative. Collaboration has the tendency to dilute things. Imagine starting out with a cup of rich, French-press coffee and ending with reheated three-day old drip. That’s burnt from sitting the heat far too long. Not a tasty prospect.

Without collaboration, however, you get silos, political turf battles and wasted potential. When everyone’s focused on maximizing their department’s budget and objectives, you don’t often find a company focused on creating a magical customer experience.

So what’s the magic bullet?

Like anything, it’s balance. And that comes in the form of a strong leader who can pull everything together, get the needed alignment, but have the ability to break ties and actually make decisions in the best interest of the customer and thus the business. Note that I put the customer first because THEY pay the rent. Make them happy and the business can prosper. Ignore them in favor of your local spreadsheet and you’ll see them walk away.

That appears to be what Netflix did when they rolled out their new pricing strategy without communicating clearly – IN ADVANCE – with their customer base. They made assumptions based on what they thought would happen – and where they felt they needed to go to drive company profits. Their past success clouded led to arrogance and a more inward focus. What they should have done was talk to their customers, letting them know they needed to make some changes and why. Get the customers to see how it could benefit them, give them some notice and press forward. In short, collaborate a little.

Seems they also didn’t do their homework when breaking off the mail-order part into a new brand called Qwikster and doing the basics like checking availability of the Twitter handle. Oops. Nor thinking through the confusion with the name.

Now you have what appears to be an ill-conceived strategy building on an ill-conceived price change rollout. This is a case where collaboration inside and outside the organization could be greatly increased along with leadership that knows what business it’s in and can execute. Seems they’re still figuring that part out and have only further angered their once happy customer base.

One key t0 successful collaboration is recognizing that no matter what you do, you don’t have any control. It makes the inner conflict you feel when people just aren’t ‘getting’ with the program a lot less painful. You create your own reality just like everyone else does* Sure, you can put processes in place to make things more predictable but everyone brings a different set of experiences, judgments and agendas to the table. No two people see things exactly the same way. Acknowledging that control is an illusion and letting go, serving more as a guide can improve the collaboration. People dig their heels in when they perceive they’re being controlled or manipulated, but more easily connect when they’re valued, heard and respected. Not everyone will get what they want, but that’s life. Collaboration is messy because people are human and ultimately unpredictable. But that’s where the good stuff happens. Allow a little serendipity and creative solutions surface. Even the process may feel smoother with less politicking.

But when it comes decision time, a strong leader is willing to take a stand and own it. SOMEONE needs to own it, or you end up with sloppy wet milk toast. Too often leaders are more worried about being liked and over-collaborate. Again, it’s balance. Effective collaboration is an art form not a science. People are inconsistent. Irrational. You learn by taking chances. And being willing to fail and get back out there again. You might not be collaborative enough and people will let you know it and sabotage your project. So next time out you over do it and get something less than stellar. What do you do?

Get over it and get on with it.

*Read Are you ready to Succeed by Srikumar Rao for a good primer on this