From Pamela Slim, author of Escape From Cubicle Nation, and noted blogger:

Pamela offers some ideas for getting into the right frame of mind at conferences…. starting by recognizing just how silly some of the conference dynamics can feel…

… As creatures still stinging from the social dynamics of junior high, we can fall into “fan boy or fan girl traps” which not only make us feel insecure, but turn off the very people we are trying to impress.

So here are my tips, learned from the school of hard knocks:

Fan Boy and Fan Girl Traps to Avoid

1. You are the best and I worship you! Lather, rinse, repeat.

I often start correspondence with people I admire by telling them how great they are. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, as long as you say it sincerely and with no ulterior motive. The problem is when you continually gush in each subsequent conversation. It gets uncomfortable and tiresome for them and gets in the way of good conversation for you.

Alternative: You are the best and I worship you. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to know each other. Have you read this book?

2. I am a nobody.
In an attempt to be humble, you may write “I don’t mean to bother you with my message, since I know you are doing great things and I am a nobody.”

This is rubbish. We are all equal. Some people have accomplished a lot in their lives, written great works, sculpted strong glutes, or whatever you consider noteworthy. But this does not make them a superior human being. You can have admiration for someone while still being proud of who you are. It goes to my theory of relationships formed in Jr. High: no one wants the person who needs them too much. Don’t be the girl (or boy) desperate for a date.

Alternative: You are very cool, and so am I in my own right. (Don’t use those words of course, but convey it in your attitude, conversation and body language, if meeting in person)

3. I will convince you that I am worthy by spouting off my entire CV.
I just said that you are somebody worth talking to. This is true!

But you don’t need to reinforce this by sharing your every accomplishment since getting a gold star for “most cooperative” in preschool. Let the relationship develop naturally. As you share information and converse, each of you will develop natural interest in the other. Or not!

Alternative: Save the marketing pitch for your evening telemarketing job. Be yourself, and trust that if you make a real connection with someone you admire, they will be interested in you. If they aren’t, you can continue to admire their work from afar and pursue other mutually beneficial relationships.

4. Nice to meet you! Please, oh please, will you be my mentor?
Think about the current mentors in your life. Did you like and trust them immediately? Or did your relationship grow with time and work and mutual support?

Sometimes in your desire to learn as much as you can from people you admire, you ask them for specific support and guidance without having any consideration for their time. A favorite is “you are an expert in my field, would you mind reviewing my 20-page business plan?”

Alternative: Respect your own time and that of busy people. Mentors grow naturally, they are not manufactured. More tips on finding a mentor here.

5. You know everyone. Please link to my stuff.
We are all familiar with the context in which the word “foreplay” is normally used. The same applies to building business relationships. Just as you wouldn’t grope a potential mate the first time you meet him or her at a party, you shouldn’t immediately demand an intimate business action upon meeting someone new.

I think linking to someone is an intimate act. It means I like what I read, and trust the source.

Alterative: It is absolutely fine to say “This is what I’m working on. I thought you might be interested. Enjoy!” Just leave off “would you link to it?” Or even worse, “I’ll link to you if you link to me.” If you wrote a true gem that fits with their audience’s needs, they will link to it. If not, move on.

6. You can do no wrong.
Everyone screws up. Sometimes we overlook glaring faults because of our cult-like devotion to the image of a person we admire. This is not helpful to you or to them.

Alternative: When someone you admire does something you don’t agree with, let them know in a kind and straightforward way. “I really admire your business sense. But your latest advertising partnership with “Stomp bunnies and puppies LLC” seems really out of sync with who you are. What is your rationale for this decision?” Or “You are the most brilliant person I know in x subject. But telling a female reader of your blog to stop pulling “that woman stuff” on you was demeaning to your character, not to mention highly damaging to your brand given the amount of female clients who purchase your services. I suggest apologizing for the comment, since it could have some long-lasting negative consequences to your business.”

I still get giddy when in the presence of people I admire. When I got to meet and interview childhood feminist icon Gloria Steinem, I even took on the look of a possessed madwoman. So if you heed my advice, know that I need it as much as you do.

[Reposted from AuthenticOrganizations.com] July 2009

Very few management professors read blogs about management, leadership, strategy or organizations.

I have no hard data, no scientific survey, to support this claim, but I know it’s true.

As I’ve talked with colleagues over the last two years about this blog, about other blogs that I learn from, about blogs as a communication medium, and about blogging as a communication and intellectual practice, I’ve heard everything from dismissal to skepticism to distracted curiosity– but almost nothing about how blogs have been contributing to their worlds as scholars.

Comments about blogs that I’ve heard from management professors run the gamut:

1. “I can’t be bothered.”

2. “I have no time.“

3. “How would blogs be useful to me?”

4. “Are there any interesting blogs out there?”

5. “I don’t even know how to begin.”

Whether you are a professional “management scholar’ like a PhD or a semi-pro management scholar like an E/MBA student or a reflective organization member, there are some compelling reasons to read blogs about management, leadership and organizations.

I personally think that blogs as a medium and blogging as a tool are an important heretofore missing link between science and practice. But before I set out to evangelize (and in anticipation of the Workshop on Blogging for Management Scholars that colleagues and I are offering at the Academy of Management professional meeting), let me share the first draft of my argument with you readers (aka the already converted):

Here’s my first draft:

5 Reasons why Management Professors should be reading blogs

1. To learn how their colleagues are linking management theories with real-world issues

2. To see how real world issues can be understood better when our perspectives on them are informed by good theory

3. To see what issues are captivating the attention and energy of people in profit and non-profit organizations

4. To listen to the conversations about these issues and learn what really matters to people in organizations, and perhaps most importantly

5. To learn how to engage managers in thoughtful conversations about organizations and management, so that we can be more effective at influencing how managers think, so we can help them make organizations ‘better’.

Are there any reasons you’d challenge? Add? Augment?

If you had to get up in front of 100 management professors and tell them why they should be reading blogs, what would you say?

Ten Common Objections to Social Media Adoption and How You Can Respond

[This article was originally published, in expanded form, on ReadWriteWeb. Read the original article.]

Marshall Kirkpatrick, ReadWriteWeb

It can be hard to convince leadership that working with social media doesn’t mean they’ve been paying you to catch up with friends on Facebook. You’ve probably heard some of the objections. But there are ways you can respond. Here’s a list of common objections, along with suggestions for countering them:

1. I suffer from information overload already.

Possible replies:

* Try just skimming messages in some fora. You may need to look closely at every email you get but you don’t have to look at every Facebook friend’s update.

* The right tools for you will feel helpful in time. Experiment for awhile with new tools and stick with the ones that deliver you the most high-quality information, whether those tools are high-quantity or not. (Thanks to Aaron Hockley and Ruby Sinreich for these thoughts.)

* Check out tools like AideRSS and FeedHub — just two examples of services aiming to improve the signal-to-noise ratio.

* Times change and so do information paradigms. Get used to it. The amount of information you had access to 3 years ago was infinitely more than people at any other point in history and we’re in the middle of another huge leap right now.

2. So much of what’s discussed online is meaningless. These forms of communication are shallow and make us dumber. We have real work to do!

Possible replies:

* Much of it is not meaningless, but if you feel overwhelmed with meaninglessness, try subscribing to a search for keywords in a particular service and using that as your starting point for engagement.

* Having a presence and starting a conversation is rarely a bad thing. Bring quality conversation to a space and you’ll find others ready to engage. (Thanks to Banana Lee Fishbones, obviously a fan of open, non-anonymous public communication for this articulation.)

* Personal information can be very useful in understanding the context of more explicitly useful information.

* If learning how the market feels about your organization, engaging with your customers and driving traffic to your web work — all very realistic goals for social media engagement — aren’t work, then I don’t know what is. Even in the short term, strategic engagement with online social media will have a clear work pay-off.

3. I don’t have the time to contribute and moderate. It looks like it takes a lot of time and energy.

Possible replies:

* If you aren’t going to eat that lunch of yours, I’d be happy to, thanks.

* With practice, familiarity, and technology fine-tuned with a little experience, you’ll find the time required will decrease.

* You might consider this time spent on marketing or communication with your existing customer base. Perhaps there’s something else in that department that isn’t working well and could be replaced with online work.

4. Our customers don’t use this stuff. The learning curve limits its usefulness to geeks.

Possible replies:

* You might be surprised to learn how many of your customers do use these new tools already. Even more will do so in the future.

* The best designed tools are designed like good games: you can get small rewards right away and then learn more advanced skills to win bigger rewards. Among online services that are intended for general audiences, only poorly designed ones are too geeky.

* Many of these tools provide value vastly disproportionate to the literal number of people they reach. These are like high-value focus groups where you’ll gather information and preparation to engage with the rest of the world.

* Try asking someone near you to give you an in-person demonstration of one of these tools. You’ll find it much easier to learn once you’ve seen the right paths taken to show what it can do.

5. Communicators [bloggers, tweeters] are so fickle, it’s better to stay unengaged than risk random brand damage. We don’t want hostile comments left about us on any forum we’ve legitimized.

Possible replies:

* If you need to, you can require that any comments left on your own site be approved before they appear. This slows down the conversation but if it makes conversation possible for you, then do it.

* There are far fewer people who will take the time to say hostile things, even on the internet, than you might imagine.

* Engage. You’ll be appreciated more for it. People are going to say what they are going to say. You can either let any criticism go unanswered or you can be the bigger person/brand for responding well.

* Conversations are going to happen online. It’s better to be engaged than to have it happening behind your back. (As articulated by Rick Turoczy.)

* It’s OK, no one believes that anyone is perfect anymore. Swing for the fences sometimes. You might strike out, but sometimes you’ll hit a home run.

* Even if you’re not responding publicly, you should watch closely so you know what people are saying. Maybe you don’t have a blog, but subscribe to a blogsearch feed or alert for your company’s name.

6. Traditional media and audiences are still bigger. We’ll do new stuff when they do.

Possible replies:

* They already are, from blogging to online video to social networks to mobile to microblogging. Big, established brands are already doing all of it. They may be experimenting, but they will bring all their market dominance into the most useful social media sectors as soon as it suits them. Will that be too late for you? It might be.

* Traditional media audiences are also more passive. Online audiences can engage with, rebroadcast, and otherwise amplify your communication efforts.

7. Upper management won’t support it/dedicate resources for it.

Possible replies:

* A lot of technology adoption has for some time had to happen despite this reality. People adopt new tools on their own at work, without permission. They discover powerful ways to solve their problems and then they share them horizontally.

* Compared to other expenses, meaningful engagement with new online technology does not have huge costs.

8. These startups can’t offer meaningful security. They may not even be around in a year. I’ll wait until Google or our enterprise software vendor starts offering this kind of functionality.

Possible replies:

* The skills you build and the connections you make will remain with you, though. This is a paradigm shift underway more than it is about any particular tool.

* Chose your tools carefully. Expect data export as an option so you can back up or switch services whenever you need to. This isn’t widespread yet but the best tools allow it.

9. There are so many tools that are similar. I can’t tell where to invest my time so I don’t use any of it at all.

Possible replies:

* A little experimentation goes a long way.

* Try asking people in your field who have some experience what tools they are using.

* Try searching for keywords related to your work in various sites. You’ll find out that way which sites are best suited for you.

10. That stuff’s fine for sexy brands, but we sell [insert boring B2B brand] and are known for stability more than chasing the flavor-of-the-month. We’re doing just fine with the tools we’ve got, thanks.

Possible replies:

* Some of these things — RSS and wikis, for example — aren’t passing social fads: they are emerging best practices and the state-of-the-art.

* ROI is very hard to measure, but try allocating a little energy over time to experiment and see what kind of results you get. From connections between people and projects, to search-friendly inbound links, to early access to important information, the benefits of engaging in new social media go on and on.

Conclusions

There are no conclusions. This is just a conversation. Please feel free to add your thoughts in comments and check out the comments to read what others suggest as talking points when faced with these objections.

Vicki Davis is a high school teacher who blogs at the Cool Cat Teacher blog, which won the 2008 Edublog Award for Best Teacher Blog and other awards. Her site is full of great resources… like this post:

Beware of Darth Commenter

http://www.cocomment.com/http://www.cocomment.com/Beware of Darth Commenter!

I believe that there are some people who are so abrasive and unhappy with themselves that they retreat to the Internet to reak havok on unsuspecting souls. They are like Darth Vader with a light saber. They like to play mind games and newbies are great targets. They know the psychological stress that unkind commenting can cause in a new blogger and I have no respect for such people.

I say this to warn newbies of the villain you will soon meet if you are a prolific blogger: “Darth Commenter.” (I’ll call him DC.)

My first encounter with DC, was really an eye-opening soul searching experience for me. (I’m glad I did it or I wouldn’t have been ready for the debate that ensued after my DOPA posting.)

When you meet DC, as any prolific, meaningful blogger will, you will be forced to ask yourself the central question of blogging: “Why am I blogging?” Much like the “why am I here” questions that all humans ask, this question is literally a “why am I here on the blogosphere” question. Ultimately it is the blogger who decides if they will indeed remain a blogger. We have the ability to leave the blogosphere as quickly as we entered it and many do.

I took a several day sabbatical to ask myself these questions and reemerged with a purpose and a calling that non bloggers simply cannot understand.

As you meet, DC, you will emerge with your own calling. Without a calling, it is difficult to keep up with the blog and it just becomes a nuisance.

Blogging, if you truly inhale its essence, will give you a calling, renewal, and purpose, as you’ve never seen before.

Darth Commenter is out there and his goal is to steal your enthusiasm for blogging with his light saber of unkindness. Do not feel compelled for some “noble” reason to post his comment. Delete Darth and never look back.

from Vicki Davis at coolcatteacher.blogspot.com

Have you found yourself struggling to convince faculty colleagues that blogs, Twitter and Facebook might be useful tool?

Just for fun, consider these 7 Helpful “Legacy Programmer Boss” Tips from The Politics of Design by mike.marshall@politicsofdesign.com.



I’ve enjoyed reading some the the Spolsky-generated articles recently, but I was snagged by the viewpoints put forth by Daniel Auger in his post “The State of Spolsky or How I Learned to Ignore my Legacy Programmer Boss”. That post was furthered by Krishna over at Thought Clusters in “The Legacy Programmer Boss”.

Daniel Auger says:
The Legacy Programmer Boss is the manager who had a successful programming career in the past but sees many modern concepts as language baubles, academics, and anti-patterns because they are out of the loop. The fact that they once had a high degree of expertise gives them confidence in making mis-judgements.

I wanted to focus on this concept because I believe that every programmer will eventually become a “Legacy Programmer Boss” or a “Legacy Programmer Architect”. It is almost universal that this phenomenon will occur in older,experienced software professionals. It is also guaranteed that every programmer will at some point have a legacy boss lead his team. It only helps us all if we can communicate better. When you, the young turk, run into this surly skeptic, try to remember these 7 tips to help work together…

1. Have Respect

First — and it’s first because at this point in my own career, I more resemble the surly skeptic than the young turk — show some respect! That legacy programmer has some deep experience, and has written some good stuff. He’s seen many a revolutionary concept that doesn’t quite deliver or evaporates entirely. So, he has earned the right to be a little skeptical. Don’t make the mistake of thinking because he’s never coded in the latest tools that he can’t possibly understand the concepts inside of them. Concepts do not often change dramatically across incremental technologies.

2. Just Explain It

Whether the idea is a new pattern, approach, or construct, just sit down with your boss and explain it to him. Don’t expect him to read the documentation and don’t send him links to long-winded technical articles. He’s not going to fish for himself. It’s not his job to be up to date on the latest and greatest coding technique. That’s your job. He will grasp the important concepts soon enough, and he does not need the deep knowledge that you do.

3. Find Familiar Ground

Work with him to find a similar, more familiar concept that was commonly used in the past. Compare and contrast the two concepts. Talk, first, about how they are similar, and then how the new way is an even better extension. As I said before, concepts don’t often change, so there are usually constructs or techniques in the not-so-distant past that you both know well that are useful analogies. If those are hard to find, is there a real world metaphor that is useful or a comparison to the mechanical world?

4. Bring the Value

Work from the real business value of the advancement. How does this new stuff help your organization in hours saved, bugs avoided, or tests passed. The legacy programmer boss is today more likely to be budget minded and target driven. Make sure the thing that your pitching provides those values. If you can’t explain the business value in those terms, you better ask yourself why you are in his office. Because if you don’t, he surely will.

5. Be Honest

Be realistic with yourself. You are excited about a brand new technique. The technique is fresh, new, and fun, but won’t immediately turn your company’s business model on its head. Be aware that because you are offering it up, you might be personally invested. Accept that this at least has a small possibility of not delivering what you expect. Don’t oversell it or embellish the advantages. You definitely don’t want to risk being associated with what turns out to be some vendor’s snake oil.

6. Bring a Plan

Understand how you will introduce the new technology into the landscape. If a big bang approach is your only option, you probably won’t find the boss willing to take that risk. Start with a smaller proof of concept, and build from there. In your plan, explain what metrics you are going to track and how they are going to be measured. Show him that you’re willing to let the results speak for themselves.

7. Make him or her look good

Understand that there are a number of priority items that he’s trying to address that have been handed to him by his own boss. Introducing your new code construct is probably not one of those. If possible, understand what his objectives are and explain how this new technique can help him reach those objectives. Use these objectives when you’re talking about (#4) the value and (#6) the plan.

Follow these tips and you’ll find that partnering with your legacy programmer boss can bring even larger value to your organization by understanding both the old and new technologies.

From BlogWalker:

Based on work with several teachers who very much want to join the blogosphere, but are a bit overwhelmed by the learning curve, here are five tips for teachers just beginning to weave blogging into their classroom toolkit:

Tip #1: Start the process of reading, writing, and responding to blog posts as a whole class activity. Begin the day or class period by sharing a blog post or comment that you will respond to as a class. With you doing the typing, this activity will probably not take more than five minutes and is great way to introduce your students to the genre of interactive reading and writing, while modeling the safe and ethical use of social networking.

Tip #2: If you are using a program that has a plugin (a software program that allows additional capabilities) for threaded comment, download the plugin! Be sure to explain to your students the difference between responding to the post and replying to a specific comment.

See the rest at The BlogWalker, where there are other great resources…

Tip #3: Add other class blogs to your blogroll. You might need to add the Links widget to your sidebar first. Adding links to other blogs in your blogroll allows your students to quickly access what’s likely to become a growing community of classroom blogs.

Besides the practical aspects, dividing student time between reading and writing is also a good way to model that blogging is actually more about reading than it is about writing.

Tip #4: Remind your student commenters to add your classroom URL in the website box. This extra step will turn their names into a hyperlink back to your blog. A great way to invite more readers and potential commenters to your site!

I was delighted to find the blog group at AoM and also disappointed I missed the recent session at the Chicago meeting. I am new to blogging, but started my own up in June this year due to my interest and research in a particular business sector which seems to be moving at a pace that other forms of output cannot match!

My interest is in Formula 1 motorsport and I have both written books and scholarly papers on the subject. I also have produced some teaching cases which I use both for Executive Development and MBA classes (we do not have undergraduate classes at Cranfield). So I look forward to keeping involved with this blog and finding out more at next years Academy meeting!

[Note: Mark’s blog, is on the Blogroll as “Formula 1 (Racing)”, for those of us who think F1 is either a button on a spreadsheet or a relative of M3.)

Hi folks,

I wrote up a page on The Wisdom of Managing Change that includes the slides I used in my presentation on Friday, as well as hotlinks to most of the websites I mentioned.

I hope the page on finding, reading, and commenting on scholarly blogs is useful, both for those who attended the PDW, and for those who were not able to do so.

[Eds.' note: These and other resources were complied by the PDW group and organized (and gussied up) by each presenter. We'll be unpacking things from the wiki we created as the PDW was developed, and we'll be posting these here, over the next month or so. Tell us what you want to read/have first, so we can set priorities.]

During our discussion on Friday, the issue of the ethics of claiming authorship or being pseudonymous (blogging with a pseudonym) was raised. Motivation of the author, context of the blog, and awareness of the audience are all relevant factors.

Karen Mishra argued that academics should not blog using a pseudonym, but should instead claim their identity. She suggested that this was a more ethical choice, and also a more practical one, since bloggers have demonstrated their capability to unearth the true identity of bloggers with pseudonyms

I pointed out that in the blogging community, there is a norm regarding other authors who write under pseudonyms — don’t out them, even if you can identify the author by name.

Furthermore, I argued that there are good reasons to blog under a pseudonym, even as an academic. You may be a doctoral student, or a dean, or a member of the Academy who blogs about the difficulties facing underrepresented groups within the Academy, for example.

We must each choose our own ethical approach.

Do you have the list of the parties?

[eds.' note: SOMEONE has a list to the parties, and that person might become veeeeery popular, if s/he would share this with everyone, say, by posting it in the comments. We're already cruising the horsdooverays at the OMT shindig.]