Journal Entry: reflecting the past few months, not doubting ability or faith in one’s self, just reflecting.

Again, we rebuild. The past few months have been brutal. Our house suffered severe water damage, laptops stolen, and business lost due to it. It hurts. Bad. As always, we take the remnants of our lives and rebuild. It is something I’ve learned throughout my life. Do I pick up the pieces or walk away? The answer isn’t always black and white. Today though I choose to rebuild, to seek refuge in hope, to a future that is sustainable and adaptable, I am tired. Tired of continuously having to rebuild, clinging to another hope of tomorrow but what are my options? It’s been so long, risking everything, money, reputation, all for the dream. Maybe the dream isn’t a destination but more a journey. Maybe it is similar to what the founding fathers said “…the pursuit of happiness.” Maybe that’s what it’s all about, the pursuit of the dream. Maybe I search and yearn for the destination and I’m ignoring the wondrous experience of my own story unfolding. Maybe the beauty is in the details and not where you end up. For every place we arrive at is the beginning of a new story, a new destination. So, today, brick by brick, I lay the foundation of my future knowing full well that I may have to rebuild soon.

Photo Credit: Peter Kaminski

I have been doing this book a week challenge where I attempt to read a book every week of the year. I was on track until a pipe burst in my house flooding the entire house displacing me for over a month. Once back in my repaired house I left to Las Vegas for business, on the trip my laptop was stolen, I was to say the least lost. I mean really lost. I could have presumably lost anything really as far as tangible items but not my laptop, that is personal. I’ve gone without many tangible items in my life, especially in my childhood but the one I hold dear is my laptop.

In my laptop bag was my next favorite tangible object of tech infatuation, my Nook ebook reader. I was kicking ass reading books on it, flying through books in just a day or two. I was not only on track but I was ahead, like a few weeks ahead. I added a few magazines and newspapers, not including my RSS feeds I would read daily. But when it was stolen along with my laptop, my life stopped. Not literally, or even professionally but emotionally I believe I truly felt slighted. Insurance was going to cover everything so it wasn’t even a violation of someone having my stuff, all of my data was backed up and I take the proper security steps to protect my data. I guess I just felt lost without my daily attachment to technology.

My reading came to a halt. Weeks past, I shrugged, telling myself I didn’t care anymore, that it was impossible to attain anyway. My love for books didn’t stay dormant long though. While almost every weekend stopping by a garage sale, for the possibility that I might find a first edition Fyodor Dostoevsky‘s Crime and Punishment or an early 1800 Homer The Odyssey, I fell back in love with books when I found an 1855 Complete Works of Shakespeare with every owners name and date written on the first page. While finding writing in an aged book is incredibly bad for resale value it intrigued me and grabbed me. This one was special, yes, I knew when I bought it I was buying it for more than it was worth for a quick resale but Shakespeare is something else.

Not that I somehow have a hard-on for Shakespeare like a lot of my English major friends or friends who feel they have to say that shit to impress others. I like Shakespeare because in high school it was Shakespeare that first ignited my passion for the written word. I was not the most studious of my class but when I read Shakespeare I knew there was something worth paying attention to here. So when I laid my eyes on a 1855 Complete Works, I knew it had to be mine. When I got home and cracked it open I was lost. All my worries of personal and professional life came to a halt, I forgot where I was and who was around me. I sat there for thirty minutes before I rejoined the time continuum.

So, my love for books is the best and worst for me, in one way I want to collect and never let them out of my sight to never be touched but on the other hand I want to read them, even the classics for which I own their cheaper, more current, paperback version. There is something about opening a book that is 155 years old, in a romantic way I guess I feel connected to others who have the exact same affection for the writer. It was this book that helped me stand back up and get back into the game with the Book A Week Challenge.

I’m twelve weeks behind but I am determined to not only finish this challenge but to push ahead and finish with more than fifty-two books by the end of the year. The challenge is hard some days, other days I’m blowing through 100+ pages easy; my goal is to keep my head down push forward.

Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged. – Abraham Lincoln

I’m currently participating in a self-challenge to read a book a week, inspired by Julien Smith who has completed this task many times before. This last month has killed me due to my house experiencing intense water damage, I haven’t been able to keep up. But this last week I picked up the “Complete Writings of Abraham Lincoln” which is interesting from a historical, public speaking, thinking, and writing perspective.

As this quote was referring to the presidential election I thought he makes a great point about detractors, people will always choose sides, whether it is for public policy, charities, blog posts, and twitter updates. As many begin blogging they seek to please everyone but as they quickly find out, there is simply no way for you to please everyone at the same time. Though many will find this as a limitation to what they can do and how they will present their thoughts; to me, it is liberating. Understanding that human nature will always exist, meaning there will always be people who have strong or weak opinions for your argument or against it. Knowing that allows you the freedom to push forward without censoring yourself for the sake of what a detractor might think.

The other aspect of this quote that stuck with me is that it would seem that Abraham Lincoln didn’t simply ignore the detractors yet he gathered all comments, concerns, and passions, weighing them against his own thoughts. He instead of writing follow-up letters or speeches to address the detractors he would learn from everyone’s opinions and actions.

In business, any time we take a stand for or against a mindset we will find some who for no apparent reason seek to correct us according to their standard of thinking. We must not wavier only to seek approval of our detractors because we will never satisfy everyone’s cognitive standards. However, we should never be too proud to think that our philosophy and actions are the only correct ones to be made or assumed.

Business is an ever-changing target, so to assume that we have arrived at final set of standards is not only ignorant but precarious. Let us therefore study our detractors to learn wisdom from them for every perceived correct ideology is another persons perceived flawed ideology. To disagree is human nature, let us not get caught up in the argument without balanced objectivity.

What does rice have to do with the social web? When you look at rice, there are many different types of rice and different ways to cook it, all yielding varied results. There’s rice for a quick meal, rice for sushi, rice for risotto, rice for healthier conscious (brown rice). You can have rice as a side dish or you can have rice as the main course, you can even have rice as a dessert. So how does this compare to the social web?

Too often we become consumed with one platform or medium that best suits ourselves. We begin to gravitate towards what’s easiest and where our friends are. This makes us feel most comfortable. But remember, there are friends and then they are clients. (It’s not every day that they can be both. Thankfully, one of the best aspects of the social web is uniting friends and clients as one. This type of unification is great but often comes with its own complications.)

With rice before we start cooking we decide whether it will be a side dish, main course, or dessert. Then we decide how much time we want to invest, the time invested will often be weighed against who we will be entertaining that evening. If they are important to us then we might invest more time for a more impressive, tasty rice dish or course. However, if it’s just the family, the standard quick rice will do, satisfying the need without too much time invest. We know these things instinctively, without training, without cooking prowess, we know and understand what we can do and what we will need to make it happen.

Why then do we ignore this type of innate knowledge and processing skills when it comes to the social web? We will waste time, energy, and money into fruitless social endeavors that will not yield the desired results while conversely we will hardly attempt other platforms or networks because we don’t think we need to impress anyone over there.

If we take our rice skills and apply them to the social web we might be able to make better business decisions about our time and money spent. How much should we invest to impress a potential client? How will we fill the needs of current clients without abandoning them for new clients? How can we make long-term clients feel special and exclusive on the social web? All of these are important questions that should be asked every day of ourselves and our marketing messages as we communicate through the social web.

How are you cooking your marketing messages? Which one is right? What do you think?

Photo Credit: Abstract Gourmet

Sometimes our desks can get a bit out of control and then sometimes our desks can begin to take over our workplace. David Allen, bestselling author of Getting Things Done, talks about keeping your desk in order. This is where I find our inspiration for this post. Our desk can slowly creep their way towards an unruly mess, it starts with a stack a papers, some post-it notes, stack of folders, coffee cup, cup from lunch yesterday; to say the least it’s easy for our desks to get carried away.

To read the rest of the article please check it out at My Office Today, leave a comment there and let me know what you think. Your awesome!!

I was reading Thinkertoys by Michael Michalko and there is an exercise about finding inspiration. He says that everyone should have a personal Hall of Fame that exhibits people who inspire you in. Just like any good Hall of Fame it should be well-rounded, remember, inspiration isn’t just needed in one aspect of your work. So I’ve been compiling a list of people that inspire me in multiple areas. While compiling this list you should note that you should have something from those people that you can read or watch that will inspire you. This is the important part, if you write, read what others wrote, if you film, watch what others filmed. Having a go-to list of inspiration before you are needing it is being properly prepared.

“Chance favors the prepared mind.” – Louis Pasteur, 1854

Who is in your Hall of Fame?

I’ve been writing quite a bit for clients but have had writers block for my personal writings for a while now. So I sat down and just began typing, it’s not much, it doesn’t match the usual content of my blog. As small of a step it is, it’s a step forward. Enjoy and as always feel free to comment or tell me how you break writers block.

There are times in my life where my world slows as I commit the most simplistic action like setting my keys down when I walk in the door from a long day. As I pause, my mind focuses and aligns my priorities, flashes of those who are most important. It’s inside those moments, those tiny shreds of time that stretch for what seems like minutes that I find peace. It’s those moments where I can replay my favorite times with those whom I love. In that rigid gap of time I am reminded that no matter how long or hard of a day I have, there are those who will always stand beside me, regardless of position, because they love me. It’s in those moments where I picture my wife, how lovely and happy. Someone who can make me laugh even when life seems unfair and arduous. Those moments surround me, I appreciate those moments. It’s there that the day’s worries and burdens and obligations fall off my shoulders, freeing me.

Consciously, I know this won’t last forever or even more than a second but as time slows, actions and colors blur, creating for a moment the best place I’ve been all day. How selfish I wish it could last longer but accountability is staring me in the face recalling my obligations, telling me it’s time to move on. Time relinquishes to the commitments of the day and as quickly as it began it vanishes leaving me only with appreciation. Appreciation for the sweet, precious time I have with those I love. Time is my friend and my enemy. It gives me youth, it brings me old age. Time grants me hope, it befalls disappointment. Time inspires creativity and builds barriers. Time paints words, it blotches words. And now that is what I am without.

This was originally posted at Coffee House Ideas where I write about this stuff but I know you guys would appreciate me sharing something since it’s been so long. Enjoy.

With the mass of social networking tools and marketing gimmicks it’s no wonder that people continue to tune out marketers messages.

It seems that everyday that spammers, scammers, and low-lifes are vying for you attention, your misdirection, and naivety. These marketers are always attempting to trick you into clicking and buying their piles of worthless subscriptions or product. However, it’s not just the slimy marketers that are attempting to maneuver you into their sales funnel. Many, many upstanding companies use these marketing techniques to ruse you and many other companies into buying their product or service. It’s amazing that no matter how many times you are presented with these tricks of the trade we all say, “Who would do that, don’t they know it rarely works?” However, marketing tactics, strategies, and campaigns wouldn’t continue on with shadiness if they didn’t work. But just because they work doesn’t mean it’s right or truly effective in the long run. Just because you gain customers due to a campaign that tricks people doesn’t mean that they are happy or that they will continue to be a customer. With this type of marketing you’ll find that your attrition rate will always continue to rise no matter how many people are schemed into buying your crap.

Too many times people want to categorize what is shady, what is slimy, what is ineffective; they list rules, guidelines, manifestos and claim this will fix the problem. The problem isn’t that we all ignore the rules, it’s that we aren’t relating enough, we aren’t reaching out with genuine concern for our potential clients. It’s seems all too easy for this to be the fix, for this to be the answer to this epic problem of people increasingly ignoring the messages of marketers. I’m not saying that knowing this and practicing this is simple or easy to scale but it is a much better approach that helps customers become loyal fans not because they just buy the product or service but because they love the people behind it and that’s why they stay and hand over their money.

Often, marketers feel that it’s all about giving away free samples or some type of value based freebie which lures them in. How many times has that ever worked out for both parities in the long run? Most of the time the potential customer takes the free product, not because they necessarily saw value or quality, they saw free and that’s what drew them. I’m in no way worthy to speak on the subject of business and the basics of how businesses work and succeed but I’m pretty sure that at some point in a businesses life it must actually sell something to make money. I’ve always thought that how the economy of business works, you have a product or service and you want to sell it to me who obviously needs it and in turn I give you money. But with so many online properties (businesses) giving away free crap they begin to cheapen the customers that they might have had if they had only taken the time to relate and reach out to them rather than con them into using their free sample. Now I’m not saying that giving away free samples is wrong or incorrect but you know what I’m talking about. Those gimmicks that say you can win money if you tell the company how much you love them or tell five other people and you’ll get free product. Those gimmicks and the like are the ones that bring down the entire industry of marketing.

It’s amazing how many marketers are solely interested in moving the needle purely based on the now, how well the trick worked, basically. They aren’t measuring the customer sentiment from beginning to post-purchase. And if they are, it seems only to validate that the scheme worked today and it was successful and that they should dump more money into that avenue. At some point though for marketers, there has to be a line drawn in the sand with those who give a shit about their customers and those who don’t. If we lead with how our customers feel about us when we do this, then I think we can eliminate many foils that might reach our brain as an amazing trick that will convert millions of dumb, sheep-like people into purchasing machines.

So I know that right now you’re asking who are you to tell me how to market and how not to market. And I know you’re totally asking yourself who they hell is the design company think they are by telling marketers how to “truly” do it right. First, by no means are we saying our methodology or approach is the only one or that it will make millions with the click of a button. Second, we aren’t marketers, we are designers who understand people and since we get projects from a lot of marketers. We have designed a lot of stuff that has worked well, and we have had a lot more that have not. Now one might suggest that it isn’t the message but it is the designer, sure, you might be right on a few projects. But we have found that when we have suggested new options to our clients and they embrace them and worked together to make it hit the right corporate marks, that’s when we found that there was something more than a witty, flashy, exhilarating design or well-planned marketing trick. That’s when we knew there was more to this marketing arena than just stupid advertising banners, websites, giveaways, and email newsletter asylum.

There is a better way to communicate with customers and it has nothing to do with what platform you use, what cool presentation or call to action you show them.

It’s called being human.

[The following is a journal entry of mine but felt it was worth typing up and sharing. Enjoy!]

Life is always spinning, flipping, changing, and reinventing itself. To wake up and say my life is the same as yesterday is futile. Lately my seemingly repetitive life has been constantly challenging me, pushing me further into a place of change. Just when I think I have my grasp on what life should be, how it should be lived, I find myself reconsidering my very worth.

Somehow life is always cared for, not to say it’s not difficult but in the midst of my darkest day there is always light leading me down a path. A path that is so unfamiliar and unwieldy but in some strange way comforting.

Of all the ridiculous things that have crowded my mental landscape, the only thing that continually brings things into focus is love. The love of your other half, the love of your friends, the love of your family. All of them make the trail of life less taxing. One thing that I have learned is a simple yet powerful aspect of business that many overlook: speaking with their customers. Lately, we’ve engaged in conversations about our clients’ products, the struggle of cancer, the times we laugh at ourselves, the times we’re happy children are in our lives, and the times when someone passes on. This path and experience has been fruitful and worthy of my time.

The one and only trick to marketing that I know is to be human. Laugh. Cry. Shout. Whisper. Agree. Argue. It is the compassion from our loved ones that help us remember how to be human. Don’t miss these aspects of life. It’s what defines us! The moment we lose our human aspect or stop feeling is the moment we lose our humanity.

We all desire to communicated to in truth, loyalty, compassion, and friendship.

When we reach out, it is incredibly vulnerable, scary, and sometimes risky, but when someone reaches back to you, that is when it becomes worth every moment of vulnerability. Dare to human, dare to be transparent, dare to embrace your customers. You might find yourself surprised by the results.