Posted on August 8, 2012
“How can I keep up with social? Why should I care.” I have this conversation weekly with very smart people, who are still stumped by the social media phenom in our culture. They feel a strong sense of urgency if they aren’t fishing in the social stream, but at the same time, it feels like …
Posted on August 1, 2012
For the last few weeks, bloggers have been ripping one on the Peacock’s Olympic coverage. The blogosphere (no link provided) focuses on NBC’s greed (saving the good stuff until Prime Time) and coverage’s irrelevance since Yahoo or CNN is happy to tell us what happened in advance. The drum beat, this time around, is as …
Posted on July 26, 2012
In our lives, we get feedback from others. Positive, negative and befuddling. It’s too easy to let that feedback become part of our self-image, personally or even as an organization. That’s a huge mistake, because often, feedback/criticism/stereotyping is just one glimpse into the fabric of who/what you are. It’s just an opinion. One of my …
Posted on July 20, 2012
Last week I was 10 minutes late for an important meeting across town. Rather than offering up an explanation (LA traffic), I simply said, "I'm sorry for being late." Then, watching the time, I finished up the meeting on time. While many might think that the explanation excuse is helpful, it's actually a waste of …
Posted on July 17, 2012
Yesterday, just before I took the stage at the CEMA annual conference, I got the news. Dr. Stephen Covey Sr. had passed away at the age of 79. It devastated me. Over the last 15 years, he’s done so much for me, it’s hard to put my gratitude for him into words. We shared the …
Posted on July 9, 2012
Much of my business advice involves the following: Show up! If we can focus our attention on the others we are meeting with, much more can be accomplished. That’s why I like to turn my smart phone to non-vibrate silent when I’m having meetings. I don’t want to know about the outside world, because it …
Posted on June 26, 2012
If you lose readership of your email, your influence wanes at work. If you misuse it enough, you’ll turn partners into detractors. If you mismanage it as a resource, you’ll force everyone to do more work and they’ll despise you for it. To quote TechStars grad and Vanilla founder Mark Sullivan, “Don’t suck at email.” …
Posted on June 19, 2012
Last night I gave a talk to a group of donors about generosity. The point of the talk was that giving is an area of excellence in our life, just like any other activity. Some people are great givers, and others are sporadic to innapropriate. It’s critical that we approach giving with a Good-2-Great …
Posted on June 13, 2012
Gotye’s smash hit, “Somebody That I Used To Know” is everywhere I go. Jacqueline introduced it to me months ago, when its stunning video made it’s way around the web, and I knew it was going to be the song-of-the-year. At this point, you might be getting tired of it, like you did with James …
Posted on June 4, 2012
Great networkers are givers, not takers. That’s a key insight to mastering the art of connection. Too often, when we think we are ‘networking’, we are actually trolling for assistance in one of our ventures. We are screening people to see if they have use to us, and if we might possess currency we can …
