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In this hyper-connected era in which we live, how do you reduce the static? Do you ever feel that there is so much static, or stimuli, in your environment, you’re going around in so many directions that you might just run into yourself!

I’m with you. I love that I’m into so many various things; it’s one way that helps me expend the energy and passion that I have for life. I’m reading a lot of books, which are inspiring me in different ways. Managing community is on my mind. I’m looking for work. And there’s everything that goes with family.

July and August are often times when people go on vacation to rest, rejuvenate, and re-create.

I’m looking forward to spending some time in the next several days to do some of this.

What about you? How do you go about reducing the static?

Forest Fair/Cincinnati Mills/Cincinnati Mall via labelscar.com

This afternoon my family and I went to the Danbarry Dollar Saver Cinema at Cincinnati Mall to see the movie Thor.  We thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but our enthusiasm was a bit tempered as we walked through the mall to get to the cinema.

It felt like a ghost town.

Granted, this was on a Tuesday afternoon and not a Saturday afternoon. Even still, I was struck by all the vacant stores and lack of foot traffic.

I remember when this mall first opened as Forest Fair Mall back in the 80s when I was in high school. It was a hopping place! The food court was packed, and there were stores all over the place. Even just six years ago when we moved back to Cincinnati from Dayton, it was still pretty busy.

Now it’s so quiet. Malls still seem to be the hangout spot for kids, but definitely not as much as they used to be.

We’re doing less shopping at malls and more online, and this isn’t all a bad thing.

What are some opportunities this situation presents itself? Here are a few ideas:

• Movie set. Cincinnati Mall reminded me of a vacant movie set. Why not fill it with some extras and bring in the action?
• Educational institution. What if it was converted to an educational campus? You got the centralized food court and ancillary wings. It could get converted into a learning facility.
• Community center/Temporary or permanent housing. In some ways a mall this big seems like its own city or community. Perhaps there’s an opportunity to make it something like that.

As our culture continues to move away from brick-and-mortar commercial facilities, we need to look for other uses for the malls and outlet stores that are becoming vacant.

What are some of your ideas?

Some might say that working in the soundbooth at church has ruined the way I look at movies, TV programs, and any other productions. I never realized how much goes on behind the scenes at church until Chuck, my friend and brother in Christ, invited me to start working with him back in the A/V room at church. I hadn’t noticed lighting changes with scenes, for example. I had never worked with ANY mixing board before, much less the 40-track one we have. MediaSHOUT, the system we use to send content through the projector and mixing board was just as daunting.

In 2006 I had been creating content through my own podcasts and blogs, and Chuck was well aware of it. In September 2005, after podcasting for less than a month, I recorded and produced audio from a domestic violence awareness walk we participated in. Ever have one of those projects you’ve worked on that you felt just had to be told?  Chuck heard this episode and complimented me on it. He said it reminded him of something he might hear on NPR. You can judge for yourself The Cheryl Dawson Memorial Walkathon.

I’ve been spending time in this specific behind the scenes environment for five years now, but for as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by what it takes to tell great stories that resonate with others.

You might say it’s ruined my DVD watching. Well, not my DVD watching. I put the disc in and immediately go to the Special Features so that I can see the “making of” featurette. My family, on the other hand, would much rather I just play the film. Or I’ll look up the Trivia page for it on IMDB.com and share it with my wife, who then says, “Can’t we just watch the movie?”

Seeing how others create inspires me to create more myself.

Can you relate?

This post was written entirely on my Droid phone. Another experiment in content creation!

… they buy WHY you do it.

That’s one of the main points I’m getting as I’ve started reading Simon Sinek’s book Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action.

Most businesses, organizations, and people start with WHAT they do, then they *might* get to HOW they do it, but few really can communicate WHY they do it.

Sinek says that many businesses have no idea why their customers are their customers and why their employees are their employees. There are two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or inspire it.

The transactional mindset of manipulations include the following: “dropping price; running a promotion; using fear, peer pressure or aspirational messages, and promising innovation to influence behavior – be it a purchase, a vote, or support” (p. 17).

These manipulations are not necessarily bad, as long as you understand they only work for the short-term, though. For example, while shopping, if I’m in transaction mode, all things considered, I’ll probably look at price. Then I may think about quality.

The other, more effective way, Simon argues, is to inspire behavior by starting with WHY.

What makes you different?

One challenge that we as individuals or businesses have is how we differentiate ourselves from others. Seth Godin wrote about this years ago in his book Purple Cow and last year in “Linchpin” (video review here).

What makes one .NET programmer different from another?
What makes one customer service representative different from another?
What makes one marketer different from another?

How can someone in a job search effectively communicate this difference? People don’t buy WHAT you do. They buy WHY you do it.

Back to Calling

Simon’s points here echo what Dan Miller talks about in “No More Mondays” with respect to job, career, and vocation. Vocation correlates to WHY you do what you do. Career can correlate to HOW you fulfill that calling (the root word for vocation means “to call out”).  A job could be WHAT you do.

It’s worth repeating:

VOCATION connects to WHY
CAREER connects to HOW
JOB connects to WHAT

At any professional gathering, someone asks, “WHAT do you do?” The response is typically what our current job is with an employer. Rarely do we mention WHY.

Check out Simon’s TED talk. (Click here to watch the embedded video.)

Some links above go to affiliate links. If you like what you’ve read here, please use them when you decide to purchase.

I can’t remember exactly what year it was; in many ways, it seemed like it was last week. The crowd was… a mixture of people. I may have been the only one who got to see all of the sessions. The best thing about it was that it was FREE. It’s the Pixelated conference, or, as others have called it… Conference in a Box. Some of these are organized around a theme. The ones I attended relate to communication and telling interesting, compelling stories.

And it’s free for you, too. You see, this particular conference is being held online. RIGHT NOW. In this blog post. Grab some popcorn, sharpen your pencils, and get ready to learn!

Garr Reynolds, presentation expert, shares his experience and perspective on changing the way presentations are done.

Next up is Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world (20:03)

This session is one that convinced me to look at gaming differently. And why I jumped into my first MMORPG, StarCraft 2.

Seth Priebatsch: The game layer on top of the world (12:23)

I’ve been fascinated by the stories that data can tell. Hans Rosling is one reason why: Hans Rosling shows you the best stats you’ve ever seen (19:54)

Finally, behavioral economist Dan Ariely asks “Are we in control of our own decisions?” (17:23).

It was a great conference. What would you like to see in the next series? Want to create your own? Chris Brogan has some ideas.

Related articles

• No one makes data sing like Hans Rosling (alliancepayroll.wordpress.com)
• Pixelated – Your New Business Conference Starts Online (twistimage.com)
• Marketing Conference in a Box (marketingovercoffee.com)
• The Concert That Changed My Life (matthewebel.com)

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day to ya! I’ve been thinking about today’s post for many weeks now, as I’ve had reminders going off in my Google Calendar and noticed the upcoming draft post in the Editorial Calendar here on this blog.

Luck is a tricky thing to consider. It seems random, as though the luck came out of nowhere, honoring its recipient with fortune.

No, I don’t believe in leprechauns. I don’t believe the Irish are more lucky than anyone else.

Let me leave you with some quotations that have piqued my thinking about this recently. Most of them come from my latest favorite book for 2011, Dan Miller‘s “No More Mondays” (affiliate link):

• “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” — Seneca, via The Quotations Page
• “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” — Alan Kay, via No More Mondays p. 216
• “We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.” — Eric Hoffer, via No More Mondays, p. 225
• “The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.” — Benjamin Disraeli, via No More Mondays, p. 240

Related articles

• How to Get to Genius (jamesthornton.com)
• Who Are The Experts? (socialmediaexplorer.com)
• Leprechaun Luck (idontknowaboutyoubut.wordpress.com)
• Irish Blessings to all! (swoolard79.wordpress.com)
• Made in America: St. Patrick’s Day (orangemous.wordpress.com)

Imagine if you woke up one morning, and your hearing was gone. Would you be able to listen with your eyes and other senses?

Learn To Read People

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with how we communicate. It probably goes back to my time an awkward, insecure kid, looking for as many ways I could relate and understand people better. At a book fair in fifth grade, for example, I got a book about handwriting analysis; i.e., what our handwriting tells us about ourselves.  In junior high school, I read a book called Face Language, which talked about how you can discern things from people from their faces. There was another book, I think, called Body Language.  Suffice it to say, I’ve been a lifelong student of reading people. I’m still learning.

Listen With Your Eyes

Have you ever heard of method acting? Many actors, in preparing for a role, do things to put themselves in situations like the characters they are portraying. Francis Ford Coppola wanted Matt Dillon to understand what life in jail was like. To help prepare him for his role as “Dallas” in “The Outsiders“, Coppola had him spend the night in jail.

This past Saturday, my family and I went to the “All About Deaf Kids Fair” at Cincinnati Christian University, put on by the Deaf Institute, and it was a great time.  The theme was how we communicate in ways that are not just with our ears. They even had earplugs that us hearing people could wear to force us to “hear” with our eyes more.

I put my earplugs in and was immediately struck by how attenuated the sound in the building was. I noticed I worked to read lips more. I paid attention to body language, much of which was sign language.  I used sign language as well to communicate with others. I found myself reading more. And watching more. People were painting, and others were watching stories told through sign language.

How Many Ways Do We Communicate?

Yet another booth was about adaptive technology for the deaf and hard of hearing.  Our hard of hearing daughter, for example, doesn’t hear a regular alarm go off.  The woman at this booth had written out a diagram about all the ways that she communicates.  She also demonstrated a portable alarm clock she puts under her mattress or pillow, and when it goes off, it vibrates like crazy. She had a smoke detector that connects to another vibrating alarm clock that also flashes the lights in her home. I believe she mentioned that her doorbell is set up with this as well.

How well do you listen without your eyes?

Related articles

• Funds help deaf react to alarms, doorbells (dispatch.com)
• Listening Skills in Business (thinkup.waldenu.edu)
• Language in another form (nosparoles.wordpress.com)

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Organizing New Media Cincinnati events has been something that I’ve grown into, ever since the very first one in October 2007. I sincerely appreciate the NMC Steering Committee members who have been volunteering their time to help make New Media Cincinnati the best version of itself in the area that it can be, and I hope the community can feel their influence and impact.

Back in 2007, these events initially were extremely informal meetups where we’d let people know we were meeting and would see who’d show up. Eventually, we began having more structure around a certain topic, and it gave me a chance to explore different sorts of events. Some of these were conducted well, and these were certainly some great learning experiences.

I’ve been thinking about different types of events I’d somehow like to be involved in, whether organizing, running, or just participating.

5-Minute ‘JOLTS’

In March 2009 I opened it up to the New Media Cincinnati community, looking for five people who wanted to talk about something they were passionate about. I vividly remember back then, when I was doing everything: emceeing, recording, live streaming, etc. I really enjoyed this type of event because not only was it a great opportunity for more people to share from their areas of expertise, but also it provided more variety than one person talking about a single topic.  I also recorded them and posted them to the New Media Cincinnati website.

Pecha Kucha

Similarly, in November 2008, we tried out Pecha Kucha (20×20: 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide), in which three of us, Angelo Mandato, Brian Monahan, and myself, each gave 6:20 presentations about something we were passionate about.

CreatorCamp

I first heard about CreatorCamp from Bob Goyetche and Mark Blevis on the Canadian Podcast Buffet podcast.  Although I’ve never met Mark and Bob in-person, I’ve learned a lot from their community-building expertise over the years. Bob mentioned that he’s become weary of the marketing-heaviness that many of the social networking events have been. He put forth the idea of just coming to an event to create something. Mark took his idea and set up the CreatorCamp.org website, which includes a free e-book based on the learnings they had from the first CreatorCamp Ottawa.

Again, the idea is that the event is organized around creating. What can we as a group create during our time together? Whom could we invite to demonstrate something creatively and give us insight into their creative process?

In early 2008 I invited Cliff Ravenscraft to show us how he produces his podcasts, and he brought his portable recording system to the Panera in Tri-County, where we’d met. Cliff gave each of us an opportunity to say something as he recorded us and then released it as an episode of his Podcast Answer Man series.

Roundtable

Organize people into tables and give them different topics to discuss for about 15 minutes. Then a representative from each table would report on the discussion to the entire group. We did something like this in 2009.

A similar, but different approach: set up sections of the meeting space where people have already agreed to be the Champions of discussions about different topics, and let people choose for themselves where they want to go, À la Podcamp‘s “Law of Two Feet”. The Law of Two Feet, you might recall, means that if you’re not getting something from a session or discussion, you’re free to go find and/or create a discussion of your own.  A big thing we learned about doing this in 2009 was that we need to have a Champion to be responsible for keeping the discussion “on track”.

What ideas for events would you like to organize, help run, and/or participate in?

Related articles

• Three words for 2011 (danieljohnsonjr.com)
• YES!! A Cincinnati area networking events calendar! (newmediacincinnati.com)
• Duke Center woos meeting planners this week (news.cincinnati.com)
• 192 Podcast Answer Man – Podcasting While Driving – Can You Give Away Too Much For Free? – And A WHOLE LOT More! (podcastanswerman.com)
• HR Becoming Social…My Pecha Kucha (thehrjuggler.wordpress.com)

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Sometimes when I look at a problem, I might see many paths and be able to pick the right one. Many times, I look at all the options and decide to just pick one and move forward, learning as I go. My friend Jon Swanson has felt the same way.

I consider my work in social media much of learning by doing, as I go. The process isn’t always pretty. I step on toes. I sometimes don’t know everything that I’m talking about and need to correct.

That’s part of my commitment with what I produce on this blog this year; I’m going to ship. I’m looking at what I write as works in progress. Maybe what I’ll share is a complete thought; maybe it won’t be.

I have noticed, over the past nine years, that the more I blog, the easier it is to see trends and patterns emerging and how to act upon them.

My process ain’t always pretty, but it gets the job done.

Some business decisions need to be made like this, too.

Learn as you go. Tweak as needed. Learn from mistakes. Keep on going.

That sort of thing.

Let the journey continue…

UPDATE: My friend Christopher Penn wrote a great post that talks about how most of the lessons he’s had to learn or teach himself were not explicit lessons through handy worksheets and structured exams. Check it out.

Possible related articles

• How Social Media Can Get You a Job (socialmediatoday.com)
• imabonehead: A Brief Guide to Learning Faster (and Better) ” Scott H Young (scotthyoung.com)
• I hate communication. (levite.wordpress.com)

At the beginning of the year, I realized I needed a better way to manage my time and projects I’ve been working on. While I’m not patient enough to learn the system found in Getting Things Done (affiliate link), you might be.

Through some searching on YouTube, though, I found a resource I found was this video from the guys at Internet Business Mastery, talking about how they work the GTD process with mind mapping.

Watch the video on the website.

I’ve since downloaded and have been using FreeMind for my own projects. My system still needs tweaking, but it’s been very helpful in getting a 90,000-foot view of what I have going on.

Have you tried anything like this?

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• Five Ways to Use Mind-Mapping Tools in the Newsroom (pbs.org)
• Beyond CliffsNotes: 100 Free & Useful Tools for When Time’s Running Out (onlinecollege.org)