“My friends, family and acquaintances are all on Facebook, where they add up to a bustling community I enjoy being part of. More than any particular feature that Mark Zuckerberg and company have cooked up, it’s the people in my life that make Facebook, well, Facebook.

Over on Google+, I find some worthwhile material to peruse, but in far smaller quantities. The smattering of people I encounter hardly replicates my real-world social connections. The conversations are less warm, personal and interesting. As a social experience, it often feels perfunctory.”

This post by Harry McCracken about the differences between Facebook and Google+ made me realise once again that the Internet is all about energy. Finding energy and sharing energy. Finding smart people whose conversations increase your energy and hopefully sharing your energy with others to help them do more, understand more, appreciate more, love more.

Life is too short for perfunctory exchanges. It is too short to spend time, and energy, where you think you should be spending it. Spend it where it makes you feel more alive.

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I love the ability the Internet has given us to share what we think with others around the world or around our organisation. Yet you would be amazed how often I get the reaction “Most people don’t want to have to think too much, especially at work”.

While walking the streets of Warsaw last week, learning of the four years of suffering it took before the Jews rose up against the Nazis, I realised that most people would have convinced themselves that things couldn’t be as bad as they seemed; that if they just did what they were told and kept their heads down then they and their families would be safe. 

In Saudi Arabia earlier that same week, looking out on an audience in which the women were separated by the men with a screen, and for which the organisers had to have a special mixed audience licence, most people went along with the rules, covered their heads, sat separately from each other – despite many of them not sharing the fundamental beliefs of their rulers. 

Most people want to be safe, most people want to care for their loved ones, most people don’t want to think too hard if it gets them into trouble. 

What would I have done in Nazi occupied Poland? What would I do if I had been born in Saudi Arabia?

Am I like most people?

Are you?

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ONE: 24-7-30

After meeting someone for the first time you need to follow up quickly and consistently to embed yourself in their memory.

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I recently asked people on various social networks what topics they would like me to cover in this series. One of the most popular areas was who to approach at events, how to do so and how to get into groups. 

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I bought the first generation iPad as soon as it came out. Couldn’t wait to own one. But three years later I still don’t get it! 

My problem is not so much the old argument about the iPad being a consumption rather than a production device. There are so many really effective tools that you can use on an iPad these days to do really useful work. In fact it was various podcasters’ enthusiasm for those tools that made me go back and have a second try at using the iPad seriously. That and the fact that we are in need of moving tools around in the family again and I was interested to see if I could survive without my laptop. I can’t.

My MacBook air is just too useful. I have it tricked out with all sorts of app launchers, text expanders, macros, productivity apps, and other apps that make it much easier for me to get more done faster and better. The combination of the best computer I have ever owned and my iPhone 5 is still impossible to beat. In contrast using the iPad was, for me, like wading through treacle.

To say I don’t get it is perhaps unfair. I do get it, in the sense that it is an amazing device that is clearly useful to a lot of people. One day when I am feeling particularly flush I may get an iPad mini, but otherwise the iPad is not for me. 

Maybe if my only other experience of computing was a work PC…

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Your communications skills are what power your success, especially as you climb the ladder in your career. At every level, you will encounter two types of people. One type is people who take information in quickly, have the ability to process it, and take a decision quickly too. However, there is a second type who may take in information slow (or sometimes even fast too), but always think they need time to “sleep on it” until they feel comfortable making a decision.

It is very difficult to force the two step people to skip a step and take informaton in, process it, and decide in just one meeting. For the two step people, it is important to allow a little extra time for them to go through their comfortable two step process. It takes a little more upfront thinking on your part, and a little extra time; but isn´t your goal to get a decision!…and isn´t a little extra time then worth it?

The post One Step or Two Step People appeared first on Mark Fritz.

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One of the most important skills in trying to generate new referrals for your business or introductions for new jobs is to be able to equip your champions with the ability to get potential customers or employers  to want to talk to you. 

Many people focus on why they want to connect with their prospects. “Can you introduce me to xxx because I want to work for them?” The problem is that your prospects don’t care what you want, they care about their own needs, their own desires. 

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There are so many times when you don’t get the right help of others, and it is simply because you haven’t prepared them to help you. A great example of this is how you invite others to attend your meetings.

You know it for yourself, as you are invited to so many meetings with only the title for the meeting or an email saying “We need to discuss….”. When you get invited to meetings in this way, have others prepared you to provide you best contribution in the meeting? Probably not.

If they wanted you to be prepared to make the best contribution possible, then they would have provided you with more information or specifically commented on how your contribution is important to achieve the outcome of the meeting. Now, if they did either of those two things, you would be more prepared to provide your contribution to the meeting.

How well do you prepare others to help you?

The post Preparing Others to Help You appeared first on Mark Fritz.

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LinkedIn is potentially a very valuable resource for both individuals and companies. It allows users to tap into the combined knowledge of the community, find mutual contacts to introduce them to the people they want to meet and to build their profile and develop relationships with key influencers in both their own and their clients industries or in the fields in which they want to work.

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