Chris Perrin and I had a discussion about how your Productivity practice needs to include methods and tactics for managing interruptions.

Download the podcast

Some of the take-aways to listen for:

• Have a Twitter “protocol” – using Twitter as a communication tool or lead generating vehicle doesn’t need to take all day
• Manage your presence so you don’t lose track of time
• “Do” some of your Most Important Tasks before you even log on to Twitter
• Don’t be afraid to stay offline if you can do your work without it
• Thinking about e-mail and the importance of the subject line
• Set yourself up for success tomorrow, by being prepared today

As always I would love to hear your thoughts. You can listen to all of out podcasts on the Productivity Podcast Channel.

As a recent contributor to the Age of Conversation 2 “Why Don’t They Get It?”, I thought I would provide some little summaries of the the articles this remarkable book contains (You can order a copy of Age of Conversation 2 here, all proceeds go the the children’s charity Variety)

It’s Not Just Talk by Susan Willett Bird www.wf360.typepad.com

Susan Willett Bird writes about how the concept of “corporate communications” is over and done with, replaced with the new idea of genuine conversation. Susan makes many points including the fact that meetings should become open conversations in which every employee participates, encouraging original thought and the growth of new ideas.

I would love to hear your thoughts, please leave a comment.

Chris Perrin and I had a discussion about taking on new commitments, how and when to say ‘no’, and the opportunity costs of saying ‘yes’.

The podcast is about 28 minutes long, we would love to hear your thoughts on these subjects:

Saying “No” to New Commitments

Are there activities in your life that you wish you were doing but didn’t have time to do it? Time on projects that you want to do on but can’t? Time with friends or family? Time with yourself?

If this sentiment is strong with you, then you most likely are saying “yes” to too many commitments. Realize that when you say yes, you are saying “no” at the same time to all the other possibilities that were your options without realizing it.

When you say yes at work for a task, you are saying no to other tasks that may be more valuable to you and your company. When you say yes to working late, you are saying no to either your friends, family, or yourself for personal time. Since you’re already saying no to something all the time, the key is to learn when to say no.

There is an art to saying no… here are seven ways of saying no to a new commitment:

1.Be Honest: Typically this is the simplest and best approach. If they know the true reason why you aren’t saying yes, then they can judge whether to approach you for the next situation, which actually might be for a good opportunity where you would want to say yes to.

2.Refer to someone who can say yes: Point that person to a direction (another person, another approach) where they will have a better chance of finding a yes. If you are a person who can redirect someone to an effective alternative, you will still be considered valuable.

3.Letting the other person say no for you: Watch out for being passive-aggressive, but you can describe your situation. If you know that saying yes in this situation is saying no to a more important situation, then just present your case and let the other person say no for you.

4.Not now, but later: The word “maybe” is sometimes a good euphemism for “no.”

5.Circumstances: Sometimes it’s not a choice at all… you have prior commitments, or conflicts of interest, or whatever. Circumstances are saying no, not you. Make sure it’s legitimate though, since integrity is also important.

6.Be Polite: If none of the above options are viable, then a polite “no” should do the trick. You risk the chance of being perceived as an unhelpful person, but sometimes you simply have to politely say no without going through the messy details of the other approaches.

7.Be Blunt: This is the tactic against the persistent salesperson. Sometimes the emphatic “no” is the only “no” they’ll hear.

This post material originally shared by Al at 7P Productions at Productivity in Context.

Download the podcast

Please leave a comment.[podcast]http://stephenpsmith.com/downloads/saying-no-podcast.mp3[/podcast]

They seem to think so over at HubSpot: Why Twitter Hashtags and Trending Topics Are Useless to Marketers by Dan Zarrella:

Why Hashtags Are Useless

Many marketers think of hashtags first when they think about “going viral” on Twitter.

A hashtag is a word or string of characters that starts with a number sign [like #tcot or #gtd, Ed.]. When a hashtag appears in a tweet, it links that word to its Twitter Search results page.

That’s initially pretty appealing from a marketing perspective, but there’s a problem: Twitter Search doesn’t explain what the hashtag means.

Unless you’re already involved in the conversation, the Twitter search results page is usually useless — so useless that you often see Twitterers asking “What the heck is #suchandsuch? And why is it a trending topic?”

There are a couple of ways to read this, and a comment by Christopher Drinkut gets right to it:

” hashtags are pointless,” Oh really?

Look, I’m not in love with hastags – I really could care less – but to say they are pointless, that’s insane.

1. One reason they are not pointless is that people use them. If you want to talk about the culture of a community hashtags matter.

2. If your logic is – “hashtags are pointless because I can’t leverage them for my own marketing” – you need to reevaluate. Marketing in the future (and today) requires a lot more consideration of the marketed to.

3. Why am I even writing all of this? …So it’s not something you are going to use – I wouldn’t necessarily call it pointless.

hashtags are pointless because I can’t leverage them for my own marketing

I believe that this statement is the sum of the argument that Dan Zarrella is making. Unfortunately Zarella is missing the point of the hashtags – creating a link to a set of related tweets by people who may or may not be following each other. This makes the hashtag a fantastic resource for marketers doing research on a topic or product. Take a look at “#Quiznos” for example, quite a bit of conversation where people are taking the time to tag their tweets with that particular hashtag.

If I worked for Quiznos I would be keeping an eye on that search stream and using that list of customers to make something happen. Like following those folks, for one thing. And doing a little more digging into this tweet for another:

What kind of marketer could resist knowing about what came before and after this tweet? And you can just go ask him. Useless?

Did You Etsy Today?

And then we have this from the WSJ on Friday, 24 April:

How #etsyday Grew on Twitter

Image: schugirl08 via Flickr

Internet companies shell out millions to build buzz by buying keywords on Google or (back in the day) placing weird 30-second ads during the Superbowl. On Friday, e-commerce site Etsy.com – the eBay of handmade crafts – got a huge dose of buzz for free.

For much of the day, #etsyday has been the top-trending topic on Twitter, the social short-messaging juggernaut. The mysterious term refers to a day to celebrate the online store Etsy.

Etsy spokesman Adam Brown says his company had little to do with it. The idea for Etsyday came from Susan Schumann, a 37-year-old teacher and photographer in Newport, Rhode Island. She started selling prints of photos from her Peru vacation on the site in February, but was surprised that many of her friends hadn’t heard of the site. So she posted a message on Etsy’s user message boards suggesting that the community of users do some grassroots marketing of their own.

As of this writing it is too soon to tell what impact this may have had on sales at Etsy.com, but judging from tweets and comments on the blog, it has people pretty excited:

and:

“Endless Possibilities in Vinyl Lettering Design”?? How about endless possibilities in cross-linking and free promotion?
Keep in mind that you simply cannot buy that kind of excitement. And it’s all because of a “useless” little hashtag.

What say you? Leave a comment.

My friend Robert Hruzek has a guest post at the SOBCon blog:

[Note from the Proprietor: The basis for this post comes from an – well, let’s call it an “incident”, shall we? – that happened last year at SOBCon08 in Chicago. Unlike your typical episode of Dragnet, however, names have NOT been changed to protect the innocent because – hey, let’s face it – there ARE no innocents here!]

All right y’all; I have what is (or if it ain’t then it should be) the Question Of The Ages: Is there, in fact, a “wrong” way to eat pizza?

The reason the question comes up at all is because of a little-known incident that happened at last year’s SOBCon08.

Read more –>

I have a post up at the SOBCon Blog with a fun exercise for you to do:

Can you come up with illustrative ways to describe it’s value without resorting to the lingo and buzzwords we’ve already beat to death?

One of the powerful elements of social media has been that it strips away many of the artificial trappings that have weighed down marketing and communications for decades.

We got mired in our lingo quicksand in that traditional, push communications world. We got lost talking about brand attributes and key messages and talking points and brand promises and all those terms, and we forgot what they meant. We lived and died by our contrived, scripted fallbacks, and often propped up buzzwords in place of real strategy and action. [Emphasis mine, Ed.]

Read more –>

SOBCon is a unique group of Successful and Outstanding Bloggers who work together, think together, and help each other move forward in what they do.

Every year we meet in Chicago to swap strategies and stories of what works for our blogs and our businesses on the Internet and on the ground. Every day we meet via text, telephone, and in person to work together whenever we can.

There’s only one rule: BE NICE.

This year we have some very cool benefits for all attendees:

Take Home Bags

You can add something to the attendee’s SOBCon09 Biz School for Bloggers take home bags. Bring your items with you to the conference.

This can include any swag, brochure, books, etc that you would like to distribute to attendees!

Pre-Conference Steps:

1. Register
2. Tag your Badge
3. Update SOBCon Wiki (under headline “Add Your Info Here”)

Optional Tips:

* Follow other attendees on Twitter. Twitter id’s are in the SOBCon wiki and begin with the @ sign.

* Familiarize yourself with fellow attendees basic information. In most attendees Twitter bio is their name, location, website link, and a mini-bio.

* Checkout other attendee’s websites (Most have links in their Twitter bio). You can get to know someone fairly well by visiting their website, especially if they have an ‘About’ page.

* If you begin following them on Twitter, take an opportunity to introduce yourself (you might also mention your attending SOBCon).

* Checkout the SOBCon website. Familiarize yourself with the complete SOBCon09 Biz School for Bloggers Program Schedule. Note the ‘Show the Sponsors’ Challenge on Sunday morning – sounds so fun! Familiarize yourself with the sponsors name and business beforehand.

* Learn about the presenters. They each have their area of expertise so think about in advance what you may be able to learn from them, write down specific questions in a notebook, and think about how you may be able to apply what you hear to your business or organization.

* Listen to some SOBCon Blog Talk Radio interviews. Interviews conducted by SOBCon’s Michelle Vandepas with guests:

• Chris Brogan,
• Jon Gatrell,
• GeekMommy (Lucretia Pruitt),
• Becky McCray,
• Chris Garrett,
• Richard Reeve,
• Dawud Miracle,
• Easton Ellsworth,
• Denise Wakeman,
• Chris Cree,
• David Bullock,
• Thomas Clifford,
• Liz Strauss,
• John Haydon,
• Terry Starbucker,
• Vicky Hennegan and
• Grant Griffiths.

You can subscribe via iTunes and download directly to your iPod or iPhone! (Use the BTR widget on the right side of the SOBCon BTR website, choose ‘itunes’) RSS is also available. Many thanks to our SOBCon BTR Hostess, Michelle Vandepas!

* Tell others to come, there’s still time to register! This is an essential conference for anyone who wants to learn about Social Media, blogging, and building your business presence online.

UPDATE: Welcome Michelle Malkin readers. I don’t write a lot about politics, but you can see more in the Politics Category. Take a look around and leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you.

I attended the Tea Party in Wolfeboro, NH, this morning, and there was a pretty good crowd. Pastor Garrett Lear – “The Patriot Pastor” – gave a tremendous talk about our American heritage and how the current government is not living up to its Constitutional duties.

This isn’t about party affiliation, it’s about our shared responsibilities as Americans. You can watch the videos here on my Utterli account: Wolfeboro NH Tea Party.

This is part one, I had to break the 30 minute video into smaller pieces.

Just to be clear, the Tea Party motivation has to do with this:

Projected Deficit

In the first independent analysis, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that President Obama’s budget would rack up massive deficits even after the economy recovers, forcing the nation to borrow nearly $9.3 trillion over the next decade.

From the Washington Post

…not just taxes. It’s the systemic corruption in Washington, DC that should make us all think seriously about term limits.

This is the third post in a series about Social Media Strategy. You can read all of the posts here: series one – social media goals and tactics. Dosh Dosh ran a series on the Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing late in 2007, and I believe that it is worth taking another look at it in light of the changes that the Social Media marketspace has undergone since then.

The goal here is to positively influence the way a potential and existing customer/audience perceives your brand. Work of this nature is less push-orientated and may involve the creation of social media profiles and wikis that rank well on search engines for your brand name. This also includes monitoring public forums and feedback channels to track and address what is said about your site. Some view this as social media optimization, although I would classify it as pull-marketing. [from Dosh Dosh]

Reputation Management and Reputation Monitoring

Keeping an eye on what people are saying about you online is an important part of your marketing effort. Ideally this job is handled by someone at your company that surfs the internet and looks for mentions of your company, good and bad. When they find a compliment, they thank the person and add them to the overall conversation. If this employee finds a complaint or negative comment, they must be empowered to get the complaint fixed and trained on how to respond in a positive way (see a little history at “Responding to Negativity“).

Reputation monitoring is made fairly easy by the use of Google Alerts:

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

• monitoring a developing news story
• keeping current on a competitor or industry
• getting the latest on a celebrity or event
• keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams

You can sign up for as many Google Alerts as you would like, using your Google Account. Search for your name, your company name, any other appropriate keywords, and your competitors.

The benefits of getting involved

First, the people writing and posting about your company are not always going to be the big names. Most of the time they are going to be “regular” customers and they will be thrilled that you took an interest in what they had to say, good or bad. Especially bad. Thanking people for compliments will build up its own reward in loyalty and goodwill, but fixing a problem for a customer pays even greater dividends.

Irate customers can become brand evangelists if they are handled properly. And by properly I mean with respect, courtesy, transparency and professionalism. There is an old saying that goes something like this:

“Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.” ~ Mark Twain

Well, today, all of our customers can buy “ink by the barrel” in that they can publish something on a forum or blog and (theoretically) everyone in the world can see it. If you work hard at making ethical behavior the foundation of your business you will be able to earn trust and respect – the most valuable currency in the internet community. (I wrote about this a while back – “The importance of trust in the Web 2.0 economy“) and my friend Dave Seah made some great points and describes a five-point evolution of this process:

1. Trust has always been part of any successful social endeavor.
2. Our naïve trust in organizations and what they say has been eroded over the past 30-40 years because what they have stood for and said was good for Americans has proven to be a façade built from special interests.People have had to adapt by separating trust from authority and success, whereas before trust was automatic.
3. Trust is the “gut check” that people are now applying to their daily interactions, and they are growing increasingly canny. Kids today, for example, are incredibly media-savvy compared to their grandparents. The emphasis has shifted from “I trust that company” to “I trust what that person is saying is true”.
4. The next stage of actualization would be, “I trust that person to do what he says” followed by “I have seen what he said and did, and it was good.”
5. Companies that reach to consumers have had to adopt this model, an interesting combination of business brand and public relations work.

Culture serves as a beacon to more easily find a certain type of trust and compatible mindset. The social need to flock together, however, is what Community is all about. Culture is the surface expression of values, and community is the underlying sense of belonging. That’s my hypothesis, anyway.

Share your thoughts in the Comments.

NEWS UPDATE: Forrester Report on Sponsored Blogs Draws Google’s Ire – Advertising Age – Digital

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — A report by Forrester Research this week talking up paid blogs left out one guideline that is religion for Google: Paid posts with sponsors behind them not only need to be disclosed as such but also must also bear “no follow” tags so as to not fool the Google spider that crawls the web for ranking purposes.

The “no follow” tag indicates to the spider that a post shouldn’t count toward a site’s search ranking on Google. In an effort to keep companies or websites from buying links to increase their search rankings and to maintain its organic-search results, Google requires any web page that has been “paid for” to have this tag. For example, a paid post about Kmart, if tagged with “no follow,” would not count as a vote toward Kmart’s popularity in the search-engine ranking.

Here is what Josh Bernoff of Forrester has to say:

March 02, 2009

Why sponsored conversation — aka paid blog posts — can make sense

by Josh Bernoff

I’m ready to weigh in one a very controversial topic: is it ethical and appropriate to pay bloggers to post about your products?

A couple of months ago an uproar arose because, by working with a company called Izea, Kmart had paid some prominent bloggers including Chris Brogan to post about their stores in the run-up to the holidays. It wasn’t just them; Panasonic also paid some bloggers to make videos at the January consumer electronics show.

Some thinkers including David Churbuck savaged the idea. But here at Forrester we’ve been thinking about it, and we’re ready to tell marketers to go ahead — if they obey some very clear rules about the right way to do it.

In a piece by my new colleague Sean Corcoran, we call this practice “sponsored conversation.” (Full report available to Forrester clients; others will see an abstract.) When you look at sponsored conversation in context, you can see it fits into a nice spot in the groundswell between PR and advertising. In PR, you try to get a blogger to talk about you, but your chances of success are hit or miss. In advertising, you can be sure to get a placement, but it’s not in the blogger’s voice. Sponsored conversation — paying a blogger to write about your product — fits in the middle — it guarantees a post, and it’s in the blogger’s voice.

What say you?