Archive for June, 2009

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My Twitter Lessons .. No 4 (Content is King)

Monday, June 8th, 2009

Once you have your account, and have some folks who are ‘tuning in’ you then need to start the real business of actually saying something, because, of course, your followers are unlikely to stick around if you either say nothing or broadcast rubbish.  It seems to me that the favourite content areas are:-

  • Quotes:  This is a little thought for the day, usually from the great and the good, and related to your subject (e.g. CHANGE: When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. – Victor Frankl)
  • Links:  People forward links to relevant articles, blogs etc; these can things you have written, or ones you have found that are related to your area (e.g. Six Ways that #Google Wave is Going to Change Your Business, Career and Life http://tinyurl.com/ofwa6l)
  • Pictures:  A picture is worth a thousand words and using something like Twitpic you can post a photo.  This should either be relevant to your area of expertise, but seems to me to offer a chance to show a little of the ‘real’ you (e.g. HERE, a relaxed moment in the garden)

There is a balance to be struck between the business & the personal messages you send out.  I know folks who take the view that they will only send out very focused business messages.  On the other hand, others say that you need people to know you before they like you, so you have to go in for a little disclosure.  Of course, you can have multiple accounts but for me this is just too much at this stage (although I have grabbed a couple of names related to my work).

Happy Twittering.  You can follow me on @RichardDerwentC

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My Twitter Lessons .. No 3 (Twitter Tools)

Monday, June 8th, 2009

There are all sorts of applications to help you with Twitter (Google gives you 46m hits for Twitter Top Tools!).  They can do all sorts of things and one big tip is to do this search and read through what people recommend.  One of my issues was I had no idea what to even look for!

So here is my list of useful apps:-

  • Twitterberry: this enables me to tweet from my blackberry and given that it is meant to be instant and local this is really useful.  Imagine you find yourself in town with 30 minutes to kill, you can tweet to see if anyone is free for a coffee.  There are other apps for the iphone and smart phones.  Here is a useful list 
  • Twitpic: this allows you to upload photos from your camera phone by emailing them to twitpic, so people can see what you are looking at
  • Tweetdeck: this gives you a desktop app to help you handle your tweets, store your searches and gives you minute-by-minute updates (but beware it can be a real time waster!)
  • Tweet Later:  this does a whole load of clever tricks, including auto-following people who follow you, and auto-unfollowing too!  It can send automated messages to folks who choose to follow you and a whole lot more
  • Twitter Search
  • Other Resources:  Someone else’s top 40 list

Armed with this list you can manage your activities on Twitter both on your PC and on your phone.

You can follow me on @RichardDerwentC

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My Twitter Lessons .. No2 (Next Steps)

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

So the next step in my journey having dipped a couple more toes in the water, was to realise that if I went to the profile of someone very active in the field I was interested (in my case Change) and looked at who they were following (on the basis that they might be of interest to me too) and took a punt on following a load of them.  Many people use automated tools to help them handle twitter (more of these in another lesson), so there is a reasonable chance a fair number will automatically follow you back.  This gives you a chance to see who they are and what they offer, to engage them and share your ideas.  If you don’t like their offerings, it is just as easy to unfollow them (effectively turning off their broadcast to you.)

The next really important thing I learnt was how to use the search function.  You can search for:-

  • Things going on in your area
  • Or places you are visiting
  • Subjects that interest you
  • Specific people

You can also use something called hash tags, which is a phrase prefixed by #, and this enables you to make your content easily found by others with similar interests.  Ecademy used this feature last week for its #twalk (search for it and see!)

These three things enable you to find other people who share your interests, and this gives you an opportunity to link across cyberspace with strangers who could become friends or partners.

Happy tweeting, and remember you’ll never learn to dance if you don’t go to the ball!

You can follow me on @RichardDerwentC

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My Twitter Lessons .. No1 (Getting Started)

Saturday, June 6th, 2009

I make no claims to being an expert but hopefully my toddler steps may help some others to learn from my journey.

I’ve had a twitter account for about a year, but I frankly didn’t get it.  Why would I want to be  inundated with the minutiae of other people’s lives? And I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to hear about mine!  I spent most of last year getting to grips with the secrets of ordinary blogging and it took up most of my online time, so micro-blogging seemed just a step too far.

However, I kept hearing from people whose opinion I respect that Twitter was important… I started dipping my toe in the ‘twater’ and it was a little like going to a party where everyone else was dancing a set of steps that I didn’t know. 

I then slowly realised that Twitter was a bit like your own personal broadcasting system, enabling you to share small snippets of information and thoughts.  However, it is pointless having the world’s best broadcasting kit if no one has any radios that are tuned to your station! 

So for this system to work you have to gain followers.  How do you do that?  You start by following others (in other words, do as you would be done by!).  If you are smart you will choose people who you are interested in; they can be personalities, colleagues, friends, people who share your interests.  So the first step of this dance is you will start receiving their ‘tweets’.  If you have chosen wisely these will contain bits that interest you and that you can respond to…. now the dance has begun.  You will soon find some of these people start following you.  Now you have some ‘radios’ tuned to your station.

If you want them to keep reading you need to add some value.  You have to be one or all of the following:-

  • Interesting
  • Yourself
  • Genuine
  • Useful
  • Funny
  • Helpful
  • Provocative
  • Newsworthy

I went on an Ecademy event this week that taught us more about this and one of the ‘secrets’ was that you gain currency by what you do for others rather just broadcasting your stuff.  This builds goodwill and hopefully they will reciprocate and start recommending your content to their followers.  Simple mathematics shows that if you have 200 followers and they each have 200 followers then potentially if they all forward (Retweet) your content to their followers your tweet suddenly has an audience of 40,000!  That is a powerful way to build a reputation and make some new relationships.  There is a random quality in this process that can being a little magic into your life.

Happy tweeting!

You can follow me on @RichardDerwentC

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If you get your ears syringed does it make you a better listener?

Friday, June 5th, 2009

Apparently I have very narrow ear canals, and periodically they need attention.  When I find myself not hearing people consistently, that is my signal to toddle off and see the nurse.  When I come out it is as if a veil has been drawn back between me and the rest of the world.  However, does hearing better equate to being a better listener?  Whilst it certainly helps, it isn’t the same thing at all.

Listening is about giving your attention to the other person and what they are saying.  You listen with more than just your ears as you have to use your eyes too.  This both affects how they feel and gives you lot more data about them and how they are feeling.   You can also pick up information  at a more subliminal level about their energy.  Whilst you can learn to listen better I really think that an awful lot of this comes from who you are and what you care about.

Today would be a great day to give someone a really good listening to…

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”    Robert McCloskey

“To listen well, is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well, and is as essential to all true conversation”   Chinese Proverbs

 

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Pond Life?

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

I don’t know if you have heard the expression ‘Pond Life’; it means “A worthless or contemptible person or group.”  So as regular readers will have noted that following the renovation of Cooke Towers (not on the constituency expenses!), we have now moved onto the next phase of upgrading Munstead Waters.  This has meant that I have been spending many a happy hour digging pits for filters and trenches for electricity supplies, not to mention being up to my elbows in silty, brown goo that we have been filtering out of the water!

However, and this is the point of my tale, I find that I am totally engrossed by every pond skimmer, dragonfly larvae, tadpole, snail and fish!  They all have their place in the bio-system of the pond.  If I don’t get the environment right for the bacteria that breakdown the fish pooh into plant food, the water starts to poison the fish.

The thing is, that in every group, business or family it takes all sorts to make the system work, and yet we judge others because they don’t behave as do.  In the pond, this spells death…. is it much better in a family or business?  Allowing others to be who they are, do what they do and getting on with doing ‘our thing’ isn’t a bad recipe for a good life.  I am rather of the opinion that Pond Life should be a complimentary term rather than an insult, what do you think?

“The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives.”

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Letting go

Monday, June 1st, 2009

Following on from yesterday’s blog about memories and the Past, today I’d like to think about letting go.  I know a number of people who are struggling with this.  I have to say, I am aware of no magic wand to resolve this issue.  There are a number of NLP and symbolic methodologies to help with this, and for some, they work.  However, I think that our minds carry some memories in much the same way as our bodies carry their scars.  The actual structure is changed and this makes it harder to let them go.  I suspect that we hold on to them because we fear to let them go, after all, if we let them go, perhaps we might be hurt again.

However, carrying around this mental scar tissue also has a cost.  We are constantly scanning for danger from the same quarter and if we see anything that awakens this memory we go straight into our Flight / Fight patterns of behaviour.  This is our equivalent of a herd of wildebeest stampeding across the plains just because a shadow reminds one of them of a lion.

What experience do you have of successfully letting go?  When is it appropriate and how do you best release these things?

“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.”    Havelock Ellis

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.”    Lao Tzu

“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.”

 

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