ENOUGH ALREADY WITH THE LISTS IN BLOGS!

My guest blogger today is Rhoda Israelov.  A long time friend, Rhoda has done many things in her life, and many of them are connected to writing.

As a professional ghost blogger, she writes under many names but today she is writing for Roundpeg as Rhoda Israelov of Say It For You

Enough Already with the Lists in Blogs by Rhoda Israelov

When too many people jump on the same bandwagon and do it once too often, the music tends to go off key and the wagon wheels give out. Anyhow, that’s the conclusion I came to the other day, standing in line at Borders Books scanning the magazine rack offerings.

It was only last month (see Blog Post Titles: Let Me Count The Ways) that I’d been recommending that business bloggers  freshen up their content by starting with an idea about their product or service, then putting numbers to it.

For an interior designer’s blog:  2 Best Ways To Use Bright Colors….

For a child psychologist’s blog:  3 Discipline Problem Fixes To Try First…

For a dry cleaner’s blog:  10 Things to Look For When Choosing A Dry Cleaner…

As a powerful example of the attention-grabbing power of lists, I‘d mentioned the cover of last month’s  “O Magazine”, emblazoned with the “100 Things That Are Actually Getting Better”“.

So, why did standing in line at Borders change my mind about lists? (Don’t get me wrong – I still believe lists can serve two very valid purposes in blogs:

1. To demonstrate ways in which what you sell, what you do, and what you know about are better, deeper, more useful than what your competition has

2. To provide valuable information to readers, helping them see you as the “go-to“ guy/gal in your field.)

But, after seeing no fewer than a dozen of these lists on magazine covers at Borders, I began wondering if this list thing hasn’t been a bit overdone…

Here are the titles I saw (in ascending order by the number of items on each list):

• · 6 Bad Habits That Are Actually Good For You (O Magazine)
• · 10 Ideas For The Next 10 Years (Time)
• · 10 Ways To Get More Energy (Instyle)
• · 15 Great Ideas For Celebrating Easter (Living)
• · 20 Grab-N-Go Power Foods (Men’s Health)
• · 20 Amazing Heels You Can Walk In (Instyle)
• · Eggs – 50 Fun Ideas (Food Network Magazine)
• · 50 Things To Do Butt Naked (Cosmopolitan)
• · 90+ Recipes & Tips (Cooking)
• · 124 New Recipes (Food Network Magazine)
• · (Now a giant step up for the next two lists):
• · 429 new Spring Looks (People)
• · 1,078 Best Health, Fitness, and Sex Tips – Ever (Men’s Health)

Feeling nothing if not “listed out” after working through that array of titles, I put on my professional ghost blogger hat and began to do some serious thinking about lists.  What, I asked myself, makes for an effective list? On the other hand, what types of lists are nothing more than series of things with numbers next to them?

Starting with the Men’s Health cover, I judged it to fall in the “blah” category. (I mean, who’s going to read through, much less put into practice, 1,078 tips, even if some of them have to do with sex?) Basically, the same thing is true about the 429 spring looks and the 90+ recipes – they’re just series of items, hardly engaging reading, I mused.

On the good side, the two titles that illustrate “grab”, in my view, are the Cosmopolitan and the O Magazine:

“6 Bad Habits That Are Actually Good For You” has some mystery to it – there’s an intriguing contradiction in terms that made me want an explanation (can bad habits actually be good for you?).

The same intrigue is true for “50 Things To Do Butt Naked” – (I probably couldn’t think of quite that many without prodding!).

Whether a list you use in your blog is long or short, the long and short of the matter, I’ve concluded, is that you have to put items together in a new way. The online searchers who find your blog must feel compelled to know how you came up with that particular combination of items for your list. If you can do that, then, and only then, you‘ll be given a chance to showcase your knowledge and how much you care about your business and your customers.

It can all start with a list, a list of things that can actually be better (with your expert help, needless to say!)

How to Blog in Only 10 Minutes

It’s 9:06AM on Friday, March 19th. When Lorraine asked me to write a blog post about how to write a blog post in ten minutes, I knew the best way to start was by admitting the time. After all, you’re not likely to believe that this is possible unless I truly commit to a personal demonstration of the process of blogging efficiently.

As the clock clicks over to 9:07AM, I’m reminded of the reasons that Lorraine asked for this post. First: she witnessed the process of writing a blog in only 600 seconds herself during our Blog Indiana 2009 presentation. Second: she wants to show her clients, contacts and prospects that it’s possible to write a blog post (9:09AM!) without spending hours doing so.

Although I’m obsessing over the clock right now, the most important lesson to understand about writing a blog post in ten minutes is to let go. I’m not worried about the topic of this message; which was selected for me. I’m not worried about the editing, the formatting, or the pictures. Someone else will take care of that work. After all, what’s easier: writing a blog, or, coming up with an idea AND writing the post AND editing it AND inserting appropriate media AND testing it AND promoting it? Letting go of all of the responsibilities is essential to efficient blogging.

There’s even more you can release (9:11!) besides the tasks which are ancillary to writing itself. Key among these are the *structure* of a blog post. I decided on the car ride over to this coffee shop that I would write a post consisting of six paragraphs. The first would introduce the concept of blogging in ten minutes, the second would provide justification for the topic, the third would illustrate my main thesis (let go) and the fourth would expand on that thesis by showing you can plan the structure in advance. It’s 9:14 now, so I need to show those last two paragraphs rather than describe them!

Just sketching out the blog post in my head was tremendously helpful for this process of sitting down to write. But you don’t have to have a six paragraph plan. Instead, you can have predefined styles for a blog post. For example, you could quote a news story and react with your own personal flair, or tell a personal anecdote that ends in a business lesson. With these template structures in hand, you just need to follow the format. Blogging isn’t about writing impeccable pieces of literature that will last the test of time—it’s about writing work (9:15!) that gets your point across quickly and easily.

Don’t be afraid to let go. Let someone else worry about inventing the topic, handling the editing and putting your post online. That way you can share your ideas with the world and get back to work. Which is what I need to do, as the clock just hit 9:16.

About Robby Slaughter:

After an extensive career in IT systems development, Robby realized that the principal challenges affecting individual workers are not technological in nature, but psychological. He discovered that to become more effective and efficient at work, we need to empower individuals with authority and responsibility. His consulting practice, Slaughter Development.ow focuses exclusively on assessing workflow challenges, helping stakeholders to design and develop new business processes, and implement systematic, stakeholder-driven changes throughout the organization.   , 

Before turning his efforts to workflow and productivity, Robby’s career highlights include work for Microsoft, Trilogy Software and the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a former Associate Faculty member with the School of Engineering and Indiana University-Purdue University.

Robby currently lives in Indianapolis with his wife. He enjoys travel, and has journeyed extensively throughout Europe and the United States.

Got Back Up?

Today’s guest post is from Heid, theCEO of ProVim.  They are our web host, not just for Roundpeg, but every website we build for our clients.  More than anything else, we work with them because of their service.   Things don’t go wrong with websites often, but when they do, I am glad we work with Provim!

Got Back Up?

Every once in a while we’ll get a call from a customer frantically describing that they accidentally just deleted their website (with no backup
in hand).  Thankfully, for these customers, we’ve had backups of their sites.  In the event that the abominable happens, backups serve to be a
safety net for your valuable digital resources.

How many times have you lost an important document or photo due to a hard drive crash, software error, or usb flash drive failure?  I’m sure it’s
happened at least once in your life, right? Events like this teach us the importance of personal data backups.  However, even with the knowledge
gained from these horrible events, it can still be easy to blank on making a backup.  This is why backing up a website at the server level is important,
and is something we do with every site hosted.

Seven Weeks and Seven Tips To Be More Productive 2010

Today’s post is by a very special guest:  Productivity Expert and All Around Interesting Guy:  Robby Slaughter.  He writes about the things we can be doing now to create a more productive 2010!

Seven Weeks and Seven Tips

Go look at the calendar. It’s mid November, which means there are a mere seven weeks left in 2009. Now is the time to look forward and prepare to make 2010 your best year yet. The secret to making improvements is planning and enacting change. Here are seven tips for seven weeks to get you started:

Read more

Social Media for Business: It Has To Be Fun

Guest Post by Michael Reynolds of Spin Web

I meet a lot of business owners and department heads who are curious about social media. Some embrace online tools and immediately see the value. They enjoy using social media to promote their businesses and make connections. Others approach it from a different perspective: it looks like work to them.

As I educate others and evangelize social media, it occurs to me that there is a missing element in most people’s approach to social media for business: fun!

Yes, social media for business must be fun or it’s not going to work. If you approach it with an attitude of “I don’t have time for this,” or “this sounds like one more thing to take up time in my busy day,” then it’s going to be a chore. However, if you approach it with an intention to integrate social media into your habits and lifestyle and make it an enjoyable experience, you will achieve much greater success.

Remember when you first started your business? Think back to the excitement of getting your first customer, building your first website, setting up your first office, and bursting to tell the world about it. Or maybe it was that shiny new job as marketing director of a great company. Think of the passion you had for promoting your product or service and how you could barely keep from bringing it up in every conversation. That’s the kind of passion you need to succeed in social media. You have to genuinely enjoy what you do. If you are having fun at your job, then social media will only amplify that passion.

It should not feel like work. You should want to look for opportunities to talk about your business on social networks. You should enjoy telling people what you do and how it helps others. Telling stories about the value you bring to your customers should make you happy.

Marketing your business using social media is fun. Does it take time? Yes. Can it lead to increased business? Definitely. When approached correctly, it is a remarkably scalable extension of the passion that you should already have about your business. Let it come naturally. Don’t work so hard at it. Don’t over-analyze it. “Play around” on Facebook. Have random conversations on Twitter and see what happens. Make connections on LinkedIn simply because you want to learn more about someone. Let your social instincts take over and the business benefits will come more naturally over time.

If it feels like work, there is something wrong

VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF BLOGS

My guest blogger today is Rhoda Israelov, a long time friend, Rhoda has done many things in her life, and many of them are connected to writing.  Today, as a professional ghost blogger, she writes under many names. Today she is writing for Roundpeg as Rhoda Israelov of Say It For You

Whenever there’s an activity you’re doing again and again over time, it helps to change things up a bit. If you’re a blog writer like me, varying your approach goes a long way towards keeping the work interesting. On the reader end, variety certainly goes a long way in keeping blog visitors engaged. Sometimes I reflect on the fact that in business, we get so tied up in manufacturing a good marketable product, or in selling and delivering a great professional service, we forget how much help the right words can be. In fact, when it comes to web-based communications, words, along with images, are a business’ only tools.

Read more

Who’s Your Travel Agent & Other Leadership Problems by Dale Collie

My friend Dale Collie, left Indy for the warm of N. Carolina years ago.  But we stay in touch electronically and I love reading his newsletters and updates.  I enjoy smart, no nonsense approach.  I hope you will too!

Leadership Edge: Savvy leaders provide the right tools to do the job right.

Is anyone still using a travel agent to book air travel? I just booked tickets to Rome for an Eastern Mediterranean cruise and spent an inordinate amount of time searching the various on-line booking sites. After way too much research, I found that some on-line sites cannot be trusted (duh!) and that no matter what the displayed price per ticket, they all pretty much wind up in the same range once taxes and fees are added.

Finally, I went to the airline site and booked the ticket. Sounds easy. Right? Well, not so fast there … when I entered my credit card info (as I’ve done many times with this airline), an alert screen came up saying I needed to enter my credit card data (which was also shown on the screen just as I entered it). So … now we have to call the number shown and work through the Mash One for English (that’s NC talk for Touch One), answer yes and no a few times, Mash other numbers followed by the pound sign and finally get a live person.

Oh … we’re not done yet … so he takes all the info (I wish he could have Mashed One), then he tells me, “Oh, I must transfer you for international flights.” And we go through the Mashing and Pounding thing again.

Just as the international customer service assistant (very nice southern voice with no Mashing) started to help me, the confirmation email arrived – while the alert thingy was still on the screen.

We’re almost finished … now we need to select seats because the seat thing “wasn’t available at this time.” So I request bulkhead seats (for a real reason), and I’m told she can only assign bulkhead for domestic flights, I’ll have to wait until I’m at the airport and request for the international flights …

How do you spell that word … Sheeessh!

The point of all this is — give your team the right tools for the job.  Saving pennies by booking my own flights is counterproductive when there are many more important things I could be doing.

• Ask your team members what new or old technology you could provide to help them be more productive.
• Review your own routine to see where you’re wasting time and effort 3. Put the changes in the budget if you can’t afford them right now

And if you work with a travel agent, I’d sure like to have the contact info.

Copyright 2009 – All rights reserved – Dale Collie

What Dora Can Teach Businesspeople

Popular guest blog poster Josh Brammer of Spinweb has provided roundpeg with excellent insights into the world of Indiana business. Today, he gives us some business advice with the help of the young, adventurous, animated -cartoon character, Dora.

My almost-2-year-old bounces on the couch each morning as we turn on Dora The Explorer. Once the excitement turns to focused attention, Dora takes us on a daily adventure. I have a background in writing and video production, so I’ve often been interested in the dynamics that make children’s television so intriguing. What can I say, it makes watching any TV show into a bit of research.

A few years ago, I made the transition into the “Business-world”, so I keep an eye out of tips that can help bridge the world of business for the rest of us without a business degree. As I watch Dora, I find myself saying “Hey I should remember that at work today.”

To spare you the need to fire up the children’s television, here is a quick list of the things Dora has taught me about business:

• Make sure your team knows the destination. It’s hard to make fast-paced decisions in your business if you don’t know where you are going. Everyday, Dora and friends check the map to see where they will end up. The Map tells
  them 1) where they are 2) where they are going. Everyone knows the destination, which leads to great problem solving along the way.
• Work as a team. Everyone should know the plan. Teams don’t work when you aren’t on the same page. Dora always takes time to talk out any new problems, listens to new ideas, and make a new plan. Then the team gets to
  work.
• Enjoy detours. Detours will come up, but you can easily get back on track if you know your destination and work as a team. Shipments get lost. Distractions appear. Last minute meetings get called. Talking monkeys loose their boots.
  But having a solid team that knows where they are going and can tackle new problems, really can take the stress out of surprises.
• Be willing to help. Dora is a friendly little girl, so it’s not surprising that she makes new friends. But how about you? Are you just “cordial” to those you interact with or do you really take the time to get to know people? It only takes a
  minute to talk to someone and look for ways to be helpful. While “Help Big Red Chicken” is not clearly marked on The Map, Dora makes it part of her daily agenda. Ten minutes of sincere help can go a long way.
• Give encouragement often. Don’t fluff people up with fake encouragement if you don’t mean it; people see through that charade. Instead, learn to verbalize your praise and give it often. Adults may think about patting people on the back, but rarely open their mouths and say “Great Job!”
• Celebrate success. At the end of each episode, Dora and friends celebrate the day’s adventure by singing “We did it! We did it! We did it! Hooray! When’s the last time you heard that around much excitement around your office?Celebrating your successes as a team doesn’t mean you have to sing & dance, but it does mean you must stop, reflect on what went right, and cherish the moment. Too many adults “Keep Trucking” when they should really take a
  few minutes to smile, share some encouragement, and enjoy the fact that hard work relaly does pay off.

Author: Josh Brammer   A process thinker, Josh Brammer helps knowledge workers balance work and family life through workflow and habit management. Josh Brammer is VP of Operations at SpinWeb and believes: Character + useful technology – distractions = saving time without becoming a robot. In his spare time, Josh enjoys his family, good films, making outlines & creating more spare time. Josh shares a personality with Walt Disney & Ben Franklin (ENTP), which makes life much more interesting. If not behind a Mac, you’ll catch him reading or enjoying double espresso macchiatos. Contact Josh at josh@spinweb.net or 317-324-1100.

Think Team: 5 Tips for Better Delegating

osh Brammer from Spinweb has become one of our most popular guest bloggers. Today Josh returns with suggestions on improving delegation techniques, a must-read for small business owners!

Delegation can be a difficult skill to learn, but often your tasks cannot be accomplished by yourself. When breaking down your tasks into smaller chunks, often youʼll find that
you need to ask someone else for something small to keep the task in motion. Be a team player, make delegation easier by remembering these 5 tips:

Small business relies on people — so keep an eye on your team and treat them with respect. Keep in mind, there is always someone else who is better than you in certain areas. Thatʼs the beauty of teamwork! The key is to hire talented people, treat them well, and make them a valuable part of your team.

Author: Josh Brammer   A process thinker, Josh Brammer helps knowledge workers balance work and family life through workflow and habit management. Josh Brammer is VP of Operations at SpinWeb and believes: Character + useful technology – distractions = saving time without becoming a robot.

In his spare time, Josh enjoys his family, good films, making outlines & creating more spare time. Josh shares a personality with Walt Disney & Ben Franklin (ENTP), which makes life much more interesting. If not behind a Mac, you’ll catch him reading or enjoying double espresso macchiatos. Contact Josh at josh@spinweb.net or 317-324-1100.

How Women Do Big Deals

Today’s post is written by Barbara Weaver Smith. I met Barbara through Twitter, and have had a chance to connect F2F as well. She is as much fun in person as she is on Twitter. I am delighted to share her post today.  This is her second visit to Roundpeg, and it won’t be her last!

My new eBook, Whale Hunting Women, is about how women do big deals in business and community. What do women do instinctively that makes us good whale hunters?

Women learn early to practice certain habits that are good for sales—habits of listening, learning, mentoring, empathizing, and teambuilding.  These are behaviors for which we are rewarded and may also be natural preferences that we’re born with.   In the 20th century economy, which in the west was built on ruthless competition, women were encouraged to “unlearn” those habits and become more aggressive and self-promoting in order to succeed in the business world.

It didn’t work for women then, and it doesn’t work for anyone now.  Today we work in a global, information-based economy that thrives on collaboration and cooperative deal-making.  Women need to know this and allow our socialized skills and preferences to make us successful.

Big companies, which I define as “whales,” do not often buy from a single salesperson.  Anything of substance that they buy involves the concurrence of a team of inside buyers—the procurement agent, the financial person, the IT leader, as well as the end users of marketing or software or legal or customer service or HR services, for example, or those involved in using manufactured products of all kinds.

Today the sale is not a good-old-boy back-slapping kind of sale.  It is a serious, professional, somewhat distanced interaction.  Buyers want to meet and interact with the people who will actually deliver services to them, not only the sales reps.  So the nature of how the whales buy means that companies need to sell as a team.  They need to involve subject matter experts in the sale.  They need a salesperson who is a teacher and team choreographer, not a rock star.

In my work with entrepreneurs, I have found that women leaders are often especially devoted to (and good at) empowering their team, mentoring others to step up to new responsibilities, and orchestrating rather than commanding.  Those practices come naturally to us, and we have come into a time where new business rules favor the so-called “soft skills” that women bring to their work.  So let’s work that advantage and do some bigger deals!

Excerpts, reviews, and download link on Whale Hunting Women at http://www.thewhalehunters.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17.  Special price during my virtual blog tour May/June 2009

Author: Barbara Weaver Smith, Ph.D.
President and CEO, The Whale Hunters

To learn about Whale Hunting Women & to order your copy today, visit http://cli.gs/WHWEbook

Thank you for visiting this post about Barbara Weaver Smith and Whale Hunting Women. Two people who comment during the tour will be entered a giveaway – post a comment on any post about the tour and you will be entered. The winners will win a three-volume audio set of Whale Hunters Wisdom. Volumes include I: Mind of a Hunter, II: The Hunt, and III: The Whale Hunting Culture ($90 value). Barbara Weaver Smith’s website – http://www.thewhalehunters.com

Barbara Weaver Smith’s blog – http://blog.thewhalehunters.com

Order your copy of Whale Hunting Women – http://cli.gs/WHWEbook

To see the tour schedule visit http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2009/04/whale-hunting-with-barbara-weaver-smith.html

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