My 3 Words for 2023

What is My 3 Words About?

The My Three Words idea is simple. Choose 3 words (not 1, not 4) that will help guide your choices and actions day to day. Think of them as lighthouses. "Should I say yes to this project?" "Well, does this align with my three words?"

The idea came from realizing that resolutions almost always end by January 19th of a new year. One reason is that we often choose them from a negative mindset: "I need to lose weight. I'm not making enough money." Instead, the idea of the 3 words is more like: what can I use to guide me towards results I want to support for the entire year and beyond? Not the result itself. The path. The process.

How to Choose Three Words

I started this process back in 2006. Back then, my 3 words were "Ask. Do. Share." I picked these very simple words and they served me very well. One of my best years ever. When I asked questions, I learned. When I took action based on what I learned from asking, I made more ground and took over more of the universe. When I shared what I learned with everyone, I made connections and some friends.

Choose any three words you feel will guide you forward. Think of words that inspire an action, especially when faced with a choice. If you want to travel more, maybe the word is "Stamp," because it encourages you to get more country stamps in your passport. (However: evidently this is largely a non-existent thing any more. Boo.)

I can tell you a few things about choosing your 3 words from experience:

• Don't make it a phrase. "Publish the book" is a terrible choice. "The" is wasted.

• Try to make the words action-oriented (a verb, if you can). "Expand" is better than "bigger."

• The more utilitarian the word can be, the better. These words have to be your compass.

• Stick with the 3 words all year. Every time I've changed one a month or two later, the year mucks up. I can't explain it. But I can report it.

• Years where I've tried "fancy" words with layers of meaning, I lost the thread. Use plain words, maybe.

• BUT the words don't have to mean anything to anyone but you. Don't worry about explaining them.

• Words like "focus" never seem to pan out (Mike Vizdos notwithstanding). Instead, focus on what? Pick a lane. Hint, if you have too many things to focus on, THAT is the lack of focus.

Review Them Daily

The more you review your 3 words, the better. I have the act of writing mine built into my daily planning guides and action stacks. I try using them for a mantra when I can. Sometimes on walks, I just repeat them over and over. I like to reflect on them and meditate a little with those words in mind. I even put up a sticky note. I write them by hand into my journals, too, because kinesthetic learning is powerful.

Past Iterations of My 3 Words

2006 - Ask. Do. Share

2007 - Seek. Frame. Build. Bridge (yes, that was 4. It also was a less successful year.)

2008 - Believe. Loops.Farm

2009 - Equip. Armies. Needles

2010 - Ecosystems. Owners. Kings

2011 - Reinvest. Package. Flow

2012 - Temple. Untangle. Practice

2013 - Walt. Ender. Monchu

2014 - Lifestyle. Monchu. Black.

2015 - Plan. Leverage. Fabric.

2016 - Home. Shine. Win.

2017 - Move.Voice.Game

2018 - Ritual. Execute. Value

2019 - Station. Stacks. Movement.

2020 - Push. Structurequence. Package

2021 - Showrunner, Monk Options

2022 - Scout, Co-Create, Pluses

How'd I Do With 2022?

Looking at my work in 2022, I didn't nearly do Scout as much as I thought I would. I did, but just not at the level I thought. Co-Create? Daily. Pluses? I got so much better at the end of the year. I really learned this process. I really nailed two out of three, and I'm okay with the third one. What about YOU? How'd you do? Email me: chris@chrisbrogan.com

Okay. Are we ready? (And a note: I changed ALL three words of mine at the last minute on December 30th, 2022. Give the process time. It reveals itself.)

My 3 Words for 2023

Master - Hidden in this word is "preparation" and "practice," and also the reminder that to master something, I must make choices that highlight my efforts and let everything else fall away. Precious few people master multiple gifts. One or two are often quite enough.

Pleasure - I bought a ten dollar string of purple and orange lights that hang behind me in my videos lately. They make me so happy. I drink this amazing coffee. It's a subscription service thing that *sounds* expensive, until you realize it's just $2 a cup. Sure, there's cheaper coffee at the store. This is premium gourmet coffee from several top quality roasters, and it's less expensive than a Dunkin coffee every day. I choose pleasure in 2023. I WILL visit the beach more often. I WILL take an extra day during business travel.

Gather - I love collaboration and interactions. I love finding like minds and big thinkers. One quick talk with Clay Hebert keeps my head spinning. Saying hi to everyone at the company holiday party feels great. I'm an introvert, so I need breaks. But I want to gather smart people, like-minded people. I want to bunch up the people I want to love for a while. I'm gathering.

How will the year go? I don't know. That's the fun of it. But those are my three words.

What are YOURS? Post on Twitter and use the hashtag #my3words (the number not the word) to see each other. Not on Twitter? Whatever. Post anywhere. Tag your blog post. Put it on Myspace. Whatever. :) Be part of it. GATHER with us! And email me - chris@chrisbrogan.com

Personal Leadership

Photo by Danka & Peter on Unsplash

Personal leadership is at the core of my new project, StoryLeader™. My premise is that in a world where effective leadership is more of a team sport, great leaders are the kind who work to develop their teams with good leadership qualities of their own. Let's talk about which leadership attributes will help the most, and how being a leader means growing even more leaders along the way.

A Change In Leadership Styles

One change since the COVID-19 pandemic is that team members must work much more independently, especially as more people work-from-home (WFH). Personal leadership is the art of training up your team and empowering them. The goal for those teams is to operate as leaders from within their role while still supporting the greater structure of the organization. An effective leader is now one who motivates and encourages the unique strengths of her team and seeks a collaborative experience to grow team capabilities.

Communication Skills for Leaders

The core of communication is a mix of clarity, brevity, participation, and empathy, with a topping of keeping the objective central to the experience. That's a lot. Let's walk through it:

• Objective-minded - always communicate from the mindset of the goal you seek to accomplish.
• Participatory - communication is a more-than-one sport. The best communicators don't only know how to speak. They know how to listen, and how to bring a sense of being valued to the other person or people in the interaction.
• Clear - clarity is so vital to good communication these days. Attention spans are shot. Be very succinct in what you're asking.
• Brief - brevity is more than the soul of wit. Teach your team the "one topic per email/message" Practice reviewing messages to see if they could be shorter. Make it an okay thing to point out how to tune up brevity.
• Empathic - communication is about understanding the feelings behind the mindsets of everyone involved. Businesses (most especially b2b) never talk about this. Which is why they're rarely as successful as they want to be with communications.

None of this just appears magically for your team. To inspire personal leadership around communication, articulate what you want for the team, and encourage constructive reviews of communications whenever possible. Practice wins this.

Collaboration as a Team Sport

If bosses teach effective leadership skills around collaboration, colleagues learn to work towards group success instead of individual contributions alone. Collaboration promotes blending strengths and weaknesses of a team. If Jeremiah loves taking meeting notes, let him. If Imani is your most charismatic team member, and she loves leading client calls, make that her core. Build your team not to be repetitive replacement parts, but instead a team of experts in their core skills, and then work on cross-training. Second only to communication, collaboration is a great place to encourage strong leadership behaviors.

Configuration: Reshape Every Space

One important leadership trait is to break free of the "factory assembly line" mentality of decades past. I've said it in different ways in several of my most recent posts. Developing leaders need to feel a sense of ownership of their environment. Bosses must value their team's approach and contribution to these projects as well. Look at this as further empowerment and a way to find comfort around their place in the organization's value.

The idea of configuration is the concept that everything we observe isn't what it has to be. Put the chairs where you want them. Take the clock out of the meeting room. Get ready... Let the team pick some of the software the team uses. (Yikes!)

If you're going to lose language like "subordinates" and stop worrying about being a "motivational leader" and instead work on growing a team of transformational team members dedicated to helping your organization win.

Chris Brogan runs StoryLeader™, a training program for leaders and growing personal leaders alike. Combining communications, collaboration, and configuration as the core of leadership training, Chris teaches the three major types of business storytelling tools available to teams, and points to a way to approach the challenges of recovering lost business and leading distributed teams in a post-COVID 19 world.

Business Storytelling

Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash

Business storytelling is the act of using story as a way to interact with others to convey business values and/or business information. I like to say that "story is the best unit of memory" (tweetable) and that's because the goal of business storytelling is to help information stick, both internally among various teams and leadership, as well as externally in alignment with marketing, sales, customer service, and other parts of a company.

Stories to Tell

There are three types of business stories the way I teach it:

• Mission stories - stories that help people understand and align with the mission of the organization. "We work to give every mother the tools she needs to raise compassionate athletes."
• Belonging stories - these are stories that inform people that they are in the right place, so to speak. "Moms of athletes don't always agree, but they all want their kids to have what they need to thrive."
• Growth stories - part motivational talk and part "corrective" language, this helps employees stay aligned with the mission of the organization. "While we want you to sell as many coaching packages as possible, it's important to work within the budgets and schedules of the mothers you're supporting."

One doesn't have to be any kind of master storyteller to make this happen. Remember that the definition of story is simply "an account of people an events." While I'll show you some story structure as it applies to business storytelling, essentially the spirit of your work here is to learn that a story helps people remember important information better than most any other tool.

Business Storytelling Approach

The goal of every story you tell should be to convey information in a memorable (and maybe even repeatable) way. Because these are business stories, and the goal isn't to become some kind of master storyteller of fairy tales or something, let me give you a few more details to consider:

• Clarity - Business stories must be succinct and clear. There should never be a surprise. Instead, people need their information to be straightforward and understandable.
• Brevity - The attention span of people these days is diminished from stress, from too much information, and from a shift in how we prefer to consume knowledge. Create brief stories. Snacks more than meals. And seek to be as brief as possible while staying clear.
• Metaphors - To craft a compelling story, sometimes an easy tool is a metaphor. "Life is a stream. It flows in one direction and when we step out of the water, we can never get back in at the exact same moment." That sort of thing is a metaphor.

The first two should be used all the time. The last is a tool you can use more as a condiment than a meal. (A metaphor.) "Think of metaphor as a condiment, not a meal." <-- that's a tiny business story to remind you how to use metaphors in your writing. (Not much in the "account of people and events" department, but we'll stretch the definition a little.)

Content Marketing Thrives on Compelling Stories

I'm working on a project with my friend Saul Colt. The goal is to help physical stores and galleries all across Canada to build online storefronts to enable these organizations to sell online. While brainstorming ways to earn more sign-ups for this project, I came up with two different ideas (stories) that complement the project and can be told as content marketing (in this case, on Instagram).

The project is called "shopHERE powered by Google" and because I want to encourage more people to sign up, I proposed storytelling elements that are a play on "shop here." The first is built around regional business pride and uses the hashtag #myshopishere . The second is about women-run businesses and the uses the hashtag #shopHER (minus the e. Get it?) They're meant to be quite relatable (as good stories are).

If I didn't tell you much else about the campaign, can you imagine the kinds of photos people will take for 'My shop is here?' Pizza places. A favorite nail salon. Maybe a cool pawn shop would be part of it. And of course 'Shop her' is about empowering women owners, like an auto body shop, and an MMA gym, and so on.

The projects are content marketing designed to drive awareness and signups to the shopHERE powered by Google project, but the STORIES are about regional pride and woman-owned businesses. Make sense?

Storytellers Invite Their Listeners to be the Protagonist

The power of storytelling works best when it becomes a collaboration between the creator of the story and the consumer of that material. The reader or listener or viewer best experiences compelling storytelling when they are invited to tell the story from their perspective and participate in it themselves.

Star Wars has stuck with us better than many other media properties because the stories are bigger than the main characters. Even if you don't want to be Luke or Leia, you can decide if you want to be an Imperial Tie fighter pilot or a rebel scout or someone else in the captivating stories that follow.

Story, as it turns out, works best when it is a collaboration.

In business, this can happen in branding. On the day I wrote this to you, Nike's website has a tag line that says "Where All Athletes Belong." They're pushing inclusivity and this goes beyond a marketing strategy and instead pushes deep into the fabric of their brand stories overall. It matches.

Story Structure is a Powerful Starting Point

You've watched a TED talk before, I presume. Reserved to no more than 18 minutes (there are very few exceptions to this online), presenters are trained and drilled in how to craft stories that start with cores of data visualizations or case studies and add an emotional connection to the material. Sometimes these are funny. Other times, they make us see what we thought we fully understood in a new light. And even other times, we simply enjoy the experience and go along for the ride.

The structure of TED, the little details, how it all gets wrapped together into a compelling narrative is worth understanding for your future business communications as well. I recommend Talk Like TED by Carmine Gallo, a book that is every bit as useful today as the day it was published.

How to Get Started

With business storytelling, you might be thinking: "Okay, I don't disagree with you, Chris, but I'm not sure what to do now with this information." Fair enough. I'll help.

1. Write a story of what your product/service is and who it helps. The agile user story template works well for this: As a <type of user>, I want <some goal> so that <some reason>. Being able to answer this succinctly helps you see your business more clearly.
2. Work on a few sentences around this: The type of people who buy from us are ___ . They like __ and they don't want ___ . (This is a belonging story.)
3. If you were hiring a new employee today and she will be working from home, what story does she need to know that sums up the culture of your organization? Are you sticklers for timeliness? Are you a very collaborative company? Are the rules cut and dry and there's not really a lot of flexibility? (Remember, this isn't always a bad things: franchises must follow the systems that are in place.)
4. Write a few sentences around the ideal customer experience. "If everything went flawlessly, a customer would start on our website and click here. And then..."
5. At a team meeting, host an exercise around "A meal we used to have at home." Have people write down some details or a paragraph to explain something about food that inspires at least a little emotional attachment.

End Clearly and Strong

Another detail. For whatever reason, it seems that the art of ending a story is lost on the world. The best endings point to what might come next. In many ways, the best endings are beginnings. This piece ends with me offering help, which might lead to a beginning. Your stories might end in different ways. But "stopping" and "creating an ending" are vastly different efforts and exercises. You want to end clearly. Like this.

If You Want More Help

My core business at StoryLeader™ is dedicated to improving your success with expressing yourself within (and outside of) your organization. I help you convey your intentions, clearly express your business goals and values and needs. And I'm an expert at turning that terrifying blank page into something you can run with and complete on your own with confidence. Never hesitate to drop me a line either by email (chris@chrisbrogan.com) or by just filling out my contact form.

People Need Brevity in Stories in 2020 and Beyond

It seems that when people try to communicate, they mostly try to push the most stuff they can into our heads at one time. We say that business storytelling is very important but we don't teach people how to do it. In the absence of instructions, a lot of people believe that saying more is the same as giving someone useful information.

Brevity is Key for Business Storytelling

Have you looked at a recipe on YouTube lately? We often have to slog through 11 minutes just to get even the simplest recipe. But it doesn't have to be that way. Look at this amazing video to see a great example of brevity:

He got three different hummus recipes into a video that was less than three minutes long. Think on that the next time you say that brevity isn't possible.

How Do We Work With Brevity?

1. Start with the end point in mind: What does this story need to do?
2. Trim any explanations: The #1 killer of brevity is thinking we have to explain something beyond a brief in-context line or two at the most.
3. One idea per interaction: We try to cram too much information into all communications efforts. Make each interaction about one thing. Or one small grouping.
4. Read it aloud: Any writing benefits from your voice out loud. If it doesn't sound like something you'd actually say, delete it. (Hint: read this post out loud. Sounds like someone talking, right?)
5. Think bullets and lists: Our brains love small lists. We love bullets. Communicate that way.

There's a Time for More Words

But it's far less often than you'd think. You can fire someone politely and professionally with three sentences. You can profess your love with three words. You can communicate entire oceans of meaning with a single look.

Think brevity first at all times. Every time you add more, it's usually because you're feeling insecure or afraid. Hurts to hear that, I know, but it's true.

Until it's time to NOT be true.

If you want to learn more about how I can help you with leadership, marketing, and sales advice, peek at this and then drop me a line. I'd love to help.

Why Business Storytelling is a Necessary Tool for 2020 and Beyond

Whenever someone tells you "stories are an important part of leadership," you do what most people do: you nod and shrug and wonder what the heck anyone means by that. And yet, we use stories informally every day. Your business meeting with prospects breaks for lunch and what do you do? Tell stories of your families and where you're from, or seek out what each of you have in common. (These are belonging stories in my Three Story Types for Business.) Everyone knows they should be doing something, but what? Why? And how?

Stories Transfer Leadership DNA

When I launched StoryLeader™, I realized I needed a way to explain the core benefit of the leadership training practice. What we do when we tell business stories is we transfer leadership DNA throughout the organization. The goal of the stories then becomes ensuring that people at all levels understand what kinds of goals and intentions their leadership has in mind, that people closer to the front line understand what decisions their leadership might make in a given situation, and that with everyone operating from the same perspective, friction is reduced to a minimum.

If you run an analytics group, one of your core mission stories might be about how your organization's role is to act as a "backup brain" to the groups you support, and that your primary function is to absorb and relieve all their primary brain worries while being alert to prompt for future threats and trends. The more your team thinks about what it means to be a "backup brain," and that "absorbing worry" is a core function of that brain, they'll align their decisions and efforts accordingly.

2020 is About Upskilling and That Requires Growth Stories

In the fast world of transformation culture, organizations have to be able to shift quickly with new opportunities, adapt and be more resilient. As human capital starts to account for as much as 50% of a company's value (source), it becomes important that leaders tell belonging stories so that people feel valued, included, and most vitally part of the solution for all and any challenges that arise.

Employee retention is an exercise in storytelling matched by actions that support the story. The third story type in StoryLeader™ are called growth stories. Sometimes, these are corrective or lesson tales. Other times, they are the stories that empower us or invigorate us during the challenging parts of our work.

Studies say over and over that when an employee starts to seek employment elsewhere, it's almost never an issue of pay. More often than not, disengagement comes when the employee no longer feels like they are working on meaningful work. The right growth stories and belonging stories (fronted by action that shows that employee a path to being part of solid execution) are more vital than any dollar or title increase.

Telling Stories is Now a Participatory Sport

The 2019 movie box office revenue for the US was $11.9 billion, but if you add worldwide revenue, the number goes up to $42 billion. That's a pretty decent figure for movies as entertainment.

UNTIL

Until you realize that the video game industry took in $120 billion last year. Before you scoff and think of yourself as not a video game person, mobile games accounted for $64.4 billion on its own, dwarfing traditional PC or console games.

Why am I sharing this? Because storytelling (movies) has become far more interactive (video games). That means we as leaders have to learn not only how to tell a business story, but that we have to build participatory stories where everyone absorbs and acquires the leadership DNA you intend to transfer.

No, you don't have to create video games to tell business stories (they fail horribly when people try). But you do have to learn how to tell a more participatory story. (I can help!) Stories must be crafted to be more bite-sized (like a series of text messages) and with room for others to participate and lead from their own level, while retaining the core importance of the mission stories that form the organization's objectives and intentions.

What Does This Do?

Working on business stories improves decision making, cuts down on rework, reduces friction, and obviously saves time and money in the process. By learning the simple (but not easy) skills of telling better business stories that reinforce the organization's mission, people's sense of belonging, and everyone's path to growth, leaders can focus more on vision and clearing roadblocks. Smart leaders let stories do the heavy lifting, and what I shared in this article is why.

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Chris Brogan runs StoryLeader™ as a leadership training experience. Get in touch here.

It's Time to Rethink What People Need to Learn

Sandra told me that her cousin shared an article about how schools were no longer teaching analog time telling in school. Wait. They were until now? Why?

We Really Have to Crash the Whole Platform

Whether we're talking about kids in school or grown ups in the workplace, it feels like the majority of what people are learning comes from old and outdated premises.

We forget that a lot of learning is tied to technology because it's now OLD technology:

• Analog clocks - because we didn't have other ways to visualize time
• Cursive writing - because we didn't have keyboards and phones with predictive typing and speech-to-text
• Classic literature - because this was a tool for teaching important life lessons

It's not that literature is bad. It might be that classic literature is a very slow and dense delivery system for a lesson that could be taught better and through different media. Moby Dick is around 600 pages. The lesson? You could pick them up in much simpler, shorter, easier-to-consume forms.

The same way we don't all live on farms and raise sheep and cows to get our food, we somehow think the "old days" of learning is sacred. But is it? Do we need to learn what you/we THINK we need to learn?

Think About That Defensive Feeling

Somewhere in your belly, you might be feeling a lot of resistance. "Oh, but having a solid foundation is vital for learning." I never said a single thing about NOT having a solid foundation for learning. But there's a vast difference between 'You have to eat' and 'You might want to eat more plants and fewer animal proteins.' Right?

Why do we "dress up" at work? Because that's how it was always done? Why do we work together in offices? For management, mostly. Sure, collaboration is easier in person, but beyond that, how much of your work would be better suited to silence and privacy?

Do we need to own a house? No we need a place to sleep, to eat, to keep our stuff if we have any.

We're Not Preparing People for Reality

The last few years and the next 10-15 years will find you hearing (or saying): "Robots won't replace MY job." I hate to break it to you (no, I don't). Robots *can* do most everything you can do, and most of it better.

But that's not really the story. Because the goal isn't to preserve JOBS. The goal is to do work that matters. To work in service of those people we most want to help.

The story is this: nothing is sacred when it comes to breaking apart and then rebuilding what we need to learn for skills and capabilities.

20 years ago, it was smart to learn HTML. Even ten. Even five. Now, it's a waste of time, unless you want to be part of something esoteric. I can pop a site together with zero coding skill whatsoever. 25 years ago, no one was learning HTML.

Why are we teaching spelling? "Because you never know when you won't have a phone with spell check nearby." Who cares?

Teach communication. That's VERY different than spelling. Teach comprehension. Teach structure. Teach proper journalistic method and reporting and storytelling.

But spelling? Who cares? (And I'm really good at spelling.)

Why Isn't There a YouTube/Twitch Streamer Star Course in High School?

Some people might read that and think "Oh, how cute" or "There goes the neighborhood" but there are plenty of people in the NEW entertainment industry that can edit the heck out of something with Final Cut but who don't know how to structure a sponsorship deal.

There are more people watching esports and live streaming channels made by amateurs than are watching most professional US sports right now. And yet, we still discount this as a potential job our kids might have (or that we might want).

Where are the AI courses?

With all the shifts in technology, why aren't we prepping people to learn how to interact, how to query, how to do all that will be required to link together and interpret and sift through all this information?

Someday is Now

If you've been "thinking about" learning something new, now's the time. Do it. But check first. Is it something that's not all that important to learn in the first place? Believe me when I say there are plenty of things NOT to learn.

But we need better skills. You. Me. Kids. Everyone. And what's out there isn't really going to work for the most part. Not for long.

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Here are the notes from the Chris Brogan Media broadcast for 09/08/2017. (You can watch this on my Facebook account).This live video was all shot using Ecamm Live (client), the best way to do Facebook Live for Mac.Please note that all links may be affiliate links. If someone is a client, I'll call that out specifically.

Stories Shared

Russia says that AI is the new Arms Race.But AI also picks the best food pics for Yelp.The great Impossible Burger company is going to build a huge new factory.Allergic to everything? How about a keychain allergen detector?Are you using Excel for something weird? Not this weird.This? This is just areally cool storytelling method shared by Paul Bond.No friends? It's okay. In Japan you can hire fake friends for pics.Nothing to see here. Just glorious cosplay.Colorblind? Well, now you can play Uno.Survival kits have been on my mind. Here's a great kit layout.Sprint reports they're taking ad agency duties in-house.Hey, if this has been interesting, consider picking up my weekly newsletter. It's all unique ideas by me about how to improve buyer interactions and grow your business. Give it a peek

What ELSE is News?

You want to get featured on the Chris Brogan Media show? Drop me an email: chris@chrisbrogan.com and let me know what's news!

Please Get My Newsletter

My newsletter is the best work I do every week. You can get yours here.

CBM082917

Here are the notes from the Chris Brogan Media broadcast for 08/29/2017. (You can watch this on my Facebook account).This live video was all shot using Ecamm Live (client), the best way to do Facebook Live for Mac.Please note that all links may be affiliate links. If someone is a client, I'll call that out specifically.

Stories Shared

There's a plus and a minus to this story about Facebook banning ads that lead to "fake news" sites. That's the fact that Facebook is the 2 billion user gatekeeper to what's fake or not.In a similar story, a popular Destiny YouTuber talks about how hard it is to make money on the platform!My first of TWO cannabis stories today. Evidently Netflix has a marijuana pop up shop to promote a new show.Guess we can't call it "Whole Paycheck" any more. Amazon just cut prices on lots of Whole Foods groceries to almost 50% off in several core products.Want to get creative with your storytelling? This cool video essay teaches you how to make a good twist ending.This great post by Kissmetrics talks about why your homepage doesn't convert.Funny how networking has been in the news a lot. This is Brad Feld's take on it.In, "the future is pretty much here already," Audi shows off its solar panels for their electric vehicles. Rainy days be damned.My second pot story of the day, evidently cannabis is effective in helping with schizophrenia and/or Tourette's syndrome.Lastly, this is how you play it cool. For the upcoming version of the movie Hellboy, Ed Skrein was cast to play an actor of Asian heritage. This is called whitewashing. What happened next... well, Ed said, "That's not cool" and he backed out of the role. THAT is cool.Hey, if this has been interesting, consider picking up my weekly newsletter. It's all unique ideas by me about how to improve buyer interactions and grow your business. Give it a peek

What ELSE is News?

You want to get featured on the Chris Brogan Media show? Drop me an email: chris@chrisbrogan.com and let me know what's news!

CBM082717

Here are the notes from the Chris Brogan Media broadcast for 08/27/2017. (You can watch this on my Facebook account).This live video was all shot using Ecamm Live (client), the best way to do Facebook Live for Mac.Please note that all links may be affiliate links. If someone is a client, I'll call that out specifically.

Stories Shared

Hurricane Harvey has hit Texas hard. Let's look at a little drone footage courtesy of CNN.Where are the top companies Millenials want to work at? A few of the answers will surprise you.Even though the country is having some tough economical and governmental issues, Brazil reports a thriving startup culture.This report just in shows that big tobacco worked extra hard to target military and mental health challenged people.An ex white supremacist says that maybe these violent anti-fascist protests aren't the way to fix the problem. He has a different solution.Friend Tim Washer explains how you can get better at storytelling in just five minutes a day.There's not much news here. Just a really cool camper I wanted you to see.All those robots in your home? Evidently, we are very susceptible to hacking.Looking for something to listen to? How about a great science fiction option?Hey, if this has been interesting, consider picking up my weekly newsletter. It's all unique ideas by me about how to improve buyer interactions and grow your business. Give it a peek

What ELSE is News?

You want to get featured on the Chris Brogan Media show? Drop me an email: chris@chrisbrogan.com and let me know what's news!

Working on my New Book

I'm writing a new book called Make Your Own Game. This book solves the challenge of “how do I get more successful at life and business?” I thought I'd share a little behind-the-scenes of how I do it.

I Start With "Why Bother With a Book?"

It took a while to write this new book, but not the actual writing process. That's kind of quick. Instead, I got a bit wrapped up in the content. Who cared? Was it worth it? Why bother? The book I was going to write would have sucked. And it took me a year to get my ideas into a much better shape.

Once I decide I'm going to bother, I write a table of contents.

My books are Driven From the TOC

Possibly also unlike other authors, I spend a lot of time writing my Table of Contents (TOC). I then write the book FROM that TOC. Meaning, I flesh out the skeleton in a very linear fashion.

Here's an excerpt from the TOC of my upcoming book:
Chapter One: Are Business and Life Really a Game?The World Right NowMore Busy, More BehindOne Thousand Targets, One ArrowThat Lie Called Work Life BalanceTwo Missing Skills (Personal Leadership and Storytelling)My Weird Obsession with Video GamesHow to See Business and Life as a GameThe Three QuestionsThat Next Level (Later)Repetition and Echo

I started with chapter titles, and then I filled in what I wanted to talk about to ensure that people got where I was headed and were able to do something with it. When you get a copy of this book, there will be pages of information in between those words. You'll see a bold headline that says "The World Right Now," and then a page or two of my ideas on that. Then, you'll see a bold subheading that says "More Busy, More Behind" and a page or two of words. Make sense?

Every Author is Different

I am weird. I write what will end up being fairly close to the final draft the first time. EXCEPT I have a strange experience that happens almost every time I write a book (9 so far). Somewhere around 100 pages in, I'll get an even better idea on how to organize the book, and I'll scrap the 100 pages and start fresh. But what I turn in is usually very close to what I started with (after the 100 page reset). That alone is not like most writers, who love the editing process, and who write draft after draft.

My Writing Environment:Physical

I write anywhere. I write at my kitchen table, at my desk, in bed, at coffee shops, at many bookstores, at Jacq's house. I have nothing that makes a specific writing environment, and that's on purpose. If I had to have a very special setup, I'd have excuses why not to write.

My Writing Environment: The Tools

I write on four devices:

• My Macbook Pro
• My iMac
• My Galaxy Tab
• My Samsung Galaxy S6

The words go right into Google Docs. I've used a lot of other tools like Scrivener, etc. I don't care for any of them. Word/Office 365 is good, too. What I look for in my writing environment is the ability to use ANYTHING to write. I can use any browser on anyone's machine and still get to my pages. That's what matters most to me.

I also use Evernote for notes and ideas. I use Dropbox to store files that aren't my writing files.

People tend to obsess over the writing environment. Write on whatever you can use that will take away the most excuses. Write anywhere. Get the words down. That's what matters.

My Writing Habits

Some people have a "best time of day to write." Again, not me. I write when I can get some time. Sometimes, that's in the morning. Other times, it's throughout the day in between other tasks, five minutes at a pop. Again, you'll get sick of me. No excuses. I write when I can.

I have a rule of writing at least 2500 words a day and up to 4000 words. That sounds like a lot, but it's not, once you get used to it. This blog post will top off around 1000, for instance. That's probably the most important of my writing habits. And lots of people tend to give themselves permission to write "junk" for those word counts. Not me. It had to be juicy. Good. Useful. It might not all get into the book (or post or whatever), but I never write "throwaway" material. (You can give yourself a break on this one).

Should YOU Write a Book?

Books are software. You use them to give someone else a new capability or perspective or idea. Write a book if you want to serve certain people and give them something useful and/or entertaining.

People also use books as a way to establish themselves as "thought leaders," whatever that means. If that's your goal, it sure is a lot of work to write a book just to assert to people that you're smart or worth it or whatever.

I write books because I have ideas that I think would be useful that are bigger than blog posts or newsletter issues. I write books because I think I can give people ideas that will change their success rates with some part of their life.

Whether YOU should write a book is up to you. Never let someone tell you what to do and what not to do in this regard. Decide for yourself.

I'll Keep You Updated

If you subscribe to this blog, you'll probably like the new book. I'll let you know when it comes available (aiming for summer 2017, but might be sooner, if I can turn the book in faster). In the mean time, maybe I'll share a few excerpts with you here? Is that good?

My email is chris@owner.media if you feel like dropping me a line. Any time. It's always me.

Content Marketing as a Food Truck: Rethinking Content Marketing In A World of Splintered Attention

With well over a billion users, Facebook must easily rank as most people's "where I see interesting stories and click" tool of choice. Sure, us nerds might point to Feedly or Flipboard, but that's not "most people." That's the enlightened. Some of us get our favorite sites to our inbox. But that's more rare than not.What seems most true, however, is that hardly anyone stops by someone's actual blog any more (or say "site" in case you bristle at the word "blog.") If people aren't visiting blogs directly any more, what do we do? How do we earn that attention? And what matters most in the equation.

Enter the Food Truck

Let's look at the analogy. A food truck goes to where the people are and delivers food. It's lightweight, and people like the variety. A food truck is not a restaurant. People headed to a restaurant aren't likely to change their mind and say, "Hey, let's just eat this food truck instead," or vice versa.Gone are the days of "let's all go to Chris's blog!" Holy cats. Back in the way old days, that's the only way people knew how to (cough twice) monetize their blog. Trust me, people of earth: almost no one comes to your site, and when they do, precious few click the ads in your sidebar. Precious few. So should you even have a site?

People Quit Their Blogs Every Day for Facebook, Medium, Extra Small, etc

I read an "I'm quitting my blog" post every few days. Always by accident. Why do I care if you quit? More potential readers for me."But wait, Chris. I quit my blog because I'm on Facebook, with a million users!"

Let's Get Back to The Food Truck Analogy

Content is food. Most food trucks create their food or prep it at a "home base" and then take it to where they'll prepare it and sell it to people: "the community you serve," in this case.Content = Food.Audience/Community = Customers.Digital Outposts = Food Truck.You've got to prep your food somewhere (your primary site), and then you've got to distribute it somewhere via your truck: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Podcasts, whatever. And every time you do that, you can prep a bit, but you've got to serve fresh flavors to those various food truck customers, not just copy/paste content because seeing your "leftovers" all over the place is pretty boring.

Set Up Your Content

In the world of "food truck" content, you've got to make your posts easier to eat on the go. Shorter. You can tell me long form is the wave of the future, and I'll show you that it's not. No one's reading it. This post is too long. The only long form that works is if you give out a lot of value and if you give people lots of action they can take.In a food truck world, make yours stand out. Pictures, graphics, something extra and flavorful is what will make your food truck stand out. There are many variations: amazing service, some added bonus, some flair, "stickers." Who knows? There are lots of ways to make your content more interesting. Instagram would help. Add some kind of value to what you're offering.Deliver. Configure your content so that it can be consumed at the outposts like Facebook or LinkedIn or wherever, and then gently invite them back to the home base to take whatever that next-action is for your project.Remember what I love to say: Content marketing is weaponized storytelling. Without some intention of a next action, it's content, not content marketing. (Tweetable)Here's the most important food truck part:Make "versions" for different audiences for key pieces of content.If you're going to market it on Pinterest or Instagram, make a special graphic (I use Picmonkey. If you're going to post to Facebook, pull a specific segment out and "pull quote" it there (just a way to highlight the information). Ditto with a different experience for LinkedIn. On Twitter, consider posting a graphic along with the link, maybe something different than the cover graphic.

Want a Checklist?

(Never mind. The offer's over. Love you.)

Where I'm Headed

I've been thinking a lot about you. I want to be helpful. I want to do more to see you successful. This is what's on my mind.

More and more over the last handful of years, I've found that my work with larger companies and my work with solo and smaller businesses is aligning around certain core elements, and that the parts of the puzzle that both fascinate me and that I find to have the most business value for you are almost (almost!) identical for the big guys and the little guys. I wanted to take a moment and give you a preview of what's to come for me and my business plans for the next many months (give or take any course correction that happens along the way).

In Pursuit of Human Business

The single most potent negative business trend of the last several years has been the systematic dehumanization of business processes and the steady push towards transactional sales over relationship-based partnerships. When I say "human business" is the solution to this, I mean that sustainable (you must be able to make a living), relationship-minded (put the people first) business is the path to revitalizing our own economies. What we lose in volume, we will make up for in depth of experience and the ability to help that yields longer term buyers. Think concierge-class service - service craftsmanship if you will - for most businesses that are built around more than a transaction.

Those Who Understand The Impact Equation Will Prosper

When Julien Smith and I wrote Trust Agents, we felt we'd given a guide to how to be human on the web. Our new book, The Impact Equation (affiliate link), covers what we evidently didn't explain well enough the first time around. We believe that ideas with a lot of contrast, spread across significant platforms of our own creation, into communities that care is the way to build business. (That's the rough sketch of the book, by the way.)

We Need a New Set of Plans

A lot of people fall into one (or more) of these buckets). See yourself on this list?

• I work for a company and nothing I'm doing seems to get traction any more.
• I lost the map for my career plans.
• I have a day job, but I hate it.
• I have a day job, and I'm barely hanging onto it.
• I have a day job, but I can't pay all my bills.
• I'm trying to make money on the web, and that's not working.
• I started my own business and I'm scared to bits.
• I'm using all these online things but not sure why, and I feel overwhelmed.
• All my life, I feel like I've been settling.
• I'm 30-something, 40-something, 50-something, 60-something, and I still haven't really lived my own life yet.

Did any of those ring a bell? I think there are a lot of contributing factors to all this. One is that almost everyone you know was raised to be an employee in the industrial economy, and that economy no longer exists. Have you actually looked at the game of Life playing board lately? Does anyone you know have those jobs?

We need a new set of plans for our own lives. We need to accept that our lives, our work, and our ability to produce what we want and need require some new plans and skills that we don't already possess, and that aren't exactly on the curriculum at college, either.

Storytellers, All of Us

I want to continue to explore the intersection of creativity and business. I want to talk about storytelling, about creativity, about music and art and video games and everything that we've been told will rot our brains or rob us of our edge, but that defines us to our very core. I'll help you tell better stories.

Your Future Requires Bravery

Over the past several weeks, I've posted interviews with the leading authority on tea, with a retired US Navy SEAL, with the creator of an iPhone app, and with a very successful author. What did they have in common? No one gave any of these people permission to be who they became. These people all demonstrated success in their fields, though they chose non-traditional paths to accomplish what they had done. All of these people were risk-takers of varying degrees.

I will continue to find brave people doing interesting work and share it with you. I will find those who are on their fifth or sixth completely different career. I will find those who failed and then got back up again. I will find those who have a unique way of being themselves and still succeeding in business. Because we have surrendered a lot of our intentions and our goals and our beliefs, instead of daring to be brave. I want to help with that.

We Need the Vision And The Steps

Like many, I fall into the trap of just spouting off ideas and visions. These are wonderful, but you can't often do much with them. I want to double down on my effort to show you the practical side to go along with everything I share about the potential paths one might take. If we are going to talk about building platform, I'll work on developing resources for it. I've already started by creating courses, like this one for how to improve your writing and blogging. But I'll be doing more.

As a publisher and media maker, I will provide you with the best materials I can to help you succeed.

That's Where I'm Headed

I'm not interested in talking about social media. I'm interested in helping you build your business. I'm not curious about emerging technology. I'm fascinated by how we can implement what we have to solve a problem. I don't want to debate whether or not your business should be marketing on Pinterest. I want to talk with you about how to make customers love you enough to keep your bills paid and the lights on.

And I fully intend to help with your own personal bravery.

That's where I'm headed.

Future Scratches

Are you a collector? If so, of what? I'm not, but I know the culture. I grew up reading comic books and buying music and haunting bookstores. in all cases, there's always a sub-tribe of collectors, the kind who scour bins, sometimes seeking the rare and expensive, but other times, seeking the rare and cast off. These are the bin-pickers, the type who must stop at yard sales.

I had all these thoughts, random thoughts, and they could all be blog posts, or they could be nothing. Some of them take time to absorb. Not all of these apply to you. Pick through these as a kind of bin full of tapes and bits you could use to mix into your own stories and songs.

Future Scratches: The Discount Bin

You, the talent, must find the business that supports your storytelling. The studio no longer knows. Replace "studio" with "publisher," if you're an author.

No platform? No problem. It's just harder that way. Start somewhere. Get known for something. Nurture that community and grow it slowly.

If you're not serious about content creation as a tool of your business-making, you're not serious about using the web as a business tool.

It doesn't matter if you're not serious. The web can just be fun. Relax, if that's what you want.

You can be the creator, the distributor, the servicer, or maybe the commentator. You can even be all. But knowing which brings you business is the whole value game.

Start. Start. Start somewhere. Worrying or thinking or doubting are all soap without a bubble wand.

On my phone, I can create music, read a magazine, have conversations, write stories, sell things, accept payment, and more. If you're not configuring your business to face the mobile everything-maker, then you're skipping the most obvious big sector of potential digital growth for your company.

Picking any one thing and working on that is better than thinking about working on something.

If you're not making it easy to buy, people will oblige you and not buy.

Stop waiting for your big chance. Those come when you make them happen. They come when you dare to say what you really think.

You can read about sex all day. It's still not as fun as having it. Same thing with most business experience.

The world is tapas. If you're waiting for the perfect amount of time, you're going to miss the big meal.

If you fancy yourself a business owner, start thinking like a business. And by that, I mean, "how do I grow relationships with my best potential partners?"

The most successful people I know lead with, "Tell me more about you! I'm dying to know." They rarely talk about themselves. That's why they're successful.

You are very wonderful and worth it. Here's a cookie. Now, do the hard work that it takes to eat off the bigger plate.

If you think your product or service or YOU are boring, it is (you are). That's your vote first, and you'll help influence us.

None of this matters. What matters is you taking action.

Lastly

If you've had even one or two little twinges of "a-ha," then I've done my job. Thanks for picking through the bin.

Lastly, I want to ask you to sign up to my free newsletter that comes out weekly. I promise to challenge you even more in there. We get up to some really interesting things there weekly, and it's a very personal back and forth experience. If you're seeing the word "newsletter" and thinking "information about social media" or "news about chris," then you're missing the greatest trick the devil ever pulled.

And thank you.

Google Plus as a Storytelling Platform

One great value of Google+ is that it makes a great platform for cultivating visibility. If your organization is hoping to "save a seat at the table" in between sales calls, one way to do this is to create compelling content that nurtures your business relationships by educating your community and by making them the hero in their own story. Said differently: If you want to nurture leads while they're still at the wide end of the sales funnel, using Google+ is an effective addition to your content marketing strategies.

Using Google+ for Content Marketing

First, realize that Google+ indexes any post you submit to the "Public" sharing option, meaning that the information in such a post is searchable in Google (the search engine, not the social network) within a few hours. This means that if you wanted to write about being the "best restaurant for kids in Milwaukee," as part of your post, it would become searchable content. So, let's extend that.

It's not enough to write a post that just says "AJ Bombers is the best restaurant for kids in Milwaukee." I mean, you can say that, but it won't be that interesting for people coming along to read it. Instead, you might consider writing a post about "7 Reasons AJ Bombers is the Best Restaurant for Kids in Milwaukee," wherein which you talk about the features of the restaurant such that a parent would be able to recognize the value for themselves. Because you can include videos, I would do so. For instance, I'd show off the "P-Nut Delivery System":If you can't see the video click here.

Why? Because any kid seeing that thing will immediately start pestering their parents that they MUST go to a place that delivers peanuts via a steel BOMB flying overhead and smashing into a target.

Mix It Up A Bit

You can post text, video, photos, links, and place information on Google+. Using a combination of those post types is probably the best way to get the most attention. For instance, in my tests, if I post only text, I get one level of response. If I add a photo to the post, I get almost 50% more engagement, every time.

You can't post video and a photo, for instance, but if you post video, I'd include a few sentences about what the video is about, and/or maybe some useful search text. I'd also include a link to whatever might be pertinent, as well. If you do place data, be sure to include a photo, maybe something candid. This helps people engage a bit further, as well.

Build an Editorial Calendar

If you want to incorporate Google+ into your content marketing strategy, I'd consider building an editorial calendar, even if you use it just lightly. For instance, if you post something like the post above, that comes off as a bit heavy-handed in the self-promotion department, I might do an interview with a restaurant guest as my next post, or maybe something off-topic, or maybe a non-work-related video interview with a server or a chef. I don't know about you, but wouldn't it be a bit more interesting to know that the person who made your burger is also a competitive street luge racer?

You can build an editorial calendar in a spreadsheet, or on a Google calendar, or wherever. The point is, when you lay out the month in some kind of visual format, you're less likely to overwhelm your audience with a specific kind of post. Would it be helpful to see a sample? Here's something super simple:

Editorial Calendar - Sample

Monday 1: Post photo from weekend showing leaves changing.Monday 2: Video clip from ESPN College Game Day coverage.Monday 3: Article link to post about grass fed beef findings.Monday 4: Re-share a community member's post (pass it forward).Tuesday 1: Write up new menu changes (w/photo of new fries).Tuesday 2: Congratulate Tim on winning local "Best Of" award with link.Tuesday 3: Video post about watching baseball at our bar.Tuesday 4: Off-topic. Anything.

Break That Down

You'll see that, in this example, I recommend 4 posts a day. That's to cover a 24-hour community. Also, posts on a service like Google+ flow through the stream pretty quickly. It's probably not overwhelming to your readers to see 4 posts from you a day, and judging by the content I mentioned above, it wouldn't be that hard to get those kinds of posts up.

So, in my example, I'd map out at least a week worth of content, and maybe use that as a way to look at how this ties to the rest of my marketing efforts, too. For instance, if I'm trying to get more people onto my email newsletter, maybe I'd make that the "call to action" on one or two of the posts, and see if I could get more takers from my Google+ community. Also, if you're having a seasonal event, you can spread content about that event between your email newsletter, your blog, and also your Google+.

Feel like too much? It might be, to start. But it depends on what you're doing, your goals, and what you're hoping to accomplish with Google+.

Does This Work for Your Industry?

Technically, yes. You can post content of whatever kind to whatever industry. If you're selling storage to big tech companies, this works. If you're selling legal advice, this works. If you're selling education to students, this works.

But How Does This Get Me New Prospects?

However, what this doesn't accomplish is that it doesn't rustle up all kinds of new customers. This isn't lead generation work at this point. This is community nurturing work. This is helping to cultivate visibility. However, when you have prospects, and when you have people looking around to better understand you, and wondering if they should do business with you, can you see how the above content might help the process?

Save Your Seat at the Table

In between sales activity, we have to have something to talk about. Sometimes, we use that time to seek referrals. Other times, we use that time to nurture our existing customers. Some times, we use it to help guide our prospects closer to a sale. It's up to you what you want to do with it. But this is one way of building up that content.

Are you on Google+ yet? If not, it's free. Swing by Google+ and claim your account.

And if you want to connect with me, you can find me here, or just follow me via this Widget:

My 3 Words for 2011

Every year, I come up with three words that will be my guiding pillars for what I will focus on in the coming year. Instead of resolutions, which don't usually help me very much, I work hard on using these words as a lighthouse for my actions and efforts. Here are my 3 words for 2011:

Reinvest. Package. Flow.

Reinvest - I will reinvest in my efforts in all areas of life that matter to me. I won't phone it in. I have some fitness goals. I can't keep playing at it. I have some financial goals that will be met. I have community goals that require me to reinvest in my projects and not take on new things.Package - I just wrote about packaging the other day. Essentially, I'm going to get my own marketing house in order. I'm going to make sure things make sense, make sure they are easy to understand, and make sure that the right people know about them. Packaging will have other meanings, too, but this one is important to me in 2011.Flow - In the last few months of 2010, I came to realize that I'm still doing too much. I went into redrawing mode yet again. One thing I have to do much better in 2011 is manage flow: that state of working on the most important stuff and eliminating distractions. I've cut a lot out of my original plans for 2011. I'll surely cut a little more. The end result? Things will come out much better. I'll have less stress. Things will flow nicely.

3 Words Aren't Goals

The three words idea is built so that you can have something to reflect upon. As you know, goals should be SMART ( Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely). The way you use the two together is that you think up goals that will match up to your words. For instance, one goal of mine in 2011 that ties to "reinvest" is to lose 50 pounds over 10 months. 5 pounds a month is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.There you go.

Your 3 Words

I asked the people who read my free newsletter about personal development and business growth what their three words are for 2011. Here's what they answered:

• Alexandra - Creativity, Growth, Simplicity
• Martha - Focus, Connect, Momentum
• Debbie - Touch, Storytelling, Create
• Rebekkah - Reclaim, Rewrite, Renew
• Vicki - Passion, Confidence, Balance
• Debra - Clients, Reputation, Smarts
• Nick - Smile, Fight, Create
• Ginny - : Basics, Balance and Gratitude.
• Marge - Perseverance, wellbeing, manifest.
• Justin - Kitchen, owners, stories.
• Laurie - Launch, Interconnect, Allow
• Sue - Bold, Tribe-Mesh, Be.
• Paula - Action, Collaboration, Freedom
• Joanna - Love, Passion, Action
• Sonya - Publish, Productive, Value
• Gail - Write, Speak, Read.
• Robin - Ask, Do, Share.
• Jill - Blog, Persevere, and Brand.
• Patti - Grow, Contribute, Action.
• Meghan - Mind, Body, Spirit
• Margot - Integrate, Connect, Finish
• Dana - Creativity, Independence, Outreach.
• Jonathan - Quality, Help, and Perseverance.
• Sam - Ship. Learn. Collaborate.
• West - Servitude, Submission, Integrity.
• David - Renew, Rethink, and Remove.
• Chrystie - Focus, Follow-Through, Grow.
• Jennifer - Relationships, Flow, Growth
• Shayna- Secure, Execute, Close
• Christian - Ideas, Love, Consistency.
• JoAnn - Relationship, Health, Productive.
• Jeffrey - Integrity, Wisdom, Patience
• Anne - JUICY. SO WHAT? and WORTHY
• Shel - Columns. Book.  Leverage.
• Mike - Ask, Do, Share.
• Louise - Pleasure, People, Publish, Practice.
• Andrew and Donna - Process, Content, Leadership.
• Roland - Story, Partners, Sales.
• Bryony - Write, Listen, Action.
• Michael - Produce, Plan, Ask.
• Debbie - Honor, Stretch, Organize.
• Robin - Let Them Talk, Or, Listen Listen Listen.
• Jason - Execute, Learn, Share.
• Conga - Discernment, Enjoy, Educate.
• Kathy - Integrity, Accountability, Tenacity.
• David - Development, Solutions, Digital.
• Leon - Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin (needs to learn all three).
• Julie - Create, Execute, Deliver
• Melissa - Create, Care, Promote.
• Sara - Study. Pursue. Persevere.
• Benji - Prospect, Follow-through, Integrity.
• Adam - Project, Resolute, Legacy.
• Christopher - Commitment, Connecting, Caring.
• Kathy - Focus, Produce, Balance.
• Mike - See, Imagine, Show.
• Zane - Keep. Moving. Forward.
• Jill - Ask, Grow, Matter.
• Sharon - Dream, Do, Gratitude.
• Kimberly - Health, Truth, Thrive.
• Dimitri - Move, Grow, Share.
• Susan - Focus, Grow, Connect.
• Amruta - Ask, Do, Share.
• Eric - Adapt, Support, Teach.
• David - Remarkable, Share, Understand.
• C.C. - Create, Inspire, Teach.
• Beth - Challenge, Empower, Collaborate.
• Lisa - Passion, Balance, Giving Back.
• Barry - Focus, Consistency, Write.
• Heather - Wealth, Freedom, Fun.
• Siobhan - Learn, Stretch, Give.
• Eileen- Enlighten, Do, Grow.
• Laurie - Wholeness, Notice, Release.
• Michelle - Own, Reflect, Try.
• Christian - Select, Execute, Review
• Pam - Prioritize, Empathize, Collaborate.
• Adam - Create, Connect, Move
• Jack - Freedom, Authority, Conversation.
• Phyllis - Connect, Undaunted, Execution.
• Alex - Responsibility, Integrity, Civility.
• Thomas - Love, Live, Laugh.
• Bella - Embrace, Act, Care.
• Jamie - Give, Go, Be.
• Deb - Innovation, Recognition, Sustainability.
• Diana - Courage, Relationships, Focus.
• Josh - Epic, Sustainable, Togetherness.
• Daniel - Exponential, Residual, Communal.
• Eric - Ecosystem, Momentum, Hero Frame.
• Kristelle - Breathe, Stretch, Irresistible Influence.
• Serita - Exceed, Grow, Gratitude.
• Lori - Intuition, Motivation,Organization.
• Bill - Remarkable, Memorable, Valuable.
• Mat - Listen, Learn, Develop.
• Margie - Teach, Learn, Live.
• Sue - Get OUT There!
• Rebecca - Grow, Connections, Balance.
• Julia - Freedom, Fascination, Fun.
• Caren - Innovate, Engage, and Generate.
• Rex - Discipline, Delivery and Sharing.
• Glenda - Transformation, Freedom, and Instincts.
• Jeff - Finish.
• Jacqueline - Centralize, Bulldoze, Infect.
• Mark - Create. Connect. Give-Back.
• Chad - Learn, Reflect, Act.
• Marcy - Live, Love, Lead.
• Barbara - Stop. Talk. Live.
• LaTara - Life, Love, and Liberty.
• Joel - Focus. Expect. Exercise.
• Jim - Customers, Content, and Strategy.
• Christine - Expand, Focus, Nurture.
• Gin - Iterate, Beauty, Home.
• Colleen - Process, Detail, Faith.
• Stephanie - Faith, Family, Collaboration.
• Matt - Trajectory, Triples, Diamond Filters.
• Ardath - Story, Grow, Teach.
• Allan - Learn, Implement, Blossom.
• Jessica - Integrate, Focus, Expand.
• Gail - Ask, Receive, Free Spirit.
• John - Start, Stop, Continue.
• Daniel - Concentrate, Collaborate, Deliver.
• Lynn - Connecting, Articulating, Performing.
• Gilda - Speaker, Author/Book, Information Products.
• Diane - Focus, Educate, Produce.
• Hadass - Move, Learn, Seek.
• Jody - Relationships, Grow, Build.
• Julianne - Responsibility, Exercise, Passion.
• Tom - Conscious, Present, Mirth.
• Jennifer - Save, Invest, Choose.
• Angela - Connect, Lead, Mentor.
• Chrissy - Energy, Passion, Knowing.
• Eugen - Grow, Build, Ecosystems.
• Ray - Proactive, Punctual, Relationships.
• Jessica - Bones, Breath, Reach.
• Hubertus - Storytelling, Grow, Stuff.
• Nick - Grow, Create, Community.
• Jim - Believe, Do, Own, Family.
• Tomasz - Learn, Love, Lead.
• Glen - Do, Increase, Expert.
• Darren - Engage, Create, Learn.

And You?

What are your three words for 2011? How will you guide your actions?

Storytelling for Business

I've written about storytelling before. In one post, I wrote about the velocity of real time storytelling. In another, I wrote about the storyteller's promise in presentations. In another, I wrote about at least one way that stories help your community. Stories also work well for business.

Storytelling for Business

Right off the bat, let's accept that press releases aren't stories (at least not necessarily). They're just information formatted to be absorbed by a news organization. That's okay. They're not meant to be stories. Stories come out of a narrative that usually involves experiences, actions, and a change of state. They take place in a setting, have characters, and often have a theme about them.

Advertising knows this. They do it often. This piece by Levi's really moved me. It worked perfectly as a story. And that story got me interested in buying more Levi's products, because I saw myself as part of the story. I loved what they were talking about in the story, and I was moved.

So, how do YOU do this? And why would you?

What Stories Do For Us

Stories are how we learn best. We absorb numbers and facts and details, but we keep them all glued into our heads with stories. I was with AJ Leon (and Melissa and Tony) for their latest project. He brought up old blog posts of mine as part of his interview process. In each case, there was a story wrapped around the post, and a story to share with the idea he asked me about. Stories let us convey wisdom, and/or explain information in an entertaining way.

How To Tell a Story

I'm going to explore this in an interview with Jennifer Aaker, Andy Smith, and hopefully Oren Jacob for 501 Mission Place shortly, but I'll tell you my simple view of it, before that experience.

How to tell a story:

• Start with a character and a point of view. Harry Potter is the story of a young boy who feels he's very different and very left out, discovering that he's not where he was meant to be, and then it grows into this larger epic about defeating evil. Now, if you run an air conditioning installation company, you might not be able to talk about a secret school, owls, and a weird game, but you can start with a story about Samir, and why he came to work for the company, and what he loves most about the job.
• Have a point to the story. Samir, the air conditioning installation person can give an interview, but just asking him questions and getting the answers isn't a story. It's an interview. The point might come out from the interview, or the point might be to gear the questions so that Samir tells the story of how Ace has the best service.
• Make the story useful. If you're hoping the story will help your business, make it useful. What if Samir showed us how regular six month maintenance on our air handling systems saved people thousands of dollars a year, and what if he showed us that it takes only 20 minutes start to finish? That's useful.
• End with a "next action." This is a little different than stories, which like to stop at "the end." In storytelling for business, you want your reader to take an action. Thus, the story should end with a sense of what the "reader" (who becomes a character of another kind) can do with what they learned in the story.

Different Media

Telling a story on YouTube is different than telling a story on Facebook is different than telling a story on Twitter is different than telling a story on a blog. It's all different than an ebook, and a paper book, etc. The different types of media make the storytelling a different experience. Think of how you'd do an audio interview versus a video interview. Think of what comes from writing clear and useful prose versus having a video experience. See how it's all different?

Be sure to pick the right medium for the job.

• Audio is intimate.
• Video is expressive and illustrative.
• Text is faster to read than audio or video is to consume, easier to transfer, and simpler to produce.

Experiment

The best way to start learning about storytelling is to practice. Think up storylines. Look at the points I've made above and see which ones resonate with you. Think about how you could tell a story with the experience you want your buyers/clients/customers to have. What's the story that you think will resonate with the people you need to reach?

And what did I leave out of this that you'd want to know about?

Personal Branding Basics for 2011

Personal branding isn't really my focus. It's something that I do because it's part of marketing and building out the new way that social business flows. It's something we wrote about in Trust Agents in the "Make Your Own Game" part. But I'm asked about it often. Here are my thoughts for how to move the needle with your personal brand in 2011 (and yes, you should start planning now). Oh, and Batman is going to help me illustrate along the way.

Personal Branding Basics for 2011

Decide On Your Promise

A brand is a promise. Christopher S. Penn quotes Ze Frank often, saying that it's an "emotional aftertaste." Think about it. You buy Apple because you know it's well-designed. You buy Coke because you prefer the taste. You take your kids to McDonalds because you know they'll eat it without a fuss. Whatever the promise, good or bad, that's why you align with the brands you choose.

Brands as part of identity is even bigger. If you're into bicycling, you're a cyclist. You think that way. You eat accordingly. You spend your extra time accordingly.Batman is defined by the goal to seek never-ending vengeance on criminals. That's his promise. You're a bad guy? It's going to hurt. Batman is vengeance. And if someone else started being Batman, they'd pretty much have to own up to that promise, as well, or the brand would dilute.Decide what you're going to promise and start there.

Decide How to Best Represent that Promise

First, for everyone who calls themselves something like "The Leadership Doctor" after their name, or in lieu of their name, I challenge you to find me a very big, very successful personal brand who did the same. Richard Branson is Richard Branson. Oprah is Oprah. Madonna. Lance Armstrong. Mother Theresa.None of them were "the something someone."So, now that you're a name, how do you represent the promise of that brand? I'm turning Human Business Works into a brand that promises to help grow sustainable, relationship-minded business through helpful education and community. That's the brand promise of HBW. By extension, my promise is that I can deliver that and that becomes part of my brand.Batman represents his promise by executing on it, all the time. Instead of talking, he does. He executes.

Brands DO Have Symbolism, However

Don't doubt for a moment that brands use powerful symbolism. That yellow Livestrong band shows up at quite a distance, plus echoes the Maillot Jaune (the yellow jersey) that signifies the leader and winner of the Tour De France. All good brands have symbolism. I changed the logo here at [chrisbrogan.com] to a "B" not only to represent my last name but to represent business, which is at the heart of all my projects. That "B" will show up in a lot of places coming up.Batman's symbol, the bat, started as a way to add to people's fear, and then grew from there.

Promises and Symbols Require Repetition

One way that brands build and grow is by being there, and being there repeatably. When people ask me about my success and how I got to where I am now, I always answer that I was everywhere and I was helpful. Not only did I pay every dollar I could afford to show up to places, but I paid more dollars that I couldn't afford. What was the result? (Besides ruining my credit) I was everywhere, and people started to know that I'd be there, and they knew that I'd be helpful when I was there, and that my speeches would be useful, and I built relationships that mattered. I built connections to thousands of the who's who in my field (look at some snaps of them all here), and by that, I really mean most of the up and comers who are stars-in-the-making.Batman showed up every time the signal was lit. He seemed to be everywhere to stop crime and to build momentum on the fact that crime wasn't a good idea in Gotham City.How do you repeat your promises? Live them. Be there. Be useful. Put out good media. Be at every event that you need to be at to grow your industry. Help as many up-and-comers as you can. Group and gather and cluster to build a team of helpful people. (Batman had Robin, Batgirl, and a whole cast of people you wouldn't know the names of, unless you were as geeky as me).

Grow And Adapt

Madonna stayed on top of the heap of female musical performers for quite some time by adjusting and adapting and growing with the times. She'd morph her style but keep her Madonna-ness as she moved into new phases in her career. In every case, she'd bridge. She wouldn't swing wildly from one style to another, but instead, she'd let her capabilities overlap into new areas, and we'd be left with the sense that she'd acquired a new style to her collection, instead of seeing her as some kind of wishy washy switcher.Batman has been in the media since the 1930s. Back in the old days, he would slap people and use guns and do all kinds of quasi-vampire things. Then we had Adam West in the crazy 60s. Then we had Michael Keaton showing that you didn't have to be crazy. Most recently, we have Christian Bale in the movies and all kinds of crazy stories in the comics. In all cases, the storylines get a little more modern, and keep us in the right mindset to accept that this man dresses up in personal armor and beats people all night long.How will you grow and adapt your brand? For instance, if your branding is all around "social media" right now, what are you going to do in 2011 when that phrase starts to fall from grace? How will you vector your branding accordingly to keep it fresh and current? To quote friend Aaron Strout, "I'm in fax marketing." See how silly that sounds? Well, in the 1990s, someone was saying that.

The Tools Are the Afterthought

Your branding isn't a logo, the same profile pic everywhere, a catch phrase, a theme song. Your branding isn't a clever little ploy. It's a whole package, a whole storyline, a promise and symbols. Who cares which tools you're using? Use the tools that let you tell that story best. If you're looking for which tools to use, answer these questions:

• Which tools let you tell the story the best?
• Where is your audience?
• What do you want them to do with your promise?
• Are the tools you're choosing serving this or no?
• How much effort is it to maintain your presence and your promise?

That's a reasonable way to look at the tools, right?

Finally: Focus On Experimentation, Execution, and Storytelling

You want to crush it in branding? Focus on experimenting to improve your abilities, executing to bring your promise into the real world, and telling stories by making useful media to build relationships with your buyers and supporters. That's the real formula. That's where you'll see your rewards. Repeat, repeat, repeat.It's the best advice I can offer you. For now.

A Simple Blogging Formula

In all my years of blogging, I've put together what serves as a very simple formula for what I think about when I sit down to the keyboard to type. This might not serve everyone, but it might be a great start for you to consider when thinking about blogging. Also, let me know how close this relates to your own blogging methods.

A Simple Blogging Formula

I try to blog almost every day. I believe that daily gets more people back more often and keeps attention levels high. Many people will disagree with this, saying that it's important to only blog when you have decent content and something worth saying. Here's the thing: I always have something I feel is worth saying. I have months more ideas than I have time to write them. So first, and foremost, my assumption is that frequency matters. Look at how many people are subscribed to my blog via RSS (around 50K daily). That number grows the faster I post. It levels out on weeks when I slow down.Let's go through the formula:

Step 1: Decide WHAT the Post Should DO for You

I write posts for several purposes:

• To get a call to action.
• To attract business.
• To promote someone else.
• To get links and bookmarks and reblogs.
• To get a conversation started.

But I don't do all of those things in every post. I start each post with a plan of what I want it to do. This post? I want you to reblog, to link, to bookmark, etc. That's all. No solid call to action. Just some more inbound links.

Step 2: How Can I Be Helpful?

Every post that gets real traction on my blog comes from the mindset of being helpful to others. Other sites report news. TechCrunch, Mashable, Perez Hilton. Those sites rely on you to want what's new. In my case, I rely on you wanting tips and advice and ideas that you can use for yourself.So, I write every post to answer how I can be helpful. You can pick what you want people to visit your site for, but if it's news and repeat entertainment, I find that a harder game to be in.

Step 3: The Actual Writing

I start with a headline. Then, I realize quite often that my headline stinks, and I go back and write a new one.I then find a picture on Flickr under their Creative Commons area, so that I can use it with the post (unless I have one of my own to use).My first paragraph is always a personable lead-in, usually with a question, and usually setting up the post. I know that I only have about 30 words to get you into it, and I cherish those 30 words.I write with lots of chunking on posts that I want you to bookmark and revisit. Chunking in this case means doing things like putting subheaders in there.I then make sure that the post is brief, unless I want lots of bookmarks, and then I make the post much longer. Why? Because you bookmark things that go over 500 or so words.I finish on whatever I want you to do: either a question, or a call to action.

Review My Last Few Weeks' Posts

Every few days, I look at what I've been writing over the past few weeks to make sure I'm not doing any repeats or overkill, and/or that I'm not just writing self-serving posts all the time. This helps me figure out whether I'm giving you what you deserve.I put some of this information into a calendar for editorial decision making. I find that helps me keep a better mix of my fresh ideas plus my planned ideas.

Repeat

If you're not creating great stuff, then people move on. My goal is to have something of use to you (almost) every day. I bring more posts out, especially when others are on vacation.Finally, with regards to all this, I work to keep the story fresh and give you a mix of storytelling about others and how-to for yourself. As my interests change and my focus changes, I try to make simple bridges for you to follow along. I lose a few people on the sharper turns, but I keep a lot of people, and gain new ones. It all works out.

Almost Forgot SEO

Oh, do you need to worry about your search engine optimization? I'm not especially versed in that, so I just use the Scribe SEO plugin (affiliate link) recommended to me by my friends at Serpninja.io. That way, if I need the post to rank better for something or other, the plugin helps me do the work. In my blog's case, I don't really care a lot about SEO. In client blogs, it matters a lot more.

Questions?

How else can I be helpful?Photo credit horia varlan

A-Team Was Great- Critics Stink

Kat and I went to see the movie The A-Team the other night on opening night. It's a remake of the TV show of the same name, with a whole new cast playing the main roles (more on that in a bit). As summer movies go, it was heavy on action, thin on plot, and yet stayed plausible and energy-driven the entire time. This is the kind of movie you see with a bucket of popcorn and your brain unplugged, especially if you're nostalgic for stuff you might remember from the 80s.Some critics complained about the cast. Liam Neeson stars as Colonel Hannibal Smith. Bradley Cooper plays prettyboy "Face." District 9 star Sharlto Copley plays "Howlin' Mad" Murdock, and Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson plays B.A. Baracus (famously played by Mr. T in the 80s version). None of the cast were the most likely people to play the role, and yet, we felt they all performed admirably. Each did a great job of bringing their own personalities into the role, while delivering a tribute to the original cast.Critics said the movie was implausible. So, blue aliens and people controlling fake remote control blue aliens to talk with those aliens was totally okay? Releasing the Kraken was okay? (Talk about a stinker of a movie remake.) Hollywood isn't exactly in the "plausible" business, is it?The movie was fast-paced, full of non-lethal action, smacked full of little "in" jokes about the old show, sprinkled with one-phrasers (not even one-liners), and so full of things you've never seen a movie pretend to do, that you'll definitely talk about that to someone when you leave the theater.

Critics Stink

I don't mean film critics. I mean critics overall. I guess this is because I fall on the creator side of the spectrum. People love to rush in and defend the Devil's Advocates and explain that good criticisms help bring something of value from people working hard. Bullshit, I say.Critics have only one task: take apart something created by someone else. They don't create. They fidget.The A-Team wasn't the most impressive piece of storytelling work since Gone With the Wind and Highlander. It's just a popcorn movie. It's meant to make us smirk and chuckle and appreciate the silliness of it all.Don't the critics know that? I just read Roger Ebert's criticism (and I admire Ebert more than most critics), and his points all boil down to it not being very realistic. Er um, the point was to be non-realistic. Of course, B.A. couldn't ride his bike across a bunch of tilted truck containers and land on the bad guy in real life, but as a lifelong Batman fan, heck, that's commonplace stuff. Anyone can ride a bike across some containers and land on the bad guy. They teach it up front.

Listen to Others Who Like What You Like

All this to say, social media renders critics unnecessary. Why do I need USA Today to tell me what movies to see? My friends tell me. But when I looked around on Twitter, I saw lots of people just quoting the reviews they'd seen.WE ARE THE REVIEWS!We don't have to wait. One of us who might like something can experience it, and then another of us, etc. We can form our own opinions. Do you read restaurant critics or do you read Yelp? Do you wait for "professionals" to tell you what to like, or do you find it yourself, with your network's help?Forget critics. Their time is passed, and they're just sitting around with a big red buzzer on anything that doesn't feed their addiction to "next best." They're entitled to their opinions. You just don't have to use that opinion as your own any more.Photo credit cheesy42

Scaling Social Media

If you're a company considering using social media tools for business communications, marketing, sales, etc, you're no doubt wondering about how much time it will add to your already busy day, especially if you're a smaller business. The answer varies depending on how you're using it, how many platforms you're engaging, your goals, and more. But we can still walk through some potential recipes and give you a sense of what will take time, how you might budget for it, and how to consider your engagement efforts. From a business perspective (and you can stretch this for non-profits and other organizations), it comes down to a mix of prioritizing and satisfying customer needs. Here are my thoughts on scaling social media.

Methods of Engaging in Social Media

First, let's level-set what we're talking about here. When I talk about scaling your efforts, here are the efforts I'm talking about:

• Listening/monitoring for PR, for customer service, for marketing opportunities, for R&D opportunties.
• Customer service.
• Client relations.
• Social marketing (such as two-way sales conversations).
• Sales prospecting (including two-way conversations, but also listening).
• Publishing (blogging, video, etc).

Of these six, everything but "listening/monitoring" assumes a little bit of two-way participation, meaning that you choose to comment on the other people's posts and statuses, etc. This takes time, as well. It's part of the relationship-building, however, and can't be skimped on.

Approaches to Assigning These Tasks

Listening/Monitoring - In my estimation, every social media effort has to have Listening/Monitoring at the core of it. I tried thinking of exceptions, and couldn't (without accepting that some people choose to be scammy). That said, you can opt to split the listening/monitoring chores out such that each member of your team that will be touching the social web owns some level of the process. For instance, your PR person can use the tools to listen for crisis issues, for storytelling opportunities, etc. Your customer service team can use the tools to enhance their customer service channel. Your marketers can listen for opportunities. Thus, you've already looked at how to split the vast bucket of information that comes in during listening. Someone should still own it. Maybe that's the product lead, the manager of that line of business, whoever is responsible for the bottom line. They should have their eyes on listening the whole time.Customer Service - Some companies already have this nailed down. Dell and Comcast have built great customer service integrations using social channels. Zappos has, as well. This area seems the most important to scale. Customer service is a tireless experience, and requires prompt attention. Thus, you need a deep bench. I think Frank at Comcast has 14 people on his team at this point, to give you a sense of it. Of all the social media tasks, this is tie for the most time consuming and most important (client relations would be the other). Learning how to scale this might be nuanced and customized, but just by knowing that it's the hardest part might be enough to get you a little further in this part.Client Relations- I split out client relations from customer service, because I think this part includes managing things like Facebook groups, managing blog comments, etc. It's the "there's no problem, but I'd like to keep you warm" part of business. You sometimes see "community manager" in this role (though I see the best community managers as a blend of a few of the above topics). This is tied for first place in time-consuming with Customer Service. People want the warm touch. It's also the hardest of the brand promises, because if you're nice to me on Twitter, but your counter help stinks, did you really move the needle? I vote no. With time, this one requires perhaps even more special care and attention. If you start offering this to your customer base, you've got to maintain it. Toy with the hours spent here at your own risk.Social Marketing - By social marketing, I mean things like finding new customers via Twitter, or coming up with YouTube challenges, things like that. This clearly falls into the marketing department of larger companies, and it falls on the shoulders of whichever of your small business partners markets the best. Like all roles in a small business environment, you should cross-train. Don't get lulled into thinking that just because Surya has a Twitter account that he's the only one who should do social marketing. This is probably the easiest to scale, but it's also the one where you can see the most obvious results of marketing effort. For instance, if you build a loyalty program and you need sign-ups, you can count pretty easily how many people took advantage of your offer, so you now whether or not to add attention to it. This is probably a lot less personable than client relations and customer service, so can likely be scaled the easiest.Sales Prospecting - Your sales team (or you, if you're a company of one or two) should already be realizing the sales benefits of the social web. Every day, someone's out there talking about their needs, and giving you a sense of how you could sell to them. It's lots of opportunity and requires a bit of time, but not much more than old fashioned prospecting. Switch out some of your time from sifting through phone books or wherever you find your customers, and put it into using search tools on the web to find new clients. Also, for ongoing relationships, if you're not keeping tabs on their social presence, you're missing the opportunity to know how they're doing before you make your important sales calls. This doesn't take a ton of time, but requires you to build it into your process.Publishing - Blogging, shooting videos, all that stuff - that's where some of your time gets eaten up, and yet, that's where a lot of the value comes from. In seeing some of the comments from my post about redrawing, a lot of people offered that maybe I should blog and tweet less. That's where I get my revenue. This post? It will generate a query for business where someone wants me to further customize and formalize these processes for their organization. I give it away to you for free, and you can run with it, but someone will ask for that next step, and I'll make money from that. Thus, publishing should never be considered the thing to slip. Hell, it's the product sometimes, and other times, it's the best advertising you could ever create. Never skimp on publishing.

Where Does That Leave You?

I've told you that everything's important and that nothing can be cut back. So where do you scale?

• Spread listening/monitoring as deep as you can.
• Enhance customer service and deepen that bench internally.
• Add to client relations when you can, from internal resources. It pays off.
• Social marketing can be augmented by external help.
• Sales prospecting is a sales job, but can be augmented.
• Publishing is important, but can be augmented by external help.

That's how I see it. Again, if you're talking about smaller scale operations, you'll have to find the mix. I've put it almost in order of importance, from top to bottom. You can shuffle it a bit. Is that how you see it?For those complaining that social media doesn't scale, the trick is this: we equate these tools to personal relationships. Because of that, we can't just open a "call center" for many of the touchpoints. However, as we move forward, and these tools become the new phone, the new radio, the new TV, it's no longer going to be a world of solo trust agents, but trust agencies.Will you be ready?Photo credit Bill Lapp