The Community Crew

Watching which is a for realz....

Sponsored Post – There Are No Cubicles about

“The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” – William Gibson

The following is a sponsored post for Cloud Powered Work. All the ideas are mine. They just want you to think about this space a little bit. Are you?

I just finished up a Skype call with someone for his book project. Before that, I had a quick call on my cell phone while running an errand. I’m writing this post on my nifty Dell XPS10, and will upload it to the web by tethering to my iPhone. I’m working. If you saw me, if you looked over at any point in my day or saw me sitting on the park bench by the river, you’d wonder what kind of role I had. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t think I was running a publishing and media company from here. At best, you’d guess I was an author (and I am).

The “Where” of Work Has Changed

I live in a former factory building. It used to produce upholstery for horse-drawn carriages before cars. Now it houses a bunch of creative people with jobs in far off places. I believe 97% of us (completely made up percentage, but probably not far off) work in a different town than where we live. Work isn’t here. It’s where our efforts go. (tweetable)

I used to work for a wireless telecom company. Near the end, they let me work remotely. Why not? I had remote access. I could do everything I would do at my cube somewhere else. And I could do it with fewer interruptions. Sure, some bosses were worried that I was milking the system, but only because they hadn’t figured out how to measure on production instead of attendance. Is that not the silliest thing, if you think about it? “I see you, so therefore, I will count you as ‘working.’”

The where of work has changed, is changing.

The Cloud Isn’t a What-If Any More

There are precious few examples of companies that have a legitimate reason not to use the cloud to power their not-in-person work. I had a phone call with a guy from India seeking to build partnerships in the US, UK, and Australia. He and I worked on Skype for a while, will share documents via the Cloud, and will likely never shake hands. And that’s how it rolls.

Prepare for No Cubes

Why sit around waiting for that time, business leaders? Why say “we need everyone where I can see them” when that’s the least effective management method ever invented? Why keep people tethered to office space and overhead when you can create a very responsive workforce situated where the best talent can be found, instead of simply based on a postal code?

Yes, some roles work better in clustered configurations. But all? Is that the right thinking?

There are no cubicles, at least from where I’m sitting.

The previous was sponsored by Cloud Powered Work, but the opinions are mine. Only mine. Unless they’re also yours.

via chrisbrogan.com

Your Out of Office Message Stinks about

Wow, your out of office message stinks.

As an email marketer, every time I send out a letter, I get a chance to peruse the “out of office” and bounce replies. Some of them are so amazing.

“It’s our busy season.”

Do We Have an Inherent Problem With Sharing? about

I took my kids to a water park the other day, and around certain areas, there are chairs set up for parents so they can watch their kids play in the giant toilets pools. Notice something in this picture?

People have “staked out” their chairs, but technically don’t need them. They are somewhere else. So over 90% of the “community” chairs aren’t available for what they’re intended to do: let people sit on them. I think this bears consideration.

Do we have a problem with sharing?

There are lots of new apps and businesses built around sharing. AirBNB is about sharing your home or vacation place while you’re not there. Sidecar and other similar apps are for sharing rides. Breather is about sharing quiet space and/or office space.

But I think that while these kinds of opportunities are awesome, I’m curious how we, the people, are going to get with the picture. How will we shift from our scarcity mindset into something that lets us interact and share better?

An Owner’s Mindset on Sharing

There’s some great value in learning to share. Zack O’Malley Greenburg wrote a great article in Forbes about musician-and-entrepreneur Toby Keith, and the part that really struck me (well, the whole article was really useful to entrepreneurs) was that he made a move that turned out to be smarter than anyone typically would foresee.

Perhaps mindful of those precedents, Keith decided to share staff with another nascent label, Big Machine, run by an up-and-comer named Scott Borchetta. The singer bought a building in Nashville to house both labels. And rather than just operate like a co-op, Keith paid $400,000 for a stake in Big Machine that FORBES estimates remains around 10%.

That 10% stake ended up being a 10% stake in Taylor Swift. (Among others).

It was one of the great investments in recent music history. Borchetta went on to sign Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw and, most notably, Taylor Swift. Now Keith gets paid whenever Swift does. “Toby’s a really smart businessman,” says Borchetta, who knows because “I send him checks.” How big are the checks that Swift generates for him? “I know there’s an extra comma,” smiles Keith, “if you added up all the money I’ve ever made.”

Consider that for a moment. Think about you as an owner, and as someone putting together a business. What do you own right now that you don’t need to own? What parts of the process, the system, the real estate, etc, are not as essential as you think? What could you share?

Take your towels off some of those chairs and you might find yourself in a much better position.

via chrisbrogan.com

Language Shifts about

Sometimes a shift happens in culture and we don’t notice it, or don’t think it has much to do with us, or we just don’t care. Other times, we should perk up and take heed. I think this is one of those times.

This post by Nick Bilton is, on the surface, not exactly mindblowing, and yet, it is. It might be. It’s something worth thinking about. And yet, something a lot of us hav been doing without thinking much about it for a while.

Essentially, the idea is that the way we communicate is (has been) shifting towards visual cues.

I wrote about the rise of the Junkweb a while back. The concept was different, but it relates to this. My premise was that the web before this point was based on text and links and Google knowing what to do to help us find things, etc, and that the web now has a lot more pictures (which are pretty much contextual quagmires for machines but are instant magic recognition for we humans.

For instance, what is this?

It’s coffee. So what? But what else is it? It’s French Press, so if you know what that is, you have a different reaction. Coffee isn’t just coffee. It’s fuel. It’s “I’m working, here!” It’s more than coffee, right?

The premise of Bilton’s post and Sergey Brin’s revelation is this: using graphics and photos as communication is upon us. (Yes, for some people, it’s part of how you/we communicate already.)

What will it mean?

I think Arik Hanson has some good ideas in this post that are a good starting point.

And as for the rest of it? I’ll cover it in this coming Sunday’s newsletter (get yours for free!)

What say you?

via chrisbrogan.com

STUDY: Social Business Strategy – Vision, Purpose and Value drive a new era of digital engagement via Brian Solis

Hold No Ground Solid about

It’s so easy to get set in our thinking. I spent 2013 working hard on creating courses, and paid a little less attention to my media efforts. I’ve also started work on some rebranding efforts. All of it gives you and I a lot to think about.

What In Your Plans Are You Holding As Solid?

For all of 2013, most of my business has come from offering courses to help people grow their businesses. Some are about blogging. Others are about productivity. Others are about building out a better digital channel for marketing and business-making. Zero are about “social media.” Most people still think of me as a “social media” guy, which is irksome, but whatever. It’s a label others can’t seem to shake from me.

But even as that was bugging me, I realized that I was focused almost entirely on my course work and also my newsletter, but hadn’t really paid as much attention to the media property that got me here in the first place. My sharing posts and ideas with you that help YOU grow is what earned your attention in the first place, and because I was working so hard on the courses, I really wasn’t giving that as much thought and not nearly the attention it deserved.

I was holding my courses as “solid ground” and was letting my future be decided based on that always being so. Meanwhile, my media efforts are every bit as important (maybe more so), and as such, I’m on track to release something really good in August and put a lot of effort into some next steps on helping build your future business curriculum so I can help you succeed even more.

What are YOU holding as solid right now?

What Would Happen If Something Solid Went Away?

I think about this question more and more, but do you? I once consulted with a celebrity who had a real problem. His telemarketing business was pretty much drying up, and that was his primary (almost only) sales channel. He needed to develop his digital channel but hadn’t put any effort in that direction. Further, he didn’t have the first clue how to ramp it up, and because revenue was suddenly plummeting fast, he needed results that weren’t realistic to the medium.

What’s your primary business-gaining method? What would happen if that went away? What’s your primary revenue-generator? What would happen if that went away?

That’s a really tricky question to deal with, but it might also help you be in a better position to work smarter. If you act as if the best and most “solid” elements of your business might go away or be rendered useless to you, how would you change? What would have to happen? Does this information help you better consider your strategy?

Would love your take.

via chrisbrogan.com

Self-Serve Information: Now, We’re All Passive-Aggressive via Brian Solis

The Shifts We Will Barely Feel about

My son is working away on a browser-based game on our new Dell XPS18 computer. But by “computer,” I mean it’s a very portable computer that feels a lot more like a big-ass tablet with a stand and a keyboard.

To be honest, I had to actually go online to look it up, whether it was technically a big tablet or a really thin computer. And honestly, this isn’t a post about a kind of computer. It’s a post about how you and I will do shifting and new things without really even noticing that.

Shifts Happen

Neither of my kids care about owning their music. iTunes isn’t interesting to them. They don’t even care about Spotify (my choice). They just check for songs on YouTube. In my lifetime, I’ve seen LPs cede to cassettes, to CDs, MP3s, and then to puffs of nothing in the cloud (to LPs again, if you’re a hipster).

People grumble “paper books, grr grr, forever” and sales of digital books are through the roof. We used to talk about phone coverage maps and minutes per month, and now the only conversation is apps and maybe Android vs iOS. Should you be on social media? Is blogging dead? Is the future already behind us?

It’s Not Exactly “Unpredictable” But It’s Tricky

The way to best understand what will work and what won’t is by understanding what facilitates easier/better/faster/something-else-er changes. First, hotels were a bit thrashed by online price discount sites. Now, they feel the sting of AirBNB as a viable alternative to staying in a hotel. Car rental companies couldn’t predict ZipCar being something more than a novelty for nerds. Crowdsourcing seemed like a great way to promote idea sharing, but it wasn’t a real business, oh, and then it was (Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc). My co-author of two of my books, Julien Smith launched Breather, which will no doubt disrupt spaces. I’m fascinated by how Square has disrupted point-of-sale cash register business, credit card merchant business, and more.

People Won’t Ever Do That

The enemy of understanding change and shifts is the mindset that says “no one will give up owning their music.” It’s the mindset that says, “Stay at someone’s house? Too creepy. Hotels only.” The moment you shift your thoughts into “people won’t” territory, you’ll miss what can happen, what might happen, and what will happen. People won’t want dinners that take 3 minutes to heat up. People won’t want food handed to them through windows. People won’t want to read blogs from unknowns when they can follow the mainstream. People won’t type 140 character messages.

And so on.

It’s time to get your shifts together. What will you do differently as an owner? What shift will you bring about? Or what shift will you ride alongside? How will any changes impact your business?

See why this is all useful to think about?

via chrisbrogan.com

YOU are at the center of The Conversation Prism via Brian Solis

Be Willing to Be Wrong about

The amount of mental energy we expend by trying to be right all the time is a waste.

I have come to learn that it’s a lot easier to be wrong from time to time, and that the process of being wrong can certainly speed up the finding of what it is that ends up being right. In my case, this is pretty much hard coded into how I do things. I almost have to be wrong first before I find out what’s right. Almost always do I have to walk down the wrong path, do the thing everyone told me would be a waste. I’m pretty much set into a system of “do this, figure out it’s wrong, and then do the right thing.”

Only my “right” is usually something that few people will see as right, unless it’s something obvious. Or my right will be counterintuitive to other people’s right. Or I’ll be wrong still, but for a different set of reasons that will ultimately make me right.

Wow, this doesn’t make much sense yet.

Be Willing to Be Wrong

We learn best by doing. Talking about something or theorizing or reading up on best practices has the least value when compared with actually doing something. But if you do something before you learn much about it, you might (will) get something wrong.

I’ve been blogging since 1998. I’ve been wrong for years and years. I’m sometimes right. I’ve been wrong for the last little while. I’m wrong about why social networks are (could be) cool. I’m wrong about how I thought marketers would rather a genuine connection instead of a push-button relationship. I’m wrong about tons of things.

But, the reprise of this story (if you’re keeping track) is that by being wrong, I’m going to be right sooner than others.

But what about you?

What’s YOUR Stance on Being Wrong?

I ask because I’m genuinely curious. What does it mean to you to be wrong? What happens when you try something and it doesn’t work? What’s your willingness to try new things that you don’t understand?

And how do you learn from it all?

via chrisbrogan.com

The 2013 Social Media Landscape [Infographic] via Brian Solis