Hope to see many of you at tonight’s Tweet-Up at the Venango Works Trade Show.
I’ll be speaking at 7 p.m. as part of the Twitter meet-up. Find out how technology is changing our world and changing us. Find out how you can take the fear out of technology. And replace it with FUN!
* Bring your questions and comments about technology. We’ll answer them—or at least we can laugh about them.
* Tell us about the frustrations and successes you’ve had with technology. Encourage others to join the digital jungle even if they have to hack their way through it.
Be sure to visit the exhibitors’ booths, they’ll be there from 10 a.m. until 9 p.m. Come out and say, “Hi,” and let’s follow each other on Twitter.
The digital world is waiting for YOU to play your music. No matter HOW funny it sounds!
Just got a tweet from Dave Nelsen, whose website, http://www.get121.biz/ helps businesses develop their online strategy. Dave’s tweet:
“Rule #1 for social media: PIE - that is personality + interesting + entertaining!”
Brilliant! Because it’s much the same mantra that I’ve been writing and speaking about–using your sense of HUMOR in your online strategy!
How do we do this?
1. The beginning of any humor is a grain of truth. However small. Get to the heart of your truth. Your personality. Doesn’t have to be anything pleasant, just true. Then build on that. That is your humor personality.
2. Next, make your message interesting by giving your audiences something to grasp–a surprise, an inconsistency. Or, maybe some kind of paradox.
3. The entertaining part is built on the way you resolve that twist. The way you comfort us with the funny outcome. We can laugh. We can release. We can like you and your products, services, and message more and more.
What share of the PIE are YOU taking today?
What will you do today to make your slice have more impact?
Being “Caught up in the clouds” is a Christian term to describe the Rapture. This vision scares me. It represents being out of control. Caught up by something outside ourselves. Or think of the phrase, “up in the air,” to describe an ambiguous circumstance.
Face it: we like being in control. But two things that are inherent in life requre that we LOVE being out of control–IF we want to succeed.
Those two things are Humor and Technology.
Recently I’ve been looking at Cloud Computing, or Web 2.0 as all the cool kids–and the school librarian–call it. It’s an ephemeral place where bits of information (documents, PowerPoint presentations, notes, photos–anything) exist. You can access this information from anywhere.
Think of it the way a YouTube video explained it:
You can bury money in your back yard. Or you can put it in a bank. In the back yard, you have limited access to your money. But if it’s in a bank, you can withdraw your money whether you’re around the corner or on the other side of the world.
With Cloud Computing, you don’t have to save your information on a device like a USB drive or CD. You don’t have to carry anything!
This sounds like a great idea. But the other side is: Is it safe? What could go wrong?
These doubts bring up the similarities between Humor and Technologies like cloud computing.
–Trust
–Collaboration
–Real time
1. Cloud computing requres that we have TRUST. Just like trusting our sense of Humor to build our relationships and connections, we must trust technology. The cloud computing video mentions that we share open standards. We’re all in this together. We all understand what’s required of us, what’s going on, and what the deal is. So we can relax and let Google take over and organize our affairs.
2. Cloud computing allows for collaboration. We can make connections in ways that aren’t possible if we’re burying our bits of information in the backyard. Humor allows us this, too. Sometimes it’s incidental (like when someone overhears our humor and silently nods approval). But in any case, it’s connective. It puts us all on the same page.
3. Once we’re on the same page, we can be in real-time. That’s the beauty of cloud computing and it’s the beauty of humor. We can access, work on, dissect, and transform situations that are occurring now.
We don’t need to fear being in “the cloud” if we learn to embrace it. If you’ve been applying your sense of humor all along, you’re on your way to fearlessness. Take it up a notch. Transfer those fearlessness skills to the world of technology. Take it from me. A self-described non-techie. When I hear the words math & science I get nauseaus. But I’m willing to give it a shot. And so can you. “Get Your S.H.I.N.E. Together!” ’cause we’re in this together. Somewhere up in the clouds…
Read in Seth’s Blog (Seth Godin) about the difference between friends and friendlies. The friendlies are the ones you have a digital link to but no real connection. It’s the friend who will be more likely to want to buy from you. Because you do friendly behaviors toward him or her–that is, you write back, comment on their posts, and above all you never send a form letter!
Seth’s blog entry made me think of the role of manners in technology. It’s somehow not enough to just “Be nice” just like on dry land. In cyberspace the usual manners have been tweaked. Now it’s less about our polite behaviors, but rather how we are perceived by those behaviors (or by omitting those behaviors).
For example, if you choose to close off your photos on Facebook to comments, that may be a free choice for you. However, what do your viewer/readers think of you when they see that they are not allowed such free choice? Do you appear to them as insecure; you seem to think we would only comment negatively.
If you don’t respond to your @twitter posts that people write, what impression do you give people about you? Are you suddenly unreliable? Do you #FollowFriday those twitterers who routinely FollowFriday you?
Technology has leveled the playing field–at least in the field of manners and tact. The old excuse, “I don’t have TIME to do those things,” will not fly in today’s world. We all officially have no time for this stuff. But your consistent care to your friends and their posts, their comments, their ideas, their freedom of expression–will show that despite your lack of time, you ARE acting. You are being a friend. You know how to, “Get Your SHINE Together!”
and on this blog. Today’s Comedy Around the World segment travels to–WordPress. Humor and comedy are all about change, risk, embracing the unknown, creating something new, and, of course, fun. Sometimes the change we encounter in life is uninvited. Like the email from my Yahoo account that read I need to figure out how to convert one blog type to another. And sometimes there is a big risk. Like when I attempted to convert the blog, only to read on the page’s site, “Are you sure you want to do this?” But change can also be new and fun–like coming up with a new design, new insights, and more and more humor tips. So look for a big change in the coming days. And as always thank you for supporting live comedy, and “Get Your SHINE Together!”
Scott The Nametag Guy says: Be innocent and ignorant. In his post, “12 Ways to Jumpstart Your Creativity,” Scott says that curiosity, innocence and youth = creativity. “So, even if you’re not that sweet little untainted whippersnapper anymore, your goal is to temporary suspend your adult habit of self-criticism.”
That’s what we did at our brown bag lunch topic at the Venango Chamber today. As we discussed Twitter, we all suspended criticism. One member even commented, “Listen–even our language has changed!” It was true–we were talking re-tweets, discussing the benefits of having a tweetdeck, hashing out the benefits of hashtags, and even getting into ning. Not one of us was an expert. We were all learning. As Scott says, “Creativity is about being uncomfortable.”
We didn’t know everything about the topic, and that was ok, too. Scott says to, “develop your a tolerance for ambiguity. Fear only the KNOWN. Comfort zones are overrated, anyway. Take fanatical risks. Let’s get glorious! …And, be comfortable NOT knowing what something is at the beginning, trusting that you’ll figure it out when you get there. Have unshakable faith in those unplaceable thoughts that catch your inner attention. Sure, some ideas may come without any visible anchors, but they DO have a destination. How are you practicing intentional discomfort?”
“Get Your SHINE Together!” no matter how uncomfortable you are!
Yesterday’s article on career change and transitions mentioned networking. But it’s not networking like most of us are used to. Now it’s tinged with technology. And to do that effectively, simply take the steps that you would for living more humorously.
1. Find a friend–someone who is curious about technology. Mine is Susan from the Chamber office. This friend doesn’t have to be a techie, just has to be fearless and interested in learning new things. Same way with humor: latch on to someone who has a sense of humor and learn from them how to live more lightly.
2. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes or not knowing something. I didn’t know how to make a tinyurl. So what did I do? I didn’t get a manual, or search “Help” online. I tweeted the question and someone from the Ukraine wrote back, “Here try this.” Sure, they may steal your identity, but you will be able to shorten your links so you can write more in the space on Twitter.
3. Be yourself. All comedy is based on the truth–and then we embellish. But we tell it like it is, we tell about ourselves like we are. If you put on a front in online networking, people will know. People are very savvy–they’ve been exposed to this technology stuff for many years, and don’t fall for fakeness. It’s even more important today to just be yourself. What if you don’t have a perfect house, family, pets, job? Write about it! People want to hear the truth, they want to see you are human.
Who is YOUR technology tutor? tweet me about it at trinahess and sign up today for your 1st networking session! And while you’re at it, “Get Your SHINE Together!”
As we watch the corporate world implode on it’s own weight, we wonder…Will the world of business go back to its roots in entrepreneurship? If so, then the social and communication skills that used to be “common sense” will have to be learned, taught, and used effectively.
Just read a tweet from Twitter_Tips:
Your Top 10 Worst Twitter Tips
Collect as many followers as possible and then just market yourself.
Only pump out content that is going to benefit you.
Crank out link after link. Conversation? Why bother?
Assume everyone in the world wants your free e-book so promote the hell out it.
If you’re a business, forget that you finally have a chance to connect with your customer. Sell, sell, sell.
Don’t listen. There is no value in conversation.
Automatically Direct Message people. They’ll never know the difference.
Don’t bother replying to anyone’s replies.
Only tweet your daily events, no matter how boring and uneventful they actually are. Really, your yummy sandwich experience is important.
Bait and switch. Who cares? You’ll never meet the person.You can read the entire article at http://cli.gs/6qvv07
What are your thoughts, and what trends do you see happening? Please share your viewpoint here, or over on Twitter; you can follow me at trinahess
What would you do if you got a critical e-mail from someone, say, a frenemy? You would doubtless forward it to all your friends, right? Friends are our buffer zone, our protective shield. And today, Facebook gives us the opportunity to have many friends, some of whom we don’t even know! Whether or not that defies the definition of ‘friend’ doesn’t matter. They are there and they are our sounding board.
This is a vital point in the area of customer service. If you have a bad experience with a product or service, you usually tell all your friends. Dramatize the story to the hilt for more effect. Add equal parts fire and bloodshed. Point is, word can spread instantaneously.
So many people have so many friends that customer service is vital today. Just one wrong move, one bad experience, and hundreds of people could get the wrong (or correct?) impression about you and your services. What kind of message are you sending?
@trinahess got a grade of 94/100 on @grader. Check it out: http://twitter.grader.com/trinahessYes, I just got my grade back from twitter. Not only a good grade, but the twitter experience is also helping my writing.
Think about it: We have only 140 characters that we can use. And we are allowed to write whatever we want. So, we are learning how to express ourselves concisely–just like we do in the SHINE System of Communication that I created!
But the most important aspect of twitter is that we are not censoring ourselves. Buoyed by the celebratory and light atmosphere of the twitter-sphere, we are almost compelled to write whatever we are doing.
“Letting the dog out.” “Yelling at my neighbor.” “Sled riding.” “Letting the dog back in.”
None of these entries is important of itself. But the process we are using is vitally important. We are letting our minds run wild. That helps us to unclog the thought processes.
Then the great, hugely imperative ideas that we have lodged in our brains–they are broken free to enlighten the world. And I’m sure that was more than 140 characters.
“Get Your SHINE Together!” now that you know how to do the “S”–make is short & sweet!
Let me hear your comments on how twitter helps (or hinders) YOUR creativity!
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