I have just started listening, on Audible, to Jeff Jarvis’s new book Public Parts.  In it he explores the consequences of the increasingly public lives we live online. He acknowledges the challenges of living our lives more openly but, like me, focusses on the upsides rather than the downsides. There are more than enough people willing to scare us about the downside – if there is one. The biggest upside of openness for me is the potential to discover our true selves. To say what we think and have others respond directly to us without any middle men in between.

This is not as easy as it sounds. I remember as a kid struggling to disentangle how I felt about things from how I was meant to feel about them. I can remember being nostalgic for pre mass-media eras when you could just kiss a girl without wondering which film star was the best to adopt as a role model in such a frightening new endeavour. Thomas de Zengotita’s wonderful book Mediated explores the issues of finding our true selves and the challenges of disentangling our stories from the messages we are bombarded with from birth about how we should be in the world.

So what’s in it for us if we learn to be more open and to work out what we really think?

I have just finished reading Real Love by Greg Baer M.D. If you can get past the title and the slightly Mills and Boon cover I can thoroughly recommend it. The main idea in the book is that it is the absence of unconditional love that causes many, if not all, of our problems and unhappiness. We learn to accept conditional love from an early age. I will love you if you act the way I think you should act. I will love you if you love me. I will respond positively to you if you make me feel good etc. etc. We learn to trade conditional love and learn not to expose our true selves for fear of having this conditional love/approval withdrawn. Greg’s radical, but compelling, solution is to tell the truth about ourselves and keep doing it until we come across people who will unconditionally love us. Until we do so we find it hard do give others unconditional love and until we learn to do that we will be forever ill at ease and unhappy.

Going back to Public Parts. The openness Jeff discusses in his book is still unfamiliar, and uncomfortable, for many people. Especially in Britain we tend to keep our true selves hidden. “And a  good thing too” I can hear many of you say. But our reactions to openness say more about us than the people we are reacting to. What are we so afraid of? We hide from others but we also hide from ourselves. We should get over worrying about who sees our indiscretions on Facebook or who gets to know what we are thinking through our blogs. We should get over our squeamishness about exposing our feelings and stop disapproving of those who do. Who knows what we might learn about ourselves and the world around us …

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I am sometimes asked to sign NDA’s (Non Disclosure Agreements) when working with clients. These are basically written promises on my part not to talk about things I need to know in order to work with the companies I do. Each time I do it, and I occasionally say no, it rankles me a little. It is invariably down to immutable corporate policy but it also feels like a sign of mistrust which is unfortunate happening as it does at the start of a working relationship.

It also occurs to me that as more and more of us live our lives online it should become increasingly unnecessary. Any indiscretions on my part will be much more obvious online and even if not clients would have the ability to do real damage to my online reputation if I ever behaved inappropriately. It feels much more accountable to have an online reputation I am keen to protect than to have a piece of paper filed away somewhere never to be seen again.

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I bang on a lot about people finding their voice online, saying what they think, and standing up for their views. This is fine when things are going well but what do you do when people don’t like what you are saying and find fault? No one likes being criticised and it can hurt. This is as true for people working for big organisations as it is for individuals – “Corporations don’t tweet people do”. There is always a person behind that tweet or blog post. Even if it is someone writing from within a big multi-national it is still a human being with feelings who presses “Update”.

Many of my clients work in high profile, sometimes contentious organisations with lots of people ready to find fault at the slightest excuse. Blogging on your own behalf is one thing but sticking your neck out for your employer isn’t trivial and the robust nature of online attacks can be intimidating.

So what do so if you come under attack online? Much of the available advice is aimed at the corporation as a whole as if we were talking about an entirely logical, dispassionate situation. While this might have been true when it was a case of issuing press releases into well worn channels it is different if we are talking about someone tweeting or blogging on behalf of their organisation. If they are any good they will have invested more of themselves personally in the situation and therefore feel more exposed and vulnerable.

What you have to do if this happens is no different from life generally. Look at the people who are being critical and weigh up the validity of what they are saying and the circumstances in which they are saying it. If there is something you need to learn from what they are saying then learn it and take it on the chin. If there isn’t then decide whether you are going to respond at all and if so how. Then you need to pick yourself up, get back on your horse and do it all again. You are never going to be able to keep everyone happy all the time and if you let criticism numb you and make you retire into your shell then we will all have lost something.

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A while back The Economist published an article comparing Facebook to a nation state and imagining a future where Mark Zuckerberg exercised power and influence the way the head of a state would. Whether this is likely or not it is interesting to consider how we will manifest what appears to be our inherent tribalism when more of us spend more of our time connected to people beyond the boundaries of our own countries than we do with our neighbours.

I kept thinking of this as I listened to the first section of Sir Winston Churchill’s History Of The Second World War mentioned in the previous post. This section deals with the political positioning leading up to the breakout of war and the attempts by Churchill to convince parliament and the nation of the threat posed by the Germans and of the need to do something about it. I wonder how those conversations would go now given the more ubiquitous connections we have with each other?

I remember meeting the Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan a few years ago in Paris and him saying that through blogging and fostering connections online he hoped to make it less likely that the west would ever find the will to attack his country. It’s ironic that he is now in and out of prison in Iran due to the regime there, but his hope has stuck with me.

Maybe I am just an ageing hippie and hoping to reduce our antagonisms through increased online connection is naive. Maybe even if we reduce the perceived need to beat each other up over the old lines of difference we will find new ones based on the tribes we form on the web …

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So many of my conversations with clients end up being about either maintaining the corporation’s managerial integrity in the face of marauding hordes of Facebook enabled staff, or protecting their brand integrity in the face of viral damage spinning out of control online when a customer decides to get their own back for a bad experience. Neither the fantasy of brand nor managerial integrity are sustainable.

Banking epitomises this. When I eventually give up with online systems – that treat me as an undifferentiated unit of a mass market, barely segmented into simplistic demographics – and trek down to my local branch where I have to sit and watch a bank teller – who is treated as an undifferentiated unit of a staff who isn”t trusted to make any decisions and are subject to the same online systems as me albeit with a different set of assumptions this time about grade and accountability.

We both face the same impersonal closed box and we have both had enough. We are starting to talk to each other.

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I have just finished reading my friend Antony Mayfield‘s book My Web Shadow. Antony has worked in PR and online reputation management for many years and knows more than most about how to track and manage the impression you make online. This book is ideal for people relatively new to the web and covers a wide range of situations in which you need to be aware of the consequences of your online actions. He has loads of tips on how to increase your positive online presence and wise words about what to do when things go wrong. Although it is aimed more at web newcomers than folks like me I still got a lot out of the book and picked up a few useful url’s on the way.

[Disclosure Antony sent me a review copy of the book - but I'd have bought it anyway!]

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Why network? The number one reason people cite is that they don’t have to make cold calls any more. Other benefits are building relationships, meeting others in your field, finding a mentor and, of course, the social aspect of spending time with others.

There are a variety of networking groups to fit anyone’s goals, business preferences and schedules. Some organizations allow only one person from each industry per chapter, are very structured and require attendance. The best (in my opinion) and most successful with this format is BNI, the largest referral organization in the world. They meet weekly, at the same time and location; membership dues apply to the Chapter in which you belong. Passing good, quality referrals is the top focus.

Other networking organizations have less structure. I am Vice President of Rainmakers, which is a networking/marketing group that allows open membership. This means there are no restrictions to the number of members per industry, and when you become a Rainmaker, you can attend any meeting throughout the state, rather than just one chapter, or hub. Meetings are held early morning, at lunch and after hours to provide a variety of options to meet members’ needs. They have a template to provide the Chairman of the hub to follow, but are not a business-meeting format and do not require attendance. Building strategic relationships is the primary goal of Rainmakers.

Civic organizations, chambers of commerce, power circles, church groups, industry associations, etc., also provide opportunities to meet others and develop relationships. Though their focus is not helping you grow your business, the result is you now have a team of people who know and trust you. Fellow members will introduce you to their connections because of the relationship you’ve built over time.

Another networking format is social networking. There are a plethora of online sites – Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, MySpace, to name a few – where you find ‘friends’. You can post a profile, upload photos, select others to be among your connections, feed your blog to your home page, ask questions, and even form groups for people to join with like interests.

Twitter is a micro blogging site, and the newest form of online social networking. It serves the same purpose, but with a limited number of characters per conversation. It is amazing how quickly you can meet someone and begin to ‘follow’ them. Many tweeple most links to sites that they feel will benefit others. It’s like a moving, virtual library of information!

A more serious, business-focused type of online networking is also available. My favorite is One Degree Connected (ODC). As the name implies, you are just one degree away from the person you want to meet. You have the option to sort by a specific person or company. Or, if you want to meet a channel market category, or target market, you can search by title. For example, I like to meet insurance agents because they are a perfect channel for me. I enter “insurance agent” in the title box, and all agents who are in the databases of each of the ODC members are found. Then it’s as simple as asking the members for an introduction to the agent(s) in their databases. One Degree Connected! It’s fast and easy. The huge benefit is that when I make the call, they already know who recommended me, and have had an opportunity to view my profile. Unique to ODC over other business sites is you can request an intro from each of the members who knows my desired connection. You’ll create a buzz for yourself and pique the interest of the person you want to meet.

Ask friends and business associates where they network. Visit some of the meetings and check out the online sites. There are so many choices and opportunities; find the format, philosophy and meeting schedules that work best for you.

Cindy Hartman is President of Hartman Inventory, a woman-owned business. Visit her website at http://www.HartmanInventory.com to discover more reasons you need a business or home inventory. Also view the Turnkey page to learn about the Hartman Inventory Systems, a complete turnkey business package; start and grow your own personal property inventory service. Cindy’s blog, at http://www.HartmanInventoryBlog.com – discusses marketing, management, entrepreneurship and asset inventories.

Author: Cindy Hartman
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Creditcard Currency Conversion Fee

A sinister plot to rig Robin Hood’s online polls

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AKMA and I have known each other for nearly nine years online having “met” during the early days of blogging. Swapping emails, iChat conversations and comment threads I feel like I know AKMA better than people I know locally but yet we have never met face to face. Until tomorrow that is! I am flying up to Glasgow to do an executive workshop and am going to spend tomorrow evening with AKMA. Can’t wait!

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Join me for a live online chat on tomorrow — Tues, Nov 24 from noon to 1 pm (EST) on how going green drives profitability. The event is hosted by the National Post on its web site. See http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpposted/archive/2009/11/17/live-blog-with-jim-harris-make-your-business-more-efficiently-green.aspx
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