You will probably meet at least one new person every day. If not, start doing it from today.

There has been a lot of discussion about the power of first impressions, but that’s not what I’m not going to cover in this post. Instead, let’s talk about “hype.”
As someone who is very involved in social media, I meet a lot of new people who are using hype words such as “social media marketing,” ‘Facebook marketing,” and “brand marketing” at the start of every conversation. All too often, the purpose of these words is to impress the other person and to show their understanding of the specific topic. I can honestly say that 90% of the people have no idea what they are talking about!

The power of words

Words influence every aspect of our lives. The power of words to deliver our message is even more important at those times when we are introducing ourselves to someone new and pitching our companies. We want to make sure that we use the right words and that we ourselves understand what we are saying. After all, wouldn’t it be ridiculous to hear a singer say “I know how to build an aircraft”?

The wrong way for feedback

Over the years, I have developed a specific method for filtering these people within 2-5 minutes at the start of any conversation. My method for dealing with these types of people is a mixture of experience and questions.
Please note: many people use fashion words to feel better about themselves in the start of every talk. By nodding your head and smiling at these people, you are using the wrong approach!
While some people just smile at these moments, others react in the wrong manner by blaming or accusing the other person for using specific terms without knowing what they really mean.
Accusing people is the worst-case scenario! Don’t do that. Always remember, there is a big difference between people and their words. By asking the right questions, you can dig a bit deeper and find out whether such people actually do know what they are talking about. And remember too, there no connection between how well people express themselves and how smart and nice they are.

The simple approach

A few weeks ago, I met a very nice woman who told me that advertising on Facebook was not working.
What would most people do in this situation? Simply go and repeat to their friends that advertising on Facebook doesn’t worki?
That would be the wrong answer. Advertising on Facebook does work, but only for specific goals. So how can you keep yourself from jumping to the wrong conclusions? First of all, by asking the “why” question.
Once you ask the question, “Why is advertising on Facebook not working?”, you will usually see a different view. That’s a start, but it’s not enough. Asking “why” is easy, but still not the perfect way.
Ask yourself as well, why does this person assume that advertising on Facebook is not working? Maybe the person hates Facebook and prefers Twitter for unknown reasons? Yeah, that could be a better answer. Would you go now and tell your friends that advertising on Facebook is not working? I’m sure not!

See the difference?
More about asking the right questions in the next posts.

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“You can live your life by chance or by choice. It’s really up to you.” - Robin Sharma

The internet is full of information and knowledge. We sometimes find ourself looking for specific video, post, tweet to be inspired from. Here is my list of sites that inspire me every day:

1. Ted Talks
2. Robin Sharma twitter (blog)
3. Freaknomoics
4. entrepreneur.com
5. inc.com

Thanks JD for the hat tip

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You will probably find yourself making dialogues with your colleagues, friends or family members every day and sometimes a few times a day. Have you thought for a moment if you have healthy dialogues? What are healthy dialogues you might ask?

When we discuss with our team members about specific idea or event, we come with specific goals in our mind. The goals vary from getting feedback to choosing the right feature to develop. Goals always exist in our mind but we find ourselves shifting from this goal to some other goal which changes our discussion. One of the common goals is: WIN. In how many dialogues you have been in which the desire to win beats the other goals? You are right. The desire to win built in our very fiber before we are old enough to know what’s going on.

Unfortunately, as we grow older, most of us don’t realize that this unhealthy desire to win is continually driving us away from healthy dialogue. We start the dialogue with the desire to solve a problem but we soon switch purposes in heartbeat. Two of my three words for 2010 have strong connection to the art of dialogue. The best networkers are people who know how to listen and make the best from dialogues.

Think for a moment, do you have healthy dialogues?

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Year 2009 was a fascinating year. If you didn’t read the lessons learned during 2009, take a look now.

A year is 365 days of actions, ideas and dreams. At the end of every year, I always look back and choose the top 5 outcomes of the year. In addition, I also choose  the top 5 fails. Remember, always look to the future, but learn from the past. There is no logic in going 2 steps forward and 2 steps backward. Try always to go 2 steps forward and at worst 1 step back.

It’s funny to see that on the top of my 2009 list, I wrote the word “listen.” Listening has become a key aspect in both our offline and online worlds.

3 words for 2010

After reading Chris Brogan’s post about the 3 words, I always take the time to think deeply about those words. I find that it’s not so easy to come up with only 3 words to describe your efforts for the next year. Nonetheless, I find Chris’s method can be very helpful in setting your mindset about the upcoming year. However, make sure that these words are only the “big dreams,” as you have to make a really stable plan for the whole year.

My Words for 2010

After thinking about it for a while, my words for 2010 are: Venture, Team, Networked.

Networked

Networking for me is a fundamental aspect of every move of my day. I strive to learn from the experts. In 2010 I’m going to spend most of my time with the best networkers from all over the world. I have learned that a good networker is a combination of specific attributes. The art of networking is something I’m going to put my effort into during 2010.

Team

A leader is someone who can lead a team in the best way ever.  Your team is your key factor for the success of the company. As a purely team-oriented person, I’m going to spend the upcoming year learning more about working and building the best teams ever.

Venture

I have so many ideas in my head in every moment. This year I’m going to transform some of my ideas into new ventures. I’m reading a lot about new venture creation and doing the right research before turning my ideas into actions.

I will explain in the next few weeks how I make my one- and three-year plans from these three simple words.

Remember : Networked, Team, Venture.

Photo credit jimpatterson

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I had the opportunity to interview Dean Hunt who is a leader in buzz marketing and creative business strategies. Dean has also had numerous viral marketing successes, one of which got over 241,000 unique visitors to his blog in 21 days, his free marketing report that was famously given the edgy title: “Web Traffic Orgasm” has been a revelation. Dean is also one of the only major gurus who responds to each and every email personally.
In this interview, Dean share some great tips from his own experience. I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I have!

Dror: Video become very popular factor in Buzz marketing, how you can explain this change over the last year? What is your estimation for the next year?

Dean: I think it was innevitable that video would become very popular. The reason it has happened recently is due to technology and broadband speeds.
7 years ago we didn’t have super fast broadband, or flip cameras, or Youtube.
For next year I think video will become even more popular, as will sites like Twitter and social media sites.

Dror: What cause you to think about this subject for that video?

Dean: I study creative thinking, so I am able to create ideas like this all of the time.

Dror: Are you making some tests before publishing video? Could you measure how much buzz some video will do?

Dean: There is no way to predict… you just have to make it and then hope for the best. That is the scary but exciting thing about viral marketing, you never know how your ideas are going to be received.

Dror: Do you see any new trends like widgets in the upcoming year?

Dean: I can see there being more coherence between social media sites and out websites. Twitter accounts will talk to blogs, and vice versa.

Dror: In the past, you wrote in your blog that being focused would be just restrictive to your thinking process. How you change this? Do you have any tips to many creative people who have ideas all the times but cannot focus on specific idea.

Dror: How you monetize your creativity?

Dean: Creativity brings me traffic, and traffic makes me money. We all want more traffic, I am no different.
One way I do this is to create some creative content, and then advertise one of the projects I am working on, for example, we have a membership site full of amazing articles and reports at http://www.buzzprofits.com and we are currently doing a $1 trial which gives people access for 21 days.

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Look for the future

2008 was an amazing year for me. I achieved tremendous goals in my personal and professional lives.
This year I have new goals and a new theme. My theme for 2009 will be:
2009 Is My Year Of Revolution.
Over the last 3 weeks I have worked very hard on my plan for this year, trying to figure out what I want to achieve this year and what outcomes I would like to see in 2009.
Over the long process, I started to think about what I learned last year. A year is a long period of time and presents us with a lot of lessons that we have to remember and to learn from.
I decided to share some of the lessons that I learned in 2008. I must say that during the last few weeks I’ve read a lot of similar posts from within the blogsphere, and found that I have a lot in common with many other people (which is both good and bad).

1. Listen - this is most important lesson for me. I started the year by talking to a lot of people without actually hearing what any of them said. I found myself missing many important details from my conversations. Over the last few months, I’ve been trying to listen first and to speak second. This change has led me to many new ideas, better connections with my friends, and, most importantly, it has made me happier.
2. Think before you speak - consider every word you want to say because every statement reflects your future. Being smart does not always mean saying smart things; sometimes it’s the things you don’t say that make you smarter.
3. You cannot attain everything you want in one day - I had and still have many dreams. Over the year, I wanted to achieve most of my dreams and move on from one to the next as quickly as possible. I found that trying to do things quickly is the wrong formula for many things. I started in the last few months to focus on my goals and to take each step toward my goals only after deep thinking. During this planning, I found myself changing directions and choosing other methods-things that I would never have discovered if I would have acted too hastily.
4. Family is the most important - yes, if you’re working in the high tech industry like me, the hard work may cause you sometimes to forget your family. I’m trying hard to dedicate my weekends to my family and not to work in these two days. I have found that happiness at work is in many ways directly related to happiness at home.
5. Don’t trust everyone. I still often have to remind people who owe me money. “Business is business,” as they say, and I learned this lesson the hard way. I have learned over the last year that asking for money upfront is sign of seriousness.
6. Do what you love - over the last year, I left my job and changed professions. This step was not easy for me, but I feel much better now and very happy with my new career. I believe that leaving a job is not easy for people–specifically in these days– but doing what I love and delivering value to other people is the most important thing for me today.
7. It’s OK to dream sometimes, but it’s better to dream all the time - yes, think all the time of your daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Don’t hesitate to set high-level goals in order to work hard to achieve them. In my planning for the upcoming year, I have set very high goals for myself. How high? Some of them really look like dreams, but, then again, I’m a true dreamer.
8. First impressions are important but they’re not everything. People make mistakes from time to time and you should consider each mistake in the present situation. In the last year, I found myself disconnected from many people because of a single mistake that either they or I made. I found that giving second and sometimes third chances will make things look different.

photo courtesy by chunyang

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Simon Oates of Succeed at Life

Working and academic life is filled with teams of all sizes and skills. Being able to work among people is considered a crucial aspect of entrepreneurship, and one of the desirable qualities of anyone involved in personal development. Here are my 7 top tips that will transform you from a team hater into a team leader.

Tip 1: Split the work evenly, clearly and minimize overlap.The major advantage of a team is the extra workload it can cope with, but this bonus is wasted when the team is sat together around a laptop producing one piece of output. When I walk around my Universities’ Business School, I often see 5 or more MBA students sitting round one computer. One student will be typing; another talking and 3 people sat there contributing absolutely nothing.

Only by letting team members work on their own chunk of work will you truly be able to harness the productivity bonus of working in a team. Having sole responsibility over their section will also give a boost to their motivation (& ego) and encourage creative thinking. Slight imbalances in levels of contribution will be forgiven but vast differences can cause tensions so speak up as a team member if you feel you have been given too much work or someone else has. This may be difficult in a work situation so call attention to the difference in workload indirectly. One way of doing this is to ask another team member ‘Oh, so what are you doing again?’ in an innocent and genuinely curious tone. After you’ve listened to their reply, get some paper and rather verbally make a list to yourself of what you’ve got to do, clearly itemising each piece of your task. If there is a big enough imbalance then someone should notice, but the fact you hadn’t ‘complained’ means you’re still seen as a focused team player.

Tip 2: Have a constant meeting schedule. A regular nightmare of teaming is arranging constant meetings; a logistical impossibility that usually the Chair or team leader has to cope with. However one method distributes this issue among the team, and this is tip 2.
This technique is ideal if you’re at university where students have roughly the same timetables each week. It can be used to completely eradicate the issue of arranging to meet up; and yet I constantly see students fail to take advantage of this. As a result they spend a lot of their time texting and emailing teammates to arrange their next meeting time. Shame. You may need to arrange extra meetings when tight deadlines are involved but the consistent meetings could be seen as the backbone. As well as ensuring there’s regular communication between the group members; regular meetings totally shift the responsibility from the chairperson to the individual team members. which makes your job (as leader) easier.

Tip 3: Make everyone feel important. An extremely important tip to help drive and motivate others to succeed is found here: The Key To Getting What You Want: Making Others Feel Important

Tip 4: Never blatantly oppose someone’s ideas, (Indirectly call attention to it by ‘stumbling’ upon a bad consequence). The result of mixing lots of ideas together in a team is that from time to time you’ll disagree with a member’s contribution. Your instant reaction could be to challenge them; “Are you sure that’s right?” which may sound nicer than ‘You’re wrong’ but has the same negative consequences.
Even if you refrain from verbally responding its likely your face will screw up or you’ll give some other indication that you disagree, so simply go along with whatever they say; be enthusiastic about it. You need to see how to change their opinion from their point of view, so for the time being; adopt their point of view. If their suggestion was bad enough then it would result in a negative consequence. What you must do is talk through the idea enthusiastically until you ‘hit’ upon this negative consequence, seem disappointed at this bad point that seemed to come out of nowhere, and then instead of denouncing your opponents idea, you can then talk as if YOUR opinion was wrong, and then it’d be far easier for them to just admit their mistake and continue, so have let them save face. They are more likely to concede to someone on their side who they think wants to support their idea, rather than someone who is opposed to them. In apposing someone’s ideas, there’s also the chance they may get aggressive. Side step around pride; use tip #4.

Tip 5: Learn names. You may laugh at this point; “Well of course I know everyone’s name in the teams I work with”. Consider yourself the exception. The rest of us have all been in a situation where we’ve felt there are too many people to learn, or where one member has a heavy accent and a foreign name. From now on, I never want you to have to use that last excuse.
We’ve all pretended to hear someone’s name after asking twice and giving up because of the embarrassment. It’s a bit shameful of us, but importantly, it cripples that person’s role in the team.
If you’re an important member of the team; you’ve just effectively cut off one of your great resources. You’ll now casually avoid starting conversation with this person, and indirectly push them out of the group as they become less involved with decision-making. As soon as you learn someone’s name; they’ll be suddenly ‘opened up’ as a source of help and you will sometimes feel as though you’ve gained an extra team member!
So from now on when you’re in that situation, don’t stop at the second attempt. Say: “I’m sorry I haven’t heard that name before, can you spell it?”. Afterwards, look at what you’ve written again and make sure you remember it.

Tip 6: Praise as heavily as a teacher would. A key concept in management that is recognised nationwide is that a dog will behave well for treats, but would simply resent the whip. Do you give treats or use the whip? Or both?
When I talk about ‘the whip’, I mean embarrassing, criticising (even if it’s quite ‘constructive’), humiliating, condemning and undermining someone. It reads like a terrible list of words yet you’ll find you do a couple of them in some minor shape or form. This is acceptable, but you do you want to be just acceptable? Wouldn’t you prefer to be brilliant and inspire brilliant work from your teammates and earn some respect from them?
Its so easy to criticise and you may not realise how often to do it. But you can count on one thing, the target of the criticism will remember. Fortunately the same applies to compliments. One small compliment has the opportunity for a real turn-around in someone behaviour, yet you may not even realise you’ve given it. Learn to pay effective compliments, compliment everything someone does well, even if just subtly. You’ll be rewarded with optimistic teammates with a ‘can do’ attitude. And remember; “If you think you can, you can”.

Tip 7: Lead the team
This is such an big principle that it has been given it’s own post: Learn To Lead: How to make others do what you say

Photo countesy of clearlyambiguous

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I’ve been thinking deeply over the last few weeks about team work. Why? I have my own reasons, but the biggest reason is that I have become very adept at recognizing a team-oriented person by the way he or she acts and speaks.

You might wonder why I bother with this. It’s because I’m a team-oriented person who believes that working with a great team is very crucial to any company’s success. Further, working in teams can help all the team members personally because they can learn from others and, at the same time, share their own knowledge.

I must admit that many years ago I thought that I was the smartest guy in the world. Thinking about it today causes me to laugh out loud at my former self.
A few years ago I was a young man with big dreams. Today I see the things differently; today I have the passion to learn from very smart and special people.
I can summarize and say that my experiences in the workplace have taught me that collaboration is required for success.
Everyday I meet many people who say to me things like, “you are a cleverer guy than I am,” or, “I don’t have the ability to [fill your ability] like you.” Hearing these statements causes me to feel bad–really bad. The knowledge that some people do not believe in themselves and do not know how to leverage their special abilities inspired me to write this article.
I try very hard in every meeting to find the special ability of each team member so I can connect those special abilities to one specific goal.
Today I go into every conversation fully aware that I am not the smartest person  in the room.
Usually, there is at least one person in the room who knows more than I do about some particular facet of the topic of conversation. I believe that every human is an expert in something and if this person is an expert on the current topic of conversation, he or she is the smartest person in the room at that particular time. Moreover, I try very hard to know my partners’ and friends’ abilities before meeting them so I can identify the smartest person in the room and listen to him or her from the first second to the last.
So here are my tips for listening and learning from every conversation:

• Know your partners – know their pros and cons. Learn from their pros and help them with their cons. It’s a win-win situation for you and for them.
• Listen – people love to talk, but, more than that, they love to be heard. Listen to your partners until they have finished speaking and then think deeply about your response. Remember that every word from your mouth is creating the next sentence.
• Learn – everyone has something to offer you. Learn to listen and remember that it’s all the small things that make the big difference.
• Write – write your thoughts from and reactions to this conversation. Call it a meeting summarization or whatever you want, but spend some time on this process.

photo by tomsaint

When I was a child (around the age of 12), my parents used to tell me how important it is to read books.  I hated to read books, and, to be honest,  I didn’t read them at all!  I researched all of my school essays on the internet and, after editing, I turned them in and got A’s on most of them.

Today, I have more than 60 books on my shelf and read at least one, and usually two books a month.  So what happened? I have no idea. I don’t really remember exactly when I decided to start reading books.   What I can say honestly is that I was a real idiot for wasting so many years when I could have been reading amazing books.

I’ve spent a substantial amount of time thinking about books, both before and after reading them.  At the moment, I’m in the middle of a “reading frenzy”, as I’m reading a lot about marketing, and particularly about on-line marketing.  At times, when I’m interested in a particular subject matter, I’ll read 4 – 5 books before considering whether to read more, or to move on to another subject.

Finding time for reading was not an easy task.  In the beginning, I tried to read for 30 minutes every morning before doing my chores.  Unfortunately, this didn’t work very well because I consider reading to be part of my “leisure pie.”   Nowadays, I read before going to sleep but I’m honestly thinking about   returning to my previous routine because these days, reading is not only part of my leisure pie – it’s intellectual input for me.   With the last few books I read, I started writing brief reviews in a notebook, and I’m thinking of writing a formal review of some of them on Amazon.   Up to this point, I’ve only stopped reading one book at the mid-way point.   I’ve found that sometimes a book is like a movie in that, if you lose faith (or interest) in the middle, there’s a chance that by skimming through the rest of it (or for a movie – if you keep watching), something “golden” will arise at the end.

So how do I manage my reading list?
Each book that is recommended to me is automatically added to my wish list on Amazon.   On this list I keep notes about who recommended each book so that I can thank him or her after reading it.  Every month or so, I buy  5 – 6 books about a specific topic and have them shipped to me.  I must admit that I am currently very inspired by personal recommendations by people whom I really respect.

photo by tbisaacs

Bill Gates

Speaking before an audience is not as easy as you might think. Most people will tell you that speaking in public is one of their greatest sources of anxiety. In the past few weeks I’ve thought a lot about speaking in public.  I’ve never really wanted to be a professional speaker, but I know the importance of being able to speak in public, and it’s something that I would like to do in my spare time. Here are some pointers for people like me who are looking to sharpen their public speaking skills.

1. Do it for fun – Most people want to speak for two reasons: money and\or reputation. If you are the person who is looking to be paid for speaking, be aware that you must be familiar with how the industry works before you start asking for money. As I see it, most of the people who speak for free do so for only one reason: to leverage their reputation.
2. Speaking is like having something to speak about – Most of the time speaking supports a product or a business. If you have a product for which you’re trying to gain exposure, you’ll need to speak in public to promote it; it’s a great idea. If you are a consultant or you offer some service to the public, speaking can help drive business to your customer base.
3. Speak a lot and speak for free – Unless you have professional experience, you must build a track record of provoking audiences successfully.  In the beginning, you will do it for free, but over time you will be able to ask for expense reimbursement, and, later on, to be paid for the actual speaking. You will have to subjugate your ego for the first few months and speak for fun. Volunteer at social events, promotional events, and coffee-chat events to gain experience and confidence.
4. Speaking is not profession – People who speak for a living, do so while maintaining a professional career.  The ability to share some of your own experiences in your speeches is very important.
5. Speaking is not only for fun but is also valuable too – Yes, there is an undeniable thrill of being on the stage before 100 people trying to deliver your message in 30 minutes. The skills you learn over time are very valuable, and, most of the time, you will enjoy the experience.

photo by loritingey