Three times in the last few weeks, I’ve seen the topic some up - Plagiarism.
The first time it was Chris Brogan who was the victim. I won’t go into who or what, but let’s be clear, you can’t cut and paste someone else’s work and copyright it. - Even if it is to just give it away.
The second time, I saw a Facebook update from a relative who student teaches at the Graduate school she is attending. The status update was something like “If you are going to plagiarize, it’s best not to copy the same spelling errors as the original author.”
The third time the victim was Darren Rowse you may be more familiar with him as @problogger. In this case, not only was the post taken, but they took part of the original post and made it look like a comment (from Darren) to the copied one. - Sheesh. I also noticed that they happened to take more than one post. I just looked at the archive for December and saw titles that were familiar. Familiar because I had read them on Darren’s blog.
Let’s be clear. Plagiarism is an integrity violation. You can’t run from that. If you are inspired by a post, link to it, expand on it and add value to the conversation. Cut and Paste is theft, it may not feel like it in the brave new, everything should be free internet world, but it is still theft.
A couple of resources to help bloggers identify if their material is being used in other places.
Last night was the social media club Detroit holiday party and fundraiser. The event was held at Vintner’s Cellar of Royal Oak. Thanks so much to Lisa Berry for hosting such a great event!
We skipped the usual presentation on Social Media and had some fantastic wine tasting. Vintner’s Cellar donated 10% of sales to Gleaners Food Bank. So we all had a heck of a good time, donated some perishables in the bins and I know there were some proceeds from a few eight bottles of wine that my wife and I purchased.
One of the cool things you can do at Vintner’s Cellar is make your own wine and custom label it. I had a chance to talk to Lisa about this, spoiler alert for next year’s Christmas list!
I am an educator and an implementer, so I sometimes wonder if we are having the correct conversations about tools.
Here is my basic question when I look at any implementation. How are we effecting the 3Ps?
1. People (P1) - This is a big one and the social media folks are correct when they say you have to focus here. If you don’t get this one right, the project will fail. Unfortunately, I often see people skip to P2 without any regard to P1 or P3.
2. Platform (P2) - Actually this is technology platform. Put your favorite gadget, widget, shiny in here - it all works. How do I use twitter? Can I use Facebook to drive more traffic in my store or to my website? Which is better the iPhone, Blackberry or Droid? Excuse me, what are you going to do with it? How are you upskilling the people using it and how are you addressing P3 with it?
3. Processes (P3) - Ah, so how are you going to change the game with this new shiny that you have? What am I going to start doing? Perhaps more importantly, What am I going to stop doing? Is my process in control enough to measure the results of my shiny new widget or should I start to get a handle on my existing process so that I can measure the ROI of this brave new platform?
My experience has been that many people will focus on the Platform and not address People or Processes. When that happens, they do not get desirable results. This leads to the inevitable assumption that the Platform doesn’t work.
I’m curious about what you think? Are there enough people working on implementing? Or are many people just playing with toys?
When I left the Navy and went to work for a company that was highly technical and the parent company was more plain industrial, I asked the owner how he decided to start the second company. He said “Chuck, if enough of your customers ask you if you do something, you get in that business.”
What products/services do your clients want that you are not giving them?
All kinds of sales books take on “the Gatekeeper.” This little video is good for about the first 59 seconds. After that it falls apart and that is the foundation of this post.
You’ll notice I said stop at 59 seconds, that is just after strategy number one which is be honest.
Here is the thing. My wife is an executive assistant. Yep, I married a Gatekeeper. Here is what I know about the advice in most of these get past the gatekeeper things. They are crap, if you’re talking to the gatekeeper, you’re already through the gate.
Your prospect has a “gatekeeper” and oh by the way, they usually have a title with assistant in it. Think about that, they are there to assist the person you are trying to reach. That means that they are completely trusted, and in most cases, have far more power that the salesperson approaching them realizes. So let’s take a look at a couple of the “strategies” in the video and some that come up out of it.
1. Be Honest. The only way this will work. Be up front, this is who I am and what I am looking to do, could you put me through or point me in the right direction?
2. Use Humor. Your on the slippery slope. “I’m a salesperson and I’m gonna hound your boss to death until I speak to them.” Are you a sales professional or a stalker ?!?!?! Get real. That would be the dial tone you are hearing.
3. Ask a Technical Question. One sure way to identify yourself as someone who does not need to be talking to someone with a “gatekeeper.”
4. Say “He’s expecting my call.” OK, first you just violated the golden rule number one, BE HONEST. Second, if he was expecting your call, the gatekeeper knows. Nice try, thanks for playing. This also goes for, I talked to him at the club or he asked me to call him. The “Gatekeeper” is his assistant, he/she probably pays the decision makers personal bills, handles the business and social calendar, etc. You think they don’t tell them that oh by the way, I ran into Steve at the club and he will probably be calling.
A follow up to this. If you sent an introduction letter, who do you think opened it? The assistant, that’s who!
5. Use e-mail return receipt. Remember how I just said the assistant opened the snail mail. Wanna place a wager on who opens the e-mail? Correct. Not a letter, appointment, e-mail, voice mail or phone call probably gets through without going through the assistant. Stop trying to be gimmicky and JUST BE HONEST.
Here are a couple of “strategies” not in the video.
1. Call the assistant something like dear or sweetie. My wife really loves it, see how that works for ya!
2. When being overly familiar doesn’t work, resort to explicatives. Way to show what a great potential business partner you are.
Look, I have worked in sales positions and I know you want to try to talk to decision makers. Here is a real strategy, talk to a decision maker, the assistant. If you have something of value, you will get directed somewhere. If your product or service is not of interest to them, you can move on and hopefully catch someone who does need what you have to offer and hopefully close some business.
I like the video above, because it shows two guys who have been at this format for a while. Kevin and Robert where both on a Canadian show called Dragon’s Den and have moved to the US version called Shark Tank.
I run across people who are looking to raise funds for their business and most of them don’t get a couple of things.
1. Lots of good ideas will never be successful products and therefor, should not be made.
2. Investors are not banks. They want a part of your company for the money. You probably are willing to give them a lot less than they want because you are over valuing your business.
3. Investors bring knowledge, experience and contacts with their money. Taking that smaller percentage of a much larger pie is often the better choice for the entrepreneur who would have to learn or network for years to get access to some of the things the right investor will bring to the table right away.
4. Your under capitalized and you have a couple of choices. You can take investment dollars and potentially give up some control, or you can try to bootstrap your project and watch your competitors pass you up. In most cases, if you think you have no competitors, it’s because you haven’t seen them yet.
My friend Shawn Carson laid some key validation points out over at his blog out of the garage. It’s a great read, check it out.
I have been reading lately about some pet peeves of mine in this whole brave new Social Media world. During the summer I wrote a post called Know, Like and Trust a Twitter Trilogy. Since then some things have gone from strange to just plain silly.
Here are some observations from other people and some comments of my own:
Joel Comm, you may know him from his book, Twitter Power. (I’m honestly not sure if that is an affiliate link or not. Just in case the disclosure folks are looking.)
He wrote a post the other day on his blog called. “I purged my twitter account.” Read it, there are some great observations about the status of twitter and social media in general.
Here’s my little experiment. With somewhere around 2,000 followers I just kind of dropped off the twitter map in August. No tweets, no manual anything. I did have an autofollow set up, so that I automatically followed anyone who followed me. My thought was that it wouldn’t be an issue because I wasn’t actively tweeting, so who would follow me? Wrong!
From August to Thanksgiving my twitter followers increased by about 800. That freaks me out! In that time I received 364 twitter Direct Messages. That’s pretty close to half and a good number of them were essentially, “Hey, buy my stuff.”
It got to the point that I didn’t even look at a DM before I deleted it! So, I ask you if half of the new followers auto DM with no value add, how long to do you expect that model to last?
Your turn, am I off base, or do some of these tools risk going from just plain useful to just plain crappy?
This is installment three of Business Lessons from the Submarine Force and it’s one of my favorites.
We had a standing order that an emergency startup of a generator was three minutes. The technical manual said “approximately five minutes.” The explanation of the difference was that three was nearly four, which is approximately five.
Believe me, this was something that you wanted running in a hurry, so the logic followed. Long story short without this generator, you were completely on battery power. Nearly every piece of equipment would be off and the only thing that you could hear was the sound that the battery meter made. It clicked each time a little battery power went away. Usually this was four or five times a minute. Without this generator is was more like five or six times a second. You could literally hear a countdown to no power.
Submarine sailors have this ratio “For every one dive, we prefer to have one surface.” It was better to be close and on the surface than perfect and not.
OK Chuck, but what does that have to do with my business? It’s about velocity and not letting perfect be the enemy of good.
Are you putting something off because you are not 100% sure? I attended a briefing from General Collin Powell once where he said “take in information until you are 40-70% sure, then switch to taking action.”
Are you waiting for the sign that your plan will succeed? Or are you starting your plan with the expectation that you may have to modify it as you go? It is not possible to steer a ship that is not moving. Take some action on a new project today.
Three is nearly four, which is approximately five.
It’s the Sunday after Thanksgiving and a lot of people I know are still in Turkey comas. Even more folks I know are looking forward to about six weeks of downtime. Come on, you know many people are not going to do anything productive between now and about the middle of January.
But, what if? What if you took the time to act?
My friend Charlie Wollborg posted a tweet that said “The Sunday after Thanksgiving always feels a bit like New Years Day. Time to get organized and get back to work.”
I also got part 4 of Jim Kukral’s 5 day motivation course. He had a great thought. “Doers get what they want and thinkers get what they get.”
I have a few blog entries to write today. I won’t have a ton of time during the week, but if I write them today, I can just publish them in a few minutes each day.
I received these from a friend of mine years ago. I keep a copy at my desk.
These are meant for the folks who need to create change. You may not have the authority you need, but you have the influence. You may not be steering the ship, but you know who is gonna catch hell if it starts to sink.
1. If your project has zero chance of failure, it’s not worth doing.
2. Circumvent orders aimed at stopping your project.
3. Do any job needed to make your project work.
4. Find good people to help you.
5. Do it the way it will work or do not do it at all.
6. Work underground as long as possible.
7. Never bet on a race unless you are in it.
8. It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
9. Be true to your own goals.
10. Honor your sponsors.
I want to know what you think. Leave a comment and let’s have a discussion.
