In honor: My brief encounter with Mandela lasted a lifetime
I have met many "famous" people but none that have touched me like Mandela.
It was just a fleeting moment really --- I was with a key group that had traveled to South Africa. Since I was supporting a very important person from the US that was scheduled to meet with Mandela, I was told to stay in the background during the meeting. I was allowed to go into the room to learn and listen.
But I was pleasantly surprised when he didn't let me stay in the background but shook my hand and asked me some questions! His smile and demeanor made you feel like you mattered.
In that short instance, I realized what greatness really meant. Making everyone feel like they matter, listening, and leading.
He touched my life in 5 minutes or less. Whose life have you touched? Nelson Mandela once said, "It always seems impossible until it is done."
You can make a difference! Do the impossible!
Top Spots for Entrepreneurs - An Infographic
I now have responsibility for IBM's Global entrepreneur program. This program is extraordinary and focuses on helping start-ups grow to their full potential.
I was researching and found this infographic on the hot spots!
What I thought was interesting was that Chile has the highest percentage of female entrepreneurs and that those in Singapore work more hours than those in Silicon Valley.
Now, my current City of Residence, NYC, is rated #5 in the world!
Tell me your thoughts on this space!!! Sandy
Open up to Client Influence the Social Way!
Happy Monday! This coffee break is dedicated to those companies who always put the client first!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF9DwAiDPZY&feature=youtu.be]
Leadership matters! One of the Top 5 Social Business Questions Answered!
One of the Top 5 questions people ask me is does it matter if your leaders are sold on social and the answer is YES!
Getting your executives to buy into the concept of a social business in most cases is something that they will either get straight away or not. Those who are switched on to “modern” technology will not need much convincing that implementing social technologies in the workplace will improve communications and enhance productivity. Those who don’t see the need for it, of course, require a little more persuasion.
However you arrive at their participation, they will most likely be nervous about stepping into a less controlled environment. It’s a bit like them going to the local swimming pool where all the employees swim. There’s no hiding!
How do you approach executives who are not Social?!
My advice to getting them into the water is to let them observe for a while. Get your enthusiastic evangelists publishing and propose that your leader checks in on these things. With their permission ask a public question. By that we mean something they will be happy to answer in public. Encourage your other trusted evangelists to do likewise. Use the fact that you have a team of enthusiastic users to vary the method of interaction. Ask in a forum post for a suggestion, ask in a micro-blogging entry something else.
Make it easy for your leader to get into the water by making it easy for them to answer. A couple of short sentences for the first few answers to things is all that’s needed.
Once you have the leader taking part, albeit on a light basis, we need to convince the leadership team that they too should look at taking part. That team will only see value in doing this if they see the chief doing it.
The leadership team will likely be nervous about what their own areas of the organization are putting into the social system – they will be concerned that their dirty laundry might be getting washed in public. Try to quash this concern. Remember that a social business is one which is engaged and transparent (and nimble).
Show your leaders that by participating in the system and answering cross-departmental or cross-organizational issues their area of the business shows its value. Remember – your value is in what your share – not what you know in a social business.
Commitment
Altimeter's report shows that only about 1/2 of executives are engaged. How do you get that commitment in your organization?
Having a strong commitment among the leaders in the organization sets the tone, volume and enthusiasm for the use of the system. Remember that in any organization the leadership team are essentially “celebrities” and when they post information or participate in the system the staff become engaged. As an analogy to this, while many people consider the old-fashioned two-page memo from the chief executive setting out policy and priorities to be deadly boring, everyone reads it. Everyone engages. So to get the engagement, to cross the social chasm, you need your leaders to start becoming more transparent.
You can facilitate this slowly by driving engagement from your core Social Business team from below. Encouraging the execs to take a more active role in forum discussions, making the technology available to them on their chosen mobile device and empowering the gatekeepers to your execs – the secretaries – are all good ways of driving top-down participation which in turn drives bottom-up engagement.
Reverse mentoring as a technique for helping with engagement. You should, however, consider preparing the ground by producing some executive training materials. An executive handbook – amounting to a maximum of 5 pages of tips and tricks, some one-to-one time, and perhaps a presentation provided to them on paper or some other medium to help them get into the concept are all good approaches. Above all show them that these are “special” materials – these are designed only for them. They are intelligent people and like to be treated that way. Give them the facts in tweet-size points.
Ask if you can check in on them from time to time. If you get their approval then MAKE SURE YOU DO IT REGULARLY. But not too regularly to avoid getting on their nerves!
"The Secret to Managing Multichannel Marketing"
I recently participated in a webinar with some top executives from SAP, Chubb Insurance, CitiMortgage and nonprofit Human Rights Campaign along with the Editor-in-Chief of Target Marketing Magazine, Thorin McGee.
We got together at the Union Club in NYC to discuss some of the questions about managing multichannel marketing in today's business environment -- utilizing the latest social tools and techniques, addressing new audiences such as Generation C and millenials, and how to stay 'connected' both internally and externally.
We're taking the topic further this week in a FREE webinar sponsored by Target Marketing, where we'll explore more on this topic, including testing new channels and using metrics to determine success. I hope you're able to join me for this free webinar on Wednesday, December 4, starting at 2:00 pm ET.
Register NOW and don't miss "The Secret to Managing Multichannel Marketing". Bring your own questions to the webinar .Click here to register!
Wanted: Business Analytics Skills! Required for Social Media
Happy Monday!
Skills is such a hot topic. Business analytics is required not just for its insight but is a cross road for social and mobile value as well.
See what you can do!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPIpLcLMe3Y&feature=youtu.be]
Thanksgiving Reflection - Social Helping on the first Thanksgiving
It is interesting to learn that on the Mayflower there were 24 families that arrived in the New World on November 11, 1620, first stopping at Cape Cod, MA, after 66 days of sailing across the Atlantic. A couple of weeks later they sailed to Plymouth, where they began to build their rustic homes. It was the beginning of Winter, and it was not long before the settlers began to get sick and die.
By Spring of 1621, of the 24 women, 4 survived; of the 24 men, 11 survived. All of them were from the working class, town laborers ~ people who knew nothing about farming and cultivating the land. They were faced with the task of growing enough food to last a year. They would have failed had it not been for two people who came to their aid. Two Native Americans came out of the forest to help the dying settlement.
The astonishing thing for these pilgrims was that these Indians, Samoset and Squanto, spoke English! If we probe how it was that these two Indians coming from the forest could speak English, we get to one of the important meanings of our Thanksgiving celebration.
Samoset and Squanto had been captured by English soldiers and made slaves on a British warship. The history books do not tell us how they escaped. What we know is that there on that inhospitable shore, two strands of humanity met, both of whom had been much defrauded and abused. These two peoples the dying group of pilgrims and the escaped North American Indians found each other, as brothers and sisters, in the same human family, recognition born of their common experience of tragedy and misfortune.
The first Thanksgiving was a thankfulness not for abundance, but that God had kept their settlement from extinction through the gift of two strangers who shared their knowledge and their friendship. The power and the gift here lay in the respect for equality and mutuality of two races, two peoples, who needed each other in order to survive.
This story tells us that survival and nurturing on our Earth is a function of our relationships. When people come together, reach out to one another in the spirit of mutual care and concern, it is in that Spirit that our world will endure and from which thankful hearts will be born!
Black Friday offer for Get BOLD! A big Social Business THANKS!
It's that time of year again....the sights and sounds of the holidays, everyone full of good cheer and planning holiday dinners with family and friends.
But wait!!. Let's not forget Black Friday and Cyber Monday! While many of us decry the early shopping times now available at so many stores on Thanksgiving, I and many others will head to the stores come Black Friday. It's almost a tradition now in some families to start shopping as early as Thanksgiving, and continuing on through Black Friday and of course, Cyber Monday.
IBMPressbooks.com is joining the foray for power shopping this week with a special offer for several books, including my best-selling book, "Get Bold", which has been translated into 9 languages. "Get Bold" provides tips, hints, and an agenda on how you can leverage social tools to transform your business operations while improving client and workforce relationships, while improving the bottom line.
Don't miss these sweet deals to grab a couple books for yourself and for your friends on your holiday list!
Black Friday (November 24-30) Offer: Buy 1, Save 30%; Buy 2, Save 40%; Buy 3, Save 50% with coupon. Products included: books, eBooks, and full-course video tutorials
Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!
Powering the Omnichannel For The Holidays
Woo hoo! I LOVE the holiday season. And given I am a techy, I love seeing shoppers taking to their laptops and mobile phones as well as the malls and stores to fill their holiday gift lists.
Did you know that 'Click Frenzy' Sales Jumped 16% this year. Is this a preview to come for US's Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
Retailers who connect these dots into a true omni-channel experience will be the big winners.
This video shows how shoppers will do it this season!!!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8vve9U3joo&feature=youtu.be]