Getting Back To Your Passion

I’ve been writing a lot lately about key elements to working the most effectively and efficiently that you can, and I feel like I’ve left out the most important one. Passion! It’s what drives us to accomplish the things we wish to accomplish in life. Not the things we feel like we have to accomplish, but the things we really want to. Remember what it was that first snagged your interest in your field? What was it that made you decide to go into whatever it is you do? Are you still aware of this motivational force today, or have you …Continue Reading...

Social Media: What Would Don Draper Do?

Mad Men hysteria has officially kicked in with the premiere of their fourth season, appropriately titled, “Public Relations.” In one scene, a reporter asks Don Draper, “Who is Don Draper?” Caught in between his present life as Don and his past life, Dick, he is troubled by this question, wary of the intentions behind the question. It is only after he makes an executive decision at the agency, that he realizes that he is in control of his own identity. Don is in complete control over his public persona and has crafted it so well, as to make sure the past …Continue Reading...

Social:IRL Event with Sarah Evans

Ben Smith is not in England anymore. In fact, he is making quite an impact on the SM scene and in Lawrence, where he currently lives. He previously worked with at the World Company, which is host to Lawrence Journal-World, Sunflower Broadband, KTKA, and online properties including ljworld.com, kusports.com, lawrence.com and wellcommons.com, as their Social Media Manager. He has left the company and has since launched Social:IRL, a company that assists businesses with their social media and “new media” needs. He’s organizing and Mashable and Start-Thinking, LLC are sponsoring Social Media Marketing Boot Camp with Sarah Evans on September 14. Sarah …Continue Reading...

Save Yourself, Plan Ahead Thoroughly

Planning is easily the most important aspect to any project. Literally ANY project. Knowing what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it is clearly an essential step to accomplishing anything, but also going beyond simple planning to get into fine details of your steps allows you to move through work much more efficiently. Knowing what you will do in case of certain situations is always helpful as well. It’s hard to do anything without planning even a little bit before hand. Maybe it’s only some vague ideas like “I’m going on a road trip”, with no plans …Continue Reading...

Effectively Self-Educating Online

I recently gave a presentation on working efficiently in the office. One of the topics I covered was feeding your mind to contribute to creativity. This includes both knowledge, facts, and information, as well as inspiration and new ideas. The problem therein is that the vast amount of these things available online makes it difficult to pick exactly what among it all that you’re feeding your mind. Some steps I remember to take in order to filter through the noise are to consciously decide what I want (or need) to learn about before venturing into the web. Typically, it’s easy for …Continue Reading...

Engage or Die: 5 Twitter Tips for Businesses

In Brian Solis‘ book “Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate and Measure Success in the New Web,” Brian updates a Forbes magazine list of Top 21 Twitter Tips for businesses to follow to engage with their audience. From Brian’s updated list of 21, I decided to pick the five that I thought were most interesting. So here are, in no particular order, my Top 5 Tips for Businesses to Engage on Twitter: 1. Conversation Marketing 436 employees of shoe company Zappos are on Twitter. Instead of constantly discussing his brand, the Zappos Twitter is filled with …Continue Reading...

Lack of Senses and Interpretation

Recent personal and professional interactions have got me thinking, how do senses assist or inhibit our ability to understand a message? One of our community partners is KMUW, who is holding a fundraiser for their public service, the Wichita Radio Reading Service. This service has provided people with visual impairments access to local and national news via closed circuit radio through the help of volunteers that read them various publications. This service is great because it fills a void for those who don’t have the ability to read. But since they cannot physically see the words in front of them, …Continue Reading...

Six Things Improv Taught Me About Life and Business (part 3)

So, this is the last post of this series of the 6 Things I Learned from Improv. If you’d like to read the first two posts, you can find part one here and part two here. Starting from where I left off . . . 5. Don’t waffle Waffling is the exact opposite of the situation I discussed in the second rule. Instead of forcing a scene or a punchline, people who waffle simply refuse to make a decision. They don’t add anything solid to a scene, instead staying in the realms of ambiguity and uncertainty. Essentially, it’s like having a performer that …Continue Reading...