Whatever Happened to "Interesting"?

Seth's Blog: Whatever happened to labor?: "The few companies that are able to race to the top, that can challenge workers to bring their whole selves--their human selves--to work, on the other hand, can earn stability and growth and margins. Improvisation still matters if you set out to solve interesting problems."

This morning's post from Seth Godin sparked something different in me. Where he's questioning how the labor force has changed in the last century or so, I gravitated towards one of his thoughts on doing work that's "interesting".

As a worker in the workforce, I can do "tedious" - some days, it's welcome to just do something over and over, needing it to just get done, putting on headphones to pop through something time-consuming and mindless.

But most times, what I do is more "interesting" than "mindless". And I tend to dive into that with more energy. Where there's room to be creative, room to try new things, room to make mistakes and learn from them to find new solutions - that's where we find a different groove.

The tediousness of a job might help time pass, or it might keep me from falling asleep after an over-filling lunch. But as Seth is quoted above, where "improvisation still matters", there's something ultimately more fulfilling there.

What do you think? Interesting vs. Just Get It Done?

I Believe Even More Today...

I Still Believe | Brass Tack Thinking - In the 3 years or so that I’ve been working in and around social media specifically, I’ve seen some amazing things happen. I’ve been in awe of the implications, the changes, the subtle shifts (and the not so subtle) that have been happening in the way we communicate with one another, be it business or personal.

And I’m still excited.

Amber's post a week or so has stuck with me since. Unlike her story (click through to that post if you haven't already), I started as a programmer grunt, working on development or service projects for companies after the sales force has made their triumphant pitch. I've gather requirements, written papers, detailed processes for getting the contracted pieces done to everyone's satisfaction. Mine was mostly a backend process, where the papers were signed and now the work needed to be done.

Last summer 2009, I was content in keeping that path. But since then, things have changed. I left that job for my new one, where I'm much more on the cutting edge than the ragged behind. And I'm researching, trying, risking, writing about how our company an have a positive impact and positive return from exercises in social media. I've gone from compilers to Facebook fan pages; from text-based graphic tools to Tweetdeck and Hootsuite.

And like Amber, I'm increasingly excited about the potential still ahead.

She continues:

"We are indeed at a time of unprecedented opportunity. The web and its agility give voices where there were none, ways to connect that defy time and geography, opportunity for ideas that might never have seen the light of day. It’s helping businesses rethink everything from their culture to their people to the systems they’ve built, and even big ships are finding themselves turning in new directions."

I've been on this path for just over a year now, and I've learned more each month along the way. This new workflow has exceeded expectations all around, and it looks like I'm setting my own bar even higher for whatever is coming next.

Top Six Posts of August OVER COFFEE

We at OVER COFFEE started this monthly tradition of listing the Top Six posts of the month. August was a growing month, especially at the end with a little bounce from Twitter friends and retweets. With that in mind, here are the Top Six posts of August:

• That Idea Is SoFresh
• Here's the 10% No One Wants To Say (with lead-in post, Boogie Man Challenge)
  This post was a challenge to write and to post, something close to controversial that would/should/could kick each of us in the tush. Glad it's had some impact and a little run of its own.
• 3 Ways to "Work Harder"
  Follow up to the 10%, getting into "what now?" answers that I hope will be helpful.
• How "Connected" Are We?
• "Better" Is Relative
  Short one with a great link to click and think through...
• R.I.F.

Thanks for stopping by - I enjoy writing, but it's "better together" when someone's there reading, too.

What kinds of topics would you like to "discuss Over Coffee"?

Learn To Write

Top 11 Free Resources To Improve Your Blog’s Content | Social Media Today: "As part of our continuing series to help you in developing compelling content, today we provide you a list of the top 11 online resources to help you improve your writing skills."

Anyone wanting to take advantage of what's possible with social media - networking, building a base of clients, pushing out a new business, and lots more - needs to have decent writing skills. If you really want to take advantage, you need awesome ninja writing skills - or at least that's a good goal to strive for, always tweaking and refining how you do what you do. Twitter forces the author to be concise while still conveying complete thoughts in one hundred forty character bursts. Facebook can even lend itself to using a less-is-more mentality in making your status more of a story than just what's-for-breakfast. Blogging opens up the door even more for storytelling and story-selling.

Bad writing gets you noticed for all the wrong reasons. Good writing will help you convey whatever message you have. But great writing will help you stand out in the crowd. And we can always be better writers.

(Even as I post this, I can almost guarantee four edits/updates for word choice, for sentiment, for feel to the reader and overall audience impact. But that's just me.)

How are you as a writer? Is it scary? Do you give it much thought?

3 Ways to "Work Harder"

Note from The Editor: we will return Over Coffee to its normal focus of "social media for individuals and small business" soon. For now, Rick is stuck in a gear that's focused more on relationship matters that don't fit nicely into "What is Twitter?" kinds of conversations. We apologize for any inconvenience. Well, really we don't, but it felt right to say it here. - The Editor

Yesterday I posted my scary post: "Here's the 10% No One Wants To Say". It was a rant more than anything, but one that I hope wasn't much in the way of finger pointing, but more like a good mutual conversation over coffee, over something that one of us sees as a problem and an abysmal downfall for the other.

At the end I summed up with a seed that I hope moves me and moves you forward from the brink of whiney despair:

And the only thing I've found that sets apart those who are enjoying this life from those who are generally sourpussed through it all is this: working hard to be happy, to enjoy life, to be a friend, to love our families, to be better people. Working hard to make it worth it - 100% of the time, that ends the griping.

I can almost hear you now, asking, But what can that mean? I already feel like I work too hard doing things I don't like for people I don't like... how can "work harder" actually be helpful?

I'm glad you asked.

First, don't blame anyone else. By that, I don't mean become someone's carpet to be walked on, or to self-flagellate over whatever's going on. I'm saying to forgive and to drop whatever grudge, offense, misunderstanding might be in the way of moving forward positively. Too much brain and heart energy is used obsessing over things beyond our control.

Second, having moved beyond that, find a way to do something extra, something different will add to your process and not take away from it. If we're talking about your job, this is the time to not only do what's expected of you, but to add on something only you can do or something only you can appreciate. If your job is customer service, work at being good at it, fast at it, accurate at it in ways that management will see and notice. Find ways to chart progress, maybe change workflow. If this is at home, guys, wash the dishes and mean it. Take out the garbage before she asks. Ladies, compliment him when he does what he does well. Add "the little things" and purpose to enjoy doing it, whether noticed or not.

Third, set the goal you need to set. "Save my marriage" - "get a new job" - "start a business" - "graduate this semester". Make decisions based on how well they help you reach that goal. Don't do anything that moves you away from what you want. Lean heavily on those paths that lead to the promised land.

Here's the 10% No One Wants To Say

I needed to start with some bulletpoints to share why and what and what for:

• Earlier this week, a post by Stanford Smith was posted at SocialMedia.com, "Why You Must Post Your Boogie Man Post". He writes, "I’m not going to tell you that your boogie man isn’t scary. I AM going to challenge you to NOT let it hold you back." I decided to take his challenge, and I promised to post today.
• A good friend once shared that in most difficult conversations, everyone still holds back 10%. The thought is that if I think you're on the wrong path, or if I think you need some free advice to make your life better, then I'll share 90% of what I think you need to hear. I'll hold back the most harsh pieces, the 10% that would hurt you or offend you, and hope the 90% is good enough.
• I'm not afraid of conflict. But more importantly, I've learned to avoid pointless conflict. It's no good to offend someone for no reason, or to share advice that will ultimately be flushed. So if we're going to go there, know that I've deemed it important, and that it needs to be out in the open.
• In the space that is "social media", people are a little more open and free with the problems below. There's too much riding on this: jobs, relationships, future networking needs. Whether it's the anonymity, or ignorance that comes with pride, or the general lack of etiquette, folks are just a little more open than healthy around here. This site deals with things "social media related", and this is the biggest most glaring weakness I see in too many of us.
• With all of that (wish me luck while I pour my coffee), this is my boogie man post.
• This is our 10%.

There were a few different title possibilities for this post. I wanted to make "Don't Read This" be more prominent at the top, but the draw of reverse psychology sounded a bit like gaming the system, and I'm not afraid of that. I could've also been more in your face with a bold, "Get Over Yourself", or the more reserved, "You're Doing What?!?". In the end, I settled on "Here's the 10% No One Wants To Say" - not "... Say To You", because I'm not pointing fingers. Instead, leaving it open-ended like that marks my realization that this is as much for me as for both of you reading right now.

Here's the 10%:

1. Get Over Yourself
2. Stop The Whining
3. Move On, You Big Baby

That's it. We have friends who commiserate, wallowing with us in our pity parties. And then there are the friends who will tell us straight up to pull up our big kid undies and just deal. I want the latter friends more than the former. But anymore on Facebook and on Twitter and in blogs and on the evening news, folks are griping about things instead of working harder to make life better.

It's easier to complain about work on Monday than to sit down and do the best job we can. It's easier to post a status update on Facebook than to invite a friend out for coffee to settle differences. It's easier to find someone to share my hostility than to try being a peacemaker for a change.

Being miserable is easy. Being happy takes work. And we're lazy - so misery it is.

Get over yourself. You do in fact deserve better, but for whatever reason, this is where you find yourself, where we've come in the process. We can spin wheels and whine about how we got here, and maybe there's a little time for that. But eventually you've got to move on. Change something. Do something different. Make some real tangible difficult change in life that makes "where I am" a better place to be and to live.

Stop the whining. Everyone agrees the first time. The second time you'll have agreement from the folks who didn't see or hear the first one. But by the third time, folks paying attention will stop paying attention. That might be an exaggeration... nope, no it's not. You get one free whine, maybe two, then it's time to pick up the pieces and move on.

Move on, you big baby. Instead of focusing on the negative you're in, push all that energy towards the positive you want. That might fit on a bumper sticker, but just barely - but it's a painful truth. If you want anything to change, you're the one who's going to have to get it moving that way. No one will do it for you - and if anything, those people are the ones who led you to this place to begin with. Another reason for a change, right?

If it's your job, then get a different job. Bad economy eating up all the jobs? Then ask, why am I not happy here? Can I do a better job in my job? Can I change relationships with co-workers so they're nicer, so they're more amiable, so they're friends instead of bloodsuckers?

Is it your home, your family, your spouse? Find good counsel, not someone who'll tell you the joys of divorce or the plus side of leaving, but someone who's been through and come out with a wonderful family portrait. Find someone who an build you up instead of quicksanding you towards whatever inevitability you're fixated on right now.

Is it finances? Let's set a budget, eat in tonight, take my lunch to work. Let's make payments, double up somewhere, pay down and pay off. Whatever time it takes, move that way positively with goals in mind.

In all of these instances, know up front that it is not going to be easy. More than likely, knowing myself and whatever cross-section of humanity I've grown up with, "being easy" is what has brought us here. We're in this mess because of "easy". Friends in small group a few years ago shared, "we're college-educated adults, and with our intelligence and best intentions, this was as good as we could do".



And the only thing I've found that sets apart those who are enjoying this life from those who are generally sourpussed through it all is this: working hard to be happy, to enjoy life, to be a friend, to love our families, to be better people. Working hard to make it worth it - 100% of the time, that ends the griping.

Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for helping me with my own whininess herein. Can we work hard together to make this life better? Thanks - I knew we could try...

"Better" is Relative

Study Hacks | Blog Archive | An Open Letter to Students on the Danger of Seeing School as a Trial to Survive: "In other words, when you go through life thinking “if I can make it through this, things will be better later,” you eventually forget what “better” means."

I know too many people for whom this is a problem: oversimplifying the problem to "if I get through ___, then everything will be wonderful". You know them, too. Sometimes, it's me. Sometimes, it's you. The swinging from the extreme of despair to the other side full of delusional hope takes us away from just dealing with an issue and moving on. Click through to Cal Newport's article above that includes real guidelines that are short and sweet and doable.


What else can you do in your life to make things "better"?

Boogie Man Challenge

Why You Must Write Your Boogie Man Post | Social Media Today

Okay, I will. And I'll post it this weekend, Sunday 08/29.

Hold me to it.

Need Before The Need

Why it’s essential to invest in social media before you need it | Social Media Today: "An investment in social media doesn’t offer the same potential for immediate returns as traditional media does. There is no social media equivalent of buying a spot in a TV show for next week, or a placement in a newspaper for tomorrow. The lack of consolidation of influence and power in social media creates a system where the potential for immediate return is limited."

One thing I keep coming back to is that a social media network is one of those things you need before you need it. Whether it's a job search, or making connections for an event, or researching a topic, or marketing your startup - social media has to have some buildup to it before you "need" to use it.

First of all, people hate to feel "used". There is a great deal of interplay on social media channels, and everyone is really open to give and to share. But there's the expectation of some reciprocity as well, or of at least getting involved in a community already working and moving on something positive. That takes time to build a trust, a group of online friends, a reputation as a giver. And it's something to feed now if there's going to be any tangible return later.

Second, one of my Dad's sayings still to this day is, "You can do anything with the right tool" - usually said when we needed to do something and did not have the right tool. It's a lesson learned from experience, and that lesson is that we should've had one of those ______ from Home Depot a long time ago, because I need it now for _______. Whatever _____ is, if you don't have the tool, you're literally up a figurative creek without a metaphorical paddle. Philosophically speaking.

Lastly, if you're reading this and you haven't started already joined in on some sort of community in this social media space, you're probably not going to have much fun. The good parts of it all is the interaction, the conversations, the back-and-forth of relationships over things that are important and that are mundane. It's sharing time and space somehow over things that you don't really "need", but that instead builds a commonality that's useful in the long run. I would add that there's a depth, too - but again, that takes time and it needs to start sooner rather than later to get anything back in your bucket.

What do you think? Have you built/joined the network you might need in the future?

A Year and a Day Ago...

adventure, anyone? | life: caffeinated: "Tomorrow, I’ll be attending orientation for my new job. It’s the first such “new job” gathering that I’ve attended in just over nineteen years."

Today marks a year at my still-brand-spanking-new job in b2b social media. The link above is to my other blog: short and sweet post to mark what's continuing to be a huge change in life.

• I am thankful, and without sounding like a kiss-up, I really do love my job. Okay, without sounding too much like a...
• I've met new people far and wide. I've connected in real life with local friends who "get" Twitter and the rest.
• I've branched out into helping some folks get a grip on what all these platforms and communication channels are capable of for their own networking, their own small businesses, their own career paths.
• I've been able to look back and to look ahead, using the best of both, I hope, to move forward successfully. I've found that it's better to change than to wait for things to change - the former is harder but the latter can hurt more in the end.
• I've got far less stress. I've told folks before: I have to clip my fingernails. I've never had fingernails. As unstressed as I've always considered myself, I always chewed my nails. In my last job, where I had probably reached a point of the lowest stress in years, I still chewed my nails. Now? Clippers - they get too long and I annoy myself tap-tapping on my formica cubicle desk.
• I have been able to bring real change, real encouragement, and something really fun to the workplace.
• There's more, I'm sure - but there comes a point when folks are tired of hearing how awesome things are between my own ears... (no, that didn't sound too full of myself, did it?).

Is anyone writing this stuff down? I've got a review coming up and might need to turn in my notes.