Posts Tagged ‘value’

Reflections

Monday, April 13th, 2009

Moving forward after my ranting and somewhat scathing previous post, here is a quick synopsis of what is going on in my mind. This past week has been strange, good, enlightening and uplifting, even though there are many things not so “pretty pretty” right now.

I have been asked how my family and I are keeping so upbeat, positive and sticking together given our current situation. The answer? Prayer, communication, trust and understanding. Things that should be in any family.

I have also been commended on how I am handling things, as well as how my family is handling things. It’s not me, really, I know what is the right thing to do most of the time and that has been my focus – otherwise I will get off track and it will all crumble.

A while back I did a post in reference to Chris Brogan’s Your Three Goals for 2009 post. As an update to that post, and update in general on why I wrote the post yesterday, keep reading.

Value, Engagement, Motion

The first word I chose was value. Now some would say the previous post was nothing about value, and especially not about positive value. Yet, as I planned the post, as I wrote it out I was seeing the value that I have the potential to create if I just took the first step to venture out on my own. My wife agrees, so that is that.

In the value department, I have been fortunate enough to be able to help out with quite a few people, projects and causes. In fact, on April 18th I will be going to Denver with my wife to join in a Tweetup that is two purposes – Mom It Forward and 12for12k. Last month I did as best I could to help the 12for12k Tweet-A-Thon.

Also in the value department I have a new web app I am releasing in the very near future that will have the ability and the power to change lives. This project will bring me absolutely zero income, and I won’t have it any other way.

On engagement, I have actively engaged not only on Twitter, but more blogs, web sites and other online destinations. I have also began to engage people more offline, and will be working on scheduling a local Tweetup and looking at starting a local Meetup to engage with people that much more in my local community.

The final word, motion, has been happening very, very fast. Some days I cannot keep up with everything going on, and yet other days I still kind of crawl. The end result is the aforementioned web app I am going to be releasing and another project that as of this point is an idea in my head, though upon sharing with a few select people I have gotten nothing but awesome feedback. Motion, is good.

What about you? Do you have three words for 2009 yet? Are you creating and seeing value in others and for others, in and for yourself? Are you moving forward on anything, or are you at a stand-still waiting on something grand to happen for you not doing anything?

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Is It All About Community?

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

In two different articles today on ChannelWeb, there are two completely different stories. Both are about Giants, both are about tech companies. One has made communities the other has alienated communities. Is it all about community? If you believe that the web and Internet are empowering social media, interaction and community at businesses, around businesses and within businesses, then yes, it is just that simple – it’s all about community.

In an article by Rick Whiting over on ChannelWeb it is noted that Microsoft is cutting 5000 jobs over the next 18 months, and that sales grew merely 2% in the year-over-year report, with earnings down 11%. It is not difficult to understand why – Vista was merely not adopted as was hoped, and the XP deadline was extended a time or two to meet demand through OEM and VAR channels. The other thing of note, is Microsoft is involved in media (Zune), Gaming and Enterprise. Enterprise and gaming, according to the article, had better individual increases, but it obviously was not enough to avoid cuts.

Meanwhile, Apple is reported to have had a stellar quarter, in an article by Kevin McLaughlin on ChannelWeb. Apple had iPhone sales up 88% over the past year, Mac sales up 9% and iPod sales up 3%. Earnings were higher than expected and even amidst rumors mentioned in the article of Steve Jobs’ health. There were no mentions of cut-back at Apple.

I think, and this is my opinion until I can maybe run some polls and do research, the biggest difference in the two is centered around community. One look at the two companies and the communities around them is easy to see – Microsoft is notorious for alienation, a fact that anyone in the tech industry know. Closed source, closed doors, closed minds in my view. Apple, on the other hand, embraces communities, embraces customers and feedback and strives to make a better product aimed at what their communities desire and need, rather than what Apple feels like providing to their communities. Imagine this – Microsoft has said Vista is the most secure and reliable Windows yet and still adaptation is slow due to poor track record. Microsoft has said Vista gives users more of what they want….but with the steep cost, poor performance and other features did they really give consumers what they want?

Who has the better community? I think it is easy to tell from recent earnings, recent trends and especially looking at social and new media which one is winning with a better community.

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Positive Value

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

The past few days a mantra that has been going through my mind is POSITIVE VALUE. Why? Because everything we do, say or otherwise output carries value with it, whether it is negative or positive depends upon who we are, our mind set at the moment and general life conditions.

However, something I have come to notice, not only in life offline, but life online as well is people like to be around those that have an output of generally Positive Value. You know what I am talking about – the friend that every time you call has some form of drama, or gripe about something. The person you see at Church and simply say, “Good-morning, how are you?” to that goes into a 15 minute session about how things are the worst ever, and there is just simply no hope. Not to say that we all don’t go through valleys, some of which are rather deep. But if we focus on the valley, hence negative value, we will never see the mountain top to which we can begin to climb to.

Chris Brogan asks what are your three goals (summarized by three words) for 2009: Mine are Value, Engagement, Motion.

VALUE I not only plan to see the Positive value in as much as possible around me, I intend to create positive value for as much as possible around me. Whether it is helping someone, creating a web site or app that solves a problem, or just giving of my time, effort and money to make a change and difference in one or more peoples’ lives.

ENGAGEMENT I would like to become more engaging – create conversations with people, online and offline. I am shy, introverted and sometimes come off wrong, but that’s okay. I know that and can work on it. I would also like to become a more engaging writer, writing not just here on this blog, but other items that engage the reader – that which makes them think, reflect, act and do. That which creates a dialog between two or more people.

MOTION Too often I find myself at a stand-still. I wonder what’s next? Where do I go from here. This year I plan to always stay in motion in my endeavors and never to become still or stale. Too often all of us get downed by daily activities, that thing called life: family, career and friends. Sometimes we sit on an idea, waiting for it to form, develop and execute itself, well at least I know I do. Not this year – motion will keep going forward, at all times.

To that end, my number one focus is POSITIVE VALUE – what value are you creating today? Is it positive or negative? Do you focus and surround yourself with negative or positive value? What effect is that having in your life, today?

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Do You Create Value?

Monday, January 19th, 2009

Do you create value? Do you even know what value I speak of?

It seems that there are many voices in the social media/network arena, just as there are in the web development and PHP programming arenas, some claim to be “experts” while others do nothing but “bash” the experts. Human nature to be competitive I guess. But the basic idea is this, everything we do creates value. So to answer the question for you, yes you create value!

So the true question is what type of value do you create? Positive or Negative?

Want to build your followers, interact with the big dogs or sell more product? You had best hope you are out there, daily, generating positive value. Negative value will do nothing more than move you in the wrong direction.

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