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One of the people that Gorgeous and I connected with in Chicago this past weekend was Christine Kane. It probably didn’t hurt that the three of us were all seated in close proximity to a very wild and obnoxious three year old on the same flight into Chicago. That got diverted to Columbus for more fuel after holding too long for bad weather.

But that’s a story for another time.

I also had the pleasure of sitting at the same table as Christine at the conference. As speakers like Chris Brogan, Liz Strauss, and Terry Starbucker were talking about the people in the room who were using Twitter to communicate with one another (and with folks half a world away) during the conference, Christine would ask the rest of us questions on the side.

They ranged from the basic to the technical, for example…

• What’s the point? to interact with others
• Why would you bother? because I like people
• Can everyone see what I tweet @ someone? Oh, yeah
• How does the direct message thing work? “d your_friends_twittername” and they’ll get a private message

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A Lesson

Thank you.

Defensio Promises Competition for Spam Killing Akismet

Spam is the scourge of the internet. Spawn of Satan. Evil incarnate.

It’s bad stuff.

They say something on the order of 90% of all email sent is in fact spam. Blech!

Spam Defined

For those of you who live under an un-technological rock, here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia Spam entry.

Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, mobile phone messaging spam, internet forum spam and junk fax transmissions.

Spamming is economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, and it is difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings. Because the barrier to entry is so low, spammers are numerous, and the volume of unsolicited mail has become very high. The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which have been forced to add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming is widely reviled, and has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions.

In other words there is little cost and effectively no adverse consequences to spammers so they continue to flood the planet with their electronic waste, and tie up huge swaths of bandwidth and countless man hours dealing with their mess.

And if you were wondering where the term spam originated, apparently some of the early computer geeks were fans of Monty Python and they saw all that junk as overwhelming things the same way the Spam song did in this skit.

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Reserving the Right to be Wrong

Had to be Right

There was a time in my life when I just had to be right about everything. It was important and I’d argue tooth and nail to get my point across.

When someone chose to disagree with me I’d try to back them into a corner or shut them down.

Not that I couldn’t be convinced that I was wrong, mind you. Unfortunately if I did see that I’d been wrong, I would jump to the “correct” viewpoint and hold that one just as doggedly.

Crazy, I know.

Stopped In My Tracks

Then one day I was stopped in my tracks. A close friend of mine said something that changed my whole view of the “being right” business. Here’s what he asked me.

Would you rather be right, or have friends?

I’d never even considered that those two things could possibly be opposed to one another.

But it makes sense.

It only took me a couple moments of thinking about it to realize that most people don’t want to be wrong. By holding so strongly to my desire to be right I was basically saying that everyone else was wrong.

Would I want to hang out with someone who thought I was wrong all the time? Nope. Not a chance!

Why then would anyone want to be around me then if I treated them the same way? Hmmm….

OK to be Wrong

Since then I’ve taken a different approach. I let myself be wrong now.

Nowadays I don’t sweat so much whether someone else thinks I’m right or I’m wrong. If they think I’m a all messed up, that’s their right.

I don’t make it my place to change their mind.

Does that mean I still don’t care about aligning myself with what is true? Of course not. And it doesn’t mean that I completely refrain from expressing my views either.

What it does mean is that I present my thoughts in such a way that I acknowledge the potential that conflicting views may have merit.

And I am finding that I have many more friends than I used to. It’s less stressful to boot, so I count it a win all around.

Now you know why I reserve the right to be wrong.

Connections are There for You to Make

Connecting with other people is easier than you may think. If you keep a sharp eye out for potential bridges, that is.

The clues are there for you all the time, right in plain sight. Train yourself to see them and you’ll find all sorts of people that you have a some small thing in common with.

And sometimes all it takes is a small connection to build on for the creation of a relationship that is mutually beneficial.

Teach Yourself to Listen

It starts by attention to what people are saying. Learn to become an active listener.

Historically this has been a challenging area for me. I had the habit of thinking while other people were talking. I so wanted to have a response ready as soon as they took a breath that often I didn’t hear what they were really saying because my mind was already thinking about crafting that perfect response.

Dumb.

Instead listen to what the other person is saying. Hear it. Then make your response.

It may not come over night. I’ve been working on it for years. Think how long your brain has been working with your current listening habits. Don’t expect to completely change the way it works over night.

But don’t give up improving, either. Read more

Heading to SOBCon Early

Today’s the day.

It’s the day I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Especially over the last several weeks, as things have been more and more dramatic around me I’ve been longing for this day to get here.

Today Gorgeous and I get on a plane for Chicago for SOBCon ‘07.

Well be getting together with great relationship bloggers from all over at the Sofitel Chicago O’Hare tomorrow and Saturday. We’ll finally be able to put faces with all those wonderful bloggers out there.

This is one conference you won’t want to miss!

I will most likely be in the back of the room or running around helping out with the gillion and a half last minute trivial details that always come up at an event like this. So if you are in the room, make it a point to stop me, introduce yourself and say hey.

I really do want to meet you.

If you are heading out, I’ll see you there.

And if you can’t make it this year but really wanted to be there, let your voice be heard. Who knows, we might even do this again sometime.

Don’t Wait for the Funeral to Visit

Last week we had my father-in-law’s funeral. It was heartening to my wife and I how many people made it out on a Friday evening to pay their respects and express their condolences.

For most of the pre-funeral receiving time I stood at the head of the receiving line next to my wife. The line of people snaked around the church and out the door. Some folks commented to us that it took upwards of 45 minutes for them to make it through the line.

We had people who knew Dad in all sorts of ways there.

“I worked with your father at the plant.” - He worked there 30 years but had been retired 7 or 8 years.

“Your father bought half a side of beef from me every year.” - He hadn’t done that in about 20 years.

“We lived next door to your father on the farm.” - He moved off the farm over 40 years ago.

Where Were They Before?

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Business is About People not Stats

As we work through the current series on Promoting Your Blog with Social Networking Sites, it is important that we pause for a moment and remember that ultimately business is about people and not about stats.

Business blogging is no different.

Show Me The Money

I’ve had discussions in the past with folks who subscribe to the conventional wisdom that Business is about money. That thinking misses the mark.

People ultimately control the money.

You build relationships with clients and customers, who are ultimately real people - even when the clients are businesses - and the money will follow in a solid stream.

You try to short circuit that reality and your income flow will be less certain and less steady. Read more

Frittering Time Away all a-Titter with the Twitter Jitters

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Unless you’ve been shipwrecked on some remote island lately you’ve probably heard all the buzz going around about the hottest new thing since YouTube came down the pike.

Positioned precisely at the intersection of where narcissism meets voyeurism, Twitter has become the latest web rage. Their self proclaimed mission is to be A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?

The idea is that folks type in a little blurb of 140 characters or less telling the world what they are doing at the moment. Oh. And it is expected that other people will read those blurbs.

If you are anything like me, when you hear that for the first time you thought, “Well that’s just stupid. I’ve got too much to do already without managing chronic world wide updates about on the subject.” Read more

Make People Like You More with 1 Simple 4 Step Formula Guaranteed to See Success

Business is about people. Business Blogging is also about people.

Some of you reading this are thinking, “No it isn’t. Business is about money (then a few might even add) you idiot!”

If you are one of the folks thinking that, I say you are wrong. Here’s why.

If you get the people, the money will follow. Money doesn’t spend itself. People make the transaction happen.

And it is a fact that people are much more likely to do business with other people that they know, like and trust. If they never hear of your business, chances are remote that they will send their money in your direction. If they have a strong reason not to trust you, you will have a much more difficult time making a sale than if there is credibility built in before you meet.

But how can you become more likable? Is it truly possible to make people like you?

Yes. It is possible.

And it is easy too. Just apply this simple 4 step formula and you will find people like you a whole lot more than they do now. Read more

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