How much heart is there in a song?

Feel it yourself.





Via the crazy Famous Mortimer.

What goes first?

No matter how many times...

In short: Shel Israel is a renowned blogger, book writer and consultant, advising companies on how to adopt social media and ¨embrace the conversation¨, even when it´s hostile to you . Loren Feldman is a smart provocateur.

The story by Mike Arrington is here.

Bottom line: When faced with harsh criticism from Feldman, Israel did exactly the opposite he proclaims and makes a living out of.

That doesn´t make him a bad person. The hardest thing to do in life is to ALIGN your actions with your beliefs/predicaments, or ¨live your personal brand¨ if you want to put it that way. The problem is that, in that very hardest moment, you have to kill your ego. That´s the lesson we learn day in, day out.

No matter how many times we hear it, we agree on ¨the what¨. But ¨how?

Chances are...

Facebook now has 64 million registered users. That means 1 out of 100 people on Earth are registered.
Think about it...

With so many options available to us in every aspect of life, it is critical now more than ever to align your daily actions with your long term goals. And it is now easier than ever to find people with interests and beliefs aligned with yours.

One click away, not six degrees anymore.

Blogging is like Sex (II)

Back by popular demand:
[Click here for the first episode of ¨Blogging is like sex¨. Thanks.]

8. Don´t ever think that post you wrote drunk at 5 AM impressed anyone...
9. Thou shall not covet your neighbor´s blog.
10. ¨I´ve seen his blog. Nothing to be impressed about...¨
11. They say you should blog to please yourself first.
12. Yes, it´s a myth: No one can post 10 times a day.
13. Having a blog does not mean you´re going to post everyday.

Perfect Sunset III

Another sunset...the third of the series.
The first one I took in Aruba.
The second one in Miami.
This one´s here in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

There´s always something special with sunsets.

The problem with not understanding

Web 2.0 = human dynamics 101.

That's my opinion. These web 2.0 tools we have today are just enablers for us to interact, in the same way we do offline, on a larger scale and faster pace.

One unexpected feature of these tools is that they drive control freaks crazy. Why? Cause you cannot control the interactions that take place when you use them. Hence, the need for authenticity and transparency, of really focusing on the other side of the interaction, rather than your own.

Authenticity and transparency nurture trust. The problem with not understanding these tools, is that you will never align your behaviors online with those that a connected, hyperlinked world values. At the core, these are non other than, I think, our true nature.

Blogging is like Sex (I)

Blogging is like Sex.

1. You start doing it out of curiosity.
2. You don´t have to wait until you´re married to blog. Not anymore.
3. Your parents never taught you how to blog.
   
4. You´ll always remember your first post.
5. Had you known it is this liberating, you would´ve started years ago.
   
6. ¨I can´t blog right now. I´ve got a terrible headache.¨
   
7. ¨No, seriously. I really enjoyed your last post¨.

Global Warming

Looks more like WRONGbal Warming...

En español...

In English...

Oh well.

The problem with Customer Loyalty...

...is that it should be Loyalty to the Customer.

The problem with Human Resources

...is that humans are not resources.

When utilizing a resource, such as fuel, it gets used, burns out and all remainings are waste. It doesn´t benefit from the interaction in any way. Not a good analogy for humans, although all too familiar sometimes.

Humans want realization. The problem with treating humans as resources is that it might be ALIGNED with a company´s needs for something to use and burn out, but certainly not with humans´ wants.

I´ve been thinking about this for weeks. Today I read Seth Godin´s point of view: why not a VP of Talent.

Everything wired to everything else

Wow.

Talk by Vilayanur Ramachandran in 2007´s TED conference.

The problem with selling

Today someone gave us a presentation on his product. Things I remember in no particular order:

1. Seven bullet points in a single slide, all appearing at the same time...as an introduction.
2. Misspellings in several pages.
3. ¨Yes, I´ll answer that but first let me show you this other feature because if not we´ll be here ´til tomorrow morning¨. (yes, he did say that).
4. He spoke for 20 minutes more than we had agreed.

The message I got was:

¨I´m here to tell you about my product. I know you have problems, and I don´t know them yet. If we have time at the end, we´ll discuss your situation; but first, let me tell you all about the features of my product and the things it can do. I hope this will impress you enough to ask me to come again, and then prepare a proposal.¨

You have an option: try to sell features, or offer to solve problems (that those features happen to solve). The problem with the first approach is that people can tell it´s not ALIGNED with their needs.

This guy is the General Manager of the Company.

2K

2,000 visits and counting! Thanks for stopping by, seriously. Attention is a gift, so I appreciate your reading this.

Be gud. Live laif. ;-)

Suspicious Office Humor

3pm, exhausting day @ work, your mind starts spinning...You come up with a suspiciously funny joke:

¨How do they mute a phone in [insert favorite place here]?¨

Life Template

Here´s to vicarious existence...

Extreme 9 to 5

Come n´ play, come n´ play...

My idea of you...

Will you marry your idea of me!????

Update: Craig Harper says it better. Read his post the morning after posting mine. Talk about coincidence. Worth reading ;-)

Intelligent quotes remain

So it turns out that trying to get something from someone is really not a selfish act. At least not if you want to be successful.

Dale Carnegie wrote ¨How to win friends and influence people¨. A central idea to the book is that there is only one way to make someone do something; and that is by making that person WANT to do it.
So the next question is: how to MAKE someone WANT to do something?
Enter Charles Green, author of ¨The Trusted Advisor¨ blog. ¨In order to get someone to buy from you something she needs, first you need to understand what it is that she wants (in life).¨

Is what you´re asking for ALIGNED with the other person´s values and desires?

The increase

Here´s to the ladder´s perks.