This is a great message by Robert Scoble on his blog.

…If you define yourself by who is following you you’ll always feel inadequate. After all, you can’t control your followers and any idiot can follow people. But, define yourself by who you are following and you can really build something of high value.

People still aren’t getting this. They didn’t get how I was using Twitter and still don’t. I follow the world’s best early adopters, business executives, and entrepreneurs. I really don’t care if I have a single follower. If I defined myself by my followers I’d always feel inadequate. If I define myself by the people who I follow, well, I follow the smartest, richest, coolest, funniest people in the world. That makes me smarter, richer, cooler, and funnier.

Read the entire post on Robert’s blog here.

In a past post, Is FriendFeed the feed for me?, I started a little experiment to aggregate all of my various [tag]social media[/tag] traffic. It has been an interesting experiment, and I must admit I am somewhere in the middle of being completely irritated and completely thrilled at how useful the offering has been.

I’m not a big fan of the layout, but there are some tweaks I could use to help with that if I wanted to go to the trouble (e.g. [tag]Firefox[/tag] and [tag]GreaseMonkey[/tag]). However, I like to keep things as simple as possible (shhh, don’t tell the people I work with I said that).

The interface itself is a little bare to me, and it is a bit strange to keep up with the information, but it is certainly much better than going to every single other feed right? Well, not exactly … I still do that quite a bit to - mainly because I like the presentation on the host site much better. This is even true in my [tag]RSS[/tag] reader as well.

I would venture to guess, there are quite a few people that consume their social media this way, that is scan all of the information and remove what you are not interested in and then prepare your meal of information for the night.

So after using FriendFeed for a little while, I noticed a majority of the traffic were tweets from Twitter. For those of you not familiar with [tag]Twitter[/tag], it is simply a way to be just a little more hyper-connected. A [tag]tweet[/tag] is a post of 140 words or less updating those who “follow” you (friends) what you are up to and what you are thinking.

Needless to say, I decided to expand my base a bit, and signed up for a Twitter account. With all of the traffic on Twitter, I needed a real time client, like an Instant Messaging client. [tag]GoogleTalk[/tag] was supposed to fit the bill, but come to find out, there are evidently some issues with trying to use GoogleTalk with a hosted domain… and I really didn’t want to spend more than a few minutes figuring that out. Just too many other things going on.

I kept seeing alerts posted on [tag]FriendFeed[/tag] called [tag]AlertThingy[/tag]. Come to find out, AlertThingy was created using FriendFeed’s own API for managing the updates that come through FF in a desktop client format. An added benefit was that I can also interact with Twitter. How’s that for good timing.

I just installed this tonight, and have found it easy to setup and configure. Now the trick is whether I will be able to keep better track of the activity going on in these various mediums.

I’ll keep you posted, and I would love to hear your comments…

(04/16/08) - Ken Stewart’s article, Is IT a gatekeeper or a bridge?, was recently published on The Photizo Group’s Managed Print Services website as a featured article. See the post at their website http://www.managed-print-services.com under Resources > Articles.

Let’s say you got into work. It’s a normal day. You have a few things on your plate today, and have some time slotted off to handle a few fires that you know will pop-up. You’ve made your rounds to say high to a few people, and have your coffee cup in hand. You ease into your desk and begin ticking through the list of things you need to tackle first. You are slipping into your daily groove!

Then, without warning, Judith walks into your office and lays into you about the fact that she has to get some bills paid today and the STUPID computer is acting up again. She goes on to comment on how this problem just keeps getting worse and worse and wished that someone cared about what she had to do around this place!

How are you feeling at this point?

What just happened is happening all across the corporate world - on phone conversations and in e-mails -a glaring lack of approach.  Judith demonstrated a complete disregard for your space, your workload, and how you were feeling. In other words, she doesn’t care about you or your issues; she is not part of your team because she is not interested in whether you succeed or not.

In my article, “Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?” we looked at why stereotypes developed for “the computer guy”. When you hear problem after problem, wouldn’t you tend to begin discounting the customer as well?

You might. However, the key to building bridges to your customers is simply building relationships with them. So here are few keys to building rapport with your end-users.

1. Before you begin every conversation, say “hello”, “hi”, or even “howdy”
2. Spend at least 3-5 minutes “catching-up”
3. Offer empathy; do not be condescending
4. Clarify and repeat your understanding of the issue
5. Communicate expectations
6. Offer solutions, not excuses or blame
7. Follow-up next time you see them

This list is not exhaustive, but if followed, will greatly aid you in gaining brownie points with your end-users.

So this still doesn’t help you with Judith, does it? She was the one that came barging in…  What’s interesting in this case is you can still be the hero. Apply these steps, maybe with a little more insistency, and you may be greeted at first with a sheepish grin of embarrassment, but eventually you will see that warm smile come back out.

As the saying goes, “fix the customer, not the problem”. In focusing on how Judith is doing as a person, you may be surprised to find you are aligning to the needs of any business’s first priority - customer satisfaction. True customer satisfaction can only come when you understand the motivations and needs of your customer.

I am honored to bring you a guest post by a good friend and author, Corey Smith, mastermind behind the business and technology blog, masterthebusiness.com. In his spare time, Corey has also founded several companies to include Resumango and TributeMedia as well as being the Chief Web Architect for Dealer Marketing Systems and Editor-in-Chief at Office Product News. I do hope you enjoy reading this post as much as I did.

There are many reasons why [tag]paperless office[/tag] initiatives fail. I think that in order to truly understand why they fail, we need to understand the difference between how companies use paper and how individuals use paper.

I am a big proponent of the paperless office. I hate paper and wish that it would all go away.

With that said, I have a [tag]printer[/tag] in my [tag]home office[/tag] and I use my [tag]scanner[/tag] to copy documents all the time. I have stacks of paper on my desk and paper in my file cabinets… probably more because I am messy than anything. I love to read a book in print and not from my computer screen.

I should say that the stacks of paper on my desk are the reasons why I don’t like paper. I hate the way the are organized. I hate the way I have to find them. I just hate it.

The reality is, people use paper differently for different reasons. When we talk about paper that we use personally, we need to apply a different standard to that paper than how we use paper in business. We need to jot down notes. We need to highlight the way we are used to. We have been conditioned to expect paper to be the tangible proof that we are doing something. Even my to do list is on a sheet of paper sitting next to my three computer monitors, keyboard and mouse.

A large company is different. It may be efficient enough for me to look through my one file cabinet and find a peice of paper (well, maybe not for me, but for most people), but, it is not practical for a company with many file cabinets to allow each employee that needs access to a file cabinet to have it.

It is like the difference between [tag]Mac[/tag] and [tag]PC[/tag]… you need to have the right tool for the job. I need my PC because so many people use it and I have to understand that technology. I need my Mac because a couple of my hobbies require it and a PC simply won’t do. (Although, if I could choose, I would choose my Mac hands down).

When considering moving to a paperless office and implementing a paperless [tag]workflow[/tag] or even implementing a full blown [tag]document management[/tag] system, we have to realize that there is the right tool for the job. It may never make sense for you to implement a database on your computer to manage your documents, but when we start talking about managing documents in an organization and we need to eliminate those information silos, a paperless document management strategy becomes a critical conversation.

 Corey Smith’s business and technology blog provides a common sense approach to running your business. He also maintains a news feed service for the copier, printer and document management industries.

In today’s rapidly moving world, savvy businesses rely on every business unit to ‘play the game’. Each business unit must understand its function as part of the whole much like an arm, a lung, or a brain plays its role to help the body function.

IT is no different, and must not only understand the business goals, but actively pursue bringing value to the business. To do so, technology leaders must 1) align themselves with business units, 2) listen and don’t be defensive, 3)innovate, 4) and offer customers choices not obstacles.

Align:

Technology leaders find themselves working with and for more tech savvy CXO’s and business unit leaders. The landscape has shifted and executives expect delivery of results not excuses. By aligning yourself with your business units’ initiatives you have the best chance of understanding the drivers that make your company successful. This will give you a chance to bring technology to bear in order to help solve the problems and avoid becoming an obstacle contributing to why a business unit can’t achieve its goals.

Listen:

Know you culture. IT must learn not only to listen, but to whom it must listen. Don’t get defensive when confronted with problems and don’t accuse them of whining. You must learn to be direct but professional and encourage your customers on how to approach you professionally. Even if someone seems to be attacking your personally, you must maintain a level of control. Remember who your customers are, and what the business priorities are. But most importantly ensure your customers understand the priorities you have and where their priorities fall in relation to your overall strategic goals.

Innovate:

Innovation is not only coming up with good ideas yourself, but understanding good ideas flow in and throughout the people in your company everyday. Ensure you are seeking out advice from not only business unit leaders, but people on the front line as well. In seeking mind share, individuals will begin seeing that you care about their needs and aren’t just making decisions in your ‘ivory tower’.

Choice:

Give your customers choices not obstacles. IT has been stereotyped as the constant nay-sayer. It is important that your customers understand why somethings can and cannot be done. Give them choices, and put the decisions in their hands. You may find they begin helping you achieve your goals if they align with their own. Once they begin walking in your shoes, they may just take a step back.

It is also important to understand that you should not place artificial obstacles in your customers’ or business unit leaders’ path as the daily business will present enough of these. It is not enough to have a reason why something cannot be done - have alternative solutions to the problem and you will find this wins you a great deal of political capital.

In summary, gone are the days where IT could hide behind the mystique of technology. Executives and customers alike are more technology savvy than ever and can see through your ruse. You must seek to align yourself with your company’s business units by building relationship and listening to their needs as well as understanding their challenges. Last, continually look for ways to innovate, and don’t allow yourself or your team to become stagnant.

If you are following these goals, you will most likely find frustration in bumping against glass ceilings. To be successful you must persevere adversity by staying focused on the goals. Success does not come from being the almighty gatekeeper but in seeking to build bridges to cross the canyons of adversity as a team.

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. Ken is also the Director of Technology at Kearns Business Solutions.

My favorite quote today comes from a book I’m reading entitled A Gentle Thunder, by Max Lucado.

Much of life is spent rowing. Getting out of bed. fixing lunches. Turning in assignments. Changing diapers. Paying bills. Routine. Regular. More struggle than strut. More wrestling than resting…

…You thought marriage was going to be a lifelong date? You thought having kids was going to be like baby-sitting? You thought the company who hired you wanted to hear all the ideas you had in college?

Then you learned otherwise. The honeymoon ended. The IRS called, and the boss wanted you to spend the week in Muleshoe, Texas. Much of life is spent rowing.

The trick is to find joy and meaning in those routine things, and choose to relish the pauses between breaths. Have a good day everyone!

This is perhaps the best thing I have heard another company say.

Sam Kress was interviewed for a Buyers Lab (BLI) article regarding the economic outlook. This article was posted on Office Product News.

“It shouldn’t matter whether times are good or bad—it’s all about staying in touch with your customers and helping them solve their business problems,” Kress said. “If we stay in tune with their needs our approach and recommended solutions will vary during a downturn, but as long as our solutions have value our overall revenues should be sustainable.”

I was beginning to wonder if other companies actually valued their customers. From this article, it is apparent there are at least 4 companies that do.

When are you most [tag]productive?[/tag] Do you find yourself battling 7 fires at once with a [tag]BlackBerry[/tag] in 1 hand while talking into your [tag]bluetooth[/tag] headset, typing a reply to a friend over IM with another hand, and nodding vigorously at someone standing in your doorway? Is multi-tasking a term that applies to people slower than you?

[tag]Robert Scoble[/tag] posted a nice short blog on the subject, and it was a breath of fresh air coming from some I consider a tad bit insane to stay as connected as he does. What did Robert have to say on the subject?

Want to get something done? Turn off [tag]Twitter[/tag]. Turn off [tag]Facebook[/tag]. Turn off [tag]blog[/tag] comments. Turn off [tag]FriendFeed[/tag]. Turn off [tag]Flickr[/tag]. Turn off [tag]YouTube[/tag]. Turn off [tag]Dave Winer[/tag]’s blog and [tag]Huffington Post[/tag]. Turn off [tag]TechMeme[/tag].

Turn off the distractions.

Today, people are guilty of allowing their attention to be distracted in too many different ways. If it isn’t normal mass media consumption like television, music, or games it’s the business media consumption like [tag]e-mail[/tag], smart [tag]PDA[/tag]’s, and Instant Messaging.

Robert points to “attention management” as being the key. You have to simply choose your goals for the day reasonably. If you know you always have emergencies come up in the day, plan that time in.

A friend told me that he always over-budgets his time by 20%. That may sound like a too much padding, but if you think of the time it takes your mind to shift gears so many times, it really isn’t. Have you ever finished a day where you felt like there was a lot going - you were doing ’stuff’ - but you looked back and really didn’t get anything accomplished?

So here’s my favorite quote from this article: Linda Stone coined the term, “”continuous partial attention” which describes the kind of world we live in…”

Are you a victim of productivity pollution? How do you get clean and stay clean? For all you Twitterheads out there, get David Allen’s book Getting Things Done.

Is Firefox gaining ground on Microsoft in the enterprise? According to a recent Forrester Research survey, Firefox moved almost doubled its market share to 18% in 2007 while Microsoft’s market share decreased by 10%. In an article posted by InformationWeek, author Hoover went on to say the numbers also point to poor adoption of IE7 in the enterprise as well,

…Internet Explorer 7 is having trouble finding traction as companies are sticking with the 6-year-old Internet Explorer 6. Microsoft released IE7 in October 2006, but 55.2% of companies still used IE6 as of December 2007. Only 23.4% of companies used IE7, barely outpacing the growth and use of Firefox.

What might be even more compelling is that Firefox 1.5 has been almost completely replaced by Firefox 2.0, a sign of a loyal client following eagerly consuming the October 2006 release. Thomas Mendel, author of the Forrester Research report, points to an air of “enterprise apathy” which illustrates there is nothing exciting keeping the attention of the end users.

Those thinking to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 should be cautious as well, Hoover. The upgrade to version 8 may likely break some enterprise applications, so testing will be key to a successful roll out.

Is Microsoft being threatened in one of their own wheel houses? Is Microsoft’s marketshare being lost with upstart companies that are higher touch? Is Microsoft’s distribution business model antiquated?