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How Will You Find Out Whether Your Community Is Bored, Broken, or Inspired to Take on the World?

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(Updated in 2020)

10-POINT PLAN: Assessing and Setting a Benchmark

Finding Out Before You Start

Ever asked someone to change something she’s been doing for years? It’s not the easiest endeavor. Even when we hate what we’re doing it’s become comfortable to us. For some people in some circumstances, it might even be part of our identity. Change is heady stuff.

No matter the value of the reward. It comes with the thought, “maybe the situation I’m leaving is somehow better. I wonder …”

One way to overcome the psychology of change is to measure.

Measurement proves to the people involved that the change is providing the progress that was promised, even when the progress only feels like work.

But before we can measure progress, we have know where we are when we start.

How to Benchmark Who’s Bored, Who’s Broken and Who’s Inspired to Take on the World

It’s an art and a science to gather the people who help our businesses thrive into a true community.

A community isn’t built or befriended. It’s connected by offering and accepting.
Community is affinity, identity, and kinship that make room for ideas, thoughts, and solutions.
Wherever a community gathers, we aspire and inspire each other intentionally . . . And our words shine with authenticity.

How do we know whether any of this is truly happening? How do might we benchmark our community connections before we start moving forward?

Evaluating Individual Relationships

A few years ago, Gallup came up with the q12, a 12 question survey to measure employee engagement. Though they were intended for employees, they work well for any person, any barn raiser involved in creating a working community — employee, manager, vendor, partner, customer, friend of the business. Here they are:

  1. Do you know what is expected of you at work?
  2. Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?
  3. At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
  4. In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
  5. Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
  6. Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
  7. At work, do your opinions seem to count?
  8. Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?
  9. Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?
  10. Do you have a best friend at work?
  11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
  12. In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

In the Q12 test it becomes easier to see which points of performance are being frustrated by resources and which are being frustrated by personnel issues.

Evaluating Social Relationships and Networks

When the q12 is paired with a simple informal social test called a sociogram, we can lay out an important picture. A sociogram points out channels of influence, communication, and interaction. Simple questions such as

  • Which person would you ask to teach you something new?
  • Which person would you ask to attend or a gathering of your friends?
  • Which person would you want to offer you a recommendation on the quality of your work?

Those choice that receive many choices are stars. Those who receive none are isolates. Groups who mutually choose each other have formed cliques.

Whether we’re working with few freelancers, a team, or a corporation having firm idea of where we stand before we move forward is ideal. If we find someone from outside the system — someone who looks something like me, easy to talk with and sure to keep thing confidential, we can learn by using these two two sets of questions how people feel about the community that is forming. We’ll draw an idea of how bored, broken or inspired the community might be.We’ll be well on our way to pick out the champions who can pick up the tools and begin building new things with us.

They will raise a barn, not work away as they build our coliseum.

What are you doing to find out whether your community is bored, broken, or inspired to take on the world?

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Cool Tool Review: Weave the People

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools, products, and practices that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks in a business environment.

Cool Tool Review: Weave the People
A Review by Todd Hoskins

A few years ago I attended an intimate, oceanside conference outside of San Diego. The 70 of us in attendance spent the weekend participating in roundtable discussions, eating, and sipping cocktails. Sunday afternoon, while checking out of the resort, I met the people I wish I would have connected with on Friday. We exchanged contact info, but the opportunity was largely lost, as we live on opposite ends of the country.

This is a common frustration with meetings and conferences. How can people with matching interests, needs, and talents find one another?

Despite the growth of social technology, there is no replacement for the value and possibilities that can emerge from meeting face-to-face. Gladwell is right – there are limitations inherent in the “loose ties” of online connections. There is a reason that tweetups are popular and location based technologies have taken off. People want to meet, and any “friend” or “connection” is peripheral until you shake hands, share a meal or drink, and can establish trust looking at each other directly. Albert Mehrabian has proposed that words constitute only 7% of communication – the rest is tone and body language.

So, the Internet is an incredibly powerful medium for exploring, finding, and learning about people. Then, at some point, the relationship has amplified possibilities when we move from cyberspace to sharing physical space. This is exactly why Weave the People is such a valuable tool, by accelerating the discovery process, allowing organizations and people to connect with their wants and needs in group settings.

It works like this: If you are hosting a conference, meeting, or event, contact Weave the People, and they will work with you to develop a series of questions. These questions are designed to help you meet your goals for the event, whether you want to increase the connectivity of your employees, match vendors and buyers, or just help people have fun.

Weave will help you poll your prospective attendees, then “weave” together profiles in a simple, visually appealing layout. Send the link in advance of the event, and the people who are attending have a chance to navigate through the profiles and make decisions based on their motivations for being in attendance. For the less-socially-gifted, this is a gift in itself. You automatically have conversation starters that are pre-approved.

weave

I love the fact that Weave has a high-minded mission and philosophy, getting to an “authentic we,” utilizing technology to increase our humanness rather than our isolation. But it just works as well, making meetings more enjoyable and a better return on investment.

You can watch some demos here.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 4/5 – Very reasonable in cost. Mobile app (in planning) will make this even better.

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – Finding employees, partners, investors, and advocates at events just got easier.

Personal Value: 5/5 – Not all questions need to be business-related. Bringing the personal and professional profile elements together creates deeper, more sustainable connections.

Let me know what you think!

Todd Hoskins helps small and medium sized businesses plan for the future, and execute in the present. With a background in sales, marketing, and technology, he works with executives to help create thriving organizations through developing and clarifying values, strategies, and tactics. You can learn more at VisualCV, or contact him on Twitter.

3 Ways Leaders Demonstrate Commitment and Intentionally Build Community

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10-POINT PLAN: Negotiate a Commitment from Leadership

Inside the Business, Leaders Are the First Brand Ambassadors

You can’t move on the social web without hearing about building communities. Social media jobs are still filled with positions for community managers. It’s true that now, more than ever, having a loyal base of brand ambassadors is a key to visibility, trust, attention, reputation, position in the marketplace — all of which are critical to a solid, growing company.

The conversation and the new positions hardly mean anything if the people talking and hiring don’t deeply understand and invest in the people who are building, being, and branding that community.

It’s about people, people. Instead of thinking about the corporation as an amorphous entity, executives need to remember the individuals at the heart of every organization. Ok, so it’s not exactly an earth-shattering insight, but it’s a sign of how far we’ve drifted that people’s health, hopes, insights, and talents have come to be seen as mere grist for the grinding wheels of capitalism. –Helen Walters, It’s about People, People, Bloomsberg Business Week

On his blog, Doc Searls said this about how business is doing. It was part of an interview with Shel Israel.

In the original website version of Cluetrain, Chris Locke wrote, “we are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers and our reach exceeds your grasp. deal with it.”

Recognizing a situation and dealing with it, however are two different things. The “dealing” has barely begun.

Maybe there’s a reason that the best known experts at community building seem to come from solo practices and smaller firms where those self-same experts have been both the leadership and the hands-on people doing the community building.

Because the first and possibly most critical step “dealing with it” — establishing community over transaction” is to negotiate a commitment from leadership.

3 Ways Leaders Demonstrate Commitment and Intentionally Build Community

A conversation from a time in my publishing career.

Editor: “Do you ever want to be president of the company.”
ME: “No.”
Editor: “Why not?”
ME: “Because I don’t want everyone to be discussing what mood I’m in every morning.”

Whether it’s a dynasty, a corporation, a project team, or a two-person operation, the person who controls the finances and the paychecks gets a lot of attention and approval controls. With that power of position comes the responsibility to the health and vibrancy of the organization. That responsibility cannot be delegated, because everyone looks to that position to see which behaviors are modeled, supported, and rewarded.

The emperor sets the culture.

It also makes clear sense that to inspire fans, you have to be one. Know what you love bring it with to ignite the community fire.

Build the first fire under the folks who set the culture. Their behavior will telegraph and prove whether the community you’re offering has a chance to grow and thrive.

The Role of Leaders in Lighting the Fire

Whether we start a community initiative with a team, a department, a corporation, or a company of five — the role that the highest leader takes in the process will have a tangible effect on speed and depth with which a community forms. Leaders who demonstrate commitment and intentionally invest in building community offer living proof that the business believes is there for internal customers.

The people becoming a newly forming community want to know they’re investing in something real and lasting. Based on past promises and experiences, they will mete out and measure the depth of their own commitment by the commitment they see offered by loyal leadership. Leaders who show up — not to run the show — but ready to learn, participate, and work as colleagues and partners are irresistibly attractive. They add credibility, power, and meaning to the idea of community.

Leaders live values-based leadership by finding every opportunity to build a high-trust environment. Here are a few ways that leaders can help build an environment where community can take form, thrive and grow.

  1. Leaders announce their intention to participate. The most important sign that a new loyal community group relies upon is the public words and actions of the “guys” at the top. If we want loyal fans to invest in us, we have to invest in them. Leaders talk about their commitment to the community. They say it out loud and often. They also say how and why. They demonstrate that commitment by making specific promises about observable behaviors and keep them. A simple promise to refocus the role of leader to advocate for internal customers as heroes and one way of doing that is enough to start the community investing.
  2. Leaders come out of their office. An open door isn’t enough. The “open door” policy is a myth. An open door expects the less powerful to interrupt the work of leadership. Community grows where the people spend their time. Loyalty is a relationship built on communication, compassion, competency and consistency. Leaders who are committed to building a loyal community invite a two-way relationship. They demonstrate that commitment becoming friendly, familiar faces — ready to listen, help, and solve problems — in the places where people actually do the work. They see their role as service to the internal customers who help the company thrive.
  3. Leaders are learners and schedule time for it. They reach out to heroes in the business to gather ideas and information. They schedule time to learn more about what makes people good at what they do. They demonstrate their commitment by asking more questions than they have answers and by dedicating a consistent block of time on the calendar — 5 – 10 hours a month — learning from their internal customers what motivates them and how to help the community thrive.

Leaders who see the value of an internal community of loyal fans understand their role and responsibility in helping that community thrive. They make a great place to work and they let employees help define what that is. They establish systems that protect and manage the environment so that folks can work without worrying.

Leaders model and reward high-trust behaviors that bring out the best in others. They admit their own mistakes, speak with care, and share information because they value and respect the people who work with them. Even more they plan and provide opportunities every one in the community to grow, knowing that growing community members mean a growing community that thrives.

How to negotiate these points with leadership?

Be a leader and a fan yourself. Be willing to start small and prove how performance can rise when people are truly engaged in what they’re doing. And remind leadership of the 7 Reasons Why Investing in an Internal Community Makes Solid Business Sense that I wrote about last week.

What examples of great leadership promoting an internal community can you offer?

Related
To follow the entire series: Liz Strauss’ Inside-Out Thinking to Building a Solid Business, see the Successful Series Page.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

SOB Business Cafe 09-24-10

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Social Media Explorer
“Who’s Jeff and why are we getting rid of the garage refrigerator?”

“Some guy from Craig’s List and it’s missing a couple shelves and the freezer doesn’t get cold enough.”

After a short discussion about how Jeff wasn’t from Craig’s List and hearing her explanation of which device will now keep our cookout beer cold, I learned she still had seven outstanding items left on the website. I was relieved neither of my children were among them, but what that meant was Nancy’s cell phone didn’t stop ringing the rest of the day.

Spin Sucks
Last night I participated in #SBT10 chat (or Start Blogging Today), as a guest, with moderators Danny Brown, Grant Griffiths, and John Haydon. Never have I so violently been reminded about how unethical, demanding, and just plain old wrong some professionals are in our industry. The first few questions I received were along the lines of, “As bloggers, how do we pitch PR firms so they pay attention to us?”

TRIB Local by Karen Putz
“I think Facebook is a huge waste of time,” a relative remarked recently. “I really don’t want anyone knowing what I’m up to and I don’t see the point in Facebook.”

I personally think my relative is missing out on some great stuff, because both Facebook and Twitter have enriched my life in different ways.

Marketing Profs
Nearly eight in 10 of the nation’s smallest companies (79%) say marketing is a major success factor for their business and nearly one-half (46%) of such firms, or microbusinesses, say they are using some type of social media for marketing, according to a survey from Vistaprint.

Chris L. Jordan
When we remove ourselves from our safe zones, we force ourselves into an enhanced state of decision making.

Related ala carte selections include

Business Opportunities Weblog

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

I’m a proud affiliate of

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Steve’s Shorts: SEO Lunch and Client First ROI

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We Interrupt Regular Blogging for Steve’s Shorts

Take a simple few minutes where a guy who is brilliant makes an observation about the social web that you might have already be thinking. This interruption brought to you by the evil conspiracy that is Steve Plunkett and Liz Strauss.

by Steve Plunkett.

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The Seo process does not start with buying ads on Google.

It starts with examing what your actual business is and compartmentalizing it into a sandwich and some chips. the SEO lunch.

– Bread And Butter -> what is the core of your business, where is the majority of the revenue?

– Meat -> (I know.. butter and meat.. but play along please..) Describe your product/services simply, do you sell sporting goods, golf clubs, lingerie? what? Maybe you are a plumber that specializes in Bidet installation?

– Sandwich spread -> what are all the little things that bring it all together? do you customers come from one geographic area? Are they white males, aged 34-50, usually divorced and have busy professional lives? (not dating silly, cleaning services.. geesh!)

Now that you have your sandwich, you want some chips, right?

What kind of chips? phone chips, form chips, email newsletter chips, what is the preferred method of people contacting you? What is the desired action you want them to take.

Now eat your SEO lunch and what do you think about the questions above?

A Short Look at … What’s Next?

Hope you enjoyed these moments with Steve’s Shorts.

steve_plunkett

M/C/C’s Director, Search, Steve Plunkett, is responsible for all aspects of search engine optimization (SEO) and Internet user behavior. Plunkett’s competitive personality makes him a perfect fit in the competitive world of SEO. As a child and a gamer, he worked hard ensuring that it was his initials at the top of every arcade game unit in his neighborhood. Today, he uses SEO to ensure his clients appear at the top of the search engine results –and offers an array of optimization services that are scoring big for those clients.

Successful-Blog is a proud affiliate of

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Social Media Book List: #COACHINGtweet and Twitter for Dummies

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A Weekly Series by Teresa Morrow

I’m Teresa Morrow, Founder of Key Business Partners, LLC and I work with authors to help manage their online book promotion. As part of my job I read a lot of books (I love to read anyway!).

This week I will be highlighting one book written by an author I am working with “#COACHINGtweet’ by Sterling Lanier and the other book I have on my reading list, ‘Twitter for Dummies’ by Laura Fitton, Michael Gruen and Leslie Poston. The books I discuss in the Social Media Book List Series will cover a range of topics such as social media, marketing, blogging, business, organization, career building, networking, writing, self development and inspiration.

‘#COACHINGtweet: 140 Bite Sized Insights on making a difference through coaching’

by Sterling Lanier

#COACHINGtweet by Sterling Lanier

“When you have strong passion for “WHY,” “HOW” emerges clearly from the shadows.”

Now this was stated in the book under a label called, Being a Coach, even before the first tweet…and you know, it is so true. Think about it…if there is a positive reason why you wish to do something, the next thing that pops into your head will be, how will I do it?

Here are a few more powerful tweets from ‘#COACHINGtweet’ I would like to share with you:

#4 A great coach has a huge heart, enormous ears, and a tiny mouth.
—>I love this because it is so true and it goes right along with the next week I highlighted.

#14 Listen like you want to be listened to.
—> This can be easier stated than done, right? However, it can make such a difference in your life with those around you.

#28 “Neuroscientists tell us that people do not resist change. They resist what they perceive as a threat to what they know.”
—–>I agree with this as well. I am currently struggling with a deadline my publisher has set for me to write my book in about 3 months. Now, I asked myself, why do you wish to do this? I wish to write the book because I believe it will help other people. So then the how comes up. And I have questioned if I should attempt to do this because it is a change for me. But I can do it if I just put my mind to it and get it doen. However, the fear comes into places because I am fearing what I don’t know….can I really do it? Sure I can. I just don’t need to focus on the fear of not getting it done. Just focus on the getting it done.

#48 Wake up. Dress up. Show up.
—>You have already started a great day. So don’t allow it to go to waste by not doing anything. Get dressed and show up to your day.

About the Book:
Mentor…teacher…guide…friend…a coach is all of these, and more. Sterling Lanier, author of ‘#COACHING tweet’, has decades of experience coaching CEOs and CEOs-in-the-wings, and knows that coaching is no secret or magical process. Rather it is the art of inspiring, encouraging and motivating people through active listening, by asking thoughtful and thought-provoking questions and helping to set ambitious but realistic goals and action plans. It is a journey of self discovery, as much for the coach as for the person being coached.

In the corporate world, a typical ‘coaching’ session consists of an annual manager or supervisor soliloquy in which the employee receives ‘a mound of criticism sandwiched between two thin slices of praise.’ Instead, as Sterling shares with us, coaching should consist of a series of frequent dialogs between employee and manager on the employee’s goals, action plans, measurement milestones, alignment to corporate direction, and resources needed for improvement.

In ‘#COACHING tweet’, Sterling has distilled his practical experience into bite-sized insights on the power, practices and sheer joy of coaching. Individual sections cover coaching philosophy–coaching from the heart and being fully present in the moment–and coaching practices, which reveal the tools of the trade, including such subtleties as ensuring non-judgmental listening and peeling back the layers so that clients voice the hidden issues.

About the Author:
Sterling Lanier is a CEO Group Chair for Vistage International, the world’s leading CEO membership
organization. He helps CEOs become better leaders, make better decisions, and achieve better results through leading monthly meetings, peer group interactions, individual coaching sessions, and expert speaker workshops. Sterling has more than thirty years of CEO leadership and management accomplishments in specialty retailing, manufacturing, software, and fi nancial services. Sterling became a Vistage Chair in 2000 and leads three Vistage groups. Sterling is the author of ‘Eating Your Way Through Tuscany & Umbria’ and ‘Storie Italiane: A Student Reader with Parallel English Text.’

You can purchase a copy of ‘#COACHINGtweet’ online at ThinkAha Books.
*I have received a complimentary copy of #COACHINGtweet by the author as this book mention is part of a virtual book tour I am conducting. However, my comments (highlighted by —>) are my own solely and I have not gotten compensated for those.

A book on my reading list that I have not had the pleasure to read yet is, ‘Twitter for Dummies’ by Laura Fitton, Michael Gruen and Leslie Poston.

Twitter for Dummies

by Laura Fitton, Michael Gruen and Leslie Poston

About the Book:

A fully updated guide to the how and why of using Twitter

The fastest-growing social network utility sports new features, and they’re all covered in this how-to guide from a leading Twitter marketing consultant. Nearly 20 million people are tweeting on Twitter, and this book shows you how to join them and why you should. You’ll learn the nuts and bolts of using Twitter, how to make good connections, and how it can benefit your life and your business.

* Twitter is the fastest-growing of the social networking tools; this book gets you up to speed on the basics as well as how Twitter can enrich your life and boost your business
* Explains how to sign up, find friends and people you want to follow, make the most of shortcuts, use popular Twitter tools, and Twitter on the go
* Discusses how Twitter can be used for business, fundraising, and maintaining contact with people who share common goals

About the Author(s):

Laura Fitton: Laura “@Pistachio” Fitton is leading the charge of sussing out intelligent and productive business uses of emergent technologies like Twitter, where she is read by thousands of community members. The fi rst to publish a white paper on “Enterprise Microsharing” (popularly called “Internal Twitter”), she also writes for and runs the TouchBase blog and is an early beta tester of Seesmic and Qik. She relaunched Pistachio Consulting in September 2008 to connect businesses to new ideas and innovations using all the tools of microsharing. Pistachio comprises the TouchBase blog (covering business use of microsharing), the TouchBase Link Blog (stream of Twitter and microsharing articles for businesspeople, wherever they are published), and serves clients like Johnson & Johnson, Ford Motor Corporation, PeopleBrowsr, The Sister Project, Transplant-1, and CommuNteligence.

Michael E. Gruen: Michael E. Gruen has earned signifi cant respect in the corporate sphere and within the startup community as a trusted advisor since 2003. In many cases, he has fulfi lled the role of interim Chief Operations/Chief Technical Officer with several organizations in need of innovative leadership during crucial developmental periods. In 2006–2007, Michael briefl y joined Morgan Stanley as an Analyst. Currently, Michael is CFO/COO at NOM, a Digital Services Agency, and the CEO of a new healthcare startup.

Leslie Poston: Leslie Poston is passionate about helping people and businesses fi nd their way to success via technology. As a writer, she has more than 200 ebooks and books in her repertoire and several more in development.
*this information was provided by Amazon

You can purchase a copy of ‘Twitter for Dummies’ online at Amazon website.

I truly hope you will check out these books and please comment and let me know your thoughts on them.