An Age for Empowerment Leadership →

Last year was brutal. We saw non-farm payroll shed 22.1MM jobs, over 90% of US children had to adapt to remote classroom instruction, and everything from the Tokyo Olympic Games to your birthday was cancelled due to the COVID-19 epidemic and resulting economic recession. For those lucky to still have a job, we were forced to adapt to a work-remote format while mastering Zoom etiquette, or just trying to remember to hide our joints and put on pants.

But we did our best. We masked up. We kept the economy trudging forward and even ended the year with the S&P 500 at record highs. That's why, when 2021 came around I wasn't surprised to hear that American workers were asking for a little more from their employers. They wanted better pay, real opportunity and true leadership. And that makes sense.

Workers started asking "What's the point?"

Having faced the very real economic and public health risk of COVID, employees started voting with their feet by leaving unfulling jobs, or by not jumping back into the workforce. Meanwhile major employers like Citi Group, PwC, and even Amazon announced that they were permanently shifting to a flexible/work-remote policy. For the the average worker, that saves an hour commute a day which sounds like a blessing right? True. But this worker won't stay around if workplaces don't adapt to meet this new worker-empowered, fed-up, remote reality.

The world has changed. This means how bosses supervise and lead needs to change, too.

This calls for Empowerment Leadership. It's not a new concept, but this collection of strategies are particularly important now knowing the state of the world and workplace and the demands of the modern worker. Empowerment Leadership centers on the concept of management spending the lion's share of their time setting clear goals and defining roles. With this model in place, leaders then focus on enabling their workforce to make decisions independently while embracing agile processes, and developing transparent methods for measuring and communicating a team's contributions. Any organization can evolve to embrace this model by following a few key strategies.

1. Overinvest in Defining Roles and Recruiting the Right People

The apprentice model of leadership worked great in decades and centuries past. This is where leaders held the knowledge and skills and slowly educated their underlings with a learning saline drip of daily insights. However, in the fast-paced, remote/hybrid working world of today that same oversight and coaching is not always feasible or advantageous. Plus, we can't think that insights only flow downhill. That new intern or recent grad just might know a heck of a lot more about the latest app sensation or vogue Tiktok trend than you do.

As an alternative, the empowerment model calls for the leader to spend the vast majority of his or her time focused on defining the right roles for the organization and finding the right people inside or outside of the organization to fill those duties. Really get in there. Define RACI and workflow models. Discuss with your senior leadership team how the organization will evolve if you lose one or five team members to a competitor. Any time your spend at the onset will be just a fraction of the time you spend if you get it wrong, so think strategically. Be brave.

The more clarity you can drive for your staff the more effective organization you'll develop. While hybrid work environments are fairly new, the necessary leadership qualities required to power them have been around for years. The management classic From Good to Great has been advocating for the "bus seat" concept for years. Plus, doing this work helps to clarify if you have a staffing performance problem, or a leadership one. (Hint: sometimes the problem is YOU.)

2.Set and Communicate Clear Shared Goals

Another component of Empowerment Leadership is being hyper clear on what success looks like for your staff at every level of performance. Luckily, if you've done the work in step one you have thought through how the group functions across teams and divisions. The operational model is crystal.

By identifying common goals that couple teams together you can build harmonicity within your organization and galvanize everyone in the right direction. From selling widgets to raising funds to lowering environmental impacts, staff should easily be able to see what the organization wants from them. This time-tested truth is especially important in a work-remote environment.

Bonus points for building Web dashboards that report on these key metrics daily.

Goals are magical in that they guide and teach without a compass or a teacher

3. Embrace Transparency

So you've got this powerhouse group assembled operating in defined roles and with a hyper clear goal in mind. Now we have to do something scary. We have to wildly embrace transparency. With a new workforce dialing in from across the town or timezone (or beyond), it is crucial for leaders to develop methods to document and communicate how everyone is contributing. Why this dramatic transparency? Well, of course the watercooler discussions and morning "stand ups" aren't happening like they used to. So, with Empowerment Leadership, we've got to evolve.

This can look a lot of different ways. Your morning creative scrum can move from a meeting room to a Zoom call coupled with cloud storage services and a workflow tool like Monday.com. Your annual reviews can include 360-degree feedback loops so input is communicated with leaders from across the organization, and rankings are posted publicly. But it gets even scarier... or more transparent.

From Starbucks to Buffer, innovative companies are starting to share salary information between employees. This builds transparency and trust, and also may help improve gender pay inequity. In Empowerment Leadership, transparency needs to be the norm, with few if any sacred secret cows, because well, that's where all the bullshit comes from.

4. Build Culture to Help Guide and Engage Your Team

Ok, so you've got the right people working together on a clear goal and everyone understands how they are performing and contributing. But one other important ingredient is essential for the power of Empowerment Leadership to truly take off—harnessing the greatness of your staff while driving innovation and uncovering new opportunities that allow you to surge past competitors.

You need glue.

How do you make it all stick? The answer is culture. Just like how clear goals align staff better than any overbearing supervisor, culture is the glue that connects your workforce better than any all-staff address.

And the great news is employees love it too, sometimes they rank a great culture above pay raises. Crazy talk, right?

From how you welcome new hires to how you celebrate big company milestones, take the time and care to build a unique culture that celebrates the unique qualities of your organization and the people who make it function.

5. Let Go and Be Open

And the last and scariest step is letting go. Abandon what you think the path looks like to success within your business and organization. When you empower your staff, you do a lot more listening that talking. You'll set your staff up to contribute instead of simply reporting in.

When employees feel connected even when they aren't physically near they perform their best. When they know where they are going even during turbulent times (ie: pandemic and economic downturn), they will continue to perform. When your workforce is empowered, you'll have an army of leaders.

The workforce shortage we're experiencing now might not always be the case. However it is not likely we'll go back to the classic worker dynamic of pre-2020. And that's a good thing. It's a time to evolve your company. Empowerment Leadership can help guide your organization into the future.

The Real Lesson from GoPro's Karma Drone Death

A little over a month ago I read an article from The Verge on GoPro's exit from the drone business largely due to DJI's dominance and ability to innovate. I was intrigued by the vertical integration of DJI, and by the pace at which they were able to advance: engineers designing next to production factories, all based in China. I was so impressed that within days I bought their new DJI Mavic Air to learn more about the tech and emerging sector.

What will this look like in five years?

My first reaction: Wow.

The technology is truly a step beyond. Similar to the release of the iPhone back in 2007, holding this product in my hands makes me feel like it was discovered on another planet, not soldered together on my own. The hardware is crafted artfully, the mobile app works perfectly and even the controller was built with intention.

I believe the real lesson from the Karma's death and DJI's ascent is that manufacturing must be closely aligned with engineering and design. Tesla's a fan. This allows for swift innovation and for feedback to inform the design and production phases of the process. 

What will drones look like in five years, and how will this tech impact transportation, imaging and military industries?

These are not simply RC planes. These are sensing aircraft that avoid obstacles and process the world around them. Scary, amazing and something that surely is not just a passing fad. 

The Five Absolute Must-Haves for Any Effective Social Media Marketing Program

Recently I was talking shop with a fellow social media marketer. We discussed how to setup an effective marketing program and get organizational buy-in. He worked for a healthcare provider nestled in the mountains of Mammoth Lakes, California (dreamy for an ultrarunner). It was during this call that I reflected on my career in social media—an area of marketing I’ve worked in ever since I first setup up a Wordpress blog for the University of Washington Career Center over a decade ago. While consumer habits have morphed and social network preferences have changed wildly during this period, the magic of being able to effortlessly create and share content in WYSIWYG-interfaces—sharing stories frictionlessly—has yet to lose its magic.

Interesting, while change has washed away emergent social media platforms time and time again (Friendster, MySpace, Google+, Vine... to name a few), there are core marketing social strategies that I've experienced that have remained relevant throughout this evolution of the Web. And in my mind, these are pillars that every successful social media marketing program should include.

1. Align with a Real Business Goal

Before you start setting up Snapchat accounts, counting “likes”, and asking employees to post with #HashtagsAreAwesome, I recommend holding social media to the same standards of any marketing program by answering “why” you want to spin up this program. You wouldn’t buy a billboard with no strategy, or print and post a million mailers without a marketing goal. Social should be aligned with a specific identifiable goal like all well-defined marketing programs (think: SMART). A goal could include growing brand awareness, sustaining employee engagement or driving traffic to your website, or retail location. Having an answer to “why’ you should be using social marketing isn’t just good to have if the CFO stops by your desk and inquires. It will make you a better marketer, requiring more strategy and intent in your actions.

Applying this rigor to your marketing program also helps you to get resources from your leadership team, too. When your actions are aligned to a goal your boss just can’t say “do it”, without the initiative being placed into a broader, likely measurable context. Remind him/her that your marketing stories won't get "viral" without a properly-sized budget to fund advertising, PR or content development. While you’re at it, set a few social-specific goals too, like a growth in online mentions, an improvement in your local listing profile rating or an increase in website social referrals. Being measurable is a good thing. Don't dismiss it.

2. Define Your Stories (and Hold Yourself Accountable)

The biggest mistake in social media marketing is tweeting for tweet’s sake. The goal of your marketing program should not be to simply post random news and artificial holidays to get likes and engagements on behalf of your brand. If you're a storyteller, what story are you telling?

Who cares if a toilet paper brand reminds me it’s National Dog Sweater Day? Should that make me feel more affinity?

What do random memes shared by a brand genuinely tell consumers, especially when dozens of other radio stations and social news sites are stirring up chatter about the same fake holidays, moments and memes?

Be honest. Will sharing that gif of a cat napping help you achieve your business goal? Maybe, maybe not. Whatever the truth is, every social post should be with intention. Every Snap should reaffirm a truth about your brand, otherwise you might want to reconsider.

I recommend defining your stories based on genuine messages your company believes in and can back up with real actions and words (AKA proof points). As a consumer, you just believe in Old Spice’s silly social posts and videos because they reaffirm the affable nature of the brand—weird, silly and surprising. In the same way Starbucks can talk about subjects beyond coffee because they seek to engage in the complete coffee experience and cultural issues like hiring vets that extend well beyond your morning buzz. If Dunkin’ Donuts tried to do the same thing it would feel awkward, and out of sorts.

This is a long way of saying—pick your three or four key messages for your social media program and build content around those messages—links, copy, images, gifs, videos, etc. Be rigorous, too. In one way or another, every post or tweet should reaffirm your key messages (seriously…track this in a spreadsheet), or you should have a rock solid reason why that particular content doesn't need to be aligned. Quality social programs shouldn’t include the reposting of fake holidays and copying of memes, unless those stories are at the heart of your company.

The worst thing you could do is to relegate your brand to being a generic. Transparency is nowhere more present than on social.

Lastly, in the day of limited organic social reach, ensure you're employing paid, earned and owned promotional tactics for your social stories. Otherwise, you might tweet, but no one will see it.

3. Know Where to Start; Then Focus

There are a dozen social sites to choose from. Where should you launch your brand's social media presence? Snapchat? Tumblr? Instagram?

Here's a pro-tip.

Look at your company's public blog. If you have analytics on the social sharing buttons on the content (ShareThis and AddThis make this easy), this data can give you an idea of where your customers are already active and where they share your stories—presumably their preferred social networks. This, along with social referral traffic from Google Analytics can start to give you an idea of which networks your existing customers are most active on. As a last resort, you can ask your customers in an email survey, which networks are their favorites.

Once you are empowered with data and know your customer's preferences, build a presence on the top two or three social media networks they identified, ensuring that you can support regular content on those networks and can field the customer service questions that inevitably arise. The absolute worst thing you could do is to try to be everywhere, to everyone. A social media team of one cannot authentically creative daily content, field questions and draw insights from six social networks at the same time.

The easiest people to connect with on social media are the people you are already connected with on other channels —Web, app and email.

Grow your following on your desired networks by weaving in "follow" call-to-actions into your website customer experience, in your email marketing and by hosting promotions and give-aways all wrapped around great content. The last step to growing your following is using paid tactics like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter custom audience features to target specific customer lists and ask for a "like" or "follow" from your existing customer base. The goal is to build another durable digital connection to those who care about your brand.

This is also an important time to onboard a social media publishing platform. The free posting apps and tools from networks like Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter are great for publishing by a single person, but when you're setting up a brand's social media program you'll want to be a little more sophisticated. Plus, your community will have a expectation for having their questions answered 24/7, something that's not easily achieved using the free, single-user apps.

Instead, look to onboard a tool like Hootsuite or Adobe Social. My favorite social monitoring and publishing service is the mid-range Sprout Social. These tool will give you an editorial calendar, scheduling capabilities and valuable analytics at a reasonable price.

4. Define Your Voice and Practices

Just like in print media and video, brands that succeed on social have an engaging, authentic voice that's true to each company. At a running company I used to work at we drafted a supplemental guide to our brand book to outline how we talked on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Then, when we announcing a major new product, or responding to a customer's question we were able to get direction from this document, maintaining a consistent voice in front of the customer.

At the credit union I'm with we keep a walking deck—a collection of screenshots and tactics to codify what we do in our social program. Combined with our editorial calendar and list of key stories, my colleagues and I have a clear picture of what social means when we're planning our promotions. This is particularly helpful when you're working with team members who have less experience with this type of marketing. Plus, documenting your social program helps you go through the rigorous process of defining your practices.

5. Make Great Content

This is subjective at the brainstorming stage, but when you actually produce a blog post, video or live stream, the light of customer feedback shines bright. Be sure to listen to what you're told. You'll know within minutes, and sometimes seconds what your followers like and don't like. When I'm developing content, I like to ask myself the following questions:

• Is this content on brand and look genuine to "me"?
• Is this creative optimized for this platform?
• Is this content share-worthy? Emotive?
• Am I inspiring a conversation? Telling a meaningful story?
• How can I make this creative execution stronger within budget?

And always hold yourself to a high bar. Do the best work your can do within scope, budget and time. Resources are always tight, but that doesn't mean you can't ensure your social content isn't engaging. Creativity can go a long way.

6. Test and Learn

Actively testing and learning in your social media marketing is another essential element of a successful social program. This information can help you continually evolve as a marketer, and better understand your community's needs and habits. Facebook has come, and it will go at some point, but the practice of learning from what you do will remain a dependable strength.

You can A/B test the timing, messages, channel and other creative elements to maximize marketing efficiency and to learn what your followers and business partners enjoy most. Then, do great stuff more often. That's how you improve. One inch at a time. If you embrace your work like a scientist-storyteller, there is a good chance you'll make some interesting discoveries.

And like mastering any marketing channel, be sure to read blogs and news article, and attend conferences to stay on the cutting edge of what works for social. Being a "learn it all" marketer versus a "know it all" is a particularly valuable quality for social media.

Test and learn, and learn some more.

While you're evolving your marketing program, don't forget to keep a monthly or quarterly record of how your social media program is performing. Record the amount of content you're publishing, social impressions, engagements and other key metrics so your marketing partners understand how you're contributing to the customer's experience.

While this is far from an exhausting list of social media marketing best practices, if you can build a program that touches on these five areas you're headed in the right direction. This best practices made just as much sense in 2007 as they do in 2017... and maybe 2027.

Social media marketing will continue to evolve as a way for consumers to share information and as a way for brands to tell stories. Luckily, the pillars of great storytelling are much less fickle.

ReadyDone: A Eulogy

Three years ago I started ReadyDone, a small web-dev and design business with my friend Josh Lind. Our goal was to work on some fun projects, source others to friends and other independent contractors, and to make getting and doing creative work easier for everyone. Unfortunately, after two years and a few dozen projects, Josh and I decided to close up shop. While I didn't make uber-bucks from the experience, I did learn a bunch. Below is text from an email I sent Josh shortly after we decided to call it quits.

Josh,

As I'm sure you recall, two and a half years ago we were working together on a start-up that was losing momentum. With funding running short, a game plan smashed to smithereens, and team members cleaving off like chunks from a melting iceberg, I realized that my time playing business man was up. In December 2007, I started looking for a new job and within a few weeks landed at a non-profit with a great mission.

While my new job was exciting, my heart still swelled for the dream of "building something", and you and I had recently talked about making it easier to hire contractors and build projects. So, with $400 invested from each of us, a domain name dreamt up on the Ave and your serious design and dev skills, we launched ReadyDone.com, a consulting company.

During the time that ha passed since, there are many things to be proud of. We presented to angel investors and VC, courted clients, successfully competed projects and sourced jobs to freelancers. All this done without taking on debt. At the end of two years, we closed down ReadyDone with more cash in the bank then when we started. Not too shabby!

Although, as you know, this isn't the whole story.

While many good things came from the ReadyDone business, the biggest take-away for me are the lessons I gained from the experience, an experience I'd chalk up as a flop.

This is what I learned, or at least a start on what I learned. I'm sure I'll expand on this into a successful, NY Times-best-selling memoir, and we'll both eventually be toasting champaign to this tomb of regret when taking breaks from racing our Teslas on the sandy beaches of some far off island

In the meantime, this is what I learned...

Be Flexible, But Plan Like You Mean It

I don't think we ever sat down and talked about what the "it" was for our business or researched what else was out there to any great extent before we started developing a consulting company called ReadyDone. That's probably fine in most cases, and is probably how 90% of businesses start. However, I think when it comes to partnerships, we could have gotten our idea a bit clearer to each other and ourselves, before we started picking the color of drapes for our office. This misalignment ended up causing boatloads of passive aggressive energy and internal frustration for both of us. Unfortunately, we weren't able to effectively monetize either of these new-found minerals.

Only Do One Thing

Coming off the heels of our previous start-up experience, you would think we would do everything possible to avoid this, but I think we fell for the "everything now" error. From The Talented Group, the networking group we explored launching, to our website with profiles for talent and by developing internal projects like Drip Networks, we took on too much.

If I were to do it again, I would take the simplest "equation" for a business, and focused solely on that for a year. If that's a web dev firm, that's fine. If it's an internal project, probably even better. It was most likely my enthusiasm and too much coffee that steered this ship off the edge of the ocean. I take responsibility. The problem wasn't finding the next best thing (God knows we had the ideas and inspiration). The problem was trying to finding the next fifteen best things.

Build the Right Team (Only Do Things You Want to Do)

One questions I never asked myself was, "are we the right folks to be doing this?" I should have. While I try to give my best at anything that I'm assigned, one's best is sometimes not even "good".  Asking me to be a designer or the finance manager, is probably a bad call. I'll try, but the end result will likely be wasted time and a poor product. Similarly, asking you to play customer service with testy clients or present at conferences is probably not the best use of your talents.

What I've learned is that of course people can attempt anything they want to. But ultimately, it is unsustainable to work on something that a person is either not good at or does not completely enjoy. We might not have been the best team for the consulting company we wanted to build.

Make Time

Because we were launching ReadyDone on the cheap, and because I couldn't pay my own way immediately with projects from clients, I worked full-time, volunteered a bunch and still expected to fit in building a company. That actually, can happen. Just not in the type of work I was pursuing.

This reminds me of a story from David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Basecamp. At a Stanford Though-Leaders lecture He first wrote the software in just 10 hours a week, while he also went to school and worked on other projects. It is totally possible to make something with just a few hours of work each week. But for human-based businesses, businesses that require a real, daytime time-commitment, I can't be serious in thinking I'd be able to do my RD job at 10 or 11pm at night unless I could agree for all my potential clients and talent to do the same.

No matter my best intentions or coffee consumption. It's not going to happen. Similarly, if the only person working during the day is the partner who doesn't enjoy doing the marketing work (you) or project management work, then why would we ever think that the business would function properly. It couldn't, and didn't. The structure was off. I should have made time at the right moments.

Despite these the regrets listed above, I enjoyed working on this with you. ReadyDone taught me a lot. Thanks for being a partner in the journey!

So, that's it. That's my main take-aways from the ReadyDone experience. Luckily, Josh and I are still good friends and maybe one day we'll work together again.

What Companies Can Learn From Chipotle

After a long week of meetings, phone calls and late nights, I was relieved on Friday to have the week complete and jumped into my car for the ride home. Just a few miles from my house, my stomach began to grumble. I knew my cupboards were bare, so I stopped at a Chipotle Grill for an end-of-the-week celebratory burrito. After moving through super-efficient line, I placed my order, paid for my burrito. As I filed to my seat, I realized that Chipotle was doing a lot of things right in the transaction that I just experienced, and not just by allowing unlimited cheese or diet coke refills.

I've listed some thoughts on what other businesses might be able to learn from my burrito experience:

1. Make it Simple
   People can be overwhelmed by choices. Chipotle makes it easy to decide by limiting the menu to just a few items: Tacos, Salads, Burritos and Chips. That's kinda it. This makes it easier for the customer to pick and feel confident about their choice. Another smart tactic is to segment the choosing process so customers feel less overwhelmed and can process each series of questions separately (this process is the exact opposite of the drive-thru window). At Chipotle, first you pick your meat, then your beans, and so on. How would the world be different if more of our buying interactions were like this? What can mobile phone companies learn from this? And cable companies?
2. Make It Fast
   Chipotle is fast food and they deliver on that promise by quickly getting customers through the line in lighting speed. Unlike burger joins though, the customer is part of the process so its not just fast, but feels fast too. Instead of waiting as workers in the back throw fries into a bag like at most fast food joints, at Chipotle, the customer is required to provide input as the meal is made and the employee(s) never leaves the customer during the process. What businesses could benefit by engaging their customers during the buying process?
3. Make It Easy
   At Chipotle, they don't distract the customer during the buying process. They are clear on the very basic ingredients that are involved in their meals (corn, beef, etc.) have simple decorations around the restaurant and don't clutter the ordering process with punch cards, toy give-aways or other gimmicks. From the moment you walk into the restaurant, you're focused on one process at Chipotle: buying their food.
4. Now Add Culture
   So my previous comments were highlighting's Chipotle clean, brushed aluminum aesthetic and uncluttered atmosphere. Kinda odd now to compliment them on their relaxed, approachable tone in their marketing material, right? No, not at all. Chipotle has a clear sense of their culture as an organization and just as important, they communicate this to their customer with a focus on environmental consciousness and approachable ad copy. Adding in genuine culture into an organization is an important part of building brand loyalty.

So what companies could benefit from these Chipotle not-so-secret ingredients? Probably almost any industry. If you can think of a company or product, add a comment below.

Case Example: Social Media Marketing

The development manager of a non-profit I volunteer with, PowerfulSchools.org, recently shared this story with me (see below). Because PS posts recent grant awards on their Facebook page, and because this is setup to automatically tweet their posts at www.twitter.com/powerfulschools, when our local news outlet KOMO was researching on Twitter for an article, they stumbled across Powerful Schools. Because of this, KOMO interviewed PS in a recent article. Pretty cool!?!

After JP Morgan Chase awarded Powerful Schools a $100,000 grant, I posted an announcement on our website and then linked it to Facebook (posted the PS web link onto FB saying that we were thrilled by the grant award).  Since we set up our Facebook page to automatically tweet our posts, this news also went to Twitter.

A KOMO newsradio reporter just happened to be doing research on JP Morgan Chase and our tweet came up in his Twitter search.  The reporter contacted us and ended up interviewing [our Executive Director] Tre for an education story (that also featured the Washington State superintendent Randy Dorn), and in the story he mentions that Powerful Schools was recently awarded $100K by JPMC. Woot!

-Peggy, Seattle Powerful Schools

Woot! Indeed. By taking a few steps to build out your organization's social media presence, you can be more effective at earning traditional media coverage.

It All Starts At Why

"It's not what you do, its why you do it." - Simon Sinek

At first view, the quote might might sound like something I scraped from a motivational poster.

You know the kind.

The san-serifed words would sit at the bottom of an image of child reaching for a book or a crew shell gliding through the water. The glossy posters wrap lunchrooms throughout the country.

However, after you watch this TEDx talk by Simon Sinek (embedded below), the quote carries much more meaning. While the video is worth its 18min run-time, Sinek's comments boil down to this:

1. People are driven at very basics levels of thought by values
2. People flock to organizations that espouse their values and beliefs
3. Organizations that uphold a value that moves people, can succeed

Or even shorter, It's not what a person or organization does, its why they do it that matters.

From building software to running a political campaign (think "Change"), values are what inspire people, not the "stuff" of life. While many times we start by talking about "what" we do, it might better serve us to start with "why".

To put my money where my mouth is, let me take a look at my LinkedIn profile (feel free to add me to your network).

Instead of saying:

"I am endurance runner, digital marketer and blogger. I want to inspire people to build businesses, live healthier lives and help others."

Maybe I should switch it around (and add a little value-ness) so it reads:

"I want to inspire people to test their limits. I hope to encourage others to build businesses, live healthier lives and help others. I help do this by blogging, running and working in marketing,"

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA"]

What Are You Passionate About?

I loved my time at the TEDx Seattle conference so much, I recently applied for entry into TEDx Rainier, an independently organized TED conference coming up on 10/10/10 (don't know TED? Click here). As part of the application process, you have to answer two questions. What are you passionate about in life, your work and your community? Why would you like to attend TEDx Rainier?

Both are great questions, however the first one really intrigued me. What [am I] passionate about? I've included my response below.

What are you passionate about in life, your work, and your community? My passion in life is to inspire people to build businesses, live healthier and help others. I spend my time working to advance these goals.

As an early learning professional, I help children succeed in kindergarten. I also sit on the board of the nonprofit Powerful Schools, and am a member of the Seattle LGBT Commission. These activities interest me because I believe a literate and empowered community can create businesses that benefit society.

My other passion is running ultramarathons—races beyond the 26.2 mile distance. These endurance trail races test my patience and physical ability. Running also offers a wonderful sense of freedom.

When I am not pursuing my other passions, I blog and create brief films about these adventures—all with the aim of inspiring others to challenge their definition of possible. In doing so, I hope to encourage more people to help others in need.

###

In modern times, we should probably ask ourselves this question more often than we do. A quick, but genuine gut check on "are you going what you're passionate about" might also be helpful.

As Bueller says "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

I totally agree.

We Can Make You Pretty... By Any Means Necessary

Today I got an idea for a great ad. After cutting my hair (and missing a few spots with the buzzer), and grabbing a shower and a shave, I realized that I had to replace the bolt on my toilet. I pulled out tools from my cabinet, and after a few hours of fiddling and two trips to Home Depot, the toilet was back in place.

I glanced at my sink, and there is was. An ad for a salon (or maybe even a satire of plastic surgery).

Think of this. A hair salon that wants their customers to look their best by "any means necessary". The ad features a high contrast photo of a white sink with clumps of hair and shaving cream scattered around (low depth of field).

A progression of personal hygiene implements are laid out, with each "tool" looking more gruesome than the next. At the end of the sink (far right) are plumping and power tools. This could be a series of bus stop posters, or a video ad (voice over by the guy who does the Men's Warehousee ads).

Too much? Too scary? Does it remind you of Extreme Makeover? Let me know.

any means - tools

Life Goals: Inspired by the ICanHasCheezburger Guy

Back in April, I had the pleasure of attending TEDx Seattle, a great conference that included artists, researchers and scientists sharing stories about how technology and culture intersect. (If you don't already, you should subscribe to the TED podcast.)

One of my favorite speakers from the event was Ben Huh, owner of the IcanHasCheezburger Network, and associated with everything #lol, #cat and #fail. Ben shared a touching story in his presentation "19 Thinks that I Owe Myself to Accomplish". Filled with emotion, Ben talked about his first failed business and he came to build his current blog empire--all the while accomplishing life goals.

Ben had a total of 19 goals on his list. Some he had accomplished (learn to ride a motorcycle) and some he had yet to (give away a million dollars). The goals were grouped under categories: Have Fun, Help Yourself, and Help the World.

Ben's speech was so inspirational, I decided to make my own list of goals, complete with groupings.

So without further adieu, here is what I came up with.

In no particular order, this is what I want to achieve in my life.

Find My Limit

• Learn how to kickbox
• Ride a motorcycle to Alaska
• Run 100 miles without stopping
• Travel around the world
• Win an athletic competition
• Earn an award

Build a Base

• Become an expert at something
• Find the perfect woman
• Sell a company for a profit
• Raise a child
• Own a house

Help Others

• Teach at a college
• Become a blogger
• Write a book
• Teach my child how to ride a bike
• Become a public speaker
• Pay for my child's college education

So, that's what I have at the moment. There will probably be a few drafts of this.

How can they find me?

This afternoon my coworker and I struck up a conversation on how old we were getting in relation to the Internet. Jessica shared a story about how she had to convince her first two employers to include their web addresses on their marketing materials so that donors could find them (you know, way back in '02).

Two thoughts came to my mind from this discussion.

First: Wow, we're fortunate to live during a time when we can watch something as great as the Web mature. With the exception of the French Revolution, it's rare that people get to experience a technology or trend completely reorganize the way every part of society operates.

Second: People, organizations and businesses need to actively think "How can others find me?" -- a notion that would have sounded odd a few generations before when findability was baked into the social structure of a village or into the authority of a Yellow Pages phonebook.

So, what can you do now to be "findable" on an ever growing Web?

Make a big digital footprint.

1. Reserve your domain name
2. Register your username on popular web services
3. Link to your various profiles online

And this goes for both your business and your person.

By reserving you or your brand's accounts (Mashable has a great article on this) and user names on a variety of services, you're helping to build a larger footprint online. So, when someone searches on YouTube for "Joel Ballezza", they get me instead of a "no results found" page or some giggling babies.

The same thing goes for Twitter account, Facebook and the like.

In a thoughtful way, try to build out your digital footprint so that people will know how to find you.

Career Advice for a Recent Grad

A few weeks ago I met up with Emma, a recent graduate from the University of Washington. Filled with passion, this young professional was smart, but unfortunately she was starting her career in a tough economy, and entering a fiercely-competitive job market. This was my advice to her.

1. Look, Listen & Learn You have awesome ideas, no doubt, but you are also young and can use this "excuse" as a tool to soak up decades of knowledge from your coworkers and parent's friends. So, just try not to be the new freaking guy and interject too often (I know this from personal experience). Instead, listen to the ideas being presented around you, try to find ways where you can contribute meaningfully, then deliver on your promises.
2. Work with Your Strengths You may not have a decade of work experience, hundreds of connections in your field or a lengthy resume to support you in your job search. However, that doesn't mean you don't have a competitive edge on other professionals in the market. After four years of college, you know how to live cheaply. This means you can take a lower-paying position that a professional who is supporting a family might not be able to. Also, you probably can move around and travel easier than others in your field. Make an inventory of your skills. You might be surprised by what you  come up with.
3. Seek Out Opportunities to Network You probably didn't discuss this much in school, but networking is probably the single most important activity you can do to support your career. This includes getting to know your coworkers, colleagues in your field and other professionals out in the world. Seek out projects at work or in your volunteer life that expose you to a wide variety of people. You never know what will come of it --an exciting project, new job or maybe even a marriage.
4. Brand Yourself "So, what do you do..." is something you might hear a lot in your life. And while the monikers "Doctor" or "Engineer" conjure up specific images of a profession, "write stuff and manage clients" is much more nebulous. Try to identify the root of your skills and work (for a simple narrative), and offer this to the next person who asks. "I am an online marketer for enterprise software." A wise man once told me "No one hires a generalist." So true!

So these were a few of the tips that I offered Emma. I know she goes far!

Stories Matter

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel at the Putting the Pieces Together: Building Effective Partnerships for Children, Youth & Families conference, an event organized by SOAR, a coalition of organizations in King County, Washington that support children (see Panel Discussion below). The panel offered tips on how non-profits can use social media to advance their work. I highlighted how Ning.com and Facebook are effective tools for marketing an organization and connecting with parents, and offered examples of how I've used them at Foundation for Early Learning.

But that's not really what this post is about. Really, I want to share what happened AFTER my panel discussion.

The Power of Stories

After my session was up, I thanked the moderator and headed over to participate in a conference session as an attendee. After scanned the open sessions, the title "Effective School-Community Collaboration" piqued my interest. I headed for room 202.

This panel discussion included partners from a the Seattle Shakespeare Theater and Seattle Public Schools. Within just a few minutes, the presenters told a story of John, an eighth-grader in the special education program. He never spoke up in class, and was particularly shy around other students his age.

Despite this, John enrolled in the after-school Shakespeare collaboration between the theater and Seattle Public Schools. He was even brave enough to take on a role that required him to charge across the stage with a short staff (weapon) and announce the attaching group of actors in a production of Henry V.

By simply showing a photo of this boy, and sharing this quick story, the panelists were able to highlight the effectiveness of their partnership (theater helped John discovered his voice). A fairly complex idea, all communicated with just a few words and a photo. Wow.

What's my take-away from this session?

Include stories in as many places as you can. They deliver messages extremely well, and make your work come alive.

Make 'em Talk

How do you get a quiet audience at a discussion panel to share in the interaction on stage? You take away the microphones. Let me explain.

After witnessing disastrous Q & A sessions when conference attendees were too shy to line up at microphones and ask questions for a discussion session, I realized we needed a better way to solicit questions during a live event. Our solution was to take away the microphones and to use mobile phones instead.

In preparation for Foundation for Early Learning's annual luncheon with over 600 attendees, I setup an SMS text message service using a “short-code”, a unique string of five numbers to make texting easier. In this case we used the service Mosio, but there are a number of great, low-cost services that do this.

During the 2010 Luncheon, we flashed a PowerPoint slide with the short code on the screen and encouraged the audience of 600 attendees to send their questions for the panel using their mobile phones, instead of their voice.

Our result? We received dozens of questions, and cultivated a robust discussion within the panel on stage. Best of all—no uncomfortable silence!

Who's Your Competition?

Recently I spoke with Stephanie, an employee of REI and alum of the Masters of Communications of Digital Media Program at the University of Washington (I graduated from the same program). She shared a wonderful message with me. Here we go... As a retailer of high-quality camping, hiking and sporting goods, REI could consider other sporting goods stores (the Sports Authority, etc) their competition. Stephanie told me that CEO Sally Jewell promotes a very different view.

So, who's the competition?

XBox 360, Sony Playstation... and so on.

Brilliant huh? Instead of being stuck inside in front of a TV, REI wants children and families to explore the outdoors, climb mountains or go camping in our great park system. REI values being active and wants to promote this to the world. What a great message!

This values-based competitiveness probably not only makes a workforce more productive (and inspired), but also is a smarter business approach. Why should sports retailers fight over the same small market, when you grow your market with new consumers.

Values-based competitiveness probably doesn't work for every industry, but it might be a fresh way for you to look at marketing or strategy for your organization. Give it a try.

Patriotism at the Mall

Originally published in The Daily

Americans have had a lot on their minds lately. Soldiers are battling insurgents in Iraq and a resurrection of violence has erupted in Afghanistan, not to mention the recent domestic tragedies of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which killed thousands and displaced millions of Americans.

No, these aren't tranquil times at all. How have we possibly weathered the last few years so punctuated by violence, scandal and tragedy of mammoth proportion?

We shop.

Just as easily as the evening news transitions from reporting another soldier's death to a commercial for Aquafina, America's awareness shares a similarly fickle route. Through image and word, we are exposed to the vast drama that unfolds around us and with a solemn and sincere voice we express our grief. After that tack another magnet on our Hummer to pledge our allegiance. This though, has not always been our way.

During the first and second World Wars, limits were placed on consumable goods as troops devoured resources. Civilians contributed their time and energy and civically engaged by planting patriot gardens to develop self-sufficiency while making due with older automobiles and appliances.

The gauge of one's patriotism was not the size of their flag, but rather the impact of their contribution and service. Later, during one of the most volatile periods of the Cold War, President Kennedy proclaimed, "...ask what you can do for your country."

After 9/11 our current President George W. Bush asked us to shop and continue with our lives undeterred in spirit and unfettered by taxes.

The contrast in contribution couldn't be greater.

There may be a very good reason for the modern American's disengagement. We pay little for the consequences of our government's actions or our own as citizens.

Since President Richard Nixon repealed the draft in 1973 and the armed forces were transitioned into an all-volunteer force, healthy men no longer have to digest the newspaper's international section with such gravity and trepidation. In today's military, the soldiers that sacrifice their lives for our wars are mostly from rural and economically depressed communities.

Our present laughably immense national debt appears just as inconsequential as it does immense. This added to the image refined by our leader's press offices that every catastrophe is either under control and bound to improve, or an unavoidable consequence of modern society, persuades the average citizen to throw up his or her hands and accept the day's events without reservation.

Can we do better, or are we consumed by the lure of consumption? Will Americans loosen the grips on their iPods just long enough to reach for a pen or a protest sign? As the amnesia of 9/11 subsides, and in the wake of numerous wars and natural disasters, Americans have the supreme opportunity to invest in our nation, engage in our government and directly contribute.

Donate your spirit, time and energy to help others domestically and abroad. While the daily distractions of modern life are unrelenting, a return to civic involvement might very well be coming back in fashion -- and it's on sale.