The news is awash with retrospective pieces on the accomplishments of Steve Jobs. Rightfully so, accomplishments should be celebrated.

As innovative and redefining as Job’s successes are, I have become more enamored with his failures. More specifically, in his ability to fail forward.

Every product that Steve Jobs creates turns to gold, right? I mean, there is the iPod, the iPhone, iTunes, the iPad, and the Mac. Then there is the Lisa computer, the hockey puck mouse, NeXT Computer, the Rokr, iTools, and the G4 Cube…

Steve Jobs has had epic success, but he has also had epic failure. Continue Reading

This article was featured in Social Media Today

Social media followers are not baseball cards, they’re not meant to be collected. They’re value does not increase with time, in fact, they have no monetary value whatsoever.  You cannot sell them. The number of people you have in your network is not an indication of how profitable you will be. Why then do we work so hard to collect them?

In my book If Social Media is a Game, These are the Rules: 10 Rules for Building a Profitable Social Media Strategy, I discuss the importance of measuring your engagement rather than the size of your network.  Contrary to our cultural euphemisms, size does not always matter.

If you follow the implicit rules of social media, the numbers will likely follow.

Social media is relational, not transactional. People must first be sold on you, before they can be moved from a relational environment (social media) to a transactional environment (your website or e-commerce site).

Here are 5 performance indicators and tools to measure your engagement: Continue Reading

“But, that’s just me.”

It’s an expression that often excuses irrational statements. If a person must qualify a statement by recognizing that it may very well be wrong, they quickly lose credibility.

What it says to others about me when I use such statements :

- I acknowledge that my statement is probably incorrect, but I choose to buy in to it anyway.  ”Just because” is not a consideration that leaders weigh when making decisions.
- I am lazy.  I won’t be bothered with the work necessary to uncover requisite facts, data, or other objective information before making my statements, judgments, or decisions.
- I don’t really care what others think or the quality of the input they may provide; there is no room for discussion, my mind won’t be changed.
- I believe that others should also buy into my conclusion based on my (very scientific) feelings – because, hey, it’s me after all – not because it’s well thought-out and carefully constructed on facts.

If you desire credibility, don’t ask others to buy into something “just because.”  Don’t put your credibility on the line with a hasty and ill-informed expression.

Be thoughtful. Be intentional. Make statements after considering objective information, then follow up with more subjective but logical conclusions. Finally, ask for input. It demonstrates that you’re interested in arriving at the best conclusion based on all of the information. It’s what leaders do.

People buy into those who speak rationally and who eschew whimsical statements.

But, that’s just me.

Continue Reading

There is a cultural thought-pattern afoot that encourages us to evaluate our strengths and weaknesses, and to place our primary efforts on strengthening those areas where we find ourselves “deficient,” so as to become “well rounded” individuals.  In many cases, it’s a theory that encourages mediocrity and it prevents individuals from becoming exceptional specialists.

Some context: Surgeons did not always specialize in specific areas of medicine as they do now.  There was a time when they studied general medicine in order to be “well rounded” practitioners; that they may have a degree of knowledge for any affliction or malady that may present itself.

Then, the practice of specialization and hyper-specialization was introduced in hospitals.  Now, surgeons begin their studies in general medicine and, as they mature in their profession and discover in what area of medicine their natural affinities lay, they focus their studies and refine skills in a specific area so as to become exceptional.  For example, a cardiothoracic surgeon will abandon undeveloped skills in neurosurgery, and almost every other area of medicine unrelated to their specialty, in favor of multplying their skill in cardiothoracic medicine. Continue Reading

Editorial Note: This article has been published on Social Media Today and has become a trending article on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, check it out at: http://socialmediatoday.com/joshleatherman/331973/8-essential-rules-social-media-and-business

Social Media is a complex and evolving medium that many businesses struggle to figure out.  Few find quantifiable success with it, many have failed, and most have yet to truly form a social media strategy.

Failure is often a result of using social media before taking time to understand it, including asking the questions why do people engage on it and what are the unwritten rules that govern its use. It’s free exposure, and often organizations fail to intentionally plan their message as they would for an expensive ad campaign.  It’s like trying to run before one has learned to walk.  Consider this: In 2010, Nielsen and Facebook did a joint study on the effect of social media for enterprise using the benchmarks: Ad recall, brand awareness, and purchase intent.  Social media had significantly better results than traditional marketing.
Whether an individual, a non-profit, or a business (B2B or B2C) – social media strategies must be well thought out and planned prior to execution. Questions must first be answered, primarily the question of “WHY?”  ”WHY are we getting into social media?”  And, “WHY will this motivate individuals to find out more about our organization.” Before every post, “WHY will our followers find this post valuable?”

Social media is permission based engagement – it is the most effective way to engage people and receive measurable results.  When someone gives an organization permission to speak to them, the organization’s messaging must be “on” 100% of the time. It’s like dating, an organization must woo, cultivate, and meet the needs of their network.

The following rules apply to almost every social media user who seeks to develop a platform, client acquisition, increased sales, and better brand awareness.

1. Social media is relational, not transactional, according to social media innovator Michael Hyatt.  Probably the most important rule for any individual or organization seeking to expand exposure and acquire new customers through an online presence.  Keep the “keys” to the social media account away from the Sales department. Traditional marketing has no place in social media.  Overtly trying to sell a product or service will quickly damage a social media reputation (reputation is quickly damaged and long to repair).  Consumers no longer need to jump through hoops to end their relationship with an organization – no more signing up on the do-not-call-registry, no more trying to figure out how to get off a direct mail list, no more trying to figure out how to say “no” to a good salesperson – they simply click an unfollow button and, *poof*, an organization becomes vapor in their social stream.  Resist automated responders that thank individuals for following. Continue Reading

My guest editorial on Michael Hyatt’s Intentional Leadership blog has been shared over a thousand times on social media sites and by email. I hope you’ll take a minute to read more about how you can integrate batching into your life to increase productivity and decrease distractions, fatigue, and burn-out. View my post here: http://michaelhyatt.com/how-to-use-batching-to-become-more-productive.html Continue Reading

“Constantly scanning the world for the negative comes with a great cost. It undercuts our creativity, raises our stress levels, and lowers our motivation and ability to accomplish goals.”
-Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage

Every organization has one. The difference between the optimist and the pessimist is the paradigm (lens) from which they view their world. In my experience, the pessimist views their world with a sense of entitlement (I deserve…) whereas the optimist views their world with a sense of opportunity (I can…). Thousands of case studies in neuroscience and psychology show that one will succeed significantly more often in work, in relationships, and in life, than the other… guess which one? Get over yourself and ditch the chip that so visibly resides on your shoulder telling the world that you’re not getting what you deserve. Find your success by viewing your world through the lens of opportunity. Continue Reading

For most people, organizational culture is a generic term that refers to how they feel about the organization that they work for.  Do they spend an extra 5 minutes in the shower dreading the day ahead, or do they look forward to it.  Do they feel like they’re a valuable cog in the organizational wheel or do they feel isolated and dispensable.  Are they anxious or fearful because of a poor manager, or are they encouraged because they’ve been given flexibility to take ownership for their job.

It’s natural and acceptable for your employee’s to make such associations.  If the leader’s in your organization believe the word culture to be a generic and fluid term – then you have captain’s in your wheelhouse who are unequipped to navigate rough waters. An unintentional culture is chaotic, is typically controlled by a few destructive people in your organization, and adversely effects your bottom-line.

An organization’s culture, as defined by renowned Harvard Psychologist David McClelland, is comprised of 6 elements: Clarity, Standards, Responsibility, Flexibility, Rewards, and Team Commitment.  Here are how they are defined: Continue Reading

I don’t like vegetables. I don’t like carpentry; I’m not a handy-man. But I’m building a vegetable garden (a salsa garden to be more accurate). My oldest son, Xander, is 2 years old and I’ve decided that each year we’ll pick a summer project to do together. I want to be intentional in my role as father, and these projects will be opportunities for us to develop a great relationship and for me to establish myself as his teacher, empowerer and cheerleader. The stages of this project are: build an 8′x4′ wood-framed raised garden, pick out and grow vegetables that work well in salsa, harvest them, and make killer salsa – pretty simple, in theory.

Though we’re two weeks into the project, it has taught me more about being a good father than I’ve taught my son about wood-working or gardening.

As I progress in this first project, I’m establishing rules that will help me be successful. I’m sure that I will add many more as we evolve, but here are a few I’ve come up with early on:

• The purpose of the project is not the project, it’s the relationship.
• Keep a journal.
• Speak positively.
• Be a teacher.

Rule 1: The purpose of the project is not the project, it’s the relationship.The logistics and execution of the project should never detract from relationship building. I will not pick a project that has to be done just right, or that has a deadline – I will pick something that can be imperfect, and, if it were to never get completed, it would be no big deal. Continue Reading

I’m always on the lookout for processes that bring organization to the incredible amount of information that I consume. The program Evernote is a tool that I’ve been using for a couple of years and it’s become an indispensable tool for me to collect and access information easily. With the new Google Chrome web browser, Evernote has created a new add-on called Clip to Evernote that has me even more excited – more on that in a moment.

What is Evernote:

• Evernote is a free service that allows me to save anything – files, pictures, email, web pages, audio files, account information, personal information – in one central location, and access it quickly across different devices – for me, it’s my computer and iPhone (it also works on iPad, Android, and Windows mobile).
• It’s secure so I can be sure my information is encrypted and protected, all I do is create a username and password for access.
• I can easily search my information by keyword because it indexes every word in each of my entries.  It even converts the text from pictures or PDF documents so that they’re searchable.

How it Works:

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