susan hendrich

Do You Have Klout?

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What is Your Klout Score?

Klout is the measurement of your overall online influence. Klout scores range from 1 to 100, and higher scores represent wider and stronger sphere of influence. Klout looks at 35+ variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score. They believe influence is “ability to drive people to action.”

Ex: True Reach = size of your engaged audience (based on followers and friends who actively listen and react to your messages). Want to learn more about Klout?

So…do I have enough Klout to get you to respond to this post?

About Klout

http://mashable.com/follow/topics/klout   

Klout is a San Francisco based company that provides social media analytics that measures a users influence across their social network. The analysis is done on data collected from sites such as Twitter and Facebook and measures the size of a person’s network, the content created, and how other people interact with that content.

Sticky Note Mind Maps

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Need help solving a dilemma? Want ideas for a better way to do things? Got a new project that needs structure? Try Sticky Note Mind Mapping!

Psychologist Tony Buzan developed “Mind Mapping” as a tool for thinking ‘laterally’ – it’s a type of visual brainstorming that’s based on a central idea written in the center of a page (or wall), then related ideas are added on branches that radiate from this central idea. Because of this structure, it requires all ideas to be connected to the center and allows connection to one another, providing opportunity for convergent thinking, fitting ideas together, as well as thinking up new ideas. Sticky note Mind mapping allows you to ‘storm and sort’ your ideas.

Steps:
1. Find a large section of blank wall or whiteboard and lots of sticky notes and markers. Using a variety of sticky note colors and sizes, simply jot down all your thoughts on the sticky notes – with each new thought or concept on a new sticky note.
2. As you write down your thoughts on the sticky notes, stick them up on the wall or whiteboard – you can group them into similar themes as you stick them up, but the best thing about using sticky notes for this map is that you can move them around as your thoughts develop.
3. Once you’ve jotted down all your thoughts and stuck them on the wall, look for branches and connections between the ideas. What’s missing? What are the recurring ideas? Where are the connections?
4. When you’ve sorted the sticky notes into a map that makes the most sense of your thoughts, you can either take a photo of it as your record, or draw it as a real mind map.

Considerations:
• Don’t think too much about structure as you’re preparing the map – just let it flow as you work through the process
• Work through it quickly to keep up the flow of ideas
• Keep the points brief – you can expand them later
• Use sketches, images and pictures (if you can) – it makes it easier to remember and more personal, but make sure it doesn’t slow down the brainstorming flow. ClipArt is great for this!
• Once you’ve got it all down, stand back and take a look. What’s missing? What are the recurring ideas? Where are the connections?
• Continue! This mind map is a work in progress.

Have you tried a sticky note mind map? If so, let us know how it helped you!

Learning Design That Makes You Shine

/ Susan Hendrich / 4 Comments

Tonight I read an online article that stopped me in my tracks. Rather than try to capture the essence of author Barbara Findlay Schenck’s brilliance by recapitulating it in my own words, I’m just going to re-publish the article.

It’s that good.

First, I’ll share my 6-word elevator speech with you: “Learning Design That Makes You Shine.” Now, on to the good stuff, then it’s your turn…

Want a Loan? A Sale? A Job?
By Barbara Findlay Schenck

When Brad Newman introduced himself as an actrepreneur, I was hooked. Everything about his title told me he had information I wanted to hear. Over a few additional seconds, I learned that this actor and entrepreneur is the founder of Zentainment, “a socially conscious media company committed to growing brands that encourage you to dream big and live a sustainable life.” From there, a longer conversation and a business relationship followed, all spurred by an attention-getting introduction that took just moments to deliver.

The elevator pitch rides into the speed-dating era
Today’s economic environment has turned job fairs, trade shows, networking events and even sidewalk sales into buyers’ markets where only those with quick, compelling pitches survive.

In the 1990s, high-tech entrepreneurs named these short spiels “elevator pitches” because they could be conveyed during an elevator ride. The tech bubble ballooned and burst (and ballooned again), but elevator pitches are here to stay. Everyone whether seeking employment, sales or profitable business associations needs one.

Is your introduction ready to roll?
“So, what do you do?”

Those five words are on the minds of everyone you meet, whether in person or online. Brad Newman’s introduction helps provide a formula that can assist you in preparing your answer and attracting attention from those you aim to impress:

Describe yourself in five words or less. Use a distinctive title or phrase that makes people think, “This sounds interesting” or “This is what I’m looking for.” Consider the difference between “I’m a copywriter” and “I turn browsers into buyers.” Or, in Newman’s case, between “social media entrepreneur” and “actrepreneur.”

Explain what you do in one sentence. After introducing yourself, introduce your offerings. “Our name combines the words Zen and entertainment, which stakes out our media space,” Newman says. “We’re a media company that focuses on socially conscious content. That definition tells what Zentainment is and rules out what it isn’t.” Work on a similarly specific description for your business.

Define your target audience. “Our market is comprised of 30- to 49-year-olds who care about socially conscious living,” Newman says. “By defining our market in that way, people immediately know whether our business is for them.” In other words, Zentainment isn’t trying to be all things to all people. It’s focused on a specific target audience, which is a key to success in today’s crowded business environment.

Communicate your vision. “We’re committed to growing brands that encourage you to dream big and live a sustainable life, whether they’re our own brands or ones for which we consult and serve as producers,” Newman says. “Our vision is clear enough to keep us focused and broad enough to make us adaptive to the opportunities of a changing market and media world.” It’s also compelling enough to attract a growing contingent of Zentainment consumers and business clients. What does your business stand for? What attracts your customers and their loyalty? Your answers can serve as a magnet for growth.

Practice, practice, practice. Create a script that conveys who you are, what you offer, your market, and the distinctive benefits you provide. Edit until you can introduce yourself and your business in less than a minute, which is how long most prospects will give you to win their interest.

Shrink your introduction even further so you can tell your story in 20 words or less. That’s how much space you have in most marketing materials and online presentations, whether on your own site, on social media sites, or on sites that link to your home page. If you’re thinking, “Twenty words? You’ve got to be kidding,” scroll back to the start of this column. That’s exactly what Brad Newman used to get my interest.

Barbara Findlay Schenck is a small-business strategist, the author of “Small Business Marketing for Dummies” and the co-author of “Branding for Dummies,” “Selling Your Business for Dummies” and “Business Plans Kit for Dummies.”

15 minutes of Leading Change

/ Susan Hendrich / 1 Comment

Leading Change: We All Play A Role

Anyone who has ever worked for, worked with, or been a leader knows the importance of leading change.

Let’s take a few moments to reflect on ways that you and your colleagues have led change for your teams, your customers, each other, and the organization. Here’s a quick team-building exercise you can do at your next staff meeting to orient your team toward the leadership moments – big and small – that people in your group are causing. It’s a quick and high-impact way of generating examples of how you and your colleagues have noticed each other leading change.

“Recognizing Leadership” Activity Instructions

1. Create

Provide everyone a piece of paper with their own name on it. Instruct the group to pass their individual sheets to the person to on their left, allowing that neighbor to record an example of how they have witnessed you leading change. Group members continue to pass the sheets around the room, allowing colleagues to add a comment on a way they’ve noticed the each individual leading change.

2. Share

Once everyone has had a chance to write on each of the sheets of paper, collect all of the sheets and redistribute them so that everyone receives someone else’s sheet.  Each person takes a turn reading out loud one or two examples that are recorded on their partner’s sheet.

3. Deliver

After everyone has had an example or two read about themselves, return the sheets to their owners to keep. Encourage everyone to review their own sheet for themes, asking themselves, “Which leadership capabilities do people seem to notice?” and “What are areas might I continue to develop?”

I’d love to hear how your exercise goes. Please share your stories…

Globalize your On Demand Business

/ Susan Hendrich / 2 Comments

Check out these excellent writing tips from IBM on how to “Globalize your On Demand Business” 

Style tips

The following style suggestions can help ensure your information is clear for all types of audiences:

  • Write sentences as short and simple as possible. Try to keep sentences to 25 words or less.
  • Make sure that lists are complete and can stand by themselves.
  • Use a complete sentence to introduce a list.
  • Make list items complete sentences or complete phrases.
  • Make list items parallel in structure.
  • Avoid slang, jargon, humor, sarcasm, colloquialisms, and metaphors. For example, use “estimate” instead of “in the ballpark.”
  • Be succinct. Eliminate unnecessary text and redundancies.
  • Do not use Latin abbreviations.
  • Avoid negative constructions. For example, use “It is like the previous request” rather than “It is not unlike the previous request.” Or, use “Log on again to reconnect” instead of “You cannot reconnect without logging on again.”
  • Avoid ambiguity.
  • Use an appropriate and consistent tone.
  • Choose examples that are appropriate for the intended audience.

Grammar tips

Appropriate grammar enables easier, more accurate translations and enhances audience understanding:

  • Write in active voice whenever possible and use the present tense.
  • Avoid the infinitive (to create), present participle (creating), and past participle (created) forms of verbs in the beginning of sentences. These verbs are less direct, and the subject of the clause is not always obvious. Completing steps could mean “When you complete the steps” or “Because you complete the steps.”
  • Avoid noun strings. Limit compound phrases to no more than three words. When a compound phrase is used, be sure that it has only one meaning and that the phrase is used consistently.
  • Make the subject of a verb phrase clear. Avoid complex sentences where several adverbs or other modifiers are used. If you use complex sentences, it is particularly important to include whatever words are necessary to make the subject clear. Do not omit the word “that” from clauses. The use of the conjunction “that,” while technically optional in some sentences, is never wrong and makes the sentence easier to translate and clearer for users whose primary language is not English. For example, use “Verify that your directory service is working” rather than “Verify your directory service is working.”
  • Avoid using words in multiple grammatical categories (verb, noun, adjective). In English, many words can change their grammatical category. In most other languages, the same word cannot be a verb, a noun, and an adjective. (Use “during the restore operation” instead of “during the restore.”)
  • Avoid ambiguous pronoun references where the pronoun can possibly refer to more than one antecedent. For example, in the statement “If there is prompt text for the completed field, it does not change,” it is not clear if the “prompt text” does not change or the “completed field” does not change.
  • Use simple and clear coordination so the reader can tell what the relationships are between the elements of a sentence. For example, “the file or result field definition” could mean: “The result-field definition or the file,” “The file definition or the result-field definition,” “The file-field definition or the result-field definition,” “The definition of the file or of the result field,” or “The field definition of the file or of the result.”
  • Ensure the elements of a sentence are parallel. Words, phrases, and clauses should be grammatically equal. Use “network management, databases, and application programs” rather than “network management, databases, and writing application programs.”
  • Avoid using too many prepositions in a sentence, but do not omit prepositions or articles that are necessary. The sentence “This is a list of the current status of all event monitors for this process” could be rewritten to “This lists the current status of all event monitors for this process.”
  • Do not use the dash parenthetically (as in “It is at this point – the start point – that designers and writers meet”). Translators, however, accept the dash being used to show an extension of a sentence (as in “The most important people in IBM are the customers – they pay us”).