In a previous post, I wrote about the necessity of making business and the workplace personal again for both improving productivity, as well as spurring growth and innovation. Following the comments and conversations brought on by that piece, I got to thinking about another important relationship dynamic in business – that between companies and their customers, especially in light of the impact social media is currently having on the business world.

These days, there’s a general consensus that businesses need to play a more active role in social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. However, being active on social media sites means you have to be authentic and transparent if you really want to reap the benefits of participating in these online communities. Of course, that doesn’t mean I want to hear about how Toyota welds the various car parts to the chassis or what’s the thread count for the linen the Sheraton Hotel chain uses in its bedding since that’s of little relevance or interest to me as a consumer.

So what does it mean then when we say we want companies to be authentic and transparent? Well, it means simply Click here to continue reading »”I’m More Than Just A Number”

Next week, from November 24th to November 26th, users on various social networking sites will be participating in a global celebration called TweetsGiving. The idea behind this 48-hour event is for people to spread words of gratitude on their blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social media sites. There will also be off-line events planned in cities around the world. I’ll be participating in this event by posting messages on Twitter expressing gratitude during TweetsGiving, as well as writing a piece here in which I’ll be sharing a personal story as an expression of gratitude for a lesson learned long ago.

So, why am I writing about this now? Simple – I want to ask you to join me next week in helping to spread words of gratitude as part of the TweetsGiving community. It can be about anything you like – Click here to continue reading »”TweetsGiving – A Celebration of Gratitude”

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to listen and participate in an interesting discussion that took place following a presentation by CT Moore at the latest edition of PodCamp Montreal.  Although his talk revolved around whether a particular character from the drama series “Mad Men” would consider writing a blog, the conversations it sparked got me thinking about the stories that we tell.

Without question, we all have stories that we choose to share with others.  When we meet people for the first time, we often share with them the story of what we do for a living.  With those we’re more familiar with or comfortable talking to, we share stories about what we did over the weekend or what latest feat our child recently accomplished.  As the years roll on by, we share stories from our past that remind us not only of the good times we’ve had, but also of how far we have travelled since then.  With the growth in online social networking sites, our ability to share such stories has unquestionably grown, if not along with it the size of audience we might draw in with our tales.  But what about the stories we now share?

Click here to continue reading »”Telling The Story Of Ourselves”

In the first part of this series, I discussed the misguided notion that continues to be perpetuated regarding the ability of humans to multitask.  In this second part, I’m going to talk about one of the reasons why we feel that we need to try to multitask – time management.

Going back again to the experiences we had while we were in school, I’m sure we all remember one time or another where we didn’t finish all the homework we were assigned.  As a result, we’d have either our parents or our teachers telling us that we weren’t managing our time well.  But here’s the thing – how can any of us really manage time?  We can’t put time on hold so we can take a break and do something else, and we certainly can’t get more time if we have to take care of something we hadn’t anticipated.  Whether we lose an hour of work time because we were goofing off or because something unexpected comes up makes no difference since either way, we can’t get that hour back.

So what was it that prevented us from completing our homework assignments in time if it wasn’t poor time management?  Looking back now, I think we can all appreciate that the problem was Click here to continue reading »”Unravelling The Myths of Multitasking and Time Management – Part 2″