Category Archives for Uncategorized
Compared to what?
Organized sports, particularly for school-age kids, present a real challenge. The results are easily measured and are on just one axis. Points scored. Winning vs. losing.
If we teach a child to identify with the outcomes in this way, we might create arrogance. If you win, after all, you must be better than the others.
This is where the big man on campus comes from, the push for dominance and the brittle self-worth that can lead to bullying.
And of course, it’s not just sports, and it’s not just high school.
But in any scarcity-driven competition, sooner or later, you’re not going to win. You’re not going be state champ, national champ, world champ… Sooner or later, if you’re honest, you’ll need to acknowledge that winning isn’t going to happen.
And then what happens?
Economic utility almost always occurs when we’re good at things that aren’t easy to measure. And when the things we’re good at are additive, infinite and generous it can be something we embrace for the long haul. Because in those areas, it’s possible to be useful and skilled and make a contribution, every single time.
If you have a chance to play a game that’s based on scarcity and winner-take-all, perhaps it pays to play a different game instead.
The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Two Beats Ahead: What Musical Minds Teach Us About Innovation Panos A. Panay, R. Michael Hendrix
Two Beats Ahead: What Musical Minds Teach Us About Innovation Panos A. Panay, R. Michael Hendrix
Discover what the musical mind has to teach us about innovation in this fascinating book, featuring interviews with Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams, T Bone Burnett, Gloria Estefan, Imogen Heap, and many more.
Musicians may just hold the keys to innovation in business. They don’t think like we do, and in the creative process, they don’t act like we do. It’s no coincidence that some of the world’s most respected creators are also entrepreneurs.
In Two Beats Ahead, Panos A. Panay, senior vice president for strategy at Berklee College of Music, and R. Michael Hendrix, global design director at IDEO, interview some of the nation’s top musicians and business leaders about how they approach innovation differently. They speak with hit maker Desmond Child about the importance of demoing and with industry legend Jimmy Iovine about listening and knowing your audience. Readers will learn the secrets of collaboration from Beyoncé and Pharrell Williams, about “daring to suck” from Justin Timberlake, about the power of reinvention from Gloria Estefan, and the importance of experimentation from Imogen Heap and Radiohead. And they’ll learn the value of finding and producing talent with T Bone Burnett and Hank Shocklee, cofounder of Public Enemy.
A window into these brilliant mindsets, this book equips any entrepreneur or innovative thinker with tools they can put into practice to thrive in an evolving world.
The post The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Two Beats Ahead: What Musical Minds Teach Us About Innovation Panos A. Panay, R. Michael Hendrix appeared first on The Chris Voss Show.
When it doesn’t work out
Possibility has a flipside.
We need possibility to do our best work. To believe that it might work. To understand that if we do our best work and bring our full selves to the project, we have a shot at achieving our goal. Hope is fuel.
Perhaps we’ll make the sale, be admitted, create a hit, change someone’s mind, invent a breakthrough, play the notes beautifully, open doors and create magic…
But we might not.
And if we don’t, what then?
The first opportunity is to learn from what happened. That possibility was there, but we guessed wrong, or missed a cue or need a new skill. Perhaps we have to find a way to get the benefit of the doubt or simply need more practice and experience.
But, with apologies to Gödel, maybe there is no solution. Maybe the thing we thought was a problem wasn’t a problem to be solved (because problems have solutions) maybe it was simply a situation or even a dead end. Given who you are, what you know and what you’re dealing with, there actually wasn’t the possibility for success, even if it seemed there was.
Or perhaps there was luck involved, and this time, the luck wasn’t on our side (perhaps 20% of the applicants who are qualified get in to famous colleges, which means that kids who do their best still have just a 1 in 5 chance of admission).
If there was no acceptable solution, or there was more bad luck than we hoped, then there’s no room for shame or blame or recriminations. All we can do is honor the situation and work to find the next thing, another opportunity to contribute or grow. Spending cycles on blame (of ourselves or others) is time we can ill afford to waste.
The weather problem
Meteorologists on TV spend most of their time talking about how the weather is right now, right outside. And progress for TV weather often looks like more accurate reporting of the current precipitation, temperature and windspeed, along with nicer graphics.
That’s not the same as actually predicting what the weather will be tomorrow. We can probably agree that more granularity in how the weather is right now isn’t particularly interesting.
It’s an easy trap to fall into, because spending time on what’s provably true is way less risky than deciding what’s important and using it to predict the future.
Our best work involves sorting the important from the rest, along with bringing a point of view and experience to complicated problems. Problems that are interesting because there isn’t a proven, correct answer.
The wind chill factor is best left to an automated device.
We don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, but figuring out how it’s going to blow tomorrow is a great skill.
The Chris Voss Show Podcast – North by Shakespeare: A Rogue Scholar’s Quest for the Truth Behind the Bard’s Work by Michael Blanding
North by Shakespeare: A Rogue Scholar’s Quest for the Truth Behind the Bard’s Work by Michael Blanding
The true story of a self-taught Shakespeare sleuth’s quest to prove his eye-opening theory about the source of the world’s most famous plays, taking readers inside the vibrant era of Elizabethan England as well as the contemporary scene of Shakespeare scholars and obsessives.
Acclaimed author of The Map Thief, Michael Blanding presents the twinning narratives of renegade scholar Dennis McCarthy, called “the Steve Jobs of the Shakespeare community,” and Sir Thomas North, an Elizabethan courtier whom McCarthy believes to be the undiscovered source for Shakespeare’s plays. For the last fifteen years, McCarthy has obsessively pursued the true origins of Shakespeare’s works. Using plagiarism software, he has found direct links between Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and other plays and North’s published and unpublished writings—as well as Shakespearean plotlines seemingly lifted straight from North’s colorful life.
Unlike those who believe someone else secretly wrote Shakespeare, McCarthy’s wholly original conclusion is this: Shakespeare wrote the plays, but he adapted them from source plays written by North decades before. Many of them, he believes, were penned on behalf of North’s patron Robert Dudley, in his efforts to woo Queen Elizabeth. That bold theory addresses many lingering mysteries about the Bard with compelling new evidence, including a newly discovered journal of North’s travels through France and Italy, filled with locations and details appearing in Shakespeare’s plays.
North by Shakespeare alternates between the enigmatic life of Thomas North, the intrigues of the Tudor court, the rivalries of English Renaissance theater, and academic outsider Dennis McCarthy’s attempts to air his provocative ideas in the clubby world of Shakespearean scholarship. Through it all, Blanding employs his keen journalistic eye to craft a captivating drama, upending our understanding of the beloved playwright and his “singular genius.”
Michael Blanding is a Boston-based investigative journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, WIRED, Slate, The Boston Globe, and other publications. He is the author of North by Shakespeare: A Rogue Scholar’s Quest for the Truth Behind the Bard’s Work (2021), and The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps (2014), which was a New York Times-bestseller and an NPR Book of the Year. He has also been a journalism fellow at Brandeis University and Harvard University, and taught writing at Tufts University, Emerson College, and GrubStreet Writers.
The post The Chris Voss Show Podcast – North by Shakespeare: A Rogue Scholar’s Quest for the Truth Behind the Bard’s Work by Michael Blanding appeared first on The Chris Voss Show.
The benefit of the doubt
Rarely talked about, and the heart of marketing and more than that, of culture.
We can’t possibly know precisely what’s inside the book or the box or the bottle before we buy it for the first time. We take meds or go to the movies in anticipation of an outcome, and we give the producer the benefit of the doubt (or we don’t go, because the doubt is too much for us to handle.)
And we do the same thing with people. Who we hire, who we are afraid of, who we marry. We can’t know, not for sure, not until our experience with them is complete.
And we make all of these decisions without a conscious thought.
When we persistently and consistently do it incorrectly, we suffer. We create injustice, we miss out on opportunities, we fall prey to scams. The more we generalize our benefit of the doubt (and worse, the amplification of the doubt) the more damage we do.
The internet has overwhelmed us with data, and some of it (but not much) is actually turned into useful information. Some of that useful information is helping us see how long we’ve been mistaken about the benefit of the doubt in so many of the biases and actions we take (and don’t take).
Examining how we instinctually make these choices is a powerful first step in making better ones.
The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Breaking Ice and Breaking Glass: Leading in Uncharted Waters by Vice Admiral Sandra Stosz Uscg (Ret)
Breaking Ice and Breaking Glass: Leading in Uncharted Waters by Vice Admiral Sandra Stosz Uscg (Ret)
“A prime resource for any leader’s library.”
-James Mattis, General, US Marines (ret), and 26th Secretary of Defense
Today, our nation is like a ship being tossed in tumultuous seas. The winds and waves of change have divided and distanced our society, threatening to wash away the very principles our nation was founded upon. Now more than ever, our nation needs leaders with the moral courage to stand strong and steady-leaders capable of uniting people in support of a shared purpose by building the trust and respect necessary for organizations and their people to thrive.
In Breaking Ice and Breaking Glass, Admiral Sandy Stosz draws upon her forty years of extensive experience and wisdom to provide tools that will help leaders reach their goals and succeed at every level. Character-centered, proven leadership principles emerge from these engaging, personal stories that teach leaders how to find, and then become, an inspiring mentor; implement successful diversity, inclusion, and equity programs; successfully lead in a complex environment; and much more.
Leaders eager to make a difference by helping people and organizations be their best will find Breaking Ice and Breaking Glass: Leading in Uncharted Waters their go-to resource.
About Vice Admiral Sandra Stosz Uscg (Ret)
Admiral Sandy Stosz started out in the US Coast Guard as an ensign serving aboard polar icebreakers, conducting national security missions from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Her forty-year career was filled with leadership lessons gleaned while breaking ice and breaking glass as the first woman to command an icebreaker on the Great Lakes and to lead a US armed forces service academy. Along the way, Sandy served for 12 years at sea, commanding two ships, and led large Coast Guard organizations during times of crisis and complexity. She finished her career as the first woman assigned as Deputy Commandant for Mission Support, directing one of the Coast Guard’s largest enterprises. She has lectured widely on leadership, and has been featured on CSPAN and other media outlets. In 2012, Newsweek’s “The Daily Beast” named Sandy to their list of 150 Women who Shake the World.
The post The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Breaking Ice and Breaking Glass: Leading in Uncharted Waters by Vice Admiral Sandra Stosz Uscg (Ret) appeared first on The Chris Voss Show.
The Chris Voss Show Podcast – It’s All The Same To Me: A Torah Guide To Inner Peace and Love of Life by Moshe Gersht
It’s All The Same To Me: A Torah Guide To Inner Peace and Love of Life by Moshe Gersht
After spending a decade and a half studying the depths of Torah, Kaballah, Chasidus, and Spirituality, Moshe Gersht has gifted us with a new lens on life. With his spiritual guide It’s All The Same To Me, Moshe Gersht inspires readers to discover the freedom and joy of a life lived in the deep connection of “sameness.”
Gersht introduces the powerful kaballistic idea of Hishtavus to explain how getting beyond our ego is not only essential to your happiness, but is also the key to loving the life you experience. Gersht makes the most esoteric concepts seem like an easy read and every page is an enjoyable moment. It’s All The Same To Me has been compared to Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now,” as author of “Mastering Life,” Dov Ber Cohen, says “The next level! The Power of Now meets The Power of Torah. Awesome guide to real inner work and exactly what the world needs right now.”Illuminating, enlightening, and uplifting, Moshe Gersht’s It’s All The Same To Me is a joyful spiritual guide for a better way to live and for building a better world.
The post The Chris Voss Show Podcast – It’s All The Same To Me: A Torah Guide To Inner Peace and Love of Life by Moshe Gersht appeared first on The Chris Voss Show.
What is the Future of LinkedIn Marketing?
Many social media platforms are making changes since they’re becoming a critical channel for marketing efforts given the global pandemic, so it’s no surprise that LinkedIn marketing is already in the works with several changes to compete with other platforms.
Will their changes be worth it and help leverage them into being a top-performing platform that marketers should use in their social media strategies – many signs point to yes, but we’ll let you be the judge.
We will work through how LinkedIn has changed, what we still see happening in this platform that shouldn’t be, learn more about their new marketing features and opportunities, and understand how users interact on LinkedIn and what that means for brands.
Posts on LinkedIn: Then Versus Now
Traditionally, LinkedIn helps its users by acting as a digital-friendly Rolodex. It allows you to connect with others in a professional setting by aligning interests, finding services, knowledge, or experts with great search functions. While this is something we don’t see changing any time soon, we’ve all likely noticed a new trend happening inside LinkedIn.
It’s becoming more social overall – no longer are we constantly seeing whitepapers, case studies, webinar announcements, or other lead generation tactics clogging up our feed.
Alternatively, we see more storytelling, feel-good posts, more friendly reactions, meaningful comments and celebrating victories or milestones with others and it’s not all work-related. We see personal content on this channel now, not just the traditional career stuff.
Have you noticed this trend happening on your feed? Have you seen any difference between your engagement levels when comparing them to business or personal themes?
If so, it may be worth exploring to see if there is a way for you to capitalize on this shift for your brand or business.
What Still Needs to Stop in LinkedIn
We still see this core problem happening with LinkedIn today and it has been a problem since its inception – do not connect with someone then instantly try to sell them on something you offer.
Generating business from this platform is possible, but you need to apply proven methods of LinkedIn marketing to make it work well. If you want to connect with someone, you want to make sure it’s mutually beneficial and customize your introduction as much as possible, so it doesn’t appear you’re simply using a “copy and paste” template.
We’ve all received these kinds of messages before or customized invites to connect with a pitch attached with someone we’ve never met. Be cautious when connecting with others. Ask yourself why you want to connect with someone, how it could help both of you, and be sincere as you start engaging with them to build some rapport before trying to sell anything.
Failure to do this will likely result in a dismissed connection request or removal. Some users are tired of this tactic so much that they’re beginning to report users for spam.
Another note to keep in mind while on LinkedIn is remembering that this platform tries to be professional, so it’s not the best place to try to flirt or connect with someone on a personal level. There are several other platforms devoted to that kind of thing.
If you’re constantly tagging connections that would not benefit from seeing an article you post, stop doing this while you’re ahead. We often see this happening on Instagram (toward well-recognized brands) for users hoping to get noticed for their content, but we’re starting to see this happen on LinkedIn lately.
Therefore, you might potentially miss the opportunity for a connection to see something relevant or would be helpful for them to review and miss your chance for a follow-up conversation. Tag connections meaningful and you won’t have to worry about this.
Bottom line: Don’t immediately try to sell someone something after they accept your connection request, use LinkedIn as a dating app or abuse this tagging tactic.
Say Hello to the New and Improved LinkedIn Marketing Opportunities
LinkedIn marketing has stepped up in many ways – this list speaks for itself. Have you noticed any of these new features already being used? Do any of them seem appealing for you to try out yourself or for your brand?
Not familiar with any of these? No problem – we’re going to talk about each of them!
LinkedIn Stories
Just about every social platform is finding ways to add stories for its user. LinkedIn stories allow you to share content with your community for up to 24 hours (which tends to be the standard timeline for this content to stay active). As the story creator, you will see who viewed your story, which can be helpful if you’re working sales and post something relevant that may lead to a well-timed direct message.
Video Profiles
You’ll be able to take your profile to the next level by leveraging their new cover story option. This function will let users add a video to their profile, which is often indicated by an orange ring around your profile photo along with your video auto-playing silently within your photo frame. We love the way Tomer Cohan describes this new option – a “Harry Potter” effect about the moving photos you see in their movie series.
The real question is, how successful will users be when creating this kind of pitch video? This video could be a weighing factor for recruiters using LinkedIn to find their perfect candidate, swaying them to request the interview or moving on to another candidate. It will also be interesting to see if LinkedIn will move to make these their “new cover letter” in the future for job applicants to further assist recruiters, especially for positions where communication or customer-facing responsibilities are essential to that role.
Social-Audio Capability
Like stories, we see many platforms competing with Clubhouse for live social audio and LinkedIn is up for the task. While they’re still in the early stages of testing, we’re anticipating this feature to roll out quickly and are curious to see how they plan to bring audio into their events and groups.
Product Pages
This new tab on your LinkedIn company page seems like a great addition. If your brand relies on LinkedIn marketing, this is something you will want to check out further. Product pages allow you to add information and establish further credibility by sharing your solution offerings, generating leads, highlighting influencing testimonials, and more.
We really like the product pages because it allows you to select who your product is for based on job titles or industry groups. This feature lets the user self-qualify themselves before taking any further action by asking themselves: Would this product work for my company or me because I fall into this group, or we have this problem?
LinkedIn Events
Online events are becoming popular across platforms but using LinkedIn events is another option for brands to consider. We like that LinkedIn gives you several choices to run the event, ranging from LinkedIn Live or adding a link in from another channel (such as YouTube Live, FB Live, Zoom, or Webex). We think this was a smart move to let users take what they’re familiar with working with into this new offering.
Events will be easy to find as they’ll be able to show up by:
- Finding events with the search toolbar
- Reviewing your “My Network” tab
- Seeing them appear in your feed
- Sending direct invitations
- Automatic reminders – 7 days, 3 days, and 15 minutes – before the event start time/date
Are you interested in learning how to set up a LinkedIn Live event? We highly recommend using this guide!
LinkedIn Creators
LinkedIn is helping its users grow their followers by introducing Creator Mode. One of the most favorable features of this mode is changing your profile action from “connect” to “follow” to help individuals grow their followers. It also allows Creator users to embrace their voice and add hashtags around what content they share or write on the most.
It doesn’t stop there either – as you share original posts as a Creator, your posts will be highlighted for you and others to see.
How People Use LinkedIn
To understand if any new LinkedIn marketing features could work for your audience, you need to determine how people are using LinkedIn. We looked at some Q4 2020 GWI data for the United States from LinkedIn Users to see what actions they’ve taken on the platform recently. The results were fascinating – as most data is – and this is what we learned.
The top five actions taken from LinkedIn users in the past month were:
- Added/accepted new connections
- Looked for jobs
- Commented, liked, or reacted to content (posts or articles)
- Followed a company page
- Watched a video
Based on this, we could see some of the new LinkedIn marketing features fit perfectly into these user actions:
- Continue to network with others where you can mutually help each other and start nurturing that connection.
- When your company needs to hire someone, take advantage of using LinkedIn during your HR efforts and check to see if they have a video profile.
- Continue to share posts and articles – both personally and from a company page.
- Ensure your company page looks great and add in product pages for a chance to capture more qualified leads or send them through a unique marketing funnel.
- Video content is popular across social platforms – find ways to integrate it into your content strategy mix and consider using the new video profile feature (if it makes sense for you or your team).
What This All Means for Brands
If your brand is looking to target consumers or businesses – LinkedIn can help advertise toward both and offer more than 200 targeting characteristics. By understanding the potential of results, you can see and weave their new marketing features into the equation. We’re confident that brands can see optimized results from their marketing and advertising efforts.
Consider these stats from LinkedIn:
- There are 61 million senior-level influencers, along with 65 million decision-makers on LinkedIn, which means those targeting characteristics can help you get in front of the right people.
- An estimated 34% of young millennials (19-25) and 41% of older millennials (26-35) have decision-making responsibilities.
- Brands have seen a 33% increase in purchase intent resulting from LinkedIn ad exposure.
- 82% of B2B marketers had the greatest success with LinkedIn – this is important if your brand primarily focuses on B2B.
- LinkedIn users are 20x more likely to re-share a video post and engage with video ads almost 3x longer than a static ad.
- Brands get 7x more reactions and 24x more comments on LinkedIn live streams than regular video.
We cannot wait to see more results from all the feature changes LinkedIn will be implementing and see potential growth from everything they’re rolling out. By exploring these new options, you may see some lift in your engagement, conversions and more.
Also, we highly recommend checking out the value of LinkedIn’s Insight Tab – this is something you don’t want to miss if you advertise on LinkedIn.
TL; DR
LinkedIn marketing is releasing many new features for users, from adding LinkedIn Stories to Video Profiles. From a user and brand perspective, these new features are worth trying out to see if they can assist you with your marketing or advertising efforts or improve your KPI’s.
The top five actions taken from LinkedIn users from a recent survey indicate opportunities for yourself or your brand to gain more exposure and engagement. While LinkedIn is slowly becoming more social, it’s still aligned with being a professional networking site and should continue to serve as one.
Are you ready to take your brand to the next level on LinkedIn or need help deciding how to target your audience?
Contact us our team of Linkedin marketing experts – we’d love to show you how you can use LinkedIn to accomplish your marketing or sales goals. Not ready to chat yet? No problem! Feel free to subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter, Social You Should Know, so you’ll never miss out on what’s going on in the world of social.
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The post What is the Future of LinkedIn Marketing? appeared first on Ignite Social Media Agency.
An alternative to hustle
No one wants to be hustled. To be pitched and pushed and most of all, pressured into buying something. Hustle culture has been around for a long time, but the internet–and new forms of it in particular–seems to amplify the feeling.
Three elements of hustle stand out for me:
- The reality of what’s on offer can’t match the hype, and so it feels false.
- The pitch can’t succeed on merit, so social pressure is used instead.
- The pitch is made in the wrong place at the wrong time, without earning permission. We wouldn’t miss it if it weren’t there.
The folks at Akimbo (an independent B corp) have been quietly building a series of interactive workshops that help people build value and show up in the marketplace without hustle. By doing good work that you can be proud of.
Here’s what they’ve got coming up:
The flagship altMBA has already helped more than 5,000 people transform their careers and their lives. The Regular Decision Deadline is tomorrow, May 4th for altMBA’s July 2021 session.
Ramon Ray’s The Small Business Workshop starts tomorrow, May 4th, and you can enroll now. It’s back for its third session.
Real Skills, a one-day non-conference is happening on May 14th (tickets available now). No speakers, no Powerpoints, simply small-group interaction designed to change the way you and your team create possibility. This is the fifth session, and many people have done it more than once.
The Creative’s Workshop, session four, starts in a few weeks and enrollment is open now. In this workshop (which led to my book The Practice), you’ll learn to find your voice and ship work you care about. Now in its fourth session, participants have been amazed at how deep and wide this work can go, and how powerful the connections created within cohorts can be.
And bestselling author Bernadette Jiwa is back with the seventh session of the Story Skills Workshop. This is an essential foundation for anyone seeking to be heard, to make a difference and to engage with people to make change happen. Bernadette’s breakthrough approach is proven to be effective. You can check it out today.
When you’re ready to level up, it’s possible to learn to make a bigger impact.