Love is all around #bizluv

The opening lines voiced by Hugh Grant who plays the British Prime Minister in the 2003 movie (love Actually) says:

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinions starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion… love actually is all around.”

Love, affirmation and caring for one another is probably the largest foundations of whom we are as humans and how it affects our culture. Yes hopefully more than hate or revenge.

Is affirmation not one of the underlying factors of what makes Facebook and Twitter so successful? Please see the post: Am I in your Tribe? Doesn’t #FollowFriday on Twitter and ReTweet’s confirm that we all appreciate a little attention when we can get it?

But nothing quiet says I love you to a business, more than a positive customer review. The time when someone takes those few moments to contact you or even better the world about how great the service was, or the food, or in general the whole experience. Reviews and word of mouth referrals, the thing that every business needs to market themselves more than any other form of promotion. Sadly it seems that often we have to even ask for testimonials to add to our website or proposals.

In a later scene of the movie the Prime Minister reads the following words on a Christmas card (it’s even ‘Canadianized’ with the eh on the end): ‘if you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you, eh? -. ‘I’m actually yours. With love, your Natalie.’

I wanted to write this short post to encourage people to take a few moments and post here, or tweet out, or write on a Facebook fanpage what great experience they have had at a business this year. #bizluv

Or even share their love for another person in their life and how much they mean to them.

Because:

‘if you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you, eh?

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It’s Great… But (part II)

These comments come courtesy of someone that says of them self: I am an International citizen, yet grassrooted in local traditions. One appreciation of the ever complex and tumultous intertwinings of living earth yet one peaceful serenity within. Worldly free spirited nomad, yet staunched homebody.

I am much hourned to simply call her a friend.
You can show your appreciation and follow Happysoul click here

This post is is a much more Insightful blog (part II) than the original post on positive versus negative communications delivery, and here comes the dreaded …BUT:

From my perspective, I see 2 separate areas of discussions eventhough both viewpoints are related within the context of this fine blog: (1) Title of the blog : “It was great ..But!” and (2) Online persona vs real life persona

(1)   Title of the blog: “It was great ..But!”

I agree with you that although the communication was initiated by a positive statement, this is bluntly a negative statement. I would equate it to a delivery of fine roses actually laced with arsenic. Okay may not be so poisonous but I hope the readers get my point. A negative statement disguised as a positive statement.

I do not adhere to the opinion that this type of comment is caused by a possible indecisiveness. I believe it goes deeper than that. In my humble opinion and only qualifying from my observations and experiences, I sincerely think it relates to human conditioning based on our personal background and conditioning – nature and nurture – with the main operative word to focus on the word “conditioning”.

Based on studies made (by Jack Canfield, self-esteem expert) that it takes 5 positive statements to counter 1 negative statement. An average child hears 432 negative statements per day but only 32 positive statements per day. Research shows further that 80% of people are hurt by words and only about 20% of children and adults are able to handle put-downs without emotional pain or psychological damage (data from California Task Force for Personal and Social Responsibility).

As a result, in my humble opinion, we are “conditioned” since childhood to communicate as much as possible with some polite “semblance” of “positive” delivery when communicating.

Ironically, even with our years of conditioning, our inbuilt human alarms allow us to pick up this negative comment through body language and non verbal cues. And contrary to what societal conditioning originally intended, one automatically reacts, consciously or subconsciously, by immediately raising our guard and being on the defensive, waiting for the predictable BUT followed by the critical negative statements afterwards.

So how do we counter measure this negative statement and find a mutually beneficial way for positive communication flow? From my experience, I suggest to paraphrase a persons or client’s statement back to him/her via a positive reply through the exchange of words of “BUT”, “HOWEVER” or “YET” with the words “AND” & “WITH”.

For example, the following statement is a negative comment if this was said by a client, “I think your presentation was great, BUT I don’t like the look of this logo.”

Replacing the word “but” with “and” changes the whole tone of the sentence.  Then paraphrase the sentence back to a client in this manner “To reconfirm for my own understanding, the presentation design is great so far “AND” you’d like me to review the logo further to your requirements?”

Hopefully it will have a domino effect and people will, subconsciously or consciously, reciprocate in a positive manner too. If not, at the very least, with practice and time, you will have reconditioned your own communication delivery and reciprocations to negative statements which in itself represents a major competitive advantage for you in the art of successful communication over your professional peers.

(2)   Online persona vs real life persona

This is very easy and short for me to answer. In trying hard not to judge other people for whatever reasons they come online and how they choose to behave online, I think the answer to your question varies very much on an individual case by case basis, by the person giving the opinion and the person being observed on his/her online persona.

As for my own stance, I say and behave online very similarly to how I express myself and act offline. I have no issue to speak out on my opinions offline or online, however potentially controversial it may be. I’ve been lucky to learn over a period of time through my own personal and professional growth how to convey feedback in a more positive light using very little or no negative statements.

In that vain, it is only natural that I will gravitate and find people online who I intuitively observe and eventually hope to be similar offline in their behaviours, mannerisms, ability to voice their opinions and receive feedback.

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It was great… But!

I had stayed up late and worked to get my self ahead. Today was going to go well; for once I started the day knowing what I had to get done.

So at three o’clock I receive a phone call from a client who tells me they have just got off the phone with one of the Major sponsors of an upcoming event we had be working on. The call was to inform him they were very pleased with everything…and it’s at this point you are already waiting for that one little word to finish that sentence. And of course that word is but. Why do so many sentences have to finish with the word but. This little but now put me a day and a half behind.

Which lead me to tweet on out the following:

Why do so many things have… but at the end of the sentence?

I was surprised at the sudden return of responses. Obviously it touched a chord. One of the responses back from a friend stated, perhaps it’s because people can avoid being decisive.

I thought about that and it reminded me when I used teach as a flight instructor. We were always taught to be very decisive with the actions of the aircraft, as it had to be controlled firmly. But as a teacher to a student you had to do the opposite. You had to build a student up first. Telling them what they did well first then slowly easing into telling them what they did wrong. Which is pretty much the same thing blah blah blah…. but you nearly killed us.

It’s interesting as grown-up people that we still find it difficult to deliver the news in a direct way. We know we are safer delivering a sentence in its ‘politically correct form’ ie… Honey you look great in that outfit, but perhaps you may want to consider something else. Or well, technically it fits-but (warning contains some sort of nudity)

Or as I found out today; that design is great we love it, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to do it all over again. They also tend to subhead: we will leave it up to you (but we really want this)

Things however can hopefully be bit different when you’re online sitting behind a monitor. I believe a few of us become a little braver about who we are and what we can say. We may not be so social in real life, but perhaps we have found a new voice. We have the confidence to make comments on posts. We have the ability to speak our mind, and we can do it with out the soft approach followed by but.

Social networking is a place where people want to get to know the real you, the one that is not hiding behind the brand of a company logo. Ironically people are wiling to share their thoughts in an open platform with people, because they feel they are safer hiding behind a screen and are somewhat sheltered from their normal world of buts.

So have you found a new you online? Are you able to communicate better on Facebook and Twitter? Do you dread those little buts that show themselves at the end of conversation and sentences in real life?

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Am I in your Tribe?

This is an excerpt from a friend on my Facebook stream.

WHY are there so many stupid fan pages on Facebook? Become a fan of “picking your nose with an unprotected finger then wiping your boogers on the Kleenex”. Become a fan of “sometimes I cry in the shower”. Become a fan of “fear of not being a fan of enough Fanpages on Facebook”. I don’t care for this!

I smiled and pondered this for a while.

It’s funny, because I think like a lot of things these days perhaps we have become complacent to so much. Becoming a Fan on Facebook is simply a click of a button. Adding a new friend to your Twitter takes place in less than a second. We want things to be instant; we do not want to have to wait.

The things that come to those who wait will be the scraggly junk left by those who got there first (via @todayslaugh)

But have we become numb in our culture to what perhaps some of our actions are, and what maybe they mean? Do we know what we are becoming a part of? Do we click on a fan page, or add a new friend to our Twitter account and don’t even think about it? Choosing a friend used to be a big-ticket item. Saying that you are a fan of something could that mean you may have to defend what it stands for at some point.

I can remember back when I was a kid I was an avid reader of the comic book the Beano. And you could become a member of the Dennis the Menace and Gnasher (his dog) fan club…what an honour to be part of the ‘in crowd’. So at the ripe old age of eight I cut out the coupons from the comic book wrote my details in my atrocious handwriting, stuck it in an envelope, went down to the post office and paid for a stamp out of my pocket money and waited. And waited… and waited for what seemed like an eternity. It was probably around about three weeks. And then it arrived, the excitement of finally becoming a true member of the Dennis the Menace fan club. It had a badge that I can proudly display on my chest to say that I was a true fan. It also came with secret pass codes for what I can’t remember. And also the o’ so import membership card that I could place in my non-existent wallet, which I could have pulled out and proudly displayed at any time as proof to all my friends that yes I was a fan I was part of a club.

Currently due too social media strategies I am again part of a Group MOvember. A strange collection of mustache growing guys(BRO’s ) and their girls worldwide who are participating in raising money for awareness for prostate cancer. I changed my avatar on my face book and Twitter page so that I can proudly display I am part of this group I am a fan.  But people let me tell you all this stuff is work, I had to grow mustache, and for a guy like me this is an effort. But for the first time in a long while I am proud to say I am part of a club I am a fan and hopefully an effort is going to raise money for a great cause.

Seth Godin’s book Tribes touched the subject of belonging and what it means to our culture, and how the Internet is changing the way we interact with people.

Now the Internet has eliminated the barriers of geography, cost, and time. All those blogs and social networking sites are helping existing tribes get bigger and enabling new tribes to be born-groups of 10 or 10 million who care about their iPhones, or a political campaign, or a new way to fight global warming.

So what group or organization do you belong to? What fan pages are on your Facebook? Are you a big Sports fan, Celebrity fan or Music fan? Can you stand in front of a crowd and be proud of your Cultural Tribe. Do you read a profile before you add a new friend? Or do you just click cause well your friend sent you a link?

We would love to hear your comments no matter how short or long.

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Volunteering what’s been your experience?

I could not sleep tonight after playing indoor soccer this evening late. It’s 3:30 in the morning but so glad I am up. I just read this tweet through my Twitter Feed: Took my ‘Little’ to public skating tonight. So fun! If you have ever considered Big Brothers/Big Sisters, DO IT! (via @MicaKnibbs) or Web: http://micaknibbs.wordpress.com.

I was lucky enough to be heavily involved with the original BigHero campaign for Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Okanagan

It was an overwhelming success, with some incredible social media and guerilla tactics that paid off big-time for the organization.

At the three month period (February – MAy 2008), BBBSO had screened and accepted four volunteers, and was in the process of screening another 52. Inquiries in general were up 152% over the previous year’ three month period. Of those inquires, 37% were from the North and South Okanagan, areas which had zero inquires in the previous year. At a six month mark (February – September 2008), 303 inquires had been made, 44 matches had been established and 39 accepted volunteers were waiting to be matched.

Some older media coverage on the campaign

http://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/37376/Big-Okanagan-heroes-wanted
http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/stories_local.php?id=90803

I ReTweeted the comment from @MicaKnibb who’s reply was “@scottpdavis Thanks for the RT on Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Many kids need role models, and honestly, I get as much out of it as he does!”

I think that comment is so important. These days we are all so busy in our lives the idea of volunteering for anything just seems crazy. The facts are that it is getting harder and harder to find people to volunteer. Volunteer or non-for profit organizations are struggling. And as people who use their services or clubs it is so easy to forget that these organizations are not like a normal business or store but about the hard work of people just like you and me who keep them running.

So I suppose the message behind  this short post is, wouldn’t it be great if everyone volunteered just 1 hour a week to something. And as the Big Brothers and Big Sisters campaign tried to point out you don’t have to be anything special, but when you do you become very special and a Big Hero. And think perhaps you will find that acctually just as Mica Knibbs mentioned.

‘Honestly, I get as much out of it as the kid I help’

Do you volunteer for any organizations? please tell us about them, what you do, what is your experience.

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