by Dwayne Kilbourne on August 31, 2010
Let me tell you a quick personal story! I want to take you back to when I was halfway through the eighth grade at Carter Middle School in Clio, Michigan. Some of the students in my grade decided to participate in the trip to Washington, D.C. The bus to the airport was going to leave around 6 or so in the morning, so I had my mother drop me off. Unfortunately, the school had two parking lots, and it appeared that the bus was a bit late or something. Of course, we did not want to miss the bus and hence miss out on the cool trip, so a few of us who arrived early were a bit confused about which parking lot we were suppose to meet up and depart from. After a little bit of driving back and forth between the two parking lots, my mother and I decided to roll the window down and chat with the father of one of my dear friends. What he said next was unexpected and a little funny but has stuck with me ever since. He said, “Organization is the Key to Success!” Basically, the trip departure plans should be been a bit more organized and communicated; luckily, nobody missed the bus, but it brought up a great point about staying organized.
In today’s world, we have so many things that we either want to do or have to do, and we usually have less time to accomplish those tasks within. As a result, we need to prioritize and organize to be as efficient and effective in these endeavors as possible. Luckily, we have advancing technologies that provide us new tools that will help us to achieve all of these, but technology isn’t a simple fix, for we need to try our best to take the lessons from the pre-Internet and pre-Technology Era and apply them to today’s advanced days. One of the biggest and most popular online tools that we use on a daily basis is the social media network.
Take Facebook, the biggest social media network out there today with over 500 million users, as a great example. Many of us follow so many people on there – some from high school, some from our workplace, some from our family, and so on! What that means is that you have various information coming your way, and that can lead to an information overload if you are not careful. I found that to be the case after using Facebook (and other popular social media networks like Twitter) for a little while. So, what can you do to optimize the experience and make your online interactions more productive and efficient? Simple – organize the information to fit your needs. On Facebook, I found this to be easiest by creating friend lists. This allows me to view content posted by a specific friend group / list (ie. friends, family, authors, those within my inner circle, clients, colleagues, military contact from the past and present, etc.), helping me to locate just what I need without wasting too much time looking through the entire newsfeed. Also, this feature permits me to target my posts and messages to a specific group of my friends. I know of some people that want to hear all about my workouts and fitness goals (and knowledge), but others might find that overwhelming and uninteresting! So, the organization helps everyone involved, and more gets done. I do the same think over with my Twitter profile. I build lists and use those to communicate with various groups of individuals, companies, organizations, and brands. I must say that I prefer how Facebook allows me to create more lists as Twitter appears to have capped me and all users at 20 lists, something that I hope that they fix in the near future!
All in all, staying organized online will help you achieve so much more! It just takes a few extra minutes at the beginning to get things organized, and then your time online and interactions with others become so much better, much more productive, and highly efficient! So, if you have not started yet, get organized, for it is the key to success!
by Dwayne Kilbourne on August 16, 2010
In the business world, we all strive to be number one. For many, being number two is simply a reminder that the organization is the first loser. Being number two in the industry can still be quite profitable; I am sure that Apple is doing just fine in their effort to popularize their operating system, but we all know that Microsoft’s Windows Operating System is number one by quite the margin. On the flip side, Microsoft Zune is second behind the iPod from Apple, and they seem to be able to turn a profit here and there too. However, others, like Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, feel that being the very best within the industry is the only way to go. Welch is noted for this line of thinking and is famous for selling off all of the brands and companies that either were not at the top or simply could never reasonably achieve the title of industry leader. It should be noted that such a distinction is actually quite important in my book. Being the number two company in the industry is not terrible if it knows that it can reasonably achieve the top spot in a reasonable amount of time, assuming that it puts forth adequate effort. Unfortunately, some companies simply waste money and time on unrealistic goals, and, as a result, they overlook other great opportunities; these opportunities come in various forms and formats, but many times the opportunities pave the way for becoming the industry leader in something new and exciting, taking the lead and blowing away the competition. So, essentially, second place does suck, and we should typically strive to be much better than that! Luckily, technology allows smaller companies and organizations to compete with those that frequent the various Forbes lists. There are niche markets that are ready to be conquered, and those opportunities await those willing to seek them out and step up!
by Dwayne Kilbourne on July 29, 2010
I have to admit that I really enjoy using the industry-leading geolocation social service, Foursquare. It gives me a lot of options that I really think adds value to the user experience. Furthermore, it provides opportunities to businesses to better engage their customer base and potentially reach new customers along the way. While all this is great, I must say that I feel that the experience is lacking a little bit. Sure, Foursquare is still a relatively new startup tech company and will surely add new features as it builds and grows, but I am hoping that it soon adds the following three features:
Improved Notification
I really like knowing that my friends have arrived or are nearby, and it appears that this feature is not really available at the present time. Since smartphones are able to check email, a simple email notification would suffice. I am just surprised that the only notification that I tend to get is the one that informs me of a new friend request, a new friend accepting my request, or that someone has unfortunately ousted me from a specific venue. I feel that Foursquare needs to give the user more options!
Who’s in Second Place?
It would be nice to know if you are, say, in second place or if someone is rapidly gaining on you. Now, I know this might not be a required feature, and many users might find it to be overkill, but it would come in handy for me and many of the loyal Foursquare users that I know. Maybe, we should give them a title as well – surely, there is a position that would fit the mayoral theme. If the company wants to push the game aspect of everything more, it can send a notification to the mayor that someone is closing in on ousting him or her or send a notification to the second place person to let them know that they are closing in on the takeover. Competition, friendly or not, could certainly drive more visits to the various popular venues and take Foursquare participation to a new level. The possibilities are certainly there!
Direct Shouts
Sometimes, I don’t want to shout too loudly that the entire world can hear me, so can we find a way to simply whisper to one or two people? Maybe, it would be great to be able to somehow make lists similar to Twitter yet have the option to message or update people via shouts to a specific group of people or those on a specific friend list like you can on Facebook! Look, I just like to stay organized. With the list functionality, I could be more organized. In the future, you could even decide to take listing and organizing to the next step by limiting which friends are seeing a specific checkin.
In short, Geolocation technology is changing how we live and interact with each other using technology, and the future looks bright! As with every newer technology, there will always be glitches and challenges, especially at the beginning of the process. Also, there will be great new opportunities to improve those technology services as time progresses, and now is that time! I am anxious for these three missing features; what geolocation features are you looking forward to?
by Dwayne Kilbourne on June 25, 2010
All of us have decisions that we make on a minute-by-minute basis. Some of these decisions are much larger in scope and influence than others. Some affect just you, your family, or your company while other decisions reach a much broader level of influence, affecting many more lives. With every decision comes a reaction – the basic cause-and-effect scenario that we all learned about early on in our lives. Sometimes, we make great decisions, and yet there are other times wherein, in hindsight, our decisions were blurred and found to be incorrect. Either way, if we are to be a true leader, we must hold ourselves accountable for the decisions that we make. We cannot scapegoat others when our feet are rightfully placed to the fire.
A true leader accepts the responsibility for his or her individual actions and decisions, no matter if those actions and decisions were good or bad. If the decisions were great, it is okay to accept a quick pat on the back. If the decisions were terrible, it is time to accept the responsibility for those decisions and quickly find a way to work to resolve the situation as best as possible. And then, a great leader will take heed of this experience and learn from the mistaken decision in an effort to ensure that it never happens again.
We all can easily turn on the television and watch the news or simply find breaking news articles and blogs online that all point to a debatable circumstance that is currently happening wherein the people or companies are not being accountable for their own actions. Examples are plentiful, including a few of my current favorites. Many people were angry at Tiger Woods and his lack of initial accountability when dealing with his numerous cases of infidelity. More recently, there is ever-growing outrage over the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Of course, political candidates and officials tend to find scapegoats along the way too.
Personally, I cannot see any way around holding yourself accountable for your own actions if you want to be the best leader possible. If you do not hold yourself responsible and accountable for what you do or decide, how can you then hold others accountable for what they do or say?
