5 Ways You Should Be Using Your Smartphone to Create Fresh Content

Excellent Post Above! I like the image of the speaker stopping to allow live blogging / tweeting. I would go so far as to put up a QR Code which would hold a pithy quote, recommended hashtag,  and a link to your hosted content on that specific topic of your presentation (including call to actions)  for them to link to from their live-blogging event post.

Reclaim Your Time with the 1% : 99% Rule (Part 1 of 3)

Push Back: No Time

English: A Soccer ball. Svenska: En fotboll i vektorgrafik med genomskinlig bakgrund. futebol grego (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Recently I was coaching a new client on how to create new habbits associated with updating their web sites and other digital properties. To my surprise, this brought out a little push back about not having enough time to do some of the things this small business owner was being requested to do.    All I was asking from the client was to put some 30 minute a day items on his Google calendar to remind him to do certain things each day.

So this got me to thinking about how to create more time in our day.  As I was studying this problem, one of my old coaching sayings popped in my head.  I would explain to the  soccer players I coached, the game is “1% Ball – 99% Everything Else”.  When we first start out learning we tend to focus on the ball, not the “99% everything else” we should be.   The 1% is important, but if that’s all we focus on, then we miss all the rest.

Give me a few moments to explain how this works in business as I use this sports analogy.

Sports Analogy: Youth Soccer

I suggest if you want more time, you need to work on your fundamentals until they take up less time thus freeing up new time to do the more valuable things.  Let me explain how.

When we are training youth to play soccer we focus on the basics: trapping, passing, and dribbling.  These skills are not the most productive, but rather, because we need these to feel natural, almost second nature.  What we want to focus on are the advanced topics: Space, Positioning, Movement, Awareness, Placement, Possession, Finishing, and Defending.  In any given practice session, the more time we must spend on the basics, the less time we have to spend on the advanced, dare I say, more productive skills.

We can easily spot players who have mastered their fundamentals.  “Head-on-a Swivel” is a term coaches use when selecting new youth teams each season.  If we see a person who has their head up and focusing on the 99% of the game, we know they’ve mastered the 1% (at their level of play).

So we train on the fundamentals until they become so natural that we spend less and less time on them and more on the advanced topics I listed above.  Each season we expect growth in the advanced areas, and it is very noticeable when a player still challenged with the fundamentals is placed in a game with those that have mastered it.

Master your fundamentals.  This is what I am recommending you do in your business and private life!

Business Example: Calendar Management

Again, I suggest if you want more time, you need to work on your fundamentals until they take up less time thus freeing up new time to do the more valuable things.  Since I’m talking about time, let me explain buy using a time management tool you should be using, your calendar.

Let’s just imaging a person who spends 75% of their work hours making sure that the remaining 25% of their work hours are fine tuned to perfection.  I know this is hyperbole.  No sane person would do this.   But it brings up a valuable point.  The more time we spend on administrative tasks the less time we spend on value added tasks.

In this example,  if we can improve the administrative process and thus cut the 75% time spent in half, we gain 100% of productive time back.   Let’s say this person takes 30 minutes to figure out the best way to deal with a 30 minute meeting request, we would then focus on setting up a system that allows new meeting requests to flow more naturally and not take up as much administrative time to set and approve.

In the up-coming posts, we will break this down further for you.

More to Come

Part 2 – Technology Tools

In part two we talk  about technology and how it can be used to create new time in your schedule.  To drop a few names: IFTTT, DropBox, EverNote, G+ Hang-outs.

Part 3 – Action Items

In part three we talk about action items for you.  These will be broken down into two parts:

1. Short Term Assignments
2. Routines and Goals

Leave some comments and tell me what you think.

Related articles

• How to Let Go of ‘Shiny Object Syndrome’ in Content Marketing: Conversation with Melissa Harrison (contentmarketinginstitute.com)
• Time management tips that’ll work for your life (penelopetrunk.com)
• Boost Your Time Management Skills with These 9 Techniques (lifehack.org)

Google+ Local: Taking over Places?

Mobile + Social Saturation

Here are some key things to remember when thinking about this topic.  The saturation level for smart phones is on the rise is all areas of the world.  In many parts of the word, people own more smart phones then PC’s in their households.  Phone books are becoming museum pieces (and catalogs are not far to follow).  I believe there is a big push in the industry to move consumers to tablet computing, making the desktop and laptop less dominant is the purchasing process.  Now with all that said, let’s look at the new shifts that are right in front of us.

Leverage Equals Change

Companies are working hard to get their data in the hands of mobile users.  Google consolidation or leveraging of applications and data into the Google+ platform is no different.  Right now Google+ is also providing mobile apps to access this information.  In my opinion, Google+ has been doing a better job then Facebook in this area.  It is yet to be seen if this latest change can be classified as an improvement, but Google’s actions are consistent with their past performance in removing older apps in place of newer ones.  For instance, we are seeing similar work being done to fold the Orkut users (still a large user base in Latin American countries)  into the Google+ platform so another app could be retired.

Lessons Learned

So what can we learn from this turmoil and churn in the social media and mobile space?  Below I have some thoughts for you to consider.  They all focus on the fact that life cycle of applications and the data of those applications are extremely volatile and need to treated as such.

Stay Flexible

Let’s face the facts, we are not talking about Yellow Page ads were we talk to a sales rep once a year and then mark in our calendars to review the purchase plan 11 months out.  We have to take a Guerrilla Marketing approach to this area of our marketing plans.  Be willing to invest in something, and leave it alone and move on if the situation changes.  Never holding on to something more then is absolutely necessarily.  Always attacking the mind of the consumer where ever it is found, and when gone, move on.  There is a reason why we are talking about Facebook and Google+ right now, and not MySpace, AOL, or Prodigy.

Be Vigilant

Stay on top of the trends.  Notice where your battle field (the mind of the consumer) is.  If the consumer moves to a new area, be aware of the change.  Stay on top of your stats.  If you start seeing a drop, find out why.  Never stop reading about what is happening in the mobile space.  Pay attention to the mobile app scene.  If this seems to much, then hire someone to do it for you.  Find an agency that will keep you in the right place so you can keep attacking the mind of the consumer.

Act Quickly

Back to the Guerrilla Marketing theme,  move into the space quickly.  Move out just as quickly.  Take over the areas you can master as fast as you can so you reap the rewards of being first, when the benefits begin to lose to the increasing costs, evaluate your position and consider making changes quickly.  Are you sensing the quick theme here.

The enemy advances, we retreat.  The enemy camps, we harass.  The enemy tires, we attack.  The enemy retreats, we pursue. – Mao Tse-Tung

Wrap Up

So for right now, you should be using both Google Places and Google+ Local (i.e. Pages) to drive people to your business or service.  Google is using both in search engine results, and I have evidence they are giving preferential scoring to them.

Would love to read your thoughts on this.  Please leave a comment.

Related articles

• How Smart Phones Are Turning Our Public Places Into Private Ones (theatlanticcities.com)
• Google Places Gets Plussed Company debuts Google+ Local (rant4u.com)
• Google+ Local Launched (stateofsearch.com)
• Goodbye Google Places, Hello Google+ Local (socialtimes.com)
• Google+ Local Replaces Google Places (seroundtable.com)
• Google Places Is Over, Company Makes Google+ The Center Of Gravity For Local Search (searchengineland.com)
• RIP Google Places – Google+ Integrates Zagat (socialmediatoday.com)