Whenever I attend a presentation where the presenter uses PowerPoint, I cringe and my brain goes to sleep. . . for about an hour or however long the presentation takes.
I then look forward to the Q&A section, providing the presenter has planned it in, because believe it or not some don’t even bother and believe that their mission is just to give their message and that’s it!
Because it’s during the Q&A section that I get engaged and my brain wakes up. Up until that moment I have to listen to the presenter, who is of course very passionate about their subject matter but only has their own interest at heart. I am just a ‘listening victim’.
But we also know unless you get your audience involved, they will forget 50% of the presentation within 1 hour and 80% within a month. Research by Ebbinghaus [hyperlink to wikipedia] back in the [insert date] proved that point. In fact I reckon we forget 80% within 48 hours, unless we get engaged with it again in that period of time. OK maybe a bit harsh, we may remember the general gist of it but very little of the details. And forget about reading the PowerPoint afterwards, as very rarely people do.
We all know the saying ‘Death by PowerPoint’, so why do we still do it? There is no better solution I hear you cry!
Yes there is and it’s called you and your ability to engage your audience.
I am on a mission to move presenters towards a ‘Social Presentation’.
3 very simple steps to become a ‘Social Presenter’
Create a short video maximum 3 minutes, to get your point across and what you wish your audience to think about. Play that video at the start of your talk. In fact it is your only presentation. Yes that’s it, nothing else to present!
Ask your audience to ask questions or make observations on the video and engage with you. This is your opportunity to shine, don’t hide behind your PowerPoint presentation. Your job is to get your audience to remember you and your subject matter, by discussing it with them.
Ask your audience also to talk to each other and share stories, experiences and what the subject that is being presented means to them personally. This allows them to engage even further with your subject and now they are living it in a personal way. Makes sense right?
Here are a few examples of different Video presentations that have been created to facilitate ‘Social Learning’.
The first one is by iBDM, who are taking their first step into video. Please read their blog on the same subject matter via http://www.i-bdm.co.uk/category/blog/
Often sales people have to present a pitch to prospects and equally often they all have different styles, some good some bad, some have success and others don’t.
It doesn’t mean they are poor sales people, they are just not good at doing a memorable pitch. Having a video to play as part of your pitch, allows the client to grasp your proposal in a few minutes and now you can spend the rest of the meeting understanding the client’s needs and requirements, instead of taking up the whole meeting presenting and being left with just a few minutes at the end trying to scramble to get some information out of them and then leaving demotivated and wondering why you didn’t get the business.
So whether it’s a presentation to a large audience or a sales pitch one on one, ditch the PowerPoint and move towards Video.
You know it makes sense, so have a go and witness the results.
I discovered the benefits of juicing back in 2004, when I attended Anthony Robbins Health Mastery event in Vieques, which is off the coast of Puerto Rico, it changed my life completely and I started juicing as soon as I got back home. This is 8 years ago. Following that I lost 44 pounds and I felt amazing.
My weight has been an issue for me since I was 7 years old. My eldest brother Steven used to make fun of me and told me I looked like a ‘Biafran’. These were the kids in Nigeria that were dying from famine in the mid 1960′s, during the Nigerian Civil War and we saw photographs regularly on TV and in the press of starving children with huge distended stomachs from protein deficiency, which horrified people around the world.
Here’s a photo of me when I was that younger skinny child! I thought I looked healthy, what do you think?
Now, I am not blaming my brother, because I am the only one responsible for my decisions and what followed was, what I can now regard, as an ‘eating disorder’ and my addiction with sugar.
I slowly gathered extra kilos and didn’t feel good about this, which made me eat more sugary sweets, to compensate for the feeling I had recognising that I was getting heavier and heavier (The Dutch are masters in liquorice and sweets and my Grandfather worked for the Dutch Sugar Company too!).
My Mum told me it was just ‘Puppy-Fat’ and that I shouldn’t worry so much. I believed her although deep inside of me I realised that it wasn’t going away.
Cut a long story short, I have struggled with my weight for decades and when I finally shifted the weight in 2004, I vowed that it would never ever happen again, but of course it did…
When I shared with people that I didn’t ‘do sugar’ any longer and that I never wanted chocolate again, they told me not to be so silly and convinced me that I was taking too hard a stance with sugar and should relax a bit. So I did and that was a mistake!
You never tell an alcoholic that they should relax it a bit when they have stopped drinking, in fact we call them a recovering alcoholic and that’s what they become for the rest of their lives. Well it’s no different with sugar. In fact the issues that alcohol cause in the body, are virtually identical with sugar, see the image below.
Sugar (in the form of chocolate and sugary foods) entered my diet again and it slowly increased week on week, month on month, year on year. And in the past 3 years I have ensured I had my fair share of sugary foods on daily and regular basis. Besides that most ‘label foods’ have added sugar to make you want to eat them even more!
I even stopped juicing, which had become part of my lifestyle for years and I was getting major regrets, which made it even worse.
And what’s even more ridiculous, I studied this stuff. I am a trained Kinesiologist and I should know better! I also trained to be an exercise trainer in Psychocalisthenics, but gave it up, because I felt a fraud teaching people to exercise, when I was overweight myself.
So I started a new journey back in September 2011 to increase the amount of exercise and upped my cycling regime and I had great success, because I steadily increased my routes and kept adding mileage every week, accumulating 260 miles in a month and even more in October 2011.
But I hadn’t changed my diet, so although I was getting fitter and my average heart rate was dropping, the weight wasn’t shifting.
So the winter was upon us, my cycling slowed down, because of the weather and the food still hadn’t changed. I did ‘try’ a couple of times to cut out sugary foods, but found it tough with two stepsons, who love sugary food and it’s in the house. OK so I could have been disciplined and stop myself from eating it, but I just couldn’t resist. Sugar has been an issue for me for over 45 years and the sugar terrorist within me demanded it!
Come January when everyone goes on a detox, weight loss and exercise regime of some kind, I did manage to get back on the bike again and managed 156 miles in the month. Not bad going I thought. But the weight was still there!
I receive emails from Jason Vale ‘The Juicemaster’ and I saw that he was organising a worldwide juicefast in January. I didn’t join it then and was disappointed that I hadn’t. I know juicing works, because I have done it before in 2004/5. When I lost a massive 44 pounds, had a 32″ waist, which I can’t remember ever having in my adult life! So why didn’t I join in??
So I continued doing nothing about it. No, it wasn’t working, so when Jason Vale sent another email in April suggesting another worldwide event, this time it was called ’14-day spring clean’, I decided to join it.
I started on the 16th April and within a week lost 6.5 pounds, which I am delighted about. The most brilliant thing of juicing and following Jason’s routine is that it stops all the cravings for sugary foods. Once you cut them out for 7 days (and as Jason says, we can all do something for 7 days), you just don’t want them anymore. I can truly say that although the snacks, chocolate, donuts, crisps are everywhere around the kitchen for me to see, I just don’t fancy them now and in fact, I know that I won’t be going back there either, which is the best thing.
Furthermore the fact that this is a 14-day plan, means you are staying off these foods for even longer, reducing the cravings further, literally re-wiring your brain to say, I don’t need those any longer in my life.
Here’s my testimonial video for the 14-day spring clean.
I did it with alcohol back in 2004 and also with meat and I have never needed them again.
Now they say after 30 days whatever it is that you are doing, you will form a habit. So my decision was to continue on Jason Vale’s ‘Juice Yourself Slim’ plan for an extra 16 days, which consists of juices during the day and soup in the evening.
I love the juices and soup has always been a favourite of mine, so I can’t see that I will have an issue with it, in fact to be more positive, I will be very successful in doing it.
Of course I will be flexible, as I know I will have some business meetings to attend, which may include lunch, in which case I will just ensure I eat a salad or rice and vegetables. It’s not rocket science is it, I just need to be sensible.
After an extra week after the 14-day plan, I was still on target, the weight loss continued and the soups were getting more varied and tastier. I have even begun making my own soup recipes. Making fresh soups is so delicious and healthy too. Jason talks about ‘no label’ foods and it makes so much sense.
I even found that I have more energy with my cycling, well I suppose you would have when you are roughly a stone lighter. I set myself a target to lose 10kgs or 22 pounds by the end of June. And I am already 60% there after just 3 weeks in early May, so I guess I need to revise my target to the end of May! At time of writing this, I have lost so far 16 pounds in just 3 weeks. It really is amazing what you can achieve when your mind has decided to change forever!
Weight reduction chart in kgs.
Whilst doing this I also found some great videos to motivate me.
There is one by Robert Lustig, it’s over and hour long but well worth it. Then the University of California also released a short series of videos by Robert Lustig. So I am sharing both of these with you here.
Some fascinating new research on the effects of sugar on the brain and how in the past 30 years we have managed to switch off the hormone leptin, which tells the brain that we are full. This phenomena has been caused by the amount of insulin that gets secreted when we over eat sugar. But watch the videos and that will explain all.
My clothes are getting looser on me and I can already visualise the fact that I will be wearing those smaller clothes which are in storage. Thankfully I held on to them knowing that one day again I would fit in them again. And I know I will very soon.
Jason talks about ‘Freedom from the Diet Trap’ and he’s absolutely right. I know in myself that I haven’t been free for years and that now I know that I am free.
Watch Jason’s video here;
It’s taken me decades to get to this point and then again I am a classical case of going through the 6 stages of change, where I managed to change back in 2004, but relapsed and went back to the start of the 6 stages of change and my sugar addiction. This has been well researched and below is the link to the article to give you more insight about it.
Note: as with all these things, there are some criticisms on this, but you have to see if it makes sense and relates to you and certainly it relates to me perfectly.
I am pleased to say that I feel and know in myself that I have reached the final stage, which is described as;
‘Individuals have zero temptation and they are sure they will not return to their old unhealthy habit as a way of coping’.
If you want to learn more on how to do this, please go to www.juicemaster.com and join the thousands of us that have become free from the ‘diet trap’!
The term ‘Social Learning’ in current days, doesn’t mean the same as it did when Bandura
did his experiments in the 60′s. It encompasses a theory that individuals enjoy learning in a social context, when our learning is discussed and debated.
Albert Bandura
After all ‘everyone has an opinion’, and this means that we actually learn more about a topic, news story, event, training intervention, when we can reflect on it and interact with it.
Learning & Development (or training) at school and at work has and will continue to be the holy grail for all education professionals. We’re always looking for better ways to engage students and drive a change in human behaviour.
Trouble is millions of $’s & £’s are spent every year to achieve these objectives. And it’s so painful to see when the results don’t match the spend.
Think about it. The world is at War somewhere in the world and always has been. Consider the economic conditions in most countries currently. If education, training and development works, we would not be in this state of flux. But really think about it. We as humans haven’t evolved as much as we like to think. Our nature is closer to animal instinct then we give ourselves credit for.
Human Development?
If we are truly sophisticated and used more of our frontal lobe, which is the part that separates us from animals, then surely we wouldn’t be carrying out wars, we wouldn’t have an issue with CO2 emissions and global warming, the economies would be running smoothly.
Surely it would? Am I mad? I don’t think so, I believe I am quite a rational kind of person, who can usually see both sides of the argument and yes I do see the best in most humans, because after all they should be educated, rational, intelligent and loving beings. And you also know that this isn’t always true, but we have to start somewhere and I start with everyone’s good until proven otherwise.
Anyway where is this leading us towards?
Oh yes, ‘Social Learning’.
Consider the success of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and the latest kid on the block Pinterest.
What do they all have in common? Any idea?
Humans connecting with humans, that’s the common thread through all of it. So why is this so important at this time in the world? It has allowed millions of us to have a voice, to discuss, comment and debate on news stories on major world events and on individual stories and their life events.
My theory and its only my theory and it makes perfect sense to me is as follows.
Remember the war? Which one you will say, because there have been so many.
Well let’s just talk about World War II.
The War brought people closer, they looked out for each other and they knew more about each other’s lives compared to any time in history. Well it’s nearly 70 years since the ending of that major war and ever since then we as humans have drifted apart and have become more unconnected.
Social Networking is not an accident or a happy coincidence, it isn’t either the creation of a Harvard University graduate or silicon valley’s entrepreneurs. Their invention would never have worked if there wasn’t the appetite for it.
The old saying ’people buy people first’ applies in social networks too, not just in business. We like to connect to like minded individuals or people that interest us and maybe we can learn something from them!
And yes we do like to learn, we are always learning, the brain collects millions of impressions every day, without us even realising it. If we don’t learn we will die. As humans we have an inherent need to grow. But when we think about learning we think about, classrooms, teachers, exams, pressure, stress and recall many unpleasant memories.
We don’t perceive consciously that reading tweets, Facebook posts, articles, blogs, watching YouTube videos as learning and of course it is, you are learning all the time.
The learning methodology of 70-20-10, is showing us that actually we learn 70% on the job or in our daily lives, 20% from our colleagues or family members or friends and 10% formally, so that’s when we sit in a classroom, either at school or in the workplace.
The development of social networks, will and is changing the world of learning forever. Millions of teachers and trainers are having to adopt these new technologies as part of their delivery methods.
This requires the teacher / trainer to become proficient in these new tools and get their own knowledge of these networks up to scratch. After all their students are using these to learn, so now we better embrace these too and make use of it.
Those that do, will succeed in helping to change the landscape of learning for themselves and students alike. A more engaged student will mean a more connected world and a more connected world will mean a world with more compassion and understanding for our fellow human.
Working Knowledge is a brilliant Social Enterprise, who invited me to join their ‘Splash’ event in Bromsgrove on the 15th March 2012.
My role? An Expert!
I have never been an ’Expert’ before, so it was a real treat.
I was an Expert from the business community together with other business experts, who were all there to support 17 / 18 year olds from Northeast Worcestershire College, to become enlightened about business through the vehicle of a one-day experiential event, allowing them to innovate, create and visualise their own entrepreneurial spirit.
I had never done anything like it before and so did not know what to expect.
What was it like? In one word…OUTSTANDING!
Basically the event is a cross between Dragons Den and the Apprentice and as a local business I played the role of ‘expert’ advising students from the local College on their new business ideas. Working Knowledge is a Social Enterprise and Nationally Award Winning educational training company founded by Dr James Lott.
The events Working Knowledge run have been shown to have a profound impact on the students and tutors in colleges throughout UK, bridging the gap between education and the workplace. As a business expert volunteer I played an integral role in the success of the event and thereby raise the aspirations of young people in my region.
Here’s my testimonial MindMap and Video, which was the best way for me to articulate what I thought of the whole day.
And why does Working Knowledge exist?
They believe that for the UK economy to grow and for communities to thrive, young people need to be inspired by, and better prepared for, the world of work. We need young people that are more confident, purposeful and responsible and can therefore provide a sustained flow of talent and energy into the local economy. Their vision cannot be achieved by educators alone, the business community HAS to be involved in the education process.
I read a fascinating article in Wired magazine by Jonathan Lehrer, where he discusses the phenomena of our brains making assumptions on how things work, based on a set of data that we have collected. In fact we collect data in our brains all the time. And when we analyse data we start making all sorts of assumptions and conclusions based on that data.
And of course we can never have enough data to make our decisions on and at some stage we have to decide that we have enough of it to base our decisions on.
And this happens all the time in the most dangerous industry in the world, pharmaceuticals. This article highlights some lessons for us all on how we make assumptions all the time in our private, business and social lives.
I have extracted what I believe to be the important constituents from his article:
On November 30, 2006 executives at Pfizer – the largest pharmaceutical company in the world held a meeting with investors at the firm’s research centre in Groton, Connecticut. Jeff Kindler, the then CEO began the presentation with an upbeat assessment of the company’s efforts to bring new drugs to market. He cited “exciting approaches” to the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, fibromyalgia and arthritis. But Kindler was most excited about a new drug called torcetrapib, which had recently entered Phase III clinical trials, the last step before filing for approval. He confidently declared that it would be “one of the most important compounds of our generation”. Kindler told investors that, by the second half of 2008, Pfizer would begin applying for approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The success of the drug seemed a sure thing. And then, just two days later, on December 2, 2006, Pfizer issued a stunning announcement: the torcetrapib Phase III clinical trial was being terminated. Although the compound was supposed to prevent heart disease, it was actually triggering higher rates of chest pain and heart failure and a 60% increase in overall mortality. The drug appeared to be killing people. That week, Pfizer’s value plummeted by $21 billion (£14 billion).
The story of torcetrapib is one of mistaken causation. Pfizer was operating on the assumption that raising levels of HDL cholesterol and lowering LDL would lead to predictable outcome: improved cardiovascular health. Less arterial plaque. Cleaner pipes. But that didn’t happen. (According to a recent analysis, more that 40% of drugs fail Phase III clinical trials).
The problem was, it’s this assumption that causes a strange kind of knowledge. This was first pointed out by David Hume, a Scottish 18th-century philosopher.
He realised that, although people talk about causes as if they are real facts – tangible things that can be discovered – they’re actually not at all factual. Instead, Hume said, every cause is just a slippery story, a catchy conjecture, a “lively conception produced by habit”. When an apple falls from a tree, the cause is obvious: gravity. Hume’s sceptical insight was that we don’t see gravity – we see only an object tugged towards earth. We look at X and then at Y, and invent a story about what happened in between. We can measure facts, but a cause is not a fact – it’s fiction that helps us make sense of facts.
The truth is, our stories about causation are shadowed by all sorts of mental short cuts. Most of the time, these work well enough. They allow us to discover the law of gravity, and design wondrous technologies. However when it comes to reasoning about highly complex systems – say the human body – these short cuts go from being slickly efficient to outright misleading.
Consider a set of classic experiments designed by Belgian psychologist Albert Michotte, first conducted in the 40′s.
His research featured a series of short films about a blue ball and a red ball. In the first film, the red ball races across the screen, touches the blue ball and then stops. The blue ball, meanwhile, begins moving in the shame basic direction as the red ball. When Michotte asked people to describe the film, they automatically lapsed in the language of causation. The red ball hit the blue ball, which caused it to move. This is known as the launching effect, and it’s a universal property of visual perception. Although there was nothing in the two-second film – it was just a montage of animated images – people couldn’t help but tell a story about what had happened. They had translated their perceptions into causal beliefs. Michotte would go on to conduct more than 100 of these studies manipulating the films.
There are two lessons learned from these experiments. The first is that our theories about a particular cause and effect are inherently perceptual, infected by all the sensory cheats of vision. Hume was right that causes are never seen, only inferred, but the truth is we can’t tell the difference. And so we look at moving balls and see causes, melodrama of taps and collisions, chasing and fleeing. The second lesson is that causal explanations are oversimplifications. This is what makes them useful – they help us grasp the world at a glance.
The article is far too long for me to include everything in it and I have not been able to find it online either. However I think I have got the main message from it.
And the question I pose to you, is: What assumptions are you making today, that are based on incorrect date or not enough data or just that you have perceived the information in a certain way? Is the red ball chasing the blue ball instead of them just moving independently of each other?
And then there is the other old saying: “Perception is Reality”
I am finding the volume of tweets, links, posts, articles a touch overwhelming at times, so this short article explains how I manage this in today’s super digital age.
Ideally the following tools are needed:
iPad or iPhone
iBooks
Safari or equivalent browser that allows you to save a web page as a PDF
Or a PDF converter
Dropbox
Basically I leverage my iBooks app as much as I can, by saving PDF documents to it for reading later.
Articles and the like come at you like a formula 1 car at top speed sometimes and this is how you can stop it in its tracks.
Apple’s Safari web browser is a major plus but not essential. Whenever you find a link that provides you with an interesting article, but you don’t have time to read it, immediately convert or save it as a PDF into Dropbox.
Then retrieve it from your Dropbox on your iPad or iPhone and open it into iBooks.
Now you can decide to read them when convenient to you and not when the article catches your eye via a tweet, email or something else. Plus you’ve got the article for future reference in a meeting, discussion with your colleagues or clients. I’ve found it very handy.
And if you have found other ways of capturing your links, please do share.
The other way where I can interact with them is on Flipboard, the best iPad and iPhone app in my opinion.
There is a manual, but nobody reads it, which means most of you just dive in, try and get away with the minimum and then feel overwhelmed because you haven’t taken a few minutes to do some studying.
I am of course talking about myself (own up if you thought it was you) and even though I have done my studying, I still find nuggets of short cuts in social media platforms, that nobody has ever told me about.
Numero Uno. If you are using the LinkedIn app on your phone, I am discussing the iPhone app as I don’t know about Android, then you are able to view your contacts, search for new connections make new connections. Very useful.
Secret no. 1. You can invite anyone via this app, unless they have set some privacy settings, which most people do not know how to do, or haven’t bothered with. I believe in openness which is how social media works best. For example if you want to connect to Barack Obama, do it inside the app. Normally If you searched for Barack via the LinkedIn website and click connect you get the box below to complete. I don’t know about you but I don’t have Barack’s email address, so this where the journey normally ends.
But if you search for him via the app, you get this.
Click invite to connect and providing he hasn’t activated his privacy settings you should get the following message. Note the blue confirmation at the bottom, saying invite sent.
Secret no. 2. You can also achieve this through the LinkedIn website, however you need to have someone connected to you, who has Barack Obama as their 1st connection.
First you need to go Barack Obama’s profile and confirm that he is in your 2nd level down, As shown below. If it says 3rd or higher, then it’s a much tougher task.
Then you can view who of your connections is directly connected to them.
Then check each of your connections to see if their contacts are openly shared or not. I was able to find one of them who had their connections open. Then click on them and via their profile click on their connections. It takes a while to find him, because there is no search facility as such, but all contacts are sorted alphabetically, so it doesn’t take that long.
Once you have found him, you will see a small + sign plus the word ‘connect’, as shown below.
Click on it and you will get the following popup box.
You can now add a personal message and click send invitation. No need to have his email address as shown earlier.
Note: Of course I am using Barack Obama as an example here, this will work for anyone that you are trying to connect to. This is where having more connections to people who also have large connections allows you to find the right people you wish to be connected to. And by the way this is free of charge as well!
Note of caution: Only us this method if you know the person. People can mark your invites as ‘unknown’ and you could be banned from LinkedIn after collecting too many ‘unknowns’.
Numero Twoo. I love business networking, but the biggest challenge always is those business cards. What do you do with them? I bet you have them in a neat pile on your desk or shelves, close by. But guess what you never go back to them. That’s why LinkedIn is brilliant.
Here is my routine. As soon as I get back to the office from networking and I might have a stack of business cards, I find them on LinkedIn, send a nice message out to them and hopefully they will connect. For those that are not on Linkedin, unfortunately, you will be forgotten forever, because I don’t stand a chance to remember you, sorry. Better get yourself on there.
But how do I get these contacts into my address book? I have tried typing them in manually, takes forever. I have used scanners, they work but too much editing. I have now got an app on my iPhone to scan them, so they go direct into my phone address book and sync with my computer, that worked really well also.
However now here comes the gift for you!
You can download them all direct from LinkedIn directly into your address book on your iPhone, (sorry don’t know about Android) and it pulls in all their details, email, phone if they have listed and their picture (providing they have a picture on LinkedIn!). So now when you look at your address book, you can link the name with the picture and no more embarrassing moments when you meet them next. It’s very easy to do and it does work very well.
Go to your profile inside the app, click on connections, you will see a small icon top right above your connections as below.
Click on it and then you will get the next page, where you can download your contacts directly to your iPhone.
And if you have iCloud enabled those contacts will sync on all your devices.
This is the best discovery I have made for ages and will save me loads of time!
You may have noticed recently that autocratic and dishonest behaviour is being rewarded by resentment and demands for justice. And everyone on the planet is involved. The human drama continues to unfold in front of our eyes on a daily basis. And what has grabbed the news headlines for over 12 months are the battles, whether physical in terms of fighting or verbal against the regimes, journalists, police, banks, senior individuals in charge and many more institutions and individuals that have been allowed to get away with thinking of just themselves and their own personal interest.
Actually we are selfish race, we don’t really like other fellow human beings unless they are our own off-spring and then even we struggle to get on with them.
We are all aware of the family feuds that happen between siblings and not to speak of the arguments during family gatherings.
So why can’t we be more unselfish and decide to support others? Why can’t we put the importance of our own happiness and satisfaction on hold for a bit and instead think of others?
‘But we do!’ I hear you say, we support charities, we give money to them every time there is an appeal and true the UK are one of the most charitable nations in the world. But we do this out of guilt, because we feel we may not have done enough during the past 12 months, so giving some money to ‘children in need’ or comic relief’ or one of the other ‘telethons’ makes us feel better, like we have given something and that means we have done our ‘bit’.
Genuinely do you feel better or does your conscious actually know that you only did something because you have a condition, which I like to call ‘spontaneous guilt’?
So how do we change our behaviour to become more ethical, more community focussed, more charitable, display more integrity, be less greedy, supporting of our fellow human beings, inspired to volunteer?
I don’t intend to answer this question for you, it’s for you to answer this for yourself.
I challenge you to look into your soul and decide whether you are doing enough for your fellow human.
(135 million+ LinkedIn professionals around the world as of November 3, 2011)
I attended a recent networking event and chatted with business people, who were there because like me they would like more business. I was taken aback a little when 2 people that I spoke to out of the 5 that I met, who shared with me that they were “afraid” of LinkedIn.
I use the term “afraid” on purpose because, when I asked them whether they were on LinkedIn, which is a standard question I ask every business person I meet, their faces filled with horror and then they shared with me the reasons why they either weren’t there or why they were very very careful who they connected to.
Maybe I am the naive one, but my philosophy with Social Media is to either be active in it and play full out or stay out of the game, you can’t be half in and choose when to come out and play and when to stay at home.
But it got me thinking, maybe there are more of you out there, who are “afraid” also, so I wanted to write this article to appeal to your more liberal side, the part of you that has courage and is willing to take a few risks, because you know you’ve got that part inside of yourself, don’t you?
Here are the “fears” that were raised with me today:
People who I have never met or spoken to, ask to be connected to me on LinkedIn, why?
They tell me that they are wishing to grow their networks; well they are pulling me into the same mindset and I do not wish to be part of it!
I am very choosey who I connect to, because I only wish to be connected to people, who I have met and I have got to know them and what they are about
What if they start calling my contacts and telling them that they know me, when really they do not?
And I am sure there could have been more. The real reason for the “fear” is actually ignorance and I don’t mean that in a negative way, I actually believe it is really positive, because there is a fantastic opportunity to educate people.
I consider LinkedIn as my virtual business networking database. LinkedIn is actually very ethical, it is run with the same principles as face to face networking and yes of course it is ideally best to have met that person or at least to have spoken to them. However business is a numbers game and in order to have some influence in your business community you do need to connect with people who can be in your circle of influence.
It is good to build a relationship with people who you have not yet met face to face and yes try and do that even if you are only connected virtually. Actually LinkedIn is so transparent, they can learn about you, your history, your experience, your business goals and learn so much more, which you would never be able to share at a face to face networking event.
We all need to do more with less, so LinkedIn is the perfect vehicle to network, without the expense of attending networking events, breakfasts, lunches etc. It is becoming more acceptable to do things virtually and of course I appreciate it’s not everyone’s “cup of tea”.
We need you all to start getting into the game and changing your mindset, because this is only going to continue to grow and we would like you to be there with us and be part of the journey.
There is a huge amount to know about LinkedIn and I have witnessed the massive changes it has undergone in the past few years, which I promise you will continue, especially as they have gone public now.
Below I have shared my own network stats on LinkedIn and you can see the reach you can have with only a few connections. They say that the level below your direct contacts are where your real business opportunities lie. You can see that I have 365,000 connections that are 2 degrees away from me. That’s just unbelievable and I could never imagine that I would be connected to so many people. However if you notice carefully Linkedin, presents a small box to you every time you log in, which says “people you may know”. And when you click through you will see a list of page after page with people that are 2 degrees away from you. Well the same is presented to everyone that goes on LinkedIn and is active on there and that’s how you get noticed, that’s when people view your profile.
I hope you take on board what I am trying to convey, but just in case you don’t, I would be happy to explain some other finer points to you at any time, just post a comment or question on here.
