This is the first in a series of posts on how to be taken seriously. Each post will focus on a specific concept, and the five ways to be taken seriously within that concept. This post has to do with backup plans and timing. Last week, during the 854th NYC storm of the month, I had to get out to San Diego to keynote a conference. Knowing there was going to be a storm, I made a backup plan. I booked the Continental 8:45 EWR-SAN, then booked the Continental 2:45 EWR-SAN as a backup, pretty sure the 8:45 would be cancelled. And of course, it was, and I was all like, “It’s cool, I’m on the 2:45.” And it was [...]

Thoughts from a subway… Writing this on the downtown 1 train on a Saturday morning, on my way to 90 minutes of Boxing at Trinity Gym. Our train conductor has just told us that because of construction, there is no service on this train past 14th Street. Why did I have to wait to get onto the subway to find that out? That’s like your GPS telling you there’s an accident ahead when you’re already sitting in the backed up traffic from it. Now technically, I didn’t. I could have logged onto mta.info and looked before I left the house. But by that logic, I also could have brought the shopping list I made for Whole Foods, as well as [...]

My post the other day about how to help the paranoid boss understand social media was met with a lot of good comments and discussion. But I realized that I left out one very important boss scenario: The boss who says: Our Industry Doesn’t Have Any Reason to be in Social Media. Sometimes, we’re (meaning us, those in our industry) are so used to promoting new ways of communication, that we forget that there are industries outside of communications, marketing, advertising, and social media. And that’s where the above line comes from – bosses thinking “Oh, we have nothing to do with that, our audiences aren’t there.” And I’ve heard from several companies in the past few days who have [...]

Which do you think is cooler, more fun, and would generate a higher response/action rate?” “I saw a cool launch at NASA the other day” Or this? It’s really not a question. Yet people are STILL afraid to include video in their day to day online lives! With all the tools at your disposal to do it, if you’re not including video on your blogs, websites, or even social media updates, you’re missing out, big time. No, you don’t have to do it all the time – But yes, it’s important to do, and good video should be one of the cornerstones of your social media (and online as a whole) strategy. DISCLOSURE: I’m an angel investor in one of [...]

“When did you become so paranoid?” “When they started chasing me.” Ask any company who hasn’t yet dipped their toe into the social media cesspool ocean, and you’ll find that chances are, it’s not that they don’t believe in it, but rather, they’re afraid of “losing control of the message,” or “not being able to manage our brand online.” In other words, they’re paranoid. Below, five tips for dealing with five different types of Social Media Paranoid Bosses. (SMPBs) 1) “We’ll lose control of our message if we go online!” You lost control of your message the first time the geek with the TRS-80 got on a BBS and told the three other people on it how much you sucked. [...]