This past week, I attended a Narrative Design Lab ™, hosted by the Canadian Centre for Narrative Coaching and animated by Dr. David Drake. In this one-day intro lab, we had a ton of fun playing with new ways of imagining our businesses.

Today I’ll share a couple of creative exercises that we played with (that you can use) so you can get your creative juices flowing when thinking and writing about your business.

Only one caveat: These exercises should be done in groups.  So if you have a social learning group or another business group, inject these for a double dose of play and insight.

Warm-Up: Narrative Improv

We warmed up with a fun improvisation game. In groups of 3-4, one member of the circle started a story and talked for about 30 seconds.  David stopped each story-teller and the second person was to pick up the story “thread” from where the previous person left off.  The game continued until everyone had a turn at helping the story emerge.  Then we talked about

• How did the story evolve?
• Were you satisfied with it?
• What did this exercise tell you about narrative? About yourself?

I felt my creativity kicking in and I was opening to new and deeper insight as well.

Using Metaphor to Write About Your Business

Next we were asked to write the first word that came into our heads (concrete noun or a place) on a recipe card or two and hand them in to one person.  Then we were to select one card and write how our business is like a ___________ (whatever the word may be).  The word I selected was “bicycle.”  How was my business like a bicycle? Here’s my list:

[table id=10 /]

From this list David asked us to circle the one word/phrase that most intrigued us.  I chose “a great ride!”  Now how does that phrase transform how I look at my business?? What if that phrase was my tagline? How do I look at my business now?

My take on my business metaphor

Well, developing web content is a process.  There is a give and take – a dialogue between me and my clients.  I care a great deal about the experience that people have when they work with me so – working with me is a great ride.

What does this mean for you?

Playing in this space will give you:

1. Freshness: Use these exercises to uncover new ways to think about your business, your products or your services
2. Creativity: Flowing with your creative juices unleashes new possibilities and invigorates your work
3. Fun: You have to work but make your work fun. These exercises encourage creativity and fun with the added bonus of unearthing new insights and creating inspired business results. That’s a winning combination in my mind

What process do you use to create content? Is it working for you? If not, what would you like to try?

Photo Credit

So what word do you want to use as your focus?  I’m not suggesting focus – it’s not one of the words but what word will you focus on.

Last month my inspirational word was FLOW – because I had a lot of work on and I knew that I had to be in the FLOW if I wanted to get it all done (and I did)

This month, I’ve decided on LOVE so that I can focus on loving (appreciating) the people in my life, the health that I have, the work that I have and the opportunities that I am given. So I give you this rose as a sign that love will be my word for the month.

Courtesy of Koshyk @Flickr

What was your inspirational word for April? Did you truly focus on the word? Why or why not? And what will be your word for May?

Take a second and let me know…

Last month, my inspirational word on which to focus was DISCARD.  But you know, I didn’t DISCARD at all.  I lost my focus completely.  Maybe DISCARDing is one of those particularly difficult tasks to tackle.  Maybe DISCARDing requires change – more change than all those other words of inspiration.

Regardless, it’s time again to pick another word of inspiration. Here’s the video for you to watch again (less than a minute).  Pick a word and let me know which you’ve chosen and why.

April’s Inspirational Word

My word of the month is FLOW – flow because I am in the flow of work – and I want to stay there. And I want to be in the flow of life.

Lava - as in Flow

I don’t want to be swimming upstream against the FLOW. I want to be going with the flow.  How about you? What word will inspire you this month?

Drop me a note and let me know!

Flickr Photo Credit: Paul (Dex)

I’d started this post a couple of weeks ago but I took time to rewrite it as a follow on to Mark Evan’s post The Dangers of Social Media Ignorance.  I believe that we, as social media engagers, need to find palatable (aka non-threatening) ways to explain social media to those who are still not convinced of its value.

I believe that Groundswell is a piece in that convincing puzzle. So this post offers a meager introduction to Groundswell as a way to make social media more accessible for businesses and individuals not yet engaged in nor convinced of social media’s value.  I hope this post will tempt you to read Groundswell so you’ll either be tempted to explore social media or to share the book with your non-social media people.

Groundswell defined

The authors define the groundswell as:  “…a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions.” A kind of reshuffling of the power cards.  That’s the groundswell.

And how does this groundswell play out? Well, your customers talk about you online on social media sites – they create parodies of your commercials and post them on YouTube and they complain about your lack of customer service on Twitter.  Social media can be a scary prospect when your customers can publish content and complain about you publicly. BUT, companies can use the groundswell to their advantage – take a potential negative (press that is) and turn it into advantage.  Ignoring social media will NOT make it go away.

Businesses may shy away from social media from worry about the ROI (is there any?) or from the belief that they don’t have the time, skill or manpower to begin to engage.  But many businesses only need to tweak their sales, marketing and development activities to enter the world of social media.  In the table below (borrowed heavily from Li and Bernoff, p. 69) you can see how many typical business activities can be migrated to the web.  For example, research moves from focus groups to Twitter and Facebook or a company blog. Or marketing becomes more of a dialogue than outbound communications.

Typical Business Activities & Online Alternatives

Traditional Business Activities	Matching Groundswell Activities	How Things Are Different Online
Research	Listening	Instead of focus groups and surveys, you monitor customer
Marketing	Talking	You initiate and/or participate in conversations between your customers (not just outbound communications)
Sales	Energizing	You find ways to help your customers sell to one another
Support	Supporting	You assist your customers to support each other
Development	Embracing	You help your customers work together to generate ideas to improve your products or services

The groundswell is here to stay. Businesses need to embrace and use it to their advantage.  Perhaps a good place to start is by reading Groundswell. A second step might be to wade into blogging, Twitter or Facebook.

Have you or your company embraced the groundswell? Will you consider it?  Leave me a comment and let me know what you’re thinking.

For February, I chose the word partner because I have some wonderful people with which to partner.  How did I do? Well, I did partner in several ways (work, learning and writing) and PARTNER will continue to be a part of my life this month.

But this month, I’m choosing DISCARD as my word of inspiration.

To discard: throw out, cast away, chuck out or toss out. [Have some fun with this visual thesaurus. Pick your word and enter it to find similar terms and their relation your word of the month. ]

Why discard you ask?  I’m on a mssion to discard some “old”  pieces of furniture and clothes.  AND I am also planning on doing some discarding of text and words.  A goal for me this month, is to DISCARD some old web content and create new content.

Tell me, how focused was your February on your word of the month?  What word will you pick for March? And why?

Photo Credit: ToobyDoo

I think the word EMBRACE describes my January (and 2011) because I want to embrace what the new year will bring my way in all its glory (good and bad). My word of inspiration for February is PARTNER.   My sub-text is PROVOKE. PARTNER because of the great people I have the privilege of partnering with this month [Dandelion Web Design, Joan Vinall-Cox and Silvia Gonzalez].

And PROVOKE – because it just comes naturally to me.

If you had to put one word to your first month of 2011 – which one would it be? And why? And since February is almost upon us – which word do you think will best describe what is on your horizon in the next 28 days? Leave a comment and let me know.

This new interface will show both search results and ad results. The Google Analytics Blog states that “We expect Google Instant will help users find what they’re looking for faster.”  So the purpose to this new feature is to speed up searches for people looking for stuff on the web.

Take a minute to enjoy the marketing video Google produced to introduce this new feature:

This new feature will impact SEO and how we apply SEO tactics to web pages and content. The Google Analytics Blog says that “with this change, you might notice some fluctuations in AdWords impression volume and in the distribution of organic keywords. For example, you may find that certain keywords receive significantly more or fewer impressions moving forward.”

As a web writer who pays attention to SEO, I think that Google Instant will encourage better and more focused content. Google Instant will decrease the power that non-content SEO tricks have had in the past.  All text SEO will become more important. This will then, increase the value of good content as a tactic for effective SEO.

I think that the web will be abuzz about Google Instant and I will be watching for others opinions on it and keep you posted. Benefits to users for sure, benefits to Google (I imagine) and benefits to web writers that remains to be seen. What do you think about Google Instant?

A couple of weeks ago my daughter was channel surfing on YouTube – her favourite for fun stuff, entertainment and – sometimes – information.  She has a few YouTube channels that she checks out regularly like Livelavalive.

When she landed at Livelavalive she clicked on and watched a promo video Livelavalive (aka Mitchell Davis) was asked to make for Tom’s Shoes.  To date the video has been viewed 151,637.

The One Day Without Shoes event invites everyone to take their shoes off for a day to spread awareness about kids going without shoes.

• And ODWS promotes understanding about the experience of children in the developing world who live without shoes.
• And informs people about Tom’s Shoes business model of a double bottom line – making a profit while giving back to the global community.  Tom’s Shoes gives away one pair of shoes for each pair that someone buys. Pretty Cool.

She wanted more information.  So she went to another site and learned more about One Day without Shoes.  Once she found out all the info about the event, she promoted the event on her Facebook wall, joined the Facebook group and invited all her (over 250) friends to join.

That was not enough for her. She called three Toronto radio stations – two stations picked up her event and she was interviewed on Virgin 99.9 and KISS 92.5.  The interviews were aired several times over the Easter weekend.

She made announcements at her youth group and her school. Almost everyone at her group went barefoot at school and showed up barefoot for youth group.

A girl, committed to a social cause,  used social media like YouTube, Facebook,  Facebook groups coupled with traditional media (radio) and personal interest groups to inform and motivate a lot of people.   She used media that was available to her and her friends and she  used it effectively.

Check out the chain of events.  She found out about One Day without Shoes on YouTube.  She posted it to her Facebook Wall.  She joined the Facebook Group and invited all her friends (over 250).  She was articulate enough to have her interviews aired on radio.

I have to tell you, I am proud of my daughter and I am amazed at the impact she had through her social media savvy.

What do you get when you cross social media, a social cause and a girl committed to that cause? A mini grassroots, successful, cause marketing campaign.

What can you get when you multiply that mini campaign by thousands?  A cause campaign with the possibility of going viral.   Just imagine the potential impact and inspiration.

P.S. You can purchase Toms Shoes in Canada.

Can you remember a difficult conversation that you had recently? What made the conversation difficult? Were you happy with the outcome? How about the person that you had the difficult conversation with – were they satisfied with the conversation?

Intimate conversations or conversations that revolve around disagreement are difficult.  Are there some conversations in particular that are difficult for you? I recently asked a group of people (okay, it was a seminar on Making Difficult Conversations Easier) and here are some of the conversations that they found difficult to engage in:

•   Money conversations – (asking for a raise, asking for money back)
•   Delivering bad/hard messages (you’re fired)
•   Being vulnerable about my feelings (I love you)
•   Confronting behaviours
   

What makes these conversations difficult? 

Sometimes we don’t know the outcome… usually difficult conversations have some risk involved with them.

Sometimes we actually know the outcome and we worry about how we might be perceived by the person that we are having the conversation with. Other times, the stakes are high; we might be misunderstood and we may not achieve the outcome that we want or envision.

Our difficult conversations can hurt the people we care about. We worry that our anger will get the better of us. We might make the situation worse. Or there might be a backlash – we might get punished for speaking out.

To Have or Not to Have

It’s hard to decide whether to have a difficult conversation or not. If you don’t you might feel taken advantage of. You might harbour lingering negative feelings about someone. But if you do have the conversation… things might get worse. In fact, you may already have tried and you have suffered some of these consequences:

•   You were verbally attacked and you didn’t know what to do next
•   You were rejected and (as my father used to say) you were “put in the deep freeze for your trouble”
•   The relationship deteriorated

Do you avoid difficult conversations?

Sometimes when you suffer the negative outcomes of failed conversations, you avoid having them in the future. How do you avoid conversations?

1. Did you decide that you will never initiate a difficult conversation again? For some of us, certain conversations are so threatening that we will continually overlook an issue or leave the relationship rather than engage. The problem with this kind of avoidance is that trust cannot be built in the relationship nor can the relationship grow or develop.
2. Did you take some indirect action without having a conversation? Some times we decide that we will not discuss an issue or behaviour but we will stay on the alert for repeats of behaviours that have offended us. We no longer trust the other person and will be wary of the other’s motives and intentions. While we have managed to avoid the danger and risk of having the conversation, we destroy the fabric of trust in the relationship.
3.  Were you willing to start the difficult conversation but you gave in when the going got rough (your thinking is “okay, you are so upset that we will do it your way”). In this scenario we value peace more than valuing our own boundaries. We fear losing the connection with our friend/lover/partner/child so we give in.

Engaging in difficult conversations

Just as we can avoid difficult conversations in a variety of ways, we can engage in them in just as many ways. We can:

1. Approach the conversation with an “I will win and you will lose” attitude. I am right and you are wrong. With this stance, the issue is more important than the relationship and a successful outcome for both people is unlikely.
2. Approach the conversation with an attitude that I want to hear what you have to say. Although this is a difficult conversation, I will engage in the discussion because I care about you, I care about the issue, I care about the relationship. With this attitude, there is a great possibility of being able to navigate through the issue and come out the other side with a stronger bond between us.

Where are you on the difficult conversation spectrum? Do you avoid? How do you avoid? Do you engage in them? And what stance do you assume when you do engage…  Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
 

Welcome to www.dawncomber.com – my new website. After many rewrites and redesigns, I am now the resident blogger for my writing and editing website.

I’m Dawn Comber – an experienced, professional writer. I provide creative, affordable writing and editing services for clients – for print and for the web.  I always begin by conversing with you to understand your needs, and then I help you to converse, communicate and connect with your customers.

Most of my clients are in Toronto, Mississauga and Oakville, but the beauty of technology and the Internet allows me to work with small businesses, non-profits and people just about anywhere.