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Finding Fodder for Future Ideas

Filed Under Business Life, Idea Bank, Outside the Box, Productivity, Successful Blog, Writing | 26 Comments

Finding Fodder

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Yesterday, Joe of Working at Home on the Internet reminded me of my days going to press runs, when he was talking about his experience as a printer.

Immediately my mind flashed to this story.

I was in the car with my friend KB on the way to a press run. We’d worked 12 weeks straight living in the Marriott New York East Side. Now we’d flown into Chicago and were driving into one of the suburbs. She was driving. I was looking out the window. I was taking in all of the signs of the restaurants and stores as we passed by them.

Then, suddenly out of the blue I heard, “Will you . . . .SHUT UP!”

It seems I had been reading every sign out loud.

“I don’t really need you to read me every sign we pass,” she said. “What was that?”

“Sorry,” I said. “Fodder.”

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6+1 Traits of Effective Blog Writing

Filed Under Branding, Productivity, Successful Blog, Writing | 14 Comments

Things Kids Know that We Don’t

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I’m writing a writing program again. Writing programs are like other products. They have their individual nuances. They offer particular features and benefits, but all solid writing programs offer certain things in common. The engine of any well-built writing program is the 6+1 Traits of Writing.

If you’re reading this post, it’s unlikely that you encountered the 6+1 Traits as a student. You could find plenty about them on the Web now. Unfortunately, what you found would take the form of lessons and research for teaching school children. Why should school kids and their teachers be the only ones with direct access to the information and the rest of us have to adust our thinking?

I’ve decided a simple action is in order. Read more

ASAP — What It REALLY Means

Filed Under Business Life, Motivation/Inspiration, Productivity, Successful Blog | 7 Comments

What Does It Mean?

You’re working on a deadline project. One large part is due at 10 a.m.; the rest goes at 3 p.m. Your day is “Goldilocks just right.” Well, just right if no monkeys come, and no alligators raise their ugly heads.

You get a call asking a favor ASAP. When will you do it? Read more

Great Find: Go Give It Your 75%

Filed Under Business Life, Great Finds, Motivation/Inspiration, Productivity, Successful Blog | 1 Comment

Before You Go Back

As you think about how shorter work weeks feel longer, read this

Great Find: Thank you for coming to work. Now scram!
Type of Article: Report on productivity
Permalink: http://positivesharing.com/2006/03/committed/
Target Audience: Everyone who works

Content:Alexander Kjerulf has done the research. In companies that shortened the work week from 40 to 30 hours NO productivity was lost. Doesn’t surprise me. How about you? Want the details? Click the title shot below to get the facts.

Thank you for coming to work Now Scram!

Thanks Alexander, for proving what we already suspected — we do things other than work 25% of the time.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Bloggy Question 13 — The Incredible Culture

Filed Under Bloggy Questions, Community, Motivation/Inspiration, Productivity, Successful Blog | 26 Comments

Incredible

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week, I offer this Blogging Question.

This one starts with a quote from famed choreographer Kenny Ortega, who directed High School Musical, Disney Channel’s incredibly-popular DVD movie that’s a cross between Grease and Dirty Dancing. I found the quote in this weeks’ TV Guide Magazine.

Ortega says, “When I went into rehearsals with the cast, I discovered this incredible group of young people who were so bonded, who so liked one another, who were so ready to have the bar raised and do anything it took to make something special. they came to work on fire. That’s something you can’t buy, teach or direct.”

I’ve felt that at places I’ve worked. It IS incredible. It’s like magic.

What makes a place a culture like that? How does it start? What keeps it going?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Blogging Life Question 12
Blogging NOT A Hypothetical Question 11
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Friday Productivity: The Monkey Rule

Filed Under Branding, Business Life, Productivity, Successful Blog, Survival Kit | 21 Comments

Not Just for Fridays

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Problems don’t only happen on Fridays. It only seems like more of them do. That’s probably because what we’re looking for is a clean desk and a walk out to the weekend.

Instead what often happens is that folks stop by to hand us an issue that “just can’t wait,” and suddenly a Friday seems like it is piling higher and higher in front of that door that says ESCAPE.

Here ‘s a rule I use to keep control of my Fridays, Thursdays, Wednesdays — actually every day — come to think of it. Read more

How THEY Work — Why the Heck Do I Care?

Filed Under Branding, Business Life, Customer Think, Marketing, Outside the Box, Productivity, Successful Blog | 25 Comments

The Fortune Series

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You might have caught the Fortune Magazine piece by Cait Murphy that featured 12 successful individuals at work. It was called Secrets of Greatness: How I Work. The article presents a gallery of leaders and their work secrets, including those of Marissa Mayer of Google, Howard Schultz of Starbucks, Wynton Marsalis of the Lincoln Center, and Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Chicago. That was followed later by How I Work: Bill Gates.

After I read these articles, I filed them aside. I thought maybe I might find a use for some detail from the profiles some day. I didn’t know what, and I didn’t know why.

How Other People Work

Apparently, some folks thought this model was worth exploring. They added to it. Here are two more and one that won’t be happening:

Though each profile was only a few paragraphs, I kept wondering, “What am I supposed to learn from this?” I needed something, so I have figured one out. I found a “Liz answer” to the question of how to filter and use this kind of information to build a business and a brand. Read more

Ideas in Your Refrigerator

Filed Under Branding, Customer Think, Idea Bank, Marketing, Motivation/Inspiration, Outside the Box, Productivity, Successful Blog, Writing | 10 Comments

You Know You’re Procrastinating When . . .

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. . . cleaning the refrigerator takes on a new and miraculous sense of urgency with a heavenly glow.

Go ahead give in and do it, but don’t lose to procrastination. Turn that refrigerator chore into an exploration for ideas. Here are three things you might think about.

Procrastination just became an idea session, and on top of that you’ve cleaned your refrigerator! That’s productivity where you could have been doing what I’ve done — standing in front of an open refrigerator door thinking about how the light goes on and off.

Bet you can think of more ideas to find inside of that Big Box. How about sharing some with us?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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More ideas in the Idea Bank category and in Writing Power, Thinking Outside the Box, Customer Think, and Brand You Series on the SUCCESSFUL SERIES PAGE

Critical Skill4: Part 3-A Virtual Process

Filed Under Branding, Marketing, Motivation/Inspiration, Outside the Box, Productivity, Successful Blog, Writing | 3 Comments

Picking Up the Gauntlet

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If you’re following the soap opera that is Successful Blog, I’m halfway through writing Critical Skill 5 on Originality, as you might know, but along the way I was interrupted with a challenge. Ariane Benefit from NeatLiving.Net wrote an in-depth comment about process and how it works for her, which ended with these statements.

So basically I see the rules you presented that work so well in a corporate setting actually have their counterpart in the virtual, ultimately highly democratic world of blogging.

. . . if my post inspires you to write the virtual version . . . it was worth it. — from a comment exchange on Critical Skill 4: Part2-Designing a Complex Process

I really wanted to leave them on the page and continue on with the piece on originality. It was hard enough writing about process in the brick and mortar world. Still the comment stayed with me. It followed me around the house . . . and popped into my mind every time I went to write about anything else. After all, it had two things going for it. Ariane Benefit is a reader and I have a really hard time walking away from a delicious challenge like that — even when I know it will involve close contact between my head and a few brick walls I don’t need. Read more

Critical Skill 4: Part 2-Designing a Complex Process

Filed Under Branding, Marketing, Motivation/Inspiration, Outside the Box, Productivity, Successful Blog, Writing | 4 Comments

One GIANT Flow Chart

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It was an interview with the Chairman of the Board of a publishing company. We had just taken a break. I came back from stretching my legs to find six 4ft. x 8ft. foam core boards that made one GIANT flow chart, supposedly outlining the publishing process in complete and total detail.

I thought, “Ohmygod. They’re one of those kinds of companies.”

He said, “So, what do you think of that?”

I said, “I believe it was very useful for the folks who put it together.”

I usually think of work situations like I would a dating relationship You don’t date a guy thinking you’ll change him. That I took this job thinking I could change this company was just wrong. Read more

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