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Inner Circle of Friends

by JimRaffel on August 2, 2010

Friends all met through TwitterI’ve got this friend named Twitter, she’s pretty much awesome. Even awesome friends push you away sometimes. It’s OK, she’s in my inner circle of friends and in no time we’ll be best buds, hanging out together again.

While Twitter and I “take a break” I’ve got this other friend LinkedIn. Oh my gosh he is the be all and end all for connecting me with the folks I do (and want to do) business with. This whole time Twitter and I have been figuring out we needed a break, LinkedIn has been whispering in my ear about all the great stuff he and I can do together. Turns out he’s one smart dude and now that he’s in my inner circle, we’ll be spending more time together.

Then, there’s my bi-polar friend Facebook I can’t decide if I love her hate her on any given day. She connects me with friends I have not seen or heard from in a long time. She even shows me pictures of them and their children. So, she helps me keep track of friends from the past – pretty cool really. Well, it would be but some of them play Mafia Wars and never was a more annoying “game” ever invented. Yes, yes I know how to block and filter the parts of Facebook’s personality I don’t care for and I do. The real problem is she frequently changes the terms of our relationship and it all feels very one sided. I’m not so sure she’s in my inner circle of friends.

Finally, there is my therapist and business advisor. His name is Third Tribe Marketing. I pay him to be my friend and I’m OK with that. I sure don’t visit my Doctor seeking advice on my health for free so why should sound business advice and ideation be any different? When Twitter pushed me away I went and spent some time conversing with Third Tribe. He runs a lot of group therapy sessions so I was actually conversing with other people just like me that had come to see Third Tribe(affiliate link) for similar reasons. Sometimes I’m helping them and sometimes they are helping me. Sounds pretty win-win doesn’t it? Third Tribe Marketing is at the center of my inner circle of friends.

I’ve gone back to Twitter but if you follow me there you will see my activity is far below what it was for a while. I’m finding the two way benefit to be more apparent in Third Tribe and on LinkedIn. For me Twitter is fun to hang out with if I am looking for the next networking meetup or want to see what kind of information(links) my friends are sharing. Trending topics become clear pretty quickly with Twitter as well.

Any feelings about my “friends” you’d like to share in the comments?

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What You Bring to Blogging is You

by JimRaffel on July 24, 2010

You have probably noticed the explosion in blogging over the last couple of years. You may also be thinking about starting a blog and wondering “what can I bring to blogging?” I feel the answer is you and your unique life perspective on the topics you chose to write about.

It’s all about you. Yes, you will be blogging for your audience but you will be doing so from the perspective that is uniquely you. One value of a blog is the life experience that is brought to each post by the blogger. No two people experience the same event in the exact same way. For example, there is a reason FoxNews Channel and talk radio have become so popular. They present the “news” from an entirely different perspective than the rest of the mainstream media. Should you not like their perspective, that’s OK, tune them out and watch the other guys.

Tell your story. Some days many blogs (including this one) end up blogging about the same topic. There are no coincidences and since most bloggers work at least a day or two ahead it’s likely the topic is resonating with lots of folks. The idea is to bring your perspective to the topic. The life you have lived gives you a unique ability to add analysis and commentary to a topic that no one else can duplicate. Almost anyone can report a story with proper training and decent writing skills. You, on the other hand, can tell your story and share how the topic impacts you.

For example, when I’m blogging about marketing I do so from the perspective of a small company not a fortune 100 company. For some of you that’s exactly how you want to hear about marketing and that’s great. For others, you work for or with the big guys and maybe my perspective doesn’t resonate with you. That’s OK as well, I can’t write for everyone so I try and write for me first. By that I mean I write the posts as reminders to myself that can I can come back and reference later.

How about you? Do you read blogs for the unique perspective the blogger brings to the topic?

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The Twitter Vacation

June 11, 2010

It’s the opposite of what you think, we are going to tweet….a lot. Tight budgets, saving money, kids in college, etc. have combined to create our Twitter vacation. Roots of the idea. We (@hawtwife and I) decided to be fiscally responsible (unlike our village who is replacing roads unnecessarily but that’s another story) and cancel [...]

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