Small talk. We think of it as something to avoid, or we glance through it on the way to more important things. And yet, I’ve found it vital to what I’ve accomplished, as a little kindness goes a long way. This is part 8 of the Overnight Success series.

If you can’t see the video, click HERE to watch it.

Thanks to Shawna Coronado for a laugh. Here’s the video:

I see brakes everywhere. Racing towards what we could do with all these amazing tools, these powerful collaboration services, these openers of doors, I see people jamming their brakes and looking around in all directions. When you see the crossroads, step on it.

What will happen? You could lose control. You might crash. You might smash into someone doing the same thing going the other way.

Or you could make it through unscathed, exhilarated, and ready to race into what’s next.

Every move I made with my own career can be summed up by stepping on it when I saw the crossroads coming. Sometimes, I skidded off the road. Sometimes, I made a wrong turn (don’t ask Kat about how OFTEN I make wrong turns). But all in all, it’s worked well as a tactic.

I dunno. The alternative to stepping on it is to jam the brakes.

photo credit emio me

I started out in customer service. Lots of people passionate about social media have some customer service in their background. That’s why I really got into Barry Moltz’s and Mary Jane Grinstead’s book BAM!: Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World (amazon affiliate link). It’s a very readable book, broken into very useful chunks, with a recurring theme of “bust-a-myth,” ergo the BAM! I highly recommend this book if you’ve got something to do with customer service (Terry, I’m looking at YOU!).

Here’s the video review:

Can’t see the video? Click here.

If you want to learn more:

Mike Myatt is Chief Strategy Officer of N2Growth, a business that deals with branding, coaching, leadership management and more. Mike was also kind enough to buy many copies of Trust Agents, which made me wonder: what kind of a guy buys a ton of books to help a guy out, without wanting me to go and speak at some event or something? Mike just wanted to see things go well with our launch, and for that, I’m grateful.

I asked Mike some questions about his business and where he sees all this going. Here’s our interview:

You help coach CEOs on leadership and related issues, and you’re getting more into the social space. How are CEOs interacting with you about social media right now? What are they most curious or concerned about?

Great question…“concerned” and “curious” were very intuitive, and accurate choices in verbiage to use in framing your question. My experience has been that most CEOs already recognize the need for their organizations to be engaged in social media, However in most cases, they still see SM as something for others in the enterprise to deal with. With regard to corporate social media agendas, CEOs are very interested in using SM to extend their brand, to gather intelligence, to manage risk, and to create new revenue channels. They are reaching out to us in a fairly aggressive fashion corporately, with virtually all of our clients being engaged with some form of social media at the corporate level.

At the personal level, the concerns of CEOs are still regrettably outweighing their personal curiosity at this point. As aggressively as they’re seeking advice and counsel on corporate initiatives, their comfort zone preferences tend to have them shying away from high profile personal involvement. Presently we only have about a dozen CEOs actively engaged in consistent personal social media initiatives. The good news is that they are becoming increasingly more receptive to our message which has been loud, clear and very persistent…leadership is not a spectator sport…leadership is about trust, listening, innovation, commitment, collaboration, participation, and active engagement. These truths also hold true with regard to social media. By this time next year we’ll likely have more than 50 prominent CEOs actively engaged in social media at a personal level.

What kinds of advice do you give to CEOs with regards to this new space?

Aside from the obvious benefits (gathering intelligence, engaging stakeholders, building brand equity, more effectively avoiding and dealing with a crisis, increasing loyalty, creating revenue, etc.), the big opportunity is that a first movers advantage still exists for CEOs in SM. While there are numerous examples of entrepreneurial CEOs that already have a social media presence, the numbers of prominent CEOs who have an active and meaningful SM presence still number among the few.

For those willing to move forward, social media affords CEOs the opportunity to extend trust and expand influence by establishing a highly visible personal brand. Rather than being just another mistrusted “suit” sequestered away in the corner office, SM gives a CEO the opportunity to engender trust and confidence through genuine public interaction in a way that can meaningfully reach more people than is possible through any other medium. Our goal is to mitigate the damage of existing misinformation and negative stereotypes by helping CEOs to become more trusted and approachable. CEOs who desire to create a larger sphere of influence (both internally and externally), simply cannot afford to sit this one out. My advice? Get engaged, and get engaged now.

Has social media changed the leadership equation any?

Absolutely…it wasn’t so long ago that CEOs were really only accountable to their board and their shareholders. Now CEOs are answerable to an extended base of constituents that can include among others, very loud, passionate, and sometimes hostile groups of employees, bloggers, anonymous citizen journalists, the media, whistle blowers, and virtually anyone else who has an opinion. Leaders in today’s world must meet people where they are, they must deal with them in a relevant fashion, and they must do it quickly. The window of opportunity for leaders to embrace social media is rapidly closing…It won’t be long now before CEOs not engaged in social media will be looked at as dinosaurs not worthy of the title they hold. Some would say we have already reached this point.

What about the Millennial generation? I’ve seen a lot and had panels with Millennials that suggest that leadership has to change now that this new generation has come about? What’s your advice on that?

Most estimates already have Gen Y outnumbering Baby Boomers, and those that don’t, have them overtaking Baby Boomers in 2010. The size of this market makes Millennials a huge and rapidly growing base of both consumption and talent. Leaders who fail to communicate effectively with Gen Y will see market share erode, revenue decline, and the talent pool shrink. Put simply, Millennials are not just the future of a CEOs talent pool and market, they are a much larger part of the present landscape than many leaders care to admit.

When you couple the aforementioned observations with reports that more than 95% of Millennials have already joined at least one social network, it becomes evident that leaders who don’t embrace the culture of Gen Y will be left on the outside looking in. Any good leader understands that fluid, evolving markets require constant innovation and adoption of relevant messaging. Leaders who hope to survive will need to get in touch with their younger self.

Which technologies are you advocating that leaders pay attention to, and which ones are you keeping them away from?

In general, I’m not a big believer in one size fits all advice. What works for one CEO may be completely inappropriate for another given their personality, market, stage of corporate lifecycle, etc. While CEOs need to be engaged and visible, they need to do so in an appropriate fashion. Rather than trying to be all things to all people we help them develop a social media strategy that is in alignment with their corporate objectives, addresses their key constituencies, and is relevant to their individual circumstances.

Finally, how have social media tools improved your platform to find success with what you’re doing?

I’m a big believer in eating my own cooking. I simply couldn’t advise CEOs to engage in something that I haven’t had a positive personal and corporate experience with. Chris Brogan I’m not, but I have been blogging since 2005, have a solid following on LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networks, have used video effectively, and have been webcasting regularly for a few years now. Bottom line, social media is solidly integrated into our business model from both a leadership and branding perspective. At this point, we view social media as our primary communication channel both internally and externally.

For more information on Mike Myatt, check out his website at N2Growth.com, and also visit his blog. You can also follow @mikemyatt on Twitter.

The secret to blogging every day is a blend of three things: discipline, practice, and ideas. That last part is usually what I find people asking me for help with, so let’s talk about that today. Ideas don’t just grow on trees. But, you do have to harvest ideas the way you’d pick apples. Why? Because they’re everywhere. Here are some of the ways I find ideas.

How to Think of Blog Posts

1. Answer questions. You get emails with people asking you for your thoughts on X. Write the post instead of just replying to the email.
   
2. Take pictures. I see strange things out and about. When I snap them with my cameraphone, I have a post waiting to happen, when I think about how that thing applies to the people I write for.
   
3. Read blogs way outside the scope of what you write about. I use Alltop to find topics far outside of my blog’s topic. Amazing what I learn about from fishing blogs.
   
4. Think about what’s next and work backward.
   
5. Mash two ideas together and explain them in your own words.
   
6. Write about ways to improve your industry or space.
   
7. Write speeches that you’ve yet to give on a stage (see also: How to Start Speaking At Events).
   
8. Rant. Yes, I’m afraid that good old rants and complaints are still a powerful anchor tenant of most blogs. Know who rocks this well? Justin Kownacki.
   
9. Point out people doing the good stuff. That’s what I prefer to do instead.
   

Those are just some ways. How do YOU think up blog posts? Where do you get your ideas?

photo credit, Kristian D

Let’s imagine you’re a small or medium sized business and looking to use social software to improve communications on many fronts: support, service, marketing, etc. If you chose to use a service like Twitter, for instance, for some of this communicating, I can see the need to have a two-channel mindset: one public and customer-facing and the other private and business-facing. On the public channel, you’d talk with customers and prospects about the business, including everything from support help to promotional opportunities, to general good will. On the other channel, you’d communicate with people about the business itself, such as directing attention to important matters, or keeping track of employee activities, etc.

These could be all within a public system like Twitter, with the private channel activities being performed via Direct Message only, or the private conversations could be via a private platform like Socialcast or Yammer. The benefits to keeping them all in Twitter is a simple user experience for employees of the business. The downside would be the potential to spill private business into the public channel in error.

Now, where this gets interesting is when you think of either b2b additions to this, or affinity relationships. What if all the people up and around Jay Peak in Vermont, like Steve Wright all kept a Twitter list of local related businesses. Maybe Steve’s list would have alternative lodging and dining options, some medical professionals, massage therapists, ski repair shops, etc, all wired together in a Twitter list, so that he could monitor their public conversation for potential crossover opportunities. Suppliers to Steve could see his needs easily. Steve could assist in directing customers to related businesses while being up to the minute with what the situation is at their establishment (this all assumes that everyone’s keeping their channels updated).

The only thing missing is some kind of “memory” for the system. For instance, if Steve finds out that Boyd from the ski repair shop is going away for two days, how will he alert the next day’s crew to this information? And how will the overall “system” stay aware of such logistical changes? It would probably require some kind of alternative platform, like either a Facebook fan page that relates to that wired up group, or maybe a group blog. Either way, it’s not too hard to add it on.

What makes this different than email? Brevity, for one. For another, it’s a more flexible sharing option requiring less duplication of effort. For another, it serves many purposes in the public-facing channel mode, and helps speed up processes on the private in-business mode.

Squint a little, and you’ll see a few other ways to design these experiences for a business. Can you see the value?

I can’t say thanks enough to John Spiropoulos for his great video project from my trip to Southern California to spend time with Brandtailers. These videos he made are amazing. Pay attention to the quality John put into them more than the content itself. I mean, I’m flattered and pleased, but also pay attention to how John did what he did. I think he’s top shelf. You?

If you can’t see the video, click here.

Yesterday, Trust Agents was named a Top 10 Book by Amazon.com, thanks in great part to YOUR kindness by ordering it. In just over two months, the book has made the New York Times Bestseller’s list, the Wall Street Journal Bestseller’s list, the top 5 sellers on Audible.com, and now the Top 10 Business & Investing books of 2009, according to Amazon.

I consider every one of those successes to be yours. You did all the hard work. Julien and I just typed. Thank you for what you’ve done to make the book successful, and for believing in us.

For those of you who haven’t yet grabbed up a copy of Trust Agents for your friends and colleagues yet (I know you have your copy), this week’s a great time to correct that oversight. (Okay, just kidding.)

Thank you. So very much.