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Posts tagged ‘Robert Wood’

Dec 8

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Training vs. Education

I have a teacher. We’ll call him Ed. Ed has this notion that humans shouldn’t be trained. They should be educated. Only animals should be trained.

Want to be trained?

My approach is slightly different.

There are people who need training and others who should be educated.

What do I mean?

While there are many definitions of training, I normally think of training as “teaching specific steps in order to complete a task without delving into any of the underlying reasoning behind those steps” (completely my made up definition).

When I think education, I think more along the lines of “teaching not only the steps required to complete a task, but to also explain the underlying reasons and possibly even allowing them to participate in the process of deciding how to complete those tasks” (Again my made up definition).

There are those who need to know exactly what they need to do their job and nothing more. Some people can’t handle or process any more than that.

There are others who can handle the heavier load and may even have the need or desire to understand not only how, but why they are doing things the way they are. These people should get the education, even if their position doesn’t require they understand the reasons behind why they do things the way they do them.

Yes, ideally everyone would have the capacity and desire to the higher level reasons they do be educated.

The real goal should be to figure out who falls into either parameter and getting them the education or training they need or desire for their ability and position.

Also stop using the two interchangeably. They don’t mean the same thing.

Just my 2 cents.

Nov 17

4 Comments

6 Degrees Redux or What is Dunbar’s Number?

US150Peter Wolf over in his excellent post 6 Degrees of Separation? Don’t Make Me Laugh! talks about Online Friends vs. Real World Friends (or “Friend Friends”). This led to an offline conversation about relationships, friends, acquaintances, and social networks. I asked Peter if he thought there was any validity Dunbar’s number and how it relates to social networks as opposed to the real world.

So, what is Robert talking about? What is this Dunbar’s number?

Dunbar’s number is the theoretical maximum number of people with which an individual can maintain a close relationship as posited by anthropologist, Robin Dunbar. Dunbar looked at community sizes in ancient times and found the mean size of these villages was 150 (actually 148, but what’s a little rounding amongst friends?). Essentially it’s the limit of the size of our Tribe or Village.

Why 150? How many friends can one person have? How many friends are too many?

One reason is time. We only have so many hours in our lives. We can only invest so much time and attention towards those with whom we intend to have relationships. Another reason is a limitation in our cerebral cortex. Our brains can keep track of so many people.

I’m pretty funny about the word “friend”. It means something specific to me. One of the big things holding me back from joining Facebook for a long time was over how Facebook used the word friend as I was about the huge time suck involved. I would have to apply the label friend to a number of people who were merely acquaintances, but most certainly not friends.

I think we need a word for someone who is more than an acquaintance but less than a friend. That’s really where most of our real social network contacts lie.

Can we circumvent Dunbar’s number?

Seth Godin says no. He does say that with modern tools, like CRM software, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc., we can expand that number as high as 400 but not much beyond that.

This is why we can’t be held responsible for those we add to our social networks nor should we be expected to be able to give references for everyone in our networks.

How do these tools help?

There are some folks that we naturally gravitate towards because of philosophy, attitude, approach, etc. We are in alignment with them at a deep level. Sometimes it’s almost EASIER to pick up on that in social networks rather than in a real-world conversation where most people aren’t listening – they are just waiting to say their piece. In social networks, as long as the posts are short, the messages are read completely and characters emerge.

So, how many of those in your social networks would you consider friends in the real world?

Update: Interestingly Gary Vaynerchuk talking about Dunbar’s number here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm6b6z0muhE&feature=youtu.be

Oct 29

sage summit google plus
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Summit Diary on Google Plus: Connect With Us!

Have you heard abou this little thing called Google Plus?

It’s Google’s latest efforts to be social – and we think they’re going to attack this in a big way by embedding the Google+ functionality into just about everything you do.

Google+ (pronounced and sometimes referred to in writing as Google Plus) is a social networking and identity services operated by Google, Inc.

The service launched on June 28, 2011, in an invite-only field test. The following day users were allowed to invite friends who were over 18 years old to join. On September 20, 2011 Google+ opened the doors to everyone over 18 years of age.

Google+ integrates social services such as Google Profiles, and introduced new features such as Circles (ways to categorize and filter information from contacts), Hangouts (video group chat for up to 10 people) and Sparks (news).

The Summit Diary staff have been putting the features through their paces for the last few months.

As of now the most impressive feature is Google Hangouts which allow up to 10 simultaneous chat participants to connect for real time video talk.

Find the Summit Diary staff on Google Plus (throw us in one of your circles) :

Wayne Schulz

Peter Wolf

Robert Wood

And to get you started here are 50+ Sage VARS or related people we’ve found already on Google+. Click the link to add them to a circle in your Google+.

Jul 18

For More Information On the New Sage Certification Requirements

In the last of the audio updates from Sage Summit, I had mentioned that there was a Twitter account you should follow for more information on the latest information or if you have questions about the new Sage certification requirements.That Twitter account is @LaneGiles. You can also email certification.NA@sage.com for more information.

Jul 15

Spacey Seven
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Seven (I Mean Nine) Deadly Sins of Linkedin

For any who don’t know, Bill Kizer is the founder and creator of the Sage Employees, Alumni, and Partners Linkedin group.

Bill was the presenter with Wayne Schulz and Peter Wolf contributing as the panel. Peter also had a separate presentation of his own. The topic was Seven Deadly Sins of Linkedin, but I think most of these really apply to any social media platform.

Mistake #1: Don’t fill out your profile.

If you don’t keep your profile updated, no one will know where you are or what’s going on with you. If you win an award, add it to your profile. If you join an organization add it to your profile. The more often you update your profile, the more often your profile shows up in your contacts Linkedin. Also updating your status regularly keeps your profile coming back up to the top.

Mistake #2: Don’t include Profile Photographs.

If you do have a profile picture, it needs to be as professional as it can be. You probably shouldn’t have a picture of your dog or kids or your favorite trip to Disney World as your profile picture. What you want to present on Linkedin is an image that is as close to what you would present in  job interview as you can. So no pictures of you passed out drunk…even on Facebook.

You also shouldn’t use your company logo as your profile picture. If you’re a sole proprietor or a team, people do business with people, not logos or brands.

I always use a picture of myself for my profile on various social media sites…well, almost always. The exception is Twitter. I can’t exactly explain why this is the exception and why I think it works for me. If you do click through to my Twitter profile, I do have a picture of myself on the custom wallpaper I created for my Twitter profile.

Mistake #3: Don’t contribute to discussions conversations.

If you don’t put your two cents in, I guarantee two things will happen: no one will find out if they find what you say useful and no one will know what ideas you have.

Mistake #4: Don’t become an expert in any industry.

I think another way is “Don’t share anything”. One of the conversations that Wayne, Peter and I had when organizing Summit Diary was about whether or not what we had to say had value to anyone else. If you keep everything to yourself, you will never find out if it has value to someone else or not.

Wayne recommends using Shareaholic to share links to stuff written by other people. Shareaholic is a plugin for various browsers that  works with multiple services, like Linkedin, Facebook, Yammer, Google Buzz, Delicious, Posterous, Tumblr, etc.

Mistake #5: Don’t Invite Others To Your Network

Or “Don’t reach out to others”. I’m going to share a bit about how I got into social media. I frequently make comments about being Wayne Schulz’s #1 cyber stalker (and interestingly, I’m not the only one. You know who you are @GLComputing.)  but the reality is I’ve been following Wayne online since I first discovered his website and newsletter in 2003, I think it was.

While it’s not OK to spam people, it is OK to reach out to others.

Mistake #6: Don’t give or ask for recommendations.

Honestly, this is one of those double edged things. I say feel free to give recommendations to anyone you think deserves it, but don’t require or expect a quid pro quo or it may (or may not) look like exactly that. I think recommending someone who recommends you looks bad even if you think they deserve it. It’s almost like an organized link exchange. If you do ask for a recommendation, don’t require or expect the other party to give you one. Recommendations are a personal choice.

Mistake #7: Don’t Include Any Contact Information.

This is a big one. If I want to contact you so I can hire you or provide you work and I can’t find your email or phone number, you might never hear from me. I use Google Apps for my email and it eliminates a lot of the spam and I use a Google Voice phone number for my public telephone number. The beauty of the Google Voice number is that it allows you to screen your calls. Even if you don’t screen your calls, if you let them go to voice mail, you’ll get an email with the contents (sort of) of the message any callers may leave. Yes, you can be contacted through Linkedin but why make someone work that hard to get to you?

Mistake #8 (Added by Wayne Schulz): Don’t include a personal email address.

Use a personal email address as your primary address. You can still include your business email address. If you only use your work email address, you might lose access to your account.

This has happened to a few people in recent years with people changing jobs as frequently as they have in recent years. It would be terrible to be in the situation of looking for a job and not being able to access your network.

Mistake #9 (I just added this one): Wait until you are looking for a job to create your Linkedin profile.

When is the best time to setup a Linkedin account? If you don’t have one already, now is the best time.

A few additional Linkedin tips:

You can send email newsletters to the members of your group.

Use the search and filters in Linkedin to find a job or find an employee.

You could also potentially use filters to find a prospect, but be careful how you do this. Primarily, I would say use this to find people to connect to and make friends.

The biggest benefit of getting the paid Linkedin account is access to more information and the ability to more advanced searching features.

Ultimately, I think Ed Kless’s social media policy says it best, “Be professional”. I would add, “Be human”. So “Be professional and be human” would be the ultimate Linkedin rule.

Jul 14

Sage Summit Diary

Sage Summit 2011 Daily Audio Wrapups

Each morning the writers for Summit Diary met at 6am for a 1 hour walk to the top of the highway overpass and back. As we met other conference participants we invited them to join us for our morning walk.

Sadly since most normal people are still sleeping at 6am in the morning – we only had one person who tagged along during our walks.

Rather than have our collective wisdom, bicker and arguing go to waste – this year we used an iPhone and the Cinchcast app to record our discussions. What follows are 4 days of summaries where we have a group discussion (pardon the background noise as we’re often walking near the highway) about the important topics of the Sage Summit conference from the prior days.

Most of these recordings are under 15 minutes in length – and some are as short as 5 minutes. Here’s our summary and insight into what we found interesting at Sage Summit 2011.

Read more

Jul 12

walking
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Sage Summit Day One – Audio Wrapup

The first full day of keynotes and sessions has come to a close. Lots of interesting first day announcements – including an almost total rebranding of Sage’s North America product portfolio, interesting news about Sage Exchange (connected services for Sage Payments) and some interesting information on the costs for the MAS 90 Online product which Sage has announced will become available in Q4 2011 (hopefully October 2011).

This morning Robert, Peter and I walked for an hour. We recorded the first 13 minutes of our thoughts for those who many not have made it to Sage Summit — or for anyone looking for some additional views on the announcements.

First a disclaimer – the opinions expressed on these summaries are our own personal opinions and do not reflect the opinions of anyone else (that’s why they call them personal opinions silly). In some cases we may have partially complete information so use our discussions combined with your own thoughts to form an independent conclusion.

Listen to Day One Sage Summit Audio Recap

Jul 11

Walking with Wayne and Robert

This morning I chose to participate in a unique experience.

I got up before 6:00 am – voluntarily. (Please understand that I’m usually don’t open my eyes before 8:00 and typically if I’m getting up at that ungodly hour, it’s because my 5 year old is tapping me on the shoulder asking if he can get up and play.)

So, why did I venture into this brave new, unknown world?

I had the opportunity to go for an early morning walk with industry legend Wayne Schulz. Most folks in the Sage family know Wayne – he’s been out there blogging, tweeting, social networking, you name it for years. He continues to push his own boundaries and set the bar higher for himself and for the rest of the Sage channel. He offers a unique perspective on our industry sprinkled in with a heavy helping of technology and tools.

Joined by our fellow co-blogger and all-around awesome gentleman, Robert Wood from DDF Consulting Group, and SageCRM project manager specialist, Dan Cousins from DCAA, we had a decent walk and discussed topics including reseller best practices, Sage policy changes, cloud computing, integrated Sage CRM (my personal favorite topic) among many other things that impact us as partners in the Sage channel.

A big part of the conference is getting a chance to talk about what’s working, what’s not, what others are doing, etc. Sure – we can do it over the phone or in our LinkedIn groups but sometimes (oftentimes?) face-to-face is the best way to collaborate.

Plus, as an added bonus, you get to burn off some calories from all the calorie-rich foods available at the conference.

If anyone would care to join us, we will be outside the Gaylord tomorrow at 6:00 am. It might be worth your time. I certainly feel it was.

PS. Wear light clothing. It was ugly humid out there – even at 6:00 am.

Jul 8

hillbillies

Sage Summit – Here We Come (Ready Or Not)

Hello Washington DC. Ready or not here we come. In just one short day we’ll be heading out to the Sage Summit 2011 conference. On Tuesday July 12, 2011 from 6pm to 7pm please stop by the first annual Sage Summit Tweet UP and mingle with over thirty conference participants who will be live tweeting during the event. This is a perfect time to meet and get to know people in an informal setting.

There’s no cost for the meeting — and drinks and food are your responsibility. Stop by and say hello to Peter, Robert or Wayne and make some new friends.

Sage Summit Tweet Up – July 12, 2011

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