Contributing Columnist with Inc.com

Contributing Columnist with Inc.com

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I'm pleased to announce that Inc.com has accepted me as a contributing columnist. My column, Community and Conversion, explores the intersection of leadership and marketing. This is keen interest of mine, a differentiator for Three Over Four, and the main thrust of my book Leading in a Social World. The name of the column comes from Nichole Kelly, a marketing exec in the DC/Baltimore area. Nichole's work for a debt relief organization caught my eye as a strong example of building social capital in social media, and I interviewed her for my book. She sees her work as community building more than marketing, and told me that “recognizing opportunities for human connection is very different from opportunities for conversion." What a gem of a thought. Nichole is actually featured in…
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Emotional Influence

Emotional Influence

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Thought leadership of Leading through Challenging Times focuses on emotional intelligence. Want to influence through tough times? Learn to manage emotions. Three Over Four does lead gen and content marketing for the Executive Education unit at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. One of the great things about this client, beside their concise name, is that we get to learn. It’s a 24-7-365 class proxy of some incredible content tailored specifically for working professionals. And their orientation around leadership aligns perfectly with our strengths. So it’s a good fit for both of us. This month we’re creating content around a leadership topic relevant to just about all of us: Empower to Perform: Leadership strategies for empowering people to rise up to business challenges. We interviewed Mark Gasta, former…
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How to quit

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I know someone with volunteerism in her blood. She’s sat on just about every board in her profession – sequentially, that is. She doesn’t board-bag. She ads value. She’s starting her own organization now. The natural progression from member to leader to creator. It isn’t easy. She’ll be the first to tell you. To make room for her new pursuits she had to quit a board with a cause she believes in and a president she admires. It was going to be hard, something she wasn’t looking forward to. So how does someone so involved, so committed, quit? She committed – gave her word - to the president that she would start the organization she’s working on. And that by so doing actually be able to help his organization more…
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Slipped from ground gained? You’re not alone.

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As a newly self-employed guy, I very much appreciate blogs that catalog the trials of the free agent. To name a few: Steven DeMaio, Erik Proulx and recently (I hope)Chris Spagnuolo. I guess this is my contribution to some already-great thinking out there, for whatever it's worth. Oh - and Happy Indian Republic Day! Everybody looses things once gained. It can be terribly depressing and deflating. Your books are a mess despite once having the perfect accounting routine and system. You can’t run five miles anymore even though you once ran a half marathon. You used to network regularly but have been out of the scene for so long you can’t imagine going back to a room full of strangers. You lost sight of your kids’ soccer games this summer after getting…
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The sad thing is, Tiger knows how to practice

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I've blogged a few times about how rare practicing is in business. In the context of social media, and in the public relations domain. Exactly opposite of athletes and musicians, working professionals spend 99% of their time executing and 1% of their time practicing. It's hard to find places in business to practice. So when you do, you have to take advantage of them. It's not surprising to see Tiger Woods recognize the need to get out in front of stories during a crises. He's a smart guy. He proves it in this article, where he comments aabout Michael Vick back in 2007: If you made that big a mistake, you got to come out and just be contrite, be honest, and just tell the public 'I was wrong'...I think waiting…
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