Don't be a Selfie be an unselfie.

"SELFIE" is word of the year, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. "Posting a picture of yourself, taken on your mobile device, along with the hashtag #selfie" and it has become one of the defining features of the new social media world.

A selfie is something anyone can do. If this trend strikes you as rather, well, selfie-centred, why not fight back and promote the opposite, by posting an "unselfie"?

It is really easy to create an unselfie. First, write clearly on a piece of paper what cause or causes you will be supporting in the run up to Christmas. Maybe you are giving some money, or volunteering some time; you can mention more than one, if you are giving to more than one. Then, because this is about the causes not you, hold the piece of paper in front of your face, showing your personal giving pledge, and take a picture. Add the hashtag #unselfie. Then Tweet, Facebook and email it as widely as possible. Hopefully it will become as popular as the selfie.

Of course, your unselfie should be done in the right spirit. Not for nothing is there a long tradition of considering that giving is best when it is done in secret; the unselfie is emphatically not about showing off or advertising how virtuous you are being.

However, the unselfie is worth doing because it can tap into the power of social media to inspire others and motivate ourselves by sharing our passions publicly. The unselfie is a way of saying, this cause is important to me - and seeing that, the people who take an interest in you may be inspired to look more deeply into the causes you support, or to think about, and hopefully unselfie, the causes that matter to them.

Reach new audiences through new mobile fundraising App

The Small Charities Coalition has just alerted me to this new fundraising service for UK charities that is launching this week.

One Cent Call is a global fundraising platform that collects micro-donations from donors based on their mobile phone use. The simple to use mobile app and website allow donors to set a monthly limit to their donations (as little as 50p) then donate to their chosen area or cause by simply using their mobile phone account.

After every 90 days the funds raised are distributed amongst the charities working in these areas. The process is independently audited by global accounting firm BDO.

The platform is now open for charities to register and One Cent Call are working exclusively with the Small Charities Coalition to encourage as many small charities as possible to sign up. For more information and to register, visit the link below:
www.onecentcall.org/charities.html

Enriching our lives

Yesterday, on the hottest day of the year so far, I was in London and experienced the full force of a city in the summer. The old buildings radiated the heat and the modern air conditioning insulated those inside from the reality around them. People seemed to be more relaxed than normal. Every day our lives are made of may thousands of small of details, most of which we miss.

 

Today, hundreds or perhaps thousands of people will pass through the edges of our lives. They will stand next to us in queues, follow us down the street or ask for directions. These interactions are at the very edge of probability but they happen every day. They only feel routine because we don't pay attention to the details.

 

What if every time we interacted with a new person we thought "help this person". This thought will cause us to notice these “edge” events and will change our view of the world. It will bring us face to face with humanity, transforming routine into a splendid life filled with rich detail.

Please share your "edge" encounters by commenting on this blog.

Living Below The Line

I’ve taken part in the Live Below the Line campaign over the past week because I think that to really tackle extreme poverty, we've got to try to understand it - and what better way than by spending just a few days living below the poverty line. Live Below the Line is an initiative of the Global Poverty Project, an education and campaigning organisation whose mission is to increase the number and effectiveness of people taking action against extreme poverty.





Breaking the cycle of extreme poverty is not easy. In 2000 world leaders agreed to eight Millennium Development Goals -

1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
2. Achieve Universal Education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/Aids
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

Of course my time limited and supported effort is only a token gesture. I’ve got body reserves to draw on and I know it is going to be over in a few days. For people living in extreme poverty there is not such expectation. The support I’ve had from friends and colleges has made it that much easier, although a few people have tempted me with bacon sandwiches! It is such a serious issue and unless we all do a part in addressing the millennium development goals they will remain just that goals.

Hunger kills more people than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Two million children die each year because of malnutrition. The food system is broken.

The world produces enough food for everyone, but not everyone has enough food.

Nearly one billion people go to bed hungry every night. We've made progress in other areas, but hunger is the great scandal of our age. All around the world, including in the UK, people are struggling to feed their families.

The past week has made me realise just how much we spend on unnecessary or luxury foods. I have not eaten well, I’ve relied on carbohydrates to keep me full, but I have eaten. I have not had to budget for shelter, clothing, or any of the other essentials but I have felt marginalised as I walk around town or watch the adverts on the TV. All those “Cheep” offers are way out of my budget and I felt that this made me even less part of society. What must it be like to be in that position all the time?

Thank you to all who have supported me ( it is not too late to make a donation just click HERE )  and through that support made a difference to the people who most need it. Together we can score a win for each of the millennium development goals.

The pitfall of a small business consultant.

The most common pitfall faced by small independent consultants is that rather than remaining as business advisers, they end up as direct service providers, handling the major workload of the business process where they were expected only to provide. This becomes very expensive for the client and changes the relationship. In place of mutual satisfaction, you now have mutual dissatisfaction.

There are three possible outcomes in such situations - the client pays up and remains upset with you, the client doesn't pay your bills and you are upset with the client, or both parties reach an unhappy compromise.

In certain cases, time-schedule, lack of resources on part of the client, or other urgent needs may call for you to provide most of the work as a direct service provider. But in such cases, the client needs to understand from the very beginning that the instant situation needs a service provider with your experience, more than it needs power of consulting. The client needs to have a clear idea of the costs that may be chalked up if you were providing direct service, or the client is free to hire another direct service provider, to save the day. Even providing that little advice is sufficient for you to bill as a consultant, because the client was unable to recognise the situation. What you are doing is business consulting, and not creating a fallible situation.

How do people end up with the jobs they have?

A friend of mine recently said she'd been worried about her cat. When I asked what was wrong, envisioning broken bones, diseases, pit-bull terriers, she continued. "She seems depressed. I think she's angry with me."

My friend found, with little difficulty, a person she was sure could help. Not a vet, but a pet psychic, a person who, through spending time with animals, touching them, talking to them and more, feels able to effectively communicate with them. The pet psychic provided - at no small cost - a detailed report to my friend, who was satisfied with the results.

Good grief, I thought, how does one become a cat whisperer? If you can be a cat whisperer for a living, you can be anything. There are people who formulate antidepressants for pets. There are people who taste pet food.  There are people whose sole means of income lies in designing dog clothes in every size from Yorkshire Terrier to Great Dane (doubles as a horse blanket), and that's just pets.  What about citrus fruit colourer? Lighthouse keepers? The voice over chaps for cinema trailers? Somewhere out there, there is someone whose job is comprised, at least in part, of naming lipsticks and nail polish colours.

The mind boggles at how many forks on the road of life there are and the possibilities for different careers.

Of course things have changed a lot over generations. Being a brush maker for a living is probably unlikely now, and earning a living as a creator of applications for smart phones only popped into existence in the last decade. But regardless of the time we're living in, our careers shape our lives. How we support ourselves and pay our bills influences our interests and conversations, and becomes part of our identity. Clearly our ideas change as we get older or we'd all be firemen, ballerinas or spacemen. How many of us follow the career path we wanted in primary school when the teacher asked us what we want to be when we grow up?

Finding a job that is both enjoyable and pays well is a common goal. However, this enticing combination can be elusive. Generally, you are considered lucky if you have a job that falls into either category. If you make a lot of money, at least you're well-compensated for work you don't enjoy. If you love your job, at least you get to have fun even if the money isn't so easy to come by. However, for a lucky few, there are careers that encompass both. A high salary is a fairly easy to calculate, but the enjoyment you get from a career will vary from one person to the next.

Career paths are not always straightforward and it can be difficulty to equate what you learn at school to particular jobs. My own career path is a good example.

I left school with one “O”Level in Theology, it was a monastery school and I am dyslexic!  My academic achievements came latter; I now have a degree and amongst other acknowledgements of my skill I am a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

When I left school I had no idea what I was going to be able to do. I was interested in the countryside and farming so went to agricultural college and worked on the land before developing my interests in marketing. The combination of the two has taken me around the world. I’ve been a charity CEO for a dozen years and I’ve worked in over 30 countries. In Taiwan I worked on native art, in Zambia cattle ranching, in Singapore with social exclusion  and in the Netherlands ex-cons.

Throughout my career I’ve drawn on what I learnt at school. Not necessarily directly, I don’t think I’ve ever needed to recite the Kings and Queens of England but I have for example used my maths and science to create a field fridge in Africa. It is not just the straight academic skills that I have drawn on. Much of my leadership comes from my time at school.  I learned to work with others and tolerate or even welcome difference.

Every day is a school day. I learn something new every day. The challenge is to apply it.

Cram these essentials into every marketing message.

I've spent much of my career working on getting my message across. Specifically, what you should say to get people to donate something, try something or buy something. Sometimes I've succeeded and sometimes I've failed, but over time the same four critical components emerge again and again.

I've concluded a great message at its essence packs four complementary purposes into one powerful whole:

• It connects with other people based on their values
• rewards them with a benefit they seek
• asks for a specific action to get that benefit and
• sticks with us in a memorable way.

It has taken me a lot of practice to CRAM this into my head. If you're in the business of persuasion, you must CRAM your message into every key interaction with your target audience.

1. Connect to things your audience cares about. I mean core desires like saving time, feeling good about themselves, helping others, etc. You want to always answer the question, why should someone else care? Why is what you're saying personally relevant?
2. Identify and offer a compelling reward for taking action. What benefit will result for the people who listen to what you say? Good rewards are immediate, personal, credible and reflective of audience values. 
3. Have a clear call to action. Good actions are specific, feasible and are easy for people to visualize doing. So much of messaging falls down on this point. Make it extremely easy to get on board with what you’re asking of them.
4. Make it memorable. We don’t want simply to make an impression; We want to make a lasting impression. What makes something memorable? It’s memorable if it’s different, catchy, personal, tangible and desirable. But a word of caution: memorable elements should always be closely tied to our message. Think of all the advertisements that were so funny or memorable that we told a friend about them, but when asked what product the ad was for, we were not sure. We don’t just need a memorable idea or picture; we need an idea or picture that makes our product or cause memorable. Tell a vivid story or use a unique messenger to drive home points 1-3.

Has CRAMing ever worked for you? What would you add to the list?

A NEW New Years Resolution

As the 9th January is meant to be the day most people in the UK break their New Years resolution I thought that the 11th was a good day to suggest a fresh resolution. “Develop a sound social media strategy”.

Slowly but surely I am starting to understand how important it is for me to get involved with social media marketing. If you are like me and want to manage your online presence all by yourself, and you’re feeling overwhelmed, maybe this blog can help you stick to your shinny new resolution.

Start with the – “Why?”

Many people get into social media for the wrong reason and participate in the networks they joined too much or too little. Now’s a great time to really give some thought to why you are involved in the social networks you are involved in. Having clarity in the “Why?” is the first step in getting yourself organised and on track. Here’s a few ideas to help you answer the question.

• Are you involved with social media to boost your ego? Do you collect followers, connections, and Likes solely so you can tell your friends about the numbers you’ve amassed?
• Do you really want to engage with the people you’ve connected with, or do you just want to promote yourself or your product all the time?
• Did you join a particular social network just because “Everyone I know is on …?”
• Are you prepared to put in the time necessary to accomplish your social media marketing goals consistently throughout 2012?

The answers to these questions are important and will help you form your social media marketing strategy for 2012. Businesses and business people, wanting to succeed in the world as it is today, must WANT to connect. You must WANT to connect with you current clients, customers and prospects if you want to be a successful social marketer. These are the people who will help your business grow. Now, when I say “connect,” I mean really engaging in conversations with people instead of pummeling them with promotions for your product or service. I mean adding value to people’s lives on a regular basis with your posts ( like this one?! ). I mean working hard to build lasting online relationships with your connections so they trust and respect you.

If you don’t consistently provide your connections with valuable content you and your business will be forgotten. If you over do it and post too much people will get irritated and stop following you. The key to a successful social media strategy is the same key to a happy and healthy life: Balance.

Whether you are a small business or a BIG company your commitment to social networking should be consistent, compelling and engaging. The social community is a fickle one. They will follow someone who is consistent, compelling and engaging, but once you slip up, they’re gone, never to return.

Developing a social networking schedule you can handle, must also keep you accountable. Again, the goal is consistency. Build your schedule and stick with it for an entire month. At the end of the month, stop and evaluate your efforts to determine if you are still on goal. Do you need to tweak the schedule? Do you need to get involved in more social networks or less?

Here’s my New Years resolution social media marketing schedule. You can use my schedule to generate ideas that will help you create your own schedule to meet your needs and the needs of your social communities, accomplish your goals, and fit your particular business and work style.

I will…

Two times a day

• Check my Twitter feed. Reply when required and check the keywords I am looking for. Join a conversation or two.
• Check my LinkedIn profile and visit some of the Groups I am in. I will engage with my LinkedIn network in some way twice a day, every day.
• Check my Facebook Page and post something of value or respond to comments.
• Check my Google Alerts for information on your competitors and mentions of your own brand. Actually I have not really got to grips with Google Alerts so this is more a must learn how to resolution!

Once A Week

• Work on Twitter and Facebook Lists to be better organised so I am able to send targeted marketing messages when appropriate.
• Really spend some time in LinkedIn Answers and discussions in the Groups I belong to.
• Schedule tweets and status updates for the next week so I am consistently providing myr connections with “valuable” information.
• Spend some time building relationships with other influencers.
• Keep up to date on new products and social tools that may increase my efficiency and reach.

During the Week

Monday
Schedule tweets and status updates to provide meaningful content in addition to the content I scheduled in my once a week session.

Mondays and Wednesdays
Get involved in an industry specific conversation on Twitter.

Tuesdays
Respond to blog comments on my blog and leave a comment or two on another blog. Remember what I said about building trust and credibility!

Fridays
Check on the things I’ve been listening to. This would also be a good day to take a look at my analytics and analyse my website and blog traffic for the week.

I’m sure that your schedule is likely to be very different from this one. Consider your time commitments. Make the schedule something you will really do every week, stick to your NEW New Years resolution. Tweak the schedule along the way but remember that consistency is key.

Please share some of your own ideas in the comments.