From this humble beginning:

To this less humble stage:

There yet?

Not sure what or where there is, but I keep practicing.
Results are coming. Those are proof of improvement and some smatter of success.

A coworker asked me to donate artwork for a fund raiser.
FLickr folks looking for me to sketch their portrait.
Twitter buds as well.

All of those things aren’t where I’m headed. They are rewards that come with continued practice.

Some results, well, they’re humbling. Being asked to sketch is humbling as well.

What are you practicing?

Blogging? Speaking? Crafting?

Are you working on it consistently? Slacking? Complaining about it?  Chris Brogan reminded me about the value of practice and why we should respect the privilege of it. (1)

Tell me about it! Share with me! You shouldn’t brag unprompted but sharing rocks and I’m here to brag for you.

(1) Chris Brogan Practice.Similar Posts:

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Tojosan’s FAQs That Won’t Be Answered

You found the Internet. You had something to say. You started a blog.

Everyday someone else joins the Internet, discovers blogs, and decides they want to join the blogging world.

What questions are they asking you that you tire of answering or not answering?

I’d like to share this and a few other frequently asked questions that I won’t be answering.

1. What is the best blogging platform?
2. What is the best domain registrar?
3. What can I do to get more readers?
4. What is the trick to making money on my blog?
5. How come you don’t have 1000 comments; what makes you an expert?

These are not technical questions. These are high level excuses to avoid blogging. In the end, none of these matters.

Answers to these frequently asked blogging questions? One answer.

Start a blog. Write blog posts. Share the posts, or don’t.

When they have a real question, they can come back.

What are real blogging questions?

I’ll give you one.

The image I put at the top of my blog makes my page take 10 seconds to load. Here’s the image. What did I do wrong.

What blogging questions wear you out? Are they excuses to stall before that person blogs? Or are they honest real questions where the answer will move them forward.

Tell me your questions.

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Exercise

– even 15 minutes each day makes a difference. The same holds true for Twitter.

When can I do Twitter

I’m frequently asked where small organizations can make time to ‘do twitter’. These are the same folks that do have time for a bit of exercise each evening. Their trick for that? Scheduling.

Twitter myth 14: you must tweet in real time and be always on.

It’s patently false.

Schedule Twitter Time

Where to start? I recommend setting aside 15 minutes each day to begin with. At first, I recommend early morning and midday if possible.

But what if I get a mention or reply? Deal with it like email. Answer all of these during your scheduled time online.

How do I make that Twitter time effective

Prioritize!

It’s about dealing with important things first. Let’s start with a simple Twitter checklist. In a follow up article, I’ll fill out other steps and actions that can be added to your daily Twitter routine.

Twitter Action Check List:

• Answer all direct messages
  • Customers – answer these first.
  • Friends – only answer these if customers are deal with first.
  • Random – requests from Twitter connections that don’t add value to your business or relationships.
• Answer all mentions/replies
  • Same as before – Customers, friends, random.
  • Don’t ignore haters.
• Reach out
  • Tweet to customers that are regularly in conversation.
  • Tweet to business partners, and coworkers.
  • Tweet out cool news, updates, etc about your organization – limit this to a few at a time.

Doesn’t sound like much? It isn’t supposed to be. This is to be worked through in those 15 minutes set aside for Twitter.

Twitter Don’t Do This List

Yep. There’s a ton of do and don’t items but keeping in the short interval theme, here are just a handful.

• Don’t police Twitter – focus on the organization’s goals.
• Don’t attack anyone – focus on drawing people in, not being a bully.
• Don’t carry out involved discussions – take these to the phone, in person, or at least to direct messages.
• Don’t spread gossip – seems obvious, but if it’s not helping the organization, why bother.
• Don’t talk about the organization out of turn – this is the one that the lawyers love to harp on. If a Twitter account isn’t about the organizations policies, procedures, and such, then that account shouldn’t have any tweets along those lines. In other words, don’t behave here any different than you would in public regarding the company.

But I still have Twitter questions

That’s okay!  We all have things we can learn.

The key to Twitter isn’t that it’s new methods to marketing and communication, it’s that it’s just another medium.

What questions do you have?  Drop them in the comments or tweet them to me, @tojosan or @toddrjordan.

Got your own 15 minute tips for Twitter? Love to hear them.

Found Words: Question Marks by rosefirerising, on Flickr

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Movies, they give us a bit of fantasy to break up the tress in our lives. Sometimes they show us places we’ll never get to see in person, or take us inside an experience beyond our reach.  One thing all movies have in common though is a protagonist. He or she is the one we’re drawn to relate to.

Key to these movies is how the protagonist comes out victorious in the end. The story follows the ups and downs, support and obstacles along the way. In the end they make it.  Here’s what I’ve distilled down to the key principles of success. Enjoy.

• The craziest plan works out in the end. Never just cut to the chase and ask permission.
• Use a gun. You can be an expert after just a few fire fights and ammo is cheap and easy to find.
• All great success involve kissing at some point. So if you’re not going to kiss the beautiful business partner, kiss her ugly boss. It’s like magic.
• Yes, that book you wrote doesn’t need more editing, it just needs you to make sure the right publisher is forced to read it.
• Akin to writing, your art is really great. It’s just the ordinary citizens are too cheap to buy it or don’t appreciate it. As soon as you get it under the nose of a real expert though, boom, instant success.
• All success involves selling out.
• Success requires partners.  No matter how tough the hero, he or she inevitably needs helps along the way.
• The opposing team has limitless resources and must always be outsmarted.
• That partner that helps the most will the one least expected.
• Girls dig the crazy guys.
• Success at the end leads to forgiveness by all the innocents you hurt along the way. It’s like magic happy potion or something.
• If there’s a need to reprogram a lock, a computer or a satellite, fate provides a helper.
• All kids are technology gurus.
• Bomb making is easy and every good success action movie requires one.

One common theme in the list is that once you’re committed to your own success, the universe provides a way to make it happen.  The crazier the better of course, but success comes to those who strike out after it.  That’s the biggest lesson movie teach us about success.

We can’t all make bombs in real life, but we an all strive to grow, conquer and succeed.

This post inspired by #usblogs weekly blogging theme. Twitter group, #usguys, provides a topic suggest. Each person writes their own piece and shares it back to the group.

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Leadership in the 21st century has been a hot topic for years. It’s a big topic, with a broad swath being covered.  Today let’s focus on IS leadership for the 21st century, specifically those responsible for programmers.

Programmers still exist. Programmers largely aren’t programming games, smart phone applications or best of breed web sites. Most programmers are supporting and upgrading existing business systems. You know, those systems the customer never sees or uses.

Times are moving fast in this world even as the program languages have yet to fully catch up. Gone are the free-wheeling days when users could drop by and ask for a report change and have it before getting back to their desk.  Sarbanes-Oxley took care of that.

On the other hand, the use of spec programmers has gone down as budgets have tightened. IS leadership can no longer afford an extra body that can only heads down code.

Modern IS leadership’s biggest issue: constraints. Budget, paperwork overhead, and an aging workforce.

What hasn’t emerged along with increased constraints are better tools to managed and measure the work. Here’s where we can focus on a bit of what being a 21st century leader entails.

Most leaders are still measuring success by total project hours versus projected. Beginning work now requires paperwork and an hours estimate. Managers compile the projected hours up to a grand total for each programmer and then lay out the plan. This worked well enough in the days when user interaction wasn’t required to move the process along, nor did paperwork time equal programming time.

The factory mindset and approach no longer works. What are those in charge to do now?

Modern leaders must be obstacle removers and overhead reducers. It’s not a role most have adopted.

How about some techniques that help!

• Centralize the paperwork requirements and make one person responsible – put them on a share drive and designate Tom as the curator. If it’s in that folder, it’s current. This removes the necessity of figuring it out each time a programmer begins work.
• Centralize time tracking – let the programmer write code and solve problems by making timekeeping a one stop shop.  Use an Access database/app, a web app, or let them turn in time sheets. Apps are best.
• Don’t ask for daily hours and progress updates – work isn’t linear anymore. If the plan is 8 hours, that’s not equal to one day. Eight hours means eight hours of continuous work. Interruptions for status updates don’t add value. Check the time tracking software.
• Centralize support functions – don’t share the support line across all the programmers.  Rotate or designate – one person answers the phone and checks the email system. Likewise, appoint someone to track open tickets and help resolve them, regardless of who is assigned the work.
• Include the programmer early in the project – primary bonus is  getting realistic estimates. Secondary to that is giving the programmer a direct idea of desired outcomes, and the use cases involved. Requirement complexity is greater than ever. Don’t handicap the team.

Sure seems like a lot more than Monday morning team meetings where the manager hands out assignments and shouts, ‘Get to i!’ It is.

I’m blessed to have a manager that’s cozying up to these ideas. He’s become more of a problem solver than a delegator. Oh, there’s more tips I could share, and more concepts to being a 21st century leader, but the ones above are strong building blocks.

What can you do? Go.Educate.Succeed!

Notes: This is week 2 of #usblogs weekly blogging endeavor by the Twitter group, #usguys. The following is taken from Brand Directions #usblogs post.

HOW #USBLOGS WORKS

Monday-Thursday: we all suggest themes for the following week-end; any #usguys member can suggest a theme, to keep the game open to all, not just those who already posted; to suggest, simply send a tweet with the following format: “Theme: xxxxx #usblogs #usguys Please RT to Vote!”

Friday: we’ll pick one theme on a simple popular votes basis – the most retweeted; this ensures themes have broad appeal for both writers and readers – and hopefully enough controversy to stimulate different perspectives and opinions: I’ll be happy to keep track and announce the theme each Friday pm, around 6pm NY time.

Saturday & Sunday: we all write and post on our own blogs…

Before Monday Mid-Day: we all tweet our posts with the #usblogs hashtag, and update our own posts with a round up of all other #usblogs posts.

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That’s me at the office. Okay, a virtual office. Notice I’m not working.

Is your work at home environment conducive to work?

Working at home requires balancing comfort, usability, and distractions.

Comfort:

• Proper chair – sure at work you’re stuck with that 10 year old secretary chair. At home, get a chair that provides support and won’t leave you with numb legs. On the opposite side, a bean bag might be too comfortable.
• Proper clothing – wear what enables you the best. If that’s jeans and a tee, wear them, if it’s a suit, put it on. I promise I won’t laugh. The key is a bit beyond comfort for clothing. Often clothes are attached to our ‘work mode’.
• Proper room – give yourself permission to spread out. Unlike in a fixed cube with a fixed desk, at home make that desk your own.

Usability:

• Lighting – don’t settle for florescent lights. Work where natural light or as close to it as possible is available. Use bright bulbs whenever possible. It’s easier on the eyes and improves the mood influence.
• Outlets – have a laptop? Make sure wherever you work at home has proper outlets available for the computer, any extra monitor and the lighting. This is often overlooked as work at home folks try to huddle into a corner in the basement or attic.
• Phone/fax – must haves. If you’re normal office has a fax machine, get one for the house. Got a printer in the cube farm, then buy one for the home office. The same goes for a phone. Make sure your cell phone or home phone is nearby to the work space.
• Ventilation – oft forgotten.  Proper ventilation isn’t just about comfort. It’s about fresh air cycling through the room. This helps maintain proper levels and freshness of the air.

Distractions:

• Kids – a must avoid. Best handled by setting up a formal work space. Even if it’s in the kitchen, declare it off limits.
• Spouse – yes, I know you’re thinking fringe benefits, but for  most couples, having the spouse near is a distraction. They tend to forget you’re actually working and not available for movie watching, house cleaning, or intimacy.  This requires more than setting up a physical work space but a mental one as well. Set a regular schedule of work hours and lunch times.
• Media – radios, televisions, and music players can take you out of flow as quick as physical interruptions. Noise isn’t the enemy as much as chaos.  If you need the background noise, then go for it, but if you’re prone to jump up and dance to Footloose, then turn the music off or find a station that plays calmer or serious music. Many people, even those not fans of classical works, find that genre conducive to a good work environment.
• Phone – yes, having a phone is critical. Answering it every time it rings, not so much. Treat it like you would your phone at work. Answer it only if it’s urgent and it won’t break your work flow. PS. Don’t place any calls not related to work.
• Social networking – see my recent article linked at the bottom.

Don’t discount anything which disrespects your work when preparing to work from home. Whole books could be written just about the physical work space, or the psychology of relationships in the work at home environment.

Go.Prepare.Work.

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Courtesy of NoobArt.com

You join a social network. You update your profile. Finally, you’re asked to upload a picture. Most people stop at this point and ask themselves if they have a photo.  If you’re new to social networks and perhaps cameras, you won’t have a good one handy. But look, you’ve got a camera in your cell phone. Pow. Instant profile pick.

I’m here to tell you that photo isn’t working.

There are a few ways to tell your avatar might need a revamp:

• Blurry – unless your brand is about blurring things go with something sharp.
• Dark – most common issue.  The photo is too dark to make out who you are.
• Busy – avatars with lots going on are hard to make out when shrunk down.
• Too Wide – here the problem is you’re using a logo or symbol and when cut down to a square the logo goes outside the box. Not so much a problem if the logo is simple and has no words. Often see this with companies having long names.

Here’s my top five tips for a better avatar picture:

1. Light – take the photo in a well lit room or outside with lots of natural light.
2. Close – get close up. If you’re head is a dot in the photo you’re too far away. If you can’t do this yourself, enlist a friend.
3. Focused and sharp – use a tripod and timer. A friend can be substituted for both. The goal here is to get the shot in focus and at a high resolution. That old camerphone might look like it takes great photos. That is until you compare it to a regular camera.
4. Square it up – once you’ve got that photo or art crop it down to a square.  Twitter avatars are always cropped by the system to a square.  If your shot goes over the sides, it will as well on Twitter.  Facebook crops a bit differently  and often results in the top of the photo being cut off.
5. Readable text – words should be short with big letters. Test that bit of text by shrinking the image to 75×75 pixels. Bright and/or contrasting colors work well. Avoid script lettering.

As always, general good photography rules apply.

A little secret as well here. You are not required to take the photo yourself.  There is no requirement that it be a self portrait photo. Cull through shots of you by others and get permission to use one as your avatar.

Fun idea: at your next tweetup have folks take head shots of each other.

As a bonus, I’m including this smiling face image for you to use as an avatar till you get a good one of your own. Please download and use. It’s already at 75×75 pixels.

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Why wait for Spring?  The New Year is the perfect time to clean up and clean out your social networks!

Clean up – it means different things based on context. Social network clean up is about removing dead weight, be it contacts or entire network profiles, subscriptions or even what you publish. Accumulating new contacts, signing up for new feeds, and adding networks is easy to done and often done without though of future removal.

You’re likely making hundreds of additions or more in a year. How many do you delete?

How about some clean up steps to get you started?  A few easy tips follow:

• Facebook
  • Remove unused applications
    • Bonus – block them as well
  • Remove groups
  • Remove contacts
    • Remove those who have no wall posts
    • Remove those who you share no interests with
      • This is easier if you’ve removed unwanted apps and groups
    • Remove anyone you don’t know or recognize
• Twitter
  • Remove zero contributors
    • If they only tweet links to their blog, just subscribe to their blog – unfollow
    • If they only tweet get (rich, followers, etc) quick – unfollow
    • If they have no replies to anyone – unfollow
  • Remove unwanted junk contributors
    • If they tweet about porn and you’re not into that – unfollow
    • If they constantly tweet pictures and no text – unfollow
    • If they use a lot of hate speech – unfollow
  • Remove bots (self explanatory)
• Other networks – Should you stay?
  • Do you follow people here in a way you can’t follow them elsewhere?
  • Do you create content here you can’t create or share from anywhere else?
  • Is this the only network your family can use?
  • Is it the only place you can connect with people you must keep in contact with?

Realize Other Networks recommended for review should include LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and more.  Don’t cut yourself any slack.

Bonus: unsubscribe from any emails you don’t read at least twice a week. Do this step now!

I’ve already begun this process by unsubscribing from several mailings. Facebook contacts are already being paired down. Twitter contacts get screened at addition but I have another bonus tip there – create a private Probation list.  Add folks to this list when you follow them if you suspect they might be trouble.

Go.Cleanup.Smile.  - What are your clean up tips?

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