Connection

April 7, 2013 — djgreer
David Greer and Wally Bock

David Greer and Wally Bock

Even after thirty-five years of business, I still get excited when I have the chance to meet someone in person that I’ve only met virtually before. In the old days, I would communicate by telex, fax, and telephone before meeting people for the first time. Today, it is often through this blog or Twitter than I interact with people.

Yesterday, I had a change to meet Wally Bock in Charlotte, NC where he lives. I’m pretty certain that Becky Robinson of Weaving Influence first introduced me to Wally via her Twitter feed. For more than two years I have been reading Wally’s blog posts. I’ve written about Wally in my earlier post Connecting People (where I talk about Becky too).

This blog is about Business, Communication, and Collaboration. Connecting with a thought leader like Wally brings together all three themes. Wally and I compared our extensive business careers, contrasting the numerous challenges that we have both overcome as we have moved our careers and life ahead. While I knew Wally reasonably well from his four times a week blog postings, it was nothing like having a face-to-face conversation for a few hours.

Charlotte Museum of Modern Art

After lunch together, Wally and I strolled the downtown streets of Charlotte in the early spring sunshine. While we live in very different cities, I felt connected as we walked by the cherry trees, fresh with new blossoms, exactly as the cherry trees are in Vancouver.

Wally shared some of the history of Charlotte with me, including the fact that the city was founded in 1755 at the very corner where my hotel is located today. While not originally from North Carolina (Wally is from New York), he has married, moved, and lived in Charlotte and come to know the history of the area. From how the railway brought opportunity for textile mills and distribution to why Charlotte is now the second largest banking center in North America, after his home town of New York.

Whitney Johnson, author of Dare, Dream, Do, coined the phrase #TWIRL (Twitter In Real Life) for the experience Wally and I had yesterday. Whatever it is called, I appreciated the opportunity to meet and connect with Wally 1-on-1.

How can you connect today?

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Going APE

February 21, 2013 — djgreer

Guy Kawasaki recently published his latest book APE — Authors, Publishers, and Entrepreneurs. A series of events led Guy to decide to publish his next book himself, including an electronic version. He thought all it would take would be to write in Microsoft Word, upload to Amazon, and wait for the money to roll in. After asking knowledgeable friends, Guy concluded that “self-publishing is mystifying, frustrating, and inefficient task.”

Guy teamed up with Shawn Welch (via Google+) and together they created APE to help guide the rest of us through the process. This year, I would like to publish a book at Webtech Wireless on GPS and Automatic Vehicle Location technology and solutions. I’m building a team to create the book, but I also have plans on how to publish and release the book in both digital and printed forms. I needed APE to help us climb the learning curve.

I ordered four copies of APE from Amazon.com (you cannot order the print version from Amazon.ca). Here’s a video of me opening the box, having an Amazon experience, and talking about Authors, Publishers, and Entrepreneurs.

 

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Scroll Up and Scroll Down

January 13, 2013 — djgreer

Scroll Up and Scroll Down
Communication starts with concepts. We then map concepts into language. Communication breaks down when we are confused in either the concepts or the words we use to describe them.

Take scrolling a computer screen. The concept, or mental model, that I use for scrolling a computer screen is based on a real-world model, scrolling a piece of paper. You might wonder why I even think about scrolling paper. When I first started in computers, we used continuous feed paper that was folded over. In order to look at what was printed last, you moved the paper up so that you could get at the last of what might have been a hundred pages. In the context of a computer screen, if I want to see the text below the bottom of the screen I think “scroll up the contents on the page”. My screen model is based on my long-time physical model.

Many of the people I work with have never worked with fan-fold computer paper. To them, scrolling down means “show me the text below the bottom of the screen”. Recently we were working to a deadline with three of us huddled around one computer screen as we collaborated on some critical marketing material. Naturally, when I asked for “scroll up” the screen would move the opposite way to what I expected. I’ve discovered that when we are collaborating, I need to use different language such as “let’s see the text below where we’re at.”

It’s hard to believe that such a simple concept and the language describing it, such as moving a computer screen up and down, could be fraught with communication difficulties. For clear communication, you must make sure that everyone has the same understanding of the concepts you are talking about and then use the right language, that everyone involved, understands to mean the same thing. As leaders, it is doubly important that we are clear on both.

Are you using language where up means down or down means up?

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Seth Amazes

December 13, 2012 — djgreer

David Greer With The Icarus Deception
Last Sunday I was amazed when I received Seth Godin’s This Might Work. I even video recorded and wrote about the experience of opening the biggest book I’ve ever seen in Having Fun With Seth Godin.

For Seth’s latest book The Icarus Deception he created a Kickstarter Project and I purchased two items on offer. The first was This Might Work, the behemoth collection of Seth’s blog posts. The second was eight copies of The Icarus Deception and two copies of V is for Vulnerable, his newest books. Here is where my experience goes from wonderful to amazing.

Seth kept us informed every step of the way, but I was left with the impression that while This Might Work would ship in November, 2012 The Icarus Deception and two copies of V is for Vulnerable were not scheduled for publication, and I thought for shipping, until January, 2013. Having had my appetite whetted with This Might Work I was resigned to waiting until January for the other two books.

Late last night I arrived home late to another box sitting in the front hallway. Not expecting anything in particular, I was amazed, delighted, and surprised to open the box to find my eight copies of The Icarus Deception and two copies of V is for Vulnerable. The photo above shows me in the Webtech Wireless board room with the whole package. I had to sneak the picture in because later today I’m giving a copy of The Icarus Deception to our CEO Scott Edmonds and my co-workers Shelina Poonja and Jason Hall. I want us to raise the level of our art to create even more incredible experiences for our customers.

Thanks Seth for the early Christmas present and the awesome experience. I can hardly wait to read the books.

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Positive Every Day

July 29, 2012 — djgreer

Calvi Marina

For two years my wife and I lived on a sailboat in the Mediterranean while we home schooled our three children. That adventure gave us a legacy that our family continues to draw from. When we are “stuck” on an issue we can change the tone of the discussion by focusing on the positive, such as when we stayed in the marina in Calvi, Corsica, France, exploring the fabulous village and enjoyed views like the one above.

I was thinking of this today when I read Jesse Lyn Stoner’s blog post 7 Ways to ReWire Your Brain and Become a Better Leader. One of the points that Jesse makes is “Savor your positive experiences”. The post goes on to discuss how we are hard wired to focus on the negative and how by focusing on the positive we can keep our attention on the issues at hand.

I’ve written before about Start with the Wins and the backing science behind positive phycology in Shawn Achor’s The Happiness Advantage. Of course, knowing and doing are two different things. On August 1st it will be a year since I started as VP Marketing at Webtech Wireless. In that year, I’ve worked hard to practice positive principles. While I make sure to start our weekly planning meetings with our wins, I’ve noticed that in daily huddles I often jump into challenges, before asking my team for their wins. Every time that I start with the wins, the challenges get resized and the energy in the discussion changes.

Thanks to Jesse’s post for reminding me to find that positive experience, for me and for each of my team members, each and every day.

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Where We Were On 9/11

September 11, 2011 — djgreer
Allen and Kevin in Brittany

Allen and Kevin Greer on the Beach At Perros-Guirec, France

All the coverage of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 has brought back many memories for me. On September 11, 2001 Karalee, Jocelyn, Kevin, Allen, and I were living in a farm house near Lanmerin, Brittany, France. We were travelling by car, visiting Northern Europe, home schooling our three kids, while getting ready to go sailing in the Mediterranean for two years.

We started the day home schooling the kids and after a full school day we drove twenty minutes to the beach. You can read about our day here. We were isolated in the farm house, none of us spoke much French, we never watched TV, and had no access to the Internet. It would be over 36 hours after the events of 9/11 that we even learned about it.

Even ten years after the event I am surprised at how unique our experience was. It was two weeks after 9/11 that I was talking to my Mother in Edmonton and she told me that she had watched live as the plane hit the second Trade Center Tower. Up to that point, I had no conception of how many people watched the second plane crash in New York  live and how many times the footage was shown — over and over again. It was not until September 2004, a year after we returned from the Mediterranean, that any of the five of us saw the video footage from that day for the first time.

As I recall, English language print media coverage was not kind to the Americans. While deeply sympathetic to the people who were killed, Europeans attitude seemed to be “America has been smug about never being attacked by terrorists on their own soil. Now they know what it is like.”

We also had no knowledge of the shut down of US and Canadian air space. Or how depressed people became watching the never ending coverage of the disaster in the days and weeks afterwards. While we sporadically read newspaper and magazine coverage of 9/11, we did not follow the media day by day.

Ten years on, I am deeply grateful for being unplugged. While 9/11 is a defining moment in recent history, the five of us were spared the emotional upheaval and media barrage. Distance always gives new perspective. As Canadians living abroad and disconnected when 9/11 occurred, we had a different experience. As we all contemplate the effect of the events from that fateful day, we have different memories than those that we hear and read about. For us, that’s a good thing.

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Changing Focus

September 6, 2011 — djgreer

David Greer At Home

In 2011, I committed to writing about Collaboration, Communication, and Business. That was during the first week of January and since then I have written two blog postings a week. My hope is that you have found the writing useful to your own career, organization, and business.

My goal was to get to 100 blog postings and while I’m close I am one or two blog postings short of that goal. As a good friend once told me:

“When a new opportunity comes along, you have to give up something you are already doing in order to fully pursue the new opportunity.”

That opportunity has come to me in the form of my new role as VP Marketing for Webtech Wireless. My creative, communication, and writing skills need to be focused on my new role. In order to do so, I’m stopping my twice a week blog postings. I am sure that I will be back, but for now other opportunities are calling me.

It is with gratitude that I thank all of you faithful readers for your time, comments, and responses. May you continue to find new ways to communicate and collaborate.

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Knowing

August 16, 2011 — djgreer

Allen and Jasper At Vancouver Regional Science Fair

Earlier this year our son Allen and his friend Jasper Kim won a silver medal at the Vancouver Regional Science Fair. Their experiment involved using magnets to see if magnetism affected plant growth. To the surprise of Allen and Jasper magnetism did affect plant growth positively. They called their experiment “Magnetotropism”.

At a dinner party recently we met David Grant, a nephew of good friends of ours. David has won a gold medal at the Canadian National Science Fair. His girlfriend Clare has won a Platinum medal at the Canadian National Science Fair. Both David and Clare were judges at the Vancouver Regional Science Fair where Allen and Jasper were competing.

Karalee and I spoke with David and Clare about what makes an outstanding science fair project. And what it takes to get to the Canadian National Science Fair. It turns out that you need both passion and something truly unique about your experiment.

We shared this with Allen at breakfast the other day. His response was intriguing. He was not interested in David’s and Clare’s opinion, even though they had been the judges that decided which projects should be up for going to this year’s Canadian National Science Fair. Allen’s opinion was that neither David nor Clare had enough experience in biology to have suggestions for Jasper and himself.

There are two kinds of expertise being referred to here:

  1. Domain expertise (e.g., depth in biology).
  2. Process experience (e.g., being the judges that decide what qualifies for going to Nationals).

In life, we often limit ourselves by only being willing to listen to someone with the domain experience we feel they must have. In many cases, the process experience is far more valuable than the domain experience. I know that if I were trying to make it to the Canadian National Science Fair, I would be seeking both David’s and Clare’s advise as judges, no matter what the subject matter was of my science project.

Do you ever limit yourself by ignoring people outside of your area of immediate expertise who could offer a completely new perspective on what you are doing? I know that I have. I hope that Allen and Jasper seek out David’s and Clare’s advice when they devise their next science fair project.

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Attracting Talent

August 11, 2011 — djgreer

Robson Street Crowd

If you want to attract talented individuals to your business, you need to stand out from the crowd. All of the marketing and communication that you do for your customers will also form part of what attracts people to your company. When you look at your web site, social media platforms, and press coverage, be sure to look for these things:

Current: Do you look modern and appealing? If you have no twitter feeds or blog postings, will young people take your company seriously?

Collaboration: Does your look and communication promote collaboration? People today are looking for a way to make a difference by combining their efforts with other people.

Challenges: Talented individuals thrive on challenges. Does your career outreach include showing career paths and ways to solve problems that can help individuals reach their next level of performance.

Top performers like to work with other top performers. If you want to be a highly effective organization, you need to attract highly skilled and motivated individuals. Is your marketing and communication sending the right message to attract these people?

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Twitter Experiences

August 2, 2011 — djgreer

 

I have been using @djgreer on Twitter for a year or two, but this year I have made a concerted effort to use Twitter as a platform to:

  1. Let people know about my writing and thinking about Communication, Collaboration, and Business.
  2. As a way to connect with other thought leaders on the same subjects.

I have been successful on both counts. Readership of this blog is up. As I wrote in Connecting People, I have discovered many new people whose readings are challenging my thinking and several that I have personally connected with.

Here are some of the techniques that I have used to make Twitter work for me:

  1. Choose who you follow with a goal in mind. I try and follow people who write and share their experiences, especially as it relates to business, teams, and leadership.
  2. Carry on a conversation. Steady posts every day are better than a blast of posts once a week.
  3. Remember that Twitter is a stream of conversations. There is no point trying to keep up with them all. Just dip your toe in the stream flowing by and comment on what is happening in the moment.
  4. Choose tools that work for you. I find the Twitter app for the iPhone and iPad much more effective than the web interface. I can easily do a quick check of Twitter and make a comment in one or two minutes.
  5. Retweet postings that you find meaningful. I try and always include an additional comment when retweeting showing why I think the tweet is meaningful.
  6. Thank people who retweet your tweets.

Twitter is still new enough that many of us are still figuring it out. In my case, I’ve been able to effectively use the platform to achieve meaningful communication.

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