Feel the Fear…and do it anyway

Posted in Change Management, Guest Blogger | 0 comments

My friend, Elly Haddad, wrote this post earlier this week. It provides an excellent perspective about accepting and moving through the changes in our lives. Since my blog frequently touches on change management, I thought you might find Elly’s insights encouraging.  Please welcome Elly as my first “guest blogger. “  Elly makes her living these days as a holistic health counselor and operates Elemental Fit. If you’d like to learn more about Elly and healthy eating approaches, visit her website at www.elementalfit.com.

By Elly Haddad (republished with permission)

One of the many pieces of valuable information I gleaned from my schooling was the mantra, “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. All of my life I have been The Cautious One. Ride a rollercoaster? Only once, since my fear of heights/falling/premature dying/being crushed and/or mangled, kept me as close to the ground as possible whenever I actually dared to venture into an amusement park (and who REALLY inspects that stuff, anyway???). As a young child, I did not want to learn to drive since the apparent unpredictability of operating a vehicle seemed to leave too much up to “chance” (I got over this fear when I realized that it was not so much a matter of “chance”, but more a matter of not driving in the same manner as a particular close relative with whom I rode frequently . While my cautious (if not sometimes misguided) manner has, at times, served me well (like the time in high school I passed up a hit of acid because it was not hermetically sealed – had been passed from one germy, sweaty hand to another, linty pocket, after linty pocket – if not worse), it has also kept me limited and immobilized in certain areas, and though I began “getting over it” prior, hearing it repeated over and over in different variations this year, I AM over it now.

I began to see a glimmer of hope of being set free when I finally decided that “I AM a flyer”. I was nearly 40 years old and had passed up several opportunities to travel with David to some neat places simply because I could not bring myself to get on an airplane. Physics aside, something THAT heavy could not safely be up in the air…especially if it was carrying MY valuable body. An airplane breaking down carried much steeper consequences than a malfunction of a car engine. It wasn’t until I’d suffered through two excruciating solo 600 mile trips to Nashville and back to visit family that I started to fear breaking down/falling asleep at the wheel/getting attacked at a rest area more than being on an airplane, and I realized that my fear of flying was keeping me locked in a very small, paranoid world. With sweaty hands, I booked a flight and went on a trip. “I AM a flier…I AM a flier…I AM a flier…” I kept telling myself as I went alone to the ticket counter to check in for my flight, snaked my way through a busy security line, and onto the tram headed for my gate. Nervously, I kept tabs on the closest way out, until I became aware of the fact that airports look for nervous-looking travelers because they might be planning on doing something “bad”, so I tried to stay calm and play the part of a bored, seasoned flyer.

I succeeded in getting to my destination and back home, and realized that by confronting this fear of mine, a whole world had opened up to me. Had it not been for that confrontation, I would never have been able to complete my schooling (requiring 10 trips to New York over a six month period) or enjoy countless trips to spend time with those I love. My fear was containing me. Facing my fear made me freer, fuller.

In high school, I never did like going into the cafeteria or bathroom or even down the hall alone (I think some of this is a “girl thing”). This discomfort carried over into adulthood, manifested itself by keeping me from enjoying classes or other new experiences if it meant going alone. What I was actually afraid of happening is unclear, it just felt scary to be in situations alone, therefore, I avoided them. I’ve come to realize that I am over that. I’ve gone to several new classes at my gym all alone, and I actually survived (was I graceful in that cardio-kickboxing class? That’s another story…). I am finding I actually LOVE getting myself into these new situations, because each time I “feel the fear and do it anyway”, a part of me grows freer and fuller than I’d been if I was still content to let my fears control me.

I think it is human nature for us to be cautious and avoid those things that make us least comfortable. There are a select few who actually thrive on the adrenalin-rush of facing fears and surviving them, but for most of us, those things we fear, we avoid. Often, we have no idea what we’re actually passing up. Public speaking? What if we stammer or tremble or mispronounce something? Would it be surprising to know that nearly every public speaker has done just that? Most audiences are forgiving of those things, and I think it’s been a while since anyone’s suffered bodily harm for screwing something like that up. Teaching a class? What if we don’t know every single thing in the world on the subject? The questions that have stumped me during a class or speaking to a group are the things I have later researched and have gotten a pretty firm handle on and I now greatly value – without those experiences, my depth of knowledge in those areas would be much shallower. What about eating a meal at a restaurant alone? That used to be a huge fear for me. I highly recommend giving this a shot as a great “baby step” for getting out of your safety net. What’s the worst thing that can happen? One of my most therapeutic exercises occurred when I was able to travel alone to NYC, stay alone in a hotel, and navigate the city by myself.

It’s interesting to observe younger women, still in that fear mode, and sad to see older ones that are. What are you gaining through being restrained by your fears?Feel the fear and do it anyway. Don’t pass up an opportunity simply because you are afraid that the outcome may not be easy to predict, or you’re afraid you might look less than graceful (now, I am not talking about the instinctual, intuitive fear that tells you not to go into the darkened parking garage alone, at 2 AM, LISTEN TO THAT ONE!… ).

Some people think David and I are daring and crazy (?) to move to a new city amidst all of the other changes going on in our lives. Is it scary? Of course there is some fear when contemplating diving into the unknown. Among many things, 2009 has been a year of unknowns. If, on last New Year’s Eve, I’d been given a list of all the things that I’d be going through this year, I would most likely have said “no thank you” to many of them: “No thank you” to the prospect of a strenuous tax on my marriage that seemed to be without resolution. “No thank you” to quitting my reliable and socially gratifying job at a time when it did not make much financial sense to me. “No thank you” to helping my daughter plan a wedding in just eight short weeks on a shoe-string budget while still in school with the financial and time constraints that it carried. “No thank you” to having to take my youngest kid to college 600 miles away from home just one week after our oldest got married (isn’t that too much “letting go” for one 7 day period?). “No thank you” to the stresses and strains of interacting with a kid who seemed to be their own worst enemy during a critical time in their life. “No thank you” to my husband being less than 20 feet away from a crazed shooter at our fitness club while he played racquetball one evening – and the subsequent stress that confrontation with mortality this encounter carried. “No thank you” to the task of launching our kids confidently into the next phases of their lives during one of such uncertainty concerning our own. BUT, each of these things (and more) have added a richness and depth to me that I could never have gained had I played it safe and rested in the blissful state of unyielding predictability. Change is the most reliable thing that I can count on. Facing fear is what keeps me from getting stiff and ridged. It keeps me flexible.

So, as we prepare for this move to another city, I really am realizing that I am not “brave” or “crazy”, as some have said. I have no idea what to expect from this move: it’s the first time we will have moved based on “us” (and we have moved a lot), and not the kids: schools and fenced yards and game rooms and proximity to potential playmates are not on our radar. Will this be “better” or “worse” than where we are currently? It will be “different”. I don’t know what this move will look like until it’s done. I have no idea what to expect. It’s kind of like jumping off of a high-dive. I am not “brave” or “crazy”: I am feeling the fear and doing it anyway. This is my new “safe”. I am playing it safe – as safe as I can. I am embracing this change – this new chapter – and hanging on for dear life.

How to measure social media

Posted in Featured, Social Media, Strategy, Web 2.0 | 2 comments

There is much talk in marketing circles about how to measure the impact of social media.  Some measurements are hard, such as actual campaign response and conversion rate measures.  Others are a bit softer, such as measuring campaign reaction frequency and tone (e.g., positive, neutral, negative). While both are valid measures, I do think we have been missing a broader, yet critical component of our measures—the overall financial impact of word-of-mouth (WOM) spread.

It occurred to me today that I may already have a way to measure WOM influence and the impact of social media.

Years ago, I came up with a simple equation to measure what I called, the “Residual Value of a Customer.”  In other words, this is a calculation to determine value of an average customers’ impact on your business relative to their individual influence on other customers.  Keep in mind that this was before the internet and social media tools, so the sphere of influence of an individual customer was generally much less—maybe 7-10 people total.  However, I think the logic still applies today.

The Residual Value of a Customer takes into account the annual sales to a customer, the expected tenure as a customer, and the estimated number of people influenced.  For example, if “Customer A” spends $150 a year with a company and the average tenure is three years, then “Customer A’s” value to the organization is $450.  However, if “Customer A” recommends the product/service to just one other customer who follows the same spending/tenure patterns (as the average), “Customer A” now has a residual value of $1,350.

Let’s take this thinking a step further.  Recent research has suggested that the average Facebook user, for example, has 120 friends.  The average user may interact meaningfully with between 10 and 20 Facebook Friends within a 30-day period.  Using the calculations above, let’s say “Customer A” influences 20 friends within a 30-day period.  “Customer A” now has a residual value of $27,000, as do each of those 20 friends who adhere to the average customer measures.  In this first circle or ripple of influence the residual value of these 21 customers is now more than one-half million dollars over the next three years, assuming the averages spending and purchasing life remains consistent.

These are significant numbers, and all brought about by one customer sharing experiences with a circle of friends.

I have used this model a number of times to demonstrate the power of WOM marketing programs to senior management.  It is simple to understand, and proven using average customer sales and tenure numbers.  In the majority of the cases, I’ve been successful in gaining support from senior management for at least testing WOM or now, social media, programs.  I have also used the Residual Value of a Customer to demonstrate the opportunity cost for not engaging in WOM.

In the spirit of sharing, I’ve created an online version of the model for you to use here: Residual Value of a Customer Calculator.  Feel free to use this model and share with others.

I’d appreciate your feedback.

Why we need social media

Posted in Cultural Change, Featured, Social Media | 0 comments

Digital interaction is an interesting thing, isn’t it? Through Twitter, we have meaningful conversations with people we only know only online. Our Facebook accounts reconnect us with friendships we previously thought were lost to time. We carry our friends with us wherever we go and thrive on the capability for instant interactions. Some of us are reliving our past, while others of us are making business connections. In the process, many of us have broadened our definition of a “friend” to include those people we have just met and we share the most unremarkable parts of our lives as if these friends were “long lost,” rather than “newly made.”

We humans are social animals, of course. Most of us like engage with others so that we can have an understanding of where we fit into the fabric of our culture. Yet we Americans, in particular, are finding ourselves growing disconnected from those around us. We overwhelm ourselves with extracurricular activities to occupy our time, we work too much and relax too little, and we focus on getting “things” done, rather than experience doing “things.” Overall, we have lost the personal connections to the people in America who make our “stuff,” grow our food, or frankly, those who live next door. It is almost as if our individual desires for personal independence and self-reliance have eclipsed our need for social interaction. They have not, of course. Our requirements of social interactions are just different now from before.

Today, we try to balance our individual desires with our need for social interaction by leveraging digital technologies into the mix to help us maintain our personal connections in the lulls of our daily living. We all do it, but some of us do it better. It seems to me that each generation appears to connect and build relationships differently using technology. For example, I have observed that Millennials use social media as a way of extending their daily interactions with their friends. With their mobility restricted by expansive neighborhoods and overprotective parents while growing, they had no choice but to explore new online social technologies as a way to maintain their friendships. As a result, communicating by text, Facebook or MySpace is the same as a phone call or a face-to-face conversation. Social media, and the digital technologies that supports it, are fully integrated into the life of most Millennials.

Observations of Generation X show me that they rely heaviest on cell phones for social interaction, I suspect because most were in college when mobile phones became affordable for and adopted by the masses. Texting and social media tools appear to be time-consumers that this Generation has not yet fully embraced. Instead, they are practical about the use of social media, engaging with those pieces that benefit them most (such as using Twitter to build business relationships), disengaging when there is little personal gain.

Baby Boomers appear to function best using face-to-face, phone and email communications, but are rapidly adopting Facebook. I think, they can “see” their friends and feel engaged in those lives as if they lived next door. This closeness is important to Boomers, especially as they age, because it seems to provide Boomers true “social” opportunities in the context of their primary interests: connecting with old friends, sharing political news and views, discussing religion and exploring hobbies.

Each generation has found a way to make social media technologies relevant to their own lives, to give us opportunities to connect with others regularly, as we allow our culture to put increasing demands on our time. The ability for us to bend and mold social media tools to our individual needs, values, and expectations is what makes it work so well in building and re-building our valued connections.

We need social media tools to help us maintain our ability to be human in the face of the demands made on us by our culture, our peers, and ourselves. These tools are now such an essential part of how we function as individuals and who we are together as a community, that living without social media and supporting technologies is unthinkable.

It is clear to me that social media allows us to maintain some degree of sanity in our lives. Without these tools, we would give up what little socialization we do enjoy; and I am not so sure that would be good for our minds, or our souls.

Thirteen tips for stress free living

Posted in Personal | 0 comments

This is not my usual type of post. I wrote this for one of my kids who was having a particularly stressful time earlier this year. If you enjoy it, feel free to share it with others. Just leave it intact.

-Dave

————

Thirteen tips for stress free living.

by Dave Harkins

1. When you get up each morning, take a deep breath, hold it, count to 10 slowly, but remember to exhale. Pray for guidance for the day.

2. Don’t obsess over all the little details of daily living. As long as you wake up each morning, you’re good.

3. You’re going to forget something, miss something or make a mistake. It happens. Apologize and move on. Again, don’t obsess.

4. You can’t do everything you think you can do. Try anyway, but don’t kill yourself if you can’t get it all done.

5. Learn to say “No”. Practice now. You’ll need to learn the nuances. It’ll come in handy when you’re a parent.

6. Laugh. Even at stupid stuff. Find humor in everyday living. When you master this, I’ll get you a “”I laugh at my own jokes” wrist band like mine. Remember, life’s easier when you laugh.

7. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Even God laughs at himself and life. Consider the duckbill platypus. I think that animal is God not taking himself too seriously.

8. Only take on ONE “extra-curricular” activity at a time. More than one drains you and takes away focus from the things you find most important in life. The sad thing is, you won’t even realize you’ve lost focus until you’re drained and you’re asking yourself, “Why did I say I’d do that?” Not everything in life has equal importance.

9. Make time for yourself (and to be at peace with God). Find some personal time so you can commune with your thoughts. Everyone needs time for themselves. Especially harried college students and dads with five kids.

10. Remember, no matter how tough you think you have it, and how much stress you think you’re under, there are people in the world right now that would kill to be in your shoes.

11. Life is a series of transitions…you are moving from one life-stage to another. Shakespeare, in the play As You Like it, says it this way, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts…” Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “To everything there is a season…” Some adults (and college students) try to play too many parts or have too many seasons all at the same time. Take one part or season at a time. You’ll sleep better. Trust me on this one.

12. Remember you’re loved. By your family (natural and adopted). By your friends, and by God. You’re where you are because of what you will become. I’ve heard that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. I do believe this, but I think He just wishes you would learn when to say “no”…otherwise He’s really not sure how much you can handle.

13. When it gets to be too much, just pick your nose and fling the contents at someone. No. Don’t do that…it’s gross. But, I’ll bet I made you laugh. If so, refer to #6. See…it works.

Digital is not a channel; it’s a life-connection tool.

Posted in Brands, Cultural Change, Featured, Social Media | 0 comments

At the 2009 International Licensing Expo, I watched intently as people from all over the world walked up and down the aisles with their faces literally buried in their smart phones.  There were hundreds of exhibitors, featuring some of the most exciting ideas and concepts in the Licensing Industry; yet, I’m sure many good opportunities were lost or simply overlooked because those exhibiting didn’t make an effort to connect with the lives of those attending.  Most exhibitors simply were not in the “life stream” of the attendees.

I decided to try a little social media experiment at the Licensing Expo to see if we could get into the attendees life stream and create personal engagement.  We advertised our presence on Twitter in print and on signs in the booth, we engaged followers of the Licensing Expo Twitter feed (#LX9) on the floor, and we brought a magician to the booth to create a different life experience on the show floor.

Were we successful?

Our Twitter follower numbers are up modestly since the advertisements began to appear, but the real success comes from the buzz we generated on the show floor.  We tweeted multiple times a day, awarding prizes, sharing memorable visits and talking about our booth activities.  The folks at the Licensing Expo and others took notice and retweeted.  Many booth visitors said the tweets were the reason for stopping.

It seems that we were not only successful in getting into the life stream of attendees, but once we gained their attention we also did well to create a memorable experience (with our magician) when they engaged.  This good memory we helped to create launched many deeper conversations about our brand and our opportunities.  Although, had we not made good use of the moment when we captured their attention, attendees would have been off to the next thing.

Some have said this was a successful use of the digital channel, or perhaps  savvy social media marketing.  Maybe, although I no longer believe in marketing channel silos when it comes to building customer relationships (see my 2003 whitepaper, Customers are Channel Neutral for details).  Customers effortlessly move between channels, so our old definitions are no longer truly relevant-except to say that the customer experience must be consistent regardless of when and where the customer connects.  Today, marketers must subtly connect, be accepted in the life stream, and engage with passion so that it creates a memory for the customer.  So, it was not the use of the social media that mattered in our experiment, rather it was the memory we helped to create.  Social media and digital technologies are only tools to help spread the message.  What is most important for marketers to remember is simply: great stories and memorable experiences spread quickly to build brands–the channel and the tools are irrelevant.

With people from all over the world attending, the Licensing Expo provided a microcosm of what is happening in our culture.  Our personal and work lives are intertwined and we engage both regardless of our location.  Life is no longer exclusively defined by what is happening in our physical presence.  For many of us it resides in the palm of our hands and is illuminated by a tiny screen. As marketers, we must adapt to these changes without being intrusive or obnoxious if we are to keep our brands relevant.

As I see it, this ever-present digital and wireless connection to the world can no longer be called a “channel.”  Digital technologies simply and effortlessly extend the connections in our lives; and life connections are not channel dependant.