Skip to content →

Category: POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, WELLBEING & POETRY

5 business uses for social media and 3 hacks to get them right

Published September 27, 2010 by Jo Jordan

IMG_7838 by BekiPe via FlickrFacebook, Twitter, blogs and forums .  .  .

I live in a world when half my acquaintances live and breathe social media and other half  “stay out of that”.

ROI of social media

Three years, London was abuzz with talk of the ROI of social media.  As far as I could tell, this was just backwash from marketing departments who are challenged internally to account for the money they spend.  When other functions see a funnel that goes from 1000 to 100 to 10 to 1 or maybe none, they rightly want an explanation for all the parties and lunches. When the rest of us say we are going to do something, we do it.

Rewarding what is excellent in social media

So today, I was delighted to see some awards for social media in the airlines sector.  I want to be clear here.  I am a psychologist and we aren’t the touchy-feely types the public thinks we are. We spend most of time crunching numbers and we know more about metrics and ROI than you might dream even if exists.  Believe me, you don’t want to know how to do the things we know how to do and can prove with numbers.

What matters in ROI

But because we do know a lot about ROI, we also know what matters and what doesn’t.

  • We must specify a decent goal.
  • We musn’t get bogged down on the how.
  • We must
  1. Make sure we have a goal that captures our sense of “why” this work helps us
  2. Find measures that help us see if we are getting closer
  3. And when we are really clever, find measures that help us learn what matters and what doesn’t.

    But first the what and why in one sentence.   Without that, everything else is busy work.

    New awards in social media

    Simpliflying has four awards for social media.

    • Best social media marketing campaign
    • Best use of social media to drive revenue
    • Best use of social media in a crisis situation
    • SimpliFlying Hero of the Year

    I could imagine one more – Best use of social media to develop a community that would sustain a new revenue stream.

    But there you have it.  Four clear uses of social media: let the market know we are here, increase sales, deal with crises (even unexpected ones like Haiti); and simplify.

    Work psychologists using social media to connect up people

    Because I am a psychologist, not a marketer, I more interested in

    • How to bring people together who might find opportunities working together
    • How to create a space where people can develop working relationships that support sustained happy and profitable working relationships
    • How to keep the relationship brimming with ideas including a strong sense that when it is over it is over and we should all move on better for having worked with each other.

    That’s all we have to do to build great communities

    Set the direction and ask people:

    • Are we doing it?
    • What’s next?
    • What have we learned that we didn’t know yesterday?
    Leave a Comment

    Oh! The roots of postive organizational scholarship in Henry Thoreau and American transcendentalism

    Published September 27, 2010 by Jo Jordan

    Sept2010 by anjanettew via FlickrWalden Pond .   .   .

    I had to rummage around on Wikipedia to disentangle my memory traces.  Walden Pond is the home of Henry Thoreau, the American poet.   On Golden Pond is a Fonda movie.

    Henry Thoreau .   .  .

    I am sure that all well brought up Americans have read Thoreau in the original. The rest of us come to him by the way of quotations.

    Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows .  .  .

    Henry Thoreau was an “transcendentalist”, which Wikipedia informs me was a New England movement in reaction to the intellectualism of Harvard and the utilitarian church.  To my naïve ears, this sounds like the basic thrust of the French Revolution that rejected the supremacy of priests and their dictates,.  Once we have rejected the priests as the authority in all things, we needed a way to think about secular authority         and social sciences and psychology arose as formalized ways of describing how we each discover our own truth (Remember the Pope anyone?  Not surprisingly, he is not enthused by this venture.)

    Transcendentalism underpins much of contemporary positive organizational scholarship

    This is an important read.  We see here the essence of dominant aspects of American culture and at least part of the foundations of positive psychology.

    Ralph Emerson, I believe, was one of the early proponents.

    “So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes.

    It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth?

    And of the affections, — What is good?

    By yielding itself passive to the educated Will. .  .

    Build, therefore, your own world.

    As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions.

    A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.”

    As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions.

    A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.

    We bring about the world by what we attend to and value.  The world blossoms under the attention of what we value and love.  Whatever situation we are in (like it or not), we move in the direction of the questions we ask and so does it.

    This is more appreciative inquiry (Case Western) than positive psychology (Pennsylvania).

    It is the start point and as you read the now not so young Thoreau describing his life at Walden Pond, you hear the same complaints that we have about life today.  You hear the echoes of Joseph Campbell who followed a similar experiment with life. You hear British poet David Whyte who reconciled his life a marine biologist and NGO worker with is poetry.  You hear Gen Y Tim Ferris and The Four Hour Work Week.

    I am enjoying this!

    Leave a Comment

    A working culture where people find flow frequently?

    Published August 27, 2010 by Jo Jordan

    Reflecting on swans by pmarkham via FlickrWhen your eyes light up

    Have you any idea what you look like when you are in flow?  I guess not, because almost a definition of flow is that you are not looking in the mirror .  You are so absorbed in what you are doing that time and the world stands still.

    But I know what you look like.  And so does everyone else.  We can’t miss the glow in your eyes.

    Flow is the core of an an organizational psychologist’s business

    People often ask what an work and organizational does.  They are puzzled   Do we lay people down on a couch and mutter ‘there, there’.  Do we explore your sexual fantasies about .  .  . I’ll let you fill in the gap.

    Our business is flow.  What is flow?  What conditions of work are conducive to flow?  How can we organize so that more people experience flow more of the time?

    Embedded in the last question is a sub-speciality of organizational psychology.  A special topic within organizational psychologists is understanding the web of connections that go on behind the scenes so that in work situation after work situation people are able to pursue goals and find the exhilaration of flow.

    Is it possible to support a working culture where people find flow frequently?  And if so, what are these institutions and what do they look like?

    Unseen jobs in sky rise buildings

    It is an interesting question because the people who think about these institutions are in what I call the hidden jobs.  We see people at the checkout counter. We see the doctor.  We see the lawyer.  But there is a whole world of people in sky rise buildings that we never see at work.  And even if we did, we would see little of what they do.  Their desk, their paper, their computers look like any other. They are just like any other.  It’s just what they think about is different.

    That’s what is different.  Some of us think about whether it’s possible to support a working culture where people find flow frequently.  And if it is possible, what are these institutions and what do they look like?

    Leave a Comment

    Great Leaders, Great speeches: Jimmy Reid

    Published August 16, 2010 by Jo Jordan

    glasgow university by Gavin Gilmour via FlickrJimmy Reid: Orator and Visionary

    Jimmy Reid will not be known to many people outside the UK.  Nor will he be known to many Gen Yers.   I hard vaguely on the news that he had died but thought little.

    Then on Saturday I stumbled over Jimmy Reid’s 1972 speech to Glasgow University which was reprinted in its entirety by The Independent.  I was so excited.  I thought a new leader had burst into UK politics.

    I was half way through the speech before the penny dropped.  1972 – 4 decades ago and every bit as relevant a maninfesto today.

    As a speech, it may not be quite on the same plain as “I have a dream”.  It doesn’t have the simplicity or the connection to images shared with a huge audience.  It’s too thoughtful.  It might rank up there, though, with Obama’s speech to the Democratic Party in 2004.

    Here is a Wordle of the speech (via ManyEyes.)  I am going to do more work with speech.  I’d love your comments and requests.

    Leave a Comment

    Coelho’s true path to wisdom

    Published August 14, 2010 by Jo Jordan

    PauloCoelhoThe Pilgrimage

    Finding Paulo Coelho’s The Pilgrimage, in the local Oxfam shop, I bought it thinking I had already read it. I hadn’t. It’s marvelous; and packed full of wisdom that makes this a reference book to keep on your shelf.

    True path to wisdom

    One of the nuggets I thought would come up again is the advice Coelho is given by his guide who was called Petrus in the book.

    “The true path to wisdom can be identified by three things,” said Petrus. “First, it must involve agape, and I’ll tell you more about this later; second, it has to have practical application in your life.  Otherwise, wisdom becomes a useless thing and deteriorates like a sword that is never used. “

    “And finally, it has to be a path that can be followed by anyone.  Like the road you are walking now, the Road to Santiago.”

    Writing to remember

    I don’t have a good verbal memory so I like to write about things and link them to similar ideas.  That way, I’ll be able to recall the idea whenever I want to.  My method satisfies step 2, I suppose!  Blogging is practical.

    Blogging also helps with step 3.  Anyone with a computer and internet connection and some literacy or a camera can blog.  About half the world, I suppose.  It’s not a protected activity, anyway.

    But agape?  I write for a better understanding.  Yes, that is agape.  And I write to share. Not always well, but I try to be intelligible.

    I worry though that I will reduce the ideas of Paolo Coelho to something prosaic and unworthy.  For what it is worth, these are two ideas from other domains that I immediately wanted to compare with Paolo Coelho’s ideas about the path to wisdom.

    Happiness and chaos/complexity theory

    Losada modeled happiness in a butterfly shaped space.   Contrary to views presented in the popular press, happiness isn’t  a consistently cheery mood.  It is appropriate reaction to events. We feel sad at sad times and happy at happy times but get stuck nowhere.

    Ratio of positive to negative events

    Losada uses three variables to model the space.  The ratio of positive to negative in our environment must range from 3:1 to 11:1.  3:1 is a lot.  For every jarring event, we need three good ones to recover.  5:1 is optimal.  Sometimes we struggle to maintain that ratio and the struggle captures our focus.  In these distressing times, we tend to exaggerate the bad by excluding what is good.  The good gets buried and we are in danger of slipping so far down the ratio we might never recover our composure.  Simply, we have to make a special effort to celebrate what is good in the situation to compensate our tendency to repeat the bad over and over again like a broken gramophone, presumably in the fear that if we don’t, it will bite us.  I take that to be agape.  The search for the good.

    Other vs self

    The second variable that Losada used was discussion of the outside world.  When we balance discussion of the world outside our immediate circle and the needs of our circle almost our mood swings throughout the spectrum.  We are less likely to see everything as all good or all bad.

    To give you an example, I sometimes cheer myself up with an elaborate day dream of what I am going to do.  When I go out into the world, I am living my dream.  But people around me don’t see me that way.  It’s like meeting a bucket of cold water!  My immediate reaction is to feel small.  A better reaction is to build up the dream to include them too.  When my dream is not situated in the harsh realities of the world, other people will stop me, and more importantly my own sense of shock will stop myself.  And then I am unhappy because nothing works!!

    Inquiry vs Advocacy

    The third variable that Losada used is a balance of inquiry and advocacy.  At first sight, this is not the same as the criteria of universality, inclusion and humility that Coelho espouses, but when I put it like that, you possibly see the similarity.

    Any way, I was struck by the similarity of ideas coming from different traditions and had to stop to test how far the ideas ran in parallel.

    Social media

    The second notion that struck me is that social media is successful because it also follows these principles.

    Social media is a courteous world.   Sure it has its spammers and robots and flamers but the general ethos is to be helpful.    We simply get more done by celebrating what we can do together.

    Social media is a practical world.  I watch my rankings not out of vanity, though of course there is an element of vanity too.  I watch my ranking and Google Analytics to help me find people who share my interests.   “5 best way” articles are very popular and that is partly a search for practicality ~ but they belong in the point below.  I write on blogs because they keep me grounded in reality (or at least more so than if I didn’t).

    Social media is an inclusive world.  Through teaching, I know that a major difference between Gen Y and earlier generations is that digital natives test information in their own lives and absorb it or not when they find it useful.  When we can communicate useful  (not popular)  information, we see the response.  Of course, popular also wins.   Of course, tawdry also wins.  Not everything useful is deep or good.

    I know we can take the analogy too far and the poetic description is far better than the stilted prose of a former academic.  I just wanted to test whether the three criteria ~ agape, practicality and openness ~ worked in other areas of my life.

    Do they work for you?

    2 Comments

    If you are going to try, go all the way

    Published August 5, 2010 by Jo Jordan

    NYC street dancers - 03 by Ed Yourdon via Flickr

    If you are going to try, go all the way

    Though popular, I’ve always found the poetry of Charles Bukowski harsh.  Is it the harshness of the cold light of truth?

    What do you think?  Or do things work out the opposite of what he says?  When we give up our greatest idea for a friend, for a pay cheque,  or because it seems to hard ~ then we know who and what is really important to us.

    But we also have to ask the question David White and Paolo Coelho might ask.  Without our dream, who are we?  And what will our friend or employer or our sense of self think when we give up so readily?

    Will they think more of us, or less, when we give up?  Maybe they like us because of our dreams however inconvenient our dreams may be?

    What do you think?

    Roll the Dice
    by Charles Bukowski

    if you’re going to try, go all the
    way.
    otherwise, don’t even start.

    if you’re going to try, go all the
    way. this could mean losing girlfriends,
    wives, relatives, jobs and
    maybe your mind.

    go all the way.
    it could mean not eating for 3 or
    4 days.
    it could mean freezing on a
    park bench.
    it could mean jail,
    it could mean derision,
    mockery,
    isolation.
    isolation is the gift,
    all the others are a test of your
    endurance, of
    how much you really want to
    do it.
    and you’ll do it
    despite rejection and the
    worst odds
    and it will be better than
    anything else
    you can imagine.

    if you’re going to try,
    go all the way.
    there is no other feeling like
    that.
    you will be alone with the
    gods
    and the nights will flame with
    fire.

    do it, do it, do it.
    do it.

    all the way
    all the way.
    you will ride life straight to
    perfect laughter,
    it’s the only good fight
    there is.

    One Comment

    I find schmoozing worrying. Do you?

    Published July 29, 2010 by Jo Jordan

    How to schmooze

    Schmooze by healthserviceglasses via Flickr

    BBC Radio 4 is running a serialized reading of a book about a crime journalist in Tokyo.  Today, we heard career advice given to a journalist on how to schmooze the police.

    Is schmoozing a smart way to get business?

    The advice made me think of people who believe schmoozing  is a substitute for performance.

    In strategic terms, schmoozing is a silly way to compete.  It is a race to the bottom as the only thing the differentiates one schmoozer from another is money and time. Money buys schmoozing;  time accumulates schmoozing.  In short, schmoozing lacks the ‘inimitable’ quality of skill and performance that is only be amassed by a long standing team getting good at something.

    Of  course, schoozing is also what statisticians call a mediator.  We can have all the skill in the world but if our customers don’t know we have our skill, they cannot buy from us.  So we need schmooze to deliver.  And if we have never schmoozed,  it is likely that we have developed skills that are  not of great interest to our customers.

    I think this where the confusion comes from .  If one person has 5% skill and no schmoozing, they make 0%.  If another person has 1% skill and schmoozing, they make 1%.  I know plenty of people who refuse even to develop skill because they figure they can schmooze and 1% will do their customers fine.  After all, the customers have no choice.  It is 1% or nothing!

    Is schmoozing a competitive way t

    o get business?

    This recipe works fine; until someone else enters the market who can resource a schmoozing campaign.  Schmoozing is easy.  It only takes money and time.  People will always drop in for a free meal , a free drink or a sympathetic ear.

    But schmoozing gets more and more expensive as people who have what you want ask for more and more.  And why shouldn’t they?  Your job is to schmooze and schmooze and schmooze and schmooze .   .  . You are going to schmooze until the cupboard is bare.  And of course, that is fine when you are a professional schmoozer and it’s someone elses cupboard.  What if it is your cupboard?

    Hospitality vs schmoozing

    Schmoozing is not hospitality, I might add.  Genuinely welcoming someone as a guest and giving them appropriate amenities and refreshments for the time of day and the nature of the transaction is not schmoozing.  It is simply normal.

    Schmoozing shouldn’t be a substitute for a mission

    A business should compete though on it’s chosen competitive strategy.  What is the problem that this business is trying to solve?

    When the business strays from that goal, when it hires people to schmooze who don’t understand the mission, when the mission is not mentioned and if is mentioned clearly isn’t understood by HR who drew up the job specs, then the business is in trouble.  Their schmoozing is going to be very expensive.

    Yup, the 1% guys can be very persuasive.  Yes, we may feel under so much short term pressure that we are tempted.  Yes, our competitors may seem to offer nothing but schmooze.  Yes, our customers may seem so thick that they want nothing but schmooze and seem to sign anything if the dinner is good enough . . . do you really believe that?

    Mission, schmoozing and profits

    Come one. Let’s roll up our sleeves and do a proper job.  What is the problem we are trying to solve?  Let’s solve it.  I know we have to make money too.  But do you know that even in the most aggressive profit making business, the economics is simply a constraint that allows us to do better.

    When we ask how can we do what we do for the money our customers can pay, we find imaginative solutions that please even us.

    If we are journos schmoozing cops, of course, they don’t pay (and hopefully neither do we).  But we can ask ourselves about the rhythm  of their day and why and how talking to a reporter helps them do their job.  Schmoozing suddenly becomes a whole lot cheaper and a whole lot more wholesome.

    Doing a good job is sweetly pleasurable.

    Don’t have a mission?

    P.S.  Can’t put your finger on the mission?  Articulating the mission is called leadership.  It’s not a one off; it’s a process.  The mission flexes and morphs as the world unfolds and the people involved change.

    The leader is the touch point who represents our collective understanding and will.  They reflect back to us what we are asking for and when we see ourselves in them, we learn and change what we say and do.

    And the process begins again.

    We are all leaders, too, because the minute we say and do something, we are reflecting a conversation back to someone else.  They see themselves and they learn and change.

    But sometimes we can’t get the sound-bite.  That’s what psychologists and life coaches do. They let you practice on them till you get the pithy phrases right.

    And get used to editing them and developing them on the fly as you interact with others.

    We all have a mission

    I’ve never met anyone yet who doesn’t know their mission.  As they talk, I watch their eyes.  Within 10 to 15 minutes of patient conversation, their eyes will light up.  All I do is point that out.

    Move towards whatever make your eyes light up, millimeter by millimeter The world will thank you.  Everybody is waiting for you.

    Leave a Comment

    Mindfulness for exuberant people

    Published July 28, 2010 by Jo Jordan

    Play Time by Paul McGuire via FlickrMindfulness, curiosity and a sense of control

    If thou wilt be observant and vigilant,

    thou wilt see at every moment the response to thy action.

    Be observant

    if thou wouldst have a pure heart,

    for something is born to thee in consequence of every action.

    Rumi

    Mindfulness and vigorous people

    Active people generally can’t stand slowing down and savoring the moment.  Just as some people are frightened by the quick and obvious, they like everything to be quick and obvious.

    The fun of growing older is that I comfortably experiment with world views that are not my own.  I can look at the quick and slow with equal interest.   I look at the massively consequential and the trivial with equal curiosity.

    I am sure people who start off savoring well also learn the joys of becoming more exuberant.

    Leave a Comment

    Do you know Rumi’s metaphor for dealing with negative events?

    Published July 27, 2010 by Jo Jordan

    Set by ginnerobot via FlickrThe Guest House

    Rumi

    This being human is a guest house.
    Every morning a new arrival.

    A joy, a depression, a meanness,
    some momentary awareness comes
    as an unexpected visitor.

    Welcome and entertain them all!
    Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
    who violently sweep your house
    empty of its furniture, still, treat
    each guest honorably.
    He may be clearing you out
    for some new delight.

    The dark thought, the shame, the
    malice, meet them at the door
    laughing, and invite them in.

    Be grateful for whoever comes,
    because each has been sent
    as a guide from beyond.

    I don’t know who translated this version.  If you are happy for your work to remain here, please tell me so that I can link to you and link to your books on Amazon.  Thank you.

    Leave a Comment

    Be a connoisseur and taste with caution

    Published July 24, 2010 by Jo Jordan

    Camel by Angeloux via Flickr
    Camel by Angeloux via Flickr

    The Many Wines

    Rumi

    God has given us a dark wine so potent that,
    drinking it, we leave the two worlds.

    God has put into the form of hashish a power
    to deliver the taster from self-consciousness.

    God has made sleep so
    that it erases every thought.

    God made Majnun love Layla so much that
    just her dog would cause confusion in him.

    There are thousands of wines
    that can take over our minds.

    Don’t think all ecstacies
    are the same!

    Jesus was lost in his love for God.
    His donkey was drunk with barley.

    Drink from the presence of saints,
    not from those other jars.

    Every object, every being,
    is a jar full of delight.

    Be a conoisseur,
    and taste with caution.

    Any wine will get you high.
    Judge like a king, and choose the purest,

    the ones unadulterated with fear,
    or some urgency about “what’s needed.”

    Drink the wine that moves you
    as a camel moves when it’s been untied,

    and is just ambling about.

    Leave a Comment