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Freedom of Expression or Decapitation

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At the risk of a beheading, and this is no joke, I’m sticking my neck out (that is a joke) to decry the horrific and terroristic behavior of a drug cartel that uses Z in Mexico. I won’t use its name to be somewhat cautious on this side of the border.

A woman blogger/journalist was decapitated because she blogged for safety on the streets of Mexico. She decried the power of the drug lords over innocent women, children, men, and families.  She reported on the daily narcotics wars in the country and began to research info about the “Z” cartel. She dared to lash out via a blog in the name of freedom of expression that apparently is disregarded in our Central American neighbor. Because of fear, reprisal against self and family, money, safety.

While this true story may be gruesome to you, it’s not the first breach of freedom of expression the world has seen. We’ve watched the streets of Iran, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq, and other countries explode in the name of freedom. Some were successful in their quest; others were not.

Americans have the freedom to express malcontent to the highest echelons of government without recourse (except perhaps a wire tap or creation of an FBI case folder).  We picket, we lobby, we rant and rave in op-eds, and we blog – freely.

In honor of this woman, Maria Elizabeth Macias — “The Girl From Laredo,” whose severed head was placed next to her desktop, mouse and keyboard, I encourage your blog post speaking out against the tyrannical drug cartels in Mexico who are killing innocent victims doing what Americans’ inalienable right allows on a daily basis.

She is not the first to die under this rash of violence. Two others were hanged from a bridge with notes listing three websites.  Six other journalists have already been killed this year.  In spite of being spooked, bloggers and Twitter accounts forge ahead:

>> Borderland Beat Blog tweets @OVEMEX

>>Follow #MtyFollow for news of cartel activity in Monterrey, Mexico.

>>Follow #AcaFollow for news of cartel activity in Acapulco

>>Follow #LaredoGirl to remain abreast of cartel activity in the name of Senora Macias

>>Follow #NenaDLaredo for rolling stream on news about the cartel ongoing after Ms. Macias’s passing

I applaud those who carry on against violence; I cry for those the world over who cannot hope to live in peace but always  fear losing a loved one.

Embrace What You Hate To Innovate

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I know what I know and I hate what I don’t. This is a story about my inner demon that has plagued me all my life — my inability to embrace what I don’t know to grow. Let me share some past and recent examples:

>> Mom said I refused to ride my tricycle until one day I jumped on and went careening down the street.

>> I spent hours in the Paris airport letting all the stand-by flights go without me because I couldn’t speak French although I was trying.

>>I rarely line dance or take group aerobics because I’m a terrible follower and mistakes are rampant.

>>I refused to blog for a year because I was afraid about the tech that goes along with it.

>>My twin Gini chastised me in comments last week on Spin Sucks for not having Clicky already up and running on the blog.  Meanwhile, Erica Allison is all over it and can’t wait for more scoopage about who’s visiting her blog. (I kinda don’t want to know.)

There, you have it, and not sure whether that was therapeutic or not, but here’s what I’m doing about it:

>>I’m going to Facebook school this month via Social Media Examiner to take nearly two dozen classes Michael Stelzner and faculty have lined up in October for Facebook Success Summit 2011. I bought this class and have watched one pre-course video during which I was furiously taking notes.

>>I whined in comments somewhere about how scary installation of the new timeline was on Facebook and then decided I would master the dang thing and watched a tutorial four times to navigate being an app developer. Lo, my timeline is launched and waiting for live; meanwhile, I was able to walk Erica through her five-minute installation. (I broke my fear pattern and shared that knowledge in this case.)

>>I bought another course from ClickZ on analytics and SEO which was pretty expensive. I asked a client to pay half, and they concurred. I’ve not embarked on this intensive instruction yet, but will after Facebook school in October. (SEO has been the bane of my existence; seriously.)

>>After hearing all about Clicky and then reading this review on Brankica’s blog, I gave her the nod and clicked from her site to launch it on my blog. Heck, I even installed some code on my php footer (or whatever), but I have no idea of I did it right at all. I will see this week!

>>I did try to install PostRank just prior to Google buying it, but rather than go to the website, I somehow installed it direct from my blog via a plug-in. I get rankings in my dashboard for the blog posts, but, alas, the data are likely skewed because I installed it wrong. Whatev.

What’s my takeaway?

>>I have to fight with myself to embrace what I don’t know. I stall, I kvetch, I whine, I ignore, and I stumble only to realize I’m hurting myself.

>>These learnings are hindering my ability to innovate. As a leading-edge PR peep (I made the journey to the marketing blend a very long time ago) who works solo with virtual teams, there is no one to teach me. I have to strive to stay ahead.

>>I am fully aware of my patterns; this behavior has plagued me my entire life. It’s a discomfort, a fear of failure, a fear of looking like a fool, and it’s also my inability to ask for help.

>>As a starter, I need people on my team who can finish and take it to solution with a deeper dive (and thus I’m happy to turn over the analytics to Erica and Gini and Bran) while I generate strategic ideas. (I haven’t remedied this one yet.)

In conclusion…sorry for the first-person post today…don’t like to make a whine out of a piece, but am thinking this is more of an acute observation of obstacles to growth.

Share yours, please?

(image: inspirationonline.com)

 

RoundUp of Global Guest Posts

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Guest posting can be a wonderful thing. I’ve written about how you can be a better invited guest, and I’m wondering how well you’re finding the experience when you guest post at others’ homes?

The last month or so has been quite zany on my guest-posting circuit. I saw Laura Click do this this week on her blog, and while I’m not familiar with its etiquette, I’m going to use Laura as inspiration to:

1. Share my latest round up of guests posts around the world

2. Thank my hosts for inviting me while returning the favor with some love backatcha

So, here are some pretty decent writings (because I work harder as a guest poster to write better) I’d like to share, for the record, all in one spot:

##  Danny Iny is principal of FirePole Marketing, and this week my topic is on small business branding. Apparently, Danny went off on a honeymoon (congrats!) and had to fill the pipeline whilst celebrating. Stop in and share your thoughts on how your small business branding is successful or getting derailed.

## If you don’t know Robert Dempsey, then you’re missing the boat. His intellect and amazing approach to analytics and SEO is astonishingly smart. He blogs from Thailand, and he invited me to share insight on blog voice, so I wrote on Finding Blogging Voice with 3 Cs.

## Jon Buscall of Jontus Media in Sweden invited me to experience my second podcast with him, and we had a blast speaking on social media best practices (although we rambled about so much I don’t believe we ever got to the actual fine tuning of a best practice, did we Jon?).  Jon is the master of podcasting; I am always amazed and slightly envious that I’m not doing it, too.

## My public relations colleague from Bulgaria, Petya Georgieva, invited my topic on whatever I wanted (always a pressure-filled endeavor to pinpoint a topic) so I wrote on Social Media Makes the World Smaller.

## This man, Ken Mueller of Inkling Media is a hoot. He cast a wide net for guest bloggers and I acquiesced. And, I wrote a really, really good piece and then he sat on it. For a long time. I began to give him grief and threaten to publish it before he did…that did it. Here’s one of my all time favorite pieces with a ton  of real-time inspiration called Bloggers On Pedestals.

## The venerable and highly intellectual Spin Sucks is always a destination location for any blogger, and it’s with great pride when I write for them and see my name in lights (ahem, just half kidding). Another highly popular post in my twin’s community “Three Things Threatening Authenticity.”

## Ms. Laura Click (love that name) was first to grab me during her holiday out of the office. I filled the queue with a topic on how to build a blogging community…had never even thought about it until she asked for that topic; in fact, I don’t know the first thing about that…heh.

 

I still have a few more guest posts to fulfill, and ideas are gelling, promise. Meanwhile, thank you, wholeheartedly, for the invitations as above. I enjoyed visiting your house!

 

 

Failure To Innovation With Competence

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Check out this article in the Wall Street Journal, “Better Ideas Through Failure.”  It’s about a unit of WPP Grey Group’s creation of the Heroic Failure award for employees who take an edgier, riskier approach to innovation and winning.

Then there’s the recent point of view piece I read in Ad Age from a vice president of marketing at Hoover’s. He was all set to hire a candidate when something struck him; the candidate was good, and he was competent, but that’s all. Competence is no longer good enough; candidates have to show more — get out of the corporate box and prove themselves as risk takers and, gasp, be entrepreneurial!

Putting two and two together, take a look at this picture:

** The status quo in the workplace is being shot down.

** The global platform is the new sandbox, and if you don’t come equipped with unusually innovative experiences then you can’t play.

** Thinking is what’s now required; in fact, it’s demanded in the workplace.

** Entrepreneurs rule. Have you seen all the hoopla about how those who innovate and manage their own companies are supposed to save the U.S. from a double-dip?

The initial concept about failure is nothing new to parents. We watch as our babies fall only to get up and walk. I’ve written about my failures as a blogger with the back end and analytics of this site (which can also be construed as lack of knowledge or failure to learn in a timely fashion, perhaps). Others can share failures as learning experiences all the time.

In business, though, failing is an expensive endeavor, but if that’s the new path to innovation, then by all means…make some stupid mistakes! Am certain the expectation is intense to learn from the errors, establish new and creative methods of winning and get teams to reach key performance indicators without failure, without negative effect on the bottom line, and efficiently.

Here’s what else the Wall Street Journal piece says of innovators:

** Take time off so original ideas can incubate.

** Be free to take risks, work on multiple projects at once to spark flexible thinking.

** In society and culture, civil conflict, political fragmentation and cultural diversity can trigger divergent thinking.

** What also helps individual creativity (and I don’t agree with this one IMHO) is “aggressive, egocentric or antisocial behavior makes it easier to ponder ideas in solitude or challenge convention.”

Fascinating stuff, eh? I’m sure you readers of the Harvard Business Review can muster some further food for thought on this topic? Or, perhaps an actual workplace experience might trigger a story or two?

 

Your Avatar Had A Birthday

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There’s been so much written about avatars – how to get one, whether to use your face or a favorite image, how to use Gravatar to populate your mug all over the web, and much more.

Today, though, I’d like to address our aging avatars, and encourage (talking to myself here) an update. When you have a birthday, so does your avatar! But, it’s so easy to ignore my avatar’s birthday when I have one.

What prompted this post today were a few things:

**I went to a tradeshow and was shocked when meeting a few peeps in person because the images they’re using on the web look to be about 15 years younger.

**Someone said recently, “Omgosh, he looked nothing like his avatar; I didn’t know who he was in person.”

**And a prominent blogger decided to alter his avatar as a side view tweeting he didn’t want to show his face full on.

So with full disclosure and a lot of guilt, I am going to show you what I look like yesterday and last week. And, then, I’m going to update Twitter and Facebook, but I’m going to leave my really skinny face shot on LinkedIn (after I had lost 20 lbs a year ago which I need to do again). Why? Just because.

Why does it matter, you ask?

People are people, and gossip runs amok. Social media breeds tongue waggling, and if someone is going to suggest behind my back that “she’s chubby,” “she’s not very young anymore,” or “my gosh, she’s got a lot of gray hair!” then I’m going to be the first to admit it instead of hiding behind a cuter, younger, leaner me.

We’re a tough crowd, and coming clean that I’m 50-years-old and a mother of a 9-year-old is therapeutic in and of itself. No sense hiding what’s true, is there?