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Small Business – Do I really need ……..a Twitter account

This question was recently asked to me during a Third Tuesday Meeting and my immediate Luddite answer was no…. but of course that isn’t the right answer because each person and organization situation will be unique.

There are two reasons to have a twitter account:
1. To listen or follow
2. To tweet

The first is probably the best reason, there are some fascinating people with some very relevant things to say, one just has to filter out the non essential stuff. I have found out about a lot of interesting events, thoughts and opinions on the occasional time I actually look at the tweets I follow.

However if you do have a community of interest with a few “Thought Leaders” creating a list of tweets becomes a valuable tool for keeping up-to-date with current issues in your field. This is, of course, only one of many channels one should use to keep professionally current.

This leads then to the next question should I tweet? Going back to my initial reaction – why?, but if you are involved in a community that is active and many people share the same concerns, then this becomes an excellent channel to share your knowledge or at least to establish yourself as an expert in your field.

The criteria would be –

  • do I know what I am talking about,
  • can I share something new and relevant on a regular basis, and
  • is there a ongoing or recurring need for this information.

An example of where this could work well is a early childhood development professional who regularly deals with challenging situations in schools. Usually parents or teachers encounter these situations regularly and there is no one short term solution, it is an ongoing challenge. In this situation a parent in need of guidance could benefit from following experts in this field and when a relevant bit of information passes through they can utilize that resource, be it a link, a resource or other areas that can help.

Conversely if you provide a product or service that is needed only infrequently – insurance, mortgage, car purchase, etc, once the transaction is made it then falls off the radar until the next time. So tweeting about this may not be an effective use of one’s time , of course there are always exceptions, but common sense dictates otherwise.

Twitter is just one tool in your arsenal, and it will have relevance, however, you need to integrate it into your overall communications and marketing strategy and assess the impact and value it has to both you and your customers.

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Building the Foundation for a successful Social Media Marketing Initiative

by Peter de Gosztonyi

I don’t know about you, but this entire social media wave has at times completely overwhelmed me – the pace at which the whole trend is moving and changing is breathtaking. Yet, as a business owner, I know that one can’t ignore this. It certainly is not going away, so you have to get on the train or be left at the station wondering what happened…….
See the entire blog at http://ow.ly/2nFRN

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Brainstorming techniques or How to handle your boss(es) in a brainstorming session

by Peter de Gosztonyi

Project is off to a great start, you have representation from all of your stakeholders and everyone is going to attend the first brainstorming session. Everything is going perfect until your boss says oh by the way I will be attending your workshop.

Even if you have a good relationship with your boss, running a brainstorming session with different levels of authority present can be at the least uncomfortable to a down right disaster. The challenge is usually ensuring that everyone has an equal say in the idea generating and that no one individual can dominate or push a specific agenda or even force a specific outcome.

I have been in many cross level sessions and in a well managed environment the facilitator will utilize a number of different techniques to discretely neutralize these potentially disruptive influences. But what if you don’t have a trained facilitator and perhaps you haven’t encounter this situation before ?

Here are a few variations on the idea generation process that can get even the most reticent person involved as well as creating a level field for the idea generation.

There are 2 prerequisites that must be in place:

1. The statement or issue to be brainstormed is clearly stated and understood by everyone

2. A set of rules is presented and agreed upon such as no criticism of ideas, the crazier the better, all ideas are documented and visible, build on the ideas and encourage participation.

The classic approach is to have each person state an idea that is recorded on a flip chart and in a structured environment each person has a turn building on or providing new or variations on the ideas. If no idea is presented then they pass. The session is over when everyone passes. In an unstructured environment ideas are voiced by anyone at anytime. The disadvantage of this is that a quiet person or one that is intimidated will not participate fully.

An alternative would be brainwriting, and this is more suitable to individual expression where individuals write down up to 4  ideas on a paper and then either pass it on to the next person (6-3-5 method) or select a previously completed paper to modify or add to those ideas. Eventually when no more ideas are being generated, the papers are gathered and ideas consolidated.

Using the traditional sticky paper where ideas are first noted down by each individual and then grouped and organized by the team. This approach has a tendency not to generate builds or go off on different directions.

The use of analogies / free word association can result in unusual connections by comparing the problem to seemingly unrelated objects, creatures and words. Similarly visual brainstorming makes use of the team producing a picture of how they see a situation or problem. These approaches are all participatory and can be dominated by the more vocal elements so a facilitator is necessary to ensure that all participate.

In a group where only advantages or disadvantages of a problem are identified, or when members fo the group are polarized and arguing, a method called Plus Minus, Interesting PMI, can be used. Clearly identify the subject of the PMI, then brainstorm the positive aspects of the idea, then the negative aspects finally the interesting points of the idea – neutral aspects, points to explore, or unusual features.

An important element in getting the ideas ranked is the multivoting approach, where each idea ( after consolidation) is ranked based on the groups opinion. This is another potential area for influencing the outcome if not handled properly. In an open voting system, each person selects one third of the items on the list and then the votes are tallied by a count of hands for each item. Then eliminate the items with the fewest votes and redo the voting until a manageable list is made. Note that this does not discard the idea or say that it is not important, just that in the context of the particular issue under discussion these items rank lower than the others, and they may be addressed later.

In lieu of public voting, each person has a set number of stars or check marks and then place them on the items they deem important, or they rank them and place a 1, 2, 3 etc on the top 5 ideas. This method encourages anonymity and identifies the sequence based on the majority. Thus one individual would not be able to easily influence the outcome.

A more formal method that combines and uses these techniques is referred to as the Nominal Group Technique (NGT) and many trained facilitators favour this approach.

The importance of any brainstorming session is the usable ideas and solutions that are generated by the group. The follow through of actually implementing or doing additional research is necessary to ensure that the time and resources have been well utilized. If no visible outcome is seen, it becomes harder and harder to get people involved on other projects.

The following references can provide more detail on these concepts:

The Team Handbook Peter Scholtes

The quality Toolbox Nancy R Tague

The Creativity Tools Memory Jogger Goal OPC