Poking through 14+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

This post dates to 2006, yet it is as applicable today as it was then. More, in fact, as a result of social media. In many ways social media is emotional contagion on steroids — nothing short of a pandemic.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

We’ve all heard, in one variation or another, of the ongoing battle between positive and negative that is fought within each person. One of the best versions is credited to the Cherokee and uses wolves to represent the opposing sides. I like this one because it recognizes that there may seem to be no difference in appearance (in other words, you can’t always tell a book by the cover) and goes on to say that the wolf that wins the battle will be the wolf that is fed.

Skipping the biggies (kill, lie, cheat, steal), just what impact does the battle have within the workplace? And what, as a manager, is your responsibility?

A lot, as it turns out—and it even has a name. It’s called “emotional contagion” and much of the recent research that’s been done has focused on emotionally negative or positive bosses. The results won’t surprise those of us who’ve been exposed to “glass half empty” people—the experts have proved that negative emotions, especially in leaders, can bring a group down faster than running air conditioning during flu season.

What can you do? Start by staying aware of your own mood. It’s hard to be upbeat when you walk out of a meeting with an enraged client, or a design review for a project about to go over budget, but if you don’t, you’ll bring down the rest of your team and that’ll blow off the entire day (or week or even longer).

Overcome your mood using a simple approach that I first learned from a book by Napoleon Hill more years ago than matters. He said, “Think, act, walk and talk like the person you want to become and you’ll become that person.” He also said, “Act enthusiastic and you’ll become enthusiastic” Put them together and you have an unbeatable, simple, solution for keeping your own morale and, as a result, the morale of your team, positive and productive.

And what about your people? You need to deal with any kind of negativity, including a “blue” mood, immediately. Talk to the person privately; you can’t force someone to discuss a problem, but you can offer your help. You also need to make it clear that whatever is going on you can’t allow it to bring down the team—that while at work he needs to present a positive front. If it’s a personal life problem, especially a big one (illness, loss of life, etc.) offer your support and find out how much of the situation you’re allowed to share with the team. Remember, with personal information, sharing is the employee’s call, not yours.

Sometimes, when really bad stuff happens, it’s hard to act, let alone, be positive, but it’s easier on the team if they understand, even generally, the situation and can be supportive. Also, remember that you aren’t, and shouldn’t be, either shrink or confidante, but you can help them find and connect with resources that offer support and solutions.

Sure, these approaches may seem simplistic, but oft times simple is best. After all, you’re not trying to solve the cause, but to mitigate the effect.

Image credit: thomas stein

Poking through 13+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Since this was written in 2012 things have gotten much worse, with deep fakes, audio and video, fake news and misinformation in general added to everything described in the post. Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) is more true now and more important than ever before.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Do you look for peer reviews, such as those on Yelp, Amazon and most consumer sites, before buying the product, visiting the restaurant or booking the hotel?

Before the Internet we asked our friends and checked critics’ comments in newspapers and magazines, in order to increase the odds for a favorable experience.

These days we check the Internet.

“The wheels of online commerce run on positive reviews,” said Bing Liu, a data-mining expert at the University of Illinois, Chicago (…) Mr. Liu estimates that about one-third of all consumer reviews on the Internet are fake.

Consumer reviews are powerful because, unlike old-style advertising and marketing, they offer the illusion of truth. They purport to be testimonials of real people, even though some are bought and sold just like everything else on the commercial Internet.

Do rankings based on the number of followers people have influence your trust level or opinion of them? But how do you know they are real?

And it’s not just ego-driven blogger types. Celebrities, politicians, start-ups, aspiring rock stars, reality show hopefuls — anyone who might benefit from having a larger social media footprint — are known to have bought large blocks of Twitter followers.

Are you impressed when someone’s Facebook wall is filled with beautiful people?

They are for sale, too.

His idea, he said, was “to turn cyberlosers into social-networking magnets” by providing fictitious postings from attractive people. The postings are written by the client or by Mr. Walker and his employees, who base the messages on the client’s requests.

If having to choose between being a chump and a cynic isn’t up your alley, perhaps the best advice when it comes to reviews, followers and friends is ‘buyer beware’ and ‘if it seems to good to be true it probably is’.

Flickr image credit: Psychology Today

The above image was yesterday’s Oldie from 2009.

What’s changed (or was off in the first place) since then?

Let’s take them one-by-one.

Data: data, since “facts” are often historical and the historical info is often biased.

Information: Think bias and fake news, neither is new, but the quantity has exploded.

Knowledge: Same as original.

Understanding: Too often why or any questioning is asked only if the facts and information run counter to our beliefs, opinion, and worldview.

Wisdom: Unlikely.

Wikipedia describes wisdom as follows:

Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight.^[1] Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowledge, self-transcendence and non-attachment,^[2] and virtues such as ethics and benevolence.^[3][4]

Much of the ability to think according to the above description has been either voluntarily turned over to, or co-opted by, social media.

Considered actions often must pass an “Instagram/Twitter filter;” those that don’t aren’t acted upon.

If there is anything social media can not be blamed for it’s a proliferation of wisdom.

Join me tomorrow for a look at ways and means to acquire wisdom.

Image credit: Nick J Webb

“Change is the only constant” is an oft-quoted idea first uttered around 500 BC by Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher (those Greeks really knew what they were talking about).

The only difference between then and now is that change happens a whole lot faster.

In these days of fast change I try to keep two rules firmly in my conscious mind.

The first is something I heard many years ago, although don’t remember where.

The only thing free is the cheese in the mouse trap.

For whatever reason it really sank in and proved to be protection, preventing me from falling for the lure of free as social media, Google and other services rose to overwhelming prominence.

It kept me from being parsed, productized, and sold.

The second isn’t new and has been said many ways over the decades. This is how I’ve thought about it for decades.

Personality reaps more acclaim than talent or accomplishments.

I find it especially true in these days of personal branding and self promotion.

I’m grateful I absorbed both ideas; they’ve made my life much simpler, safer and easier these days.

And I’m not missing a thing.

Image credit: Cambodia4kids.org Beth Kanter

Poking through 12+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Trust is a funny thing. We don’t usually ask ourselves if we trust someone when we initially meet. Often, the only reason we start thinking consciously about whether we trust them is because some action of theirs felt untrustworthy. We may not even be able to identify what it was; just a niggling discomfort that makes us squirm a bit.

We would all be wise to pay attention to the niggle.

Although too often we blow it off and go our merry way.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

No matter the medium you use to follow the news a large proportion of the stories have a trust angle—most with a negative look at who/how/why it was broken.

I tend to trust people with good diction because I can hear what they say; others trust people because of perceived commonality—the same place of worship, similar political stances, the same schools, military service, mutual connections, etc.

When you see it written down like that the idiocy of any commonality as a basis for trust is apparent, but on any day you can find stories about broken trust that was based on these and similar ephemeral reasons (such as diction). Possibly one of the dumbest is the trust based on some form of online friendship at places such as Facebook.

Even trust in introductions made by long time friends can be misplaced as the experience of my friend Kelly shows.

Briefly, her friend arranged a blind date for Kelly with a guy she knew. She didn’t mention that she had only chatted for a few minutes with him during a conference; she thought he was cute and that Kelly would like him.

Fortunately for Kelly he was arrested two days before their date—charged with attempted rape. Her friend was shocked because he was well dressed and it was a professional conference, so she assumed he was OK.

There are thousands of similar stories out there; many with much worse endings.

So how do you know who to trust?

When I was looking for quotes about trust for yesterday’s post I found an anonymous one that offers some excellent guidance.

“The key is to get to know people and trust them to be who they are. Instead, we trust people to be who we want them to be- and when they’re not, we cry.”

Getting to know someone takes time, but you can pursue a dual track by giving the people the benefit of the doubt if your guts says yes, while maintaining a vigilant watch to make sure that their actions are consistent with their expressed MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and being ruthless in not rationalizing away the inconsistencies.

Image credit: Vic

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Your life as lived in the real world with real people and real relationships.

As Arianna Huffington said,

What we’ve discovered is that technology might be great at delivering what we want in the moment, but it’s less great at giving us what we need over the long term.

The biggest step forward in the world of technology in 2018 was the realisation that we have to set boundaries in our relationship with technology to protect our humanity. (…) It was the year we realised that the consequences of allowing technology into every aspect of our lives aren’t all positive.

If, after all Zuckerberg’s lies and shenanigans you actually decide to delete Facebook from your life, you need to remember that it owns Instagram and WhatsApp, so they would need to go, too. If that works for you, here are two explanations of what to do. The first explains how to delete all three, the second focuses on Facebook.

You can take a less drastic approach than full deletion, yet give yourself far more control, by leaving the apps on your laptop, but deleting them from your phone (except for some Samsung models). They’ll still be there, but you’ll need to make a conscious choice to check them instead of responding like Pavlov’s dog to the notifications.

If even that is too much, start by turning off notifications.

You will be surprised at the difference it makes.

Don’t ignore the fact that tech is addictive and can take over your life in the same way as alcohol or drugs. And just like alcohol and drugs there are support groups and rehab centers for tech addiction. Even if you don’t believe you are actually addicted, check it out; it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

If instead you just want to take much more control, here are some links that can help you make conscious choices.

Use Location History Visualizer to gain a better understanding of what Google’s location tracking means to you. And understand that Apple isn’t immune.

One humongous thing you can do to shrink your online footprint is to switch from Google to Startpage.com. The lack of ads makes a huge difference in the quality of your browsing.

And take a close look at this infographic on how to make yourself invisible on the net.

Invest in a VPN; I have Avast’s, since I also use their virus software and consider the small annual charge to be one of the best investments I’ve made.

Here’s one on stopping robocalls on both iPhone and Android.

You don’t have to do it all at once, but you do need to think through tech’s effects on your life and your relationships and then go from there.

PS This just in. Amazon’s Ring, along with dozens of other IoT devices are famous for their laz security.

Beginning in 2016, according to one source, Ring provided its Ukraine-based research and development team virtually unfettered access to a folder on Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service that contained every video created by every Ring camera around the world. (…)  The Information, which has aggressively covered Ring’s security lapses, reported on these practices last month.

So before you buy one stop and think, “would I want whatever this device learns about me and my family shared across the strangers and media?” If the answer is “no” then you should probably skip it.

Yesterday we revisited why tuit culture is bad for companies and I commented that it even worse when it grabs you personally.

Round tuits are the visual symbol of procrastination, something I have intimate knowledge of and experience with — years ago I was even crowned Queen of procrastination by a delegation of friends and family.

While it is possible to tame the tuits in your life, it’s important to be aware when the ROI changes from positive to negative.

I posted this mantra around my home years ago that helped — Do it when you think about it; Don’t think about doing it.

I forgot to put it back up when I moved 15 years ago and I seem to have backslid badly.

Something else I learned long ago and previously wrote about. It applies to the tuits that sabotage your best efforts of prioritization and it goes like this, why do today what doesn’t need to be done at all?

Back then it referred to so-called busy work, but these days the worst offending tuits that don’t need to be done involve the constant alerts, social media, FOMO, and TMI.

In other words, all the stuff we convince ourselves must be done to keep the sky from falling.

Which it won’t.

Tuits are much like dragons, you can’t slay all of them at once and some don’t need slaying; they can just be ignored.

Some need only a little kick to disable them, as opposed to the concentrated effort required to slay them, and some can even be flipped, making social media stuff into round tuits.

Image credit: brett jordan

I’ve used stuff from Frits Ahlefeldt many times over the years; he does amazing cartoons, illustrations and art.

Better than anything I could say are Frits’ own words.

Drawing and wondering about how the need for personal online branding on places like Facebook and Twitter more and more influence the experiences and challenges people choose, because  they are all part of a personal media / branding strategy.

This guy took it all the way:

Image credit: HikingArtist

Do you believe that the stuff on blogs moves virally, based on interest or merit, to mainstream media?

If so, you are very naïve.

It moves via manipulation, viz the Hidden Persuaders, by people who are paid to manipulate. (Unfortunately, this cited post won’t make it.)

Ryan Holiday is a marketer and publicist who specializes in manipulating blogs in service of his clients.
(…)
contrary to prevailing wisdom, that most original reporting in online media was done by smaller blogs, (…) by influencing small blogs today, one could alter what was in the Washington Post tomorrow.

Virality is most prevalent in stories with high emotional content, especially anger and awe.

Holiday had no problem with his work when the goal was to sell a product, but when the same tools started to be used to manipulate social and civic attitudes he stopped.

If the effects of this media manipulation were merely to drive customers to products they wouldn’t otherwise buy, Ryan would still probably be out there plying his trade. What caused him to reconsider his profession (and write Trust Me I’m Lying) was the increasing use of these manipulation techniques to spread political ideas, and, in the process, hurt individuals. In the second half of the book, he talks about how sites like Jezebel and Breitbart News use the techniques he pioneered to push product for American Apparel to maximize their own page-views by stoking outrage both among their supporters and their opponents. In his view, much of responsibility for the coarsening and polarization of politics and culture can be laid at the feet of professional manipulators like himself.

Using professional manipulators to change and/or incite public opinion is nothing new.

But the tools at their disposal are more insidious than ever.

Therefore, making caveat emptor your personal slogan makes more sense than ever.

Image credit: Scott Akerman

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

In the six years since I wrote this individual focus on meware has skyrocketed, while focus on wetware has plunged. If this is true for you, you may want to reconsider the long-term effects, both professional and personal.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Wally Bock writes one of the few blogs under the “leadership” banner that I like, mostly because he writes common sense, keeps it simple and (usually) sees leadership through a lens similar to my own.

In a recent post Wally writes about people.

People are emotional. Some economists write like they think it’s not so. Some philosophers think it’s bad. But it’s the way we are. Our emotions affect everything we do and every choice we make.

People are perceptive and insightful. We notice things and reach conclusions without the need for advanced programming.

People are creative. Human beings are natural idea generators. Just let us show up and watch us go.

People are both consistent and inconsistent. As a species we’re pretty predictable. Once we’re past young adulthood, our previous behavior is a good guide to our future behavior. But individually we’re a source of constant surprise.

People have knowledge. Knowledge is information plus context. On a good day, we can generate wisdom.

People have relationships. They are a source of strength and support and insight. They are also a source of biases.

People have lives. We have a life at work and a life at home and a host of other lives. They are all in play all the time.

That post reminded me of an ancient Cathy comic from the Eighties in which a computer salesman tells Cathy he knows hardware and software, but isn’t fluent in wetware.

Unfortunately, a lot of managers aren’t as fluent in wetware as they need to be to generate high levels of success for both their team and themselves.

For that matter, people in general aren’t always wetware aware, let alone fluent.

However, they seem to be both fluent and aware when it comes to meware.

The problem is that meware won’t raise productivity or drive innovation; it won’t produce responsible, well-rounded kids or create viable relationships.

When it comes to life, wetware is really all that matters, whether professionally or personally.

Flickr image credit: ThisParticularGreg