sacha chua :: living an awesome life

One of the things I like about meetups is the opportunity to test introductions. With all the different things I enjoy doing, what do I want to focus on, and what hooks do I want to give people in order to make conversation easier?

I’ve been thinking about introductions because of conversations with Judy Gombita and Rachel Lane at last week’s #torontob2b meetup. Judy delights in introducing me as the famous Shy Connector. This makes me grin a little in embarrassment, as (a) chances are that people haven’t come across it, and I don’t like making people feel a little out of the loop because they don’t know someone who’s supposed to be famous, and (b) umm, the whole point about shyness?

After the event, I thought about what some better reactions might be. For example, I could use that opportunity to give a 15-second summary of the key points, in case they’re useful for other people. Chances are, the people I’m meeting at these events are either extroverted or have found ways to cope. For extroverts, it might be something they can share with their introverted friends (a handy excuse to reach out). For introverts, I might share a surprising tip (for example, public speaking lets you get around starting a conversation) and find out what their tips are. If I keep a copy of the presentation on my phone, that makes it even easier for people to pick it up quickly.

Rachel and I are figuring out this tricky introduction bit, too. In one of these conversations, Rachel introduced herself as just a freelancer focusing on digital strategy and copywriting. After that conversation wrapped up, I passed on the lesson that Alan Lepofsky taught me about eliminating “just” from self-descriptions. After all, “independent” isn’t a synonym for “unemployed”; it can be something awesome. So now I’m going to introduce her as Rachel, who focuses on digital strategy, and who is also into wonderful things such as making Toronto greener through Guerrilla Gardening and helping people learn through Ladies Learning Code.

While we were talking about introductions, Rachel asked me how I wanted her to introduce me. “Consultant” is too vague. “Enterprise social software adoption consulting” is a mouthful, and it’s relevant to only a tiny fraction of people. “Blogger” is too generic, although mentioning that I blog at LivingAnAwesomeLife.com does give people a sense of my personality.

I think that at these meetups, I’m going to focus on sketchnotes, because that’s something that will be useful for anyone attending. I can quickly show some examples on my phone (or show the event’s notes if this is post-talk conversation) and promise to send it to people. That would be a good lead-in to exchanging contact information or connecting on Twitter, and it also gives me an excuse to follow up.

I’ll try emphasizing sketchnotes next time. When introducing myself, I can:

• connect with people’s challenges with information overload
• explain that I sketch notes of books, presentations, and meetings so that people can quickly understand and review key ideas, and that I blog at LivingAnAwesomeLife.com
• offer to send them my notes from the event

I’ll put together a business card focusing on sketchnotes too. Cards are good physical triggers for memory.

This is quite a different introduction for me. You know how you get a sense of where people put you in their mental classifications of people? I usually fit in the “geek” box. Although I’m sure people can figure that out as soon as they start browsing my website… =)

How do you experiment with your introduction?

(Click image for a larger version)

The Start-up of You is a book about networking and career planning using tips pulled from the startup world, sprinkled with hip jargon such as “pivot” and “volatility.” It’s a decent book for people who are new to connecting or cultivating their network and who also like reading about technology and entrepreneurship. If you’re a fan of The Lean Startup and similar entrepreneurship books, The Start-up of You is like seeing those ideas applied to other parts of life. It’s easy to read, and it flows well.

If you’ve read a lot of other networking or career growth books, though, you might not come across any new aha! moments here. I liked examples such as the “interesting people fund” and the idea of having A-B-Z plans. There are good tips for asking your network better questions (p208), too. Still, I didn’t find many things that surprised me or made me think.

This book probably won’t become one of my favourites, but it’s still a decent read. As I post more book notes, I’ll share my go-to books for networking and career tips with you.

The Start-up of You
Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha
2012: Crown Business
ISBN: 978-0307888907

(E-book and audiobook also available. The Toronto Public Library carries this book.)

It started when we peeked through the bedroom blinds and saw our next-door neighbour cross the street to the house of the neighbour opposite us. He waved to them and took a wheelbarrow of triple-mix soil from the cubic yard bag sitting in front of the house, rolling it back down the curb, across the street, and up the other curb to his house. “They must’ve gone in together on a yard bag of soil,” W- said. It probably didn’t require much neighbourly coordination – a casual conversation, an offer of help – but we envied the ease and connection it implied. We knew our neighbours on either side of our house, but not so much the ones across the street. How could we get to know more people in the neighbourhood?

Gardening, apparently, is an excellent way to meet people over here. Investing in perennials and annuals turns out to pay social dividends. We dug up and gave our front-yard irises to one of our neighbours – we made space for new plants, and he added some more colour to his garden. We replanted the front yard as a herbal tea garden, with the sidewalk box planted as rows of colourful annuals (including one row of edible flowers, the petunias). We dug up the boxwood and juniper shrubs, placed the new plants, and chatted with neighbours and passers-by who complimented us on our garden. We even had an extended conversation with Awesome Garden Lady Down the Street, who as it turns out is Mrs. Wong, and who gave us extra vegetable seeds and plenty of advice.

Here’s what we planted today:

• stevia
• lemongrass
• bergamot
• spearmint (in a pot, of course)
• peppermint (in the same pot)
• garlic chives
• curry
• tricolor sage
• lemon thyme
• chamomile
• lots of basil
• lots of lavender
• miscellaneous flowers

Weeding and cultivating the front yard will no doubt keep us busy throughout the season, and familiarity leads to conversations. I hope to get quite a few herbal infusions out of it too, and perhaps even a garden party. Our back yard garden is growing well, but is understandably limited as a conversation starter.

If you’re an introvert with a front yard, you might want to give gardening a try too. It’s easier for both W- and me to talk to people when there’s an excuse to do so, instead of just chatting with people out of the blue. Gardening provides an excellent excuse – people talk to us, or we can ask about other people’s gardens as we walk around. Lawns might draw remarks if they’re well-kept, but a more diverse and colourful garden will probably be easier. Have fun!

2011-05-23 Mon 17:35

Paul Gillin invited me to do a tweetchat on the professional and personal value of blogging on March 3, 2011 (2pm-3pm EST, #infoboom). When I brainstormed some of the things I’d like to talk about, I ended up with a big list: not just the value I get from blogging, but also tips for how you can build that too. I hope you enjoy this blog series! You can also see other resources in this series.

A blog is an incredible way to connect with people. It helps people get to know who you are, what you’re interested in, what you’re good at, who you know, what you’re working on, and any entity till they got to share. Reading a blog, people can find out what you have in common with them, how you can help them, and how they can help you.

1. Introduction

People like getting to know people. When you make a new acquaintance, you might look them up on the Internet to find out more about them. Likewise, people look you up to find out more about you. A blog can be like your self-introduction. Your about page can include a short biography, and your blog posts can provide further details for people who want to know more.

Make it easy for new acquaintances to find your blog by adding it to your e-mail signature, business card, and social networking profiles. That way, people can read your blog to build on a brief introduction. As a result, a prospective client or new acquaintance might discover common ground with you. It speeds up the process of introduction, and simplifies getting to know people.

Don’t count on being anonymous or obscure. If you have a blog that you’d rather people didn’t read, you might have a problem in the future. Even systems with privacy controls can disclose data through programming errors, accidents, or malicious use. Before you post something, think about whether you can deal with the consequences of sharing it. Don’t let that scare you away from sharing, though! People are generally good, and they probably won’t hold minor mistakes against you.

Tips:

• Add a short biography to your about page. Keep in mind that this may be seen by both professional and personal contacts.
• Add your blog URL to your e-mail signature, card, social network profiles, and other places people might check.

2. Deepening the connection

How do people go from being acquaintances to colleagues or friends? How can you develop a chance conversation at a networking event into a partnership that last years? Shared experiences and personal knowledge go along way to deepening that connection, and you can help that along through your blog.

I find this aspect of blogging really helpful. It’s difficult for me to e-mail people to stay in touch, because I don’t want to waste people’s time. I’m often pleasantly surprised to hear from people who have kept in touch with me anyway by reading my blog. I appreciate being able to read other people’s blog posts and status updates as a way of finding out more about them without getting in their way. The conversation might grow in this low-key way until it becomes a friendship.

Tips:

• Post regularly to give people reasons to come back.
• Make sure that it’s easy to subscribe to your blog through feeds or e-mail.
• Keep an eye out for people who regularly comment on your blog or talk to you about what you’ve written, and invest time in learning more about them.

3. Appreciation

A thank-you note is good; a public thank-you, done well, is even better. When you share what you’ve learned from people and your appreciation for how they’ve helped, that builds your relationship with those people, inspires others, and reflects well on you. It also helps people confirm what they’ve helped you learn and to share that with others – a great way to pay mentors back.

Tips:

• Use your blog to show your appreciation for people. Be positive – don’t use it for passive-aggressive "appreciation"!
• When someone takes the time to mentor you, share your lessons learned if possible. That way, your mentor can check it and share it with others.

4. Reaching out

A blog gives you both a reason and a way to reach out to people. If you’d like to talk to people but you aren’t sure how to start the conversation, you might write about those people on your blog. For example, you could share what you’re learning from them her even from a distance, and what you might want to talk to them about. Many people regularly search for their name, and they might come across your post and start the conversation. It’s an interesting way to meet book authors, thoughtleaders, and other people active on the Internet.

Don’t expect a response, but be ready in case people reach out. Who knows? Maybe you can even ask a question, and maybe people will share a quick answer. It can pay to ask.

Tips:

• Show your interest, but don’t be creepy. Yes to admiration, no to stalking.
• If you reach out to people through e-mail, you can mention your blog post about them as a way of sharing what you’ve been learning from them.
• Look for something of value that you can bring to the conversation, even if it’s a really good question. Don’t reach out just for the sake of getting an e-mail from an A-lister, and don’t beg people for a link back from their blog.

5. The great conversation

Around the world, lots of conversations are happening through blogs. Someone posts an idea. Others write blog posts linking to the first post and sharing their thoughts. Yet others write blog posts following up on those posts. Along the way, people comment on blog posts, share their reactions on Twitter and other social networks, and talk about posts in person or through e-mail.

Participating in the conversation is so much better when you have your own blog. You can write longer posts in it, and you can build an archive of your thoughts. If people think your thoughts are interesting, they can explore your blog to find out more. If your thoughts are sprinkled in comments on different blog posts, it’s harder for others to get that sense of you.

You’ll still want to reach out to other people through commenting on their blogs, of course. Many blogs can automatically detect blog posts that link to them, but it’s nice to leave a comment summarizing your thoughts and thanking people for the inspiration. Don’t make your comments all about you, though! When you’re commenting on people’s blogs, it’s like you’re chatting in their living room. You wouldn’t want to make the conversation all about you. Read comments on other people’s blogs to get a sense of the etiquette. Blatant self-promotion doesn’t work well. Focus on adding value to conversations on other blogs, and link to a relevant blog post if you’ve written about something in more details.

Tips:

• When you read a blog post that inspires you to think about it, write a blog post and link
• Look for blogs on topics you’re interested in. Read the comments for a while to get a sense of what the discussion is like. Try posting a few comments. When you find yourself wanting to say more, post those thoughts on your blog, and link to it. (But nicely!)

See other resources in this series. Tune in tomorrow for more tips. You can also subscribe using a feed-reader or subscribe by e-mail to get updates. Hope this helps!

Darren Hudgins liked my Shy Connector presentation a lot, so he asked me to put together some quick tips to share with the ~400 people at the Instructional Technology Strategies Conference. Here’s what I came up with:

They’re going to play it live at the conference at 12 PST. =) I’ve kept it short so that I can share a few quick tips and then get out of the way of all that awesome networking. It sounds like a great crowd.

If you’re here from the ITSC, you might also be interested in my sketchnotes from David Zach’s keynote. Click on the image to see the full version.

Here are other pre-ITSC conference networking tips I’ve shared:

For more networking tips, check out:

(Also see my full notes for the Shy Connector presentation and other blog posts about connecting)

I made the video with the guide to conference awesomeness using Microsoft Onenote, Microsoft Powerpoint, a Lenovo X61 tablet PC, Camtasia Studio 7 (which doesn’t get along perfectly with the Windows 7 on my tablet). I’d love to go back to the free Inkscape drawing program for drawing if someone can help me figure out how to get it to smoothly digitize. =) Thanks to IBM for sponsoring this effort!

Follow me on Twitter (@sachac) for more updates. I’ll be around from 12 PM to 1 PM PST to answer questions or share other tips. Use the #itsc11 hashtag or mention me by adding @sachac to your tweet. If you’re here after February 21, feel free to leave a comment on this blog post for Q&A. Hope this helps!

This tip’s for Mike Nurse and other people who are looking for small things that could make LinkedIn more useful for them… =)

Did you know that you can customize your LinkedIn URL to make it more memorable, writable, and professional?

1. Log on to linkedin.com.
2. Click on Profile – Edit Profile.
3. Click on Edit next to your Public Profile URL.
4. Click on Edit next to Your Public Profile URL. Choose a short, memorable URL. Click on Set Address.
5. Optionally customize what people see on your public profile.
6. Click on Save Changes.

If you want to make it easier for people to connect with you on LinkedIn, put your new URL on your business card, your e-mail signature, your website, and other social network profiles. Little things like that help make it easier for other people to connect with you.

I’ve been talking to people about my project of becoming more social, getting better at connecting. It makes sense. I get to practise and pick up tips at the same time. =) Sometimes people say, “Sacha, aren’t you already pretty social? How big is your network, anyway?” But it’s not about that, and I think I’m starting to figure out what it’s about.

There are so many interesting people. W-, of course, is gosh-darn-awesome. And there are all these wonderful people I’ve gotten to know: my family, my barkada, my ninongs and ninangs, my friends in Canada who helped me get the hang of those first few winters, my friends at work and in various clubs, my friends through this blog and Twitter and all these other networks, and people I have yet to become good friends with. So the limiting factor isn’t the lack of people to develop friendships with, but my ability to do so.

What does it mean to be friends with someone? In the Nichomachean Ethics, where he devotes a book of fourteen chapters to the topic of friendship, Aristotle distinguishes between friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure, and friendships of good character. Of these, I’m interested in friendships of good character. In this kind of friendship, you appreciate the goodness of other people and they appreciate yours. You wish them good, and they wish you good as well.

One can’t have many friends at this level. In W.D.Ross’s translation of the Nichomachean Ethics:

But it is natural that such friendships should be infrequent; for such men are rare. Further, such friendship requires time and familiarity; as the proverb says, men cannot know each other till they have ‘eaten salt together’; nor can they admit each other to friendship or be friends till each has been found lovable and been trusted by each. Those who quickly show the marks of friendship to each other wish to be friends, but are not friends unless they both are lovable and know the fact; for a wish for friendship may arise quickly, but friendship does not.

And also:

Now there are three grounds on which people love; of the love of lifeless objects we do not use the word ‘friendship’; for it is not mutual love, nor is there a wishing of good to the other (for it would surely be ridiculous to wish wine well; if one wishes anything for it, it is that it may keep, so that one may have it oneself); but to a friend we say we ought to wish what is good for his sake. But to those who thus wish good we ascribe only goodwill, if the wish is not reciprocated; goodwill when it is reciprocal being friendship. Or must we add ‘when it is recognized’? For many people have goodwill to those whom they have not seen but judge to be good or useful; and one of these might return this feeling. These people seem to bear goodwill to each other; but how could one call them friends when they do not know their mutual feelings? To be friends, then, the must be mutually recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other for one of the aforesaid reasons.

That makes me think of several things. First, to wish good for other people, you should know them beneath the surface. It’s easy to say that I wish my friends to be happy, but knowing the specific things they consider pleasurable or good means I can share good experiences, find good gifts, or help people grow.

I’m probably an outlier in terms of writing and making it easy for people to get to know me through my interests. If I’m going to get to know other people, then I’m going to need to take the initiative and reach out, maybe slowly getting a sense of a person over time. I can get better at this by also, say, compiling notes on people’s expressed preferences. (Yes, I’m a geek.)

Second, friendship is reciprocal. I can feel goodwill towards many people, such as the people I’ve gotten to know through blogs. Some may even feel goodwill for me back, without my knowing. Friendship, I think, is when we both know it and that mutual understanding influences our actions.

I think that people are rather better at caring about me than I am at caring about them. This doesn’t mean I don’t care about other people as much. It means that I think other people are more thoughtful and are better at making a connection, and that there’s plenty of room for me to learn. Add to that the occasional asymmetry of knowledge and it can be a little awkward, but I’m getting better at getting past the awkward bit and just focusing on getting to know people more.

One of the things I’m particularly curious about is developing friendships online. When I listed people I might call if I needed a favour or I needed someone to talk to, I realized that there were some people I’ve never actually seen in person. I’d like to get even better at cultivating friendships online. From literature and other people’s examples, it’s clearly possible to develop deep connections beyond your geographic reach. With many of my friends outside Toronto – or infrequently met even in the same city – it’s something worth learning more about.

A lot of this is a matter of time: time to learn about people, time to share experiences, time to build trust, and so on. I can’t do much to speed things up. But it’s also equally a matter of attention – if I don’t invest that attention, then that time will pass without much effect.

Of course, reflecting on the Ethics, I need to be careful that people and friendship don’t become means. It’s not about checking off a little checkmark on my list of things to learn, or dissecting people and finding out what makes them tick, or chasing the pleasure of making someone’s day.

So that’s what I’m talking about when I say I want to get better at connecting or I want to be more social. It’s not about making sure I’ve “got my dance card filled”, or that I go out to at least one get-together each week, or even that I remember to host tea. I think it’s more about knowing people more so that I can appreciate their goodness and wish them good, and about building deeper connections.

2011-02-18 Fri 06:50