What 2013 Taught Me About Social Media

This was a big year.

In just 12 months I moved, appeared on the Suggested Users List, started a new job, stopped using Google+ for a while, uninstalled Foursquare, got engaged, decided to move to Dallas, deleted my Facebook account, became a +Google Glass Explorer.

Tomorrow I will pack up all of my belongings in a truck and leave Tennessee (my home for the last 12 years) and head to Dallas, Texas. I’ve only been there twice. Each time I met with some great people that were introduced to me through Google+, +Scot Duke, +Joe Saad, +Katherine Fell and +Mark Neace.

It’s true that without social media, I wouldn’t have made those connections and wouldn’t have had a small network of people already in Dallas. However, no matter how many people follow me, or how good I think I am, social media won’t magically get me my dream job or solve all of my problems.

People talk. A lot. But, as we know, actions speak louder than words. This year I learned that just because I thought I was good at what I wanted to do, didn’t mean I would instantly become what I thought I was capable of.

This year taught me the difference between ambition and talent.

So many people that I am connected with advertise themselves as social media experts, marketing mavens or content creation gurus. But if they’re so good at doing those things, why do they spend so much time advertising themselves instead of getting things done? Are they all trying to be discovered? Are they trying to get “picked up?”

I’m guilty as charged. I’ve done the same thing. From creating +McDermott Media and thinking I could instantly become a 6-figure a year consultant, to teaching people how to use Google+ at speaking engagements and guest lecture opportunities. I’ve always shared my knowledge and told people this is what you need to do.

The truth? I’ve never working for a marketing firm. I’ve never been in advertising. I’ve never been paid to administrate the social media accounts of a company. It’s just something I’m really passionate about. Sadly, that passion alone won’t get me a job. In order to become successful at something, you need to establish yourself as the expert, but to become the expert you need to show your portfolio.

So where do you get the portfolio? Sure, I could show you the websites I’ve created, the projects I’ve embarked upon or the cool people I’ve worked with, but what is that worth to a company that deals in widgets and business services?

In order to get noticed for doing what you’re passionate about, you need to do something worth sharing: for +Cliff Roth, it’s his speed paintings; for +Daria Musk, it’s her music; for +matthew rappaport, it was first +Hangout Conversations and now +The Huffington Post! +Carter Gibson? +The LittleBigFund. +Rodney Pike has his incredible image manipulation and +Paul Roustan is always pushing the envelope with his live body painting broadcasts. +Evo Terra taught us that beer and sausage could sustain a man for a month. +Sarah Hill showed us that the power of hangouts can reach beyond the newsroom and into a business that helps people.

Sure, the things that these people did might not capture the attention of the world, but they captured the attention of enough people. What made these individuals stand out was their persistence. They each picked the thing that they wanted to be good at and they excelled.

I didn’t do that.

Nope. Maybe I have project-oriented ADD, or am interested in too many things. In either case, my failure to master any single thing has left me the jack of many trades, but the master of none. In a world of billions of people, most businesses don’t have interest in people that are good at several things, but those who aregreat at a few things.

Social media this year has taught me that in order for me to be successful in pursuing my passion, I will need to be dedicated to one thing. In order to achieve mastery, I must practice that thing day in and day out. I must part with my distractions and focus on what I really want to do.

The Suggested Users List isn’t a magic wand.

Many of you that have followed me for a long time may remember that I was very pessimistic towards the Suggested Users List. In fact, two years ago, I called Google out saying that +Vic Gundotra and his crew didn’t get social and were bastardizing their platform by glorifying people that never utilized the network; giving them millions of followers only to watch them waste away the opportunity to engage with the masses.

Of course, many of those speculations were met with anger and disgrace. How dare I, a simpleton, slap the hand of Google when they were giving us so much greatness absolutely free? Who was I to question the ways that they did things?

Regardless of the attitudes I was faced with, I noticed one thing evolve from sharing my thoughts: deep and meaningful conversations. I learned that in order to engage (or enrage) a group of people, I needed to share my feelings. I needed to go out on a ledge and voice my opinions.

It turns out that the conversations resulting from sharing my thoughts were worth a hundred times more than the time I took in sharing my ideas. By taking the risk to challenge the status quo and the way things were being done, I was rewarded with new ideas, new perspectives and the encouragement to do better, try harder and find better ways to use the tools available to me.

Now that I have found myself a member of the Suggested Users List for a few months, I can tell you a few things about having an incredibly large (but non-organic) following.

– The quality of engagement reflects the quality of what you post.
– People that used to engage often, will engage less.
– You find yourself filtering and censoring yourself much more.
– You spend more time managing your own comment threads than engaging with others’ posts.
– You can’t answer or reply to every comment.
– Things get lost in your inbox. You won’t be able to help it.
– People will give up on you when you fail to respond.
– There is not enough time to do everything you want.

At first, I wasn’t recognizing or realizing these things, but they developed over time and eventually snow balled. I realized that some of the things I accused other SUL members of before were inevitable and not a flaw of character or a change of heart.

There was a post I read the other day that +Eli Fennell shared entitled Social Media Popularity is Ephemeral (http://goo.gl/nIjtcA). The post talks about “the dangers of succumbing to the illusion of social media popularity.” That’s exactly what it is, an illusion. Getting hundreds of thousands of people circling you doesn’t mean anything but an opportunity. If you think you’re famous because a half a million people were told by a computer algorithm to follow you, you’re wrong.

This year taught me that the only thing that really matters is what we make with what we have. If we have the opportunity to share our thoughts and think they might enrich other people, we should share our thoughts. If we know we have a gift to share with the world, we should share it. But, if it’s not worth sharing, maybe we should just keep it to ourselves or a smaller group, lest we burden the eyes and ears of those so willing to listen. If we abuse the power of having a large audience, we might quickly alienate them and lose our opportunity.

So what is my purpose here?

I watched a movie over the weekend that didn’t score the greatest of reviews, but left me with a desire in my heart to do something great. It was based on a short story by James Thurber (http://goo.gl/9T0VVI) which appeared in +The New Yorker. The character played by +Sean Penn  reminded me greatly of +Trey Ratcliff. The main character, Walter Mitty (played by Ben Stiller) reminded me of myself, my “day dreams” and my ambition. The moral of the story, though is that you have to set aside your fears and your hesitations and just get out there and do what inspires you.

We’re in an age where one of our greatest values is living in the moment. We understand that we need to plan to be successful, but that we also need to seek the human experience. Not all of us will scale Mt. Everest, trek through the rain forest or visit Bangkok, but we all have the opportunity to shed our worries, our hesitations and our fears and do things that we will remember for the rest of our lives.

I’ve learned a lot over the last year, but sometimes it takes a lot of things happening in a short period of time to realize how important every moment of your life is. And that brings me back to my purpose here: sharing those moments and those realizations. The one thing that I think I’m good at is sharing stories and I hope that some of the stories I share will empower you to create your own experiences and share your stories with others.

What I’ve learned about social media in 2013 is that the best story to share is your own.

Don't Worry, Google+ Isn't Dead

Last night I was a bit puzzled when I came upon a breakdown of the interaction on my posts from 2013. The results weren’t in any way scientific and could possibly carry a certain margin of error (see the big gaping hole in my follower count?). Nonetheless, the folks at +CircleCount were kind enough to put together an immensely powerful tool that is second to none.

After reviewing my statistics, I started to review the statistics of others and realized that my numbers were down considerably compared to theirs. One of my favorite examples, +Paul Snedden, carried way more +1’s, comments and re-shares than I did (based on the number of followers). Paul’s raw engagement was only half of mine, but his follower count is less than 10% of mine. How could this be?

After being puzzled, I posted a thread on Google+ asking users if they were becoming bored of the network, or had noticed any recent in falloff in engagement. Plenty of people came armed with answers, suspicions and their two cents. There were some great analyses presented along with some profound comments (the post is embedded below).


The bottom line though is that there are plenty of people listening. In fact, there is so much more content being created that people have more to chose from. When the network looked like it was ebbing, it was actually flowing.

It turns out that Google+ is just following the footsteps of other social networks before it. The original “in crowd” gets grounded, sets up shop, brings the masses and then slowing recede away. In fact, I’m guilty of doing the same thing. I took a near 6-month hiatus earlier this year, only to come back more excited than I ever have been before.

Regardless of whether or not Google+ is or will continue to be successful, I want to make sure that I have a platform to catalog my ideas, my thoughts and my puzzles for you to put together. Posting them “in the stream” only creates the opportunity for them to get washed away and forgotten. Putting them on my blog where I can easily reference and organize them gives me hope that you will be able to come back, return and maybe even subscribe to these periodic rants.

Next year the game is going to change, though. I’m going to focus on sharing what’s important to me and how I think it can help you. One of those things, is usually Google’s free tools and services to make my life easier. It sounds hokey, and no I don’t get paid by Google to tell you any of this, but I have really found over the last year that by really adopting Google’s ecosystem and using the latest tools available (like my Android phone and Google Glass) I’m finding that everything is effortless, giving me more time to focus on the things that matter, like this blog.

What did you learn from 2013?

We’re all full of great ideas. Sadly, we will fail to write most of them down. The majority of those that we will do end up trying will probably fail, and the ones that were successful? Well, we’ll never know why they worked, but we can always go back and find out why failures failed.

The end of any calendar year is the best opportunity to collect your notes, get yourself organized and size up your last twelve months. Did you accomplish your goals? Did you make progress on your multi-year goals? Do you feel that your time was well spent? What do you regret? What do you wish you had done?

For both your business and personal lives, this time of the year is the perfect opportunity to take stock of what you did, what you did well, and what you wish you did better.

What did you learn from 2013?

I'm betting 2014 will be the year of long-form content.

Social media changed everything.

For a long time now, we have been conversing in short sentences. Curbing so many of our communications to under 140 characters, that some bloggers have taken to curbing their content as well, trying to hold onto whatever sliver of the American’s attention span that is left.

Do we all have ADD? Are we all incapable of reading a few paragraphs and getting through the entirety of one’s thoughts before forming our own opinions? Have we been reduced to exchanging memes and animated GIFs as each one of us tries to get wittier than the other?

At some point or another, it all needs to stop. We need to get back to what writers do best: sharing stories.

No, I’m not talking about the Cliff’s notes or the 15 second video. I’m talking about the 1,000 word essay, the 45-minute documentary, the high resolution portfolio that took months to perfect. I think it’s time for us to step away from the “quick and easy” and focus on investing some time an quality in the content we share.

The reason that so many of us create content isn’t because it feeds our family or keeps a roof over our head. The reason most of us create content to share freely is because we enjoy doing it. So what’s better than being the best at what you enjoy doing?

I think we are heading into a time where people focus less on the “idea of the moment” and start to hone in on the “concept that lasts.” Sure, we’ll still exchange puns and funny images that mock our popular culture, but those that are interested in creating things will focus less on the quick and easy, not so much on instant gratification but more on creating ideas and artwork worth spreading.

As everyone becomes an expert in “social media” the value of being a social media expert in cheapened. We have all figured out how to communicate with each other online. Some of us perhaps better than others, but we’ve all learned that creating an account, building a presence and carrying on a conversation isn’t all that hard. What’s really hard is creating a conversation that lasts.

I may be stepping out on a limb, but I really feel that this next year will be the year of carefully-curated, meticulously thought-of and passionately perceived long-form Internet content.

Safecast Sensors Track Radiation Levels Around the World

Safecast

Wondering whether or not it’s a good idea to move into that house next to the old nuclear power facility? Well, believe it or not, there’s an app for that.

Fellow +Google Glass Explorer +Chris Sewell tipped me off on a new open-source project called +Safecast which is centered around collecting information on radiation levels in communities around the world to increase citizen awareness.

The project took off in April of 2011, just one month and one day after the chain reaction resulting from a 9.0 earthquake hit Japan, completely crippling the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

According to the information on the website about the various devices available to collect and share the data, only 117 have been deployed in the field so far. You can learn more here.

My First Week with Google Glass

This is the second post in a series of three posts. Please click here for the first post.

I have officially had +Google Glass for over a week now and I am totally impressed. It has been an incredible effective tool for going about my daily life and staying in touch with the people I love the most. Through text messaging, hangouts and Google+, I have been able to use Glass to keep in touch without touching a thing.

Apart from the ease of use and constant communication, Glass has offered me the opportunity to be very social in almost any situation. Since wearable technology isn’t quite commonplace, I get a lot of interesting reactions from people in the real world. Those that are tech savvy immediately identify it, but the majority of people have no idea what it is. Some people are even afraid of it.

Trying it on for the first time:

One of the greatest opportunities of being a glass explorer is having opportunity to showcase the new technology to other people. My favorite part of demonstrating Google Glass is to see the look on the faces of each person as they try it on for their first time. Once they are instructed to tap their temple to activate it, they are immediately amazed by the display (I was too). After that, I usually ask them to read what is under the time (“OK Glass”). As soon as the voice recognition is activated, the person is usually amazed and even sometimes startled.

After they get the hang of the gesture controls, voice commands and how to navigate through the user interface, they take off trying to search for different things and test various features. So far, through all of my demos I have noticed that “take a picture” and “get directions to” are the two most common commands used by demo participants. I would imagine those to be two of the most popular applications for the product and also two features that I use quite often. However, there is a lot that Glass can do beyond just snapping photos and giving directions.

What you need, when you need it:

One of the coolest things about Glass is how intuitive it is. If you are familiar with using Google Now on your phone, you already have most of the commands and features down. For the most part, anything you can do on Google Now on your phone, you can do through Glass. This makes setting reminders and being reminded a total cinch.

In addition to reminders, Google Now gives you updates on the things you always do, like following your favorite sports teams, to knowing when you need to leave to get to work on time. You can customize your Google Now experience by using Google search. As you look up addresses, follow sports teams and frequent businesses, Google suggests information based on your preferences. This keeps you from having to search for the same things, instead they are always at your fingertips.

Get Directions To…

There is some controversy of whether or not Google Glass should be used while driving. Already, states are adopting laws to prevent motorists from wearing Glass while they drive. Unfortunately, this is more a lack of understanding than a true prevention of accidents. To prove my point, the photos below show me using turn-by-turn navigation with Google Glass and without. If you notice, when using my cellphone, the directions are on a small screen which interferes with my field of view across the windshield. With, Google Glass, the instructions are in my field of vision and don’t distract me from my primary task, driving.

Unlike a traditional GPS or using your phone for directions, Glass gives you constant reminders and only illuminates the display when you’re about to make a change in direction. This curbs the distraction of having a constantly illuminated display in your vehicle which can inhibit your line of sight. (Also notice that Glass is transparent, so although I can see the heads up display, I can still see through it.)

Somethings you just don’t want to know:


One thing that Google Glass will help me with is curbing calories. Every decision we make when we go to eat has caloric consequences. Sure, we could hunker down on our smartphone, type in our unlock code, find the app with the calorie counter and then search for what we’re looking for, or we could simply tilt our head and say, “OK Glass, Google how many calories are in a Little Caesars pizza.”

With search at your fingertips, and right in the corner of your eye, it’s almost impossible to find an excuse not to look something up that could help you or your health.

What it means to be an Explorer:

The greatest reward of being an early adopter and part of the +Google Glass Explorer program, is the opportunity to meet so many new and interesting people. Below are just a few snaps of people trying G
lass on for the first time. Having the opportunity to share such a unique and incredible technology with them for the first time is something that I truly love about being an Explorer.

Instant Photography:

It almost goes without saying, but Google Glass is a great tool for “capturing the moment.” The camera is always ready, you don’t need to fumble around, and with a press of a button or quick voice command you can have images and videos that will automatically upload to the cloud that you can instantly share with your friends and family.

Taking pictures with Glass is impossibly simple. Take a look at the first snaps below from people that were trying Glass on for their first time:

How to get Google Glass:

Okay, if you really like the potential you see from Google Glass and you’d like to get an invitation to order, you’re in luck. I currently have 3 invitations available to send to those of you interested. In order to receive the invitation, you must have funds available to cover the full purchase price plus any applicable sales tax. The current cost is $1,500.00, which includes free overnight shipping.

If you are interested in getting Glass and would like one of my three invitations, please share this post through social media and contact me with the form at the bottom of my blog and tell me why you want Glass. I will chose the three most compelling reasons by 11:59 PM CT tonight (Sunday, December 15, 2013).

Be sure to stay tuned for the next post to learn more about my first month with Google Glass.


My First Days with Google Glass

This is part 1 of a 3 part series.


A couple of months ago, you could have called me a skeptic. I didn’t really see the value in paying $1,500 and a trip to New York or San Francisco for something that was still in beta. If anything, I thought Google should be paying us to wear it. I watched some of the first explorers and noticed the issues they were dealing with (poor battery life, equipment failure, etc.). I wondered why anyone would want to spend so much money on something that had such limited functionality.


When the #ifihadglass campaign initially rolled out, I thought it was a really great idea, but felt I would need some groundbreaking idea in order to get an initial invite. As it turned out, you just had to have a somewhat good idea, $1,500 in your pocket and the ability to travel to NYC or SFO to pick them up. I watched a lot of my connections from Google+ score the initial invitations and watched with envy as they traveled to the closest coast to get fitted for their Glass.

As the Explorer program with +Google Glass continued to grow, I watched more and more people taking the device out in public, testing the sociological response form wearing Glass and attempting new and different applications. On the surface though, it just looked like a bunch of geeks (sorry, +Robert Warren) posting pictures of their driveway with the current temperature superimposed over it—something that could be easily accomplished with a smartphone five years ago.

As time rolled by, I convinced myself that getting Glass wouldn’t be worth it for it. I made myself think that I really didn’t need it and wouldn’t be able to do anything worthwhile with it. Then, out of nowhere, my good friend+Derek Ross gave me the opportunity to get in. No longer would I need to have to fly to one of Google’s offices to get fitted. All I needed to do was provide my payment information and wait by the mailbox.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t force myself to pay $1,500 for something that seemed so useless to me.

Then one day everything changed. An acquaintance I met online, +Robert Warren, scored a pair of glass and we joked for months about me trying it out. Finally, we met for dinner with +Shaker Cherukuri and afterwards he let me try it on. I was absolutely amazed. I could not believe the clarity of the display, the clarity of the sound, the speed of the device and the many purposes that he was able to demonstrate in my short demo. In just a few minutes he turned a skeptic into a believer.

That night I got online and tried to turn over every rock I could find on the Internet to get myself an invitation code. Finally, after “begging” to the Glass Gods, +Chris Pick and +Kelvin Williams came along and threw me the invitation that got me into the Explorers program. I immediately jumped online and consulted with my family on which pair to buy. We decided Shale would be the best fit with my wardrobe and to “blend” in perhaps more than Sky or Tangerine.

So, now after a few days I’m starting to formulate some opinions on this new tool (not a toy) and how it is going to be beneficial for my life and my career…

This is the first of three posts which will tell you more about my experience. I wanted to start out with the backstory. Stay tuned tomorrow for the next part of the series and photos from today’s Glass Meetup.

G+ The Other Red Button

I had the great pleasure of presenting at the Type A Parent conference in Atlanta, Georgia yesterday. There was a room packed with bloggers excited to learn about Google+ and how they can use it to their advantage. Unfortunately, because of my failure to check my laptop for a VGA port before hitting the road, I wasn’t able to interface with the projector and therefore had to work with a very limited amount of my visual aides during the session. I was totally embarrassed! Luckily, Ellen Gerstein graciously saved the day and let me borrow her laptop for the presentation. Thanks, Ellen!

Because I had planned to do a mixture of the slide deck and demonstrations on Google+, I had to wing it and go without the tabs that I intended to show and explain. So, appropriately enough, a lot of you may have been confused by what I was trying to explain because of the lack of visual representation. In order to make it right, I wanted to give you a very thorough rundown of what I intended to share yesterday along with some helpful links to get you pointed in the right direction.

If you still have questions after reading this guide, please reach out to me. I promise I won’t bite! For some of those more technical questions that were asked yesterday, I am more than happy to point you in a laser-precise direction. Simply e-mail, tweet or share your question with me and I will do my best to point you in the right direction. So, without further ado, I present G+ The Other Red Button:

What is Google+?

Google+ is not just another social network. Unlike standalone networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, Google+ is a fabric that is intertwined through many of Google’s popular cloud based products. Google+ allows authors to better identify their content through search, share new and interesting things, keep contact with the same people across multiple products and most importantly, build and engage with an audience of people that share similar interests. The thing that makes Google+ truly unique, is that is based upon sharing and interacting with people that have similar interests, not just people you already know.

Google+ for Beginners

If you are really new to Google+ and need help setting up an account and creating a profile, here is a video I created last year that will help you get your feet wet. Please understand that the graphical user interface (GUI) has changed quite a bit since I created the demo, so things might not look exactly the same.

Google+ Calendar Integration

One awesome thing about Google+ is that it is integrated with Google Calendar. I know this is a hot button with a lot of people, because they don’t like having unsolicited appointments on their calendar. Rest assured, there is a way to control how and which appointments appear on your calendar here, courtesy of Veronica Belmont.

With Google+ Events, you can invite individuals, specific circles or even those that don’t use Google+ by simply adding their e-mail address. Once you create the event, invitees will be able to RSVP and comment on the event. Once the event starts, attendees will have the opportunity to join “party mode” to share pictures from their mobile phone to the event while they are attending. This is a great way to collect photos from conferences, meet-ups and parties.

Google+ Events can be used to advertise special events for your business or brand page and to remind your follows of the cool things you are doing.

Google+ Authorship

Quite possibly the most important feature of Google+, authorship allows you to link your profile with all of the content that you create throughout the web. Once you connect the websites that you contribute to with your profile, you will start to see your headshot, follower count and a link to your profile appear in search results. This has been shown to dramatically increase your click through rate on search results, especially for posts that do not rank as the number one result.

googleplusauthorship

Here is the full skinny on Google Authorship straight from the mother ship. Getting setup for authorship is simple and you don’t even need to add any code to your website. If you have an e-mail address that matches the domain of the website you write for, just follow these directions and you will be on your way! If you contribute to multiple websites, follow these instructions (Option 2).

Why Not Facebook

Creating a profile, page, community and audience on Google+ is completely free. The public content that you create is continuously crawled and indexed by the biggest search engine in the world. Communicating with your business or brand becomes easier through other products like GMail, YouTube, Calendar and Blogger. You don’t have to pay a dime to have a successful presence on Google+, you just need to spend some time and effort finding the people that are interested in what you have to say.

Hangouts

My absolute favorite feature of Google+ is hands down, no questions ask, Hangouts. Hangouts allow you to connect visually face-to-face with your friends, co-workers, customers and audience members. You can see their facial expressions as you talk, share smiles, eye rolling and all of the other nonverbal communication that social media isn’t traditionally capable of translating. All of a sudden your message comes to life when people don’t have to decipher your tone.

Hangouts allow you and up to 9 other people to communicate via webcam and audio with the ability to share webpages, documents, presentations and YouTube videos. There are some big brands doing some awesome things with hangouts, and also some people that were discovered after putting themselves out there through Hangouts.

With Hangouts on Air, you are able to take your hangouts to the next level by broadcasting them LIVE for the world to see. As an added bonus, your recorded Hangouts on Air will automatically save to your linked YouTube account where you can share them with your friends, embed them on your blog or monetize through Google Adsense.

BONUS: Google+ Strategy

Gaining traction on Google+ is just like any other social frontier in a few regards: you won’t get a million followers overnight, not everyone is going to be interested in what you share and–most importantly–like anything else, you have to keep working hard to see positive results.

The way in which Google+ is different is that it isn’t about pre-existing connections. Sure, you can import your address book and find people that you are already connected with in “meat space,” but Google+ is all about discovering new and interesting people that share similar interests. The best way to find those people is through what Google does best, search.

What are you interested in? What do you write about? Search for it. Find people that are also interested in what you are talking about. Add them to your circles. Follow them closely. Interact with them.

If you come to Google+ thinking you can just drop your links and magically attract visitors to your blog, you will be severely disappointed.

The best way to encourage interaction and sharing of posts isn’t to embed a link, but to instead share a high resolution photo (that you have rights to, of course), a brief summary of what you are posting or call to action (2-3 lines), a link to your content (use a link-shortening service like goo.gl to keep it trim and track your clickthroughs) and, lastly, two or three hashtags that are relevant to your content.

My recommendation is that you comment on or re-share at least 10 other posts for every post you create. Everyone likes to be heard, so if you want to join the conversation, I always find it best to listen to what others are saying and let them know you’re listening.

As you start to grow your understanding of how Google+ works, you might want to start investing in Communities. Communities are a great feature of Google+ that allow you to connect with people around different topics. You can create public communities or private communities about whatever you would like. I have a community for my family that I use to share photo albums and information that I would like to keep private.

Creating a successful strategy on Google+ requires some work. You can’t “set it and forget it” unless you already have a sizeable following across the web. In order to grow an audience on Google+, you need to create consistent, quality content.

The greatest payoff of Google+ are all the people you will meet along the way. I have made some amazing connections through this network that have resulted in my traveling to different cities, learning about different parts of the world and making bonds that will last a lifetime.

Need More Help

If you need more help with Google+ simply fill out the form below and I will do by best to get you on the right track.

Finding Work-Life Balance

Photo Courtesy Fabio Bruna
Photo Courtesy Fabio Bruna

It’s a Sunday morning and I sitting in our home office. Earlier this morning I found an article on LinkedIn talking about the things you should do on Sunday to get ahead at work. The article made me think: why do we work so much and why would we work when we don’t need to?

I shared the article on Google+ and got some interesting feedback from people there. Some of them were remarking that work gives you purpose and you should do whatever it takes to be more productive so you can live a more meaningful life. Others recalled stories of workaholics that saved away for lavish retirements only to be stricken with cancer before they could enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Just like everything else, I think people need to seek balance with their work and life. Often times we talk about the “work life balance” but how many of us actually try to practice such a thing? We speak of it from a tangent as a way to justify an extra day off or with spite when talking about our mobile phones that alert us even during our times away from the office. How many of us actually work towards achieving a work-life balance though?

In my workplace I see people that leave consistently at 5 PM every day while others toil until the wee hours of the night, sometimes not leaving the office until midnight. Generally, these people share the same workload, so why does it take some so much longer than others?

Not everyone has the same proficiency with computers. Not everyone has stellar time management skills. Not everyone double or triple checks their work when they get done. We all have different ways of approaching our workload, regardless of how much work we have. Some of us are gifted with shortcuts while others have the take the long way to getting certain things done.

Because most of our work involves technology, those of us from the millennial generation have the upper hand. From a young age we were given a better understanding of the ins and outs of personal computing. A lot of us took computer programming before we even left high school which gave us the concepts of computing more efficiently. From just that grasp of a concept we can quickly create complicated spreadsheets, e-mail filters, rules and macros to help us streamline our workflow and spend less time doing redundant or menial tasks.

Older generations, or less technically-inclined co-workers don’t have those advantages and are usually left to take the “long way” to getting things done. Sure, we could share these tools, concepts and shortcuts, but without the core concepts that we were taught at such a young age, others won’t be able to formulate their own solutions to time-consuming tasks.

Instead of working harder, we should all focus on working smarter. Some of us have advantages that others don’t, but we should recognize those advantages and share what we can with others to improve their efficiency. The smarter we work, the more we can move forward.

For all of those things that take so much time, there is probably an easier way to do them. Perhaps if we all worked together we could find, implement and share solutions to make all of our work a little more easier. Then, with that extra time, we could do what we were put here to do: live.

Now that’s what I call work-life balance.