Do You Have a Full Belly? Do You Wish Everyone Could?

Hello Folks,

An organization that's near to my heart is a finalist in the BBC 6th Annual World Challenge 10 - a "a global competition aimed at finding projects or small businesses from around the world that have shown enterprise and innovation at a grassroots level."

The Full Belly Project, based in Wilmington, North Carolina in the U.S. is a non-profit organization whose mission is to "Design and distribute income-generating agricultural devices".

Here's a link to The Full Belly Project.

Their signature device, designed by a local guy, Jock Brandis, is:
The Universal Nut Sheller (UNS): The UNS is a hand-powered device made of concrete and simple metal parts that can shell 125 pounds of peanuts per hour. It can also shell a number of other crops, such as coffee, jatropha, shea, and neem nuts. The Universal Nut Sheller costs about $50-75 dollars to make in a developing country, depending on the price of local materials, and can serve the needs of a village of  5,000 people.

So anyway, one of their projects, called "In A Nutshell" which is in progress in Malawi in Africa, is one of the 12 finalists in the World Challenge 10.

Here's a link with info about "In A Nutshell."

And a video:




So this post is a blatant, but heartfelt request for your vote for "In a Nutshell" in the World Challenge 10.

So, if you'd like to support this fine organization with a great project and technology to encourage and feed people around the world, please go to World Challenge 10 , click on "Vote Now" and go to the bottom of the list of finalists to select "Malawi - In a Nutshell."

With love, respect, and appreciation,

Bruce

We Are Supposed to Have Fun

Yesterday afternoon Marge came running to my office and exclaimed, full of excitement, "I've got it! I've just had a breakthrough! It's about having fun!"

[So first off, I oughta mention that that type of conversation is not uncommon for us, in fact we relish it and it's a significant factor in our working and personal relationship. And actually, there's not much of a line between our working and personal lives any more as we continue to shape our lives so our work is ever more aligned with our passions. But anyway, me running in early in the morning to wake up Marge with a cup of coffee and a new idea or her running to me in the afternoon with a strong insight are regular occurrences, which tells you a bit about our relationship, our daily work habits, and our respective times of highest creativity.]

Okay, so anyway, the rest of the conversation ran something like this:

Marge: "Here's the part people sometimes don't get. Working with your passions, building or shaping your business around your passions isn't supposed to be a struggle, and it's not supposed to be all serious and focused. There's a place for work and structure and focus, but overall, it has to be fun! It's supposed to be fun!"

Me: "Yeah."

Marge: "We've been setting up workshops and coaching groups on results and business plans and marketing plans and social media and all that's great, too, but where's the fun? If people don't get that living your passions is exciting and fun, they don't really understand what it's all about! It's supposed to be fun! People want fun!"

Me: "Yes, I see that."

Marge: "Let's sleep on this and talk tomorrow about how we can work to convey the idea of having fun in life and having fun in your business or life work is a lot of fun. People like fun, people want to have fun even if they're not topline aware of it."

Bruce: "Okay, good idea, let's think about it overnight and see what we come up with."

[Skip ahead 12 hours to roughly 4AM this morning, which is MY highest creative time.]

So this morning, when I went through my morning exercises of engaging the universe via cogitation, meditation, and social media, I put up the following two inspirations from my alter-ego Being Bruce.
  
‎"Be like the kid who goes to a park and has a great time and helps others have fun, too." - Being Bruce 

"Today I'm going to take having fun and being fun very seriously." - Being Bruce

I posted those two quotations not with any end result in mind, but because they came to me, I liked them, and I wanted to share. I put them up on FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and a few of the other usual suspects (I post to multiple sites simulataneously using a utility called Ping.fm, which saves beaucoup time). I also posted the first one on another forum I frequent, we.entheos.me (an international forum of folks with a philosophical leaning). 


Anyway, imagine my surprise, and delight, when I received this response within minutes of posting the first quote above on we.entheos.me from someone from New Zealand, "Yay! I get to be like a kid again!! Tonight I decided to move back to the U.S. and go back into teaching. (-: Your quote is awesome, Bruce. Thank you." - I won't mention her name to protect her anonymity.

My heart is smiling and happy. My #2 Passion in Life is "Being a significant positive change agent in the lives of as many people in the world as I can to help them live extraordinary lives." Check.


So, hmm, looks like Marge is on to something. People like to play, they like fun, and the memory of the energy and fun of being a kid playing in a park can spark and/or support people - at least one person - to make significant work/life decisions. 

Go Marge!! Woohoo!

We are supposed to have fun!

I think now I'll take HER a cup of coffee and tell her what she/we did! 


So how about you? Do you have fun in your life? How about specifically in your work life? If you don't, or if you'd like even more fun and joy in your life, consider taking The Passion Test with either Marge or me. For an increasing number of people, that's where it starts. Check out what some others have said about taking The Passion Test with us at www.BrucetheCoach.com.

Social Media Strategy

Okay, so you’ve decided it’s finally time to start using social media for your business, or if you’re already doing so, you’ve figured out that having a strategy will give you better control and understanding of what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it as well as the costs and benefits.

While to an extent it’s arguable that many businesses should have a presence on social media just because most businesses are already using social media in various formats, the stronger case can be made that your social media implementation should reflect your unique business, its strengths, its market and clientele, its mission, and certainly its personality.

So how do you determine exactly what your social media strategy should be? Take it back to the basics.

First off, let’s assume you already know:

* What social media is, and is not.
* What social media is best for, and is bad for.
* Which social media you should be using or at least considering (and if Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and maybe LinkedIn aren’t on the list, go back and think again).
* Who your market is and which social media they frequent. (This is a trick question, because the answer is, “It depends.” You have to find out, there’s no one answer for all businesses.)

With those basic but important pieces covered elsewhere, let’s get to strategy.

First, here’s a form you can use, or a format you can recreate with software or on paper:

The purpose of the Social Media Strategy Worksheet isn’t to restrict, but to serve as a simple tool for structuring what can otherwise easily be a very random, unsatisfying experience.

My suggestion is that everything starts with your Big Why, in this case, not “why” to use social media, but what’s the Big Why about your company? Why should people want to hire you or do business with you? What is it that makes you unique among others in your field? What do you do better than anyone else or any other company you know? Only you can answer these questions (and perhaps your advisers or board of directors if you have one).

Rather than using a (typical) shotgun approach to social media and showing up everyone and responding to everything, I strongly suggest you focus your social media contributions and conversation on those topics or activities that support and underscore your Big Why.

It’s imperative with this still relatively new technology with many and a rapidly increasing number of moving parts that you remember who your market it and be sure to direct your social media efforts toward that market. It’s not the case that all “eyes” are the same on the Internet. Techniques that exist just to build traffic and get you “the top of the first page in Google” many not be in your best interest – unless those eyes that find you are absolutely the eyes of your very specific, tightly focused target market and ideal clientele.

Okay, so this gets you started. Once you have a clear sense of your business’ Big Why and the how you will translate that on social media. The next steps are to determine:

* What will be the actual the contet?
* Who in your company is the best person to accomplish and be responsible for creating your company’s social media content?
* Where – meaning on what social media sets will it appear?
* When – how often will you publish information?
* Measurement – how will you determine if you are getting the desired results from your social media strategy?

Note the form above also has three columns:

* Initial.
* Implementation.
* Next step.

It’ s important to realize that your social media strategy will change. It will change for two reasons:

* As you learn what works and what doesn’t work, you’ll want to make changes.
* As new types and methods of social communication with your market emerge you’ll want to evaluate and, when appropriate, work them into your strategy.

Designing your company social media strategy is key, and the the definition is individual to your niche, your clientele, and the personality you convey with it. As a work-in-progress, you’ll want to confer with our business advisors and possibly enlist the aid of coaches or consultants for your strategy. If you would like to discuss it with us, contact either of us for a free 15-minute consultation.

Bruce Brown, Bruce@QuantumResultsCoaching.com
Marge Brown, Marge@QuantumResultsCoaching.com