All posts by Mitch Mitchell

I'm an independent consultant in many fields, so I have a lot to share.

Are You A Lurker Or Participant In Life?

A few days ago I went in what I consider a minor rant about Ning and how it didn’t seem to be all that active or engaging. Dennis wrote a comment asking if I was disappointed in Ning or its “lousy” (yeah, he used a different word) members.


Lurker
Lurker

It got me to thinking more about things I’ve mentioned here and read elsewhere as it regards Facebook and Ryze and Twitter and LinkedIn and even blogs. The common thread with all of these things and with things in general is that there are a lot more people hanging out around the fringe, aka lurking, than there are participating.

It’s an interesting phenomena that deserves to be looked at in a few different ways. Let’s start with this question; why? I personally think it’s been indoctrinated into most people throughout history; it’s almost our instinct to kind of watch and take things in rather than to actually get into things. This doesn’t mean if you’re not forced or encouraged to participate you won’t; in the rough and tumble caveman days, it took a group of hunters to bring down prey sometimes. What it means is that you might not have been a participant in making the plans. These groups usually had one or two members who did the planning and lead the assault, and everyone else just came along to help out; after all, they wanted to eat also.

That happened in history, and it happens now. Most meetings you go to will have a few people who do most of the talking, while everyone else is pretty much just there. Unless something is talked about that specifically draws them out, most people will stay silent, barely paying attention, until the meeting is over so they can go back to their normal jobs and feel like they participated in some fashion. But it’s not participation just being somewhere; it’s lurking.

There’s nothing wrong with lurking, and if you’re a lurker on this blog I appreciate having you here. However, I have to ask if there’s much productivity going on if you’re lurking without participating? Last week I talked about going to a goal setting retreat. There were 5 of us that participated; I probably talked at least 35% of the time. I didn’t go out to be a dominant person in the room. What I did want to make sure of is that I got my money’s worth, even though it was free. In other words, if I was going to commit 4 hours of my time to something when I could have been using that time doing something else, I was going to make sure I wasn’t just sitting there not trying to become a better person. After all, I do have goals to reach, and not a really clear direction on how to get to all of them sometimes, and any assistance I can get I’ll take.

I’m also the kind of person who doesn’t really like sitting back and letting someone else kind of control what I’m going to be doing or how I might participate in something. I don’t belong to a lot of groups in the “real” world, but I do belong to some. I’m on the board of an organization called Arise, which works with disabled people to help bring them a better quality of life as well as give them equal opportunities to do what everyone else does. But I’m not just on the board; I’m the head of the finance committee, heading into year 3. And, when the entire board gets together, I always make sure I get my opinion out, waiting my turn of course, because I want people to know where I stand. Shrinking violet; not me!

I’m also on the board of an organization called the Professional Consultant’s Association of Central New York, a group geared towards addressing the issues that independent consultant’s face. I run their website and write the monthly newsletter and help put the meetings together. I believe that I’ve been instrumental in helping to change the focus of many of our meetings to get closer to what our stated mission is, making sure I give my opinion on things once again.

And finally, I’m the president of an organization called Mid York Medical Accounts Management, though I just took back the presidency. I’ve been on the board for 12 years or so, and this will be my 3rd go round as president. I also created the template page (I’ll be gifting them their own website one of these days), and I’ve written the newsletter for those same 12 years as well. As president, I either get the speakers for our meetings or help get them, and try to make sure that all aspects of the organization are taken care of in some fashion.

Lurker? Me? No way! At least most of the time. For instance, I’m a member of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, as I live in a town called Liverpool. It has a lot of members, and I’m not on the board, nor have I ever tried. Because of this, I find that there are a lot of events I don’t go to because they don’t interest me. I’m not happy with their website; it should have been revamped 3 years ago, and they’re going through a revamp right now that’s taken almost a year, and little change has been made so far. I’m not crazy about the format of the newsletter. In other words, I have gripes, but because I’m not an active member of the board, basically I’m at the whim of those people who are on the board. In essence, I’m kind of a lurker with this group, and thus I don’t really enjoy it as much as I probably should; I certainly need to be working harder on using it for my own local business purposes.



Lurker

When I’m a lurker, I’m not a happy guy. I need to participate in something in some fashion, otherwise I might end up going away. That’s why I participate by writing this blog and looking for other blogs to participate on. That’s why I hate things that get in the way of my participating on blogs, such as Disqus and Intense Debate and Blogger and any other blogs that want me to sign up to play the game (and there’s starting to be more of these things). I’d rather drop most of them and get on with participating in places that engage me and welcome me in better.

Why do I vote? Because I believe if one doesn’t vote then they have no right to complain about anything. It’s also a bit more personal for me; people died so I would have the right to vote, and I’m going to honor what they gave up, whether anyone else cares or not. I’m not a total participant when it comes to politics, but I’m not a lurker either. I at least know what’s going on, and make informed voting choices when I can (although some of these local elections for small office; how the heck are we supposed to know who these people are most of the time when even the newspapers don’t tell us who they are? A different rant for another time).

Okay, time to close; this is turning into War and Peace. I ask you this question; why do you believe more people lurk rather than participate? What makes you participate if that’s what you do? And how do you see whichever action is the norm for you making your life either better or worse? Inquiring minds want to know.

Bulova Diamonds Gold Ladies Watch

Price – $149.99


Are You Obsessed With Numbers?

Let me tell you a truth. I am one of those people who sometimes is obsessed with numbers. There are some numbers that I notice all the time, and some other numbers I don’t pay much attention to. I’m probably like a lot of other people, but I’m owning up to it.

I do come by this honestly, though. As a kid around eight years old, I started counting the number of letters in sentences that either I would say or sentences that sounded pretty interesting. I’m obsessed with the number three, so after counting how many letters there are in a sentence, and then start dividing that number by three to make sure that everything comes out as being divisible by three. If it’s not, in my mind I start finding interesting little rules for eliminating letters or adding more letters. I always thought I would grow out of it, but obviously more than 40 years later I’m still doing it.

Anyway back to being obsessed with numbers. The two numbers on most obsessed with these days, as it applies to being online, is my Feedburner subscriber count and my Alexa number. Obviously, since I don’t have any page rank on this blog, I’ll pay any attention to it. I don’t pay any attention to it on any of my other websites, except for my anti-smoking website, which I’m trying to make more prominent so that, hopefully, and start making some of that great Adsense cash. Yeah, I know that page rank doesn’t mean the site will make any more money, but I’m always obsessing about that site wondering if I’d done enough to interlink it so that it’s SEO friendly.

Back to the site. On Monday, Feedburner, over there to the right, said that I had 121 subscribers. That was slightly down from the 125 that I’ve been hanging around, I wasn’t overly worried about it. Today it’s showing the number 85; what’s up with that? I mean really went to check out Google Analytics to see if traffic is dropped. It turns out the traffic is holding steady. Now I’m really confused; what could have caused the number job so far? At this point, I figure it is what it is, or it could be a glitch in Feedburner. Either way, there’s not really anything I can do about it. So I’m telling my mind to calm down and move on. I hope that works, because I don’t like lying to myself about things that I know are bothering me. It’s just strange; is anyone else noticing any fluctuating numbers in their FeedBurner accounts?

Now onto Alexa. Now I’ve been taking on Sire as regards his growth in Alexa over the past couple of weeks. Controversy sells, and he did a great job of starting a couple of posts that really got things going for him. He’s been on a roll over their ever since, and is Alexa number has been steadily looking better. One of my goals for this year has been to get my Alexa ranking under 100,000 also. But it’d been sitting around 135,000 at least a few months, and I figured well maybe that’s just where it’s going to be. So imagine my surprise when I looked at it today and see that it is down around 128,000. How interesting is it that my Alexa rank is getting better and my FeedBurner is going down? Aren’t numbers the strangest thing?

Of course, the numbers I should be obsessing about are the income numbers. And I’ve just about income just as much as anyone else does, but I haven’t obsessed as much about it on this blog. I am starting to get to that point where I think it would be a nice thing for me to start monetizing this blog a bit better. Actually, I think the blog is monetized well enough, but I probably need to kick it up a gear to at least generate a sale here and there every once in a while. After all, how my going to achieve my “problogger” status if I don’t? 🙂 I’ll try not to obsess over that penny I’ve made today on this blog through Adsense; I wonder where that came from?

Okay y’all be truthful, is anyone else obsessing over numbers that they know they shouldn’t be obsessing over? Let’s talk about it, kind of a group therapy session. Maybe we’ll all feel cleansed when it’s over. 😉

Southwest Cooking 2010 Wall Calendar

Price – $10.99






Is Your Tech Failing You?

I have an Epson Photo R200 printer. I like this printer a lot, so much so that I bought my wife one, and I even recommended it to my mother and a friend of mine, both of whom bought the same thing.

I do have a problem with it, though. It doesn’t like to print envelopes. Actually, the printing part is fine; it’s the feeding the envelopes through the printer part that it won’t do. I have to literally push the envelope into the feeder and hope that it takes it to get envelopes printed. If I’m only doing one envelope at a time it’s not such a big deal. But when I’m doing some of my marketing and I’m pushing through between 20 and 40 envelopes, it’s very irritating.

As I started to think back on it, I realized that every printer I’ve ever owned has been an Epson, and I’ve always had the same problems. That’s over 20 years of envelope problems, yet I keep buying the same thing. I know I’m the loyal type, but I’m thinking that’s a bit ridiculous in retrospect.

Then I started thinking about other tech things as it relates to my computing, or in some way interacts with my computer, and things I’ve tolerated over the years. For instance, I’ve had a Palm of some type since 2002. For the most part they’ve all worked pretty well. But every one of them invariably had an issue. And, oddly enough, I realized that at some point I sent each of them back to the company because something had failed; how weird is that? I love the fact that I can carry all my addresses and passwords and music and calendar and the like with me easily enough; but have I really gotten my money’s worth and had my time be really efficient in the long run with some of the technical issues I’ve had to deal with?

And then there’s my computer itself. Some of you remember my tale about getting my old computer fixed by the computer guy and the subsequent story the next day. The computer I had before that one was a terror as well. As a matter of fact, for all the complaints I’ve had about Vista, the truth is that this is still the best running computer I’ve had since the very first computer I ever had, my double floppy special back in 1987 that I never wanted, and look at all the trouble it’s led to in my life. 🙂 And I have had a few problems with this computer that I’m not sure are Vista related that makes me wonder what it is with tech companies to begin with.

I mean, is it that they’re all following what we know as the Microsoft Principle, which means put it out there even if it’s not perfect and we’ll try to make it better as it goes along? Yeah, I know, nothing’s perfect, but is there anything that any of us have bought that we can truthfully say we’ve never had even one little glitch with it?

I’ve had to replace my scanner four times. I’ve had to replace the battery pack to my laptop twice, and the hard drive once. My GPS unit just won’t update itself online through this computer, even though it’s supposed to, which means that was a waste of $65 to update the maps. I tried to update the software for the transfer of files between my cell and the computer and ended up losing access to my computer for a few hours until I figured out how to get back into it and do a system restore; thank goodness I could do that. I had to buy a USB headset because my previous headset and my microphone suddenly wouldn’t work. One of my external hard drives has bit the dust, and it was considered a highly ranked enclosure when I bought it. I can’t count how many hard drives I’ve lost over the years. And I’ve had to replace two monitors in my lifetime.

Am I expecting too much in my tech, or do many of you feel the same way? And, not that I’m going to change all that immediately, but is there a printer out there that’s not a HP (let’s not even go into why I’m not buying a HP) that will easily load envelopes so I can remove that bit of minor stress from my life in the future, that also doesn’t cost an arm and a leg?

SeeThru Hard Shell Case for BlackBerry Storm - Red

SeeThru Hard Shell Case for BlackBerry Storm – Red

Price – $25.99


Need Help Setting Goals?

As you know, at the end of December I posted my online goals for 2010. I set goals every year, whether they’re big or low expectation goals. I truly believe that if one doesn’t set goals, then they have nothing to look forward to or to try to achieve. I know it’s not a universal belief, but that’s mine.

I also recognize that when it comes down to it, many people have absolutely no idea how to set goals, or any kind of idea towards a process which might help them set goals. I do it often, not relying only on the goals I put on this blog and my other two blogs, because there has to be some measurable goals that I know I can hit if I persevere. Whenever you achieve something, it inspires you to try to achieve something else.

Just today, for instance, I went to a goal setting retreat. A friend of mine was holding it at his house, and invited a number of people over to participate in the process. His eventual plan is to create something he’ll be able to market. As we went through the process over just over 4 hours, it was fun and enlightening to share each others goals and to find ways to articulate just what it is that we all hope to do for 2010 and further into the future. That’s actually a good way to go with goal setting, in a group, as long as no one in the group is either a downer or dominates the entire process.

Anyway, back to you. I have two things for you that you can decide to download that might help you plan your goals. The first I posted previously here, which are some goals worksheets you can download that were created by Paul Myers of TalkBiz News. The second I just uploaded from my own stash, which are a different set of goals worksheets. This download is only one file, though it has 34 pages; the other has multiple files.

Take your pick, or download both and choose which one you think works better for you. Go ahead, dream, and dream big; we have things to do, places to go, and money to make (yeah, I changed it up). Success, everyone!

Goal-Pro 6.0 Goal-Setting Software






Will Social Media Change In 2010?

I came across an article that was actually a guest post on a blog called . The article was titled 10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010. I thought that since the post already have 50 comments and the writer hasn’t responded to any of them that I would comment on what she wrote here and let them have the trackback, if they’re predisposed to accept them. By the way, going unprofessional for a quick moment, I think she’s hot. 😉 Anyway, you can read the same article on her site, and it’s pretty good; pick your poison.

Anyway, here are her top 10 predictions:

Social Media Will Become a Single, Cohesive Experience Embedded In Our Activities and Technologies – This is a very good prediction, and I think it’s right on. I think we saw a lot of this already in 2009, and I think it’s even going to be bigger. Facebook is actually trying to go that way by finding a lot of different platforms and integrate with, so obviously they see that as the future themselves.

Social Media Innovation Will No Longer Be Limited By Technology – I’m not so sure that this one will be able to take place in 2010, but I think it could be very close to happening. Everyone doesn’t have to wait for new technology to do things these days, and I think that’s been evidenced by how many sites seem to crop up trying to copy something that’s already out there.

Mobile Will Take Center Stage – I think this is a bold prediction, but one that will probably take at least another 3 years or so to really get there. Right now, we still have issues with access, dropped calls, and overall costs. Are you one of those folks already paying $150 a month for your iPhone?

Expect an Intense Battle As People and Companies Look To Own Their Own Content – I think this battle has been going on for years, but it all ready started to change up in 2009 with news organizations such as Rupert Murdoch’s companies (which I’ll call “faux news”) griping at Google for linking to their content. I think that’s a stupid move because Murdoch seems to believe that people will just go to his site without first finding the link on Google; ain’t gonna happen. Of course, another minor controversy on this front concerns who actually owns comments on blogs. Stay tuned.

Enterprises Will Shape the Next Generation of What We’ve Called “Social Media” – I had to think about this a little bit before figuring out what side of the fence I was on. The truth is that many large companies are now hiring people with the title of “director of search” or “vice president of search”, which would’ve been unheard of even going back to 2008. Also, more large companies are hiring internal people to not only write their blogs, but to write posts for them on Twitter and also to check streams for any time their company names are mentioned. So, I think she’s on point with this one.

ROI Will Be Measured — and It Will Matter – I don’t know that this is anything new across the board, as companies, especially in 2009, have been taking crucial looks at the bottom line. ROI has always been a buzzword in business, so I’m not sure exactly what supposed to change.

Finally: Real, Cool and Very Bizarre Online-Offline Integration – She paints a very interesting picture with this one, but somewhere in my mind I’m still not sure we have the technology to do this efficiently yet, or cost effectively yet. That plus I tend to think that we just don’t have enough people even now who are computer savvy enough to even manage the Internet, let alone some of these other things.

Many “Old” Skills Will Be Needed Again – Man, am I hoping she’s right on this one. How many people are there who can still add up a string of numbers in their head without needing a calculator to do it? For that matter, what if we let people write it down on paper and figured out? And isn’t it a shame that when you go to a fast food restaurant everything is now in pictures rather than numbers on a cash register?

Women Will Rule Social Media – The funny thing about this one is that when blogging first started, it was mainly women who were doing it. Men passed women when they figured out they could make money from blogging. Now social media takes into account so many things that it’s hard to determine who is really running what. So, it’s possible women are already ruling social media; I’m not sure where to find any real answers on this one, but I don’t have any real opinion either way.

Social Media Will Move Into New Domains – This is another bold prediction that possibly may have already occurred, at least in some fashion. I have to admit that I’m amazed at some of the people and some of the businesses that have finally figured out what social media is and what it can do for them, but there’s so many more people and companies to go. Personally, I think my main business would profit greatly if more of them were into social media, especially since I rank so well for those main search terms. Once again, I really hope she’s right on this one.

There is my commentary; what are your thoughts?

The iPhone Book: How to Do the Things You Want to Do with Your iPhone

Price – $12.98