Tag Archives: Social Media

The Know-It-All Discussion

October 20, 2010 Mitch Mitchell 12 Comments

There was a post on the blog Search Engine Journal titled Get Rid Of Villains In Social Media Infographic that had this really large image based on an article written by another guy named Todd Helm, of the same blog, titled 8 Villains Of Social Media. It was an interesting take on the type of people who basically irritate most of us because they’re not really trying to be social, but trying to get on our nerves. What he did was identify types, then write his suggestions for how to handle these folks.

I don’t want to list all 8 types, because I think you might enjoy reading the article, and there’s some humor there as well, but I did want to take on one of the types because, oddly enough, I wrote about the type in my book on management and leadership, Embrace The Lead, which you see over there to the left.

That one type is called the know-it-all, and Helm states this:

“The Know-it-all rarely comments unless it’s to disagree with or correct the content producer or another user’s comment. They’re generally great fact checkers and revel in correcting a specific fact, but would rather argue about opinions. They also love to point out grammatical errors.”

In my book, I wrote this:

“…this person, unfortunately, is usually one of your worst nightmares rather than your biggest helper. If they don’t really know it all, it doesn’t stop them from telling you that they fully understand when they don’t. They’re also the first ones to try to help someone else understand how to do something, and invariably it’s incorrect because they didn’t fully understand it themselves. Of course there’s the know-it-all who really does know a large bit of it, and they want to take every opportunity to show people that they indeed know it all, to the point that they end up taking over and intimidating other employees. Know-it-all’s also are always interrupting you; they can destroy the flow of a meeting if not handled properly.”

So, we have a minor disagreements in how know-it-all’s act, because I’ve never known a know-it-all who isn’t always sharing an opinion or trying to correct someone, even if they’re wrong. As a matter of fact, I have someone in mind right now that I did a consulting assignment with, who would throw out all these “facts” that often I had to counter, and when I’d counter them he’d change up and say something like “oh, I was talking about _____, but you’re right, in that instance you’d do what you said to do.” Please! lol

Then Helm gave this thought to beating a know-it-all:

“Strong (yet modest) arguments. It’s nearly impossible to change the mind of the Know-it-all. Your best bet is to respond to them with rational arguments that present a strong case in a modest tone. Let their arrogance and opinionated argument work against them making you look like the rational, impartial one to everyone else.”

That’s not bad, but as a point of comparison I wrote this:

“There are a few ways to deal with this type of individual, but the best is to let them have their say, regardless of the situation; at least initially. If they’re the type that’s always wrong, your employees will see this person for what they are and recognize that they’re not as smart as they feel they are. At some point they won’t waste their time going to this person for assistance. Also, this gives you a great opportunity to correct them in a group setting in such a manner that they won’t see it as your trying to show them up, unless you intend to do that, and people will generally benefit because some of them had probably thought along the same lines themselves, but were going to stay silent.”

I actually wrote a lot more than that, but this is enough for comparison’s sake. In this case, we kind of agree on the strategy of letting them hang themselves in spouting information that’s incorrect and then telling everyone what the truth really is. Sure, they might come back for a second round, but most people are rational enough to see when a know-it-all is scrambling to save some of their self respect.

Of course, I do acknowledge that Helm and I are writing for different audiences here, since he’s writing to blogging folks and I’m writing to managers, but the concept is still the same overall. I’m not going to lie; I’d love being a know-it-all. I just know that I don’t know it all, and sometimes these days I feel like I’ve forgotten more than I used to know; scary. But the one thing I hope separates me from a true know-it-all is that, except for this blog, I don’t have the yearn to show it off all the time. Sure, there are times when I’ve gotten what my wife says is a little bit mean spirited and crushed someone who irked me, but in general I like to think that, unless it’s an egregious error, I’ll let stuff slide (of course, Sire’s going to come back and say I’m always pointing out errors on his blog, but he does it for me as well).

What are your thoughts on know-it-all’s in general? And please, make sure you check out both the infographic and Helm’s post as well.

Personal

De-Stressing Life By Not Commenting

September 9, 2010 Mitch Mitchell 34 Comments

Two weeks ago on my business blog, I wrote a post titled Do We Have To Talk To Each Other? The premise of the post was that there are times when it’s probably better not to have interactions with someone else because not every person you encounter has to be deemed as someone you have to have a crucial conversation with. If it’s work related in a company and you need to do business, that’s one thing, but in your personal life, why would you want to consistently go through that type of thing?

Conflict by Rishi S

here are things I normally don’t like to discuss, but every once in a while, in my own space, I’ll get off a bomb here and there.

For instance, I don’t like the way the state of politics is in our country right now. Suffice it to say, my politics is totally against the party of “no”, and I don’t like how they’ve consistently lied to the American public about health care and about President Obama personally. I was particularly intrigued by this post on The Slate titled Why Won’t Any Republicans Condemn the “Obama is a Muslim” Myth? Don’t even let me start talking about this thing with the guy who’s going to be burning Quran’s (they keep changing the spelling of this thing; someone needs to decide on it one way or another and leave it be) this weekend, because my overall take wouldn’t be what someone might expect from me.

Having said that, I’ve realized over time that there are some battles you just can’t win, especially online. It’s not necessarily whether you’re correct or not. It has to do with distance and perspective.

Back in the early 90’s I was on bulletin board systems, the early versions of forums for those of you too young to remember. There was this particular forum I was in where some people came in just to be naysayers and cause trouble. They weren’t overly interested in the topic or in discussing issues; they just wanted to jam up the works.

This one guy in particular got on my nerves so much that I decided I was going to track him down. And I did; guess what? It turned out he was only a 90-minute drive away.

I got his real name, got his address and phone number, and I was ready to go. But I decided instead to let him know I had his information and that I just might pop down for a “face to face conversation” (sometimes I have a mean streak; I’m working on that lol).

In the forum I outed him, with his real name and the dorm he lived in; yes, he turned out to be a college student. I didn’t give his phone number or the name of the college, but he knew I had the goods on him. He wrote back saying if I showed up he would call the police and have me arrested for harassment, and that he would sue me for everything I had; good thing I had nothing back then. He deleted his account and never bothered any of us again. It didn’t stop anyone else, but I had my proof.

People tend to behave differently in person than they do online. Not everyone of course; I’ve met some wonderful people. But nasty people are a different matter. They’re not trying to be civil; they don’t care about you or your space. It may not always seem to be intentional, but there are patterns that happen, “track record” as I like to call it.

Sometimes, it’s not that drastic. There are some of us who just can’t get along with others. It’s unknown what the reason is, but it happens.

I have an interesting track record myself. People who meet me say that if you can’t get along with me, you have a problem. I appreciate that, but I also know I’m not every person’s cup of tea.

I’m a bit too politically correct for many. I’m also a bit of a hothead when I feel it’s justified, and I go for the throat. I’ve told friends that it’s never good enough to get even; you have to go for the jugular so you never have to deal with it again. That’s a concept the book Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card captured perfectly; it’s a great book and one I’d recommend to anyone who likes science fiction that’s not too far away from the world we could recognize. It’s a reason I’ve only ever had 2 practical jokes pulled on me and why I ended up having few fights as a kid.

Peace by lintmachine

However, I’ve come to an epiphany at this juncture. I’m now 51, and I know that realistically I’ve lived more than 2/3rds of my life. I have the right to decide if I want to spend any of that time arguing with people whose minds I’m never going to change or just leaving it alone and keeping some peace in my life. I’ve decided I’m going to try to go the peaceful route. If I feel that I’m starting to get mad at something, I’m going to leave it be, at least as it pertains to me. I need to work harder on de-stressing my life by not commenting.

If I feel the need to come to someone’s defense, I’m still going to do that; trying to save the world, as my wife says, but my big 3 are loyalty, respect, and trustworthiness. I’m loyal to my friends and people I like; I hope I’ve proven that often enough over the years both online and offline.

So, if you don’t see me respond to a certain post here and there, trust me, it’s probably a good thing. Social media has brought the world closer, but it’s also brought a lot of people together who aren’t really prepared to play well with each other sometimes. On Twitter I’m sometimes more political than I want to be; I think I’ve struck the correct balance on this blog. I tend to think that all of us have to try to take some time to look at what we see when we’re being responded to, but we also have to be ready to defend ourselves as well as try as best we can to get our proper message across. I add a smiley face a lot, or a “lol” to make sure people take what I’m saying as tongue in cheek fun. If you misunderstand that, I’m not giving a second chance anymore. I need to de-stress my life.

Who’s with me on this one?

Blogging

10 Posts That Deserve More Attention

August 23, 2010 Mitch Mitchell 10 Comments

Something that’s hard for a lot of people is self critique. We’re either too easy on ourselves or too hard on ourselves.

I’m no different, although my parameters change depending on what it is. When it comes to this blog, I know that there are a few throwaway posts, where the post isn’t necessarily important to anyone but was entertaining to write. That’s part of my quest to give visitors something different to look at.

However, there are times when I write something that, in my mind, didn’t get enough attention or enough visitors for whatever reason. Every once in awhile, I like to go back to some of those posts and share them in one specific post, hoping that maybe newer visitors will see those titles and say “hey, I must have missed that one”. At least that’s what I hope. So, here are 10 posts of mine over the last 2 months of 2009 and first 6 months of 2010 that didn’t get many visitors that I feel deserve more attention.

5 Ways Poker Is Like Blogging – This was my attempt at being creative by comparing two of the things I love doing most, one of which is playing poker.

An Interview With Marelisa Fabrega – Marelisa is one of the top bloggers in the world, and I was able to secure an interview with her. This needs to be read by everyone.

Twitter Marketing – Do You Have A Plan? – I found myself again some days ago explaining to someone what Twitter was about and how it could be used for business, and this wasn’t at my workshop either.

How Can You Prosper Through Publicity? – Everyone who has a blog needs to understand just how much more prosperous they could be, either monetarily or personally, by figuring out how to handle their publicity better.

What Do We Expect For Free? – We all like free stuff, but are we taking it to the extreme for some things?

Are Writers Taken For Granted? – As someone who’s been writing to make a living for the last year, it seems that people devalue just how much of a commitment it is, even when they can’t do it themselves.

Content Is An Electronic Emperor – This was my response to a comment made by Rupert Murdoch, partially one of the most hated men in the world.

Web Courtesy – Don’t We Deserve That Much? – With so much hate that people spew in blogs and especially when responding to news stories, I question whether there is any courtesy anymore.

Are You Using Social Media For Promotion? – I wrote this last year, way before I ever started thinking about doing workshops on the subject.

My 10 Favorite Blog Posts Of 2009 – Okay, this isn’t quite fair, but at the end of the year I posted 10 blogs posts I liked that I wrote in 2009; so now you have 10 more to check out if you’re interested. 😉

SEO

First Page SEO Basics

August 16, 2010 Mitch Mitchell 25 Comments

Two weeks ago I was having an interesting debate with a guy on LinkedIn. It was supposed to be on the subject of social media and SEO, and instead it turned into a debate on SEO and what’s important.

He was saying in this group that it wasn’t important to optimize one’s home page anymore because we were all under an illusion if we thought that most of our visitors came in through the home page. In his opinion, optimizing all the other pages were more important to attracting visitors than anything you might think of doing on your home page.

I of course countered, saying that without optimizing and working on your home page that your other pages don’t really have all that much of a chance to get you anywhere. The bots sent out by search engines start off with your main page, “index” if you will, and if you haven’t taken care of that then the bots get confused as to what your site is all about and almost nothing else you do will overcome that lapse.

Strangely enough, I was talking to my wife about it, someone who knows nothing about computers or coding or SEO or anything related to technology, and she said “Don’t you need a foundation before you do anything else?”

Exactly! It’s like what many people write about when they’re talking to brand new bloggers who are getting into the game to make money. The recommendations are always the same, and they’re true; think about content and building up a community more than the money part initially. If the day you start your first blog post your site is already loaded with all sorts of banner and affiliate ads all over the place and your articles are geared towards the “make money” market, you’re going to look at little bit goofy. This isn’t saying you can’t have anything, but unless you’re someone like John Chow, who was already rich before he started blogging, you’re not going to come across as well.

Anyway, back to SEO and foundation. If you’re putting together a site, it works best if you decide what your site is going to be about and then try to figure out what you want to be found for before you even begin constructing your site. Doing that research helps you write your copy, and make it as natural as possible so the search engines have no problems reading your site and determining what it is you do. Sure, you could try to go the backdoor route, and you might possibly succeed in some fashion, but it’s not the best way to do it.

Optimize every page on your site as much as possible. But always start with your main page.

Blogging, Social Media, Writing, Motivation and General Stuff