8 ways liz strauss tells a story.

It’s Liz Strauss’ birthday today, July 3.  Liz changes the world for lots of people. Including me.

Here are 8 ways:

1. Liz tells it. Liz is constantly telling. Posts. Comments. Conferences. Tweets. Emails. DMs. Not words out of place, not words out of thoughtlessness. But she is willing to shape the world by talking.

2. Liz tells it like it was. Her dad built a community. Her dad kept a saloon. This story shapes her community, inviting us in, reflecting the love she knew.

3. Liz tells it like it isn’t (yet) She calls a bunch of us successful and outstanding bloggers. Truth is, we aren’t. At least not when she first points to us. At least some of us. There are millions of bloggers. Many of them have incredible numbers of views, of revenue, of links. Much more success than many of her SOBs. However, more than she realizes, her naming us is part of moving us to success, perhaps not in any of those measures, but in adding value. To life.

4. Liz tells it like it could be. She offers an idea and then suggests how that idea could play out. Like the wisdom of crowds. She reminds us that it’s about people, about listening to people. It could be chaos, crowds. It could be mobs. But Liz reminds us how to keep it wise.

5. Liz tells it like is should be. Every Tuesday night, she invites people to an open comments night, a place to come and talk. As anyone who has been there will tell you, “The rules are simple - be nice.”

6. Liz tells it like it like it is in the mirror. If you read her blog, you are occasionally stunned by her willingness to say, “I messed up.“  Sometimes I want to argue with her. But usually I’m grateful for her modeling of the reflective authenticity she invites the rest of us to consider.

7. Liz tells it like it we want it to be. We want to deal well with difficult people. We face them all the time. But we don’t know where to start (or don’t want to remember.). So Liz, she gives us that starting point. Simple and clear.

8. Liz invites us to tell it. All the time. She is inviting us to tell, to talk, to be. She points to a street called Hope and invites to walk along it and then tell her what we see.

At least, that’s what I think.

What do you think?

8 (little) ways to do something big

We’ve got a long weekend coming up (at least in the U.S.) We want to rest, to celebrate. But we are driven enough (and if you are reading this, you have a sense of drive) to do something productive, to make some kind of difference.

Try one of these.

1. Teach a kid how to tie her shoes.

2. Wash the inside of your windshield.

3. Sign your name to something. (a card, a letter, a “New Half Year” list of resolutions, a revolution)

4. Put your arm around someone while watching fireworks. (Make sure you’ve met)

5. Fix a meal for someone who can’t (grilling counts.)

6. Donate $5 to the frozen pea fund (or blood).

7. Spend 10 hours intentionally offline. (even if there IS wifi available).

8. Read one chapter of something to someone. (Here’s a fresh take on a somewhat familiar chapter if you don’t have anything)

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For more 8 ways, see the 8 ways page

8 ways people talking about intentional social media strategy may be right.

You know, them. The people who suggest that you can be thoughtful and strategic about this blogging stuff. I mean, the people:

1. like Joanna Young, who suggests that you can generate a month’s worth of posts in 30 minutes. She talks about creating a mindmap with the theme of your blog. I tried it one day, while driving. I wrote one phrase, “affirming words” on the middle of a post-it index card. I generated 5 post topics in four minutes. They wrote themselves quickly and they actually were thoughtful and connected and significant.
2. like Liz Strauss, who suggests that you can build an editorial calendar for different days, and that you can map out a month of blogging activities and control your blogging time rather than having it control you. A month ago I started a theme for Sundays. I’m working through the week the same way. (Note: the calendar idea is near the bottom of the post. It stayed with me for months before I realized that I could do it, too.).
3. like Chris Brogan, who suggests that you stop just thinking about your personal brand and instead, actually do specific things in social media. I discovered that I have several things covered, but that I need to be more specific about a few more.
4. like Becky McCray, who says that we need to learn to say no. Actually, Becky has said a lot of things to help me focus, but that’s one collection.
5. like Rob Hatch, who is proof that people on the other end of social media are people. There are other examples, and you know who you are, but who’d have imagined Brogan’s and Hatch’s and Swanson’s in the same physical space at the same time?
6. like Cheryl Smith who started a blog intended for public consumption but didn’t tell anyone about it until she had written enough posts to prove to herself she could. That kind of patience has borne fruit for her. (And she let me look ahead of time and helped me find some words from Isaiah that I had been trying to remember for months.)
7. like Paul Merrill, who I finally believed about turning off the comment approval. It has freed up conversation wonderfully. (In the process, I also finally got wordpress set to email me each comment so I know. It hadn’t been working before.)
8. like these faces who remind me by their daily patience and love that the core of social media is the social, not the media.

Go ahead, applaud

Chris Brogan has said that today, Monday, April 28, should be comment day. Chris tells us to go visit other people and engage in their conversation. I was going to list a bunch of links.

But I’m not. I’ll just go there myself and comment.

However, I was at a concert on Sunday and a musical on Saturday night. I’ve watched how feedback works and helps in those places and decided to create another 8 ways list.

1. Be spcific in your comments. It helps the conversation to continue.

2. Be persistent in your comments. Some of us don’t reply immediately, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t listening.

3. Be thoughtful. Be willing to use your mind to suggest new ideas, new perspectives.

4. Be connected. Make sure that your comments relate somehow to what the person is saying. I have a hard time continuing the conversation when I can’t figure out the nature of the connection.

5. Be encouraging in your comments. Sometimes we just need to hear a cheer, or know that someone in particular is listening.

6. Be multi-modal. I just made that up, but it means that sometimes the comments should be in the comment field, but sometimes they should be in an email or a phone call or a text or a tweet. A post and comments are just one place for interaction. (I know the value of having the conversation in public. But there are times for keeping parts hidden or directed).

7. Be conversational. Conversation invites other people to talk as well. I’m not great at this. I tend to give the last word. So…

8. Be _____________. What kind of comments are most helpful to you?

The floor (or the comment box) is yours.

8 ways to honor Mr O’Gregor

Forty years ago today, a television program moved from local broadcast to national distribution. I first knew it as Mr O’Gregor’s until my parents had me read the title more closely. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, as I finally understood it, was my neighborhood and then the neighborhood of our children. In honor of that program, and that ethos, here’s the latest 8 ways list.

1. As you walk into some familiar place today (work, grocery, home), start humming, “It’s a beautiful day for a neighbor, would you be mine, could you be mine.” Not loud enough for anyone else to hear, but loud enough so that you remember to look for neighbors.
2. When you get home, change into a comfortable sweater as a way of realizing that you are in a different place, that you  don’t have to use the competitive values of “out there.” Change your shoes, too.
3. Listen to Yo Yo Ma play anything. The rich melancholy of the cello, which many kids heard for the first time on Mr Rogers, is a perfect soundtrack to the mixture of hope and despair that many of us feel.
4. In the middle of trying to explain something, consider that Fred Rogers knew that we can emotionally understand emotional issues best in story. The much maligned land of make-believe helped a lot of people understand sadness and love.
5. Realize that the grocer or the delivery person or the music teacher or the shopowner may actually be working for the king.
6. Listen for sounds, of trolleys, of fish tanks, of quiet piano jazz, of silence. It’s more rare in our lives now than for Fred, and even he had to resist the temptation to fill time with noise.
7. Consider the possibility that it really is “a good feeling to know you’re alive.”
8. Smile. Unconditionally smile. Once. For Fred.

Please won’t you be my neighbor?
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For more 8 ways…

To recycle a month
To cross-pollinate your world
To fall off a horse
To audit my (spiritual) time
To waste the month
To waste your blogging time
To ruin your day
To be thanked
To increase your stress
To explain 2.0 friends to 0.0 parents
To lose your faith
To make yourself angry
To make yourself jealous
To make yourself depressed
To ruin your marriage

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8 ways to keep your tank full

1. Make sure that you take a day off. One day in seven is a pretty good idea.

2. Plug the hole of mind-numbing browsing where all the time runs out and flows across the keyboard.

3. Put love into the tanks of other people by encouraging and apologizing and caring.

4. Laugh. At something. Without being cynical.

5. Remember that you aren’t God. That job is taken. (and you can talk with the job-holder)

6. Spend less than you make, in the most creative ways you can find so that even saving is a contest with yourself.

7. Take a nap.

8. Go make a cup of coffee (or tea) and reread number 1-7.

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For more 8 ways…

To recycle a month
To cross-pollinate your world
To fall off a horse
To audit my (spiritual) time
To waste the month
To waste your blogging time
To ruin your day
To be thanked
To increase your stress
To explain 2.0 friends to 0.0 parents
To lose your faith
To make yourself angry
To make yourself jealous
To make yourself depressed
To ruin your marriage

Subscribe to this blog for free by clicking here.

8 ways to maybe be sort of successful goalwise.

At the end of 2006, Nancy and I started walking. Together. Around the neighborhood and then around the mall. We kept walking all year long. We know for sure we went more than 600 miles during the year, though we probably went farther.

This morning we started the new year by taking another walk around the mall (or three times around the mall). Unlike most mornings, however, we treated ourselves to a cup of coffee (black) and some additional conversation, trying to list some things we are considering for the year. Out of that conversation and some other thinking, here’s today’s 8 ways list, rooted in the reality that most of us are really good at not being really good at accomplishing goals.

1. Ask yourself or your partner in accomplishing life, “list three words for the year.” Rather than giving you a roadmap, these can give your heart direction for the year.  (One of our words for the year is “smaller”, reflecting a desire to live more simply with many fewer purchases.)

2. Identify month-long rather than year-long goals.
This year I set a goal for August, for thirty days of posting. It was achievable because it was sustainable. I did the same for Advent. I’m planning it again for Lent.

3. Talk next to rather than across from a guy.
Nancy realized that part of our success in walking and talking this year came because we weren’t looking at each other. I’m certainly not opposed to looking at my wife–quite the contrary. However, it is easier to talk while side by side. (The real principle here is that we need to make progress comfortable).

4. If “purposes” or “directions” are more helpful than “goals”, great. Progress is more important than language.

5. Interact with people.
I’ve been stretched by conversations this year in ways that I never would have imagined at the beginning of the year. I think differently than I did…and so do some of the people that I’ve talked with. And the truth? Our projects may fail or fizzle, but the more we are deepening in relationships, with both other humans and with God, the less significant those projects are.

6. Let goals masquerade as things you want to do.
You think, “I want to read that particular book.” Do it. Then you will have read something, grown your world, given yourself something to talk with others about, challenged your thinking, and kept either a library or bookstore in business.  (And here are some books to consider…from my “bookstore” or I could loan them to you)

7. Tell other people about what you are wanting to do in as direct or vague a way as you want to be held accountable.
There are a bunch of people who are really tired of hearing that we’ve been walking. The more we talked about it, however, the more we knew we needed to keep going. And as we were at the mall this morning, we noticed a couple we know who have decided to walk at the mall.  So we’ll keep talking about walking.

8. Forget about lists. Just live.
(Although ironically, just living can turn into a whole collection of 8 ways lists.)

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For more 8 ways…

To recycle a month
To cross-pollinate your world
To fall off a horse
To audit my (spiritual) time
To waste the month
To waste your blogging time
To ruin your day
To be thanked
To increase your stress
To explain 2.0 friends to 0.0 parents
To lose your faith
To make yourself angry
To make yourself jealous
To make yourself depressed
To ruin your marriage

Subscribe to this blog for free by clicking here.

8 ways to look ahead.

Shiloh is a quiet dog. I almost wrote “quiet and thoughtful” but I have no clue what is happening in his head. At one of the four holiday gatherings at our house, Shiloh spent some time reflecting on the year behind, gazing at coffee and my lifesigns series.

That kind of looking back and looking ahead is all the rage among humans right now. I’m not ready to do my own goal setting yet, but I’m ready to suggest some words to think about.

Compared to last year or to my life so far or to lives around me that I think have been misguided or to lives around me that are well-lived, what do I want to do:

1. More. More often, more intentionally, more consistently.

2. Less. Less often, less reactively, with less intensity, with less (fewer) people.

3. Better. You know what better means for you. What do you want to do better?

4. Worse. What are you, what am I, willing to be worse at…if it will buy space for what is better? Do I want to be a worse packrat? Do I want to be a worse daily blogger?

5. Faster. What could I do faster that would create more time?
6 Slower. What could I do slower that would create more relationship?
7. Thoughtfully. What do I need to actually stop and think about? And how can I plan for that? (Gift-giving, for example)

8. Impulsively. What do I need to release from planning and strategizing?

I’ll get around to goals, maybe after the first of the year. I think that I probably want to be more thoughtful than impulsive there. But…maybe not.

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For more 8 ways…

To recycle a month
To cross-pollinate your world
To fall off a horse
To audit my (spiritual) time
To waste the month
To waste your blogging time
To ruin your day
To be thanked
To increase your stress
To explain 2.0 friends to 0.0 parents
To lose your faith
To make yourself angry
To make yourself jealous
To make yourself depressed
To ruin your marriage

Subscribe to this blog for free by clicking here.

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8 ways to recycle a month

I spent the month of August writing a post a day to illustrate a sign a day. I’m not exactly sure why, but I did.

This project came back to mind yesterday when Janet gave me a picture frame with one of her photos…and every one of my pictures glued to the frame. It was a wonderful gift. It came from someone who didn’t used to be a blog reader, which reminds me of the value of inviting people into this world. (Thank you Janet, for the gift of your time reading..and the gift of time creating this frame.)

I decided to go back to that month and highlight some of my favorite posts.

1. Remind people of the changes in your life because of the series (August 31 No Going Back)

2. Connect back to one of the posts that tied for the most comments. It was a link post that challenged us to think of how to shape a day in the future. (August 19 A New Week)

3. Link to the other well-visited post which talked about stop lights giving us the opportunity to prepare for the next step in life rather than seeing them as interruptions. (August 20 Waiting, revisited)

4. Send people back to the first post in the series, a description of milemarkers. It’s a great post to review at the end of a year. (August 1 Milestones)

5. Send people back to your post about winding roads. Reviewing it reminds you that on a winding road, half the time you are going the wrong way. Apparently. (August 8 Shortest distance may be slow)

6. Give an example of one of the posts written to accompany guest pictures submitted by friends. (August 16 Unclear. To most people)

7. Show people one of the best examples of marriage you know, in this case my parents. This was written to honor their 51st anniversary (August 25 You first)

8. Give people the opportunity to download the ebook containing the whole month of posts by right-clicking here

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For more 8 ways…

To waste your blogging time
To ruin your day
To be thanked
To increase your stress
To explain 2.0 friends to 0.0 parents
To lose your faith
To make yourself angry
To make yourself jealous
To make yourself depressed
To ruin your marriage

Subscribe to this blog for free by clicking here.

8 ways to cross-pollinate your world.

As we approach the end of 2007,  I’m thinking about how my life has shifted in the past year. At the beginning of this year, it would have been impossible, for one reason or another, for me to have written any of these 8 ways of bridging 0.0 and 2.0 worlds, of expanding conversation and learning. Further, all 8 of these describe events from the past three days.

1. Write an article about creating an advent calendar/blog for an online magazine with an Advent-themed issue.

2. Preach to a snowstorm-decimated congregation and have 13 more watching from home on ustream.tv and then record the sermon on ustream.tv

3. While attending a concert, discover that the son of a friend (who appears in your flickr) reads your blog.

4. Pray with a friend that you see face to face about health challenges of a friend that you both know through twitter.

5. Sit at a Christmas party of people mostly older than a half century, and in a perfectly normal conversation have someone ask, “So, do you twitter?” (and, of course, have no one but your wife have any clue what she means.)

6.  Write a sermon incorporating research from eBible, a facebook conversation with your son’s girlfriend, and a baby born to a couple you married, a birth you tracked because the father of the new mother sent texts, phone pictures, and calls.

7. Find out at dinner that your daughter saw a flower-schedule calendar and took a picture of it because once a month the flowers are provided by Jim Long (not this Jim Long who we know and love through twitter.)

8. Listen to your wife, who has only a vicarious social media presence, knowledgeably describe the way that both of your worlds have expanded through all of these connections, and hear her frustration when people choose to ignore the way the world is changing.

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For daily updates on Advent, visit advent2007.wordpress.com

For more 8 ways…

To waste your blogging time
To ruin your day
To be thanked
To increase your stress
To explain 2.0 friends to 0.0 parents
To lose your faith
To make yourself angry
To make yourself jealous
To make yourself depressed
To ruin your marriage

Subscribe to this blog for free by clicking here.