The Brainzooming Group

“Diversity and Ideas in the Porous Community” will be my talk at the first-ever TEDxWyandotte on April 2, 2013 at Kansas City Kansas Community College (KCKCC).

TEDxWyandotte – Core Impact: Exploring Ideas that Enrich a Community

The theme chosen by TEDxWyandotte curator Shari Wilson, Jay Matlack, Organizing Committee Chair, and the rest of the organizing committee is “Core Impact: Exploring Ideas that Enrich a Community.”

Among the other presenters announced so far are Adam Arredondo, CEO and co-founder of Local Ruckus, and Afro Cuban band, Making Movies. There are a number of other fantastic speakers representing compelling community efforts, but I’m sworn to secrecy until they are officially announced!

This will be my first TEDx talk after attending a variety of TEDxKC events the past several years – both in person and on video. While the TED talks and the now familiar format seems straight forward in its expectations and constraints, it’s a speaking style quite different than I use for my presentations. The TED talks style is so one-way (all eyes on the speaker on the stage in a darkened venue); it flies in the face of creating the diverse interaction we so fundamentally espouse with the Brainzooming methodology. As a result, from a format standpoint, I’m trying to craft a TED talk that looks like a TED talk but is still interactive; it’s a challenge, without a doubt.

My TEDx Talk: Diversity and Ideas in the Porous Community

The topic for my TEDxWyandotte talk is about how the most impactful, strategic change springs from large-scale, diverse, even contradictory, perspectives brought together to forge new ideas. Creating a porous community that readily cultivates diverse thinking is vital to a truly enriched community, i.e. a community were the benefits of great ideas are available to all participants.

And that idea holds intriguing implications for communities and change.

Look up typical definitions of community and you see words and phrases such as:

• Unified
• Common interests and location
• Living in a specific area
• Common history or interests

Not a lot of diversity there – and that’s a problem. Yet we find such excitement in forces pushing diversity and disruption through:

• Crowdsourcing – whether solicited or not
• Large organizations looking outside themselves for answers (and perhaps survival)
• Information available anywhere in the cloud that challenges the idea of place

Wrapping all my thinking together on this topic in a succinct fashion while also drawing some lines through the other presentations will be an exciting opportunity.

And to carry out the theme and raise the stakes just a bit, audience members will be able to select the stories they want to hear during the presentation. That means there are nine different variations of the presentation that are possible. We won’t know which one it will be until the audience makes their decisions throughout the presentation. It’s what I’ve started to call, “Live Blogging.” Just as with hyperlinks in a blog post, the audience community is able to direct the content deeper or move on based on its preferences.

If You’re Near Kansas City, Join Us for TEDxWyandotte

Once again, TEDxWyandotte will be Tuesday, April 2, at 5:30 pm at Kansas City Kansas Community College. If you’re in or around Kansas City, it would be great to have you join us and sell out this first time TEDx event. You can reserve tickets right now! You can also keep up to date on speaker announcements and other news about TEDxWyandotte on Facebook.

And if you have any ideas on the topic, I’m interested in hearing what you think! - Mike Brown

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Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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What to blog about is a frequent content marketing topic on the Brainzooming blog. People are always looking for new blogging ideas. Responding to a tweet on what to blog about, @InnervateTF requested a comparable piece on “what to tweet about.” Since responding to audience questions is a great source of ideas for blogging topics, we’re covering their Twitter content marketing question – which amazingly, we haven’t done previously.

@brainzooming Enjoyed this piece. Thanks. How about one on “what to tweet about”? #blogging #Twitter

— Innervate The Future (@InnervateTF) March 2, 2013

Step One: Review Your Last Twenty Tweets

Before figuring out what to tweet about, review your last twenty tweets to see:

• How many tweets were intended to benefit readers (with valuable information, links, highlighting others, etc.)? ___ of 20
• How many tweets were free of sales-oriented mentions of what you do? ___ of 20
• In how many tweets were you interacting with others (i.e., answering questions, conversing, initiating dialogues)? ___ of 20

The higher the numbers, the better your tweets are already!

Low numbers mean you’re focused more on yourself, selling things, and not engaging. Using your initial answers and re-asking these questions in the future provides another social media metric for how you’re doing on Twitter.

Content Marketing on Twitter – The Basics of What to Tweet About

There’s no single answer for what to tweet about that works for everyone. What’s important is having a rich understanding of your audience’s interests and delivering social media content that addresses those interests and fits your objectives. That said, here are 37 ideas for adapting your content marketing strategy to Twitter.

Information Sharing

Information sharing is a primary opportunity to create a positive impact on Twitter. While you can squeeze beneficial information into the 140-character Twitter limit, ideally you have a place to point people for a deeper treatment on the information you share. That could be on your blog, website, or other online presence.

The best information sharing comes when you take advantage of the full range of content marketing sources available to tweet:

• Interesting factoids
• Ideas and valuable improvement tips
• Information about activities – yours or others of interest to your audience
• Links to photos and videos
• Content from other social networks – LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, etc.
• Updates and content from relevant events
• Intriguing information and stories from your organization
• Updates on where your brand or people will be – events, activities, etc.
• Relevant topics & content you find during online searches

Two-Way Interactions

While information sharing on Twitter may largely be one way, there are tremendous benefits from interacting with others. How to adapt your content marketing strategy for Twitter during these interactions?

• Participate in conversations
• Answer questions tweeted by others
• Retweet relevant and/or intriguing content shared by people you follow on Twitter
• Share answers, questions, and observations with others during Twitter chats
• Swap links to interesting and relevant materials, events, etc.

Personal Sharing

Twitter is personal (as is any social network) whether you’re sharing as you or for a brand. How you express your personality, however, may differ. Ultimately though, if you don’t have an engaging online personality, it’s much tougher for people to find compelling reasons to follow you. When it comes to personal information, tweet:

• Intriguing personal news and happenings
• Rhetorical questions (and maybe even some answer to them)
• What you’re thinking about
• Observations about current events
• Photos and videos from daily life
• Links to what you’re sharing personally on Instagram, Facebook, or other social networks

Tweeting with Hashtags

Hashtags on Twitter are created by putting a pound or hash sign (#) in front of a word (or string of words without spaces) in a tweet. A hashtag makes similarly themed tweets searchable. Simply clicking on a hashtag within whatever Twitter application you’re using should open a new window with all current tweets containing the hashtag.

Tweeting with hashtags allows others to easily find your content, especially if they aren’t following you already. Using the same hashtag repeatedly signals you’re sharing similarly-themed content. Hashtags are also the underpinning to track what’s being shared on Twitter chats. In this way, hashtags allow you to revisit topics in multiple tweets or link tweets to topics many people are addressing.

What to Tweet About – The Self-Help Magazine Approach

I was on a webinar where the presenter suggested looking at self-help magazine headlines for blogging ideas. This works for ideas on what to tweet also. Select any self-help magazine, especially those related to the three F’s (fitness, finance, food), and review headlines for Twitter inspiration. Some self-help oriented tweet ideas include:

• Easy Ways to Meet Challenging Goals
• Ways to Achieve Very Desirable Results
• The Financial Benefits of Taking a Specific Set of Actions
• How to Come Out Good While Being Bad
• Jaw Dropping Benefits from Doing Something Simple
• Celebrity Name Dropping
• Things to Not Do (with a Subtle Threat Attached to Doing Them Anyway)

Use hashtags with these ideas to create a series of tweets themed to a particular topic.

Picking Your Spots for Tweeting on the Sales Continuum

When you’re active on social media on behalf of an organization (even if it’s your solo operation), you’re looking to generate business. How salesy can your content marketing get on Twitter? It all depends.

Setting up a Twitter account that’s clearly going to be all offers / promos can work if your deals are so good that you can attract followers with 100% sales-oriented content.

If you’re trying to balance general and business-building content though, heavily overweight toward general content (i.e., all the other ideas shared so far in this post). When you introduce more business building content, consider this continuum from light to heavier sales focus, determining where you want to be on the sales continuum at any one time:

• Tweet a non-exclusive promotion or discount
• Announce a giveaway
• Feature a link to downloadable content
• Provide insider information or a sneak-peak at a new product
• Tweet a snippet about what you do with a link to a webpage with more info
• Provide an exclusive offer for followers
• Promote a link to your e-commerce page (on your own site or Amazon, etc.)
• Proactively tweet people whose tweets suggest a need for your product or service
• Tweet a link to an affiliate marketing program in which you participate
• Use a Twitter account to tweet promotional offers all the time

Decide for Yourself What to Tweet About!

Brainzooming blog readers know we’re not big on, “There’s only ONE WAY to do this” blog posts. We’re strategists, so we see the importance of variability and aligning with what fits your organization’s strategy. This is a starting point, however, to begin determining what strategic direction is right when it comes to how your content marketing strategy applies to Twitter.

And you thought it was a simple question, didn’t you? - Mike Brown

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If you’re struggling with determining ROI and evaluating its impacts, download “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track” today!  This article provides a concise, strategic view of the numbers and stories that matter in shaping, implementing, and evaluating your strategy. You’ll learn lessons about when to address measurement strategy, identifying overlooked ROI opportunities, and creating a 6-metric dashboard. Download Your Free Copy of “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track!”

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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In the U.S. nearly twenty cents out of every dollar we spend goes to healthcare. It’s the biggest driver of future budget deficits, the source of most personal bankruptcies, and attempts to reform the system have driven much of the political dialogue—and theater—over the past four years.

Healthcare should be an area ripe for innovation, creativity, and new ways of approaching problems. This past week ten groups presented their best hacks for healthcare innovation at the Hackovate Health Innovation Competition presented by Think Big Partners, sponsored by H&R Block, and hosted by Kansas City’s own Ramsey Moshen. Presenters were vying for a $15,000 grand prize as well as the attention of H&R Block as the company contemplates how it might play in the healthcare arena.

Held in the historic and creatively inspiring Union Station in Kansas City, the finale included presenters from Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle, Ireland, and Pakistan as well as from the Kansas City area.

Five Ways to Hack the Affordable Care Act

Below, are quick slice synopsis of the five presentations I found most compelling, including what I saw as the most interesting healthcare innovation by each and what I think could come between them and success.

OkCopay, Inc.

What it does: Makes health care pricing more readily available to uninsured and underinsured.

Interesting innovation: Makes health care pricing in the elective areas—dental, vision, cosmetic—truly transparent to people that have little experience or comfort in that arena, particularly the uninsured.

What could go wrong: The revenue comes from provider promotions. That is a labor intensive sell and also might raise credibility issues with users.

Naya Jeevan Rejuvenate

What it does: Provides low-cost health care insurance and care management to traditionally uninsured consumers.

Interesting innovation: Model was developed in Pakistan, now being applied to U.S. market with coming of ACA and health insurance exchanges. Gets companies with big stake in their supply/distribution chain viability, e.g. P&G, to provide subsidies. Uses holistic approach including Nike Fuel band-like device and ePharmacy benefit.

What could go wrong: May not work in the much higher cost U.S. system. Companies may not be as willing to provide subsidies here are they are in developing markets.

SHHADE – Supplying Home Healthcare Alternatives and Dedicated Education

What it does: Takes advantage of the ground-breaking work done by Dr. Jeffrey Brenner in identifying healthcare cost “hotspots.” Brenner’s work in New Jersey found that not only did 20% of patients produce 80% of the costs, but that there was also a geographic component.

Interesting innovation: Uses an intense managed care approach to working with hotspot patients, including mobile primary care service, remote patient monitoring, health coaching, and care coordination. Their geopod approach seems extremely scalable.

What could go wrong: Only get paid if they can reduce cost to insurance companies of the hotspot patients. What if savings aren’t as great as business model predicts?

Aavya Health

What it does: Makes biometric data—which drives more than 70% of healthcare decisions—more useful and understandable for the layman.

Interesting innovation: Can use data ranging from simple height and weight to complex lab results. Translates them into meaningful results, e.g. “Your heart age is X,” and then provides ideas and solutions for making health better.

What could go wrong: Could be hard to get people to input the data. Who provides the revenue stream is somewhat uncertain.

GetHealth

What it does: Provides users both a mobile and web platform to keep track of their healthy and unhealthy activities and compare themselves to friends and family

Interesting innovation: Simple, well-designed and branded approach to making being healthy a friendly, collaborative competition with yourself and those important to you.

What could go wrong: Does it end up being just another seldom used app among the dozens on everyone’s smartphone.

Healthcare Innovation – Is your organization involved?

Major themes of the other presentations revolved around helping people understand and navigate through their insurance options—including the coming health care insurance exchanges—and different ways the health care market can be made more efficient and transparent..

One other important takeaway: there is a striking diversity of organizations working at healthcare innovation. They range from the usual suspects, such as medical groups and healthcare IT suppliers, to the less expected, ranging from experts in customer experience to young college grads from Ireland who decided they and others can use smartphones to be healthier.

And that raises the question: should your organization be part of healthcare innovation, even if you don’t currently think of yourself as being in that space? – Barrett Sydnor

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Barrett Sydnor

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There are many ways to be your own worst enemy.

Don’t believe me? How about . . .

• Deciding someone really doesn’t want to do business with you instead of letting the other person decide what they want to do.
• Down talking yourself to others.
• Allowing yourself to delay addressing what you know is important to do right now.
• Doing the easy / convenient / familiar / comfortable thing when it isn’t also the best thing to do.
• Not staring a new effort because you doubt you’ll finish it.
• Taking negativity to heart from others when there is no reason to do so.
• Allowing short-term issues to get you off track from focusing on what’s important.
• Keeping your concerns too much to yourself.
• Hoping things will get better on their own
• Not celebrating every accomplishment, whether big or small.
• Avoiding tough conversations you need to have.
• Failing to surround yourself with the right people.
• Allowing your health (whether spiritual, physical, or mental) to go unattended.
• Believing social networks are an accurate depiction of reality.
• Continually comparing yourself to who you were THEN but aren’t anymore.
• Listening to all the unsolicited advice you’re given.
• Listening to none of the unsolicited advice you’re given.
• Spending too much time listening to the voices inside your head.

See what I mean?

And this was simply a list from looking back on times I’ve been my own worst enemy or seen others do it to themselves. You may very well be able to add to the list from your own experience. Plus there may be other people out there who really aren’t your fans. Think about what they’d add to the list, but why would you even consider giving them more ammunition against you?

So now that we have a full footprint in the new year, let’s all try to treat ourselves better. Look past your near-term challenges, and buttress yourself with the long-term successes you’ve created before and the new ones ahead. It’s time to  be your own best fan! - Mike Brown

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Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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I like revisiting a strategic thinking formula that works.

Monday night, Social Media Club of Kansas City buddy Sarah Wood suggested she’d like to read a blog post about staying focused while working from home during a blizzard. Based on Sarah’s suggestion, I wrote the post and it set near-term records for the percent of Brainzooming blog visits garnered by a new post on the day it published. A variation on the topic led to Wednesday’s post, making it a two-from-one idea!

Last night, while exploring a blog topic for today (it’s been that kind of week), I tweeted Sarah for an idea. She had another great one: the Top 5 Brainzooming posts to read for new readers (or even long-term ones) of  the Brainzooming blog.

With around 1,400 published posts on the Brainzooming site, Sarah’s top five post idea for new readers is fantastic to provide a quick guide to our thinking on strategy, creativity, and innovation.

The Top Five Brainzooming Posts to Read for New Readers

It didn’t take long to generate this short list of Brainzooming posts targeted at new readers. The underlying theme for selecting each of them is to provide new readers insight into the underlying strategic thinking and perspectives running through nearly all other Brainzooming blog posts.

1. Brainzooming – A Strategic Thinking Manifesto

This post, among the blog’s longest, compiles the first five blog posts written for the initial Brainzooming site. The original working theme for the blog was “157 Ways to Be a Better Strategic Thinker.” With that theme in the background, this strategic thinking manifesto laid out the case for why everyone in an organization needs to be a strategic thinker along with ways to put this aspirational idea into action.

2. Seven Personal Success Strategies

From a personal branding and performance standpoint, I try to take these seven principles to heart in my career. I’m hard-pressed to say how long it took to assemble the list, but they weren’t all things I knew or even believed when staring my career. While I don’t do all of them well, it’s a good representation of the scorecard by which I judge my career progress.

3. Six Gifts Behind Personal Career Accomplishments

Some readers say I don’t put enough of myself into the Brainzooming blog. That’s definitely true visually. It’s partially true in terms of written content, too. I don’t view the Brainzooming blog as a personal journal. It’s more of a teaching resource featuring information I’ve shared with co-workers over the years who wanted to learn more and set themselves apart. This post, prompted by a question during a presentation, gives perhaps the deepest insight into who you’re dealing with if you decide to become a regular Brainzooming blog reader.

4. 26 Creative Ideas – How to Be Creative When Creativity Is Blocked

These ideas for being creative when being creative is hard represents our attitude toward creativity: with the right combination of structure, tools, and perspectives, everyone is creative. We don’t see creativity as something precious, elusive, and dependent upon mysterious inspiration. We view creative thinking skills as just that – skills everyone can and should develop for both personal and professional benefit. Bonus: At the bottom of this post, we invite you to download our eBook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to learn the perspectives that cultivate creative thinking skills and an innovative approach to your life.

5. Delivering Results that Are Quick and On-strategy – That’s Brainzooming

People have also said it’s not completely clear from the blog exactly what The Brainzooming Group does. There are various reasons for that – some of are intentional and others stem from the challenge of briefly describing what we do. Our experience suggests the easiest way for people to fully understand what we do is through seeing it in action. That’s where the excitement, speed, and solid results from compelling strategic thinking really hit home. We’ve just made an investment in an online collaborative platform which will allow us to extend the Brainzooming experience to more readers, but more on that later. This post does the best job so far, in getting what we do and the benefits we deliver down in writing.

Happy Exploring!

If you decide to check out these posts, thank you for your time to peruse them. If you happen to be a longer-term Brainzooming reader, are there other Brainzooming posts you’d suggest should be on the list?  - Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic creative thinking and ideas! For an organizational innovation success boost, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative plans to efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these benefits for you.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Today’s post is all in the picture, so email subscribers, please display the image to read the post.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Kansas Citian, Sarah Wood tweeted last night that she would like to read a blog post about ways to make sure you are staying focused while working at home during a blizzard. Since Kansas City is having its second blizzard in a few days, staying focused while working at home is a natural topic to address, at least in the center of the US.

@brainzooming I’d love to read a blog post about how to keep focused while working at home (in a blizzard).

— Sarah Wood (@hidama) February 26, 2013

Staying Focused While  Working at Home during a Blizzard

Here are my eight ideas for staying focused when your whole work team is “working” from home during a blizzard. And as was pointed out when I sneak previewed the list on Facebook last night, this is definitely oriented toward those without kids also at home for the day. That’s unfamiliar territory for me since we don’t have kids. While our feline Director of Enthusiasm demands attention, it’s every now and then, not fourteen hours straight. Because of this, your actual results may vary with these eight ideas!

1. Get up at your regular time.

Sure, you’re not going to have to commute, and you may not spend nearly as much time as you normally would getting ready, but the earlier head start you can get on your day’s to-do list, the sooner you’ll feel the warm glow from a sense of accomplishment.

2. Don’t watch updates about the weather.

You’re home. You’re not going anyplace. You have no need to be monitoring reports about ½-inch increases in snow totals or all the crap happening on the roads with people who didn’t have the sense to stay at home. So no Weather Channel, no local weather, no scanning endless Facebook photos of patios being covered in more and more snow. They’re all unnecessary time wasters today.

3. Work from a to-do list, but don’t go crazy with it.

Yes, if you play your cards right, you have a great opportunity to be more productive at home than when you’re at work, but it’s a marginal level of productivity improvement. Try to be ten or fifteen percent more productive (whatever that may mean for you). Forget about being 3x more productive; it isn’t going to happen.

4. Test your boss early.

At some point early in the day, ask a question or even better, send some type of update with a question attached, to your boss. This is the epitome of putting the ball in your boss’ court to see if your boss is focused on work tasks during the snow day. It’s all about being “visible” even during white out conditions.

5. Step your way through the day.

Set interim goals for throughout the day, i.e. by mid-morning, you want to have completed some specific to-do items or some number of them. Using a few interim goals, you have beneficial productivity stepping stones to help you focus throughout the day.

6. Make yourself take worthwhile breaks.

Don’t let yourself take a bunch of single-purpose breaks (i.e., stop to get a drink and then go right back to work). When you take a break, make it a worthwhile one. If you’re getting up to go get something to drink or go to the bathroom, look out the window, stretch, walk around, and then go back to work. Far better to take ten minutes and go back to work refreshed, than to take twenty breaks during an hour to stare out the window for 30 seconds each time.

7. If you have to visit Department Z, go ahead.

If you need a nap, take a quick nap. You know you catch a few winks during meetings (especially conference calls) or facing away from the opening of your cube when you’re at work, so go ahead and do it at home. Set a timer / alarm and crash during the afternoon if you need it.

8. Plan to wrap up the day early.

Take advantage of your early start, your to-do list focus, and your refreshing breaks to shoot to get your day’s work done 60 or 75 minutes earlier than you would if you were at the office. That’s the payback from your fifteen percent productivity improvement. Shovel, make a snowman, throw snowballs, or take a nap. Whatever you’ll enjoy doing, have at it!

How do you handle working at home during a blizzard?

What things do you do to make sure you are staying focused when you are working at home, especially now that you don’t have to spend time checking out job openings at Yahoo!? If you have kids, how do your staying focused strategies vary? - Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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