Cleaning Out the Brainzooming Blog House for 2011

My office is filled with blogging notebooks full of potential ideas for future blog posts. On our Christmas trip to Western Kansas, I must have taken 5 or 6 notebooks, plus Word documents full of additional blog idea starters in the hopes of building a cushion of completed blog posts again. While a cache of blog topic ideas typically yields time efficiency benefits, having blog topics laying around can also be a creative drag at times.

Blogging Topic Ideas that Aren’t Going Anywhere in 2012

Since the New Year is a typical time to clean out old junk at our house, it seemed like the right time to clean my blogging idea house, sharing snippets that clearly don’t seem headed for full blog posts any time soon.

• A client’s product is always the star, even when it isn’t.
• When you’re in the middle of a conference call, pause to ask for reactions, even if you don’t really want them. If you’re going to hear a bad message, better to learn it sooner than later and be able to address it.
• Always have a pre-meeting before the real meeting. It’s a great way to get a preview of what MIGHT happen at the real meeting.
• You meet fewer people at a conference when you’re typing your notes instead of live tweeting them. That’s all the more reason to live tweet.
• Some people have a knack for creating legends from their own lives. I’m completely opposite of those people.
• Don’t spend so much time and effort trying to go home again. You left for a reason. Look forward.
• What sound do your pet peeves make? I think mine mainly growl.
• I heard someone say Albert Einstein didn’t know his own phone number. Supposedly Albert Einstein didn’t want to waste his brain on insignificant things. That’s one of those things that is nearly impossible to verify, but you so hope is true.
• Need a writing creativity boost? Change keyboards. Also try changing your writing software.
• If you really like using PowerPoint to present, put yourself into a situation where you CAN’T use it. It calls on different presenting “muscles” you really need to develop.
• It’s so much less complicated to think about someone else’s business than your own. (That’s one reason you need to think about hiring us to help you think about and take action on your business.)
• Pick one big numerical goal at the start of the year and stick with it. A friend had 170 networking meetings in 2010, and it paved the way for a very successful business year in 2011.
• The best quote of my high school reunion came from a classmate who said, “Never argue with an idiot. If you lower yourself to their level to argue, they’ll just beat you with their superior experience.”
• The most infuriating thing on Twitter? Someone who sends you a Twitter direct message question and you can’t respond via direct message because they don’t follow you.
• It’s worth the time to figure out which of your strengths is also, on the surface, a weakness.
• Don’t let your collateral (or your website) become the old furniture you don’t notice anymore even though everyone else who see notices it is completely outdated.
• With the intersection of multiple generations in the workplace today, you’re completely wrong-headed if you’re not spending time with people who are markedly younger and older than you.
• There are a variety of career strategies that won’t work well for you in the long-term. Getting the attention of your boss by trapping them in mistakes has to be near the top of the list.
• The charts on Klout are complete crap. Seriously. There, I said it.
• Experiment in every low risk situation you find or that finds you.
• Just because you haven’t used something doesn’t mean it’s in “like new” condition. Unused resources (and talents) atrophy. Develop and use them while you can.
• Why is it that “comedian’s comedians” are hardly ever popular successes?  - Mike Brown