I think about these things a lot, especially when I’m speaking.  I think “my heavens, I need a new email signature.”

Why?

Because the current one isn’t communicating what I want it to communicate.

Here’s the old one, from this morning:

Any guesses on what each number means?  I’ll list them below, but here’s the new signature:

Here’s what each number is for:

1. This is a special string of characters I chose to tell JibberJobber to not make anything below it a log entry.  I could change it, and probably will, but this is a very important line, even though it really means nothing to anyone.
2. I think it’s important to put LinkedIn DVD, instead of just DVD.
3. I moved this description behind the link, to be consistent with the other lines.
4. I decided to take this off… my Twitter followers hasn’t necessarily grown, and if you really want to find me you can search for me.  We’ll see if I flop back on this one.
5. I took the JibberJobber mobile link out… I think there are more important things to communicate…. like the new line for my LinkedIn book!

Luckily I can change things as often as I want… make changes for yourself… if you hate it, you aren’t locked into anything!

Here are other posts one when I changed my signatures:

Today I (tearfully) retire my email signature
A new email signature

I just saw a link to a Harvard Business Review article by Jerry Weissman titled In Presentations, Kill Your Darlings.

I’ve talked a lot about being “concise,” but I’m not sure people know what that means.

So, here’s another way of saying it: GIVE THE SAME MESSAGE, BUT MAKE IT SHORTER.

In the spirit of keeping short, I’ll end with this: go read the post.  This applies to anyone who communicates (written, oral, body language, etc. :p).

I just finished the second draft of Eight Lunches.  Whew.

If you want to review it, leave a comment here and I’ll email it to you.

Here are the instructions for the review:

1. I’m sending a word document in case you are dying to leave anything specific in the document (with Track Changes).  I do not want too much of this, though, because last time I was overwhelmed to the point of paralysis and didn’t know how to digest it.  So, do it if you must, otherwise, see #3.
2. I’m sending it to my editor after I compile the feedback… so don’t worry about grammar, spelling, flow, etc.
3. I’d love one or two paragraphs, or some bullet points, of your feedback. I’m specifically looking for feedback that will help me make this tighter, better, stronger.  Feel free to be critical and negative… so I can find out what bugs people about what I’ve done.
4. IF YOU WANT TO ENDORSE THE BOOK I CAN PUT YOUR ENDORSEMENT IN THE BOOK… with a link to your company, etc.

I think that’s it… pretty simple… again, if you want to see it, please leave a comment on this other post.

I’d like to get this to the editor in the next 30 days… so I’d appreciate any thoughts in the next week or two. If you are a deadline person, consider July 31 your deadline

Monday I gave feedback to Brad Merrill about HOW he let others know about his blog… today I want to write about a blog post (his second post).

Brad titled the post What is Ethical Behavior?  It’s a good question which really came out after the Enron thing… as an accountant Brad should have some good thoughts.

First Thought

It is toooooooooo loooooooooooooooong.

This post has 1,535 words and would print of on almost four full pages!

I couldn’t read it.  It’s simply too long.

Here’s an idea, though: take this four page post and break it up into three or four posts.

Call it a series and make it easier to read for ME.

The beauty of this idea is it is now easier to write for Brad.  Why?  If he takes one “post” and breaks it down, he now has one to two weeks of blog posts already written!

Let me say this another way – if he spent an hour on that post, and then thought about spending an hour on every post, and wrote two to three times a week, he’d spend quite a bit of time writing blog posts.  Okay sometimes, but sometimes that hour just isn’t available.

What if he took this one hour and had all the writing for one or two weeks done?

That is more sustainable, over the long haul.

Second Thought

Give me more personal stuff.  The first page (above the fold) has two references to dictionary definitions… I have to scroll down before I see if there’s some Brad Merrill personality.

Instead of starting off with a page of sources, I would have liked to see him launch into a story from his past rich work history:

• I was consulting a client when _______
• I remember being faced with an ethical dilemma when my boss _______
• My first major ethical conundrum came when my client _______

Wouldn’t a line like that be more interesting?  I’d want to read what an accountant has faced … not the bean counting boring stuff, but some conflict, how it was handled, what he had to think through, etc.

My point is, make it personal.  I want to read about BRAD MERRILL, not what the dictionary says.

So these are my thoughts as Brad Merrill starts his blogging journey.  Really, he has a great start… I’m excited to see him mature and evolve as a blogger

My friend Brad Merrill took the plunge and started a blog.

It has the potential to be an awesome personal branding tool for himself, and I applaud what he’s doing.

This is the first of two posts where I’m going to give feedback (with his permission) on his nascent strategy.  Today I’ll talk about how he let me (and hundreds of others) know about the blog.

It’s important to let others know you have a blog… not just once but frequently.  Be careful how you do it, however, because no one wants an email each time you write a new blog post (unless they opt in to a newsletter, or something like that).

Here’s Brad’s message I got last night:

There are a few things I like about this email, and perhaps a line or two I don’t care for.  Instead of critiquing the entire thing, I want to focus on TWO things:

The Length.

The length of this message is PERFECT.  If it were any longer I’d get lost, or not read it, or save it for later, or something like that.  If it were shorter I might feel like he’s just spamming me and a million others with “read my blog!”  It is sincere, concise, and very focuses.

The Question in Yellow.

This jumped out at me the most.  At first I thought “COOL, a professional blog” (as opposed to a personal blog).

But then, when I read the question “if you have some things you would like to (to) see me write about,” tell me.

That’s when I thought “where’s the focus?”

Indeed, reading through the email again I realized I had no idea what the theme, or topics, of the blog are. Is it a personal blog? Is it a professional blog?  What exactly does Brad do, or think about?

If Brad could help me understand this, even if it’s just a reminder (some people know, but a reminder doesn’t hurt), he would have used this email as a branding tool, and helped reinforce his personal brand to his contacts (whether they clicked over to the blog or not).

At a minimum he could have said:

I am going to write about ______ and ______.  My last post talks about ethical behavior.

To take it up a notch he could have said something like:

As a professional accountant I see a lot of interesting things.  I’ll write posts about my expertise (sales and use tax and financial accounting) and keep it interesting with stories and examples. I will probably write about my passions, including watch collecting) and try to always tie the posts back to business ideas. Whether you are an accountant or just interested in business, I hope to have relevant content for you.  If you have any ideas or questions, please let me know, as I begin this journey.

In the first email he reinforces his brand.  In the second email he drills down a bit more so people understand more of his breadth and depth… even if they don’t become blog readers they will know what some of his specialties and passions are.

“Where’s the focus” was my first thought, the second thought was: missed branding opportunity.

Next post I’ll critique his second blog post.

Every once in a while I’ll see a CNN video clip and the commercial is usually (hopefully) a JetBlue commercial.  I absolutely LOVE these commercials.  Here’s one of my favorites:

Oh my gosh – BRILLIANT!

UPDATE BELOW…

Taking a quick break from my book thingy…

I have migrated over to Gmail and Google Apps (which allows me to have gmail functionality on my business email) completely … and I have one major beef that would be simple to fix.

In Outlook, when I start a new email, or reply, my EMAIL SIGNATURE is put at the top of the message, no matter how long the message was (in other words, even if I’m replying to a message it is at the top, NOT the bottom).

In Gmail, if I reply to a message my EMAIL SIGNATURE is put at the BOTTOM of the entire thread… which means I have to go to the bottom, cut the sig, go back to the top and paste it.  It’s a pretty lame way of doing it… and I’m guessing just an oversite… but seriously, you’d make my life 10 times easier if you just put the signature at the top of the email on all messages (new and replies)…

What do ya think – can you do that for me?  Pretty please?

UPDATE: Twitter works!  Gmail didn’t necessarily fix it because of Twitter, but I got my solution from Julius Solaris:

That link is a step-by-step description of how to accomplish what I want using Google Labs – it’s basically another setting I just had to turn on…. THANK YOU Julius – and Gmail – get that out of labs

One of my favorite blog posts here is called Fake Metrics.

Seth Godin recently wrote a post titled Viral growth trumps lots of faux followers. In it he talks about how to grow… let me assume he’s talking about growing a list of evangelists.

In his post he points out a few variables that contribute to REAL, solid, sustainable, valuable growth.

Factor 1: the rate of growth

Factor 2: how good your IDEA is

Read his short post to see how it works – the basic conclusion is that if you want to have a strong group of evangelists, and the growth you get from that, you must have a good idea.

Even a *slightly* better idea can lead to terrific growth results (represented by the purple line).

How good is your idea?  Or are you just working on getting fake metrics?

After my video guy did the first edition of the What is JibberJobber intro I asked my Twitter people for feedback.  Karin Hermans responded with links to two resources… THANK YOU KARIN!

Here’s a link to Octane’s video, which she really liked.

Here’s a link to a blog post titled The Key to Effective Communications – Scope vs. Detail.  Great stuff there.

And here’s the second edition of the video we created:

Here’s another great resource and discussion on social media… Sean Nelson asks the question and gets terrific responses on LinkedIn… click here to read it. (you have to be a member of the Linked Strategies Group on LinkedIn)

If you want some hands-on training from me, check out my newly announced program.