Do You Play An Open, Generous Game When Networking?
For the past couple of months, I have had about eight games of Words With Friends (electronic Scrabble ®) on the go at any one time on my iPhone. Thinking about playing Words With Friends (WWF) has led me to thinking about networking, because networking needs strategic planning, as does this game. You need to network with people with whom you are comfortable; can trust and with whom you can work to each other’s mutual benefit.
When you request an “ad hoc” opponent with whom to play WWF, it will probably be a stranger and may well be someone quite experienced in the strategies of the game. As you play with different opponents, you begin to see individuals have their own ways of approaching the game of word building.
One strategy is to make lots of very small, very tight moves; words of only two or three letters at a time which make it very difficult for you to open up the board and to allow you play a move with a great flourish. The words will move in a pattern across and down, or across and up the board in a confronting manner, giving you a sense of being in retreat even before the game has really gotten under way. Opportunities to integrate double and triple letter and word scores seem limited indeed, yet such a player will often score well over 400 points in a single game.
They have learned and they love the unique allowable combinations of two and three letters that WWF will accept as legitimate words. QI is allowable, as is its plural QIS, but IQ is not. PI is fine. OX, AH, UN will be accepted, but not GI. Playing against them, you rapidly begin to see how they can take a very small word and build it into something that scores very highly indeed , creeping their way across the board using double and triple scoring spaces. Giving away very little; making no room for anyone else; often leaving you to make you next move, while facing a vertical line of letters which is almost impenetrable.
They have mastered the art of filling in all the tiny spaces; letting no opportunities to score escape, while you stare in bewilderment at your handful of consonants and vowels that keep arranging themselves into familiar words of five and six letters – with nowhere to place them on the board.
In WWF, the high scoring letters are usually the most difficult to place – especially since they come randomly to hand: Z, J, and Q, each with a score of 10 points. The letters X = 8; V, K, = 5; M, Y, W, C, B, P, F, = 4 and the others rate 3 points or less. Coupled with being able to use double and triple word scores; turning singles into plurals by adding an “S”; using infill with a single letter like an X to turn an “O” into OX on a triple letter square, means knowing the strategic value of two and three letter words soon builds a very high score.
HA+J, J+AB, J+AM, J+AR, J+AW, J+AY, J+ET, J+IN, J+O, J+OE, J+OW, J+OY, J+UN, J+US, J+UT, TA+J, SUK, ED, DA, HI, JO, OW, ER, FA, YE, OX, TI, XI all find their way into their scores. They are very familiar with the 55 two-letter combinations WWF will accept and on which they can build.
If their style of play leaves you cold, you can retort with an allowable BRR, protest against their last word with a TSK or a HMM, which is when you are thinking longer and deeper than when you just HM. If you really don’t like their play, give them a PFFT, chill them right out with a BRRR or catch their attention with a PSST! Of course, they may tell you to SSH while they diminish your chances of winning to the NTH degree. If deeply troubled by them, you can TSKTSK – but only if you have a blank because there is only one letter K to use in Words With Friends. Since blanks have no scoring value, you might prefer to save your valuable T, S and blank – unless you are really ticked off.
How comfortable would you be, in engaging this opponent as a business partner? Would you admire and want to emulate them, for their ability to control the game; take all the big scores; limit the opportunity for your opponents (competition) to interact and expand their game, while making them uncomfortable about being moved in your chosen direction?
Conversely, would you be comfortable networking with the same person, where the name of the game is to support each other; share business referrals and open up opportunities for each other?
Comments on this article are welcome! Keep in touch with updated Business Tips articles – by joining our What’s New mailing list at Get All The New News At Stories My Nana Tells
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Is Social Media Helping Or Hindering Your Productivity?
The major complaint about “Social Media” is that it either wastes your time or it is not effective for business. Like all activities within your business, the use of Social Media needs to be structured and focussed. You would not spend thousands of dollars on advertising without carefully deciding on your target market; the actions you want them to take and the words you use to attract their attention. Using Social Media for business is exactly the same, but with much less cost.
We have a wide range of Social Media resources for business at our fingertips – and these are my favourites (although not necessarily in this order):
- email group lists,
- Website blog,
- Facebook business pages ,
- a couple of Twitter accounts ,
- about twenty LinkedIn Groups,
- some new Google+ circles which are still a WIP.
- Two or three excellent online community groups on Facebook and Ning, which add a variety of information, views and options for expanding my business network and circles of influence, especially my passion for the environment and conservation of Black Cockatoos and endangered species.
You see, Social Media is not so much what we say – but where and how we say it. Social Media is more the way we distribute the message, rather than the message itself. To be effective in Social Media we learn how to speak to our audiences in different ways, at different times.
Twitter conversations are short, pithy and have lots of links. Facebook posts are more in depth and invite short or long comments – depending on the topic, as does LinkedIn.
To effectively use Social Media needs time:
- to learn how to use the right “language’ for different platforms
- to create your own content ;
- to write, spell check, grammar check and proof read;
- check all your website links are working;
- to post in the primary site;
- to share with the appropriate networks and
- to respond to your audience when they connect to you
You also need to allocate
- time to find out how different platforms work most effectively
- time to explore your platforms and
- time to respond to and share the content of others, because Social Media is just that: social.
There is nothing more destructive to your online Social Media profile than not responding to comments and RT’s – until you get to be so famous and popular that everyone understands you just don’t have time to talk to everyone. Think of Stephen Fry. Or Justin Beiber.
With resources like Ping, Shareaholic and others, we can spread our Social Media posts far and wide, seeking interaction with our target audience, which will grow rapidly with a good newsletter and contact form on our website and Facebook page.
Using lists on Facebook and Twitter in the same way as we do with email mailing lists means we can be focused on with whom and when we want to communicate on a specific topic. Our focus with Social Media is to be disciplined, targeted and productive.
One way to be focused on being efficient while using Social Media, because it can be extremely distracting and time wasting if we are not careful, is to work through one Social Media platform at a time.
- If it is LinkedIn –do that until it is all done. Meaning respond to messages, answer one to two questions if appropriate and accept invitations to connect. It may mean creating an event or responding to an invitation yourself.
- When blogging, write and share from the BLOG post itself to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin etc and trust it will be read.
- Learn the different ways to post to your Facebook business page as either yourself or as the business and vary your content accordingly.
- If you are working through your email box, and a LinkedIn message pops up as an email to which you want to comment or reply, deal with it as email – not as LinkedIn. Approving and replying to comments on your blogs falls into the email category, because every comment is will be emailed to you and you can approve and reply from your iPhone as easily as you can from the website.
- When commenting on a blog post or website, use your own Gravatar ID which is not only more efficient but links all your responses to more than one of your own Internet contact points – thus broadening your potential audience to your own internet presence.
This approach will make your Social Media activities far more productive; you will find yourself far less distracted and enjoying your Social Media experience much more. If you would like to comment or ask questions about this article, we would love to hear from you.
St Patricks Day Hacker Nearly Put Me Out Of Business
Doing a bit of a scan of my systems for something on St Patrick’s day, I came across this from March 22, 1999. I thought it would be fun to put it up, thirteen years later.
St Patrick’s Day Hacker Nearly Put Me Out Of Business
On St Patrick’s day 1999, we were completely trashed by a hacker and then found out our backup tapes haven’t been working since the 5th Feb 1999 – so we had lost the records of the last 6 weeks work, in an office that was totally digital.
Basically someone put a ‘backdoor’ virus into our Linux operating system, to open on St Patrick’s Day – 17th March. We found out about 14 other sites had the same thing happen. We lost our logs, had our O/S chewed up and data trashed. Apparently, it has been resident on our ‘slave’ backup computer since installation as part of the original programme.
????? What!!! (Yes, it turned out later that our IT guy was installing from a master disc that had the bug in it, supplying the discs licensed to us, BUT not using them for the installations He also was failing to check the back up tape system was working correctly).
Our IT guy tracked down at least one of the computers attacked as having been sourced from site 206.239.27.81, by a user who logged in under the name “moof” We were still waiting to hear from Red Hat Dist 5.0 in the US, to see if they know about this and whether they have a patch to block the hole.
???? What!!!! (Yes, there was a patch but our IT guy was either too lazy or too dumb to install it!)
We had a good recovery programme in place and were back on track by the end of the month.
At the time, we were running Linux Kernel versions 2.0.32 – some of the programmes were broken into and some were not. None of the Linux Kernel version 2.0.35were accessed.
We upgraded to a Pentium III with 128mg RAM and installed a CD writer. With a 10 gb hard drive, we started to save to the C drive, as well as the slave. (this C drive is turned off every night)
???What!!! Yes, no more Linux for this little black duck – give me good old Microsoft with some accountability.
We did a tape backup every day and started saving our data to a CD disc once a week. Additional cost $4700 for new equipment – four days down time for me.
Lost staff working time for recovery – about two weeks full time for two staff. Total cost – about $10,000.
Hopefully, after this, we will be safe from attack, both within and without.
???What!! You didn’t sue the IT guy for total incompentence? Nah – we just got some new ones (still have them, actually) who know what they are doing and who give great service.)
It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken.
Lesley Dewar
Certified Financial Planner
Australia
22nd March 1999.
Exceptional Quality – Remarkable Company – Great Networking
An Invitation to Breakfast on March 9, 2012.
I was fortunate enough to enjoy the exceptional quality of several of the Proteus Leadership Breakfast series in 2011 and in fact took the time to write one of them up in my blog. ‘Fess It Up and Fix it
Proteus have generously offered the opportunity for me to invite nine friends to their first Leadership Breakfast in Perth as my guests and I would like to extend the invitation to you, to be one of the nine who join me for an inspiring session at the Pan Pacific Hotel (formerly the Sheraton).
Richard Dore’s advice to “Fess It Up and Fix It” was an engaging session on empowering staff to respond to customer’s issues and fix them, rather than escalate them; that good customer service pays off and teaching staff how to provide good service is an investment rather than a cost. Empower them, he said, and then get out of the way while they get on with it.
Proteus certainly endorses learning and networking as key elements in developing Leadership Skills This is a gift – to introduce you to their business and their remarkable leadership workshops. I hope you will join us!
Please send me a SMS to 0417925502 to confirm you are accepting this invitation and we will be in touch closer to the date.
Warmest regards
Lesley Dewar
Media Update – Contact Details for WA Govt MLA and MLC
To assist anyone who wishes to contact various Members of the Western Australian Government regarding issues that concern them, here are some useful links.
When sending emails or written correspondence to Members of Parliament, it is good etiquette to use their correct titles of office and any other suffixes that are appropriate for them individually. There are correct forms of address when contacting your (or any) Member of Parliament, depending on their role in the Government or Opposition and in which house they sit.
How Do I Address A Member Of Parliament?
The Premier and the Cabinet.
Each Member has an email address (to their official office) listed along with a link to their individual websites through which you can send a personal message to The Premier and each Cabinet Minister.
Their Office Telephone Numbers and Fax numbers are also listed.
The Premier of WA and Cabinet Ministers
All Members of Parliament
Members of the MLA (Legislative Assembly) are in the lower house and from which Government is formed. Members of the MLC (Legislative Council) are in the upper house and review of legislative bills put forward. Members of the current Government are drawn from both the lower (MLAs) and upper (MLCs) and the various Shadow Ministers of the Opposition are similarly sourced.
This list has some excellent options, such as being able to collate:
- email addresses
- websites
- office locations
There is a range of search options available as well as the facility to print off mailing labels.
These links provide valuable information about the processes of Government in Western Australia and we request you respect the offices of our Elected Government Members.
List of All Members of Parliament of Western Australia
Why are we providing these links?
Because Stories My Nana Tells is a passionate supporter of conserving our unique native forests and wildlife and this will be a way to help you contact your local Member of Parliament and the Cabinet to express your views.
Channel 10 Perth News Broadcast after interviews at Kaarakin Black Cockatoo Rescue Centre in the Perth Hills on Jan 16, 2012
Channel 10 News Items at Kaarakin Black Cockatoo Rescue Centre Jan 16, 2012
These links to the offices of Elected Politicians have been sourced from the official website of the Western Australian Government, with the expectation that should any changes occur within the Government of the day, the websites will be updated accordingly and the information should remain current. Leaving this website to use any links means you accept that this website has no control over the information provided on external sites.
#FacebookTip – Announcing Winners!
Announcing Your Facebook Competition Winners.
One of the things that is very important to understand about choosing to promote your business on Facebook with quizzes, competitions and even applications like FAN OF THE WEEK is that Facebook Terms Of Service specifically exclude using your Facebook page to announce the winners!
If you are not familiar with them, you can review the Terms Of Service on Facebook through this link: Facebook Promotion Guidelines
In particular, we are looking at these items:
1. Promotions on Facebook must be administered within Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or an app on a Page Tab. (we are using Fan Of The Week – Facebook App), and
6. You must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles (timelines) or Pages.
To ensure that we comply, we will be making announcing our Fan Of The Week through our website – as we have done with this first new post. Fan Of The Week – Jan 10, 2012
Our apologies to early Fans Of The Week – whose winning announcements have been subsequently overwritten, as happens every week when using the application.
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Lesley Dewar is a well known blogger and workshop facilitator who writes regularly on Social Media, marketing and customer service in the category of Business Tips and she is the principal author at Stories My Nana Tells Her free eBook can be downloaded directly at Networking To a Plan Sharing this article is permitted providing this footnote is not deleted – all rights reserved. (c) Lesley Dewar 2012
Walking and Talking With WIBWA
Networking is an excellent way to meet and get to know new people with whom you can share ideas, offer suggestions and get feedback on your business. It’s always great when you can do some networking in a new and interesting way and hats off to Jennifer Rose Bryant of Women In Business WA for her inspirational group of women – with whom I walked and talked this morning. My TShirt was given to me by The Upbeat Dad (Rodrick Walters) when he and his family took me to my first game of US Baseball in Miami!
Walking And Talking With WIBWA
This is not my first time walking and talking with Jennifer’s group – I managed to complete the 6km walk on my first outing on September 19 last year. The ladies in this group are very inspirational, high achievers and big supporters of each other. One key member is Janette Philp who led a group last year to trek the Kokoda Trail and they raised over $125,000 for Breast Cancer Care WA . It took them ten months to train for the arduous terrain in Papua New Guinea and their book about the trek and the personal stories of the women who participated is both heart warming and challenging at the same time. I urge you to get a copy from Janette’s website and read it. You will look differently at these “ordinary” Perth business women you can meet at breakfast or on a walk.
Fitness – Not Fashion
On my first walk, I wore a pair of Klouds slip-ons – very comfortable and fully supportive of my arches, etc – but the ladies (all fully rigged with ergonomically designed runners) were not convinced, even when I did 6km on my first effort. So, off I went to the Athlete’s Foot, got measured and tested and kitted out with a pair of runners that cost me over $200. Yes, they are very comfortable and probably are doing a better job than the slip-ons. I wore them today for the third time, walking and talking. I am hoping I don’t pull up sore, this time, though.
Now, I know it’s a long time from September until January – but there is a good reason why my runners have had so few outings. They were packed for the trip to Melbourne at the end of September, when I set off to see the King Tut exhibition – something I have wanted to see ever since my friend from Cleveland, Susie Sharp told me about it and shared some of her own photos with me on Facebook. The trip was planned as a triangle – going via Darwin, where I would catch up with Bronwyn Clee who came down from Darwin for the Global Women’s Summit we held in Perth in July after my return from the US. With her help, I arranged to read some of my stories to kids in schools, booked a coffee and cake morning to meet local Mums and then go on to Melbourne. As it happened, the three legged trip had much cheaper airfares, too. The only disappointment was that Bronwyn had to fly out to LA the morning I arrived and I was supported by her network in Darwin.
Dropped Like a Stone, in Darwin
While I was in Darwin a previously unknown and undiagnosed ovarian cyst saw me off to hospital in an ambulance for emergency surgery and a few days stay in the Royal Darwin Hospital. It was the size of two thirds of a box of tissues; I was too ill to risk being flown back to Perth and the admin and medical staff were just fabulous. They got the hotel in which I was staying to pack up my room and deliver my belongings to the Hospital and this large, red crocodile suitcase followed me around from station to station until we knew what was wrong with me and how long I would be staying.
I remember when the technician was doing the ultrasound while we were trying to source the site of my incredible pain and I looked at the screen and said “is that dark patch the mesh from my hernia operation, last year?” He looked at me, slightly askance and said “no, that is your cyst,” to which I replied “cyst, what cyst????” My mind began connecting the dots: ovary, ovarian cyst, ovarian cancer, usually too late when they find it – and I did a mental internal scan and decided NO, I do not have ovarian cancer. The technician was not so sure but I knew it to be the case and subsequent tests showed there were no pre-cancerous cells nor existing cancer.
The fun came when we had to arrange my flight with Qantas back to Perth from Darwin and I needed my credit card. My mobile phone had been with me all this time (three days) and there had been lots of fun on Facebook and Twitter – it saved my sanity, I think. When we retrieved my suitcase and personal belongings, the little brown envelope in which my security receipt was stored gave us lots of fun and the opportunity for many mad comments on Facebook.
Of course, that was the end of my trip to see King Tut and the next eight weeks were spent recovering from a sizable incision down the length of my tummy. If you follow Stories My Nana Tells (Facebook) on Facebook, you will know that during those eight weeks, I spent some time house and cat sitting for Lisa and Warren; did some #ScienceAtWork with a dead, cooked chook and then hatched two little chickens, posted as #DayOldChick.
Back On Track
My brand new, virginal runners were taken out for the final WomenInBusinessWA Walking and Talking event in December, 2011 – but I was only able to walk about 500 meters, before I had to turn around and go back. Since then, especially in the New Year, I have started swimming and walking in water for 30 minutes a day three or four times a week and doing a stint on the treadmill a couple of times a week as well. Building up my core strength and improving my fitness proved itself today: with a 6km walk under my belt with no trouble at all.
While we two may not have been as fast as the other ladies who do this and other walking, I had a great time walking and talking with Ruth Jenkins of Ruth Jenkins (Sina Solutions) . We got on very well, networked like there is no tomorrow and found many interests in common. She absolutely needs to be introduced to my friend Nicole Ashby of Nicole Ashby (FIFO Families)
If you are a business woman in Perth, I strongly recommend not just Walking and Talking, but networking regularly with an extraordinary group of very down to earth women at Women In Business WA By the way – they are having a breakfast next Wednesday January 18. Will we see you there?
How To Get 6,500 Facebook Fans For Free!
Do You Know A Simple Way To Get 6,500 Facebook Fans?
Would you like to get 6,500 Facebook Fans to share your Facebook page with their friends? What do you think that might cost? How about being able to do that for FREE?
Your Facebook Fan page is intended to open a window to your business and make it easy for potential new customers to buy from you.
- Research shows most people need five or six contacts before they feel comfortable enough to buy online.
- Do YOU have the time to keep bringing people back to your Facebook Fan page – to see your latest offer?
- Are you spending a lot of time on Facebook, liking other pages; leaving links to your own page and hoping that you will get return visits from fans.
If you want your Facebook page to be a successful window to your business, you must have a strategic plan to get new fans and return visitors to both your website and your Facebook page
What is the simple strategy?
Here is a very simple strategy to help you and five other businesses on Facebook to build their Facebook fans and Website visitors, every week.
On Your Facebook Page, select FIVE other pages as your Featured Likes for a week.
- agree with each of those page owners to have their page listed as a featured like
- agree you will each share at least two of each other’s links during the week
- help them build their fan base through your Facebook page.
Six Facebook pages (yours and five others) will be getting their posts shared to a widening base of fans and everyone will see their fan base on Facebook grow very quickly.
Who should you choose?
Choose Facebook page businesses that are supportive of your niche market but not in direct competition with you.
For example, Stories My Nana Tells has a niche market for children aged 7 – 12 yo and especially with parents who work either away from home (#FIFO) or long hours that keep them away from home and their growing children.
While it is great to support other business pages from a social point of view – remember you are running a Facebook business page to build YOUR business and direct traffic to YOUR website. Do you think that sounds harsh; too tough?
How do you do it?
Every week during the year, edit your Facebook page to select FIVE Fans as Featured Likes on your page. Do this 52 times during the year – once every week. The key to doing more business through your Facebook page is getting more FIRST time visitors to your Facebook page and to your Website in such a way that they are reminded regularly of your business and what you do. How do you do that? By building good, ongoing interactions with the owners of your Featured Pages. If only 25 fans of 260 Featured pages respond to your post about them, you will have 6,500 new fans in a year.
Don’t forget that the five Facebook pages Featured as Likes on your Facebook page will want your posts sharing their links to help them get more fans and do more business, too. The more links that are shared, the higher their pages will rank in the Facebook news feed and more fans will see their posts. What works for them will work for you, too.
Your Facebook Page
Your Facebook landing page should ensure that new visitors “Like” the page when they first arrive – and then get directed to your Website. Take them to a specific page dedicated to Facebook visitors, with a quick exit link back to your Facebook Fan Page. It is important that they know your website is where you do business!
To quote Mike Haydon of SEO Perth “Always remember, though, that the purpose of social media is to build a relationship with people, then continue the conversation on your Base of Operations (aka your website). The last thing you want is to spend years building up a vibrant community on a site, only for it to go the way of Myspace, leaving you scrambling to hold onto them. No-one thought Myspace would fail. Facebook could well go that way if or when something better comes along.”
It takes a degree of commitment, planning and trust to implement this strategy – it offers great rewards for those who are prepared to think of their Facebook page as an integral page of their own website. Stories My Nana Tells would love you to become a Facebook fan at Stories My Nana Tells Facebook Page
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Lesley Dewar is a well known blogger and workshop facilitator who writes regularly on Social Media, marketing and customer service in the category of Business Tips and she is the principal author at Stories My Nana Tells Her free eBook can be downloaded directly at Networking To a Plan Sharing this article is permitted providing this footnote is not deleted – all rights reserved. (c) Lesley Dewar 2012
