I’m an old-fashioned girl. Because of this, I try to only “LinkIn” to people I actually know.

My philosophy is grounded in the spirit of LinkedIn which is all about being a network of trusted connections. How can I trust a connection if I don’t know them? And why would I unleash a stranger on the network that I have carefully built?

When someone I don’t know (or barely know) invites me to LinkIn with them, I tell them about my old-fashioned ways. And then I always say that I would be happy to sit down with them over coffee (or by phone if they’re not in the area) to get to know each other better. After which I’d be happy to connect on LinkedIn.

I typically get a very positive response from people, and this approach has worked well for me.

Recently, however, I was involved in an exchange that was a terrific (and funny) example of what I try not to do with LinkedIn. This is a verbatim email exchange between me and someone I had talked with for maybe 5 minutes at an event. Let’s call the person “Mr. X.” Notice that Mr. X does not use my name in the salutation because this was a mass email sent to everyone he met at the event: Read More -›

My friend Joe Hallinan has just come out with a new book Why We Make Mistakes, and he has a related Op-Ed piece in the New York Times this past Sunday. He talks about how fresh eyes bring really do see things that others more familiar with the material miss.

In the Op-Ed piece he provides some great examples of how experts failed to see glaring errors that were in the public domain for years and yet, they were eventually identified by novices. This included a first grader who noticed “that a popular library book depicted a meat-eating dinosaur as an herbivore.” You can read The Young And The Perceptive here. Read More -›

BASICS EVERY BUSINESS SHOULD TACKLE


As part of Washington Business Tonight’s Consulting series, I was asked to talk about three common marketing mistakes that small to mid-sized businesses often make. These can be summed up by “Do, Reach, Say.”


Watch the interview here and let me know if you agree!