Issue No. 24 June 19, 2013

Raising the Barr Weekly Memo: Are You Walking Your Walk?

Raising the Barr is a weekly memo, which is always pithy, powerful and succinct. It focuses on innovative ideas by maximizing your life and business while leveraging strategy, content, technology and the web, to help you transform the success.

This week’s reflection point: How often do you talk with an expert only to then realize that they are great at giving advice rather than following it? In other words, they either have not implemented or do not use their own expertise.

For example: The contractor who has never finished remodeling his own house or the software developer who is not using his own software. One other such example is the business strategist who has not yet formulated and implemented the proper strategy for his or her own business.

This reminds me of the old story about the cobbler’s children having no shoes. My assertion here is that if your focus is on helping your clients thrive, you better demonstrate that your own business is thriving. And the reason it is thriving is because you have taken and applied your own advice.

This week’s tip: So ask yourself this simple question: Are you walking your own walk? If not, it’s time you do!

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Privacy statement: Your email address is never shared with anyone for any reason.

Check out my podcast series called Raising the Barr on iTunes.

If you’d like to reach me email: chad@cbsoftware.com
or call my direct line: 440-394-8004
http://www.chadbarr.com

© Chad Barr 2013. All Rights Reserved.

Issue No. 23 June 12, 2013

Raising the Barr Weekly Memo: Proper Attribution Please

Raising the Barr is a weekly memo, which is always pithy, powerful and succinct. It focuses on innovative ideas by maximizing your life and business while leveraging strategy, content, technology and the web, to help you transform the success.

This week’s reflection point: It was only a few years ago as my daughter, Sharon, while preparing for her ordination as a Rabbi, attended the service and sermon given by another classmate. To her amazement the entire sermon sounded eerily familiar and Sharon immediately realized she had written and presented it the previous year. She was listening to a plagiarized version of her own sermon! Sharon was never given any credit for her intellectual property.

I’ve come to realize that as we strengthen our own thought leadership and the more successful we become, the more people will copy our work. I’ve seen this happen with individuals who completely copy our web designs, our ideas, our content and that of our clients. There is a fine line between the need to legally protect our intellectual property and encouraging others to follow in our footsteps.

I am always flattered and appreciative when individuals contact me for the permission to use one of my ideas or even my content. I gladly do so as long as they either change it to uniquely reflect their brand, or hopefully even improve on the idea. The proper attribution to where the idea came from is what I pay most attention to.

It was amazing to listen to Marshall Goldsmith several years ago during Alan Weiss’s Thought Leadership Symposium. I was especially impressed by Marshall’s sharing of how impactful Peter Drucker was on his career. “I used to even carry his briefcase” he said.

In my recent video, 9 Tips On How To Leverage Your Content To Increase Your Success, notice I incorporate the proper accreditation into my words when discussing the concept of crowd sourcing.

I’m always appreciative and grateful when others use and share my ideas and intellectual property and it is a trademark of an individual with integrity who always gives proper credit where credit is due. They never feel threatened by openly admitting that they are sharing an idea that is not originally theirs. From my perspective, that is the ultimate difference between thought leadership or lack there of.

This week’s tip: Don’t be intimidated to share others’ ideas and thoughts with your audience and give the owner credit. It puts you in the company of greatness.

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking here.

Privacy statement: Your email address is never shared with anyone for any reason.

Check out my podcast series called Raising the Barr on iTunes.

If you’d like to reach me email: chad@cbsoftware.com
or call my direct line: 440-394-8004
http://www.chadbarr.com

© Chad Barr 2013. All Rights Reserved.

Issue No. 22 June 5, 2013

Raising the Barr Weekly Memo: What’s Your Story?

Raising the Barr is a weekly memo, which is always pithy, powerful and succinct. It focuses on innovative ideas by maximizing your life and business while leveraging strategy, content, technology and the web, to help you transform the success.

This week’s reflection point: It was back on September 1999, when CNN reported that NASA lost their $125 million Mars orbiter. That confusion was caused due to one engineering team using the English units of measurement and the other using the metric system.

Surprising, isn’t it? Wouldn’t this be a great story and example for new content we could develop to illustrate the critical aspects of communication among our teams?

Just this morning, The Wall Street Journal reported that Dell is expanding its alliance with Oracle. Lenovo seeks a partner for smartphones. IBM is planning to buy SoftLayer and Salesforce to buy ExactTarget.

Not surprising, right? Wouldn’t these be great stories and examples for another piece of content that demonstrates the need to constantly grow and reinvent our business?

The IBM Unsubscribe Saga is a great video example of leveraging a story to illustrate a point. I think you would enjoy it.

Stories and examples are a great way to complement your content creation and make it colorful, authoritative and persuasive. They enable you to substantiate your points and keep your audience engaged.

Oh yes, and by the way, when you are out of stories and examples, why not Google them or better yet, create your own!

This week’s tip: Create or use your database of choice to collect, archive and tag your stories and examples. They will then be waiting for your quick retrieval when needed.

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking here.

Privacy statement: Your email address is never shared with anyone for any reason.

Check out my podcast series called Raising the Barr on iTunes.

If you’d like to reach me email: chad@cbsoftware.com
or call my direct line: 440-394-8004
http://www.chadbarr.com

© Chad Barr 2013. All Rights Reserved.

Issue No. 21 May 29, 2013

Raising the Barr Weekly Memo: Are You Ready For Your Close Up?

Raising the Barr is a weekly memo, which is always pithy, powerful and succinct. It focuses on innovative ideas by maximizing your life and business while leveraging strategy, content, technology and the web, to help you transform the success.

This week’s reflection point: I’ve seen a trend of individuals using their own computer to shoot their videos. I am all for trying new things and would encourage you to experiment with such technologies. However, technology is not always the great enabler and can actually become the great disabler. If not done right, such videos may become the portrayal of amateurism, rambling and no-thought leadership.

Just because the technology is cheap and readily available on your desktop does not mean that it is a good idea to use it.

The components of effective videos are:

• Lighting
• Sound
• Background
• Editing software
• Content
• Enthusiasm
• Succinctness
• Confidence
• Acting
• YOU!

Can you learn to video record effectively and professionally yourself? Possibly. But it would require learning, practice, the right equipment and technology to achieve the professional results.

This week’s tip: Not using the right equipment is the same as wearing crocs with an Armani suit at a presentation.

You may subscribe and encourage others to subscribe by clicking here.

Privacy statement: Your email address is never shared with anyone for any reason.

Check out my podcast series called Raising the Barr on iTunes.

If you’d like to reach me email: chad@cbsoftware.com
or call my direct line: 440-394-8004
http://www.chadbarr.com

© Chad Barr 2013. All Rights Reserved.