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I have become quite the geek in the last few year. Blogging was the gateway drug and working in the me2revolution has escalated the rate that I try new things. Blogging, Twitter, del.icio.us, Flickr, Facebook, Dopplr... I've joined a lot of them.

For me what makes a site really work is when it leads to offline social interaction or when it is a part of an offline relationship. Now don't get me wrong, I think that real relationships can be entirely virtual, but for me the value is when it involves an in-person relationship.

Twitter has been the best of any in helping me meet people, but Flickr has given me new eyes to view my city. del.icio.us was best when I was constantly trading links with a friend and blogging has helped me create a global community for myself.

What is it for you that makes a social media site really work? Because it builds community? Because it solves a technology problem? Why?

Yesterday I got my haircut. Chopped might be a better word for what I did, but we'll go with haircut. For the last two months my hair has been in a ponytail nearly every day. Actually, my hair has been in a ponytail for almost two years.

Two years ago I was told by a man I was interested in that he liked my hair pulled back. "Oh," I thought, "then I shall pull my hair back." I ignored the fact that it looked better down or short, because I valued his opinion and if he liked it in a ponytail, then it was going in a ponytail.

Yesterday I told the stylist, "You must make it too short for me to put into a ponytail. It's okay if you take off a lot, I trust you." I like to think that I make a stylist's day when I tell her that. "I trust you, you are the professional. Cut away."

But this is a PR blog, not a hair blog, so how does this story possibly relate? Look at the tools and ideas you typically reach for first. Were you in a brainstorm a few years ago and got a compliment on a program idea? Have you latched onto that program and tried to make it fit year after year?

Perhaps you were pitching reporters and on the third day you got a compliment. Did you shift your pitching style to fit that one reporter, even if it didn't work for anyone else?

Is it time for you to get a new PRstyle? Take a good look at your habits and decide if they still serve you. If they are based on an empty compliment from two years ago, maybe it's time to cut it loose and find a new angle.

What is your "haircut" story?

"There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't."

Sorry, I couldn't help it. I was about to say there are two types of people when that joke popped into my head. I love it for the niche the joke serves and I love that on first glance it doesn't limit the world to two types of people.

Alas, for this post I am going to limit the world to two types of people. The first are the people who view the world as a pizza and the second are the people who view the world as an all-you-care-to-eat buffet.

The world-as-pizza people, whome I'll call WAPPs, view the world as a place with limits. A limited number of slices that we are all fighting over. A limited number of pages in a newspaper or magazine, minutes in a TV show, or a limited budget that all people must fight over. Viewing the world as a pizza is sometimes referred to as scarcity thinking. "There is simply not enough to go around."

The world-as-all-you-care-to-eat-buffet people, whom I'll clumsily call WAAYCTEBP, view the world as limitless. No matter what you want or need, it is there and if it runs out, more will be provided. They are not fighting over the last slice of pizza or last column inch of the paper, because they are certain that there is more where that came from. In some circles this is referred to as prosperity thinking.

I am a WAAYCTEBP who occasionally slips into Pizza Mode. Sometimes I look at what I need to do on behalf of clients and think, "There is no way, the space is limited." If I can change my view, ever so slightly, I can see that there are at least other pizzas.

The internet has certainly helped shift my thinking. Granted, I wasn't in PR before the internet or blogging, but it shows that our job is to help connect brands to individuals. It is not a crowd that matters, but the individuals who make up the crowd.

When you are working on behalf of your client are you a Pizza Person or a Buffet Person? Do you see the crowds or the individuals in the crowd? Are you building numbers or relationships? Monologues or conversations?

Looks like I'm all questions today and I'm ready for your responses.

While I've been at work the last few weeks, I've been MIA from Talkshop. It happens to all bloggers from time to time. Life starts moving too fast to stop and write. Work gets so busy that carving out time for posting slips. "Well, no excuses Miss Jones. Give us a post."

Here are a two things that have been on my mind lately. Each could be a post in itself, but I've tried to write each of them and it just isn't happening. Tidbits, if you will.

1. Book to read. I picked up The Trendmaster's Guide: Get a Jump of What Your Customer Wants Next by Robyn Waters. It is a slim "A to Z" guide written by the woman who helped transform a number of large companies into the brands we know today. It is small enough to slip into your laptop bag for light reading or an inspirational flip-through. I keep it on my desk. (I think it also makes a nice gift to a client or peer. More memorable than a thank you note and an easy commute read.)

2. Online generosity. I often talk about how links are currency in the online world. A coworker said it even better when he said that links are votes, but like votes in a developing country. Some links count more than others. I try to fill my posts both here and at "home" with links to the right people. That is being generous.

Then I came across a form of generosity that astounded me. I was looking for blogs about gardening and found an OPML file that contained over 200 feeds to gardening blogs. (And now I can't find it to give the link-love it deserves. Bad Leah.) "Wow," I thought, "I could make OMPL files of some of the themes I read and make those available to people." I haven't yet, but it is such a great idea that I wanted to put it out there.

Do you read a lot of feeds? Could you group them into subcatagories and share them with colleagues or readers of your blog?

There you have it. I'm back in the blogging game with a book recomendation and a thought about online generosity. How do you define online generosity? What is on your reading list?

Sunday afternoon, I went to a friend's house for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner. The hostess cooked up 27 pounds of turkey and every guest brought a side-dish or dessert. It was a lovely meal and the company was just as good.

I love trying to describe my work at Edelman to friends. "You see, there are these things called blogs, you've heard of them, right? And there are things called RSS feeds. And this other thing called Second Life."

After we sat down to eat, a high school French teacher leaned over to me. "I have a confession," he said dramatically, "I've never read a blog. I guess I've never been interested in other people's opinions."

Wow, I barely knew how to react. This Friday, November 24, will be my third anniversary of blogging. I can't imagine a day without blogs, well I can't imagine a month without blogs, but a day here and there is actually quite nice.

Then another friend asked me more about work and I described the weekly, company-wide emails I write about web 2.0 type things. "What's web 2.0? I've never heard that term." His wife chimed in and agreed that she didn't know what it meant either.

It was an eye-opener. I wasn't at Thanksgiving dinner with my grandparents, these were my 20/30-something peers. Smart people with advanced degrees, passports and DSL connections at home.

EARTH TO LEAH: Everyone doesn't live their lives online, no matter what you think. It isn't all blogs and Life 2.0, some of it is still slow cooked turkey and parlor games. Remember that if you travel this weekend and enjoy the conversation, not the conversation monitoring.

I have been working to upgrade the joy in my life. I have been making choices that make me feel good, canceling out complaining, and seeking new things to read that help me sustain my general positive outlook.

At first, all my reading was in spiritual or religious books. Seemed like the obvious place to go. Suddenly this week, I've been bombarded with blogs and books that bring the same positive outlook to work. I wanted to share a few and get some suggestions from you.

The blogs I'm reading every day that represent, to me, positive and joyful work are Signal Vs. Noise, Hello My Name Is Blog, and just today I was introduced to Simplicity.

All of them, however, are trumped by Daniel H. Pink's book A Whole New Mind. Wow! Thank you to Garr Reynolds for introducing me to this book and my apologies to friends and coworkers who are going to hear nothing but quotes from this book for the next month.

I've only read it once and this is a book that needs a second and possibly third reading, but I truly appreciate that he is not afraid of bringing emotions into business. Pink writes that we are entering the Conceptual Age and each of us needs to work on six aptitudes to succeed in this new age.

1. Design
2. Story
3. Symphony
4. Empathy
5. Play
6. Meaning

Not only does he give you the philosphy and research behind each aptitude, he also gives you homework including books to read and exercises to go through to build your strengths in each area. For me it is as if he applied Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way to business.

I suggest you get a copy and read this book twice. Got any other books for me to read? Any other bloggers who approach business with joy?

I have occasionally accused writers of sneaking into my condo, reading my journals, and then writing a best selling book just for me. Books on the list include the memoir I’m Not The New Me by Wendy McClure, the hilarios novel Shaking Her Assets by Robin Epstein and Renee Kaplan, and today I’ve added the business book Love Is The Killer App by Tim Sanders.

I’m not going to write another book review, there are over 100 customer reviews on Amazon and I agree with the majority. This book is a gem! I finished it in a few hours, but will go back and pull quotes next week. It is definitely one I will be giving to friends who are looking for ways to put their careers (and lives) into drive.

The basics? "Here then, is my definition of love (in) business: the act of intelligently and sensibly sharing your intangibles with your bizpartners. What are our intangibles? They are our knowledge, our network, and our compassion. These are the keys to true bizlove."

One thing that hit me is a new way of thinking about networking and connecting people. After reading The Tipping Point, my mom called me to tell me she’d decided that I was a Connector. I know lots of people, rarely burn bridges, and can easily say, “Oh you need X, let me introduce you to Y.”

Honestly, until reading this book, I saw that as a personal skill and not a business skill. What? Really? Are you kidding me? No, I’m being totally serious. Business networking scares me, but connecting people in my personal life is second nature.

Now I can see that if I approach business partners with the same compassion, interest, and knowledge I use outside of Edelman, things can only improve. I know that it seems like such a “D’oh!” thing, but he really connected some thoughts to actions.

Long story short, read the book. Then come back here and tell me if he made you say, “D’oh!”

Last night I went to a local bar to watch some stand-up comedy. In a previous life, okay maybe just three years ago, I was actively pursuing stand-up comedy as a career. I stopped doing stand-up, but find that I was active enough that I still know the comics performing in Chicago. I was pleased to walk into the room last night and see many familiar faces.

I thought that Pat Brice had one of the best sets and wanted to share one bit and get your thoughts. I'll paraphrase, "TV, we had a deal and you broke the deal. It was good. One way entertainment. I turn on the TV, you entertain me. Now you want me to go to my computer and answer a poll? You want me to be involved? That wasn't the deal at all. The deal was you entertain me, one way, remember?"

Pat is much funnier in person, I promise, but it got me thinking about work immediately. How many Pat Brices are out there? People that want one way communication from TV? Who want TV and Internet to stay separate? Who want writers to write and viewers to simply view? Are TV stations going too far by constantly polling us and asking us to vote?

Personally, I've never voted for or against any reality TV participant. I don't run to my computer to answer polls or go to chat rooms. And other than to get a correct show time, I don't go to network websites. At the same time, the presence and request for interaction doesn't bother me.

How about you? Do you vote people off? Do you select option C? Are you eagerly awaiting the fully integrated TV/Internet entertainment utopia? Let me know.

Oh and after you do that, let me suggest going to a live comedy show and tell them Leah sent you.

I have the Craig's List "What We're About" page taped to the wall of my office.

The text is more more than five years old, according to it's revision history, and it still holds up:

craigslist is about:

• giving each other a break, getting the word out about everyday, real-world stuff.
  
• restoring the human voice to the Internet, in a humane, non-commercial environment.
  
• keeping things simple, common-sense, down-to-earth, honest, very real.
  
• providing an alternative to impersonal, big-media sites.
  
• being inclusive, giving a voice to the disenfranchised, democratizing ...
  
• being a collection of communities with similar spirit, not a single monolithic entity.

A must-read for communicators.

Technorati Tags:
craigs list, womm, word of mouth

I have the Craig's List "What We're About" page taped to the wall of my office.

The text is more more than five years old, according to it's revision history, and it still holds up:

craigslist is about:

• giving each other a break, getting the word out about everyday, real-world stuff.
  
• restoring the human voice to the Internet, in a humane, non-commercial environment.
  
• keeping things simple, common-sense, down-to-earth, honest, very real.
  
• providing an alternative to impersonal, big-media sites.
  
• being inclusive, giving a voice to the disenfranchised, democratizing ...
  
• being a collection of communities with similar spirit, not a single monolithic entity.

A must-read for communicators.

Technorati Tags:
craigs list, womm, word of mouth

TalkShop is a blog about word-of-mouth and the Me2 Revolution, published by Edelman and hosted by Phil Gomes, the company's Senior Counsel, Online Communications. This blog pulls in thoughts and opinions from members of the worldwide Edelman network.

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