Trouble is, he’s already married.

He hasn’t done anything irretrievable yet—just some phone calls and a clandestine lunch date—but he’s definitely sidling up to infidelity. Just another sad country song, really, but I was totally surprised.

I’ve always admired—and good-naturedly envied—his picture-perfect life: a Pottery Barn house, two kids, a wife with a profitable home business, and a stable job he actually likes.

It appears I think better of his life than he does, yeh?

And in worrying over his marital side hustle, I realized that side businesses can have a similar taint…

…because some employers don’t mind if their employees have other jobs, but others have contract clauses against moonlighting and tacit dissuaders to keep employees monogamous.

And for folks cheating on their partners or their employers, the same rules apply—

1. You will get caught
   Your inner conflict is going to seek resolution with a mind of its own and sabotage your secrecy. You’ll forget to remember a lie that you told, you’ll leave something on the kitchen table (or desk) that you meant to hide, or you’ll say what should be left unsaid.
2. Living two lives requires four times the effort of living one
   If you’re going to keep this up, you can’t grow complacent and you can’t relax because you can’t afford to misstep. You’ll need strategy and tactics for outwitting your partner/employer…every single day. Are you up for that?
3. Are you sure they’re worth it?
   Don’t ask yourself if your secret attraction is worth cheating for. Ask if it’s worth getting caught for.
4. Because you will get caught
   Your partner/employer knows and sees more than you imagine. You might not even notice that you’ve changed in some small, semi-invisible way, but someone intimate with you is sure to pick it up.
5. Be careful who you ask for help
   Conspirators and corroborators abound. It will be easy to find people who think what you’re doing is great, particularly if they’re doing the same thing. For a side business especially, it’s key to find someone who talks the nitty-gritty not-so-pretty stuff, like Pam and Dave and Mark.
6. Be *really* careful who you ask for help
   Today’s eager collaborator can be tomorrow’s embittered Benedict Arnold.
7. Why are you doing this…really?
   Like my old college buddy wisely said: “If you’re thinking about cheating, you’d best stop thinking about how to cheat and start thinking about why you’d want to.”
   If you’re thinking about having something on the side, it’s because there’s a gap between what you have and what you want. You need to be clear on what exactly that is to make effective decisions.
8. You can’t run from yourself
   You play a part in whatever drama there is in your home or office that you’re trying to escape. Like the Have/Want Gap, you need to be clear on what your role is, or you may, in time, recreate it in your side hustle.
9. The grass may not be all that greener
   What you’ve got happening on the side may be better than your main gig. But ask yourself what it would be like without the excitement that comes with its secrecy and novelty. What would it be like to be 100% in this, without that stable main gig to fall back on?
10. Because you will get caught
    Someone you know—or who only knows you—will see you where you’re not supposed to be, doing what you’re not supposed to do. And they’ll tattle out of loyalty to your partner/employer, loyalty to principle, or because they never really liked you all that much.

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I’m just saying…

Photo credit: afroboof

You know those posts on how to get the attention of A-List bloggers so you can be carried around on their high-clout coattails?

They usually have face-saving titles that pair  friendship or relationship with strategic, tactical, or beneficial. Sounds all serious business, but they read like guides on How to be an Ass-Kissing Suck Up.

Well, this ain’t that kind of post.

I shouldn’t bash them though…there are people with thriving blogs and bountiful bank balances who played that hand well. I’m just on edge because it’s a great social skill to practice and it’s completely unnatural to me.

I’m drawn to people who interest me by what they do, what they say, and how they are. I wince at the idea of befriending people based on what they can do for me, what I can get from them, and how I can use them to get to my next level…like ‘em or not.

And yet.

Being online connects me to millions of people. That means good odds on finding people who naturally interest me who can also help me along. And I have. It also means millions of people are connected to me, and can find me for those same reasons. And they do.

Here are a few scraps of thought on that—

I-I-I-I-I’m not their stepping stone.

By blessing, luck, or fate—definitely not by my design—I have a few friends popular enough to be considered unapproachable. So being a relative nobody, total strangers introduce themselves to me and in the next sentence ask me to introduce them to one of my far-more-popular-and-obviously-more-desirable friends.

Ballsy. Insulting. And ultimately ineffective because I’m their friend, not their receptionist, and they wouldn’t thank me for forwarding a tacit recommendation for someone I didn’t know.

People mistake usefulness for a willingness to be used.

I shouldn’t be surprised by people who value my opinion enough to ask for it, but not enough to pay for it. But I am surprised by it. Every time.

And perhaps it would be flattering just to be asked, but my friends, who could get my time for free, always offer to pay for it. And then do.

‘Nuf said.

For Innies, it helps to know people who know people.

As a card-carrying introvert, I’m easily overwhelmed by large groups of people…even virtual ones.

I have just 4 or 5 close friends and regularly talk to only 10 more, so I treasure the 2 or 3 super-sociable friends who expand my circle a hundredfold with their platoons of acquaintances.

Sometimes where you are isn’t (quite) where you wanna be

I love having friends in the same place along the emotional, spiritual, and business lifecycles. Kindred equals comfort. But comfort can equal complacency and years can go by without much, or any, movement toward my next-level goals.

I’m finding it’s critical to have friends farther along those lifecycles who happily share their stories and offer their advice. Even if they don’t say a word about their work, I learn a lot just by watching them do their thang.

Ass-kissing suck up is (probably) in the eye of the beholder

There are a number of folks I would naturally like a lot who just happen to be high up in the strata of small businesses. The thing is, I worry about looking like just another sycophant and avoid doing what I would naturally do: leave a kind comment, send a howdy through Twitter, or share a quick idea in an email.

The solution to that—I think?—is to do what I would naturally do with no thought to their status. Maybe they’ll see me as a suck up, or maybe I’ll find a new friend. Worth a try either way, eh?

…

What are your thoughts on the business of friendship and friendships in business? Lemme know down below…

Photo credit: Juliana Coutinho

I spent most of my waking hours working at a big table with a small group of successful entrepreneurial folks*. I met most of them in February at Pam and Charlie’s Lift Off, and the band was back together to collaborate on a project.

I admire each of them a heckuvalot because they work hard and well, crank out lots of good work, and clearly know their respective stuff. Being around them at Lift Off raised the bar for me, and after a week of watching them work, hearing about the things and people they know, and sharing the experiences they’ve had? Well, the bar got raised again.

So on that first morning  I woke up with a wonder, which I tweeted:

Wondering if entrepreneurs are born or made.
I mean, if you don’t have the savvy business drive, can you learn it?

And I got great answers back from all kinds of nifty Tweeple…

Are entrepreneurs born or made?

Entrepreneurs make themselves. ~@PeterShallard

Learnt! We can learn anything with hard work. Talent only gets u so far! ~@learningjunkies

I hope you can learn it! ~@scientistcoach

On learning business drive: yes, a learned skill. I think even those who seem to’ve been born w/it have really learned it. ~@GraceJudson

Environment has an impact. I was raised by entrepreneurs, so the lack of employer/reg. paycheck is not foreign to me. ~@tandemantiques

I hope so since I’ve just started an online business!…even though I don’t think of myself as someone with business sense, I am very driven & self-motivated. ~@kirstymhall

I’ve always been a service provider and didn’t think I had an “entrepreneurial bone” in my body. ~@StaceyCurnow

I love your question! BTW, if u aren’t already, u should follow ppl like msuster & fredwilson, they talk about such things! ~@theplanningcafe

My belief: yes, it can be taught, if the learner can get past some anti-entrepreneurial reflexes. ~@etherjammer

Good question! I think of drive as desire + willingness to work. And imho, the latter comes early or not at all. ~@biznicillin

And this one resonated loudest for me:

Made. Born of adversity. ~@MenwithPens

.

What do you think?

Are entrepreneurs born or made? Lemme know down below…

*@kpdurand, @caffeinatedelf, @karenyaeger, and @willieljackson

Photo credit: zigazou76

I had a moment of clarity at the salon while my eyebrows were being ripped out. Pain does that.

In between the stinging bits, I  thought about the helpful and necessary service, the tools and skills, the environment, and the customers…and I came to a simple conclusion—

What a great setup.

I don’t envy Sheena the long hours on her feet but, conceptually, my eyebrow artist has an admirably nifty business—

Her Customers (Really) Need Her

Some services are hard-to-find, and great practitioners are even harder. She was recommended after someone else made a mess of my brows, and I knew I was with a serious player when we sat down with a mirror to talk about her strategy for correcting them.

Yeah: A strategy. For my eyebrows. This is what I’m saying.

An appointment with her costs twice as much as a kiosk visit, and I spend it gladly. By charging more she can afford to take more time with the work…and she does. And I appreciate that. I mean, the last time my threader was in a hurry, I walked around cockeyed for 2 weeks.

And I wondered—

• Am I selling what people really need? Am I providing something special or doing it in a special way?
• Am I offering my best and rarest skills? Am I charging what I should? What do my prices say about me and what I’m doing?

She Has the Right Tools. And They’re Really Simple

If you haven’t guessed yet, “threading” is a hair removal technique that uses—wait for it—a piece of thread. So her main piece of equipment is a spool of cotton thread. She also uses cotton pads to prep and clean up, tweezers and tiny scissors for fine tuning, and lotion to finish off. She has everything she needs, nothing she doesn’t, and the whole kit can fit in a handbag.

And I wondered—

• Do I have the right tools for my work? Are they as simple as can be? What is the least I need?

She Has a Great Work Environment

Rather than man a kiosk in a corridor of the mall, Sheena offers her service within an anchor store salon. Some advantages are the same as a kiosk, such as someone else handles the overhead of a lease and utilities so she can focus on what she does best.

But the rest of her workspace trumps the kiosk—

• Instead of the feast-or-famine of walk-up traffic, a receptionist sets appointments and manages her schedule,
• Instead of passersby stopping to observe, ask questions, and otherwise distract, it’s just she and I in a private room,
• Instead of the noisy hum of a high-traffic mall corridor, she has light music playing in the background,
• Instead of struggling with whatever light comes through the corridor’s skylight, she has overheads, spotlights, and a magnifying lamp

And I wondered—

• Am I doing overhead tasks better handled by someone else or something else?
• Am I managing my workload effectively?
• Do I have my ideal work environment—comfortable and quiet where I can work uninterrupted?

…and Her Customers Know the Part(s) They Play

While Sheena works on my brows, I also have work to do. She only has two hands (obviously) and needs them both, so sometimes I gently hold taut the area she’s threading. I have no idea how this helps, but every threader requires it, and it’s easy enough to do what I’m told when it helps the work come out better.

And at the end of every visit, she sends me away with homework to help her strategy along: put conditioner on my brows for two minutes daily, come back in 2 to 3 weeks, and don’t tweeze between now and then.

Which translates to: grow your eyebrows back so I can have more to work with, don’t wait too long to return or you’ll overgrow the work we did today, and don’t go messing with my strategy

And I wondered—

• Do my clients/customers know how they can help me do a better job?

So.

I want a setup as strong as that.

Some of these things are large, some small, but I feel sure each makes a significant difference in the quality of her work.

So I’m going to wonder a little more and then make some adjustments. Maybe your business could use some wondering, too?

Photo credit: Geroithe

Not Saying No ≠ Saying Yes

Our shared stories on Not Saying No got me thinking about Saying Yes…which is not quite, or not always, the same thing.

Sidenote: And what a treat to find my foolish moments have some wisdom in them, and that our stories align even where they don’t intertwine

Like we talked about, an unsaid No, a quiet No, a No-that-isn’t-repeated-repeatedly…they all can be misinterpreted as acquiescence. But a Yes? Well, a Yes is a no-doubt-about-it commitment. When we say Yes, we’re in up to our eyebrows until we say No.

Which is totally fine…until it’s not.

The Trouble With Saying Yes

On many occasions, I’ve said Yes solely because I feared the imagined consequences of saying No.

And that’s the start of a big mess, right?

Because when we say Yes to something we don’t want because we’re afraid not to, then how long will it take—and what will it take—for us to deliver that festered No later on? Especially when it’s so much harder to say No after…

…after we’ve begun the work (so we may as well finish), after we get that first paycheck (and are relieved to have cash-in-hand), after we’ve moved in (and it’s so much trouble to find another place and move out).

Which is nutty, because really: if we believe Saying No will rain hell upon our heads, what do we think Saying Yes will do?

Well, okay, saying Yes can ease the moment. Rather than risk argument or hurt feelings, we can say Yes and everybody (else) is happy. And everything may come out okay in the end…right?

But it’s just as likely that saying Yes will bring the rain, not in this uncomfortable moment, but later on, and over and over until…when? Months from now when the contract is finished? Years from now when we quit the job? A decade from now when we sign the divorce papers?

Maybe forever because we never got the gumption to No our way out of the mess we’re now invested in? And maybe we feel ashamed (or guilty) about signing up for it in the first place? And maybe we’re too proud (or stubborn) to admit we made a mistake?

How much easier (in the long run) to Say No from the get-go—before we sign the contract, before we accept the job, before we’re standing at the altar.

How much better to use our creativity to explore the long-term benefits of No, rather than invent scenarios of unavoidable, immediate disaster that push us to say Yes.

Three Really Shitty Reasons to Say Yes

When I think back through critical branches in my Life path, I can organize unfortunate decisions into three Because buckets—

Because I wanted approval
A great quote from Lao Tzu was tweeted by @katecourageous just the other day: “Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.” Doesn’t that sum it up nicely? This is how I chose my first college major and my career path…and it still trips me up, dangit.

Because I wanted to be liked
To me, this is not the same as wanting approval. Approval is wanting people to like what I’m doing, while this is about wanting people to like me. I rarely let this happen anymore, though it tugs on me now and then.

Because I needed the money
There’s nothing wrong with taking a contract or job just because you need the cash…as long as you know that’s what you’re doing. And as long as you have an exit plan in place before you start. And as long as it’s a strategic part of a larger, life-fulfilling goal. Otherwise, the work will sap your soul. True story.

So.

I find it quite cool that the word NO has a well-rated user’s manual [hat tip to @risingstarideas]. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on my list—

The Book of No: 250 Ways to Say It — And Mean It

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How do you know when to say Yes and when to say No? Gut check? Pros/Cons written on paper? Or…?

Photo credit: Andy Welsh

So I’m not very good at saying No. In fact, I have a thing about it. And I’ll tell ya—

Not saying No soon enough, often enough, or loud enough
will get you into trouble
.

Not Saying No Soon Enough

Have I told you about the time I was on a mountain in Crete with a drunken, doped up olive farmer and his pit bull?

Probably not.

It’s not important why I was in this tiny Greek resort town. What’s important is that I met a young olive farmer (who also worked for my hotel) who was eager to share his culture, teach me his language, act as my tour guide to the *real* Crete, yadda yadda yadda.

So when he invited me to his mountain village for dinner with his mother, I was totally up for it. I mean, he worked for the hotel so he was safe, right? And isn’t this the hospitality my Lonely Planet guidebook promised?

Not. Really.

When we met in the lobby, he asked if I could drive as his truck was way low on gas and the station was closed. This wasn’t a problem because I intended on driving anyway. I had a rental and knew better than to let a stranger drive me anywhere, hospitality or not.

And my being the cautious sort, I should have said No to the night out when he broke out his hashish before he even put on his seatbelt.

I’d never seen a bigger red flag. I should have kicked him out of my car, gone back into the hotel, reported him to the resort staff, and considered myself lucky to have dodged that particular bullet.

But I didn’t do any of that, because I didn’t want to be impolite.

Yeah. I know.

Not Saying No Often Enough

When he offered me some of his dope—please remember that I’m driving (though he apparently forgot)—I knew how to Just Say No to that. I’m a child of the 80′s, after all.

But there were plenty of unexpected and unpracticed No Moments on the way. I saw them come, but let them slip on by as I hoped and waited for things to get better. Like—

• When we needed to drop by his house first,
• When I met his beautiful pit bull who stayed by my side the rest of the night,
• When he nonchalantly unearthed more hash from the hem of his dining room tablecloth while we chatted over his family photo album,
• When we went to dinner and the (literal) Village People consisted of 3 wildly bearded behemoths with rotten teeth in filthy clothes who silently stared me inside the cafe,
• When his mother (the cafe cook) rolled her eyes at him after he introduced me,
• When he offered me a second shot of liquor (to my credit, I turned down #3 and #4)
• When he, now stoned and drunk, started ranting about those despicable Americans,
• When, as we left, one of the behemoths said something in Greek (which I didn’t understand) that made the others snicker and my “host” blush.

That’s when my hope died and the wait was over. The situation wasn’t going to get better, I didn’t dare let it get any worse, and it was past time to go. He kept talking along his no-longer-hidden agenda, but he was no match for my Overflow of No—

• No, thanks very much for dinner, but I really did have to go,
• No, I didn’t need to spend the night in his bed (!!),
• No, we couldn’t go back to the hotel to spend the night in my bed (!!!),

No. No. No. No.

Not Saying No Loudly (or Firmly) Enough

And if I had yelled NO! maybe one No would have been enough. But I was increasingly scared and my fallback was to be nice…

…if I was aggressive and pissed him off, what would he do? What would his pit bull do? What would he tell his pit bull to do? What about the rotten-toothed behemoths watching from just 100 feet away?

So I pasted on a smile and quickly tucked myself into my car, made sure all the doors were locked, and thanked all the gods—Greek and otherwise—that I was in one piece as I waved goodbye goodbye goodbye…

So.

My night out was a fiasco, but not a complete catastrophe.

I wish I could say the same about my first marriage, my last job, and other glaring No Moments I’ve encountered along the way. And my takeaways from these misadventures apply to every facet of running a business—

• Situations that start out all wrong don’t typically come out alright,
• Feel free to say No even when you’re concerned it will hurt, anger, or disappoint,
• Don’t be quick to say No, but don’t hesitate either, and
• Always, always, always trust your gut.

.

Et tu? Do you have tough time saying No when you need to? If you’re a Pro at No, got any tips for the rest of us?

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Photo credit: TheTruthAbout

Folks have asked what I used to put together Pep Talk Pack 1, so here are the important tools—

• Camtasia to record and edit the audios
  Typically used to record screen captures, but has a handy feature that clears all background noise from the audio with one click.
• InDesign CS2 to layout the ebook
  Out of date, but it does the job. I typically use Word 2007 for documents, but InDesign was easier for the multi-column layout.
• Microsoft PhotoDraw to make the little product badge
  Until I learn Photoshop, I’ll continue to fall back on this ancient, familiar application when making simple graphics.

So that’s what I used to create the product, but  Charlie’s planners and a simple spreadsheet were keys to creating the process. This is a good time to talk about that, since we just talked about how tiny tasks can finish big projects.

Time In, Time Out

Pep Talk Pack 1 was the first product I’ve made with an ebook and narration audios, so I got organized by taking cues from Charlie’s Freelancer Workweek planner: I set up a simple spreadsheet with columns for Tasks, Estimated Time, and Actual Time.

Tasks

To start, I listed everything I’d need to do to create the product. Like Charlie suggests, each task began with a verb to nudge me into action. A small, but effective, woowoo thing…and there are practical uses for it, too.

The lone word “ebook” on my task list would offer little about what needed to be done. But a list of phrases like “create ebook template” and “write two exclusive articles” gave a handy step-by-step—hugely helpful when I was up to my elbows in Doing with no brainspace available for Deciding.

And when it came time to complete the Estimated Time column, it was far easier to figure time for a specific task than for a general term. Like: I had no idea how long it would take to make an entire ebook, but I figured I could create a nice ebook template in 2 to 4 hours.

Estimated Time

Task-based time limits are as valuable as deadlines. Seriously.

That’s why I allotted 20 hours for everything, then broke down those hours into time-per-task. It actually took 26 hours, but that’s okay. If I’d allowed unlimited time for each task I’d still be creating it instead of selling it…

I guessed at how long each task would take and tweaked until they totaled 15 hours. Then I added a non-task item named “Wiggle Room” for the tasks I forgot to add, the tasks I didn’t think to add, and tasks that took longer than expected. And also for shit happening, because it always does.

Actual Time

This was where the rubber met the road.

Before starting a task, I set a countdown timer for the estimated time. As you can guess, a glance at time ticking away was alarming and inspirational. If I was working when the timer ran out, I used a stopwatch to count up the extra time I used…equally alarming and inspirational!

The time on the stopwatch kept me honest and accurate about going into overtime. I rounded the extra time up to the next half hour and added it to my estimate to get the actual time. The difference between the two was really, really good to see task-by-task.

For one thing, I could see I was really good at estimating the time needed for stuff I do often, like writing a post. But for design tasks, like the ebook template, I always needed (and took) more time than I had.

Best of all, I’m well-prepared for next time, which was totally worth the time spent timing…

Next Time

There were a dozen small—but critical—tasks completed that weren’t originally accounted for, like fixing the audio files to display information in your MP3 player. Why do these little things need to be listed next time? Because collectively they chewed through two hours.

Thanks to helpful customer feedback, the product download page is flexible, both now and for next time. Notably, there’s a compiled ZIP file along with the individual files for download, so folks can pull down everything at once or pick and choose what they want.

Time estimates for future projects will be more accurate from the detailed task list plus the actual times. For example: I listed each shopping cart task separately, so I can safely ignore time spent on tasks I’ll never do again (e.g., the initial shopping cart setup) and focus on tasks I’ll do every time (e.g., creating a new product in the shopping cart).

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I hope this helps you with your projects! If you have questions or more ideas on estimating or organizing time, lemme know down below…

Photo credit: Jerry

So yesterday the scale said I’m 50 pounds overweight.

Again.

And as often happens, I’m eager to do something about it. As long as I can do it all today and be done with it forever.

I’m not at all interested in doing something about it in small, manageable steps every single day for a long while.

This is the point.

Extreme action yields extreme results, but we can’t keep it up for long or forever. And sometimes it’s just the wrong approach. I mean, I could stop eating altogether and quickly lose a pound or three…but a week or two without food and I’d end up in a quiet little coma.

Ew.

Extreme dieting is truly die with a T. Let’s file it under Unsustainable.

Little Bit by Little Bit

Little bits of attention every single day are how I’m going to lose 50 pounds. I’ll shop sensibly, cook with care, and workout with my Wii. And I’ll get a little fitter and a little thinner every day that I do it.

But keeping it up is the tricky bit, right? My interest in healthy eating and exercise typically stutters after three weeks and fizzles out within three months.

Yet I stay fit and thin when I live in a city. City life = walking to work + walking to shop + walking to…everything. So when exercise is part of my normal routine, I invariably shrink into my old cut-offs.

It’s like magic.

Except it’s not.

Little bit by little bit is how all big projects get finished, how all big problems get resolved, how all big dreams get realized, and—as @michelewoodward told me the other day—how we build a legacy. And wrapping it in our daily routine is how to easily keep it going.

But we already knew that. Anything can get done through small, consistent action even when the steps are amazingly, shockingly, absurdly tiny—have you read The Kaizen Way? This is the surest of sure things.

So we know it. But is there some way to help us stick with it?

And please, for the love of Ben & Jerry…can it be fun?!

Well…maybe.

An Extremely Wrong Way to Work

My old way of working was to throw everything I had at a Thing and bang on it until it was finished. I’d forgo sleep, food, friends, and family until I reached the deadline. And while that was fine for small projects, a Big Thing scheduled over weeks or months split my life into extremes…

…too much eating out because I’m too preoccupied to bother with cooking, too few jaunts to my Mom’s, too little snuggling with hubby, too few chatty phone calls with friends, too much grumpiness, too little sleep, too little exercise, too much fatigue, too little fun.

Too. Too. Too.

And so I banished myself from big projects. But I’m realizing the project size wasn’t the problem, it was the way I approached the work. I thought I could overwhelm an overwhelming project if I met it with enough speed and force. It got the work done on time…but at what price?

So let’s file my eXtreme Work Method under Unsustainable, too. No more of that.

The Better Way to Work…Maybe

I do believe there are times when a short, hard push is just the thing. That’s how I got the Pep Talk Pack 1 done from start-to-finish in a few days.

But there are plenty of projects too big to finish in a weekend, and some things are meant to be addressed daily. Like, we could shower and brush our teeth 30 times today, but that won’t really cover our hygiene requirements for the upcoming month.

All that to say: After writing 750words almost every day for three months, I can say for sure that predetermined, measured, daily effort with immediate feedback reallyreallyreally works (for me). It squeezes the rut out of routine and reshapes it into ritual. What Seinfeld said about not breaking the chain is so very, very true.

So I’m gonna massage my work into monthly challenges using Charlie’s planners…they’ll break my big goals into daily tasks with milestones along the way.

And that’s key, because for this way of working to be as effective as 750words, I need 6 ingredients—

• The Big Picture: Why the heck am I doing all this?
  A simple one line description does wonders to refocus my head when I’m drowning in details.
• Documented Milestones: How far have I come? How much farther to go?
  I need to see my progress every single day. A long line of checked boxes is way encouraging.
• A Deadline: When will this be over?
  Without a unquestionable, definitive end I’ll happily, and ineffectively, tweak it forever.
• Camaraderie: Who’s with me…and how are they doing?
  I rarely have the urge to be first, but I sure as shit don’t want to come in last.
• Pressure: Can a sistah get a little push?
  The right amount of pressure is a welcome wind at my back, but too much? I dig my heels in.
• Reward: What do I win?
  Getting paid, a day off, a new book, a mani-pedi, a special dinner out…all treasured treats.

And also: A little bit of effort every single day.

I hope this works.

And I hope this helps you, too.

Photo credit: Joe Lanman

When I asked y’all what I should do with my long-awaited, much-adored domain: TheIdeaHatchery.com, the first and only thing suggested was a community membership-ish thingie in various forms.

Which was a total surprise.

As I read the comments, I thought, “Really? A community where folks can share and brainstorm ideas? Get and give constructive feedback? Find willing and capable work partners? Really?”

Not that I doubted the fabulousness of your idea, because I didn’t. It’s a complete gem. I doubted I could pull it off, though.

And you can bet I gave my laptop a good talking to, telling it in no uncertain terms that there was no way, no way I could do something like that. I didn’t know how and I didn’t know where to start and I have no experience, no qualifications, and am totally unsuitable.

And then I started working on it.

Community-Building Questions

As always, after my initial resistance the questions started rolling in. I’d rather hear your thoughts than debate my answers, so I’m listing only the questions. If you have answers or comments or more questions, feel free to add them below, k?

Who’s in the community?

In Seth’s November session, he said the first members are critical for any club. I see the truth of that. With that in mind…

1. How many first members should there be?
2. How are the first members selected?
3. What kind of person is good for the start of a community?
4. Is there a cap on how many people will be in the community?
5. Is it open registration, or not?
6. If not, how do you decide who’s in the community and who’s not?
   Application? Invitation? Blackball-ation?
7. If by application—
   Who creates the application? Who reviews submissions? The leader(s), a committee, or someone else?
   Is there an appeals process for someone who doesn’t get in?
8. If by invitation—
   Who does the inviting?
   If members distribute invitations, how many people can each member invite?
   Do members simply get invites, or do they earn them through participation or tenure or something else?
9. Will anyone outside the community know the community exists?
   I mean, is it meant to be a secret?
10. Will anyone outside the community know who’s in the community?
    I mean, is membership a secret?
11. Will what’s discussed within the community get outside the community?
    I mean, are the discussions a secret?
12. What happens if the community reaches capacity?
13. If there’s a waiting list, how long will the waiting list be allowed to get and for how long will it be maintained?
14. On the other hand, what happens if the community doesn’t grow?

Where’s the value?

As I understand the roles, the community leader encourages members to participate by creating a fun and engaging environment. They always provide the venue, but they may also create site content, introduce discussion topics, organize subgroups around special interests, and coordinate events and speakers.

Members support the community with their participation and feedback, and sometimes membership fees and management duties. So…

1. Will there be a fee to participate in the community?
2. If there will be a membership fee—
   How much will the membership fee be?
   Will it be paid monthly, annually, both, or something else?
   Will profits be shared with community members? How will it be distributed?
3. If the community is free—
   How will expenses be paid for?
   Who volunteers their time to manage the community? The leaders, the members, or both, or someone else?
4. What do the community members want?
   Exclusive content, the connection to others like them, or both, or something else?
5. Who is the community valuable to?
   I mean, is it large enough, niche-y enough, and/or compelling enough to attract more members, good press, interesting speakers, etc.?
6. How are you going to keep members interested month after month after month?
   Discussion topics? Videos? Contests? Tutorials? White papers? Chats? Book clubs? Teleseminars?
7. Who creates the community’s content?
   The leader(s), the members, or both, or someone else?
8. How often will new content be published?
   Weekly? Daily? More than once a day?
9. Does the content need to be approved before it’s published?
   If so, who’s responsible for creating the guidelines and approving content?
   Is there an appeals process for denied content?

Administrivia

And then there are other critical bits, like—

1. What platform do you build your community on?
   WordPress with a plugin or something else self-hosted?
   Ning or something else hosted…or what?

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Whew! Okay, that’s all I’ve got at the mo’. I’ll add more if I think of more, and I’d love to hear your questions, answers, and thoughts below. Or if you’d rather keep it between us, email a note to crystal [at] bigbrightbulb [dot] com

Photo credit: D’Arcy Norman

I tend not to fan the flames of heated online discussions, and I’m not starting now. There’s no link to the original discussion because, 1) If you know it, you don’t need background, and 2) If you don’t know it, you don’t need background.

You don’t need background because I’m ignoring the details and working the concept. So any comments left below with, or about, the background details will be deleted. Alright?

And if I sound abrupt, it’s because I’ve run out of nice.

Blackballed: Defined

“A rejection of an applicant’s membership in a private organization, such as a club or fraternity.

The term is derived from the traditional practice of members voting anonymously on admitting new members, using either a white marble (acceptance) or a black marble (denial).

Acceptance must be unanimous; therefore, one black marble in the ballot box is enough to keep the applicant out of the organization.

Note : The term is now applied generally to efforts — especially unreasonable or vengeful actions — to keep a people or groups out of organizations they wish to join.”*

Blackballed: My Experience

In the 5th grade I had long-standing tenure with a small group of neighborhood girls. We hung out in my grandmother’s pool all summer, and hung out for lunch and recess at school…typical non-hierarchical kids’ stuff.

Then Yolanda Stokes joined our class mid-year. That she was a head taller than the rest of us was alarming, but we invited her into our little group and she was really nice. Until she wasn’t.

One day in February, none of my friends would talk to me. Or look at me. They talked among themselves and to others, but not to me. I asked them what’s wrong, what’s wrong, what had I done wrong, but they thoroughly ignored me…until school let out in June.

We hadn’t exchanged a word since winter, yet there was The Group at grandma’s back gate—without Yolanda, who lived elsewhere—in swimsuits with towels over-shoulder, smiling like nothing had changed.

Well, fuck that and fuck them.

I didn’t have those words at the time (unfortunately), so I simply stood at the gate and didn’t let them in. I may have actually growled. As they vainly pled their case, they explained how it was all Yolanda’s doing: She told them I was too smart to be friends with AND that she would beat up anyone she saw talking to me.

Wow. What a fragile loyalty.

As a group, we could have beat her up. Or collectively ignored her. But they were facing a viable threat with immediate consequences, and they traded friendship for her playground tyranny.

If I recall, Yolanda didn’t attend our school in the fall. With the threat removed and my resolve apparently softened by the summer sun, I was back in The Group! We hung out like old times and things were peachy. Until they weren’t.

In the middle of 8th grade we took standardized tests for entry to a special advanced high school program. No one in The Group got in…except me. This went over well (NOT!) and they stopped talking to me. Again.

Fooled me twice, yeh?

Blackballed: The Benefits

The first time I was excluded by The Group, I was devastated. I cried for a month, always in secret because I was ashamed to tell my parents I had no friends. Which makes no sense, but hey, I was 10. Whattayagonnado?

The second time I was excluded by The Group, I was annoyed. For like, a week. The feeling was hard to maintain because I was busy with my schoolwork, my hobbies, and my other friends.

Yeah. I learned a lot the first time—

• Lesson 1: How to cry alone in my room without making a sound. Which got boring.
• Lesson 2: How to play solo, find and invent things to do, and make new friends.

And the most important lesson of all—

Just because someone looks like me doesn’t make them my friend, and
just because someone doesn’t look like me doesn’t make them my enemy.

I was (and am) wary of meeting new people, but I became (and am) wide open to who my friends could be. Which meant I had friends of every color, age, and background…even boys. Ewwww!

So.

The Group’s second blackball effort didn’t hurt as much. I kinda remember them looking at me months later with question-mark faces. Like they wondered why I was hanging out and having fun as if being in The Group didn’t matter.

Ummm…? How about because being in The Group didn’t matter?

And that’s the thing about being blackballed: It matters only as much as being in The Group matters.

So when there are other people to talk to, other interests to explore, and other places to find what’s needed, being in The Group doesn’t matter at all.

Being Blackballed and Your Business

I thought that was kids’ stuff. But 30 years later and in business, I find myself back on the playground—if I ever left it. It’s a bigger game now, though. Being blackballed can be financially destructive, not just emotionally. That said—

If you want to be, or stay, in a Group—or connect with the people in it—it might be better to chew off your own tongue than voice a criticism to its leaders.

But that raises some questions, doesn’t it? Like—

Why do you believe a Group’s leaders would retaliate, rather than offer a professional-toned reply? Are you assuming the worst, or have you seen them attack others for their criticisms?

If you have seen them respond viciously to criticism, why do you still want to be in their Group? To say: What is so valuable about being a part of that Group that you would sign up for tyrannical leadership?

And if you want to connect with its members and you avoid criticizing the Group leaders because they might turn their followers against you, then 1) Can you ever trust their avid followers to be your loyal customers?, and 2) Are you prepared to play court jester to stay in the leaders’ favor? If so, for how long?

Blackballed: Lessons from the Playground

People are people, so blackballing is unavoidable. But I think 10-year-old me had good ideas for mellowing its effects. These ideas are helping the 41-year-old me, and maybe they’ll help you, too—

• Remember: Working solo is difficult, but doable
• Learn how to entertain yourself
• Find new friends to widen your network and lessen its fragility
• Don’t be afraid to make friends with people who are different from you
• Create networks that are independent of each other to avoid bleedthrough if things go awry
• Be slow to make close connections and loyal once you do
• Don’t accept demands on who you can be friends with. Suggestions, yes. Demands, no.
• You don’t have to let blackballers back in after they’ve cast you out

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With love from both of us,

Photo credit: L. Marie

* The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Retrieved June 09, 2010, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blackballed