Author Archives: thomasknoll

Peak Experience

Posted on by
1

I just came down from the mountain. An 82 hour life-changing gathering of an amazing community of entrepreneurs, storytellers, and world changers called Summit Series.

A number of friends have been asking about it. I am happy to have that conversation, but it should be in person and over a good meal. So, hit me up to plan that meal.

However, I do want to pass on to you a few ideas I wrote down to remind myself how to live the summit experience every week of the year:

  • Actually talk to the person beside you. You never know who they are.
  • Be willing to be inspired by something you don’t understand.
  • Always think positive thoughts, you never know who is reading your mind. =)
  • Eat every meal with lots of people, even people you don’t know.
  • Stretch. Grow. Drink lots of water. And breathe.
  • Dance every day. And dance like you mean it. Till you sweat.

Summitseries

waiting for gmail

Posted on by
Reply

I am trying to cleanup an number of my gmail filters and labels this morning. (Let me know if I should dive into the details of my system in the comments, I’ll skip them for now.) And, I am spending way too much time waiting for the ‘loading’ notification to go away.

gmail loading...

still working

I don’t understand why I should be waiting for gmail to finish processing the changes to labels on the front-end. Why can’t they do that in the background on the server side?

Leave it Where You Want to Begin

Posted on by
2

One of my practices right now is to begin my day on a blank page. Or, more specifically, a blank screen. I finally realized that beginning my day in the urgent mode of triaging my many inboxes destroys my chances of getting into the important mode of setting goals for the day. After several weeks of practice, I have successfully formed the habit. But my form is still bad. It takes a couple minutes of closing windows, (and being distracted by the content), before achieving tabula rasa.

So, now I am adjusting my behavior further by making it a point to close my computer in the state I want to open it in.

I’m pretty sure we can find ways to apply this to other areas of our lives.

The Lost Art of Practice

Posted on by
3

Do you even remember what it felt like to practice something, and then experience that aha moment when everything clicked? Other than video games and yoga, what happened to practicing things?

I want drills, and exercises, and dedicated practice times that far outnumber the games or performances. I want to review the tapes, and scout the other team. I want a teacher or a coach to watch my technique and give me feedback.

How would you begin to break one of your roles or functions down into a practice regimen?

How I use LinkedIn

Posted on by
1

TL;DR – I only connect on LinkedIn with people I can personally recommend.

I realize that many people use LinkedIn as tool to grow their professional networks, and to “bookmark” people they have met at conferences etc.

There are many reasons why I prefer Zerply (please connect with me there), but there is still enough critical-mass at LinkedIn to utilize the value it does provide.

I consider myself a LinkedIn purist. A core function of the product is the ability to connect to people two or three degrees away through introductions. All my connections are visible to people several degrees away as someone they could get an introduction to. So, it only makes sense to connect to people I feel confident personally and professionally recommending to someone else.

I am more than happy when anyone reaches out to me through LinkedIn, because I love to help out however I can. I am just highly likely to move the conversation to another channel, and connect on other networks.

What qualities make someone a good community manager?

Posted on by
1

Got a great question today in my inbox, “what qualities make someone a good community manager?“

First, I can not promote the title community manager, because I do not believe the role is to manage the community. I don’t think the title is fair to the professional or to the community.

So, I can only promote titles like,

Community Architect A product centric person who designs and creates the spaces for communities to gather in and go about their life and work together

Community Curator A content centric person who is a good story teller, and can draw out great stories and examples from the community to reflect back to itself.

Community Cultivator A person who cares about rules and procedures and knows when to break them… the person who plants questions and content, moderates conversations, and mediates relationships.

Some of the qualities necessary for these roles are:

  • Compassion – you must love people in all their shapes and cultures and proclivities
  • Empathy – able to step in the shoes and head of anyone within the community, or outside the community
  • Strong Character – able to roll with the punches, dodge attacks, and defend community guidelines
  • Decider – gotta just make decisions quickly, communicate clearly, and keep moving

I probably need to add a hundred more, but these keep floating to the top.

under-communicating

Posted on by
1

Due to the extreme pace and environment of my little startup-life these days, I have had a chance to recognize how much poor communication bothers me. Especially under-communication. A.K.A. the expectation that I should somehow get your drift and immediately comprehend what you are trying to communicate.

Obviously, as soon as I convinced myself this is about everyone else, I realize that, no, this is about me and what I need to work on to improve my communication.

So, I made a couple guidelines for myself:

Provide the context

Everyone else hasn’t been reading the same emails, or articles, or overhead the same conversations. So, let people in on the context of where I am coming from.

Be clear about my opinions vs. the facts

I know whether I am stating my opinion, or citing facts. (Um, usually.) But, that doesn’t mean anyone else does. Unless, I explicitly tell them.

Be clear about any questions or expectations for response

Don’t you hate rhetorical questions?

Make sure communication is directed at the appropriate channels

Reduce unnecessary duplication of information, or needing to have the same conversation multiple times.

What would you add to the list?