Category: personal reflections

It’s Not Personal

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

Recently, I made the decision to disconnect from a bunch of “Facebook friends.” I culled my list by about 20%. My criteria? Not totally scientific, but if I’d never met you in person or had any significant direct interaction (or it had been 20+ years since that last happened), you only contacted me when you needed me to do something for you, or you were primarily using FB for business/promotional reasons, you were pretty much guaranteed to get axed. I dumped virtually all the brands I was following at the same time, too, taking that list from 150+ down to under 25, most of which are in my neighborhood.

There’s been some blowback. To say the least.

But here’s the thing: it’s not personal. Really it’s not. That’s why, if you’re one of those who did get cut, I’m probably still following you on Twitter and/or connected to you on LinkedIn. I’m not trying to be a douchebag, and I’m definitely not trying to say I’m too “important” for anyone.

What I am saying is that I’m really, really busy. We all are. Cases in point:

  •  I haven’t seen my best friend from grad school in over 2 years, and he lives less than 100 miles from me.
  • I have two nieces and a nephew I adore, and I only see them about 2-3 times a year. I talk to their father, my only sibling, maybe twice a year outside those visits.
  • Up until recently, when I’ve been fortunate enough to see him 3 times in the last month, I had only seen one of my best friends in DC twice since his son was born. His son will be two in two weeks.
  • I haven’t seen a dear girlfriend and her new son in over 6 months. Other close friends? I saw them in the past week, but it had been 3+ months since the last time, in which time their little girl got her first tooth (two more on the way) and is standing with almost no help.
  • Another girlfriend and I recently had to set up a regular monthly “date” to make sure we didn’t fall off each others’ calendars, and she and I have been close for almost a decade.

Clearly, I have a hard time keeping up with those who are truly my nearest and dearest. Do I really care about the latest promotional blog post from someone I met once at a conference or what someone I haven’t seen or spoken to since 1989 did last weekend? Well., maybe, but remember: attention doesn’t scale (which may be my new motto).

What hard choices have you made recently to enable you to focus on what – and who – really matters?

Resolutions, Fresh Starts, and Lasting Changes

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

A few days ago, Amber Naslund took on the topic of resolutions. Her take was pretty interesting: resolutions made at New Year’s actually contain the seeds of their own failure. She makes the point that nobody checks up on you at the end of the year to see how you did, and that a much better attitude to take would be:

I can do this, today and every day, if I want it badly enough.

And I get her point – it’s why I use New Year’s for fun resolutions (under consideration this year: circus camp, learning how to “cab whistle,” and learning how to ululate) and, if I want to change or be better, I just do it when the idea occurs to me.

But there’s a reason the week between Christmas and New Year’s is commonly known as clean out your desk/email inbox week: fresh starts are nice. Sure New Year’s is kind of an arbitrary time (why not, for instance, the first day of spring?), but it’s a commonly agreed upon arbitrary time, and that’s why it works for people.

So how do you help yourself stick to your resolutions? Well, you could take my route and only resolve something fun. I started doing it probably about 10 years ago, and I’ve kept every single New Year’s resolution I’ve made since.

But the answer’s right in front of us: accountability. If you want to make a more serious resolution, find someone who’s willing to hold you accountable for the results, and see the change you wanted to create become a permanent part of your life.

And whichever direction you choose to go – fun resolutions, serious resolutions, or no resolutions at all – have a very happy New Year!

Why You Don’t Want to be a Lifer

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 3 Comments on Why You Don’t Want to be a Lifer

You start telling yourself the story of your organization the day you’re hired. Over time, the story becomes more complete, but also more constrained. As you start to “know” more, the range of possibilities narrows.

But what do you really know?

We don’t recall everything that happens. We can only store what fits into our mental categories. As soon as you start forming those categories, you start reifying them, choosing what to keep and what to dump out of your mental file cabinets based on what meshes with the story you’ve already started telling yourself.

You see this most frequently with a long-time employee shooting down a new idea without even considering or discussing it: “We tried that and it didn’t work.”

And maybe that person is right – the organization DID try it and it DIDN’T work.

But maybe “it” wasn’t done right or by the right person or at the right time. Maybe the audience or the environment has changed in the interim, but because different people and different circumstances don’t fit into the long-timer’s story, s/he hasn’t noticed.

This is why people get so excited about the concept of beginners’ mind and why so many new hires try to retain their outsider perspective as long as possible.

I’m not arguing that you need to change jobs every two years – there’s value in institutional memory as well.

What I am saying is that, if your story is stale or you feel it’s completely filled in and can’t accommodate so much as a change in punctuation, maybe it’s time to move on and recapture that blank slate.

A Swing and a Miss

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 1 Comment on A Swing and a Miss

I was out picking up lunch the other day when I was accosted on the street by one of the ubiquitous (at least in the DC area) attractive young people attempting to raise funds for a national charity (whose t-shirt he was wearing).

The pitches usually range from annoying (“Do you have a minute for X cause today?” Uh, I might have a minute, but we both know that’s not what you actually want…) to the downright offensive (“Do you care about X cause?” thus implying that if I don’t open up my wallet for you on the street, I’m a hard-hearted jackass.)

Obviously, the practice works (otherwise they wouldn’t do it), but I wonder if there’s any way to calculate (or even estimate) what it costs them in lost revenue from people who, like me, get really annoyed and vow as a result never to give to that organization?

So what’s the moral of the story for associations?  Don’t annoy the audience you’re trying to reach, even if it seems like it might be effective – for every person who gives you $5, there are countless others who’ve now decided your organization will NEVER be worth their support (and some of them might’ve been worth a lot more than $5 to you).

TEDWomen – Really?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 21 Comments on TEDWomen – Really?

By now, you may have heard that the famous and high-powered TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) organization has decided to launch TEDWomen.

YAY, right?

Not so fast.

I’m actually pretty annoyed that TED is ghettoizing women. I think more women should just be on the regular TED program, rather than this BS “well, the ladies weren’t good/smart/innovative enough to make the REAL TED program, so we gave them their own event – which will also ensure that they’re only talking to each other and don’t bother us BIG IMPORTANT MEN with their silly little ideas.”

Or maybe I’m reading too much into this.

But I doubt it.

Handling Information Overload

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 3 Comments on Handling Information Overload

I’ve been thinking about information overload for the past month or so.

It started with Jeff De Cagna’s breakfast session on Solving 21st Century Problems back in early March.

Then the #assnchat for March 16 focused on this topic.

Then I read this fun piece by Garrison Keillor in Salon.

And, in thinking about it, I realized that I actually do a pretty good job of this. I’m not always totally on top of every latest rumor about every bleeding edge technology or device. But I’m reasonably well-informed about most things related to social media and association management, while still being productive and successful in my job, spending a fair amount of time volunteering for ASAE and other groups in the DC community, writing this blog, writing an active and well-syndicated NFL blog, preserving time to read non-work-related stuff, having a life outside of all that and unplugging on a regular basis – all WITHOUT a smart phone.

In short, I have some tips to share for managing information overload.

My number 1 tip may be the hardest to replicate: be a fast reader who has good recall. I was already pretty good at this, but I got REALLY good in grad school. I do NOT recommend starting grad school just to acquire this skill. That’s like cutting off your arm to cure a paper cut. But anything you can do to speed up your pace and increase your retention will help. Yes, that means practice, and it also means focusing on one thing at a time.

That brings me to tip 2: multitasking is a myth. Music (preferably without lyrics) in the background while you’re writing? Sure. Skimming the headlines on the elliptical machine? You bet. Repeated cycling back and forth from working on next fiscal year’s budget to answering your email? Not so much. Every time you force your brain between disparate tasks, you lose momentum. That’s disastrous, particularly for tasks that require “flow.”

Tip 3: know and use the difference between “reading” and “skimming.” That rapid pace deep retention reading I do? I don’t use it for everything. I don’t need to devote that level of energy to my morning WaPo, or most magazine articles, or some emails, or most tweets, or some blog posts. The trick is to be able to QUICKLY identify which level of attention/retention is required and choose appropriately. But be a voracious reader and skimmer – you never know where your next great idea will be coming from.

Tip 4: choose what you pay attention to carefully. Social Media Today just wrote about this under the guise of trimming your lists. But the point is: only pay attention to what you’re really paying attention to. No matter how “famous” the person is, if you’re not getting anything out of following them or reading their blog, cut ’em. Be ruthless. You’ll never get to the meat if you’re inundated with fluff.

Tip 5: have a solid information organization system. Mine’s basically 3 pronged: my totally old skool, no-wifi, no email Palm Pilot (feel free to mock me, but I think, used properly, it’s the greatest productivity tool ever invented), my Del.icio.us bookmarks, and my relentlessly pruned and managed RSS feed. It’s not fancy, it’s not necessarily the latest technology or gizmo, but it enables me to keep basically everything I need to hand. It’s supplemented by a carefully chosen group of Google docs (not everything, just the really important stuff), and, again, carefully chosen tweeps to follow. I don’t need to be in touch with everyone, and I prune for value all the time.

A few more:

Only touch things once to the greatest degree possible. Your Outlook inbox is not a filing system. Neither is a giant pile o’ papers on your desk. Neither is an about-to-topple-over-and-crush-you-in-the-middle-of-the-night stack of books and magazines next to your bed. If it’s quick, deal with it now. If it’s not quick but important, put it on a relentlessly pruned, SMALL pile to deal with as soon as you get a block of time (and keep a list of your priority items and make sure you know when your next block of time is coming – and the one after that). If it’s FYI or for future reference, file it IMMEDIATELY. And when you *have* a block of time, don’t futz around on Twitter. Twitter’s for “I have 5 minutes between finishing this task and my next meeting.” Likewise, when all you have is 5 minutes between finishing this task and your next meeting, that is NOT the time to start writing the organization-wide marketing plan for next year. Fit the tasks to the time you have.

Set boundaries. Does technology really “set us free”? I’m not sure that it’s progress that Dad can email from the Blackberry while on a conference call while pushing Junior on the swings, particularly given what we know about our lack of ability to truly multitask. With very few exceptions (you’re a doctor or Barack Obama – and if so, thanks for reading, Mr. President!), no one’s life is dependent on your being accessible 24/7. Trust me – you’re not that indispensable. None of us are. And constantly checking up on your staff (which is what refusing to be offline EVER is all about) tells them that you don’t have confidence in them. Is that really the message you want to send?

Does that message (that it’s OK to set boundaries) have to come from the top of your organization? It certainly helps, but in my experience, no. You *can* set your own boundaries, particularly if, when you’re on the job, you’re 100% on, and you’re clear about when you are and aren’t available – and if you really feel that you can’t set boundaries in your current organization, you might want to look for another job.

Related to that, beware false urgency. Just because Twitter and FB and email and smart phones make it possible for me to answer you in 30 seconds at any time of the day or night doesn’t mean that you actually need that. Have you ever noticed that if, say, you’re somewhere without Internet access for a few days, when you return to your email, there are THOUSANDS of messages? And if you start at the end of the various chains, you notice that 80% or more of the “issues” resolved themselves? There’s a lesson there.

Own your life (work and otherwise). Own your time. Make conscious choices about how you want to spend it and what’s important to you. Put down the iPhone every once in a while. Set your priorities and don’t let yourself be distracted from them by what’s new and shiny. It’s trite, but no one ever said, on her deathbed: “Why did I spent all that time with my friends and family? Why didn’t I spend more time on my Droid?”

Edited May 25 to add:  Amber Naslund (aka @ambercadabra) has a great blog post about how she keeps herself organized and together in 10 relatively simple (but not necessarily easy) steps.

The Wisdom of Engineers, Part 2

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

Remember how I told you that I’m surrounded by engineers in my family? Well, engineers, aside from knowing lots of good jokes about themselves, frequently come up with a lot of wisdom.

One of my favorite engineering sayings is:

“Cheap – Good – Fast. Pick two.”

Needless to say, I think this concept has applications far outside the world of engineering.

(Many of you will attribute this to the project management concept of the Iron Triangle. But I heard it from engineers first, so I credit them.)

 

The Wisdom of Engineers, Part 1

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 1 Comment on The Wisdom of Engineers, Part 1

My dad’s an engineer. My brother’s an engineer. My spouse is an engineer. I’m surrounded by super-smart DISC profile “C” types.

Ever in a situation you really don’t know how to fix/resolve? Apply one of my very favorite principles from the engineering world:

“What is the simplest thing that could possibly work?”

Follow the link above to enjoy a very fun, very geeky dissection of this idea. But for me, it all comes down to:

  • You get done sooner
  • Your work is easier to communicate
  • You feel less stress

(shout out to Kent Beck for the list, excerpted above)

How do you unplug?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 1 Comment on How do you unplug?

Why do we feel like we have to be “on” all the time? OK, sometimes you genuinely have too much work to do in 40ish hours a week. That was the case for me at one of my previous associations. Small organizations ALWAYS have WAY more hats than heads, and I was so invested in our awesome mission that I kept adding and adding and adding until it burned me out. Sometimes you’re working with people in vastly different time zones. I’ve taken conference calls at times that are pretty wacky from a US East Coast perspective to accommodate clients across the country…or the world. Sometimes, it’s part of your known job requirements – you’re an obstetrician delivering babies or a network geek running downtimes, and odd hours are part of the package you accepted when you chose that profession.

But what about the rest of us? The woman taking a call during an intimate dinner for two at Citronelle? The guy sending text messages during Radio Golf? The roomful of bloggers tweeting madly throughout Blog Potomac but not actually talking to each other?

As Shashi Bellamkonda pointed out at Blog Potomac last week, virtual connecting can be addictive. It feels like you’re making friends and genuinely interacting with people, and, if we’re all honest with ourselves, there’s a certain degree of ego involved, too: “I’m so important that my organization will crumble if I’m unavailable for 10 minutes” and/or “I’m so interesting that that socnets will skreech to a halt without a constant stream of my pithy observations.”

The thing about being “on” all the time is that it can seriously interfere both with our actual face-to-face relationships (and our ability to form and nuture them) and with our ability to really *think* about stuff. We’re not multitasking mavens – we’re just distracted…all the time.

So, as I tweeted during Shashi’s presentation:

  • Do you unplug?
  • How do you know where/when is appropriate to be plugged in/unplugged?
  • How and when?

One person – @lalamax – responded: Take a real lunch – no phone, no computer.

My general unplugging guidelines include:

  • Unplug when face to face with someone – no taking calls of more than a “can I call you back?” duration or tweeting or texting under the table at dinner.
  • Unplug on vacation – the only reason I want to turn on my computer is to make a restaurant reservation or find out when Rebirth‘s gig at the Maple Leaf starts.
  • Unplug on weekends – if at all possible, I want to get out & play and spend face time with people I love.
  • Unplug late/early – I still like to start the day with a cup of coffee and the actual, physical Washington Post and end the day with a good book or an even better spouse.

What about you?