Interpreting the conversation.

Throughout the past several months I have received great feedback from the blogosphere which allowed me to learn how the community works. I have received several twitter messages from several people discussing their difficulty in keeping up with the numerous news feeds that they monitor in a given day. One that comes to mind is from Brad who at times can have close to 3,000 news stories to read.

Taking the contrarian approach to the worldwide conversation known as the internet, I watch fewer feeds through netvibes and bookmark the articles I like in ma.gnolia. This affords me an opportunity to find value, create a brief synopsis of why I liked the article, and categorize them for later. My ma.gnolia bookmarks are what drive the research section of this website.

Recently, I began utilizing RSS to watch my research through netvibes. This allows me to efficiently watch trends in a given market segment to see how the landscape changes over a given period of time.

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Overall, I am satisfied with the results.

Participating in conversation

Today I had an opportunity to meet with an old friend of mine, whom I have had numerous discussions with over the years. Reflecting on today’s and other conversations I have had, these are four short tips on how I participate.

Understand the concepts:

I have learned that details constantly change depending on the audience, and think of conversations as a pyramid. The top or “point” is a broad topic and the base expands exponentially with ideas, people, and continued conversation. This emphasizes a mindset that discards pre-conceived notions and focuses on progressive change.

Listen:

Listening is a simple form of feedback that provides an opportunity to learn from every conversation that you participate in. I listen by engaging my audience with consistent eye contact and ask questions about what they discuss. What I have found most difficult is reserving my personal opinion until I am asked, but find it refreshing to have productive conversations while saying as few words as possible.

Know your audience:

How you receive and provide feedback requires an understanding of the audience you are speaking with. Adaptability to a situation provides an open forum where both parties can build a continued two-way discussion of words and ideas. This open-mindedness allows for better management, products, and relationships between two parties; however, all feedback should be constructive.

Know where you add value:

Understanding your industry, art, product, and etc allows you to have the right conversations. Collaborate with those that have different strengths than you, ask the right questions, and the results will be positive. In addition, you create new contacts when questions arise in the future.

When utilized together, the preceding will help you participate and lead future conversations.

Technorati Tags: conversation, organic, coworking

A guide to bootstrapping

Thank you to Sramana Mitra for sharing an excellent article on bootstrapping.

Bootstrapping reminds me that there are several parallels between companies and individuals.

Before my 24th birthday, I asked myself how much money do people really have? I was frustrated with myself for the mistakes I made in college, which I detailed last month in Let My Loss be Your Gain. After my 25th birthday, I gave an introduction and two months later gave an update.

Bootstrapping has taught me fiscal responsibility.

Technorati Tags: coworking, Finance, Geezeo