Author Archives: davenelsen

It’s not atypical for a company to decide to launch a Facebook page or begin Tweeting because they’ve seen others (most likely in radically different markets) achieve success with such campaigns. However, selecting your “tool / venue” should be the sixth step in your process, not the first.

If you sell B2B (business-to-business), look at your competitors and their likely misguided efforts to employ Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc., to (do what?). Roughly 9 out of 10 such initiatives I see are essentially a check the box waste of time.

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Reading time – 5:12

Caveat: I am not a medical professional or a psychic. I am an engineer, entrepreneur (5 start-ups), and professional speaker focused on helping businesspeople raise their TQs (Technology Quotients), because technology is how we get things done with greater success. I purchased my first 3M NIOSH N100 masks in the 90’s in preparation for a possible global pandemic.

First, the bottom line:

Whenever you are closer than 6 feet to another person and not wearing a mask,

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I’ve been working (if you can call it that) as a professional speaker for exactly 11 years this month. Who knew that you could get paid – really well – to talk for just a fraction of the hours in any 40-hour workweek? What a great country we live in!

Now, I’d like to sell you on the IMPORTANCE of the content that follows. This will sound like boasting but I think what I do when I present is 99% transferrable to other people. So here goes: People often come up to me after my presentations and say,

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Would you be shocked if I told you that more than 40% of your corporate resources are being applied incredibly inefficiently? Would you be curious about how this could be happening after all of the planning and optimization you’ve done? Would you be excited to attack process improvement on such a big opportunity?

Think about it. What could you (and all of your employees) be spending more than 40% of your time doing? What could that thing possibly be?

Survey says … email!

If you really want to get stirred up about the severity of the problem,

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Some people claim to have ESP – extra sensory perception – essentially the ability to read other people’s minds. I used to think that these people were all “wacko-nut-jobs” … in the same class as psychics and tarot card readers. (Am I being politically incorrect here?) #ClosedMinded #Intolerant

OK, so maybe now I can never run for political office. Or maybe now I’m finally fully qualified to do so. (Am I being politically incorrect here, again?)

It turns out that there are actually people who can read other people’s minds.

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(Drum roll please) … Absolutely nothing!

If you don’t know what SEO stands for, now you know that you don’t need to know. But in case you’re curious, SEO stands for, or maybe I should say stood for “search engine optimization”. The acronym implies that there are people who are smart enough to optimize Google. Even if someone knew exactly how Google works …

Wait a second. Google has so many moving parts and is increasingly incorporating machine learning and AI (artificial intelligence) into its algorithms,

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Yes, like all good clickbait, this headline is a bit of an exaggeration as I still believe in and use LinkedIn. That said, two of the social networks that I was using a lot in the past, I barely use anymore. I’m talking about Facebook and Google+.

Let’s start with the latter. I never use Google+ anymore … because it no longer exists, at least for consumer and “brand” accounts. By my count, this was Google’s fourth try at social networking. Remember Orkit? Wave? Buzz? Don’t worry, nobody else does either.

Perhaps I was the only one who was actually using G+ as it WAS called.

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We live in an exponentially-accelerating technological world. It’s impossible for the linearly-accelerating (?) human brain to keep up without aid. Are you getting as much support from technology as you should be … and as is required for future success?

Here’s a simple test: How many apps and services are you paying for?

If your answer is fewer than eight, watch out! The world is quickly leaving you behind.

Yes, most apps are free but unless the app/service is advertising-based (like Facebook and Gmail),

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Unbelievably, I’ve been blogging since 2009 (and podcasting since 2005) and I’ve never told you about my favorite app, what I call my second brain. Without it, I’d be half as productive. If you embrace it, you’ll be twice as productive.

I’m talking about Evernote (or OneNote, Microsoft’s very, very, very good copy). Microsoft is not a very innovative company, but they are perhaps the world’s best “fast follower”. They didn’t invent spreadsheets. Remember VisiCalc? When Microsoft saw VisiCalc, they recognized that the world had changed, so they copied it … and in time made it even better.

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