On perfection, strangers, and Roald Dahl.
Rise and shine, friends. It's a beautiful Friday and it's time for the world's BEST newsletter!
In this edition:
1. 21 Traits of Highly Effective Account-Based Sales and Marketing Professionals
2. How to talk to strangers
3. How to ensure female voices are heard at work
4. Scrumididdlyumptious! 6 of Roald Dahl's words added to Oxford English Dictionary
5. Are you ready for digital transformation?
6. Why some events aren't getting women speakers
7. Quote of the week: on perfection
1. 21 Traits of Highly Effective Account-Based Sales and Marketing Professionals
I am seriously stoked to be using my favorite video of Muhammad Ali in a blog post this week for the folks at Engagio. It's worth the click-through alone, but so is this list of traits that make for solid ABM professionals. Check it out.
2. How to talk to strangers
If you've spent any time with me in person, you know that I am often insanely, if not awkwardly, interested in chatting with strangers. I have met some of my very best friends this way. Most of my friends laugh about it, but I find in this big strange world that we are all much more alike than different. I want to know everyone's story, because everybody has one. Plus, it's fun.
Kio Stark wrote an excellent piece for the TED blog about how to do it, and do it without feeling awkward. (Or you can just hang out with me for five minutes.)
3. How to ensure female voices are heard at work
I was tickled pink that this strategy came to light. Read the article.
"Female staffers adopted a meeting strategy they called “amplification”: When a woman made a key point, other women would repeat it, giving credit to its author. This forced the men in the room to recognize the contribution — and denied them the chance to claim the idea as their own."
It isn't going to change on its own, ladies.
4. Scrumididdlyumptious! 6 of Roald Dahl's words added to Oxford English Dictionary
Anyone else really excited by the willingness of the Oxford English Dictionary to adapt and evolve as the way we speak does, rather than stay beholden to some stoic and outdated version of language? The dictionary should be something that is a living and breathing reflection of the culture it governs. AND, my FAVORITE author as a child, Roald Dahl, was just honored with 6 of his words added. Read the article.
One of the words is dahlesque and it describes the characteristics of his work, "eccentric plots, villainous or loathsome adult characters, and gruesome or black humor."
Wait... what does this say about me as an adult? Moving on...
5. Are you ready for digital transformation?
I teamed up with marketing technology agency Verndale here in Boston to produce a really fun interactive quiz to figure out whether you're ready (or not) for that big digital transformation your CTO keeps talking about. Take the quiz and find out.
6. Why some events aren't getting women speakers
I've written in the past about the lack of women on stage unless it's an intentionally "female" event (which always leave a bad taste in my mouth) and the implied bias at play behind these scenarios. In response to criticism of this year's CMWorld speaker selection, VP of Marketing at CMI Cathy McPhillips wrote a great perspective from the event organizers. She says, "Don’t always blame the event organizers."
Her argument, that I agree with, is that women need to meet event organizers in the middle, promoting themselves and putting their expertise out there, intentionally.
If you're a female reading this, I recommend doing a lot to raise your personal profile. Invest in your personal brand. Apply to speak. Get help and coaching when you need it. A simple move is to create a listing for yourself on speaker bureaus including Innovation Women - 100% full of female speakers for event organizers to find an expert when they need one (and founded here in Boston.)
7. Perfection is intimidating.
The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot - albeit a perfect one - to get an "A".
Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
Perfection is scary. Create, anyway. Start, anyway. Write, anyway.
Happy Friday,
Katie
PS: I'll be at the Influitive roadshow on Monday next week, live-blogging the event and hanging out with some great advocate marketers. Register here!