Instigator Blog

Driving to work this morning I was listening to the radio. The radio announcer said that the police have yet to identify the shooter in yesterday’s attack at Dawson College in Montreal but reports are out there identifying him. I missed the name they said on the radio, but I did catch this part (and I’m paraphrasing here):

The man rumored to be the killer had a blog where he displayed pictures of himself with guns and knives. In his blog he wrote things like, “I want to go down in a blaze of bullets.” Two hours before the shooting he wrote his last post where he talked about drinking whiskey…

I don’t know if the man the radio announcer named is the killer. I don’t know if the killer really had a blog, or wrote the blog the announcer was referring to. But, listening to the radio I couldn’t help but think, “If this guy is the killer, he was putting it all out there. He was openly saying ‘I’m heavily into guns, knives and violence. I’m unhappy, frustrated and deeply troubled. PAY ATTENTION TO ME!‘“

(Incidentally, while perusing the blogosphere for news about the Dawson College shooting, I came across a link to the apparent killer’s blog. Here it is.)

A public blog is always a public statement. Whether it’s just for your family and friends, or you want the entire world to see what you write (which is most often the case), it’s a way of expressing yourself publically.

This guy was putting himself out there.

So this leads me to a couple questions:

1. Should police monitor the blogosphere for this sort of content? I recognize the myriad of potential issues (lack of time / resources, what to do with the information, etc.) but the police are patrolling the Internet for child porn-related crimes…And, with a bit of technology (some of which already exists - as simple as Technorati Watchlists or Google) you could probably start to collect data and content on local blogs with certain keywords, phrases or topics.Maybe they already do this (I’m sure agencies like the FBI/CIA/CSIS do plenty of monitoring for terrorist activities, etc.) but I doubt it’s happening at a local level to the extent that it could be.
2. Does the public have a responsibility to patrol the blogosphere? I’m all for free speech, but there are consequences to every action…and I wonder if, as a community, we have a responsibility to patrol what’s going on out there. Maybe we don’t all need watchlists monitoring every possible crazy person, but if this guy did have a blog someone was reading it.More than anything, people need to recognize the signs of someone that’s troubled and might need help (or containment.) If there’s a blog, there’s a reader. That reader (unless he’s in on it with the blogger) needs to recognize a potential problem and alert authorities.
3. Can’t we develop technology to do a better job of monitoring things like blogs to help the authorities? This is really tertiary in my mind, but I can’t help but think we (as entrepreneurs, technologists, etc.) could find a way of supplying authorities with suitable technology and perhaps manpower + skill to help them monitor the blogosphere. This is just a tiny seed of a thought in my head, nothing more than that…but it makes me think…we can take our public responsibility one step further and develop technology that helps the police do what they need to do. Remember: the blogosphere is a public place, so I have few concerns about privacy here.

At the end of the day, part of what makes something like this so tragic is that it’s not preventable. Anyone can walk into almost any building (hospital, school, university, office tower) and start shooting. That’s frightening and frustrating. If there are ways of monitoring the blogosphere to find people who are “asking for help” I think that deserves discussion and serious attention.
I received an email today from Leah Maclean in Australia asking me if I was OK. I am. Dawson College is about a 5-minute walk from my office; fairly close hitting but far enough. I spent the entire day listening to the radio and cop cars speeding by.

Still, things like this have a way of hitting very close to home. My son’s daycare provider had a son stuck in the College for hours, communicating sporadically by cellphone.

When the incident broke out I sent a chat message to a friend who didn’t know what was going on. He was 2 blocks away from the mayhem.

So things like this have a way of hitting very close to home…my thoughts are with everyone involved at Dawson yesterday. By all accounts the police acted swiftly and effectively, as did other emergency personnel. It’s going to take awhile for the city to pull itself back together, but it will. This is Montreal.

If you want to read some other people’s thoughts, here you go:

* Four Montreal Bloggers on the Dawson College Shooting

* Toronto Sun accuses video games for Dawsone College shooting

* Dawson College Shootings

What do you think? Should the police monitor the blogosphere? Can they? Can we help?

Answer these questions:

1. Do you think small business owners and entrepreneurs should have a mission statement for their businesses?
2. Do you think most small business owners and entrepreneurs think a mission statement is pointless?
3. Do you think mission statements are a bunch of corporate propaganda perpetrated by overpriced management consultants?

Denise O’Berry draws our attention to a recent study that showed over a 5-year period, 98% of the 50 most profitable Fortune 1000 companies had mission statements in place. The goal of the study was to find correlations between corporate growth, profitability and the existence of a company mission statement.

Denise writes:

The study quantifiably supports what most management consultants and public companies have known all along; Companies that have a long-term vision of their future and a stated mission for their employees grow faster than their peers.

The study then goes on to suggest that small and medium sized businesses should take the hint from their larger brethren and focus more on longer term vision and writing a mission statement. According to the study, less than 50% of smaller businesses have a mission statement.

Bplans.com says a mission statement is, “a cross between a slogan and an executive summary.”

I suspect many small business owners and entrepreneurs consider mission statements to be a bunch of hooey. And in some cases, I’d agree. We only have to look at Bplans.com’s points about how to write a mission statement to recognize the fact that others think so too.

Make sure you actually believe in your mission statement, if you don’t, it’s a lie, and your customers will soon realize it.

Good point. You wouldn’t have to point that out if mission statements weren’t often fraught with “ra ra silliness” and “over-blown horn-tooting.”

Small business owners and entrepreneurs are very often focused on today and not much else. We’re busy, wearing a million hats and juggling more balls than a circus clown. And you want me to think about long-term vision? Yup. Aren’t I a demaning son-of-a-gun?

Long-term vision can accomplish quite a bit. It’s not just “pie in the sky.” Done properly, having a long-term plan for your company (and a mission statement) can create tangible, actionable goals. It can help motivate employees and create a sense of accomplishment for them (and you.)

So where do we begin?

Try these links out:

* How to Write a Mission Statement

* e-Business Plan Tutorial: Mission Statement

* Writing Your Company Mission Statement: Ten Essential Questions

And in the near future…I’ll bring you 1 bonus benefit of mission statements and 1 way of taking mission statements to heart.

Blogging is about having a voice. It’s about being heard. And it works.

You might want to praise someone. You might want to complain. Do it reasonably and without sounding like a raving lunatic and you just may get a response.

You should get a response because companies and people should be listening to what others are saying about them. The term people often use is egosurfing but I think that misrepresents the importance of it. The word “ego” has some negative connotations. I’d prefer if we called it “knowing what the heck people are saying about us” — but that’s too long and doesn’t fit into a slick acronym.

The key here is this:

Those companies that DO respond will gain more loyal customers, increase their customer base and be more successful.

Those companies that DON’T respond will lose all their customers to the companies that are responding.

Here’s a simple diagram to understand the basics of how listening to the blogosphere and responding works. It is simple. But, companies need to recognize the value and act quickly to get onboard.

By virtue of blogging, whether companies respond or not, we are being heard. Companies may not be listening but the blogosphere is definitely tuned in. We’re putting ourselves out there and practically begging companies to care. If they show us they care, we’ll be more loyal, more eager to spread the gospel, and actively help those companies succeed. We’re opening the door, businesses just need to walk through.

Recently, I wrote a post hoping to be heard. It was to Gilad Gafni, who wrote a WordPress plugin, yes-www. It’s designed to help with SEO, link building, etc. Definitely worthwhile, I thought. But I discovered a bug in the plugin, and couldn’t find a way to contact Gilad easily on his blog. So, I wrote about it here.

Gilad responded. The bug was fixed and I setup the plugin. Not only that, but Gilad added a very obvious contact me link on his blog, which was previously missing. So not only did Gilad fix the bug in his plugin and make me a happy customer (and others like Rick who were using it too) but he made himself more accessible after I mentioned the lack of contact information on his site.

I haven’t always been so lucky. MarketingSherpa ignored an email I sent them asking for help (back in June.) I wrote about it on my blog hoping some keen-eyed person there would see it. No luck. I could have followed up with another email, but I feel in this day and age if companies don’t respond after a customer emails them, why should the customer have to hunt them down?

[tags]customer service, egosurfing, feedback, marketingsherpa, marketing sherpa, gilad, yes-www, blogging, blogs[/tags]

I’m a big fan of link leaking and its mates, the link leak virus and link love. Given the choice I’ll take link love over the others, only because it sounds…nicer. But if you want to cough on me and spread your link leak virus, by all means.

With that in mind, I’ve put up a Resources page, where I’ll be spreading more link love virus leaking than you can imagine. Sounds gross eh?

I link to plenty of stuff within my posts; I’m a firm believer in doing so, it can only help the community here and those I’m linking to (and me!) … but at the same time there’s some resources that deserve a more “permanent link” status at Instigator Blog. And that’s the Resources page.

It’s my way of giving a shout out to some of the people that have helped me the most, and people involved in my various projects, including The Great Big Small Business Show and Where Is Basil.

I hope you find the Resources page worthwhile and fun. It will get updated often, so keep an eye out! And if I spill some kind of leaky link substance on you…woohoo!

Small business owners and entrepreneurs are masters of their own domain. You rule the roost. You’re the big cheese. In many cases your business lives or dies with your effort, creativity, guts and passion.

You don’t work for anyone right? Well, I’d argue you work for your customers, but that’s another story for another day.

Even if you are “numero uno” and the soul of your business, you still can’t possibly do everything all the time.

And that brings us to what many small business owners and entrepreneurs dread — delegating.

Delegating work is a reality of life. It’s a necessity for success. If you don’t delegate you’ll get buried under the weight of your workload and responsibility. Delegation is a must if you want to grow your business. And it’s often a bit scary to delegate. Will you lose control? Will the work be done precisely the way you want? What will happen if someone screws up? How can you possibly manage it all?

The Great Big Small Business Show is here to help with all of those questions and more. This week’s episode of the podcast is all about delegating successfully.

We’re on episode #5 with some great bits from Becky McCray, Steve Rucinski and Jon Swanson.

Laura Allen steps up to the plate as well, but veers off topic (that’s ok!) with an equally interesting bit about how to ask for millions of dollars in under a minute. If it works, you might want to share a small percentage of those millions with Laura!

WE NEED YOUR FEEDBACK!

We want to know what you think of The Great Big Small Business Show and how it’s progressing after 5 episodes. We want to know what you like, don’t like, find interesting, worthwhile…is it fun, boring, too fast, too slow? Any and all feedback is appreciated!

You can comment here after listening to it, or comment on The Great Big Small Business Show blog itself. Or send me an email!

Once you accept the fact that delegating is a necessity, and embrace it as a way of making yourself more productive and making your business more successful, you’ll want to figure out how to do it well. And that’s what this week’s episode of The Great Big Small Business Show is all about!