Just do it

With the growing amount of  people sharing thoughts these days, it’s getting harder to keep up with the information that’s worthwhile your time. On all kinds of different areas bloggers arise, Twitter numbers increase, people subscribe to more and more social sites and overall you’re sent a vast number of updates & digests… resulting in an overflow of information.

My way of interpreting all this information consists of tools and especially people to filter it down to information I want to learn, news I’m interested in and changes I should be aware of. To put things in perspective I’ll share the way I work and the tools I use and after that look into how I’m filtering all this information.

My Interests and how I collect information about them

• News – There are quite a few interests I’m following, these consists of websites featuring regularly content, people that blog on a daily/hourly basis,  company blogs informing about new features, Google blogs informing about there beta’s and many more… Of course I’m not surfing to all these sites to keep up with this information, but instead I make use of a RSS Aggregator (Google Reader in my case).
• Social – Besides the news-information I’m trying to follow, there are the social sites like Friendfeed, Facebook, Hyves, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. I publish my information and keep up with that of others.
• Mail – Then there is the mail like any Internet aware user has one or more accounts for and at work you might have an account.  I’ve set up the multiple online mail accounts to forward the mail to centralize it at Gmail. (I check my work related mail separately as this is done during work time.)

Filtering
The trick comes when I want to filter all the information, not only on a daily basis, but for sure when I’ve been away for a week or more… That’s when I really need to make the filtering count, as Google Reader states a 1000+ messages, Gmail has left the first page and files then next pages with new messages, Friendfeed and Twitter have a history log you don’t even want to start out with, etc…

The only thing I use to accomplish this task is a social solution, through time I’ve found a few people sharing that same interest on different topics. Also these people share and keep up to date through the same tools I use, which makes it really easy for me to see what they’ve shared, liked or commented on.

News & Social
Tools like friendfeed offer a “Best of Day”-feature which let’s you check out the most liked and discussed items by the people you follow. Google Reader let’s you share items with another person and vice versa, that way I check out the topics somebody else has shared and I actually discard the rest of the 1000+ messages in a “skimming through them” kinda way.

Mail
When it comes to mail » Gmail offers labels, filters and multiple Inbox views to organize your different accounts in one mail-tool. Once you’ve tidily customized your Gmail-Inbox,  I’ll be skimming through headlines  deleting uninteresting ones and reading the most important after that. I star them or attach a task to them to reply or follow up and after that I’ll archive the ones I see fit to be archived and dispose of the rest.

Discarding vs. Reading it all
This is just my way of doing it and I actually evolve into using my own methods as well, but I believe this way of working saves a lot of time and if remember one of the sites I follow states: “Do less, Get more done”.

So am I really discarding of information, messages, likes, comments and more? I trust the people that share my interest, by them being genuine and authentic… Yeah – Just do it! If they didn’t think it was interesting, it’s just noise and you’re entitled to filter it out.

As I described in my first step into Personal Branding, I’m currently trying to pinpoint my passion, which is to be the foundation of my personal brand. Currently I’m enriching myself with several blog-posts, articles and interesting information to aid in reaching my goal.

After feeding myself with this information, I’m curious about a few things into reaching my goal; how does the passion relate to a Niche and vice versa?

Passion
What are the key elements I want people to think about when they hear my name? These elements relate directly to the one passion I want to create my brand with. Can I also turn the recognizable around on these elements, meaning when people encounter these elements, will they think about me; my brand?

Niche
A thing I was wondering about is the Niche, which comes into play when creating my personal brand. Should I be worried about finding the niche or even creating a niche for my personal brand? Or will it become clear as I go and thus being the outcome of my personal brand?

Explore and Process
By exploring and self-questioning, I’m hoping to find the perfect answer to my questions; the one thing I’m most passionate about on a professional level.

Intro
How about a personal brand… If you’re plugged into the online cloud called the internet like me, privacy seems to fade and content about yourself is scattered over the internet. These days, your online footprint left by i.e. messages, opinions and discussions are online and viewable through a simple search, on either Google or through social networks like Facebook, Linkedin, Hyves, etc. There is no hiding anymore and transparency and authenticity are the only means to survive and thrive in this new digital kingdom. Although so it seems… I think it’s best to manage the personal information yourself, that way you control the things you want and don’t want on the internet.

This actually is the second step from creating my personal brand. So let me start off by explaining why having a personal brand would be useful for me or other people existing in the cloud.

My Personal brand
To control the way I want to be perceived through the internet, is to find out how other people perceive me. This part is crucial into finding my passion which can be turned into a personal brand. I think it’s quite hard to really cut down to one passion, as I have more than just one. This journey into finding that passion is a thing not done overnight and is the thing that’s keeping me busy at the moment.

As I have been taking care of my online footprint already, I missed out on taking step 1; which is considered to be making an equation equal:

Your self-impression = How people perceive you

Before stepping into step 2 again, I’ll have to make clear for myself what my personal brand should be…what passion of me do I really want people to find when they google my name.

When I’m ready to take the next step, I’ll be sure to write down my findings on step 1 and explain all there is to the 2nd step. In the mean time my brain will be occupied with finding that passion I really want to brand.

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Being motivated in a natural way or motivating yourself by “forcing” it, is a big difference. In this sense I’m writing “forcing” motivation to indicate the difference between the two ways of motivation, not to shed a negative light on “forced” motivation.

Natural motivation
Natural motivation is the outcome of doing something you really like to do and enjoying it. Because it all comes natural you stay motivated for a long period without requiring additional motivation (forced motivation). When your having fun at something you do, you’ll see time passing by like the saying; “Time flies when you’re having fun!”

In general one could say that you have to try and find the fun-factor on all areas you to take part in. So if it’s a job, a hobby, or whatever you do; When you have fun at it, natural motivation is almost certainly involved as well.

Forced motivation
Although forced motivation is not to be seen as a negative way of motivation, it should be used with a common sense of being complimentary to the goal you wish to achieve by “frocing” the motivation.

I think when you (yourself) want to reach certain goals, in anything you take part in, you should set goals and motivate yourself into reaching those goals. When you’ve set a goal for yourself in things you really like to do, motivating yourself will almost be natural. Of course the forced motivation will be necessary to breach certain established barriers.

But when you have to motivate yourself to goals someone else sets for you, in which you can’t seem to find any fun-factor nor support the goal, then a problem arises. At first it will not pose a real problem, as a strong mental side will help you reach the goals someone else wants reached. But when these disliked goals keep coming back, somewhere along the way the fuel will evaporate and reaching these goals is out the window.

In the end
…it’s best to find a job, a hobby, or anything else you do and see a fun-factor when you’re performing it. Otherwise the candle will get smothered and most problably drain energy from you instead of letting your natural motivation inject you with energy!

Last night I visited the Overtime event in Maastricht, which was supposed to focus on social networking on a professional level. It turned out to be more of an event similar to a night out, but then for business people. I had been looking into the different ways of preparing myself for such an event, i.e. by reading a post like this. But preparation isn’t everything…

Of course I make use of a few other social networking tools, which reside in the cloud, i.e. LinkedIn.com. Through such a networking site it is easy to stay in touch with people you worked with, (ex)colleagues, classmates, etc. mainly focused on a professional level. Connecting on LinkedIn however is not quite the same as connecting on a social networking event, but the outcome at an event can be much higher than with only connecting with a former colleague or future business partner. Due to the fact that face to face meetings make a bigger impression, putting the positive or negative impression aside.

Remember your days at school where you had to present for the first time and the feeling of a whole classroom listening to you, was taking your breathe away… Compared to presenting this is more about approaching, connecting and trying to find a level of interest to get the conversation started, but I’m looking to improve this part of me. I know a few of my unexplored areas and I’m willing to improve this. I will continue to improve myself for these events and in the near future I will visit another similar event, hopefully more focused on social networking for professionals.

I think that just like with presenting for the 1st time, it starts with:  Just do it!