Good Bosses Like Carol Bartz Grow People

I used be heavily involved in local Northwest Florida business scene. I still am involved some, but in the last few years I've been traveling too much for Super Technologies, Inc., and when I say I am going to do something, I want to do it. Just read a quote from Yahoo!'s CEO, and it made me remember.

Some of my favorite work was as an ambassador for the Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce, chairman of ITGulfcoast and participating in Downtown Toastmasters and the Pensacola Bay Area Advertising Federation.

As ambassador, I got to personally meet each new member of the Chamber, usually at their business during their ribbon-cutting. As chairman of the technology group, I gained immense satisfaction by working with Maria Weisnicht, Alan Aldermann, Victor Rojas, Craig Hitpas, and Patrick Rooney in rounding up the hidden technology talent in S.E. USA to showcase at monthly meetings. The P.B.A.A.F.'s meetings were creativity-inducers. Ask my husband Michael Bowen about that.

At one of the last Downtown Toastmasters' meetings I was able to attend, I met a guy who owned a Subway franchise. What I will never forget that he said was, "We are in the business of growing people. We hire them to clean, cook, create, communicate, teamplay, and improve things at our Subway. We mold them. They mold us. We become better people. They become the best, leave, and start or get involved in something even cooler that us, or at least different. It doesn't upset me. I smile about it."

I remember the people, teachers, preachers, parents, and bosses in my life... the ones who suffocated, freed, nudged, squashed, pushed, and/or noticed me. Today, there is one I want to thank that I have not thanked publicly, Dr. Larry Morris, the oral surgeon, who brought his team to Pizza Hut every day for lunch, always asked for me to serve their table and then he hired me as an oral surgeon's assistant because as he said, "You've got people skills like no one I know. You'll brighten up our office. We'll train you. Don't worry."

Thank you, Dr. Larry Morris. I was only 17 years old and those words and your integrity throughout the time I've known you, still inspire me.

"There is a real difference between managing and leading. … Managing winds up being the allocation of resources against tasks. Leadership focuses on people. My definition of a leader is someone who helps people succeed.”

–Carol Bartz, Yahoo! CEO
 
... browse some of our team's other blogs and services at http://blogs.didx.net/ and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/, http://www.didx.net/podcast, http://www.techistan.com/. Find out how to get your telephone company to offer phone numbers from around the world. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

Victor and I show the power of Linkedin Recommendations

January 20, 2010, at 2 PM, I join Rob Adler of Vantage Communications, Isaac Hazard of Mzima, and Peter Radizeski of Rad-Info, Inc. to discuss and interact with you the audience at ITEXPO East the topic of "How to Leverage Social Media for a Successful Marketing Campaign."

My take will be that *"leveraging social media for a successful marketing campaign" is not about analysing reams of data, being on every social networking site 24/7, having the most followers or friends, bombarding your audience with commercials or regurgitated news, or cutting your competitor. The key to success online is almost the same as the key to success offline. It's just with online, you have more power.

Adam Nash, blogger and a vice president at Linkedin says, "Fortunately, in the 21st century, with the birth of the social web, we have tools at our disposal that are orders of magnitude more powerful than we have ever had as individuals or as a society."

An example of successful marketing using social media is the Linkedin Recommendations feature. Sincerely and truthfully recommend at least one person in your Linkedin network each week.

One of Pensacola, Florida's most popular Microsoft consultants and open source enthusiasts Victor Rojas and I did exactly that. The positive results of our exchange has been, is and will be exponential. In the last 24 hours since Victor's comments, I've already recieved inquiries to advertise in our Techistan and some looking for Virtul Phone Numbers from our DIDX buyer members. It started with a few sincere words of praise about someone else. Recommend someone on your Linkedin Network this week! Victor and I would like to get to know you and see where we can help each other in business at Linkedin and other social media sites.

*Aw! "Leverage" is really a noun and hasn't quite made it into accepted standard Engish as a verb, but, oh well.

... browse our team's online magazine Techistan (also hard copy first issue soon) and other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net/ and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. Find out how to get your telephone company to offer phone numbers from around the world. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.