London Bloggers @meetup #lbm – Are you in?

Are one of those people that is always wondering what blogging is all about?
Then get to London Bloggers Meet Up this tonight.

This mighty event has everyone in the blogging spectrum from East End Lass to Big Phil in PR.
Amazingly it is lots of blogger people talking about blogging, so consider how interesting it is!

I am ashamed to admit I had been in that nasty procrastination space that reaks of “I have been meaning to go” or “that looks interesting” for nearly a year (maybe two).
What really kept me away was the risk that I might meet someone who knew more than me (that happens more than I care to admit – someone knowing more than me that is.)

Even worse someone would be beastly to me because I did not have a blog yet, because everyone online is a big shot are they not?
Of course none of that happened. Instead I met some truly brilliant people who saved me hours of mindless surfing, even better I had loads of fun and got home late.
Some of my best connections have come from this Meet Up – including Andy Bargery with whom I run the London Meet Up Organisers Meet Up at the Talk Talk customer experience venue we do that in. 

Click to join the Bloggers Meet Up.

Click to check out the London Meet Up Organisers Group.

Questions for you to comment on:-
What Meet Ups you been meaning to get to?
What other Meet Up do you rate and why?
What do you think Meet Up is?

Top 10 Reasons NOT to go to the London @MeetUp Organisers Group – EVER!

Hello London Meet Up Organisers

This is a heads up about the Organisers Meet Up next Monday in the Talk Talk customer experience centre in Soho from 6:30pm

Please don’t come if you don’t need to otherwise it will be a waste of your valuable time and Talk Talk’s tasty coffee and cakes.

Top 10 reasons why you don’t need to join in:-

1.    You can always can find a venue with no problem.

2.    Have a less than 30% no show rate to your Meet Up.

3.    You have too many people in your Meet Up and you like them all.

4.    You have sponsors, funding and it is not costing you anything personally to run your Meet Up.

5.    You know how to use all the functions on the Meet Up site, SEO, Google analytics, Url tracking and how to use your own domain name.

6.    You have a plan and vision for your Meet Up for the next 12 months and you are on track.

7.    Have all your group communication working – email, facebook, twitter, telephone and blog etc.

8.    You don’t like other people in London who organise groups based on interest.

9.    Have a fear of collaborating with likeminded people in case they discover you weak spot and can help you.

10.  You only come to these events when the drink is free and big shot speakers show up who you think you can pitch to.

Please come and join the ever evolving London Meet Up Organisers community where you are welcome to contribute and learn at the same time.

Click here for next Mondays session on using Blogging for you group.

Question:-

So what is it with people that put themselves up for getting people together and don’t? #justsaying 

‘Can you endorse me?’ #LinkedIn – What do you do?

Every so often I get a message in my LinkedIn inbox that that says ‘Can you endorse me?’ – My reaction is often that a little bit of me dies inside, you have spoilt the moment for me.

I asked for recommendations at one point and I called or emailed everyone personally it was very important to me to do it that way.

If someone calls me up and asks for help, explains the context of what they want I am happy to help, in this way I find I can get an ‘authentic sweet spot’ that I can talk to others about. I always endeavour to be honest about myself and other people.

When I receive a standard impersonal message saying ‘can you endorse me?’ from someone I have not heard from for ages or they have not been to an event I suddenly feel like they have shoved a flyer in my hand outside a railway station and asked for feedback.

A huge thing for me is having people ‘act out of inspiration rather than obligation’ if you do something in order to get something it creates a transaction, so you might as well be in retail.

When you really help someone out you create a bond that you can’t put a price on. This is very important.

There are many people in my network that I am inspired to help and they certainly help me back more often than not this is to do with something emotional or intellectual. There are also people that I feel in a ‘transaction’ with. (BTW if you are not sure which one just ask, I would be delighted to set you straight.)

While we are here, the “forcing referral question” is dealt with very well in this Referral Institute blog. I have been to many a BNI meeting where someone who has read the manual upside down really thinks that all they have to do is give someone business and then they will get loads back.

Everyone knows that people do business with people they know like and trust, so really you crazy fool no one worth their salt is going to recommend you unless you have thought about it Andy Lopata blogged about this here.

I have to put my hands up and admit I am ever so slightly pedantic about this so turn your sensitivity meters down.

However, do have your say here:-

Comments, objections, rants welcome as always and please tweet them to keep the conversation going…

#FindBritain I found Britain in Argentina

#FindBritain what got me into this when I married Super Cool Wife five years ago.

People from Argentina are SO proud of their food – really it is just meat, red wine with the occasional bit of salad.

When they asked what do you eat in the UK….. um…

At the time I was ‘over-consumed’ with the UK – mainly because I read shit newspapers every day, watched shit TV and drank shit beer in shit pubs.

When I married into another culture it was not all plain sailing. However, my new found family and friends from other countries that I had met on summer camps, travels and so forth were really enthusiastic about Britain.

One of the things I loathed about my country was the food, plastic rubbish! When in  Rome you can grab a slice of amazing pizza on the street, better than Pizza Express and Strada. Here? Well, try one of those places in Piccadilly Circus anytime #death. Twice in the last century I had food poisoning that was worse than the hangover I was skilfully working up to via Long Island Iced Teas and shots of Sambuca – both times were from one of those hot dog stands on Tottenham Court Road.

Rather than agree or get in one of those rubbish ‘Britain invented the World’ arguments – I took the stance that it can’t be THAT bad, after all everyone knows if you are looking for something you will find it. It seemed I only found evidence to support my view of sub standard cuisine in the UK. I started searching, locally.

This was in the era where Jamie Oliver was doing TV shows instead of TED talks, like Jamie (#essexboy) has evolved I feel we have learnt about food again in a new way. For example I am writing this in a Leon restaurant in St. Pauls where they are playing ‘Last night a DJ saved my life’ after a ‘Super food salad’ and latte. The staff are chasing a pigeon round the restaurant, it is fun!

Have I found Britain?   

Comments ALWAYS welcome

How does the term ‘Community’ apply to YOU? Speak your mind here…

So there I was, sitting at the bar getting all excited about ‘this community’ when my conversation partner says – “you just made me think – it’s not a community.” 

 Exsqueeze me?

I was so busy ‘spilling my candy in the lobby’ about community (honestly, if I could have picked up the phone and ordered a punch in the face for myself I would have) I was not really hearing the possibility in the project.

To me it HAD to be community before it could function. Maybe it did not? It needed to move, evolve, be an airport something transient yet purposeful.

So reader, I married him, well I didn’t but I do need your help…

This is not one of those trite crowd scoured contrived adverts for something thinly disguised as a blog. 

It is a real question – one which you might have an opinion on rather than an answer or solution.

Of course  – I champion community. However, thinking back over my day yesterday I am worried if I had to pay to use the term ‘community’ I would have ended up with bill like Oliver Reid’s bar tab.(hence the pic)
So, what is a ‘community’ to you?

To prompt you…
Do you want to sand paper someone eyes when they say the word?
Is it the new ‘proactive’ in business speak?
What is your community like?
Are communities going the way forward?

 

Speak your mind here…. 

Relationship’s are the bread of life – who do you make yours?

The Architecture of Comunity in Amsterdam #be2camp

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized