Marjorie Clayman’s Writing Portfolio

Professional writing profile of Marjorie Clayman

Musings

Avoid the Trap That Conquered Alexander the Great

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When Alexander (the artist later known as Alexander the Great) was a kid, his mother told him that he was the son of Zeus, who had impregnated her while in the form of a snake. Barring any physiological explanations, which frankly I don’t want to think about, this had to be a pretty heady moment for young Al. In addition to discovering who his dad was, Alexander also came to realize, in studying the Iliad, that he was also related to Achilles. That Zeus, he got around. Achilles naturally was a hero any boy could admire, but to think that Achilles was a distant relative, well, now you can see how Alexander would feel really confident as a little boy.

Whether it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, luck, or a combination of a lot of things, Alexander started living out his most cherished dreams at a very early age. By the time he had reached the age of 30, Alexander had conquered the Persian Empire, had become a Pharaoh in Egypt, had been declared a living god (being named a Pharaoh had more perks than Klout does now), and had even defeated the Indian empire. But Alexander did not die a fulfilled man. He did not even die a confident man. A few years before his death, one of his friends got tired of Alexander’s bragging and said, “Your father is behind all of your success!” Alexander killed that guy. With a spear. Ouch.

After each success, after each great event, Alexander found that his ambition only kept him wanting more. After conquering India, Alexander wanted to keep going to the edge of the world. He started commanding his officers to marry Persian women so that the cultures could become enmeshed. He started truly believing that he was invincible, and did many things to try to prove it. He was never satisfied. It was never enough. There was always another hurdle. There was always another obstacle to overcome. There was always a little more glory to grab.

In Social Media, you can play the role of Alexander the Great

Let’s be honest. It’s pretty hard not to get full of yourself when you’re in the online space, right? I mean, let’s just get that out there. You can write a blog post (like this) and nobody is talking over you, nobody is interrupting you. Most people who bother to leave comments will at the worst make it thoughtful. Many people are complimentary, so not only are you writing but you’re also getting nice feedback. Where else does THAT happen? On Twitter, people respond to you talking about what you are eating, what you are reading, and where you are going. On Facebook, you are perpetually cheered on as you post your goals, post pictures of your food, or do pretty much anything else.

It’s kind of ridiculous.

But like Alexander the Great, we all face a trap that is waiting to make us miserable. How? Well, let’s say you’re a new blogger. You’ve been writing and posting for three months and the only entity commenting has been a spam bot from the Netherlands (hey, it could happen). Suddenly, you write a post that gets 3 comments. Wow, now THAT is a rush. But then when you sit down to write your next post, you’re thinking about that last one. Why did those folks comment? How can you get MORE people to comment? So you try to figure out a formula, right? You want another success, but you want it to be bigger. If your next post goes back to zero comments you can feel pretty let down. But then a few weeks later you write a post that gets 20 comments. WOAH! Now that is your new level of success, but reaching that milestone isn’t a good place to stop.

For every success we find in the online world, there are more doors leading to successes that other people have experienced. If you get listed as a great blog on a site, you want to be up higher the next time. If someone gets an award, you find yourself wondering why you didn’t get it. When you do get that award though, it’s not enough anymore. Now you want to win it 3 years in a row.

It never stops.

And as a result, your presence in social media can become perpetually unfulfilling, consistently unsatisfactory, and it can even become an embittering experience. Eventually these negative feelings can cause you to lose interest, and while you might not literally die young like Alexander did, your online presence just might.

Stop the trap

OK, I admit, I heard Admiral Ackbar’s voice as I typed that. Sorry, but it’s true.

Anyway, the fate of Alexander the Great is not an inevitable one. There are ways to make sure that your online work remains a pleasant experience.

First – enjoy where you are. Think about the fact that you are able to self-publish your writing whenever you want, and pretty much for free. That’s something we don’t think about very often, but we really should. Think about the fact that even if one person comments on your blog post, that’s a person who may not know you at all who read your work, found it interesting, and commented on it. That’s pretty amazing, right?

Second – get over your “I need to be better than you” complex. The longer I stay in the online world, the more I realize that longevity is an advantage. The longer folks stick around, the more people they get to know, and the easier some things become. If you’re newer, you have to wait. Be patient. Walk your own path.

Third – Don’t let the satisfaction of compliments go to your head. You’re not a living god. You’re a person who types stuff and then reacts at other peoples’ reactions. I mean, I realize I’m going all Morpheus on you here, but truth is truth.

You can be happy where you are. You can be happy with the level of success you are at right now at this minute. So let yourself enjoy it. Don’t go down the path of Alexander the Great. It is the way of perpetual dissatisfaction, and who wants that, anyway?

First Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kudumomo/5885936899/ via Creative Commons

Second Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doug88888/2965462060/ via Creative Commons

You Could Learn Something From The Anasazi

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Once upon a time, there was a great civilization that we now know as the Anasazi. Sadly, this name, in the Navajo language, means “Ancient Enemy,” so that’s not a great way to be remembered. Regardless, this civilization, which flourished in the 1200s BC, was a magnificently rich and interesting culture. They were great basket weavers, they were great architects, and it seems they had a complex religion and society.

All well and good, certainly. There have been lots of great civilizations over the course of human history. But the really interesting thing about the Anasazi is that it seems they one day just decided to up and leave their high cliff dwellings and their busy cities, which were located at the “Four Corners” area of the US, where Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico touch. This isn’t like the Incas, who were killed off by Spanish conquistadors. Although there is some evidence of violence and warfare, it doesn’t seem like the Anasazi were necessarily booted out of their city. They just up and left.

Now why would they do that?

Answers to the mystery

The explanation as to what happened to the Anasazi has been haunting archaeologists for centuries. This 2008 article from the New York Times summarizes a lot of the hypotheses that are out there. There was a big drought. There was a “Little Ice Age.” Maybe the soil got worn out from too much farming. Maybe all of those things combined with pressure from other societies made the Anasazi decide to move. Of course, unless archaeologists find an ancient note left behind explaining what the deal was, this will likely forever remain one of those unsolvable riddles.

Are you inexplicably abandoning your social media communities?

Now, let’s fast forward a few millennia or so to the modern day. People are building communities not out of cliffs but out of little pieces of the digital world. Some of these communities may exist on a person’s blog site. Some people build really solid Twitter communities. Some people try to build their community across all platforms they find themselves on. People put a lot of time into these communities. Think about a blog site. You design it. You slave over what your homepage will look like. Will you have black font against a light background or will you reverse out and have light copy against a dark background? What commenting system will you use? How will you entice people to share your content? Lots of questions. Lots of complex relationship-building with the people who visit you.

And yet, if you scan the web, you come upon a lot of Twitter accounts, a lot of blog sites, that are just randomly abandoned. Sometimes it seems like the person was going at a pretty good pace, posting 2-3 times a week (or more) on their site or tweeting pretty darned regularly, and then *BOOM* all of a sudden there’s just nothing.

What happened to them? Archaeologists of the future may have just as much of a hard time figuring this one out.

How can you avoid the Anasazi fate?

We all, I think, come upon times where we sort of would like our blog sites to die. These guys are so demanding! We all, I think, long for the days when we weren’t so “plugged in.” It’s tempting sometimes to think, “Well heck. I’m just going to abandon all of this and do something else.” The problem is that if you are using social media for business purposes, those abandoned sites can raise eyebrows in addition to questions. Is your company still around? Are you still with that company? Why did you stop? Were you not getting a good enough response? Did your business really pick up?

If archaeologists are right, the Anasazi did what they did because of two primary factors – their resources got depleted and they got pressured by other people. Those same exact problems can cause you to abandon your online outposts. So how can we tackle and prevent those problems?

Your resources

Before you create extravagant plans for your online existence, whether for you or for the company you work for, make sure you have people who can do all of the “stuff.” Make sure there is enough time so that nobody feels overwhelmed. Make sure there is a plan so that you know when your resources are getting depleted versus when you are in really good shape. Make sure the online climate, which changes as much as the real one, it seems, doesn’t make you sway to and fro. Have a mission, plan for it, and then stick to it.

Ignore the pressure and keep your eyes on the prize

As for the pressure from other folks part, as hard as it is, you have to learn how to let that go and do your own thing. Keep making those beautiful baskets.Keep building your cliff dwellings. Keep doing what you want to do. There will be people who embarrass you because they are so complimentary. There will be people who will try to tear you down. There will be people who seem to be immovably indifferent to you. Carry on. Easier said than done, but don’t let those external pressures inspire you to abandon your network. That’s a bad trade.

Don’t be like the Anasazi. Don’t melt into the ether of the online world, leaving evidence of your presence for other people to figure out. Stick around. Keep building. Hang in there.

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/trevorvangorp/49857496/ via Creative Commons

How Social Slam 2012 Rekindled My Love of Social Media

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As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been kind of struggling with the online world for the last 6 months or so. I’ve been feeling a little bit at times like I’ve been flailing about here on ye olde blog. I have been let down by some folks, and…well, I’ve just not really felt the love I had for social media when I first started. I pretty much figured that attending my first big social media conference would be a make it or break it moment. I’d either confirm all of my worst feelings about social media or…I wouldn’t.

As you might have guessed from the title, things went pretty well.

Nervous as hell

So, I’ll confess that I was stupidly nervous about meeting so many people from the online world in one fell swoop, and there was one overriding reason for that. As I’ve mentioned before, I stand at 4’5 on a good day. For most of my life, meeting people for the first time has often been accompanied by a multitude of reactions that range from, “Oh, you remind me of my Aunt Helga! She was short too!” to things that are a little less sensitive and a bit more humiliating. The online world has afforded me the opportunity to get to know people as me instead of as short me, and I’ve really treasured that, but I was worried that meeting people in real life would sort of shatter that intellectual equality I’ve enjoyed.

Turns out, I needn’t have worried at all. But I wanted to share this story because as you probably are thinking, everybody has *something* they are worried about in the offline world. Maybe there is something about your eyebrows you don’t like, or maybe you’re not as fit as you’d like to be. But it’s important, I learned, to power through those fears and go ahead and meet people. It turns out it’s well worth it.

This *is* the real world

I’ve gotten a fair amount of snide remarks during my time online because I’m nice to people and because I care about people. These types of criticisms had been affecting me quite a bit. In fact, my pal Sean McGinnis noticed that in my 2-year anniversary post, I didn’t link to any of the peoples’ blogs I was talking about. I said, “Yeah, well, people accuse me of link bait or comment bait when I do that, so I opted not to.” I’ve been told that it’s really not worth it to care about people in the online world, and friends are named too easily – yada yada yada.

But guess what? Meeting people in real life does one thing pretty darned quick. It shows you without a doubt that the people you talk to on these online platforms are REAL PEOPLE. Would you take any crap if you were “called out” for saying something nice about a person offline? I hope not. Well, saying nice things to people online is exactly the same because people is people, as the saying goes. I have no regrets about anything I’ve done online except that I let people almost convince me that what I was doing was a waste of time.

If you’re wondering if you are spending your time online with good people, have a little more faith than you might be inclined to have. They’re really there, even if you can’t see them in 3D most of the time.

Shining Moments

There really were a lot of moments during my time in Knoxville that I wouldn’t trade for all the world.

I got to meet Tom Webster and hear him speak – I’ve heard his name all over the place since I’ve been online and now I understand the hype.

I got to give Stan Smith (aka PushingSocial) a great big hug. Even though we are fellow buckeyes, we have to meet in Tennessee. Well, Stan of course abandoned Ohio for Michigan, but we don’t talk about that… 🙂

I got to meet the divine Laura Click, Davina Brewer, Jayme Soulati, and Gini Dietrich.

I got to hang with Sean McGinnis, Brian Vickery, and Sam Fiorella, who I at last got to thwack in real life (now that’s something that IS hard to do online).

I got to hear Mitch Joel and DJ Waldow speak.

I got to meet Billy Delaney (who also gave a great speech).

I got to meet Marcus Sheridan and watch him do his thing (wow!).

I got to finally give a hug to the awesome Jay Baer, who has been a wonderful friend and supporter almost from the time I started tweeting (poor guy).

And of course, I got to meet Mark Schaefer, who is as lovely in real life as he appears online.

There were some bummers along the way – I didn’t get to talk to Mitch Joel or DJ Waldow or a lot of other people. There wasn’t much time or opportunity to really converse with folks like I found myself wanting to do. But this is all building up to future meet-ups.

All of this has proven to me that the reasons why I loved social media so much a year or two ago were legitimate. I no longer have any doubts. I no longer feel like I’m flailing.

I hope you all get to have a similar experience, and sometime soon!

PS – No, I didn’t link to everyone I mentioned here, but that’s because it would just be an obnoxious amount of links. I’m not THAT much of a flip-flopper 🙂

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/basykes/55491077/ via Creative Commons

Why I deleted my Pinterest account

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Alas for Pinterest…I knew it, Horatio…~Hamlet

I have never been really good at following trends. When I was in fifth grade, everyone decided that any pant leg that, like, moved, was a bell bottom, and they also decided that bell bottoms were the stupidest things ever. Therefore, everyone had to roll up their pant legs into the “French cuff.” I thought that was really stupid. I’d do it on occasion but my pants weren’t really hemmed to be rolled up. Trend – missed. When Google Buzz and Google Wave launched I didn’t even sign up. I tried my best to resist Google Plus but I just can’t say no to Sandy Hubbard, and she insisted I give it a try. So you see, the only trend I really follow is that I don’t seem to follow everyone elses’ trajectory.

With that in mind, it may not be surprising that I have opted to delete my Pinterest account while everyone else is still talking about how great it is. Yep, that just happened.

I’ve always thought Pinterest was pretty fun. It’s like a super colorful, happy scrapbook/bookmarking system. It’s a nice visual way to share information. I dig all of that. But there are a few reasons why I had to call it quits.

1. My time is too valuable – I’m already pretty saturated with online world time. Twitter, Facebook, blogging, trying to figure out Google Plus still…and all of this is a professional hobby. With my work and with wanting to have some semblance of a life beyond the computer, Pinterest just takes too much time, and in the end it doesn’t really yield anything for me but fun and a few smirks. I don’t want to devalue fun and a few smirks, but I have other stuff I need to do more, most of the time.

2. It doesn’t really tie to my business/job or clients – I know a lot of people are saying that Pinterest can work for B2B companies, and they may be right. I just am not seeing it as a good match for our clients and their products/services. I have to emphasize things that will either help our clients or help me grow as a professional/human being. I love looking at pictures of beautiful clothes, but I can’t rationalize that as being a part of my professional development (even if I look at really professional clothes).

3. Questions about affiliate links: Even if Pinterest was a perfect match for some of our clients, I’m still not 100% clear on the impact the erasing of affiliate links is having on sales for companies that are selling products there. Granted, few sales situations are 100% pristine these days, but it’s hard for me to recommend something that I still feel a bit wary about.

4. The spam, spam, spam: The final breaking point for me, though, is the growing problem of spam. From the beginning, I raised questions about how you know where all of these images click to. It’s really easy (if you haven’t been on the site you may not realize how easy) to simply click “repin” and place an image on your own boards. You don’t have to click anything. You don’t see a URL. You just see a funny or interesting picture. Well, the problem is that a lot of those images can hide a spammy website that unknowing people will be directed to. I know this because this has happened to me on two pictures I have clicked in the last two days – the only pictures I have clicked on in the last two days. Given that I don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to the platform, I don’t think it’s realistic to sit there and make sure everything I was sharing led to a legitimate site. I would rather not share anything instead of risking sending spam to anyone who shares my pictures.

Pinterest is fun. It may prove really valuable to certain businesses, and I’m sure people will continue to find innovative uses for it. I don’t frown on any of that. It just doesn’t seem worth the time commitment or the spam risk to me. And I would caution you to watch out for what you are sharing. Have you checked your links lately, especially for things like recipes or things people would need to click to see full-size? It might be worth your time.

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ladymixy-uk/4059154289/ via Creative Commons

my 2-year bloggiversary

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Well,  April 17th is winding down to a close, and for the second year in my life, I mark this day, not because it’s my birthday or a major life occasion, but rather because today marks the day that I wrote a riveting post called “So I’m repurposing my blog.” A blog I had established to just be craft pictures would now be my personal blog site, except it was called Ladybug Notes, it was at blogger, and I blogged as “The Real Life Madman.”

But I digress.

Last year at this time, I thought I had things pretty well figured out. As is so often the case in the online world and in the offline world, the more you think you have things figured out, the less you know. I am happy to say that at this point in time, I am thoroughly confused. I take great comfort in that!

There is one thing I said a year ago that I happily still agree with, and that is that a blog really doesn’t get very far if people aren’t reading it, commenting on it, and sharing it. A blog without people beyond the blogger is not really a blog. It’s a diary. It’s a monoblog.

I’ve made it this far in the world of social media because I have been immensely fortunate to meet wonderful people, and those wonderful people have helped me in ways they might not even realize. So instead of me trying to tell you how you can make it to a two-year mark on your blog or instead of me pretending I have a super secret way to do this that or the other thing, I want to tell you about some of the people I know who keep me going. Maybe you know people who fill some of these roles for you. I do think that having people in these roles is important, but maybe that’s just for me. Anyway…here we go 🙂

The Sounding Boards

You have to have people you can rant and rave to behind the scenes. Because sometimes things happen in the online world that just drive you batty, and often it’s best understood by other folks who share that space. I have been fortunate to be able to bend the ear of amazing people like Sherree Worrell, Jeannette Baer, Stanford Smith, and Mark Schaefer. These folks are understanding but they can also kick me in the butt and tell me to keep going. That’s important in this space.

The Coaches

The online world is a lot like a complex game. Finding a person who can offer you guidance along the way REALLY helps. I have been fortunate to receive coaching from some pretty amazing people, including Geoff Livingston, Maya Paveza, Chris Brogan, and Jay Baer. All of these folks have at various times given me insight that helped me look at things in a new way or that helped me shift my goals to something more…attainable (or logical).

The Role Models

Of course, like in anything, it’s important to surround yourself with people who drive you nuts because they are, in some way, so far ahead of you. Otherwise you have nothing realistic to strive for, right? I have a LOT of role models and I am not at all ashamed to admit that they kick my butt in various and sundry ways. I will probably never be as smart, community-oriented, and as gifted as Gini Dietrich. I will never be able to write as brilliantly as Olivier Blanchard or Amber Naslund. I will never be able to filter complex concepts into easy-to-understand advice like Marcus Sheridan. I will never be able to inspire people like Julien Smith. And that’s okay. I’m cool with that. These folks give me something to shoot for, and their abilities/capabilities keep me humble. Humility is important online too, regardless of what you might have heard.

The net

It’s very important to have people that you know will always (and I mean always) have your back. Let’s face it, sometimes the online world can get ugly. Sometimes you can feel defeated. Sometimes you just get darned tired of the whole game. I’ve been immensely fortunate to weave a great support net over the last two years. People like Jill Manty, Danny Garcia, Sean McGinnis, Sam Fiorella, Raúl Colon, Brandie McCallum, Ellen Bremen, Lee Carey,  Cheryl Burgess, Aimee Lucas, Nancy Davis, Martina McGowan, Marsha Collier, Jure Klepic – these folks seem to never run out of support for me. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but lucky I am. Social Media is often executed alone, but a team can really REALLY help.

People who make you smile

Beyond all of that serious stuff, it’s important to me, as I sit here in my toddler years of social media, to have people around who make you smile. People like Susan Fox, Susie Parker, Claudia Scimeca, Kaarina Dillabough, Bill Dorman, Jack Steiner…well the list goes on and on. But I know pretty much without fail that when I sign into one of my social media realities, I’m going to end up with a stupid smile plastered across my face at some point. Social Media can take itself too seriously. Don’t let yourself go down that rabbit hole!

So there you have it. That is what has worked for me. And by worked I mean that is what has kept me content with my online reality for two years now.

It’s all about the people, stupid 🙂 And I know some terrific people.

Thanks for hanging with me on this journey. Cheers to another year!

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cobalt/108156451 via Creative Commons