An idea can appear as if from nowhere
when we quiet and open our minds.
How often have you wondered if there might be an easy way to get to all the ideas popping in and out of your consciousness. You know your mind is full of good ideas, yet they seem out of reach when you need them the most. Maybe you’ve tried hitting your skull with a Nerf bat or maybe you’ve drank a quadruple latte with 5 sugars, yet nothing usable has made itself available to you.
What can you do to loosen the fruit from the tree? How does someone meet a deadline when An Idea Can Appear From Nowhere in its own sweet time?
One of the keys is to spend more time in the flow of ideas and to train yourself and your mind in the art of the flow. Spend more time being quiet and open to all the chatter constantly making itself known in your consciousness. Try meditating or maybe reading more will aid you in getting more in touch with your mind’s flow.
One of my favorite ways to have a better functioning mind is to Walk everyday – Creative thinkers who walked nearly everyday day have included Beethoven, Virginia Woolf. Steve Jobs, Charles Dickens and Aristotle. These walkers were not getting outdoors for the sole purpose of walking fast and getting it done, no they would wander sometimes for hours taking in the sights and sounds of the trails and cities as they walked. Steve Jobs like to hold important meeting with his team while they walked. Of course walking for hours is not always practical, but 20+ minutes each day can fit everyone’s schedule.
Walking can almost effortlessly create an environment where an idea can appear from nowhere. Who knows out of nowhere might become a bountiful place you’ll want to spend time visiting more and more. Always remember, Ideas Are Waiting for you to find them.
And here’s an article from Stanford that found walking improves creativity, it’s short and a good read. If you see me on my daily walk give me a wave… 🙂…
Employees engage with employers and brands
when they’re treated as humans worthy of respect.
Meghan Biro
One thing that will remain true till infinity is; an employee who is treated well will go the extra mile for your business. Think about that for a moment, and also think about how great it would be if each of your employees used some of that extra mile enthusiasm to promote your business outside of work by talking about it on social media. If you’re anything like me that thought will make you sleep well tonight.
Making the effort to engage your employees is neither time consuming nor expensive it mostly requires you to make a commitment to interact with and treat each employee as a valuable person as well as an asset to your business.
Start off by encouraging your employees to post news about the company they find exciting and news worthy. When posting they need to do more than upload an image, they need to write some text and possibly add a link to a larger story or resource. Perhaps something like; “I’m excited about a new product or service we just rolled out and wanted to share it with everyone.”
If the words posted are not authentic people will pick up on that and treat the announcement as nothing but another advertisement. Inauthentic is no way to grab the interest of customers nor is it a good way to engage your employees. Have a 30 minute workshop on how employees can relate online.
Reward both employees and customers with discounts, mentions in the newsletter or even extra entries into an in house contest. those who are getting lots of notices and results online deserve recognition, be creative in your approach.
Another approach is to create in house teams that can be sent to events and trade shows wearing company gear. Start an group ambassador program and of course cover the events costs generously. Having 4 or 5 employees wandering the halls of a trade show asking questions and handing out info will make a huge impression and it will engage your employees.
I picked a good number of articles with lots of fresh and interesting ideas for you to use to engage your employees. Take a look below and please take a moment to give the most helpful ones a couple of thumbs up… Thanks
Dispirited, unmotivated, unappreciated workers
cannot compete in a highly competitive world.
Francis Hesselbein
…
We’ve all spent more time than we care to remember visiting those desolate islands deep within our mind, the places where ideas cease to bloom where new ideas are devoured by shadows, and inspiration is snuffed out like a match in a dirty puddle.
You, me, and everyone who’s ever written or typed a few lines with the hope of making a difference in a reader’s life have all been drawn into that dark place from time to time. I call it the desert, I’ve heard it called other names including Tar Pit and Anxiety Hotel. My favorite is, No Exit, an arid place no one is eager to revisit anytime soon.
But the good news is, each of us has made it back ( I hope ) or nearly back with new ideas and mental outlines as to what we’ll write next.
There are many avenues to travel to lead ourselves out of the these idea wastelands but I’ve found it’s easier to avoid visiting them in the first place, rather than digging one’s way out.
“Don’t let your people fall into a rut. Keep leading them along new paths, blazing new trails. Give them a sense of adventurous pioneering.” David Ogilvy
The big culprit turns out to be the constant distractions that have become part of our daily lives. Social Media, Cell Phones, Notifications and Steaming have collectively added up to a wall of noise wrapping itself around our most prized possession, our ability to be attentive to the task at hand. It’s as if technology has become a ravenous horde screaming at us for our attention.
And these distractions and noises not only degrade our abilities to find and create new ideas and unique visions for articles and blog posts, these distractions degrade the quality of the content we do manage to create.
Our readers are equally distracted by the constant stream of distractions and noise. making it even harder for us to communicate and engage with them.
It’s necessary that each of us create content that will grab and hold their attention, filling pages and tweeting everyday is no longer good enough.
Take Back Your Own Attention
Before we can grab our readers attention we need to corral our own attention so we can turn down the noise and ignore the distractions. How important is this? Recent studies have shown that when we become distracted it can take up to 20 minutes to regain focus.(Brain Interrupted) Three or four distractions every hour results in our never fully gaining our best focus, never fully doing our best content creation.
- Refocus on the moment. When you get the urge to check social media or you hear an interesting conversation between co-workers tell yourself “Focus” and inhale – exhale slowly 3 or 4 times reminding yourself to make the most out of this moment and what you’re doing. The more often you pull yourself back the easier it will become to focus.
- Keep some type of journal. Chronicle the
In the late 1960’s early 1970’s upon a mountain ridge in the very small town of Chelsea Vermont a few people built a Wind-Harp of 50 stainless steel strings standing nearly 20 feet in the air. To listen to the weird wonderful melodies you had to climb the mountain and hope the wind was cooperating, it usually was. Here’s slice of a recording Wind Harp Song on YouTube.
The first Wind Harp itself was created atop a mountain in some spot on earth long ago forgotten, but even though it is not an uncommon creation down through history each one is a creative rebirth of the original one. Possibly more important than the Wind Harp itself is how it touches each of those lucky enough to make the trek to sit and listen to the mysterious music emanating from it. Wind Harp Links
I was lucky enough to make the trek to the Wind Harp in Chelsea Vermont while it was still there, and it was the thought of that trek and the resulting experience that flooded back into my conscious memory while I gazed out my office window wondering how I would construct this blog post on Creative Blogging.
It’s not hard to connect the two seemingly disparate subjects of Wind Harps and Creative Blogging when you give it a little thought. Each in its own way gives to the reader or listener a combination of inspiration and engagement of the mind, leaving them with something they can use in their lives. That’s the hope of course not necessarily the reality.
So creative blogging, wind harps and anything else we put time, imagination, and sweat into result in something that will inspire those who make the effort to trek up a mountain trail or gaze upon a glowing screen in hopes of expanding some part of their life’s experience and knowledge.
If we want those who read our work to come away with something of lasting value we must tune into a deeper creativity than what our competitors and peers are tuning into. But in the end, our only real competition is with ourselves.
5 Additions To Energize Your Creative Blogging
ONE: A great place to get a head start is with Doodling. It doesn’t matter if you can draw, the important thing is jumping in and taking a risk. Tablets make combining doodles with pictures and icons wonderfully easy, but having the ability to quickly scan a few scribbles into your computer works as well.
Start off by choosing a few black and white icons that relate to what your blog post is about and draw a few additions on paper or screen that look good with the icons. Your doodle might be a couple of trees, a street sign, stick figures or even a city space as a background for your icons. Using words that are hand printed can add some very interesting feel to your post.
The trick is to start slow and use your …
If you have a business that runs online-only or you have a mortar or brick business together with a sales website, you will need to add an e-commerce website. Though the major goal of the website is to improve the product’s traffic, there are many other reasons which make people add blogs to e-commerce sites. The importance of adding a blog to the e-commerce site include:
Engine Optimization Search
You must be looking towards investing resources and time to acquire more traffic in your e-commerce related website. With a blog, you will have an effective way and a method that is free for you to engage in the process. When you have a lot of content, the website is likely to index even more. There are different kinds of prospective clients you will come across as you form the website. For you to come up with great results, get to infuse the different blog posts with the end of trending keywords.
Branded as Industry Experts
Many kinds of e-commerce websites as seen in proofwearable.com get to utilize their blogs as an industry expert brand. Also, the blog posts come with tricks and tips which target the audience involved in the search of different tutorials with the current one being the breaking industry news. As you add the blog posts with sales information for purposes of branding, one should focus more on the customer’s value addition.
Engagement of Customers
Rather than having a website that is visited by clients as they buy products only, have a blog that guides customers on what is taking place in different instances. You will achieve this in different ways. As you sell the products involved in weight loss, it is best to share stories that are client-related. The kind of story you offer may be inspirational and the nature in which a given business came into existence. Also, ensure videos and photos in the ecommerce site comes with product images that a person sells from time to time. The blog as well offers an additional place that gives the best utilization of visuals which are useful in the client engagement process.
Helps Make Announcements
Though you may be making announcements on the opt-in email marketing and e-commerce website, the new blog as well offers customers an excellent place to make an announcement. From this place, the clients will get to learn about the latest updates and news. These announcements may be information on the new products in the market or answer to the questions which are frequently asked. Also, you may have announcements on what the company wishes to share and seasonal promotions and company-related information.
Gives a Boost on Conversion Rates
With the aid of an e-commerce blog, you will get the chance of attracting more traffic to the website. At the same time, the e-commerce blog will ensure you increase the conversations. With the blog, you will certainly feel much more relatable and credible. This way, you will offer …