Larkin Kay's Blog

em·pa·thy, noun: the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

To be a business owner, a leader and a communicator you must have empathy for a vast audience. For employees, customers, executives, developers, press, analysts, etc. This is what I do every day, and enjoy immensely.

However, last week I was reminded that your capacity for empathy is only as large as you have worked to grow it.

To continually build strength, contribute more and to stay grounded through times of change you must not only be empathetic to those you relate to by instinct. You  must also find the capacity for those whom you have no goodwill, no apparent similarities and perhaps a very real reason to despise.

Building a greater capacity for empathy can be as painful as running a marathon, or dead lifting hundreds of pounds. The heart and brain (the muscles that directly enable one to be empathetic) become sore with the stretching that is demanded of them. However, the additional capacity also leads to becoming a stronger human, friend, colleague, parent, partner and global citizen.

Like any exercise routine, if you maintain the workout, it will be less jarring than waiting until you are forced to see another point of view. So with that, I am in training…

Over dinner last week a friend and I were discussing volunteering. She made an off handed comment that time was too sparse and she had to focus on herself right now. Funny comment coming from a woman that is constantly giving, but got me thinking: Why give back?

I have heard it said that the physical act of exhaling triggers your sympathetic nervous system, providing a calming feeling.  Perhaps exhaling your skills, passion, kindness or convictions into the world has the same effect on your overall life and that is why we must all give back.

So to my friend, giving back does not need to be through a non-profit. Being a supportive wife, mother, sister and daughter, volunteering at the school your child attends, listening to a friend in need, etc., are all forms of giving back or exhaling. And the more we give back, the more we giveback the calmer and more peaceful the world can become.

As we kick off the new year, it is important to reflect on what has been accomplished over the past 12 months in order to learn and look forward. Being my first year as a business owner I have learned a ton.  Hands down the most important lesson has been to stick to what I know and love to do, to my area of strength and to partner for the rest.

One of my favorite yoga teachers, Julieta Claire, continuously reminds her students  that from strength we find freedom. Her yoga postures are beautiful, open and free because she has a strong foundation.

As with many yogic teachings, this notion applies to life and to business. In my business, if I stick to my strength: making the complex simple; I enjoy endless amounts of creative freedom. However, when I venture too far from my strength I spend more time getting less results (and when paid hourly, clients are not too thrilled!)

Speaking to clients, and other business owners, I realized that this is as important for sole proprietors as it is for leaders in large organizations. Managing effectively takes self awareness, building teams with complimentary skill sets delegation and partnering – regardless the size of your organization.

As you start this new year, I invite you to reflect on your strengths, your differentiators and what parts of your business, your job (or life) may be better done by partners, employees or vendors.

As you could guess, it has taken a small village to make ’11 a successful year. I owe a ton of thanks…including:

• Bob Lamvik and the team at Aegis Identity
• Bob Browne, Sergio Sandrin and Mickey Kay, Aqua-Gulf
• David Nix, BlueWave Communications
• Ed Dean, Climb for a Child
• Hillary Hilliard, Denver Integrative Massage School
• Marla Peragallo, MarAnd Partners/ Summit Tickets
• Amy O’Connor and Karen Maziarka,  Nokia
• Stephanie Joy, The Vast Studio

And to all of my friends, family and past colleagues that recommended me for jobs, lended moral support, linked me with other professionals, etc, etc…THANK YOU and Happy New Year!

I have not written a blog in sometime, been heads down doing client work, raising a preschooler, being a yogi, basically living. But alas, it is the season for resolutions. In the year to come, I want to grow my community, work and personal.

Reinvigorating my blog has been on my mind. This morning I read a post on The Twelve Personal Branding Tools You Must Be Using and it pushed me over the edge. The article is a repost of Joe Pulizzi’s blog. I found 3 of his tools particularly thought provoking (in Joe’s words):

1. Google Profile – Before Google+, your personal Google Profile was important merely from a search engine perspective. When people searched on your name, Google Profiles tended to rise to the top. Now that Google+ is becoming a force, your Google Profile is more important than ever.

2. Twitter – My favorite tool for growing your personal brand. Great content and ideas get spread, get you followers, and magnifies your presence. Use the 4-1-1 method: Every day share four posts from other influencers that are important to your target audience, share one original content post about your business that helps tell your story, and share one “sales” post that overtly asks for something. (note: I bolded the parts I personally found as a good guideline)

3. Commenting – At least twice per day, comment on a blog post that is relevant to you or your business. It will pay you back 10 fold.

So perhaps you will hear more from me in 2012 as I push forward my resolution. In the meantime, check out Joe’s full list and see what resonates with you.

Yesterday I attended a virtual conference about the Future of Marketing. In an hour, 60 marketers (from corporate to agency) spoke about the future of marketing…you can save about 54 minutes and read my highlights below or watch for yourself at http://bit.ly/aT1gOd.

It was apparent that the future is about collaboration and creating relationships with our customers and EMPLOYEES. But one person said it the best:  ”We are all in grad school. We are learning side by side with our customers. There is no such thing as a social media expert, or a marketing expert right now.”

The Future of Marketing is about:

• how we begin to use our owned media, earned media and paid media…
• looking beyond the channel to patterns of the shopper as a whole…
• mobile…it’s a game changer, 5B cell phones worldwide = 73 % of the world population, marketers can tell where customers are located, very powerful…
• social media is hot but not mutually exclusive of search. Social commerce is an area that is heating up. Making it a part of the social experience is a huge opportunity…
• walking along side your partners and customers. Produce engaging content to meet customers insatiable appetite for ‘how to’ information…
• doing content well — good content creates value by being vendor agnostic…
• story telling – it’s how you will break through the clutter…
• social media, especially social search. Consumers are going to their own network of friends to get reviews vs. traditional search engines…
• time and attention spans being finite and shrinking. Increase your surface area where your customers spend time…
• social media makes it easier to tell friends what we love and hate, in some ways taking the marketer out…
• about the most neglected fact in business: we are all human and have basic needs…the higher up you meet the needs, the more successful you will be as a business…
  • Transformation – unrecognized needs *** Apple is here. Recognizing these needs will make you more successful as
  • Succeed – desires
  • Survival – needs
• is about being the duct tape of the organization. Providing clarity of purpose…employees are the brand in so many cases…
• being who you are to make firm believers and loyalists…
• listening. What started as participating will shift to inspiring…
• social technologies that are fantastic at helping us create relationships. What businesses forget is that you can not control relationships…
• building your community first by starting at the core. Pick your top ten supporters and make them evangelists…
• businesses shifting their thinking from being good at social media to being good at business using social media…
• chiming in on the conversation vs. controlling it…
• employees — they treat your customers about as well as you treat the them…
• real time marketing vs campaign planning, look for things you can do right now. Social media are tools. Real time is a mind set…
• remembering to sell something…
• the customer…Go to Yelp! now and search your brand. See what your customers are saying. Then engage, at the least say thank you or sorry  and do something for them…
• telling your story with video…
• using Twitter to reach out to people who don’t know your brand…
• having a personality and being more effective. Go to your website, read the “about” out loud. Does it resonate with you? Is it what you would actually tell some one?…
• never stopping being curious. Cultivate and grow curiosity — get out of your comfort zone, experiment (set aside time each week), be ultra observant (watch what people are doing), set up Google news alert on conversations your interested in. The worst thing we can do is to stop listening…
• giving your customers what they didn’t know they needed…
• making smart choices…i.e. Website vs. Fan page: Facebook may be right, built in community…
• making your promise realized for one of your customers each day…
• treating your own customers as a marketing channel…
• marketing with meaning. Create something that your customers lean forward and opt in to. Create content that helps your customer…
• everybody being a story teller. Social media magnifies the process. People don’t buy the product, they buy the story. Tell a story that others identify as their own makes the need to persuade disappear…
• moving from brand advocate to consumer advocate. Collaboration is the new competition…
• becoming transparent…it is no longer a choice. You only have the choice to do it yourself, or have someone else do it for you…
• people, it always has been. Technology makes it easier to find and support our advocates…
• we are all in grad school. We are learning side by side with our customers. There is no such thing as a social media expert, or a marketing expert right now…
• focusing on making customers happy by making employees happy…
• putting relationships vs content at the forefront of everything…
• everything is a network, including conversations. What holds the network together is shared interests
• incredible growth in the power of word of mouth…

I have an addiction to reading. Once I get into a book, nothing can tear me away. I get this from my Grandma Shedlin. She reads at least a book a week.

Jeff just got me a Kindle. Part sweet, part realistic (my office has no more room). I have already read two books since its arrival last week and REALLY love it. The perfect size and shape, the non lit screen, the ability to preview books, the instant gratification…what’s not to like!?!

Well, at 2-3 books a week, perhaps the cost. So we looked into the Denver Public Library. They have a HUGE selection of eBooks, SCORE! But not really, their fine print states they don’t work with the Kindle. ROAR!  Another point for the open argument.

I have downloaded about 10 books to preview tonight (after happy hour, of course). Have a great weekend.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about ethics in our society…you really can’t hide from the dilemma. Lately our headlines are so often about societal leaders that make unethical choices getting and / or staying ahead.

Last month, Mark Hurd was relieved from his duties at HP after a relationship with a consultant and tampering of expense reports were revealed. A few short days later he was made the new President at Oracle. During this time an interesting article ran in The Atlantic questioning whether this move indicated that ethics do not matter in business…the conclusion, for business leaders they only matter if the ethical indiscretion impacted the business (as in those choices made by the Enron leaders and Bernie Madoff).

Later this week, a movie will open about the alleged coldness of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (debate about the truthfulness of the attack is well underway). At least this personal attack did some good for the Newark school system. Wall Street Journal’s Kara Swisher has a good point of view about it in her All Things Digital blog.

Our societal leaders often come from government, big business or entertainment…and in all of these industries it seems that ethics and success actually repel each other like two magnets.

In a yoga class last week, one of my favorite teachers stated that great humanitarian and spiritual leaders such as Mother Teresa and Mohamad Ghandi are said to have found inner peace and used that strength to lead others.

In our culture inner peace is worth little…perhaps because it cannot be measured by $s, awards or position and put on a list by Forbes.

Because our so called leaders have to spend so much time pleasing external sources such as shareholders, fans, employees, delegates, customers and media, I doubt that many of them have more than a couple seconds each day to check in on their inner dialog, much less work through issues to finding contentment. Perhaps that is why infidelity and other moral lines are so easily crossed. Or perhaps the constant external praise we give our societal leaders creates self-entitlement.  After his scandal, the once-great Tiger Woods stated this exact sentiment:

“I stopped living according to my core values. I knew what I was doing was wrong but thought only about myself and thought I could getaway with whatever I wanted to.”

Perhaps we need to create a society that rewards morality in leadership…and give our leaders (and selves) a pause each day to look inward.

In Aug, I traveled and vacationed, a lot! I got to go to Berkeley for some time with my husband. Picture: laying by the pool, rockn’ out, closing down bars…not my usual life, but seriously fun. Then my family headed to Mexico with close friends. Our digs were rough, the steam was on, but great friends, views and food made the week wonderful.

Unfortunately when we returned home, a terrible accident forever impacted my family. My mother-in-law was hit by an impaired driver and taken from us. To include our disperse family and her large set of friends in the memorial process we created a website and then made the site into a book for the in-person memorial. Through this process I learned that as we move more and more to SaaS business models, SERVICE IS KING.

The two sites ilasting.com (for the online memorial) and familylearn.com (to create the online version into a hard copy book) had competitive feature sets and mostly simple interface. But, at times, both could be difficult to navigate. As consumer SaaS businesses, they both excelled in one arena that have endured me to them for life, their support. ilasting had a instant chat feature to answer questions immediately as you created your web tribute. familylearn’s head of customer service always answered emailed questions in minutes and even went as far as helping me manually accomplish something that the program failed at.

Having had the opportunity to market services for a technology company, I know that they can take a backseat or bolted on approach to the innovation, and feature set.  However, with the move to more SaaS business models, I have to believe that service will move to the forefront of the marketing message.