Collaborating Entrepreneur

Becky McCray has a great idea - she calls it a sharing basket (thanks for initiating this idea Becky) here is what Becky suggested:

You write a comment on this post. You tell something great about your week, or you give plaudits to someone who did good stuff this week. Or you celebrate a terrific failure. It's not an ad; it's a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other! Via Should we call it the Sharing Basket

I started to write a comment when I realized that I had a lot more to say than could be said in a comment. First, you need to know that while I've always been involved in community I've never really been committed.

From Being Just Involved to Committed

Community has become really important to me personally and professionally. For everyone involved in Social Media community has always been important. Personally, I've taken community for granted.

I'm not a naturally outgoing, gregarious social butterfly. In fact, for a as long as I can remember I've been a type of hit-and-run community member - I'd swoop in to get what I want and then fly off with my "social trinkets" and that would be it.

Yes, it is hard to admit this about myself, but it is true just the same - I've been a hit-and-run community member. I've made a decision to shift from being a hit-and-run community member to be more than a "Go-Getter" and become a "Go-Giver" - to focus on giving and sharing...

...but more on that later, first I must share with you a moment that became a catalyst for good in my life, business and now this community.

How One Moment Became A Catalyst

Something happened this week that gave me pause and really made me think. I asked an acquaintance, someone I've known for years but never met in person to provide support and send a RT via Twitter.

My request was sent via a direct message (DM) on Twitter. Looking back, the intent of my message wasn't clear. What I wanted and what I wrote in my request was different - totally my own fault. I take full responsibility.

A day later, the person replied via DM with something totally unexpected - a critique of my writing. For some reason the words used by this person shocked me.

I took a day to think about it, then replied saying I was expecting something quite different. This person replied very warmly and apologized which really helped me and said volumes about this individual. I'll be forever grateful as I'm sure she doesn't know how what she did helped. (I plan to let her know)

It taught me a very important lesson about how inadequate our social media technology and tools can be when we start to get comfortable with the technology and start to use it for purposes it was never intended.

Social Media Definitely Has Limitations

Social Media is excellent for initiating contact and helping people get to know you and/or your company as well as you getting to know them. Compare a 1-2 minute phone call with the limitations of communicating via email or Twitter.

Not only is communicating via email time consuming and open to misinterpretation - the English language tends to have multiple meanings for the same word and certain word combo's can change the meaning completely.

Communicating in person and on the phone lends itself to a more complete and thorough conversation. Plus we are able to read body language when in person and voice tone when talking via phone or Skype. A lot can be communicated in a 1-2 minute phone call.

A Tweet or email is extremely limiting in what you can communicate.

Plus, who knows what kind of mood we will find the person in when they are reading our email or Tweet? They could be having a really bad day and our message could easily be misinterpreted. That's what happened when I opened that private DM, I was in a sour mood and the words cut like a knife through butter.

It got me thinking,

I need to build an "island of value" so that when people cross the "social bridge" as a result of my social media activity I am able to extend the conversation on a platform that I control. One that feels safe, encourages engagement, adds value and builds our relationship. I started thinking about social networks, social media and community and realized that it was time to bring the network where it belongs - back to my website.

Decision Time: Bring The Network Home To My Website

See, I thought I was building community via Twitter, in fact I was building a whole bunch of acquaintances and a few relationships. I've been thinking about building a small business community for years but never took real action to make it happen.

That all changed yesterday - I closed all my blogs and imported the content here to provide a foundation for like minded collaborating entrepreneurs.

Community happens where you can get more involved with people. Where you can provide support, assistance and value. Online places where community grows include blogs, forums, podcasts, webinars and a site like CollaboratingEntrepreeneur.com

The Collaborating Entrepreneur Community Is Born

I am making a commitment to building a collaborative community for entrepreneurs by seeding it with the content from my blogs. Then together discuss the issues and challenges related to collaboration and using platforms like this one to share, collaborate and learn from one another.

The combination of BuddyPress and Wordpress MU provides really solid functionality upon which to build a community. Members can:

• Friend one another
• Post Status updates within the network
• Post to your Twitter account from within the CE community
• Send private messages to friends
• Write a Wire to a friend (write on a friends wire/wall)
• Create a blog
• Create a group (public, invitation only or private)
• Create and join forum(s)

I am actively researching Wordpress MU plugins to extend collaborative functionality and opportunities. I invite you to join our fledgling community and lets see what we can build together.

Right now, I am not charging any fees to join and use the website. I want to remain as open as possible as long as possible so we can explore this concept and discover together where and how value is created. I am confident that a business model will appear at the right time.

In the meantime lets get on with it and support one another. Here are five principles I'd like to see us adopt and use to guide us on this journey.

Five Principles to Guide Our Journey & Community

I've taken these five principles outlined in this video and book The Go Giver, (which I still need to read), they are:

1. Give more in value than you receive in payment.
2. Serve as many people as you can as well as you can.
3. Put other peoples interests first.
4. Give the gift of your authentic self.
5. Always be open to receiving.

The authors have done a terrific job marketing their book (be careful you'll want to buy the book if you watch the video). These are principles I think many entrepreneurs already understand and practice. My sense is that when they are applied together and in community an exponential effect takes place.

Are you with me? Join now.

Sincerely,

Greg Balanko-Dickson