I am a nerd and read just about every leadership, self help, and professional development book out there.

I had to put down Drive and The Happiness Project to read Seth Godin’s pre-release copy of Linchpin:  Are You Indispensable?

Seth’s writing changes a lot of people from all generations but Linchpin should be on all college graduate and young professional reading lists.

I feel scared to write this post and review, quite frankly, because his book gives away secrets and keys to the kingdom that will shake and shatter organizations and industries if you put his advice into practice.

I did not feel this scared with Tribes nor Purple Cow or any of his other books.

This is a human book, not a business book.

Your Sunday School class could read it.

We Gen Y people are at the beginning of our careers and lives as adults.  Now is the time to experiment, try new things, and determine what we want to commit our energy and passion to.  We are artists, not just workers.

On Friday I went to his talk in NYC about Linchpin.  The opening music was live bluegrass by the band the Ebony Hillbillies.  Then he talked.  There were an intimate but respectful 500 people in the auditorium.  It felt like the 1920s when people attended subversive truth-telling talks.

I was a history major and again I’m a nerd and during his talk I felt like I was living in the early 1900s when there were speakeasies and jazz and people doing what they want despite systems and factories.  People weren’t completely indoctrinated in consumer culture yet.  It was the time when American art – jazz – was established.

Seth writes a lot about being an artist in this book.  Not a painter but an artist.  Not a cook but a chef.  Not an assistant but a linchpin.

Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:

Art, at least as I define it, is the intentional act of using your humanity to create a change in another person.

It’s easy to buy a cookbook but really hard to find a chef book.

History is now being written by the artists…the future belongs to chefs, not cooks.

The future of your organization depends on motivated human beings selflessly contributing unasked-for gifts of emotional labor.

The linchpin is able to invent a future, fall in love with it, live in it, and then abandon it on a moment’s notice.

I hope you will invest the $17 in yourself by buying this book to be inspired to create art.  We really need you.

The pictures are my fan girl self meeting Seth on Friday and how he signed my book.

Great discussion yesterday with Seth Godin, Holly Ross, and Beth Kanter about nonprofits, social media, and innovation.

Beth and Holly have great posts – read them before you read this because their sums were so good I’m going to write about something else.

I want to talk to the young professionals of our community.

I thought yesterday’s discussion would revolve around tactics to get other people to change – like how to prove a new technology to others in your org.

Really it was about how you can change – into a person who proves new technologies to others in your org.

I know of a technique that can help you do this.  You will think it is weird and unnecessary but you have to do it.  It’s called personal branding.  It’s what we do now.

Personal branding forces you to figure out what you’re about and define that for others.

Some tools for this are starting a blog about your industry, commenting on other blogs about your industry, and learning as much as you possibly can about the problems in your industry.  For nonprofits it might be fund raising in an economic downturn, delivering food to Somalia, or getting people to come to your event.

Blog writing will force you to come up with what you really think about an issue.  It will help you gain your own clarity and insight, which can be empowering.   Keep it about business and ideas and not about your cat or work place annoyances.

On the right of this page you area reading are most of my favorite blogs.  Get yourself set up with Google Reader to have their updates come to you instead of wasting time going to them.  You can even read them on your iPhone.

After a few months you will have enough knowledge to start solving real problems in your industry and connections with other people who can make things happen.

Then it’s just up to you to get things done.

If you already have a blog and are out there making things happen, please post your link below so I and others can connect with you.

Update:  Great post on personal branding predictions for 2010 to check out.

Chris Guillebeau brought together around 30 members of his small army of remarkable people in DC at Busboys & Poets last week for a meetup.

Chris has the rare ability to make meaning for us world-changers while evading the guru trap by weaving strong ties among his readership.

Speaking of a small army, Seth Godin often talks about his new rule of 10 in new marketing – nowadays, all you need is 10 people to get something good going around your cause or project.

Chris built this in DC and introduced us to each other.  I met several remarkable people, like Jeff, Thursday, Vik,  Sheila, and Chase- only to name a few.

What’s cool is that they are all in the DC area and we actually got to know each other in person over quesadillas and beers at my favorite restaurant in DC.

Most of the people I met work in the nonprofit sector, which is not surprising given our city.  They work on various causes from the environment to equal access that are important and they are passionate about.

What I learned about Meetups  and the New Network Building in DC

1. Blogger community area meetups are a great way to meet remarkable people outside your normal circle. Start reading a blog that interests you and attend a speaking event where the blogger will be speaking to meet not just the blogger but others in their community.
2. Meetups and events are not always about the blogger or organizers. Chris graciously gave me a 10 minute interview but he mostly talked to everyone at his meetup in groups for only a few minutes and didn’t even get to speak with some people, although he tried.  Most of the time I talked to other people who wanted to meet Chris, building not just his network but also our own.  There were some amazing people there I was lucky to get to know.
3. Connect on Twitter after the event. It’s a great way to keep in touch with the new people you meet.

I do learning & networking events for a living, so the above 3 items are quite new and worth mentioning.

Discussion with Chris

Below is my just under 9-minute discussion with Chris at the restaurant where he entertains my questions about how his work started in international development in Western Africa and spread from there.

Chris volunteered with Mercy Ships on the coast of West Africa for 4 years, went to grad school in international studies, and started The Art of Non-Conformity during grad school, which has now grown into a meaningful writing career with his upcoming book of the same title, due out next year.

If you work in international development or nonprofits, he is a good person to know.

Stuff we talk about:

• What he did leading up to The Art of Non-Conformity
• Convergence – how his writing brings together the various experiences he’s had in his life so far
• He also discusses with me a need for nonprofits to work more closely together and how we could join Dan Pallotta in his call for a Change the World Conference

Two of my favorite teachers are Seth Godin and Chris Brogan. Seth is an expert in marketing and Chris is an expert in Communications – two of my favorite business functions that at a nonprofit we all get to do in some form or another.

I have their books stacked up with Uncharitable by Dan Pallotta that I am reading now and fantasize like a nerd about how a conversation with those three would go.

I think it would help win an important battle in nonprofit operations PR.  We need nonprofit trust agents to educate themselves in new media and technology to spread the story that a nonprofit’s overhead is not a measure of its effectiveness or credibility.  Nancy Lublin has already gotten us started.  We need to talk about how innovations in mobile and internet technology create opportunities to transform nonprofit operations.  Operations needs more seats at program planning tables.

Trust Agents are people who humanize the web, understand the systems, and how to make their own game, connect, and build fluid relationships.  Does this sound like your CFO?

New Marketing allows us to know our audience, make things that they want, and tell them about it in places and ways they anticipate and want and to get out of their way.  Online marketing is about messages that spread between people, not one-way announcements or ads directed at people to interrupt them and gain their attention to hear a message they weren’t interested in hearing anyway.  New marketing does not ask, “How can we use this new marketing stuff?” but “How can we be an organization that people want to connect with in this new, transparent way?”  Does your HR director know about new marketing?

Maybe we can address this during the upcoming interview with Seth and NTEN.

see more Epic Fails

This is the first blog post I am writing as I anticipate my upcoming interview with Seth Godin and the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN).

Many of you might not know what a Meatball Sundae is.  A Meatball Sundae is an organization that tries to add all of this new media fun stuff like Facebook and Myspace and Twitter and Google (the sundae part) on top of the same, tried and true, products they’ve been making for years (the meatball part).

The key is to not become a Meatball Sundae.

It’s not that the meatballs are bad and the sundae part is good.  It’s that they do not naturally work together.  One part or the whole thing must change in order for your organization to be successful now.

Did you know that?

Here’s a tip:  to move your organization online do so strategically – beyond interns on Twitter.

This is a senior management decision, although others in the organization can build the case.

As the picture above suggests, organizations fail when their marketing is not in sync with their organization.

Hans Rosling has another great video explaining how USAID’s efforts have been working.

He also makes the point that there is no longer the dichotomy developing world vs. developed world based on convincing data. 

Watch the video and let me know what you think.

Check out Dan Pink’s (speech writer for Al Gore and author of A Whole New Mind and The Adventures of Johnny Bunko) TED Talk:  The Surprising Science of Motivation. 

He makes the case for management to incorporate intrinsic rewards for work:  autonomy, mastery, and purpose, to achieve results from workers.  More money doesn’t work anymore.

Hi, I’d like to introduce you to Nancy Lublin.

She founded Dress for Success
She founded Do Something
She writes for Fast Company

Just start reading her Fast Company articles. 

If you don’t have an in-person mentor, her mentorship through her column will help you out until you can get one.

Landing a job at a non-profit is quite different from landing one at a for-profit.

Willy Frazen was generous enough to let me guest-post on his blog, One Day One Job, a great resource for job seekers right out of college.   The post gives 5 pieces of advice about how to land a job at a non-profit, based on my experience.

Willy was frustrated with the job search process when he graduated, so he created One Day One Job to help other job seekers find organizations where they would be a great fit and could feel great about supporting.

On weekends, One Day One Job covers non-profit jobs exclusively, so you want to be sure to check it out.

Willy also created One Day One Internship, which can help you find a successful internship placement.

I was inspired by Rick Bayless winning Top Chef Masters because, if you watched the show, you saw how he coached his the previous Top Chef contestants on his team to instill ownership over the meal they made under his direction.  Bayless was also passionate about Mexican food and had his own definition of success – it didn’t matter that he won the title, he was just pleased that he elevated Mexican food to the level of French and Italian cuisine and ended his exit interview with, “Viva El Mexico!”

Highly competitive reality shows like Top Chef and Project Runway teach you that leaders are able to persuade others to go along with their vision, no matter the obstacles and personality conflicts.  You have to have the skills to work with all kinds of people, especially other strong leaders, to make something great.  You get respect by showing respect to others.  Give first then get.