Contaminated water tanks, oil leaking into water supplies, high levels of prescription medication found in drinking water, political corruption surrounding paying for water, water management agencies offices in high-rent areas, high taxes on bottled water…

…And all of these things are just in and around Chicago!

There’s no point in reiterating how important water is to all living creatures. Living in Chicago, where the entire eastern border of the city is surrounded by Lake Michigan, I am constantly reminded of it. Yet, for some reason, many tend to forget the real reason for all of what is done to get all the clean water we need. Today is Blog Action Day, a day where bloggers around the world write on a particular topic. This year, it is water.

Whenever conversations around a global concern take place, people tend to forget what is immediately around them, their backyard. As my Mom always said, charity begins at home. Keeping her great advice in mind, I propose not only thinking locally and acting globally, but acting on both.

Act Locally

Many people don’t know how the water gets to run out of their faucets. Here’s your opportunity to go out and find out what you don’t know. In Chicago, the city has a water management department and as well there is a regional water authority, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. I will be honest in that I don’t know too much about either of these departments, other than the latter has prime offices just off the Magnificent Mile and people buy billboards in their bid to be a commissioner of this organization. The also manage a system called “Deep Tunnel” to prevent overflows and flooding.

So why would you want to know this? Understanding the political ecosystem is usually as important as the environmental one, as the former has to do with how much you pay for your water, as well as the safety and purity of the supply. Though they should be straightforward systems, they tend not to be, and it can be summed up in 1 word – politics. I’ll leave it at that.

Knowledge is power, especially on the local level, and if you need to act – or react – you can be ahead of the game in knowing who is responsible.

Act Globally

Unless you’re planning on traveling the globe to do so, your options to help people’s water supplies around the world are limited. Here’s a great way to help such a cause while learning from great entrepreneurs – buy a copy of the Age of Conversation 3!

You may recall I talked about this great book, where myself and hundreds of people around the globe contributed to a truly collaborative story. The book is also a not-for-profit endeavor, and all proceeds from it go to Charity: Water an organization where all proceeds go to helping people around the globe, and they have the photos and geo-locations to prove it. Simply buy a copy of Age of Conversation 3 from Amazon or any other outlet and you have helped the cause. I’ll even autograph it for an extra donation!

We can all do our part to help – for the benefit of others as well as ourselves. So think before you take that drink of water today, all 8 glasses of it.

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The next likemind will be Friday, October 15, 2010 in dozens of cities around the world.

In Chicago, it will be at Argo Tea, 140 S Dearborn St. at the corner of Adams and Dearborn Streets in the Loop from 8:00 am to 10:00 am.

I call likemind a gathering of creative-minded people, from various disciplines including Internet, advertising, art, social media, et. al. For more on likemind, read this great article on likemind Chicago from the Newcity and likemind from the New York Times.

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What better way to truly learn a new mobile device than to use it in real time… with colleagues in a business setting… dressed in suits… on a beach? This was my experience a few weeks back, as I was a guest and participant in the Nokia E73 Mode Beach House on Sunset Beach in Huntington Beach, CA.

Believe it or not, it was as I said – a gathering of mobile technology aficionados, with bloggers, consultants and fans. Most were from southern California, where a few of us were invited from around the US and Canada. The reason for the event was to get hands-on with the Nokia E73 Mode, a close sibling of the Nokia E72 smartphone, which is offered exclusively by T-Mobile. The business setting scenario was for a video shoot on the beach with all of us as participants, complete with planned and unplanned events. The weekend was organized by the gracious and brilliant minds of WOMWorld/Nokia, who handle word-of-mouth marketing for Nokia.

The E73 Mode Beach House was a multi-level house right on Sunset Beach. Those us from out of town – myself, Glenn, Lenny (aka The Truth) and Dennis – along with the WOMWorld crew – Donna, Adam and James – stayed at the beach house for a couple of nights and the house and back deck were converted for the festivities on Saturday night for us and those from the LA area. Some of the people included Jen, Jeb, Al and Mike. It was a reunion of sorts for Jen, Donna, Glenn and I as we all met a couple of years back at Nokia OpenLab in Helsinki. Though time had passed, it didn’t seem like it as we all keep in touch through social media.

Our assignment for the weekend was to make a video of us using the E73 Mode. It offers different “modes” where you can have both a home and work screen, each configured for what you need for each. As the camera crew arrived and were setting up, we were ushered upstairs to get dressed. We were confused as we certainly weren’t walking around the beach house naked. Then we saw what we had to wear – suits, complete with shirts and ties. Then the story came to life – we were working on the beach, but also living, and trying out the E73 Mode as to how it would help us with both modes of our life. As I said it is the sibling of the E72, one which I already own, I was well aware how well this works.

As for the video – nothing was scripted. There was the “story” of us working on the beach, but much of it was improvised, including Glenn surfing in his suit and the volleyball game of the suits vs. the locals, where the mobile geeks won! The video is embedded below, or you can watch the Nokia E73 Mode Beach Party official video on YouTube.

I’ll write more on the E73 Mode later, reviewing its features, and comparing it to the E72 and other mobile devices. In the meantime, enjoy the video, and thanks to Nokia and WOMWorld/Nokia for a great weekend experience, not to mention building a great device.

Editor's Note: I updated several links which have changed since this was first posted. (8/24/2020)

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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As a full-service Web consulting firm, we at Dunkirk Systems, LLC offer social media consulting services to clients. For many of our clients, social media is a new area for themselves and their business. Where they may be familiar with Facebook or Twitter, they may be unsure how this would relate to their business or where to start. This opinion has come from the many conversations I have had with clients as well as colleagues.

To help gain some understanding with social media, I have created a presentation titled “Social Media Primer - Using the Tools of Social Media to Extend Your Reach” which I am offering to everyone using the service SlideShare. The presentation is embedded in this post below, or follow this link to view the Social Media Primer presentation.

Please share any comments or questions you may have on this presentation in the comments of this post. Where this is geared towards those who are new to social media, I welcome thoughts from anyone on this.

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Tomorrow midday I have a regularly scheduled meeting I highly look forward to. Every other week on a Wednesday is something we call “BusinessForward” which is a peer mentoring meeting.

The origin of BusinessForward came out of need. Myself and my design partner and friend Emily Brackett of Visible Logic, Inc. were talking one day about the everyday challenges we had of running, leading and growing our businesses, plus the need for a peer group to both share with others and get help with our own issues. During that conversation I recalled a similar group I was in several years ago called “Circle of Progress” where we would be held accountable for doing something between meetings by publicly stating it, and supporting each other through the process. Though Emily and I speak and work together throughout the week, I suggested we start it ourselves, with the intent to grow the group organically, rather than seek out a number of people first, as our goal was growth of our businesses, not growth of a group.

A Peer Mentoring Group Is Born

With that, our peer networking group was born. We wanted to call it something, and after bouncing words between Chicago and Portland, Maine, we came up with BusinessForward, as it’s what we wanted to do, move our business forward. As for the structure of the meetings, we decided to meet every 2 weeks, and each week we could commit to a task, outline its steps, and set its priority for the period. At the start of the next meeting, we would recap our previous commitment, if we completed it or not, and why. We would then state a new commitment for the next period. To facilitate this Emily created a PDF form which we would email to each other prior to the call, thus putting our commitments in writing.

Committing to something in writing was not to intimidate us or to highlight failure. Instead, presenting our plans was to benefit everyone – an idea for one business could certainly carry over to another. As well, when talking through the steps with someone else, you may recognize something you may want to do different, or another member of the group may have something to contribute to it. Stating it in writing allows you to use the card as a milestone marker and a target until the next meeting. Positive reinforcement is the hallmark of any peer group, and the bi-weekly card and statements were key to that.

But Before We Begin Each Meeting…

Prior to the first ever BusinessForward meeting, Emily asked if she could share something that was bothering her. I agreed, and thus started something that was an additional tradition and positive point for each meeting, something we called “the bitch of the week!” Before our turn in the meeting, we would state something work-related that was bothering us. It could be a client paying late or an issue with a vendor or whatever. The point of this became to help clear an intangible but clearly impeding issue from our heads and workplace, and by sharing it we could get some reinforcement and feedback from the collective. For me, it is something I look forward to just as much as my commitment of the week.

And Then There Were Three

After BusinessForward was going strong for several months, I shared the concept with Kathryn Neal Odell of Sales-Onsite, LLC, who has become a good friend and trusted colleague. She found the concept interesting and after discussing it with Emily we invited her to join as our 3rd member. The addition of Kathryn was a great move, as it gave not only another person to collaborate with, but someone who has a wealth of experience in working in sales. By contributing her conference call line it added a level of structure so there was no need to hunt down where each of us was. Kathryn raised the bar for participation in BusinessForward and in the selection of any future members.

The Success Is In The Results

So has BusinessForward been helpful to our businesses? I will only speak for myself and scream, “yes!” In addition to the positives sprinkled throughout this writing, I must add as a business owner, many times we make decisions in a vacuum or with what we think is all the information we need to decide. BusinessForward has helped me not only with the larger decisions, but with the steps to take in meeting the objectives of my business growth activities.

Do you belong to a peer mentoring group? How has it worked for you? Do you share my desire to be in one? Your comments on this are appreciated.

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