What makes one person more influential than another?

Posted: September 30th, 2009 | Filed under: - Usable Tools - | Tags: social media | No Comments »

This morning I attended an interesting seminar hosted by the Word Of Mouth UK Association in which The Guardian shared some research they have recently conducted on what makes one person more influential than another.

You can find out more by visiting their website (shame about the cheesy music) and I have put the flyer that was handed out at the bottom of this post.

They introduced 4 concepts which I will share here:

• Weak Ties
• Bridging Capital
• Status Bargain
• ACTIVE – measurable characteristics of influencers

WEAK TIES
Having an abundance of Weak Ties gives an individual access to new sources of information and the ability to spread that information.

Weak Ties are either Social Glue or Social Oil:

Social Glue
- Strong ties: close family and friends

Social Oil
- Weak ties: colleague, friend of a friend, extended family, person met through hobby activity or online

Strong ties help you get by – they provide you with emotional support.
Weak ties help you get on – they give you the power of amplification through the size of your networks and cross-network sharing.

BRIDGING CAPITAL
Bridging Capital enables influencers to package this information in a away that makes it easier for other people to take it on board.

It is a combination of Social and Cultural Capital:

Social Capital
- size & diversity of your network
- ability to spread messages

Cultural Capital
- accumulated knowledge
- ability to influence others

The ability to spread a variety of information in a variety of contextual settings is vital.  If all you do is bang on about fishing wherever you are, you will soon get ignored.

STATUS BARGAIN
Individuals will modify their views to take on the opinions of others; the bargain is that they gain enhanced status by being more knowledgeable.  Influencers feed this.

We trust the opinions of people we know who make Status Bargains.

ACTIVE – measurable characteristics of influencers
Evident in a higher incidence amongst influential people are a set of shared characteristics:

• Ahead in Adoption
• Connected
• Traveller
• Information-Hungry
• Vocal
• Exposed to Media

Whilst none of this is really new thinking, what is interesting is that there is data you can play with – the Guardian’s Word of Mouth database – with results fused to TGI, it enables agencies and brands to identify and understand key players active in word of mouth.

Check out – http://www.guardian.co.uk/adinfo/wom/ – and share any of your insights and comments on this.

Never give in

Posted: September 25th, 2009 | Filed under: life purpose | Tags: personal mastery | No Comments »

Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great” (one of the best business books you will ever read) has written a new book examining failures and successes; lessons that apply in both our work and our personal lives.

So many of us at the moment are suffering setbacks in our lives having been made redundant; now looking for new employment or working out how to work for ourselves. In the difficult days “never give in” is encouragement you really want to hear.

“The main message of our work remains: we are not imprisoned by our circumstances, our setbacks, our history, our mistakes, or even staggering defeats along the way. We are freed by our choices.

The signature of the truly great versus the merely successful is not the absence of difficulty, but the ability to come back from setbacks, even cataclysmic catastrophes, stronger than before. Great nations can decline and recover. Great companies can fail and recover. Great social institutions can fail and recover. And great individuals can fail and recover. As long as you never get entirely knocked out of the game, there always remains hope.

“This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” Winston Churchill

Never give in. Be willing to change tactics, but never give up your core purpose. Be willing to kill failed business ideas, even to shutter big operations you’ve been in for a long time, but never give up on the idea of building a great company. Be willing to evolve into an entirely different portfolio of activities, even to the point of zero overlap with what you do today, but never give up on the principles that define your culture. Be willing to embrace the inevitability of creative destruction, but never give up on the discipline to create your own future. Be willing to embrace loss, to endure pain, to temporarily lose freedoms, but never give up on the ability to prevail. Be willing to form alliances with former adversaries, to accept necessary compromise, but never – ever – give up on your core values.

The path out of darkness begins with those exasperatingly persistent individuals who are constitutionally incapable of capitulation. It’s one thing to suffer a staggering defeat – as will likely happen to every enduring business and social enterprise at some point in its history – and entirely another to give up on the values and aspirations that make the protracted struggle worthwhile. Failure is not so much a physical state as a state of mind: success is falling down and getting up one more time, without end.”

Jim Collins, “How the Mighty Fall. And Why Some Companies Never Give In”