Have you ever been alone in a crowded room? It can easily happen, when you first enter a room or area where a meeting or event is going on. It can be crowded or even spread out with a few people. You don’t know anyone and nobody knows you. If you read any number of networking resources, there are all kinds of advice and tips to tackle this situation and make it work for you.

But what if it doesn’t work? What if you just can’t crack into the audience? Is it solely your fault? Of course not! Somebody or some organization spent time and money to put on this event, extended an invitation to you and others, and then they leave it to others to ensure its event? This failure in logic is the direct result of not having facilitators or greeters in order to prevent situations like this.

Proven In Action

When I was involved in the Boston Jaycees and eventually became its president, I learned first-hand how having greeters made our meetings more successful. We held monthly membership meetings, and the second someone entered the room they needed to check-in. Everybody wore nametags – members would have one color border on their tag and guests another. This way, any member of the board of the Jaycees, as well as general members, would be able to know who was new and reach out to them. We held an orientation a few minutes before the meeting started for guests to welcome them and give them an overview of the organization and the meeting itself, so when it commenced they would be in the know as to what was transpiring.

As a result, new guests felt welcomed and it helped break the ice for them in a room where most people knew each other. For the Jaycees, as we were a membership organization looking to grow, we were easily able to identify people and connect with them. Where we had specific membership people who would seek out people, as a result of the color-coded nametags, all members automatically became greeters, namely because many of them had a similar, engaging experience when they first came to a meeting.

The Opposite Proven In Action As Well

A few years back my wife and I went to a local networking event for a business organization in Chicago whose name is purposely being withheld. I was on their mailing list, but had no other connection to them or knew anyone involved. As we entered the meeting area, there was a check-in table, but after that we were purely on our own. The attendees appeared to know each other from our observation. Many people had nametags indicating they were officers of the organization. But as we moved through the room, we found people did not want to engage with us, despite our efforts to reach out to many people. We got frustrated, namely as this was billed as a networking event and welcomed non-members. My wife made a last-ditch effort by boldly going up to several individuals, including those with nametags, but nobody had any interest in talking with us! Needless to say we left, and that’s all we talked about the remainder of the night.

It Doesn’t Take Much

A couple of packs of nametags was the way we at the Jaycees were able to identify new people, not to mention a culture of welcoming. If you are going through the cost and effort to hold an event or meeting, why not ensure people get as great of a return on the event as you do? Or put it like this – could your event or meeting be less successful because you do not do this? I could have easily mentioned the name of the organization I slammed above, and someone else may not be as kind.

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For many bloggers, creativity can ebb and flow when it comes time to put pen to paper, or rather fingers to keyboard. I have experienced this myself, where I can sit down one day and write 3 or 4 posts at once, and the next day I can’t think of a topic for anything. This is where I found a feature of the blog engine coming in handy – write a post ahead of time and set its live date for sometime in the future.

Depending on your blog, some of your posts may be very timely and topical, where others may be reference or opinion. As a result, writing these ahead of time, or whenever creativity strikes you, makes perfect sense. Prior to pressing the publish button in your blog engine of choice, you should change the post date and time to a point in the future. This comes in handy when you’re on vacation or away for a long weekend, yet you find you have readership at those times, so why not keep them happy?

Benefits readers as well as publishers

At first thought, post-dating a post may seem solely selfish to the author, but that is hardly the case. Not all of your readers may be in the same time zone as you, let alone same continent. By adjusting the time a post appears in your blog and RSS feed can benefit all readers. Using Web analytics you can find when the preferential time of day to have posts appear. For The Hot Iron, I typically have my posts appear at 4am Central US Time, which has it appearing in someone’s feed reader in the US first thing in the morning and late morning for someone in Europe.

Do you post-date blog entries? How has it worked for you? If you try it, let me know how it works for you. Or if you are adamantly against it, please share that as well.

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It has been said, “desperate times call for desperate measures.” These days, this is said a lot. Myself I have thought about it quite a bit as well. However the more I think of the phrase, the more I take a different approach to it, as follows:

Desperate times call for creative, sensible measures.

Creative? Sensible? Mike, the economy sucks! Who are you to take such a soft approach to it?

Well, I am someone who needs to. After putting a lot of thought into it, the second “desperate” is usually driven by anger, fear or anything that gets your blood boiling. Go ahead, blurt out what you will do, then give it a rest. There is a high likelihood what you said in frustration makes sense, and there is a chance it doesn’t. As you think more of it, creative juices are now replacing the adrenaline that was previously flowing through your veins, and some great options and alternatives can come from it.

That’s my story and I am sticking with it. Until those ideas don’t work, then I get frustrated and start all over again.

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Keeping positive and focused is easier for some than others. For those like myself who need a little help with it, it is the little things that can do the trick when we the day isn’t going the way we want it. It can be a call from a friend, a sign or a phrase.

This is where books like That Was Zen, This Is Wow: 232 Ideas for Transforming Your Life from Ordinary to Extraordinary come in handy. I met one of the co-authors, Rob Engelman, several years ago through networking and when I heard about his book I had to get a copy and purchased one from him. In it, there are 232 quotes and ideas that will cause you to pause, reflect and hopefully get back on course. You can read the book from cover-to-cover when you need some strong motivation or randomly flip to a page to get some quick inspiration.

One thing this book inspired me to do was to write some thoughts of my own. Many people have quotes of their own to help them get through the day. That Was Zen, This Is Wow can be that pit-stop we need during a hectic day to refuel our minds and hit the road running again.

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Do you have defined goals for your Web site? When I say goals, do you have someplace written down goals and objectives for your Web site, which may have a project charter, mission and/or vision statement, target primary and secondary audience for your Web site and what they may be looking for?

If you do not, you are certainly not alone. Many Web sites start with the assumption of goals even if they are not written down. Over time, goals certainly change, just as businesses and their customers change. Having these guiding principles in writing – even framed and hanging in your office – help guide you in your decision-making for changes and enhancements to your Web site.

The Infamous Spaghetti Test

Many people test to see if spaghetti is fully cooked by throwing a piece up on a wall to see if it sticks. Personally I have never done this, but that may be due to being 100% Italian American and “just knowing” when it is done! This analogy is used quite often in business – taking an idea and throwing it out there to see if it sticks. The same can be done with ideas for your Web site, and instead of a wall you would throw it up against the goals of the Web site.

Goals for your Web site should not be in place to slow you and your business down and hinder you in any way. Many times people see something on a Web site and want it on theirs. Whether it is a cool new way to present something or a change for whatever reason, having goals in place should not kill those ideas altogether, rather they should help in their prioritization.

Usability of Goals in Key

So what should your goals look like? The simple answer is they should be in a usable format. Where that may be obvious, it always isn’t. Many times when people or the consultants they hire to build their Web sites define goals, they are lofty, multi-page documents that by their sheer design get stuffed in a file cabinet or in a folder on one’s computer, never to be looked at again. That’s not to say goals cannot be comprehensive, and if they are they should be then boiled down into a 1-page summary easily accessible by those involved in decision-making for the Web site.

As there should not be a schedule to creative-thinking, ideas will come about and they need to be addressed. As mentioned previously, these ideas may not be acted upon immediately but recorded for future consideration. This process is called product management, where the product is the Web site. The product manager for your Web site may be the organizational “owner” of the Web site or a key individual who serves as the traffic cop for such decisions. Your Web site should have a product manager in some form, if for any other reason to have a contact person to report issues to on the Web site.

Start Somewhere

If you don’t have goals, start by writing down something. If you do have goals written, dust them off and review them. The goals for your Web site are ideally a living breathing entity, but not quite a chameleon that is in constant change and flux. They should parallel changes in business as well as advances in Web design and technology. The latter doesn’t mean you and your business need to be on the bleeding edge of Web design, though in 2009 it is not a bad idea to use video on your Web site to talk about your products and services. But if a goal is to be on the bleeding edge and you are not there, this is where goals can serve you well.

The days of the “geek in the corner” hacking away at your Web site are over. It takes a team effort to create a thriving Web site. The best way to keep everybody on the same page is to understand the goals, whether it is for your Web site or your entity as a whole.

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