As many of you know, I’ve been hard at work these last few months getting a brand new startup off the ground. HelpAttack! is an idea that started to form during last year’s Movember drive on Twitter. It occurred to me (while sitting in traffic at 38th and Guadalupe) that there are:

a) lots of people out there who use social media and who are looking for ways to be more involved in supporting causes

b) lots of people out there who don’t have tons of cash to throw around but would still be willing to give, say, a cappuccino a week.

Other things occurred to me as well, like that traffic light at 38th and Lamar can be unbearably long, and Texans are terrible about turning left at a green light (why don’t you people pull halfway into the intersection like the rest of the world?)

So, I talked to one of the smartest people I know in the online nonprofit world, who luckily for me lives in Austin. Also luckily for me, he performed a thorough background check and decided I was a reasonable person to get into business with (I have contacts at the police department who hid all the incriminating evidence). Of course I’m talking about David J. Neff.

David brought in Ehren Foss, who is brilliant, hard working, loves nonprofits and has a shiny head. Ehren built the website from scratch in his kitchen, using eggs from his very own chickens.

And now, a mere nine months after my traffic light epiphany, and thanks to the tremendous wisdom and teamwork that Ehren, David, our Board of Advisors, our lawyers, our designers, our friends and family, and the Austin startup community provided, HelpAttack! has evolved from an idea into a product, and is ready for launch.

So I would be delighted if you would go to the website, sign up, pick a nonprofit to support, and start making your Twitter stream count for something!

“Absolutely, Sarah!” you say.  “But wait,” you ask, “WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?”

I thought you’d never ask. You can do these things:

1. Follow HelpAttack! on Twitter.
2. Become a fan of HelpAttack! on Facebook.
3. Offer feedback about the website and service on our Get Satisfaction page.
4. Write about HelpAttack! on your own blog.
5. And if you’re in Central Texas, come to the launch party! We’d LOVE to see you there.

Happy Tweeting and Giving!

My coworking compadre at Conjunctured (that’s a lot of C’s!), Brad Istre, designed a logo for me a few months back. I’m still working on a business site for my consulting company, so I haven’t been using it much…yet. Today he told me that he added business cards and letterhead to the mix…

Sweet, right?

You can check out the rest of his portfolio at Sidedoor Studio. And stay tuned for the new site, it’s coming soon.

Last week, in my role as community manager for FeaturedUsers, I interviewed Guy Kawasaki for our #FollowFriday series. We talked about the startup economy, his books, Alltop, and how to get a standing ovation.

As if that wasn’t cool enough, I got to test out Wetoku, which is a sweet little embeddable app for doing online video interviews.

You can see the interview and read the transcript here.

I stopped in at Progress Coffee this morning for a latte and a fruit cup with yogurt. Progress is one of my favorite East Side establishments. Their coffee is stellar, and they have a jalapeno breakfast biscuit that makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

While waiting for my coffee I looked down and noticed this, next to the trash can:

I have a compost pile at home, and I diligently save my egg shells and other leftovers for the pile. It’s good for the garden, and I feel better putting less waste in my garbage can and more directly back into the earth. Austin, which prides itself as a “green city”, has a great new recycling program, too, with large blue bins for each household where we can pitch all our glass, cardboard, cans, and paper, without having to sort it. I take for granted that businesses around Austin will provide both recycling and trash cans, and for the most part this is the case. But I have no expectation that they will provide me with a composting opportunity.

What can you do for your clients or customers that goes beyond their expectations? How can you provide a pleasant surprise?

Last April my friend Dusty approached me with an offer: he was too busy to handle the FeaturedUsers Twitter stream on his own. How would I feel about posting tweets, replying to followers, and generally monitoring the stream? It sounded like an interesting gig (and he was willing to pay me for it), so I agreed to give it a try.

Dusty had already set up the account with following/followers settings, so my only job would be sending out actual tweets. This has been something of a make-it-up-as-you-go-along gig for me, but after a few months I’ve got the basics of it figured out. I thought I’d share the process with you.

Twitter Stream

Flickr image by makelessnoise

A blend of tweets, sent throughout the day, is my formula for FeaturedUsers. This blend looks something like this:

1. Links. I send out about 5-8 links a day from interesting stories in my feed reader. Because my followers on FeaturedUsers and I have similar interests (Twitter, marketing, branding, web 2.0), I haven’t set up any special feeds for this account, but I would do so for a more specialized Twitter account. Most of these links are on those topics. At least once a day I try to send something that is more humorous or pop culture related. These are often the links that get retweeted the most, which helps to promote the FeaturedUsers brand across a wider audience. Also, it’s just good for people to have a laugh.

Most tweets follow the same basic format (as captured in TweetDeck):

This format ensures that I credit the author/site, add a little note of my own, and shows with the “^sv” that I am the personal sender of the tweet.

2. Retweets. I dip into the FeaturedUsers updates a couple of times a day to see what people are saying, and I retweet 2-3 people who have an interesting link to share (on topic!), or a good quote. This shows that you’re listening, and that you’re not just interested in talking about yourself or your brand.

3. Replies. I reply to all DM’s and @ messages throughout the day. If it’s a technical question that I can’t answer, I flag it for Dusty, but I still reply to the query, indicating that help is on its way. Prompt, good-natured responses are essential in customer service, and for now are quite manageable at around 6 or so a day. (I don’t reply to auto DMs.)

4. Follow Friday. Every Friday @FeaturedUsers gets a handful of #followfriday recommendations. Rather than thanking each of these people individually, I send out 2-3 batch tweets each Friday thanking those for mentioning me, and including the #ff or #followfriday hashtag.

5. Updates. Tweets are sent out to alert followers to new blog posts, updates to the service, or any other news related to FeaturedUsers.

6. Conversation. I admit, this is where I’m most lacking. Friendly conversation and engagement is appealing, and when I’ve spoken about more personal, general things, even the weather, it tends to get a response. But I usually forget to just “chit chat” on this Twitter account during the day. I’ll be working on that.

Tools

Flickr image by geishaboy500

Having an efficient method for sending and responding to Tweets keeps me from losing my mind. Here are the tools I use (Mac OSX/Firefox 3.5):

1. If there is more than one person on your Twitter account, you really should be using a group Twitter application like HootSuite or CoTweet. CoTweet allows for users to “assign” tweets (with optional notes attached) to each other for follow-up, schedule future tweets, and manage multiple Twitter accounts from a single page. It’s in Beta right now, so you have to request an invite, but last I heard these were being sent out pretty regularly.

2. Feed Reader. I’m addicted to Feedly right now, but Google Reader works fine for this. As I mentioned above, much of what I already read by default is relevant to the FeaturedUsers followers, so I haven’t had to create a separate folder. If I were tweeting for a real estate company or a wine merchant, however, I would have some unique feeds set up specifically for them. In the morning I go through my feeds and schedule links to be shared throughout the day. At the end of the day I’ll check Feedly again, and save a few links for the next day. That enables me to get rolling quickly the next morning with a few choice items. 2. CoTweet really really REALLY needs a bookmarklet for easy link sharing (they say this will be coming shortly). Otherwise, it’s perfect. For now I keep the HootSuite bookmarklet in my browser sidebar to send out links. This includes an option to schedule tweets into the future, which is great.

3. Link Shortener. A drawback to the HootSuite bookmarklet is it’s tied in with the ow.ly link shortener. This may or may not irk you. I replace all ow.ly links with an is.gd link, using the is.gd Creator for Firefox.

4. ShareThis. Another add-on I use is the ShareThis add-on for Firefox. This enables me to send all links to the FeaturedUsers del.icio.us account.

5. Twitter Search. CoTweet captures all @ replies and DMs on the website, but I still keep a FeaturedUsers search going on TweetDeck. This catches any mentions of the website or the service that aren’t in the standard @ reply format.

6. Google Alert. In addition to monitoring Twitter, I run a Google Alert for FeaturedUsers that sends results to my inbox once a day. This helps me capture any reviews or other mentions of FeaturedUsers on the internet, allowing me to thank the reviewer and link to the post the following day.

Anyone else out there Twitter for someone else, or Twitter for business? I’d love to hear about your process and the tools you use!

“The Mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

-Plutarch, On Listening to Lectures

For the past few months I’ve been providing business mentoring to a fellow Austinite who is active in the social media scene. This is our story so far.

Would You Be My Mentor?

flickr photo by Billie Jane

The date: February 12, 2009. The place: Aces Lounge on 6th Street, Austin. The event: Austin Twestival, a sort of tweetup/charity mashup to raise money for water wells in Africa. The place was a sea of Austin Social Media types. Lots of familiar faces, some I didn’t know at all, and some I knew only from Twitter, including the young man I said hello to at the bottom of the stairs.

“You’re the first person to call me by my Twitter name!” said Craig*. After a brief conversation, he added, “Would you be willing to mentor me?” “Sure!” I answered, without a moment’s hesitation. It wasn’t until I got home and my head was hitting the pillow that I wondered – mentor him for what?

What Not to Do

We met a couple of weeks later at a coffee shop. I started the conversation by trying to define what I thought mentoring was all about (listening, identifying goals and problems, guiding him toward his own solutions), and what I was (and wasn’t) willing to provide. “I am not here to give you advice,” I told him confidently. “That’s fine,” he answered. Together, we identified his two main goals, one long-term (the creation of a community website devoted to social change), the other short (making some changes in his role at his job).  Putting the long-term goal aside for the time being, Craig launched into an explanation of what was going on for him at work, and I proceeded to give him advice for the next hour and a half on practically every situation which was vexing him. Whoops. Not a very auspicious beginning.

Following this meeting, Craig, acting in part on my brilliant advice, proceeded to have a rocky week at work. He sent me the play-by-play as the drama unfolded between him and his supervisors as he pushed for new responsibilities and others in the organization pushed back. I freaked out a little. Did I cause this? If he gets fired is it my fault? How responsible am I for this guy’s career?

Om

flickr photo by chaojikazu

I’m not a Buddhist, but I play one on the internet, and as my anxiety level began to rise over this situation, I dipped into my understanding of Buddhist principles combined with some fabulous self-help mantras and pulled out “loving detachment.” Craig was the captain of his own ship, and I was firmly planted here, on the shore. It wouldn’t hurt for me to point out the rocks and the shallows, but I was hardly responsible for his course. As it turned out, Craig didn’t get fired. He’s made some headway (and had some frustrations) at work, and continues to plug away with his ultimate goal in mind.

Before we reconvened, I got clear with myself about what I could and could not do for Craig. This mostly involved setting some boundaries for myself. I would, in fact, refrain from giving him advice. Or rather, I’d try really, really hard to refrain. And I would focus on the two most beneficial things I could provide: Active Listening and Goal Setting.

Active Listening

flickr photo by BL4d3RuNr

The most important behavior in communication is listening. Listening doesn’t just mean shut up and don’t talk. It means actively, emphatically even, listening to the words of the speaker. This takes great practice and discipline, as most of us tend to tune out and wander off into our own thoughts. If we are engaged in an argument, we frequently spend our “listening” time preparing rebuttals. If we are know-it-alls (like yours truly), we might spend the time preparing brilliant advice to shower on our grateful audience. True, clean, active listening involves simply focusing on the speaker. A good active listener interrupts only to clarify, or to briefly indicate understanding. Periodically, she summarizes what she has heard, and asks the speaker if she’s getting it right. That’s it.

I know, it sounds hokey, and it does take some work before it feels natural and not like an exercise on some sort of weekend marital counseling retreat. (“What I hear you saying, is you don’t love me any more. Did I get that right?” “Yes, dear.”) But the results are huge. If the goal is to allow the speaker not only to be understood, but to clarify his thoughts, you can do no better than to be his active listener.

Goal Setting

flickr photo by matsukawa1971

You’ve heard it before: in order to make your goals a reality they should be concrete, measurable, and attainable. That’s a good jumping-off point, but for many of us the missing piece is accountability. If you keep your goals between yourself and your Moleskine, the notebook isn’t likely to call you on it when, come January, you still haven’t updated your LinkedIn profile or learned how to play Chinese Checkers. A mentor, on the other hand, can check in on your progress, and motivate you towards your goal. Just knowing that someone else out there is paying attention to your progress can be motivation to keep going under discouraging circumstances.

A Work in Progress

This post is certainly not meant to be a primer on mentoring. This is my first experience working with someone in this capacity, and I still have a lot to learn. Craig and I will meet later this week, and I’ll practice active listening and check in on his goals. I’ll try to stifle my temptation to advise. I’ll work on remaining detached from his actions and choices, and focus on providing support and encouragement. I’ll observe, look for patterns and point them out. I won’t be afraid to call it like I see it, which I’m pretty well known for, and I would guess is one of the reasons he asked me for help in the first place. And I definitely won’t be his therapist, promoter, boss, or angel (spiritual or financial). We’ll take it from there.

*name changed to protect the innocent.