Have you ever attended a meeting where the attendees interrupt and talk over each other and no one lets anyone else finish a sentence? Where multiple, mini-meetings break out and people randomly and seamlessly cross over into these mini-meetings without rhyme nor reason? Do you spend so much time marveling at how rude and disrespectful the attendees are, that you don’t remember much else about the meeting? Are you left feeling disrespected and frustrated at their boorish behavior? In the end, do you believe that you are dumber for having attended the meeting?
Well, if you answered “yes” to any of those questions, you are not alone. In fact you are in the majority. The sad and uneducated majority. The truth is that the other attendees were not rude nor disrespectful. It is you who are not seasoned nor savvy enough to understand what was really going on. The meeting was most likely extremely productive and effective but you weren’t smart enough to capture its brilliance. Maybe those attendees are all dumber for having invited YOU. Did you ever think of that?
Well, fear not! I am here to help. I have studied corporate meetings, and those who attend them, for over 25 years and through my research and vast experience I have uncovered the keys to corporate meeting enlightenment and will share them with you as well as the tools necessary to get you on your way to becoming an active, productive, and happy corporate meeting participant. That’s right, all you have to do is read and follow the steps in Preemptive Listening, a Tool of Tools and you will be well on your way to becoming the moving and shaking, corporate professional that you’ve always dreamed.
I wrote the Preemptive Listening article four years ago, but the material is as relevant and timeless as the corporate meeting itself. So don’t delay, get on the fast path to meeting mastery with my article on the breakthrough corporate behavioral tool, Preemptive Listening and if you like it, share it with others. If you don’t like it, you are lost and there is no hope left.
Thank You.
Kevin Vandever
Founder and Author Preemptive Listening, a Tool of Tools.
written by Kevin Vandever
\\ tags: Bad Manners, Corporate America, Listening
It has been a really cool ride the last year on Twitter. I never would have guessed that I’d have so many engaging relationships resulting from multiple 140 character conversations. I entered Twitter to help promote a couple blog ideas and although it has helped in that endeavor, it turns out that I am spending way more time and having way more fun just building relationships for their own sake. So for my special edition of #followfriday, I bring you my Thanksgiving #thankfulthursday #tweetsgiving list in alphabetical order ’cause I’m diplomatic like that! There are some repeat #followfriday offenders, but since this is my year-end list, I included them again.
@angelica7641 – As surprised as I am that I have so many great Twitter friendships, I am even more surprised that a Steelers fan made the list. Our Twitter conversations range from football to corporate life to social media and recently to boxing when I found out that she is boxing fan and trainer. So from now on, I will only talk junk about the Steelers from a distance.
@champsuperstar – This girl ROCKS! I love her tweets. She lives in New Orleans (major points), is active in the community (major points) and is a fellow Jon Dee Graham fan (more points than I can count).
@debdobson – Deb is a Kansas City Chiefs and Royals fan. I didn’t know that they still existed. She takes a lot of abuse from us on Twitter and is a good sport about it.
@desireekoh13 – I have not met Desiree in real life (IRL), but my wife used to work with her and mentioned that I should reach out as she is a fellow writer. Ha, we may have talked about writing once, but since then you name it and we have probably tweeted each other about it. This women lives life to the fullest and I so look forward to meeting her IRL.
@foiledcupcakes – Mari is awesome. Simple. Great sense of humor, successful business woman, and she is interested in jazz. She writes a very cool blog that gives credit to others for their thoughts and ideas. I also look forward to meeting her IRL one day.
@geekwearsprada – Cyn is a fellow Red Sox fan and what sets her apart from others are her poetic, Red Sox shout-outs to a few of us each day during the baseball season. Red Sox baseball is no longer complete without her tweets.
@ginidietrich – Finally met IRL after many Twitter discussions on a variety of topics. Probably not much I can add about Gini that hasn’t already been said by so many – including me in a prior #followfriday post – but I like the challenge so let’s see…hmm. Oh yeah, I know at least two things about Gini that I am pretty sure no one else knows. And I’m not tellin! (Although I will listen to cash offers).
@jeffmello – is a fellow Red Sox fan and runs The Ulitmate Sports Calendar, a very cool web site where you can keep track of when your favorite teams play. He can also be found on Twitter many evenings blipping his favorite #mellotunes for our listening pleasure.
@jennifervides – As fun as they come. Knows college football as well as anyone I know (tied with @kerbehr) and she pays off her bets when she loses. I also know her IRL and consider her a good friend.
@julito77 – Fellow Red Sox fan and my Twitter trouble-making partner in crime. I met Julio IRL earlier this year and since then we have shared thoughts and stories on many subjects ranging from college days to parenthood and most everything in between. He is one cool dude and am I glad to call him my friend.
@justinthesouth – Another fellow Red Sox fan and one of nicest guys I know on Twitter. As I’ve said before about Justin, he is the first to sincerely ask about someone’s day, remember a project he or she is working on, and promote them in one form or another.
@katjaib – Sincere, witty, warm and a great writer. I really enjoy my tweets with Kat and can’t wait to read more of here writing. And no, my receiving one of her prestigious Katnip awards had nothing to do with her making this list. She was on a #followfriday list of mine earlier this year before I won that award. Just so I set the record straight.
@kerbehr – Kerri was my friend in real life (IRL) before Twitter, but we’ve taken and enjoyed the Twitter journey together. We have lots of fun, talk college football trash, and learn more about social media for our place of employment.
@kirstenwright – I met Kirsten earlier this year to discuss business ideas and opportunities. She is very smart, a talented graphic designer and writer, and she really understands the social networking world.
@nancymyrland – Nancy and I are fairly new Twitter friends, but I really enjoy our discussions. If I ask a poll question or put out one of my silly, cryptic tweets, Nancy is one of the first to answer or play along with my knuckleheadness (new word). Her warmth comes through in her tweets and that is a great trait to have, in my opinion.
@papijulio – I’ve broken bread with this man a couple of times when he’s visited the LA area. He’s kind, warm, engaging and full of wisdom.
@Pats4Me – Newest member to the #posse. She is still trying to figure out all the rules. (we don’t know all the rules either, we make ‘em up as we go). She lives life with passion and LOVES the Patriots.
@shandrab – One of my favorite people on Twitter. Shandra is smart, funny, and wicked sarcastic. We often tweet of Vikings and Unicorns and #geekout over video embedding, blogging platforms and our latest adventure learning to surf the Google Wave.
@simasays – I almost met Sima IRL. We were a few stages from each other at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and later only a few bars from each other in the French Quarter. We weren’t able to make it work then, but some day we will catch some live music together.
@sloane – I met Sloane in New Orleans when she was down there with no other agenda than to get involved. And get involved she did. Now she’s moving down there and I am both envious of, and very happy for, her. She writes a great blog that is well worth the visit.
@uprisenuplift – One of my first Twitter friends, Cheryl is a very positive person and lives up to her profile name uprising and uplifting those around her.
@zoeyjordan – Zoey is another smart, funny, sarcastic biz partner twitter friend of mine. We live in the same state (that is California, not some mental state, although that may be true, too), but on opposite ends so I have yet to meet her IRL. One day, the fam and I are going to take her up on the invitation to head her way and go snowboarding and ibuprofen eating.
Happy Thanksgiving!
written by Kevin Vandever
\\ tags: #followfriday, #thankfulthursday, #tweetsgiving
Have you noticed that we don’t say, “you’re welcome” anymore? Go ahead, check it out. Next time you say “thank you” to someone, listen to his or her response. Listen to your own response when someone thanks you. I bet that it won’t be “you’re welcome”. What happened to “you’re welcome”? Why don’t we use it anymore? I like it. It is warm and civilized. It is humble, yet inviting. It is just plain appropriate. “You’re welcome” is like peanut butter and honey. It works. The thank you/you’re welcome exchange produces smiles, promotes peace, and maintains harmony.
So, what is used instead of “you’re welcome”? The three most comment responses I hear are, “no problem”, “no worries”, and the one I understand the least, “thank you”. The intention of using “no problem” is not good. It says, “It’s cool that you are thanking me, but don’t think anything of it, you don’t have to thank me, be gone, it was no problem”. But where’s the warmth and civility? How is it humble or inviting to make the person who just thanked you feel inferior? It’s inappropriate, does not produce smiles, promote peace, nor maintain harmony. Instead, it leaves you dumbfounded and thinking, “No problem? Who said it was supposed to be a problem?” It is like peanut butter and mayonnaise. It doesn’t work. I feel the same away about the “no worries” response, but it gets a pass because it came over from Australia so it’s still kind of hip to use it. The strangest one to me is the “Thank You” response. What? Thank someone for thanking you? Are you supposed to then thank him or her back? Then what? More thanking? This is not as condescending and evil as “no problem” and not as hip as “no worries”, but it can’t be the smile, peace, and harmony machine that “you’re welcome” is because it is confusing and causes people to focus too much on how to end a conversation.
So, it’s simple really. If you like to smile and are peaceful and harmonious, you’ll use “you’re welcome”. If you aspire to smile more and long to be peaceful and harmonious, you’ll use “you’re welcome”. If you like peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches, think it’s cool to speak Australian, or like to confuse people, you will use one of the unacceptable responses. Don’t do that!
Bring back “You’re Welcome” and help to make the world a better place.
Thank you!
written by Kevin Vandever
\\ tags: Manners, Thank you, You're welcome
I had a little scare last weekend that included a visit to urgent care. Things are fine now, but it was one of those oh-my-God-that-could-have-been-much-worse-so-now-I-had-better-take-stock-of-my-life-and-hug-my-kids-more-and-live-each-day-to-the-fullest-and-know-that-tomorrow-is-not-guaranteed-and-always-treat-others-with-respect-and-not-to-sweat-the-small-stuff-and-to-love-and-smile-to-the-max moments. The moment was made a little more interesting by the fact that my wife gave me some medication that jacked me up even more. She didn’t know, though, right? It was an accident, right? Those life insurance documents on the desk were there before the incident, weren’t they? Sorry, I digress.
Anyway, I am not writing to tell you about my experience with the goal that you will make the necessary changes in order to live a fuller, richer, and happier life. That is awesome if you do, but you don’t need me to do that. There are plenty of near-death or perceived near-death stories out there of folks seeing their lives flash before their eyes, floating towards the bright light before coming back to life on the hospital bed, or spending an all-nighter on Frenchmen street in New Orleans during jazz fest and still waking up in the morning. No, you don’t need another story like that for inspiration. (If you do, please let me know and I will be happy to be your tour guide to New Orleans.) What I want to do, however, is to turn this around to you, my much-appreciated reader, and ask: What was your wake-up call? What molded you, made you take a chance, make a change, see the light, get off the fence, etc? Was it one event or a series of events? Did you get up, hit snooze, or throw life’s alarm clock against the wall hoping to silence it? Have you not yet had that call? Or, do you feel like you don’t need it because your inspiration comes from within? No matter the case, I would love to hear from you. Take a moment and leave a comment to let me know.
Oh, and it turns out, after further investigation, that my wife was really trying to help and was acting in my best interest. Little did I know that my best interest meant my being comatose for a day or two while she attended the U2 concert and pre-concert tailgate party that weekend. It’s good to be loved.
What was your wake-up call?
written by Kevin Vandever
\\ tags: Life, wakeup call
As many of you know, the social networking site, Twitter.com, was partially inoperative this morning. In fact, as of this post it is still not working properly. This messed me up far more than I thought it would and way more than it should have, but all was not lost. It turns out one can be very productive when he or she is not tweeting. The following is what I did while Twitter was down:
Signed on to Facebook.
Oh, and wrote this blog post.
There you have it. Don’t let Twitter control your life. Know that you have other options. Breathe deeply, re-focus your energy, and be all you can be. It just takes patience, perseverance, and a valid Facebook account.
What did you do while Twitter was down?
written by Kevin Vandever
\\ tags: Facebook, social media, Twitter
Here are this week’s recommendations:
@jennifervides and I were recently introduced to each other by our mutual friend, Julio Varela, and we have quickly formed a friendship. She and I are the co-founders of #collegefootballtweetup, which will take place on Saturday, November 14 when my UNC Tar Heels take on her University of Miami Hurricanes. To make things more interesting, Jennifer and I engaged in a little friendly wager for this particular game. You can read about it here and my response here. If you can look past her poor taste in college football teams you will find a very cool person. I look forward to November 14.
@angelica7641 and I got to know each over a few social media conversations, specifically on what to expect when implementing a social media strategy in the workplace. She was very helpful and provided a unique perspective on the subject. I can also tell you that she is a Steeler’s fan who lives in Chicago and that she is currently working on a very important media project that will right the terrible wrong that took place shortly after the Bears/Steelers game last Sunday. She loves to promote this project so please ask her about it.
@jeffmello is a fellow Red Sox fan and runs The Ulitmate Sports Calendar, a very cool web site where you can keep track of when your favorite teams play and have reminders sent to you via RSS feed, email, or text. He can also be found on Twitter many evenings blipping his favorite #mellotunes for our listening pleasure (please don’t let the fact that there is a small group of people working together to ban a certain artist from the #mellotunes blip feed get in the way of your enjoyment)
@justinthesouth is a family man, owner of the Social Village and all around nice guy. He is the first to sincerely ask about someone’s day, remember a project he or she is working on, and promote them in one form or another. He is also a Red Sox fan, but I don’t think he likes my Tar Heels very much.
@katjaib is someone whom I just started to interact with on Twitter, and I am glad that I did. She is upbeat and positive and believes that we should use our powers for good. I agree with her. Check out her blog, Pay It Forward, to see what I mean. Plus, Kat really liked my pirate tweet on International Talk Like A Pirate Day and that scored big-time points.
written by Kevin Vandever
\\ tags: #followfriday, Twitter
In the glory days of the Miami Hurricane football program, the team was known for its swagger. The problem was that swagger meant one thing to the Hurricane fan and quite another to the rest of the civilized world. In fact, I much less enjoyed the football program’s collapse than I did the disappearance of the taunting, trash-talking, fighting…er, I mean swagger. Well, the ‘Canes have won the first two games of their season and each victory has released a little more of that old swagger.
So, today I was tweeting with new friend and now arch rival, Jennifer Vides. Jennifer is a big time college football fan…that’s the cool part. What’s not so cool is that she is also a big time ‘Canes fan. As a UNC alum, I cannot not stand for this and after some Twitter trash talking, we decided on a #collegefootballtweetup and, more importantly, a wager. As Jennifer puts it, this wager is for “pinks”; that is, the loser has to praise the winner’s team on his or her blog. What that really means is that Jennifer will be posting grand UNC praise on her blog on or around November 14, 2009. That is good thing, too, because she is an excellent writer and will represent quite nicely.
Join the party, pick any side you want as long as it is UNC, and come have some fun with us.
#collegefootballtweetup: November 14, 2009, UNC Tar Heels vs. Miami Hurricanes.
Location: To be determined, but will posted when finalized.
The canes will have to leave their swagger at the door because it ain’t happening in our house!
Check out Jennifer’s blog post on the wager.
written by Kevin Vandever
\\ tags: #collegefootballtweetup, College Football, Miami, UNC
Dear KKJZ,
Why did you play smooth jazz on my radio station this morning? (yes, it’s partly mine because it’s a member supported, public radio station). It not only bothered me, but it scared my 14-year daughter, who maintained her senses enough to break the glass case in my car and hit the emergency button, which automatically switched the radio to the iPod setting and immediately played “My Favorite Things” by John Coltrane. I am thankful she was there as I was too busy keeping myself from driving into a gas truck to put us out of our misery, but also very sorry that she had to witness such noise coming from 88.1 on my FM dial. I am asking you for the sake of jazz music, good taste, decency, and most of all, for the children to please stop playing this “music” now! There is already a station for that sort of stuff, it is 94.7 The Wave. We don’t need two. If Chuck Niles were still alive, he would take a set of those obnoxious smooth jazz wind chimes and….Ok, you get the point.
Right down the middle and straight ahead,
Kevin Vandever.
written by Kevin Vandever
\\ tags: Jazz, KKJZ, No Smooth Jazz
Here is a link to a column I wrote on the 1-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. I thought I’d share this with you because the words apply today as they did 7 years ago.
Shaking IT Up: The Proper Perspective
written by Kevin Vandever
\\ tags: 9/11
This question was posed to me the other day: Who’s the Evil Empire?
My quick answer: The Yankees, their fans, their payrol, their stadium, their obnoxious owners, their uniforms, their announcers…damn, especially their horrific announcers “an a-bomb for A-Rod”…pathetic, Tex, Damon (traitor), Stray-Rod, Godzilla, Joba (whoa, second Star Wars reference), Posada (played with Ruth and Gehrig, I think), Wang (love making Wang jokes) and most of the rest of the players (I give Jeter and Rivera a pass because even as a Red Sox fan, I kind of respect them). Oh yeah, I can’t forget two of the Hall of Fame evil doers, Bucky effing Dent and Aaron effing Boone.
Hope this helps. Please help shape this answer so we can educate the world.
Go Sox!
written by Kevin Vandever
\\ tags: Baseball, Evil Empire, Red Sox, Yankees
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