[Advice] Blogging for the Peace Builder

Blogging is still the easiest, lowest cost, way to build a business, establish a client base, become an influencer, or just to use a voice that matters.

It’s almost free marketing that is always on, always distributed, and always accessible.

There are great ADR professionals such as Cinnie Noble, Tammy Lenski, Victoria Pynchon and a few other high profile ADR practitioners, capitalizing on their blogging efforts. But for many ADR professionals, other than the contributors at Mediate.com (and here at ADRTimes.com), blogging is still viewed as a “one-off, one-time” thing.

There are many objections to blogging from the peace builder, but three are primary:

I don’t have time to blog.
I don’t know what to blog about.
I’m not a writer.

Let’s break those down:

I don’t have time to blog: ADR professionals lead busy lives. They mediate, negotiate and arbitrate complex issues that place psychological and emotional strain on them. Then, they return to homes where they may be confronted by more conflict (Ever hear the joke about the mediator who mediated their own divorce proceeding? I have. It’s depressing.) And, peace building professionals are exposed to more conflicts in social media feeds and from popular culture.

Then, there are children, partners, and responsibilities. By the time the end of the day comes, they are ready to do what their clients do: Go to bed and go to sleep. Then they get up and repeat it.

Who has time to blog?

Well, I’m writing this article in between just having fed my four-year old daughter and working on a client project. What I have found is that there are spaces in the day where thoughts worth blogging about can come flooding in. And, when we sit down at our seats in front of the computer, time becomes available, in spite of distractions, children, clients and other responsibilities.

I don’t know what to blog about: There is so much conflict in the world, at both an organizational and individual level, that I am often surprised by how many peace builders believe this. Peace builders witness disputes in line at their favorite coffee shop in the morning. Disputes occur at local school board meetings, attended the night before. There are disputes in our social media feeds, or even in the newspaper.

When I started blogging regularly, I worried about filling digital space with something meaningful. Then I had a revelation: The number of people consuming content in a digital space will always outweigh the number of people creating content in digital space.

The other piece to consider in this, is a thought that many peace builders have that goes “I don’t have anything to say (or write) so what could I possibly write about?” The fact of the matter is, we need more people who are involved in building peace to have the courage to lay out an argument, stake a claim to a position of truth, and then defend it vigorously and assertively. Courage has always been in short supply in the digital space (see the proliferation of Buzzfeed-like listicles and “Top 25” posts) and hiding away from the consequences of taking a position on topics such as neutrality, client-self-determination, or even the area of deep listening, does not negate the overwhelming need for online wisdom. The fact of the matter is, wisdom is also in short supply in a world where every piece of knowledge is a Google search away. We need more peace builder’s wisdom in the online space and the best place to get that wisdom across is through online, long-form, writing.

I’m not a writer: Many people stop writing regularly about the same time they put college (or high school) in the rearview mirror. Writing is hard, but for the peace builder, writing is the best way to explore and develop thoughts about process, procedure and practice and to grow the field. We need more writing, not less.

And, putting together a sentence or two is really all that it takes to begin. Once that happens, the real struggle becomes how to improve writing, rather than how to start.

One last point on all of this: Many peace builders want to begin writing, but fear that when they are vulnerable in the online space; when they take a position, raise their hand and say “this is me, this is what I’m making,” that there will be pushback from trolls, baiters, scammers, critics, and other bad actors (or actors with mixed motives) online. The thing to remember is that, at a practical level, the bad actors, spammers, and trolls are merely seeking negative attention and—even more perniciously—are seeking to place their shame on the person taking a stand.

At a practical level, the way around this for the peace builder to not accept comments on their blog. Or, to moderate them, or even to not read them. But, peace builders should never allow the bad actor to steal their voice, out of their own mouth, before it has even been used.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Advice] The Minimal Viable Product

If you’re building a peace project, it’s important to understand what you’re creating in the product phase, so that you understand what you’re selling.

Many creators misunderstand the idea of a minimal viable product. The definition, created by the writer Eric Ries (he of Lean Start-Up fame), is as follows:

“A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is: “[the] version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort”

In essence, a product that doesn’t try to be perfect (what the peace builder may want) but instead is a product that “ships” (i.e. gets into the market, gets out the door, gets into the customer’s hands, etc.) so that peace builders can interact with the market, rather than think about interacting with the market, is an MVP.

This is where many peace builders get caught up:

The blog that takes you ten minutes to set-up and allows you to distribute your ideas, thoughts, and passions about peace to the market is an MVP. The pretty website around the blog that “has to just look right” is not an MVP.

The email that is a conglomeration of various links, information about peace building, and allows you to interact with fans, audience, and potential customers, and that takes you an hour to set-up and an hour to send out three times a week, is an MVP. The list of emails to send the email to is not an MVP.

The workshop on active listening that you develop after ten minutes of thinking about the problems with clients in conflict that you are seeing at the mediation table is an MVP. Continually changing, researching, and referencing to make the workshop “perfect” is not an MVP.

The interaction with social media platforms through setting up a business page on Facebook, tweeting and retweeting links to peace building producers in other areas, or the posts that you consistently write and put on LinkedIn are all MVPs. The constant worrying about perfection (or not being wrong in what you retweet on social media) cannot lead to creating an MVP.

The issues with developing an MVP is that many creators of peace building projects get caught up in the idea that a product (a workshop) a blog post, a website, an email, or a social interaction has to be perfect. But the secret of the MVP is that the market isn’t looking for perfection.

The market for your peace building project is looking for YOU. The people in conflict who need resolution, engagement, help, ideas, a process, or even just advice, aren’t looking for perfection. And in many cases, once you engage with them with your MVP, enough people are generous enough to give you help, feedback, and encouragement to develop and reiterate your MVP so that it moves from being “minimal” to “maximal”

Selling begins when peace builders have the courage to engage with the market.

-Peace Be With You All-

[E-Book] The Savvy Peace Builder

There are savvy peace builders all over the place.

Unfortunately, sometimes it is difficult to talk with people who understand what is going on, with you, your business, or even your approach to peace.

There are attorneys who mediate and volunteers who have dreams. There are professionals in the social work space who want to make a difference, but don’t always know how. And there are nonprofit community mediation executive directors who constantly feel overwhelmed and underfunded.

But, how is this any different than usual?

Well, the tool to create a new and different world surround us every day. There are savvy people and organizations building projects in all manner of areas and they are using mobile phones, laptops and social media platforms. They are creating applications and computer programs.

But, at the end of the day, when the rubber meets the road, sometimes talking to another person is what the savvy peace builder needs.

The Savvy Peace Builder E-Book is a collection of 32 posts, over 40+ pages, written over the last year, chronicling the best advice that I have actually lived, and expereinced, day-to-day, in and out, while building every aspect of my project, Human Services Consulting and Training.

After downloading this e-book, you will:

Find out what to do when it all doesn’t work…
How to talk to people who don’t matter, and how to talk to the people who do matter…
How to balance your work and life…

And much, much more!

I hope that you take the time to download the book.
I hope that you take the time to read the book.

But even more, I hope that you take the time to apply, and act on, the lived lessons listed and written about, and apply them to building your next peace building project.

Because I believe in you and I know you can do it.

[download id=”3014″]

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] Which Way to the Champagne Room?

We’ve talked about the savvy peace builder working on their project and about how to measure the value and worth of applause.

We’ve talked about the people that matter when building your project and how to consider their contributions, versus the contributions of those who don’t matter.

And how to negotiate the difference.

We’ve even talked about the importance of business mentors and how they can provide both overall, and project-by-project clarity, as well as guidance from an emotionless perspective.

But the area that we haven’t really touched on is partnerships. Every project, the savvy peace builder can’t birth on his own, and thus, there is the need to partner with other people. There are two kinds of project partners:

Those who bring expertise

And

Those who bring money.

Everybody else may call themselves a partner (and sometimes there are those people who come to the table with both expertise and money, but unless the savvy peace builder is willing to exit from their own project, these people are best viewed the same way that VC’s are viewed) but, they really aren’t.

Choosing a partner should take a long time, and the character of the potential partner (or partners) should be considered carefully. The pros and cons of the relationship should be weighed, because, at the end of the project, the savvy peace builder would rather have a successful project, than a bitter taste in the mouth.

Think of partnerships in the same light that one thinks of marriages: Date a long time first, gauge the temperature of the individual (or individuals), then go to an engagement, and then get hitched. Then (for the sake of this metaphor) head to the marital bed.

As in personal relationships, the savvy peace builder knows that jumping into bed with a partner right away, can lead to bad consequences in the end, once the initial excitement wears off.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Advice] Business Mentors II

Business mentors are not the most important parts of your business, but they are definitely an integral portion of the game.

Good business mentors can provide three things:

Sound, positive feedback that is both constructive and developmental
The space to know when to let you fail, and when to push you to succeed
Emotional distance from your “next great idea”

They can’t prevent you form making the next big mistake, nor can they really help you launch and iterate. But they can form the basis of a potential Board of Directors, and sometimes, they may take on a role that’s even more important for the savvy peace builder:

Fans.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Advice] Business Mentors I

Business mentors for the savvy peace builder are just as important for the development of long-term success as are other elements of building a project.

No peace builder can truly “go it alone” but too many get trapped in silos, or behind clients, believing that they will just “learn the building of a business on the fly.”

This never works.

Our recommendation: Design a personal Board of Directors. This should consist primarily of professionals with industry experience who have no emotional investment in the success or failure of your venture.

Then, meet with them once a month (at minimum) and treat them to coffee. Listen to their ideas and expertise, but also keep your own council.

A great resource to begin this process (that’s free) is your local chapter of SCORE (link here).

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Advice] Who Matters When Building Your Platform

For the peace building consultant, getting myopia in the pursuit of success, becomes a natural outgrowth of the work.

But there are people who matter, inside and outside, of all of this:

Family Members
Team Members
Business Mentors
Partners
The Customers/Clients/Buyers
The Audience

We listed those in our order, but other orders will differ, and certain pre-conditions may apply.

The savvy peace builder digs deep when building her project and makes the list. Without the list, there is no forward movement, and then myopia descends into noodling over email for half of the day.

We put the audience at the end of the list for good reason. The savvy peace builder knows that the people who applaud (or don’t applaud, or jeer, or deride, or ignore the project altogether), are not necessarily the most important people in the life of the business.

The savvy peace builder also knows not to confuse the noise of the applause (or the jeers, derision or silence of ignorance) with the importance of the project.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/