I've moved my postings to Substack. It's a free newsletter and you can read the archives just like you read the blog posts here. It's a lot like the blog but more focused on practical ways you can systemize your company to scale faster and manage better. Hope to see you there. 

Check it out!

https://johnseiffer.substack.com/

PS - I realized I did this back in September of 2022 but neglected to mention it here. I apologize. 

I'm wondering if we should form a Mastodon server for SMB folks who I mostly met on twitter. You can comment below, email me - john@ceobootcamp.com or DM me on Twitter - @BetterCEO.

I think the SMB Twitter "community" if that's the right word has done well by staying out of the junk on Twitter - both before and after the ownership change. BUT I worry that forces beyond our control will drive it out of business.

Mastodon is a potential alternative and below is the best understanding of it that I've seen. It's from a piece by Teri Kanefield discussing the pros and cons of social media. The whole thing is at https://terikanefield.com/curing-the-ills-of-social-media/ but the first part is a lot about the current political situation (which I'm happy to say SMB Twitter has pretty much stayed out of). The Mastodon bit is about half way down. She also talks about POST. I'm copying this with her permission. 

-=-=-=- Start of Teri's piece -=-=-=-=-=

III: About Mastodon

Mastodon launched in 2016 when German software developer Eugen Rochko (working for a nonprofit) didn’t like Twitter so he wrote the Mastodon code, and made it public. Yup, he gave it away. Anyone can use it. Anyone can improve it.

This means that anyone can operate their own Mastodon server. People can also join a server that is open to new users. If the server is on this list, you can join. These servers depend on community donations. Each server makes its own rules. If you open an account on one server, and you don’t like it, you can move to a different server and take all your followers with you.

There are no algorithms on Mastodon, which decreases the incentive to produce inflammatory, rage-inducing content.

To show you an example of how this can work, a group of journalists led by Adam Davidson of the The New Yorker established a server for journalists. They vet their members, so you know that anyone with “journa.host” after their names has been vetted by Davidson and his partners.

To follow Davidson and any of the other journalists on journa.host, you can create an account on any of the servers open to anyone. You then interact with them the same way you do on Twitter. You can follow them, comment on their posts, “like” their posts (it’s called “favorite” on Mastodon) or retweet (called “reboost” on Mastodon.)

Here are the advantages for Davidson and his journalist colleagues:

• He and his friends own their own data. Nobody can sell their personal information.
• They make their own rules. They can block anyone they want from their server. They can forbid the use of certain words. Their server, their rules.
• If their server runs well, anyone who follows them or comments on their posts will have a smooth experience.
• They don’t have to live in fear that a corporate overlord will suddenly wreak havoc on their professional lives.
• There is no “quote tweet” on Mastodon (I don’t know about Post.news).

For an interesting take on how the quote-tweet encourages dunking and drives polarization and extremism, see this article by Matt Tait.

Disadvantages:

• They have to monitor the content on their server. The more users they have, the harder this gets.
• They also have to pay the bill. For a sense of the cost of having your own server, click here. If you can do the technical work yourself, the cost is about the same as maintaining a word press website. It isn’t prohibitively expensive. It’s work intensive. (Like a functioning public sphere.)

To take another example, a startup company with 10 engineers and 3 marketing people can set up its own Mastodon server. This gives each member a social media platform. They don’t have to worry about anyone selling their data, blitzing their customers or followers with ads, or allowing Nazis and other creeps onto their comments.

Your neighborhood gardening club can have a server if you all want to chip in. If you (or someone in your group) can do the technical back-end work, the cost is minimal. You can get one for your extended family. Your political activist group can have one. (You are a member of a political activist group, right?)

Here’s an interesting take on why your organization should have its own server.

But what about the bad guys? What keeps them from forming their own server?

Nothing. But your server simply has to block their server and there is an impenetrable wall.

In fact, this is just what happened. A bunch of Nazis and white supremacists opened their own server called Gab. Every single server on this list has Gab blocked, and any new server is advised to immediately block Gab. So the Gab Nazis are completely isolated. You will never see anything they post and they will never see anything you post. The only way a Nazi can see your stuff is if they join a normal server and hide the fact that they are Nazis, but once their Nazi-ness shows, zap. The owner of your server, who doesn’t tolerate Nazis (that’s why you are there) blocks them and they’re gone.

In fact, did you know that Trump’s Truth Social uses Mastodon code? Trump, being Trump, tried to pretend that he created it, but the creators of Mastodon let everyone know that Trump basically used their free-to-the-public code. In other words, Trump is not a tech genius. He was doing the tech world equivalent of plagiarizing.

Mastodon is Messy

Different servers have different rules. It isn’t clear what a server’s rules are when you join. I see people on Twitter say, “Mastodon is confusing. The customer service is terrible. They need to get their acts together.” Here’s the thing: There is no “they.” There is no person in charge. Nobody is promising that the trains will run on time. It’s like democracy that way. It’s messy. We’re on our own, for better or for worse.

Mastodon is not a good place to Monetize

I suspected that Mastodon was not a good place to monetize, so I checked with Professor Google. When I used the search terms “Branding,” “monetizing,” and “Mastodon,” a few articles came up explaining that Mastodon isn’t good for branding, but when I tried to click on them, I hit a paywall, which told me what I needed to know.

The public sphere is not supposed to be a place to make money. It’s a place to exchange ideas.

Things I like About Both Post.news and Mastodon

• Twitter allows 270 characters per post. Mastodon’s default allows 500. Individual servers can change that. Post.news has no limits. Longer posts encourage thoughtful content and discourage EVERYONE NEEDS TO SET THEIR HAIR ON FIRE RIGHT NOW one-liners.
• Mastodon has an edit button. (I assume Post.news does, but I don’t know yet.) The Twitter rationale for not offering an edit is, “What if a bunch of people like it and then the original poster goes back and adds something creepy?” The answer is, “So what? We’re not a bunch of babies. We value good content, which occasionally requires correction.” If you edit on Mastodon, users can see previous versions, which prevents dishonest editing.
• When you look at someone’s Tweet, you instantly see how much engagement a Tweet has, which stimulates “lots of people liked this, I wonder why,” instead of “this content sounds interesting.” It seems to me this makes it easier to ignore the hair-on-fire oneliner rage inducers. This doesn’t happen on Mastodon. (I don’t know about Post.com.)

-=-=-=- End of Teri's piece -=-=-=-=-=

I found a bit more on how Mastodon works here:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/08/what-is-mastodon/ 

The paradox is named after James Stockdale who was a POW in Vietnam for over seven years – much of it in solitary. What he found was that his fellow prisoners who broke mentally and ultimately died in prison were the optimists. The ones who thought they’d be out by a certain date – usually a holiday, or the end of a calendar year. When that date came and went, they were discouraged and lost hope. Which ultimately led to their demise.

Unlike those who placed their hope on a false premise of optimism, Stockdale maintained a realistic assessment of his situation. That’s the negative. He faced the facts as bad as they were. And yet, he maintained the outlook that he would eventually survive. That’s the positive.  

The quote most often attributed to him about this topic is this.

"You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be." ~ James Stockdale

How do we maintain both attitudes in the midst of our current pandemic?

First, we must confront the brutal facts of the situation. Many are sick and dying. We can’t predict when this will end or how bad it will get before it gets better. And the economic situation is dire. Many companies won’t make it.

And yet, there is something we can do. 

We can control our actions.  In our personal lives, we can stay at home more than we’d like to. We can wash our hands and disinfect our environment. We can wear masks when we do have to go out. We can ask for help when we need it – mental, emotional, material, and financial help. And we can provide help and especially kindness when we can.

For our Companies

Scenario planning is a process that can give us a way to look at how the future may unfold - both good and bad - and develop a plan. Or actually several plans, one for each scenario. Our predictions for the future won't be exact, but the planning helps us be prepared. And doing this work can keep us from being paralyzed by the negatives if they occur. And it provides insight into what we can control and what we can't. 

Controlling what we can and doing what’s under our control is how we envision the path forward even if the timing is uncertain.

You know those great ideas you get in the shower? Or sometimes in the middle of the night? It's because your non-conscious mind is noodling on something while your conscious mind is otherwise engaged. It's also happens for some people when you're driving. Here are some tips to maximize that benefit.

Tip #1 Have a Way to Capture Those Ideas

I can talk to my phone and say "Note to Self" and it will send me an email with whatever I say after that. For longer stuff, the Google Keep app does a pretty good job of transcribing what I say into text. It helps to review it pretty quickly (after you've parked the car) because it does make some mistakes. Then, there's always pencil and paper or making divots on clay tablets if that's more your style. And if it really can't wait till you get out of the shower, get this  waterproof pad and pencil. 

The point is don't let those ideas get away. They won't all be good ones - but some will.

Tip #2 Give Your Subconscious an Assignment

Tell it exactly what to work on, before you go to sleep. Think of a situation then drift off peacefully knowing you've delegated the task to your non-conscious mind. Since it also works for me in the car, I've found if I go for a drive after an important meeting or client session, I often get follow up ideas regarding what we just talked about. So I try to plan drive time into my schedule at key times. And be ready to capture those ideas.  

Tip #3 Use the Holidays

I'm writing this on December 21 and most people are winding down for the next week or so. This is when we get busy with family and some of the other reasons we work so hard the rest of the year. But why not give  your subconscious an assignment over the holidays? As you leave work, pick one thing you want it to work on over the break. Then be ready to capture those ideas as they happen. Just before you go back to work, spend 10 minutes consolidating what you came up with. 

Let me know how it goes in the comments below.

I wish you and yours a Merry, Happy & Joyous time. 

But since I’ve been blogging since 2006 there’s enough here to read any time you have trouble falling asleep [grin].

I continue to work with CEO clients, and welcome conversations with potential clients. Feel free to contact me if I can help in anyway.

I’ll be doing my next Boot Camp in June in New Haven. For companies that are growing with no outside equity funding.

Click for DETAILS and to see if your company qualifies. There are only 8 slots open.

What makes a true solopreneur, are the following traits:

• The number of customers you can serve is limited by the number of hours you work
• You don’t need others to provide value to your customers
• Your customers pay you for your skill or experience, for the expertise or wisdom you possess in a certain domain. This is true even if what they purchase is a product (like artwork).
• And , obviously, no employees.

Examples of true solopreneurs: Artists (graphic and fine), consultants, plumbers and other trades people, dog walkers, coaches, piano teachers, wedding planners.

SoloPreneur Business Model

The critical success factors of a solopreneur business model are these.

• Your goals – what do you want to accomplish with this business at this time in your life, and how will you measure it?
• The cost to acquire a customer
• The value of a customer to your business
• The number of customers you need to achieve your goals
• Where to most effectively spend your time

Programs for SoloPreneurs

• Coaching
• Defining your business model
• Defining your sales process
• Time Management

Would you like to Learn More?

Call me. 203-775-6676. I’m on eastern time. Or shoot me an email: john@betterceo.com.

Let me know what questions you have and we’ll see if it makes sense for us to work together.

In fact it’s useful for this reason:  companies at any stage need all the functions performed by big companies. But they usually don’t need them full time. Nor can they afford a full time position for many functions. That’s why employees have to wear many hats.

One other characteristic of these companies is they are frugal.

What’s missing is they often don’t have time to plan for the future. They tend to management from crisis to crisis thinking they don’t have time to be strategic. And that often becomes a barrier that prevents growth. That is a bad thing.

What’s the Solution?

The first place to start is The Company Blue Print. My program called 20 questions will help you specify what you want from your company at this time in your life and translate that into a blue print that will help develop your company so it can achieve your personal goals.

After that we usually work on better cash flow management. Why? Because taking time away from the day to day to focus on the future requires cash.

The next step is to document work flows and job expectations. Expectations (rather than descriptions) define what you expect a person to produce. This leads to better management, fewer crises and a more organized company.

Would you like to Learn More?

Call me. 203-775-6676. I’m on eastern time. Or shoot me an email: john@betterceo.com.

Let me know what questions you have and we’ll see if it makes sense for us to work together.