WorkPuzzle

Content Rules: How Becoming a Micro-Publisher Can Make Your Real Estate Office More Successful

A few months ago, I acquired a summary of a book called Content Rules, written by Ann Handley & C.C. Chapman.  Our company subscribes to getAbstract, a business book summary service that helps me be more selective about the books I want to spend time reading.

The summary of Content Rules caught my eye because it makes the point that the marketing of products and services is increasingly becoming connected to content creation and management.  The getAbstract summary put it this way:

“On the Internet, a brand new start-up, even a one-person shop, can compete directly and quite favorably with the biggest Fortune 100 companies – as long it offers superior online content.

Today, consumers find the products and services they want by using search engines. Your goal is to create engaging, compelling, and memorable content –blogs, videos, podcasts, and websites – that people like, link to, and pass on to others. This can help your material show up on the first page of search engine results – even ahead of material from huge corporations.”

As a real estate company, have you ever thought of yourself as a content provider?  If not, maybe you should. 

Of course at a basic level, the primary benefit a real estate company offers a consumer is relevant and helpful information concerning the process of buying and/or selling homes.  In this role, you are providing content. 

However, there is a tendency to want to consolidate this content production role under large corporate-powered platforms.  While this is of some benefit, if you stop there you’ve left yourself vulnerable to competitors who leverage the concept of micro-publishing.

As you know, real estate is still a “local business” in most parts of the country.  And on a micro-level, a local real estate office has the opportunity to become the real estate “domain expert” for a local community or neighborhood.   How is this done?  By becoming a niche (real estate/ your specific community or neighborhood) content provider on the internet.

Content Rules gives several (non-real estate) examples on how this can be done.  Here is one I thought was interesting:

“As the new director of instruction at Reynolds Golf Academy in Greensboro, Georgia, golf pro Charlie King badly needed to bring in golfing students, but he had a very limited marketing budget.  King turned to the web to build his clientele by showcasing the Academy with quality online content that would attract golfers who wanted to strengthen their games. He presented useful golfing tips and explained that golf is not as difficult as it may seem. King believed that his expertise and humor would draw golfers to his online activities and thus, eventually, to the school.

In February 2008, King launched his blog, “New Rules of Golf Instruction,” offering free lessons via blog posts and videos. In March 2009, he published an ebook, New Rules of Golf Instruction, as a free download from his blog and Reynolds’ website.  Golf magazine’s website ran an ad-libbed video featuring King teaching a satirical lesson showing angry golfers “The Proper Way to Throw a Club” into the water. The video went viral; at 1.8 million viewers and climbing, it is continuing to generate hits on the Academy’s website, providing great publicity and great fun.”

[Note:  Charlie's video was moved to Golf.com (a site owned by Sports Illustrated) because it got so popular.  To view it, cut the paste the following link into your browser address window:  http://www.golf.com/video/proper-way-throw-your-club ]

Do you think the average golf pro at your local country club is a marketing expert?  Probably not.  If guys like Charlie King can do this, so can you!

The key to playing this game is to turn yourself into a content provider that produces quality content.  What’s quality content?  It’s content that your target audience would not only find interesting, but also helpful and sometimes entertaining.  

Here is a quick checklist for the content your produce.   Quality content is always…

True – Never deal in false messages. As author Annie Lamott teaches, “Good writing is about telling the truth.”

Relevant – Your message must be purposeful and must matter to your audience.

Human – Don’t write about your product; write about how people use it.

Passionate – People will not care about your products unless they see that you do. Use the strength of your feelings to engage them.

Original – An unusual story or a “fresh perspective” captures readers’ interest.

Surprising – Being a bit unexpected is interesting; being shocking is a way to go viral.

In our next WorkPuzzle, we’ll cover some additional guidelines for becoming a content provider and show you how this applies to recruiting. 

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Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

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By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

What is Crock Pot Recruiting?

Everyone has heard the saying "If it were easy, everyone would do it." A couple of years ago, Ben wrote a great piece on the difference between microwave and crock pot recruiting that closely follows this principle.

Every tool and philosophy we espouse at Tidemark is built upon this central principle. It is not surprising that 95% of our clients hold to this principle as well. They have an underlying conviction that in order to see results tomorrow, they must consistently engage in systematic and seamless steps today. It's understood that "microwave" recruiting will only obtain low hanging fruit that competitors are also vying for. Conversely, "crock pot" recruiting may take more time and discipline, but, over time, yields the higher caliber and supplemental fruit that companies need in order to beat the competition.

The differences in the conversations of a microwave recruiter and the conversations of a crock pot recruiter resemble two entirely different languages. A microwave recruiter typically offers anecdotal excuses, usually with no statistics, regarding why they aren’t achieving their goals. When asked a statistical question, the microwave recruiter will usually give you an anecdotal answer. When asked how many candidates it takes to get ten interviews...or how many interviews it takes to get each hire, a microwave recruiter is usually unable to provide numbers. What do they provide instead? More excuses. Why? Because a microwave recruiter does not track methods or results.

What isn't measured cannot be managed, predicted, or improved upon. However, recording and tracking results doesn’t come naturally to most people. I often fall into the common trap of not measuring what I do, or how I spend my time. And guess what? That’s invariably when I’m not accomplishing much.

Now, don't get me wrong...there are always factors that change percentages and numbers from one cycle to the next. There is a time and place to dissect reasons and interpret the changes in percentages, however, making excuses with no grounding in metrics is typically used as an attempt to avoid accountability.

Discipline is the key to tracking and keeping records. Disciplined people and organizations rarely offer excuses. They implement systems to drive, track, and improve performance.

Discipline is defined as:

1. Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior.

2. Controlled behavior resulting from training.

3. A set of rules or methods.

4. Activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill.

5. Behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and order maintained by training and control.

6. A set or system of rules and regulations.

Two years ago, I wrote a four-part piece on an expert recruiter (Andy Nazaroff) who clearly exercises discipline (1,2,3,4). He provides specifics regarding calls, interviews, information, timing, conduct, etc... all of these methods amount to consistent and impressive success.

For him and others like him, a belief system is at the core of their success. They believe that discipline drives results, and increases responsibility -- two characteristics of every successful company.

Let me know your thoughts and your own methods for assuring your own discipline.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Tidemark Online Community: Dipping Your Toe Into a Private Social Network

Over the last few weeks, we’ve focused significant time and dialog on the topic of social media. In the process, we’ve attempted to give you insight concerning an up and coming business trend—the widespread use of private social networks for business applications.

If you’re new to the conversation, you may want to read a few of the previous posts on this topic.  Visit WorkPuzzle and scroll back through the discussions over the last month or so. It won’t take long to catch up.

In my personal conversations with readers over the last few weeks, I've noticed there still seems to be a little confusion and concern about how all this “private social network stuff" works. If you are confused, don’t feel discouraged.  Emerging technologies will always feel awkward and intimidating at first, but will later seem less frightening and even routine (you probably don’t get concerned about opening up your email, right?).    

How do you get over the initial awkwardness of new technology? One way is to join a private social network as a user before running a network (a virtual office) by yourself.

 And that is exactly what we are offering you today. 

I'd like to personally invite each of you to join the Tidemark Online Community as a way of “dipping your toe” into the concept of a private social network.

I promise you, joining is relatively painless (it takes about 3 minutes to create your profile) and you can control your involvement and privacy. By joining our online community you’ll experience a little bit of how we do business at Tidemark.

Now keep in mind—Tidemark is not a real estate company. Some of the issues that we work on in the virtual office do not directly translate to the ideal real estate virtual office. However, by joining and participating in our private social network, you’ll start to see how becoming a community manager of a virtual real estate office could work for you.

To get started, click on the link below. We look forward to seeing  you on the virtual side of Tidemark.

Join the Tidemark Online Community

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

RecruitingSocial: The Manager’s Role in a Virtual Office--Part 2

We have been writing about the importance of developing a virtual office by establishing your own private social network that becomes your "homebase" on the internet.  

Having a virtual office changes the way you interact with your agents, vendors, community, and even competitive agents you are trying to recruit. We have written far too much over the past month to accurately summarize here, so you may want to read the previous posts before reading this excerpt.

In the last edition, Ben listed the two most common questions we hear: 

1. What is the manager’s role in the virtual office?

and 

2. With all the responsibilities a manager already has, how can this significant responsibility be added to an already full plate?

Ben answered question 1--it is my job to answer question 2. 

Before I answer question 2, I want to remind you of a manager survey we conducted in September of last year.  

When we asked managers to list, in the order of priority, the tasks at the core of their job description, the following results were very clear-- recruiting was number one, followed by retention, then training and building office culture, then coaching agents, and finally deal-doctoring. 

When asked in the same survey what managers thought they did best, only 6% of the managers answered "recruiting". Clearly there is a disconnect between stated priority and the desire to perform stated priority.

Here's the point:  The survey showed a need for a method to better align the expectations of executive management with the day-to-day performance of the manager.

This got us thinking... perhaps there is a better way to wrap all of the above priorities into one common platform that would make recruiting feel more natural rather than a chore that most managers seem to despise.   

While the "work" or recruiting will never disappear completely, what if the execution of the recruiting tasks could be mostly done as a natural extension of ongoing conversations within the normal office dialogue?

This is the goal of RecruitingSocial.

So, let's get back to the question--how do you add something like managing a virtual office to your plate if you're already maxed out?

Like any duty, you must rank its level of importance. Once a duty is ranked, you must follow through and devote the appropriate amount of time to the duty in order meet your goals.

How many people truly spend the first two hours of their day working on their most important tasks? In interviewing thousands of people as a psychologist, I have found that most people don't.

I would recommend changing your daily routine so that your first and most productive hours are focused on completing your higher ranked duties.

Here is a suggested framework: 

Step 1: Spend 30 minutes scanning email and only responding to urgent items.

Step 2: Turn off email and other distractions. Focus for 2-3 hours on completing your highest ranked duties. 

Step 3: Take a lunch break away from your desk. Leaving your computer and recharging is the key to being productive after hard focus on your most important duties.

Step 4: Devote the second half of your day to taking care of ongoing tasks and other reactionary work that requires less mental stamina.

RecruitingSocial centralizes the duties that are, in most cases, highly ranked.  And, it offers the ability to complete a lot of highly ranked duties in one central platform.

It is our hope that RecruitingSocial will soon be a part of your daily routine.  In our next blog, we'll show you how you can start dipping your toe in and seeing how this works. 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

RecruitingSocial: The Manager’s Role in a Virtual Office--Part 1

The rationale behind RecruitingSocial is that experienced agent recruiting will be much more effective (in general) if you allow competitive agents to become involved with your team before you ask them to leave their current broker. 

The traditional recruiting model of coaxing individuals to make a change from a position of dissatisfaction (i.e. “You’re unhappy with your current situation, come work with me and life will be better…”) will always be an uphill battle.  A person has to be in a lot of pain to make a change under these circumstances.

A better way is to initially let candidates experience and gain benefit from your organization as part of their normal business activities--this makes conceptualizing a change seem much more natural.  In essence, you’re encouraging competitive agents to test-drive (become involved in) your organization before making a new commitment.

This involvement is called collaboration, and it is something that is very compelling to the up-and-coming generation of agents.  You will also find that it is interesting to seasoned agents who are embracing new technologies to remain competitive.

As Dave mentioned earlier this week, the best place for this type of collaboration to happen is in a virtual office.  While physical offices will remain an important part of any real estate company, collaboration that includes a broad range of participants will not typically happen there.  Technology has equipped conversations to take place outside the physical realm, and this is where the water is flowing downhill.

A couple of questions we’re starting to hear frequently as we share ideas about virtual offices powered by private social networks are…

1.  “What is the manager’s role in the virtual office?”

and

2. “With all the responsibilities the manager already has, how can this significant responsibility be added to an already full plate?”

To answer the first question, I believe it is important to understand the reason a competitive agent would potentially be interested in collaborating with your organization--especially if that collaboration happened inside the safety of a private social network.

Master Burnett, a social networking thought leader at BraveNewTalent, recently documented the following trends concerning how talented individuals are now using social networks in the workplace:

• Social Networks are becoming the new “meeting places” for even local citizens.
• Social Networks are becoming the backbone of the modern support system.
• Social Networks are where content gets discovered.
• Social Networks are where discussions happen (whether you participate or not).
• Social Networks are where perceptions are formed, vetted, and cemented.

Let these discoveries sink in for a few minutes...  

If this type of information is really starting to flow between individuals in the real estate industry along social networking pipelines, there is a huge advantage to becoming a significant node in this information exchange.  You’ll never be the center of the information exchange (social networking doesn’t work that way), but your goal should be for your private social network to become an important meeting place for these discussions to take place.

So what is your role as a manager?  The best analogy I’ve heard on this topic is to think of yourself as a gardener.  What do gardeners do?

1.  Gardeners plan.  How do you want your social network to look when it is full grown?  What groups and topics would make your social network interesting?  What areas would need more of your personal attention than others?  If you start small, how do you plan to expand the boundaries of your garden?

2.  Gardeners plant.  With an initial framework in place, think about how to seed your groups and discussion so they can get off to a good start.  This can mean getting advocates (perhaps existing agents or staff members) to take responsibility for certain groups and discussion topics.

3.  Gardeners weed.  In every social network, there are discussions that need some moderation and oversight from someone in charge (remember this is a private network that you own).  While the idea is not to be authoritarian or heavy-handed, it does help to have someone shape discussions when they become unruly.

4.  Gardeners harvest and replant.  Every discussion eventually has a natural end.  Someone needs to be responsible for pulling the plug and re-starting discussions that are relevant and interesting.  Without constant replanting, the whole network dies.

Now for question #2 -- How can the typical over-worked real estate manager make all this happen?  

We’ll have to put this off until the next blog.  I will tell you this—it is not as hard as you might imagine, and many real estate managers are a natural fit for the tasks required to be successful at this.  Stay tuned… 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

RecruitingSocial: 4 Reasons You Need a Virtual Office

Over the last month, we have built a very strong foundation to support the fact that social media is here to stay and have described how our clients can best utilize this trend to increase market share.  In the last two editions (1, 2), Ben announced our new solution, why we chose to invest in it, and how we believe it will help you recruit, manage, and lead the real estate industry in this new direction.    

There was a day when your brick and mortar office was your complete identity.  It was your castle...your fort.  It was the only place that your troops gathered for strategy and inspiration, as well as the place they assembled to perform the majority of their work.  This is slowly becoming less and less the case.  People, especially young professionals, are increasingly mobile and have more access to the things they need outside the office.  They are also quite tied to their social media platforms, in general.  The internet has changed the game, and within the most innovative companies, social media has changed marketing, communication, collaboration, and recruiting. 

While many smaller companies are trying to find a way to capture the benefits of this trend with Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, they continue to be frustrated with the results of these endeavors.  Why?  

Ben described it well in his last article... You as a manager, won't benefit from the above platforms unless you have a way for everything to point back to not only you personally, and not only your company, but to your individual office and the people within it.  

First, imagine that you have your own online office where much of the collaboration, inspiration, problem solving, daily tips, and success stories could be communicated.  Now, imagine that outside agents, vendors, customers, and clients were able not only to see inside some of the collaboration of your office, but they could join in on some of it as well.  THIS is what the bigger companies are doing, and we're betting this is how the younger generation will strive to go about their work.  

Don't get me wrong, brick and mortar offices will always be necessary for a variety of reasons...but your online representation of your office and all of its communication and collaboration will be a key ingredient to attracting, retaining, and collaborating with the best and the brightest.  

So, here are four reasons why you need to seriously consider an online social media office:  

1. You need your own online TURF.  As Ben mentioned in the last edition -- Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social networking sites should be used solely as your outposts and embassies, all pointing back to your turf...your office. 

2. To build new channels for collaboration.  Imagine your agents pitching in (in real time) to help someone with an urgent question or problem. 

3. To create value.  Imagine developing a network of customers, vendors, and perhaps outside agents that you've been trying to recruit, and leveraging their collective brainpower to explore and develop new ideas.   

4. To Recruit.  Agents want to get a glimpse of your culture.  They want to have conversations with agents, look around, and perhaps even develop some ongoing dialogue in order to see the dynamics of your office and how you and your agents think before signing on.  This is one powerful way of accomplishing that.  

Karl Moore, of Forbes summarizes this trend well: 

"The benefits of collaboration networks are limitless.  These networks breed co-creation, shared value, and cultures of collaboration that can be leveraged beyond the network.  The new generation of Millennials and Generation C (connected, computerized, and community-oriented) have fully adopted the collaborative mindset as their own.  They are educated, interactive, and collaborative, and have grown up using social networks as a tool for brainstorming and problem solving.  This reflects a broad shift in generational thinking that is taking place.  The broadcast generation from the industrial age is being met by a collaborative generation from the new knowledge age.  The old ways of staying within the four walls to solve problems, guarding company information, and developing products, services, and solutions in isolation are gone.

Companies that can create or participate in a collaborative network and organize themselves to best leverage the benefits will enjoy a competitive advantage.  Companies of all sizes can start by setting up a network of internal experts, suppliers, partners and customers." 

And now you can too. If you haven't done so already, scroll back to the last two editions (1, 2) and learn about the conception of what we now call "RecruitingSocial."

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

RecruitingSocial: The Need for a Private Social Network

As mentioned in the last post, Tidemark is in the process of pre-launching RecruitingSocial—the new social media recruiting tool that has been under development for the past few months. 

As we constructed this tool, one of the business trends that we chose to take advantage of was the introduction (and now aggressive growth) of private social networks for business applications.  

As you may know, there has been a “land grab” for technologies that equip businesses to build and maintain private social networks.  In June, I wrote a detailed blog on this topic.  If you don’t remember this discussion, you may want to re-read it  before digesting the rest of this article. 

In the private social networking arena, there are more than 50 companies that are all competing for attention in this (now) crowded business demographic.  As you might imagine, each company tries to differentiate itself with a unique approach and focus, but the over-arching theme is arming businesses to harness the promise of social networking technology. 

The alternative to focusing on a private social network approach, is to attempt to build tools that help managers make sense of and navigate the major public social networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  There are some outstanding companies that have consultancies focused on this model.  One such company is Social Media Examiner.  It is amazing the number of good ideas this company generates in the area of marketing businesses on public social networks.  There is much to learn. 

In developing RecruitingSocial, one of the early decisions we had to make was whether to put our emphasis on a private social network approach, or on public social network methodologies.  Both concepts have advantages and disadvantages, and both methodologies have compelling examples of success. 

We ended up choosing the private network approach because we believe this gives the individual real estate manager a way of building a platform that he/she can optimize for recruiting success.

So where does that leave public social networks in this process?  We believe that these environments are best used as support mechanisms for a manager’s private social network.  

Although we didn’t realize it at the time we conceptualized this model, there were other thought leaders who were heading down the same path.  One of the individuals who does a great job of articulating this philosophy is Michael Hyatt in his best-selling book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World:

“A good social media strategy has three components: 

1. A Homebase.  This is a digital property you own and control.  It is where your loyal fans gather.  It can be as simple as a blog or as complex as a self-hosted community.  Regardless, it is where you direct all internet traffic.  Why?  Because this is the place where you can best sell your ideas or products.  You control the borders and determine who has access. 

2.  Embassies.  These are places you don’t own, but where you have a registered profile.  In other words, you have a regular presence on someone else’s property.  You engage in conversations with those who congregate there.  Examples would include Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, or even other blogs you follow.  You generally need a “Passport” (verified credentials) granted by the site owner to maintain residency or participate in conversations. 

3.  Outposts.  These are places you don’t own nor have a regular presence.  Instead, you simply listen into conversations about you, your brand, your company, or topics that interest you.  For example, I have search columns in HootSuite that monitor mentions of both my name and my company.  I also have Google Alerts that monitor the same information wherever it may occur on the Web. 

The bottom line is that all the social media tools available fit into one of these three buckets.  If you are just involved in social media for the sake of entertainment, you may not need a homebase.  But if you are serious about building a platform, that’s precisely where you need to start.  From there you can set up embassies and outposts.” 

RecruitingSocial has been designed to be the “Homebase” for the real estate manager who wants to develop a social media platform for engaging competitive agents (candidates) in their local market.  

Sound overwhelming?  It would be if you had to conceptualize and build everything yourself.  That’s why RecruitingSocial was built—to simplify the process of building and maintaining a social media platform for your office. 

In the upcoming blogs, we’ll discuss the details of how all this works. 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

RecruitingSocial: Pre-Launch for WorkPuzzle Subscribers

As you know, we’ve spent the month of September exploring the impact that social media is having on the real estate industry.  Most of our thoughts have been pointed at recruiting and the potential that exists for those who become proficient inside this new paradigm.

During these discussions, we’ve hinted that Tidemark was in the process of developing some new tools to help our clients and other leaders in the real estate industry make an impact in the world of social media.

Today, we’re proud to announce the pre-launch of “RecruitingSocial.”  Like HiringCenter and TalentPipeline (the other products Tidemark offers), RecruitingSocial has been designed specifically for the real estate industry and will focus on helping managers become proficient in the use of social media for recruiting and other business purposes.

At this point, our intentions are only being revealed to WorkPuzzle readers.  The public launch of RecruitingSocial will not occur until later this month.

We’re offering a pre-launch among WorkPuzzle readers because many of you have had a hand is shaping this product.  I won’t go into detail, but we’ve been in numerous meetings and online conversations where we hear things like, “Can you guys help us with social media?” or “Why don’t you guys develop something that is in alignment with social media.” or “We like what HiringCenter does, but aren’t we missing a big part of where candidates spend their time?” etc...  We can’t promise that we’ve addressed every issue that has been brought up, but we have listened to much of your input.

So, first of all, thank you for urging us to go down this path and trusting us with your thoughts and insights.  In return for your efforts, we’d like to spend the next couple of weeks discussing what we’ve created and how RecruitingSocial can have an impact on your organization.  Also, we have some fun in store for you along the way.

More to come in upcoming WorkPuzzle discussions…

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.