I was tagged in one of those blogging memes by buddy Phil Gerbyshak of Slacker Manager and Make it Great. I rarely do these little ditties as they tend to be off-topic for my readers. But, since this is supposed to be 7 facts about myself that you might not know, I thought it would be good additional information about the owner of Cube Rules — and an opportunity to check out some other great sites.

Rules:

• Link to the original tagger(s), and list these rules on my blog.
• Share 7 facts about myself in the post – some random, some weird.
• Tag 7 people at the end of my post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

7 Facts About Me

1. I love being a manager of people. You wouldn’t think so since the point of view of this blog is helping people thrive in a cubicle. But working with great management teams is great for managers and especially for Cubicle Warriors.
2. I’ve worked in business for over 25-years and technology for six more.
3. I’ve now lived in Seattle-land for over five years. Time flies.
4. I grew up next door to my grandparent’s dairy farm. I’ve sheared sheep, fed and milked cows, shoveled cow pies and bailed hay.
5. I am an Amateur Radio operator with the call sign K9JY. Need to post to that site a bit more at K9JY.com.
6. In high school, I went to nationals in forensics (Oratory) and took 13^th place. Debated on the debate team, too.
7. My wife, Kate, won the “You Get It” award for her website. Not exactly a fact about me, but there is that fact that I’m proud of her.

Now the fun part: tagging seven other bloggers to share information about them as well.

How about these cool bloggers!

• Debra Moorhead who writes about creating the life you want at DebraMoorhead.com
• Cali and Jody who write about Results Only Work Environments at CaliandJody.com
• Charles H. Green who writes great articles about why Trust Matters
• Rebecca Thorman who writes about the modern urbanite at Modite
• Dan Erwin who writes at the Dan Erwin blog about learning, development and jobs.
• Nina Simosko writing at NinaSimosko.com about leadership and work
• Rick Saia, one of the team of writers at Pongo Resume

All have written articles that have helped my writing here on Cube Rules. Make sure you visit their sites as well. You won’t be disappointed.

Andrew didn’t miss much, either — he does a great interview and never misses the smallest hint of a better information behind a statement you might make.

Consequently, his interview with me had more than a fair share of career management gems.

Andrew didn’t stop with me, of course. He went and interviewed 15 other successful people in business. Then he packaged all of that together into 10 HOURS of practical and inspirational advice called the Great Successful People program.

Here’s who is on this list besides me:

Allan Leighton (UK’s top businessman, Chairman of Royal Mail and author of On Leadership)

Ben Casnocha (author of the best selling business book My Start – Up Life: What a Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley)

Cameron Johnson (most successful teenage entrepreneur in the world)

Christine Comaford-Lynch (CEO of Mighty Ventures and author of Rules for Renegades)

Donald Latumahina (creator and owner of the enormously popular web site, www.lifeoptimizer.org)

GL Hoffman (CEO and Chairman of JobDig, one of the worlds most popular employment media company)

Jacob Share (ex Amazon employee and owner of the vastly popular blog www.jobmob.co.il)

John Kotter (World’s foremost authority on leadership and change)

Leon Ho (owner of www.lifehack.org – a top 40 blog in the world)

Penelope Trunk (Owner and author of the successful blog and book Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success)

Phil Gerbyshak (“the Relationship Geek” and the author of the book 10 Ways to Make It Great!)

Peter Nicholas (UK’s leading confidence coach)

Rebecca Thorman (Executive Director of MAGNET and owner of the popular blog www.modite.com)

Robert Ashton (entrepreneur, social activist and author of numerous best selling personal development books, including ‘The Entrepreneur’s Book of Checklists’ www.robertashton.co.uk)

Steve Denning (World’s top ten admired knowledge leader and author of The Secret Language of Leadership)

The Great Successful People package is being released today. What’s really great about what Andrew has done is that he interviewed, and then edited the interviews for clarity — plus had the interviews professionally transcribed so that you can either hear or read the interviews depending upon the best way for you to learn.

Even better — the first 250 people who buy the package get 100 pages of (organized!) notes from presenters like Ken Blanchard, Marcus Buckingham, Sir Steve Redgrave, Ben Zander, Allan Leighton, Michael Eisner, Steven Covey and many, many more.

There is a great deal of information presented — but where else could you hear all of these great interviews? If you want to radically ramp up your success, take notes — or highlight the points that pertain to you in the transcripts — and take these secrets, tips, and strategies to act on personally.

Act today — you’ll be glad you did.

Scot

Dawna has cred: she went on Martha Stewart’s The Apprentice and won using the principles in the book. And while the book is NOT about how she won the “reality” show, the principles in the book are the ones she lives by and used in the show.

There are two major sections to the book:

• Build Your Foundation. It all starts with principles that you must have in order to be successful in your work and your life.
• Build your future. These are the activities you must be working now that will help ensure success in the future.

My readers here need to know that I have a bias towards books: I’m looking for concrete, discrete action items that people can use to move toward a goal. The more solid the actions and how they pertain to building the skills of a Cubicle Warrior, the more I will like the book.

Winning Nice has some of the solid areas that need to be done:

• Learning to communicate
• Giving recognition
• Be part of the team
• etc.

While most sections had good suggestions for how to put some of this into action, I was left short too many times with examples of successful people who had done the principle — but not how it was actually done. Not enough of the specific struggles that were faced by these people that could be relevant to a person working in a corporate cube.

While the principles in the book are spot on, the specifics were left wanting by this reader.

Rating: 2 of 5 Cubes, based upon needing more specifics in how to reach the great principles outlined in the book

Other reviews:

• Book Review: Winning Nice by Phil Gerbyshak
• Winning Nice by Amit Deshpande
• Winning Nice — Business the Right Way — Dawna’s blog

Scot

You really add ideas to the conversation and help all of us manage our careers and build our personal brands.

• Andrew Rondeau of Great Management. Making management great.
• Anita Bruzzese of 45 Things. Anita’s got two great books out: 45 Things You do that Drive Your Boss Crazy and Take this Job and Thrive.
• Adam Salamon of Adam Salamon. Adam’s writes about Creating Your Name Brand.
• Labour Market Information Blog. Resources, links, analysis, and articles concerning career management and labour market issues.
• Presh Talwalkar of Mind Your Decisions. A financial planning site.
• Vikram Rajan of Personal Brand Marketing. Personal brand marketing tips.
• David Zinger and Phil Gerbyshak of Slacker Manager. Great productivity and work tips.
• Mick at Insourced. A great career management site.
• Dan Schawbel at Personal Branding Magazine. Dan writes Personal Branding every day.
• Eric Brown at Eric Brown. Eric writes about aligning technology, strategy, people and projects.
• GTD Wannabe. A site about David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology.

There’s some great information in these blogs. Take some time to visit them.

Scot

SOBCon ’07

Take Your Blogging to the Next Level
A Relationship Bloggers’ Conference and Networking Event

Community, Friday, May 11, 2007, 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Christine Kane, popular guitarist, singer, blogger LIVE
Open Mic Night Cocktail Party — Live community event (multiple microphones) Take the conversation out of the comment box!

Speakers, Saturday, May 12, 2007, 8:00 AM — 4:30 PM

• Phil Gerbyshak, Make It Great! Relationship Geek
• Liz Strauss, Successful-Blog SOB and BAD Blogger
• David Armano, Logic+Emotion
• Terry Starbukcer, Ramblings from a Glass Half Full; Rodney Rumford, PodBlaze; Ben Yoskovitz, Instigator Blog
• Mike Sansone, Converstations & Iowa Marketing Bloggers
• Chris Cree of SuccessCREEations, Moderating – Blogging Tools Panel with Scott Rafer from MyBlogLog, Janice Myint from Technorati, and Diego Orjuela from Evoca
• Wendy Piersall, eMomsAtHome

There will be interactive presentations on publishing, design and branding, tools, analytics, social networking, marketing, and coaching — all from the perspectives of the relationship blogger and the audience.

Only 250 attendees will be accepted, and we hope YOU can be one of them!

C’mon! you’re not a stranger anymore! We’d love it if you could come to Chicago and Make It Great with us in May.