How To Become Your Own North Star On The Internet

If you aren’t thinking deeply about how and where and w/whom you appear and interact on the web, you need to start. http://t.co/t5ncPjzIUV — ken_homer (@ken_homer) October 15, 2014

We're all digital strategists now.

In fact, if you aren't thinking deeply about how and where and with whom you appear and interact on the web, you need to start.

Today. You can and should be using your online presence as a 21st century life & work skill to connect with relevant people, information you need and enriching opportunities. I'm going to help, so you can get started today. (And the resources I'm sharing with you are completely free, so if you want to buy something you'll have to go find a different post.) I've been saying all of this for years. Doing it for years. As a content and digital publishing specialist, I've been showing people how to use their own content to connect purpose and action in digital spaces, for 5 years, both in private and group coaching environments. Along with Tara Agacayak and Tanya Monsef Bunger, I built a curriculum at GlobalNiche, a social web training company that's now shifting into an empowered digital life movement, so you can do it on your own, or in groups, wherever you are and whoever you are and whatever you do. If you are a person active online, this training will ask you the strategic questions you need to be thinking about. If you're not yet active or don't love being online, this will help you figure out what makes sense for you. Our combined 25 years of experience, including major expatriate life and work challenges, forced us to tap our backgrounds in culture, info tech, media & psychology to create this network-activating system using the backbone of the social web. We've used this method to survive. No matter who or where you are, you can use it to thrive.

I'm now making that training perfectly free, so you can take advantage of all our guidance immediately.

Want to learn how? It's my gift to you! Start by downloading the handbook

  When you download this powerful free handbook you're going to start to transform what you do, how you do it and with whom. This repeatable, dynamic six-step method will help you become your own North Star on the Internet and bring you closer to the people and things you care about. You'll emerge with inspiration, direction and confidence:

• a vision that lights you up and goals you can measure

• a do-able plan and digital skills you need

• and a practice and peer group you can rely on to keep going

Here's what people who've done it say:

• "I felt I couldn’t catch up. The way GlobalNiche describes social media – it’s about using technology to communicate naturally – clicked for me." ~ paralegal

• “Opened my eyes to my own assets. It has given me the confidence to bet on myself.” ~ work-at-home parent

• “I doubled my Twitter presence just by learning about good Twitter etiquette.” ~ scriptwriter

• “I’m blown away by the possibilities. I now have an action plan. I feel a huge shift in my life." ~ academic

• "For people who are wondering if what they have to say is valuable.” ~ financial officer

• "Helped me to recognize and own how I am being virtually “seen” and make positive and educated changes." ~ landscape contractor

With this non-dogmatic foundational method you'll:

• uncover the real value you've already created: by taking inventory of what you've been doing, detecting the patterns in your activities, gaining insight into what you're drawn to

• put your mountain of natural resources to work for you: by acknowledging all that you’ve created and use it to gain insight into who you are and who you want to be

• show the world how you make sense: by linking what you've done in the past & are doing today with your wider goals

• recognize that you need to become visible to meet people you want to collaborate with, work for, hire

• combine who you are and where you want to go with the tools available to express yourself

• make empowered, focused decisions about how to operate online

• go beyond managing your reputation online to using social media to represent your best self

• meet and enter conversations with your peers, mentors and customers on the web

• get recognized by authorities & peers in your field, recruiters, the media

• identify how to use existing materials as building blocks for future projects

• identify new ways to use social media, which platforms work for you (and which do not), and how to use those platforms to your advantage

• express yourself with the best social web tools available, including how to use Google+, Quora, ScoopIt and Storify to your benefit

• gain a new understanding of the best social media and content management and strategy tools, formats, methods to try

• establish an interactive calling card at a site like About.me

• learn best practices for blogging frameworks like WordPress and Thesis, blogging services like Twitter and Tumblr, social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram

• learn best uses of video and slideshow sites like Animoto, YouTube, Vimeo, Slideshare, email service providers

• grasp a new perspective on yourself as a content creator, realize the energy you generate around your interests IS content

• publish, record, remix, repackage, reformat your content

• design and implement a do-able plan with small steps to get your creations into global circulation in alignment with your larger goals

We're all digital strategists now. Here's what you, personally, need to do to win the Internet. https://t.co/EBxi9xPJhs by @AnastasiaAshman

— E.B. Boyd (Liza) (@ebboyd) October 16, 2014

Want more?

If you want more guidance, get the free multimedia curriculum which expands on the handbook with video coaching and other materials. You'll have lifetime access to the self-paced course, 24/7, on all your devices. I'm making that entire program perfectly free for you, so join with a friend and do it together! 4,700 people already cashed in this free coupon to get connected & effective. Did you? Let me know how you're liking it!

Curated By Others

When lots of other people curate the stream of content you create, what image of you emerges?

When other people curate your content for their own specialized communities, what emerges might be a multidimensional snapshot...a picture of your background, your interests, your training, your current activities, and, maybe, where you're headed.

Here's what I saw recently with a variety of online newspapers curations based on what I share on Twitter:

• My archaeology past
• my life in women's travel, cultural communications and expat coaching
• my experience with publishing options
• my role as a continuing education instructor at Udemy
• my media past-present-and-future
• my present in a coworking situation (and I'd add, my interest in the future of work.)

The snapshot is a gift, and I'm pleased and proud to be included in the below and other curations by people like Jeremy Silver,  a digital media investor, entrepreneur, adviser I met at TEDGlobal.

Click on any of the paper.li links to visit the daily version of the paper each owner auto-curates from chosen sources for his or her unique and focused community.

Thanks to these newspaper creators and content curators for including me as a source in their custom paper.li.

The Talking Pyramids Daily is out! http://t.co/7TywLwUwWU Stories via @CollectingEgypt @AnastasiaAshman @MOPASD — Talking Pyramids (@Bennu) July 29, 2014

The Women's Travel Daily is out! http://t.co/dgO9iNDnwk Stories via @Shanna @AnastasiaAshman — Holly (@HotelHostess) July 26, 2014

Self-Publisher's Daily is out! http://t.co/czDWYNwQZj Stories via @AnastasiaAshman @StarPB — Adrienne Thompson (@A_H_Thompson) July 22, 2014

GlobalNiche is out! http://t.co/1wwBSg5zQR Stories via @AnastasiaAshman @globalniche @MissKemya — GlobalNiche (@globalniche) July 16, 2014

Udemy Continuing Education Daily is out! http://t.co/sGo78sUufX Stories via @BrothaTech @AnastasiaAshman — Lucian Mihailescu (@intercer) July 6, 2014

Mediaclarity: Aspirational Reading is out! http://t.co/iIjr7TpyAl Stories via @AnastasiaAshman — Jeremy Silver (@JeremyS1) July 11, 2014

Co-Working Times is out! http://t.co/HA8BcKNY6g Stories via @AnastasiaAshman @ComunidadCowork — goEnvelope.com (@goEnvelope) June 19, 2014

Today's stories in The Höferle Daily http://t.co/WbZhtrRg1X via @AnastasiaAshman — Christian Höferle (@Hoeferle) June 29, 2014

The My Several Worlds Daily is out! http://t.co/DKKIVwuo4x Stories via @AnastasiaAshman @CallieSimon — Carrie Kellenberger (@globetrotteri) June 10, 2014

Cross Cultural Communicator is out! http://t.co/FgzHJdRzJg Stories via @AnastasiaAshman @OCG_PR — Dirk Hinze (@dirkhinze) June 3, 2014

Expat Coach Daily Musings is out! http://t.co/ydLz36fpK8 Stories via @Storybird @AnastasiaAshman — Nicola McCall MCIPD (@Livelifenowexpt) May 18, 2014

The Top-Women Daily is out! http://t.co/fVcJvQyJAa Stories via @AnastasiaAshman @INDIEbusiness — Rachel Johnsen (@rachspringAHEAD) May 8, 2014

2014 Marks 2 Years Of Offering The GlobalNiche Program: An Update & Shifting Of Gears

An update from me, my GlobalNiche cofounder Tara Agacayak, and our team member Tanya Monsef Bunger. 

Today over 3000 are taking the course, with 13 study group leaders working to bring the program to their own communities of artisans, expats, servant leaders, writers and academics, and women entrepreneurs.

It’s been a privilege and a pleasure to have worked full time on this endeavor for the past 24 months.Today we’re excited to share what we’ve achieved -- as well as how we’re shifting gears.

Back in 2009, we envisioned a professional alliance of people connected online sharing ideas and supporting each other’s work.

We began speaking to groups about how to use social media to develop professionally by building an online web platform. We conducted on and offline seminars and workshops, masterminds and community-building programs.

By committing to work in community, we evolved the GlobalNiche program as an easy, systematic, iterative way to build a platform for opportunity to happen. We realize that our individual platforms open us up to opportunity -- not by magic, but by connecting us with our global community via the social web.

In the past two years, we’ve won an award for our global community-building methodology, hosted 20+ live web conversations with emerging thought leaders on cutting edge GlobalNiche issues, designed, created and delivered email tutorials, program pilots, a self-study workbook, a high-touch 6-week coaching program, on-demand multimedia programs, 2 online study groups, a peer study group training, supported 3 peer study groups with more on the calendar and published a Kindle handbook. We’ve also provided our platform building tutorial to the Global Tech Women conference, become a LeanIn platform partner, spoken at numerous events and broadened the GlobalNiche network to include women leaders, content creators, social business people and entrepreneurs everywhere. We’re proud to have contributed to, participated in, and added GlobalNiche’s definition and practice to these global life/work movements:

• every-day entrepreneurial thinking and acting, creative entrepreneurship as a solution for everyone
• location independence and lifestyle design in populations beyond expats, travelers and life hackers
• recognition of the importance of digital identity, personal branding, digital footprints and online social networking for personal and professional development
• re-envisioning the future of work with online collaboration and co-creation
• the adoption of global communication best practices
• the tidal wave of online content marketing
• the rise of the transformational consumer and transformational online communities

Working on GlobalNiche educated us in what it takes to build a business. We’ve gained a new appreciation for what we know, as well as identified gaps in our own knowledge, skills, abilities and experience.

Our early stage founder experience took us into the startup world. We opened and maintained profiles at accelerator and incubator application platforms like Gust.com, Angel.co, and F6s.  We attended founder events, applied to accelerators, got VC training for elevator pitches, learned the investment landscape. We learned about the role of mentors, advisors, and equity positions.

We tried our hand at investor presentations, worked toward that elusive thing called “product-market fit”, learned about choosing vendors, designed logos and website look & feel, investigated shopping cart and affiliate network solutions until we ran screaming in the other direction.

We worked on what seems like a lifetime about brand messaging - writing taglines and elevator pitches on a weekly basis (and still not there yet).

We discovered what it means to be a globally distributed team managing a variety of time zones, test driving collaboration software.

Looking back on all that we’ve achieved and learned, we realize that we’ve reached our 2009 goal of building an online global support alliance. More than that, we developed a curriculum that teaches people the skills they need to do this for themselves.

Now we’re turning the method over -- to you, and to your communities, and to people far beyond those in our current networks -- to let it grow.

2014’s shift toward a community-based movement not only makes the method available to more people but it also allows the founding team to focus on applying what we’ve learned, what we built, and the skills we developed on new projects and in ever wider communities. This is the next chapter for GlobalNiche thinking and methodology. Tara is leaving her position with GlobalNiche. She is putting her strategy and analytical skills to work doing market research for a London-based company and she has been contracted as project manager on an upcoming socio-cultural book about Turkey.

Anastasia continues to lead the GlobalNiche movement by holding the vision and on-going operations. She has taken a community-building position in a new social storytelling startup being incubated at RocketSpace in San Francisco. As a speaker and consultant, this spring she’ll be talking about platform at the Exceptional Women In Publishing conference, and leading a workshop with Tanya about the GlobalNiche Method at Women’s Startup Lab.

Tanya is continuing business development related to the GlobalNiche movement. She is working with female founders/entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley to accelerate their businesses and has also accepted a professorship at Santa Clara University where she’s exploring opportunities to use the GlobalNiche curriculum. She will act as director of the Global Fellows program.

As we shift gears, we’re grateful and proud of what we’ve created together, how the GlobalNiche movement continues to support our growth through the principles we’ve established in the program and using social technology.

And as ever, we appreciate being on this journey with you.

1,000 People Just Joined The GlobalNiche Program. Did You?

That's right, 1,000 people around the world said yes to free access to my self-paced training to achieve your potential online.

Were you one of them? No? Got a few minutes and care to get connected and effective in 2014? Do these 2 things NOW.

1) Claim your complimentary seat. That'll give you 24/7 access to our on-demand multimedia curriculum. The training will help you navigate the social web to get closer to who and what matters to you.

Invite anyone you want to bring along with you. Our treat. Just share this link.

2) Then give me a shout on Twitter so I can be sure to add you to our list of your peers. That makes it easy for you to connect and work together! Plus, we're already talking there using the #globalniche hashtag.

...and welcome to all the lovely people I glimpsed in the new roster, including Leslie, Linda, Nicolas, Lindsey, Bonnie, Rachel, Katja, Eleanor, Julia, Chris, Simone, Shirley, Wendy, Christine, Harma, Stephanie, Oshikan, Myrthe, Jonelle, Aisha, Nicole, Kathy, Nilgun, Teike, Milo, Michaela, Monique, Sher, Craig, Jennifer, Karlijn, Roberta, Lynn, Michelle, Suraya, Andrea, Jeane, Bia, Neil, Zlatana, Linda, Laurie, Ebru...

I'm looking forward to getting connected and effective with you this year.

January 26 update: make that 2,600 new people. Welcome!

Identifying The Job Your Customer Wants Done; Why Survivors Of Dysfunction Make Good Entrepreneurs; Where We Fail In The Cycle Of Entrepreneurship; And The Cultural Relevance Of The Internet: Takeaways From Startup Grind 2013

Thanks to my fellow mindful-tech entrepreneur Pamela Day for the invite to Startup Grind conference this week in Silicon Valley. It's a 40-city event series in 15 countries to inspire, educate and connect entrepreneurs.There were many takeaways, from practical to philosophical, out of mouths of founders and incubators and investors, including The Lean Startup Method's Steve Blank, entrepreneur-turned-VC Mark Suster, and Udemy's cofounder Gagan Biyani.

Below are some of the big ideas I jotted down:

On selling: Harvard biz prof and author of "How will you measure your life" Clayton Christensen talked about achieving product/market fit (a core aspect of selling) as being able to identify what job your customer wants to get done.

Never mind the purchaser personas "who's my customer" issue, what is it that your thing serves their need by being, by doing?

Example: I need something to do during my commute that I can do with one hand, something that fills my stomach, something that doesn't spill or make a mess in the car, something that takes the whole 45 minutes to consume. This is the job done by a milkshake bought by a guy first thing in the morning. He's not buying it and comparing the price, or the flavor, to other milkshakes. He's comparing it to options like a banana (too fast, smelly, the peel!) and a donut (sticky fingers, not filling). When you know why they choose you and your product or service, you can better get that message out there about it. "So thick it takes 45 minutes to drink". (Or, develop product to get the job done).

Enter with great products, competitors will eat you. If you enter with slimmed down specs, they flee upmarket.  (This is good to know, since many of us are in that boat of not being able to compete with established players...)

Here's Fast Company about the Clayton Christensen talk with a link to the video.

On founding a venture: ventures fail when they run out of $ -- and then can't keep going.

(The money thing is not the end itself!) They fail when the founders run of out energy to keep doing it. We need to take care of ourselves so we can keep doing this.

Also, survivors of dysfunctional families can operate at chaos, which makes them successful entrepreneurs.

Same was said about ADHD people. Regarding the psychological conditions for entrepreneurship, see this article on PandoDaily about the link between bipolar spectrum and entrepreneurship --"Building businesses can be a great way for hypomanic entrepreneurs to apply their energy and creativity."

Entrepreneurship is not job, it's a calling. Like being an artist, composer. We're driven to make something happen out of nothing. We need to make decisions out of passion, not fear.

From a now-billionaire who started by tutoring ppl at his house after work: Think big start small. Portion of your earnings belongs to creation of your future. You can only earn if you save.

The cycle of entrepreneurship, Carlos Martins says, is: Strategy->Plan->Execute->Assess->Correction->start again.

That correction -->strategy part is where businesses fail since what worked yesterday may not work today, what works today may not work tomorrow.

And from the brilliant guy behind icanhascheezburger: cultural relevance is resonance.

Creation no longer binary, says Ben Huh, my favorite speaker of the conference since he's talking about my culture-view of the Internet. It spans a spectrum of create, curate, remix. Internet culture will make the rock stars of tomorrow.Being weird doesn't mean you're alone. Internet and social media is matchmaking, surfacing connections previously unavailable.

Relationships are now matched to your interest. Let your fans tell their story not yours. There are more of them than us, Huh says. Don't try to outshout them.

Rather than big social where we get our cues from big brands, ICanHasCheezburger is little social. We stand for something little and let our users build messages around our brand.

Embodiment of Internet culture is user driven, rather than transactional. I want you to understand me. We want to express our best selves and expression allows you to do that. It's like we're playing SIMS with our own identity.

I participate therefore I am. Now we can consume a world that is more personal and more real, have real convos with real people, our world view tweaked and challenged by our peers.

Other speakers let us know that people will try to discourage you.

Listen double hard to people who disagree with you on a particular point, you might be missing something. Otherwise, only listen to people who have successfully done this thing you want to do. Disregard other status signifiers like power & prestige & pedigree, these aren't good reasons to follow their advice.

There was also talk of outgrowing your mentors, and not giving away your power to partners and investors just to be "fair" or because you're flattered they want in on your thing.