Being Authentic. I Am Who I Am

A well meaning head hunter called me “Hey, did you leave IBM? Why didn’t you tell me so I can place you?” “No, I have not left. I will definitely tell you if I am looking out. Do you know something I don’t?” I laughingly replied. He replied, “Your LinkedIn job title changed to “Mindful Ledaership” so I thought you quit.”  That was just one reaction, among many connections that reacted to my profile change in surprise, happiness, curiosity, cautiousness and even disapproval.

What garnered these responses was just a change in my profile to “Mindful Leadership”. I had decided to integrate my career self and my spiritual self into one.  I had previously kept two separate identities – one professional identity as “Anne Phey – Innovator” as a kick-ass Marketing Director at IBM and another identity “Anne Phey – Mindful Meditator” that I shared about my journey of self discovery in holistic practices.

Here are the Top 5 reactions and my response:

1.  “Won’t your boss think you are spending time to blog about non-work stuff and affect your career?”

I am grateful that IBM practices work life integration and I have understanding bosses.  We recognize that team members need a healthy balance of work and private time.  While many employees may spend their week nights or weekends with their parents or children, I choose to spend my time on holistic practices and sharing them on social media.  The employee is evaluated on the results, and not how they spend their time.  So, sharing about mindfulness does not make me any less effective as an employee.

2. “You are a social advocate, why a title on mindfulness and not IBM?”

As LinkedIn’s top Social Seller, I am an advocate of social media as a medium for corporates to reach out to partners and customers.  Being an advocate does not mean talking only about one’s company all the time. Often social media becomes a bombardment of corporate jargon. People trust people.  We earn that trust by being genuine and having an opinion. I am an IBM ambassador, not one that blindly drum-beats corporate messages, but a human that one can relate to and have a conversation with.  I can share both about mindfulness and corporate content.

3. “Don’t you think it is unprofessional to share about mindfulness on corporate platforms?”

Mindfulness is an attitude, an approach and a holistic practice.  It is not contrary to corporate work. In fact, it adds to a better person, environment and work outcomes.  In the tech industry, disruptions are changing the way industries and customers are behaving.  If one practices mindfulness, one can navigate these disruptions with ease.

Personally, I have gained from mindfulness with calmness in my approach, better clarity by being able to observe alternative perspectives on situations, confidence in handling obstacles, positive encouragement to team members, motivation to do good and tenacity to outlast the issues.

Our Human Resource Director Craig Stewart too writes about mindfulness in his blogs. (See more at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mindfulness-isnt-just-fancy-way-saying-yoga-stuff-craig-stewart)

4. “Recruiters can’t categorize you if you put mindfulness into your job title.”

Human Resource as a function no longer relies on job titles and abilities on CVs but about how a person’s intrinsic qualities such as mindfulness and leadership can take the role and job scope to success.

Here is an example of incorporating mindfulness into your profile. Techfucius is a CIO (Chief Information Officer) who is a seeker of salvation from IT woes.  Instead of seeking salvation atop a mountain somewhere, he has to practice mindfulness with deep reflection within to manage a tech world riddled with disruption and uncertainty. His blogs talk about the power of strengthening what lies within (See more at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/power-strengthening-what-lies-within-techfucius-say)

5. “Have you quit your job to go full time into holistic work?”

Changing my job title to “Mindful Leader” gave many the impression that I am no longer working in the corporate world.  Most people believe that you have to either be a corporate warrior or a peaceful holistic practitioner.  I choose to be both.  I love my job at IBM and I love what I do to help individuals transform their lives. And I love showing by example to transform my life to a better person, boss and team mate at my workplace. 

Corporate and Mindfulness Merge As One

We sometimes draw such well defined lines around areas of our lives – our work, our home, our children, our recreation club and our spiritual practices.  As I discover more about myself, I become more of who I truly am at home and at work. There is just one me, I am who I am.

In fact, several social advocates have contacted me to ask how I managed to integrate mindfulness, corporate and social media.  Many have asked for further discussions and tips as they see social media and social selling cross the chasm of regurgitating corporate jargon to sharing from the heart of what matters to the person be it personal, professional or corporate development. 

So here I am, on this path of integration. I will be blogging about mindfulness on how it has helped become better persons in the corporate world, and also about the tech industry with mindfulness.   

Join me, be bold and shine as who you are. Be authentic.

World's Smallest Bento Box: Lessons in Content Marketing & Mindfulness

Four artists (a watch maker, a chef, a surgeon and a diorama artist) collaborated to create the world's smallest bento that fits inside a wrist watch.

I watched in awe the video on how an entire bento was made to fit inside a watch so that a man can eat his lunch on the go.

This is actually an advertising campaign by Takii, a Japanese agriculture company focused on making high-quality seeds for nutritious fruits and vegetables.

The message is simple. The Takii Phyto Rich vegetables are so packed with nutrients that all you need is can be packed into a wrist watch!

Not only is it innovative, it communicates the message clearly.  It is so interesting that everyone wants to share it and talk about it!  That's how great content is!

Watch the "making of" and the video on the world's smallest bento in a wrist watch:

World's Smallest Bento Watch (Ad & Making of the Ad)

As I look at the Bento Watch, I am reminded of how many amazing elements can fit into a watch and how cleverly each element was selected to fit in.  That is how much we too can cram into our infinite brain.

Take only those elements that give you the nutrients and that's all you need - love, compassion, creativity, courage, etc. Let go of anything else that does not give you nutrition - stress, ego, fear, excessive logic, etc.
If we all had a beautiful mind in a watch, what would we want to put in there?

For your reading pleasure, here's the story as narrated by Johnny Strategy, a blogger on Japanese graphic design and art.
"A watchmaker, a surgeon, a chef and a diorama artist are sitting around together. Each is a master of their trade and together, they’re attempting to create the world’s smallest bento. One that fits inside a wristwatch yet is packed with all the vitamins and nutrients that a busy worker needs to get through the day.

The watchmaker designs the box and chopsticks for the bento. The surgeon slices the meats and vegetables. The chef prepares the food (note the adorable miniature wok at the 47 second mark). Finally, the diorama artist pulls it all together to create the bento watch: the world’s smallest bento.

Making a bento to fit into a wrist watch
Eating a bento from a watch

B2B Content Strategies: Content is the heart.

It was a great gathering with a couple of panel speakers in "B2B Content Strategies: Lessons From The Trenches" with the world of content creators, aggregators, clients, agencies and communications professionals. 

Catch the interview: http://youtu.be/S0RJN6AIUUM via @YouTube

 
Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Understand B2B Content World. In the B2B world, targeting different job titles, industries, roles in decision making process, technical jargon and technology life cycle make content seem more complex than B2C.  However, if you think about it, the same targeting, segmentation and consumption patterns is studied and applied. Your target audience is human too.

2. Segment with precision. I am known as a guru of segmentation using analytics to better understand my customers and potential customers.  The reason why the marketing programs that are run by my teams are so much more effective is the precision of message and approach based on segmentation. 

3. Content can drive ROI. We have done such a great job in delivering pipeline for the business that sales believe in the power of marketing in lead generation. Demonstrating return on investment still remains an important part in getting budget and resources to focus on content.

4. Content is the heart of persuasion.  Today, there is a lot more content in multiple forms but are they the right ones? Content is the heart which transmit the right messages at the right time to the right person. Content is about how we can engage someone to develop a deeper relationship with the customer.

In the B2B world, we need professionals who are willing to invest time to understand the portfolio and pitch the appropriate content mapped to the customers' journey.

Here are some of my quotes:


“To break through the content clutter is to really understand customer and then bring the right content" 


"What do love and dating have to do with B2B content marketing?"
 
“Ultimately, when it comes to convincing internal stakeholders of the investment, IBM Asia-Pacific’s Director of Marketing for IBM Power Systems, Anne Phey, suggests “showing that conversion rates and revenue” are increasing over time. 

It may even be a case of sitting down with the business leaders and CFO to explain what marketing does, how conversations on social media help us gain insights on customers and content trends, how online activities such as web traffic, downloads, etc are monitored against targets, as well as showing the opportunity pipeline for conversion to wins. 

Adds Phey: “Our  business leader understands that content doesn’t have to generate revenue straight away. It’s like having a relationship. You’ve got to start dating and wooing the prospect before he becomes a customer. As of 2015, we’ve appointed content marketing managers. That’s a breakthrough for us.” 

Read more from Gracia Chiang's at

http://www.kingcontent.com.au/creating-emotion-in-b2b-content-marketing/