Home Archives for 2009
December 22, 2009 4 Comments

Do you network “on purpose” ?


How often do you make a conscious effort to network “on purpose” ? Not just the casual “hey how are doing” but more of the “Hi my name is Patrick Allmond. What do you do? This is what I do. Let’s stay in touch. Is there anything I can help you with? (Note – if you do this don’t say your name is Patrick Allmond. That would just be awkward).

You really should start doing this if you want to help yourself and help other people. It is one of those things that seems so obvious – yet so many people miss the boat on this one. I know that I have asked at least five good friends recently “What do you want to do in life… What do you really want to do?”. That is the whole point of networking after all isn’t it?

Update: Now that we have a forum area please feel free to explore this topic deeper the StopDoingNothing Forums

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And speaking of real world networking I finally got to hear the lovely voice of a cool lady in Claremore, Oklahoma today. Nicole Nascenzi called me for a phone interview about Twitter and the interruptions that Social Media can cause you in life. On a humorous note – she got my response for the interview while checking Twitter while stopped at a red light. Double humor for the fact that I called her back and we conducted the interview over the phone while I was driving home from a client appointment. She is the Public Relations Coordinator for Rogers State University in Claremore, Oklahoma. If you want to be smarter and hear from someone on the front lines of Social Media education you can follow her on Twitter

Filed Under: Networking
November 19, 2009 4 Comments

Isn't it great when the light comes on?

Have you ever been in a dark room or other situation that frightened you a little bit? You could not see what was there and the unknown makes you shiver a little. However, once you fumbled around and finally found the switch on the wall everything lit up and you felt so much more safe and secure.

That is my goal when I am speaking and teaching people. To flip on the switch.

This past weekend I had the privilege of being invited to speak at a meeting of the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition by one of their directors Kelsey Karper (p.s. If you ever want to meet a wild hybrid-driving vegetable eating lady look her up). I was able to join Kelsey, Adrienne Nobles and Jennifer Barron as we headed south to the OVAC meeting. I learned on the drive to Chickasha that these three awesome ladies pretty much know everybody in Oklahoma City.

For over an hour I took the time to explain to people the power of an online strategy (including social media) and what it can do for their business and their brand. We did not dig into anything complicated and we stuck to the easy things that you can do to get started quickly. I could tell by the looks on people’s faces that the lights were finally coming on. They got it. They understood that as complicated and wild as the internet is it is also a great inexpensive place to market yourself. If people walk away with nothing from my presentations that is one thing that I hope sticks. When it does not stick and the light does not come on I have failed in my job as a speaker. But how do you know for sure when it sticks? How can you be absolutely sure?

After my presentation on Saturday one of the artists approached me and said “Thank you so much. This was amazing. I learned more from you in the past hour than I have in the past several months on my own.”

It was a good day. The light came on. My work there on that day was complete.

Have a great day.

(Feel free to share your thoughts below in my blog comments about how you know when the light comes on)

Filed Under: Attitude
August 12, 2009 8 Comments

Would you like to learn from my mistakes/my free gift?

I was having a conversation with some pretty smart people on twitter this afternoon when the topic of learning from mistakes came up. The three of us heartily agreed on two things:

1 – We should all be pretty smart from the number of mistakes we have made
2 – The absolute best way to learn is from mistakes and really huge screw ups

I made the leap of faith to break out on my own from IBM Global Services about 11 years ago. As great a company as it was I was very bored. And when I get bored I get into trouble. I wanted to do something else outside of general tech support with the exact same people for the next 20 years of my life. IBM offered all kinds of moving options, but the quality of life in Oklahoma City is great. We were in the middle of raising a brilliant daughter and I did not want to screw that up by up and moving her across the country.

So here I sit 11 years later looking back on that first week of November in 1998 when I jumped in the deep end of the pool. I made a huge number of mistakes – starting from the first time I hit the road. I’ve got all of these mistakes floating around in the cells of my brain. And I get calls and meetings every week from people wanting to pick my brain about these mistakes. But it occurred to me that these would be really good to share with people that are considering breaking out on their own, or who have also made the leap of faith.

So my question to you, my friend, is would you be interested in a free hour of my time every week (via Ustream, etc) of picking my brain (and the brains of others who have tripped over themselves like me) ? I’d schedule something about 10 or 11 (CT) every Friday morning. People could join via chat, and I’d find a way for people to dial in via phone. Any topic is up for grabs. I’d also bring in guests since I have not made all of the mistakes in the world… yet !

Please let me know via comments below if this is something you would be interested in. If you know of other people that might also enjoy please share this so I can get their comments also.

Filed Under: Networking
May 7, 2009 Leave a Comment

Let's take a break for something fun – Flying

Let’s take a break from all of the seriousness of life and enjoy some of Patrick’s pix as he flew from KOUN (OU) back to KPWA (Wiley Post) Airport. Have a great weekend folks.


Filed Under: Attitude
April 18, 2009 3 Comments

Have you ever lost focus?

Do you ever wake up one more morning and just wondering what are you doing here, and where are you going next?

Recently it feels like I have been doing that more and more. There are places I’ve wanted to be in life, and goals I’ve wanted to knock out. And I am not making steady progress getting there. There are some distractions recently which have really thrown me for a loop. The distractions may be anywhere from a minute to a month, but slowly they have put me behind schedule in life. And that is darn frustrating.

But with these feelings I also realize that recognizing this issues are half of the battle. I know it now. I know I am off track. And consciously knowing will allow me to make the course corrections I need to make to get back on track. Minute by minute the ship is coming back in line with the originally planned course. I go to bed and wake up with a sense of purpose and satisfaction knowing that I’ve made steps in the right direction. Every day is just that – little tiny steps in the right direction.

Has this ever happened to you? What did you do to get back on track?

Filed Under: Attitude
April 18, 2009 3 Comments

Interview with Cafe Evoke, Patrick Allmond style

“Hardcore man on the street videos. As real as it gets. No script. No actors. Raw emotion taken right out of the coffee cup and thrown in your face.” Our videos might be like that someday, but until then we are going to track down the people and businesses that are keeping this country interesting and alive.

I tracked down the Cafe Evoke Coffee Crew last Friday in Oklahoma City. Check it out.

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For more of these videos make sure you sign up for the mailing list and/or RSS feed on the right.

Filed Under: Attitude
March 24, 2009 2 Comments

What do you use twitter for?

The eternal question as asked by @mkokc on twitter. Here is my video response:

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Filed Under: Attitude
January 24, 2009 5 Comments

Let’s go get high together

I believe that one of the reasons that you and I get frustrated with life is that we are spending too much time thinking about and focusing on the details of our lives.

I would like to offer you a simple solution for you to consider the next time you feel any stress or tension creeping into your life.

Do you drive a car ? Do you shop in a crowded grocery store ? Do you ever eat in a restaurant ? These are very common activities that force us to interact with a lot of other people. And if we are going to interact with other people they are not always going to the things we want, how we want them, and when we want them then done. They are going to drive too slow. They are going to take too long in the checkout lane. And they are going to take a lot longer than we would like to bring out our order sometimes.

But if you stop, take a breath, and look at our way of life from a higher perspective – you’ve heard of looking at things from 5000 or 10000 foot view before. When you look at thing from that perspectiveyou see and realize that overall we have it pretty good in this country. Things move relatively smooth for us. And some of the things that cause us frustration or to get riled up in our lives are issues that other people in other countries would love to have as their problems.

One the hobbies that I have that I really get a kick out of is flying. I literally can take a break from details every now and then of life and literally look at our city and our way of life from 10000 feet up. And when I do look at our life from that perspective I feel a a lot better and I realize that my issues and your issues really are not that bad.

So the next time someone cuts you off on the freeway take a deep breath and think about how lucky you are to have a car and a well paved countrywide highway system to drive it on. Then call me and I’ll take you up and we’ll look at the world from 10000 feet together.

Filed Under: Attitude, Productivity
January 1, 2009 6 Comments

Did you write them down… yeah… those goal thingys?

Happy New Year my fellow earth dwellers (shout out to those from off the planet that may be reading via RSS). Here it is January 1, 2009 8:32 Central Time. I am catching up on my RSS feeds, Twitter Feeds, etc. and sitting here wondering what the New Year will bring me. I am also thinking about what I will accomplish in the coming 365 days.

Have you thought about that? Yep… those trendy New Year’s resolutions that are so popular to talk about. You made them yesterday. Now it is time to ‘Cowboy Up’ and dig in and do them.

Don’t even bother.

Because you did not write them down. In the past 30 days if you verbally or mentally built a list of items that you want to accomplish in 2009 and you did not write them down you wasted your vocal cords and burned some brain cells that could have better been used elsewhere.

Don’t get me wrong. I love New Year’s resolutions. As human beings we love to set goals that start on a major time period. Every morning when we wake up it is a new day and most of us feel it is a new time to start over and do something with our life. The same goes with Sunday morning  and the 1st of every month.  The New Year is a very large milestone in each of our lives (we usually get less than 100 of them) and therefore it is natural that we want to set very lofty goals for the next 12 months. It is also a great time to measure what we have accomplished in the past 12 months.

But if you did not write them down so you can see them then they might as well not exist. Writing them down is the equivalent of making a personal contract with yourself. Thinking about it (the gentleman’s handshake) is one thing. But we all know that handshake contracts can be  dangerous.  Actually writing it down make you legally bound with yourself to actually perform said services. Plus you don’t ever want to break a contract that you can see taped to the bathroom mirror every morning so you?

So the question to you is: Did you write them down? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Happy 2009 !

    Filed Under: Attitude, Goals, Productivity