I was at the Forrrester Consumer Forum last week. The topic of the conference was social  technologies. At a place like that you meet people that have blogs. I try to check out blogs of people I meet, I scan them, and see if something pops out.

I met Deborah Schultz, a consultant in the Social Media / Interactive Design, and this post popped out to me where she outlined 10 things she tries to live by. In a busy, transparent world these rules are relevant for a consultant or corporation…they are salient for management and marketing…and some are useful to remember when living your life!

1. Do not ignore your customers, it WILL come back to haunt you
2. Constant iteration is NECESSARY – build in flexibility so you can respond quickly
3. Don’t LIE – you can’t HIDE the truth anymore
4. Build LISTENING into your DNA (Put it in customer service, marketing, product management – just PUT IT SOMEWHERE)
5. Learn to BALANCE the listening with PERSPECTIVE so you are not constantly in REACTIVE mode.
6. DESIGN matters – Make it EASY (iPhone anyone?)
7. Be CLEAR & CONCISE – who has time for long winded-ness
8. Be EMOTIONAL – tell a story [read this to learn the basics]
9. Be HUMAN – talk like one, act like one.  Sounds like a big DUH but
   it is amazing how easy it is to get lost in complexities when we forget
   this one. 
10. Take a BREAK – and step back to think BIG thoughts

Great stuff Deborah!