Dan Pink asks, What’s your sentence?

This has nothing to do with spending time on Alcatraz or at a minimum security prison closer to home. Your sentence encapsulates your focus.

Can you sum up what you do in one sentence? Or are you a muddled paragraph?

Go ahead and try it. Before you begin I encourage you to watch this two minute video about Dan Pink’s work on this question and another key question to focus and enhance your employee engagement:

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

I invite you to write your sentence. By the way, approach the writing as a first draft and sharpen it as you go along.

Here is my current sentence:

David invites authentic results-focused and relationship-enhancing

engagement for organizations and individuals.

What’s your sentence?

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2240 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com

19 Employee Engagement Eclectic Resource to Improve Your Work and Your Life.

David Zinger offers you informative links and resources to enhance and improve your work and life engagement. This edition of 19 Eclectic Resource Zingers is focused on recent blog news alerts on employee engagement.

1. Chain of Connection: Leaders Employees Customers by Michael Lee Stallard http://bit.ly/dboSyh
2. To-Do List for Human Resources Planning. http://bit.ly/aouvKw
3. Social Engagement ~ HR to HR 2.0 and Human Capital (HCM) by Jon Ingham http://bit.ly/bKhwZM
4. Top Five Ways to Destroy Trust by Susan M. Heathfield http://bit.ly/a4969H
5. Engagement is not a nice to have – it’s a need to have by Ian Buckingham. http://bit.ly/9nEkgf
6. Engaging Your Employees in CSR http://bit.ly/9VWwgh
7. BNET: Employment Minister: I Walk the Walk on Engagement by Julian Goldsmith http://bit.ly/d8eKYl
8. Ask Your Doctor If You Are Healthy Enough For Employee Engagement ~ Jeff Saltzman. http://bit.ly/bdZ4Ub
9. The Open-Book Multiplier Effect on Employee Engagement Practices ~ Mark Harbeke. http://bit.ly/dntJFV
10. Companies invest in union-led employee training to raise productivity. http://bit.ly/bIWhzv
11. How engagement can screw up your culture. ~ Martha Finney http://bit.ly/bCNHhV
12. Lessons to learn about employee engagement. Germany versus USA. http://bit.ly/cIpKZy
13. Employee engagement should not be your end goal. http://bit.ly/dBAdZ0
14. Government guidance on employee engagement draws on experience of business leaders and experts in the field. http://bit.ly/csZKCU
15. Throw Away The Employee Engagement Strategic Plan… http://bit.ly/b4N7E2
16. Employee engagement what is wrong with employee surveys. http://bit.ly/9hJZuX
17. Show Your Team You Care–And Not Just About Deadlines http://bit.ly/9RQxnl
18. Green nature and employee engagement. http://bit.ly/9LgvRO
19. The Quest: Social Media is not the Holy Grail http://bit.ly/afVo6W

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2170 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com

If you are using social media to grow or enhance engagement view Bart De Wale’s 7 harsh realities of social media slide presentation.

Bart De Waele created a compelling and honest presentation on social media to overcome the hype of social media holy grail thinking. View the entire slide presentation and remember you need:

• quality content,
• time,
• engagement,
• resources, and
• expertise.

The Age of Conversation 3 will be released soon. I was one of the contributors to this project and here is a list of all the contributors:

1000!

1000. Thank you to everyone involved in and with this site. This is post 1000 at David Zinger Employee Engagement.

Over 1500 blog posts in 6 years. Because I have written for other blogs this is about my 1500th post overall in about 6 and 1/2 years of blogging and being involved in social media.

Thank you. Thank you to everyone who has read a post. Thank you to all the other bloggers who have inspired me. Thank you to everyone who has taken time to comment. I am looking very forward to the next 1000 posts at this site.

John Junson. A special thank you to John Junson for all his help with this site and his contribution of 52 excellent cartoons.

Stay engaged along with me, the best is yet to be.

David Zinger

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2170 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com

What are you reading?

Merrily we blog along. I am currently following over 273 blogs. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t read every post by every author but I do monitor every blog. Some of these blogs I have followed for almost 7 years and others are as new as yesterday. About every 3 months I go in and prune the list.

Why blogs trump books. I have always loved books and I will continue to read books but often I find myself thinking: couldn’t this author just have distilled this book into a few punchy and pithy blog posts? I know publishers often tell authors to add extra pages to their book because they have a hard time getting a good price on a short book. My attention span is shrinking and I generally prefer short to long anytime unless the author is a gifted writer such as Peter Block or Margaret Wheatley.

Go to the source. Here is a list of blogs that I currently follow. They are an excellent and eclectic mix of blogs. Be careful if you start checking them out as you might never take your eyes off of the screen for a few hours if you start reading these fabulous authors:

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2170 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com

23 Employee Engagement Eclectic Resource to Improve Your Work and Your Life.

David Zinger offers you informative links and resources to enhance and improve your work and life engagement. This edition of 23 Eclectic Resource Zingers range from the top people to follow in Enterprise 2.0 to Chris Bailey on nuance and a wonderful drawing by Elizabeth Perry on snow and spring in 3 acts:

1. Employee Engagement. Top 10 People to Follow in the Enterprise 2.0 Space and Why (Pt 1). http://bit.ly/aItNqn
2. Chris Bailey on nuance is dead. http://bit.ly/di7C8O
3. Mobile app to increase employee engagement. http://bit.ly/c9xMQl
4. Judy McLeish: 4 Steps for a Manager in Charge of Employee Engagement. http://bit.ly/dcdmMm
5. Love them don’t lose them – employee engagement made simple by Cassandra Gaisford http://bit.ly/baK8PJ
6. Rosa Say: The value of worthwhile work. http://bit.ly/9rCTsR
7. Anecdote: Putting Stories to work. A rich website of resources for story and work. http://bit.ly/9jCvwJ
8. Concise employee engagement fact sheet. Well done. http://bit.ly/daR7uu
9. Great SOURCE OF INSIGHT. A blog to read all the time. http://bit.ly/9fbijm
10. Srikumar Rao: Plug into your hard-wired happiness, Video. http://bit.ly/cqryBl
11. Psychologically Healthy Workplace Conference 2010: Building the Business Case for Employee Well-Being. http://bit.ly/9QRMed
12. TIM Milburn posted this great video from the band OK Go. http://bit.ly/cHYCsV
13. Steve DeMaio on Why Talented People Quit. http://bit.ly/cifCf2
14. Elizabeth Perry’s wonderful drawing on snow and spring in 3 acts. http://bit.ly/aDsRw1
15. Leo Babauta – 300 words towards being a positive person. Get the Zen habit. http://bit.ly/biyd1Z
16. Garr Reynold’s excellent presentation zen post on remebering from stories and experience. http://bit.ly/aCPEe4
17. Nilofer Merchant on Phil Gerbyshak’s blog Stop Playing Corporate Dodgeball…Yeah I’m Talking To You! http://bit.ly/9UcD2i
18. Valerie Zinger (my sister) great blog about Ottawa Real Estate and general real estate tips. http://bit.ly/9NgHyx
19. (Portfolio Careers) Barrie Hopson on Predictions for 2010: Five Changes in the Way We Work. http://bit.ly/axTbwy
20. Micheal Less Stallard teaches about U2’s Decision-Making Approach Contributes to Success. http://bit.ly/cbfTwF
21. Changing energy: How to turn employees from know-ers into actors by James Bennett at Melcrum. http://bit.ly/93oIt6
22. Noah Goldstein an excellent post on employee productivity in 5 easy minutes. http://bit.ly/cNYvMZ
23. Shawn Callahan post: Research shows that stories create personal motivation and increase productivity. http://bit.ly/dvpmqR

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2170 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com

Are you open?

Open your data. Tim Berners-Lee is the father of the Internet and very enthusiastic about open data. He made a plea on TED one year ago for open data and returned this year to show the results in just one year of making data more open.

Employee Engagement Data. It seems to me we are not very open about our data in employee engagement. Consulting companies often own the data for the companies they provide surveys for. Raw data is hard to come by. Employees sometimes never even see the results, let alone the data. It often seems to take forever for survey results to be communicated.

Data fear and improvement required. It seems to me that we fear being open about our data and sharing our data with the very people who create it. We can do better – we must do better – if we have an authentic desire to have our data move from a hoarded collection to a vehicle of authentic engagement.

3 Questions. Before you view the video ask yourself:

• Are we making our engagement data open?
• Are results shared with employees and the wider community?
• If we are not making data open, what is holding us back?

View the video and begin to see the changes and benefits that occur from open data:

Now, open your data.

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2180 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com