Phyllis Zimbler Miller's Blog: Phyllis Zimbler Miller Author, page 67

The Book SWITCH Offers Incredibly Powerful Concepts to "Encourage" Change

The new book SWITCH by Chip Heath & Dan Heath (who also wrote MADE TO STICK) is full of fascinating case studies of how people used the concepts in this book to "encourage" change.

I would have highly recommended this book anyway for its incredibly powerful information. But I was also thrilled by what the brothers wrote about my favorite book for helping people get over their fear of learning/using social media: MINDSET: THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY OF SUCCESS by Carol Dweck. The brothers write:

"In...

My Undergrad Alma Mater MSU Really "Gets" Social Media

Image from www.alumni.msu.edu

The cover of the Summer 2010 MSU Alumni Magazine features the icons of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, StumbleUpon, RSS feed and the Spartan helmet along with the headline "Social Media: MSU Rides the New Media Wave."


Wow! This is a long way from when my husband Mitch first spoke to me next to the old manual typewriters in the editorial offices of the State News, the student newspaper at Michigan State University.

Mitch was a junior in ROTC majoring in ...

Self-Publishing Puts Control in the Hands of the Author

I've been following the book publishing industry for many, many years. So I know about the difficulties in finding an agent or a book publisher who wants to publish your book.

In 1992 the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION that I co-wrote with Rabbi Karen L. Fox was published by Perigee, an imprint of Putnam. Karen and I had to do most of the promoting ourselves.

Thus I was not deterred when, in April 2008, I self-published my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT through BookSurge, then a...

Website Navigation: More Proof That Less Is More

Chip Heath & Dan Heath in their new book SWITCH (I've also read their book MADE TO STICK) talk about decision paralysis. They write: "More options, even good ones, can freeze us."

This is exactly what can happen to a first-time visitor to your website if you give the person too many choices on the home page or make the navigation too confusing with tons of links.

Here's a real example of decision paralysis described in the book:

A gourmet food store. The store managers have set up a table...

New Ebook by Judy Cullins Provides 8 Best Tactics for Marketing via LinkedIn

The new ebook "LinkedIn Marketing: 8 Best Tactics to Build Book and Business Sales" by book and Internet marketing coach July Cullins shares her best advice on what to do and what not to do to benefit from marketing on LinkedIn.

Judy (@CoachJudy on Twitter) says:

"[I:] discovered that LinkedIn offered more gold than any other online marketing I'd done. Linkedin works especially well for authors, coaches, consultants, educators, solo professionals and speakers, and seminar leaders."

What I...

The Dilemma of Avoiding a Confrontation

I looked at an email I got of a question posted on a group that I started on LinkedIn. The person asked: "How effective is it to blog on your own website?"

I clicked through the link intending to comment with some reasons why it can be very effective to blog on your own website. Then I discovered that someone else had answered emphatically that the person should have a separate website and blog.

What to do? I don't agree with this answer, but do I really want to get into a disagreement...

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Use 21st Century Communication in 2010

I was speaking to my 85-year-old mother about a national women's organization to which she belongs. My mother pointed out that the president of this national organization uses modern communication methods – she sends out an email a few times a month to the members.

As I get those emails (although I don't read them), I was able to say, "She's using 20th Century communication in the 21st Century."

What did I mean by this? I meant that the emails sent by the national president are long-winded r...

Think of a Newspaper as an Analogy for Social Media Networking

I was once again attempting to explain the power of social media networking to my husband based on his presence on LinkedIn.

I tried the explanation of a spider web – that a person makes connections on LinkedIn in order to be connected to other people's connections.

But my husband wanted to know how people keep up with everyone they are connected to on LinkedIn, following on Twitter, and friends with on Facebook.

The simple answer is that they don't. There's not enough time in the day for m...

There Is Always Something New to Learn About Social Media

I get emails from people who find Miller Mosaic Power Marketing on the web and the emails say things such as:

"I would like to know what I do not know about social media. There is probably more to learn."

They can say that again! There is always something new to learn about social media, which seems to change at the speed of light. And this is why Yael and I spend a great deal of our time trying to keep up with just the most important changes in social media.

This is also why it is so...