The thing that fuels me is interacting with and helping people, real time.

For some reason, this is easy to forget! Not all projects involve a great deal of human interaction, and I honestly don’t think I realized before how important it was for me to reconnect on a regular basis to something moving, breathing & human. I found some clarity on this when I told Larah that I needed a pickmeup, and it didn’t have to be a specific kind of work or brainstorming… all I needed was the conversation. I needed to ask questions and answer them. I needed the exchange of entrepreneurial energy.

This is why it is sometimes so energizing for me to just help someone else, even if I’m not getting any help with what I perceive is my problem… because the real time interaction and the questions and the solving all fuel me. There’s something about that activity, working with someone, that engages and lights up all the parts of my brain. And when I get off the phone, I have Important Things To Do.

And I do them, instead of making vague productive noises and checking my email again.

Is there something specific that fuels you? Something intuitive (or not) that makes everything suddenly… click?

Photo credit: Neil Armstrong2

If you’re interested in community engagement, connection-making and marketing for real people, Trust Agents is a must-read.

I admit it: We were late to the game reading Trust Agents, which is downright shameful because it’s such a useful, insightful book. If you look at Connectors and wonder how the hell they do what they do — and if you want to be successful in online business? Uh, yeah. Pick this one up.

I was discussing it with Bob Poole, because he’s one of my greatest Connectors — and he taught me a lot about human artistry in marketing before I even came across the term. Bob wrote a little book called Listen First – Sell Later, and even he said that Trust Agents reconfirmed for him that trust is the most important human emotion necessary for success in selling. Bob is all about asking questions and actively listening, and this is real trust agent mojo.

What Chris and Julien have put together in Trust Agents is the first thing you should pick up if you want to understand how people connection works on the internet. How do you build an audience? How do you get them paying attention? Networking, business, social media, this is where you should start.

I doubt there’s a better primer on community marketing anywhere.

Since I began to truly recognize the value of community marketing and associated projects, the demand on my time as “community catalyst” — Charlie Gilkey’s term — has managed to completely overrun my schedule. No, you’re not crazy; that specific set of skills isn’t yet represented on Ideaschema’s website, primarily because I was overbooked before I managed to get it written up. Whoops!

One gap has eluded my understanding until very recently, though, and it’s this: How can I help someone who doesn’t already have a community to work with?

What if they’re great at what they do, they’re excellent at communicating with an audience… but they just don’t have an audience yet? Any leverage I have personally requires existing community assets. Where could I send these people?

A few weeks ago, I was offered a gig with Squidoo co-managing its magazines project. Suddenly I had a solution to that problem.

Squidoo Magazines

If you didn’t know already, Squidoo allows users to create pages (called lenses) on whatever subject they desire. The site then leverages advertising across this user-generated content to allow those users to make money from their pages — or donate part or all of that money to charity.

In October of last year Squidoo had 1.5 million hand-built lenses. On their 5-year anniversary, they gave an (additional!) $275,000 to charity. Their site is ranked #73 among all websites in the US. Squidoo gets more traffic than Digg, NBC or Hulu. And it’s recently begun to launch a series of online magazines, which is where I get involved.

Seth posted on his blog today about the Squidoo Magazines project. We’re publishing original articles from remarkable contributors, highlighting great existing content and connecting passionate people via social media.

My title du jour is Talent Scout, and I’m a matchmaker: I look at the magazines we’re launching, and find contributors who will be a great fit for that prospective audience. I seek out talented content creators who need a platform, or who want to expand their current audience with a new one. And then I give them that platform.

If you didn’t know before how to build community around your personal brand, you do now. I just told you how. It’s not instantaneous, it takes personality and determination, but it works.

If you want to promote your own work or act as content editor, fill out this form. We’ll use the resulting list to seek contributors when we need new content for new magazines, and you’ll get regular updates so that you can let us know you’re interested when the perfect request comes up.

Yes, it will be tons of fun. Want to join us?

Seth Godin has a new book out. We weren’t kidding about the 11,000 copies. As of this note, there are already only 9,300 left. Go get yours.

If you read no other post on this site, read this one.

End Malaria is a collection of contributions by 62 fantastic thinkers sharing their best insights and strategies on doing great work. Kevin Kelly. Jonathan Fields. Nancy Duarte. David Allen. Pam Slim. Sir Ken Robinson. But that’s not why you should buy it.

$20 or more from every single purchase of End Malaria — hard copy or digital — buys a mosquito net and helps support Malaria No More’s mission in Africa to eradicate malaria by 2015.

Michael Bungay-Stanier and the Domino Project created this book, but neither of them will see a penny from it. All their work was done for free, in support of the project.

Every single copy of this book sold will actually save someone’s life. Children are dying from this disease every day, and the solution is so simple (and inexpensive). And for every copy someone doesn’t buy, there are kids who might have survived. And for $20 — well, that’s a few cups of espresso for most of us, and hardly worth worrying over.

This one little act has a lot of impact. For obvious reasons, we’re not using an affiliate link: Please go buy a copy and spread the word.

PS. Other excellent posts about End Malaria:

• That buzzing in my ear didn’t mean I was about to die
• Make a Difference (or stop talking about it)
• How you can help end malaria
• A Life-Saving Book
• This ebook isn’t free
• The authors of End Malaria