Update: I’m both surprised and delighted that slots through February are already completely booked. If all goes well, I’ll open up dates for March in late February. Stay tuned for those on the permanent Office Hours page here on the blog. And thank you for your interest!
I’m trying an experiment that I’m hoping turns into something fun and worthwhile that I can keep doing.
Each month in 2013, I’m going to book open office hours. They’ll officially be starting the week of January 21.
They’re 45-minute slots where we can Skype (voice), IM, or chat by phone about stuff like:
- Professional and career development
- Social business strategy
- Written content creation (blogging, ebooks, published books – I’m no expert at the multimedia stuff)
- Professional speaking
- Starting your own business
Within reason, I’m open to other topics that are on your mind, too. Just let me know what you’re thinking (you can mention it when you book a slot below).
The whole point of this exercise is to spread the wealth a little and make some new connections. Share some of what I know, learn from you too, connect with people on a more significant level, and have a little fun.
So here’s the nitty gritty and a few of the ground rules.
- Office hours will take place once a week. They’re free. The day will likely change each month, depending on my travel schedule and client obligations. We’ll start with Tuesday afternoons.
- I’m going to use BookMe to schedule appointments. It’s a new service for me, so bear with me if there are glitches. I’ll approve your times, and you’ll get a confirmation. When slots are full for the month, they’re full.
- You can only book an Office Hours slot once per quarter so I can try to be available to as many people as possible. If you want to talk about an extra appointment, contact me and let me know what’s going on so we can chat about whether I can make it happen.
- I won’t pitch you anything. You’re making me the same promise. I have a good nose for BS and will refuse your appointment if I think you’re about to break this rule.
- Everything we chat about I will hold in the strictest confidence unless you give me permission otherwise for some specific reason. Likewise, I will *not* disclose any confidential or proprietary information from my end to you, ever, and what qualifies is at my discretion.
- If either of us has to cancel, let’s give each other 24 hours notice.
For January February Dates, click here to access the BookMe Page for open Tuesday afternoon Office Hours slots. All times are US Central Time.
There’s no obligation here, for either of us, either before or after our chat. Think of it like getting together for coffee or a beer over the internet. We get together, we hang out, we chat. That’s all, unless we decide together that there’s something more to do.
I reserve the right to change the way this works anytime, or stop doing it altogether. Like I said, it’s an experiment and I have no idea how this is going to go, but I’ve been wanting to give it a shot for a while.
Also, full disclosure:
I’m a consultant for a living, and I am a partner at SideraWorks. We do social business advisory and education work. My guidance on those topics comes from my professional experience, and if it’s appropriate, I’ll certainly mention something we have content- or service-wise that can be helpful to you. I will disclose any and all partnerships that may become relevant to our discussion.
But there will be no pitching from my end and any follow-up related to my firm or referrals to other firms will only be done if you specifically request it. I’ll never add you to any lists or junk like that, because I think that is epically uncool. (If you add me to your lists without my permission as part of this deal, you will be tarred, feathered, flogged and hung out for public shaming and I will give your email address to every Justin Bieber fan site I can find.)
I hate to throw out so many caveats here, but you know how people can be sometimes. Not you, of course. Just that other guy you know.
So what do you think? Sound like fun? Have you done something like this before?
I’m looking forward to seeing how this goes and what we can learn from each other.
