Beth Ziesenis With Your Nerdy Best Friend

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:16] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Association Leadership Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Be sure to have a pencil and paper ready. You’re going to learn a lot. I am so happy to be talking to Beth Z and she is your nerdy best friend. Welcome, Beth.

Beth Ziesenis: [00:00:34] Thanks and hi to all my association friends.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:38] Well, before we get too far into things, tell us about your business, your nerdy best friend. How are you serving folks?

Beth Ziesenis: [00:00:45] I talk about tech tools. People have never heard of that do things they couldn’t imagine at prices they can’t believe are possible. And I speak at association events all the time, all over the country to share these tools, and I write books and I do consulting, that kind of stuff.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:06] So when you’re talking to an association, what are some of the specific tools that impact them that, you know, the kind of the most bang for their buck?

Beth Ziesenis: [00:01:14] Well, when I talk to association executives, gosh, I was an association executive a few years ago and I was an education director and oh, my gosh, y’all work so hard, association execs. It’s crazy. So a lot of the things I talk about have to do with personal productivity. You’re going to choose your association management software. You’re going to choose all those things with a bigger program, with a bigger situation. But what are you doing for yourself to keep yourself in line? So I talk about things like to do list, which is to do list with superpowers and it’s got a free version. It lets you create tasks straight from email, it lets you prioritize them, share them with other people, delegate and keep track of things. And then I talk about if that’s not enough, you go back to you go to project management tools like Trello and Asana.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:14] Now you recently released a book Nerd 365 A Year of App Opportunities to Upgrade Your Life. How did you kind of narrow down all the it seems like every minute there’s a new app coming. How did you possibly narrow it down to fit into a book?

Beth Ziesenis: [00:02:36] Well, it’s my job to do the homework for everybody. I So there are 400 and some odd apps and tech tools in this book. And for every one that I put in there, I probably vetted five. It takes me so long to go through them and I’m constantly looking for new ones and the ones I choose are the ones I trust, the ones that seem to be most helpful, the ones that are the most interesting, and sometimes the ones that are just the quirkiest and the funnest.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:06] So what’s an example of a quirky, fun one?

Beth Ziesenis: [00:03:10] So a quirky, fun one. I’m going to pick up the book here for those of you playing at home. Let’s see. There is a tool I’m just flipping through here for a fun one on November 15th. It’s national. Clean out your refrigerator day. And believe it or not, the USDA has a tool called Food Keeper that helps you determine food safety. And then I’m going to flip through here again. There’s the National Day of Listening on the day after Thanksgiving for you and your family to have those conversations. But I like the tool for listening called Perfect Recall, and it attends in a kind of a creepy way. Every single Zoom event, I have automatically to do a live transcript, note taking, and then it’ll do video highlights.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:01] So now how did you get into this line of work? What’s your back story?

Beth Ziesenis: [00:04:06] Oh my gosh. Well, AC is my back story. So back in 2007, I was sad and single. I had just been dumped and it was a Friday night and I was a member of the ACI listserv and I wrote to it was a listserv back then and I wrote to them and I said, Hey, you know, I’ve got all these little tech sites that I have. You know, the iPhone had just come out. And so it wasn’t apps as much as it was Web 2.0 little sites. I said, I’ve got tons of these. Does anybody else have any? And all these people started sharing theirs. At the time, they said it was one of the most interacted with threads that they had ever had. And I got like 60 of them and I put them all in the list and people started requesting the list and I started a blog around them. And then it was the California Society of Association Executives, Shelly Alcorn, who is, you know, a an amazing consultant in our field. But she worked there and she said, Beth, would you mind? Would you just come and talk about some of the tools at our conference? And it was in San Diego and I’m like, Sure, why not? Because I live there. So I went and just talked about a few of the tools that I like and I’ll never forget it. One of the association execs came up to me and he said, I’m here scouting speakers and you’re the only one I want and I want to get you before you become famous. So he said, We will fly you to Vegas and put you up in a hotel and let you come share these tools. And I’m like, What? This is a thing like people want me to talk about this, things that I would love to talk about no matter what. So I started speaking and sharing these tools because of associations.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:56] So once you started to kind of share and speak on this topic, then it just kind of organically grew from there.

Beth Ziesenis: [00:06:05] Yep, absolutely. I spoke in 2012. I spoke at the ACI annual convention and it was kind of my debut in the association world on the on the bigger stage and not the big, big stage. But I had a breakout session and the topic was so hot and the interest was so high that I ended up with five association engagements before I left the conference, and that was it. I was like, I think I can do this. And so it was all association people who started me here.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:39] And then from there. Then it’s just been a regular kind of combination between speaking and writing.

Beth Ziesenis: [00:06:47] Absolutely. Most of my business is in the speaking world, although consulting is coming up. So for example, I work with boards and I work with staff who need better tech solutions who are making a big tech change. And I will do consulting and guiding and helping and humor and consoling to get people through those changes. So nowadays I’m very much switching from just being on the stage and just sharing tips in a keynote to getting more in depth and helping association people more one on one and and group on one.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:29] So like if the organization maybe is contemplating using a certain app or software, you can come in to tell them kind of the good, the bad, the ugly, and maybe things that aren’t in the brochure.

Beth Ziesenis: [00:07:44] Well, what I again, I concentrate in the personal productivity and the internal productivity. I’m not the person you need to contact. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Review My AMS, but you know the proprietary software review my AMS is run by one of the most amazing entrepreneurs I know, Terry Carden, and she has put together a site where you can go and learn about AMS and there are other sites that have the proprietary, the bigger end, the more enterprise end, things that power in association. But I’m here to help you with just learning how to get your committees to talk to one another using technology or, you know, refire up your community. So it’s not as much the higher end enterprise consulting I do as just make this easier, for gosh sakes, for us to do our jobs.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:45] So there are some apps out there that an association can deploy to their team that they all would maybe communicate more efficiently.

Beth Ziesenis: [00:08:54] Oh, my gosh. So many different things happening in this category. So if you look at a tool called notion, another one called Mondaq.com, another one called click up. These are changing the ways groups are working together in like right now. When we go to write a document, we open up Microsoft Word or Google and we create a piece of paper, a virtual piece of paper, a digital piece of paper which we put into a digital folder and put into basically a digital file cabinet. This is the way it’s been done since the 1800s. 1700s write the piece of paper in the file cabinet and that kind of thing. Now we share them more easily, but we are going way past that now because those three companies that I mentioned are doing more things like a workspace. So instead of having pieces of paper in individual silos, a spreadsheet here or a PowerPoint there, you have a workspace where it’s all kind of out on the table, so to speak. Instead of having email by email, which are also little, they’re basically letters that go back and forth. You have a conversation and it becomes so popular that both Microsoft and Google are adding those features into their infrastructure.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:16] So now what is kind of the pain this association is having where you’re consulting or you’re speaking would be the solution? Like what are some symptoms of a problem they might be having? Maybe it’s regarding communication. Are there symptoms that communication is suffering?

Beth Ziesenis: [00:10:34] There are symptoms that communication is suffering. There have always been. You will not meet an association who says, Hey, it’s so easy working with the volunteers on my committee. Everybody knows everything and everybody is up to date. There’s there’s a program I teach and talk about called Discover Your Technology Psychology. And that’s all about the sub. I have several categories of technology psychologies that personas, that guide how we’re really making changes and how we’re really thinking about technology. And once you determine which category you fall into and the people on your team fall into, then you can see and address the challenges you’re having in making changes, getting adoption, making too many changes and making mistakes. You can better evaluate those pieces and parts if you know what you’re driving. Factor is what your subconscious approach to these things are.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:42] So now what’s it like when they hire you and you speak at an event? Is it something that everybody is like, oh, they’re just kind of taking notes like because it seems like there’s just so many apps and there’s so many things that could be useful, and then you get overwhelmed.

Beth Ziesenis: [00:12:00] You know, that little emoji, the exploding head emoji that you see everywhere, that’s pretty much what my sessions are like. They there are so many things that are mind blowing, you know, not just the fact that I give so many tips in a session, but there’s so many things that that are new and people have never heard of and they can’t believe they can use. And it’s not just a pie in the sky or something that a big company could use. So, yes, they’re taking notes like crazy. Yes, I give resources like crazy. That’s why also why I write books, because I can only give, you know, 20 different apps, 30 different apps in a keynote session. But the book, the books that I write are the sum total that I know and the sum total that I want to share. So that’s why I put it all into one package. It’s not just a book, it’s what I know. It’s Beth Z in your pocket so that you have references to different things you can try.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:06] All right, so let’s give our listeners some kind of suggestions. I know you spend some time finding good free education that’s out there.

Beth Ziesenis: [00:13:18] So free education, such as some of the tools that I like to use, are Google Primer. Google has all kinds of free education, if that’s what you’re talking about, like technology education.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:32] Yeah, there’s there are so many. I mean, everybody knows the importance of learning, but there are so many resources where you can learn without kind of paying if you know where to look.

Beth Ziesenis: [00:13:44] Google actually just opened up. It’s basically its small business education certification area to everyone for free. You as an association need to go and register your company and be approved. But I think they’re going to approve everybody and all the certifications, you know, everything from marketing, personal business skills, computer skills of different types, all the certifications that used to cost between 29 and $49 each or whatever are all free. Now, this just happened in the past month, two months. And so Google is a huge resource. And then you’ve got things like edX, X and Coursera, and they all have free versions that you can take and not for credit necessarily. With Google, you can get those certifications now for free, but with these other things, you can take these classes and get the education you need. Now we’re all struggling with time, so you’ve also got, gosh, I’m going to give you my plug. I do everything in bite size pieces, one tool at a time. I have a newsletter that goes out every week and I hope I finish it for tomorrow. It goes out every week with some of the latest stuff, but it’s only one tool or concept at a time. And so if you need just bite sized pieces, there are resources out there like that.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:13] Now, a lot of folks, you know, need LinkedIn and and should be sharing things on LinkedIn. Is there any resources for folks to maybe improve their LinkedIn profiles or just have a better presence on LinkedIn?

Beth Ziesenis: [00:15:31] I’m going to give you a person resource because this person, I’m kind of stalking him. It’s kind of creepy because I don’t actually know him. He’s a National Speakers Association member just like I am. But and he’s spoken to us several times lately. It is. His name is Richard Bliss. Go look him up on LinkedIn. He has done an analysis of the algorithms for LinkedIn that tell you exactly when to post, how to post, what to post, what not to post, how often to post all these questions that people have for both their association and themselves. And it seriously, I’ve never seen a resource that is that straightforward and that scientific as Richard Bliss, you can find him on LinkedIn, you can follow him. He doesn’t know me and I’m following him. And it is kind of creepy, but he’s got real reports of the analyzes he’s done and he gives tips all the time.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:33] Now, if somebody wants to learn more about what you’re up to, get a hold of your book or books. What is the website?

Beth Ziesenis: [00:16:41] Well, gosh, thanks for asking. It is your nerdy not dirty nerdy best friend dot com. And I have another resource that I’m very excited about. I don’t know. I know this podcast will come out this summer, which is great, and August 23rd, which is overlaps with the RSA conference I created, Find Your Inner Nerd Day and you can find that at Find Your Inner Nerd Dot Day because Google just opened up dot day as a URL. Very exciting, but find your Inner Nerd Day is something that I created to help people recognize something unusual about them, weird about them, fun about them, and share it with others.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:29] Well, Beth, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Beth Ziesenis: [00:17:35] Well, thank you. And it was great meeting you. And again, I know a lot of association folks. I hope you’re all out there and I’m waving at you virtually.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:44] Good stuff. Well, this is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on Association Leadership Radio.