“Life is the sum of all your choices,” wrote Albert Camus. Unfortunately, just as we misjudge howhappy we will be in the future, we misjudge how our fear of immediate loss hampers our future options. In this game recognize how that happens and make smarter choices:

Participants get $20 to place $1 bets on 20 tosses of a coin. Each losing bet costs $1.  Each winning bet earns $2.50. Given the payout and the 50/50 chance of winning the smart behavior is to bet every time.

Yet most participants passed up several chances to place a bet. Why? Because fear mounts with each coin toss, making people less and less likely to take the gamble and potentially lose what they already have.

Hint: Those who can blunt their fear of loss, to rationally think of their options, win more. That’s easier to do when not multitasking or feeling distracted or rushed.

Three other ways we sabotage decisionmaking and how we can do better

1. How Valuable Does it Appear to Me?

When people bought an energy drink at a discount, they actually performed worse on a puzzle-solving task than those who had paid full price for it. Why? Our unconscious belief equates low price with low quality.

Also when blind tasting wines, people most enjoy the ones they are told cost more.

“That suggests, for example, that drugs bought at a discount, such as drugs from Canada or generic versions of brand-name medications, might be less effective even when they’re otherwise identical,” observes Shiv.

Hint: Charging a premium price for your product or service – and branding it as “deluxe,” “full-service” or other upscale characterization may increase buyer’s:

• Happiness with what they bought.

• Motivation to share their choice with others.

Also, context and habit trigger perceived value. Those moviegoers who usually eat popcorn while watching, for example, areless likely to notice its quality. Since much of our everyday activities are habitual, we can see why it is difficult to change, especially when we are distracted or rushed. Relatedly sampling in context influences behavior, including buying as I discovered in my Bon Bon Bombshell experiment.

Hint: Slow down to act smarter

1. Leave Room in Your Brain to Make the Smart Choice

Recognizing that emotional impulse can tempt us to pick that juicy-looking bacon hamburger over the salad, here’s Baba Shiva’s way to make the better choice. Participants, in his study, who are asked to memorize a seven-digit number were much more likely to choose chocolate cake over fruit salad than those who’d been asked to memorize only a one-digit number.

Hint: Those who had more brainpower left (less to remember) were better able to think about making the healthy choice.

3. Recover From Rejection

Did you get dumped? (We all have at some time). Compounding the pain, not only do we want something more when it appears to be scarce, we are more motivated to pursue the person or object we’ve lost.

Recognizing this tendency may enable you to blunt the effect of it.  Plus we can be tempted to increase someone’s appreciation for us by not being readily available.

Here are more resources that have helped me be a smarter decider …. sometimes:

• How Groups Can Make Better Choices

• How to Nudge Others to Act “Right

• How We Sometimes Fool Ourselves When Making Decisions then read about what Zachary Shore describes as seven cognitive traps in Blunder.  They include static cling (an inability to accept change), causefusion (confusing the causes of complex events) and flatview (black and white thinking).

• Shiva’s friend, Dan Areily describes other ways to make smarter choices in Predictably Irrational.

• For extreme examples of warped reactions read Shankar Vedantam’s story on how the heat of passion deeply alters behavior no matter how smart, rational or well-trained we are.

See links for this post at http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2010/03/03/four-ways-we-can-make-smarter-choices/

Get fresh ideas on how we can accomplish greater things together than we can alone - and savor life more by following Kare on Twitter: @KareAnderson

The snow will melt sometime. Want to to kick off your Spring in a way that spurs growth, enables you to  savor time with others and create fresh meaning in your life? Try this ….

Create a Mutually-Reinforcing Group Ritual

For over a decade in Lake Oswego, Oregon, eight women, including my college friend Jane, get of bed to meet at the same corner at 6 am for their rigorous one hour walk. Husbands, children, bosses all know that it is going to happen and to not get in the way.  Sometimes they don’t even talk.

Over the years they’ve walk/talked about an embezzling business partner, son’s first girlfriend, unexpected job promotion and a sick, aging pet Labrador that must be put to sleep that day. Increasingly, over the years they’ve come to see this daily ritual as a stabilizing continuity in their lives. It took several years yet the rhythm of walking, looking around as they talk and the reliability of knowing they will meet each morning has enabled them to ease into increasing candor and caring for each other, and so can you with others.

When they ask for advice they know it will come from women who know them well and who will speak frankly. Contrary to the saying, “familiarity breeds contempt,” instead over time, in a safe group ritual, familiarity breeds acceptance and even reliance on each other.

Let us forget things and consider only relations. ~ Georges Braque

Getting in Action Together Eventually Brings Us Closer

My former husband is in two poker groups that have been meeting in each other’s homes for over 25 years. The players are mostly lawyers.  From upstairs I’d overhear snippets of conversation. In the early years, between poker hands, they’d mostly talk about their legal cases. Later one man got cancer, then another, one divorced, another became a judge. Over time there’s more conversation between hands. Some now fish together. Others share vacations and settled arguments between each other. They’ve been at each other’s birthday parties and attended funerals of three of their fellow players.

Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.  ~ Lily Tomlin

It’s Never Too Late to Start Your Small Tribe

Group members can nudge each other in supportive ways. Some of the benefits I’ve enjoyed over the years in the two small groups to which I belong include:

• Seeing how wrong I was about first impressions, after getting to know someone better, especially what really matter to them and why they got upset or happy.

•  Discovering, first-hand how the same experience in the group can be seen and felt so differently by each person and recognizing that this happens all the time.

•  Realizing that I learn more about myself from what I react against than from what I am attracted to.

• Recognizing that everyone has hot buttons that hold them back, no matter how confident and calm they appear; and it’s possible to create mutual support in mitigating their power over us.

• Learning how often we discount how much we can accomplish with our best talents; and concrete insights from those who know us well can be a guide to better using them.

• Gaining the rare opportunity to get candid, caring, confidential advice at crucial points in my life.

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” ~ Oprah Winfrey

What Helps a Group Feel Closer?

1. Share One Thing in Common

That shared interest provides a safe place to start getting to know each other better. Jane’s walking group lived nearby, are all women and mothers. The poker groups were lawyers and, with one grand exception, all men. For the richest adventure and learning, then seek diverse individuals with backgrounds different than yours.

2. Make it a Priority to Meet Regularly

Group glue begins as we prove to each other that getting together is important and nothing proves that more than turning up.

3. Do Some Things the Same Way Every Time You Meet

Familiarity fosters trust. Jane’s walking group always walks the same route. The poker group host always provides the snacks and drinks.

4. Get in Motion Together

From the beat of our hearts to our gestures and rate of speaking, we literally get more in sync with each other when we are in motion together. That’s why people often agree on things more easily while walking down the hall to the meeting than while sitting in it.  Consequently walking is more powerfully connecting than eating or playing a card game together yet any kind of shared motion builds closeness.

5. Affirm Your Appreciation of the Group

Set aside a time for each person to share what’s been most helpful about the group. Consider sharing this appreciation as an ongoing, private group diary in a google doc or an ongoing email to which each person adds something at regular intervals. Research show that the more actions taken on behalf of a belief the more deeply a person feels about it, speaks about it and will defend it.

“Those who regularly come into contact with people having diverse interests and viewpoints are more likely to come up withinnovative ideas.” ~ Steven Johnson

Launch Your Year Off on an Up Note by Starting a Small Group

1. It is often easier on others in a group if best friends are not part of it. Instead consider including people who, while they share the group’s common interest, are only slightly acquainted. That way the group can begin as Consequential Strangers.

2. Seven members is the best small group size for individuals to get close, according to some research.

3. As you explore the idea of starting a group, consider inviting individuals to get together for some activity such as a meal, walk or attending an event.

4. If they seem to enjoy each other you might then ask them later, one at a time, if they’d like to get together again as a group. If they would (and this is the brave part) ask if they’d like to meet regularly for awhile and collectively get to know each other better.

5. If they do, in fact, share your interest then ask them to discuss how often and what regular time works best and how long they’d like to experiment with the get-togethers.

6. Be clear that, although you started the group, you do not seek to lead it. Instead you hope everyone can participate in co-creating the group. That might include agreeing on:

•  The common interest that gets you started.

•  Some simple ground rules such as confidentiality regarding what’s discussed in the group.

•  A mutual support goal and/or specific ways each member would like to be supported. If you do it will probably change within six months as the group evolves.

•  How you might include motion in the way you meet, such as walking and/or eating around a table together.

“Let’s just keep asking ourselves this question: ‘Is what I’m about to do strengthening the web of connections, or is it weakening it?’” ~ Margaret Wheatley

Hint: Your group does not have to have to be productive. It may simply be. It can take its own course, evolving with the samemembers, meeting in much the same way at regular times. In so doing, you may become close-knit and a vital and meaningful part of each other’s lives. That will be something to celebrate this time next year.

Also consider creating mutual support with these variations:

1. Mutual Mentoring

Partner with another person or form a small group where each person has something to teach the other(s). Agree on the way to mentor each other. For example, in a two-person mutual mentoring arrangement I have, we spend one session focused on my learning and the next session on his learning.

In my mutual mentoring group, we round robin the five-person discussion in a two-part format in each meeting: First each person briefly gives one tip related to their expertise, then one member gives a ten minute briefing on their expertise as it relates to the group’s interest in it, followed by an hour of Q and A.

2. Accountability Buddies

For your top goal for 2011, pick one person who shares that desire – or a different yet specific goal and get specific about:

•  The small steps along the way to accomplish each person’s goal.

•  How you will stay accountable to each other for taking those steps, such as daily by phone.

• What temptations or obligations might get in the way and what you will do to overcome them.

• How you will celebrate together when you each accomplish your goal.

3.  Mutually-Managed Project Team

This follows the same approach as the small group except that it is formed to accomplish one specific task that reflects a sweet spot of strong shared interest by all members. Consequently, each member brings a specific talent to the group that is needed to accomplish the task, all members agree on who is to take the lead on what parts of the project and on a few rules of engagement regarding how they will work together.

Such mutually-managed project teams will grow in popularity for work and for personal and social interests so you may become sought-after as you gain experience in participating in them.

“Because I helped to wind the clock, I come to hear it strike.” ~William Butler Yeats

Here’s to a nourishing new year in spite of and because of the increasing complexity, uncertainty and connectedness of our world.  I look forward to continuing to learn with and from so many of you as I have this past years. Also consider joining in on our Twitter conversation: @KareAnderson See links to this post here http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2011/01/01/one-way-to-nudge-ourselves-into-a-nourishing-new-year-together/

“Here’s your latte. Want to sit there to decide which of those people to put on the team? Here let me move my computer bag over so you have room.”

Imagine you were the person who took the latte in that scene. Subconsciously you’re being primed. You’re getting sensory cues that influenced how you felt about that person and how you acted. Powerful people can be primed, for example, to feel more entitled to get whatever they want. While some assertions of so-called subliminal influence are bogus, others are not.

You can be swayed (or can nudge others), using priming cues as these three surprising experiments demonstrate:

1.   Walking down the hall to participate in an experiment some students encountered a lab assistant who was holding textbooks, a clipboard, papers  – and either a cup of hot or iced coffee. The assistant asked teach student for a hand – to hold the cup for a moment.  Those who held the cold coffee later rated a hypothetical person they read about as being less social or friendly and more selfish than did their fellow students, who held a hot cup. See links to post here http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2010/03/30/want-to-know-why-you-did-that/

2.   You are more likely to tidy up an area, if you get a slight whiff of a cleaning liquid when you are in it – or not if you don’t.

3. Study participants took part in a one-on-one investment game with another, unseen player. Half of them played while sitting at a large table, at the other end of which was a briefcase.

These students were far stingier with their money than the others, who played in an identical room, but with a backpack on the table instead.

The mere presence of the briefcase seems to have made them more competitive. The students had no sense of whether they had acted selfishly or generously.

Takeaways

Be aware of your emotional response to even subtle sensory cues in a situation (from hard vs. cushy chairs to a dark vs. sunny space)  – especially when meeting someone new or making a decision.

When you want to reach agreement or get closer to someone, chose the setting, your actions and the “props” that support that goal.

Life is getting better faster. Food is more widely available; we live longer; more people have money and violence, disease and child mortality are down all around the world. Yet there will be turmoil.

“The bottom-up world is to be the great theme of this century,” predicts Matt Ridley in hiscontroversial new book Rational Optimist.

“Doctors are having to get used to well-informed patients who have researched their own illnesses. Journalists are adjusting to readers and viewers who select and assemble their news on demand. Engineers are sharing problems to find solutions…. Politicians are increasingly corks tossed on the waves of public opinion. Dictators are learning that their citizens can organize riots by text message. `Here comes everybody‘ says author Clay Shirky.”

In this bottom-up world individual specialization and free exchange of goods are vital to improving more lives according to Ridley. Human intelligence is becoming collective, not individual – thanks to these two inventions. We can generate more value and options with for each other.

As proof, he recaps the course of economic progress in this way. When humans invented specialization and trade, I could make something and you could make a different object, crafts we each excel at. Each of us trades our best products rather than making them all ourselves.

Then I can focus on making mine better and faster. As others do likewise we trade and sell better products and have more choices, thus spurring further innovation – both in making and trading goods.

Thus consumption could grow more diversified (making life better), while production grew more specialized. William Easterly counters Ridley’s premise: “Specialists often have the most to lose from new technologies that displace the old ones they know so well, and may want to block innovation.” Yet it seems that the power of the marketplace in a networked world to hear about that innovation would eventually push aside such stonewalling specialists’ attempt to block access to the new, new thing.

Our opportunities multiply as human intelligence becomes “collective” and we generate more value with for each other.

Near the end of the book Ridley pulls together many threads of his argument for an optimistic future with these bold forecasts:• “Large corporations, political parties and government bureaucracies will crumble and fragment as central planning agencies did before them.”

• “Monolithic behemoths, whether private or nationalized, are vulnerable as never before to this Lilliputian assault. They are steadily being driven extinct not just by small firms, but ephemeral aggregations of people that form and reform continuously. The big firms that survive will do so by turning themselves into bottom-up evolvers.”

• “People will more and more freely find ways to exchange their specialized production for diversified consumption.”

• “‘The online masses have an incredible willingness to share’ says Kevin Kelly. Instead of money, `peer producers who create the stuff gain credit, status, reputation, enjoyment, satisfaction and experience.’”

• Among the pitfalls we face, predators and parasites can piggyback on the work of others as freeloaders and worse. They can spark terror or spread a false belief: “The integrated nature of the world means that it may soon be possible to capture the entire world on behalf of a foolish idea, where before you could only capture a country, or perhaps if you were lucky an empire.

• “It will be hard to snuff out the flame of innovation because it is such an evolutionary, bottom-up phenomenon in such a networked world. However reactionary and cautious Europe and the Islamic world and perhaps even America become, China will surely now keep the torch of catallaxy alight, and India, and maybe Brazil, not to mention a host of smaller free cities and states….”

I’m surprised that Ridley ignored the role that language played in the evolution of human progress especially as it is vital to specialization and trade.

Another area that Ridley does not explore and that Financial Times columnist Samuel Brittan raises is that the rise of the collective brain that Ridely cites may, in fact, be collective brains – people who band together around their common interests.

While the upside is the sense of belonging that engenders, the downside is, as Ridley has suggested is “generally speaking the more cooperative a species is within groups, the more hostility there is between groups.”  If this future scenario does happen then we may have more and more kinds of tribes and more kinds of intense disagreements amongst them – and worse.

Also, while I, like Ridley, think “open” markets aid innovation I have this caveat. To be truly open there must be a level playing field for competition and a true accounting for all costs to the public in the price of that product – that means no hidden subsidies, protections or costs of clean-up, etc. by government. That base line role of government regulation will always be hotly contested and arduous to craft and to enforce yet it is a vital role of a government of the people – for the people.

Three ways you can thrive in a bottom-up world are to be quotable, forge profitable partnerships and turn strangers into allies. See links here http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2010/06/28/two-keys-to-our-burgeoning-bottom-up-world/

Even though we know we are more likely to savor life and attract more opportunities to collaborate when we click with others, we often get in our own way – especially when we are distracted or worse.  Here are five concrete ways to connect with others.

1. Face the world as you want to be treated

We’ve all been startled by observing a passerby’s dour expression instantly transformed into a warm smile when someone they knew came into view. The fixed-face habit is increasingly common yet it limits one’s opportunities to make friends or just be treated well.

I envy those who naturally display an open face, yet, with practice, we all can. We don’t have to turn into grinning fools. Research shows, however, that even slightly elevated eyebrows cause the eyes to widen and – presto – one looks more open and less judgmental.

Strangers unconsciously project onto such people the qualities they most admire in others, believe those people care – and act more generously towards them.

Unknowingly, as a journalist I came to have an intense facial expression, especially interviewing people I found fascinating (that’s my excuse anyway) until I interviewed an expert on Paul Ekman’sresearch on reading faces. He gently suggested that it would only take a couple of months of practice to “transform” my face into one with the open expression he was exhibiting in our interview.

It took me much longer – yet his advice comes to mind every time I see a dour or hardened face. That person probably does not understand the missed opportunities for friendship and more – just from this one simple habit.

2. Tour your body for vital signs

When you are literally uptight–rigid in any part of your body - others instinctively resist or even react against you. This phenomenon is akin to bouncing a hard rubber ball on a concrete surface as compared to a soft carpet.

The ball bounces higher and faster against the hard surface than the soft one, of course, just as others react more against a body that is even inadvertently held tight against the world.

Whenever you are entering an unfamiliar or potentially volatile situation, loosen up physically. It will help you feel more at ease. Walk, stretch, and release tension from the places where you hold it in your body.

Probably –like many conscientious, hard-working people– you hold your shoulders higher and slightly more forward than is natural, with one of the tendons in your neck tightened up even more than the other. If someone can give you a quick three-minute shoulder and neck massage, you will relax – and look at ease.  Others will respond more warmly to you.

Here’s another quick way to feel and look comfortable. Take your “pointing” fingers and the ones adjacent to them and rub both sides of your face in small circles, beginning at the cheek bone, near the sides of your nose, continuing along that bone towards your ears, down to the jaw line and on toward the center of your chin.

3. We feel closer to happy people, especially when we are happy

Enjoy the bond-building boomerang effect that happens with contagious happiness (when you’re happy, you cause your friends to feel happier, and that makes their friends happier).  As the circles of friends around you feel happier their upbeat behavior will swing around back through those friends towards and around you, reinforcing your capacity to stay contented.

Plus those positive feelings that boomerang back to you in waves from others serve as an emotional cushion in your rocky times. I’m suggesting this as reinforcement for you to smile your way into a better way of feeling. When we feel down we close down and withdraw. This boomerang affect enables you and those you are around to open up to each other.

4. Worried? Don’t keep thinking about it. Act towards what makes you happier.

Women tend to worry more than men so it is especially important for us, when we start to feel anxious or depressed to mentally change the channel of thought to something – any small thing – that lightens our mood.

Consider this.  In any situation you only have three choices: 1. Change how you act, 2. Accept the situation, or 3. Leave.  The sooner you make a decision the less likely you deepen the rut in your memory of fixating on worrying rather than acting to change.

5. Meet new people to see fresh sides in yourself

Want to pull new people into your life?  Like to show an evolving new facet of yourself?  Get out of your orbit. Attend a lecture, sit at a lively café, join a civic, special interest or non-profit committee.   In short, put yourself in a place where you don’t know anyone well.

That’s when, “we are more free to experiment with ourselves, and less likely to have our new behaviors and roles reflected back to us by people who object, ‘But that’s not like you!,’”  says Melinda Blau, co-author of Consequential Strangers: The Power of People Who Don’t Seem to Matter. . . But Really Do. She adds, “Strangers help us stretch beyond the relatively rigid boxes that the people who have known us the longest – our family and close friends – often put us into.”

This may be the surest way to turn the page for the next chapter of your life to be the kind of adventure story you now want. Even within one hour you can learn specific ways to stand out in your work or life.

See links here http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2010/06/21/five-ways-to-bring-others-closer/

In a world that increasingly favors thinkers (vs. laborers) huge changes are happening, including these four, observes Arnold King:

1. The nature of marriage has changed: “Men & women look for complementarity in consumption rather than in production.”

2.  “Achievement-oriented men looking for interesting mates rather than for good maids.”

3.  There’s “greater inequality across households” - and that affects children’s well-being and opportunities.

4.  The chasm is widening: Increasingly the world economy favors thinkers over laborers.

Like to literally see a story unfold? Want to make your complex product or idea simple to understand? Yearn to make your next meeting more memorable – and enable more people to experience it? Here are three vivid approaches offered by the masters of their visual genres.

1. Animating Your Story to Make it Come Alive

To see an animated version of a TV show, launched out of a radio program, This American Life, (still with me?) see Chris Ware’s coverage of the segment “Every Marriage is a Courtroom” and another segment here. What if you videoed a happy client using your product or service, then hired a cartoonist to created a Ware-styleversion to reinforce your message?Also consider a manga-style comic book version such as Dan Pink did with Johnny Bunko, along with a video trailer, of course. Lesson? Multiply the fun and/or helpful ways they see your message.

2. Drawing the Speaker’s Message to Compound Its Impact

Watch a graphically illustrated version (BigViz Book) of the last TED conference’s 50 or so speakers, brought to you by group cartographer, David Sibbet and Kevin Richards.

3. Illustrate the Steps So We Recognize How and Why to Take Them

How about getting some pictorial help on “how to” do something new? View the “plain English”, explanatory videos at Sasha and Lee LeFever’s Commoncraft.

Follow-up Ideas: Consider hiring one of these talents or others to:

• Illustrate the messages presented by your speakers at your conference or meeting. Give the results to attendees as an ebooklet or vlog  – a free meeting momento. Then offer it online to anyone else for a modest fee (new profit center?) – or for free to attract members and media coverage. Find a sponsor to underwrite the costs.

• Create the visual story of a new product, service, program or innovation. Feature employees or customers in the creation and distributionof this story. Feature it on your blog and web site. Tell your key media about it.

• At a brainstorming or other meeting, keep everyone focused on the goal, not whip- sawed by the verbally dominant. Share a Sibbet-style visual group record of the meeting with team members and other stakeholders.

Like participating in a lively Pecha Kucha, these other visual methods can make collaborating and learning together more productive and fun.

It takes a tenth of a second to form an impression. So imagine how difficult it is to hold their interest for five minutes.  That’s a short time for you and a looooooong time to them. For practice in being memorably brief, find or start an Ignite group.  They are popping up all over, including in my hometown of Portland where an early social media mentor of mine spoke – Adam DuVander. Baltimore, Phoenix, Philly and Seattle are hosting them too. As in Pecha Kucha gatherings you are limited to 20 slides, advancing automatically every 15 seconds.

But that’s in a meeting room where you can rely on Powerpoint.  The next stage in communicate-to-connect prowess is to start an Ignite group where slides and PowerPoint aren’t allowed. In fact, ban technology beyond a microphone, if needed.

Yes, images help, but use them to warm people up to your idea before you are with them – or to reinforce it afterwards.  Use precious face time to connect. Anyway, in most everyday situations where you want to ignite a fire under your idea, you won’t have technology on hand, except, perhaps your cell phone. Besides, the most authentic messages happen when we see you saying them  – and come to believe in both.

At your association’s annual conference imagine having two sessions each day where ten  (pre-conference sign-ups ) attendees present their message, one after the other, Ignite-style.

Add a Wisdom of the Crowds feature:  Video the sessions and post them on your association’s site or blog.  Then all members could sign in for the first month after the conference and view and vote for their top five favorites. That might provide meaty insights into what most matters to members.  Plus it’s a palpable way to motivate and honor members for their best and succinctly-presented advice.

Update: Yet if you must use PowerPoint then get Nancy Duarte’s groundbreaking book Slide:ology and turn the pages in awe at the beauty and practicality of her approach. Like presentation zen guru, Garr Reynolds I am so delighted by her approach – and her generosity in including free videos of some of the presentations in the book.

Your hobby or work expertise or belief may be unusual, yet it’s likely that people near youshare your interest. Or they may just want to have fun. How can you find those kindred spirits? By hosting an ever-better MeetUp.

Also consider start a MeetUp to create a profit center for yourself. Or to hone a skill or support a cause.

What’s a MeetUp? Let masterful Lee LeFever quickly show you.Imagine making money by making others happier. See a large one to get ideas.

• Perhaps, like Liz Ryan, you’ve built a successful online business out of serving clusters of local constituencies. UsingMeetUp you can offer your people a new service. Face-to-face gatherings. Through your MeetUp, individuals can chat with people they’ve met online.

• They can meet regularly in some format that they collectively choose, with your leadership. Suggest formats such amastermind or other kind of mutual support group, cross-consulting or speaker series.

• Forge an alliance of your local MeetUp chapters.  Get ideas from how other alliances work. Recruit and reward local organizers who host “our” gatherings.

• Let each “chapter” decide whether they want their MeetUps to be free or for-fee or a mix of both. Should your local leaders be paid or share in the revenue raised through a speaker series or set of seminars?

• Get input from your host leaders by arranging regular conference calls with them via a free service such as Skype or FreeConferenceCall. In true Me2We fashion you can facilitate their sharing of ideas for MeetUp formats and topics. Explore how these phone seminars and in-person meetings can complement the online offering that you, like Liz Ryan, offer your clients.

• Take a look at an online, for-profit model (in which I participate) that also supports face-to-face gatherings that are organized and hosted by members – biznik.

• Or start or join a MeetUp of your peers. I belong to the Bay Area Reporters and Journalists organized by Susan Kuchinskas.

Why explore these ideas?

Because, if your expertise or experience matches the interest of a distinct niche market, then the approach outlined in this post enables you to enlarge your circle of friends and/or make money in supporting others’ strong needs or interests.