1.A short introduction to TEAM WORK:
Ok, so today I would want to talk about the power of team work. Many people tend to neglect this great concept, not knowing that the greatest people of IM are all joined up with other great minds alike. Take for example Tissa Godavitarne, right now he's making this program work and expand with the close help and support of Gary Chappelle. GDI was founded by Michael Reed and Alan Ezeir, who closely worked together as a team, GVO founders as well, Joel Therien and Mike Potvin brought out one of the greatest and most anticipated  Web Hosting Systems of 2009. So my conclusion for this paragraph would be, build your team, work your team & love your team.

2.Understanding TEAM WORK:
Ok, so, Team Work can be done in two different ways:

• By working together on a common project

• By working separately on different,individual projects

The first one would be self-explanatory, the team putting out their entire efforts, focus and endeavors on a common project, striving together on it's realization. This method of team work would be suited best for people who presumably have come up together with a nice sum of money, have an original idea and the experience and market necessary of pushing it forward from the black-board to fruition. This project of course will fall under a fresh-new-business category.

Now, the second method would be best suited for affiliate marketers interested in promoting and earning commissions from other people's products and businesses. Just as the APS Business has it's own forum, where members offer support, help and aid for one-another, so should the individual teams who might form up along the way. They should stick closely together, pay close attention to each and everyone's evolution, problems, ideas, moral or state of mind, and even though working on different, separate businesses and earning from individual campaigns and projects, work as if their whole team was in on the same thing and earning from the same place.

From Here On I would want to talk strictly about the second method of Team Power, as the first, as I mentioned before, is self-explanatory and all of us can surely see it's necessity and benefits

*The advantage, would be in one word, "mobilization".

Just think of the power that the forum offers already, I am confident that if in addition to that, we, as marketers, are to build up small individual teams of up to 7 people, and are to leverage the true concept of teams and put it to use, we will definitely jump and take actions from a whole 'nother level.

3.The "concept of teams" and how to use it:

"Alright, but how to build our teams and how can we fully benefit from them?"

This, I think, would be a suitable question and the answer to which all of us who would want to embrace the power of teams, covet for.

First off, thanks to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and other beautiful programs like Skype, Y!Messenger and of course the incorporated web programs of google and other of the sort, team member communication couldn't been made easier. The first rule to team work which I would want to endorse  would be keeping in touch on a daily basis , I don't care if it's just a simple "how was my day" comment, or "where I'll be going tomorrow", all of this is relevant and key into building strong bonds with your team.

Bonds are an important matter as they offer trust, security, reliability and so on and so forth ...they are very important, and are mandatory into the concept of team building. It wouldn't be wrong if a team is to be build out of members who don't even have the slightest inkling of each-other, at first. This could even be seen as an advantage, for then the better their skills of bonding with one-another will become and therefor vantage their entire team.

Now, if the acquaintance of the group dose not matter, this doesn't mean it's going the same way for the skills of the members.  Actually a good group/team, would be formed out of an inciter, or, leader, a SEO specialist, a graphic engineer, an experienced advertiser, one computer intellectual, a writer and an information gatherer.

Starting from here on we can talk about two distinct formulas in your team's chemistry, one would be rigid and consisting in making the most of every members role the other would be more lax and tolerating a lighter view on the "forced push-up" each member should exert for and to the benefit of the team.

The harder but more powerful path, which I hereby entitle "the rigid formula" implies all members to stick to their designated post, be it of an information gatherer , an inciter , a computer intellectual and do their designated jobs as appointed by the tasks that the team members have set to realization.

*For example: today, the graphic engineer was to make some new videos, which will  be benefiting the writer in his new youtube campaigns, tomorrow the writer will be putting out some articles which will be benefiting the graphical engineer in his own article campaigns and so on and so forth, everybody doing their own part for the greater success of everybody.

a.List of team roles:
*The Inciter or Leader, could be considered the center of the hexagon, he's the man that has to keep the team together, he has to make sure that members don't get sloppy, he must fallow everybody, on their activities, requests, proposals etc. , has to keep to a schedule, appoint team meetings, organize and mobilize. Leaders also have to eye-out the idle ones, or the ones not keeping to their arrangements, consult with current members, come to an agreement, cast the loiterers out and fill their places with adequate new prospectors.

*The SEO Specialist, his post or role is simple, fallow-up member sites or other up-coming projects which might bee prompt-up by the inciter upon his or another member's behalf, and optimize their structure, aspect to the proper norms, prerequisite by all major search engines for offering organic traffic and search results.

*The Graphic Engineer, keeps to his engagements of providing top-notch banners, headers, peel-ways, splash pages, videos, animations etc. . He is to see to the beautiful aspect of each and everyone's page, of course either willingly or at the request of the team.

*The Advertiser, works on promotions, PPC campaigns, PPV, traffic-generator schematics, email campaign plans and orientations for himself as well as the entire team, guiding it and it's marketers on the road of getting recognized, leads, possible subscribers, or anything else of the sorts. Targeting the right market with the right products, and advertising blueprints, is a must-know-it-how for all of those who are aspiring on filling-out this post. All advertising request will be handed out to them by the inciter, whom presumably was made himself aware of their requirement by the team members.

*The Writer, provides team members with articles, possible text or phrases for various adds, web scripts or contents. At the request of members and handed-out to them by the leaders(or inciters), writers must bear a quaint manner of literal skills and humble their task in a professional way, putting out original and relevant material to the use of those requesting such constituents.

*The Computer Intellectual, HTML, java, wordpress, programming...all of these are key in an intellectual's arsenal of knowledge. These computer geniuses must uphold any such tasks and solve any technical problems which might arouse in one's team. Their job may not be the hardest, but their requirement, indispensable .  Just figure working at the workplace, an having the ceiling falling down on you, we wouldn't want that, and that's why we hire masons; this is simply the same case with the computer intellectuals, we need them, so we can carry-on our work with no fear of having our business falling down apart, due to who knows what technical problems.

*The Information Gatherer, the hardest post a team member could be assigned to, info gatherers must seek out insights regarding all of the other members interests: writing programs, text-building-helpful add-ons, free or paid ebooks for programmers advertisers or even SEO specialists, sites with free or paid themes, new advertising methods and ideas(and the list can go on, it has no end). They could be assigned, after the team has consented, to go out there and collect "information material about that and that", so this is not an easy job, but somebody has to do it!

b.Team roles interdependent:
It would had been easier if I could just draw a sketch, but as I can't I will just have to do it the old fashioned way, typing:

As you had probably already noticed, the key man in any team is the Inciter, closely fallowed by the Information Gatherer and the Advertiser ; then we have the rest of the team Writer, SEO Specialist, Graphical Engineer, Computer Intellectual who also play a big part, but have fewer roles in the big picture.

The I/L(Inciter/Leader) collects information's, requests from the Team(Other Six Members) then processes it in regard with his own expectations and needs, after which, he concludes the final demands resulted from the prior process and sends them forward->IG(Information Gatherer) receives the list of final demands and goes to research each and every one of them on the internet, concludes the research information, and sends it out to the needing<Team> ->[I/L, W(Writer), A(Advertiser), SES(SEO Specialist), CI(Computer Intellectual), GE(Graphic Engineer)] Depending on the type of requests that had been send out, we will have the continue to the fallowing schematics:

For a "Good Article" Request: "->A will review the research information(this might include powerful keywords for the respective article, other articles alike, how many and on which websites...etc.), consent on the needed info, draw the conclusions based on his advertising skills, then forward the proper highlights necessary to be included in the text->W, keeping account of the required highlights that need be included in the text, construct it, and send it to the next step->SES, analyze the document so it has the proper SEO stamp, process it if needed and where needed, forward it further->A, consult it's final form, and based on it's aspect, designate suitable places for it to pop-up, send it back to base->I/L, stock it with other works, and at the appointed time deliver it to the Member"

For a "Good Video" Request:"->GE will receive the research information, this time also having to put up a few sessions of feedback between himself and the IG , consent on a final result appropriate fallowing the series of sessions and construct the suitable video, which then will be forwarded->A, will view it's content, designate suitable places for it to pop-up, and send it back to base->I/L, stock it with other works, and at the appointed time deliver it to the Member"

For a "Good Website/Blog" Request:"->A & CI will simultaneously receive the research information, then will come up with some appropriate places for it's hosting and exposure, feedback sessions, final result, forward it->W & GE, receive the forwarded information, come together with suitable and appropriate content for the site regarding the highlights that would of course had been made known to them by the A & CI, on the previous step, then forward the result->CI, based on the material provided, filter it for the site and forward it yet again->SES, view the results and optimize them to the appropriate SEO standards, than review and redo it till it's ready for it's final form, forward it->A, consult it one last time, making sure that it has all the proper futures, also appoint some suitable advertising methods based on the sites content, and of course if needed send it back for reconstruction on certain parts , then after all is finally done, nice and tidy, send it back to base->I/L, stock it with other works, and at the appointed time deliver it to the Member"

These were just some examples of what you may do with your Teams and could be used as a starter, as an initial orientation point for those who may want to implement the team concept, but the possibilities are simply endless.

*This "rigid formula", could be a very powerful tool for those teams working on a common project and starting a fresh-new-business.

*The "lax formula", as I mentioned above, isn't so strict on team interdependency, even though the 7 man teams composed of the 7 roles are still required, they don't have to sit strictly to their posts...but actually, are more part of the team to help when needed only, and participate in this great community of a 7 man core, communicate, keep in-touch and the possibilities explore.

4.Team tools, all in the same garden:
Alright, right know you probably got it through your head and already know if you want to use the team concept or not. You could do better with it or you might feel like doing best without, it's your choice. If you plan on using this principle than further down I will present you with some good tools with which you can start mobilizing your team.

Common Tools for the Entire Team

                 -skype, a beautiful program that you can download to your PC, and join with your team in video or audio conferences.
                 -Y!messenger, another beautiful program that lets you keep in-touch with your team through video, audio or text; this too is downloadable to your PC.
                 -twitter, a nice site where you can register and use text messaging to keep in touch with the group.
                 -facebook, is just like twitter, except that you can also put-out a fanpage for yourself and your team.
                 -sesmic desktop, is a downloadable application for your computer, that lets you connect to twitter and facebook, both in the same time.
                 -google docs, makes it possible for you and your team to create and share online documents, presentations or even spreadsheets.
                 -google groups, a beautiful web service, free of charge, provided by google, that lets you and your team to carry on discussions, build mailing lists all from your google account.

Good Tools for theInciter/Leader

                 -ustrem, is a free live-broadcasting site.

Good Tools for the Information Gatherer

                 -google alerts, a nice tool provided by google, that lets you receive scheduled subjects and topics of your choice.
                 -google reader, with this tool, you can subscribe to RSS feeds and get updated emails on new or edited posts from websites or blogs.
                 -fastest fox, this is a pretty unique addon for your firefox, that improves your web-searching significantly.
                 -cool previews, allows you to preview links or images without having you leaving the current page.
                 -copyscape, is a free web-tool that lets you find sites that have copied your content without permission, a pretty powerful tool against plagiarism.

Good Tools for the Advertiser

                 -google analytics, provides you with colossus amount of information regarding your website, giving you an insight on traffic information and where it comes from, in huge detail.
                 -traffic estimator sandbox, lets you in on what traffic results you might get through PPC Campaigns.
                 -alexa, provides you with great intel, reviews, and detail on the audience and their keyword searches that have led them to the respective sites.

Good Tools for the Writer

                 -rough draft, is simply put a must-tool for any writer.
                 -instant writing resources toolbar, it provides instant access to free and massive writing resources and writing links, it's unique futures make it easy to use and operate, simply put, this tool is a beauty for any writer

Good Tools for the Computer Intellectual

                 -XML editor, is a highly useful tool for java programming, style sheets and CSS.
                 -PS Pad, is a programmer tool that's really special, especially through it's HTML editing tools,support for project, file browsing, custom shortcuts, built-in FTP client to edit files on the server and much more.
                 -TopStyle, has a simple structure, it is easy to use, but most importantly it will serve well for all of those interested in HTML and CSS editing.
                 -firebug, is an in built-in extension to the firefox browser, and ambles debugging, editing, and monitoring of any website's CSS, HTML, DOM, and JavaScript, while also providing a nice variety of web development tools. 
                 -web developer, if firebug provided a "nice variety of tools", this addon offers ten times more, it saves countless hours of developing and troubleshooting time, it's one of those that you simply must have!

Good Tools for the Graphic Engineer

                 -Photoshop, is commonly used for correcting color, retouching and composing scanned images, preparing professional-quality separations and electronic output, graphic design etc.
                 -canoma, is an advanced graphic designer program, that lets you creat and preview models, add textures to them and export them in 3D&2D files. 
                 -lightshot, a mozilla addon that allows you to take screanshots of any area of a page, even edit it and save it on the server.

Good Tools for the Computer Intellectual

                 -search-status, displays google page-ranking, alexa ranking,fast keyword density analyser, backward/related links, and more.
                 -SEOProfesional Toolbar, yet another tool for mozilla-firefox, gets you all the coveted SEO-related stuff in one place.
                 -rank checker, tracks down domain results on different search engines simultaneously, of course in the fallowing of various keyword insertments.

5.Closing chapter, one last word:
Well, through this post I hoped to draw attention, on this really powerful concept, or "powerful" at least from my point of view. What do you think guys?

Team concept pro and against.

...start the debates.

W.Matthew

Last edited by wmath3w (2010-02-09 01:25:07)