Have you had the pleasure of participating in a “fire drill” project? You know the kind, the ones that are rushed into being with such a flourish as to miss many (heck, most) of the components that make a successful project. I only mention this because I’m in the middle of such a project (again), and continue to marvel at how often it happens to any size company.
That is not to say that fire drill projects are always a mess, or always a failure, or don’t meet there objectives within budget or timeframe. Often, their outcomes are successful, mostly due to the determination and diligence of the core project team – almost always because they take ownership of their tasks, and even the project itself.
It’s this concept of ownership that interests me quite often. People who could otherwise be mere desk driving time punchers, believe in the project, product, process, or other outcome that the project is driving towards. It’s these people who make or break a project or a company. It’s not that they are indispensable – everyone is – but, they bring such a combination of work ethic and pride to what they do. They bring leadership and peer or team encouragement that is worth much more than their salary alone.
These are the people that make startups work, that can drive a simple idea to success through tireless ours of focused work and attention. It’s also these people I wish had more time to work on their own ideas and agendas, but that’s another post. Folks like these are the ones you want to have on your project, especially when one of the three key factors of your project has been removed from your control (namely time, money, resources). If you’re having to deal with a project that you can’t control all three components, you need to have more of the other two – mostly the best chance for success is to have one or two of those passionate leaders that will take ownership in the outcome of the project and work as hard as you are to that end.
For those working on their personal brand, one of the best things you want as part of your word of mouth marketing about yourself is that you see things through to completion. No matter if it’s through hard work or buy-in on the project, you want to be one of those passionate advocates for the projects you work on.
As for those fire drill projects – they can be as fun as they are frustrating, just make sure to bring a fire extinguisher.
What’s keeping you from taking the next step? Something more than simply being noticed I hope! If you’ve got ideas, or something to say or to share, you need to do something about it. Do you blog? Do you podcast or video blog? Are you on a social network? How are you making yourself heard on in this brave new world online?
The biggest thing for those sitting on the fence is simply to make the decision that they want more opportunity than they may have now in their lives. One way to do that is to start participating online. That can take many forms, from simply joining a social network, or building your own personally branded blog and going to town on creating content.
Whatever you choose, you can’t go wrong if you’re interested in building your brand. Don’t wait, don’t second guess yourself. You are too valuable to the world not to share your knowledge and play your part. Now is the time.
We talk a lot about social networks and social networking these days, but it’s really nothing new. Only the tools are. People have been networking with peers for decades, much longer actually, but we’ve only really called it networking for a generation or so.
While tools like social networks, micro-blogging, or podcasting utilities, and the Internet itself bring powerful new (and fun) ways to network, it still relies on people. Without people, these tools are simply high-tech toys with little purpose.
Anyway, what I’m talking about here is your personal network of peers and associates in your industry or genre. The people that you interact with, compete with, and explore opportunities with. Your personal network is an important part of your career. I didn’t fully realize this until I left a cozy but uninspiring position a couple years ago. It wasn’t until spending a bit of time out participating, networking, and interacting with folks in and out of my field that I discovered how important a personal network is.
Interestingly, my personal network is grown from my mix of social media exploration and personal branding work. Through both interests, I’ve grown a network of friends and associates that I can share ideas with, send questions to, be a support network for peers, recommend people, help solve problems, and much more.
So, I strongly recommend paying attention to your network. The people you associate with professionally and socially have a lot to offer to you in both your personal and professional life. Not only does a person need to grow that network, but to maintain it as well. After all, as in most things, it’s the quality of the network, not the ultimate size that yields the greatest results and rewards.
Also, being a helpful resource to your network, not just a consumer of it, will bring more value to you than you can imagine. As you participate in your network – your friends and associates – make sure to help them find what they’re looking for. Help them with jobs, choosing the right iPod, finding the right hotel for vacation, answering those social network questions, or whatever else comes along. Be the resource that your network needs and your network will be there for you.
So I’ve been doing an experiment of sorts. Staying off most social networks, answering requests and status on only those I believe actually bring value. This was not totally planned, but is something I have meant to do for some time, as it’s my opinion that I was spending too much time on social networks.
During this period, I have also been paying attention to my productivity. You know, the real work I do to actually make real money. Of course, it’s not surprising that reducing the time involved in social networking will increase productivity, it is the ratio that seems interesting. I’ve no scientific data that indicates anything, and it doesn’t seem anything more than a one to one relationship to me.
That’s the main reason I’m not very active right now on many social networks. So that begs the question: What social networks do I find valuable right now? That would be Twitter, LinkedIn, and FriendFeed – not in any particular order. These are the networks that I’m finding value, sharing with friends, and meeting business opportunities.
I am, however, curious about other’s experiences. What networks do you find the most valuable right now, and why? Is it the tried & true, or the up & coming?
Sometimes it’s hard to let go of what we do. What I mean is that it can be hard sharing everything that you know, and teach other people what your job entails. The natural reaction is to hang on to that knowledge, be the expert, the guru that can do it all.
However, are you getting any real new chances, or does everyone believe that because you’re too valuable doing what you’re doing that they don’t send opportunities in your direction? Holding on too tight to what you know can be detrimental to learning and growing. Sometimes it’ll keep you from being able to try new things.
Hand it over
In order to gain real traction to take advantage of new opportunities, you need to start offloading what you’ve been doing. It’s time to stretch yourself, challenge your skills with something outside your comfort zone. To do that, you’re going to need to have more time to focus and learn. You can’t do that holding onto what you do today. It’s time to start mentoring those that want your job.
Create Change
To get started, you’ll need to create an environment for this change. You have new habits to learn, and you should talk with your manager so they know what your plans are. Odds are your company already has much of this in place, it’s your job to step in and let them know that you’re interested in something new. By letting your managers know that you’re interested, and by doing things like sharing knowledge and cross training staff you show that your serious about it too.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot of work, and it takes time to get it done. However, it’s very rewarding to see people perk up at the opportunity to learn something new. They’ll be more receptive to your ideas and you’ll find interactions with co-workers be less stressful if you’re sharing.
Sharing
This is true of nearly every successful person. Sharing knowledge and enabling others to achieve their goals makes you a valuable person. More so than if you hang onto that guru-level knowledge, keeping it for yourself in a vain attempt to make you indispensable. Sharing makes you more valuable because it demonstrates your ability to learn new things and convey them to others – teaching. Over time, you also learn the art of delegation, how to distribute workload to associates tasked with assisting you. This allows you to focus on more forward looking work – the fun stuff.
So letting go of the control over the knowledge you’ve accumulated for your job can be beneficial. There are many variations and taking some leadership, organizational, interpersonal, and project management skills classes is a must to facilitate the change you’re looking for. Just don’t be afraid of sharing that hard-won knowledge. The rewards you reap for stepping out and taking the lead will be greater than staying where you were.
@MAC_Arms Pay taxes when you make your money, pay taxes when you spend your money, pay taxes when you successfully invest your money, pay taxes when you save enough taxed money to afford a house, pay taxes to live in your house, pay taxes when you sell the house that you paid taxes on to
Yup, taxes are criminal and we need serious reforms. I've always said that if you want to see a tax revolt, make withholdings illegal and have Americans write a tax check every payday. They'll revolt for sure. You don't miss what you never had.
Sen. @berniemoreno says voter ID and proof of citizenship are simply common sense.
“We’re talking about a very low threshold — identify who you are and prove you’re a U.S. citizen when you register to vote. I think we’re getting closer to
