Apr 17, 2008 | blog
So you’ve got your blog. You’re on Twitter. Accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Xing, Plaxo and countless others are kept up to date and keep you networked with your peers. The question keeps coming back… what’s next? What does all this time interacting and connecting with people accomplish?
After all the hours involved in networking and connecting with people you start to wonder what the payoff will be. Twitter seems like a time sink, Facebook is flat-out a bad college prank, and blogging is more demanding that you thought it would be. Is the payback just a little link love, or a couple hundred Twitter followers? Maybe it’s feeling good about answering a couple dozen questions on LinkedIn Answers. It still hasn’t changed you yet has it?
Are you sure?
If you’ve stuck with it for awhile I bet you’ve found it easier to connect and reach out with people at work. Maybe writing project plans or documentation is a bit better than it was before. How about a few technical skills – if you’ve done any customizations on your blog I know you’ve been working on HTML at the very least.
Ok, these are just a few small things that you may or may not have noticed along the way. What’s the bigger payoff? I dunno – but it’s that unknown something that’s attracted you into the mix. There is potential on multiple fronts, from connecting with people, learning about things, growing as a person, even simply having a hobby. Social media doesn’t mean any one thing, and doesn’t have to be business related.
Since there is no one definition of social media to any one group or person, it never stops growing; morphing into something new with every additional person and service. Heck “social media” is not even a good name for it, it really just kind of stuck because we use new “social” tools that use different types of “media”.
It’s an exciting ride. One I encourage you to explore, even if you think it’s a bunch of hooey. There are many smart people out there that would love to share ideas with anyone who would listen. And that is what it really comes down to. Social media is people and ideas, the tools are incidental and change with the whimsy of the crowd.
Where are you going from here? What’s your next move?
Photo credit: *davierae*
Apr 10, 2008 | blog
I want to see you succeed!
It’s that simple. I want to see people rise to their full potential and reap the rewards of their efforts. Why more people don’t work towards their goals rather than their employer’s is confusing to me. So in this post I’m going to share a few thoughts that I hope will inspire you to leverage the most important resource in your arsenal: You!
Security
It’s comforting to have a secure job, one that you can count on being there a month or a year from now. However, without careful planning, you can easily get trapped in the mindset of climbing the corporate ladder. I should take a moment and admit that it’s not entirely a bad thing if it fits your career plans and life goals. I also believe that in many situations it reduces your chances for personal success.
The Matrix
Often, I like to compare the corporate environment to “The Matrix”. Companies do provide a framework for people to not only produce for the company, but to move forward as well. Good companies know a bit about this and work to change that perception. They create an environment that is safe to share ideas. They build teams. They help people grow in their careers. They reward hard work. They also make it easy for a person align their personal goals with the company’s. For the most part that’s good, but it also tricks the employee into believing that they key to the success of the team/company. That is what makes it hard to work towards your agenda.
Awakening
At some point though, many people come to an awakening. They realize that there is nothing more to learn at a given organization. People find that their “secure” position at “the company” has become too easy and has actually become detrimental to their success. They figure out that they’ve been working towards the company’s agenda without much regard for their own. Even if your ultimate goal is some “Chief” level corner office – you still need to have an agenda of your own and work towards it aggressively.
What’s Next
Start thinking of where you want to go in the future. Find your specialty and start working on how to capitalize on it. Odds are that you’ll identify something that you are passionate about. Look around in your current job, watching others to find out what skills you still may need to acquire before going out on your own. Make sure to have a support network of friends and associates that you can offer suggestions and answer questions. Prepare to have money put aside to live off of while getting going. Don’t burn any bridges – that former employer may be a prospective client at another time.
You
Where are you in your career? Have you made a move, planning to do it sometime in the future, or content in where you are? What can you share with others to help them succeed? What is your next move?
Photo credit: true2source
Apr 4, 2008 | blog
It’s all perception, or how you view things. I’m often trying to change my view of the world by working in different places when I have the chance. Whether that be coffee shop, a cafe, or a park – the change of scenery does wonders for one’s productivity.
Inspiration
That thought was driven home when I looked out the window last evening and watched the beginnings of a beautiful sunset. Just being able to see that sunset after a darn hard day of coding helped change my perspective on the day. It elevated the spirits and allowed me to get more done around the house than I had planned for the evening.
Look for Patterns
So often I see people doing the same thing day in and day out. It’s an easy routine to fall into. After all most tasks are repetitive and we naturally evolve processes to fit them and simply follow the process over and over. Often we don’t even think about the repetition, instead letting the frustration of it cloud our view of things in general.
Trying Things
It’s amazing how changing even the simplest of things can change one’s point of view and bring on a fresh perspective.
- Soundtrack for your life – listen to some tunes while you work
- Rearrange your desk – it’s amazing how moving things around shakes things up
- New wallpaper for you desktop – get some new vistas to look at
- Work remotely – go find that “Coffee-Fi” as my friend Thomas calls it, exactly who says you can’t be productive outside the office
Watching for it
More than anything, simply watching for real opportunities to change how you do things, view things, or even work will help bring a new perspective. You’ve probably been doing this type of thing for your employer, “think outside the box”, but may not have done it as often for yourself.
Stand up for a minute and take a good, slow look around your office, and office mates. Turn all the way around. How many others are looking up or around? I bet you’ll see most of your cube mates “heads down” doing those repetitive tasks we talked about.
What About You
So, what are you going to do? Do you have something that we can learn from? What other things have you found to change your vista?
Photo credit: lulacerdarj
Technorati Tags: Perspectives, Viewpoint, Worldview
Jan 9, 2008 | blog
Every couple of months I “wake up” and realize that I’m in control. It always bothers me when I loose that perspective, and it happens much too easily. Having that moment of clarity, that realization, understanding what that means, is a powerful experience. It allows you to look past the moment and take a different long view of your inner goals than you normally would.
Keeping that perspective for more than a few minutes or hours, though, is quite hard. Life intervenes, whether at work or home, and we have to deal with the responsibilities at hand. But that is how it should be. Being able to leverage those powerful moments when everything is very clear, however, is the key.
Sometimes you can prepare for those moments by taking notes or jotting ideas down – keep a journal maybe. When those moments arrive, take advantage of the clarity and motivation. Pull out that notebook, journal, or the ideas swirling in the back of your mind. Think on them a bit, write down your conclusions and ideas if it helps, doing so can help to empower you later.
Perspectives are how we view the world, ourselves, and our place in the world. It also affects how we view opportunities. Without the right perspective, some opportunities might be right in front of us, and we’d never know it. Learning what enables those moments of clarity will help you leverage those times for you and your family. Watch for those moments, learn how to bring them about and turn them into your normal frame of mind.
Photo credit: Mark Reeves
Jan 2, 2008 | blog
For me, the new year has become meaningless; other than a convenient marker on the calendar, it’s simply another day. Nothing changes today from yesterday, this week from last week. Even the celebration of a “new year” loses any significance. Maybe I’m getting old. 😉
What does gain my interest in place of this, is the significance of thought. The posts where people talk about what’s important to them and what influences them. Reading about what they’ve learned in the past and how to leverage that in the future holds my attention.
For the most part, new years resolutions are simply dreams that we feel guilty about neglecting. They’re important to us, but we never set goals or milestones, and plans on how to achieve them. So the ongoing learning of life-lessons is of more interest to me than coming up with resolutions that are abandoned as quickly as I click the “publish” button.
There are some great people I’ve read, met, and worked with in the recent past that I am grateful to have found. I’m looking forward to meeting more, reading more, learning from more, and working with more in the near future.
Blogging; it’s a constantly evolving environment that constantly brings fresh voices to the forefront and allows others to listen, learn, and contribute as they please.
Photo credit: Photo Gallery
Technorati Tags: New Year, Resolutions, 2008
