It's the end of the year and inspired somewhat by Seth Godin's post yesterday and by Lyn's post here, I thought I'd do a review of what has happened over the last 12 months and a bit of a look forward too.
Not another 'Year in Review' post, I hear you say.
Well, a little but not much.
What I wanted to do was personally build on an idea that I first heard about from Chris Brogan about themes. He suggests that what works for him is to pick and focus on 3 themes in your business and life that you want to develop.
Why 3? Well, isn't 3 the magic number?
Anyway, thinking about 3 themes, my business and reflecting on what has happened over the last year, I believe my 3 themes have been:
- Investment - to give myself and the space and time to develop my ideas on this blog, other content, connections and new knowledge as I step forward into this bright new and exciting social world that I find myself in.
- Publish - fulfillment of a personal ambition to write and publish a book, which has spawned all sorts of other ideas about how we can develop this further.
- Position - development, refinement and communication of my own 'brand' and beliefs about what drives good, sustainable growth.
However, in the coming year, I would like to take these three themes and develop them ......coincidentally, into 3 C's:
- Create - new and sustainable growth for clients by continuing to push myself and others to create new content, ideas and strategies that are simple, straightforward and that just work. And, content that I can share (in different formats) with clients and readers that will push them, their business and me onto new and greater things.
- Curate - I believe that many new ideas come from the mixing of conversation and this coming year I will continue to read, learn, research and share all of the good stuff that I find here on the blog, via Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and via my monthly newsletter. However, what I also want to do is two things: 1. To introduce more guest posting here on the blog as well as video interviews of authors, entrepreneurs and thought leaders on customer centric growth and the principles behind RARE Business; and 2. To develop a pipeline of books working with different authors that leverage the RARE format and themes in greater depth.
- Community - Finally, my aim is to help build and develop communities of like-minded people: here, for other people and in other formats. It is my strong belief that by working together and helping other people and their customers to come together that we can accomplish amazing things.
So, these will be my three strategic pillars for 2011.
Why do I think this is important and useful? Well, what I know for certain is that during the coming year that we will all be presented with new opportunities and ideas that can appear very seductive at the time. But, I think that in order to keep us and our businesses on track it is useful to have a handful of 'storylines' or 'themes' that we can use as strategic filters to keep us on track and guide us as we move forward.
What are going to your strategic pillars in 2011?
Thanks to alykat for the image.