My Guiding Themes for 2010

I have read a lot of materials on how to formulate personal and professional goals.  One approach that has resonated with me, mostly because of its simplicity, is the idea of using three words that capture the essence of the goals.  I discovered this idea from Chris Brogan (you can read the most recent post here) last year but did nothing with it.  Now that it is 2010 I have a new desire to try something new and also give my “lizard brain” a swift kick.

My three words for 2010 are Learn – Share – Grow.

Learn – I love to read and consume information no matter where I am, night or day.  My RSS reader is hovering around 250 discreet blogs.  I absorb as much as I can about current events from the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal daily (in print no less, how quaint) along with multiple news sites.  The pile of books sitting on the bookshelves, looking lonely and unloved.  Ooops, almost forgot about Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the various groups with the multitude of  questions and discussion threads.  Hold on, need to catch my breath….

The challenge with consuming so much information is, wait for it, there is no way to consume and effectively process so much content.  At least I cannot.  Maybe if I was 16 again.   My primary Learn goal for this year is to manage the firehose of information so that I can have time think and write about the relationships of “the dots of disparate information”.  I plan on curating my RSS and to be better about using Twitter lists.   Finally, each month will have a theme, which will allow me to focus on the influence of the social web on aspects of marketing, sales, and customer service.

Share – All of this knowledge is great for what exactly? Trivial pursuit? Casual conversation with the dentist?  Knowledge for the sake of knowing about stuff is fine but not very useful.  It would be much better to share knowledge and information with other people to help them learn about social media or who are great bloggers or how to find the  the next up and coming brewery (like Two Cats).

The goal here is to share more of what I am learning through this blog, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.   I also want to share more of the conversations that are occurring on other blogs with my network and to be a more active participant myself.  I derived a lot of personal satisfaction from helping people discover new nuggets of information and new possibilities. This leads us to the last theme…

Grow – This theme is a bit more involved than the first two because it encompasses all aspects of my life, personal and professional.  I would love for the blog to have a consistent readership level.  I want to continue helping my young children grow and discover the world around them.  How can I take a more active role in growing the size and participation level of organizations I am belong to.  Improve the creative and technical aspects of my stories and posts.  Help anyone out there who wants to achieve their goals.

Learn – Share – Grow.  I acknowledge that it may seem that some of these goals are not measurable. True but some are and the details are evolving every day.  How will I know I am making progress?  I hope that you will tell me.  It is going to be a fun year.

BTW, feel free to share your goals or themes for 2010.  Love to find out how I can help you achieve this year.