2012: The Year of Self-Help?
Published on: February 1, 2012Recently, I’ve come across many (many!) articles appearing on various web properties with the simple goal of helping the reader be a better person. It’s the beginning of a new year, so I was bound to find articles on losing weight, finding love, and dressing for success. But these newly discovered articles all come from reputable and intellectually sharp sources and attempt to challenge our thoughts on productivity and on our contributions to the economy and society.
Here’s a sample…
- Wired: Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong
- Harvard Business Review: Create a Meaningful Life Through Meaningful Work
- Inc.: How to Be Happy at Work
This trend became more apparent to me as I watched an interview with the New York Times’ Shanghai Bureau Chief; he posited that China’s economy was in a better position to grow because its citizens are wholly focused on the single purpose of productivity. Conversely, he suggested that the American economy was struggling because our citizens are focused things other than productivity — perhaps on the newest restaurant to open, the next decadent vacation, or what our plans are for this weekend. Note that he wasn’t saying we are lazy, just that our priorities have shifted. For at least four years, we’ve all been asked to do more, to work harder and longer than every before, and to help our employer survive through the worst economy since the Great Depression. We’ve done as much as we can seemingly do, and/or we aren’t willing to do more.
It was a short interview, and I can’t claim to know his entire line of thinking on this subject, but my opinion goes like this: we need to work smarter, not harder; we need to choose different work, not do more of something we don’t enjoy; we need to enjoy life, but also be fulfilled by what we do to earn a living; we need to contribute to the economy, not just the rumor mill.
As I said in an earlier post, I’m making 2012 a year of service. That also means making it a year of self-improvement.
From Chaos
Published on: January 24, 2012Last night, I attended the first community voting meeting of 2012 for my neighborhood. There happened to be two large development projects on the agenda and up for a general vote, so turnout was heavy and raucous. Like any community meeting taking place in an urban environment (or at least in Philadelphia), the opponents of the projects focused on clear and present dangers like parking and union participation and where the trash will be stored. There were passing mentions of traffic, greenery, architecture, and the impact of commercial space, but mostly as they each related to parking. The supporters sat quietly until it was time to cast their vote (both projects passed).
It struck me that no one voiced opinions vehemently in favor of either development, despite the fact they they will replace an empty lot and a dilapidated factory that has sat unused for decades. The neighborhood is in transition and large mixed-use projects can help pull that along. It’s a complicated issue, but projects like these attract new residents that become voters in the district, new voices that will help push the transformation, and newly added attention. That attention, in turn, attracts new project. As one resident noted, marketing should definitely be part of the discussion.
When you work to change a neighborhood that had been in decline for 50 years, perception is a huge issue. The last five years have seen significant improvement, but there is a long way to go. The meeting was chaotic, but in the end, the results speak for themselves: progress is still coming.
2011 was a horrible year…
Published on: January 22, 2012For me, 2011 was one of the worst years I can remember. Personally, it was more challenging than any in my adult life; it featured a car accident (which was more annoying than anything), a badly sprained ankle (which halted my soccer season and a favorite stress release), the end of a tumultuous relationship, and two lost jobs. It re-framed the way I look at life, forced me to examine my motives in everything, and at times sent me into a tailspin.
Now, I realize the list of things that made it horrible likely pale in comparison to many, many people in the world. Bad things have happened to me before, but they’ve always been complimented with good things. I know I have a fairly comfortable life and some would say I have nothing to complain about. Agreed. But it was my annus horribilis. And the biggest reason I see things the way I do is that I lost who I am in 2011.
This blog isn’t about my problems. It is about a way of living, and a way to approach the world. Over the last two weeks, I’ve become very introspective, examining my relationships, my career trajectory, my place in the universe. I’m writing this entry for one simple reason: I’ve decided to make 2012 a year of service and I need to keep myself honest.
I’m going to start by donating my time to three charities but I hope I will be able to do much more. I plan to write about 2012 as it progresses. Hopefully I find myself along the way.
Social Media and My Birthday
Published on: April 14, 2009At the end of February, I wrote an entry on how I’ve been using social media and talked about the services I use the most. If you visit (or try to visit) this blog on a semi-regular basis, you know that over the last five weeks, I’ve essentially disappeared from the blogosphere. In the first four months of writing, I managed to blog fairly regularly, and keep up with no less than seven posts per month. That stopped abruptly in early March as life got busy, and work picked up speed quickly. Today I return (for the moment anyway) because I was encouraged to write something for my birthday.
I recently saw a great entry on Hear 2.0 about how people (and thus social media) are changing the way the Internet is being used. According to NetPop Research, over the last two years use of the web for Entertainment purposes has dropped by 30% while use for Communication has increased by 18%. This was fairly obvious when taken in context with my birthday (today). Five years ago, people wished me well with phone calls and birthday cards. Social media has changed all of that — I got far more emails, text messages and Walls Posts on Facebook than actual paper cards or balloons. A simple observation, but it struck me as interesting given all of the press that social media has received in the last six months. If I’m still blogging in five years, I’ll check in and let you know how things have progressed. For now, I’d love to know what you’ve experienced.
One last thought — while I’ve been a woefully poor blogger, I have stepped up my use of Twitter, thanks to tools like TwitterFox and TweetDeck. You can follow me here: http://twitter.com/kondylas (or @Kondylas if you use the service) and join the conversation. Enjoy!
Remember to tie your marketing channels together
Published on: March 5, 2009I get a lot of catalogs every week. I get them from both B2B companies looking to capitalize on my company’s revenue and from and B2C companies looking to grab part of my disposable income. And I typically ignore most of them. But this week one stood out, and it was because they remembered to tie their marketing channels together and time the receipt of their messages. They did it well and I paid attention.
So how did it happen? Yesterday I received a catalog in the mail from Red Envelope, a company I’ve done business with for close to 10 years. I receive something from them in the mail just about every month, and more frequently by email. The fact that I haven’t unsubscribed says to me that I still see value in their offerings, but I usually don’t purchase on impulse from them either. I recognize that I usually order at specific times - Mother’s Day, a few birthdays, and Christmas - and generally delete other messages or recycle catalogs. I’m sure they have a profile on me and my habits and I hope (because I’m in marketing too) that they used that to target this particular offering. Initially, I didn’t pay much attention to the catalog though. Then, an email showed up in my inbox this morning at about 10:00 am. The subject line read as follows: See what’s new in the Spring catalog - in your mailbox now with 10% off. Elegant, timely, straightforward, and specific. It worked; I opened and read the email and I picked up the catalog to flip through. And that’s exactly what they want.
Take a moment to think about the level of organization that went into timing this effort. From the production and printing to the mailing of the catalog and the creation and release of the email, Red Envelope likely had to deal with several weeks (minimum) of lead time and multiple departments and vendors. For a competent project manager, this shouldn’t be a significant challenge, but I see poor execution or complete failures more frequently than I care to admit. Each of us has the power to set and meet deadlines, and each of us has the power to absolutely ensure that our marketing campaigns are timed exactly as we intended.
Now, take another moment to think about your processes and decide if you could confidently execute something as successfully as Red Envelope did. If the answer isn’t a resounding YES, spend some time TODAY to fix it. And if you’d like help creating a process or identifying best practices, I’m happy to help with that.
