2011 in Review

Disclaimer: The following post is self-indulgent. Most end of the year round-up posts are. Despite that fact, I felt like this was a good way to pay respect to the work that went into this year and to provide a review of content you may have missed (or have never seen before). Should you decide to keep reading, I hope that it will give you a foundation for where we’re headed in 2012.

Last January I wrote that I wanted 2011 to be about you. It wasn’t.

I wrote that I wanted to read 52 books. I read 27. I only reviewed 3.

I wanted to write more posts and ship a couple of projects. I wrote 47 posts this year, and only 5 after after July. I didn’t ship either project.

And yet 2011 was one of the best years of my life. It was *easily* the best of my professional career.

• I fell more in love with a job that affords me the opportunity to leverage social technologies and my knowledge of integrated digital strategies to market the nation’s #1 ranked cancer hospital while simultaneously broadening my overall marketing knowledge and picking up skills like video editing along the way.
• I spent a lot of time with my buddies drinking cold beers, listening to live music, hanging out by the pool, grilling, dancing, and watching sports.
• I visited with my family. At least one of my parents every day. I grew even closer to my sister. I absorbed lots of wisdom from my grandparents.
• I found an incredible woman who somehow puts up with me despite my desire to frequently say and do things that are “in the box.” (Notice where the post volume started dropping off…)
• I spoke at a really cool online conference to some very intelligent people about the foolproof way to overcome fear and complacency.
• I stimulated my mind and body almost daily. (Which included running my first half marathon with no competition, just for fun in 1:49).
• I started saying “no” more often and I stopped doing things I wasn’t intensely passionate about.

What You May Have Missed in 2011:
22 Key Mentoring Messages – Mentorship is a great way of growing and progressing your career. This post features some awesome insights from my organization’s C-suite on the basics of mentorship, embedding it into your organization’s culture, approachability and more.

Reasons Your Employees Are Running for the Door – It amazes me how many organizations don’t “get” why their turnover is so high. Here’s 8 reasons that shouldn’t surprise you. And here’s me angrily ranting after a I read a tweet an executive sent about all her employees getting poached.

American Education: You Deserve Better – One of my favorite posts from 2011. I genuinely believe that modern day education is severely broken and this post details the change I’d like to see. Some people smarter than me chimed in as well. And here are some resources that initially sparked the discussion.

Carving Your Own Path – Carving your own path isn’t easy. You will have to think for yourself. You will invariably call attention to yourself. People will hate you if you’re successful. This is why most people yearn to be led. This is why most people spend their entire lives following.

Forget Social Media – There’s significantly more noise than ever before. Trying to keep up with all of it and be everything to everyone is a waste of time. It’s just fear manifesting itself through excuses and procrastination and we’re all guilty of it.

Why Being a Thought Leader is Boring – This post totally contradicts the predominant advice that you should try to be an expert in one, narrow niche. While many people successfully employ this strategy, I think it’s boring as hell and this post attempts to explain why I’d rather be well-versed on a variety of topics.

I Probably Un-Friended You Last Night – There’s so much noise, so many things to keep us utterly distracted from the things that really matter why do we insist on validating ourselves with excess “friends” who’s status updates we’re totally indifferent to? It’s time to de-friend those that no longer add value to your lives.

3 Things the C-Level Still Doesn’t Get About Social Media – This title is pretty self explanatory. And 6 months later I think all of these still hold true at most organizations.

Life is Adversarial Enough… – Don’t test people just to display your authority. Most of us (young professionals) inherently know that in the scheme of things we’ve accomplished jack shit. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to. That doesn’t mean that it’s not really hard to balance our desire to climb with the gentle reminder that patience is a virtue.

The Easiest Way to Evaluate Most Tasks – Time, not money, is my most coveted resource; therefore, I get really annoyed when my time is wasted. Here’s the strategy I employ to ensure I’m balancing the execution of a project vs. the resources (time + money) used.

Forget the Dream Job, Take the Money & Run – I don’t necessarily believe this (as evidenced by my career path), but the notion certainly challenges the status quo and I think it’s an idea that warrants some thought, especially if you’re still in college.

Creating Higher Quality Stimuli – Reading things that challenge the status quo and/or oppose my own core values/belief system/internal dialogue require me to re-evaluate where I stand on these issues. More importantly instead of just saying “That’s outlandish,” or nodding my head in quiet agreement, I’m forced into the process of absorbing a multitude of information, evaluating that information, and then evaluating what I think based on that information. I recommend you start doing the same more often.

Disruptive Social Technologies: How Your Organization is Missing the Boat – I wrote a lot about topics that go far beyond business/marketing/social media this year, but here’s one that doesn’t. I think it serves as a good reminder that more organizations need to use social technologies for tasks such as cross functional information sharing and internal networking.

If you’re a glutton for punishment here’s My Top 10 Posts of 2010.

I haven’t thought too much about where this blog is headed in 2012, but I encourage you to:

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