Struggles of Change

You Mean I have to learn something ELSE?

If you just go down through the entries in this blog you can see there are gaps.  Some BIG ONES!  And of course for a lot of reasons:

1) I am busy with work life.

2) I am busy with home life.

3) I CAN’T THINK!

Strategy?

When you own a business or have a demanding job, it is easy to get trapped in the major task that must get done- NOW.  Then the next day there are several more things that have to be done – NOW.  Then months of things having to be done NOW.   In the meantime, family, friends or unplanned disasters occur.

It is even easier to get trapped in thinking about bailing out the boat as opposed to the best way how to bail a boat.  Sure you may have a dixie cup handy, but perhaps if you can take a minute, you may look up and see a big bucket that is within reach that really gets the job done.  The challenge is  being willing to “look up” and see something outside your peripheral vision that makes the difference between bare survival and success. Winning!

Seth Godin and Chris Brogan

Seth Godin is a famous guy with cool glasses that I listen to and read a lot. Same with Chris Brogan. (Chris doesn’t wear the Godin glasses but he is very cool.)  And each have an amazing gift in seeing things from the 20,000 foot view.  And not only do they see it, they can talk about it in a way that I can relate to-even if it takes a while.  And for me, it has, you know why?

Because I am busy bailing out the boat with a dixie cup!

Seth talks about” Tribes.”  Chris talks about “Community.”  Even before I realized how disconnected to our “Communities or Tribes, ” all this free media available to us, is making us.

10 Years Ago

There was no Facebook for Business, no Pinterest, no Twitter, websites were mostly brochure style and few blogs.  As businesses we were not competing for all the places people were hanging out online, because they weren’t mostly, Netflix and YouTube were fledglings. What hasn’t changed is people have the same 24 hours then that they have today. And they didn’t have smartphones!

Then using traditional methods was OK.  We still reached people using print, tv, radio.  Since then,  we got access, free access to all these media opportunities, kind of a “roll your own.”  And so did our customers and clients.  And in the meantime, we had to learn how to use all this free media.

Did We Get Lost?

In this struggle to learn technology and multiple platforms, while trying to run our businesses, did we lose focus on what we were ultimately trying to do?  Find and communicate with our customer?  Our existing customer, the new one? Where did they go?  Or better yet, where did WE go?