Agility is a popular word today. At a time in the world where no business or industry is exempt from disruption, it's more than just a trendy slogan. It's a necessary skill.
It implies being responsive and being able to act in real time. But it is also about being open, trying new things and being willing to put oneself in a place where one might fail. In other words to face what might scare you and do it anyway.
The path I chose when I left the structure of 9 to 5 corporate life has tested my agility. It's forced me to bend, regroup, sometimes backtrack and to get comfortable with the nausea that swells up in my throat when I decide to give something new a try.
To say I never get scared would be an outright lie. I get scared. A lot. Scared of failing. Sometimes that keeps me frozen in my tracks - especially right after something doesn't work. Other times I've dusted off my shoes and gotten back on my path without missing a beat. Or as Seth Godin said so brilliantly in his post last week - to remember to "dance with the fear."
Today I'm scared. But I'm choosing to follow Seth's advice.
I'm launching a new product. It's birth is the result of requests I've been getting for a while to offer workshops that help to take the mystery out of all this digital "stuff" we are incorporating into our lives. I've been doing this in corporate settings. And of course, I've been teaching digital marketing at NYU for over a year. But this is the first time I am taking this to the streets - so to speak.
The first topic Your Digital You - THE BLUEPRINT- a workshop designed to improve your digital profile fits what I consider a universal need. Universal in that no matter who you are or where you fit into the food chain, you should be putting attention on the digital version of you - the you that shows up when someone Google's your name. It doesn't matter if you want to be an influencer - want to grow your business - or are looking for your next job - people are searching for you online. The question is how much effort you are putting into what they will find.
That's what this first workshop is about.
- Evaluating your current footprint.
- Getting clear on the story you want to tell about you.
- Creating a blueprint that optimizes your digital presence based on your needs.
I've decided to keep this series of classes small - just 8 participants per workshop and to offer a choice of dates and times in May to fit your schedule. You can register here - use the discount code FOJT and get $25 off the workshop fee.
As I already admitted - I'm scared and yes a bit nauseous. But I'm also really excited to offer what I know will be a useful, informative, relevant and of course fun workshop! If this is for you register here. If it is for someone you know please share. Lastly, if you have questions, please use the comment section.
Agile is a big word these days. It's used alot in marketing circles. One must be agile to keep up with the pace of things. Be able to course correct in real time. Take advantage of breaking news and use it newsjack our way to earned media. Reappropriate a budget on a moment's notice.
In other words - just because we had a plan for the next year or two or three - if we want to stay relevant we need to be able to react to changing circumstances on a dime.
Same holds true for our careers.
It used to be we picked a major in college, got a degree and thought our life path would be linear until retirement. But nothing is linear anymore. Not the consumer cycle or our career.
I went from teaching seventh graders to selling radio ads to television to entrepreneurship, writing books, blogging, consulting and teaching - again.
I'm not sure where my circuitous path will take me next.
But what I am sure is that as long as I stay agile and open and remember that every step and misstep is serving me - I'll know where it is when I get there.
note: This is Day #27 of the 30 Day Experiment. Here are the details on how it all started.
I've always been a planner. At times to the point of obsession. But the older I get, the less crazy I make myself about it. I know that no matter how hard you try you cannot and will not control everything. Things will happen that no one expected. And they often get in the way of the original blueprint. The key is to be flexible when it does and be open to the idea that the change might be even better than what you had planned for.
Don't get me wrong. If you want to create something you need to be clear on what it is and you need to figure out what it will take to manifest it. A plan must be in place whether we're talking life or business.
The really smart and the really successful know better than to hold on too tightly to the plan as written. They reassess along the way and are flexible enough to improvise when needed, looking at the twists in the road as opportunity instead of disaster.
Take Sunday night during the Superbowl. No one planned a power outage in the Superdome that would delay play for thirty-four minutes. There was a championship to decide and commercials to air. Yes, those :30 and :60 spots reputed to be sold in the vicinity of $40 million. A huge money maker for CBS and a huge expenditure of an advertising budget for even the deepest of pockets.
Witness the smart thinking and agility of Oreo and 360i. Oreo had bought a commercial in the game that had already aired. According to Buzzfeed, the agency and the brand had set up a "mission control" in advance, basically meaning the agency and the decision makers for Oreo were in the same room when the lights went dim. Within minutes the team had turned around the situation, effectively "newsjacking" it. They created and tweeted this new ad, capitalizing on the moment.
Not only did this generate an extraordinary amount of Tweets and Facebook likes, people like me are continuing to write about it, generating even more conversation about their brand than they could have planned for.
Newsjacking is a relatively new concept coined by David Meerman Scott , what he calls "the process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business."
There were other brands who were also acting with agility including Tide and Calvin Klein, more evidence that this is becoming the way of the world in which we live, whether we are speaking to advertising campaigns or our lives.
Things are changing, faster than ever before. Five year plans can become five minute plans at the touch of a button. Which means we either need to respond more quickly and be more agile or we will be left in a cloud of dust...or in this case cookie crumbs.
