While my exposure to this idea begins with Chris Brogan, a number of people I respect have been marking the new year with three words – succinctly expressing the core themes that they intend to use to drive the coming twelve months.
Last year, I didn’t plan at all. I drove through everything I encountered, trying to do the best work I could – well, guess what; I missed opportunities, failed a number of times to do things that mattered to me, and overall had a “not to plan” year.
I intend 2011 to be very different. In the past few days, I’ve been planning what’s going to happen in my world over the next year. I have a number of things on the go, and a few milestones to hit – I’ll be talking about them throughout the year.
I’ve been struggling, however, with how to express these plans in a succinct manner – so, here are my three words for 2011.
Themes, Platforms and Seekers
Themes – Much of the non-reflexive writing I’ll be doing in 2011 revolved around a set of themes I’ve already decided on. Everything from posts here, to planned guest posts elsewhere, and other projects. I plan to tie everything together, use every venue and opportunity I have to tell a story based on the plan I’ve outlined. I’ve already been asked if this will make my writing rigid – and I don’t think it will. I think it will prevent me from being reflexive (which is even further down the scale from ‘proactive’ than ‘reactive’ is).
Platforms – Part of my work this year is examining how to build platforms – for personal work, and in other circumstances. The difference between a home base (such as a blog), and a platform is vast, and complicated. Part of this year will look at the work of building platforms online.
Seekers – We’re all looking for something. Some of us find what we’re seeking by building it – some of us join in the work of others and derive value as we deliver value to them. All communities work with common destinations in mind, but how do we discover that our destinations are common after all? I’ll be looking at Seekers for a long portion of this year – covering almost half of the themes I’ve decided on.
There you have it. You may have made some resolutions, or made a plan. But have you chosen how to express that plan yet?