How About a Better New Year's Resolutions Process?

The last two weeks we’ve all been bombarded with New Year’s goals. They’re all over the place with status updates, tweets, Twitter polls, blog postings, and news articles. Now I’ve never been a hardcore New Year's goal setter, I always have a few in mind and by the end of the week of the first week in January I’ve probably forgotten them and by the 3rd week I’ve likely given up on them completely.

Does this sound familiar?

I wanted to know if it was just I. Do I lack the simple self-discpline to stick with my goals? According to2008 research study by Stephen Shapiro and the Opinion Research Corporation in Princeton, NJ:

Number of people that make New Year’s resolutions/goals
• 45% of Americans usually set New Year’s Resolutions
• 17% infrequently set resolutions
• 38% absolutely never set resolutions

Success rates
• 8% of people are always successful in achieving their resolutions
• 19% achieve their resolutions every other year.
• 49% have infrequent success
• 24% (one in four people) NEVER succeed and have failed on every resolution every year

Types of resolutions set
• 34% set resolutions related to money
• 38% set resolutions related to weight
• 47% set resolutions related to self-improvement or education
• 31% set resolutions related to relationships

The younger you are, the more likely you are to succeed
• 39% of those in their twenties achieve their resolutions every year or every other year
• Less than 15% of those over 50 achieve their resolutions every year or every other year

So what's the problem? Why do people continually set new goals when they know they only have a 1 in 4 chance succeeding? Is it a lack of commitment? Lack of self-confidence? Lack of planning? Lack of management? Lack of Energy? Lack of support?

Or is it too many goals? Too many obstacles? Too much to do in a day? Too many “I’ll get to it tomorrow”?

Maybe some of these are the reasons, maybe all of them are. I believe most New Year's resolutions/goals lack a proper plan and process achieve them. If people are serious about achieving a goal they need to be serious in the time they spend to achieve it. This begins with the proper road map and a plan.

Sidenote: If I have to hear the term S.M.A.R.T goal one more time I'm going to lose it. Yes the acronym works because I remember it so I'll give credit to George, Arthur and James. But talk about beating a dead horse. . . and then kicking it again once it's on the ground.

Goals are great, but goals aren't what you do to accomplish them. To "accomplish" a goal you need to a process to create the a successfull outcome. The process I use in my everyday life is ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation). It’s a simple process used by instructional designers and workplace performance practitioners (whose purpose is to help make the workplace more effective – surely it can work for new year’s goals too).

Analysis
The first step is to clarify the goal, establish the objectives (these are the action items that complete your goal). Some questions to ask yourself:
• What is your expected outcome?
• What obstacles might you face(self, external, environmental)?
• What have you done in the past? Did it work? Why or whynot?
• What methods/ways can you achieve your goal?
• What is the deadline for completion?

Design
The second step is designing your plan. This should be a very specific plan with dates, ranges, times, calories, time required. If you can’t give your plan to someone else to duplicate with the same results then it’s not detailed enough. This document describes the structure and strategies you will use.
• Document your strategy
• Design your activities (a blended approach is significantly more effective)
• How will you evaluate your success? Will there be periodic updates/check-ins?

Development
The third step is where you create and assemble all the materials/tools/parts needed that were detailed in the design phase. Tools are purchased. Memberships are purchased. Vacation time and dates are requested. Research into programs is conducted. You don’t start your actual goals yet. Think of a hamster hoarding food in its cheeks getting ready to eat during winter.

Implementation
The fourth step is the fun part and where you’ll spend most of your time. This is when you follow the plan you made in step two. Take the materials/tools/parts you got together in step three and use your design plan to start achieving your goal. Essentially – put your plan into action!

Evaluation
The fifth step is determining how you did. Notice I didn’t say final step because you should be constantly evaluating your progress. After you do your analysis you’ll ask yourself if you thought of everything. After you design your plan you’ll ask yourself if this is something you can really do? After development and gathering your tools you’ll ask if you got everything you needed. The most evaluating will occur during your implementation. There should be lots of evaluating – perhaps on a daily schedule? Weekly? Monthly? Don’t wait until your deadline to see how you are doing.

It's time you give yourself and your goals a chance for success. This year, one of my goals is to blog on a more regular basis. I've already started developing my plan to make that happen. Of course this was after my analysis step was completed!

What are your New Year's goals? What is your plan to achieve them?

Creative Ways to Create Creative Ideas

We've all been there. You're sitting at your desk, banging your head against the keyboard praying or a creative thought to fall out. Whether you work in marketing, writing, publishing, design, sales, etc you need to come up with an interesting solution to any problem you're solving. The more creative you are the better the solution.

So what is creativity? A "define: creativity" google search tells us the following:
• the ability to create
• Creativity is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts.
• Creativity is a monthly magazine covering all things creative in advertising and design. The magazine, launched in 1986, provides a showcase of the best ideas across all areas of consumer culture, an exploration of the talent and techniques behind the work and insight on the people and the ...
• creative - promoting construction or creation; "creative work"
• creatively - in a creative manner; "she solved the problem creatively"
• Creative - "Creative" is a song written by Peter Gordeno, Chris Porter and Howard New. Leon said in episode 21 of his Bebo Leon's Life series broadcast on ...
• Using imagination rather than imitating something else. Generation of ideas, images and/or solutions.
• The process of developing new, uncommon, or unique ideas. The federal definition of giftedness identifies creativity as a specific component of giftedness.
• refers to the act of generating new and useful ideas, or of re-evaluating or combining old ideas, so as to develop new and useful perspectives in order to satisfy a need. ...
• Generates and/or recognises how best practice and imaginative ideas can be applied to different situations.
• The production of previously non-existent information. All new items of information are based on preceding ones, and they are "new" ...
• The degree of innovation and dynamism (bounded rationality).
• The experience of thinking, reacting, and working in an imaginative and idiosyncratic way which is characterized by a high degree of innovation ...
• is the ability to produce something new, to generate unique approaches and solutions to issues or problems or opportunities.

All are definitions of creativity, but I personally think that definitions that use the word to describe itself are lazy, stupid, and generally not very useful. It appears that there isn’t one set definition of creativity – yet it’s something that all people are looking for, want, need, and have the hardest time being. Simply put from these definitions, creativity is the process of generating new and unique ideas, concepts, thoughts, and perceptions to solve an problem/opportunity. This is the keyword, you have to realize each situation as an opportunity to be creative, not a problem that requires creative thinking. That sounds great you way, but you’re still left banging your head against the keyboard wondering how to be creative.

The first thing you have to realize is that you don't have to be creative - you already are!

It’s not about whether you are creative or not, since we already know everyone is creative the value is what you do, what can you put on the table.

When you’re looking for creative ways to generate creativity you’re really just looking for inspiration. This inspiration needs to be based on knowledge already possessed, inspiration based on someone else’s perspective – it does you no good.
Association. Start with a big white board, or large pieces of butcher paper and just write words. Put your main word/product/idea in the center and just write everything that you think of. It should look like a big web of words that may or may not help immediately but the goal is to just get it out there.

Ask searching questions. Ask opening ended questions. Why questions help discover the problems, meanings, understanding. How questions discover alternatives, differences, improvements.

Brainstorm in teams. You don’t know all the answers, and no one else does either. When you bring in different people with all sorts of backgrounds, job roles, area of expertise, or even better lack of expertise you start seeing opportunities from all kinds of perspectives. Keep in mind that bringing in the head of every department may result in the type of diversity required for a truly creative brainstorming sessions. They play by the rules too much – ask the interns, ask the receptionist, ask the new workers, and compliment them with the veterns. Check out this link for a guide to running brainstorming sessions.

Go on a scavenger hunt. Get away from your desk and bring in new objects, toys, tools, things to play with. It’s even better if you’re working in teams and send everyone out to grab 10 things in 90 seconds and report back. Remember Apollo 13 when they had to build a new air filtration system out of what seemed to be a random pile of objects?

It’s time for old school. Technology is great, we all love it, it usually makes our job easier. Get away from it when you’re trying to get creative. Looking at a blank screen doesn’t help. Go sit in the break room with some pens and a notepad. Sit in the receptionist waiting area and listen in on some conversations while you doodle. Put yourself in a different situation or environment where you don’t do routine tasks.

Opportunity into the discussion. Realize that you don’t have a problem to solve, but an opportunity to bring something new to the table. Having an outlet or an opportunity to show some creativity is a rarity in today’s world of lawsuits, political correctness. Go out there, way out there, let someone else bring it in while you keep trying. Do the things you want to do but never could, say the things you are always afraid that will get you in trouble. Break the mold, stick it to the man!

Pitch it. Come up with quick 30 second elevator speeches. Even better, get in your elevator and just start talking about your idea/product. If you are in a lower building with just a few floors then you probably don’t have the resources to do something that will take a long time to explain. If you’re in a high-rise building creativity is probably stifled and you’ll need that extra time to come up with something that makes every department happy – sucks for you.

Say cheese. Get the camera out, step away from your desk and just start shooting photos – you only have 30 seconds so you can’t be worried about composition, or light, or frame. Just take as many pictures as you can and see what you come up with.

Run away to get closer. This is a goodie. The best ideas come when you aren’t consciously thinking about it. Remove yourself from whatever it is you’re trying to do and go do something else. Find something that is calming – take a walk, take a shower, go to the gym, remove yourself from the situation where you feel that you have to figure it out right now. Creativity isn’t a switch you can flip on and off – it’s a long process that is going to take time.

Time to go shopping. Visit a hardware store, or Walmart(or K-mart for those deeply opposed to it). Look through the aisles, pick up the stuff on the shelf, see how it works, what did they do it. What makes this thing more special than the others. Why do they want you to buy this one and not others.

Walk in the park or at least outdoors. Nature has always been the most creative system. That seems odd, a system that is creative. Go out there and pay attention to what is up there. Try taking a walk around the block only looking up. You’d be amazed at the new things you see since we spend all of our time looking forward to the next step we never take that alternative perspective.

Being creative is easier when it’s something you do on a daily basis. It’s about bringing together a number of different ideas to create a fresh perspective. It’s a frustrating process but it’s also an extremely rewarding one when you finally come up with that “AH-HA” moment. But for those who still don’t believe you can be creative because you always get blocked out. Check out the 7 Stages of Design Grief (I personally have it hung above my desk), it’ll put a smile on your face and can even give you some inspiration to be creative.

How will generational issues impact retention strategies

I recently responded to a course posting asking "In what ways do you think generational issues will impact association retention strategies?" I have a big problem with companies, associations, organizations thinking they know how to appeal to our generation. How many times have we heard companies pushing their social media (i.e. facebook, twitter, myspace, etc). Only to be disappointed at the lack of substance once we get there. The following was my response to the course posting and I would love some feedback/comments. It personally drives me nuts when I hear a Gen X'er or a baby boomer talk like they know exactly what we want and disregard any opinions from the very audience they are trying to appeal to.

This whole generational issue is something that always gets me steamed up. I'm going to start with the disclaimer that I am a strong member of Generation Y and also this opinion of mine is likely just me being stubborn. With that said, here I go.

It seems as if everyone feels they MUST jump onto the Generation Y bandwagon in order to survive. How often have we heard "we have to get on facebook" or "we have to get on twitter" or " we have to get onto social networking" because if we don't we're going to lose the younger crowd to someone else. I personally find so many flaws with this. The first being that whether a company or association is involved with some type of social media networking has no influence or impact on my decision to join or be involved with them. I'm involved in a number of organizations that have very little if any at all social media presence (and most of the ones that are involved either have no activity or do it very poorly) and I'm also connected to other organizations that do have a strong social media presence but typically find them of little value. The main problem with trying to appeal to generational differences via this medium is that no one really knows how to do it right or even what to do at all. So association XYZ now has 1000 followers on their facebook group - so what? Little purpose is served if those people are not engaged or intrinsically already interested. Does having 1000 passive connected do anything for the organization other than giving these 1000 people a "badge" on their profile?

My second "rant" with the generational issues is that all of the people pushing this generational divide/issue are not members of Generation Y. How many times do you seem someone from generation X or the baby boomer generation on TV talking about how important social media is? I personally think it happens more often than seeing a member of Generation Y on TV talking about the generation as an "expert." But when a member from Generation Y tries to come of as an expert they are often brushed off with the mindset that "you're too young, you don't know what you're talking about."

I recently attended a day-long conference called Social Media for Social Good. It was primarily Gen Y'ers learning about social media, sure everyone there has a facebook account, some of us twitter, I'm sure all of us talk on some type of instant messaging program. Many of our bosses found it valuable enough to send us - but an underlying and repeating theme was "how do we convince our bosses to participate in social media." Unfortunately no one had an answer - when Gen Y'ers go to their bosses to try and push the issues that are important to us we aren't viewed as credible sources. We're just young bucks out of college that don't know any better because we lack real world experience.

My personal opinion is that if associations want to appeal to Gen Y, they need to appeal to our natural instinct for learning, information, and consistent feedback/praise. We love to professional learn, we want tools to do our jobs well, and we want to do it our way. Our best traits are not reading a 30-page long research paper or memo, we are information disseminators. We grew up on the internet, google, and having 8 different instant messaging chat boxes open. We like lots of information, receiving massive amounts of information and then summarizing it into useful chunks.

The unfortunate aspect involving retention strategies is that its very hard to retain Gen Y'ers - we typically do not remain loyal and if we are unhappy somewhere (work, association, groups) we leave to move onto something better/we like. If associations are to retain this generation they must continually adapt to the ever-changing needs of its younger members.

Are we Failing our Careers or are our Careers Failing Us?

We've all heard it, "this generation doesn't have any loyalty" and "they change jobs too often." Basically the stereotype of Generation Y is that we don't stay at our careers very long and when we become annoyed with office politics, feel that we're not needed, or that we aren't making a difference we pick up and move onto the next job. I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that during one of Penelope Trunk's keynotes she said that on average we change jobs about every 18 months. Of course that is a general statement but if we enter the workforce when we're 23 and retire at 65, we've spent 42 years working, or 504 months. At a new job every 18 months that means we've have gone through 28 different careers during our tenure in the workforce. So my question is this, "Are we failing our careers or are our careers failing us?"

I think there are three potential answers to this; (1) our careers are failing us, (2) we are failing our careers, or (3) both are failing each other.

Maybe our careers aren't giving us what we need/want out of a job - expectations for personal growth, need to always be learning, opportunities for group problem solving, creativity, a good work-life balance, the list goes on and on. Are we accepting positions at companies that we know don't offer us what we need simply with the belief that once we find something better we will move on? Or did we take a position with the company with the promise that all our Gen Y wants would be filled - only later to find out that they don't offer us anything we truly need or want?

Maybe our Gen Y glasses only let us see what we want from our career. Are we too focused on making the company work for us that we are unwilling to work for it? Is there a possibility that we are being too demanding of what we think the company should offer us? Sure there are different levels of what a company should offer you. If you don't have any room for advancement, your successes aren't being praised, and there's no room for any kind of professional or personal development then chances are you won't be happy there for too long. But what if the company is trying and wants to offer you the things you need/want but they just simply can't - whether it's political or they just simply don't have the money?

Maybe it's a little of both. Over the last few years we have hit the labor force like a tidal wave and it may be unrealistic to think that all these companies can change their company culture overnight to accommodate our needs and wants. Do we plan on jumping from company to company until the workforce is done changing its culture to accommodate us or will we stick it out with one company and help them make this change?

Moving to a New City: How to Make New Friends

Moving to a new city is an exciting and scary experience. At some point we all end up doing it- whether it’s for work, school, or maybe you just need a change of scenery. Moving to a new city is rough on your social life. It's stimulating experiencing new restaurants, museums, parks, stores, and unique offerings of your new area - but doing all of this by yourself eventually gets lonely.
A year ago I moved from California to Washington, DC. I've had varying success developing my social life. At the organization I work at my coworkers are either married or significantly older. I get along with them great in the office but we're not exactly hanging out together after work. Coworkers can always be a source of new friends - I have varying opinions about letting some of my older coworkers in on my social life (I know it's not very Gen-Y'ish to separate work and non-work life). These are my four tips for making new friends in a new place.
Meetup.com. A popular meeting site for people in the same situation as you. Here you find people willing to get together for anything and everything ranging from happy hours, museum visits, sports outings, day trips, outdoor events, and even wine and food groups. Their moto is "meeting everywhere about most everything." I've had success on this site - especially meeting people around my age. Its easier since everyone is a little nervous. The groups I'm involved in range from 20's & 30's groups, young professionals, food and wine, volleyball and a few other niche groups. Wherever you are I definitely recommend joining this site. There's always something going on any given day of the week. The best part? People just like you for you run the groups!
Sports Leagues. Whether you're 18 or 80 there's always a sports league you can find. Bowling, softball, tennis, volleyball, and what's seems to be making a comeback - at least in my area, is kickball. There are at least a dozen different kickball leagues in my area ranging from super-competitive to social groups just looking for a reason to wear the same shirts to happy hour.
Volunteer. Great minds think alike, so do great souls and great hearts. Grouping yourself with other people who donate their time and energy for the betterment of others is a noble cause. Be but warned, do it only if you are truly willing to give it your all. People can tell when your willingness is not sincere, that's my take anyway.

Say Yes to Invitations. When your neighbors, friends, acquaintances, coworkers, classmates or other people invite you to something, join them! It's important and much easier to expand your network of friends through people who already know you. Work on those 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th degree of separation. It's much easier to meet new people when you already know people there. Hopefully those who invited you will be good hosts and introduce you to people possessing similar interests as you.

From diploma to bachelors to masters

The ongoing debate/new status quo has been that a bachelors is the new high school diploma. They say without a college degree you won't be able to do anything more than work fast food(exaggerating yes I know but that's the point high school counselors try to make). Then everyone went to college to get degrees and for a while they all god jobs. Now there's this huge pool of college graduates fighting for a finite number of jobs. So a select number of them move on to obtan their masters to separate themselves from the crowd to get that job. So what happened next? everyone is going for their masters making it the college degree of 10 years ago. At what point does this need to set yourself apart by overachieving begin to devalue the worth of a college education. Even more importantly at what point in your life are you able to break even on the cost of that degree? I myself am a fairly educated Gen Y'er, I finished undergrad with a B.A. in graphic design and B.S. in Instructional Technology, finished all my graduate coursework for my masters and just need to complete the thesis portion(but that's blog for another time). Here I am, 2 and a half degrees later, more than $45k in debt and in my first career that brought me across country. By the time I have these loans paid off I will be more than halfway to my mid-life crisis, is that when I'm going to enjoy the fruits of my labor? Likely not, I'm sure I will be onto a mortgage payment by then. Could I have just gone to an ITT Tech type of school to become a train locomotive engineer and been just as happy? You tell me, was all the hype of college worth it for you?

Does Generation Y rush into things or is it just me?

One of my biggest complaints with being in today's working world is that I want to be productive and accomplish projects/tasks/things to do on my list. I don't want to spend months and months in committee meetings, conference calls, and what I feel is wasted time trying to come to a group consensus until finally moving forward. Don't get me wrong, I understand that proper research and exploration down a variety of roads is absolutely necessary to achieve a good solution.

However, when I am working with older generations I feel as if they are simply happy with having countless meetings and exploring every option known to man before finally coming to the consensus that they need to meet longer and research more. For me, at some point I want to actually get to the project, complete it, have a end-result or product to show and move onto the next initiative. Sure, maybe I don't have every possible vendor researched and displayed on four different venn diagrams with proper cost-benefit-ratios, returns on investments, consumer reports, and other data to support the decision. I've researched the solution enough to the point where I am comfortable putting my name on it and have a handful of reasons as to why selected this solution over another. However, for many of the older generation workers this does not seem to be enough. They seem to have a need to document every phone call, summarize every conversation, create dozens of action items and spend all this effort in the prework stages rather than completing the project.

Is this just me? If it is then surely it will be my downfall. Do other members of my generation have an over-achieving desire to almost just do it themselves and skip all the committees and conference calls so they can complete the project while another committee is still researching and sending emails back and forth? Can someone please provide me with some feedback?