“Are you stuck on replay?” asks marketing blogger Katya Andresen. “Do you do the same things, the same way, over and over?”
Up until this year, I might have said yes. But I’m fortunate to now be surrounded by new colleagues here at SIIA. So policy guy David LeDuc and I had a long talk about mobile on Monday—he says the future is coming fast; then CFO Tom Meldrum gave me new ways to organize the SIPAwards this morning; and events director Emily Ruf helps me promote the upcoming SIPA 2013 Conference in new ways. (Sessions are going to be incredibly stimulating and refreshed this year. I hope you can join us!)
But, of course, not everyone gets to be surrounded by new people every year. How do they get un-stuck? Andresen has four ways, and then I will add three more from recent articles:
1. “Get another view into your organization.” She suggests calling someone on the outside—a good customer perhaps—and see how they’re feeling about your company. Or “visit a front-lines staff member and ask [him or her] what’s new or different these days. I get so many good ideas from our customer service and success teams, for example.”
2. “Sign up for blogs, e-newsletters or other media that track big trends,” she writes. This is tricky given our time commitments. I would amend this to say, trade a couple blogs you read now—except for this column, of course—for a couple new forums. Writes Andresen: “I read a lot on mobile technology, the payments industry, social media and start ups so I can think about how broader trends might disrupt my work in exciting or concerning ways.”
3. “Go have lunch with a really smart person who doesn’t work at your organization.” This is great on many levels. First of all, it’s making you take lunch somewhere besides your desk. Second, it makes you get out of the office. Third, you’re getting fresh ideas. “Most of my ideas come from conversations with other people—rather than my own isolated mind,” she writes.
4. “Take an online course with a brilliant thinker.” One advantage SIPA members now have is access to all SIIA events. For instance, next Wednesday, May 1, you can sign up for a free webcast titled Platform Publishing: Your Ticket to Better, Faster, Cheaper (Content & Media) Products. Marc Strohlein, Principal, Agile Business Logic, will be the presenter. On May 8, Dan Brown will moderate the latest SIPC webinar titled Syndicated Research – How to Sell Your Content Multiple Times to Multiple People.
5. Attend a conference. The SIPA 2013 Conference, June 5-7, at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C. is almost here! Open your world up to new people, new solutions and new ideas. (The session All About Email has just been assigned to Dawn Lewis of OPIS and consultant Jeanne Jennings, both great speakers) It truly is an investment in yourself and your company.
6. Change your meeting routine. Everyone’s time clock is different—mix it up a little. Says Marcus Ryu, CEO of Guidewire: “We have people make a commitment to their colleagues by saying, ‘In the next day, I will achieve this.’ That is all the motivation you need. You don’t actually need any other kind of managerial layer on top of that. Just the simple fact that I have spoken in front of my colleagues and said I was going to do something…”
7. Try a new sales approach. Are you presenting your story in the context of your audience? Says Kon Leong, CEO of ZL Technologies: “If they’re in the deep part of the forest, you’ve got to talk the language of the deep forest. Salesmanship is more like a language unto itself. There is no right or wrong. It’s what you make of it, and what’s black can be gray, and what’s gray can be white. It depends on your framework. The challenge is to share the same framework so that you’re seeing the same page in the same way.”
Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline