What Are Your 2010 Priorities?

Believe it or not, we're quickly approaching the telltale time of the year where marketers start peering into their crystal balls and try to predict what's going to happen in the coming year -- or otherwise known as the annual budgeting process. The challenge, however, is knowing what is going to be important, and what should be culled away as chaff.

According to a survey by virtual events provider Unisfair, your priorities are simple: Grow customers (or members), show how smart you are, and serve your customers in richer/fuller ways.


But while marketers may all think those are reasonable priorities, how to achieve those results vary widely. Not surprisingly, all things social media and online continue to drive to the top of the tactic list for most marketers.


But before you go out and plan your online strategy, build your budgets, or even set in stone your own priorities for 2010, ask yourself a simple question -- WHY DO YOU EXIST? And please, don't write the generic answer that's quick and easy to come by. Write a detailed and specific answer, one that defines your reason for being. Then you're ready to ask yourself the burning questions related to 2010 priorities such as:

1. How do we do this better?
2. How do we reach people who need what we have?
3. How do we find resources that match our vision and goals?
4. How do we engage in dialogue and communication to generate conversations?
5. How will we know if we made a big-damn-difference at the end of 2010?

Or, you can take the easy path and just do more of what you did this year -- more of the same -- hoping for a different outcomes (isn't that the definition of insanity?).

-- David Kinard, PCM

Does Your BHAG Measure Up to King's and Obama's?

Today -- Inauguration Day 2009 -- Whew!

Okay, so let's put politics aside for a moment and focus on the critical element of what has made Obama the "man" transform into Obama the "movement". It was a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal. Or more like a whole set of them.

Obama's approach is something that has been talked about by business gurus around the globe for years -- if you want to inspire, engage, and activate a community around your cause, give them something big to believe in. And Obama did just that. With approval ratings at or above 75% he has inspired not just tens of millions of Americans, but the world. Yet Obama gave us not just anything to believe in -- he could have said he wanted to build a giant ladder to the moon and we would have discredited both the man and the goal. So, what made his goals so believable? I'd like to suggest the following:

1. Big Hairy Audacious Goals require time -- They likely will take 10 to 30 years to complete, but they have a specific end date.


2. Big Hairy Audacious Goals require more than what we have to offer right now. We must grow, change, and evolve into something better in order to achieve them. We must transform ourselves during the journey.


3. Big Hairy Audacious Goals are measurable and achieveable. You should be able to envision and describe what success looks like with extreme clarity, with definition, and with a clear sense of what it will take to arrive at that point.


4. Big Hairy Audacious Goals inspire, focus, and align. They give us something big to strive for, focus our attention on what's most important, and align our resources to achieving that end state.

As you think through your organization's vision and goals -- how well do they match up to these four critical ingredients?

What are your thoughts? Do you think these four are enough?

-- David Kinard, PCM