The Brainzooming Group

What got me originally thinking about yesterday’s Brainzooming column on career training when school’s out for you was a client request. She wanted ideas for assessing her organization’s marketing performance. I delivered a diagnostic from the files used by a high-priced marketing support organization my former employer belonged to for several years.

I realized during my corporate life there were incredible learning resources readily available all around, although they didn’t necessarily look like learning resources. The exact moment I realized this was when we were investing a million dollars for a high-end consulting firm to help us create a strategic marketing plan. While many peers complained about all these Northwestern and Stanford MBAs trying to tell them what to do, I saw it as the company investing in helping us all become better strategic marketers.

Taking that view, I soaked up everything possible and even got them to bring in other resources to teach us including a guy whose only job was to help them think about how to logically structure presentations.

And yeah, I saved nearly everything and developed strategic thinking tools beyond what they provided. Many of those learning opportunities and resources (both excellent and crappy) were important early inspirations for creating our Brainzooming methodology.

16 Learning Resources for Everyday

If you take a similar, broad approach to the learning resources around you, I’m guessing you’ll find a lot of ways to keep learning and continually enhance your career training – even during times when typical training expenditures may be reduced.

Consider this list of 16 learning resources your employer may be dangling in front of you right now to improve your career training:

• Consultants and outside experts working on your business
• Training and lunch-and-learn programs
• Working on new initiatives for the company
• Time with internal mentors
• Actively participating and using resources from industry association memberships
• Reference materials available within the business
• Opportunities to create your own reference materials
• Observing and asking questions of smart people
• Documenting learnings from projects and other work you do
• Experimenting and trying new work approaches
• Subscriptions – whether online, print, or some other form
• Attending events and conferences
• Volunteering to speak on behalf of the company at conferences
• Business travel
• Exposure to new technology
• Becoming great friends with smart and experienced colleagues

As you can tell, these 16 learning resources take on different forms. And the list doesn’t even include all the free and low-cost resource available online.

Redefining Career Training and Learning Resources

The point is, consider defining your job, at least in one respect, as an ongoing career training opportunity. When you do, your eyes open to a whole variety of learning opportunities you might have previously ignored.

So coupled with yesterday column, are you ready to start planning your career training for next semester? You have all summer to do it! – Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming email updates.

Learn all about Mike Brown’s creative thinking and innovation presentations!

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading

School’s out for the summer – or soon will be – for those who are in “school.”

For those of us officially out of school, however, is school ever out?

If we’re in the midst of a career, shouldn’t we be learning all the time?

The answers to these questions are “no” and “yes,” by the way.

How many of us though, unless our employer is doing it, approach career training formally – with a planned curriculum involving both traditional and non-traditional learning and grades reflecting our progress?

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t.

I have a long list of interests where I want to learn more. I read and experiment with those, maybe taking some classes or going to learning events. Mostly though, I read random articles or blog posts on these topics and stop. But devising a comprehensive learning plan? I gave that up when I walked out after completing Dr. Jauch’s business policy (affiliate link) final to wrap up grad school.

4-Step Career Training Plan to Learn More this Year

So how about this relatively simple 4-step plan to work on during the traditional summer vacation from school to make sure you are moving your career training ahead?

1. Pick Your Curriculum

Identify two topics where you want to improve your knowledge, skills, and proficiency. They may be directly work related or of a more personal interest. Either way, actually write down that you’re tackling them next fall (or right away, if you’re going for extra credit).

2. Select Your Learning Resources

Next, plan where and how you’re going to improve your expertise in these two areas in the near future. And “near future” doesn’t mean “whenever,” but during the next school semester. Start right now identifying several sources and activities in each area that will grow and test your mastery and progress.

3. Decide Your Class and Study Schedule

3. Once you know what you’re studying and have a general sense of your available learning resources, create your schedule for next semester. Look ahead on your calendar and actually start blocking out one or two learning times or activities you’ll regularly do next semester. Do it now before your calendar fills up with all the other things that pop up and eliminate time you’d like to devote to learning. While your schedule may fluctuate and vary the closer you get, plan for a start and an end – and don’t “cut classes” lightly.

4. Get Ready to Grade Yourself

Finally, as you go through the semester, grade yourself. You get to do it yourself because we’re all big girls and boys. But don’t use a pass / fail scale. Here’s a suggestion:

• A – Clearly demonstrating new levels of proficiency and expertise that’s translating into better results and/or other people recognizing new value you provide
• B – Seeing stronger knowledge and comfort on the topic, but it hasn’t translated into any noticeable differences yet in results / value
• C – You have more knowledge, but there is still much to learn to apply your knowledge as you hoped

Notice there are no D’s or F’s. That’s because if you’ve gotten this far in being more deliberate about learning, you’re ahead of all the other people you work with, whether inside or outside your company, who aren’t trying this!

Are you ready for better career training?

Are you up for going back to school next semester in a more structured way to boost your career training? If so, what topics are you going to study? – Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming email updates.

Learn all about Mike Brown’s creative thinking and innovation presentations!

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading

Hang on with me as we slam together a couple of apparently random experiences this week. Trust me; we’ll wind up with a strategic lesson here.

Instigating a Strategic Lesson

A reading at morning mass this week from the Gospel of John involved Jesus talking about the apostles being “in the world” but not “of” the world. The point is since His followers should focus on the importance of a heavenly reward, time in this world needs to be marked by a sense of detachment. While human functioning, making a living, and being of service to others are important, the expectation is to resist becoming overly enamored with things (in particular) that belong to this world since they are fleeting relative to eternity.

This may seem a simple enough statement, but the world beckons so strongly with so many attractive diversions – both good and (many) bad – that it’s an incredibly challenging call to live out successfully.

Another Version of the Strategic Lesson

My trainer recently had me begin using myfitnesspal, a weight and fitness monitoring app. I whined like crazy, but within days, the accountability of logging all my exercise and everything I ate changed my behavior dramatically. Seeing the numbers behind my eating caused me to cut down on snacking, especially late at night when I am writing.

One number that surprises me daily is the outrageous amount of sodium in pre-prepared foods.

One day I had a partial order of leftover Chinese food for lunch, munched an appetizer at a happy hour meeting, and ate a sandwich based on a recipe from my family’s former restaurant that my wife made for dinner. When everything was plugged into myfitnesspal, my daily sodium intake was nearly double the recommended amount. The surprising thing about my huge sodium intake is I pick up a salt shaker once a year – maybe.  I don’t add salt to food.

Slamming Two Experiences Together

If you had asked me before myfitnesspal, I’d have confidently told you I was “IN but not OF a salt-filled world.”

My gigantic sodium number tells a very different story tough.

It’s clear that through uninformed and lackadaisical decision making about what I eat daily, there is way too much sodium in my diet. What has seemed harmless or not even an issue is, I now realize, something harmful.

And the Strategic Lesson Is?

As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to decide what you plan to do to build your business.

It seems even easier though, to pursue other enticing (potentially overhyped) possibilities that promise to build your business – but not directly and not right away.

In my case, these activities include creating content in lots of venues, exploring intriguing possibilities, and putting additional time into opportunities that once seemed promising. They all tend to be about reaching a new / different / bigger audience that SHOULD yield even greater success than the same old audience.

Absent some way to measure and monitor how much time, energy, and effort is going into all these enticing activities relative to the solid activities to build a business however, you can get away completely from what matters for your business.

The cumulative impact is you wind up being not just in a world of overhyped possibilities, but spending most of your available time on them.

When we started The Brainzooming Group, I sketched out a decision making hierarchy for ranking and narrowing promising but more speculative activities. Because of my interest in trying new things and challenges in saying “No,” that decision hierarchy is still in a long-ago shelved notebook.

So the strategic lesson from these random events this week is it’s time to actually apply the decision making hierarchy and stick to it.

How about you? Can you benefit from this strategic lesson in your business?

By the way, thanks for hanging on with me to get here. – Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading

Talking with a senior executive about creative ideas and strategic planning for his organization, he mentioned being a published business cartoonist. He showed me his very funny cartoons that appear regularly in the Wall Street Journal, among other noteworthy business publications.

I asked him how someone not cartooning full-time managed to publish cartoons in the Wall Street Journal. He directed me toward a publication with specific details for the types of content publications seek for their audiences and how to submit ideas. Ultimately, he said it’s a numbers game where you have to actively and regularly submit enough creative ideas to get some cartoons published.

Getting Your Creative Ideas Out There

On the surface, what he shared is common sense. In fact, playing the creative ideas numbers game and the importance of content resonating with the intended audience are topics we’ve covered here.

The big surprise for me though was you don’t have to be a full-time cartoonist to submit cartoons to publications.

Why my surprise?

As a kid, I submitted a variety of stamptoons (drawn cartoons which incorporate a postage stamp in the design) to Boys’ Life magazine. All my stamptoons were summarily rejected and returned with a letter saying they weren’t up to the magazine’s standards.

While that was a one-time rejection for a twelve year old, I took it as a general pronouncement my cartoons weren’t good and there was no need to submit them anywhere ever again unless I happened to develop into being a professional cartoonist.

Even though I kept drawing cartoons and even created a business humor blog largely featuring cartoons, it had NEVER occurred to me to submit cartoons to a publication.

Overcoming Rejection of Your Creative Ideas

You see, so much material in the Brainzooming blog is offered for your benefit. The impetus for much (most?) of it, however, is the need to regularly work through MY OWN blocks, fears, and apprehensions with creative ideas.

There is no reason in the world why I couldn’t take a shot at getting cartoons published, but it had never occurred to me as a possibility before last week. Because of an anonymous person at a kids’ magazine years ago who didn’t like my creative ideas, I have only shared my cartoons on my own sites online because I allowed my creative horizons to be squelched.

I’m not sure what to say for myself other than that if you struggle with whether you are creative or talented enough, keep trying to figure out what works for you to get beyond your creative apprehensions. Maybe it’s reading. Maybe it’s doing. Maybe it’s talking to someone who is doing something with the types of creative ideas you’d like to do but never imagined you could.

Whatever it is, don’t ever give up on the search for sharing your creative ideas. – Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you improve your creative thinking skills and generate fantastic ideas! To boost your organization’s innovation success, contact TheBrainzooming Group to help you rapidly expand strategic options and create strong implementation plans. Email us atinfo@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we’ll deliver these benefits for you.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading

Blogapalooza veteran Jessica James is back today with her message that stress is a choice, along with 4 ways to decompress that she’s using amid a clearly busy life. Not only does Jessica work for one of the world’s largest casual dining restaurants, she’s also completing her master’s degree in journalism from The University of Kansas. Here’s Jessica:

Stress is a Choice by Jessica James

A full-time job, parenthood, married life, graduate school, a social life and the occasional volunteer opportunity– with all this going on, I’ve somehow managed to maintain my sanity.  It’s not something I ever thought about until recently when a close friend commented on how she couldn’t believe I wasn’t medicated.

She openly takes medication to help her cope with the stress and anxiety in her life.  I do not.

I Get it, You Are Busy…

This is not to say that I am not stressed out beyond belief right now.  My husband is a second-year law student who studies around the clock, I travel out of town for work about 30 percent of the time (which is incredibly disruptive to my toddler’s home life) and I am wrapping up my capstone project and presentation in just over a week.

4 Ways to Decompress

In the last three months, l have experienced more stress than ever before.  If I could find the time to go to thy gym, some of this might be alleviated.  However, I have managed to find little moments throughout my day to decompress.

1. Have a Morning Routine

My mornings are hectic, yet predictable.  My 30-minute commute from home to daycare to work consists of morning radio and a large cup of freshly ground and brewed coffee.  Without it, I am lost.  This daily ritual sets the tone for the rest of my day and helps me focus on what’s ahead of me.

2. Keep Your Priorities Straight

It never fails that as I ease into the day at work, my ‘to do’ list for the day gets high jacked by other, more pressing things.  I’ve learned to adjust to this and not become overwhelmed by focusing on what REALLY needs to get done for the day.  My industry is food, not rocket science, and most of the time, things can wait an extra 12-24 hours to be completed.

3. Quantity of Time Spent at Work is NOT > the Quality of Your Work

I refuse to fall into this trap.  So many of my peers at work, along with some leadership, value how long people show their faces at work and not how good the work actually is.  I am a consistent eight-to-fiver.  I excel at my job, always meet deadlines and pride myself on being a reliable and timely source of information for my peers.  As a result, I am able to spend a fair amount of time with my family in the evening and still have some time left for myself.

4. Put Yourself First…Sometimes

Working, going to graduate school and having a family is pretty common these days.  A lot of men and women do it.  I am able to because I am not afraid to do things for myself.  I’ll take a Friday off a couple times each year to shop, have lunch by myself, get caught up on laundry and catch up on my favorite TV shows.  It’s amazing how a few daylight hours to myself really rejuvenates me at home and at work.

Make a Choice to Take a Step Back

So before you let your friends talk you into medicating your stress and anxiety with prescription drugs, take a step back, and evaluate where you might be able to trim some stress out or bring some routine and predictability into your day.  And remember, the choices you make have a direct correlation to the stress in your life. - Jessica James

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming email updates.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading

What can you expect your social media experience to be if you want to be an anonymous online stalker who shares no identifiable information?

When you try to be anonymous and coy on Twitter, is it realistic to have any expectations about building a follower base?

I was having that discussion on Twitter with someone who has been engaging and asking great questions, but whose name, location, background, gender, and other web presences are all a mystery. My comment was if you’re not going to be real, you better be prepared to settle for whatever you get (but less than you want) from others on Twitter when it comes to conversation and ongoing engagement.

The Online Stalker Blues – 6 Reasons to Not Be Anonymous and Coy on Twitter

Here are six reasons I think someone who comes off as an online stalker will have a less than fulfilling social media experience while trying to remain anonymous and coy on Twitter:

1. You wind up breaking the Golden Rule of Twitter

When you try to mask your identity, location, gender, and everything else about yourself on Twitter, you’re in clear violation of  the Golden Rule of Twitter: “Honestly reveal as much about yourself as you’d hope others honestly reveal to you. “ If you’re not willing to share anything of substance about yourself or point to other places on the web where people can learn more about you, expect to get less than you might hope from your Twitter interactions.

2. You look like a bad social media experience waiting to (re)happen

Just about anyone on Twitter for some time has a story about being burned by someone trying to hide behind an anonymous Twitter account. Several years ago, a new person started tweeting at me a lot, even featuring me in a blog post about helpful Twitter people. I pushed the person to drop the anonymity and create a personal presence on Twitter. She (I’d thought it might be a guy) did that and became a real person. We even had a phone conversation about her career challenges and goals. Soon after establishing a presence, however, she completely disappeared. Since then, I’m increasingly skeptical of people who show up big, show up anonymous, and show up expecting you to invest time in them.

3. It’s going to slow your Twitter audience growth

For the reason above and the weirdness of interacting with someone who is hiding over a long period of time, if you’re going to stay anonymous, don’t have significant expectations on growing a sizable, lasting audience. In fact, the person who was singing The Online Stalker Blues with me recently was frustrated about his/her(?) slow path to growing a follower base. This person has done a great job of engaging, but without more sharing to build a relationship, the direct engagement will wear thin.

4. You seem as if you can’t be trusted

When you decide to remain completely anonymous (no name, no identifiable avatar, no website, no location, no personal clues in the bio), it raises questions about WHY you won’t share even one visible factoid about yourself and/or your identity. If you persist in hiding everything even from those who have made an effort to reach out and engage with you, prepare to be viewed with increasing levels of suspicion.

5. People won’t be as willing to put up with your social media crap

If you want to dive in and be mouthy online, sharing information about yourself gets you more latitude to do it. The more information you share about yourself in your Twitter profile, the more likely you are to get a sustained audience to listen to you mouthing off about what’s pissing you off so much. Recently, somebody with a donut for an avatar, a name which suggested he knew LOTS about social media, and twenty Twitter followers was tweeting frustration in my direction. When he didn’t like a #SXSW-related tweet from a panel I was listening to recapping the event, I really wanted to tell him to stick it. Instead, I tried to be nice and suggest why the tweet and others form the panel were helpful. When he kept it up his “superior to you” attitude (in tweets he subsequently deleted), he simply became pitiable. If he ever tweets me again, he won’t be getting any (positive) attention.

6. You’re wasting the full benefits of your social media effort

When you’re spending a lot of time on Twitter without identifying yourself, you’re wasting the positive outcomes of your time investment: creating stickiness with your profile (as people follow and attach to your presence on other social media channels) and pass along value to your content (where people you interact with are sharing your content and suggesting to others they seek you out as well). When there’s no way to know who are, who do you think is going to recommend that someone else seek you out?

Do you put up with people on social media singing The Online Stalker Blues?

Do you spend much time with people online who are anonymous and coy about sharing ANY information? If you do spend time with someone who comes off as an online stalker, what motivates you to do it?

If I’m missing something about why this strategy makes sense, I’d love to understand what it is. - Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming email updates.

If you’re struggling with determining ROI and evaluating its impacts, download “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track” today!  This article provides a concise, strategic view of the numbers and stories that matter in shaping, implementing, and evaluating your strategy. You’ll learn lessons about when to address measurement strategy, identifying overlooked ROI opportunities, and creating a 6-metric dashboard. Download Your Free Copy of “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track!”

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading

There are many ways to be your own worst enemy.

Don’t believe me? How about . . .

• Deciding someone really doesn’t want to do business with you instead of letting the other person decide what they want to do.
• Down talking yourself to others.
• Allowing yourself to delay addressing what you know is important to do right now.
• Doing the easy / convenient / familiar / comfortable thing when it isn’t also the best thing to do.
• Not staring a new effort because you doubt you’ll finish it.
• Taking negativity to heart from others when there is no reason to do so.
• Allowing short-term issues to get you off track from focusing on what’s important.
• Keeping your concerns too much to yourself.
• Hoping things will get better on their own
• Not celebrating every accomplishment, whether big or small.
• Avoiding tough conversations you need to have.
• Failing to surround yourself with the right people.
• Allowing your health (whether spiritual, physical, or mental) to go unattended.
• Believing social networks are an accurate depiction of reality.
• Continually comparing yourself to who you were THEN but aren’t anymore.
• Listening to all the unsolicited advice you’re given.
• Listening to none of the unsolicited advice you’re given.
• Spending too much time listening to the voices inside your head.

See what I mean?

And this was simply a list from looking back on times I’ve been my own worst enemy or seen others do it to themselves. You may very well be able to add to the list from your own experience. Plus there may be other people out there who really aren’t your fans. Think about what they’d add to the list, but why would you even consider giving them more ammunition against you?

So now that we have a full footprint in the new year, let’s all try to treat ourselves better. Look past your near-term challenges, and buttress yourself with the long-term successes you’ve created before and the new ones ahead. It’s time to  be your own best fan! - Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming blog email updates.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Continue Reading