As in the past two articles, I’m not ready to get into it yet. I just got back from speaking in San Francisco at the Social Recruiting Strategies Conference (put on by rockstar group GSMI) and while there, I did talking about the whos, whats, wheres and whys of TCs, not to mention some pretty good hows (if I don’t say so myself). But again, the questions thrown back at me from educated, intelligent people in the space revealed a misunderstanding or at best, vague understanding of what a community really was. And once again, I was unable to do better than “all of the above”. As a consultant, a vendor, a writer and a speaker, I believe that we owe these people better than that. Hence, all the commas

So today, I want to talk about community theories:

1) Reciprocation Theory: IMHO, this is one of the most underrated theories in all of community development. It’s pretty simple (like most theories). It states that in order for people to be a part of your community (donating time, attention span, participation bandwidth) they need to feel like they’re getting value. YOU, as the community manager (or similar) have to provide content, conversation, benefits, value, etc.

This plays out in the communities I’ve managed or had a hand in creating. Things that create value for participants:

Online Chats: The ability to raise one’s profile in a semi-closed forum, participate on an ad-hoc basis.

Chapters: A localization of the broader group, this can give people the ability again to raise their profile, connect with others and build on the credibility the group has as a whole.

Content: With more and more folks trying to build a personal brand, allowing people to “publish” and raise their awareness within the community is huge. Of course, compensation cannot be left out of this equation, whether it is through promotion, discounts or actual pay for posts.

Certifications: Many professional communities or skill based communities have this down to a veritable art form.

Acknowledgement: Again, highly underrated. People like to see their name/face/work highlighted. It makes them happy and valued. “Thank You” goes a long way for a community management team. Ditto for commenting or sharing their post, work, comment, etc.

Camaraderie: People are interested in identifying with a group (for the most part). You can see this as people “tip deals” in Groupon or on sites like Gawker, where frequent commenters seem to recognize one another. A community manager can move this forward by creating links between members who seem like-minded.

2) Consistency Theory: This theory states that once a person becomes active in a community, they are more likely to come back again and again. It makes a sense, most of us tend to be creatures of habit. Community managers can help by making their communities great places to be, welcoming everyone who comes in in a timely and consistent manner and finally, by using tools like email, social, and personal contact to remind members of why they come to the community in the first place.

3) Social Validation Theory: “I wanna be where my friends are.” This theory states that but in a way more science-y way. If a community is acceptable to one’s colleagues, friends, etc., it is more likely to enjoy significant growth in that circle. It’s part of the reason that every time you join a new network, you have the option to “find your friends” via Facebook, Gmail or any other tool that contains a crawl-able address book.However, community members can take it one step further and ask who else in the entrenched member’s circle may benefit from being part of the network. This is a theory I’d like to look at closer when we talk about talent communities specifically.

There has long been talk that talent communities MUST HAVE a component that allows talent to talk to other talent on the outside. I think the Social Validation Theory supports that intrinsic need. However, when combined with the still very prevalent competitive spirit that surrounds applying for jobs this may force the transition to internal and external workers, rather than friends with similar skill sets. (This could begin to change soon, but will not happen quickly.)

The very first internet scuffle that ever happened to me involved this same old saw. The basic tenet was “How can you work when I see you on Twitter all day?” Then it bothered me, because I was worried it was true but I defended myself

Now there is Skype, Facebook, Google Chat, Google Voice, my blog and website, the blogs and sites and social accounts of at least 6 clients at any given time plus fracking Pinterest, a hobby blog I’ve started, speaking engagements, long-term projects like videos, slideshows, white papers and webinar prep. Plus we’re still remodeling. I also am a partner in several ventures that require my time, money and expertise and not all of them are HR related. I can multitask and multitask well because I HAVE to.

Which is not to say I don’t understand where the criticisms come from. Jason Seiden recently mentioned that when he’s looking to hire someone, he doesn’t want to hear that they do eleventeen different things with their time. He wants them doing one thing and focusing on one client (ostensibly HIM) at a time. Fair enough. Which is why I don’t often trot out my laundry list of to-do items for prospective clients. It’s scary, it’s dirty, it’s overwhelming and it shows that I care about more than your project in my whole life world. I’m okay with that, you might not be. I can accept that you would prefer to think of me as one dimensional, after all, I am there to do a service.

Glen Cathey, another smart and seemingly efficient person recently tweeted

When you say you’re a great multi-tasker, here’s what you’re really saying: “I’m great at being busy but unproductive.”

I simply don’t agree. I think that there is a time and place for highly focused, “head down” thinking and creating and there is also a time for multi-tasking. And even though this transcript would say I am the worst offender of ALL, I really do believe I am good at it. In fact, I might go so far as to say that certain people are bred for and evolving toward being better at it. It seems to be an adaptation to our environment.

For example in the study cited in this radio show, they very explicitly state that they did not study people while they were multi-tasking just afterward, which…okay. But even if they had, what is the control group for this? Were there studies done in the past where people were measured doing just one task for comparison’s sake? And PS, we’re studying college kids, that have for all intents and purposes grown up in the information age and who are meant to be learning the stuff their lives will depend on.

And methinks that we’re measuring the wrong things in any case. If you use multi-tasking  to learn or to create, yeah you are probably using a hammer to carve a melon, or whatever that saying is. Another study (sorta) pointed out by Cathey was conducted by an MIT professor. I haven’t read the book (no time) but I did read the interview transcript and what it seemed like was one smart and insightful woman’s thoughts on her own life and the lives and connectedness of those around her. I didn’t see anything that was not based on perception.

I appreciate the insight of all these smart college professors and researchers and perhaps they have a point, that college students need to cut down on the multi-tasking. After all, this Lifehacker article puts it very well:

If the tasks you are doing are relatively unimportant or mundane and don’t require undivided attention to complete, multitasking can help to get more done. But if you have an important job or one that requires particular attention or care, the best solution is to stay focused on it (and, at the very least, turn off your phone).

YES! Absolutely. And I think that’s the point that all these people miss. If you multitask all the time, surely your brain is never going to be useful when it’s time to go down in the basement and LEARN or STUDY or WRITE. The people they are studying don’t seem to be doing that. They think that if you google chat and watch How I Met Your Mother while cleaning out a CSV file or using Card Munch to deal with your contacts, you can do the same things while trying to create a suitable outline for a 40 page paper. Not so. Any grown up can tell you that.

I’d prefer to see a study that measures the effect of how I do my job, manage my family, remodel my house, engage with my kids, write a book, manage a new website, juggle and please clients and make time for the things I love, like singing, dancing, exercising, watching TV, reading, cooking, sewing and decorating. I don’t need any blue rectangles or any fancy college to tell me that I am doing it RIGHT, and the life described above requires certain tools at certain times.

Two of those tools are focus and discipline. Another one of those tools is multitasking. Now, I do have some science-y bits here somewhere, hold on. AH! here:

Multitasking is not a myth, its all in the definition and understanding of how computational engines work – the brain is a great example of an intriguing computational engine . To use a technology analogy, a computer operating system on a very rudimentary level is a computational engine. It contains among other things a scheduler (aka task management) and engine. Multitasking inherently means providing workloads to a computational engine in thin slices of time on that engine. Nothing else can run on the engine concurrently within the context of the thinest slice of time available to all workloads. A scheduler typically swaps workloads in and out of that engine as the workloads allocated time slice is completed. The Scheduler also prioritizes those workloads. So I think that is very similar to what a live human brain does. Obviously in both instances when you have large number of workloads you may actually experience so much overhead in the scheduler that very little actual computational engine resources get assigned to the workloads that have “real work” and most gets directed at the scheduler (management overhead tasks). The scheduler has to use computional engine time as well to get its work done – its a workload as well. When the scheduler activity dominates all other activity this is known in technology terms as THRASHING. This is exactly what is showing up in research related to humans and their workloads. The switching going on takes up an enormous amount of time/energy in direct relation to the number of workloads. And the relation is likely non-linear. As more task are added on your schedule to be done concurrently there is diminishing returns to scale. At the other extreme , say only 1 workload/task, all the available computational resources is available whenever needed to the workload. Very little resources are needed for scheduling because there is nothing to schedule, well 1 task, which is not much.

This is taken from a comment on the HBR website, but it makes sense to me. My Yammer Air desktop app seems to drain very little juice from my iMac, but when I’m working in Excel or Adobe Illustrator or heaven forbid iMovie, there is every danger of my computer freezing up, slowing down or crashing altogether. And I have a very nice computer. When I need to do a task I know will require a lot of power or memory or jigowatts, I turn everything else off! Sometimes I do a restart first and clean off my desktop. DUH!

Now enter Maren’s brain, also a very nice computer. There are tasks which can run concurrently pretty much all the time, they are as ingrained in my thought processes as breathing (okay that’s hyperbole but you get me). But there are others for which I must make sure not to run other programs or specific other programs. For example, I can design something and facebook at the same time. But I cannot write copy for a speech and watch TV at the same time. It’s just the way it goes. I can moderate a #tchat while a TV show is on, but I cannot get on facebook. And if I need to write a white paper, I sit down and collect the information I need from the internet or magazines and then shut off the internet while I write and play classical music. My kids can come in, no problem and talk to me. I can get up and do a load of laundry and come right back to writing. I can even write heady material while cooking dinner.

What was I saying? Oh yeah. I can totally multitask.

My real point is this, the statements I am seeing in the media and propogated by my friends are not wrong, simply incomplete:

You can’t multitask…all the time.

Multitasking is ineffective…when used for the wrong tasks.

You are permanently damaging your brain…if you never give it a rest.

Personal relationships will suffer if you multitask….provided you are a weiner and never give your spouse/kids/GF/BF/friends the time of day.

So if you’re stressed out about it, and perhaps you aren’t puttering around on Facebook or Twitter to see all these great defining articles, here is a quick roundup that I hope will make sense and force you to take action.

This article Why SOPA is Dangerous on Mashable breaks down what the law is intrinsically about (copyright infringement) and how quickly and scarily your life could change if it’s enacted.

Here’s an easy place to get the demographics on what and WHO the proposed bills would affect and a quick and easy way to sign!!

Until today there was a great infographic here but now it has a handy and easy way for you to go dark.

Communities used to be limited by geographical proximity. If you were close to a community, you were kind of in it, for better or worse and when you moved away, you kept tenuous ties but were no longer part of that community.

As we ventured online, user groups became a sort of wavery, online mirror of what communities looked like in real life, with the exception of the anonymity factor (yes I just named it that). Whether you were using Prodigy, America Online or Newsgroup, you could generally be anonymous. While this is an older article, it credits a 1984 user group called The Well as being one of the first to encourage the use of real names.

The ability to go online and share your view points with the seeming protection of anonymity gave rise to and abundance of vitriol and exaggeration, still seen today on virtually any Youtube video ever posted

As people began to see the internet as a place for professional discourse and even social interaction, as opposed to a giant library, weblogs and media sites became communities in and of themselves. Like spoke to like, and vast numbers of people congregated under a banner they had a hand in creating.

Fast forward past Terminator 2 and The Net, until we see entering stage left the big three, the undeniable stars of the current day community. Facebook obviously, centered once again around the proximity premise, with the original service being used within universities and then primarily for college students. Compare that with the behemoth social network that itself is a platform for thousands of communities centered around the benign (Tide, Oreos), the career oriented (BranchOut, Work4Labs), the ironic (Protesting Facebook Change) and the professional.

Twitter, has contributed to the online community platform, if for the sole reason of evening out the playing field of digital media for a little while. While it’s less community and more distribution service, it’s still a powerful service for brands, individuals and yes communities, who use the service to bolster conversation via the use of hashtags. While a seemingly insignificant part of the conversation, twitter chats are actually much more powerful than most people realize and share some of the same social loyalty based characteristics as ye olde tyme radio shows, which is why many of them have a radio component (internet based of course) that run alongside them. Same time, same channel, identifying call letters. These are all behaviors we understand and are familiar with, whether we used them to tune into a “fireside chat”, watch Family Ties every week or are LOST devotees. Traditional media taught us how. The exception being that it combines media we consume with media we participate in, underscoring that feeling of community.

LinkedIn. Most HR pros/recruiters would say this was where they first started building community. Here’s how it worked back in the day. You had a group of business contacts, recruiters and sales pros had more than most (stacks of business cards because stacks of contacts), you could share articles and job openings with your friends but that was about it until….groups. Groups made it so that anyone could create, manage and moderate a large group of people from a professional standpoint and because the platform was new, create almost instant “expert” status. Enterprising recruiters used in particular to turn candidate databases into “talent pools” that they could connect with on a regular basis and even begin to educate. Communities around companies, professional associations, disciplines, causes and localities sprang up by the hundreds, some numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

When I started building communities, ning was big, as was kickstarter. Now we seem to be having some trouble defining community. Maybe we’re having trouble redefining it. When something that comprises part of the definition suddenly becomes untrue or now needs a qualifier to make it true (as in locality or proximity now not necessarily a part of the definition of community or needing the qualifier of online to make this exception), it seems to spark a debate or underline the importance of semantics.

The history of online communities is one that shows a shifting line in the sand, with parts of it obliterated by the new waves of innovation that come crashing to shore, quicker and quicker now. This is by no means a comprehensive or heavily researched account. But as I said, I am looking to get my thoughts together on communities and what they mean to marketing, HR and other disciplines.

You gotta start somewhere.

Communities are necessary.

Not because they provide additional value but because they are a fundamental building block to our society and because as our society shifts to doing more and more and MORE online, these communities must manifest themselves online as well. The idea is that communities are not only ideal but an absolute to civilized discourse on the internet, where the majority of our commerce, work and enjoyment happens these days.

Have you seen this cartoon? It made the rounds a few months ago:

It’s funny but SEE?! Our lives have changed, little by little, until it’s a LOT. And I’m not the only one, neither are you. And while there are millions of people who don’t give a hoot about Twitter or a fiddle about Facebook, they still do much of their learning, working, and socializing on the computer or alternatively, a smart phone.

It’s pretty scary to call something a paradigm shift, but I really believe this is what we’re talking about. It’s true that the tools might change but the behavioral patterns we’re learning right now will augment themselves to a newer tool, the essential shift is the same. The way we do everything now is different. 10 years ago it wasn’t that common to expect an instantaneous answer on which TV to buy or how your dress looked. Now you can ask that and more and get answers from all over the world in a matter of seconds. Collaboration and access are soaring on an unprecedented level as we adapt our communicative practices to this new but somehow familiar setting.

Communities are even now being used to enact political, social and economic change. People have taken the tools set before them (after all they are based on how humans interact and communicate to begin with) and essentially, picked them up. We have been using them and seeing what works and what doesn’t. Talent Communities have generally been used as a business tool or product, which they can be, but I think they are and can be much more. If you can technology supported communities changing one or two fundamentals of the society, why should it be difficult to disrupt the recruiting process? Or the corporate process for that matter?

I plan on writing a lot more about what communities are, why they are not only important but necessary and to address them from an anthropological view point. We can adapt and harness the power of community but only if we understand the purpose and history behind them. That’s why I’m not starting with “talent” communities per se, because I believe this conversation to be bigger than that. I also will get to business cases and ROI as I think through some of these ideas, but I won’t shortcut the discussion to argue semantics or prove things to you. You can google it.

A community is a society locally organized

Let me explain. No, it will take too long, Let me sum up.

If you’ve been around for longer than a year or so, you will start to see the same stories crop up in the blogs, in the magazines and at the conferences. These “evergreen” topics go in a bit of a circle:

NEW PROBLEM –> NEW SOLUTION –> PROBLEM WITH THE SOLUTION —> WE’RE TOTALLY OVER IT–> BACK TO THE BASICS

And you’re lucky I left out the exclamation points.

When you work at a media outlet, you watch the cycle with amusement but you either highlight or create the stories that go along with the cycle. You report on it, basically. And when you work for an HR department or a recruiting firm, you make selections based on whatever your current criteria, budget and timeline are.

But when you work for a vendor, you see how terrifying and fickle the cycle can be. First you have the prep the market for the problem that your solution is trying to solve (pharma companies are MASTERS at this), then you have to make sure your solution does not just A and B for the problem, but at least anticipates C. Then when the gloss wears off your solution (because no tool can do the job of a human except for in the Terminator movies) your audience, who you so carefully cultivated and educated starts to complain and you dazzle them with service and consultative sales. If you do not do that fast enough, well then you’re out of luck, because you’re reached the “totally over it” phase.

Back in the day, this phase wasn’t a huge deal. There were 3-5 year contracts, auto renewal and truly great product took years to innovate and build. Now, with true SaaS and free or low-fee products, it’s make or break time baby. This is typically when you see the “back to the basics” posts start to form. Nothing wrong with them, I’ve written more than a few myself. But it’s pretty easy to write them from my home office or from a consultant or vendor’s point of view. Real HR pros have contracts to worry about, and a team. They have legitimate excuses for not jumping from one tool to the next, some even (gasp!) have a long range plan.

So here’s what I say to vendors, look at the cycle, recognize the high and low points, the opportunities and pitfalls of human nature and pretty predictable market waves, prepare your communications for that inevitable cycle and then…ignore it.

Because the truth is, your product (don’t care who you are) can’t do everything for everybody. In fact, there is a very select pie piece of the market for which your solution will be THE solution. The only way for a vendor to ride the wave is to constantly be improving the product and the service process.

That is all.

my actual, literal, BODY of work

It’s going to be 2012 soon. The year everyone thinks will be the end of the world. Well, not everyone. As an added bonus, my husband’s birthday is the day after the big croak. Woot! No presents for him

Now I don’t think the world is going to end a year from now, but what if it does? I posted something on my facebook a day or so ago that just said: “do good work” and a lot of people liked it and whatnot. But it started me thinking about what I do, what you do, what we all do.

There are thousands of articles and blog posts on how to be more productive, how to fit more into each day, how to be transparent and effective and even more authentic (I’m not going to pretend to understand that). Like so many hyperactive preschoolers we leap from activity to activity, hoping the next one will prove our theory or bring more business or focus meaning on our work.

What’s interesting about that (to pull a Sumser) is that sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. When you go in search of the money or the recognition, you often find those things, but very rarely do you actually find meaning. And perhaps it’s post-Christmas, slightly hungover (from serious amounts of meat mostly) Maren talking, but the older I get the more I find that meaning is a big old chunk of what I want to see reflecting back at me when I look at a body of work.

I recently went through my notebooks from the last five years and saw less meaning than I’d like. There were strategies, and little plans, people to meet and collateral to create but I saw none of the early things I did that gave me so much love for the industry. So here are my resolutions, in no particular order, for the coming year:

1. I’m going to talk to more people. And not just the people I know either. I’m going to talk to the brand new blogger, to the person at the expo that can’t do a thing for me or my business. I’m going to chat up the person next to me in the salad line and follow up with phone calls long put-off.

2. I’m going to stop comparing myself to others. If I have not yet realized my value in where I am and what I do, in a completely separate way from others, then I need to get into a new line of work. Period.

3. I’m going to get more involved in my local scene. This blog was named “Big O Recruiting” when it started and I sometimes talked about local things. I was on local boards and met local people. I had a vested interest in things like Big Omaha, Silicon Praire, the AITP and HRAM (our local SHRM chapter). I’m going to reignite my responsibility to the local community.

4. I’m going to walk. Not run, not bust a move on the treadmill, just get out of my house and walk down the street.

5. I’m going to start sharing my opinions. When I first started blogging, I wasn’t that involved in Twitter or Facebook. I didn’t know thousands of people around the world. But now I do, in one sense or another and I live in constant fear of offending just one of them. If you are scared to share your opinions (about professional things of course) to more than a handful of people, you are just a gossip. And when I say you, I mean me.

6. I’m going to start asking for favors. Yup, you heard right. I’m going to start calling in my chits, or chips, or whatever the saying is. I mean, if the world’s gonna end and all….

-Not because that’s what you’ve come to expect from me, dear reader

-Not because you’re wracking your brain trying to come up with cool gift ideas for your boss, coworker, cute cubicle mate

-Not because, yes indeed! You DO need another post to waste time with while counting down the hours til your vacay starts!

Nope, I’m doing this post to amalagate all of the super cool things I got for people, couldn’t get people or just popped into my head!

Check it:

The Boss’ kid: Yeah, you know that kid that heads into the office? The one who you have to be nice to and takes up extra time because mom’s the boss? Well here are a ton of coo”learning” toys for that special little sprite. Please note the following must have factors: expensive, ability to be played with at work (and/or left on the boss’ desk) and sort of hoity toity. Also from Fab.com which sort of indicates you’re cool? Check out these inscrutable toys from Beyond 123.

That lady that is ALWAYS cold: Next time her teeth are chattering, simply clear your throat and meaningfully glance at the back of her chair. When you gift her the toasty warm surprise, ensure there’s a note inside that says “Keep it in the office woman!”

Ooooh! Candy! Yeah we’ve all got a co-worker who never fails to have treats on the desk. Keep em in line (get it?) with these Matyoshka dolls (they’re measuring cups but I do not care). Adorable! And perfect for playing with…or measuring.

The office lush. This is a category that is so rich with awesome presents. But I will stick with books, as they are awesome and (at least for me) a no-fail gift strategy. Try How to Booze: Cocktails and Unsound Advice OR The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto. This is one of those great gifts that pays dividends to the giver, year after year.

Got a foodie work friend? Check out this salt and pepper light switch. It’s super cool (see above), not too pricey and even foodies put salt on stuff right? How to spot a work foodie: They bring artichoke torte to the work potluck when everyone was secretly hoping for ambrosia.

Your boss and work bestie. Here’s where I can’t be of much help and probably no other “gifting” article will either. I will give you one hint though. Check out the kinds of publications the boss reads (blog/mags/business stuff). Those kinds of people spend a LOT of money trying to figure out what to sell to their demographic. Does she get The New Yorker? Try this desk diary. Is he a fan of Outside Mag (if not, he should be, it’s awesome), check out their gift guide. Paying attention to what they read, listen to and peruse online may give you a deeper window into their soul but chances are that that publication’s done a little gift post of their own.

For anyone except your spouse. The Jawbone UP (when it becomes available again…). It’s super cool.

For your spouse. The Apple iPhone 4S with Siri. Are you paying attention Jeremy?

If you’re not totally ready to take advice form someone who is a) cheap and b) works from home anyway check out these cool posts:

What to Get Your Work Husband (HuffPo)

Cool Stuff for Retail Devotees (PoppyTalk)

Must-Have Gadgety Thingamajobs (Complex)

Co-worker gifts from NatGeo (NatGeo)

For the Design Lovah! (Apartment Therapy)

Last week, my friend Rayanne wrote a little bit on how to be more productive, particularly on Mondays, which I found incredibly useful, as I was scrambling to complete proposals, finish content and have several meetings before leaving on a jet plane to TNL. I also saw a thread by my friend Amybeth Hale, which (and I’m paraphrasing here) expressed her frustration that many of her friends either intimated that she didn’t work or lobbed an insincere “Must be nice” her way when she explained what she did. I explained my personal feelings on the subject, which were I DO watch TV while I work, I spend many days working in my pajamas, I often have a glass of wine and prepare dinner at 4pm and then get back to work post-8pm. Others chimed in on their time management techniques as well. Lesson learned: Lots of us work from home and make the very best of it.

At TNL, Jason Seiden dropped the knowledge that we can’t actually “multi-task” (yes we can) which put a bit of a damper on my whole “watching TV while playing Spotify while facebooking while writing while doing the laundry shuffle” THING.

I’m just plain confused. See I’m the kind of girl who works best with a deadline, who can chart her stress level by the amount of assignments due

and who measures success by the time it takes to do them as efficiently as possible.

Unfortunately for me, the world we live in doesn’t look like Ben Franklin’s anymore. But maybe it should. Perhaps time is what we make of it. Does being super productive mean producing less honest and GOOD work? This writer at Lifehacker is going to test that theory.

Awhile back, my good friend John Sumser insisted that I needed to schedule time during my day to think. I’m thinking he might have been correct. At least part of my New Year’s resolution will be to get off the grid, put my head down and start thinking more, creating more. Communication is fantastic and I love the added social dimension that blogging, tweeting, facebooking, pinning, tumbling and linkedin-in-ing have brought to my life. But I’m going to take time to read more, write more, think more and walk more. How about you?

Anyway, as some of you might remember, last winter I was looking for work, or least trying to get up the courage to start looking. So many friends helped me with simple advice “Um, no one’s going to know you’re looking unless you change your LinkedIn profile.” to the more direct “What on earth makes you worth six figures? Can you write out the equation on a piece of paper?” Friends and colleagues forwarded job postings, recommended me for openings and talked me through worrisome end of month “There’s no check in the mailbox!” talks. For that, then and now, I thank them.

Once again, I find myself without a traditional business card (actually that is not true, right before I parted very amicable ways with BraveNewTalent, I ordered 200, plus I have MeetMeme, and those free ones from Moo) at this very festive, very expensive time of year. But this time, I’ve decided (again with the help of many friends) to continue the consulting practice I started in 2008 and work with all the fantastic companies I’ve met over the years. But that’s another story. This story is about how I always yack about accountability and measurement and in my own personal life, do nothing of the sort. (cue sad trombone)

Jobless Maren from a year ago was talking to a great company, in a great town that was not Omaha (where I live). In order to accept this job, I would have to fix up and sell my house, move my family across country and start a new life in a new place with a new culture. And I was totally willing to do it. It scared me. But like any military brat worth her salt, I was also excited about the move and the “blank slate” it presented. My husband and I decided all the things we needed to do to our ramshackle old place (remind me never to try to sell this house via the blog) and laid out a schedule to do them. After all, I was for SURE going to get the job! And even if I didn’t get it, we’d have the house ready for sale so we’d be prepared for the perfect opportunity when it came along.

I didn’t get the job.

We didn’t move.

And we never did a thing to make the house more “sellable”. Sure I painted over the orange foyer with a nice, acceptable off white. And yes, I built a humongous deck onto the back when a solid set of stairs would have done. I also got a new couch and a treadmill, not exactly appreciable items. But in repairing the front door, we took out an entire wall. You know any prospective buyer’s not gonna love that. And here I am a year later, with a house that is no more easily sold than it was last year. I have let 12 months pass by and not moved forward one iota on a plan that both my husband and I had bought into . WHAT THE HECK!?!

In working with others on strategic planning, I think there are some assumptions that generally have to be made:

1) Real life will get in the way. This is as true in professional life, as it is with personal. Creating a flexible plan that takes things like turnover, PR crises etc in to account can help alleviate some pressure. For example, no we didn’t make the house “sellable” but we did make it more “livable” for ourselves when it was obvious the move wouldn’t happen.

2) Existing tools, time and resources = Realistic expectations. Sure we could have gotten all those projects done IF Jeremy wasn’t in school, IF my travel schedule was less hectic, IF we wanted to ignore our children for a year. Looking back on what we wanted to accomplish, it wasn’t realistic with what we had on hand. For example, we ended up outsourcing the deck for a lot MORE money and a lot LESS time. The equations needed to be adjusted and it’s the same when planning out your editorial calendar, media kit or even traditional 2012 marketing plan. (Hint: if you do it this way, everything that comes after is GRAVY)

3) Maybe your goals aren’t what you said they were. Not really. If you’re slapping goals together because:

-a new opportunity has arisen,

-you see other companies doing it,

-your leadership has insisted on some numbers and these are best ones you could find,

then they’re not really goals that are going to have any sort of alignment with the total organization, and yes, I am even talking to teeny tiny companies. And if those goals aren’t something that everyone believes in, then it’s going to be damn near impossible to achieve them. Sounds idealistic, but people really do need to know the WHY in addition to the HOW. You see, we weren’t truly ready to move. I learned in 2011 that I didn’t want to be dependent on a company and work best when I have multiple projects in the works. It soothes the strategic mind. And while it didn’t seem possible a year ago, I grew closer to my sisters and parents in Nebraska. Our boys are happy and healthy and loving life in a super cool school (that uses FACEBOOK) and our old ramshackle home has made the decision to consult so much easier for me.

the end