I’m sure there’s a scientific name for it but I’m too tired to look it up right now…sorry.

How many of you are stuck in a rut in your life and/or business and just doing the same thing over and over and over.  Ever thought about why?

Maybe it’s because you haven’t been keeping your eyes open to see things changing.

Take this little story as an example…

A few weeks ago I’m driving to the local target.  I decided to go a back way through neighborhoods rather than the main road.   I get up to one of the main roads that I have to cross to get to the target and hit a red light.

This particular intersection is fairly new.  In the past, you could only turn left or right at this intersection, but about three months ago a new road was opened that allowed you to go straight through this intersection.

I planned to go straight as it was a shorter route to get into the Target parking lot.

Now…this particular light is extremely long.  It felt as if I sat there forever waiting for the light to turn.  I also noticed that the car behind had their right turn blinker on. And the car behind them did too.  Oh well…that’s the way life is right?  Always stuck behind the guy going straight when you want to turn right.

While waiting I heard a horn honk. Sounded like it came from behind me.

So I rolled my window down…and heard the horn again as well as someone screaming and looked in my mirror and noticed it was the driver behind me.

He was yelling at me and honking his horn.

Can you believe that?

He was screaming at me.

Then…he opened his car door and started getting out.  Wow.

OK then. I’m not going to be caught sitting in my car while some crazy dude is standing outside my window.

So I got out of my car. Probably not the safest thing to do but I did it.

He was walking toward my car screaming to me.  He was saying “turn man turn”.

What?  I’m going straight across I tell him.  I also pointed at my blinker and politely said ‘do you see a blinker?’.

And…I may have yelled it. And…I may have said a few other choice words that can’t be repeated here.   And I may have called him something that wasn’t polite.  I may have also told him to get back in his car or he’d be getting into an ambulance in 3 minutes.  Might have been bad of me to say…but, he started it

His response was “oh…you can go straight?  I didn’t know that”.

While he was walking back to his car, he was apologizing and trying to ‘make nice’ with me while also saying “I’ve driven this road a couple times a day for two years and didn’t realize you could go straight.”

Lessons from this story?

Its an easy one.

That man, who almost got himself in some trouble, was so sure that he was right that he was willing to risk his health (and his life?) to get out of his car and scream at an unknown person in a car in front of him.

According to him, he’d been through that intersection multiple times over two years. He’d gotten so used to only being able to turn left or right that he’d failed to realize that a third option was now available to him and to all other drivers.

He’d gotten into a mindset and wasn’t able to see the changes taking place around him over the years.

Sound familiar?

How many businesses do you know today that are in this same mindset?  What about your manager or leader? Have they allowed themselves to get so comfortable with their surroundings that they fail to notice the changes?

What about you?  Are you keeping your eyes open for changes?

BTW – link below for anger management techniques for those of you (and perhaps me too) who get a little too angry

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Are you keeping your eyes open? is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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I love to read a good story and I love to create stories…although they may not always be “good.:)

In fact, I love a good story so much that I’m researching the topic of stories and storytelling as a mechanism for knowledge capture & transfer within project teams.  See a presentation I did on that subject here -> Stories, Projects & Knowledge Management. Oh..here’s another article of mine on Using Stories to Share Knowledge.

Stories have a ton of good qualities. They help set context.  They help share values and beliefs.   There are lots of good things about stories.

But the most important is one that we often overlook.  It’s the importance of YOUR story to your life.

Chris Brogan pointed me toward Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (affiliate link) a few months ago.

Chris recently said the following about Miller’s book: “It’s about the importance of living your life as if you’re the main character in an important story.”

He hit it spot on.  This is a wonderful book.  Not only did it make me laugh, it made me think long and hard about MY story.  And about YOUR story too.

What’s my story?

I used to think that my story was one of small town farmboy who makes a name for himself in the big city.  I was going to work hard and climb the corporate ladder and become the CEO of a large organization one day.

But…as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that my story is changing.

I no longer want anything to do with being employed by a large organization. I’d rather be a part of  small group of people doing something fun and important.

My story has evolved and I’m evolving with it.  I’m longer interested in the office politics that some people play. I’m more interested in finding that smart group of people who want to do something fun and challenging.  Those folks that see that things CAN be different.

My story has evolved from one of perpetuating the ‘sameness’ that is corporate America to one that of wanting to be a part of (and perhaps starting) a small business.

My story includes me working hard and playing hard.   It includes my wife and I spending more quality time together traveling and actually engaging in our passion of photography rather than wishing we could.

My story isn’t the classic American Story, but I think its one that will become the neo-classical American Story.

I think people are getting fed-up with the large, bureaucratic environment found in most large busiensses. Those businesses that look at the numbers before they look at the people.

That said, my story is my story and I’m living it as though I’m the lead character.  My story is one of hundreds of millions in this country, but its an important one to me.

What’s your story?

I look out at the people I interact with on a regular basis and realize that, for the most part, I don’t really know their story.

I have almost 1400 followers on twitter but i really only know less than 20 of them. On Facebook, I’ve kept my friends to those that I know fairly well but there are still folks who I don’t really know what well.

This blog receives about 6000 visitors a month and has ~1800 RSS subscribers but I don’t know the story of every one of these visitors or subscribers.

Of course, there’s no way for me to know everyone, but I do get curious about what drives people to my site and why they decide to come back (or subscribe).

I’m always interested in hearing your story so drop a line and let me know what you are working on and/or where I can learn more about you.

The Importance of Story

As I’ve said, story is important.   Not only does your story help define who you are, it helps define were you’ll go.

Based on this post and the little bit of background I’ve provided, can you tell where I’m headed in life?  Do you know the next chapter in my story?

Do you know they next chapter in your own story?  Are you writing your own story or letting someone else?

Me – I prefer to write my own…and hope to continue doing for the rest of my life.

BTW – if you DO know the next chapter of my story, don’t tell me

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The importance of story is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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Apparently I can’t count   I started the blog in 2006 so it’s my blog’s THIRD birthday!

I started this blog on July 14, 2006 with a blog post titled “The Strategic Use of Human Resources“. My first post was an excerpt from a paper I wrote for my MBA program of the same title….not exactly the most exciting stuff in the world but it wasn’t bad.

When I started this blog, I didn’t have a plan. I still really don’t. Many people tell me to pick a topic and focus…perhaps they are right. But that isn’t me. Sure, I can focus….but why should I be forced to do so on my own blog? I see this blog as a place to share my thoughts and help people understand who I am.  I write about what I want but try to remain within the Technology, Strategy, People & Projects arena.

I have found a few topics that are of great interest to me. Specifically the intersection of marketing & technology and how enterprise 2.0 (and 3.0) is changing and will change business in the future.  I’ve also started off The New CIO series where I’m planning on taking a look at the role of the IT group and CIO from a different perspective. So far, I’ve written 3 The New CIO articles and have plans to write one article per week (released every Thursday).  The published articles so far are:

• The New CIO – An introduction
• The New CIO: Social Media and the Enterprise
• Keeping your IT staff Engaged and Happy – The New CIO Series

So I’ve finished up 3 years and I’m entering the fourth year and I’m going strong.  I passed the 400 posts mark in June (~2 posts per week) and 1000 comments that same month. I also bumped over 1000 RSS subscribers sometime in 2009…but never really saw when it happened. Twitter and friendfeed have helped grow traffic but at the end of the day, this blog isn’t about traffic…its about delivering good content to those that like to read it.

Top 5 Commented Posts

• Blu Domain: Poor Service Defined
• A Book Review of “Website Optimization”
• Some Thoughts on Sitecore CMS
• Ramblings on Social Media
• John Madden’s Lessons for Leadership

My Top 5 visited posts

• The Problem(s) with Linear Thinking
• Factors affecting Productivity – IT, Management and Process
• Some Thoughts on Sitecore CMS
• Blu Domain: Poor Service Defined
• Competitive Advantage and the Resource Based View of the Firm

Would you be surprised if I told you that the top 5 keywords from Google had to do with the these top posts?   Probably wouldn’t be. What are the top keywords?

• linear thinking
• factors affecting productivity
• bludomain
• blu domain
• sitecore review

So…those are the most visited and commented posts on my blog after 3 years…but what about my favorite posts?  Here’s a few (in no particular order):

• Common Sense and Technology Selection
• Competitive Advantage – The Human Capital Approach
• Factors affecting Productivity – IT, Management and Process
• The Problem(s) with Linear Thinking
• Keeping your IT staff Engaged and Happy – The New CIO Series
• The New CIO: Social Media and the Enterprise

Hope you’ve enjoyed the time like I have.  And I hope to be on here for much more time to come.

A milestone – 3 years old (not 4 like I thought!) is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Blog Milestone – 4 years old
2. Beware of the Linear Thinking Trap
3. Factors affecting Productivity – IT, Management and Process
4. Links for July 12 2009
5. A Thought on Employee Engagement

What’s transpired this year?

• In February, I put my consulting practice on hold to join the Boy Scouts of America full time after working with them for 1.5 years as a consultant.  Previous to starting full-time, I’d been leading the Sitecore Content Management System implementation and since going full-time have been involved in some major technology and marketing initiatives.  It’s been fun and an education in how non-profits are run.

• I’ve just finished year #2 in the Doctoral program.  Only X number of years left (i have no idea what X actually is…probably 3 to 4 more years).

• I’ve held up my resolutions for the year fairly nicely. I used the ‘three words’ approach (I learned this from Chris Brogan).  My words were: Create, Think & Lead. I’ve written more important stuff (at least to me) on this blog than I used to and I kicked off another blog focused on my photography.

• My wife’s photography business is starting to see a bit more life.  The economy has taken its toll but we are starting to see a bit more traffic and interest from potential clients.

• I’ve disconnected from a lot of things that were taking up way too much of my time.  While this has been hard to do, it’s been necessary to allow me to focus on those things that will bring the most benefit & value to me in the future.

What does the rest of 2009 hold? I’m not sure…but I’m positive it will be a good 6 months.

• I’m anxious to kick off a few projects that I’ve been thinking about and can’t wait to see the results.

• I’ve got a couple interesting side projects that have been brewing for a while…they are looking like they might show some signs of life later this year.

• I’ve submitted a few articles & papers to academic journals & trade publications…hopefully I’ll hear back on whether they are accepted for publishing.

How has the first half of 2009 been for you?

Time for a Mid Year Review is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. What’s your focus?
2. Three words for 2010
3. A milestone – 3 years old (not 4 like I thought!)
4. Doctorate Pursuit – Year 1
5. Resolutions for 2009

I found myself bored with Seth after reading his “You’re Boring” post.  In the post, he writes:

You don’t get unboring for free. Remarkable costs time and money and effort, but most of all, remarkable costs a willingness to be wrong

Well Seth..I agree with you but haven’t you been saying this for years?  Where’s the new stuff.  Have you become boring?

Of course this probably isn’t the most popular sentiment in the world.  But…I’m willing to be wrong here.

Seems as if everyone is enthralled with Seth. His book “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us” still gets a lot of play on the web. You know what?  I thought Tribes was kind of boring and didn’t really say much that hadn’t been said before.  The book actually felt very repetitious. I had a hard time turning each page.  Dare I say I was bored reading the book?

Now…don’t get me wrong…I’m pretty boring myself.  Have I said much on this blog that is unique?  Not really.    But I haven’t made my career telling others they’re boring…Seth has.

Seth – I love ya man but how about something new?  Like you say in your post, “Remarkable is a choice”…make a choice please…start saying something remarkable. I don’t want to shrug my shoulders after reading your blog.

I wonder though…how many shrug their shoulders after reading my blog?  I’ll be thinkin on that one.

Seth Godin – You're Boring is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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2. These folks aren't boring
3. I finally read "Good To Great"
4. Crowdsourcing
5. On Writing Well

I found an interesting take on the subject written by Chris Brogan titled “Cultivating a Writing Habit“.  Great post…jump over and read…I’ll wait.

Chris’ approach is a fairly simple method: Read, Write, Write.

• Read – Read more.  Read everything you can.  Read things that you wouldn’t normally read.
• Write – Write all day regardless of whether you are in front of a computer or with paper…write in your head.  Think about what you can write and/or how to reword something.
• Write – Write daily. Write often.  Write as much as you can.

Nothing earth shattering here but Chris does gives us a glimpse into his writing regime.

If you don’t know Chris, look him up…he’s quite well know in the Social Media world and is considered to be one of the SM experts.   He’s a prolific writer and his blog posts are always well thought out and well developed…definitely someone to listen to on the subject of writing.

There are some excellent tips on Chris’ blog…great ideas for improving your writing (and mine!).

Chris Brogan on Writing is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Zinsser's Writing to Learn
2. On Writing Well
3. Photography is tough
4. Time for a Mid Year Review
5. Blog Milestone – 4 years old

What is it about the changing of the ‘year’ that gets people into the mindset of making resolutions to do things differently in the ‘new year’?

Well…being the geek that I am, I had to look into it.

I read a few articles about the psychology of new year’s resolutions….two of the more interesting articles were:

• The Psychology of New Year’s Resolutions
• What is Really Behind New Year’s Resolutions

The Psychology of New Year’s Resolutions lists some results from a 1998 survey that aren’t that surprising:

most people — 75 percent — who make a resolution fail on their first attempt and most people — 67 percent — make more than one resolution.

Not really that amazing if you think about it.  The results from that survey also show:

people who believe that self-control is something dynamic, changing and unlimited (e.g., “I can stop smoking, all I have to do is put my mind to it. I can also change my eating and be a better person, it just takes willpower.”) tend to set more resolutions.

People who believe that we all are born with a limited, set amount of self-control that one cannot change (e.g., “I can’t help myself from eating all this chocolate — I inherited the ‘chocolate gene’ from my mom!”) and who also have little belief in their own capabilities to carry out their own goals (they have what psychologists refer to as “low self-efficacy”) naturally did worse on obtaining their New Year’s resolution goals.

Very interesting, don’t you think?  In order to meet your resolutions or goals, you’ve got to believe that you can reach them.

The 2nd article (What is Really Behind New Year’s Resolutions) backs this up when they report:

The first step in making any permanent change is to become an observer of your life. This is simply becoming aware of your thoughts and actions. Your thoughts lead to emotional states which lead to your actions. Take responsibility for your thoughts, emotional states and actions

To meet your goals, you’ve got to think about them constantly, not just at the new year.  You’ve got to continuously re-asses these goals and compare them with your life and see if the goals still make sense.

So…back to the original thought.  Why is it that we wait until the New Year to make these resolutions.  For most people, I think it’s because they get so wrapped in day-to-day life that they (me too?) lose focus on what they (I?) really want to do with their life.

So what are my resolutions?

Well…I’m going to try Chris Brogan’s appraoch to goals for the new year. Chris has used an interesting approach called “3 words” since 2006 and it looks like his approach has worked well for him.

Here’s my 3 words: Create, Think, Lead.

More on those words:

• Create – Whether I’m writing for this blog, working on my doctorate, working on entrepreneurial activities, working with clients or spending time with family, I want to be creating 2009.
• Think – I want to think better. I want to think more creatively.   I also want to make other people think….this is what I’ll be working on for the coming year.
• Lead – My goal for the coming year is to lead in everything I do.  This doesn’t mean I want/need to be the ‘best’ at everything I do (although it would be nice)…I want to be seen as a leader in the various aspects of my life.  My writing, my research, my work…I’m going to push to be someone that people look to for information and direction.

2009 is going to be a good year….I’m going to make it one and I hope you do too.

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Resolutions for 2009 is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Time for a Mid Year Review
2. Three words for 2010
3. Links for Jan 4 2009
4. Links for November 15 2009
5. Links for July 12 2009

This book is an easy read and is worth picking up if you’re interested in writing.  The book is less of a discussion of ‘how’ to ‘write to learn’ and more of an overview of ‘why’ you should ‘write to learn’.

The book is full of examples of good writing in many different topics.  The majority of the book is passages from authors in various fields surrounded by Zinsser’s commentary on why the passage is worth including.

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend this book like I did On Writing Well, but it is worth reading for those of you who are interested in the subject.

Zinsser's Writing to Learn is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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2. Chris Brogan on Writing
3. Photography is tough
4. One Four Photography – My Photography Blog
5. Googlenope

I can sum this book up easily/quickly with this sentence:

If you want to improve your writing, buy this book…then write write write.

What a great book!

Up until this book I thought that writing ‘serious’ non-fiction was something for other people to do…those people with a better command of the english language that I.  I now realize that non-fiction doesn’t have to (and according to Zinsser shouldn’t be) a dry, boring tome.  Non-fiction can be fun and take many forms and styles.

Another thing I learned: Writing is hard….and it should be!  There are many times on this blog that I’ve done some ‘stream of consciousness’ writing and hit the “Publish” button and then later realized that I could have done so much more with the post if I’d just thought and did  some rewrites.  According to Zinsser, if you find yourself struggling with a piece you are writing, that means you are doing it right.

In this classic, Zinsser destroys the notion that a writer is someone ‘special’.  Anyone can write and write well.  But, it takes practice practice practice.

If you do any sort of writing or want to write, go buy this book immediately.  It’s only $11 at amazon but will bring you a hundred times that in value and knowledge.

I enjoyed this book so much, I bought Zinsser’s “Writing to Learn“…look for a review of that book soon.

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On Writing Well is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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5. Book Review: Succession, Are You Ready?

The newsletter is published quarterly and is described as:

Our newsletter is filled with activities that took place in the third quarter of 2008, including our visit to ProjectWorld Toronto 2008 and individual articles by George Siantonas and Timothy Bergmann.  The newsletter also covers an update to the PMI Virtual Communities Project (VCP), the SIG / Scrum Alliance and much much more.

You can find more information about the PMI IT&T SIG here.

PMI IT Special Interest Group Newsletter is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

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2. Results over Process
3. Carpe Factum: Hit and Run Project Managers
4. Leading IT Transformation
5. If you claim to be agile, then be agile