Are You Facing a Creative Imbalance?

Being in the transportation industry (as I was) meant a lot of time spent thinking about balance, and not being too heavy inbound or outbound. In moving things (or people), the ideal state is the same number arriving and departing. If you're too heavy outbound, it means you have lots of things going out, but very few coming in. Heavy inbound is the opposite - many things arriving, but few leaving. Within the economy, there are distinct geographic and industrial patterns in the movement of goods and people. As a result, transportation providers are constantly trying to achieve balance within their networks.

All of this has a direct tie to creativity. It's not difficult to find yourself in creative imbalance, with a disconnect between the amount of creativity you're producing and the creative elements you're taking in to fuel your own pursuits.

Typically, I run heavy on the outbound side of creativity. Part of it is my personality; part of it is a strategy to provide real-life testing of the various creativity-instigating exercises and tools I share. If I'm creatively spent and a particular approach helps spur my creativity, chances are it will work for you as well.

Right now though, I'm so heavy outbound, it's a little ridiculous. Beyond blogging and tweeting, I've been doing a lot of proposal writing (which is a wonderful situation to have), building messaging for the business side of Brainzooming, and trying to do more commenting and guest blogging, too.

One problem of being too heavy outbound in transportation is you wind up with all the equipment you need to function located somewhere else. You have problems making commitments because you lack necessary resources.

What that means for me in the creativity world is trying to force myself to schedule an all inbound day - no blog writing, no tweeting, no thinking about what I should be communicating. Simply a day to read, absorb, replenish, and learn, unencumbered by the need to say something.

Quite a goal, and I'll let you know when it's achieved! In the meantime, how's your creative balance? - Mike Brown

Now That You've Abandoned Your New Year's Resolution, How About a Proper Goal? - Guest Post by Alex Wolf

It's a blast seeking out people to be Brainzooming guest authors because it leads to finding so many creative people working on fascinating projects. This week is no exception.

As with most of the guest bloggers, I first met Alex Wolf on Twitter. I soon found my way to her website where she describes herself as a blogger, photographer, traveller, software trainer, booklover and "positivity central." Beyond that, she details how she's 1 girl taking on 101 goals in 1001 days. Her 101 goals adventure began on January 1, 2009 and will end September 29, 2011. So far, it's taken her all over the world, led to two tattoos, working at a film festival, made her a vegetarian, introduced her to many new friends and made her a very Can Do kind of girl. 2010 is going to be the busiest year in her 101 goals plan and includes climbing a mountain (April), white water rafting (May) and starting to work towards a parachuting qualification (July or August), among other things.

Given how innovative Alex's undertaking is, I asked her to share her perspectives on goal setting strategy with all of you:

If you started a New Year's Resolution (NYR for short) this year, you've probably abandoned it already. Most of them don't survive the third week of January. But hey, don't feel down. It's a good thing when one fails. It gives you a chance to go back to the basics and make proper goals.

According to most studies, including this recent one in The Guardian, NYRs are doomed to failure because of the way they're made. In short, they're all about end destination and rarely focus on how to actually get there. Lose weight, get promoted, fall in love. They're dreams. They're wishes. But that’s all they usually are, and that’s why they usually fail.

Here are some key differences between NYRs and good goals:

• An NYR is impersonal, cookie cutter dreaming. A good goal is personal and something you can get enthusiastic about.
• An NYR is a one-line throw away. A good goal is defined, specific and holds you accountable.
• AN NYR has no end date or target. A good goal has a time frame/conclusion built in.

Let me give you a practical example:

NYR: "Get fit"

Analysis: Hard to analyze something so ill-defined! It’s completely generic, has no connection to the person making it, and has no time frame. There’s also no accountability to it – you can hardly ask someone if they ‘got fit’ over the weekend in the same way you can ask them if they went to the gym three times last week.

Good goal: "Complete enough training between January and the end of March to compete in my local half marathon in April"

Analysis: It’s specific and personal to the goal maker. They’ve set a timeframe and criteria for how they’ll know the goal is complete. It’s flexible enough to fit in with their real life. It’s also accountable – people will know if they don’t do the training and can’t compete.

This is all very obvious stuff, of course, but it can be hard to focus on the basics of good goal setting during resolution silly season. Now that the 2010 NYR silly season is over though, and no one's watching, how about quietly turning some of your dreams into real, solid goals?

It’s easy and you can do it in three steps.

1. Set Goals, Not Dreams

Go right back to the goal setting basics, make your goals SMART. Make sure the goals you end up with are goals you can get excited about.

2. Make Realistic And Ongoing Commitments

Commit to working on your goals when you can; try and define when those times are. Carry a list of goals with you and read it occasionally. Stay focused on why you want to achieve these things and what you need to do next to move forward.

3. Start Moving

Get started then keep going. It's that simple. A pragmatic goal being worked on when you can is so much better than your voice singing in the annual NYR failure chorus. And you deserve better! - Alex Wolf

3 Links Between Your Company and Personal Brands

In a recent blog post, Mike Arauz, a strategist at Undercurrent, raised the issue of how personal and company brands fit together. He addressed the issue in the advertising industry particularly where the personal brands of an agency's employees can readily take on more prominence than its own.

Beyond offering a comment on how I'd handled this situation myself, the post suggested three other important elements in linking company and personal brand strategy:

• More prominently marketing your personal brand implies you have to manage yourself successfully. As with a company's brand management team, carefully select the people you surround yourself with to help you shape your innovative personal brand strategy.


• Ideally, your strong personal brand should be complementary to your employer's brand. At a minimum, they shouldn't be in conflict and should work in tandem. At best, the professional characteristics you successfully display in your job should be creatively displayed in your personal brand as well.


• Make a conscious evaluation of elements from your employer's brand to incorporate into your personal brand for the mutual benefit of both. Are there personality, expertise, or performance attributes your employer is known for that you have come to strongly embody? If so, consider how you can creatively bring these into your personal brand. - Mike Brown

Get Up Early

Next time you're stymied when trying to get a creative project done, try this: get up very early when it's quiet and your mind's clear and devote the extra time to getting the project done.

Using potentially your most creative perspective of the day (even if you're not a morning person) is an appropriate strategy when a project requires your freshest innovative thinking. - Mike Brown

See Me, Feel Me, Criticize Me

It's a challenge to objectively examine your own website as if a prospect or customer seeking information would. There's an approach you can follow to get ideas flowing though: Look at a direct competitor's online presence, trying to shoot holes in it based on how a customer might view it.

You should really be able to get into it by answering a few questions:

• What misleading or out-of-date information is presented?


• What's not compelling about the website?


• What's confusing about the navigation?


• How much unnecessary detail do I have to supply to get a copy of the "free" download?


• What questions do I have that the website doesn't answer?


• Do I know where to get my other questions answered?


• In what ways did I get smarter by browsing this website?


• In what ways were my information needs left wanting?

After doing this, go back and see how your own online presence compares. Looking at yourself from a customer perspective should now be much easier! - Mike Brown

Advice for 2010

Be a contrarian this year - Think when others are reacting. Get antsy when everyone's comfortable. Innovate when you don't have to innovate.

Embrace dramatic change - Go against the "change one thing and test" strategy. Get friendly with chaos and change lots of things at once.

Get more from your life - Live today with wonder as if it were your first day. Create as if it were the only day you have. Be as bold as if today were your last. - Mike Brown

Everybody in the Pool (or Snow Drift) for the Brand Promise

Trends are pushing brands into innovative channels to sell their products and services. These strategies include going through intermediaries who resell, repackage, aggregate, or creates marketplaces for multiple providers' offerings. These arrangements have been the rise and ruin of many brands.

A specific challenge for parties in these intermediary relationships is that each brand visible to the end customer is bringing its individual brand promise to the sale. In turn, each becomes responsible for the aggregate brand promise, making it critical for various individual promises to fit together in a sensible way for customers. It's also vital that each provider (and its employees) can and do carry out the aggregate promise of whatever's being offered.

Our experience last week highlighted the challenges involved. Trying to get our driveway cleared of 9 inches of snow before returning from a trip, we used ServiceMagic.com. It promises to identify a short list of screened and approved professionals for home repair and contracting work, backed with a seal of approval and a guarantee.

We chose the first one to contact us (whose name can best be described as "Generic Subdivision Name Lawn and Garden" company).

Here's the rub. Beyond whatever else ServiceMagic promises, its name implies something more. It's not operating under a generic lawn and garden company name. Adding the name "Magic" into the collective brand promise implies an enhanced sense of delight and wonder with the service performed.

Unfortunately, we returned home to find the snow removal only partially completed. The porch, walk, and driveway were still half covered in snow - hardly a magic moment. A call to the snow removal company didn't get someone back to do the work by the next morning. I wound up finishing the project, shooting a video before and after to substantiate what was and wasn't done.

As of this posting, no one's contacted us and we haven't been invoiced by anyone. Maybe that's the "magic" part of the service. If this is the case though, it would be a more magic strategy if someone called to say, "Hey, we screwed up, and it's free!" Doing so would ensure our return for more performances! - Mike Brown

When People Don’t Understand There Are Lots of Ways to Be Right

What’s your first reaction to a new possibility? And importantly, what are typical reactions to new possibilities from the people who surround you? Lately, I’m encountering more people whose first reaction is why something won’t work, how they know better than I do about it, or who simply react with a hostile tone.

For someone who espouses openness to ideas, I’m seeing detrimental impacts on my attitude. When you hear enough negatives, it can lead you to also start reacting negatively to new possibilities out of frustration, spite, or self-protection.

What to do in this type of situation? Overtly model positive behavior and hope they get it? Challenge them directly on how they dampen creativity? Leave the relationship for the sake of creative self-preservation?

No single answer works - each choice has its own advantages and peculiar stumbling blocks. Sounds like some type of combo is in order. We’ll see how that possibility works. – Mike Brown

Stop Right There, Before We Go Any Further

Okay, it’s the time for 2009 reviews and 2010 look aheads.

So, what did you stop doing in 2009?

Stopping something counts as “doing something.” And in a period when time demands are coming at us from more ways than ever, it’s okay to quit things that aren’t contributing or adding as much value to your life as other things.

So, what did you quit in 2009?

Answering the question myself, I had a big quit (my long time job) in 2009 and a variety of slow downs (i.e., less activity than previously expended while still keeping something going). I probably didn’t quit enough things in 2009 though and certainly didn’t quit as many things as I started.

How about you?

For me, 2010 feels like it’s going to be a year of more quits. That’s because there will need to be a bunch of starts and trials this coming year. It will be one of dramatic changes and will require repeatedly identifying what isn’t valuable anymore and needs to go "bye-bye." One of the things I'm considering for the quit list is daily posting on Brainzooming in favor of a several times a week schedule. Would definitely appreciate your reactions to the idea before it's a final decision!

If your stop doing list from 2009 also seemed too short, start deciding what you’ll be quitting in the next 12 months. – Mike Brown

10 Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today, December 31, 1999, I met Jan Harness, my (then future) creative instigation partner, via phone call.

When I've shared the specifics of first talking with Jan, people have commented how sweet it is I remember the event in such detail. Really though, the story's a great example of creating memorable brand experiences.

A post last October spelled out a formula for memorable brand experiences springing from the convergence of three factors - personal interests, emotional intensity, and a brand's role in the experience. Against that framework, here's how the story of meeting Jan played out:

1. High Personal Interest - I was charged with creating presentations for our company's introductory 2,000 person customer conference which was barely 2 weeks away. Among the challenges, there was no convincing the CIO that with Y2K looming, nobody cared about the history of the computer - her desired way to open her speech. With many other presentations also needing massive amounts of writing effort, it seemed so hopeless my boss was finally convinced I needed outside help for it all to get done.


2. Emotional Intensity - The conference was a big deal, with high expectations for success. We were having various production issues, so the pressure was intensifying as time slipped away. The news was also filled with stories about the ominous potential danger from Y2K. All that led to a pretty vivid sense of the date when Jan and Barb Pruitt got on the phone to see how they might be able to help rescue me.


3. A (Personal) Brand's Role in Enabling the Experience - We quickly figured out the basis of how we'd work, and Jan got started. Within the two weeks leading up to the conference, Jan came in, learned our company and the presenters, and dramatically improved our ability to creatively communicate our important messages. In fact, she had such an impact before the show that she became part of the traveling team responsible for the conference’s on-site production.

So you see, with the high level of personal interest (creating a successful conference from one that was teetering), emotional intensity (both personal emotions and the global emotion and visibility of what 1/1/2000 held), and an incredible brand experience (Jan's amazing contribution and the start of our creative team), there's no way the experience wouldn't be indelibly fixed in my mind.

As a side note, Jan and I have a brother/sister kind of creative relationship, i.e. we pick on each other (okay maybe it's me picking on Jan) constantly. Yet when @lqualls4444 asked the other day on Twitter if Jan knew how much I appreciate her contribution to my creativity, it was great to say, "Yes." Amid a recent late night email rant, I'd shared "lavish praise" for Jan's talents. Here's an excerpt:

"...this experience has reinforced for me not only what a talented writer you are, but that you are the [dare I say] unique [or at least relatively rare] strategist who happens to also be a fantastic writer. There's a HUGE difference between getting words into sentences and a bunch of sentences on a page and organizing thinking, themes, and words in a consistent, strategic flow. You are the best of anyone I've ever worked with at doing that. You create tremendously high expectations for others after having worked with you, and I'm not sure there are many out there who can meet them!!!"

So, if you need a great strategist who also happens to write fantastically, seek out my creative instigation partner of 10 years, Jan Harness! - Mike Brown

The Eleventh Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Maintaining the Higher Moral Ground

Bob Nugent was a year behind me in grade school. We didn't really have much contact until college where we were both involved in student government and wound up spending lots of time together as part of an interesting (at least to us), somewhat nerdy political clique.

At one point, several student organizations found themselves embroiled in what passed for college campus controversy in those days. Let's just say, it was quite a bit less important than the anti-war protests of our predecessors on campus years earlier.

As various groups and individuals were angling for the upper hand in what might be the ultimate resolution of the issue, Bob talked about the necessity of "maintaining the higher moral ground."

By this phrase, he meant the importance of displaying the upright conduct that allows you to deflect criticism potentially coming your way. The phrase "higher moral ground" resonated so strongly, I've used the idea repeatedly in reminding myself of the importance of not extending your own moral point of view beyond a standard against which you are willing to be judged.

Years later, I discovered the concept addressed in a New Testament passage from the letter to Titus:

"...show(ing) yourself as a model of good deeds in every respect, with integrity in your teaching, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be criticized, so that the opponent will be put to shame without anything bad to say about us." - Titus 2:7-8

When I first heard it, I was clear this was a description of the "higher moral ground." Bob's words from college came full circle for me as a foundational life practice.

Maintaining the higher moral ground is a challenging standard for anyone, but in an age when there's such interest in seeing people fall, it's never been more important to be able to live it out successfully.

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

The Seventh Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Focus on Other People

Early in college, I'd hit a major rut, dissatisfied with myself and an inability to effectively interact with people who were unfamiliar or encountered during casual situations. It was the first time the challenges many introverts face became overwhelming. After one particularly frustrating incident, I gave in to my father's long-term urgings to embrace self-help books and agreed to read "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie.

The book changed my life by pointing out the value of focusing on other peoples' interests, concerns, and motivations instead of my own as a fundamental principle in advancing ideas and accomplishing success. One of the most memorable suggestions was, "Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."

While acting on the book's ideas required working hard to become more outgoing in new interpersonal situations (something which has taken years, and is still an ongoing effort), Carnegie's emphasis on listening to others played to an introvert's strengths. All of a sudden a situation that seemed hopeless became very much in reach to start improving right away.

My recommendation to you? If you've never read "How to Win Friends and Influence People," get a copy and put it into action. Although it's decades old, it's a fundamental handbook for creating successful, important relationships. And for me, I'm going to review it as a refresher for both IRL interactions and to consider how I am doing in translating the ideas into the social media world. - Mike Brown

The Sixth Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Live Out a Positive Life

My dad came back from Ed Foreman’s Successful Life Course in the mid 1980s with a new favorite word, “TERRIFIC!!!” as the all-the-time answer to the question, “How are you doing?”

Back then, it was bothersome to me because it was clear he wasn’t always TERRIFIC. Years later after listening to some of Foreman’s tapes and seeing him live, I finally understood the reason for saying “TERRIFIC!!!” all the time. The point is words precede attitudes and attitudes precede actions. Saying you’re TERRIFIC gets you in the mental mindset that will ultimately lead you to act as if you are TERRIFIC!!! all the time.

I got it and tried to embrace the belief, yet couldn’t get myself to say TERRIFIC. My version is, “Wonderful!" It's certainly more understated, yet still far more positive than I would have ever answered previously. I’ll admit I don't always come off sounding "Wonderful," but the greeting does stand out and helps keep me honest about being thankful for the MANY truly wonderful aspects of life.

So, how are you doing?

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

The Fifth Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Creating Ridiculous Growth Opportunities

At a company-first sales conference, we'd scheduled Tommy Lasorda as a surprise second-day speaker. My boss (a very different boss than in yesterday's post) was set to emcee the whole conference, yet at the end of day one, he said, “I have to spend the afternoon with Tommy Lasorda, so you emcee tomorrow afternoon.” Startled (and a little worried) by his comment considering there was no script and no rehearsal time, I took on the assignment the next day.

As it turned out, it was an incredible opportunity to be in front of the entire company’s sales team for a whole afternoon. With a pretty boring agenda of speakers, it created opportunities as the emcee to be interactive, funny, and get the entire audience to stand up and scream at the top of their lungs. That night, so many people came up to say they had no idea I was funny. In one afternoon, I went from being a quiet research guy to having a personality within the company and incredibly shaping the next decade of my career.

There are tremendous benefits for your team members (and for you) when you're willing to create ridiculous challenges and great opportunities to make them grow in ways no one else would ever imagine.

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

The Third Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Giving the Okay to Challenge Thinking

Early in his tenure, our CEO shared his ten business principles. I don’t remember nine of them, but one stood out for of its simplicity, matter-of-factness, and wide applicability: “Don’t do anything stupid.”

I've used this admonition numerous times when attempting to slow (and ideally thwart) ill-founded ideas others felt really strongly about pursuing. When you can invoke the CEO's own words, it provides a lot more credibility in challenging dumb stuff and trying to do the right things for the business.

The approach's success oriented me toward the tremendous leadership benefits of sharing what really matters in easy-to-understand words. If you can get your message distilled in a simple, clear way, it frees up team members to use their own perspectives and innovative spirits in beneficial ways a leader could never anticipate. I've written several times about my own struggle for simplicity and have tried to take this learning to heart.

As an example, I was leading a motor sports program in what was then called the Busch Series. It's considered to be a second-tier series in NASCAR behind the "Cup" series, where everything costs 3 to 5 times more to sponsor. Our challenge was creating a program with a top tier Cup sponsorship's impact with a relatively small investment. This potential dilemma was at the heart of our internal program strategy: "We're doing a Cup level program with a Busch Series budget." With that direction, the team understood our constraints and was freed to be more creative and challenging in how we attacked our goals.

Think about what simple strategic guidelines you can share with your team to help them be more effective in carrying out the most important activities.

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

Getting Ready for 2010: Planning in a Recession - Guest Post by Barrett Sydnor

Today's guest post addressing preparing for 2010 comes from Barrett Sydnor, one of the first guest authors ever on Brainzooming back in early 2008. I've worked with Barrett on various strategic planning projects over the past 15 years, including quite a bit of quantitative industry analysis and supply/demand forecasting.

Today, he's addressing the right marketing stance to have during and coming out of a recession:

Fortune Favors the Bold.

The Roman playwright Terence wrote that in the 2nd century BC, though Virgil often gets credit because a similar line later appears in the Aeneid. Terence was probably talking about the military strategy of some emperor, but it turns out that the sentiment applies to businesses—small and large—as they face figuring out how to plan for 2010.

A natural tendency when looking at bad or uncertain times is to hunker down, keep spending to a minimum, and stay with what you have done in the past. Natural, but maybe not smart.
A Hurwitz & Associates report found that 65% of small businesses that expected increased revenues during 2009 had raised or planned to increase marketing spending. Increased revenues were expected by only 30% of those who were keeping marketing spend flat, and almost half (41%) of those who were cutting marketing spend were expecting a decrease in revenue.

This correlates with a study done at Penn State after the 2000 recession. The authors say that using what they call “proactive marketing” can allow firms to improve both capital market and business performance during a recession. They cite increased marketing spending by P&G, Kellogg, Intel, and Wal-Mart during recessions—and depressions—as a way to grab or consolidate dominant market shares.

For sports fans, one way to restate “Fortune Favors the Bold,” is “The Best Defense is a Good Offense.” You might ask, "How did that work out for Bill Belichick and the Patriots against the Colts?" While the execution lacked, he had the science—and the odds on his side (discussion here, here, and here).

In planning, as in coaching football, getting the odds on your side is really is what you are trying to do. Being more aggressive with your 2010 plan may be the way to tilt those odds in your favor. - Barrett Sydnor

Getting Ready for 2010: What Have You Been Saying?

A loyal reader pointed out recently that Brainzooming has become too unwieldy, making it tough to go back and find specific posts. One possibility is using the search function on each page to search for particular topics directly in Brainzooming articles.

Another alternative is doing compilations on frequently addressed topics. With the focus on 2010 strategic planning options, the links below highlight previously-published posts that can help if you're under the gun to get a plan for 2010 completed.

A Foundation on Strategic Thinking

• An Overview on What Strategic Means, Who to Involve in Strategy Development, and a Few Strategic Tools

Creating a Strategic Focus

• Steps to Re-evaluate and Focus on Important Elements in Your Business


• Better Understanding What's Strategic in Your Business

Contingency Planning

• Thoughts on Dealing with Uncertainty


• Steps to Deal with Planning Amid Uncertainty


• Quickly Developing Options When Your Current Plan Isn't Working


• Having to "Wing" Your Strategy Because of Uncertainty

Updating Your Current Plan

• Re-checking Your Marketing Plan for Completeness


• Reviewing and Modifying Your Strategic Direction


• Updating a Marketing Plan Under Tight Resources

Implementing Specific Strategic Thrusts

• Generating New Ideas When You Need Them


• When A More Aggressive Competitive Strategy Is Needed


• You're Fighting an Uphill Battle and Need a Contrarian Strategy


• Developing a Low-Investment Marketing Strategy


• You Have a Turnaround to Fix

Wrapping Up with a Smile on Your Face

• The Ultimate in Flexible Strategy

There are certainly other Brainzooming articles touching on these planning topics, but ideally this short list will get you jump started for current planning efforts you have to complete. - Mike Brown

What Are We Trying to Say?

Many (okay, let's be real, nearly all) corporate visions, missions, values, BHAGs (you name it), sound alike. They either extol bland concepts (i.e., "our associates will be the best") or meaningless ideas (i.e., "our human intellectual capital will leverage world-class synergies").

If you have boring or confusing strategic statements in your business, here's an approach to correct it: ask the questions below to help simplify and enrich the language in your strategic statements:

• How would customers describe what we're talking about in ways very meaningful to them?
• If we were telling somebody who knows nothing about our business about why this idea is important to the company's success, what would we say?
• How would we communicate this in a way that really inspires our employees to greatness? How about potential employees?
• What are more emotional words to describe this statement?
• How will we talk about it when we've accomplished this goal?
• How would one of our mothers proudly tell a relative about what we're trying to do?
• If we had to explain this to children, what would we say so they could understand it and be able to act?

Give these questions a try with your management team or on your own. Take the words and phrases you imagine and start turning strategic corporate speak into language that moves the hearts, minds, and actions of everyone in your company! - Mike Brown

Personal Branding When You're 25x 2.0

Thanks to a tweet from Richard Dedor, Chris Reaburn and I were last minute attendees at a Kansas City PRSA lunch session by Dan Schawbel based on his book Me 2.0 - Build a Personal Brand to Achieve Career Success.

The talk was part of a career day for students interested in PR, so the average audience age was 20. As a result, Dan's slant on personal branding was customized for the industry and audience life stage.

The concepts he covered were nonetheless applicable to anyone working on personal branding. From talking with many people in mid-career transitions, however, they tend to be woefully behind on how personal branding applies to their situations. So for the 25 times 2.0 crowd, here are three suggestions customized for you:

1. Volunteering for meaningful assignments with professional associations is a great mid-career internship.

Dan highlights the necessity of internships for college-age job seekers. Mid career job seekers have similar opportunities. I speak with many people whose current job is "looking for a job." There's no sizzle and not much built-in skill development there. Yet associations relevant to you are likely looking for knowledgeable professionals to take on assignments. One great thing about a smartly-chosen volunteer project is you typically have room to make it much cooler than anyone in the association ever expected. The result is you get to experiment, learn, and have something with sizzle to lead with when networking.

2. Mid-career, it's imperative to assess your personality and get on with changing what's not working.

My advice to people who leave for other companies is always to think about who they want to be in a new job, because it's the only opportunity to create a "new" you. Dan makes the point it's tremendously challenging to reinvent yourself in the age of (nearly) total visibility to your online presence. That's true, but if you continually trip yourself up through the same behaviors, do the self-help, career coaching, or counseling necessary to eliminate rough spots. Become if not a new, at least a "new formula" you.

3. Mid-career people need a solid offline and online network you're actively growing.

Dan's right when he says a larger network has the potential to work much harder for you. But with a number of years of experience, you should be good at determining the highest value people in your network. While you definitely want to serve and cultivate these relationships very actively, you should also be continually reaching out to expand your network offline and online. Focus on adding people you may be able to help while building the most vibrant, responsive network you can. That's a far better move than creating the largest network possible filled with people having few real ties to you.

This topic is of increasing interest, so look for more on it as we go forward. Let me know how we can deliver value to you as part of the Brainzooming family! - Mike Brown

When DIY Doesn't Work

Steve Epley visited last week, and we talked about challenges in trying to do for yourself what you do professionally for others. This resonated because of recent work on the Brainzooming™ brand. It's much easier to figure out another's great brand value and how to communicate it than doing the same for myself. It's tough to step back and address your own situation as objectively as you can for someone else.

Are you facing similar challenges? Here are three alternatives:

1. Use what you know works.

Struggling to clarify the Brainzooming brand as a business entity and personally, it struck me that we use a variety of tools with others to help define brand promises and positions. Turning to tools I've seen work in so many situations helped push my own thinking and expand the concepts being considered. If you've got tools and approaches developed for those you serve, don't overlook applying them to your own business situation.

2. Ask for help.

I stared at my resume for years, unable to update it. In 2007, I finally sought professional preparation, with great results. Updating it now with all the new experiences and results of the past two years is again challenging. Based on a tip from Jan Harness, whip-smart wordsmith and media maven Emma Alvarez-Gibson is helping convey what Brainzooming represents in words. Never consider it a weakness to get help doing what you know how to do. Instead, it shows the respect for your profession you want others to also have.

3. Be Patient and Wait.

As much I love believing strategic thinking approaches completely get you around time and mental capacity crunches, they won't in every case. Many issues need to unfold in real time to allow strategic thinking and action. Each passing day, next steps for Brainzooming become clearer and more developed. As much as I'd have loved to figure out some things last year, it simply wasn't reasonable to do so. Maybe if you can't work too far ahead on a project, you can at least work on patience instead.

Hope those help in getting around any roadblocks you face employing a DIY approach in your own field. - Mike Brown