As my title suggests, I’m going off the reservation with this post. Today’s post isn’t about business or communication. It’s about me. It’s about you.

When I look over the expanse of human history I see three significant events:

1. Fire
2. Jesus and
3. the Internet

I know a lot more happened, I just think the rest of it is largely subtext. I guess I’m a big picture guy. Some of us operate at 20,000 feet and some us at 3 feet. That’s fine. We’re just different. One view is not necessarily better than the other and we need both types of people (and a lot more) in the world. We all have a role to play.

I’m a good guy to have on your strategy development team. I can spot trends early on in their development and ways that seemingly unrelated events and conflicting data are, in fact, lining up to a predictable conclusion. Rarely a week goes by that I’m not amazed that someone, or some company, “didn’t see that coming.” That’s one of my strengths, but I have weaknesses too.

Even though I consider myself a decent writer, I’m not the guy to hire if you want to a write long detailed process manual, which may be needed to implement a strategy. I’d get about 90% through, get bored and struggle with the last 10%. Attention to detail has been a life-long issue for me. My best work has been done when I had highly analytical teammates, people to help me with details. These differences are good, in fact they’re important.

Can you imagine how boring it would be if every night you sat down with your friends and family and said, “Okay, what should we talk about? Fire, Jesus or the Internet?” That wouldn’t work well, although I know people who, it seems, do only talk about the last two.

It’s hard to figure out your own set of words. It takes time and effort to work through and reconcile your inner-most thoughts and feelings. But that’s exactly how we learn about ourselves. My little three-word exercise is just one tactic and those are my results.

I’m going to assume your list, your top three (fifteen, whatever) is different than mine and that’s the point. Write your own list. Once you have it, study it. What does it tell you about yourself? How can you incorporate your natural tendencies, the real you, into your work? How can you mix it into your fun?

I’ve shared my list. Care to share yours?

Steve

Website design is often in the eye of the beholder. However, no matter how great your current website design is most of the experts say websites should be updated every 3-5 years. Technologies change, your audience probably changes slightly and giving your site a fresh new look seldom hurts. With that in mind, we're updating www.aligned-marketing.com.

To get some inspiration for our new site I visited 9 "award" sites. These websites let me glance at a bunch of websites that the experts have decided are the best-of-the-best for various industry segments. I thought I'd pass the list along so you can see what the folks in-the-know are saying about website design. Please feel free to add to the list.

• Davey Awards: http://www.daveyawards.com
• EduNet: www.edunetconnect.com/awards/index.php
• Interactive Media Awards: www.interactivemediaawards.com/default.asp
• Internet Advertsing Competition: www.advertisingcompetition.org/iac
• Kasina's Awards for Financial Professionals: www.kasina.com/Page.asp?ID=493
• MuniNetGuide: www.muninetguuide.com/top_picks.php
• W3 Awards: http://www.w3award.com
• Web Marketing Association's WebAward: www.webaward.org
• Webby Awards: http://webbyawards.com

Steve
800-707-9150