My New Years Obsessions for 2012

December 31, 2011 By 4 Comments

The most positive way to describe my life in 2011 would probably be ‘interesting’. Along with every high, such as celebrating my first year in business, there have been a number of lows, particularly when it has come to family life. So the coming of a new year is a welcome fresh start, and rather than partying to celebrate midnight, I’m choosing to focus on how I start 2012 tomorrow morning when I wake up.

And rather than setting out a list of resolutions, a term which seems almost invented to accommodate them being broken, I’m thinking about my obsessions for the next year – things which will continue to drive me forwards no matter what happens.

The Business obsession: Building businesses which enable others to gain control of their employment.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to achieve work-wise. Obviously I’ll always be working towards greater financial security, as I suspect you will, too. And within my portfolio career in marketing, writing, teaching and other stuff, there are areas that I feel driven to concentrate on and expand.

But when I imagine success, I’ve realised a key motivation is that I know many, many people who are incredibly talented and skilled, and feel disillusioned with their current employment. So if I’m able to grow my business and can help other people become empowered to choose their own destiny in their professional life, that appeals far more to me than managing people in an office who are just paid to turn up every day.

So the plan for 2012 is to increase the turnover for my career, and get to the stage where I’m able to employ and empower at least a couple of those people on a regular basis by the end of the year, whether that’s in an existing project or something new.

The best way to achieve any plan is to break it down into smaller steps, which include improving what I produce for my own websites and the way I work, continuing to always do the best possible work for clients, and also making more of opportunities elsewhere.

The personal obsession: Building better connections with family, friends and strangers

Despite doing a reasonable job of keeping in touch with my friends and family via social networks, I’ve been a bit rubbish at actually catching up in the real world, and I’m obsessed with changing that in 2012. Not only do I need to keep working on being the best dad I can, I also intend to try to be a better son/grandson and friend to all the people who have supported and helped me over the years. It’s incredibly important that all of us make time for the people we care about, and it always benefits us as much, if not more, than it does the people we’re visiting/helping/supporting.

And by the same token, since being based more at home and outside of London, I’ve been rubbish at catching up with people I know well electronically, but failed to connect with in the real world. There are several people I haven’t seen in ages, and several more that I keep aiming to meet but fail to arrange it. And each one of them is inspirational in some way.

I have a sneaky suspicion that actually getting my social life together offline will also drastically help my creativity and business – I’ve already benefitted immensely from the clients with whom I regularly work in the office as well as virtually, from Digital People in Peterborough meets, and from the chats and conversations I’ve managed to make time for in 2011.

Again, I’m breaking it into smaller steps, by making lists of the people who I want to make time for, and sorting out my calendar in a more organised fashion.

 

How you can help…

No one achieves all their obsessions completely alone, and I’m going to take this opportunity to ask you for a tiny bit of help. Whether or not we’ve met before or chatted online, if you’d like to meet up for a drink or a chat, let me know. And if I don’t come back straight away with a date or time, then keep reminding me. Because I definitely want to meet up with you (if you’re not going to be in the UK at some point, then Skype works!) And this isn’t about me trying to sell your my services as a prospective client – it’s purely because there’s nothing more interesting to me than finding out about what you’re doing and what your passions are. And the fact you’re reading this means that you’re part of a self-selecting group that are guaranteed to be interesting – after all, you’re reading my blog aren’t you?

The only thing to know to save some confusion are that even if we’re meeting for ‘coffee’, I don’t actually drink the stuff, but mainline caffeine from soft drinks (I do, however, drink beer).

Here’s to a great 2012 for everyone, and I can’t wait to meet up with more of you this year.

Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Dan Thornton, TheWayoftheWeb Tagged With: , , , , , ,

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  • Anonymous

    Hi, was very interested to see what Clare Valotti said about branding in this month’s Esquire feature re MailOnline. Do you agree that “in the old days, readers bought into an environment or demographic, and those things were quite clear. Online you have a lot of readers who enjoy the content regardless of how they feel about the brand. And most readers under 40 don’t think about what a particular newspaper brand ‘stands for’ as much as the older generation.” ? If we take out the word ‘newspaper’ and substitute it with ‘specialist website’ does this still stand up? Are younger consumers so savvy/cynical/saturated with brands and brand stretching etc that it is getting tougher to generate a consistent ‘emotional’ connection with a product/service etc?

  • http://www.thewayoftheweb.net Dan Thornton

    Hi,
      Thanks for the comment, and sadly I haven’t seen the article in question as it doesn’t appear to be available online, so I’m only able to respond to the direct quotes…

      In essence, I agree a lot. When I teach journalism, I begin the explanation of it by highlighting the main difference between writing for an online audience and a print audience, in that most people buying a newspaper or magazine in print are buying into that brand – there’s a maximum amount of content and headlines that can be highlighted on a cover, and if you spend too long actually browsing you’re likely to be politely escorted out by a newsagent.

     Whereas digital readers may either visit a website due to the brand, or via searching for their topic or term, or via a recommendation from a connection. That means they may not have any knowledge of the brand prior to their visit, and what it stands for, and may not be any wiser after reading that article, unless they’re encouraged to stick around to investigate further.

      But…

      Brands still do play a large part in choices as a reinforcement of existing viewpoints and identification, whether you look at Techcrunch, Boing Boing, Mashable etc. Although a far wider group may discover a particular article, the repeat visitors for a site are those who are more closely aligned with that particular view and brand.

     And I think we have to split out the idea of ‘tougher’. I don’t believe it’s any more complex to build an entirely digital brand from scratch – it’s what I’m trying to achieve with this site, and with projects like OnlineRaceDriver, for example.

     But I do believe it potentially takes more work than previously – it requires a consistent tone and quality of content (by quality, I mean well written for the target audience, optimised for SEO and social sharing), and more thought into how that brand operates across all channels.

      It also takes more work to actually understand and align the brand with the people who work for it, and who may also be building their own personal connections and reputation. I’m probably a fairly good match for the demographic of The Guardian, but I don’t buy it in print and don’t regularly read it online – I do, however, follow around 5-10 journalists and employees of it, and religiously read some of their content on social networks, blogs, and in print.

    Lastly, a brand needs more clarity and adventure considering the saturation. I don’t agree necessarily with the viewpoint of the Mail, but they’re good at setting out their stall and standing by it with all that they do.

    Looking outside of the media, and trying to isolate a brand position from all other business influencers is tricky, but Ford, for example, have invested heavily in aligning themselves with technology (e.g. implementing tech in their cars and sponsoring the likes of the This Week in Tech podcast). Apple and Google obviously set out their stalls early on. And there are individual authors and artists who have achieved success in similar fashion – for instance, I will religiously buy and read anything published by Cory Doctorow based around the fact I identify with a lot of what he has done, blogged, tweeted etc.

    Too often , traditional media brands still focus on not only being impartial in their reporting, but also uncontroversial for fear of upsetting readers and advertisers, and that is a weakness that can lead to death by a thousand cuts. Far better to really focus on the best ways to entertain, educate, support and grow a dedicated core audience which can best drive the business forward…

    Cheers again for the great comment, and apologies for the length of the reply, but I thought it was worth answering in detail – I think I probably need to pick up the magazine and put this all into a new blog post!