Three Words for 2015

(Header image courtesy of Sally Mahoney)

Some years ago, my good friend (and client) Jonathan Pollinger mentioned to me he followed Chris Brogan’s strategy of choosing 3 words instead of making a New Year’s resolution. You can read about Chris’ three words for 2015 on his website but I thought this year I’d try this trick too.

Chris’ suggestion is to follow these rules:

• Choose exactly three words
• Make them words for three different things; otherwise you’re just wasting space
• Make them specific; vague words like “focus” become hard to follow (“Focus on what?”)
• Make them positive. As Chris says “Don’t” is a hard word to rally around

So, in light of all this, here are my three words (and their meaning).

Learn

In the midst of deadlines, emails, phone calls, meetings, project management and development it can be hard to remember to sit down and try something new. Last year, I started to realise I wasn’t spending enough time just learning.

This year, I’ll…

• spend more time reading (since Christmas I’ve already finished “Business Adventures” by John Brooks and I’m currently reading “Ogilvy on Advertising” by David Ogilvy; both great books)
• devote some time each week to writing or researching a new technology (I’m currently working on a project where I’m using Less, Bower and Grunt for the first time and it’s revolutionising my development process)
• gain new skills outside of my vocation. I spent some time learning pottery last year and you know what? I felt renewed every lesson.

Write

The benefits of blogging are well documented but so few of us make the time. This year, I’m going to ensure I do make the time by

• Regularly setting time aside to write
• Creating a content marketing strategy
• Measuring the affects on traffic, leads and overall market impression of the Rigorous Brand

There’s plenty of material to write about just from the above three points.

Progress

Rigorous is a new brand with some new concepts that, although have already made some great inroads in the last year, I’m keen to push further. I’m hoping the first two words will prop this one up to a certain extent (example: learning business improvement techniques and writing about them should result in a growth in readership, traffic and (hopefully!) new leads) but I’m also aware it deserves a place in it’s own right.

This year, I see Rigorous…

• Improving brand visibility in the south-west region
• Growing our support business revenue to £2,000 a month (we’re already just under half that)
• Setting up better mechanisms for coping with larger influxes of work

That’s just a start but I’ve big plans for 2015!