strategic planning

2024-03-13

The value of travel for a strategist

Today, I wanted to share some musings on the value of travel in the life of a strategist.

I’ve always been a passionate traveller. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to leisure travel quite a bit in my life. I’ve visited nearly 70 countries — some in depth, some just for a short visit. In my adult life, I’ve made travel a priority, making most of my financial and major life decisions on the basis of how I could maximize my opportunities to travel.

For years, I downplayed this in my professional life, worried that it might make me seem less dedicated to work, that the dreaded “resume gap” could make me appear less attractive to potential employers. But I want to make the case today that this doesn’t have to be true.

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2017-07-172017-07-21

Just get moving: Overcoming digital paralysis

moving-day I’ve finally up and moved. Welcome to my new home here at WordPress. And, apologies for being out of touch for so long.

See, when I started this blog back in 2010 over at Typepad, that platform was all kinds of modern and full-featured. But, digital years are like dog years. Seven years later, my non-mobile responsive site on a limited-access platform wasn’t looking so new and shiny anymore.

I knew I had to migrate the blog over here. I just never seemed to get around to it. Despite being in the industry for fifteen years, my actual technical skills are fairly limited. I’ve set up WordPress blogs before, and I knew how easy it was to fall down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out how to do those million things right, from design to functionality to site admin. The actual work involved felt daunting. Because I never felt like I had enough time to finish the task, I never actually started it.

I’d fallen into the classic digital paralysis trap: Because I couldn’t do everything, I stopped myself from doing anything. Which is why it’s been nearly two years since my last post.

Oops.

The thing is, plenty of companies suffer from digital paralysis, too. The rate of change in digital is too fast for most corporations to keep up.

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2012-05-032017-07-21

On being a strategist

I’ve nearly always had a very tough time explaining my job to anyone outside the world of advertising.

When I first started out in account services, it was difficult enough to explain my job. “Account (coordinator/manager/supervisor/director), what does that mean?” I’d get asked by everyone from my mother to my friends in more tangible fields like medicine or law. Some folks would confuse the role with that of an account manager in a sales organization; others would assume that every advertising job was in the creative department. Over the years, I tested out various answers to this question, the most expedient of which might have been “I’m a juggler in a 3-ring circus”. But, as a great scene in this week’s episode of Mad Men shows us, the job of account man (or woman) has been around for decades and has been misunderstood for just about the same length of time:

Pete Campbell: “So, I manage those accounts.”

Émile Calvet: “I don’t understand. What do you do every day?”

Pete Campbell: “Well, what do you do? You’re a scholar and an intellectual, right? Actually, from what I hear, you’re a bit of a trailblazer. [ . . . ] I bet the world would be better off if they knew about the work you were doing.

Emile: You are very kind.

Pete: That, Émile, is what I do every day.

– Mad Men, Season 5

Strategic planning has always been a core component of my job, but it’s only in the past few years that the word “strategist” has appeared on my business cards. And here, it seems, I’ve finally found a title that’s even tougher to explain than account services.

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