A Month of CARE
Acronyms are everywhere and for good reason. They’re easy to remember and connect with their underlying cause or action. With an acronym like CARE, you’d think this was a cause of some sort. Perhaps it is. It’s definitely an action.
I’m calling August CARE month as a means of motivation. A method of advancement. Here’s how I see it:
C - Create something new every day
A - Assist someone new every day
R - Risk something new every day
E - Engage with someone new every day
Note a keyword in each description is new. With creation, sure, it’s inherently new but the ARE part we may perform daily, but is it new?
Kinda simple stuff but I’d like to see how this rounds me out in a month.
C - Create something new every day
Create something new every day I’ve done before. Several years ago I created an internal Google Group called “CreateDaily” at work that was dedicated to creating a new idea every day. It was generally based around ideas for our trading front-end, X_TRADER. I pulled it off and a few of the ideas got as far as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). A few of the ideas made their way into either X_TRADER or the TT platform. Creation, innovation, comes rather naturally to me though as I tend to look at things a bit differently. Part of the reason I created the group was to get more co-workers involved. That happened. A few names popped into the group during the month and contributed. Maybe it lit a spark in them. Who knows?
So what will I create this month? It’s a bit different now. On my first pass through this challenge, I was working more closely in developing products. Ideas were a mile a minute as problems were presented to me all day long. Developers, other product managers, customers, and a long list of individuals dumped problems on me. I’ve been more focused on product marketing for six or so years now and haven’t really put great thought into the problems in the space. This should be fun. I’m going to focus on creating solutions for product marketing problems. I’ll go beyond product marketing, the actions, and address product marketing, the questions. I’ll produce a healthy collection of trading solutions as well. Solutions for traders.
A - Assist someone new every day
Assisting someone new every day is interesting. There’s a lot of holistic reasons for how beneficial this is. There’s nothing more wholesome than giving over yourself to assist others. We may assist several people every day. It’s part of our daily routine. It’s part of our job. It’s part of our family life. Can’t you squeeze in one more person each day? Find one more individual with whom you’ve never interacted with and give them a hand. Could be a new trader down on their luck. Could be a woman looking for some spare change on the corner. Could be a random, distressed person you come across on Twitter or Facebook. Assist them. Yes, you can. Deny it as much as you like but you can. I’m not ashamed to guilt you into it.
This should come along well for me this month as I’ve taken on additional responsibility at TT. I’m now the key contact at TT for a very large segment of our customers. Much of my interaction will be centered around training and education. Teaching traders how to use different widgets in the TT platform and how to optimize their experience with the TT platform. I’m looking forward to this. Please reach out if you have any questions.
R - Risk something new every day
Risk something new every day. Are you taking enough chances? Few are, I imagine. Think of how comfortable you are. For many, there’s an inverse relationship between comfort and risk. Frankly, it’s when we’re comfortable that we’re most at risk as we tend to relax and drop our guard. We drop down into a lower gear and coast. I firmly believe that life is meant to be hard and our struggles make us who we are. Success is a byproduct of struggle, of risk. So what kind of risk are we talking about here? I don’t know. Risk is also very subjective. The point is to get out of our comfort zone. Routine is comforting and can add to productivity but perhaps we’re not tweaking those routines enough. Stop what you're doing and enhance your process. Try something new. Sometimes you have to take that trade that really goes against all logic and defies your rules.
So this part, risk, plays along with the create something daily aspect of the challenge. The risk of embarrassment, of failure, of “that’s just stupid” feedback is one of the greatest inhibitors of creation and it definitely ties into that challenge. This plays into our last challenge, engage, as well. Find your tribe. Find your circle. Find your creative circle and bounce ideas off them. One of my most prolific periods of IP generation was a span of about six months at TT when I met with two of our engineers every other week for no other reason than to create. We knew we were in a safe space and bounced some ludicrous ideas off each other. It paid off and we developed several patents. Here’s one example: Methods and Apparatus to Calculate and Present Transaction Adjusted Values ROONEY; Patrick Joseph ; et al. What worked with this collaboration was our very diverse backgrounds. A few engineers and a trader/product manager. Bring unlike but willing minds together and you’ll go far.
E - Engage with someone new every day
I engage. It’s what I do. As a product marketer, my connections are my lifeblood. Certainly, my marketing material reaches countless others beyond those with whom I’ve made direct connections but those direct connections are invaluable. They provide tremendous feedback and help keep me in line and sometimes provide direction. I’m looking to take this further. More direct contact. Not necessarily in-person...I live in the Northwoods of Wisconsin...but through social media and any other resource I come across. I’d like to develop closer groups. More frequent interactions. More information sharing.
Open up your universe for engagement. Broaden your circle. As mentioned in the section above about risk, diversity can be a huge driver of innovation. A huge driver of growth. Don’t just engage with those who agree with you and just want to “get along”. Engage with those who challenge you. Those who question you. Those who inspire you to reconsider your ideas and push you to build a better mouse trap.
So there it is. My monthly challenge. Come along and CARE with me I’ll post updates throughout the month. Follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and my podcast on Anchor for updates throughout the month.