Someone Didn't Just Move My Cheese, They Stole It!

On a rainy day between speaking trips I try to catch up on my backlog of business books. Some are to reread and refresh my mind on the material and others are ones I've been meaning to get to. This morning I realized while surfing through the stack, some of these books that were written five years ago read like they were written 20 years ago.

Knowing how to pitch stories to get into newspapers...

Networking ideas that don't include social media...

Information becomes out dated so quickly these days that someone didn't just move my cheese, they stole it!

To keep up with the pace of business you need to be in constant contact with resources for news, information and current ideology for the workplace. The question used to be, "How many books do you read a year?" More importantly, how many books, blogs and online articles are you reading weekly? This is the only way to stay current on your leadership and executive knowledge and information.

Favorites

You need to be bookmarking blogs (like this one) and websites that you find to be a continuous flow of good information. Better yet set up an RSS feed so that information comes directly to you. Weekly, you need to set aside an hour to explore new information avenues to find even more places to add to your online favorites. Keeping up with the flow of information is the key to knowing where the world is turning and how you need to be proactive to such changes. They say once it's in the news its already happened but that news item can give you insight on the next proactive step.

Groups and social media

Every Monday evening I participate in a group gathering to talk about the meeting industry and how things are changing and how we should structure our businesses based on those new trends. This is a multi-national online meeting and approaches the industry from all angles. Imagine a business after hours cocktail hour every Monday evening with an international feel. The information flows, new contacts are made and serious topics are handled. This is fresh information live.

I've become a twitter addict (add me @GrowthSolutions) and every other week, those people locally I tweet with, gather for a lunch to talk about social media. This information exchange always has a specific topic of discussion and it always surrounds how we make emerging technology work for our businesses. Every lunch I am able to strengthen relationships with very knowledgeable people whose information helps my business.

It's time to amp the learning curve to take it active, to take it daily, to take it serious. Leadership must be well informed to be able to lead.