How To Spend Your Last Week of 2015

It's here! The last and final week of the year 2015. If you work in a corporate environment, chances are your office looks a little like a ghost town this week. When I was younger, I used to love working the last week of the year as the general office drama was lower than any other point, and I could focus and get some things done. But what to do? As the clock winds down, try a few of these activities over the next couple of days.

Cleanup

Got a project nagging you from two weeks ago? How about those expense reports that need to get filed before year end? Use the next couple of days to clean up any of those open tasks from 2015 so that you can start the year fresh. New projects start much more quickly when unburdened with baggage and leftover work from prior initiatives. With fewer interruptions this week, you have the opportunity to maximize your "flow" and get into the groove to knock those tasks out one by one. Cleaning your inbox down to zero can actually happen with a lower volume of incoming messages. Whatever hangs over your head, knock it out to start 2016 fresh.

Grow

On Friday, I talked about taking some time to invest in yourself. If you were wondering when you might find time to watch a few videos or browse one of those books, this might be your window. If you've cleaned your plate of prior work, you may have a peaceful lull before the next influx begins. Fill that time by filling your brain with outside thoughts and ideas that can help you think differently into the next challenge in the new year.

Reflect and Plan

I always found the last week of the year most useful for planning for the upcoming one. Look at the previous year and honestly reflect on what you have accomplished. Write as much of it down. Then look at the next year and what you need and want to accomplish. Is it reasonable considering what you did last year? Is it pushing yourself just a little to do more than last year? Once you have your list of goals and what you want to accomplish, set intermediate steps to get there. What can you do in six months? Three months? What will you get done Monday morning? Write it all down.

Recharge

Don't overlook the need to recharge the batteries. This week should be a low pressure week from external forces. Don't put internal pressure on yourself to ruin that. Every now and then you need to allow yourself to breathe. Down weeks provide the perfect opening to inhale deeply and relax, even if just for a minute. Rest in the fact that you will accomplish quite a bit this week. Then get back to it.

Next week is a whole new year. Get ready!
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Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I hope you are having a wonderful week! For the past 36 hours or so, I hope you have been following along with my Christmas Playlist over at Twitter (just search for #CameronsChristmasPlaylist).

So, what are you getting for Christmas? Are you getting yourself a little something to go along with the gifts to others?

I've read a few folks lately talking about the "greatest gift you can give yourself" and, honestly, it's true. The best thing you can do for yourself is to invest in your own growth and development. Certainly, if you are in school, that means finish your education and do the best you can to learn as much as you can in the process. But if you are in the workplace (as most of my readers are), or even retired, what types of investments can you make? Here are some last-minute gift ideas to give yourself.

Training or Continued Education

Probably the most expensive gift in this category would be professional training or a continued education program, whether seeking a Master's or other degree or just attending an instructor-led class. Formal training adds skills that can help you grow, and that you can also add to your resume and help you find a new career or move to the next step.

Books

With eBooks being an instant download to your Kindle or iPad or phone, a wealth of knowledge, experience, and stories are at your fingertips. Reading may not always teach you, but it can share perspectives and validation for points you already believed, as well as provide facts and different perspectives that challenge your world view. Here are some books (and yes, these are affiliate links) that I have read recently or are on my "to-read" list:

Videos

You can also find a vast amount of free content online in the form of online videos. TED talks and other famous inspirational speeches litter YouTube. Here are a few you might be interested in.

Blogs

Another free resource full of information for you are blogs. Subscribe for updates and get daily or other updates that give you nuggets of motivation. Here are some that grace my inbox daily.

Podcasts

Lots of the blogs or authors above also have podcasts, but one that I listen to that may be a little different is Stuff You Should Know. It has over 700 episodes explaining how just about everything works. Rather than give you a huge list of podcasts, I recommend you check out Stuff You Should Know for general knowledge and seek out two podcasts in your specific interest area (I've got some on marketing, finance, and brewing beer littering my iPod).

Whatever gift you decide to give yourself this year, make it one that makes you positioned to succeed next year. Growth in yourself doesn't break and won't wear out or get used up in a month. It lasts.
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Happy Holidays! And a Christmas Bonus

Happy Holidays! December has been a bit of a crazy month, and I'll admit, you haven't heard all that much from me on the blog here. But I thought I would take a little bit of time and thank you for following me on this crazy experiment this year, and wish you and your family a happy holiday season, whether you are celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or another holiday.

My Christmas Present to You

If you do like Christmas, then I have something fun for you. I've curated a playlist (I've done this before, but I think I did it better this time) of some of my favorite holiday songs, and will be posting them to Twitter every hour (at the :30 mark) all day on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It should give you some insight into my tastes and preferences, between novelty songs, classics, and crooners.

This year, I've tried (I think I was mostly successful) to link each song to a youtube video containing the whole song, as well as an Amazon link if you want to buy the song for digital download. Legal Transparency Disclaimer of Sorts: All of the Amazon links that I will be sharing are affiliate links, so I will get a few pennies if you buy one of my favorite songs. Maybe that's your present to me. But really, I just wanted to share and enjoy some holiday music with you that has been pretty special to me.

So, if you don't follow me on Twitter (no, really, you should), then either fix that problem or just look for my special hashtag for the playlist - #CameronsChristmasPlaylist - you should find maybe a couple of tweets from 2013 when I did this before, and then the new and improved ones tomorrow and Friday.

But Wait, There's More

OK, so I probably won't actually wait until tomorrow. Check this evening if you want to get your Christmas spirit on early. I'd say, maybe... 8:30 PM Central Time?

What Can You Get Me For Christmas?

Really? You want to get me something? Hey, that's great. I really appreciate it, and honestly, the ability to communicate with you here is more than enough gift. But if you do really want to get me something, then I have the perfect last-minute gift idea that you can give me and it won't cost you a thing. That's right - something I would love and it is free for you to give. Join my mailing list. That's it. There's no long-term commitment, and I will send you updates when I post stuff to the blog (you can reply straight to me from the emails instead of having to come all the way over here to the blog every week). I might send you a few other things, too, from time to time.

Want to get me something else? Wow, you really are generous. Well, I will make it easy for you. Click this link and tweet something nice about the site to your friends. Then head on over to Facebook and Like my page. If you have done all of that? Well, there's not much more I could ask for.

Have yourself a wonderful holiday season.

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Hosting a Professional Conference

I spent a large portion of last week at Gartner's Application Architecture, Development and Integration Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada. The conference contained three days of in depth content around Enterprise Architecture, Cloud Development, Microservices and API Management, and more. But rather than dive into the technical details, which I may write about later, I thought I would point out a few hallmarks of the conference that really made it smooth and helpful for the attendees. In the event you ever need to put together an event like this, see if any of these lessons from the best might be helpful.

Event Website

I did not take as much advantage of this before the conference as I should have, but after signing up and paying for the event, a website was made available to conference attendees. It contained agendas for the event as well as the ability to click in and view the presenters and information about each session. Attendees could even select sessions on the website to create a custom agenda tailored just to their interest

Badges and Scanners

Upon registration at the conference, every attendee received some small gifts and a conference badge. From that point on, everywhere you went, you had your badge scanned for access. This did not really benefit the attendees much, but certainly helped the organizers to know how many attendees were in each speaking session, provided information and feedback to vendors on who was interested in their software and services, and allowed an easy way to track eligibility for certain pre-registered events. Kiosks placed around the convention could also be used to print off custom agendas that attendees had made on the website.

Presentation Length

Depending on the style of conference, the length of presentations may vary. Thirty to forty-five minutes per topic seemed to be appropriate, though, at the Gartner event I attended and a prior conference last month. When the presentations were scheduled in forty-five minute increments, the entire day could be scheduled in hour-long blocks, leaving fifteen minutes for attendees to make their way to the next session as well as check their email and voice mail without missing any content.

Segregated Vendor Area

I've been to conferences where the vendor booths are mixed right into the conference area between rooms. This can be handy in that you can check out one or two vendors in the fifteen minutes between sessions, but often there is not ample time to check out everything you want. One good benefit of the conference last week was a segregated vendor area and allocated times to make your way through the booths. This allowed for a nice pace to the event and a dedicated block of time to make your way through the zoo of vendors. It also allowed a perk to the vendors in that they could attend some of the sessions outside of their dedicated windows of time.

Ample Staff

The host organization for a convention has a huge task to keep the attendees happy and the pace flowing along. One area that Gartner excelled was in the number of available staff on hand to help with any problems. Additional tip: springing a few extra bucks to get them matching shirts will help the attendees to locate a staff member if there are any problems. After the first day, the volume of questions to staff may diminish, but having visible people available if they are needed cannot be understated.

I noticed a ton of other great tips and tricks that Gartner managed to pull off to make it a great experience for all of the attendees, but I had too many to fit in a single post. What feature of a conference impresses you?
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Don't Threaten the King and Other Medieval Lessons from Game of Thrones

Evidently, I am going to have to wait until April to watch the next season of Game of Thrones, but in the meantime, I can still theorize on how the complex social interactions it portrays could be interpreted in a business sense.

While (hopefully) no one literally gets their head chopped off at your office, even the most open environments have some levels of politics at play. People have desires and ambitions, and sometimes those wants can cause behavior reminiscent of medieval fiefdoms. So how can you navigate the landscape?

Pledge Fealty

Threatening the king will result in your elimination. If you find yourself disagreeing often with your leadership, instead of presenting yourself as an open challenger to their authority, position yourself as a trusted adviser with their best interests at heart. How do you do that? Simple: actually have their best interests at heart. Try to view projects and interactions from the perspective of what the leader (your manager, the CEO, your VP, etc.) needs. Work to enable them to get exactly what they need, and offer private counsel to guide them away from potential pitfalls. But overall, recognize that they are the management, and therefore in many ways, you can enable their success with your loyalty.

Create Alliances

The office workplace should not resemble an episode of Survivor (Is that still on the air anywhere?), with groups of people making backhanded deals and alliances to shut people out or kick them off the island. Instead, find ways to work together with whomever is open to it. Much like the different lords across Westeros in Game of Thrones forge alliances to assist one another, you can reach out to partners in IT, or Marketing, or Operations to develop relationships. You must give to these relationships, though, so they become two-way. Real delivery of business value across departments builds true alliances. You never know who talks to whom at the office, but having alliance partners to whom you deliver real business value will ensure the right tone of the conversation.

Be a Believer

The struggle between the religious leaders and the Queen does not get played out by physical factions in the corporate world, but rather as an attitudinal battle between culture and operations. Don't be a skeptic. Believe in the possibility of improvement, of change. Believe in the good intentions that people bring to the table. Believe in the culture of the organization. Belief opens you up to opportunity, change, and success. Skepticism only leads to inaction and doubt.

What other tools do you have for navigating office politics? Avoid dragons? Be aware of threats of war? Prepare your army at all times? Drop me an email and let me know.

Image credit: skeeze via Pixabay
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