more than this

Right now, me and my boss are sort of the only two people at our company who really have our heads wrapped around this crazy new marketing solution we're going to deploy. Me more from the geeky technocrat side and him from the let's-drive-shit-to-the-bottom-line side. Obviously that's going to change as we push the rest of the knowledge base into the company. But for now it's a cool feeling. Like we accidentally scheduled simultaneous redundant meetings with two different teams about a project. And I mistook the meetings (about the same subject) for the same meeting. Like maybe the original scheduler had sent out two notices--which happens to me all the time.

Well I'm halfway thru the first meeting when I go, "Woah these calendar items are two different meetings and I'm supposed to be at both of them. I hope we're not being redundant."

Afterward I finally got hold of my boss and I was about to be all apologetic because the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing, when he said "I was just going through the steps of this campaign on the powerpoint slide I sent you, and we're going to operationalize that plan. The team was talking about what we needed to do to make the lists happen after this event."

I said, "Great, because I just used the powerpoint you sent me to talk about the campaign with these two other people and to tell them what content we need for me to build it out and integrate with your lists."

So ... I didn't need to be on the call with my boss because I was already in synch with what he was planning to do. And we knew what the scope of capabilities was because we both understood what was actually going to happen once these snips of content are woven together with the lists the other team is working on solidifying. So what started out as a redundant meeting actually wound up saving time because of this alignment. Daaamn.

When you have a performance review that says "I agree with all of your self assessments. You've made really good progress on all these goals we identified. It's really good when there's alignment between goals, perceptions and reality. 2008 was a good year." it feels really good.

When the rest of the review talks about 2009 in specific ways, it feels really good. Doesn't it just feel awesome when your work manager goes "Make sure ___ and ____ can do ________. You have six months." ? That kind of focused goal setting helps a lot^*. Enormously.

So coming out of the review we both can say "These are specific goal areas for the coming year. 1. 2. 3. This one wraps up by Q3, this one wraps up in Q2, this one is for Q3&4." It feels super grown up when this happens and when it feels like we're both fully aware of how much work is involved, and that it's enough work.

You don't need LOTS of stuff to do at your job to be "important," you need focus and clarity, and institutional/executive backing that says "these things are enough for you to be considered very valuable here."

Now let's hope we start turning more profit so all this progress gets attached to a damn raise, already! I'm happy to have a job, especially one in which executives work to bring more clarity to it each day. I'm just going on month 24 of the same salary. I appreciate the stability (knock knock). I struggle with inflation, especially health and childcare.

^* Yes, I realize I still have some of that to do with other leadership areas in my life.

obviously, I'm descending into being a complete tool, but I am kind of enjoying myself in the biz realm. as I drop into utter toolhood, I have to say

1) I am a complete junky for Google analytics. You haven't ever tried it? Oh man, just install some on your website(s). In a month, the high you get will be unfreakingbelievable.

2) I love this social ingenuity notion my friend is working on.

3) (and this is where the toolishness actually adheres) I have taken a mild interest in global business and "the markets", reading seekingalpha how the world works and getting into stockcharts.com chart school; and now when someone makes a crack about NWA's lousy service and rates, I'm thinking like, "huh I wonder what the progress is on that Midwest buyout deal and though NWA promises not to have management role in MW, does a deal like this expose NWA's main business to investor pressure from TPG management?" then I'm like, "probably not, you naive tool." then I'm like "oh gawwwwd."

ProGroup has been purchased by Novations and we are going to kick some ass.