Managing complexity

In today's market with the explosion of the internet there seems to be more cogs, levers, pulleys, hinges and tools to know how to utilize than ever before.

Building your brand in many ways is contingent upon you using these tools (blogs, Facebook, Myspace Twitter, etc) in a manner that optimizes your impact in the marketplace. 

New realities such as transparency, social media, viral marketing, crowdsourcing, web 2.0, sustainability, design thinking, and user-generated content (to name a few) are necessary to understand and know about in order to stay relevant (let alone competitive) as we navigate these early rocky roads of the 21st century. 

Often times when we take a glance at the whole playing field it can be a weee bit overwhelming. 

Many times just sitting back taking a breath and hacking the big picture into bit sized chunks becomes the best way to deal with the challenges. 

A few small suggestions on how to make the overwhelming look not so daunting.

1.  Don't constantly look at the big picture - think about what you want to accomplish in the next hour. Then after that figure out what you want to get done by the end of the day.

2.  Set time aside each week (religiously) to touch base with trusted friends and colleagues to talk to, shoot the breeze with and ask some questions you are looking for guidance on. Being able to get from inside of your head does wonders for helping you tackle issues.

3.  Be comfortable with ambiguity. If you feel like you need to know the answers to everything all the time you will always feel like you are overwhelmed.  Once you get comfortable with the idea that you won't always have the answers to everything life becomes easier to manage.

4. Let Google be your friend. I can't even begin to state the number of times I had a question or a business problem that I was not able to get some level of guidance from by simply using Google.  More information than you can possibly imagine is at your fingertips.  Have at it.

5. Prioritize. Do what absolutely needs to be done now, now.  If a project that you need to complete has high priority but doesn't need to be finished today or tomorrow.  Leave it. Focus on it later.  Often times our downfall is because we do things that could be done later now instead of leaving them for another time.  Then we feel pressured when the due date looms and we didn't prioritize .

6. Remember if you are current on the new technology then you are waaaay ahead of the curve. Often times the technology created is often ahead of the markets actual ability to usefully incorporate it into their day to day in a really useful and beneficial way.  We get caught up and stressed out with staying ahead of the curve that we forget many, many folks (the majority of the market) haven't even gotten on board yet. 

7. Don't be afraid to ask questions.  People are often afraid to ask questions for fear of looking stupid or appearing as if they are not in the loop.  Well #1 - you're not stupid and #2 you aren't in the know and asking a question about what you aren't familiar with will get you in the know.