Resolutions are blah, but goals are yah!
I know everyone is sending their "Happy New Year!" messages this week with a lot of talk about making changes. I quit doing personal resolutions a few years back and shifted to the idea of goals instead. And it's really worked for me. One year it was an arbitrary number of miles to run. I thought I could never achieve it, but I did. Then I set out to read a certain number of books last year. No real reason, I just wanted to read more. And I did that too. I think the real difference for me is a goal is something to work towards whereas a resolution is normally about either starting or stopping something immediately. One is about making progress and the other is about making a quick and permanent change. This year we decided to set goals for the Bureau, so read on to see where we're focusing in 2023.
The Bureau's Goals for 2023
If you know me, then you know I am a roller coaster of ideas and excitement. I literally have over 40 initiatives I want to focus on for the Bureau right now. But that's not feasible. So sharing the Bureau's goals for the year was a fun exercise. I ended up putting the initiatives with the most potential into three categories.
Give Back
One of the biggest focuses for the year ahead is how we re-invest in the Bureau community. As we've grown there's so much potential to do new things. But what about making the valuable things we currently do more accessible? That's the thinking behind free online events and reduced costs for in-person events.
We're also looking at how we can be better advocates for the industry and our communities. As our reach grows so does our influence. So let's use our collective voices to do some good.
Provide More Support
Supporting each other has been the cornerstone of the Bureau from the first time we got together. As we've grown we've unlocked more opportunities in how we can help. Especially with the growing number of affinity groups.
This is starting to show itself in specialized Slack channels like #parenting for members raising kids and leading their teams and #love_and_business for those that are running a business with their significant other.
Also, the launch of Bureau Circles is getting closer. This will be our peer-based roundtables in the style of an EO or Vistage. As we grow in numbers the importance of smaller groups to connect with goes up dramatically.
Mentorship programs are being planned to support different roles and leaders in the community. This helps across all of our 2023 goals, but I'm most excited about how it allows our established members to give back to those at an earlier part of their journey.
Speaking of support, none of these initiatives would be possible without our Bureau Ambassadors. Thank you!!
Share Knowledge
The Bureau Slack has nearly 500,000 messages across thousands of topics and in-depth conversations. The Bureau's video library has over 400 presentation and workshop videos from the last 10 years. Our big goal for the year is to create a knowledge base out of this content that can be a go-to resource for anyone leading a creative company.
In addition to the knowledge base, we've seen great success in sharing insights when we let members take the mic, and this year we have 10 Open Mic events where any member can request a chance to present to the community something they excel at or have deep knowledge on.
And finally, we have opened a Bureau Dead Letter Office where we are going to make sure every question from the community gets at least addressed if not answered. So far our pilot has found 5 answers for questions that were gathering dust.
Although it's more of a focus than a goal, we also know we have to be better about communicating who we are as a community. So look for the first-ever Bureau Community Guidelines to surface in the weeks ahead.
So there ya have it! It's a lot but we're gonna keep it as simple as we can and focus on progress over perfection. Let's go!!!