My Three Words for 2013

My good friend, Chris Brogan, is a master meme creator. Each year on January 1, Chris chooses three words that make up his themes for the coming year. Chris has infected my mind and my work with a number of memes, and this year he got me with this one.

I like the idea of choosing three themes to outline the story of my coming year. I like the discipline, and I like the focus. It’s a useful framework.

Here are my three words for 2013:

Platform: A platform is something you stand on. It’s a strong foundation. It indicates a place from which you can broadcast a message. It can also represent your policies. In 2013, I’m going to focus a lot of my effort and energy on building my platform.

This blog will always be part of my platform. But, I’m going to add a few major pieces to my platform building initiatives in 2013.

Lean: As I take on more and more value-creating projects, it’s increasingly important that my workflow and my systems support those efforts. I’m focusing on greater efficiency and greater effectiveness in everything I do. This is about eliminating wasteful efforts and wasted energy. It’s about doing work one time and using it many. No wasted movement.

Less is more. More is less. Fast is slow. Slow is fast.

It’s also about eliminating work where I’m not the primary value creator. I’ve already written my work rules for 2013, and I am going to publish those in one of my Sunday newsletters (< sign up link) in the coming weeks.

Tribes: The word tribe represents relationships. It’s about investing in, and creating value for, the teams and the communities I serve. I have a complex network of relationships. I also have a number of teams. I am a part of a number of tribes. This is about building those tribes and building the tribe’s culture.

For some of these tribes, it’s about my making a greater contribution.

I’m rolling everything up under these three words. So far, everything my 2013 is going to be rolls up nicely.

Go visit Chris’s blog post and share your three words in the comments. Or leave your three words in the comments section here, and I’ll be sure to share them with Chris.

Happy New Year!