Inspire Me! Encouraging Lifelong Learning

There are many impressive experiences in this world that sometimes we are lucky enough to be part of. These experiences feel larger than life because we see an opportunity in them to take a risk, broaden our understanding of the world or use that experience to build on for the future. Sometimes it can be worth the extra trouble and expense to go a bit bigger than we are used to.

I’ve taken that idea on board this month and am writing from sunny Orlando, Florida where I am attending the world’s biggest conference on training and development. The American Society for Training and Development Conference runs 5 days with over 7000 attendees. Whilst I am here I will be checking out experiences in a country where bigger is the name of the game. From going behind the scenes at Disney, visiting NASA to mingling with world class trainers, I’ve got some insider info here and in coming articles on how to make your next training, project or event not just BIGGER but better!

Seth Godin suggests in his book ‘Linchpin’ that selling an irreplaceable day of your life for a few bucks (a day’s work = a day’s pay) cheapens the value of that one day.  If you are selling your time, how do you decide how much a day of your life is worth?  That day has infinite potential and uniqueness depending on what you do with it.  If you considered it was one of a decreasing number of days available to you, does its value increase?  

This website captures and explores experiences that can be used to increase the value of each day of your work.  Therefore a key question has to be “Is the experience, the project, the information you are creating in the day you are selling, worth the exchange?  We’ve listed 6 ways you can find out.  And take a look at the new articles in our Learn More section where experiences are the focus of adding buzz to your daily work.

I've been asked to do some strategic planning this month with an organisation that has had its ups and downs but is now on a new path forward. The Manager wants her staff 'engaged with the process' and to have a ‘meaningful’ result. The words 'engaged' and 'meaningful' got me wondering about the stories that organisations tell through their strategic plans. Does your organisation's strategic plan tell a story that is meaningful and engaging? Is the strategic story that you are telling the same one that your customers, clients and employees know and understand to be true? Importantly, how can we write strategic plans with a strong story, so that every experience we create after that, demonstrates the truth in our chosen way forward?

This week PSFK, the New York City based trends research and innovation company, put out a call for designers to work on a project that exemplifies the idea of creating projects to BE an experience.  The project concept offers creative design companies an opportunity to engage with PSFK and UNICEF on innovations around the use of Mobile Tagging which will support UNICEF'S fundraising efforts for children around the world.  The short listed entries will receive public recognition and a great story about their work on a meaningful project which solved an important problem.  

Got a project that could be more meaningful and more responsive to need? Find out how to set up your next project to BE an experience everyone wants to be part of.

We read a lot about experiences these days - the types of experiences where people who have the money and the time pay for adventure, excitement or a unique opportunity that is inaccessible in their own predictable home and workday routines.  These type of experiences tend to fall into two types: those done for personal achievement and gain such as tackling the Amazon or climbing Mt Everest and those done for the benefit of others such as volunteering overseas.  But can a single experience achieve both?