This is the 200th post of builtenvironment.blogs.com.
It took me a little more than 10 years to get here, from my first post in May of 2005. I am pleased to look back over the broad canvas of A/E marketing-related subjects I have addressed in that time, and I am amazed that I found the time to write so much! Especially considering that, in the last few years, my posts have averaged more than 500 words in length!
Earlier this month (November 2, to be exact), as I was driving to an appointment in local traffic, I was listening to Tavis Smiley interview Gloria Steinem. He began by asking her a general question about being an activist. I thought her response was particularly interesting. As best I recall, she said:
"Being an activist gives one something to write about. At the same time, being an activist makes sure you have no time to write!"
My mind went a little crazy! I thought to myself, "being an activist is all about commitment, about finding—or making—the time to take action, follow up, and see that commitment through to accomplishment."
Now, as I continue to think about it, I am convinced that commitment to anything is a form of activism, and that one's commitments DO MAKE IT DIFFICULT to find the time to write. Just consider that it took me 18 days to get around to writing this post!
I'm thinking about my own commitments. Some of them are more ideological or philosophical, like my strong belief that personal integrity, honesty and transparency are very important to developing and maintaining good relationships with my clients. Very often, no matter how much I'd like to be managing and/or writing the proposal for a particular pursuit, I find that it is my job to tell the client why they should not make the pursuit effort at all. I really don't like telling a client that I don't believe they have the right people with the required credentials, or that they don't have the right portfolio of completed projects, to demonstrate that theirs is the right team to select. But that's an important part of my job: to encourage my clients to pursue potential winners and turn them away from the obvious losers.
Other commitments are more concrete, like my commitment to helping people new to the A/E marketing arena by mentoring, by sharing information in person through workshops and seminars, and by sharing information online by conducting webinars, writing for a variety of A/E platforms, and sharing my thoughts through this blog.
And yes, all these commitments, even those that involve writing, DO make it hard sometimes to sit down and write.
I think of A/E marketing leaders like Matt Handal, Susan Murphy, Scott Butcher, and others. They are constantly giving their time, sharing their experience and their knowledge. They write, they teach, they help. And they do these things at a level of quality that is unsurpassed. For these and other reasons, they are known and respected throughout the A/E marketing community.
It is my profound hope that others think of me in the same light, that I would get mentioned in the same breath with these and the many other A/E marketing leaders I admire so much.
So next time, it's on to post #201, and I'll just have to keep finding time to write!