We recently celebrated our one year anniversary in publishing our (thought)wide blog here at Orgwide and the publishing of our articles in a number of the hotel industry’s leading publications.  Kind of ironic that we’d be celebrating an anniversary noted as “paper” for an electronic communication vehicle, don’t you think?  This past year we’ve shared our insights on various management/leadership topics in 33 blogs and nearly 100 articles with more than 3,500 new readers….and developed quite the sizable group of regular readers too.  (Editors note:  I don’t count my parents in Columbus, Ohio in these figures, but they were early adopters from the first blog and continue to read each installment – Thanks, Mom and Dad!).

We shared our Orgwide brand personality through our light-hearted learning approach.  You’ve responded to our “we take our work seriously, but not ourselves” approach and we appreciate your feedback!  Over the past year, we’ve written a good bit about effective communication being a two-way street and advocating our

Listen, Learn, Act (LLA) process.  We like to refer to “eating our own dog food” around the Orgwide offices (part of that not taking ourselves too seriously culture) and to that end, we’ve eagerly listened and learned from your feedback. 

You  told us that our inaugural foray about the tweeting capabilities of our Founding Fathers  was a hit (July 2010) while the Venus Flytrap and Employee Selection (November 2010) may have needed a bit more editing.  Our 3 part series on Solving Problems once and for all the O3 way was met with great enthusiasm as was our take on What do Leaders really do?.  We included audio in a selection of our learning series and got you laughing over Valentine’s Day listening to LLA with Dr. Love while you told us that coaching team members and training dogs the OSKAR way might have needed a little more time in the oven, if you know what I mean.  We had some fun with the holidays from St. Patrick’s day’s Seamus' look at the O3 Problem Solving Process to Thanksgiving’s Beyond Awesome Hats - The Pilgrims Ultimate Contribution was Job Knowledge Testing and rounding out the year with Santa's Performance Management Process.  We tried to share our insights on the critical issues facing managers today and laugh a little bit along the way.

So, what’s next?  Well, in the LLA process it’s time for us to ACT.  You’ve told us there are still management issues you’re facing every day – and we’re here to help.  In the next year we’ll be looking at a number of new topics including, how to be a Leader and not a Boss, the Innovation Process, the missing link of Intentionality of Learning (preparation and reflection), the similarities between the generations (like others, we’ve covered the differences!), the secrets behind successful change management, and the psychology of Adult Learners.  We’ll use audio as appropriate again in the year ahead, and watch for our initial foray in to Vlogging – that’s right, we’re going to add some video to the (thought)wide blog (despite my having a “face for radio”).  We’ll also be interviewing some of our friends and clients and sharing their insights with you - our followers.  Finally, if YOU have a topic you’d like us to cover, drop me a note at [email protected] and we’ll take the plunge together.

One final note on this retrospective on our time together this past year.  While our articles often come under my name (or Bob’s name or another member of our team) the truth is we have a very talented team of contributors here at Orgwide.  Thank you to Kate, Tiffany, Castellaw, Tracy, David K., BT, and the Frijoles…for our images and graphics, we couldn’t do it without Eric and Laura….and for his twisted sense of humor and making me a better writer than I ever dreamed imaginable, that "Tarahumara wanna-be" Tommy a very special thank you!