Sometimes it’s just great to go back to the “nuts and bolts” aspects of doing business.
The best analogy I’ve heard through the years concerned the late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist who was rumored to carry a copy of the US Constitution on him and refer to it daily. Let’s remember something here, this gentleman was one of the top figures of constitutional law and knows the Constitution left, right and backwards but one would wonder why Chief Justice Rehnquist would continue to read the US Constitution on a daily basis. He had an amazing answer and it was along the lines of seeing something that he hadn’t noticed previously.
With that said, we can all claim to be on top of our respective game but as we grow in terms of knowledge, experience, etc., what we learned years ago might have different meaning today. I remember having a conversation similar to that a few years ago with Carol Doscher from Graceworks (if you don’t know her, you should make it your business to get to know her) when I attended one of her workshops after not going for a number of years; I commented that I took so much away from her session even though what she was offering “wasn’t new” but I developed additional skills and experienced different things in the years between sessions.
Professional associations offer various opportunities to develop new skills or finetune an existing set of skills. As a long-time member of SMPS (and willing to admit that I drank the proverbial Kool Aid), I’ve witnessed firsthand that there’s an abundance of learning opportunities both locally and nationally.
Over the summer, I went to Boston for SMPS’ National Conference; in fact, it was the first time I attended a national conference in the 15 years I have been in the AEC industry. I wonder where I would be if I took advantage of the opportunity of these conferences earlier in my career. As a Certified Professional Services Marketer, I have to earn a certain number of CEUs within a given period; between the programs that are offered by SMPS-LI (not only am I a member I am also the president), SMPS-NY, SMPS-NJ, SMPS-CT as well as a host of regional conferences, I’m sure I won’t have a problem with earning the requisite CEUs when it comes time for recertification.
