Goals for 2009

Sunday, 04 January 2009 20:00

It's early January, which means that around the world people are posting their goals on blogs, bathroom mirrors, and cubicle walls, and this year, I am joining them.

I have a funny relationship with goals. I went through a period of time where I was obsessed with self improvement and goal theory. At one point, when I was in the Marines, I had goals for every minute of the day. I literally worked from the time I stepped out of bed until the time I returned. I was on a holy quest to better myself. I organized my tasks according to the roles in my life and who I wanted to be in a year, three years, and five years. It was miserable. Life devolved to a checklist and projections about my future. This experience, and others, led me to abandon goals as a method of living.

I haven't throw the baby out with the bath water however, and still think that smaller simpler systems, like businesses, can benefit from setting goals and planning (does it seem funny to refer to a business as a small simple thing?)

Here are my goals for Blue Bridge Development:

S.M.A.R.T. Goals

1. Survive the year. There is an often cited statistic that most small businesses fail within the first two years. I've seen information to suggest different time frames and numbers, but I think it's safe to say that most small businesses fail. That's why bucking the trend is my number one goal for Blue Bridge.

   First Steps: The first steps that I'm going to take to survive the year are to shore up Blue Bridge's potential trouble spots: marketing and ability to grow.

2. Build 4 sites or applications that highlight my development expertise. Right now, my portfolio has both my design and development work mixed together. It shows my ability as a generalist, which is great for small businesses, however I want to narrow my focus to pure development. This is because out of all the work that I do when I build a website, I enjoy the coding and problem solving the most. When people discover Blue Bridge, I want them to come away with the feeling that our specialty is function and I think that having these sites or applications would provide that clarity.

   First Steps: Build number one, before April 1.

3. Optimize the Blue Bridge Development website and its web presence by the first of July. Beyond search engine optimization, this website needs site optimization. I want a more focused presentation of information and to begin to measure and tweak the conversion rates for different services and areas.

   First Steps: The first steps to complete this goal will involve planning and gathering information. I'm currently taking these steps.

4. To review these goals, and report my progress towards them, on July 1st on this blog.

Process Goals

1. To focus on improving my use of time and energy. Too often, I work twelve hour days and through the weekends. Running a business requires a heavy investment in time, no doubt, but when I work these hours and at the end of the day realize that I could have accomplished everything in eight hours, it's time to make some changes.

   First Steps: The first change I plan on making is to limit my response time for emails, which I suspect to be a large time suck. This means that I will take hours instead of minutes to respond to emails. This may seem like a negative, but in the long run I believe that this and other small changes will improve my ability to get client jobs done even quicker and that will benefit everyone.

   I also plan on creating a simple system to protect my focus when I'm working. I've read that breaking the context of a work task can significantly slow down the time it takes to complete it. I've definitely experienced this phenomena and want to reduce it as much as possible.

2. To grow Blue Bridge around quality. This sounds like a no brainer, doesn't it? The truth is that my end of the market is oriented towards speed and cost, not quality. Everyone needs work done immediately, "I need this ASAP, by tomorrow if possible. And I've got a limited budget." There is a famous sign that reads, "Fast. Cheap. Good. Choose two." Customers asks for the first two and assumes the third. I don't like doing work fast and cheap, and I don't want Blue Bridge to become a company that provides fast and cheap work, so this is a conscious step to position myself against market pressure and to find clients that need and reward quality.

   First Steps: Develop a simpler, more effective, QA system and be more disciplined about saying, "No," when I know that the rush involved can potentially hurt the quality of my services.

3. To submit valuable content to this website twice a week. This can take the form of bloggings, tutorials, links to articles(written by me), and etc. so long as it is gives something to visitors to this site. I feel that this will benefit visitors and it will benefit this business and my professional development.

So that's what I've got my eyes on for Blue Bridge and 2009. If you're setting goals for 2009, I wish you the best of luck in completing them and hope that this new year finds you better than the last.