If you know the cycle you’re in, you can make more effective decisions. You can anticipate instead of react. I’ve been trying to get a handle on the economy to know what to expect and to figure out what the best moves are. The New Economy Cycle is apparently one of the most important financial planning cycles for your life, your investments, and your business. It’s less about the day to day decisions, and more about the big structural decisions you make in your life, such as where to live, what jobs to do, what to learn in school, … etc.

In my previous post, Likeability is a Skill, we learned that likeability is something you can work at and invest in, just like working out. We also learned that improving your likeability, improves your quality of life. Now it’s time to turn that into action. Great, so how do we get going? …

Sources of Insight is 10 months old! She’s growing up so fast. (If you ask me, I don’t think she looks a day past 6 months.) What started out as my practice blog is turning out to be my real blog. Anyway, it’s time for a quick check in on results. This is actually a good time for a check in since it’s review time at Microsoft and I’m already reflecting on performance.

You can tell the maturity of a market by the consumer patterns. If you know the life cycle stages of a market you can better anticipate what level of “needs” your product needs to match to be successful. (I always think of needs in stages like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.) In the Autumn Special Edition of strategy+business magazine, Alonso Martinez and Ronald Haddock describe how a country evolves from a developing nation to an industrialized nation.

Every now and then I like to take a step back and check whether I’m on track. Sources Of Insight is now a little more than six months old. My last checkpoint was Sources of Insight is One Month Old. In this post, I share some of my lessons, take a stroll through some data, and give a bit of insight into where I’m headed.

Here’s a technique I learned back in Microsoft Developer Support. It’s called sweeping. The idea is simple. You periodically “sweep” the mess. You schedule a focused batch of time and sweep your mess. In our case, it was the knowledge base (KB). What happens with content is it erodes over time. You also end up with a bunch of stuff that either doesn’t belong or can be improved. Each sweep was like a breath of fresh air.

Photo by dawnzy58.
It’s time to reflect.  It’s been four weeks since I launched SourcesOfInsight.com.  It feels like a blur and forever at the same time.
What Have I Learned …I’ve learned a lot, but here’s the gist:

It’s tough starting from scratch.  A body of content is one thing.  A platform and arena is another.
The more you can narrow the gap between the awesome vision in your head and what shows up … the better.
These aren’t mistakes … they’re just my lessons in how not to do things.
The value of …

Have you ever read a book that’s changed your life? I have. Lots of them. This is my blog to share the books I read and the lessons I learn.