Monday Morning Muses - Aug 25, 2008 - on professional development

I'm sitting in my home office listening to the opening and closing of doors as the kids get ready for their first day of school. It's a cycle that's repeated year in and year out. In our household we value education as a key to success and options in life. We constantly remind our kids of this fact. If you're like me most of you also were reminded of this by your parents.

The question at hand is what are you doing to model continuous learning to your kids? Especially in a industry where the half life of relevant knowledge can be measured in years and sometimes months. Ask yourself a few questions:

- What I am I doing to keep myself current in my profession?

- How much time have I spent in the last year investing in myself? How does that compare with the amount of time I've spend watching TV?

- What am doing to surround myself with people who stretch my thoughts?

- What are the implications of the answers of the previous questions? It sometimes said that if you're not moving forward then you're falling behind.

There are a ton of professional development activities out there. All you have to do is look at the various sources. (techcolumbus website, your professional society website, this blog ;-) ) and get the date on your calendar. Make it a priority, get it on your calendar, commit to a few hours of professional development activities a month.

After all our kids need good education role models and you owe it to yourself to keep growing. Start your new school year today.

Peace out,

Ben