How to Be in the Right Place at the Right Time

Posted November 15th, 2006 by Wendy Piersall

Long ago, I wrote a lot about being actively involved with the local Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA). When I still worked downtown, I was on the board, went to all of their events, and I enjoyed an impressive Rolodex because of it.

Then I started working from home.

And over the summer, I could still get to the board meetings, but I started skipping out on the events.

Then school started. I haven’t been downtown since August.

So CIMA had their 2007 event planning meeting last night. I knew I had been slacking. So even though I’m not entirely sure I will have enough time to complete all of my commitments this week, I hopped on the train and went to the meeting.

I have to admit, that even though I give great business tips, I simply can’t apply all of them ALL of the time. It’s a balance thing - sometimes I must choose to let things go.

But I realized last night JUST how much I have been missing out on in the last 6 months. Half of the group were people I had never met. Several of them had some GREAT insights on what the online marketing professionals in Chicago are faced with in this fast-changing industry (read :: I’m not so on top of the changes these days!!).

And as we got to planning our events for early ‘07, an amazing opportunity has finally been put on the calendar. I’ll be personally working with FeedBurner, BlogHer, and maybe even Andy Wibbels to put together an educational blogging panel to help the advertising and media professionals in our community understand and tap targeted audiences via blogs and RSS.

And I almost missed out on all of this by blowing off CIMA events.

The morals of the story ::

Follow your own best advice

Recipes for success work because they are just that :: recipes. Duh.

Stay on top of the things you KNOW will grow your business, even if they are a pain in the rear end

Don’t let “balance” turn into “blow off”

And the number one lesson learned is::

Being in the right place at the right time entails a very critical first step:

Showing Up

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Explore posts in the same categories: The Home Office, Business Tips, Relevant Buzz, Work Life Balance

3 Comments on “How to Be in the Right Place at the Right Time”

  1. Stephanie Says:

    It’s definitely hard coming up with enough time to do networking, even online. I’ve found that I have to just set aside the time for that along with the time I choose for working.

  2. eMom Says:

    That’s a great strategy Stephanie - you’re right! Networking needs to get put on our to-do lists on a regular basis!

  3. katiebird Says:

    “I have to admit, that even though I give great business tips, I simply can’t apply all of them ALL of the time. It’s a balance thing - sometimes I must choose to let things go.”

    I know exactly what you’re saying….I’m learning so much from you and some of the other great professional-blogger-writers. But I’m still working full time and sometimes I just don’t have the energy to comment and participate in all the activities I should.

    And so the notebook of things to do “next week” gets thicker and thicker.

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