Late Summer

This time, the smell was different. It was no longer scented with the blooms of spring or early summer.  Musty, it was perfumed with wet earth, and rotting leaves.  The four days of late season thunderstorms had subsided.  I was finally able to venture outside for some sunshine.  This was the time of year that I loved most growing up, but I also hated it.  You see, like most kids I hated giving up my freedom to go back to school.  I know, it’s hard to believe that a nerd like me hated school, but I did.  I think we all are inherently upset at the season’s change.  We look at autumn’s arrival as though we are staring down the barrel of a shotgun. 

But it is time to get back to school.  Not only the children, but the adults as well need to continue their educations.  How about you?  Have you ventured out of your comfort zone?  We decry the lack of training and knowledge in our industry, but rarely invest our time to better ourselves and the business at large.  I was surprised at the lack of my peers at a recent end-user conference (even though it meant that I personally had better networking opportunities).  There are also tradeshows, seminars, webinars, blogs, Twitter feeds, E-mag’s – we have more avenues for learning than ever before.  Do we take full advantage of them?

Learning opportunities abound.  We give great lip-service to education, but usually don’t “walk the walk”.  An investment of our resources will invariably pay great dividends to ourselves, our businesses, our communities and our industry.

The corn is tasseled, the leaves are mostly still on the trees.  We still have time to enjoy the rest of the summer.  The great recession still affords us ample opportunity to re-tool our skills, to get back to school, to learn a few new tricks.  But we’ll need to give up some of our freedom, to get out from behind our desks, venture out and attend some events.  Who knows, you just might learn something.