It’s that time of year again. Yep, that right, it’s the time of year when everyone reflects on the year in review, and makes silly predictions for the upcoming year. This happens mostly because people don’t want to do any real work or thinking in the last two weeks of the year. Not to be outdone, we offer here:
- A Wily Manager Review of 2011
- How and why we started Wily Manager
- Trends we see in 2012
- Wily Manager in 2012
- A special offer – If you couldn’t care less about the other stuff, you’ll want to scroll to the bottom of the page for this.
Wily Manager in 2011
We’ve been dabbling at our web and media presence for a couple of years, but it really came together in 2011:
- 7000+ people a month listening to the 75+ podcasts posted on iTunes. Please comment – particularly if you have nice things to say.
- 6000+ visits to the Wily Manager website a month. We very much appreciate your feedback here as well.
- We launched our YouTube Channel
- Visitors from 60+ countries around the world visit our website, and download the podcast. Special thanks go out to those from our top five audience countries:
- USA
- India
- UK
- Canada
- Australia & New Zealand (Extra special thanks here – because the number of audience members is far higher than the population of these two beautiful South Pacific Paradises should warrant.)
- We got busted this year. Yep… we got our first call from a lawyer concerned about some of the information on our site. It’s an indicator that we’re attracting attention – even if it is sometimes from unwanted places.
How We Started
In working with our clients, we found the following things:
- In most organizations managers are left to sink or swim on their own.
- Most managers feel like babysitters many days.
- We see many of the same issues again and again in different organizations.
- Managers are under significant time constraints.
So we thought we’d put something together to address these conditions:
- Something that is informative, but fun
- Something that is easy to use and understand. We love Harvard Business School’s website, and encourage you to visit it. When you want something quick and easy, then Wily Manager is the place to be.
- Something that removes complexity from managers’ daily lives.
- Something that uses different media that could really work for many managers
Hence, Wily Manager was born.
Trends we see in 2012
The content police say we have to provide something in the way of original content. As such, here are the trends we see for 2012.
- Managers will continue to feel like babysitters. Call it the burden of leadership, but managers will continue to be both rewarded and frustrated by the ongoing care and feeding of those that report through to them. The secret is to manage and lead differently to make this easier.
- Everyone will be an “International” Manager. Even if you don’t manage across borders, it is likely that your team will have one or more members that come from another culture. As such, we are all “International” managers now.
- Demographic issues will continue to plague UK, Canada, Australia, and even the US. In these countries, the baby boom phenomena means that the majority of the workforce is over 50 or under 30. This presents it’s own unique leadership challenges, and it’s a condition that’s not going away anytime soon.
- More conservative risk management. We thought we were through the economic mess – but guess what? It’s back, and even if it’s not as bad as people think it might be, there is very little change you will be awash in resources (capital, human or other) this coming year.
- Mayan apocalypse prophecies. This is the year it all ends – on the winter solstice of 2012. OK… maybe you don’t buy in to 2012 thing, but you should be ready for whatever unpredictable events are in store for us. You can’t plan for every contingency, but you can continually improve to be better, cheaper, faster and more agile. If you do these things well, you’ll be ready for anything… even the Mayan apocalypse.
Wily Manager in 2012
- We want to add more virtual tools to the ones we already have:
- FastStart
- Leadership Boot Camp
- Conflict Dynamics Profile
We would also greatly value your feedback as to what types of tools are going to be the most useful to you.
- Increased interaction amongst our members. Thank you to all those who reach out to us by email, or on iTunes, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In or on the Wily Manager website. We will work in 2012 to encourage further interaction with us, but also to facilitate interaction amongst Wily Manager members. We want to create an online community of managers.
- A tropical retreat. Yep… we’re going tropical. Details will follow, but we encourage you to join us in November of 2012 for a Wily Manager in person week-long meeting hosted by Jed & Bob.
A Special Offer
We want to get our numbers up for the end of the year, so between now and December 31st, we’re offering the following deal:
Wily Manager Annual Memberships are 50% off (or $49) for the balance of 2011. Become a Member now for half price.
- Access to the web tools we mention during our podcasts
- Full length versions of podcasts and accompanying podcast notes
- Seamless navigation around the 800+ pages of content
- Access to all topic-bundles
All the best for the holidays, and see you all in 2012.
Jed & Bob