First I hope everyone experienced an amazing year this past year and is looking ahead to an even better 2011.  I started this post to be the typical well wishes and a handful of predictions for the year ahead, but in some ways that gets so passé.  But then last night and today a topic hit home and I decided that was a more appropriate post to end the year with.  I will still throw a few predictions at the end of this post.

So yesterday @BarryMoltz Twittered out “Can you celebrate others achievements without comparing them to your own?”  I quickly responded “sure. I am not trying to be them, I am trying to be me. I would be happy for their success.”  This conversation was followed up today by a post I really enjoyed by Chris Brogan “The Evolution of Chris Brogan.”  In the post Chris describes what his true brand is and what he is all about.  It was interesting reading his history.  I first noticed the post on Facebook and I posted the following response:

“The key is you are you and I respect that. Too many strive to be others when the key is be comfortable with yourself and achieving your goals. Thanks for writing this. It is a topic on my mind as well, although not who is Chris! Happy new year and continued success”

The one challenge to posting a comment to a Chris Brogan Facebook post is I receive a lot of emails with comments from others (I know I can turn that off, but I typically enjoy it. Of course Chris receives more comments than most people I know).  One of the comments was negative toward the post, asking Chris to focus less on himself and more on Chris’ knowledge of marketing.  To me the post was exactly about Chris’ knowledge of marketing and relayed a lot of information to the reader of what Chris has learned over the years, the value he offers his readers, his business value in this changing world and what his businesses are offering to non-profits and businesses that wish to hire them.

We also learn another, more human aspect, that ties into the Twitter conversation I had last night with Barry.  We are all a product of our history, and that is what makes us special.  There is never a need to try to be someone we are not or try to be someone else.  Every year we get the chance to evolve, learn, grow, and in some cases step back.  This is the best part of being human.  One of the biggest things I learned this year is I am happy being me.  There have been times where I contemplated where I was headed, even tried to emulate people I was not.  I think this is all part of the growing process.  I joked a lot over the past year that I was trying to decided what I wanted to be when I grew up, but it really was not a joke.  I was debating in my own mind and which path was the right one for me.  You see Customer Service professionals are not always looked upon as highly as they should.  This is part of my history and adds to this quest to be more.  Today as I write this I have come to respect that I am a service visionary and I have been provided a forum to help lead a change in the way business views the Customer.   I am not only comfortable with this, it is who I am, and I am proud of it.

Knowing who you are is key to marketing yourself, just as knowing what your business stands for is key to marketing your business.

Now I promised a few predictions for the year ahead, so here they are:

• DOWNTURN IN SOCIAL – To the surprise of many but I expect a dip in social media activity, especially on Facebook and Twitter for at least two quarters next year.  This will not last long, but the everyday person using social media will have privacy concerns and will step back to determine how they wish to use the space
• TWITTER SELLS – By the end of 2011 Twitter will be forced to sell as they continue to strive to build a sustainable financial model, investors will want to see a return on investment
• TRADITIONAL MARKETERS BACK AWAY – Many marketers are still looking for that silver bullet marketing concept, and when they can not hit the magic mark, social will not appear as sexy as it does today
• CUSTOMER SERVICE – We will see improvements from many companies as they start to focus more on the Customer experience.  We will also see a dramatic rise in the number of companies who have Chief Customer Officers as part of the C-Suite
• SOCIAL TOOLS – We will continue to see a rise in the number of tools for social media, but the market will begin to mature and we will see a consolidation and reduction in the number of players for listening platforms.  The rise will be in CRM variations and visual analysis.
• THE APP WORLD – I know many loves apps, but with so many variations in devices we will see a revamped effort of companies to focus on mobile web experiences, which will be easier to accomplish than multiple versions of apps