2014 - Happy New Year

We've all done it.

It doesn't matter if you're a professional data driven content marketer, or some poor soul who's been told to conjure up the December post for the company blog, the temptation to write that post about the looming New Year is, well, too tempting.

If you're looking for real link fodder, best include a call to action and sell the idea that something may be learned and put into valuable action before Santa boots up Google Maps, post title bait such as:

Planning for social media ROI in 2014

(but the true value of social isn't quite so straight forward)

14 social predictions that will transform your organisation in 2014

(or read Attenzi)

Your New Year Resolution – Simplify the Complexities of Social Media

(yeah right)

But when you think about 2014, ask yourself what's in a year? "The period it takes the Sun to complete one course throughout the zodiac along the ecliptic" says Wikipedia. And as I ask in my Attenzi story: "Why are the frequency and duration of our plans linked to the time it takes our planet to complete a particular cycle around the Sun? What’s 365 days got to do with our business exactly?"

If you champion social business you champion agility, responsiveness and adaptability. Not the annual planning slog.

More often than not I get shouted down for being short-termist at this point. Yet I believe a long-term vision remains as critical to business success as ever, but flexibility (finding a new course to execute the strategy; operational) and agility (recognizing when the strategy needs adaption; strategic) are business critical too. We're talking about the facility to take complexity into account.

Stowe Boyd goes even further. "The fast-and-loose business that is emerging as the new way of work runs more like a forest or a city than machinery. We need to learn by imitating rich ecosystems, where the appearance of chaos yields to emergent order, and reject order imposed by design." I love this outlook but don't subscribe to it in extremis.

Either way, the most interesting New Year's Resolution you might make for your organisation in 2014 is to make it your last.