[March Montage] Up and down, messy yet moving forward

Last month I started a new practice to create a montage of key highlights from the month past and a look ahead at the next month. Something I’m committing to keep up, keeping it relevant to you the reader. Regardless of what is going on.

Well, March ended up being one of those months where it’s a bit difficult to come up with finished highlights. Where did it go? Since I’m in the middle of things half-baked what is worth sharing?

(1) HER Halton was an amazing event!

March started with me attending HERhalton on March 9th. AS a participant. In person! Around 200 women celebrating women. Inspiring. Engaging. I won a door prize! Sponsored by Not Your Child Corporation.

(2) March is supposed to be up and down.

I was Chair at a Toastmasters session towards the end of the month, I chose the theme Spring has Spring. While here in Ontario spring seems all over the place, that’s exactly what is needed in March.

The up and down weather makes the sap flow. Without it we wouldn’t have Maple Syrup. By the time the buds are fully out, the sap takes on a different bitter taste. So right here, right now, this up and down is exactly what we need to fill the buckets.

(3) Speaking of buckets.

Speaking of buckets. I’ve been working on niching down my writing themes into what I call buckets. That reflects my key messages. Digital transformation is such a big topic, I could talk about anything at any time in the process. Yet, where do I add the most value to my customers? At what point in the process am I most useful to my customers?

And again, it is in the messy middle where I am useful. When clients have some digital capability, receiving some benefits, yet it’s not yet part of the core business. Not newbies. Not digital native. Expanding customer reach is a key business driver. So are the internal needs of making it a part of the culture and upskilling employees.

I’d love to hear what you find valuable in my writing.

(4) Watch this space.

I’m working on a workshop on digital strategy. This is the half-baked part of this montage.

It could quickly come together in April and I will set a trial run date. So that’s the look ahead. Watch this space. Expect it fully baked in next month’s montage.

(5) Using Jasper.ai.

I’m continuing to play with Jasper.ai and ChatGPT to see if it can help me scale my content creation.

So far it is proving to be a useful tool for planning and idea generation. But if I use it for writing, I end up rewriting its outputs. I may start with an outline from it and completely change it. So it’s helping, at least with Jasper.ai, if I use it in pieces as a guide, and work and rework it.

And yes, I alone crafted today’s note. March’s blog post was inspired by Jasper. And playing with it inspired me to write a newsletter about ChatGPT on March 23rd.

I’m not yet decided if it is helpful or more work. Probably a bit of both.

(6) Not COVID!

Then I got floored by a cold the last week of the month. Really wicked and made me slow down.

But amazingly not COVID. I think it’s my first non-COVID virus since 2019. Having had COVID in March 2020 and again in June 2022, I was so happy to just have a bad cold. Even if it put me on the couch for a few days. I’m just so grateful this wasn’t COVID and I’m moving past it!

Just like this messy up and down March. I’m looking forward to moving past March and into April!