How My Last Short Holiday Went

Respected colleagues who have been reading Work Thoughts for a while might remember the article about Valuing Vacations . In that article, we emphasized that no employee is indispensable, there is more to life than nine to five and success always has successors. A subsequent article on Succession expanded on that last thought. Vacations help us pay attention to other aspects of life on the one hand while testing our succession plans in the workplace and our fall back plan in life. This past week, I practised the noble art of going on a vacation while at the same time building my long-term backup.

I dare not claim that I didn't work throughout the holiday. I dare not. However, I spent time with my beloved wife on many exciting adventures outside of my nine to five. In between those adventures, I spend time adding valuable content to The Strategy Club 's membership platform which we fondly refer to as TSC Africa Dot Come. It you gerrit, you gerrit. If you don't gerrit then forgerabourit. That was a joke. Don't forgerabourit.

In writing this piece, I thought to spice it up with insights from Roger Martin 's book The Design of Business which I also spent time reading during my holiday. The insights represented as quotes are not his direct words and they may be slightly unrelated to the sections where they appear. They simply made a good impression on my mind over this period.

According to Charles Sanders Peirce, new ideas come come into being by way of "logical leaps of the mind". They are often not the result of deductive or inductive reasoning which tend to rely on exploring existing data.

Career Professionals are ON!

Respected colleagues reading this piece might want to know that we have turned ON membership for IT career professionals on The Strategy Club . In a series of short videos, I went back memory lane through four organizations in four industries to unearth principles that make for thriving in the modern workplace particularly as an information technology professional. I do hope you can find time to check out what we have done.

Tim Brown of IDEO.org identifies three elements that make a design worth the effort in his definition of Design Thinking: it must be technically feasible, solve an existing problem and profitably exploit a business opportunity.

The beauty of the Work Thoughts space on TSC Africa Dot Come is that the lessons are oriented around true life stories - my stories. Stories represent real experiences in the workplace that we can all learn from. More importantly, they are tailored for professionals who find themselves transiting to roles that require them to develop horizontal influence across their organizations.

Be that as it may, we are also building content specific to enterprise architecture practice over the coming months. TSCAFRICA.COM is a complete platform. It is almost a hydra-headed bundle of value for emerging entrepreneurs - solopreneurs, digipreneurs and intrapreneurs.

Charles Sanders Peirce was known to be a profound thinker comparable to well-known names in philosophy and logic such as William James, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. His limited influence is attributable to his poor work ethic and perceived moral issues according to Jennifer Riel.

IIS is Loading

Our heavily "advertised" strategy development program for emerging entrepreneurs, the Interactive Ideation Session, is loading on The Strategy Club 's digital platform. There are at least three reasons we feel having the program on the platform will work better.

• By switching to a self-service model, we make the program much less expensive for emerging entrepreneurs in Africa - our target market. The Interactive Ideation Session is now offered at almost one-tenth of the original cost.
• By switching to a self-service model, we give fellows the opportunity to consume the content at any time. Experience has shown us that scheduling sessions with emerging entrepreneurs can be tricky - unpredictable schedules, time zone difference, activities competing for attention etc. On tscafrica.com , members can now consume the course at their own convenience.
• By switching to a self-service model, we scale better and members can take advantage of community. This means learning together with other emerging entrepreneurs not just consuming an online course. The platform is designed to accommodate feedback, group conversations and direct interactives with the convener Kenneth Igiri .

Exploitation and exploration are two approaches to thinking that organizations must balance to achieve stability and sustainability. Exploitation focuses on decision making based on what is known to have worked, favoring reliability. Exploration focuses on what might be but may not have been tested before, favouring validity.

The Strategy Course is Growing

The Strategy Course was the first body of content for members of The Strategy Club published on tscafrica.com . It is an introductory course for those with Basic Access. We are consistently refining the content and responding to perceived needs. The course is an introductory course serving as a foundation for Simple Technology for Small Business and the Interactive Ideation Session which are available to Advanced and Premium Access members respectively.

Conclusion

By now it has become obvious that this is an advertisement piece but please do not unsubscribe, it will only happen once in a while. I also want to assure you that I did enjoy myself with my dear wife while making time to grow my side hustle. For me, building capacity outside of the nine-to-five is strategic. Happy to learn how you are preparing for life after your day job.

Yes, life will still be there after your day job is over. For most people that means after six but more than that, it also means after sixty. Decades ago, my Uncle L.U. told me I was not going to use all the knowledge I had acquired in five years of schooling. In 2019, after over fifteen certifications, I decided I had to do more with all that theory. That is what Kenneth Igiri LLC is about.

Trust me, someone out there needs what you have and often, that someone is not your current employer. Happy to help you create more value with your value when you are ready.