By Laura Kelly
I loved back-to-school days every fall! I was one of those kids who enjoyed school shopping, seeing who would be in my classes and finding out who my teachers were. I couldn’t wait to get the class syllabus and organize when papers, quizzes and tests would be coming up.
Was I a nerd? Possibly. I just really, really liked everything about school!
Fast forward from my high school and college days to 2019 and I’m still a lover of learning. However, learning looks a lot different in today’s world than it did back in “my day”. As technology has grown and evolved, so have the ways we can educate ourselves. Of course, as a professional, my education needs have changed too. Ongoing education is now in the form of “quick bites” and is scattered throughout the work week. My best days at work are the ones when I can honestly say I’ve learned something new.
If your “learning journey” sounds like mine, I recommend leveraging the following resources to help keep your love of learning a priority:
- Company-sponsored events – Seek out classes and speakers offered by your employer. Just this week, Sprint brought in New York Times best-selling author Steve McClatchy to speak about working smarter and reducing stress. He was entertaining and gave great examples on how to eliminate some of the “to-do” items that don’t really need to get done. After an hour of listening to him, I was thinking of new ways to work and truly forgetting about the emails that had piled up over that hour. It was good to pause and regroup.
- Coffee, lunch or cocktails with a colleague – Of all my learning options, this one is my favorite. I love to bounce ideas off Sprint friends or other working friends to see how they’ve been marketing in their field. I almost always learn something new from my connections and it’s a great way to mix in work while continuing to build relationships.
- Your company website – Unless you’re the only person updating content on your company website, you can pretend to be a customer learning more about the products and services your company offers. Sprint has leveraged the LinkedIn Elevate platform to allow sales reps to post content to their personal LinkedIn page. Users are sent an email every time new content is available and this feature makes it extremely easy to stay current.
- TED Talks – I may have been one of the last people to discover TED Talks, but now I’m an avid fan of these quick bites of education. Technology has made it so easy to consume new information and this platform has the biggest variety of topics. These talks range from 5-30 minutes in length, so download a bunch to your smartphone and you’ll be ready to learn while on the way to your next meeting or event.
If you love to learn, invest the time and energy to incorporate these suggestions into your weekly schedule. You’ll find yourself happier and maybe a little bit smarter, too!
About the Author
Laura Kelly is a channel marketing manager for Sprint. She has more than 25 years of experience in technology sales and marketing. Along the way, she’s learned skills in sales and business development, channel management, program management, market and customer analysis, product life cycle management, product development and event planning and execution.