Never Too Young for a Bucket List

I recently retired from the federal government.  I am in my early 60’s.  I started a bucket list.  It’s fun.  Last week, I set a personal record by riding my bike for more than 40 miles.  That was on my list.  Today, I finished the first chapter in a book I am writing.  Next Saturday I am going on a ride in a hot air balloon.  On Sunday, a mud run.  In November reservations at Hell’s Kitchen to try Beef Wellington for the first time.   The week after that, we are off to Ireland.  All of them are bucket list items.

Which begs the question, why was I waiting?  They say that “youth is wasted on the young.”  I think the counter to that is that bucket lists are wasted by only going to the old.  More than that, why don’t we hear about bucket lists for our jobs?

When I was working in my last position, I had a reputation for often stating a few mantras, like “Let’s make a difference on the planet” and “If I were king for a day….”  But, looking back, we were kings, and we did make a difference on the planet.  Sometimes it was a target of opportunity.  Other times the result of necessity.  On a few occasions, we took time to brainstorm.  But if I had to do it all over again, I think I would gather the team to make a crisis communications bucket list.

And here are a few things it would include:

• Spend less time on budgets, forms and reports and more time engaging stakeholders.
• Put innovation over stagnation.
• Less time with computers and more time with people
• Do fun things that make you laugh.
• Establish work hours for required professional development reading.
• Spend a day far away from the office, taking pictures of people, finding emotion through imagery.
• Changing the paradigm on risk communications to one of self-reliance.
• Sit down with more survivors and listen to their stories.
• Have lunch once a week with a different team member.
• Deploy to more disasters.
• Prioritize internal colleagues understanding the value proposition of crisis communications.
• Challenge every member of the team to produce a compelling and persuasive video.
• Turn the adversity between local, state, and federal responders into collaboration.
• Avoid the consistency of Facebook and Twitter when they do not suffice for all events and audiences.
• Invest more in engaging younger people in preparedness.
• Attend town halls and community events before disasters occur.
• Bypass the boring template news releases in favor of compelling human-interest stories.
• Make websites that meet the needs of survivors, not ones limited by weak platforms.
• Get crisis communicators to serve details at different levels of different organizations.
• Establish formal organizational training on how to be a storyteller.
• Schedule one hour a week with the team with no other agenda than brainstorming.
• Make technology serve the mission, not the mission serving technology.

I could go on and triple this list easily.  So could you.  The bucket list is the beginning.  Checking them off, well, that’s the ticket right there.  

And here is the real beauty.  Bucket lists can be endless.  I still have not found time to get a motorcycle license so I can ride a Harley Davidson just once, make Jambalaya from scratch, perform a stand-up comedy act, or take a trip to Wyoming.  But they are on the list.  And I will.

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