Last year’s One Word was Connect. Here’s the reveal blog post where I talk about why I chose that word. If you’re not familiar with the One Word concept here’s a link for you.

By the time I wrote the post, I had already starting Connecting and a lot of the motivation came from the Women’s Leadership Institute that I attended. Here I am a year later, and I pleased to say that the last connecting thing I did in 2013 was to send Happy Holiday messages to as many LinkedIn connections as I could. Folks that I don’t have as Facebook friends. Women I met at WLI. Former colleagues in other states etc. It was my final act of 2013 to keep connections alive.

All the time in between?

• I had more conversations with colleagues on campus and extended my reach around the University to forge new relationships.
• I had more lunches out with Twitter friends that I don’t usually see in “real life”.
• I took on a volunteer role with the ACUI Education & Research Foundation. Now I’m working on the Annual Conference Silent Auction and completely excited!
• Put more blog posts out there about Connecting like this one…and this one.

So for a “Final Thought” of sorts:

If you were faced with tragedy, who would you reach out to? How far would you go to help out? Keep connections with those folks alive and active. You never know who you made need in your network of friends, family, and colleagues.

Happy New Year folks. My next post will be my 2014 One Word Reveal!