5 steps to Journalistic Reinvention

I was reading a book by basketball coach Rick Pitino titled "Rebound Rules". In it, he talks about how as a baby boomer, he's not the most technically-savvy guy. One of the most successful college coaches of all time, Pitino has won a national championship and hundreds of games. You wouldn't think he would need to to embrace technology--after all, he's Rick Pitino. Isn't that what graduate assistants are for?

Wrong.

In order to compete in the uber-competitive world of college basketball, Pitino has developed new software techniques, video-conferences with his staff, and although he has yet to tweet, he texts as often as a 15-year-old on a Red Bull high.

It then hit me why this guy, and others, have continued success.

Reinvention.

Here are Innovative Journalists 5 steps to reinventing yourself. No better time than today to start-

1. Admit you must. Like any addiction, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Saying "I don't do email" or "Facebook is for kids" is the language of the lost.

2. Back to School. I don't mean necessarily college--although it's done wonders for this journalist--but studying the market. Subscribe to Google Reader and receive updates from sites such at Poynter.org, TechCrunch.com or Mashable.com. Read influencial bloggers such as Monica Guzman or Etan Horowitz. Be a student of innovation. This will fuel your own ambition.

3. Define, then refine your brand. When I say "brand" I don't mean on par with Fortune 500 companies such as Coca-Cola, Microsoft or McDonald's. Spending millions each year on advertising is not a strategy I would endorse. When I mean is carving out your place in the online universe. What skills do you have that would benefit others? What message do I have that will be a conversation starter? This is a simple formula: available resources + intellectual capital= personal brand.

4. Implementation. The 800-pound elephant in the room. One difference between achievers and pretenders is achievers' ability to implement their plan once it is in place. Pretenders tend to over think--what if changed this? How about this tweak? What if it didn't work? So what. Act. Sign up for an account on Blogger or Word Press and get pubished today. Send out a message to your email network asking if anyone knows a good web designer. Actions stimulate brain activity. And the resources available to act are already in your rolodex.

5. Humility. Speaker Jim Rohn says "humility is the path to prosperity". Understanding you don't know it all, you won't know it all over night, and most important, we live in a transparent, open-sourced culture where the skills you need to succeed are on your Mac screen.

And if all else fails, you can always ask your neighbor's 7-year-old how to use Facebook.