So are you and your biz ready for the new era?  Or are you stuck in the 80's or 90's?

Are you still dreaming of the good ol' high tech or Wallstreet days?   Or have you picked up the pieces and headed for greener pastures of social media, innovation and entrepreneurship that you carve for yourself?

In my new  entrepreneur life I often wind up watching the hoarder shows.  Not sure what attracts me to them but it happens.

Most of my social media and high tech marketing buddies agree they have a little hoarder in them.

As I was spring cleaning this weekend and trying to find room in my office for the new biz I came across some things that could “almost maybe” fit in this category? Lol!

Hoarder Defined:
Pathological or compulsive hoarding is a specific type of behavior characterized by:

– acquiring and failing to throw out a large number of items that would appear to have little or no value to others (e.g., papers, notes, flyers, newspapers, clothes)

-severe cluttering of the person’s home so that it is no longer able to function as a viable living space
significant distress or impairment of work or social life

I have a few questions to help you determine if you too may have hoarding tendancies.  This is fun, so don't get nervous. However, you must be honest in answering the questions!

Do you still have in your possession:

1.  More than one computer mouse stuck in a drawer?

2. A stack of tech whitepapers or other info from 10+ yrs ago that you've kept around “just in case”!

3. Old go to market and biz plans “just in case”.

4. A double wide filing cabinet drawer stuffed full of “just in case” documents.

5. Floppy disks with your first ever  program developed in Basic programming language you made in high school (yes, I have several! Ha)

6. Software CDs for windows 95, aol, earthlink  or other that wouldn't work in any computer in you or your neighbors computers today (unless they are a computer hoarder).

7. A tower computer that didn't really work 7 yrs ago when you purchased a new one, but you kept it anyway “just in case”

8. Badges from all the trade shows you attended “back in the day” while employed at Sun Microsystems, IBM, Microsoft, Adobe, Hitachi, EMC or other.

9. A stack of computer bags, none of them were ever really “perfect”.

10. A box full of cords, ethernet cables and wires that use to fit old phones, hubs, switches that you no longer have.

12. The first phone you ever had.  Come on, it's the size of Texas, isn't it time to sell it at the next neighborhood garage sale?

13. 2 or more cell phones due to changing your wireless carrier to get the next iphone, BB or flip phone 5 yrs back! ;)

14. A stack of user manuals for tech eqpt that is either broken or you have no clue of the location!

15. A stack of paper tray holders that use to hold all your “read later” or “just in case” documents.

16. Spiral notebooks of paper you purchased hoping the new lovely look of the paper would help you organize.

17. A closet full of old Franklin Planners.

18. 2+ staplers, scotch tape holders and paperclip holders?  Again all probably purchased to match a set of desk items that would “get you organized!”.

19. Old not used checkbooks from accounts that have been closed for yrs!?

20. 3 ring binders filled with old training material, technical docs or again whitepapers that at one point in your career made you almost famous.

So as we go into 2010 why don't we throw out the old and make room for the new?

The days of big tradeshows, big tech are gone.  They have traded seats with a new blood of biz, the entrepreneur, the startups and the agile, can do companies!   The companies who can rank top of Google based on a social media and marketing strategy versus $35k/mo in pay-per-click!

Have the guts to let go of the “Storage Area Network” strategy and the trademark certificate for “LanFree backup”!

Out with the old and in with the new.  If you don't take control of your life, your biz, your closets and your staplers, NOBODY else will!  Whatever mountains you must move in 2010, have faith.  You can and will move them!

What are you willing to purge?  Add to my list and make a commitment!  Are ya with me mountaineers?   Let's get-r-done!