Hello and a very Happy New Year from all of us at Platform People. In common with many of you, we’ve spent the break with our families and friends and remembering why it is we come to work. But in the times in between, we’ve been thinking about the year ahead. It’s going to be a momentous one.

For anyone working in platforms, 2012 is all about RDR. No surprises there. But, after scouting around the trade press, blogs and the Twitterverse, we can’t help feeling a bit flat. It strikes us that our industry has adopted a bit of a defensive stance (that’s what we call an ‘understatement’ round here, by the way).

If we’re not careful, as an industry we’re going to waste a tremendous opportunity to change the game forever, for the better. Most companies we speak to are just gearing up to comply with the minimum possible. That’s a shame. We should be embracing this once in a generation chance.

We’ll say it again, a different way. You should be excited about RDR. We are. We can’t wait.

So what’s stopping companies – whether providers or advisers – embracing the opportunity and devouring it as voraciously as we did our Christmas dinner (minus the bloated feeling and lethargy)? And is it possible to change our view, our mindset, our attitude this close to the deadline?

You bet it is. What’s happened is that in the logjam of lobbying, self-interested posturing and fear of change, we’ve lost sight of the basic disciplines of working in a changing market.

We need to stop. Get a grip. Ask some basic questions. Here are 7 questions we thought of –

1. Martin Luther King started with a dream, not a plan. He inspired quite a few people. Do you have a dream and a plan to inspire your people this year?
2. You know your business ambition. But do you know why?
3. How will you use RDR as a springboard to achieving it?
4. Who’s driving your RDR programme? Business Prevention Units or an innovator in the business?
5. How’s your RDR business case looking? Have you got one? What about post-RDR?
6. Are your customers and suppliers engaged?
7. Have you got the skill, talent and scale in your organisation to deliver something memorable?

Like most things, it comes down to a firm grasp of the basics.

We have no doubt that you’ll be able to find plenty of negative stuff to read about RDR over the next 12 months. And if you want to sit around feeling sorry for yourself and yearning for the past, that’s up to you. You’d better hope your competitors are doing the same. If any of them are planning to make a step change in their business and do more than the minimum, you’ll be running to catch up.

But if you fancy a different take on RDR, make sure to check back here. At Platform People we’re pretty good at running change programmes and embracing change as a positive. So every few weeks we’ll write about what you should be thinking and doing as we hurtle headlong towards 31 December. You’ll see us using project methodology to help structure thinking. You’ll see us linking change to business outcomes. And you’ll see us confronting the cost and resource challenges a massive change like this inevitably brings.

So bookmark this page, strap in and get ready. It’s going to be a hell of a ride.