Exhausted and happy…

July 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

There are times when running your own business or freelancing can appear to be the toughest thing in the world, and times when it can be the most amazing experience. And last night was definitely one of the better times for a number of reasons, to the extent that I was still smiling when a London driver managed to head the wrong way around a junction and almost run me over as he went across a red light from the wrong side. It’s that feeling you get when you’ve been exercising or working out for ages and feel tired, but also that you could keep going forever, and there’s three key reasons that gave me a high that’s continued as I’ve been sat here working on my businesses today.

Helping others helps you immensely:

I’ve been extremely honoured to become a tutor with the PMA Group, having benefitted from one of their intensive in-house training courses early in my career. They’re incredibly focused on providing the right tools to make sure course graduates get into employment or can utilise what they’ve learnt immediately, and as a result, all their tutors are working in the areas they teach. I remember how hard I had to work on the course I took, and really did enable me to start producing work which met the high standards of the sub-editors and editors I’ve gone on to work with.

It’s very intensive because they don’t want anyone wasting time or money en route to completing the course, which meant covering online news, blogging, social media, analytics and mobile in two long and productive days, but the talent and enthusiasm of everyone on the course not only impressed and inspired me, but also meant we covered everything to the point that everyone had a solid grounding and framework on which to build in their careers, and which areas they might wish to research further in the future (and where to get that information).

What was really great was to be in a room with 10 people who were incredibly hungry to get everything they could out of me in the time we had, constantly asking interesting questions and pushing to learn as much as they could, which can sometimes be lacking in some in-house environments, and is certainly not something you often find when you present at conferences etc. It really isn’t surprising that their post-graduate candidates achieve an incredible success rate in finding employment after the course.

Friends help you immensely:

Spending so much time working via a computer has helped me keep in regular contact with a huge amount of great people, but I have to admit that recently I’ve been finding it hard to organise to meet up in the real world. The trip to London enabled me to not only meet up with a very cool friend and have a great catch-up, but she also picked an amazing pub which I can highly recommend if you’re in the same area (It’s been voted London Pub of the Year by various places and deservedly so). Only two words of warning – The Southampton Arms only does Ale and Cider, so has an incredibly range of beers from small breweries, which is not good when you’re trying to only have one or two beers to be able to tutor effectively the next day, and it only accepts cash. Luckily the prices are very reasonable, and I was able to exercise enough willpower to leave early with the plan to return one day when I can follow it with a day off.

Inspirational People help you immensely:

I was lucky enough to not only catch the fact the amazing Hugh McLeod and Mark Earls were hosting a small ‘social object soiree’ last night, but also to be one of the fortunate people to get an invite. It was great to see Hugh and Mark talk about the social object concept, but also to finally meet them in person after various levels on online interaction. To complete a hattrick, I also managed to finally meet  Lloyd Davis in the real world as well.  Llloyd did the job of recording the talk for posterity whilst Paul Clarke did a great job of the photography. Annoyingly I forgot to remind him of a deal I once made to him (I think at a Twestival) of bribery if he could take event shots without accidentally capturing my hideous visage.

And I also met some really cool attendees, which reinforced the idea of social objects both as something to talk about, but also as a social filter and the signal of a social club. If you were at the event, the odds are you were likely to be a pretty interesting person (with myself as the exception proving the rule), and the people I met proved that. Strangest moment of the evening was meeting a Swedish-speaking Irishman, and his Irish-accented Swedish wife, to whom I can only apologise for inflicting my pigeon Svengelska hybrid on.

And as a bonus:

If that wasn’t enough good things, when I started getting back up to speed this morning I found out that not only have Brand Republic been kind enough to include this blog in their BR200 list of ‘The Web’s Most Influential Bloggers‘ but somehow I’ve ended up as high as 85th out of a list of 200 blogs which I’m honoured to even share the list with.

After all that you’d think I might need to sit down for a bit…

Instead I’m feeling pretty fired up, which is handy with two proposals to finish this week, student articles to feedback on, existing client work to finish, my own sites to upgrade, and preparations to hold a one day course on various elements of digital marketing and social media to some very senior media people.

Bloody hell.

 

Filed Under: Inspiration, social media marketing, Training Tagged With: , , , , , ,

A brilliant and inspirational talk about passion

June 22, 2011 By 1 Comment

 

Ken Robinson on Passion from The School of Life on Vimeo.

H/T to Neil Perkin.

Yes, the video is 50 minutes, but it’s definitely well worth watching to be inspired by Sir Ken Robinson as he discusses the disconnect between the tremendous capacities we’re born with, and how so many of us lose them by ‘aiming low and succeeding’ in spending our lives in doing things we don’t enjoy – whether or not we’re actually good at them.

It reminded me that early on in school I was as good at Maths as I was in English or History, but as time progressed, I found myself enjoying it less, whether it was a conscious or subconscious decision, and my marks dropped a bit. It got to the point where my teacher predicted fairly average grades based on what I’d done in class, and was amazed when I actually got really good results because I’d re-applied myself for the exams.

Or the fact I actually studied Biology at A-Level, and then ended up doing a degree in American Studies, which isn’t necessarily a logical career route to becoming a journalist. Which again, isn’t necessarily the route to a job in marketing. Or to starting my own businesses combining writing, marketing and tech devlopment/knowledge.

Filed Under: Business, Entrenpreneurship, Inspiration Tagged With: , , , , ,

Seth Godin’s ‘Poke The Box’…

April 9, 2011 By 1 Comment

I’ve been lucky enough to get a free copy of the new book, ‘Poke The Box’ by Seth Godin (I’m doing well at the moment after also getting a copy of Guy Kawasaki’s ‘Enchantment’ earlier this year). I’m going to try to look at the book itself seperately from The Domino Project – Godin’s attempt to disrupt the publishing model with support from Amazon and a team of very nice people. It’s a project that I wholeheartedly support as an example of someone going out to do something different and disruptive, rather than just talking about it…

'Poke The Box' by Seth Godin

My review of Poke the Box by Seth Godin:

Like most people with any interest in digital marketing, I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s books and blog as a fan for several years now. It’s safe to say that he’s been a significant inspiration and influence on a lot of the practitioners and commentators on the future of marketing, business innovation, and the disruption of the traditional way of doing business – and it’s also been interesting to see how he’s used social networking as a tool. For instance, he’s avoided Twitter for various reasons and disabled comments on his blog, but was actively involved in a closed social network created for purchases of his Tribes book, for example.

Poke The Box is the first ‘manifesto’ published via The Domino Project, and like most Godin books, it’s fairly short, punchy and aims to provoke and inspire you to action with a mixture of examples and prompts. Running at 85 pages, it’s true to the Godin style of proposing an idea or statement, backing it up with an example or anecdote and then moving onto the next idea in pretty short order, and concenrates on inspiration rather than prescribing practical applications – which is a logical approach given that it’s aimed at getting you ff your backside and producing something. It’s a book you could get through in a couple of hours, and then follow the instructions at the end to pass it on to colleagues and friends.

Whether or not I’d recommend you purchasing it really depends on whether or not you’ve read the last couple of Godin books, Tribes and Linchpin. At just £5.49 for the hardcover (also available for Kindle and in audio editions), it’s a very affordable espresso shot of inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs, or those wanting to innovate within larger companies. But at the same time, I have to admit I didn’t see a lot which hasn’t already been covered to some extent by Tribes and Linchpin. Both of those books dug deeper into becoming someone who initiates and delivers on change, and although some of the examples are new in Poke The Box, many of the suggestions, and the overarching ideas, are pretty much the same.

Where it succeeds is as an introduction to those ideas – if it had preceded the earlier two books, or if you’re looking for an inspirational, idea-generating primer, then it’s a good choice. Or if you want to inspire a friend or colleague, and suspect that the other books are a little too lengthy, then it’s a great choice.

Having browsed through the fairly exensive Godin section on my bookshelf, if you’re looking for something more in-depth in marketing, then I’m a big fan of Unleashing The Ideavirus (There’s something very odd with one of those Amazon listings – as much as I like the book, and know Seth often does very special editions and offers, I’m not sure the paperback listed at £114 is right). The Big Red Fez is also a good choice for the specifically digital marketer. And in terms of innovation, disruption and changing your personal circumstances, the aforementioned Tribes and Linchpin are definitely worthwile. I’d actually say either of them make a good accompaniment to Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment - Seth inspires you to not only start making changes but to deliver on them, and Guy provides some more detail examples about how you might become the type of person who can engage and enchant the people you will be interacting with to make it happen.

And rather than following up with books that aim to tell you exactly what you should do to create a Facebook page or a Twitter account (If you really want people to give you a supposed recipe for success, you’ll find countless blog posts via Google with the same info), I’d complete the set with some practical guides to either the mechanics of business, or the mechanics of measuring and analysing what you’re doing to allow you to work out quickly and effectively what you’re doing (Start with Web Analytics an Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik).

I said that I’d try to seperate The Domino Project from reviewing Poke The Box, but it’ll be really interesting to see the second manifesto appear, which is entitled ‘Do The Work’ by Stephen Pressfield, who previously wrote ‘The War of Art‘. The electronic version is actually available to pre-order for free for a limited time, if you don’t mind downloading the Amazon Kindle software for your device (If you don’t already own a Kindle/Kindle App). It’ll be interesting to see how other authors adapt to the manifesto length and format.

 

Filed Under: Books, Inspiration, Recommended Books Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Some calming inspiration…

March 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Things have been busier than ever over the past few weeks, which makes me hugely thankful as someone who is mainly freelancing. And as a result, I’ve been reminding myself of various ways to keep inspired and avoid getting stressed.

Besides reading, videogames, and actually getting outside with my family, there are still some things which work whilst staying in front of a PC screen. Some research may suggest videos or images of cute animals helps lower stress levels, and I’m not averse to the odd lolcat, but I think the best thing I’ve found is a couple of minutes looking at ‘Interesting photos from the last 7 days‘ on Flickr.

It’s incredibly simple – a page of 9 photos which Flickr users found interesting. And the Reload button finds 9 more. And so on until infinity, or the next week presumably roles around.

But beyond the fact that most pages feature 9 amazing images on a huge variety of subjects, it’s also a calming and inspiring sign of how much amazing content is being uploaded onto the internet every second, minute, hour and day. Rather than feeling like the information overload of RSS and Twitter, the chatter of Facebook, or the audio-visual hullabaloo of Youtube, it’s just 9 simple images. No more, no less.

In some ways, it makes me question how complicated we actually need our information filters to be.

And on another level, it just helps me relax for a few moments – and it never takes long before I’m ready to get back to it!

Filed Under: Inspiration Tagged With: , , , , , , ,