The 05 meeting rule

by

I’ve updated my simple meeting policy to include the 05 meeting rule. My simple meeting policy shortens traditional 30-minute meetings to 25 minutes and 1-hour meetings to 50 minutes. However, that didn’t stop some meetings from overrunning and eating into that all-important extra 5 mins we were trying to protect for everyone’s peace of mind. … Read more

My Simple Meeting Policy

by

This is my simple meeting policy. With more virtual meetings, we need more time to recover between meetings. To any meeting organizer, I will commit to: Arriving on time. Leaving on time. To any meeting organizer, I need: An agenda in the invite. Proactive management of the agenda to the allotted time. To any meeting … Read more

Content modeling revisited

by

I miss writing about content design. However, when I wrapped up my content modeling series four years ago (Oct 2016), I started getting mail. A lot of mail. From practitioners to managers, and the odd executive. All asking the same questions. So today, let’s revisit content modeling to see what was on their minds. Advertising … Read more

Measure What Matters

by

So I read Measure What Matters. It was awesome. The book outlines a goal setting system that scales from small projects to the large programmes of work. Started at Intel, popularised by Google, Objective Key Results (OKRs) are widespread from Bono to Bill Gates. Today, OKRs are a proven approach to operating excellence that focuses … Read more

Separate Work from Home

by

I’m a big fan of productivity. There is always too much to do. That’s why I’m continually looking for ways to do more with less. Over the last twenty years I’ve adopted best practices (e.g. GTD – Getting Things Done), embraced planning methodologies (e.g. PPPs – Plan, Progress, Problems ), and picked up new habits … Read more

Towards a Marketing Content Hub

by

Last month industry experts met to discuss the state of content management. Janus Boye facilitated CEOs, CTOs, market analysts, and subject matter experts unpack the term content. What we discovered, with the help of Theresa Regli, was the undeniable rise of the marketing content hub. Content Content is communication. As an industry, we struggle to … Read more

Block Days for Getting Things Done

by

I’m always looking for ways to be more productive. Always. With so many things to get done, I’ve been a long time subscriber to the getting things done philosophy. Over the last couple of years, I’ve been toying with a block system to better structure my work day. Last week, I put block days to work.

The Block

A block is a period of time. Blocks come in various sizes. 30-minute blocks. 20-minute blocks. One hour blocks. You decide.

The goal is to break up your work day into blocks.  Then decide what you want to do in each block. That’s it. The theory is simple, but the execution is a little harder.

Block DaysTime for an example. When I get up and decide its a block day, the first I do is grab a sheet of paper and block out the day. At the top, you see it’s Wednesday and my day runs from 7am to 7pm. I tend to use 30-minute blocks giving me 24 blocks in total to play with.

I work at Cognifide. I’ve assigned 10 blocks (5 hours) to Cognifide, a paper I’m writing has 6 blocks (3 hours) and other stuff I need to do in the day makes up the remaining 8 blocks (4 hours). I capture high-level outputs/outcomes for each of these block areas. For example, I want to complete the research section of a paper I’m writing today using the allocated 6 blocks.  When I’m planning the block day, I make I’ll be happy with the outcomes/outputs.  Then the day is around doing the activities in the blocks to hit those goals.

When I first started blocking out my day I got too fine grained. I had lots of block areas on the left, typically 2-4 blocks, but that didn’t work. So I got more coarse-grained in my planning. I introduced the bottom section to illustrate the activities I’d perform within each block area. This worked well. I tend to add and remove actions in this bottom section as I progress through the day. Always use pencils, and have an eraser nearby.

Finally, as you progress through your block day, mark the blocks off. This is so important. You are rewarding the progress you’re making. Marking off blocks is a great feeling and pushes you towards the end.

Read more

Becoming reMarkable

by

reMarkableI got myself a reMarkable for Christmas. With a £479 price tag, it wasn’t cheap.  A reMarkable is a paper tablet for people that like paper. I use it to read articles, annotate presentations, capture notes, review books, and most importantly sketch down ideas. Now I’ve had iPads in the past. Microsoft Surfaces.  Tablets running Evernote. And many others. But my reMarkable is just different. Even though the others have better functionality, support for more formats, and generally more widely used, they are not reMarkable. Let me tell you why I’m becoming reMarkable.

Read more

Own Your Owned Media

by

Owned Media Media TypesSucceeding online used to be about launching web sites. Dot com and done! Fast forward twenty years and web sites are just one of many touch points competing for consumer attention.  In addition to web sites, newsletters, catalogs, blogs, kiosks are also important assets within a brand’s overall owned media portfolio.  Why owned?  Because owned media assets are things directly controlled by the brand.  Nobody else.  However, owned media remains unclear and misunderstood by many. That’s not surprising given the messy, complex and overlapping relationship owned media has with other types of media,  namely paid and earned. But what is becoming increasingly clear is the need to own your owned media to succeed online today. Let’s get a little deeper into this.

Read more