Books, books and more books
I’m getting a bit over-excited because I’m trying out Safari Books Online which describes itself as ‘the e-reference library for programmers and IT professionals’. For around £15 a month I get access to ten ebooks which I can swap once they’ve been on my shelf for ten days - ample to keep me amused I should think.
The main reason for my looking at it is for access to web design books to keep my skills up to scratch. I want to move forward with my knowledge of JavaScript but have come to the conclusion that most of the books on my shelf are our of date - I want to learn current techniques! So instead of buying more books that will rapidly become out-dated I’m giving the ebook thing a whirl.
Although the focus is on computer-related books I was thrilled to find that it also gives me access to some more general business books. Yay! But how will I find time to read them all?
Time out
Having some time out this weekend. We ended up taking yesterday off which was very chilled out. Part of me is thinking I should be doing some catching up today and the other part is going ‘nah, it’s the weekend just relax’. Think it’s the second part that is winning. Might do a bit of reading to quieten my inner workaholic, but apart from that I’m just lazing around not doing an awful lot.
Social networking etiquette
Today I’ve been trying to figure out what my policy should be as to Facebook friend requests from people I don’t know. I’ve got a couple where the only connection is that they are also friends with one of my ‘friends’. Apart from that I don’t know who they are or why they want to add me to their friends list. I suspect it is for ‘networking’ purposes - the mutual friend is a business networking friend rather than personal.
However, is it a good start to a networking relationship to send an apparently random friendship request with no accompanying note? I would have preferred some sort of hello and why they want to be friends with me - would have started it off on a better footing. Instead I’m left wondering who they are and have had to send a note to them saying ‘erm, do I know you?’. I’m giving them both a week and if I don’t get a reply will have to reject them.
What’s the accepted etiquette of this? Am I being too demanding in wanting a bit more than ‘whodjewhatsit wants to be friends with you’?
How do you divide your work time?
How does everyone divide their time between working directly on client stuff and business development? It’s a constant battle for me. If we’re really busy then the business gets pushed to one side and all my focus goes on client projects. But it’s important to work on the business too, isn’t it? Need to make sure that our own site is kept up-to-date (even more important now that we’ve launced the redesign!), that we’re actively working on attracting new clients, and that we keep on top of the endless admin.
I guess it all comes down to time management in the end. Organising yourself so that you know that you are keeping up with the important stuff. It’s not easy though. And stupidly I can feel guilty if I’m working on our site as if it’s not ‘real work’ and I should be doing something else. That’s silly isn’t it?
The problem with feeling motivated at the weekend…
… is that it can drain all your energy for the following week. OK, maybe not the whole week, but I’ve been feeling a bit flat today - think I used up too much of my oomph on the business planning yesterday. It’s difficult sometimes because you want to do stuff while you feel inspired, but it’s easy to overdo it and leave you feeling drained when you really need to be getting work done. What’s the answer eh?
A motivated weekend
I’ve got a good dose of motivation this weekend - feeling full of energy and enthusiasm. Maybe not the best thing if I was hoping for a chilled-out relaxed weekend, but great for tackling some business planning. In fact I got up nice and early this morning to have a head-start on it.
What am I planning? What we can do to start bringing in more money. I honestly didn’t go into business to make huge amounts of dosh, I’d be more than happy with a comfortable income that allows us to keep on top of the mortgage, buy the occasional book/dvd/computer game and have an occasional meal out. Not much to ask is it? Well, the truth is we haven’t quite achieved that yet. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy with the progress the business has made over the last couple of years - I thought at this point we’d still be relying on part-time jobs but instead both of us are working full time on the business, which is great. However, our financial situation is a bit pathetic. I’d say we’re just about ‘getting by’.
So, the ultimate aim of my business planning is to make more money. We’ve had a few ideas of things we can try out but with the day-to-day running of the business it’s difficult to find the time to focus on them. Well, I guess that’s what evenings and weekends are for… Using the framework set out in Steve Parks’ Start Your Business Week by Week I’m going to set aside one evening a week and one day a weekend to do some ‘business planning’. Although our business is up and running it will be an interesting exercise to treat our plans for business improvement as if it was a new business. Will see how it goes!
Fear and networking in Cornwall
We had a less than satisfactory networking experience last night. We went to a seminar/networking event run by one of our local business networks. These events are always pretty good with the seminar bit being really worth going to so we had decided to both attend. Big mistake. We’ve noticed it before but keep trying again - we’re just no good at networking if we go to an event together. We always end up talking ourselves out of it and leaving early.
As usual the speakers were excellent and we got a lot out of that, but as soon as it ended we went all unsure of ourselves and couldn’t bring ourselves to go and talk to anyone else. Pathetic isn’t it? I’d been all geared up to meet new people, but there is something about being with my partner that holds me back. On the way home we did the usual disection and came to the conclusion that I should go to stuff on my own - being on my own makes me much braver and I get a lot more out of it.
So a bit of a knock to our confidence, but I’m not letting it completely do away with what confidence I’ve gained over the last few weeks. I just have to go to more stuff and build on my networking skills. I know I can do it, it’s just unfortunately something that I have to do without my partner.
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
In theory this should have been just the book for me at the moment, with my goal to become more confident. There is undoubtedly a lot of good stuff in there and some techniques that I’ve read elsewhere and taken onboard.
However, for some reason I just couldn’t enjoy reading it. Over the last few years I’ve become much more open to ‘personal development’ but in my mind there is a distinction between personal development and self-help. I would say that this book definitely falls into the category of self-help. It put me off because it seemed to be for someone with very low self esteem who needed help in all aspects of their life, rather than for a reasonably confident businesswoman who needs a bit of help with confidence in certain situations (which is how I see myself). Maybe I need to open my mind a bit more and not cringe away from ’self-help’.
If you really do feel that you have a self-esteem/confidence problem then you may well find this helps you, but if you’re looking for something to help you feel more confident at meeting new people when networking then I would look elsewhere.
Rating: 
Moose on the Table
Over the last couple of years I’ve become very familiar with the concept of eating your frog/toad in a time management kind of way, and have been coming to terms with eating elephants (a bite at a time if you’re dealing with project management). Now, in the words of the woman on my yoga video, “we’ve got another animal on our hands”. This time it’s a moose, but thankfully we don’t have to eat it. Any other animals we need in a business context?
Moose on the Table by Jim Clemmer has the subtitle ‘A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work’. I didn’t realise until I started reading it that that is exactly what it is - a novel. What a fun way to approach a serious subject! It’s the story of how Pete sorts out a frighteningly bad leadership problem to turn the company he works for around. It’s a nice, easy read with a lot to take away and apply to your own situation. I certainly know a lot more about leadership (and moose) than I did before.
To be honest, if I had sat down to read this as a novel rather than a business book then I may have come away a bit disappointed. As far as a work of fiction goes it’s probably not the best bit of writing I’ve ever read. But that’s not the point is it? As a refreshingly different approach to providing advice on leadership and communications this is a huge success. It certainly ticks all the boxes of being easy to read and conveying the information in an easy to absorb way.
If you’re interested in learning more about good (and bad) leadership or have an in-house issue you need to tackle this would be a good place to start.
Rating:
Still working on being brilliant
I’ve just completed the fourth week of my 90 days of brilliance plan and I’m still hanging in there. I started off by preparing very detailed weekly plans and sticking to them very closely, but that has tailed off somewhat. Instead I’m now setting overall goals for each week, giving myself much more flexibility day-to-day. I’m feeling pretty good after four weeks:
- We’ve launched our new website and are actively working on expanding it
- I’m feeling much more confident about networking and as a result more enthusiastic about going to stuff
- I’ve prepared a 28-day marketing programme and started it (today in fact)
- We’ve defined our vision for 5-years and are actively working towards it
- I’m reading on average one book a week
- I’m signed up for an SQL course which will be starting in a few weeks
It’s all good stuff. Tomorrow will mark the end of the first 30-day plan so it will be time to sketch out what I want to achieve in the next 30 days.
