After much deliberation, I have decided to move my writing from here into a new blog on my website 8fold.

As much as I love blogging on the Posterous platform, having a blog separate to my main website is becoming an issue for traffic and branding. I will still be writing each week (on Tuesdays) about digital, productivity and wellbeing so do pop over to 8fold and continue the conversion.

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I look forward to seeing you over at 8fold!

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After a fruitful and enjoyable month long stay at The Hub in Amsterdam last winter, I decided to try and make it a practice to get out of London and go live and work in a new city each December/January. I left a freezing cold London two days ago to travel to Lisbon for a five week sojourn at Coworking Lisboa.

I came to Lisbon a few years ago for a long weekend when I lived in Spain and fell in love with the light, the people and the custard tarts (there is one on my desk as I write). I have wanted to come back ever since and as work is quiet during December and the beginning of January, it seemed like the perfect time to visit again.

Getting out of London and living and working in different countries is a core part of my vision for my work and life and I would heartily recommend that everyone gives it a go. All you need is a laptop, internet connection and a place to work.

Here are some thoughts on the benefits of taking your computer and going working abroad:

1. It gives you the physical and head space to work on a big project.

My project that I tackled in Amsterdam was researching material around mindfulness at work. This year I am writing my new book The Business Yogi: How the Science of Yoga Can Help You Be More Productive, Happy and Healthy at Work, which takes ideas around the practice and philosophy of yoga and applies them to modern business and the workplace. I actually had allocated time in August this year (another quiet period) to write the book but for whatever reason, I couldn't summon the creative juices then. I sat down yesterday to write and the words just flowed. Getting your of your normal routine can do wonders for your creativity!

2. You are working but not really available.

When you are away you can't have meetings, the request for random coffees stop, and your email inbox slows to a trickle. Without all these interruptions and calls on your time, you can get an enormous amount of work done.

3. You can work more according to your energy patterns and feelings instead of pre-planning your time.

Being a bit of a productivity geek, in London I tend to plan and prioritise my time quite strictly. When I am away I tend to kill the to-do list and instead work on what I feel like working on that hour or day.

4. You can foster new collaborations and opportunities.

Being in a coworking space means that I have access to a whole new set of people and businesses and already opportunities for collaborations are emerging here in Lisbon.

5. It's good personal development stuff.

Seth Godin says "seek out habits that help you overcome fear or inertia". Going to live and work in a new country, even if only for a short time, is scary stuff. You leave the comfort of your family, your friends and your language for somewhere new. Yes, it's scary and you have to really put yourself out there and try to make friends. Sunday afternoons are always the worst as everyone seems to be with others except for you. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and a little bit of loneliness now and again makes you grateful for what you have back home. You also find yourself really looking forward to going to work on Monday morning!

6. You can see how other cultures work and play.

I find this a fascinating part of working in another country. In the Netherlands, people tend to start work early at 8 or 9am but down tools bang on 5pm as they head home. Here in Lisbon we start later around 10 or 11am but work through until 6 or 7pm. Lunch at The Hub was taken communally round the kitchen table. Lunch here in Lisbon is an hour and a half affair at a local cafe or restaurant. I have already been taken to task for eating lunch at my desk - very unusual here! The Dutch spend time with family and friends with an early dinner and early bed. Lisbon workers head home to get changed and then might have dinner around 10 or 11pm before hitting the bars until 2am. And that's on a school night!

Fancy giving this working abroad thing a go? Here are some top tips for making it an easier and enjoyable experience:

• Book yourself a desk at a coworking space. I know first hand how lonely it can be working from home so find a space where you can go to work everyday and meet new people. Pedro Santos, one of the members here at Coworking Lisboa, has developed a new platform called All Desk where you can search for a spare desk in cities around the world.
• Get involved in the space. If there are lunches or social occasions, go along. Offer to run a workshop or talk for the space members. If there is a space mailing list, introduce yourself and say what kind of people you would like to meet.
• Use AirBnB.com to find a room for your stay. Don't stay in a soulless hotel, stay with a local so you get a real feel for how the locals live. I am staying in this gorgeous place in the Barrio Alto, one of the coolest places in Lisbon. Use AirBnB to also rent out your home while you are gone to cover your costs.
• Don't make it all about work. Make the most of your stay in a new place. Spend evenings trying out local cuisine and entertainment and use the weekends to go exploring. Bunk off the odd afternoon to go for a trip out of town. Build some non-work time in as well (we are off to the Algarve for five days between Christmas and New Year).
• If you can, invite your partner along for part of your trip. I am lucky that Alex also works for himself and he was able to join me in Amsterdam and now Lisbon for part of my trip.
• Make the most of Skype. Unlike in London, here I am logged in to Skype all the time. When I see a friend online, I jump on for a chat. Keeping in contact with others back home can stop you getting lonely.

This is my last post until the New Year, and so from Lisbon, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

[image with thanks to ChrisYunker via CC]

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Being a minimalist, I tend not to buy and collect books but prefer to borrow them from the library or friends or pick them up second-hand in charity shops (the Oxfam bookshop in Bloomsbury is excellent). But there are a few key books that I have bought and that I return to again and again, and I wanted to share a few key ways that these books have shifted my perspectives on work and life.

So if you are looking for a little inspiration or a new direction for 2012, get some of these onto your Christmas wish list!

1. Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long, David Rock

I first saw David Rock being interviewed at the Wisdom 2.0 conference in February this year. He was speaking about mindfulness and our brains and how we can work with our brain rather than against it to be more effective and productive. I bought this book from Amazon before the interview was even finished (so much for paying attention in the present moment!). Using the characters of a self-employed consultant and a corporate executive, he follows their working day showing on one hand the difficulties of the modern workplace, and on the other how much easier things are when we work with our brain. A fascinating book that will illuminate your working habits in a new way.

Perspective Shift: Our pre-frontal cortex (the thinking brain) doesn't cope well with doing more than one task at a time. To get stuff done, single task don't multitask.

2. Full Catastrophe Living: How to Cope with Stress, Pain and Illness Using Mindfulness Meditation, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn

An expert in the area of stress and meditation, Dr. Kabat-Zinn runs the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Written over 20 years ago, this book is a practical handbook for anyone who wants to delve deep into the science and practice of mindfulness and how it can be used to deal with stress in our everyday lives. I read this book a year ago during my month in Amsterdam researching mindfulness at work and its key messages have influenced my work today.

Perspective Shift: You only have moments to live. Every moment is a new beginning. We can choose to ruminate in the past or dream about the future, or, choose to live intentionally here in the present, from moment to moment.

3. Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, Scott Belsky

Scott Belsky is CEO of Behance, one of the most innovative and creative companies in the world. Though his work and his blog, the 99%, he has observed that Edison's statement that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration is true. Making Ideas Happen is a guidebook to ensuring your creative ideas happen through getting organized, collaborating and leading effectively.

Perspective Shift: Not all projects are created equal. Create an 'energy line' of your current projects in order of the energy they should receive. Use this when prioritising your work.

4. How To Be Free, Tom Hodgkinson

A funny book with a serious message, How To Be Free asks how can we be free of the absurdities of modern life with its focus on working to buy more stuff and to get a bigger house. While I don't aspire to some of the rural bliss that Tom advocates, being too much of a city girl, reading this book was a key driver in my current minimalist lifestyle.

Perspective Shift: Stop working to buy more stuff you don't need to impress people you don't like.

5. Happiness at Work: Be Resilient, Motivated, and Successful - No Matter What, Dr Srikumar S. Rao

Based on his popular courses at top business schools, Dr. Rao poses the question of how we can be happier at work and delivers 35 digestible nuggets of wisdom of how we can get there. A chance find while 'wasting' some time in a bookstore, this book has been a solid companion to me this year.

Perspective Shift: Positive thinking is bad for you. If we stop labelling things that happen to us as 'good' or 'bad' we can start to see that life is just series of moments ebbing and flowing, and that everything, happiness and sadness, passes.

6. Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values, Fred Kofman

I came across the work of Fred Kofman and particularly the ideas in this book again in my month in Amsterdam. One of the owners of The Hub also ran a company called Realize! and there was a downloadable summary of this book on their website. A conscious business is one that operates with integrity and creates value for all of its stakeholders, employees and customers. In these interesting times when the Occupy movement are asking for an alternative to capitalism, conscious business with its emphasis on responsibility and authenticity could be the way forward. I wish every business leader would read this book.

Perspective Shift: The power of Unconditional Responsibility. You have the power to become the main character in your life and choose how you respond to external factors.

7. The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich, Tim Ferriss

I have written many times on this blog about Tim's book and how it shifted my perspective from a structured career path until retirement to design my business to suit my lifestyle. It was instrumental in my move in Spain in 2008 and my current part time location independent lifestyle (I will be writing my final blog post of the year from sunny Lisbon next week!). You can take parts of this book with a pinch of salt but Tim's new perspective on work is worth a read.

Perspective Shift: Parkinson's Law: work expands to fill the time available. Set yourself crazy deadlines to work faster and better.

8. ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

I love this book so much I dedicated the letter 'R' in From Apps to Zen to it. If you are looking to change your perspective on the workplace, then this book is for you. In fact, buy one for every member of your team. With ideas such as Meetings are Toxic, Long Lists Don't Get Done, and Planning is Guessing, ReWork will debunk some of the persistent myths about what it takes to make a successful business.

Perspective Shift: Good Enough is Fine: find a judo solution one that delivers maximum efficiency with minimum effort.

9. Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork Start the Work That Matters, Michael Bungay Stanier

A little gem, the book inspires us to stop the ‘busywork’ and start the work that matters. With 15 practical exercises or ‘maps’ Michael takes your through step by step how to identify, start and sustain your Great Work. This book was my holiday reading this year in Vietnam and it allowed me to get a fresh perspective on my work and provides daily reminders about how important my Great Work is and how to focus on it.

Perspective Shift: Tap into the power of Role Models – when you are trying to identify what your Great Work is, think about your top 5 role models in your work and life. What are their common or distinct characteristics? What do they tell you about your Great Work?

I hope one or more of these books has captured your imagination so ask Santa if she will bring one : )

Merry Christmas!

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Start With Why

Simon Sinek is the author of Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action which says that to make change we should start with Why we are doing something before moving onto the How and the What.

Start with why you want to influence others online and the strategy and tactics for achieving your goal will become clearer. Do you want to create change? Do you want to show different ways of being, working or thinking? Do you want to raise your profile to get more work? Do you want to challenge the status quo?

Have Something To Say

Gandhi famously once said: "don't talk unless you can improve the silence". We are all aware that the social web is creating far too much noise in our lives with constant status updates and tweets. I try to make it a practice not to add to the noise just for the sake of being seen but only share content or ideas when I think they are of value.

Social media is just an amplifier. You need to have something to say in the first place.

Know Me, Like Me, Trust Me

To influence others they must get to know you first, then like what you do, and then start to trust you and become an advocate for your work.

The first step is being found. Sounds simple but if no-one is listening, you are not influencing. A good trick is to Google your name/company/brand on a different computer to yours and see what results come up (your computer will have cookies remembering what sites you have visited). Are you happy with the results? Where are you mentioned on the social web? Make the most out of your LinkedIn and Twitter profiles and optimise them with the keywords you want to rank for.

Get active on social media and post regular but great content. Engage in conversations - don't make it a one way street. Listening first and asking questions is a good way of influencing others. Use Twitter searches and hashtags to follow conversations around a topic you want to influence.

Make your content shareable with sharing buttons on your blog. Actively ask others to tweet and share your content. If you don't have a blog, guest post on other blogs and drive traffic back to your website. Make it easy for people to follow you by putting links to your social media on your website, your business cards and your email signature.

We can influence by being an authority or expert in an area, by sharing our ideas on a topic as well as curating the best content from others. Having an opinion on the social web is crucial. In the early days of tweeting and blogging, I was reluctant to say anything that went against the status quo or that challenged others' opinions. But now I am more comfortable in my skin and happy to say what I really think.

Telling stories and being human is another key way of getting others to know and trust you. Each of us has a unique journey that has led us to where we are today and sharing our lessons and vulnerabilities is a powerful way of connecting with others.

What's your story?

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On Monday night I braved the streets of Belgravia, getting increasing lost as I found (eventually!) my way to The Star Tavern for An Evening with Emma Jones. Organised by Julie Hall from Women Unlimited, the event was a chance to network with other female entrepreneurs and hear business tips from Emma, herself a serial entrepreneur, founder of Enterprise Nation and Bitsy, a small business market place, CEO of StartUp Britain, and author of many business books including ‘Spare Room Start Up’.

Emma has a refreshing take on business and start-ups which seeks to dismiss the 'high cost/high skill' myth of starting a business and I wanted to share three of her ideas on the blog today and how digital can help facilitate them.

1. Go Niche (or Micro-Niche)

In her years advising and talking to start-up businesses, according to Emma, the one common factor that made a business a success was having a clearly defined niche and sticking to it. She gave the example of NannyNumbers - a payroll service for nannies, a truly niche service. In discussions with the company, Emma told us that they were considering widening their reach to run payroll services for other professions but she cautioned against this. 

With a niche (or micro-niche) business, you can get your opinion out on social media easily. You can become the go-to expert or service provider in your field. With a niche, content creation becomes easier as you have a focus for your efforts. A colleague shared an excellent video with me this week on generating 40 blog post ideas in 5 minutes - easy to do with a niche!

2. Do What You Do Best, Outsource The Rest

Emma is a fan of growing businesses, but suggested an alternative to growing them in the traditional way of hiring lots of staff and paying for office space. We all know the importance of working on your business and not just in the business, but when you are up to your eyes in admin, it's hard to find the mental space to do what you do best.

With the UK in recession, the current government talk a lot about job creation, but unfortunately the red tape and requirements for hiring staff do not make it easy for small businesses to grow. A better way to work and to build and grow a business is to create flexible work for other freelancers which still contributes to the economy without the stress for the business owner.

Emma asked that we focus on what we do best in our business and outsource the rest. From products to services, there is nothing you can't outsource these days with the web. If you sell products online, why not outsource fulfilment and shipping? Instead of struggling with your bookkeeping, outsource this to an online professional. Don't have time to blog, update your Facebook page or your website? Outsource this to my freelance Digital Assistants. Need design or writing services? Try online platforms such as Elance or PeoplePerHour. Use the power of digital to have a remote team working on distinct parts of the business rather than sitting in your office costing you money

3. Go Global Early

"Focus on niche, achieve global reach". Emma Jones

The internet has shrunk the world. We can now connect with potential customers in any country and market our products and services on a global scale.

Having a defined niche or micro-niche, can help us go global faster as we can attract our true fans from a wider pool of people. Social media, Skype and easy payment systems such as PayPal, mean that we can run a global business from our kitchen table. If we start to think about our business in global terms early on, we can create new markets and a more sustainable business in the long term.

Thanks to Emma and Julie for a wonderfully inspiring evening. If you are interested in finding out more about Women Unlimited and their Moxie Business Club, do have a look at their website today.

[image with thanks to fsse8info via CC]

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The beginning of the week saw me in Glasgow speaking on a panel at the Independent Street Arts Network biennial conference. The theme of the conference, Resilience and Brilliance reflected the challenges that the outdoor arts sector (performance work that takes place outside traditional theatre spaces) is facing with Arts Council and Local Authority funding cuts, but also the exciting opportunities for the sector with London 2012 fast approaching and growing interest in the artforms.

I was speaking on a panel about Being Resilient and of course took my starting point, how producers and artists working in outdoor arts can use technology to be both resilient and brilliant, and I wanted to share some of those thoughts on the blog today.

Being Resilient

The arts sector as a whole is going through tough times. The main funders of the sector, Arts Council England and Local Authorities have faced significant cuts from central government which in turn has affected the support extended to the sector. Many outdoor arts festivals around the UK have either been shelved entirely or lost a great percentage of their funding as Councils are under pressure to cut non-essential services. In these tough times, arts organisations need to be as resilient as possible.

Three areas where technology can help arts organisations ‘be resilient’ and save costs are: cloud computing, working environments, and people.

The lack of knowledge about current IT solutions in smaller arts organisations can end up costing the organisation money but also time. Cloud computing is becoming more ubiquitous in the commercial sector with organisations as big as GM moving their systems from local, server based setups to the cloud using Google Apps. Arts organisations should consider moving systems to the cloud using applications such as Gmail, Dropbox and online CRM systems such as Highrise which can result in significant cost savings and nearly no downtime.

Office space, business rates and utility bills can be a substantial part of a smaller arts organisation’s annual budget. However, today’s employees increasingly want to work flexibly, either from home or from shared co-working spaces. Companies in the commercial sector are realising that having dedicated desk spaces for employees, especially in large urban areas, is a false economy as these spaces are only used 45-50% of the time.

The arts have always been ahead of the curve in terms of expanding and contracting project teams, with performers, writers and designers hired as necessary for projects. But the arts has yet to embrace outsourcing of core functions such as producing, administration and finances, still preferring to employ a small core team on a permanent basis. Why not use remote working to outsource all the core work of the organisation? Arts organisations have busy periods and fallow ones and yet staff are employed year round. With many commercial organisations seeing their staff as portfolio workers rather than permanent staff members, the arts in the future will have to embrace this as well. Portfolio working is something arts workers are very good!

Being Brilliant

As well as saving time and money, digital can also help outdoor arts organisations be brilliant and produce brilliant work. Three ways digital can facilitate this is: crowdfunding, mobile and social media.

Crowdfunding is a way of raising finances for a project through individual donations. Kickstarter was the first crowdfunding platform in the US and since its inception, many others have followed. In the UK, popular ones for funding the arts are WeFund, WeDidThis and Sponsume.

The outdoor arts have not yet utilised these platforms but I think they are perfectly poised to take advantage of them. Many of the festivals or artists have large, engaged followings that could be harnessed, one of the key ingredients of a successful crowdfunding campaign. Other key ingredients are not being too ambitious in terms of the amount asked for (many crowdingfunding platforms require that you raise 100% of the funds or return the cash) and having different levels of ‘goodies’ for your donators (The Age of Stupid film offerings ranged from £10 for a credit to £500 for a part in the film). The last essential ingredient is running a social media campaign alongside your crowdfunding pitch – just uploading your crowdingfunding video isn’t going to get you the cash, you need to engage your network and get them to tell their friends about it.

Mobile is an area that has great potential for ‘brilliance’ in outdoor arts both in terms of creativity and engagement. Gaming platforms such as SCVNGR enable you to build attractive experiences for your audience that they can access on their smartphone. Or use WordPress and one of the free or low cost mobile web apps to build project specific mobile websites where you can ‘push’ content to audiences or even use micropayments to raise funds on thr ground.

Lastly, the outdoor arts are not making enough of social media to promote their work, engage audiences and increase their profile. It’s not enough to just slap up a Facebook page and YouTube channel. As a visual medium, these platforms are the place to be, but you have to have a strategy for engaging your audience and pushing your content out. Be consistent. Post regularly and respond to comments. Make social part of your everyday workflow and it will become a habit.

What have I missed? What are you thoughts on how digital can help the arts be more resilient and brilliant?

[image with thanks to ArtsAgenda]

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As a digital well-being coach and trainer, I often get rather blank looks when I say what I do for a living. "Digital well-being? Sounds interesting, but what does it mean?"

To me, digital well-being is the intersection of the things I believe in and that get me out of bed on cold winter days (like today); making the most of digital, work-world balance, and having freedom and flexibility in my business.

I believe that the World Wide Web and internet have given us unprecedented opportunities as business owners, workers, and people, but that we do not always make the most of them. Digital Well-being is about harnessing the awesome power of the internet to fulfil your work and life objectives and to design your business to suit your lifestyle.

Even since I picked up Tim Ferriss' The 4-Hour Workweek, I have been convinced that it is possible to create new business models and new ways of working from digital. Businesses no longer need their staff to be sat behind a desk from 9 to 5 yet this still remains the status quo even through flexible working improves employee productivity and happiness.

With digital we can increasingly choose who we work for and how we create value and meaning in our work. It's never been easier to use the social web to set up your own microbusiness - all the tools are free, you just need a good idea. A digital microbusiness can enable you to work on something you are passionate about rather then having to leave your values at the door when you go to work.

With digital we can choose where and when we work. With faster broadband speeds, cloud computing and communications technologies such as Skype, you can choose to work from any where you like - your front room, your local cafe or another country. After the success of Amsterdam last winter and as someone who tries to practice what she preaches, I am relocating to Lisbon for five weeks in December/January to write, hang out and get a fresh perspective for 2012.

In the UK, we seem to be working longer and longer hours and our digital friends of mobile, laptop and iPad mean that we are never far from our work. When you receive hundreds of emails each day, it's tempting to spend our evenings on the couch head buried in our device instead of being with our family. Digital Well-being is using the web to work better, not longer; making smart digital choices that work for you. It's about taking control of your email inbox, making your social media into a fun habit not a time suck, and using the right digital tools and platforms so you can be super effective.

Digital Well-being is about recognizing that we live in a world full of ‘screen time’ and having the awareness and skills to balance our on and offline worlds. Getting offline is essential, for our health and for our relationships.

If you want to learn more about how you can improve your digital well-being, then do join me and a small group of friends for a cosy morning at The Hub Islington (with it's roaring wood fire) on Thursday 1 December. It will be 100% offline and great coffee is assured!

Early Bird tickets end today at midnight.

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This blog post is part of The Business Yogi series – inspiration and thoughts for business based on the philosophy, principles and practices of yoga.

“No mud, no lotus.” – Thich Nhat Hahn

Running the Digital Assistant Academy has been one of the most challenging things I have ever undertaken. Training women who have never considered using the web to work to be freelance digital assistants in only eight weeks, does seem at times to be an impossible task.

But just as the lotus rises from the mud, so our most triumphant moments in yoga bloom from our most challenging experiences.

After five weeks of nearly crying with exhaustion and frustration after most of the training sessions, yesterday just … flowed. Applications were installed with ease, new ideas gushed, exercises were completed with enthusiasm and skill. It’s all starting to make sense. One of the women commented that she is now rethinking how she spends her time and no longer wants to waste time on Facebook as she can see the wider  business potential of the web.

The past five weeks have been challenging for both me and the women. There have been tears both in and outside the classroom. One women quit before our half term break as she could not cope with the course and raise three children at home. As someone without children, I find it hard to advise my trainees on how they can find the time to study and eventually work at home when they have a family. Two of my inspirational women speakers to come are both busy freelance working Mums so I hope that we can learn how they push through their ‘mud’ on a daily basis.

As for me, I believe deep down that this project can help some of the 110,000 single parents (mostly women) who the current Government will force to seek work – or risk a benefit cut – without availability of jobs, adequate job-search support or childcare help. So even through this work is unpaid and sometimes feels unappreciated, days like yesterday remind me that something worth doing is never easy.

I can see the Lotus emerging. And it feels great.

[image with thanks to virdi via CC]

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Skype is best known for free video calling. I first starting using Skype regularly when I lived in Spain (2008-9), and the number of active users were around 10 million then. Today almost 23 million users use the service at any one time.

But there is more to Skype then making calls to friends and family abroad and it can be a powerful and cost effective way of running your business. Here are some of the great features, both free and paid for, that make Skype worth taking seriously.

1. Group Video Calling

With Group Video Calling you can host team meetings, collaborate on projects, or even conduct group coaching sessions, without leaving your front room. Group video calling is only available on a Premium Subscription but only one member of the group needs to have a subscription to host a group video conference. . Premium Subscriptions can be bought for 12 / 6 / 3 month periods and you can even buy a Day Pass. 

You can take a free 7 day trial to see how Group Video Calling works for your business.

2. Screen and File Sharing

Ever been on a call with a client and wished you could demo something on your website / desktop? Well, with Screen Sharing you can and it’s available on the free Skype account.

To share your screen during a call, click the Share button in the Call window. Your colleague will see exactly what's on your desktop/screen. Great for sharing presentations or supporting a client with a task, you can choose to share your entire screen or a selected window.

You can also share documents with callers by dragging and dropping the file into the Chat Box during the call - a great way to save time instead of having to remember to follow up later.

3. Online Number

If you work virtually or travel a lot in your business, an Online Number could be the perfect way for clients and colleagues to contact you as they pay the same as a local call no matter where you are in the world. If you don’t have a fixed office, it can be helpful if you don’t want to use your mobile number as your main contact number.

When someone calls your Online Number you pick up on Skype. If you are not online, they can leave a voicemail that you pick up next time you are online. You can also forward calls to any mobile or landline. Online Number is available from £10 for 3 months. 

4. Skype on Your Mobile

Skype has apps for the iPhone, iPad and Android phones so you can make video calls when you are away from your PC. I use this extensively when I am travelling to stay in touch and it works brilliantly with a good wifi connection.

5. Skype WiFi

A new addition to the Skype family, Skype WiFi allows you to use your Skype Credit to get online at 1 million WiFi Hotspots worldwide. Just download the app to your smart phone or Sign in to Skype and select an available public access WiFi network on your laptop.

How do you use Skype for business? Are there any better alternatives out there? 

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This morning's sessions were a mixed bag with Twitter tips from self-described Twitter expert Mark Shaw, making the most of mobile from Blackberry employee Dan Sloshberg, improving your visibility online from The Good Web Guide's Arabella Dymoke, and lastly 7 social media tips from social media marketer Warren Knight. The afternoon was considerably more informative with Chieu Cao from start up business Huddlebuy showing real insights into how they have leveraged social media to grow, Chris Dodson from Concept Cupboard with an insight into some great social media tools, and lastly, Ural Cebeci from Skype highlighting some of the business features of both paid and free Skype accounts (look out for a post next week on this - I learnt there is more to Skype than chatting to Dad in Ireland!).

So live off the presses, here are some ideas and insights that got me scribbling:

Getting your house in order

Arabella talked abut the importance of getting your website sorted out before you send anyone your way. This is crucial. So often we forget to check our own website to ensure that it is giving visitors a great first impression.

Have you checked your website in a range of browsers? Does it work in older versions of Internet Explorer as well as the latest version of Chrome? How does it look on an iPad or a Blackberry? Are the links working on your site? Are your social media icons prominent and obvious for new visitors or are they hidden in the footer of your site? What are the top 5 things you want people to do when they visit your site? Write them down and test it out with new users.

Making the most of content

We all know content is king (or is it queen?) but are you making the most of it on the web?

You may have a blog but do you make it easy for people to find your great posts? Have a review of the titles of your posts - do you have the key words that the article is about right there in the title? Is your website so old that your permalink structure (the URL of your posts) are impossible to change? It might be time to build a new WordPress website.

Are you making the most of video? With YouTube being the second biggest search engine in the world after you know who, video can be a great way of driving traffic to your site.

Like to talk? Use iTunes and your podcast show to become know as an expert in your field. Have a look at the Smart Passive Income blog to see how Pat has used this strategy effectively.

Have great presentations? Upload them onto Slideshare and display them on your LinkedIn profile.

Get active on social media

Warren Knight confirmed the million dollar question: do Google take tweets and Facebook shares into account in their search signals. And the answer is yes. Being active on social media can help with your searchability and help your web profile.

Warren had some great advice about Facebook - post once a day to your Business Page - something with an image or video and a comment. Don't be tempted to post multiple times a day - this is not Twitter! And do not autopost your tweets onto Facebook - use the longer text capabilites of Facebook to your advantage.

If you can, tweet around 5 times a day (use TweetDeck or Hootsuite to schedule your tweets to go out throughout the day). But don't stress if you can't get on Twitter during the day or even for a few days. Don't add to the noise if you have nothing to say.

Think of social media platforms as dating

Chieu used a good analogy of comparing the holy trinity of social media platforms to dating avenues. Think of Twitter as speed dating. Short and sweet. Fast and furious. Be interesting and make an impression. Facebook is proper dating. You start to get to know someone and find out more about them. You want to engage more and increase interaction but still keep it light. LinkedIn is a marriage arranging service. It’s formal, professional and to the point. (Ok, so the last idea was mine, but I like the dating analogy!).

Understanding tradeoffs

Every speaker at the event talked about time. How much time to spend on social media and where to put your time.

Chieu made an interesting point that growing a business is about a balance between getting better at what is working and spending time exploring new things. This is a great point. How often do we chase new customers, brainstorm new products and services, or jump on new networks. We need to know what is working in our online activity (which is where measurement and metrics come in) and balance this with spending some time experimenting with new ideas. Chieu used the analogy of gambling – once you get back your initial bet, go play with the rest, but make sure you don’t lose your shirt.

That's it. Thanks to StartUp Britain for an interesting day.

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Monday’s presentation was by Greg Jarrett from Fuerte International – a mobile apps development company. Greg’s presentation entitled “It's All About Mobile” was enlightening, and I wanted to share some of my ideas and thoughts from the evening here.

Mobile (and Tablets) are growing fast

Greg showed a fascinating graph (which unfortunately I cannot find anywhere on the web) that showed exponential growth in the market penetration of smartphones (with tablet devices such as the iPad coming up fast) and slowing growth in the sale of laptop computers. According to the graph, desktops computers have practically disappeared by 2013!

Mobile internet browsing is also increasing with an average of 81 minutes more a day spent on mobile apps compared to browser based applications. I can see this trend in my own work as I use my Facebook and Linkedin apps on my iPhone more than I use them on my laptop.

Why is mobile growing so quick? Greg talked about convenience and boredom. We access apps and the web on our phones because we can and because it becomes a habit. We use our phones to make the most of those slivers of time between meetings, at events or on our commute.

iPhone still rules

Greg said that his clients are asking for both iPhone and Android apps to be developed but as yet the numbers don’t add up. In his experience 90% of the app downloads for their products still come from the Apple App Store. There are many reasons for this including iPhone market penetration but also that fact that Android apps are (apparently) not as easy to download. First rule of business: make it easy for your customers to buy!

Mobile apps are really expensive to develop

Greg showed us some examples of apps that they had developed with indicative costings and timeframes. The simplest app can cost anything between £9,750 and £26,650 depending on the level of functionality and will take a minimum of 8 weeks to develop. Compare this to website development which can be done for minimum cost these days and relatively quickly.

How does your website look in mobile?

It’s always a good idea to test your website on a number of smartphones and tablets to check the user experience. Review your Google Analytics data to see what mobiles and devices your customers are reading your website on.

Looking at my data I can see that Blackberry users find my site hard to read as the bounce rate is very high. Depending on how many people are accessing your site via mobile, it may be worth investing in a mobile version of your website. 

What are your thoughts on mobile? How can small businesses make the most of these opportunities without the costs?

PS: If you are interested in ways of developing simple, low cost apps and/or mobile websites for your business, do sign up to the 8fold newsletter, as I will be announcing a Mobile Toolkit workshop in November.

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Last night I attended a fascinating debate at the RSA in London to launch the new book by Steve Fuller, chair in social epistemology at Warwick University. The book, entitled Humanity 2.0: What it Means to be Human, Past, Present and Future looks at the question of what does it mean to be human in the 21st century? 

It was an extremely enjoyable evening with contributions from Dr Rachel Armstrong, co-director of AVATAR (Advanced Virtual and Technological Architectural Research) in Architecture & Synthetic Biology, author China Miéville, and Dr Sarah Chan, deputy director, ISEI (Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation). 

Human beings have always been very good at re-making the human and the natural world to suit ourselves and to reflect our position as fundamentally different from other life forms. Historically, this can be seen in technological advances such as animal and plant breeding, to genetic modification, to the development of prosthetic devices such as glasses or artificial limbs.

Humanity 2.0 is not in the future, I would argue that it is already here. We use computers on a daily basis to enhance and amplify ourselves. I outsource my spatial knowledge to Google Maps on my iPhone, my memory to Evernote and my knowledge to Google Search.

But some would argue that we have already started to lose our humanity.

Many of us lead complex online lives with profiles and personas to cultivate and augment (I am including myself in this group!). We place huge importance on these online interactions and feel valued when we are retweeted, linked to or name checked online. As the number of our connections increase through social networks and email, we feel busy and important. 

We can become addicted to our screens and neglect our bodies, our family and ourselves. We are no longer present but are constantly drawn towards our online world. I found it amusing last night that the first thing we were asked to do was to tweet about the event. But what's the point? Anyone who has tried to tweet and listen to a debate will know it's pretty tough to do, so why would we take away from our enjoyment and learning to send a few sound bites to our followers? When did having your head down in a screen become a social norm at events?

There are also issues of access and ethics. We can already see a digital divide between those who have access to the internet and those who don't, but this will be nothing compared to the divide when the rich can enhance their brains and the poor cannot as envisioned in Steve Fuller's future.

For me, the benefits of the technological advances of the Humanity 2.0 we already have far outweigh the costs. But we need to retain our humanity and make the most of new advances without being overwhelmed by them. 

We are still in a learning stage. The Internet, social media and smartphones are still relatively new technologies - we are still figuring out how to use them and I am sure we will be experiencing teething problems for a while yet. 

The web and social media allows us to find our tribe and connect with others, reducing social isolation and expanding our social circles. As businesses and individuals we can connect with a global market and audience. But let's not get caught up with valuing online connections more than the person in front of us.

Through Google, blogs and epublishing, knowledge and learning is becoming democratised. Anyone with access to a computer and the net can learn and improve their situation. What we need to do is to ensure basic access for everyone to these technologies through programmes such as Sugata Mitra's Hole in the Wall project in the developing world and digital inclusion projects such as RaceOnline here in the UK.

In the olden days, writing was uncommon so you would have to use up a lot of brain power just remembering things. I love the story in William Powers' Hamlet’s Blackberry (a fantastic book by the way about balance in the digital age) about Hamlet’s use of the ‘new technology’ of tables – a pocket-sized book that came with specially coated paper that could be wiped and reused. An amazing innovation at the time. Similarly, today by outsourcing our memory and knowledge to the web and our devices, we could leave more space for higher level thinking so let's not waste this potential.

I am optimistic and positive about Humanity 2.0. What are your thoughts?

[image with thanks to garrette via CC]

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In my Toolkit workshops, I often come across people who are already using some of the digital tools, platforms and apps I recommend. But rarely are they using them to their full capability.

Today, in the spirit of Mottainai and using things properly, I wanted to share 5 lesser known functions of 5 popular tools to encourage you to make the most out of your digital life.

1. TweetDeck: New Followers

TweetDeck is a third party Twitter application that you can use to manage all your social networks from one place. Whether you are using TweetDeck on your phone, your desktop or on the web, TweetDeck is a time-effective way of staying up to date.

A little know feature of TweetDeck is the ability to set up a New Followers column. By default, when you set up a Twitter account, you're sent an email every time you have a new follower. Exciting at the beginning, annoying when you start to have more followers. By setting up a New Followers column in TweetDeck, you can view the person's photo and bio and decide whether to follow or block (if they are spam) them straightaway.

To set up the column go to Add New Column > Core > New Followers.

2. Dropbox: Getting More Space

Dropbox is a neat tool that creates a 'mini-server' for your documents accessible from your desktop, the cloud and your phone. Your free account comes with 2GB of storage and you can increase this (250MB each time) by using your referral code to invite friends to join the service.

But did you know that there are other ways of easily increasing your storage? This article from LifeHacker suggests ways of increasing your storage by 768MB by social sharing on Twitter and Facebook, following Dropbox on Twitter, and by giving feedback to the Dropbox team.

To sign up for your free account, visit Dropbox today.

3. LinkedIn: Get Introduced Through a Connection

I am sure you are familiar with LinkedIn - the social network of choice for professionals. There are too many great features of LinkedIn to mention here, but one underused feature I wanted to flag up is the ability to get introduced to someone through an existing connection.

To contact someone through LinkedIn, you either have to have worked with them or know their email address. However, if the person you wish to connect with is connected to one of your 1st connections, you can ask your connection to forward a message to them.

I have used this successfully in the past to contact potential speakers for events I have run. I think that if a request comes through a trusted connection, this can be much stronger than an unsolicited email.

First search for the person you wish to connect with in the People Search box. If they have a 2^nd connection beside them, have a look at who connects you to them (see screenshot).

Then click on ‘Get introduced through a connection’ and fill out the required details. You can also leave a message for your LinkedIn contact so they know why you are trying to contact this person.

The more you build your LinkedIn connections, the more potential people you can have access to, and the more useful this feature becomes, so start building those connections today.

Start by connecting with me - I know lots of people ; )

4. Gmail: Keyboard Shortcuts

Gmail is my email platform for choice because of its powerful features that allow me to get through my Inbox super fast and get on with my important work.

An often overlooked feature of Gmail is the extensive keyboard shortcuts. Using these shortcuts and my computer mouse allows me to process email quickly and get on with more important things.

The shortcuts I use the most are:

# = delete. Use this shortcut to read/delete quickly.

e = archive. If you have set up Filters to add Labels to your emails as they come in (recommended), than use 'e' to quickly read/archive.

! = marks as Spam and removes this email from your Inbox.

s = stars the conversion.

To turn shortcuts on, go to the Gear icon > Mail Settings > General > Keyboard Shortcuts On.

5. WordPress: Schedule Posts

WordPress is the powerful content management system that allows you to build static and blog based websites like my website 8fold. (Do check out the free WordPress eCourse on the website if you want to know more.)

When you write a blog post, it is dated by default on the day you write it. However, you can use the date function in WordPress to schedule posts to run in the future. This can be incredibility useful if you know you are going to be particularly busy one week and miss your posting schedule; or if you have a run of inspiration and write three posts at a time; or if you are going away on vacation.

What are your favourite 'hidden' features of these popular tools? Do share in the comments.

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An important point to make at the outset is to remind ourselves that GA is not about looking just at how many people have visited your site or even admiring the pretty coloured graphs. The data is useless unless we do something with it.

The key thing with GA is not to look at numbers but to use the data to make better business decisions. For example, if you have a high bounce rate (someone visiting your site and leaving almost immediately) from your home page, perhaps the information on this page is confusing. If you are spending a lot of time on social media (Twitter, Facebook) but are seeing little traffic from these sources, then maybe you need to reconsider your marketing strategy.

Getting Started with Google Analytics

Sign up for a free account at the Google Analytics site. You will generate a little piece of code that will have to be manually inserted into each page of your site that you want tracked. If you have a WordPress site, there are a multitude of plugins that do this automatically for you. Ultimate GA is the one I use.

Set Up Goals and Conversions

Next, set up some Goals. Goals are useful to measure whether visitors are interacting on your site they way you want them to. For example, a goal could be to measure how many people sign up to your mailing list or how many visitors click on a Buy Now button.

To set up a Goal, visit the Settings button (the little gear icon on the right) and choose the Profile you want to set up a Goal for. Click on Goals and then set up your desired Goal. The screenshot below shows a set up for a mailing list subscribe. The destination URL is the URL of the subscribe confirmation page. 

You can also set up sales funnels to see where in the process your potential customers are dropping off. For example, do they get to the payment page and then leave? Perhaps you are not offering the right payment plan or perhaps this page looks unsecure. Use your analytics data to ensure you don’t loose potential revenue.

Learn More About Your Visitors

You can use GA to analyse data on demographics, specifically location and language. If you are seeing a lot of visitors from a certain country, it might be worthwhile having parts of your site translated.

Behaviour is an interesting addition to GA. This tracks if visitors are new or returning. You can then break this down by secondary criteria such as traffic source (see screenshot). This way you can see if there are any influencing factors to people returning to your site. You can also look at Engagement and see how long people are staying on your site.

Use the Browser and Mobile data to see what web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer etc) and mobile platforms people are using to view your site. Sort by bounce rate to highlight any potential problems with certain browsers or mobiles.

Look at where your Traffic is coming from. Apart from search and direct traffic, what are your top referring sites? For me it tends to be this blog, Twitter and Facebook or LinkedIn.

Have a look at your top Landing Pages. Where are people seeing their first page? Are these pages doing your business justice? Are there clear calls to action for new visitors?

You can track email links (for example in an email newsletter) using Google’s URL Tool. Do a / b testing on your email blasts and see which one is driving more traffic to your website.

Troubleshooting with Google Analytics

Use GA to highlight page level problems. If you're seeing a high bounce rate from a particular page, have a think about why? Is there information missing?

Use GA to highlight unusual activity. Set up Alerts and you will get an email if an event is triggered. For example, if traffic is less than usual this might highlight that your site is down or if numbers are up, that sales are through the roof!

Use the data from GA to experiment with changes to your website. See if changes to navigation, content or design make a difference to the number of visitors or conversions. Do a before and after and analyse the data.

Final Thoughts

We are all guilty of checking our GA stats obsessively (I know I am) but instead of obsessing over just the numbers, spend a few minutes drilling down into the data and start to see the bigger picture for your business.

[thanks to SEO and web expert Malcom Coles for the inspiration for the post - I attended a great workshop on this last night - thanks Malcolm!]

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This week I am interviewing the women who applied for my Digital Assistant Academy pilot project which will enable six low income women in East London to generate additional, flexible income for themselves and their family around their existing commitments. Over an eight week period, the six women in the pilot will learn the necessary skills to become freelance Digital Assistants working from their own home with a laptop computer and broadband.

The women who have applied for the opportunity are diverse. Some of these women have not worked for a long time and have lost their confidence; others are single mums who want more flexible work to fit around their children; others are young women desperately trying to get on the job ladder in a terrible job market. However, they are were really positive about the project. One of the women wrote about the opportunity:

“I am keen to take part in the academy as I want to begin the rest of my life. I aim to become independent of state benefits and support my family whilst being a strong, positive role model for my children. I feel that I will be better equipped to do this if I am working and building a career.”

But I can see some sleepless nights ahead for me. No work is guaranteed, especially for freelancers. Am I setting these women up to fail by encouraging them to work for themselves? I have to admit that at least twice a year I consider packing it all in and getting a ‘real’ job – one where someone else can worry about how to pay my salary.

In these moments of self-doubt and fear, the yogic concept of tapas is a useful one to meditate on. Tapas is translated literally as ‘fire’ or ‘heat’ but it is taken to mean in this context sacrifice, discipline and perseverance.

In our asana practice some of the more challenging poses can create a lot of heat and fire in our body. The immediate reaction is to resist this and move back to a place of comfort. Tapas invites us to go through the heat and accept it. Feel the fear and do it anyway, if you like.

Through asana practice, meditation and self-study, yoga asks us to feel our discomfort and stretch beyond our perceived limitations. Only by going through our fear, not around it, can we begin to transcend it.

We have good and bad days in our yoga practice. Some days the postures come easily; we deeply connect to our breath and the world off the mat melts away. Other days, we cannot concentrate on anything and the simplest of postures frustrate us. This is normal.

What we have to remember is to get back on the mat.

[image with thank to marmotchaser via CC]

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Here are 5 tools and tactics to help you harness the power of the web to stay focussed, get more done and work effectively.

1. Gmail Priority Inbox

One of my favourite finds last year was the new feature from Gmail, Priority Inbox which has helped my transformation into an email ninja.

Priority Inbox learns which are your most ‘important’ emails and 'prioritises' them by posting them at the top of your inbox. Next are your 'read' and 'starred' emails i.e. those you have read and designated as actionable/important/stuff I must read etc. Lastly, comes everything else - 'unimportant' messages or important messages that have already been read.

I find that Priority Inbox allows me to see at a glance what needs to be responded to first and what can ‘go hang’ for a while. Gmail is fairly intuitive but you can also teach it by using the ‘important’ and ‘not important’ buttons. This way I can designate any emails directly addressed to me as ‘important’ and any emails I am copied into as ‘unimportant’, along with any newsletters or notifications.

Priority Inbox is a great way of ensuring that those important client emails or exciting opportunities do not get buried in your inbox.

2. Use Filters

In our increasing digital world, I am a big fan of using filters (see "F" in my free ebook From Apps to Zen: 26+ Ideas for Building A Business with Balance) to reduce the number of information streams coming into the day.

Filters are experts in your area who read and filter and best information about an area of interest. For example, a great social media filter is Pete Cashmore from digital blog Mashable. He consistently delivers the most up to date news and features on social media, online tools and the web. If you're interested in location independent living, Cory McKibben from Thrilling Heroics is a great person to follow.

Find out who your filters are in your niche and follow them on social media.

3. Equanimity App

Equanimity is a neat little app for the iPhone. Set a meditation time, for example 5 minutes, and a Tibetan bowl will ring once. Sit quietly, eyes closed and focus on your breathing. Focus on the sound of the breath as you inhale and exhale. Feel the cool air of the in-breath and warmer air of the out-breath as you breathe. After your time is up the bowl rings three times and it’s time to get back to work.

A great way to refresh, take a few minutes away from your screen, and refocus during the day.

4. Work in a Distraction Free Zone

Shutting down your distractions will help to focus your attention and supercharge your productivity, so shut off your email, turn your phone to silent and close down any social media if you have an important piece of work to focus on.

Brower extensions such as StayFocused for Chrome or LeechBlock for FireFox can limit your access to certain programmes such as Gmail or Facebook if you don't yet have the discipline yourself. For writing try WriteMonkey for PCs or OmmWriter for the Mac to provide an application free writing space.

5. Use Evernote to Combat Information Overload

We all suffer from information overload. The daily deluge of blog posts, email newsletters and useful links. You know the scenario where you take a short digital break from your work. One interesting blog post leads to another, and before you know it, two hours have past and you’ve wasted your morning. Sounds familiar? But how do you keep track of information that might be useful in the future without getting sidetracked in your day-to-day work?

Enter Evernote. Evernote’s CEO, Phil Libin likens Evernote to having an external brain – it remembers things so you don’t have to. Essentially Evernote is an information capturing and organization system .You can use it to type a text note, to clip a web page, snap a photograph of something, or record some audio. Evernote is cloud-based. So the information that you add from the web, or from your smartphone is automatically synched to your desktop. So you can capture information on the go, as well as at your desk.

Registration on Evernote takes minutes. It’s free, and you can watch a short, and funny, video explaining how to get started.

What tools and strategies do you use to work with the web not against it?

If you want to learn about more tools and tactics for supercharging your digital productivity, join me for my two-hour Build Your Productivity Toolkit workshop at The Cube in east London on Wednesday 21 September 2011.  

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I felt it for the first time yesterday; an edge of anxiety, a certain density in the atmosphere, the look on the faces of people on the streets - from Ladbroke Grove to Chelsea, from St James' to Fitzrovia; the felt sense is ...

Summer is over : (

The days are discernibly shorter - even though summer doesn't technically end for another three weeks - and the pace is starting to pick up. London is collectively preparing to make the jump to light speed for the autumn-to-Christmas race. 'Here it comes …' we all seem to be feeling.

In this last bit of lull before all of the action commences, I am taking time to re-focus and recalibrate my intentions. I giving myself some space to filter through my desires - what do I really want to create in the next phase of my practice?

As usual, in all my contemplations, the need to be fully creatively self-expressed keeps coming up. (And the desire to sharpen my organisational structures). Last fall was a brilliant creative explosion for me and some members of the Kula (the yoga community) - we started classes in Marylebone, and initiated 'Project Upshift', which was a way for many of us to make changes and transform our lives towards greater happiness and abundance. What does the Kula need this autumn? What do I have to share that can help uplift us and open new doors?

As we prepare to go back to school*, back to work, and back to the everyday after the summer holidays, we could use a little reminder of the nature of flow, and the role of fluidity in our lives. Having luxuriated in the natural lull of summer’s rhythm, and the brightness of summer’s leisure activities, our intentions and goals for the year may seem far away, and we might be host to the 'end-of-summer-blues'.

I feel it is so important now, more than ever, to focus on the essential. What are my highest aspirations and goals, and how can all of my words and my actions and choices support them? John Friend, the founder of Anusara yoga, mandates his teachers to think 'Highest First' - what is the expression/action that is aligned with the highest, the divine? The trick is, think 'Highest First', and move from there.

And so in this lull before the whirlwind, I would invite you today to think about what you're you focusing on? How are you opening to new possibilities? Or are you renewing commitments to fulfil goals and intentions from before the blast of summer leisure? What do your 'Kula', your community, your clients need? What is 'The Highest' for you this autumn?

*(Have a look at the post I wrote in August 2010 outlining how to do a ‘back to school’ review of your business).

Leila Sadeghee is an Anusara-Inspired Yoga Teacher and Therapeutic Bodyworker based in Fitzrovia, London.  Her teaching is inspirational, bio-mechanically savvy, superbly fun, and driven by a deep commitment to serve people in opening to their highest potential, both on and off the mat. Join Leila on 3 September at The Life Centre for an afternoon of recalibrating your intentions for the rest of the year, moving with music that supports those intentions, and charging your inner radiance so it can spill over into all that you do in the months to come. http://www.leilasadeghee.com/

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But the nagging question remained: if I was to help others with their blogging, how could I not blog myself?

And so I started. And it's been an amazing journey and a steep learning curve.

Here are 9 lessons that I want to share from my year of blogging:

1. Writing a blog is a great way to find your voice.

Before I started the blog I wasn't sure exactly what I had to say. I was interested in digital technologies, social media, the purpose of work, productivity and women's issues. Could I fit that all in one blog? And if so, what exactly did I have to offer my readers in terms of new thinking on well-worn subjects? I'll admit the early days of blogging were a bit hit and miss (go check out some of the earliest posts!). But writing a blog consistently, week in, week out has been the best way I have found of discovering my niche and honing my thoughts and ideas about my work.

2. Know why you are writing your blog.

Many people I speak to think they must write a blog as everyone else is doing it. But I don't agree. Writing a blog takes a lot of work, so I would only recommend it if you see a clear business benefit. A blog can be useful to drive traffic to your website and to highlight what you do, but it's only worthwhile if you have something to say. I've seen people try to write blogs about the most mundane of subjects such as electricity tarrifs. Not sure there is a huge readership for that.

Writing is also a skill and not everyone is a natural writer. There are other ways of getting your message out there such as video and podcasts that could work better for you.

3. Having a regular posting schedule is crucial.

I made a decision early on to post one article on the blog every Friday morning. OK, so that's not a lot - many 'pro-bloggers' will post every day or 2/3 times a week, but once a week seemed manageable to me. Having a regular schedule has made blogging into a habit. It's not something I have to remember to do; it's ingrained in my weekly routine. If you read blogs about blogging the one consistent piece of advice is: have a schedule and stick to it. Chris Guillebeau from The Art of Non-Conformity and the author of The Unconventional Guides started by posting every Monday and Thursday. Even when no-one was reading, he stuck religiously to his schedule and he credits this as contributing to his success today.

4. Make the most of guest blogging.

When you start to find your voice and are comfortable with your writing style, get guest posting. This is a great way of building your audience and driving traffic to your blog. Most blog owners I have approached have been thrilled to have a guest post. Do some research and find out who is in your niche or who shares a similar audience and approach them with a pitch. Glen from Vipechill.com has probably written the best guide to guest blogging that's out there.

And get others to guest post on your blog. I have been lucky to have three fantastic contributors on this blog, Harry, Lucy and Leila.

5. You need to promote your posts.

Writing a blog is not enough. 'Build it and they will come' will work to an extent, but promoting your blog is essential to start to drive traffic and get subscribers. Promote your posts on social networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+), highlight posts in your email newsletter, and include your latest blog post in your email signature using Wisestamp.

Make it easy for visitors to subscribe to your posts. Set up your Feedburner feed properly and make sure that you have both options of subscribing by RSS and email clearly displayed on your blog. Periodically have a clear 'ask' at the bottom of one of your killer posts and ask people to subscribe.

6. Have a way of capturing ideas for blog posts.

This could be as simple as a spreadsheet on your computer, a digital task manager, or a simple paper notebook of ideas. I have tried all of these options but have found the one that works for me is the Notes function on my iPhone as I always have it on me.

When you think of an idea for an article, write it down and if possible flesh out some notes. The amount of times I have looked at a note and not remembered why I thought it would make a good blog post! Inspiration can come from anywhere - reading, having conversations, or just random ideas. Ensuring you have a way of capturing them will make sure you never run out of ideas.

7. Write in a distraction-free zone.

Writing is tough. And having a multitude of distractions makes it even harder. I find my best writing comes when I have no other distractions - email and phone are off and using WriteMonkey or OmmWriter gives me a web-free writing space. Tech futurist Cory Doctorow has a great article on writing in the age of distraction.

8. Starting a blog is the best way to learn about blogging.

There are so many great resources on blogging out there from blogs such as Problogger and Copyblogger to courses such as Viperchill's CloudBlogging and Leo Babauta's  A-List Blogging Bootcamp. These are all great and I would recommend you get as much knowledge as possible. But the best way to learn is by doing.

So just start.

9. Don't give up.

The early days of a blog are disheartening. Your only subscriber is your Mum, no-one comments on your posts and your RTs are ignored. Don't give up! If you write consistent great work and promote it, your readership will grow. It does take time.

In my year of blogging I don't have thousands of subscribers but my posts are read hundreds of times. Sometimes I get no comments, but when I meet people in real life they tell me how much they enjoy reading my blog. So there are they, the readers, they are just sometimes a bit quiet. So don't give up, keep going.

A big thanks to all my readers, quiet and loud : ) - here's to the next 12 months of From Apps to Zen!

[image with thanks to mariareyesmcdavis via CC]

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Ever have those days when you feel you get nothing done? Sadly, for many of us those days the norm rather than the exception.

With the UK in recession and our 24/7 connected lifestyles, many of us are finding that our workload, email and daily information diet is increasing exponentially, while our capacity to deal with it all is stuck in analogue mode.

At first glance the solution would seem to be to increase our time through reducing our workload or implementing efficient systems. However, adding extra hours to our working day will not fully solve the problem - if we are working ineffectively work will eventually expand to fill the extra time and we'll be back where we started.

Managing our time better is only one part of the jigsaw. To be fully effective, and thus happier at work, we also need to manage our energy and attention. We need to balance our TEA (Time, Energy and Attention) to optimize our workflow.

Time

We can have an impact on our time at work. Most of us have just too much to do - a never-ended To-Do list of projects and tasks. One exercise I do with my clients is a Brain Dump of projects. Try it out:

List all your current projects and commitments. Yes everything! Professional and personal. Critically review your list. What can you get rid of? What's been around so long it doesn’t matter any more? What can you delegate or outsource? What can you postpone for a few weeks or months?

Remember the things you could do are infinite – your time, energy and attention is not.

Secondly, instead of having a massive To-Do list, have a Stop Doing list. Identify areas of your work that are not creating cashflow, opportunities or visibility and stop doing them. Now.

Thirdly, make less time for your work. This may sound counter-intuitive but Parkinson's Law states that work expands to fill the time available. If you have two weeks to write a report, you will take two weeks. If you are given two hours, you will get it done in two hours. It might not be as 'perfect' as the two week report, but it might be 'good enough'. Experiment with setting yourself ridiculous deadlines and see how this focuses the mind!

Energy

All time is not created equal. There are times during the day when you are at the top of your game, awake, focussed and in your flow. And then there are the times when taking a nap could be your most productive work.

Listen to your body (and mind). Start to notice when your productive times happen and ring-fence these for your Great Work. Leave the reactionary work like emailing or meetings to other times.

Many things impact on our energy at work from how much sleep we got the night before to that one colleague who just drains you. Be mindful of what drains or adds to your energy and seek to minimise or mitigate against the negative energy and expand the positive. Have a read of 55 ways to get more energy for some inspiration.

Attention

Finally, we can work on managing our attention to improve our effectiveness at work. Practices like yoga or meditation can help to focus our attention as in theses practices we gently focus on bringing the attention to the breath again and again.

Shutting down your distractions will help to focus your attention so shut off your email, turn your phone to silent and close down any social media if you have an important piece of work to focus on. Brower extensions such as StayFocused for Chrome or LeechBlock for FireFox can limit your access to certain programmes such as Gmail or Facebook if you don't yet have the discipline yourself. For writing try WriteMonkey for PCs (I am using it to write this blog post) or OmmWriter for the Mac to provide an application free writing space.

If you would like to learn more about being more effective at work, this autumn I will be officially launching my Mindful at Work programme, an innovative combination of productivity training, awareness and mind/body practices helping employees move from a stressful, reactionary workday towards being proactive, focused and relaxed. To find out about upcoming workshops, do sign up to the Mindful at Work mailing list.

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Doing the prep for the talk had me thinking about digital marketing and the different avenues and forms it takes. With so many channels to choose from, and some more obvious than others, sometimes we can get stuck in one way of doing things, so I thought I would make this week's blog post into a Digital Marketing Refresher.  

What is Digital Marketing?

Firstly let's define what we're taking about. Digital Marketing is probably best defined by looking at what it is not i.e. radio, television and all types of print. Essentially digital marketing revolves around delivery via the internet whether that's on a PC, a mobile phone or a tablet such as the iPad.

Why use Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing, like traditional marketing, must be tied to a business objective. This is an important point to remind ourselves of now and again. There's no point in writing a blog or maintaining a Facebook Page if it does not fulfil a business objective.

The main aim of digital marketing is to drive people to your website where you have your products and/or services clearly outlined and where there are clear calls to action.

What are the Digital Marketing Channels?

Here is a quick refresher of the major digital marketing channels that are accessible to small businesses:

Website

A website is essential to provide a 'base' to drive potential leads and customers to. Gone are the days of paying thousands of pounds to a web developer when you can get a WordPress website up and running in less than an hour. (If you need a website, do sign up for my free WordPress eCourse).

Blog

A blog can be a great way of demonstrating your expertise in a particular area and increasing your profile on the social web. WordPress can function as a blog as well as a 'static' website or microblogging services such as Posterous (like this blog) or Tumblr can be used to host an external blog. Or do like design and simplicity consultants minimoko and integrate your Posterous blog into your website.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO is the process we use to appear as high as possible in search engine rankings (generally Google) by organic or natural search (as opposed to paid search - see Advertising below). Your WordPress site can be configured with plugins such as All in One SEO Pack that does the hard work for you or premium themes such as DIYThemes' Thesis come already optimised for SEO out of the box.

For advice on SEO and how to improve your rankings, have a read of this blog post on 9 SEO Insights.

Email Marketing

A sometimes overlooked medium in this world of social media, email marketing can be your strongest marketing channel if used correctly. They say 'the fortune's in the list' and I agree that a well cultivated and engaged email list are far more likely to buy from you than your social media followers.

With so many free (and paid) options for email marketing software, I don't think there's any excuse for sending email blasts through your Gmail or Outlook contacts. Using an email marketing platform will ensure you keep on the right side of data protection (with many having double opt-in and easy unsubscribe) as well as having a ability to embed a sign up form on your website and send great looking emails.

My top three recommendations are Mailchimp, Madmimi or Aweber.

Social Networks

Social networks can be a great way of getting your marketing message out there but have to be used in subtle way. Think of social media like a cocktail party, no-one wants to speak to the bore in the corner who only talks about himself!

The holy trinity of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have been joined by new kid on the block, Google+. My recommendation to clients is to pick one or two to focus on and do them well rather than trying to be everywhere at once.

And don't forget the power of social sharing. People are more likely to sign up for something or buy if their friends have recommended it, so do make sure your content is easily sharable via social media buttons etc.

Video

Video is an underutilised channel by many small businesses. With YouTube being owned by Google, a keyword optimised video can be a great way of getting to the top of the search results. Video is also a good way of connecting with your audience as they get to see (or hear) the person behind the brand.

Recording video can be as simple as using the inbuilt camera on your laptop or investing £100 in a mini HD recorder such as the Kodak Zi8 or The Flip. Editing can be done for free using Windows Movie Maker or iMovie or, for a more professional finish, use Camtasia. Host and share your videos on sites such as YouTube or Vimeo for free.

Podcasts

Another underutilised area is podcasts. I follow several (all US based) podcast shows on small and online businesses and think it's a really effective marketing channel as the listener can subscribe to the content and it builds trust with the podcast host.

Recording podcasts on Audacity or GarageBand for the Mac is easy and free. Submit your podcasts to the iTunes store and you have yourself a show!

Advertising

The early days of online business were all about advertising especially using banner ads and Pay Per Click through Google Adwords. I think they have been slightly taken over by social sharing (see above).

However, a well targeted Adwords or even LinkedIn or Facebook Ads campaign can be a good way of driving targeted traffic to an event or promotion. Just don't let a campaign run for ever without measuring and tweaking the outcomes. Set yourself a budget and give it a trial. 

Affiliates/Partners/Joint Ventures

Affiliate marketing is well known as a business model for internet business - it works by recommending a product or service in exchange for a percentage of the cost. If you are running an event via Eventbrite, you can set up partners with a referral link who can then promote your event for you. Using the web and the power of your networks can be an inexpensive way of widening your marketing reach.

Mobile/Location-Based

With many of us carrying around a GPS enabled mini-computer in our pocket everyday (it's your mobile), mobile marketing and especially location-based marketing is on the rise. This can be as simple as SMS (text messaging) or using location-based services such as FourSquare or Facebook Places to connect with potential customers.

There are other ways of using mobiles and tablets to connect especially with Apps, however without being a developer, I think much of this is out of reach to small businesses.

What does your digital marketing mix look like at the moment? Are you missing any potential opportunities? What are you currently doing that is not delivering any value?

Do let me know in the comments below.

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