Photo by J R Guillaumin

How would you like to work 15-20 hours unpaid overtime a week?

What about doing it for weeks on end because of unrealistic schedules?

How about a 65% chance of damaging your health from the stress of overtime?

And what if someone told you these were just occupational hazards, to be expected if you choose a career in the creative industries?

Earlier this year, Develop magazine conducted Quality of Life survey of 350 employees in the games industry. The results were published in the May 2009 edition of Develop, which you can download here.

The stats make pretty damning reading:

• 98% of respondents are not paid for the overtime they work
• 85% have to work ‘crunch’ – periods of intensive overtime before deadlines
• 60% have to work over 10 hours overtime a week during crunch — some as many as 25 to 30 hours per week
• 60% feel that they work too much
• 65% say that working crunch has impacted their health

As well as the statistics, the magazine published some very telling quotations from the anonymous respondents.

I am currently looking to leave the games industry, where I have worked as a programmer for seven years. The excessive overtime and minimal recognition is damaging my health, my sanity and my marriage.

Both myself and my friends have been forced to work a ridiculous amount of overtime, causing depression and bad physical health from lack of exercise and poor diet.

It’s no secret that prolonged workplace stress can lead to employee burnout, accompanied by symptoms of anxiety, depression, addictive behaviour, relationship problems and illness. Not to mention days off, sick leave, resignations, low morale and lost productivity.

Yet several of the survey respondents suggested that ‘crunch’ is normal and inevitable, not just in computer gaming, but in any creative industry:

Crunch seems to just be accepted as ‘the norm in creative industries’ — this attitude will only prolong the myth that it aids productivity, when in fact all it does is crucify morale.

Until we have fundamental changes throughout the industry … the only way to make quality games is to crunch. I don’t like it, but fundamentally I’m in the entertainment business, and a bit of pain is the norm in these.

Everyone is always aware why crunch is needed. No one wants to do it by choice, but in a milestone-oriented environment this is inevitable. It’s no different to film and TV, where creativity is integral to the product and boundaries are pushed. Especially now when we have a recession and so many small teams are on the brink of collapse.

The computer games industry does have a particularly bad reputation for overworking people (see: EA Spouse). It even has a special word for it — ‘crunch’ — which sounds as bad as it must feel. But it’s far from the only creative industry in which people are expected to work absurdly long hours to meet deadlines, often for little or no overtime pay or other compensation.

What’s going on here? Are crunch and burnout inevitable in the creative industries — or can anything be done to avoid them?

Should Creative Companies Do More to Protect Employees from Burnout?

Many of the respondents to the Develop survey were highly critical of studio management.

Specific accusations included poor planning and scheduling and unrealistic expectations:

• 65% disagreed that “projects are well-scheduled”
• 80% agreed that “crunch is caused by unreasonable or unrealistic expectations”
• 75% disagreed that “the crunch culture of games development is necessary to produce good games”

I would suggest another two management factors that contribute to burnout:

Poor people management skills. As we saw in my e-book on Motivating Creative People, it’s frighteningly easy to demotivate people through clumsy people management skills. Conversely, it’s possible to maintain morale under pressure (within reason) if managers are empathetic and supportive of their teams.

A cavalier attitude to competition. In some industries, where talent is plentiful and competition for jobs is fierce, managers sometimes adopt the attitude ‘Consider yourself lucky to be working here – there are plenty of people willing to fill your shoes if you don’t like it’. Which may be true on the face of it – but it’s also a brilliant strategy for demotivating people and making the least of their talent.

Reading through the Develop survey, it would be easy to paint the managers of games studios as the villains. But it’s only fair to remember that they are often under enormous pressure from publishers, especially regarding scheduling and deadlines.

And the survey results weren’t all negative. Respondents were fairly evenly split on whether they are “adequately compensated” for their work, and whether their companies have “a good attitude to Human Resources and keeping [their] staff happy”.

There were also signs of lessons learned by some games studio managers:

I am a manager and partly responsible for a hideous release and crunch period. I have personally made it my mission to do it better, and have spent the last two months studying different project management methodologies, practices and frameworks non-stop. My first child is due in five weeks: I have to do this better, I have no choice.

Are Creative Workers Partially Responsible for Burnout?

Two of the quoted respondents felt employees should take some of the responsibility for their predicament:

It’s a talented employee’s responsibility to leave an over-crunched studio. Let the good studios get the good employees, and let the poorly managed studios be staffed with the untalented.

The rank and file employees are also partially accountable on the crunch culture, because we agreed on the task and schedules and did not deliver it on time. It’s not only management’s fault that crunch happens.

While I’m not sure how much choice employees really have when they ‘agree’ to an unrealistic schedule, it’s worth considering how far employees contribute to their own burnout — and what they can do about it.

A few months ago I published an article on Lateral Action called Burnout: the Dark Side of Creativity, in which I looked at the elements of the creative process and the creative personality that make artists and other creative professionals particularly susceptible to burnout:

• Obsession — As we saw in The Joy of Work, creative professionals love what they do. Which is great, as long as we don’t overdo it and become obsessive, working more hours but becoming less productive.
• Perfectionism — Of course you need to be a perfectionist to do great work. But there’s a difference between high standards and nit-picky dissatisfaction and frustration. Do you know where to draw the line?
• Hypersensitivity — We put so much of ourselves into our work that any feedback can feel like personal criticism. Unless we learn to ‘let go’ and look at things more objectively, this can get very stressful for everyone involved.
• Control freakery — As with perfectionism, you probably won’t achieve much creatively without being a bit of a control freak. But you can’t control everything, particularly in a team situation – trying to do so will only make your life more difficult.
• The weight of expectation — High standards breed high expectations. No problem with that – as long as you remember that (a) you are only human, and (b) risk and failure are inevitable in any creative endeavour. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with expectation, maybe it’s time to go easy on yourself.

I’m not suggesting workers only have themselves to blame for burnout. But if you’re a creative worker feeling under pressure, have an honest look through the list and ask yourself whether any of them apply to you.

If so, maybe it’s time to ease up a bit and find some time for rest and relaxation. And talk to someone you trust about your situation. Workplace stress and burnout are sadly common experiences, and there are plenty of options for getting help if you need it – often the biggest step is acknowledging that you need it.

What’s the Cost of Burnout to Creative Companies?

Crunch is designed to boost productivity and meet deadlines – but ironically it can have the opposite effect:

this attitude will only prolong the myth that [crunch] aids productivity, when in fact all it does is crucify morale.

As we saw in the Motivation E-book, crucifying morale = crucifying creativity and productivity.

Some people argue that ‘deadline magic’ can have a galvanising effect on a creative team, giving them an adrenaline rush of energy and raising performance. There’s some truth in this argument, when applied to short bursts of energy, such as a musical concert, theatre play, sales pitch or other performance situation. This is because our ‘fight our flight’ stress response has evolved to help us reach peak performance instantly, to deal with immediate threats such as the proverbial sabre-toothed tiger.

But the ‘fight or flight’ response did not evolve to help us deal with extended periods of stress, such as spending weeks working unpaid overtime for a demanding and unappreciative boss. In this situation, stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol start to damage the brain, blood vessels and other parts of the body, eventually causing a range of mental, emotional and physical symptoms.

For example:

Stress and crunch have caused me to take several months off work in order to recover. There was no help from the company in question. I’ll never let it happen again, and I won’t let any person that working under me go through it, either. Utterly unproductive.

The human cost of a story like this is bad enough. But if you’re tempted to play the hard-nosed businessperson, stop and think about the cost – in time, money, productivity and morale – to a company of having an employee signed off for several months with stress and/or illness. And make sure you factor in the effect on the entire team, not just this individual.

What Are the Alternatives to Crunch and Burnout?

So can anything be done to eliminate crunch and burnout in creative companies, or should we just grit our teeth and get on with it?

Here are some of the options that emerged from the Develop survey, plus one suggestion of my own.

Fair Rewards for Overtime

Develop Editor Michael French highlighted two very different approaches to the problem of crunch:

Epic Games (which rewards staff generously for crunch, by all accounts) and Relentless (which claims to have never worked overtime) might appear to be on opposite ends of the spectrum given that one is pro and the other anti crunch.

Michael Capps, President of Epic Games, caused outrage in some quarters when he said the company expects people to work 60 hour weeks. But Develop Develop Deputy Editor Ed Fear points out in Capp’s defence that “while Epic does expect staff to work longer hours, it makes that expectation clear from the outset and rewards its staff with bonuses that exceed their base salary”.

Banning Overtime

Long-time Wishful Thinking readers may recall my interview with David Amor, Executive Director of Relentless Software, in which he described his company’s radical approach to management: employees have to clock in at 9 and work until 5, but are not allowed to work overtime! The Relentless website even proudly displays a counter showing the number of days/hours/minutes/seconds the company has been working without crunch.

Earlier this week I contacted David to tell him I was writing about burnout, and asked him to answer the question “Are crunch and burnout necessary evils in computer games development, or are there alternatives?’. Here’s his response:

I think that a lot of creative projects are hard to schedule and it’s easy for things to overrun, but that fact is often used as an excuse for poor scheduling and lack of planning. Worse than this are schedules that actually plan for weekend work; that suggests that the project scope could never be achieved within the budget.

Crunch and burnout are both avoidable with enough planning and contingency, but there’s a degree of tolerance and expectancy within the industry that seems to make them par for the course.

(David Amor, Executive Director, Relentless Software)

Tighter Regulation

In the Develop survey, 75% of respondents felt that “trade body organisations have a duty to monitor and restrict over-working of employees”. One of the respondents suggested that “we need an actual union for developers, not just something for companies to join”.

Better People Management Skills

With my background in stress management and managing creative performance, I naturally see a link between people management skills (often neglected in creative companies) and stress and performance levels. When the pressure’s on, a really good manager can act as a ‘buffer’ against external demands, maintaining rapport and morale, and supporting team members during the period of stress.

If you or your fellow managers are looking for some tips on how to get the best out of people in difficult circumstances, feel free to download my e-books How to Motivate Creative People (Including Yourself) and Creative Management for Creative Teams. Both are licensed for free noncommercial distribution, so you’re welcome to forward them to anyone who may find them useful.

What Do You Think?

Should we accept overwork and burnout as occupational hazards of working in a creative business?

Should creative industries companies be doing more to protect employees from burnout?

Is intensive overtime necessary to meet deadlines — or does it impair productivity?

cm 27 Mark McGuiness Interview from Creative Momentum on Vimeo.

I recently recorded this video interview with Philip Patston, an entrepreneur, consultant and comedian from New Zealand.

Philip did a great job of drawing out my thoughts, and we covered a lot of ground in the 30-minute conversation. Here’s Philip’s summary:

we caught up with Mark via Skype and canvassed a vast array of subjects from secret societies, fads, Michelangelo and brands, to Van Gogh, freezers and poetry! And beware – Mark advises against being too unique.

Philip has compiled a rich collection of creativity resources on Creative Momentum, including video interviews with other creative people including Sir Ken Robinson.

Twitter users – you can also connect with Philip on Twitter.

Thanks Philip!

If you’re feeling daunted by the challenges of the recession – or if you could simply do with some inspirational and practical advice, then I suggest you download Defiant: Practical Tips to Thrive in Tough Times.

It’s a new e-book from Rajesh Setty, successful entrepreneur, respected author, columnist for Lateral Action – and a thoroughly nice guy who I’m pleased to call my friend.

A few months ago Raj asked me to contribute a practical tip or two for people under pressure due to the recession. I was happy to do so, and am delighted to find myself a co-contributor alongside stellar talents such as Seth Godin, Liz Strauss and Phil Gerbyshak.

As well as the ‘guest tips’ Raj has packed the e-book full of advice based on his experience of surviving and thriving through several recessions.

The e-book is completely FREE – you don’t even need to give your e-mail address. So once you’ve grabbed your copy and please help to help others by forwarding it to your friends and contacts.

Thanks Raj!

Photo by edastrauch

If you like Wishful Thinking, you might be interested in some of my other projects — here’s a sample of my recent online activities.

Lateral Action

This is the site I co-create with Brian Clark and Tony Clark, about creativity, productivity and creative entrepreneurship.

Here are some of my recent articles:

Working All Day Is for Wimps

Are You Stubborn Enough to Succeed?

The Secret of Walt Disney’s Creativity

Does Commercial Success = Creative Sell-Out?

An Interview with Hugh MacLeod, Cartoonist

Is Everyone Creative?

Brian wrote a short sharp piece yesterday that’s essential reading for anyone with an ounce of ambition: Don’t Settle.

And if you publish any kind of content online, you need to read this piece by Raj Setty: 9 Ways People Respond to Your Content Online.

There’s plenty more to come at Lateral Action — and you can have it delivered to you for free.

Interview about the Minutiae in My Life

Emma Alvarez Gibson featured me in a very unusual interview — about the minutiae in my life and work. I agree with her that little things can make a big difference, and learnt a few things about my creativity while answering the questions.

You should check out Emma’s other interviews too, they’re fascinating. And her new shop.

Poetry

My poetry blog MarkMcGuinness.com is ticking along slowly, which is the way I like it for now. I tend to write it on Sunday mornings and odd moments, and it makes a nice change from the kind of writing I do here and at Lateral Action.

I’ve also been working on the website of Magma Poetry — the magazine I help to edit and run. As well as an extensive archive of poems and articles, we’ve added a blog, newsletter and Facebook group. And the Magma Twitter account is about to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world …

So if you’re remotely interested in poetry do come on over, have browse and sign up for the blog and/or newsletter. Did I mention it’s a terrific magazine? Go on, treat yourself or the poetry lover in your life.

Twitter

Are you on Twitter yet? If so, you can follow me @markmcguinness.

Creative Momentum Workshops

Finally, ticket sales for my summer Creative Momentum Workshops are coming along nicely – the first one looks like it will sell out soon, and we’ve got a great mix of creative and interesting people coming. There’s still time to book your place.

And if you want to be first to know about my future workshops and secret project announcements, you can join the Wishful Thinking mailing list.

If you’re looking for a job in advertising in London, you might like to pop along to The Good Agency next Wednesday evening 24th June — they’re having a ‘talent evening’.

I’ve been doing some training for The Good Agency recently — they specialise in work on good causes, in business, government and the charity sector, so it’s an opportunity to work on some really interesting and valuable projects. And as you’d expect, they are very nice people, I always enjoy going in to see them. So at the very least I think you’ll have an enjoyable evening and meet some interesting creative folk. I’ll pop along myself if other commitments permit…

Here are the details:

The Good Agency, a leading good cause marketing agency based in Waterloo are holding talent nights the last Wednesday of every month.

Talent night is your opportunity to find out about the Good Agency, meet the team, and, well, show off a bit. We don’t require a song, theatrical performance or interpretative dance. But we are interested in what you have to offer the only integrated creative agency specialising in good causes. Along the way you’ll get the chance to have a glass of wine and some posh crisps, and meet other people in the industry (they used to call this ‘networking’). Talent night happens on the last Wednesday of every month, here at our Boundary Row offices.

We want to meet talented marketing professionals (creatives, account handlers, planners, PR’s and office support people). But we can’t see everyone and places are limited, so please RSVP to Raquel De Araujo to reserve yours.

Where: The Good Agency Group

When: Wednesday 24th June

Time: 18.30-20:00

RSVP – Raquel.dearaujo@thegoodagency.co.uk

This series of Creative Momentum workshops has now sold out. To be first to hear about future workshop dates, join my events mailing list.

Photo by jurvetson

Boost Your Creativity — Accelerate Your Business — Meet Other Creatives

This summer I’ll be running a series of Creative Momentum workshops in London.

The workshops are for creative professionals of all kinds — artists, freelancers, entrepreneurs and anyone else who sees creativity as central to their work. (Yes, that means you.)

The first two workshops will help you inject some energy and impetus into your creative work — and sustain your momentum over the long run:

Workshop 1. How to Motivate Creative People (Including Yourself) — 8 July

Motivate yourself to overcome obstacles and create amazing work — and a sustainable career. Click here for more details of the motivation workshop. (Photo by alexsey.const)

Workshop 2. Time Management for Creative People — 29 July

Manage the mundane — create the extraordinary. Essential skills to maximise your creativity and minimise your stress levels at work! Click here for more details of the time management workshop.

The next two workshops will help you tell the world about your work, attracting admirers, collaborators and customers:

Workshop 3. Web Marketing for Creative People — 19 August

Use the web to build your reputation and attract customers and business opportunities. Click here for more details of the web marketing workshop. (Photo by joel_wh)

Workshop 4. Creative Presentation Skills — 9 September

Give presentations that express your creativity and wow your audience. Click here for more details of the presentation skills workshop. (Photo by givepeasachance)

I’ve had a fantastic response to my recent workshops for creatives, which tells me I’m onto something with these topics. (Check out my testimonials page to read what people say about my training.)

And given the state of the economy, I want to provide some high-value support for creative freelancers and small businesses. So I’m deliberately pricing the workshops to be affordable to people on a limited budget.

I’m limiting the numbers to 25 for the first three workshops and 15 for the presentation skills workshop.

I’m pleased to have found a suitably atmospheric venue — the Cockpit Arts incubator in Holborn, a former warehouse that is now home to a community of creative entrepreneurs, running micro-enterprises based on their creative craft skills. Cockpit Arts is an amazing organisation and I’m delighted to be working with them to host these workshops.

N.B. I’m announcing the workshops here first – but the details will soon be going out to other mailing lists, so early booking is advised.

And if you want to be the first to know about future workshops, you can join my new workshop mailing list.

How Do the Workshops Work?

The workshops will teach you skills that are essential to your creative and commercial success.

I’ve taken each topic and boiled it down to the essential skills you need as a creative practitioner. And I’ll do my best to inject some artistry into the workshops themselves — my aim is to inspire you and for us all to have some fun while we’re at it!

Here’s how it will work:

1. Tell me what you want to learn
Once you’ve booked your place, I’ll e-mail you some questions about your current challenges and what you want to learn. Based on this feedback, I’ll tailor each workshop to address the challenges that are most relevant to the group.

2. Each workshop will feature:

• Practical skills you can start to use immediately
• Stories and real-life examples
• Activities to help you apply the ideas to your own work
• Questions and discussions – ask me what you want to learn!
• Networking and learning from other interesting creative people

3. After each workshop
I’ll send you e-books, articles, links and other resources to help you digest the material and apply it to your work.

As well as the material I’ll be teaching, this will be a great opportunity for you to meet and share ideas with other creative professionals — people like you, following their dreams and doing fascinating creative work, and encountering the same challenges as you. So if you’re free after the workshop, maybe we could go for a drink and continue the networking in the pub (it counts as Professional Development, honest!).

Each workshop is designed to work either as a stand-alone event or as part of a series. None of them require prior knowledge from the others — but if you attend more than one, you’ll experience a cumulative benefit from putting the various skills together.

Where and When?

All four workshops will be held at Cockpit Arts in Holborn, London. Click here to download directions to Cockpit Arts.

The Cockpit building in Holborn is a converted warehouse and makes for an atmospheric venue. We will be joined by some of the Cockpit designer-makers, which should add to a very creative and eclectic mix of people.

The workshops will run on Wednesday evenings, 6.30 – 8.30. So there should be time for everyone to make it after work — and maybe stay for a drink and networking afterwards.

Photo by Criss!

At the beginning of 2008, I posted my New Year’s resolution on this blog:

I will sit still for five minutes every day.

The aim of the resolution was to establish a regular habit of sitting meditation first thing in the morning.

The result? During 2008 I practised meditation every day … except two.

Oh well, nobody’s perfect.

If you’re going to be strict, I guess you could say that counts as a technical failure. But as a recovering perfectionist, I’m happy to take a 99.45% hit rate as a success. Especially as it meant I achieved my goal of establishing the habit — which I’ve continued to this day.

I’m now sitting for 20 minutes every morning, sometimes 30 minutes at weekends. It feels like a normal part of my everyday routine, as automatic as cleaning my teeth.

The real test of the habit came a few days after New Year’s Day 2009. For a couple of days, I thought ‘Well, I’m on holiday and I managed to keep the resolution last year — I’ll give myself a day off today’. And the funny thing was, I missed it. It felt like there was something absent from my day. When I sat down to practice the next day, it was with a sense of relief — not at fulfilling an obligation, but just for the sheer pleasure of sitting down, letting things go and enjoying being present in the moment.

So how did I get to this stage? Last year I posted 3 Reasons Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail and 6 Tips for Keeping Your New Year’s Resolution. Now, I’ll pick out the four factors that made it easier for me to keep my resolution than to break it.

1. Focus on What Makes the Activity Rewarding

Any truly worthwhile activity will be difficult enough to arouse resistance, but rewarding enough to repay persistence.

It’s up to you which one you focus on.

Let’s face it, meditation isn’t the most exciting pursuit in the world. It can be incredibly boring. After a while, sitting still can be painful. And once you tune into your thoughts and feelings, you can experience all kinds of unpleasant states of mind — anxiety, impatience, frustration, sadness, irritation, anger and so on.

The same applies to any challenging activity — whether training for a marathon, learning French or the piano, or improving your golf swing, there will be plenty of times when you wonder why you’re bothering.

If you focus on the resistance, you can have as many excuses as you want for not following through: being too busy, getting bored, questioning whether it’s really worthwhile, taking up another habit as an alternative — the list is endless. And more you focus on the resistance, the harder it becomes to continue.

But if you focus on what makes the activity rewarding, the whole thing becomes a little easier. For many, the bottom line is I know I have a better quality of life when I practise meditation versus when I don’t. So when I found myself thinking of excuses not to practice, I kept returning to that thought.

Sometimes changing a habit can be intrinsically rewarding – like an exercise routine that becomes enjoyable once your fitness level starts to rise. Other changes are not rewarding in themselves – but they are worth persisting with because of the extrinsic rewards they bring. E.g. Stopping smoking is often difficult or unpleasant, but the rewards of health, self-respect, sense of achievement etc. make it work persisting.

Takeaway: before you establish a new habit, ask yourself ‘ What makes this rewarding?’. If you can’t think of a good reason, don’t bother even starting! But if you can, write it down and look at it every time you’re struggling and asking yourself ‘Why am I doing this?’.

2. Set Mini-Goals to Overcome Resistance

My ‘big picture’ goal was to establish a regular habit and make meditation part of my everyday life. In order to achieve this, I deliberately set myself a ridiculously easy ‘mini-goal’ — just five minutes every day — in order to get myself over the biggest hurdle of all, which was sitting down to practice.

If I’d only done five minutes a day then the resolution would have been pretty worthless, so beware of setting yourself goals that are so low that achieving them won’t give you any satisfaction. But I knew that the first five minutes of practice are always the hardest — once I’ve sat for five minutes, the initial restlessness has gone and it’s much easier to sit for the rest of the session.

The result was that I sat for at least 15 minutes most days. There were only a handful of days when I was rushing around on such a tight schedule that I only had time for 5 minutes. The value of the 5 minute goal was getting me over the threshold of resistance and eliminating the temptation to skip a session.

Takeaway: Where are you likely to encounter a ‘threshold of resistance’ to doing your new activity? What’s the minimum goal you can set yourself, to get over this threshold? 5 minutes on the treadmill? 50 words of your novel?

3. Make It Part of Your Daily Routine

Any time you have to decide when you should be practising your new activity, you open the door to procrastination and resistance. But if you allocate a set time of day to it, there’s no argument — when the time comes, you either do it or you don’t.

After a while, Pavlovian conditioning takes over. When I walk into my living room first thing in the morning, my reflex action is to slide out the meditation mat and unfold it. Once I’ve done that, there’s no going back …

There is a flip side to routines however. Remember the two days I missed in 2008? Both times, exactly the same thing happened: I was staying at a friend’s house, woke up, had breakfast in unfamiliar surroundings, and had to get going quickly to catch a train. And because none of the usual triggers were in place, I completely forgot about meditation until the next day. D’oh!

Takeaway: When will be the easiest time of day for you to remember and practice your new habit? If possible, include a physical reminder in the appropriate place. E.g. attach a note to your toothbrush, or put your running shoes at the side of your bed, instead of your slippers.

4. Make a Public Commitment

Why do you think I announced my resolution on this blog? Because it increased my investment in success.

How would I have felt as a coach and agent of change if I’d had to write this post as How I Screwed up My New Year’s Resolution?. Now, I’m sure that post could have been full of valuable learnings — for me as well as you — but frankly I’m glad I’m writing this one instead.

I’ll be honest and say there were a few occasions when I really, really didn’t feel like sitting down to practise, and the main thing that got me to do it was the thought ‘Well, you told your readers you would do it — what are you going to say to them?’.

Takeaway: tell the world what you’re going to do — whether ‘the world’ means your blog audience, MySpace friends, or just your partner or best friend. When you’re tempted to quit, imagine what you have to say to them.

What Have You Learned from Changing a Habit?

If you made a resolution in the last couple of years – how did it go?

What have you learned from attempts to establish a new habit – or to break an old one?

On 28 May I’m talking about Blogging for Business at an event organised by 26.

I’ll be joined on the panel by fellow bloggers Rachel Clarke and John Dodds, to talk about the pros and cons, opportunities and bananaskins of business blogging.

Questions we’ll address include:

• How can you find the time and motivation to write a blog?
• Why do some blogs succeed while others languish in obscurity?
• How does the rise of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook affect blogging?
• What is the future of business blogging?

So if you’ve ever wondered how I find the time to write all this stuff, and whether it could work for you too, now’s your chance to come and ask me!

The event starts at 6.30pm, Thursday 28 May. It’s free for 26 members, £5 for everyone else. The venue is the office of Tequila London, which I’m told features a swanky bar — so arrive early and leave late to make the most of the opportunities for networking and refreshment.

26 is a great organisation, on a mission to ‘to inspire
a greater love of words, in business and in life’. I’ve been to one of their events before and had a great time, meeting lots of writers doing interesting things with words, right across the commercial and literary spectrum.

I hope to see you there — let me know if you’re coming and be sure to say hi on the night. E-mail Rachel Moore to book your ticket.

You’ve probably noticed Twitter by now.

Whether you love it, hate it or just don’t get it, there’s no getting away from it — Twitter is ‘going mainstream’, the way Facebook did a couple of years ago.

Which means it’s no longer just the geeks and early adopters who are using it. Famous people such as Barack Obama, Steven Fry, Oprah Winfrey and Britney Spears are on Twitter.

There’s a serious point to Tim’s joke — when a media diva like Oprah, who isn’t short of communication channels to choose from, starts experimenting with Twitter, there must be something in it.

But Twitter is not just for geeks and celebrities. ‘Normal’ people like you and me are using it. Millions of us. Which, again, suggests there’s something in it.

But what’s in it for you?

What Twitter Can Do For You

I’m writing this because I meet lots of people these days who ask me:

‘What’s the point of Twitter? I just don’t get it. Why would I want to waste my time telling people what I’m doing? And why would anyone waste their time reading it?’.

Now it’s possible that Twitter just isn’t ‘your thing’ and you’d be better off ignoring it.

And if you actively dislike Twitter, there are plenty of ignorant journalists and experts who should be intelligent enough to know better, prepared to bolster the argument that Twitter is in fact a complete waste of time, and symptomatic of our dumbed down 21st-century culture.

But it looks to me as though lots of people who don’t see the point of Twitter could gain significant benefit from using it. Not only that, I think they would really enjoy it — if they gave it a chance.

Do any of the following appeal to you?

• meeting new and interesting people (in real life as well as on the web)
• staying in touch with people who matter to you
• stimulating your creativity with new discoveries
• building your reputation
• receiving helpful feedback
• finding new business opportunities
• generating more sales
• knowing what people are saying about you and/or your company
• breaking up your day with some friendly chitchat — even if you’re working alone

If you’re not interested in any of these things, then you can safely ignore Twitter. But if you want some (or even all) of them, then Twitter could be just perfect for you.

If you’re already an active web publisher — whether of text, images, music or video — Twitter can act as a catalyst for your other projects and help you increase your impact.

If you’re not yet a confident web user or publisher, Twitter is a great way to dip your toes in the water and get used to writing and interacting with people online. It’s free, very quick to set up — and unlike a blog or website, you don’t need to invest a lot of time in it.

Not convinced? Give it a try. Twitter is like ice cream — if you step back and analyse it, sounds like a really bad idea (all those calories and additives?). But once you try it, the objections tend to melt away.

OK, Twitter doesn’t offer quite the same level of instant gratification as ice cream. For some people it’s more of an acquired taste. But once you ‘get it’, you’ll wonder how you managed without it.

Getting Started – the ABC of Twitter

A. Set Up a Twitter Account

1. Go to Twitter.com
2. Click on the Get Started — Join button.
3. Fill out the sign-up form.
4. Once you’ve set up your account, click on ‘Settings’ at the top of the page. In the Account tab, fill out your ‘One line bio’. For many visitors to your Twitter page, this will be the first thing they look at — so if your Twitter account is remotely connected to your work, make sure it describes what you do as clearly as possible. Mine describes the three most important things I do: ‘Poet, creative coach and co-founder, Lateral Action’.
5. If you have a website, add a link to it in the box labelled ‘More Info URL’. That way, people who get to know you on Twitter can find out more about you — and your Twitter account becomes a great way of driving users to your site.

If it’s available, I recommend you use your own name as your username, because:

• It’s unmistakably you — people like to know who they’re talking to on Twitter, and it will help you build your reputation.
• You may change your job or your brand name, but you probably won’t change your own name. So if your circumstances change, you can keep your Twitter account.
• If you want to experiment with alter egos or have a Twitter account for your company, you can do that as well. But you never know when a personal account could come in handy.
• It stops someone else using the name and either impersonating you or becoming ‘that (slightly) famous person with the same name as you’.

B. Start Listening

Think of Twitter as a virtual cocktail party.

I’m guessing you don’t charge straight into a party and start talking to all and sundry the moment you’re in the door. After saying ‘Hello’ you probably spend a bit of time listening to other people’s conversation. For one thing, it’s only polite and shows other people that you are interested in them. And for another, it gives you a chance to tune in to what they’re talking about.

After a while, you’ll notice an opportunity to join the conversation — someone will ask a question, touch upon a subject you know about, or remind you of something in your own experience. And because you’ve been listening to them, you can be reasonably confident that what you say will be of interest. Sometimes it takes a bit of courage to speak up, but once you do you’ll usually glad you’ve broken the ice.

Twitter works the same way. Once you’ve signed up, and said something like ‘Hello world, here I am’, your first priority should be to find and start following other users. That way you’ll get a feel for what people are saying and how they use Twitter.

Following people is easy:

1. When you visit someone’s Twitter page, you’ll see a Follow button directly under their picture.
2. Click the button and their next update will appear on your Twitter page.
3. Each time you refresh your Twitter page, you’ll get the latest updates from all the people you’re following.
4. Once you’re used to this and tired of pressing ‘refresh’, you can use a Twitter client like Twhirl or Tweetdeck to make life easier by automating the delivery process. (Depending on where you live, and what kind of phone you have, you can also use Twitter on your mobile phone, but that’s another story.)

Finding people to follow can seem a little harder, especially at first. But it’s not that difficult.

• Start with your friends – ask who’s on Twitter and where you can follow them. If they really are your friends, they’ll probably follow you back, and hey presto! You’re already in a conversation.
• Add your business contacts – again, ask for the link to their Twitter page. If they use Twitter professionally, they’ll be delighted to add you as a follower, and once again they are likely to follow you back.
• Follow people who interest you – whether you’re interested in celebrities, thought leaders, prominent people in your industry, authors, bloggers or potential business contacts, you’ll find plenty of them on Twitter.

N.b. If you want to keep your social and business conversations completely separate, it’s a good idea to set up separate Twitter accounts for personal and business use!

Don’t worry about being perceived as a stalker — unless they have protected their updates (for approved followers only), people will be very happy to add you to their audience of followers. They may even notice you and follow back — if they see something interesting on your Twitter page …

Once you start following people, spend a bit of time looking through the lists of people they are following (clearly displayed on their Twitter page) and start following the ones you know or find interesting.

C. Start Talking

Just like a real cocktail party, once you’ve listened for a bit you’ll feel the urge to join in. Technically, it’s a piece of cake:

1. Type your message (maximum 140 characters) into the box at the top of your screen.
2. Press ‘Update’.
3. Your message will now be sent to everyone who is following you.

But what should you say?

Here’s a clue – Don’t (always) answer the question ‘What are you doing?’

Will people really be interested in the fact that you’ve just had a cheese sandwich or are reading Hello! Foucault on the train? To be brutally honest — probably not. Unless you habitually perform daredevil rescues, tame lions or make breakthrough discoveries, your average day probably won’t make very exciting reading.

No problem. Just remember the cocktail party — you don’t talk about yourself all the time there (do you?). You talk about things that are likely to interest the other people at the party. Such as:

• responses to their questions
• questions of your own
• titbits of information or advice
• interesting anecdotes
• requests for help
• thoughts or observations
• jokes

That doesn’t sound too difficult does it? It basically boils down to being yourself, showing a genuine interest in other people and engaging them in conversation.

Yet you’d be amazed how many people forget their basic social etiquette online (and not just on Twitter). These are the people who think Twitter is just another broadcasting or marketing ‘channel’ and start bombarding people with sales messages, boasting about their achievements or trying to say something impressively profound. They are the online equivalent of the party bore.

Fortunately you don’t have to listen to them. Just click the ‘Following’ link under their photo and you can stop following them — which means you never have to read another word they write.

Part of the beauty of Twitter is that it’s very hard to spam people — the onus is on you to be interesting, entertaining or helpful. And just like in real life, the way to do this is be yourself, follow your passions and enjoy the company of the people around you.

Follow Me …

You can follow my Twitter updates at http://twitter.com/markmcguinness

I do my best to serve up bite-sized inspiration on Twitter — tips, quotations and interesting links for creative people. I also use Twitter as a virtual water-cooler — somewhere to relax, exchange banter with friends and meet new people. Come and say hi …

More about Twitter

If I’ve whetted your appetite for Twitter, you may like to read my previous articles on the subject:

6 Reasons Why I Was Wrong about Twitter

Get More Followers by Spending Less Time on Twitter

How Does Twitter Affect Your Creativity?

The Top 10 Social Networks for Creative People

Darren Rowse’s blog Twitip is a great source of advice about using Twitter.

And my Delicious Twitter page is where I bookmark interesting Twitter articles and resources as I discover them. Subscribe to the page’s feed to get the latest additions delivered to you.

Are You on Twitter?

If so – what do you like/dislike about it?

If not – have I whetted your curiosity? Why/Why not?

Depending on which survey you believe, public speaking is either just ahead of or just behind spiders, heights, snakes and flying in the top 10 things that scare the hell out of human beings.

And when you think about it, the fear is probably justified.

How many of us can honestly say we look forward to another PowerPoint presentation? ‘Death by PowerPoint’ is so common it’s become a cliche, conjuring up images of endless slides full of bullet points in a font just too small to read – so the presenter spends eternity 30 minutes with his head craned backwards over his shoulder, reading the text to us in a monotone.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

Would you believe me if I told you PowerPoint can be a very creative medium to work in? Or that I look forward using PowerPoint (or Keynote on my Mac) whenever I have a new presentation to put together?

How would you like to not only overcome any nervousness about presenting, but to enjoy using PowerPoint as an expression of your creativity — and an opportunity to wow your audience?

Here’s a book that will help you do just that.

Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds

As the name suggests, Presentation Zen is about presenting with simplicity, authenticity and presence. If I were a manager, I wouldn’t allow anyone to have PowerPoint installed on their computer until they had read this book. It’s that important.

The book and the fabulous Presentation Zen blog grew out of Garr Reynolds’ frustration with the ‘death by PowerPoint’ approach:

I realised that something needed to be done to end the scourge of bad PowerPoint slides and the lifeless narration that accompanies them, and that I could do something to help. In Japan, just like everywhere else in the world, professionals suffer through poorly designed presentations on a daily basis. Presentations in which the slides often do more harm than good. It is not enjoyable, and it is not effective. I knew that if I could begin to help others look at preparation, design, and delivery of so-called “PowerPoint presentations” in a different way, perhaps I could do my small part to help others communicate far more effectively.

Presentation Zen offers its solution in three stages:

1. Preparation
2. Design
3. Presentation

1. Preparation

Photo by Amir K

Garr makes the often-overlooked point that there is more to a presentation than PowerPoint slides — and we may not need them at all. The main reason most presentations are so mediocre is that we don’t stop to consider what we really want to say, and how we can best communicate it to our audience.

So instead of rushing to fire up PowerPoint and start typing bullets, Garr encourages us to leave the computer alone and start by Planning Analog – asking ourselves important questions and scribbling down the answers on paper or a whiteboard:

Who is the audience?
What’s their background?
Why was I asked to speak?
What do I want them to do?
What visual medium is most appropriate for this particular situation and audience?
What’s the story here?
What is my absolutely central point?

Once you have the answers to these questions, time to start Crafting the Story. Why is storytelling important?

Good presentations include stories. The best presenters today illustrate the points with stories, often personal ones. The easiest way to explain complicated ideas is through examples or by sharing a story that underscores the point. Stories are easier to recall for your audience.

I know exactly what Garr means. When I first started giving presentations, about 10 years ago, I realised pretty quickly that what my audience responded to most strongly was the stories I told. And it was no coincidence that as soon as I became immersed in telling a story, I became animated and full of enthusiasm.

Stories are engaging and memorable because they present ideas via a human situation — usually involving some kind of drama or struggle and its resolution. They arouse powerful emotions in the presenter and audience — which makes them motivating as well as memorable.

If I could only offer one piece of advice while coaching someone to be a better presenter, it would be: tell a story that means something to you. It could be from your own experience, but it doesn’t have to be. If a story resonates for you personally, that will come across when you tell it for your audience.

2. Design

If — and it’s a big ‘if’ — you’re going to use slides to accompany your presentation, you can stand out from the vast majority of presenters by adopting Garr’s radically simple approach to slide design.

Here’s a slide I made a few years ago:

I trust that makes it clear I’m not a graphic designer.

In my defence, the slide isn’t covered with an overwhelming amount of text – but Garr made me realise that slides like this were of more value to me than they were to my audience.

Here’s what I did with that slide when I talked about the same subject in a recent presentation:

Photo by aleksey.const

It’s not perfect, but there’s no question which slide will make a bigger impression on an audience.

Notice how the words on the second slide have been reduced to the bare minimum. The image is the most important element – it should illustrate the presenter’s words in an engaging and memorable way. The second slide has more impact because of Garr’s principle of Amplification through Simplification.

As I say, I’m not a graphic designer but I’ve learned a huge amount about slide design from Garr, including:

• why you should include as little text as possible
• how to avoid using bullet points (on slides, not blog posts )
• the importance of empty space
• enhancing design using contrast, alignment, repetition, and proximity

Since adopting these principles, I regularly see the words ‘Great slides!’ on feedback forms after my seminars. A trained graphic designer would obviously be able to improve on my efforts, but Garr and Seth Godin have shown me that producing attractive slides is within my reach. And if a wordsmith like me can do it, so can you.

Where can you find images to use in your presentations? Garr recommends iStockphoto.com, a website where you can license high-quality images for a few dollars/pounds each. I use iStockphoto a lot and second his recommendation — it offers a wide range of clean and clear images of just about anything you can imagine.

My only criticism of iStockphoto is that the images can be a bit corporate and antiseptic — if you want something a little edgier (and free) then read Skellie’s fantastic tutorial on using Creative Commons images from Flickr. Once you’ve got the hang of that, I recommend Compfight, an excellent way to search for Creative Commons licensed images.

3. Delivery

Counterintuitively, the section on presentation delivery is the shortest in Presentation Zen — with good reason. If you’ve done a good job of preparing a presentation on designing your slides, most of the problems associated with presenting will have melted away.

The principles that will make your presentation memorable to an audience will also make it easy for you to remember it — so you won’t need the crutch of having all your notes crammed onto your slides in bullet points. As soon as you see the image on each slide, it will trigger the stories and ideas associated with it. And if you’ve chosen good stories to tell, you’ll be brimming with enthusiasm and ready to share them with your audience — transforming your stage nerves into excited anticipation.

So Garr focuses on the two things that are absolutely essential when you take the stage:

1. Being in the Moment. It doesn’t matter if you fluff your lines or forget one of your examples. It doesn’t matter if the slides down look quite right on the projector, or your video doesn’t work. But it does matter if you spend your precious time on stage worrying about these things instead of being present in the moment. When you are present, easy to be yourself, to be relaxed and spontaneous — and if necessary, to improvise. Presence is what brings the real magic into your performance.
2. Connecting with the Audience. You are not there to transfer information to your audience. You could do that via e-mail. You are there to connect with them on an emotional level and inspire them with the importance of what you are telling them. More than that — to prompt them to go away and do something about it. Otherwise why bother turning up?

I’ve screwed up all kinds of things during presentations — forgetting key points, tripping over cables, pressing the wrong button and causing the slideshow to vanish. I’ve even turned up to discover that the topic I’d been briefed on and had diligently prepared was completely irrelevant to the people in front of me. My experience is that an audience will forgive all of these things as long as you are fully present and sincerely committed to giving them something of value.

So prepare thoroughly — but be prepared to tear up your scripts and improvise a completely new presentation from scratch. I’ve done this, and it was surprisingly well-received — not because it was a perfect presentation (far from it) but because the audience could see me making an effort to help them with their real needs. They joined in and helped me out — and I found I wasn’t giving a presentation to an audience, it was something we were creating together.

Follow the principles in Presentation Zen, and you can expect to make a similar connection with your audience. The best part? You’ll all be having a lot more fun while you learn.

Like all great presentations, Presentation Zen is carefully structured, beautifully designed and contains enough information to help you without overwhelming you. It’s a great complement to the stream of free advice and examples (including videos) on offer at the Presentation Zen blog.

You and Your Presentations

Do you enjoy creating and delivering presentations?

What do you think of the Presentation Zen approach?

What are the elements of a great presentation?