One of the things I’ve enjoyed doing recently is some work with Digital Consultant Stephen Haggard for a third sector organization. They agreed to us discussing the work so long as they’re not identified. I’ll call them Client X.

The problem that Client X has is that it’s a (very) traditional organization feeling a need maintain its relevance and appeal. In other words, they wanted a robust digital strategy without abandoning their core values. Client X was also concerned that innovations such as social media, whilst potentially helpful, could cause problems within the organization and for their public image. In short, they wanted some tailored advice about where to start and how to evolve what they’re currently doing.

Stephen met with Client X to get details of their current provision as well as the constraints we were to work within. He had more knowledge of Client X’s particular sector, whilst I focused more on relating horizon-scanning to current strategy. What follows are some quotations from the report that may be of interest.

Not all technologies are created equal

With some technologies, it is advisable to get in ‘on the ground floor’ as practices around them take time to develop and perfect. Examples of these include Twitter, Facebook and Google+. On the other hand, there are technologies such as QR codes that can be adopted almost immediately. With the latter, a watching brief is recommended; opportunities for implementation may present themselves unexpectedly.

The myth of keeping up

There is a myth of ‘keeping up’ around social media and communications technologies. In practice, the plethora and connectedness of various channels makes effective use difficult if dictated centrally. For example, global organizations such as Sony track the use of various technologies and communications channels by sub-organizations. They have learned, however, that central co-ordination is extremely difficult, if not impossible, given the spontaneous and often conversational nature of new and emerging platforms.

Viral marketing can work for third sector orgs

A new form of marketing, so-called ‘viral marketing’, has become an extremely effective form of communications. Some kind of ‘social object’, a conversation-starter, is posted on a social media site where it can be shared and re-shared by people who find it interesting, amusing or agree with the values it espouses. This may include a video uploaded to YouTube, a picture on Pinterest, or even a quotation on Twitter. One-click re-sharing buttons are available on most ‘social’ sites meaning that within 24 hours a social object can have been seen, witnessed or experienced by literally millions of people.

I’m looking forward to working with Stephen in future. If you’d like a no-obligation conversation about how I can help you or your organization with these kinds of things please do get in touch!

Image CC BY IvanWalsh.com

Why the update? Version 1 was working well, but I never actually used the ‘Add to calendar’ box. As a result, I’ve removed it, allowing (slightly) more space for others sections. Oh, and I’ve changed the quotation!

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Over at dougbelshaw.com/blog I shared Doug’s Daily Planner v1. I’ve updated and improved that to become Synechism Daily Planner v1.

What is it? It’s a printable, A4-sized structured blank canvas to organise your day. I’ve been using it for the last few weeks and it’s working well. Feedback is most welcome!

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A honed routine is the cornerstone of productivity. In this post, Vicki Davis nails it in a very practical, straightforward way. Highly recommended reading.

Tom Armitage believes that technology is a ‘material’ and, as such, we should change the way we approach it:

Materials have desires, affordances, and textures; they have grains. We can work with that grain, understanding what the material wishes to be, wishes to do – or we can deliberately choose to work against it. We must understand that grain and make a deliberate choice.

The Mozilla Festival, being held this year in London between Friday 4th and Sunday 6th, looks like a must-attend event for those interested in learning, the web, and media!

Here’s an idea that, appropriately, seems intuitive: that the simpler the idea is, the more ‘true’ it appears. It’s worth reading the Lifehacker article (which runs through an example) and then clicking through at the bottom of the page to the source (which goes into more detail).

AWAYfind is a subscription service that allows people to contact you when you’re out-of-office. It does so by giving people a link to a form to fill in the contents of which is then sent directly to your mobile phone. This increases productivity as you don’t have to worry about constantly checking your email when you’re out and about!

One of the perennial problems I have with older technology that I want to sell is securely removing the data from these devices. This Lifehacker article is a good guide to doing just that.

P2PU, a place for peer-to-peer learning, has launched its School of Ed pilot. Although US-centric (it’s tied to the ‘Common Core’ standards) it’s the shape of things to come.

Book piracy is not really an issue that publishers should be concerned about, says TechCrunch. The article includes a great quotation from Tim O’Reilly (from O’Reilly publishing) on why he doesn’t believe in Digital Rights Management, “Let’s say my goal is to sell 10,000 copies of something. And let’s say that if by putting DRM in it I sell 10,000 copies and I make my money, and if by having no DRM 100,000 copies go into circulation and I still sell 10,000 copies. Which of those is the better outcome?”

Exactly.

An interesting article on what Susan Wojcicki calls The Eight Pillars of Innovation in Google’s new(ish) Think Quarterly magazine. I like this quotation in particular, “By sharing everything, you encourage the discussion, exchange and re-interpretation of ideas, which can lead to unexpected and innovative outcomes.”

Google announced this week that GMail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs can all now be used offline. This was previously available through Google Gears, but it’s now a lot more streamlined through the use of HTML5.

Flickr have launched a wonderfully-innovative new feature called ‘geofences’. The concept is that you draw circles on a map within which only people with higher permissions (e.g. friends and family) can see the exact location of  photographs. Great for photos around homes and schools.

Think you’re not into digital curation? Think again. We all are – or at least should be. This diagram from the JISC-funded Digital Curation Centre is a great place to get started thinking about these things, both individually and organisationally.

A ‘form’ response is better than no response at all. This form letter from Irving Hoffman is genius.

If you’re concerned about the raising children in the current fast-paced and hectic digital world, this article has a couple of good pointers. I tried the ‘five sounds in a minute’ game eysterday with my four year-old and he asked to play it again today! The book mentioned in the article is available from Amazon here.

Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, resigned this week due to ongoing ill-health. This article from Fast Company Design looks at what makes him so great as someone who designs for delightful user outcomes.

One of the central features of Google+, the ability to add people to ‘circles’, has come (albeit) with a different name to Facebook. When an idea has arrived, it’s arrived.

Some good advice in this Lifehacker article about ‘talking less to be heard more’.

If you need a visual way to motivate yourself to become healthier, try Health Month. It’s both social and includes game elements!

Fascinating stuff here in the Mindset List for the Class of 2015, which points out that for the generation entering university this year, amongst other things, “video games have always had ratings” and  ”women have never been too old to have children”. Although US-centric, these kind of reflections are important when considering the way young people think. Why, for example, do we still use a floppy disk icon for ‘save’ and a rotary telephone for ‘phone’?

In the same year that Lord of the Flies came out (1954), scientists sent 11 and 12 year-old boys to live in different sections of a camp but didn’t tell each group of the others’ existence. They had to stop the experiment when they eventually found each other and started performing violent raids. The kottke.org article links to another article with more details, as well as the the (short but informative) Wikipedia articles on Realistic Conflict Theory and the illusion of asymmetric insight. Wow.

According to the Google ‘search anthropologist’ mentioned in this Atlantic article, fully 90% of people who use Google services don’t know how to use CTRL-F to find something on a page. I don’t know how they survive.

This is a really cool idea and marketing strategy from IKEA. Shame it’s only available in Hungarian, Czech and Slovakian (at the moment).

Prey is Open Source software that allows you to track your computer or mobile phone should it go missing. From that point you can activate various functionality, including the webcam!

Increasing numbers of management-related jobs have ‘inbox exercises’ where they simulate the types of communication you would be likely to receive over an average day. In The filter heirarchy, Seth Godin reasons that we should do such mental ranking with all of our mental and physical inputs.

In this paper (PDF), the Japanese authors consider a better way for tourists to navigate an attraction. Too often, they claim, sightseers trace a ‘recommended’ route rather than plan one for themselves. They set out to rectify that.

An important point, well made, by xkcd: sometimes averaging the star rating people give isn’t in the best interests of the end user.

In News Redux, designer Andy Rutledge redesigns the New York Times website, explain his decisions and approach. Fascinating stuff.

‘Responsive design’ is designing websites in such a way that they adopt to different size screens and layouts. This is usually done through the use of ‘media queries’. For an example of this done well, check out mediaqueri.es

Alan Levine is taking his StoryBox, a version of a PirateBox, on tour around the USA in order to create a ‘digital time capsule’ of people’s stories and ideas. It’s a wifi-enabled box that allows for filesharing which could have applications elsewhere. Here’s how to make your own PirateBox.

Ars Technica has a comprehensive guide to using Creative Commons-licensed images. A great reference article.

Need to build a house but can’t afford an architect? Never fear, Wikihouse.cc has plans for you! A great example of shared ideas and expertise.

PayPal’s fees are confusing. Thankfully, Paypal Fee Calculator can help with that.

It may have been a reaction to Apple’s heavy-handedness over permissions in iOS apps, but Amazon’s Kindle Cloud Reader is a fantastic of something implemented quickly and effectively.

Suffering from a lack of motivation to write something? Try Write or Die – “putting the prod in productivity”. If you don’t write fast enough it starts deleting your words!

The Evolution of the Definition of Mobile Learning by Gary Woodill is an important reminder of the changing nature of a field and the need to keep up-to-date with the latest research. If you’re interested in mobile learning you may want to have a look at the JISC Mobile and Wireless Technologies Review Doug wrote at the end of 2010.

According to some of the latest psychological research, concentrating hard on a problem and then not thinking leads to insights.

If you’ve recently updated to Mac OSX 10.7 ‘Lion’ and are finding little things annoying you, chances are they can be sorted by using Lion Tweaks.

Web comic xkcd reminds us how hard to remember passwords can be easy to crack and vice versa.