Our lives have been invaded by technology, that’s not a bad thing! However, it does present a paradox; we can work anywhere, anytime. Conversely, it means little escape from work. We tweet, blog, email and talk all the time. Next time you go for dinner, count the number of people who pick up during one of the courses!

We live in a world of interruption. First, it was advertising agencies intruding into our homes, now it’s via a little device that’s in our pockets. We must restore order over our time. Time has lost its boundaries which makes it even more excruciating to manage as we have little of it. We have ultimately lost control! It means that we are not often ‘there’ when we have conversations. We concentrate on several tasks at once rather than one or two that we do truly well. We answer our mobiles, become distracted by emails and faff about far too much. We have given technology permission to control our time not the other way round. For some it gives a sense of being important, but all we are doing is ‘biting off more than we can chew.’ It results in us living fast when actually being able to chill is far more appropriate and conducive to results.

We all need to find ways to control our time. Only opening emails three times a day, switching our phones off when we are at a dinner party, focusing on the people we are having a drink with and finding a little balance. You are dodging the issue if you think other people are controlling your time. It’s about learning to say no constructively. Controlling our time is not just about being more effective, it’s actually more about enriching our lives, enhancing our relationships and adding true value to what we do.

Controlling interruption gives us the opportunity to intensely focus on important, meaningful activity not the sheer volume. Time isn’t to be messed with; we let it pass us by far too easily without feeling it and enjoying it. We only get one shot at that moment in time, that day, that meeting, that client, that dinner party. Rushing through it, slightly dictated by interruption doesn’t add anything, it just really takes away.

Social media so called because of how it connects people and allows people to share information and ideas. But actually, social media is more fundamental than that. Its social because its helping shape the cultures of the future, its enabling engagement and its aiding collaboration on unprecedented levels.

It’s effect on the continuum of change ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous. In the future, it will assist in the overthrow of governments, research and development activity that creates amazing products and currently, its helping me meet someone in my home city I have never met before.

To critiscise it is natural, to ignore it is futile but it will, itself need to change too. There will come a point, perhaps a Malcolm Gladwell tipping point, where social media must turn into social business on a more larger scale. There are case studies. Dell reckons its generated $3 million just via Twitter. Gavin Sheppard at www.devonshiretea.com recently said to me that its the best marketing decision he ever made joining Twitter because its bringing results.

It’s truly fab connecting with people, its amazing sharing ideas but its hard work, even daunting sometimes. Social media maybe a more effective way of marketing and removed some cash spend but it adds huge pressure to your time. At some point, even us fans, followers and early adopters are going to have to turn those connections into some kind of business. And that’s where we have to claw back the control, take a hold of social media/business, grab it by the horns and decide how we are going to make it work. That’s our role social media/business can’t do it for us, its really a question of time management and influencing your followers.

At the moment it gives us connections, reach and spreadability, in the future we need to start turning that into long term relationships, robust communities and cash.

Yes in a people to people environment you need to avoid people! Well, people who play it safe. Who don’t share ideas. Those that won’t collaborate and people who talk about customers as if they were just a transaction.

Avoid people who tell you to shout. Who talk about marketing! Run fast from anyone who thinks they own you. Become adept at picking out those that just detract rather than add value. Make a hasty escape from people who only see the money. Turn the other way if someone’s ego is the size of a small country and never engage with anyone who is talking at you.

It’s not about being rude and ignorant, manners cost nothing. Just learn to avoid and get rid of them fast and in a smart way. There are other people to converse with that are so much more inspiring!

You can’t avoid it. You can’t sweep it under the rug and you certainly can’t run like hell. We know the online world is starting to overpower the offline world. We can now start to show case studies of how big corporates are radically overhauling their marketing budgets towards social media activity.

People are talking about it, having conversations about it, delivering seminars about it, meeting about it, discussing it and, of course, doing it! You can’t stop what’s happening but you must understand this social media explosive wave of communicating with customers and spreading ideas. The implications are both fascinating and daunting.

It’s evolving rapidly and is causing huge problems for companies large and small. Marketing campaigns you’ve used over the last 3 years have become irrelevant. Before you think I’m thrusting Facebook down your neck and recommending you immediately create fans stop! It’s too late now just to test it out, you’ll fail. You can’t do what I did 18 months ago and plunge into it with no armbands just to see what it was like and whether it was for me. I did! I love it and hate it at the same time. But, life has moved on, its too serious for you to see it as a side issue.

I know how people are feeling, particularly those who haven’t done anything on the social media front yet and those who are wanting to rack things up this year. It presents a paradox; exciting and overwhelming! The key thing to think about is that actually the technology doesn’t really matter….it can almost do anything! What we all need to focus on, no matter what stage we are at, is how social media can help you  to develop relationships with people.

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff in their book ‘Groundswell’ quote “people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.” I  would add that this is not a trend that is about to go away, in fact, its likely to blow your business model apart over the next few years. As I mentioned earlier, its not something you can dabble in anymore, you need understanding, structure and strategy.

With hindsight, I’d consider following these four steps before embarking on a marketing approach that is not a spectator sport:

1. Read, read and read. Follow people who know what it’s all about and understand why its happening.

2. Understand what it is! It’s not just Facebook and Twitter. Consider some case studies.

3. Think about how you can use it to develop relationships with your customers, suppliers, people and community. It’s about allowing participation and having a conversation.

4. Then, with help, build a strategy that can be implemented. A focused approach that doesn’t expect miracles overnight but that gradually and solidly sustains your marketing over the long term.

Hope that helps!

Over the Xmas period I’m writing an eBook considering how business is changing including the fundamental shifts we are experiencing and, also the key things we possibly need to get back to. It will cover between 50 and 100 words all supplied by my colleagues, clients, followers, connections and fans. Although, I may throw a few into the mix.

I’m hoping to provide an overview of some critical factors that will influence the future of work and business. Some of you have been kind enough already to provide some interesting topics such as; value, adaption, substance, competition, talent, time and feel.

It would be great if you could join in! I’ll reference you in the book and provide a hyperlink to your website or blog. Hopefully, I can provide some thought provoking ideas and thoughts with a bit of humility too. Can’t wait for the conversation to start once it’s published in February/March 2010.

If you want to contribute a word or two, please just make a comment on this blog, direct message me on www.twitter.com/annholman or, email me at ann@annholman.co.uk

Thanks!

Beware of stealing in your business. Perhaps there is a better word? Stealing happens when someone takes something from you when you are not looking, or, when you are unaware initially. Customers, staff, suppliers and partners involved in your business can do this. Their motivation is often being unfair to gain an advantage for themselves.

Whether it is by asking you to reduce prices, taking valuable time from you without adding value, not understanding that the relationship you have is just as important as the profit you make, or, by demanding stuff you just can’t do which is compromising. If you allow people to steal from you, you are literally giving people permission to cheat you.

An amusing talk given to TED by Carl Honore discussing the principle and benefits of slowing down. Thought provoking and worth 19 minutes of your time.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/carl_honore_praises_slowness.html

Say what you want, have a feeling tourists very rarely make a decision to visit a land mark whether its three minutes or ten minutes away. Crazy idea, crazy waste of tax payers money and irrational decision making by managers who focus on busy work not real work.

The old sayings are the best!! It’s better to do a few things really well than a lot of things badly. Whenever we take something new on, something else has to go. A good look at what you are currently doing is the next step. You need to distinguish between real work and busy work:

-       Real work contributes significantly to the growth of your business, busy work stunts growth

-       Real work impacts positively on your bottom line, busy work distracts you from your bottom line

-       Real work utilises your skills, expertise and knowledge, busy work underuse’s you

-       Real work is challenging, busy work is mundane and boring

-       Real work only you can do, busy work is what anyone can do which is why you should outsource it!

If your work overwhelms you but doesn’t challenge you, you’re probably suffering from too much busy work! Put together a list of all the work that comes in on one day. Identify which is real work and which is busy work. You know what to do next!

Been helping a couple of small businesses with some overwhelming time management issues recently. As usual no time to improve and think about developments for the future because the majority of the staff are engaged in fire fighting. It comes from the ‘top’ and therefore is a problem for the ‘top’ to solve. Time management, I believe, is a cultural issue. It’s no good individuals on their own attempting to manage their time more effectively if other people are not respecting it and adhering to the boundaries or working parameters, great time management requires.

We can work quite inefficiently, we often get distracted by random factors in the working day. We prioritise based on noise but work doesn’t come from thin air, it comes from the commitments we make. We came up with a quite a few exercises to help the process. Here’s one:

1. Make a list of all of the outstanding work you have at the moment. Write down how long the task has been outstanding for and the number of hours it would take to complete the task. When you’ve picked yourself back up off the floor. You now know what your backlog looks like and how big or small it is!

2. Collect a days worth of incoming work. Write it down. You now know what you have to do just to stay on top!

3. Put all of your backlog work into a folder then collect all of your work for one day and deal with it in one batch and do that for three days.

4. Spend the fourth day dealing with your normal incoming work but start the process of clearing one item on that backlog list and do that first thing when you get in the office. Keep doing it until the backlog is gone.

Remember whenever you take on something new, something else has to give.