An investment in a multimedia future

We have been busy getting ready to produce the Glorious Day Medium by buying various gadgets that will make it quick and easy to create (reasonably) high-quality content. Laurence raided duty free for a Nikon D5100 SLR, which not only takes great pictures, it also records HD video. He'll no doubt be sticking it in front of a face near you in the near future. You have been warned! For those times when video is overkill, and when we need a quality mic to plug into the camera, we have also bought a Zoom H1, including an accessory pack with mini tripod. This nifty device not only looks like a taser (click the pic for a bigger view), it also records directly to an SD card, which will allow Laurence to collect those glowing client testimonials in crystal-clear stereo.

Also in the shopping basket is a Kindle, which will go a long way towards preventing Laurence's travelling library of books from taking him over the Wizzair weight allowance. Yep, the 21st century has arrived at Glorious Day!

Now all we need is a recommendation for a decent portable camera tripod. Leave a comment if you have any tips.

Now that's what I call a planning session agenda

We are a small company (4 employees) and times are busy, so we rarely get the chance to sit down together and talk things through. One such momentous occasion was on January 23, 2012. We made pretty good progress (we got past point 2) and which has helped clarify exactly what we are trying to do beyond the rush of one day to the next. Anyway, here's the agenda:

Purpose

The objective of this workshop is to work out where we stand with all the projects we have set in motion, which are worth pushing forward with in light of your broader business goals and how we can realistically set about this given Laurence's lack of time.

Agenda

Before we start (on time), please switch all phones off.

1. Define Laurence's goals (current goalposts) for Glorious Day. We will provide prompts based on things you have said in this regard in the past.
2. List all the projects we have up in the air at the moment. Again, we will compile a list in advance.
3. Discuss, in broad terms, the status of these projects and where you currently stand on them.
4. Based on the goals discussed in section 1, prioritise those projects that are urgent and reject any that are no longer relevant or feasible.
5. For urgent projects, reassign tasks and responsibilities, but also establish concrete steps requiring your input, without which further progress cannot be made.
6. As the first of these steps will always be a thorough briefing and/or question and answer session, these need to be scheduled with immediate effect. Over to you, Vlad.
7. In light of the above, discuss the best ways we can take the workload off Laurence based on our skills. Laurence suggested we define a “skills” ladder.

Social media and the corporation

"Social" and "media" may be the buzzwords of the day, but getting people in anything but the most free-wheeling and geeky start-up to play along is an uphill struggle.

Why is that? Well, people in big companies can be quite uptight about sharing their thoughts - and their peers tend to be overcritical when they do. It's a classic case of chicken and egg, perhaps. Anyone of the senior managers we know that has written an e-mail to the entire company will have checked it 1,000 times - and now they are being expected to publish their thoughts the moment they spring to mind. No way! We are breaking a huge taboo here.

Yet there is no denying that we are heading in the direction of the more open and "sociable" business. Why this is beneficial in terms of productivity and innovation is the stuff of another post, what we are concerned about right now is fostering a corporate culture where transparency is much more accepted. That can be offline culture, but it is inevitably moving online.

It is early days still, but we have been enjoying considerable success in getting the ball rolling at one of our biggest clients, a company very much in the communications business. Here, in a nutshell, is the approach we took, in close collaboration with senior management and a handful of fanatics, of course:

1. We have been using social techniques (mostly Post-It notes in combination with flipcharts) with this client for several months to get staff to share their innermost thoughts. This kind of thing does not happen overnight. To kick things off, we erected a Chatter (the Salesforce suite's version of Twitter/Facebook) wall at a major launch event to help take the not-inconsiderate buzz online. We even provided iPads to encourage people to post their thoughts there and then.
2. We did a lot of behind-the-scenes work to "place" interesting topics and generate conversation. We spread the word with almost religious ferver and focused on posting fun videos and links that may not normally be directly associated with work. We also made a point of singling people using the tool out for some friendly praise.
3. We encouraged senior management to post (or ghostposted in their place where the concept was completely alien to them) to emphasise that social media is not looked down upon or regarded as a productivity soak.

 We'll see how it goes, but growth has been very encouraging so far (from almost zero) and people are signing up to groups entirely voluntarily. It's a steep learning curve for everyone, so we'll keep you posted as we gain more and richer insights ourselves.

A recommendation and a dedication

By way of introduction and at risk of blowing my own trumpet, here is a recommendation I received this week from professional networking site LinkedIn recently:

We employed Adrian to undertake some translation work for us at very short notice and late in the week. He not only produced the translations incredibly promptly (having to work over the weekend in order to meet the deadline), but they were also formatted brilliantly and the final deliverables very well organised when they cam back to us. I would definitely work with Adrian again.

As you can see, I don't just work for Laurence, I am also a translator (German and Hungarian to English, in case you're interested) and copywriter. But I have been working with Laurence long enough to understand the rewards that providing great customer service can bring.

Without being soppy, I have a lot to thank Laurence for, which is why I sent him a note, primarily to show off, but also to dedicate this piece of fantastic feedback to him.

Loz was a little taken aback, but his curiosity got the better of him and he asked how he had changed my behaviour.

I wasn't sure exactly what to say, it is a combination of things. But if I did have to name just one, it would be to constantly try to stay one step ahead of the client's needs. That means keeping them informed at all times, keeping things clear, simple and organised, and, above all, answering the questions they have not yet thought of, and might never think of.

Or, to use a tired business cliché, adding value at every client touchpoint. Ugh.

Back soon - just stepped out to deal with onrush of life