Limitations

Posted by Ben in Inspiration

Reviving My Inbox (or, Email Resurrection)

Posted by Ben in Innovation, Tips

I’ve just finished the Revive Your Inbox programme from Baydin, “a 21 Day course to help you restore email sanity”.

“Invest 20 minutes a day for 21 days. Revive Your Inbox is designed to reduce the amount of email you receive and learn to deal better with the ones that matter.”

I’ve always been quite good at managing email – one thing a good PR person needs to be great at, which is doubly true now I’m freelance and don’t have colleagues to chase me when I haven’t answered a message or just a quick nudge to say “can you get back to the client on that?”

Lots of the tips, tricks and process I already have as part of my daily routine, but there were plenty of useful tips and exercises that I’ve learnt and am now sticking to as well. Even just doing the first 4 or 5 days will make a big difference to your inbox.

You can sign up to Revive Your Inbox here or below is the complete list of courses if you feel like picking and choosing ones that sound best for you.

Give it a try – it might just make you believe in email again!

• Day 1: Turn off Email Notifications
• Day 2: Unsubscribe from Junk Email
• Day 3: Learn How to Search for Email
• Day 4: Inbox Philosophy
• Day 5: Cleaning up a messy inbox
• Day 6: Deferring a message for later
• Day 7: Delete It
• Day 8: Five Sentence Emails
• Day 9: The Ultimate Email Workflow
• Day 10: Timers and Feedback make Email Clients better
• Day 11: Dealing with difficult email
• Day 12: How to use templates to automate email
• Day 13: Advanced Email Etiquette
• Day 14: Schedule Emails to Be Sent Later
• Day 15: Habit Reinforcement Day
• Day 16: How to Mute an Email Thread
• Day 17: Folders and Labels Revisited
• Day 18: Filters and Rules
• Day 19 – Keyboard Shortcuts
• Day 20 – Productivity Boosting Add-ons
• Day 21 – Sticking with the Program

The LifeCycle Film (Holstee Manifesto)

Posted by Ben in Inspiration

The Holstee Manifesto is a call to action to live a life full of intention, creativity, passion, and community.

The LifeCycle Film came about as a desire to bring the energy and passion behind the Manifesto to life through something we love biking. As we seek to live mindful lifestyles that leave a positive impact on the people and world around us, biking has become a passion that is much more than a transportation alternative. It is a way of fully experiencing the city we love and all of its details.

This Film is a celebration. It is a celebration of gatherings, of diversity, of life, and of the beauty of shared experience. We hope you enjoy.

holstee.com/manifesto

2012 Social Media Trends

Posted by Ben in Innovation, Inspiration, News

It’s that time of the year where the good and the great of the social media world come out in force to predict the next-big-thing and sweeping social media, social marketing and social commerce trends that we’ll see in 2012.

Below is a constantly updated list of the social media and social commerce trends and predictions for 2012 that are worth reading.

If you have one to add then drop me an email or leave a comment below.

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David Armanao, Harvard Business Review: Six Social Media Trends for 2012

BazaarVoice: Social Commerce Trends Report Europe 2012

Econsultancy: 2012: The trends every marketer should be aware of

Trendwatching.com’s 12 Consumer Trends for 2012

JWT 10 Trends for 2012

Social Media Today: 2012 Trends and Predictions from Blake Cahill, President of Banyan Branch

Social Media Today: Social Media Intelligence Trends for 2012

eMarketer: 2012 Trends: Social Media Metrics Take Center Stage

33 Digital: 10 Driving Forces of Digital Marketing 2012

Contagious Magazine: Digital Predictions for 2012

Quora: What will be the top 5 trends in social media for 2012?

Quora: What are the top B2B marketing trends for 2012?

How Charities Are Using Instagram to Engage Their Communities

Posted by Ben in Innovation

Instagram, the mobile photo sharing community, are doing a great job of showcasing how different charities are using the platform to engage with a new community of users, all through sharing photos.

They list 3 examples in their post on Nonprofit organizations using Instagram: Robin Hood NYC, Oceana and Charity: Water.

Here’s the tactics being used by those 3 charities to tell their stories:

• Use Instagram to live stream fan photos from a fundraising event
• Develop a custom photo visualization using Instagram’s API.
• Encouraging Instagrammers to share their photos of engaging with your cause ocean.
• Hashtag photos appropriately to get them included among the other relevant photos already on Instagram
• shares photos from the field to show the impact of your work
• Take snapshots from around the office to show what the team is working on

Know any other charities using Instagram in innovative ways? You can send an email to contact@instagr.am and might even get featured by them!