Jane Penson's thinking place

Rio Branco

Just got back from the most remote place I have every been to.  And I have been to some of the smaller islands of the Orkneys.  This place takes 24 hours to get to from Heathrow and there is absolutely no reason for tourists to want to go there - so everyone on the last three hours of the plane journey (from Brasilia) is Brazilian.

It's a great feeling being a visitor where people don't visit.  They really do walk about wearing Brazil football shirts by the way - just to buy groceries on a Saturday morning.

Protect your brand reputation

Yes this does have everything to do with managing information overload.

If you have a brand name that people might blog about, then their opinions may get onto Google (for example).  Their adverse comments may get ahead of your official site on Google.  This is very bad for your brand.

How do you prevent this from happening?  You can't unless your company is perfect and never upsets anyone.  But, you can see it first and manage the bad publicity before everyone else gets to hear about it.  To do this, either you employ some poor devil to who has to scour the web on a daily basis looking for your brand name - that's information overload if every I heard of it!!

or you subscribe to a service that will select for you.  I had a look at a pretty intelligent way of going about it the other day.  What do you think?

Coping with Information Overload

How do you keep the pile of papers on your desk down?  How do you manage your email inbox?  What is the secret of staying informed about what you are interested in without sinking in a bog of blogs, a mire of messages, a load of links and a whole heap of "have to read one days"?

There will be stuff about this on here - help, ideas, tips, courses, articles and (I hope) discussion.  Come and join in!

Personal favourite tip (not always put into practice, but I try):

Don't have a "read later" pile because you won't.  When something hits you, glance at it for 10 seconds and make an instant decision about its value to you.  Create files, folders or piles which correspond to specific areas of your life (such as investments, blogging, propects etc) and make sure the biggest pile is the throw away immediately one.  A legitimate reason to throw something away, I feel, is that it is not accessible enough for me to be able to make use of it quickly.  This may be because it is badly written.  More soon.

information is not knowledge

Knowledge is not simply an agglomeration of information; it is the ability of the individual or the company to act meaningfully on the basis of that information. Information is not knowledge until it has been processed by the human mind. Technology may be the conduit, but the rubber hits the tarmac at the point where the human brain and the technology meet.

I like this explanation.  It comes from an interesting site which provides one-page explanations of many of today's big business concepts.

Fair Trade Coffee

If I'm brutally honest with myself, I would say that I have been looking for a convenient crusade.  I want to feel strongly about a cause and take action to support it.  It must be one I genuinely care about... and it should inconvenience me but not TOO much.

Well, I have found it.

I drink coffee and up to now with little regard to the welfare of the growers - but I read an article recently that made me think.  All the growers want is a fair price for their product, and as a small business owner myself that is something I totally relate to.  I have decided to drink only fair trade coffee from now on.  It's not hard - you can get ground coffee branded FairTrade from supermarkets.  Instant coffee is on the market from Cafedirect - I have just found a local retailer (Budgens).  AMT (coffee stall on Marylebone Station for example) are 100% fair trade and a new chain is starting called Progreso

Oxfam have got a petition going and no doubt there's plenty of other activity I haven't discovered yet.

When I am in a coffee shop meeting a colleague or in a restaurant, I ask if they have fair trade coffee and if they don't I just politely (but quite loudly) say I will have water please.

Please add a comment if you are a fair trade coffee drinker, if you think the whole idea is misguided, or if you have discovered fair trade shops and brands not mentioned here.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours very fairly :-)

Jane

Cats and colours

I have a new cat, Clio.  As a person who notices how colours go together, I did wonder if she was a mistake the other day... She is very bright ginger and white and looks absolutely horrible when she is walking upstairs because our stair carpet is kind of pinky grey.  In the living room she looks amazing against a harlequin sofa.  She has chosen her own favourite background now though - a patchwork blanket.  Love it or hate it - it's certainly a colourful combination!

Does your cat match your house?

Knowledge retention in smallish businesses

How does a business protect the knowledge that is its lifeblood when people leave?  How can internal communication patterns affect a company's ability to compete?  What practical low-cost steps can management take to encourage staff to discuss issues, share their experience and take advantage of the knowledge that already exists internally?  This Download sharing_knowledge_better.pdf  is a short digest of my MBA research on the subject.  I would love to hear your comments.

down with apostrophes!

I am the apostrophe lady to many of my colleagues and clients.  I am the author of a handy leaflet entitled "Jane's Guide to Apostrophes" which sits in many desk drawers for easy reference.  So, it may surprise you to know that I am on the whole in favour of allowing them to slip quietly away much after the fashion of a sick cat.

There are very few instances of a phrase (I cant think of any for the moment) where the meaning would be unclear without an apostrophe.  After all, they are used wrong a lot of the time so you cant rely on their meaning even when they are there!  All they achieve therefore is to allow people who understand the rules to be pompous about it. 

Communicating in writing is really important to everyone in these blogging days.  Its bad enough having to cope with our maverick spelling system; lets not condemn people with something interesting to say to the rules of an unnecessary comma in the air. 

Starting with blogs - lets ban apostrophes!  Did you have any trouble understanding this apostrophe-free one?

Arctic Terns

I adore digital photography!  In the old days, to get a good photo of a bird in flight you needed inside knowledge (where they are likely to be) skill (how to use a camera properly) and loads of patience.  Now all you need is inside knowledge and patience.

I took this off the Northumberland coast last week.  They fly past you - zap! zap! paying no attention to your needs as an amateur photographer at all.  In the end though, shot number 76 ends up hitting one square in the middle of the picture as he zooms past.  Delete the other 75 and there you are - instant expert!