productivity

I don’t know about you, but all these social networking sites are making me dizzy.

The reason? I don’t know where the conversation is anymore.

It used to be that you didn’t have to worry about conversing online anywhere, except maybe at the occasional message board or perhaps email.

Then came blogs, and suddenly you had conversation on your blog, with readers leaving comments. Or readers might extend the conversation to their own blogs, by discussing your company, you, or even a blog post you wrote. So you had to track the conversation on other blogs as it related to you.

But that’s not what’s making me dizzy. No, what’s making me dizzy are all the social media sites that now encourage sharing, comments and/or voting.

The conversation now is taking place at multiple places … potentially thousands of sites if you are a large company and thankfully fewer if you work in a small business or are a solo entrepreneur.

The past two years have seen an astonishing range of “social” sites or sites with a social component enter the picture. In my case I only pay attention to perhaps a dozen sites (aside from individual blogs), but those keep me busy: Facebook, MyBlogLog, Twitter, Stumbleupon … to name a few.

Others that encourage sharing and commenting include YouTube, Amazon.com, iTunes, Yelp, Google Local, DocStoc. And the list goes on. Read entire article.

Posted in Sales & Marketing, productivity

Boxes need to be mailed, errands need to be run, cookies need to be eaten, orders need to be fulfilled, but by whom? Whoever has a chance! The Behance team got tired of limiting our action steps to just an area on paper - why not make “action areas” out of physical space?

One frigid November day, the Behance Team tried a bit of an experiment. We designated two areas of our loft-space office as “Action Areas.” With blue painter’s tape, we isolated both a portion of a counter space and a corner of the floor as areas reserved for items that require action. The concept: When you walk by, everything you see requires action. If you have a minute, take action. Members of our team started placing letters or packages that need to be mailed in the Action Areas. When anyone brings in snacks, they place them in the Action Areas.

Before we launched the Action Areas, packages and letters would sit on various desks and tables around the office. Cookies on one person’s desk might remain unnoticed throughout the day. With the implementation of Action Areas, items that require action were gathering more attention than ever before.

The verdict: Our Action Areas remain sacred spaces today.

Behance articles and tips are adapted from the writing and research of Scott Belsky and the Behance team. Behance runs the Behance Creative Network , the Creative Jobs List, and develops knowledge, products, and services that help creative professionals make ideas happen. All information (c) Scott Belsky, Behance LLC

Posted in productivity

Earlier today I wrote a post about a new policy we’re implementing at my business. I thought readers here might enjoy the post, so here it is in its entirety:

—–

In the past few years, the weekend has taken on a new meaning for me. In short, it’s now defined by work. The weekend is when I catch up on work I can’t get done during the week, in particular work that requires long form thinking, the kind of thinking that powers drafting considered memos and strategy documents, even posting to this or other blogs. Read entire article.

Posted in Leadership, productivity