Newsletter – March 2021

Here’s the people and technology update for March 2021

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It’s now been a year since I started the regular newsletter. The first time I sent this out was when I was in lockdown in the cottage in Czech. I so miss the cottage.

SOCIAL MEDIA
This month continues to be somewhat traumatic in terms of monkeys. Thanks to so many of you who follow me on Instagram who have been following the story and sent good wishes to my cat. (She’s becoming an Instagram star in her own right). She’s currently in Siem Reap recovering from the second surgery to fix her broken leg.

I’ve started to take a look at LinkedIn as a means of building an audience for my consulting business. It’s true, the organic reach is probably the best of any social media platform right now. I just need to create some content and test out the reactions.

I posted my first ever Instagram story last week. I’m still somewhat disturbed by the fact that content disappears. Maybe I’m just getting used to it ! – I also read the great line by Tim Denning referring to the channel as ” the Insta-gram-of-coke” which I thought was a great description.

I’ve restarted my posting schedule on YouTube and the channel is growing (see pic below). As with all Social media its all about consistency. I also now have a bit of help with content production and Social Media advice. While we are experimenting for the first month or so, I’m keen to see how things perform so I can give you an insight into what works and what doesn’t.

I’d still love it if you could subscribe to my YouTube channel.

STARTUP MENTORING
The first 500 Startups Ideation cohort sessions are coming to an end with graduations next week. This has consumed so much of my time and whilst uniquely rewarding does leave me with some of my life back. Let’s see what happens in the next cohort and the new Business Activation sessions.

CONSULTING
Lots of new enquiries from UK businesses this month, most of them regarding Pipedrive Consulting and Automation.

It still amazes me how many successful businesses aren’t taking advantage of integration and automation – cutting and pasting emails from their web forms into their CRM. This is the 21st century people !! – cutting and pasting from application to application is a sign you’re falling behind.

A UK Government report found:

“that more than half (55%) of small businesses have not set aside any budget for the next year to invest in technology.”

I know that small business has been hit hard by COVID, but this is the perfect time to invest in technology to improve efficiency.

SPAM, SPAM, SPAM
There’s been a significant increase in Spam mail being sent via website forms. This is a global issue and is becoming increasingly irritating. Spammers seem to have gotten around ReCaptcha’s and Honeypots and I’ve updated all my client websites in the last few weeks. If you have a WordPress site and need help here, let me know.

MISCELLANEOUS LINKS

Mr Bikram has stopped harassing people who post YouTube videos of Yoga sessions. We’ve taken this up again as here in SE Asia it’s above 35 degress in the hot season so like being permanently in a Bikram studio. Namaste !

I’ve started to add my hand written Morning Pages to Roam Research using the Handwriting Recognition App

You may have heard of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). I’m definitely in the JOMO camp – The Joy of Missing Out. (A new insight I found this month.)

I watched a great video on the origins of life begins at 40 – definitely worth a watch whatever age you are.

… and finally.

Don’t use your speakerphone in public places – its just wrong. This has to be the worst feature ever invented.

Remember that no one’s coming to save you, or do it for you. You just have to do the work !

As always, thank you so much to those people who contacted me over the last month, even colleagues I used to work with in the 90’s!!

As always – If I can help with anything, please let me know.

Chris