29 Dec
2
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My 7 Christmas discoveries: books, gadgets and iPhone Apps

iPhone Apps

  1. New Software: Evernote. A great place to store notes (privately and public to share to collaborate with your Team members – another great feature), whether text, photo, file or Audio. It works on my iPhone and syncs everywhere. It will even search the text (typed or handwritten) on images. I haven’t got the scanner that syncs with it yet – but it is a strong possibility as I head down the paperless route!
  2. New gadget: Amazon Kindle – it has to be. What a great thing this is! Love it! Love it! Love it! Saves carrying loads of books – all in one place. Easy to ready, search, highlight and make notes (all of which sync with your PC for more editing). I love reading (and note taking when reading) and this makes the whole process so easy and paperless! There is even a free app for the iPhone that will sync the books, so if I don’t have the kindle, I can carry on reading on my phone from where I left off, and pick up at the right place on my Kindle later.
  3. Favourite Pressie: has to be my Gerber CLUTCH Multi Tool for my key ring (I have a normal sized one like a leatherman, but that is bulky to carry every where). Comes with Pliers, knife blade, tweezers and screwdrivers. It also came with a powerful torch. Very cool indeed.
  4. New iPhone Apps: Some great apps to try on your iPhone that I have been playing with over Christmas: Evernote (see above), Kindle, Xpense Trkr, Sky TV (you get 3 months free!), Photoshop (great for creating online photo and video galleries – although you can’t send video from your iPhone yet, you have to do that through the website), CoPilot UK sat nav – although don’t reckon much to the traffic update services as it missed a major traffic delay on the M6), WordPress 2, RadioBox (you can listen to your favourite radio station on the iPhone using Wi-Fi or 3G, awesome!).
  5. New business book: Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish. He has a great website too and seems to be connected to some interesting people. I’m a third of the way through the book – and it is a great read, full of practical and helpful stuff for running a business. Got some interesting ideas (and confirmation that I am on the right track with some that we are doing now).
  6. New non-business book: The Voice New Testament (Thomas Nelson) and Seth Godin’s free eBook: What Matters Now.
  7. Latest productivity time: RescueTime. Will let you know how this goes – but interested to see if this actually works for me.
24 Dec
0
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Salt: A short story about Jack.

Jack woke up like he did every other morning: fighting a huge temptation. The snooze button. It is deadly and has the power to seriously wreck a day. Every morning it is a fight.

Today Jack won. This was not true every morning. He is averaging a 60% success rate at the moment. Not great, but slightly above average.

Ironically, his fight with the alarm clock is quite symbolic of life. He is, in his own words, slightly above average. “Nothing to see here” as the police say at the crime scene, trying to usher you past quickly. And there isn’t anything worth seeing with Jack. Everything about Jack’s life seemed to be the same as everyone else. The house, the car, the debts, the job, the kids and the holiday (if they can afford it this year). One day rolled into the next without any real distinction. Sure, there are a few treasured memories and the odd victory scattered in his history annuals, but apart from that – life had blended into a slight blur – nothing really stood out.

Like his colleagues at work, he had the mantra: one day things will be better.

Unfortunately it was blind hope – you know, the kind of hope that blinds you to the inevitable and obvious truth: things aren’t going to change, they are going to be exactly the same each and every day and the “one day things will be better” medicine provides some temporary relief and life is endured again through rationalisation.

Mediocrity had slowly chocked yesteryear’s dreams from Jack. It made sense though; he now had a wife and kids to support and nurture. Mind you, even the marriage and fathering part of his life had settled into a default routine. Jack still loved his wife. Still loved his kids. But he had lost the energy years ago to be really great at being a husband and Dad. Enter the default routine with all its appeal and safety.

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12 Dec
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1,000 True Fans Article

Truefans-1

[Translations: French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish]

The long tail is famously good news for two classes of people; a few lucky aggregators, such as Amazon and Netflix, and 6 billion consumers. Of those two, I think consumers earn the greater reward from the wealth hidden in infinite niches.

But the long tail is a decidedly mixed blessing for creators. Individual artists, producers, inventors and makers are overlooked in the equation. The long tail does not raise the sales of creators much, but it does add massive competition and endless downward pressure on prices. Unless artists become a large aggregator of other artist’s works, the long tail offers no path out of the quiet doldrums of minuscule sales.

Other than aim for a blockbuster hit, what can an artist do to escape the long tail?

One solution is to find 1,000 True Fans. While some artists have discovered this path without calling it that, I think it is worth trying to formalize. The gist of 1,000 True Fans can be stated simply:

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

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12 Dec
0
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Tim Ferriss – How to Create a Global Phenomenon

via timferriss.posterous.com

Fascinating video on how Tim Ferriss launched his Four Hour Work Week book. Interesting to watch definately! If you look at his Posterous Link (http://timferriss.posterous.com/tim-ferriss-how-to-create-a-global-phenomenon) you can also see the slides he uses during the talk.

Posted via web from Matt’s posterous