After much deliberation, I have decided to move my writing from here into a new blog on my website 8fold.

As much as I love blogging on the Posterous platform, having a blog separate to my main website is becoming an issue for traffic and branding. I will still be writing each week (on Tuesdays) about digital, productivity and wellbeing so do pop over to 8fold and continue the conversion.

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I look forward to seeing you over at 8fold!

After a fruitful and enjoyable month long stay at The Hub in Amsterdam last winter, I decided to try and make it a practice to get out of London and go live and work in a new city each December/January. I left a freezing cold London two days ago to travel to Lisbon for a five week sojourn at Coworking Lisboa.

I came to Lisbon a few years ago for a long weekend when I lived in Spain and fell in love with the light, the people and the custard tarts (there is one on my desk as I write). I have wanted to come back ever since and as work is quiet during December and the beginning of January, it seemed like the perfect time to visit again.

Getting out of London and living and working in different countries is a core part of my vision for my work and life and I would heartily recommend that everyone gives it a go. All you need is a laptop, internet connection and a place to work.

Here are some thoughts on the benefits of taking your computer and going working abroad:

1. It gives you the physical and head space to work on a big project.

My project that I tackled in Amsterdam was researching material around mindfulness at work. This year I am writing my new book The Business Yogi: How the Science of Yoga Can Help You Be More Productive, Happy and Healthy at Work, which takes ideas around the practice and philosophy of yoga and applies them to modern business and the workplace. I actually had allocated time in August this year (another quiet period) to write the book but for whatever reason, I couldn't summon the creative juices then. I sat down yesterday to write and the words just flowed. Getting your of your normal routine can do wonders for your creativity!

2. You are working but not really available.

When you are away you can't have meetings, the request for random coffees stop, and your email inbox slows to a trickle. Without all these interruptions and calls on your time, you can get an enormous amount of work done.

3. You can work more according to your energy patterns and feelings instead of pre-planning your time.

Being a bit of a productivity geek, in London I tend to plan and prioritise my time quite strictly. When I am away I tend to kill the to-do list and instead work on what I feel like working on that hour or day.

4. You can foster new collaborations and opportunities.

Being in a coworking space means that I have access to a whole new set of people and businesses and already opportunities for collaborations are emerging here in Lisbon.

5. It's good personal development stuff.

Seth Godin says "seek out habits that help you overcome fear or inertia". Going to live and work in a new country, even if only for a short time, is scary stuff. You leave the comfort of your family, your friends and your language for somewhere new. Yes, it's scary and you have to really put yourself out there and try to make friends. Sunday afternoons are always the worst as everyone seems to be with others except for you. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and a little bit of loneliness now and again makes you grateful for what you have back home. You also find yourself really looking forward to going to work on Monday morning!

6. You can see how other cultures work and play.

I find this a fascinating part of working in another country. In the Netherlands, people tend to start work early at 8 or 9am but down tools bang on 5pm as they head home. Here in Lisbon we start later around 10 or 11am but work through until 6 or 7pm. Lunch at The Hub was taken communally round the kitchen table. Lunch here in Lisbon is an hour and a half affair at a local cafe or restaurant. I have already been taken to task for eating lunch at my desk - very unusual here! The Dutch spend time with family and friends with an early dinner and early bed. Lisbon workers head home to get changed and then might have dinner around 10 or 11pm before hitting the bars until 2am. And that's on a school night!

Fancy giving this working abroad thing a go? Here are some top tips for making it an easier and enjoyable experience:

• Book yourself a desk at a coworking space. I know first hand how lonely it can be working from home so find a space where you can go to work everyday and meet new people. Pedro Santos, one of the members here at Coworking Lisboa, has developed a new platform called All Desk where you can search for a spare desk in cities around the world.
• Get involved in the space. If there are lunches or social occasions, go along. Offer to run a workshop or talk for the space members. If there is a space mailing list, introduce yourself and say what kind of people you would like to meet.
• Use AirBnB.com to find a room for your stay. Don't stay in a soulless hotel, stay with a local so you get a real feel for how the locals live. I am staying in this gorgeous place in the Barrio Alto, one of the coolest places in Lisbon. Use AirBnB to also rent out your home while you are gone to cover your costs.
• Don't make it all about work. Make the most of your stay in a new place. Spend evenings trying out local cuisine and entertainment and use the weekends to go exploring. Bunk off the odd afternoon to go for a trip out of town. Build some non-work time in as well (we are off to the Algarve for five days between Christmas and New Year).
• If you can, invite your partner along for part of your trip. I am lucky that Alex also works for himself and he was able to join me in Amsterdam and now Lisbon for part of my trip.
• Make the most of Skype. Unlike in London, here I am logged in to Skype all the time. When I see a friend online, I jump on for a chat. Keeping in contact with others back home can stop you getting lonely.

This is my last post until the New Year, and so from Lisbon, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

[image with thanks to ChrisYunker via CC]

Readers of this blog will know that I am an avid consumer of books. In my ebook, From Apps to Zen: 26+ Ideas for Building a Business with Balance, the letter 'K' stands for Knowledge and my goal to read a (non-fiction) book a week (which I have managed this year!).

Being a minimalist, I tend not to buy and collect books but prefer to borrow them from the library or friends or pick them up second-hand in charity shops (the Oxfam bookshop in Bloomsbury is excellent). But there are a few key books that I have bought and that I return to again and again, and I wanted to share a few key ways that these books have shifted my perspectives on work and life.

So if you are looking for a little inspiration or a new direction for 2012, get some of these onto your Christmas wish list!

1. Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long, David Rock

I first saw David Rock being interviewed at the Wisdom 2.0 conference in February this year. He was speaking about mindfulness and our brains and how we can work with our brain rather than against it to be more effective and productive. I bought this book from Amazon before the interview was even finished (so much for paying attention in the present moment!). Using the characters of a self-employed consultant and a corporate executive, he follows their working day showing on one hand the difficulties of the modern workplace, and on the other how much easier things are when we work with our brain. A fascinating book that will illuminate your working habits in a new way.

Perspective Shift: Our pre-frontal cortex (the thinking brain) doesn't cope well with doing more than one task at a time. To get stuff done, single task don't multitask.

2. Full Catastrophe Living: How to Cope with Stress, Pain and Illness Using Mindfulness Meditation, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn

An expert in the area of stress and meditation, Dr. Kabat-Zinn runs the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Written over 20 years ago, this book is a practical handbook for anyone who wants to delve deep into the science and practice of mindfulness and how it can be used to deal with stress in our everyday lives. I read this book a year ago during my month in Amsterdam researching mindfulness at work and its key messages have influenced my work today.

Perspective Shift: You only have moments to live. Every moment is a new beginning. We can choose to ruminate in the past or dream about the future, or, choose to live intentionally here in the present, from moment to moment.

3. Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, Scott Belsky

Scott Belsky is CEO of Behance, one of the most innovative and creative companies in the world. Though his work and his blog, the 99%, he has observed that Edison's statement that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration is true. Making Ideas Happen is a guidebook to ensuring your creative ideas happen through getting organized, collaborating and leading effectively.

Perspective Shift: Not all projects are created equal. Create an 'energy line' of your current projects in order of the energy they should receive. Use this when prioritising your work.

4. How To Be Free, Tom Hodgkinson

A funny book with a serious message, How To Be Free asks how can we be free of the absurdities of modern life with its focus on working to buy more stuff and to get a bigger house. While I don't aspire to some of the rural bliss that Tom advocates, being too much of a city girl, reading this book was a key driver in my current minimalist lifestyle.

Perspective Shift: Stop working to buy more stuff you don't need to impress people you don't like.

5. Happiness at Work: Be Resilient, Motivated, and Successful - No Matter What, Dr Srikumar S. Rao

Based on his popular courses at top business schools, Dr. Rao poses the question of how we can be happier at work and delivers 35 digestible nuggets of wisdom of how we can get there. A chance find while 'wasting' some time in a bookstore, this book has been a solid companion to me this year.

Perspective Shift: Positive thinking is bad for you. If we stop labelling things that happen to us as 'good' or 'bad' we can start to see that life is just series of moments ebbing and flowing, and that everything, happiness and sadness, passes.

6. Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values, Fred Kofman

I came across the work of Fred Kofman and particularly the ideas in this book again in my month in Amsterdam. One of the owners of The Hub also ran a company called Realize! and there was a downloadable summary of this book on their website. A conscious business is one that operates with integrity and creates value for all of its stakeholders, employees and customers. In these interesting times when the Occupy movement are asking for an alternative to capitalism, conscious business with its emphasis on responsibility and authenticity could be the way forward. I wish every business leader would read this book.

Perspective Shift: The power of Unconditional Responsibility. You have the power to become the main character in your life and choose how you respond to external factors.

7. The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich, Tim Ferriss

I have written many times on this blog about Tim's book and how it shifted my perspective from a structured career path until retirement to design my business to suit my lifestyle. It was instrumental in my move in Spain in 2008 and my current part time location independent lifestyle (I will be writing my final blog post of the year from sunny Lisbon next week!). You can take parts of this book with a pinch of salt but Tim's new perspective on work is worth a read.

Perspective Shift: Parkinson's Law: work expands to fill the time available. Set yourself crazy deadlines to work faster and better.

8. ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

I love this book so much I dedicated the letter 'R' in From Apps to Zen to it. If you are looking to change your perspective on the workplace, then this book is for you. In fact, buy one for every member of your team. With ideas such as Meetings are Toxic, Long Lists Don't Get Done, and Planning is Guessing, ReWork will debunk some of the persistent myths about what it takes to make a successful business.

Perspective Shift: Good Enough is Fine: find a judo solution one that delivers maximum efficiency with minimum effort.

9. Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork Start the Work That Matters, Michael Bungay Stanier

A little gem, the book inspires us to stop the ‘busywork’ and start the work that matters. With 15 practical exercises or ‘maps’ Michael takes your through step by step how to identify, start and sustain your Great Work. This book was my holiday reading this year in Vietnam and it allowed me to get a fresh perspective on my work and provides daily reminders about how important my Great Work is and how to focus on it.

Perspective Shift: Tap into the power of Role Models – when you are trying to identify what your Great Work is, think about your top 5 role models in your work and life. What are their common or distinct characteristics? What do they tell you about your Great Work?

I hope one or more of these books has captured your imagination so ask Santa if she will bring one : )

Merry Christmas!

On Wednesday I gave a talk on Social Influence to leaders in the arts and cultural sector as part of a leadership initiative by Sync Leadership. It was a lively and interesting discussion where we looked at everything from why we want to influence others to tricks and tips for effective influencing.

Start With Why

Simon Sinek is the author of Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action which says that to make change we should start with Why we are doing something before moving onto the How and the What.

Start with why you want to influence others online and the strategy and tactics for achieving your goal will become clearer. Do you want to create change? Do you want to show different ways of being, working or thinking? Do you want to raise your profile to get more work? Do you want to challenge the status quo?

Have Something To Say

Gandhi famously once said: "don't talk unless you can improve the silence". We are all aware that the social web is creating far too much noise in our lives with constant status updates and tweets. I try to make it a practice not to add to the noise just for the sake of being seen but only share content or ideas when I think they are of value.

Social media is just an amplifier. You need to have something to say in the first place.

Know Me, Like Me, Trust Me

To influence others they must get to know you first, then like what you do, and then start to trust you and become an advocate for your work.

The first step is being found. Sounds simple but if no-one is listening, you are not influencing. A good trick is to Google your name/company/brand on a different computer to yours and see what results come up (your computer will have cookies remembering what sites you have visited). Are you happy with the results? Where are you mentioned on the social web? Make the most out of your LinkedIn and Twitter profiles and optimise them with the keywords you want to rank for.

Get active on social media and post regular but great content. Engage in conversations - don't make it a one way street. Listening first and asking questions is a good way of influencing others. Use Twitter searches and hashtags to follow conversations around a topic you want to influence.

Make your content shareable with sharing buttons on your blog. Actively ask others to tweet and share your content. If you don't have a blog, guest post on other blogs and drive traffic back to your website. Make it easy for people to follow you by putting links to your social media on your website, your business cards and your email signature.

We can influence by being an authority or expert in an area, by sharing our ideas on a topic as well as curating the best content from others. Having an opinion on the social web is crucial. In the early days of tweeting and blogging, I was reluctant to say anything that went against the status quo or that challenged others' opinions. But now I am more comfortable in my skin and happy to say what I really think.

Telling stories and being human is another key way of getting others to know and trust you. Each of us has a unique journey that has led us to where we are today and sharing our lessons and vulnerabilities is a powerful way of connecting with others.

What's your story?

On Monday night I braved the streets of Belgravia, getting increasing lost as I found (eventually!) my way to The Star Tavern for An Evening with Emma Jones. Organised by Julie Hall from Women Unlimited, the event was a chance to network with other female entrepreneurs and hear business tips from Emma, herself a serial entrepreneur, founder of Enterprise Nation and Bitsy, a small business market place, CEO of StartUp Britain, and author of many business books including ‘Spare Room Start Up’.

Emma has a refreshing take on business and start-ups which seeks to dismiss the 'high cost/high skill' myth of starting a business and I wanted to share three of her ideas on the blog today and how digital can help facilitate them.

1. Go Niche (or Micro-Niche)

In her years advising and talking to start-up businesses, according to Emma, the one common factor that made a business a success was having a clearly defined niche and sticking to it. She gave the example of NannyNumbers - a payroll service for nannies, a truly niche service. In discussions with the company, Emma told us that they were considering widening their reach to run payroll services for other professions but she cautioned against this. 

With a niche (or micro-niche) business, you can get your opinion out on social media easily. You can become the go-to expert or service provider in your field. With a niche, content creation becomes easier as you have a focus for your efforts. A colleague shared an excellent video with me this week on generating 40 blog post ideas in 5 minutes - easy to do with a niche!

2. Do What You Do Best, Outsource The Rest

Emma is a fan of growing businesses, but suggested an alternative to growing them in the traditional way of hiring lots of staff and paying for office space. We all know the importance of working on your business and not just in the business, but when you are up to your eyes in admin, it's hard to find the mental space to do what you do best.

With the UK in recession, the current government talk a lot about job creation, but unfortunately the red tape and requirements for hiring staff do not make it easy for small businesses to grow. A better way to work and to build and grow a business is to create flexible work for other freelancers which still contributes to the economy without the stress for the business owner.

Emma asked that we focus on what we do best in our business and outsource the rest. From products to services, there is nothing you can't outsource these days with the web. If you sell products online, why not outsource fulfilment and shipping? Instead of struggling with your bookkeeping, outsource this to an online professional. Don't have time to blog, update your Facebook page or your website? Outsource this to my freelance Digital Assistants. Need design or writing services? Try online platforms such as Elance or PeoplePerHour. Use the power of digital to have a remote team working on distinct parts of the business rather than sitting in your office costing you money

3. Go Global Early

"Focus on niche, achieve global reach". Emma Jones

The internet has shrunk the world. We can now connect with potential customers in any country and market our products and services on a global scale.

Having a defined niche or micro-niche, can help us go global faster as we can attract our true fans from a wider pool of people. Social media, Skype and easy payment systems such as PayPal, mean that we can run a global business from our kitchen table. If we start to think about our business in global terms early on, we can create new markets and a more sustainable business in the long term.

Thanks to Emma and Julie for a wonderfully inspiring evening. If you are interested in finding out more about Women Unlimited and their Moxie Business Club, do have a look at their website today.

[image with thanks to fsse8info via CC]

The beginning of the week saw me in Glasgow speaking on a panel at the Independent Street Arts Network biennial conference. The theme of the conference, Resilience and Brilliance reflected the challenges that the outdoor arts sector (performance work that takes place outside traditional theatre spaces) is facing with Arts Council and Local Authority funding cuts, but also the exciting opportunities for the sector with London 2012 fast approaching and growing interest in the artforms.

I was speaking on a panel about Being Resilient and of course took my starting point, how producers and artists working in outdoor arts can use technology to be both resilient and brilliant, and I wanted to share some of those thoughts on the blog today.

Being Resilient

The arts sector as a whole is going through tough times. The main funders of the sector, Arts Council England and Local Authorities have faced significant cuts from central government which in turn has affected the support extended to the sector. Many outdoor arts festivals around the UK have either been shelved entirely or lost a great percentage of their funding as Councils are under pressure to cut non-essential services. In these tough times, arts organisations need to be as resilient as possible.

Three areas where technology can help arts organisations ‘be resilient’ and save costs are: cloud computing, working environments, and people.

The lack of knowledge about current IT solutions in smaller arts organisations can end up costing the organisation money but also time. Cloud computing is becoming more ubiquitous in the commercial sector with organisations as big as GM moving their systems from local, server based setups to the cloud using Google Apps. Arts organisations should consider moving systems to the cloud using applications such as Gmail, Dropbox and online CRM systems such as Highrise which can result in significant cost savings and nearly no downtime.

Office space, business rates and utility bills can be a substantial part of a smaller arts organisation’s annual budget. However, today’s employees increasingly want to work flexibly, either from home or from shared co-working spaces. Companies in the commercial sector are realising that having dedicated desk spaces for employees, especially in large urban areas, is a false economy as these spaces are only used 45-50% of the time.

The arts have always been ahead of the curve in terms of expanding and contracting project teams, with performers, writers and designers hired as necessary for projects. But the arts has yet to embrace outsourcing of core functions such as producing, administration and finances, still preferring to employ a small core team on a permanent basis. Why not use remote working to outsource all the core work of the organisation? Arts organisations have busy periods and fallow ones and yet staff are employed year round. With many commercial organisations seeing their staff as portfolio workers rather than permanent staff members, the arts in the future will have to embrace this as well. Portfolio working is something arts workers are very good!

Being Brilliant

As well as saving time and money, digital can also help outdoor arts organisations be brilliant and produce brilliant work. Three ways digital can facilitate this is: crowdfunding, mobile and social media.

Crowdfunding is a way of raising finances for a project through individual donations. Kickstarter was the first crowdfunding platform in the US and since its inception, many others have followed. In the UK, popular ones for funding the arts are WeFund, WeDidThis and Sponsume.

The outdoor arts have not yet utilised these platforms but I think they are perfectly poised to take advantage of them. Many of the festivals or artists have large, engaged followings that could be harnessed, one of the key ingredients of a successful crowdfunding campaign. Other key ingredients are not being too ambitious in terms of the amount asked for (many crowdingfunding platforms require that you raise 100% of the funds or return the cash) and having different levels of ‘goodies’ for your donators (The Age of Stupid film offerings ranged from £10 for a credit to £500 for a part in the film). The last essential ingredient is running a social media campaign alongside your crowdfunding pitch – just uploading your crowdingfunding video isn’t going to get you the cash, you need to engage your network and get them to tell their friends about it.

Mobile is an area that has great potential for ‘brilliance’ in outdoor arts both in terms of creativity and engagement. Gaming platforms such as SCVNGR enable you to build attractive experiences for your audience that they can access on their smartphone. Or use WordPress and one of the free or low cost mobile web apps to build project specific mobile websites where you can ‘push’ content to audiences or even use micropayments to raise funds on thr ground.

Lastly, the outdoor arts are not making enough of social media to promote their work, engage audiences and increase their profile. It’s not enough to just slap up a Facebook page and YouTube channel. As a visual medium, these platforms are the place to be, but you have to have a strategy for engaging your audience and pushing your content out. Be consistent. Post regularly and respond to comments. Make social part of your everyday workflow and it will become a habit.

What have I missed? What are you thoughts on how digital can help the arts be more resilient and brilliant?

[image with thanks to ArtsAgenda]

As a digital well-being coach and trainer, I often get rather blank looks when I say what I do for a living. "Digital well-being? Sounds interesting, but what does it mean?"

To me, digital well-being is the intersection of the things I believe in and that get me out of bed on cold winter days (like today); making the most of digital, work-world balance, and having freedom and flexibility in my business.

I believe that the World Wide Web and internet have given us unprecedented opportunities as business owners, workers, and people, but that we do not always make the most of them. Digital Well-being is about harnessing the awesome power of the internet to fulfil your work and life objectives and to design your business to suit your lifestyle.

Even since I picked up Tim Ferriss' The 4-Hour Workweek, I have been convinced that it is possible to create new business models and new ways of working from digital. Businesses no longer need their staff to be sat behind a desk from 9 to 5 yet this still remains the status quo even through flexible working improves employee productivity and happiness.

With digital we can increasingly choose who we work for and how we create value and meaning in our work. It's never been easier to use the social web to set up your own microbusiness - all the tools are free, you just need a good idea. A digital microbusiness can enable you to work on something you are passionate about rather then having to leave your values at the door when you go to work.

With digital we can choose where and when we work. With faster broadband speeds, cloud computing and communications technologies such as Skype, you can choose to work from any where you like - your front room, your local cafe or another country. After the success of Amsterdam last winter and as someone who tries to practice what she preaches, I am relocating to Lisbon for five weeks in December/January to write, hang out and get a fresh perspective for 2012.

In the UK, we seem to be working longer and longer hours and our digital friends of mobile, laptop and iPad mean that we are never far from our work. When you receive hundreds of emails each day, it's tempting to spend our evenings on the couch head buried in our device instead of being with our family. Digital Well-being is using the web to work better, not longer; making smart digital choices that work for you. It's about taking control of your email inbox, making your social media into a fun habit not a time suck, and using the right digital tools and platforms so you can be super effective.

Digital Well-being is about recognizing that we live in a world full of ‘screen time’ and having the awareness and skills to balance our on and offline worlds. Getting offline is essential, for our health and for our relationships.

If you want to learn more about how you can improve your digital well-being, then do join me and a small group of friends for a cosy morning at The Hub Islington (with it's roaring wood fire) on Thursday 1 December. It will be 100% offline and great coffee is assured!

Early Bird tickets end today at midnight.

This blog post is part of The Business Yogi series – inspiration and thoughts for business based on the philosophy, principles and practices of yoga.

“No mud, no lotus.” – Thich Nhat Hahn

Running the Digital Assistant Academy has been one of the most challenging things I have ever undertaken. Training women who have never considered using the web to work to be freelance digital assistants in only eight weeks, does seem at times to be an impossible task.

But just as the lotus rises from the mud, so our most triumphant moments in yoga bloom from our most challenging experiences.

After five weeks of nearly crying with exhaustion and frustration after most of the training sessions, yesterday just … flowed. Applications were installed with ease, new ideas gushed, exercises were completed with enthusiasm and skill. It’s all starting to make sense. One of the women commented that she is now rethinking how she spends her time and no longer wants to waste time on Facebook as she can see the wider  business potential of the web.

The past five weeks have been challenging for both me and the women. There have been tears both in and outside the classroom. One women quit before our half term break as she could not cope with the course and raise three children at home. As someone without children, I find it hard to advise my trainees on how they can find the time to study and eventually work at home when they have a family. Two of my inspirational women speakers to come are both busy freelance working Mums so I hope that we can learn how they push through their ‘mud’ on a daily basis.

As for me, I believe deep down that this project can help some of the 110,000 single parents (mostly women) who the current Government will force to seek work – or risk a benefit cut – without availability of jobs, adequate job-search support or childcare help. So even through this work is unpaid and sometimes feels unappreciated, days like yesterday remind me that something worth doing is never easy.

I can see the Lotus emerging. And it feels great.

[image with thanks to virdi via CC]

 

Last Friday, at Harnessing the Power of Technology and Social Media, a free event at the O2 workshop, Ural Cebeci, Product Marketing Manager from Skype highlighted some of the business features of both paid and free Skype accounts. He had me scribbling furiously as I learnt more about Skype in those 45 minutes than in my three years of using the service!

Skype is best known for free video calling. I first starting using Skype regularly when I lived in Spain (2008-9), and the number of active users were around 10 million then. Today almost 23 million users use the service at any one time.

But there is more to Skype then making calls to friends and family abroad and it can be a powerful and cost effective way of running your business. Here are some of the great features, both free and paid for, that make Skype worth taking seriously.

1. Group Video Calling

With Group Video Calling you can host team meetings, collaborate on projects, or even conduct group coaching sessions, without leaving your front room. Group video calling is only available on a Premium Subscription but only one member of the group needs to have a subscription to host a group video conference. . Premium Subscriptions can be bought for 12 / 6 / 3 month periods and you can even buy a Day Pass. 

You can take a free 7 day trial to see how Group Video Calling works for your business.

2. Screen and File Sharing

Ever been on a call with a client and wished you could demo something on your website / desktop? Well, with Screen Sharing you can and it’s available on the free Skype account.

To share your screen during a call, click the Share button in the Call window. Your colleague will see exactly what's on your desktop/screen. Great for sharing presentations or supporting a client with a task, you can choose to share your entire screen or a selected window.

You can also share documents with callers by dragging and dropping the file into the Chat Box during the call - a great way to save time instead of having to remember to follow up later.

3. Online Number

If you work virtually or travel a lot in your business, an Online Number could be the perfect way for clients and colleagues to contact you as they pay the same as a local call no matter where you are in the world. If you don’t have a fixed office, it can be helpful if you don’t want to use your mobile number as your main contact number.

When someone calls your Online Number you pick up on Skype. If you are not online, they can leave a voicemail that you pick up next time you are online. You can also forward calls to any mobile or landline. Online Number is available from £10 for 3 months. 

4. Skype on Your Mobile

Skype has apps for the iPhone, iPad and Android phones so you can make video calls when you are away from your PC. I use this extensively when I am travelling to stay in touch and it works brilliantly with a good wifi connection.

5. Skype WiFi

A new addition to the Skype family, Skype WiFi allows you to use your Skype Credit to get online at 1 million WiFi Hotspots worldwide. Just download the app to your smart phone or Sign in to Skype and select an available public access WiFi network on your laptop.

How do you use Skype for business? Are there any better alternatives out there? 

 

 

 

 

Today I am at Harnessing the Power of Technology and Social Media, a free event at the O2 workshop in Tottenham Court Road (where you can work with free wifi and coffee for two hours). This is the final event in a week focussing on how technology can help start up businesses in the UK.

This morning's sessions were a mixed bag with Twitter tips from self-described Twitter expert Mark Shaw, making the most of mobile from Blackberry employee Dan Sloshberg, improving your visibility online from The Good Web Guide's Arabella Dymoke, and lastly 7 social media tips from social media marketer Warren Knight. The afternoon was considerably more informative with Chieu Cao from start up business Huddlebuy showing real insights into how they have leveraged social media to grow, Chris Dodson from Concept Cupboard with an insight into some great social media tools, and lastly, Ural Cebeci from Skype highlighting some of the business features of both paid and free Skype accounts (look out for a post next week on this - I learnt there is more to Skype than chatting to Dad in Ireland!).

So live off the presses, here are some ideas and insights that got me scribbling:

Getting your house in order

Arabella talked abut the importance of getting your website sorted out before you send anyone your way. This is crucial. So often we forget to check our own website to ensure that it is giving visitors a great first impression.

Have you checked your website in a range of browsers? Does it work in older versions of Internet Explorer as well as the latest version of Chrome? How does it look on an iPad or a Blackberry? Are the links working on your site? Are your social media icons prominent and obvious for new visitors or are they hidden in the footer of your site? What are the top 5 things you want people to do when they visit your site? Write them down and test it out with new users.

Making the most of content

We all know content is king (or is it queen?) but are you making the most of it on the web?

You may have a blog but do you make it easy for people to find your great posts? Have a review of the titles of your posts - do you have the key words that the article is about right there in the title? Is your website so old that your permalink structure (the URL of your posts) are impossible to change? It might be time to build a new WordPress website.

Are you making the most of video? With YouTube being the second biggest search engine in the world after you know who, video can be a great way of driving traffic to your site.

Like to talk? Use iTunes and your podcast show to become know as an expert in your field. Have a look at the Smart Passive Income blog to see how Pat has used this strategy effectively.

Have great presentations? Upload them onto Slideshare and display them on your LinkedIn profile.

Get active on social media

Warren Knight confirmed the million dollar question: do Google take tweets and Facebook shares into account in their search signals. And the answer is yes. Being active on social media can help with your searchability and help your web profile.

Warren had some great advice about Facebook - post once a day to your Business Page - something with an image or video and a comment. Don't be tempted to post multiple times a day - this is not Twitter! And do not autopost your tweets onto Facebook - use the longer text capabilites of Facebook to your advantage.

If you can, tweet around 5 times a day (use TweetDeck or Hootsuite to schedule your tweets to go out throughout the day). But don't stress if you can't get on Twitter during the day or even for a few days. Don't add to the noise if you have nothing to say.

 

Think of social media platforms as dating

Chieu used a good analogy of comparing the holy trinity of social media platforms to dating avenues. Think of Twitter as speed dating. Short and sweet. Fast and furious. Be interesting and make an impression. Facebook is proper dating. You start to get to know someone and find out more about them. You want to engage more and increase interaction but still keep it light. LinkedIn is a marriage arranging service. It’s formal, professional and to the point. (Ok, so the last idea was mine, but I like the dating analogy!).

Understanding tradeoffs

Every speaker at the event talked about time. How much time to spend on social media and where to put your time.

Chieu made an interesting point that growing a business is about a balance between getting better at what is working and spending time exploring new things. This is a great point. How often do we chase new customers, brainstorm new products and services, or jump on new networks. We need to know what is working in our online activity (which is where measurement and metrics come in) and balance this with spending some time experimenting with new ideas. Chieu used the analogy of gambling – once you get back your initial bet, go play with the rest, but make sure you don’t lose your shirt.

That's it. Thanks to StartUp Britain for an interesting day.