With so much reading ahead of you, the temptation might be to speed up. But in fact it’s essential to slow down and read every word. Because one important thing that can be learned by reading slowly is the seemingly obvious but oddly underappreciated fact that language is the medium we use in much the same way a composer uses notes, the way a painter uses paint. . . . it’s surprising how easily we lose sight of the fact that words are the raw material out of which literature is crafted.
If you attended – thanks very much and here are the slides (which strictly speaking I should have posted beforehand). For more detailed notes about the detail of the talk, take a look at the post from TEDx last week.
The main change from this presentation’s debut at TEDx Brighton last week was to add a little about the business or management context for thinking about SuperSkills. Moving on from some ways of describing this I’ve used in the past, I talked about analysing the impact of social web on a business across four areas, with the acronym LOOP:
Long term: What are the strategic implications of the web for the next 5 – 10 years. How will it affect the classic PEST elements (Political, Economic, Social and Technological) in the organisation’s environment.
Operational: Here and now in the next 12 months where can social/web tools support operations such as marketing, customer service, sales, research, product development, HR etc.
Organisation: How will different teams be able to work together on social web related projects? How will information and insights be communicated quickly around the company?
People: What are the issues that the social web raises for our people? The line between public and private is blurring,
The feedback from both this talk and the TEDx one has been very positive (please do let me know if you have any criticisms, constructive or otherwise) and I’m going to start developing some of the ideas in a book now. Watch this space for more new son that front.
The main things that people have been positive about (other than the Gotham font) are:
The idea of investing time in learning tools like Twitter, to develop literacy.
How effective the Pomodoro technique can be.
Thinking about social networks as productivity tools at work.
Developing different approaches to work habits and workflow.
The importance of always-on sharing
Thanks to everyone who has shared their thoughts on the subject – it ‘s really useful in working out how a book about this might work.
