‘Were you there?!’

‘OMG…were you at the game?’

‘Wow!’

Just three of the many messages that pinged into my pocket within ten minutes of the final whistle at Carrow Road on Saturday 14 September.

It’s understandable. Just a couple of hours earlier the pre-match conversations were around how big of a loss would be considered respectable (by four or five was the general consensus). Yet Norwich City, the football team I support, had just beaten Manchester City in what was possibly the best Premier League game I’ve ever seen in person.

Looking back at those messages from people that know me as a Norwich fan it struck me how in a world where our smartphones supply us with infinitely scrollable streams of stuff it’s easy to think that you’re keeping in touch – you’ve seen the new house, the exotic holiday and the happy snapshots. But when did you last connect with anything other than a like or lol?

Nick Hornby sums up my Saturday night experience nicely in his pseudo-autobiography Fever Pitch: ‘…I love that other people you have lost touch with and will probably never see again are sitting in front of their TV sets and thinking, momentarily but all at the same time, [you], just that, and are happy or sad for [you]. Nobody else gets that, only us’.

And he’s right, but he shouldn’t be. Maybe we should all take some time to reconnect with those we used to know but have drifted away? Maybe today’s the day to just see how that former colleague is getting on with their work? Maybe we all need more matches like that one against Manchester City…?

‘The problem with you, Tony, is that you judge everybody else by your high standards…and that’s not a criticism!’

This snippet of feedback was in response to a piece of work that had been completed for me and I’d forwarded on asking for thoughts as I felt it wasn’t right, but was keen for a sense-check before asking for corrections.

It wasn’t an obvious error. There were no misspelt words, none of the statistics in the piece were blatantly made up, nor were there any glaringly obvious grammatical mistakes anywhere.

No. This one was graphical. Surely it was blindingly obvious to anybody that the small logo in the bottom corner had been squashed slightly so the whole thing just looked…wrong?!

If I’m being totally honest it wasn’t a surprise reading the comment, I’ve heard ‘does it matter?’ from colleagues many a time throughout my career as I push pixels looking for perfection – apparently pointlessly to them.

What did surprise me, however, is that I paused and thought ‘maybe he’s right…?’.

‘Maybe people don’t care about the squashed logo…the fact that a tiny amend to the leading would fix that headline…the alignment of those text boxes is off ever so slightly…that orphan left trailing at the end of that paragraph could be fixed with just a bit of creative kerning?’

‘Maybe it…doesn’t matter?!’

In a world where time is money and multitasking is mandatory, maybe it’s the minutiae that has taken the hit?

Is this a problem? Have you found yourself letting things go that you perhaps wouldn’t have done in the past? Should I perhaps try to shift myself away from the mind-set that if a job is worth doing it is worth doing properly?

There is an epilogue to this post, and it comes courtesy of a recent journey home on the Tube. There was nothing particularly unusual about it, the same silence as always across the carriage as commuters attempt to avoid eye contact.

This time, however, I chuckle as I spot that there’s a number of them looking through shattered smartphone screens and listening to music through headphones that have obvious knots in the cord…

‘…maybe it doesn’t matter?!’

‘…who’s making the notes today?’

Uttered as invitees settle themselves in the room, the inevitable nervous shuffling of papers and avoidance of eye contact that follows signals that nobody really wants to be responsible for making and circulating these notes but they are important.

Without minutes a meeting remains unrecorded, people forget what was said, what actions were agreed and everybody ends up having to meet once again to go over what was already covered!

Now…whether the meeting is really necessary is another topic all together but, for the purpose of this post we’ll assume that an agenda has been circulated, the collection of individuals that have gathered are prepared and there for good reason and what is about to be discussed has a point.

So what does the nominated scribe need to be capture?

Most important of all are decisions that were made, who agreed to action them, and by what date. If all you capture are these three things you are well on your way to getting more out of your meetings. Also include details of any follow-up meetings, when they’re scheduled for and what is expected to have been done before then.

The ‘nice to haves’ at the start of the minutes are general housekeeping bits and pieces. Whereabouts was the meeting? Who attended and, perhaps more useful, who wasn’t able to make it. Whilst not crucial, these little nuggets will help jog memories should you ever revisit the minutes in the future.

It’s also useful to attach as appendices (or more likely provide links) to any documents that were discussed during the meeting – recapping discussions around charts and figures is particularly difficult without the data in front of you.

As to how you capture all of this? I tend to scribble notes during the meeting, highlighting actions with symbols. Once the meeting has concluded I’ll edit where appropriate within the next few hours and ensure it’s sent out as soon as possible so that those in attendance can be reminded of actions assigned to them and those that couldn’t make it are kept informed.

Of course, all of this may well appear obvious but it amazes me how few people actually record and circulate useful minutes. It’s worth doing properly, and once you get into the habit it genuinely does become second nature.

You never know, you might start volunteering to be the regular minute-taker…

‘Save that…’cos the bastards never remember the praise they gave you!’

As clear as day I recall the tone and delivery of this particular piece of advice, wearily passed as a colleague made her way back to her desk having spotted over my shoulder an e-mail expressing approval for a job well done.

Approaching the half-way mark of the business year and the mid-year review period I reflect with a chuckle. Because, despite coming round with inevitable regularity, it still manages to creep onto the current page of the calendar and leave many people scrabbling round their papers thinking ‘I must have done something of note in the last six months?!’.

Enter the kudos folder. Perhaps a little grandiose in name, it really need not be anything other than a space in your inbox into which you save the emails that recognise a job well done, the thank yous and praise from colleagues – all preserved in an easy-to-reference folder that makes finding those gems that you’ve delivered as hassle free as possible.

This collection of emails isn’t only useful at review time, of course…

Struggling to find some motivation at work? Take a look through the folder and remind yourself that you’ve done some damn good stuff for people recently. Wondering how to best approach a new task? Rifle through the feedback to see what people thought worked well (and perhaps what they didn’t!). Realised you haven’t updated your résumé or LinkedIn profile for a while? Scan your kudos for common themes that you may have overlooked as being a strong personal skill.

So, do you keep your kudos? If you do, have you found it useful? If not, do you think it’s time you started?

The buzz stirs you from your slumber. Bleary-eyed you reach for the iThing that you know you left down there somewhere, key in the security code and take a look at the notification that is calling for your attention…

‘[Your friend] has tagged you in a photo’

…you scroll through the pictures quickly – sighing, laughing, groaning as appropriate – before locking the screen and rolling back over to try and grab a few precious extra minutes sleep.

We document our lives nowadays in a finer detail than during any time in history – thoughts, films and photos captured with the press of a screen, sent over to the user’s platform of choice and stored…well, nobody really knows where their media is kept do they?!

Hundreds of images, thousands of words. Everything stored in what’s commonly known as the cloud – all of us guilty of being digital hoarders, the pace of technology providing us with easier ways to constantly add to our electronic footprint.

The irony, of course, is the more that we’re sharing the less we’re all actually seeing – social media giants such as Facebook taking the decision out of our hands as to what appears on our news feed. We’re left hoping that friends and colleagues see what we’re uploading but deep down we know that we’ll be lucky if our handiwork is left on a smartphone screen for more than a second’s thought before it’s swiped away forever.

Because when was the last time you went back to look at those photos you were tagged in? Sure, you’ve taken a quick look…whether it’s when you first woke up, during a short coffee break at work or whilst you were sat on the bus with a bit of time to kill but that’s it. We’ve got the ‘instant replays’ a day or so after the event, but we’re lacking the post-match analysis.

Do you remember those trips to Boots, Jessops or TruPrint to pick up the results from the film dropped off the previous week? The feeling as you opened up the sealed packet and pored over the twelve, twenty-four or thirty-six prints that you’d taken with real care so as to not waste one? How you filtered out the ones you didn’t like, but put those that you did in carefully curated albums you went on to show others when you had the chance?

Suggesting we return to doing that is a little excessive but, having become more interested in self-publishing over recent years, I do believe we should be doing a bit more to preserve our memories than simply leaving them in the hands of an online service.

The ease of self-publishing through companies such as Lulu, Snapfish and Blurb has meant we no longer need to slot prints into ring binder sleeves to show them off – anybody’s able to produce professional quality photo books that can be left in the living room, ready to be revisited.

So, next time you find yourself at a loose end with some time to spare have a sift through your smartphone, your social media and those ‘to sort’ folders that litter your computer’s desktop. Collate the snaps that make you smile as you reminisce. Lay them out, place an order and look forward to the feeling as you open up the sealed packet and pore over the finished book that arrives a week later.

Memories like that belong on a coffee table, not in a cloud…

‘I like my screen-less 15 minute walk home from the station as it’s where things percolate and I get blogging ideas. Most of them perish when I turn the key in the lock sadly, but for a few beautiful minutes I was onto something…’

This comment on my recent post on idea percolation got me wondering just what the best methods are to hold onto those solutions that disappear from the mind as fleetingly as they appeared? Thinking further as to the ways we tend to record anything I realised it boils down to three, basic approaches…

Mental: ‘…oh, what was that thing again?’ – a sentence those of us without photographic memories are all too familiar with, as we struggle to remember something that we know we really should have written down somewhere. Whilst occasionally effective, I salute those of you that are blessed with the gift of photographic memory – the rest of us mere mortals are left to dream of one day unlocking this Holy Grail.

Analogue: Little to-do reminders, lyrics scrawled on restaurant napkins, novels meticulously moulded across multiple Moleskines…the simple act of noting something in longhand will no doubt stay with us for generations to come. Of course, the biggest hurdle for any analogue note-taker is the pressure of ensuring the first indentation on a previously untouched pad is as neat as possible…

Digital: There’s not many people these days that don’t have a smartphone to hand. Whether it’s sending yourself a text, noting it in an application or recording yourself a voice memo, the opportunities available to record information are plentiful. With the increasing use of cloud storage, the ability to work cross-device is an added benefit to digital notation.

Personally, I prefer a mix of analogue and digital and tend to find myself recording short thoughts on my iPhone’s built in ‘Notes’ application before eventually transferring those that require further development over to pad and paper – as an advocate for the day-to-day use of a pencil for note-taking, there’s a satisfying parallel to the scratching of graphite on paper as the note ingrains itself further in my mind.

So, over to you…where do you keep your light bulbs? Do you have any hints and tips that you’d like to share with others to assist the flickering of filaments through to fruition?

‘I don’t have time to do the day job, let alone come up with new ideas’.

In a world of ever-increasing distractions – e-mail alerts, meeting requests, telephone calls, notifications, text messages – it’s understandable that people are finding it tougher to concentrate, although it was on hearing that opening sentence that made me think that it’s not the time you don’t have that is the problem but the use of the time that you do.

We all get the same. As surely as the sun rises, everybody’s got the same amount of time to do as they please with and I choose, wherever possible, to take up two hours of mine by cycling to work and back.

My commute along London’s roads takes me past some of the finest sights and takes roughly the same length of time as the equivalent journey via public transport.

Yes…there is always the need to be aware of your surroundings but, as any regular commuter will know, it’s slightly unnerving just how many times you find yourself either at the office or at home and thinking ‘how did I get here’ as you’ve made the journey on auto-pilot.

In the meantime I’ve managed to find myself one hundred and twenty minutes of time in which the day’s events are free to bubble in my mind alongside thoughts that flow free of distractions. Not only do I arrive at my destination feeling alert but the resulting idea percolation is often where the best thoughts have formed.

How about you? Whereabouts do you find yourself when ideas fall into place?

‘Old people don’t like me…’. For a young comedian in front of an audience in which few are his age yet alone younger it’s perhaps a brave opening statement, but twenty year-old Daniel Sloss has every right to be feeling confident.

Nestled within a cosy studio space above the theatre he has sold out in previous years, the young Scottish comedian is fine-tuning the final part of an Edinburgh Fringe show which will no doubt go on to be a hat-trick of successful efforts (his two previous shows being Teenage Kicks in 2009 and My Generation in 2010).

Aided with a notepad of scribbles and a dictaphone on which to review the performance later, Sloss rattles his way through the new show; particular highlights to look forward to are his thoughts on relationships and the fun and games that exist once couples start co-habiting.

Despite a slightly stop-start performance (not unexpected, given it is a ‘work in progress’ affair) he never really falters, and those in attendance are treated to an evening in which they get to see a comedian with his guard a little down which provides the opportunity to see a bit of the thought process that goes into the final, polished routine.

This is shown to perfection as Sloss brings the evening to a close with a beautifully crafted final set-piece, ending the evening on a high and hopefully sending him up to Scotland ready to impress audiences once again.

After a twenty-two date run at The Fringe, Sloss is taking The Joker on a national tour. If you spot one of his dates in your local listings, you really should get yourself a ticket. No matter how old you are…

This isn’t the first time I’ve blogged, having documented the preparation for and eventually my solo, unsupported journey from Lands End to John O’Groats (LEJOG).

Now, whilst that was an enjoyable thing to do and offered me a great opportunity to look back on the two weeks it was still more of  a virtual experience (obviously!). One ambition that I have harboured for longer than I can remember is to have my name appear as an author upon the cover of a published book. Well, I’m pleased to say that I have been able to see my dreams come to fruition…

…my little old blog has only gone and got published. Admittedly it’s only thanks to the advance of technology, but still…it’s only gone and got published! One Man and LEJOG is now available in paperback from Amazon (as well as other bookstores), priced at £4.99 – and is a collection of the words from the original blog alongside the route maps and a selection of photos that I took along the route.

Having my name on a book (albeit self-published) is something that I’ve always wanted to see, and I hope that it proves entertaining to those who buy it and perhaps helps others who are planning on making the trip themselves one day.

Also, thanks to Amazon’s wonderful Kindle Direct Publishing facility my words are now available in e-Book format to anybody that has in their possession a Kindle…and I’ve also been interviewed about the whole process by Ben East for Abu Dhabi’s The National newspaper.

If anybody reading this does indeed have a Kindle and would like to purchase One Man and LEJOG to read upon it, you can do so on Amazon UK’s Kindle Store where it is currently available at £1.71.

If you have already purchased either version, thank you! Seeing my name up there in Amazon’s ‘Best Sellers in Cycling’ chart alongside some famous names within cycling such as Sir Chris Hoy and Mark Beaumont is humbling to say the least…but it does also fill me with a great sense of pride (aww, shucks!).

Fifteen girls, one church and a collection of cover versions doesn’t necessarily sound like an excellent night out but for those in the know, this promised to be an evening to remember.

As far as venues go, Scala and Kolacny Brothers could not have picked a finer setting than the Union Chapel. A striking octagonal building with stained-glass windows towering up five sides, the Gothic-inspired Victorian chapel was filled to capacity for the Belgian choir’s debut performance in the United Kingdom.

The concept of Scala has been dreamt up by the Kolacny brothers; Stijn conducts whilst his brother Steven supports on piano, as the all-female group make their way through re-workings of familiar rock and indie tracks alongside selected original compositions.

Whilst up to sixty-strong on occasion, it’s a smaller group of fifteen that have made their way onto English soil and it was a lone figure that opened up proceedings, her sole voice slowly united with others as the rest of the choir appeared one by one to create a haunting, yet mesmerising sound that captured attentions in the room immediately.

After that gentle introduction of a Kolacny original White Moon it was straight into a deep and dirty number, the girls belting through a thumping version of Marilyn Manson’s The Beautiful People with no expletives spared, although with the audience spellbound it’s hard to tell if anyone noticed.

Among the medley of covers that followed were a beautiful slowed-down version of Prince’s When Doves Cry, a tender re-working of Kings of Leon’s Use Somebody and the Foo Fighter’s Everlong. As if to show that they’re not simply a covers band, there are performances of their own; a lovely story of a child raised by Nuns is projected onto the screen behind the group as they performed the beautiful Raintears.

There’s some nice banter between the brothers between songs, examples including Steven apologising for his ‘children English’ in the songs he was worked himself and Stijn goading him for being old. It’s after this last piece of banter that the audience were treated to the group’s cover of Radiohead’s Creep, famously featured in the trailer for the cinema blockbuster The Social Network.

As the sun set outside and natural light disappeared within the chapel, the auditorium’s lighting set-up that had previously gone un-noticed came to life; the spotlighting of the choir on stage alongside a backdrop of candles strung along the balcony added to the ethereal ambience of the occasion.

After cracking through a bass-heavy version of KT Tunstall’s Black Horse and the Cherry Tree, they launched into a final cover of the evening, Depeche Mode’s I Feel You. With those in attendance encouraged to their feet for the penultimate number, and a terrific performance from the group overall it was no surprise that, as the girls finished, a rapturous standing ovation rang out around the chapel.

There was no doubt an encore was due after such a response and after a short pause off-stage Stijn and Steven returned  to lead the girls through three more numbers. A cover of Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill carried on the feel-good vibe, before an enchanting re-working of U2’s With or Without You was sung with smiles on their faces, suggesting that they were enjoying the evening as much as the eight hundred that had filled the pews.

Finally, the girls arranged themselves upon the stage in the same formation as they had appeared and finished with another of Steven’s compositions, Red Moon. With almost impeccable timing, the candles dotted around the chapel flickered their last flames and it was to another deserved standing ovation that Scala and Kolacny Brothers left the stage.

It might not sound like much in words, fifteen girls working their way through a set of covers – but if you get hold of a ticket and the setting is right, you could be in for a special night…I was one of the lucky ones.