10 Tips for Surviving Train Journeys
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I recently traveled down from Hull to Torquay on business which meant a 6 hour journey and luckily, only a couple of changes (but could have been many more).
Train travel is a much better option for business, because as we all know, it means that you can (hopefully) get some work done, and you don’t end up being completely shattered after a big drive. However, there are a number of tips which I suggest when you are going by rail.
- Don’t take too many bags. There’s nothing worse than struggling about with mulitple bags, and also finding places where to put them. I usually travel with my Tom Bihn Empire Builder Laptop bag, and a Tumi roll on. These two bags are both a good few years old, but look virtually new and are perfect mix of form, design and function.
- Book a seat. No excuse not to nowadays. You can use thetrainline.com and they post you your tickets. There was a real shortage of seats on the main line was on, and it is no fun standing.
- Get some noise cancelling headphones. These are essential for any sort of travel and make a real difference to your quality of journey. There are many sorts available, but my Bose ones have been going strong for 5 years and I would not travel without them.
- A decent book (or two). Check out my recommendations here.
- The Trains iPhone app which you can get from the App Store here. This will tell you all the departing and arriving trains from any station in the UK - I’ve just downloaded this and it is excellent.
- A light weight laptop. My current MBP is not cutting it right now, too heavy and a little slow
The Air or a Linux Acer One is now looking very tempting, but hanging fire until Apple have a refresh and I can afford one! - Bring your own food and drink. The stuff available onboard is not the best and way overpriced.
- Make sure you put your mobile on silent. This is not a hard thing to do you would think, but the amount of people who don’t bother is staggering. It is rude, ignorant and annoying. Especially if you have the “Final Countdown” as your ringtone.
- Make sure people know you are on a train if they want to speak to you. The reception, even on mainlines, is rubbish and you will spend the whole time having dropped calls. So don’t schedule any telecons as it won’t work, and long loud phone conversations are rude, ignorant and annoying.
- Dress appropriately. If you can avoid it, don’t wear a suit. It will be trashed. Something lightweight and warm is my preference, howies merino stuff does the job well.
Now I know I said 10 tips, but here is one extra for free. Travel in first class if you can. You may even get some work done.
PS Try to avoid the carriage where two “professional” dog owners have decided to bring their 4 dogs and two travel cages onboard.
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Citysense
I am looking forward to the day when this kind of technology is going to be married with the social aspect, and of course, the advertising. Exciting time!
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95% of Companies Just Don’t get It
What don’t they get?
They don’t understand that they need to look after and nurture their employees and stop treating them like idiots with zero intelligence. I’ve talked about this before and it is one of the areas of business that really interests me.
Jason Fried, from 37signals has been featured recently over on AZcentral.com and he talked about how employees should be treated:
In order to appeal to us, employers need to rethink their rules a bit. Forget rigid 40-hour workweeks. Forget traditional company hierarchy…
One company that has led the charge in shifting the work-life paradigm, especially when it comes to employee relations, is 37signals. Headquartered in Chicago, it’s a multi-million dollar organization deeply committed to maintaining a work-life balance for its employees.
President Jason Fried says today’s employers present the biggest roadblock. “Simply put, employees are treated like children. They are not allowed to think for themselves, and there are too many layers of approval, just too much insulation that prevents anyone from doing anything. The traditional workplace is broken, and until someone realizes that, there’s always going to be conflict.”
This suffocation by protocol is dead on and will never allow an employee to “go beyond” or achieve something extra for the company. This is a critical link that most organizations continually fail to acknowledge. They are too focused on ensuring employees do no wrong that they actually prevent them from achieving anything beyond status quo.
Does your company do this? Or are you in the 95% (or higher) who don’t?
Is Your Agency Ready for Now and Next Year?
One of the things that theappleofmyi prides it self on is understanding online marketing. Without wishing to be full of it, this is what we love, what we read about and do every day.
The online markerting space is developing at a rapid pace and there are many traditional agencies who, frankly do not have a clue. A good example of this was when I was working in the corprate space and an agency came to see me to pitch their services. A couple of quick questions involving feeds, twitter and blogging soon established them to be pretenders. The final straw came when I pointed out their news section on their homepage featured one item from 2005 (it was 2007 at the time).
Now I am not writing this to be arrogant or clever. It is to make a simple point. If you are using an agency or marketing consultant, they MUST understand the digital space.
This leads me nicely onto a very interesting report from one of my favourite companies, Sapient. If you have a few £100,000 for an online campaign, then these guys would be good to talk to
They have recently published a survey -
national online digital marketing survey of more than 200 chief marketing officers (CMOs) and senior marketers responsible for managing digital budgets (among other things).
Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future
1. Greater knowledge of the digital space. With more than a third of marketers surveyed revealing that they are not confident that their current agency is well-positioned to take their brand through the unchartered waters of online digital marketing and interactive advertising, it’s clear that agencies need to have a greater knowledge of the digital space in order to thrive. In fact, nearly half (45 percent) of the respondents have switched agencies (or plan to switch in the next 12 months) for one with greater digital knowledge or have hired an additional digital specialist to handle their interactive campaigns. Further, when it comes to an agency’s area of expertise, 79% of respondents rated “interactive/digital” functions as ‘important/very important.’
2. More use of “pull interactions.” When trying to engage consumers with their brand, 90 percent of respondents agree that it is becoming increasingly important that their agency uses ‘pull interactions’ such as social media and online communities rather than traditional ‘push’ campaigns.
3. Leverage virtual communities. An overwhelming 94 percent of respondents expressed interest in leveraging virtual communities (public and private) to understand more about their target audience.
4. Agency executives using the technology they are recommending. Ninety-two percent of respondents said it was ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ important that agency employees use the technologies that they are recommending. For example, it is important that agency executives regularly use Facebook, Flickr, wikis, blogs, etc. in their personal social media mix.
5. Chief Digital Officers make agencies more appealing. Forty-three percent of marketers surveyed said that agencies with chief digital officers are more appealing than those without.
6. Web 2.0 and social media savvy. Sixty three percent of marketers surveyed said that an agency’s Web 2.0 and social media capabilities are ‘important/very important’ when it comes to agency selection.
7. Agencies that understand consumer behavior. Seventy-six percent of respondents deemed this as an ‘important/very important’ aspect of their agency’s online digital marketing and interactive advertising area of expertise.
8. Demonstrate strategic thinking. Seventy-seven percent of marketers surveyed ranked strategy/brain trust capabilities at the top of their agency wish list.
9. Branding and creative capabilities. Sixty-seven percent of respondents ranked branding at the top of their agency wish list while seventy-six percent ranked creative capabilities as ‘important/very important.’
10. Ability to measure success. It’s no surprise that marketers want an agency that can report on where campaigns succeeded, fell short and where they should be fine-tuned. Sixty-five percent ranked analytics at the top of their agency wish list.
Jon’s Thoughts
These results do not surprise me in the least. The online or digital channel is becoming more and more important. The clients that I am working with are starting to realise this and we have been having some real successes, for example:
A YouTube channel which has attracted 25,000 + views
An email campaign with consistent 40%+ open rates on a list of around 1000
A mini 10 day course, all online, which is getting superb sign ups and amazing feedback
These are just small examples of what can be done. Your imagination is the only thing holding you back! Companies do however, need to get the simple stuff right first, and then start doing bigger projects. Unfortnately, most companies have still got those simple things to do. Just do them quickly.
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Superb Experience Marketing from method
Superb Experience Marketing from method, originally uploaded by JonnyMoss.
method is one if my fave brands. Top quality products with design not an afterthought, plus environmentally friendly.
Check out their latest blog post here - they created some little parks in parking spaces to highlight the need for green spaces in the urban jungles. Great fun and a great idea.
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New Adobe Photoshop CS4 Branding
Adobe have just announced their new Creative Suite Products and have significantly changed the branding / design, and I think it looks superb - really clean and modern.
I’m a firm believer that packaging can make a huge difference to the experience you can have and of course people’s perception. If you are a packaging lover, then do check out The Dieline, a superb blog with great photos of cool packaging.
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Reverie is here
Reverie, the short film shot on a new 5D Mark II, by Vincent Laforet is now up on the Canon site - you can get the link from his blog here >> click. It really is stunning and is total proof that the game of filmaking has changed overnight.
The making of the film is available here too and is just as good, but not shot on the 5D Mk 2.
Laforet’s 5D Mk II Video is coming
The Canon 5D Mk II is BIG news at the moment. Vincent Laforet had one of the very first examples and Canon allowed him to shoot a video using the new 1080P HD filming over 3 days.
He’s just announced that he is going to be releasing the video he shot with the 5D MkII on his blog in the next 12 hours! There is also a behinds the scene film which was made and here’s a sneak preview from Vincent…
It is really starting to look like a revolution in photographer and I am sure there are many, many people drooling over this!
habari - new blogging platform
habari looks interesting. I don’t think it is going to rival Wordpress just yet, but it’s new, getting a little press and perhaps offers users a choice when they are starting a blog.
Habari is different
While there are a number of technical reasons that highlight the differences and advantages Habari has over other blogging packages, a major component of what makes Habari different is its community participation model. Users who demonstrate a level of quality contributions to the project are granted more privileges within the project.
I’m going to keep an eye on this one and see how it develops.
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5D Mk II will change the industry
Vincent Laforet, one of my favourite photograohers got his hands on a 5D MkII Prototype and has been completely blown away.
Here is the story behind the short video that I produced with what I believe to be a “game changer”of a camera for the following reasons:
1. The 5D MKII camera produces the best stills in low light that I’ve ever seen - what you can see with you eye in the worst light (such as sodium-vapor street lights at 3 a.m. in Brooklyn) - this camera can capture it with ease.
2. It produces the best video in low light that I’ve ever seen - at 1080p. A top commercial film editor who who regularly edits RED camera footage - and has seen the raw footage from the 5D MKII - says the 5D MKII is “far superior to the RED camera” in terms of low light performance…
3. You can use your prime and zoom lenses from your Canon still cameras with it - and shoot wide open… so you can shoot films with fisheye lenses, 50mm 1.2 as well as the 200mm f2 or 400mm 2.8 that you may already own…
4. This camera is so easy to use - that you can work incredibly quickly, mostly handheld - without a huge production - and using natural light - ergo you don’t need a huge budget and tons of preparation anymore… forget the lighting trucks and generators that take up entire city blocks…
5. This camera will sell for approx. $2,700 - and perform better than many $100K plus video cameras out there…
6. Photojournalists in particular - will be able to take full advantage of this camera’s strengths - because they are used to walking into any room, and finding the best natural “available light” in the room - or knowing how to add a single light source to make it pop… they are used to working quickly and with small or no budgets… which is something this camera is begging you to do…
It has the potential to change our industry.
I am really looking forward to seeing the footage he shot. This is starting to look like a camera I am interested in. I shoot a little bit of video for clients, (only for podcasts, YouTube etc), but if it’s this good, has an external mic input and also has fantastic low light ability, my current 5D is going to be for sale soon.
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BBC News- You may like to read this...
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