But not just anything twitter related, I decided to talk specifically about the nature of the tweets in the Cardiff area. Being a geek (I’m allowed to call myself that) I wrote a little script to catch all the Tweets within a given radius from the center of Cardiff and analyse them periodically for certain words, emoticons and so on.

I left this running for a few weeks, then went back to prepare my presentation:

If you want to be involved in Ignite Norwich, please email me and say hello.

I stumbled across an article today highlighting “14 telling signs that you love your job”. So I thought I’d put together my thoughts on work place happiness.

I left my last job because I lost that drive and passion. Shortly after leaving I received an email from an old colleague saying he had read a blog post I’d written about how I felt and why I left, and handed in his notice to move on to pastures new. Very humbling to say the least. I’ll always have the mindset that if I’m not enhancing my career, reaching my personal goals, then I will make things change.

If I can make just one person change their attitude towards work, then I’m happy.

Do you love your job?

I think it’s Reed Recruitment who use the phrase “Love Mondays”. And they’re right. You’ve no reason not to love Mondays. It’s the start of the week, a fresh start if you’ve had a pretty rubbish week just before.

Do you wake up on a Monday excited about what’s in store for the week to come? Or do you feel flat, deflated, wishing it was 5pm Friday again so you can put your feet up and forget about work? Personally, I love Mondays. It’s the start of 5 days when I can get stuck in to work. The nature of my job, this normally means having the opportunity to try something new, make something new, something exciting, and ultimately, something that will be used either internally by the team, or by tens of thousands of people on our website. Either way, there is scope for the week to have some real excitement. As I mentioned earlier, if I didn’t get paid to do this, I’d be doing it in my spare time anyway, so it’s a win win situation.

I often talk to people who just don’t like work. Point blank, they will say they hate it. Granted, unfortunately, work isn’t an option for the majority of us, it’s a necessity. We have to work, to pay the bills, to pay for the luxuries in life that we all crave. But there is an option of where you work, and what you do. You make your own decisions in life.

A friend of mine today shared a link from the Guardian website. I’ll be honest, I don’t normally read huge articles in the news, I have a very short attention span when it comes to reading, however, this one caught my eye (Click here to read the whole story). Long story short, the article is written by someone called James Rhodes, and talks about reasons why you should pursue your dreams. To quote James, “Find what you love and let it kill you“. James goes on to discuss how he gave up his career, his income, his marriage and his health to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a concert pianist. The theory being you only live once, and you might as well do something you are passionate about, and that you enjoy. It’s well worth a read, if not for the article content then just to watch the videos of him playing the piano.

If you think of people such as Jeff Buckley, or Nick Drake, people with a passion and urge to succeed in the things they love, it rings all too loudly; “Life is too short to have regrets”. 

Don’t ever be afraid of change. You deserve the right to be happy at work. See yourself as an asset to your employer, they are paying for your service, for your time and effort. If you don’t feel like you’re giving 100%, and that  you’d rather be somewhere else, then maybe, just maybe, it’s time to take that leap.

It soon became apparent that the companies we currently work with are offering so much more than we thought. Within a few words, we’d established that, for the money we invest, we’re really getting far less from the service than we should do. As we walked from Stall to Stall, it got me thinking about why this was happening.

We are in 2013 now. A time when technology (pretty much) rules our lives. Not a day goes by where we don’t interact with technology on some level.

Try as you might to deny this, even the smallest of things, turning on your TV for example, throws you in to a huge array of technological advances, all manageable via the press of a button. Technology is everywhere. It’s easy to sometimes overlook how vast technology has become. You could say that we take it for granted, that we become complacent. Your TV is (probably) no longer just a TV. Chances are you can get interactive services, online streaming of the TV shows you missed and so on. You bought your TV to be just that, a TV.

Have you checked its additional features recently to see if they’ve changed, or if they need an update? Probably not. It’s just there, in the corner, showing you pictures.

When signing up to a service for your Business, do you consider what they could offer you? Of course, you know that the service they offer now will fulfill your short term needs, or you wouldn’t be working with them. But what about the future, keeping up with technology. If their reputable, they’ll be keeping on top of technology and striving to make things better, for us as the client, and for them as a business. But how do you know about these changes and advances, you’re busy with other stuff, right?

Well, personally, I don’t think you should ever be too busy to keep up with technology. Especially if it’s your field of business. Even more so if it’s technology that you, or your company, have invested in.
It’s of paramount importance that you keep in touch with the providers. Maintain a good, ethical, pro-active Business to Business relationship with these providers. Not only to ensure that you both understand needs and requirements, but so you can discuss key business elements. You might be planning a major upgrade to your systems, they might be able to help, or at least, offer advice from people they have worked with previously.

What can you do?

The relationship doesn’t (and shouldn’t) stop with the signing of a contract and the handing over of payment…….

1. Establish a point of contact  - someone you can arrange a chat with, who is open to discussion. The majority of companies will offer Account Managers. People who know the services, and understand the importance of getting things right for the client.
2. Be grateful. When something works, and works well, go out of your way to say thanks. Treat your business relationships as if they were your colleagues. 
3. Be Proactive. Don’t ever hesitate in picking up the phone to discuss something with your Account Manager. It’s not always money-related, good advice can be free too.
4. Schedule in meetings, even if there is nothing really on the agenda. Quarterly, would be fine. Get cakes, nice coffee, and just talk. Share your experiences, good or bad, about the service you purchased, and learn whats going on in their world.
5. Avoid being the enemy. Try not to burn your bridges when things go wrong. You’ve paid your money for the business service, keep it calm, friendly, and push for a quick resolution.

I guess what I’m getting at here…… be proactive with your Business to Business relationships. Be keen and eager to keep in touch with what the companies, your colleagues, are doing.

Don’t assume that the relationship stops when you start working with them. That is, literally, just the beginning.

“You can have mine!”

That’s the generic response I’ve had from people when I’ve had this discussion with them. I miss clients.

A bold statement I know, but that’s the honest truth. They do actually make Project Management easier. In my previous job, I remember leaving the office, popping to the nearest watering hole and chewing away at the events of the day, before a mad rush for the train back home. You know, in between the beverages and games of Pool, the majority of time was spent talking about clients, situations, what’s happened, good or bad, and making the best of the days events.

People have a tendency to whinge about their clients, they’re the easy medium to vent frustrations through. But take a step back for a minute, and think about how much your clients help you get through the day, especially from a Project Managers view point.

On an average day, I can work on 5 or 6 different elements of the business. All at the drop of the hat. Those of you who have been in this situation will be fully aware of burnout, and the risk factors associated with the demands of switching from pillar to post without any prior planning or scheduling. Of course, there are times when this is unavoidable, but most of the time, it can be prevented.

How do clients help with Project Management?

Clients normally have a good idea of what they require, and come to you with a gaggle of requirements to start planning from. The other end of the spectrum to this is that the client doesn’t have much of a clue, but again, most of the time, they will then allow you to calculate and plan as required. At the end of the day, your time is their money.

However, if you remove the time = money equation and look at things from an internal project point of view, the whole scenario shifts. In fact, you could say the equation mirrors itself, indicating that the more time you take to work on something, the less money being generated (assuming you are working on profit earning tasks)……money = time.

It’s this paradigm that launches me in to “I MISS CLIENTS” mode, where I then spend my idle time trying to brainstorm ways and means of ensuring that I can easily switch between 5 or 6 elements of work and still ensure it’s carried out systematically and efficiently, effectively becoming Client, Project Manager and Developer under one hat. Is that possible?

Well, yes, but it’s like trying to juggle 10 balls whilst spinning plates, tightrope walking on a unicycle. I guess I thrive from that scenario sometimes, it’s the challenge and ultimately the pride and feeling of success when something is completed. But there is a reason why we have Project Management methodologies to adhere to, they’re not just created to fluff out the working day with Scrums and Planning meetings.

Most of the time it really isn’t just quicker to “Get on with it”, an attitude that internal projects often inherit.

99% of the time you’ll spend more time revisiting the scenario 6 months down the line, or even worse, within a few days when something has gone terribly wrong. By this time, you’re then under more pressure (and even more involved in the aforementioned paradigm of money = time)

You can have mine, then….

I guess it’s just my personal preference when it comes to Project Management, but the day-to-day enjoyment of customer meetings, planning, managing the clients expectation and the workload of the team is something that I really, really miss. The Project Manager to Client relationship is something that I thrive on, and something I want to get back in to my Career. You might have had enough of them, but when you no longer have them in your day-to-date life, you’ll realise just how amazing they were (honest!)

Just 60 seconds

• 20 New victims of Identify theft – That’s a staggering 1200 people being defrauded every hour.
• 320+ New Twitter Accounts – (#amazing); Nearly 20,000 new users an hour
• 3,000 Image uploads to Flickr
• 2 Million Google Search Queries
• 6 Million Facebook views

Take a look for yourself at the infographic below