Category Archives: Social Media

Social Engineering on Social Media

10 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by in Security, Social Media

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Opening my social feeds this morning for a quick browse over a cup of coffee and some toast, it doesn’t take long of scrolling down to find a post asking “What was the first car you owned? No Lying <laughing emoji>”. This post has 61k likes, 959k Comments and 8.4k shares and was only posted on 9th August. And people wonder why they get hacked.

Password systems for a long time have used a similar set of questions as they are usually easy to answer and remember, because they were life events. Questions such as:

  • What is your mother’s maiden name?
  • What is the name of your first pet?
  • What was your first car?
  • What elementary school did you attend?
  • What is the name of the town where you were born?

These types of social engineering data gathering posts are nothing new, but it would seem that people do not understand the greater risks around answering them.

With the large amount of data appearing on the dark web for usernames and a persons details (even if they don’t contain passwords) matching this data with the answers from social posts such as the one above gives a potential hacker more information about you. They now have the ability to reset your password using the answers you have provided to the security questions and take control of your accounts.

How many of you reading this post have answered the question similar to “What elementary school did you attend” or anything to do with education, but forgot that the same information is already lurking in your LinkedIn profile?

One way to check if your in any data on the dark web is to check using your email address at a service such as https://haveibeenpwned.com/

If you see a family member or friend post these types of questions on social media, it may be worth a conversation with them to advise of the dangers of such posts and the consequences of social engineering.

Tips to stay safe

Here are some tips for staying safe with your identity.

  • Don’t answer these types of posts on social media, even if its a friend who has posted it.
  • Check your not using an answer to a security question that is already in your social profile.
  • Use fictitious information instead of real information, but something you can remember.
  • Treat these answers like passwords and think about adding complexity to them.
  • Use two factor authentication where it is available on a system.

Further Reading

Thinking of Blogging?

06 Tuesday Oct 2020

Posted by in 21st Century Human, Social Media

≈ 3 Comments

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I first wrote about starting a blog and what you need to do a couple of years ago. I am re publishing this as I have recently been asked about this topic, so thought I would bring my advice up to my latest thinking.

Blogging is not always a natural thing for people to do. “To Blog or Not to Blog!” that is the question you need to ask yourself. Should you pick up the mantle and start to write?

Blogging is a medium that has formed a bit part of the internet and in more recent times allowed a platform for the expression of the masses.

Whether you are reading them or publishing them, you will read blogs at some point. Your reading this one, so why not start one yourself.

One of the biggest issues with starting a blog is what content should you be writing about. Having an idea about what your blog is going to be about is the first step. Its not always easy to come up with topics. I have always found great inspiration from “Watercooler Conversations” which don’t always happen at the moment.

A blog is a great way of building your Social Media presence and identity, so the choice of topic and areas covered will play a big part in forming this. Here are some topic areas to help you:

  • Work based subject area
  • Re-enforce your learning areas by blogging about them
  • Hobby or interest

The main key points to blogging for me are:

  • Be Authentic
  • Be yourself
  • Don’t be afraid on posting that idea or thought
  • Don’t be afraid of posting different opinions
  • You learn things doing research for your blog posts
  • Post regularly
  • Blogging helps build your confidence
  • Blogging helps build an audience

The next stage is to choose where to host your blog. There are many different blogging platforms available that you can choose from. I have listed two Free Blogging Sites below, but there are many more that you can find using an internet search. There are already lots of reviews on which blogging site to choose and it really depends upon your needs. I’ll leave the choice down to you and your own research:

I myself have chosen WordPress as my blogging platform as it is well established and has a set a great features available on the free tier:

  • Sharing with Social platforms
  • Scheduling posts to be published at a later date
  • Good site usage statistics
  • Search indexing

When you publish a blog, you should use other social platforms such as Twitter, Linked-In and Facebook (to name a few) to share the post which will help build your audience. I do split how I use social media and where I publish to as I think it is important to keep some boundaries between personal and work based output. I cover how I do this in my post about a Personal Knowledge Management System.

Make sure you keep in mind to watch out for the Echo Chamber Effect to keep a balance on what you are communicating about.

Here are some other related posts that you may find relevant:

Your Digital Exhaust – The data we share

Digital Fit in 2018: Balancing the Noise

Digital Fit in 2018: Build up a Readership

Digital Mindset

Digital Fit in 2018: Start Blogging

Digital Fit in 2018: Get Social

A-Z of Digital – K is for Knowledge

A-Z of Digital – S is for Social

Your Digital Exhaust – The data we share

06 Wednesday May 2020

Posted by in Connected Home, Data, Security, Social Media

≈ 2 Comments

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Dont say a wordEveryone who uses a computer or mobile creates their own digital exhaust in the form of data that we leave behind and spew out of our devices – from location data to social media posts and videos. Other things we own such as cars and houses are also generating data from SatNavs to Smart Meters.

If we could measure individual volume of data and information against todays climate change measures and visualise it, we would probably call it an ecological disaster on a person by person scale, however we go about our daily lives creating data with and without knowing it.

To be clear creating data does have a climate effect as there are systems behind what we create and they all need power, cooling etc. However, putting any talk to the side around the ecological effects of this as there is enough said already about climate and climate change and focusing on the data itself.

At the beginning of 2020, the digital universe was estimated to consist of 44 zettabytes of data, which is 44 trillion gigabytes and growing. That’s a lot of data!

We go about generating data without knowing or thinking until a news article catches our attention about something someone said many years ago. Recent times have seen an almost doubling of the use of the internet. This in turn increases the amount of data being created as people discover ways to help elivate lockdown with video calls to new dances on TikTok.

To put this into perspective a bit, with a trolley full of phones you can create a virtual traffic jam, but dont try that at home. This example illustrates the data being generated from a device and how others are using it, in this case to look at traffic patterns

In this increase of posts and data about people across the many different platforms available, are you stopping to think about what your posting?  We go about generating data without thinking until a news article catches our attention about something someone said many years ago that has been found on a social platform somewhere.

Sci-Fi moment alert! – Having watched an episode of “The Orville” by Seth MacFarlane called “Lasting Impressions” where the crew of the Orville open a Time Capsule and recreate someones life in a holodeck using just the data from a iPhone (after accessing a video on the phone where the person who’s phone it is, gives their consent for the data to be used in the future) and recreate and interact with the phones original owner. This provides the crew with a view into that persons life and what they were like.

Have you through about what would happen to your data in the future?

This concept can easily be recreated today and there are TV programs that investigate and look at people to check who they really are (Catfish the TV show). Its easy to see how people leave a trail of digital evidence and clues from what they post and are not secure on what they do or think about what they post.

Here are some good tips to help secure your online presence:

Privacy and security settings exist for a reason: Learn about and use the privacy and security settings on social networks. They are there to help you control who sees what you post and manage your online experience in a positive way.

Once posted, always posted: Protect your reputation on social networks. What you post online stays online. Think twice before posting pictures you wouldn’t want your parents or future employers to see. Recent research found that 70 percent of job recruiters rejected candidates based on information they found online.

Your online reputation can be a good thing: Recent research also found that recruiters respond to a strong, positive personal brand online. So show your smarts, thoughtfulness and mastery of the environment.

Keep personal info personal: Be cautious about how much personal information you provide on social networking sites. The more information you post, the easier it may be for a hacker or someone else to use that information to steal your identity, access your data or commit other crimes such as stalking.

Know and manage your friends: Social networks can be used for a variety of purposes. Some of the fun is creating a large pool of friends from many aspects of your life. That doesn’t mean all friends are created equal. Use tools to manage the information you share with friends in different groups or even have multiple online pages. If you’re trying to create a public persona as a blogger or expert, create an open profile or a “fan” page that encourages broad participation and limits personal information. Use your personal profile to keep your real friends (the ones you know and trust) up to date with your daily life.

Be honest if you’re uncomfortable: If a friend posts something about you that makes you uncomfortable or seems inappropriate, let them know. Likewise, stay open minded if a friend approaches you because something you’ve posted makes him or her uncomfortable. People have different tolerances for how much the world knows about them respect those differences.

Know what action to take: If someone is harassing or threatening you, remove them from your friends list, block them and report them to the site administrator.

Keep security software current: Having the latest security software, web browser and operating system is the best defense against viruses, malware and other online threats.

Own your online presence: When applicable, set the privacy and security settings on websites to your comfort level for information sharing. It’s OK to limit how and with whom you share information.

Source: https://staysafeonline.org/stay-safe-online/securing-key-accounts-devices/social-media/

Additional tips are available at this source.

Further Reading

Tips on being Social Media Savvy

Personal Knowledge Management System – Revised for 2020

02 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by in Digital, Productivity, Social Media, Tools

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As the new year has begun, its time to review my Personal Knowledge Management System (PKMS) on how I consume information and knowledge, I have blogged about this before and have updated for 2020.

I still split and keep apart my personal and professional lives on Social Media, although occasionally they may cross where appropriate.

Since the last time I wrote about this the amount of information and data that is available has grown and multiplied on a huge scale. Keeping track of what you need to drink from the fast flow of the firehose of information is itself something that needs managing. This is why I have set up my feeds in the manner illustrated below.

PKMS

Personal Life

Personal Journal

Journalling in both a Personal and Work life is a useful tool to keep notes on your thoughts and ideas. In my personal life I still opt for recording these in a Moleskine – See my blog post No batteries required for further details. I find the Moleskine a great notebook to use and the pocket version a good size to use.

Social Media

I separate from my work life from my personal life using things like Instagram and Facebook for friends and family with appropriate security settings in place. Even with those settings you still need to consider that once something is online, it could be public in the future. Wikipedia lists 186 Social Media Websites and this list is out of date. I choose a few mainstream that I am comfortable with. 2020 may see me have a look at some of the others to see if there is any benefit or other data I am missing.

Professional Life

Research

This is split into several areas and these are a few of the inputs that I use to grab information, feeds, data from:

  • Podcasts
  • Audio subscriptions
  • Videos
  • RSS Feeds
  • Web Searches
  • Blog Posts

Podcasts cover both Audio and Video casts that I watch/stream online or download to my Media Player (Audio and Videos) to listen to on journeys (Audio). The mobile is a great device for using as a media player across these casts.

Flipboard

Flipboard provides another stream of data that I consume bringing in news feeds from many sources around a series of topics. It does work well on a mobile device allowing you to flip the pages through the articles.

Feedly

Feedly provides an aggregation tool which I use to collect the stories from blogs and web sites I regularly pull information from.  This provides a list of stories that can be scanned tin a few minutes on a single screen without going via multiple sites. Clicking on a story will bring up a snippet from the source site and provide the link to read the source article if required. Using a series of key strokes you can read the headlines, then move down the articles at a reasonable speed, stopping and opening when needed.

Sources can be categorised to allow an all view or just whats new in a category.

IFTTT

IFTTT (If This Then That) provides a level of automation to my lists from saving articles to creating alerts on topics and triggering different actions as needed to my devices. I would like to automate more of this PKMS to bring the information I need, but it can also help to scan other information to help innovate and see other points of views.

Thinking / Learning Time

This is where view the data streams through the tools and assimilate and think about what has been reported/said. I also use this time to learn and take courses.

Courses

Coursera is a great site to used, but there are lots of others from Industry and Vendors to open learning sites that I use as needed. Relative exams and certificates are then added to my LinkedIn pages.

Blogging and Being Social

From thoughts and research I will write about things through my blogs and publish these into Social Media streams such as Twitter and Linkedin.

I have also been producing a few podcast episodes with other technologists and will look to do some more in 2020.

I have been using GitHub to mainly support some courses but its there as an option to publish data and code in the future.

Do you have a Personal Knowledge Management System or using tools not mentioned above?

Digital Fit in 2018: Balancing the Noise

13 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by in Digital, DigitalFit, Social Media, Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

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Sound DeskListening is one of the key skills in life and it is also the same across the various information streams, however you can get flooded with “noise” that you need to filter out to get to the messages and content that you want to hear about.

I have written in the past about a Personal Knowledge Management System that can be used to help filter out noise and focus on the streams and information that is relevant to yourself.

We have many forms of information streams that can be tapped into such as email and social media platforms. It can take time to keep looking at each stream in turn and scrolling through the history. Many of the streams change at a very fast rate – for example how many people you follow on twitter and who you follow can make a difference. If your following a bot that basically picks up other tweets about a subject and re-tweets them you will be picking up a lot of traffic from many accounts.  This can be to coin and old phrase “drinking from the firehose”. You are only able to take in so much information.

Top 4 tips for Balancing the Noise:

  • Manage who you follow. If they get too noisy about things that you don’t want to know about you can unfollow them (and re follow them later)
  • Be wary of following too many bots as they can fill your streams quickly.
  • Think about using tools such as feedly to bring some streams together for viewing in a list.
  • Set up your own Personal Knowledge Management System

Further Reading:

Digital Mindset

Digital Fit in 2018: Start Blogging

Digital Fit in 2018: Get Social

Digital Fit in 2018: Build up a Readership

A-Z of Digital – K is for Knowledge

A-Z of Digital – S is for Social

 

Digital Fit in 2018: Build up a Readership

25 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by in Digital, DigitalFit, Social Media, Tools

≈ 7 Comments

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binocularsIf you have been following this series of blog posts, you should now have a blog and a set of social channels. That’s a great start, however how do you get noticed? How to you get a readership? How can you increase your Digital Profile? These are questions that I was asked yesterday following my last post. Here are my thoughts on this topic.

Have you ever Googled yourself? (other search engines are available). Did you appear in any of the search results or not? Did you check the images as well?

If you already have a presence in a blog or social channels the chances are that the search engine has found one of these – unless you have a name that competes with someone with a stronger profile, where if you go through the results you should be there.  If you do not have any social presence its most likely you will not feature in the results.

Looking yourself up on a search engine is also a good way of checking any security or privacy settings you have on your social platforms. Have you opened up enough for the search engines to find you, or have you exposed too much and need to dial it back a bit.

There isn’t a super magic sauce for building a readership and some of it will happen over time, however there are a number of things you can do to get started.

The content you post is only half of the story. People will often like to click through if the content is good to find out who has written it. Having a profile will help the reader understand who you are and your background.

Lets break this down into two main headings. Profile and Content.

Profile

Blog Profile

In most blogging platforms you can set your profile within your account. It is important to ensure that you have a good profile picture in place as well. Search engines love profile data as it tells them who has written the blog. Make sure you set the metadata on the picture as well. Name, Description, and Keywords which search engine pick up on.

Blog About

Setting your About page to a good description of yourself. Think about using other sites such as about.me Here is my profile as an example – https://about.me/maxhemingway. You will see that it links back to my blog, twitter and other sites. You can also set these on your blog site using icons to link back to other pages.

 

Social Channel Profiles

Again it is important to set your profile and picture. Keep consistency in your profile information, although an alternative profile picture can be used.

At the end of this you will end up with a small web of interlinks between your sites.

Content

Searchable Subjects – Blogs

Your subject and content are key in order to gain a readership. This will be down to what subjects you blog on, however using tags and keyword functions in your blog can also help search engines find your content. There are lots of search engines in use today and each has its quirks on how it ranks results and collects data, however using the standard features in your blog for Categories and Tags can help search engines. It also helps group content you write on your site and makes any local site searching using the blog search engine easy.

Posting regular content also helps build a readership and following.

Broadcasting content

When you write a blog or post something in a social channel you can link between the channels so one post can automatically be posted in other channels. For instance, when I post a blog, it also gets broadcast out on Twitter, Google + and LinkedIn using the Sharing function. You can link to a number of other channels as well.

Once a reader finds your blog post, they can have a look at the other content on your site. If its good, you can build a set of followers.

Timing

The time that you publish your blog or tweets can also have an effect on your readership levels due to different time zones around the world. I find that publishing after GMT 14:00 is usually a good time, but this may differ depending upon your own timezone and your target audience.

Headlines

Popular Press has mastered this art and provides its reader with a catchy headline to its stories. You need to think about the message your headine or tweet is trying to convey. Will it attract the readers you want, or is it not quite on message. Short snappy headlines pull in the readers.

Social Channels

Social channels can provide a readership and following for your content. For example Twitter uses hashtags which are searchable via twitter and let you view tweets of a similar hashtag. Love them or hate them, the hashtag is a useful tool in building your readership.

Following the followers

You don’t have to follow lots of people to get a good following, however if people are following you, its because they like the subject you are communicating. They may have similar views or posts, so following them back may help you with research into your next post.

The important part to remember (as mentioned in my last blog post) is that social platforms are relational not transactional. Following people in your field/subject also shows your readers that you are interested in your topic and the views of others.

Re-tweeted

Having good content and messages that are re-tweeted or re-blogged by someone else introduces your post to a different circles of followers. This only happens though if people consider your content and messages to be relevant to their followers and readership.

Talk

When your in conversation and a subject comes up that you have blogged about, tell people you have a point of view on that as reference your work. Send out links to people so they can find it easily.

Guest Write

Consider guest writing for a blog or channel as they often provider a link back to the authors blog/twitter. This usually needs you to be established with some good content in the first place before being accepted as a guest writer.

Lastly, time is a factor. It does take time to build up your content, build followers and getting the search engines to list you in the results, however once you start getting noticed, your readership does go up.

Try searching for yourself in a couple of weeks again. Any change?

 

Further Reading:

Digital Mindset

Digital Fit in 2018: Start Blogging

Digital Fit in 2018: Get Social

A-Z of Digital – K is for Knowledge

A-Z of Digital – S is for Social

 

Digital Fit in 2018: Get Social

24 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Digital, DigitalFit, Social Media, Tools

≈ 6 Comments

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SocialFollowing on my series on Digital Fit in 2018, being social is an important part of building your Digital Profile. There are two main things which spring to mind when you mention the word social. Going out with family and friends, and using tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc.

In this post I mean the latter. Using these social tools to gain an understanding of what is going on in the world, industry and your focus areas, as well as using the platforms to broadcast your own views and opinions.

There are groupings of favorable social tools which depend upon your age range and have become the defacto tools you use. For some its Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. For others its Snapchat, Flickr, YouTube, Pintrest. There are many different combinations and its mainly down to what we have been comfortable with for a period of time.

There are many different social platforms available and some are more mainstream than others. Some are new and some have fallen out of favour with people and usage has decreased on them. Which ever platforms you use will be down to how you want to evolve your usage of them.

Social tools provide an abundance of information that you can consume real time and through historical views. Choosing what to view will be down to personal preference.

Using the social tools as a broadcast channel is a good method to getting your voice heard on subjects that you want to discuss. It will take time to build a following or readership so don’t be put off by this or the fact that people may follow then unfollow depending if your messages are useful to them. The main thing is to keep up a regular drumbeat of postings or tweets, even if its once a week.

It is important to remember that social platforms are relational not transactional – understanding your audience is key.

Here are some tips to help you:

  • Check your messages before posting
  • Respond to comments
  • Give credit
  • Pick who you follow and regularly check to see you have
  • See who is following you – Are your messages pulling in the right audience – do you need to change anything
  • Don’t over hashtag your posts

Here are my top 5 tips on being Social Media Savvy

Social Channels – Choose the channels that you want to use and look at the audience on those channels. They type of things being posted. Split your channels between personal and professional work.

Listen, Research, Listen Again – Listening to what is going on in your channels is important to understand the trends and topics being talked about.

Be Authentic And True – Be yourself – don’t try to be someone your not.

Keep It Regular and Relevant – Posting a couple of times a week is a good measure. Making sure that your posts are relevant to what you want to say and what your audience is looking for.  You could always automate your posts – e.g. writing some blog posts and having them published during the week via a scheduler.

Think Security – Would you want anyone outside your friends network seeing that post? Eventually your post could be public as once something is posted you don’t have control on what other people can do with it.

Source: A-Z of Digital – S is for Social

Further Reading:

Digital Mindset

Digital Fit in 2018: Start Blogging

A-Z of Digital – K is for Knowledge

A-Z of Digital – S is for Social

Digital Fit in 2018: Start Blogging

02 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Digital, DigitalFit, Social Media, Tools

≈ 7 Comments

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Blog TilesThis is the first in a series of posts I will be doing in 2018 about getting Digital Fit. By this I mean achieving the right Digital Mindset for your current or future role and honing your skills to meet the demands of the Digital Era.

There is no single course or video that can achieve this goal, however there are many that can help you along the journey.

“To Blog or Not to Blog!”, Blogging isn’t for everyone and may not come naturally, however it plays a big part in the Digital Era, whether you are reading them or publishing them, you will read blogs at some point. Your reading this one!

One of the biggest issues with starting a blog is what content should you be writing about. Having an idea about what your blog is going to be about is the first step. Here are some ideas:

  • Work based subject area
  • Re-enforce your learning areas by blogging about them
  • Hobby or interest

The main key points to blogging for me are:

  • Be Authentic
  • Be yourself
  • Don’t be afraid on posting that idea or thought
  • Don’t be afraid of posting different opinions
  • You learn things doing research for your blog posts
  • Post regularly
  • Blogging helps build your confidence
  • Blogging helps build an audience

The next stage is to choose where to host your blog. There are many different blogging platforms available that you can choose from. I have listed two Free Blogging Sites below, but there are many more that you can find using an internet search. There are already lots of reviews on which blogging site to choose and it really depends upon your needs. I’ll leave the choice down to you and your own research:

I myself have chosen WordPress* as my blogging platform as it is well established and has a set a great features available on the free tier:

  • Sharing with Social platforms
  • Scheduling posts to be published at a later date
  • Good site usage statistics
  • Search indexing

 

When you publish a blog, you should use other social platforms such as Twitter, Linked-In and Facebook (to name a few) to share the post which will help build your audience.

References

 

(*I am not affiliated with WordPress or receiving any kick back from this post from them)

 

Having the Right Digital Mindset

04 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Human, Digital, Innovation, Mindset, Productivity, Social Media

≈ 18 Comments

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Digital BrainDigital is used as a title to cover the current business and computing era. Being Digital is about having the right mindset. There is no magic course or exam that you can take that will pronounce you as being “Digital”. Its how you apply yourself against the changing landscape of business and technology.

There area many areas that could be included to help shape your Digital Mindset, however for me these fit into six main areas:

The Digital Era is enabling “A Growth Mindset in the Age of Abundance”.

Business

The business area covers the skills and thinking that are needed in your workplace and what you need to succeed. Businesses are being constantly challenged in the way that they operate today and look forward to tomorrow against what their customers demand, the market wants and competition are doing.

There may be a number of business processes that are in place that have been there for a while and are expensive to change constrained by a number of factors. This has meant that the processes haven’t grown. The changes that the digital era is bringing helps to remove these constraints and costs, allowing business to rethink how they achieve these processes. With the constraints being removed through innovation and advancements, with costs coming down, how can you change/transform these processes to meet the market challenges of today. What can you change/transform/automate?

Technology

The technology area covers existing, new and emerging technologies in your life. What you use in everyday life and what you could use or imagine that would help you complete tasks and achieve goals quickly and efficiently. Defining which technologies you should be using and learning will depend partly on what your job role is and the road maps and trends for the industry/sector. The aaS (as a Service)  economy is providing the ability to consume technology at a faster easier route with an abundance of choice of service to go with. The need for a growth mindset is key to navigating a direction and path through this and making decisions on which technologies best meet your needs. The key is to understand and keep up with the trends and technologies.

Social

The social area covers how you interact with the rest of the world, including your work and family life. Reading everything that is going on Social Media is literally “drinking from the fire hose” – so much happening you can get easily swamped with noise.  Building a Personal Knowledge Management System is one way of keeping in touch with what is happening and trending on topics that you are interested in on Social Media. Setting yourself a series of Social Media Rules will help define when and what you should put in the public domain and when not to.

Personal

The personal area covers yourself. Ensuring that your health is good and you are living life to the full or best you can helps. Eating well and keeping fit help keep the mind fresh and positive.

Understanding that change is happening everyday and we need to embrace this with a positive attitude and work through the ambiguity that it presents. A blog post by Richard Branson recently wraps this up nicely “You can’t control what happens to you but you can control how you react”

Fear of failure is another area that often lets us down and stops us from trying things, however we can learn from our mistakes so it is important to experiment and innovate. Doing small things and trying them – Theory of small bets – allows you to fail fast if things don’t work and keep any cost/consequences small. “Successful entrepreneurs don’t begin with brilliant ideas — they discover them.” ~ Peter Sims

Application

The application area covers how you apply these mindset areas into your everyday life using method that are well documented such as Agile and Design Thinking. The key is choosing the right method for the situation you are in. Using aids to help you may be one way of doing this – Playing a game with innovation and thinking.

Learning

One of the biggest areas is learning. Keeping your skills up to date with the latest advancements in all the areas above. You should be looking to do 50 to 60 hours learning a year as a minimum (some professions require higher number of hours). Learning is easier with the internet through online courses, videos and podcasts allowing it to be undertaken at anytime. Re-enforcing your learning through explaining it to someone else or blogging about it is part of  The Nature and Cycle of CPD.

There are arguments for and against learning to code, however having an understanding of what is going on in the coding world helps with today’s advancing technology.

 

Further Reading

Twenty First Century Digital

Having the Right Digital Mindset: Business (Change, Agility and a Growth Mindset)

** (Blog post updated with links to latest series of blogs on Having the Right Digital Mindset)

 

 

A-Z of Digital – S is for Social

10 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by in Digital, Social Media

≈ 10 Comments

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SocialFollowing on from my blog post outlining an A-Z of Digital, here is “S is for Social”.

Years ago people gathered in a market square to hear the latest news and gossip and meet in a tavern to hear the tales of friends and strangers from afar. Nowdays we just pick up our smartphones and have all that information at or fingertips.

Being a member of one of the many social tools available today is seen as the “norm”. The majority of people joining the well known social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, or one that’s less well known or used for specific purposes. We publish details of our lives online for all our friends and followers to see what we are up to or use the tools to help gather information and keep up to date.

Being social is not just around how you use the tools and what you communicate, but also what you don’t say and being Social Media Savvy on your communications. What ever is posted online even if its in a private group should be considered to be in the public domain as at some point someone could easily open that communication up outside of your group.

Here are my top 5 tips on being Social Media Savvy

Social Channels – Choose the channels that you want to use and look at the audience on those channels. They type of things being posted. Split your channels between personal and professional work.

Listen, Research, Listen Again – Listening to what is going on in your channels is important to understand the trends and topics being talked about.

Be Authentic And True – Be yourself – don’t try to be someone your not.

Keep It Regular and Relevant – Posting a couple of times a week is a good measure. Making sure that your posts are relevant to what you want to say and what your audience is looking for.  You could always automate your posts – e.g. writing some blog posts and having them published during the week via a scheduler.

Think Security – Would you want anyone outside your friends network seeing that post? Eventually your post could be public as once something is posted you don’t have control on what other people can do with it.