Euan Semple's Blog, page 38

Work conversations

It has always struck me as odd, and to be honest sad, how many people have said to me over the years “I never get to have conversations like this at work normally.”

Having grown up conversations at work about what really matters, rather than superficial ones about what doesn’t, is hard. It takes vulnerability and courage.

It’s a bit like writing. We get so hung up, as a result of our schooling, about how we “should” be writing that we end up either not writing, or worse, writing but saying nothing.

The same happens with work conversations. We get so hung up about how we “should” behave, what is businesslike, that we end up saying nothing or talking management bullocks.

It’s a shame…

The burden of technology

So much time and energy in business is used up faffing around with technology.

Tinkering with formatting in Word…

Building massive PowerPoint presentations for half a dozen words…

Working out where you’ve put it…

Deciding where and how to share it…

Working out whether you’re in Google’s world or Microsoft’s…

Remembering where you were last having a discussion about it…

Working out which of the many versions of the document is the agreed one…

…and all of this instead of talking to each other…

The horror, the horror…

When I am logged in to YouTube I see my subscriptions to channels about campervans, tech and Zen.

I just had to log out and back in to do something and caught a glimpse of what a pile of shit is being pumped at people who do t so any filtering!

The horror, the horror…

The Sopranos

OK, so I am the last person to realise how great The Sopranos is. But it is.

So much great acting, especially James Gandolfini, clever, clever writing, and the best opening sequence ever which makes me homesick for New York every time I watch it.

Last night was the episode in which they go to Naples. Worth watching again immediately with all the depth around women, marriage, sexuality, power… so much to unpack.

Fabulous.

Not sure what I’ve done to earn his disapproval…

Bad algorithm day?

OK having had LinkedIn suggest Boris Johnson as a friend Amazon is now suggesting I might need one of these!!

Love this bit of snark from Ton

1 Simple SEO Step To Put Your Site In The Web’s Top Percentile – Interdependent Thoughts
— Read on www.zylstra.org/blog/2022/02/1-simple-seo-step-to-put-your-site-in-the-webs-top-percentile/

Linkedin

There is so much about Linkedin that is really badly done and I have for a long time had the theory that it has been coded by a couple of sugar fuelled teenagers just for a giggle.

If I ever needed proof just look at what the algorithm threw up this morning!

Blogging

I am enjoying focusing on my blogging rather than social media and really appreciate those of you who have subscribed and comment on the blog.

I have continued reposting blog posts into Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn but doing so still draws me onto those platforms, just to peek, just to see if anyone has liked my posts, it’s insidious.

I read a post the other day about how blogging, having been largely superseded by the social networks, is seeing more people come back to it as I have and that there is a chance, a slim chance, of rebuilding some of what we had before we became the product.

Who knows, but it feels worth a try.

Shifting priorities

I suppose when I was young I was a bit of a petrol head. Through spending time with Dad, who always worked on his own cars and motorbikes, I was pretty handy at getting a spanner out and having a go at fixing them. (Anyone else remember using a wire brush to clean and attempt to revive spark plugs?)

But this hasn’t been the case for years. I have lost interest and the engines in most cars these days are a black box that even mechanics need a computer to diagnose.

So, to today.

We’ve ended up with two Hyundai i10s. We don’t need two so we are selling one. We are selling the one with the bigger engine, that looks smarter, that has comfier trim, that is in many ways the better car – all because the other one has Apple Car Play. This was a collective family decision. So long as the thing keeps moving and doesn’t need much maintenance the most important thing is ease of access to maps, music, podcasts and audio books.

Not something I could ever have imagined as a teenager pinned under my ageing Simca with rust dropping in my eyes and mouth after I’d banged my head on the exhaust…