Category Archives: General

On creating networking opportunities

General

Here’s a useful link if you’re a shy introvert.

Click-bait heading. With a heading like that, it’s bound to get some clicks.

I’ve tried some of the tips mentioned in the article. Sometimes they’ve backfired. Especially, if the other person is shy, or answers all of your conversation openers with a monosyllable.

Related links:

Networking for introverts

Personal Branding for Introverts

The power of introverts

Quora

Learnings:

My networking abilities depend on the format of the event. Some events are more difficult and closed. If you’re planning an event, think about how to encourage networking and interaction.

Creating and hosting my own event or speaking at an event has been a good way to network for me. When you’re the organizer, the host or the speaker, the networking part is different. People come up to you with questions, or you specifically need to follow up with them. Speaking in public about topics that I am passionate about has helped me a lot.

Listening carefully is important. You can do more research and then follow up at a later stage.

Doing something together, e.g. going on a photo-walk, or building a website, or going jogging together is an easier way to get to know someone. I have a common social object to talk about which makes interaction a lot easier. And in the meantime, I can discover if there’s more common ground.

Be yourself. Don’t worry if you fail at networking today. Learn from mistakes. Don’t give up. There will be better events ahead.

Maybe one solution is to avoid the term networking. I like this answer on Quora:

You don’t “network”, you meet people. Get out of the results-oriented mindset and enjoy the conversations.

Lost

General

I got very lost in the Küttigen-Rombach-Aarau area yesterday. Google Maps sent me to the wrong place. I missed the event.

It was raining. I gave up. And walked back to Aarau.

I found a nice place to recover called Tuchlaube.

Next time I’ll try Gossip:

On my way back to the station I found a nice book store to browse thru.

#POSSE: A clickable demo of my simple #indieweb blog

General, tech, tweet, wordpress

Here’s a simple example how you can publish your content on your own site and syndicate elsewhere (POSSE):

  1. I posted a boring flower snapshot into my self-hosted WordPress (WP) blog.
  2. WP posted the entry to Twitter using WP plugins Hum and Publicize
  3. One of my Twitter followers replied to my tweet.
  4. Using Webmention, the tweet showed up in my WP comment moderation loop.
  5. After I approved it, the tweet shows up as a comment in the corresponding WP entry.

As you can see, there are some formatting issues with the emoticons and the image link isn’t displaying correctly.

And to begin with I had some other WP plugins interfering with the Webmention plugin and no idea why it wasn’t working.

How I used to listen to music

General, , , ,

Nostalgic moment for the 90s: Jimmy Cliff playing on the radio… reminded me of the time in my life when I used to borrow music CDs from the local library during my student years. It gave me access to the entire album, not just the hit singles. And it didn’t drain a student’s budget.

And I was able to explore lots of different kinds of music.

Before that, in Malawi, my main source of music was MBC radio, some international radio stations such as Deutsche Welle and the BBC, and school friends.

My mom will tell you that she doesn’t listen to music. But I have fond memories of MBC radio playing at full blast.

I’ve changed in my music listening habits. We all have. Now we’re all over Youtube and Spotify and iTunes and Soundcloud. Despite all the cool music gadgets that I own, I’m not buying, compiling or storing my favourite music. My main music gadget is my MacBook. And I’ve forgotten what listening to an album is like.

I still listen to a lot of radio music. Especially on the weekends.

Jog log

General

I went for a 40 minute run today. Only the first 5 minutes were dry. Then it started raining. Towards the end of my run, the rain became quite intense. Even my trusted rain gear was soaked through.

It was the third time I got soaked today. I guess the rainy season is back.

A valid question?

General

A tweet to keep. I stumbled across this C.S. Lewis quote:

A valid question to consider.

Sun’s shining. A beautiful day lies ahead. Will try to enjoy the moment today.

A backlink for today’s Smashing Magazine newsletter

General

I like today’s edition. I started tweeting some of the links.

A Sunday in April

General,

Weather was better than forecast.

It’s been fairly dry. So today’s rain was a welcome change. But despite dark clouds and rain symbols on the Swiss Meteo app, the rain was over by lunch.

Time for a bike ride.

WOD: I cycled to Rheinfelden at a leisurely pace.

Grenzach-Wyhlen – Herten – Rheinfelden – Kaiseraugst – Birsfelden

“How Much Content Do You Need For B2B SEO Success?” http://selnd.com/1gCD1nN

General

For future reference:

It’s something I need to look at for my day job. If you know of any background articles please let me know.

Questions and thoughts to explore in this context:
Maintaining multilingual B2B web content is time-intensive. More pages means more maintenance. Should I delete non-performing pages? Re-fresh the content? How do I analyze which pages to discontinue or keep and which new ones to add? Carry out workshops with stakeholders such as sales?

Somewhat related is this presentation on agile marketing:

[slideshare id=33219692&doc=agilemarketingapril2014-140407074021-phpapp01]

The first couple of slides remind me of discussions with Persillie on Agile methods, Scrum and software development projects.

I’d like a frugal testing machine. It would help me all along.

Complimentary links: 2 random photos from my Flickr archive. Alles wird gut.