In an attempt to get some of the things I find interesting out of my head and into my blog I’m sharing links to stuff I’ve stumbled on this week that has made me think…
There is too much talk and not enough action in the charity sector – Simon Burne, The Guardian Voluntary Sector Network
Simon talks about a culture of risk-aversion, looking inwards and being afraid of innovation within charity fundraising:
“We should learn from the fast-moving consumer goods (products that are sold quickly and at relatively low cost) sector. Those companies expect up to 90% of product tests to fail, but they make a mint on the other 10%. I know of few charities that are even happy with a 10% failure rate. Low failure rates tend to lead to low success rates.”
This article chimes with my experience of students’ unions sometimes. Within the sector (I refuse to call it ‘the student movement’ (or worse just ‘the movement’) as it sounds too much like bowel movements) there are definitely cool innovative things going on and people prepared to try new things but I feel there is also a great amount of fear of breaking away from the traditional model of students’ unions and the things they’ve always done.
I’ve been mulling over this topic for a while and mentally drafting a blog post on it so hopefully I’ll get it out of my head and onto my blog at some point…
My year at a standing desk and why I’ll never go back – Cia Bernales, Fast Company
I’ve long been considering trying a standing desk at work. I spent 99.9% of my day (approximately) sitting down which isn’t good for you but the palaver of getting the right set-up and not wanting to give my colleagues more reasons to mock me (we’re a very friendly bunch who are very comfortable with winding each other up!) means I’ve never got round to it.
We recently rearranged the furniture in our office so now I have a little more flexibility to adapt my desk for working standing up sometimes. My current plan is to wangle flexible monitor arms and something to put my mouse and keyboard on and give it a try. I’m not quite hardcore enough for a treadmill desk (yet) though!
Why Custom Audience targeting proves that email has won the internet – Parry Malm, Econsultancy
An overview of how you can upload email lists to platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to target your advertising. The article opens by comparing an email address to a passport which gives you access to other online services. This is something I’ve found missing from ‘omg email is dead’ discussions – most of the services pointed to as replacing email still require an email address to sign up. I appreciate this doesn’t mean people check their email accounts or use them to send/emails but email addresses at least are still at the heart of many chunks of the internet.
Handling prison visit requests: the inside story – Leigh Money, MOJ Digital blog
A great case study of switching to a digital process in the prison service. I’m going to be talking to all of my colleagues soon about the exciting prospects and tangible benefits that digital can bring and this is a great example to refer to. This post outlines the benefits of switching to a digital system as well as the importance of a successful transition.
Oops! 7 Awkward (But Common) Grammar Mistakes – Lisa Toner, HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing blog
Yes I love good grammar. Love it.
Webinar 24/04/14: Leading the digital business revolution – Brilliant Noise
This webinar will focus on “what it takes to be a customer-first, digital business, the barriers that prevent organisations from changing, and what role you can play in leading the digital business revolution” aka ‘loads of the things I’m interested in at the moment’. I won’t be able to follow this as I’ll be at BrightonSEO but I’m hoping to be able to catch up afterwards.