Month: January 2019

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10 years on Twitter

According to Twitter, today marks 10 years on the platform for me @zakmensah. I remember resisting for over a year having grown tired of signing up for platforms that never gained traction beyond the early adopters. I’ve never been that interested in being first to the party. I was at Jisc at the time and traveling the UK for events and conferences was a big part of my role. I started to notice that the various unconference/meet-ups were being organised on twitter and I felt left out. I wanted to know which pub was the pub folks were gathering at. As with all new platforms I didn’t get the point for awhile but once I started to discover groups in the pub I was set ha. Fast forward 10 years and I’m  glad I jumped on twitter and its evolution has been interesting to watch. From nerds to the mainstream. In the same period of time many other social platforms have risen and fallen including Google Wave, myspace, snapchat and many others I’ve long forgotten.
I have met great people on twitter, some I have yet to meet in person and others I have hollered at when in their country. I have had wonderful work opportunities, learned a bunch and its often the first port of call when I’m stuck and need advice for work. I like the little tribes such as museumhour and musetech  and following the boxing or F1 for the wit and live emotion.
I like to share on twitter and also keep lots of things private. I can pick and choose as I please which is the whole point. For example I never post family photos and try to avoid tweeting much when at the pub for obvious reasons. Tweets wash over the timeline so I don’t pay too much attention to crafting messages or take myself too seriously. But I do want to live my life a bit on the web as a dry serious me online would be a dull shame.
Happy birthday to the 10 year @zakmensah version of me. Oh and the oldest tweet I can find is me saying hello to someone’s mum.
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Good enough

I was just publishing my annual blog post for my reading list and my wife asked “How many people actually read your blog?”. I responded with “I dunno let’s see”. Except I can’t actually show her as it turns out my analytics stopped recording a long time ago. My bad. I decided ages ago not to bother looking at the analytics as I didn’t want to be fixated on growing per se. I write very niche posts here and at the Culture team labs blog for people like me. And there must only be a few hundred people like me across the planet. I know that the right people stumble across here as I regularly get email to ask me questions, jump on a skype call with folks across the world or to invite me to speak at a conference.

The aim for me is to share my experiences for people like me and it appears to work. That is good enough for me.

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Reading list 2019

Last year I started quite a few books but only managed to read 7. Let’s hope I find more time this year.

  1. This is Marketing by Seth Godin finished 11 Jan 2019. Paperback ISBN 9780241370148. I always enjoy how Seth Godin manages to make compelling stories to explain how to level up regardless of your resources. I particularly enjoyed the section on direct and brand marketing.
  2. Creativity: Why it Matters by Darren Henley, finished 25 March 2019. Hardback ISBN 9781783963782.
  3. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink finished 25 April 2019. Kindle format. A look at how we should move to a new form of motivate that suits the non-industrial work we now largely do. Dan frames motivation around autonomy , mastery  and purpose.
  4. Retail Therapy: Why the Retail Industry is Broken by Mark Pilkington finished 12 May 2019. Hardback 9781472965103. A good summary of the issues facing UK/USA retail industry. The book is easy to read and challenges the industry to make a ruckus. One great a-ha moment for me was that we typically mark products up by 2.4 but with online it should fundamentally be a cheaper as we have less overheads. Also the supply chain should be shorter so yet more reason to reduce the cost for your bespoke range. The last 1/4 alone is worth the book cost.
  5. First Man In by Ant Middleton finished 16th May 2019. Paperback ISBN 9780008245733
  6. The everything store by Brad Stone finished 25 May 2019 paperback ISBN 9780552167833
  7. Good to Great by Jim Collins finished 14 July 2019 Hardback ISBN 9780712676090. The focus is on firstly having the right people,  level 5 leadership and using your Hedgehog Concept.
  8. The Great Reframing: How Technology Will––and Won’t––Change the Gallery System Forever 23 September 2019  Kindle ASIN B0734P4NHV. I found learning about the contemporary art market super interesting and that the digital challenges in the sector are the same as public sector. Interesting too that the market has lots of checks and balances to prevent the usual “disruption” from tech as much of the high end/sought after works are about scarcity and don’t scale. Can/will artists find ways though to break into the art market using tech regardless. Friction is built into every step as part of the game.
  9. Change for Good – using behavioural economics for a better world by Bernard Ross and Omar Mahmoud finished 6 November 2019 paperback ISBN 978-0692064368. The book was a good introduction into the subject of behavioural economics with easy to follow themes and examples. I had lots of aha! moments about how often we’re in autopilot. The idea of System 1 / System 2 for decision making has given me lots to think about.
  10. Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell finished 18 November 2019 hardback ISBN: 9780241351567. The book focuses on how little we know about ourselves when dealing with strangers and how this can lead to deadly consequences. Furthermore that “place” is often a key element and that “coupling* of place and context is a fascinating topic.
  11. Hostile Environment How Immigrants Became Scapegoats by Maya Goodfellow finished 22 December 2019 paperback ISBN: 9781788733366. A really insightful look at how past history and current policies have led to a “us” and “them” mentally in the UK. Highly recommended.