Monday morning – the day that all the new releases come out – and here is another selection of tuneage that will plump up your MP3 player or CD collection. Don’t take my word for it – follow the links, listen and buy.
- In This Light & On This Evening by the Editors – a significant shift of gear from this most fantastic British band, dark, brooding and mesmeric.
- My Way by Ian Brown – from the opening stomp and piano hook of Stellify, this signals the return of one of the most enduring voices in British rock music. Forget all the Stone Roses reunion guff – they aren’t needed.
- Music for Men by The Gossip – the voice is completely unique, but this album takes The Gossip to a new dimension. Easily straddling the void between club and concert – these songs will be ubiquitous into 2010.
- Skream! by Skream – innovative and completely original this is the future sound of London. If you haven’t discovered dubstep yet, then this is the ultimate primer – dark, dancey electronica at its finest.
- For lack of a better name by Deadmau5 – I’ve featured them in my DJ mixes (they are free to download!) for some time, but this third artist album really could propel them into the big time. Trippy, techy house music with collaborations from Rob Swire and Flipside.
What are you listening to? What should be listening to?
Another slice of inspirational links to take alongside your Sunday newspapers -
Who or what gives you inspiration? How are you tracking them?
This is a great book, combining sound theory, relevant examples and actionable suggestions with an easy readable style. The main premise is that cultivating ‘trust’ will enable you and your business to succeed. Most of this is talked about in terms of social networks or online media – but the key points can be practiced offline as well – be a trusted advisor and people will gravitate towards you when they need something, and then trust you with their information and leads.
It is sage advice indeed – and I ripped through this in a few days, coming away with some great suggestions on how to increase trust. Chris Brogan has an authentic voice in this area – having established a successful blog and social network, as well as putting his money where his mouth is – he is even open to giving the book away for charities and non profits.
The book proposes that it will help you drive sales, get hired without a resume or just make your business more awesome than the others. At the very least, it will be a disruptive influence in your current working styles, and that is never a bad thing
I wouldn’t disagree with any of that – I am confident this book will help you develop any relationship you have, beyond business.
Excellent read – buy Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith now.
What are you doing to build trust?
You’ve decided to be awesome, your toolset is in place, your workplace is ergonomic and your productivity is up, nothing can stop you now. Can it?
Losing data is the number one fear for most information workers as they come to rely on their PC’s and mobile devices for almost everything they do. I propose you take 30 minutes to check out some of these options available to protect yourself and your data.
- Online Backups – consider backing up your data to an online service, it is a click and forget process to set up and ensure that you have continuous incremental backups running to a service like Carbonite or Mozy. I keep my essential work data in Live Mesh – which replicates it across machines, giving me the added benefit of being able to access it from any PC.
- Security software – make sure you have up to date and reliable security software (firewall, anti-virus, anti spam etc) – Symantec, McAfee are all available at a price – and new to the block is the free Microsoft Security Essentials – I’ve been using this on Beta for a while and it’s very reliable, lightweight and unobtrusive.
- Encryption – your data is important, right? Then consider encrypting your data on your drive (including portable), again you can pay for this, but there are free products closer than you think. I use BitLocker to encrypt my laptop and any USB drives that I use, its free and included in Windows Vista and Windows 7.
What else are you doing to make sure your data is secure and your work stays safe?
Another selection of music you really should be listening to now – don’t take my word for it, check out the links to listen to these essential tunes…
- XX by The XX – Hotly tipped band, vaguely reminiscent of Interpol. Intense and epic sounding music from south-West London.
- Trueloves Gutter by Richard Hawley – Memerising songs by one of Britains true national treasures. Truly a beautiful thing.
- Blueprint 3 by Jay-Z – Kanye, Jeezy, Rhianna and Drake amongst the collaborations on this, doesn’t detract that he is still the king of rap.
- Splitting the Atom EP by Massive Attack – a taste of things to come as Bristol’s finest ready themselves for LP5. Features Guy Garvey, Tunde and Horace Andy.
- Declaration of Dependence by Kings of Convenience – it feels like ages since we heard new material from Erlend Oye and Eirik Glambek Boe, but business is as usual – gentle vocals, delicate plucked guitars, and a great sense of humour.
Getting Things Done has become an industry in its own right – as have the zillions of productivity blogs that have popped up to grab our interest. It is easy to become obsessed with getting productive, rather than actually doing the stuff in the first place.
However, it is actually quite simple – there is a hierarchy of distractions, where one channel trumps the next and evokes specific emotions.
(click to enlarge – original here)
This chart explains exactly what is at the top of the chart – a text message is only trumped by a loved one shutting the laptop on your fingers!
Found here – and a book – Visual Miscellaneum to accompany (I’ve ordered mine)
So, like many others, you’ve started to use Bing as your search engine – maybe it’s the visual search, or the awesome maps and birds eye views.
However, it may be as simple as the beautiful pictures on the homepage – which change daily and provide great eye-candy as you make one of your many searches each day. You may even have thought that you would like to set one as your desktop wallpaper.
Now a site allows you to do that easily – Bing Images – shows all the homepage pictures for the US and UK (sometimes they are different – and other markets are selectable) and allows you click an image, and then set as wallpaper.
Update – another site does similar but automagically – site is in french, but you can make the application work in English.
A great chance to see Steve Ballmer in action as he answers your questions at ‘The New Efficiency’, a launch event for Windows 7, Exchange 2010 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
At The New Efficiency site you can submit your own questions, and watch the live webcast.
I like the fact that my company are engaging like this – I think the old Microsoft may just have done a press junket, and maybe tried to get all the influential peeps in one place – this seems like a great way to get involved and maybe see your question answered by the big fella himself.
What are you doing to evangelise to your customers?
It is all very well being on the cutting edge, using your rapier like insight to the music industry to mine the zeitgeist and choose music based on what is truly hot, but if you have the best new MP3 player (or an alternative)– you will want to kit it out with the best music of all time – from when new music meant slabs of vinyl, purchased with reverence from a record shop.
Don’t take my work for it, click the links to view of these classic discographies that everyone should own at least some part of:
What would your building blocks be for the perfect music collection?
Alongside the Sunday papers – and maybe some fresh coffee – how about adding some inspiration?
- Eddie Izzard – 43 marathons in 51 days for Sport Relief. Amazing determination.
- Leonard Cohen – still working hard at 75 to make up the money stolen by his former manager – get well soon (Bonus points – slip on ‘The Future’ by Leonard Cohen for a taste of what makes him so brilliant).
- Tom Peters – Legendary business writer, read his blog (dispatches from the new world of work) for nuggets of wisdom that will spark your imagination.
- Massive Attack – it is the space between the notes that make the difference, check out their ‘Splitting the Atom EP’ (MP3 Download link from Amazon – also features the marvellous Guy Garvey on Bulletproof Love) for what I mean.
Who or what gives you inspiration? How do you track them?
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