The patio at the Manor House at Howbery Park.
Things I have learnt this week:
1. Writing was invented in at least four different places. I was taught at school about Mesopotamian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs but there’s also evidence of writing systems in China, Mesoamerica and possibly other places such as the Indus River valley and Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Read more ›
Even freelances have to have holidays, and that’s my excuse for the lack of weeknotes lately. Back to work this week, and two highlights.
Wednesday was National Writing Day. I wrote 1800 words on my creative non-fiction work-in-progress. It was a coincidence.
Thursday was the inaugural Creative Industries Showcase at Oxford Brookes, organised by Oxfordshire LEP. Panel discussions were organised (they say ‘curated’, but come on) by Creative England (whose stand is the photo above), the Creative Industries Federation and Digital Catapult. Read more ›
My sister’s dogs doing the #dogsatpollingstations pose.
This week’s been pretty productive as I’m approaching the deadlines for two web content projects I’ve been working on for a while. But I managed to find time to attend the Creative Meetup at Howbery Park near Wallingford. It’s one of my favourite networking groups because it doesn’t feel like networking: it’s small business owners and sole traders who work in creative fields getting together as friends to share ideas, experience and advice. And, interestingly, I heard several people that morning use the phrase ‘I don’t like networking.’ Read more ›
This week I went to Twitter!
I didn’t actually have business with Twitter (although I did enjoy tweeting: ‘I’m ON Twitter and I’m IN Twitter’, which felt a bit meta). But Twitter HQ in London was the venue for a ‘Comedy and Confidence for Creatives’ event run by Funny Women.
Guess where I was on Thursday.
Two things recently have made me think about how I do my job.
Surprisingly, an article titled How Basecamp Built a $100 Billion Business by Doing Less on Purpose turned out to be useful rather than clickbait.
I liked the subtitle even more: ‘Do not innovate. Do not grow. Do not exit. And do not be a startup.’ Read more ›
