Falling Ninja

as it just me, or did anyone else get back from Christmas with a head full of cheese and Baileys? Anyone else stare at programmes and apps and think "I know this; I can do this," before getting up and walking away from the keyboard as if it's some kind of alien being?

Looks like there was a power surge over Christmas.
The bloody keyboard's eaten the bloody box and monitor. Again.

Still, I'm back in and on it. Calmly scything through emails from fanciful agencies telling me how they can revolutionise the way I work. Models, promises, webinars. Like I need any more models, promises and webinars. I'm also noticing bits of tape and tinsel which have seen in as many new years as I have. They need to come down. I need to think of a few new year's resolutions.

New year's resolutions - a Liszt

Frans Liszt

The new year brings new resolutions, like bad colds bring on chesty coughs and 'snuffles'. In bloggeeee style, and in a desperate attempt to GET SOME HITS, here is a LIST of the ten things I'm going to achieve in the forthcoming calendar year.

HECOS - a sensible response

1. Make sense of politics. The sensible thing - a complete removal of the political set - won't happen. I've had about a year avoiding news. I've made contact with Luton's Deputy Mayor, who's a lovely chap. I'm going to re-engage. Probably;
2. Work out why it is, exactly, that applicants, enquirers and students aren't engaging as much with our surveys as they used to. Because they're not;
3. Brush up and prepare for HECOS. It's upon us, unless Brexit's done for it. I know, full well, that there are implementation guides and common aggregations hierarchies to get my head around. Which I will do, at some point. Honest;
4. Remind myself there are over 2,200 HECOS codes. And for 600 of these "the JACS3 term could map equally well to a range of HECoS terms".
5. Think about this point. 600 codes. Revisit point 3. Decide the best course of action with HECoS is to keep my head BURIED IN THE SAND;
6. Keep a better grasp and grip on what's happening in the sector. People sniff at my loyalty to the Times Higher, but I sometimes surprise myself with how brutally informed I can sound after a few days' submersion in either the THE or WonkHE;
7. Try not become even more appalled at the marketisation of the sector and all the BS it's brought upon us;
8. Get out more often. Staff development budgets have crawled under a rock, but it's good to occasionally get out of the silos which limited resources and constant initiatives tend to keep us buried in. Talking to colleagues and sharing problems isn't always acceptable. It depends on the problem and who you're talking to. But it can help..
9. Continue to sneer at mindfulness and Millenials. Not Millenials themselves, you understand, but the whole compartmentalisation, labelling and lazy dismissal of younger folk.
10. Listen to more jazz.

Wow! Making lists really helps. Remember me at the beginning of the blog, all self-pitying and confused? Just look at me now, ready and fired up. FOR ACTION.

Pivoting the heck out of some Excel

New year, same you. Just better.

Happy New Year everyone, I hope you had a great time celebrating! 

I feel there's a level of expectation about the first blog post of the year, so I hope I won't disappoint! It IS going to have a 'new year's resolution' type of message, but one I hope you won't find cliché.

I've never read a 'self-help' book in all of my life, however I asked for a book for Christmas called 'How to be a BAWSE' by Lilly Singh. What's a Bawse, I hear you ask? Well it's like a boss, but better. It's when you're not just surviving life, you're conquering it. Lilly is a YouTuber I watch (am I showing my age yet?) and her motivation and drive for business, work and life always astounds me, so I thought I'd give her book a go. 

Yada yada yada, long story short...it's amazing. It's essentially all the little arguments and discussions you have with yourself written down. With solutions. I'm a fair way through the 50 chapters, but these are two of my favourite points so far, and I hope they'll be helpful to you too.

1) Schedule time for inspiration.

I'm not entirely sure who reads this blog, but I'll go with a wide assumption that most of you are working. When you have a job - a day in, day out, 9-5, doing similar things over and over kind of job - updating and re-vamping can be the last things on your mind. Well here I am, giving you permission to schedule time for inspiration so that you can change that. 

You're a web designer? Spend 15 minutes searching for your favourite websites. What do you like about them, is there anything you could replicate within your work?  
You're an architect? Watch a TED talk on how architecture can transform urban spaces. It might give you some structural ideas you've never thought of before. Boom. Inspiration. 
Script-writer? Go on Netflix and watch a genre you're not usually interested in. The story-line or characterisation you see might help you create a play that's unique and different to anything you've ever created. And there you have it. Inspiration = motivation to do better. 

We try to do it here in the Marketing team too sometimes. Recently Pete (Digital Marketing Manager) gave a presentation on some of the best digital marketing campaigns out at the minute, and we picked our favourites and thought about how we could use some of the methods in our own marketing. I'm not sure about the others, but I left the room feeling like we could make some legitimate changes to better our work. Don't treat inspiration as an after-thought, schedule time for it. Otherwise creativity dies. 

2) Don't keep doing the same things, and expecting a different outcome.

I have to learn this lesson the hard way pretty regularly, both at work and in my personal life. Most recently, I have been working on a series of emails promoting our February course starts. We (my manager David and I) sent out a first wave in mid November and they performed pretty well. We then needed to send a reminder email out in December. We tweaked the design a little and cut down the text, but the messaging was the same. And guess what? They tanked. I looked at the reports and just thought, why am I surprised? I did the same thing but expected a different outcome. I'm aware there were also external factors at work, like timing and the fact that it was a second email, but even so. I should have known better. 

So please, write it on a post-it note and put it somewhere you can see it. Because you're not going to get fitter if you always take the escalator and not the stairs. And you're definitely not going to learn anything or find a new hobby if you don't audition for a choir, join a gym, or watch a YouTube tutorial on how to learn HTML code. (Okay that one's specific to me, but you get what I mean). 

I'm hoping that was more of a motivational speech than a boring lecture, and that it also brought you up to speed with some of the things we've been doing in the marketing team as well. 

So remember...new year, same you. Just better. 

Until next time. Over and out.