Posts Tagged ‘website’
At last night’s Working Women’s Network event on Speed Thinking Dr Ken Hudson managed to entertain as well as inform us about how valuable speed thinking can be for your business.
Ken’s keynote was one I’ve been looking to for a while but I didn’t expect to enjoy it quite as much as I did.
For those of you who couldn’t make it, Speed Thinking is a concept developed by Ken after his research seemed to demonstrate that people are more creative when they are forced to produce ideas in a limited amount of time. You can see more information about his findings over on his website.
When I was preparing the press release for this network event I was intrigued by how this could help me with my business and decided to see if I could make it work for me.
Ken’s theory sets a goal of coming up with 9 ideas in 2 minutes for whatever the problem, issue or challenge you have to find a solution to.
So, I decided to have a go. When you have to write articles, press releases, copy or plan publicity and PR campaigns, like with anything else I imagine, the hardest thing is to get going. By clearing the mind of all the unnecessary clutter at the beginning, asking yourself a simple question and coming up with 9 quick answers is quite liberating.
However, I am yet to make it my friend. As Ken demonstrated last night, getting out of the old “filtering” habits of second –guessing every idea you have or answer you give, is actually quite hard to do. I failed miserably in both of the excercises where I had to come up with the 9 “answers”.
But, I won’t despair yet. All day, when I have had to tackle a new idea, or even when driving to collect the children and I have a new thought, I have wondered what 9 ways I could tackle it! And, despite being hopeless at producing 9 pearls of wisdom in two minutes (well, actually he gave us 30 seconds!) I was heartened by the fact that, when working with another network member, Julie Mackay of MPathic, in one of Ken’s experiments, we found a fantastic way that we can work together for the benefit of each other’s clients in the future.
The whiteboard is now my friend and I will keep practising until I can rid myself of the habit of worrying about the immediate fruits of my thoughts and realise that random thoughts can be the most powerful and can also be fine-tuned into something magnificent later.
Today I receoved the first draft of my new website from The Web Showroom and I think this is the perfect opportunity to put speed thinking into operation. My first impressions were favourable to say the least but, if I were completely happy with the first rendition I think the designer would have to be given a knighthood. So, I’m going to ask myself several questions about the site (eg. What 9 things would improve the look of the site) and see what I come up with. It’s a very exciting experiment, not least because I hope that it will produce the perfect website that reflects exactly what I want to convey to my clients. I have to say, it should be a relatively easy task because it isn’t too far off now.
And, in preparation for next week’s Working Women’s Network workshop on Negotiation Skills with Jack Fraenkel, here’s my speed thinking take on what makes good negotiation skills:
Openness
Generosity
Kindness
Listening
Hearing
Observing
Talking
Smiling
Friendliness
I wonder how I’ll do?! J
Until next time.
Karen
Karen Morris is the Working Womens Network media officer. She runs Inscriptions, a copywriting and PR Consultancy, is a contributor to Flying Solo and is a wife and mother to three active boys. She loves life and work and has an insatiable appetite to learn all things new, especially all things 2.0.
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Are you true to your website mission?
Every website has a mission. Something it needs to achieve above all else. Even if your website mission is not formally understood, or often discussed, it still exists. Generally, your website mission is the measure by which you will decide whether your website is a success or a failure.
What do I mean by a website mission? Well, let’s say you run a service based business and you have already built a website or are planning to do so. There will be something you intend it to achieve for your business. Chances are your website mission is to “produce qualified leads for my business”.
