I had a face-to-face with a client founder on Monday. And I started building out their Notion and adding information. More to do here next week.
I spend surprisingly little time working on my own business strategy for Q2. For the most part, key results are either repeating or continuing next quarter.
However, one of my 'experiments' (think of it as a Discovery phase in delivery management terms) had not produced significant results, so that is being continued with lower priority (my data says that it needs more time to prove/disprove the approach), and a new experiment is being introduced.
This is how strategies should be delivered - set the outcomes and try different tactics to produce them. Gather data, be agile. Most importantly, just because you call it a 'strategy', don't get all precious about it. It's nothing special; it's just a portfolio of projects.
I had some good conversations - about nothing and everything. Need to be more active in setting these up; it does me the world of good. More generally, I need to be more interactive. I appear to have slowly receded into a world of one. To that end I will be being more active with the "100 Connections Challenge" that I started in February, and getting out to both meet-ups and to socialise. LMK if you want a chat / coffee / other.
On the writing front, I stormed through a few things that have been gestating since the beginning of the year - two digital downloads about creativity. (And were part of my 'key results'; for the quarter, so somewhat timely to get them done.)
I also wrote a post about how I've used some of the ideas - Small tools for starting poems.
And a work-related post about making sure you're asking the right strategic questions - Better Systems, Same Position
On the watching front...
A couple of week's ago I dropped our Disney+ subscription and switched back in our Now subscription. Mainly to catch the latest series of The Last of Us but, frankly, I'm not feeling it in the way that I did for the first series. So I ended up scrolling Now, with decision fatigue nagging me to give up and 'just watch a Poirot, or something', when something caught my eye.
It was announcing series 2 of something I hadn't seen series one of, and the lead character was played by Natasha Lyonne who I thought was excellent in Russian Doll (which she also co-created). Plus series one was still available to watch, so I started watching Poker Face and I'm absolutely loving it.
Other watching included:
- "Ellis", series 2 episodes 3&4. Excellent. Now I have to wait for series 3. (There had better be a series 3.)
- "Instinct", series 1 episodes 1-3. Alan Cumming being American. I like this enough to continue watching, but I hope the scriptwriters improve soon.
- "Why didn't they ask Evans?" (Hugh Laurie's version). Binge-watched all three episodes. Better than the version that's shoe-horned into the 'Marple' series. Easier to follow on each re-watch. (It is a somewhat labyrinthine plot, IMHO.)
My listening highlights this week:
- Ely Eira "The Legend of Ely: Prologue" & "The Legend of Ely" albums. I needed some orchestral stabs and epic build-ups. I wasn't disappointed.
- Junior NRB "Fun".
Support your artist friends (or in this case, artistic children of artistic friends) by buying their work. But Junior is very good & stands on his own merit. Hip-hop/rap. - SOPHIE "Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides" album. Scottish experimental/pop artist. Not for everyone. I love it. (Who'd of thought it 😂)
Next week I have RAYE's new album to listen to, along with a random discovery - "island5", by islandman (Turkish folk/psychedelia FTW!)