Moved up another belt for Tigercubs. Well done wee man!
Always a good view from The Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.
Time for The Last Jedi!
Update: It was amazing!
Christmas jumper day at school!
Bear just keeps getting better
New themes, autocomplete for tags and of course TagCons!
Once you get a decent tag collection going, it can get harder to find the right one in your Sidebar. To help you do less scrolling and more finding in Bear 1.4, we added over 100 TagCons — small icons for some of the most popular tags we could find.
Nicholas Bate’s What we know about 2018, the complete list. A must read in preparing for the new year.
Bluetooth, oh how I hate thee.
Trying to kid myself on that the Hawaiian sunshine is included in every bottle. Alas no sunshine included but a great beer! 👍🏻
Hard a-larboard!
Posting this here in the hopes that Michael Wade sees this and doesn’t need to break his Twitter fast for it.
For the Aubrey Maturin lovers , I do hear whispers indeed that a second voyage is perhaps potentially pre-proposed a possibility . So O’Brian affectionate’s and aficionados , let @20thcenturyfox know of your pleasure .
I would love to see a second Master & Commander film. The first movie is great and the Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O’Brian are fantastic reads.
Version bump for my Daring theme for Ghost so that it works with Ghost’s 1.0.0 release.
Also hat tip to Ghost for their theme scanner that let’s you know when a theme has issues.
Discovered that I am a lousy open source software maintainer. Two pull-requests for my Daring theme sitting in the repo without me knowing. Doh!
The Facebook Pages Organisation
This morning I got a text message from my kids' primary school. It was a reminder that this week was book week for the kids. Good stuff, I thought. I wonder where I can find more information on this? Reading on the message rounded off with 'check out the Facebook page for more info’.
Well, I did check out the Facebook page, but I couldn’t see anything. I don’t have a Facebook account (anymore), so I don’t even know if it’s a private post and only intended for those that follow the school’s Facebook page.
The school does have its own website, but it is rarely updated and close to being unreadable as it’s running on a stock Wordpress theme with a few slightly choice changes.
Did I find the information in book week?
I didn’t. I gave up. However, the lack of content isn't the issue here. The problem is the school's reliance on a single platform for communicating with parents. The school is just one of many organisations and businesses that choose to be more active on a Facebook Page than any other websites and social media accounts they might own.
The sad truth of the Internet today is that for many, it begins and ends with Facebook. There’s nothing else on the Internet that matters. If you don’t have a Facebook account, it doesn’t matter. It’s an appeal to the masses, and with most parents having a Facebook account the school has chosen to focus on updating its Facebook page.
The problem of the school using Facebook isn’t the problem though, it’s how they are using Facebook that’s the problem.
When an organisation chooses a single place to publish content they make it difficult for others to find that information. So how can organisations rectify this?
The answer is quite simple.
- Update their website frequently with relevant content.
- Share the content of the website to social media platforms.
That’s it. Sounds easy right? Well for the school it might not be so easy.
Schools are busy. Education of the kids come first and rightly so. If the teaching staff are working with the kids, then who’s going to ensure that the website is updated?
The headmistress? Office staff? The janitor? Classroom assistants?
All these people have other duties as well, not to mention the fact that they might not have the confidence to update the website. We know that the school can update the Facebook page when it needs too, but Facebook has teams of engineers and designers who have made publishing content one of the most natural things to do on the web.
When it comes to CMS like Wordpress however, it’s a whole different matter, and that may be the reason why websites, like the school’s website, are rarely updated.
When I look at other school websites in the area, my kid's school website isn’t alone.
Schools are a hive of activity. Not a week goes by when there isn’t something on for pupils and parents to get involved in. With all this action you would think that the school websites would frequently be updated.
Sadly not.
Facebook Pages is an easy way for many organisations and businesses to publish content, but like the school, they could be missing out the very people that want that information.
Whether you’re a school, business, a sporting club or any other organisation has a group of people following you, you’re content should start it’s publishing cycle on your own website. That’s the centre of your web presence, and as long as you invest in an excellent hosting platform and use a hosted solution or manage to keep the website up to date and in working order on your own, then you’re always going to have that space for people to turn to.
When you want to tell the world about something, put it up on your website and then share it to your social media accounts for others to see.
If you don’t like the idea of sharing to social media platforms, then start a digital newsletter that people can subscribe too. This is something that I would like to see the school implement as we’re still getting bulletins printed on paper and jammed into the kid’s school bags.
A weekly newsletter of the following week’s activities would be a great way of letting parents know what is happening at the school. And of course who doesn’t have email?
My kid's school isn’t alone in their dependency on a single social media platform. Many other organisations like it choose to focus their time and effort on a Facebook page and end up siloing their content away from others.
Don’t be a Facebook Page organisation. Invest in your own website and let that be the starting point where people come to look for updates.
Mindful giving
It’s the time of year for giving and there’s lots of ways you can do it.
Small organizations often need help with administrative tasks — website design, donor management, marketing materials. On the ground opportunities may provide more Instagram-worthy photo ops, but helping staff inside the office may be more valuable to the team.
— Tips on mindful giving by Michelle Welsch for Project Exponential
Independent feeds
Tom Critchlow is re-discovering the glory days of blogging. The tags, the blogrolls and much more. The simpleness of it all.
There’s something about the humble hyperlink that gets subsumed by hyperfeeds. The archive. The curation of tags and categories. Blog series.
— A few notes on blogging and independent feeds by Tom Critchlow
This is why I’m doting on Micro.blog so much. It’s blogging and syndication made simple. And RSS is much easier to follow than any hyperfeed.
Deep work vs distractions
Curtis McHale breaks down the process of getting work done in a world of distractions. I particularly like his argument for analog task managers over digital ones.
One of the big principles of Bullet Journalling, is that paper creates friction and this is a good thing. If it feels like a significant pain to move your tasks forward, then they likely weren’t worth doing anyway. You didn’t get to them the first time, so apparently, they weren’t important.
Just drop them.
Digital task managers make it far too easy to move things forward that we’re never going to do. You push the date forward and make the task a problem for future you. Maybe you take the date off and then continually have to decide during your review if the task is worth doing.
— How Do I get Deep Work Done in the Midst of Random Priority Distractions by Curtis McHale
Better blogging
I love this manifesto for blogging. Lots of good points to use. Also, why wasn’t I already subscribed to Hugh’s blog?
All content must be on your own platform. You must own your own domain, and it must have a monopoly on your best work. Other people’s platforms like Facebook or Twitter can only link to the content, they mustn’t duplicate it. In other words, if people want to hear from you, first they have to come to YOUR house.
— The Dogme 17 Manifesto: a guide to better blogging by Hugh McLeod
Starting to feel normal again after a lingering cough and cold.
Outlined a couple of blog posts this morning that I’ll publish this week.
Cracking afternoon for Drew at the putting competition up at Paisley Golf Club. Bobble hats off to the professionals up at the golf club, Claire-Marie and Andy, for a great afternoon and a great gift for all the kids in the academy! 👍🏻
4 spaces for indentation on JS looks weird.
Remember what I said about Twitter being left in the dust?
Looks like collections are the new must have feature in the social media silos.
First Instagram and now Facebook. As usual Twitter is left in the dust.
Business without email
Proof that your business can survive without email.
In short, Schwarz is a classic craftsman. If you want to ask him about his trade, however, you’ll have a hard time getting in touch. In 2015, he stopped using (public) email. And he has no intention of going back.
— The Woodworker Who Quit Email by Cal Newport
Just finished watching Stranger Things 2. Damn that was good television.
I’m really liking what Kona are doing with their bikes these days. The Honza is another great bike from them. Price is a bit steep though!