I stumbled today upon a delicious article in the Guardian about librarians who buck the twinset-and-specs stereotype, or who subvert it. One of my favourites is the YA librarian with the Dewey Decimal code for librarians – 020.23 – tattooed on her upper arm. I’ve worked with librarians throughout my career and they are some […]
Continue readingI’ve been intrigued by the possibiities of 3D printing for several years now, but I have to say, I didn’t see this one coming: a 3D-printed house, constructed in situ in 24 hours, costing around $10,000. Proof that no sector is immune from digital disruption…
Continue readingIf you’ve got a brand, it’s a good idea to make sure your assets – your artwork, website copy, even premises etc – match up. So if you’re going to call your company ‘Scholars Punting’ and convey the impression that you’re a learned bunch, an offshoot of Cambridge University, staffed by the brightest and best […]
Continue readingApparently there’s a statistically significant spike in people running marathons in years ending in a -9: 29, 39, 49, etc. The upcoming new decade is a spur to Get Stuff Done. I didn’t consider a marathon (that came later), but I did have a bucket list of stuff I thought I should have done by […]
Continue readingApparently, someone fills their diesel car with petrol every 3.5 minutes here in the UK. That’s a statistic that would have made me snigger yesterday, perhaps even roll my eyes at the human capacity for inepitude. Today, as I handed a mug of tea to the AA man, it just made me feel a tiny […]
Continue readingA truly magical day: the first in-person meeting of my inaugural This Book Means Business Mastermind group. It’s a small group of four, all business owners with distinctive ideas and approaches, great expertise, and a vision for growing their business and transforming their visibility with the book they’re writing. We’re focusing on four areas of […]
Continue readingDelighted to hear that one of my This Book Means Business bootcampers has taken the massive step of setting up a beta group to feed back on her book as she writes it. She got eight people from her target market in a room together, most of them strangers to her beforehand. She reports: ‘They […]
Continue readingThere are many days when I sit down to blog and think, ‘I honestly have nothing to say.’ It never stops me, obviously. But there aren’t many days, thank God, when I feel so utterly lost for words. On my daughter’s 14th birthday, I woke to hear the news that in my home town of […]
Continue readingIt’s glorious today. My office window is wide open, and all day the cooing of wood pigeons, the rumble of trains and the rustle of the sycamore just outside have been my soundtrack. All soothing, gentle summery sounds. And then a bee got in. It was quite tense for a while – a large bee […]
Continue readingLove this. Jamie Byng, CEO at Canongate publishers (he was in the year below me at Edinburgh University – I try not to think about that too much) is putting his famous head of hair on the block. He’s raising money for The Howard League for Penal Reform, and to encourage Canongate fans to put […]
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