Social Media, New Technology and a Dinosaur
This is a very late part three to an occasional series on a dinosaur and my forays into social media and new technology. In previous parts, I have extolled the virtues of having an online presence and how, as a business we had been paid for a small task from a contact generated through twitter. This year has seen us employ a number of staff, 4 at one point in Dublin, all year in support of a contract with a household name in the airline industry. This contract was initiated on a Friday evening through Twitter, a trip to Zurich followed rapidly and then de-camping to Dublin for nearly six months! Since I have come back from the emerald isle, I have been assisting them with further aircraft deliveries. A fantastic year all round.
With this heavy workload, a number of things have had to go by the board, time at home with my family, writing articles for the blog. There are a mountain of applicable topics for future blogs. I have tried to keep our online presence when I can, tweeting and maintaining our business relationships through Linkedin and Facebook etc.
It appears that one of our contacts through linked in will be in a position to offer us significant employment going forward; so what can be taken from this? The more I look into this and the more I develop our online presence the more I am convoked that this is the way that business relationships will be established in the future. What starts as a bitbof banter on twitter will lead to more professional relationships through other mediums and business opportunities will arise!
That deals with social media and how we are trying to maintain our foot print in the twittesphere! That is where new technology comes in, smart phones and tablets, I can recommend a series of articles, blogs and other assorted outputs from Paul Saunders over at Conduce, www.Conduce.net.
I have spent an inordinate amount of time traveling this year, again! In almost all cases, it is not possible to get a full-sized lap-top out and produce a blog, a proposal, an NDA and countless e-mails, some operationally critical for London’s Air Ambulance, another little project we have. I have fallen into the category of tablet user that sees them as business critical; well in my case, if I can catch up on or clear a significant number of e-mails while on a train or a plane, to have time with my family, it is business critical!
I have loaded the tablet with the means to access from where ever our project management functions, our virtual office and web-site, a busy commuter train becomes an office! Obviously, I do not do anything that should be treated confidently, 20 years of military service takes a long-time to fade.
This blog has been produced on the 1734 from Luton to Brighton.
Welcome back to the blogosphere Malcolm. You have been sorely missed. Now pull up a chair, get those new gadgets out and do some more writing. We look forward to hearing your views on the new EASA Part M Subpart J stuff. Thanks for the honourable mention, looking forward to catching up when your schedule settles down a bit….
Oh and by the way I can recommend iA Writer for the iPad as a nice offline writing tool for planes and trains.
Been a while, I understand how it feels when one is behind on its e-mails, proposals and reports and most importantly family time. The use of laptops in crowded and cramped means of transport is difficult and I gave up on trying to use it during flight. Definitely as the power and versatility of tablets and smart phones increases it become easier and more convenient to catch up on things during travel and waiting times.
On line exposure especially on social media and blogs is important to promote business and get exposure.
Time has to be dedicated as part of the daily activities to go participate and join the conversation on social media.