When our non-existent Scottish summer begins to dissipate it gets me in the mood... the mood for goal-setting! Nothing puts my overactive mind at ease more than mapping out what success looks like for myself and for 448 Studio in 2020. The goals below are quite personal, but in the spirit of transparency and since we're all such a tight-knit community I feel like I can share them with you. Want to know what I've come up with?
What success looks like in 2020
Shona doesn't need to go back to work after maternity leave (only if she wants to)
A monthly retainer for 448 Studio between £1 - 1.5K
Begin to put a little bit away every month in savings for the new addition to the family
Another additional person working alongside Laura and I with the aim of providing extra internal social media community support to Universities
Two Universities signed up for a full social media strategy refresh (6 month projects)
Consistently run social media training for two in-house teams every month
Build the consultancy side of 448 Studio providing 1:1 training
Ability to book one full working day off a week to spend with Shona and the baby
Annual 448 Studio turn-over of £60K
This is how September panned out
UofG School of Psychology
Back for round-two with Niamh and her wonderful team at the School of Psychology. This time for a full day of social media strategy development and content planning with a whole host of content examples mixed in. It's amazing to see how much creativity can come from a room just by getting people to sit down for a few hours and hash out content ideas. We also finally got our selfie after multiple attempts.
MBA Student Half Day | Adam Smith Business School
The amount of effort schools and courses are now putting into ensuring their students are practically prepared for the 'real world' is refreshing to see. I spent a morning with incoming MBA students this month discussing best ways to portray themselves and their brand professionally on social media; while still retaining a personality of course! The morning was equally as inspiring as it was informative. The room was packed but it still felt really personal thanks to the students who were so engaging and willing to interact with me and each other.
1:1 Consultancy Afternoon
I love spending time with people, as I'm sure you can tell by the whole #CoffeeWithDan thing, so spending an entire afternoon with someone helping them achieve their unique social media goals is very rewarding. This month I had the pleasure of spending time with Alistair Gray who has written a book called the 'Game Changer'. It's all about how leading organisations in business and sport changed the rules of the game. We spent the afternoon diving into the world of LinkedIn, creating a highlight page for the book and we even had time to create a video which now has over 1600 views on his LinkedIn profile (check it out)!
This is an area that I'm planning on expanding in the next few months so if you feel you need a bit more than an hour over coffee and want an afternoon dedicated to your own social media learning get in touch.
Cardiff University Strategy Work
Continuing to work away on the Cardiff University strategy, the end is in sight as we're dedicating the next month to finalise the documents and guidelines now that we've received all the input from University stakeholders. Our next step is to role out the strategy to the CU community along with three days of social media workshops. Last month when I was down in Cardiff I created a little video of the work Jemma and I did. Want to see it? Of course you do!
The Personal Stuff
It was great to see my sister Nathalie who travelled all the way from NY to spend some time with us at our new place. We even managed to head to the beach, rain and all.
I've started with a business coach, his name is Harry and it's helping me stay focussed, bounce ideas around and occasionally gives me a bit of a kick up the rear to keep me motivated. If you're looking for a coach let me know and I'll pass along his details.
It's full steam ahead gearing up for our little guy to arrive at (scheduled for the end of October) it all got really real when I had to installed the car seat (ahhhh).
It was Samwise's 2nd Birthday on the 23rd so I made him a little treat to celebrate (video).
Here's what October has in store
Brand spanking new little baby boy Marrable - so mostly baby / Shona watch (I won't be travelling far, that's for sure!)
Develop workshops for Cardiff University in December
Gear up for talks at Royal Conservatoire, Salford University & Lancaster 'Work in Progress in November
