200 Posts In

Actually, this makes it 203, but who’s counting?

I’ve reached a 200-post milestone that didn’t even exist when I started putting this Digital Garden, or personal wiki, together. I had no idea how many posts I would end up creating, but here we are, so I thought I’d write this little retrospective.

When I started, I thought I might find the whole process difficult. Thinking of things to write about, turning those thoughts into something readable, then finding the confidence to publish them. Instead, the freedom of having a Digital Garden has made it surprisingly easy.

Ideas for posts and notes come from all over the place. It might be bringing together research I already had about my great-grandfather, Herbert Henry Scaife, or looking into a long-gone brewery near where I now live.

Sometimes it’s about the strange sayings and television quotes that have worked their way into our everyday lives, such as The Lines That Stuck. Sometimes it’s documenting a journey, whether that’s our possible move to Spain or keeping a record of my Pinter brewing times.

Then there are the silly little notes about things I don’t want to forget.

The content has come from lots of different places, and I love the variety of things that pass through our minds every day. I’m just happy that I’ve now got somewhere to capture some of them.

I used to keep many of my notes in Google Keep, but putting them here feels much more liberating. They’re no longer hidden away in a private list that I’ll probably never look at again. They’ve become part of something bigger, connected to other thoughts and memories, and the act of writing them down properly has possibly helped me remember them a little better too.

The garden has also slowly taught me that not everything has to be perfect.

In my professional life, I don’t publish anything until I’m 110% happy with it. Every word, fact and detail has to be checked, tweaked and checked again. That approach has its place, particularly at work, but it can also stop you from putting anything out at all.

This Digital Garden has reminded me that sometimes it’s better to just put something live. A small idea can begin as a seed, develop into a sprout, then eventually become a flower: a fully formed post that probably doesn’t need much more tweaking.

Or perhaps it never grows beyond being a seed. That’s fine too.

I also think this Digital Garden could become one of the most important things I leave behind. My children aren’t particularly interested in it right now, and I don’t blame them, but perhaps one day, when I’m long gone, they’ll start wondering what I did, what I cared about and what went through my head.

Well you two, it’s all here.

I think that idea of leaving something behind has become one of the main reasons I want to keep writing. So, 203 posts in, there’s plenty more still to come.

Why I’ve Fallen in Love With Data

At work, I’ve fallen in love with data.

That might sound strange because I’ve dealt with data throughout my marketing career. I’ve been responsible for collecting it, managing it, presenting it and using it, so why the sudden love-in?

I think there are a couple of reasons. Firstly, over the past few years I’ve come to realise just how important accurate product data is to us, our customers and the construction industry as a whole.

Years ago, I attended a marketing summit where a small part of the discussion covered compliance. One thought from that session has always stayed with me: when people don’t know exactly what products they’re specifying, buying or using, the consequences can be far more serious than an incorrect description on a website.

I think I now fully embrace that idea. I want the way we describe, represent and present our products to be as accurate as possible. I question things, challenge information and sometimes examine the smallest details with what might be described as slightly irritating persistence.

That tenacity has helped stop us launching a couple of products that could potentially have been dangerous, though, so I can live with occasionally annoying my colleagues.

It also means that every product requiring a Safety Data Sheet should have one that is accurate, up to date and written to current, and where possible future, standards. Virtually every product should also have a Technical Data Sheet explaining clearly how it should be used safely and correctly.

So yes, right now I’m having a deep and unapologetic love affair with data.

AI: Not Just For Search

 AI isn’t just a different way of doing a Google search.

In a commercial setting, the real value is in using it to do business better. It’s about looking at those tedious, repetitive tasks and asking whether AI could take some of the weight off us.

Sometimes it’s worth thinking a little wider and asking, “Could AI do this for us?” Because quite often it either can do what you need, or it can become a big enabler for doing important business tasks better, faster, or with less friction.

Music Time Machine

Saw OMD, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, last night at Bradford Live. They were brilliant.

More importantly for my wife and me, seeing acts like this takes us right back to when we were younger, fitter, and didn’t have a care in the world, apart from getting our homework done.

This whole 80s music revival has been a massive bonus for us. We’ve recently seen Madness, Pet Shop Boys, Paul Heaton, Iron Maiden, and a few more besides. Every single show seems to open the same little door back to those carefree days.

Thanks for the music, and for the memories it keeps dragging back with it.

Makerfield v2

Well, it looks like Nigel Farage’s poor attempt to drum up some much-needed positive PR by creating a Makerfield v2 moment in Clacton-on-Sea has rather brilliantly backfired.

With the main parties refusing to play along, and no serious opposition candidates putting themselves forward, with the obvious and glorious exception of Count Binface, this could become a very funny by-election indeed.

Unfortunately, it’s probably not what the people of Clacton actually need.

Sisu

Just watched Sisu and Sisu: Road to Revenge, amazing movies that are wildly entertaining in a brutally bloody, and entertaining gory way.

These are two action movies that have been described as a Finnish, World War II-era mix of Rambo and John Wick, and I find it hard to disagree with that accessment; and I'm sure thatt 82.5% of fans of these movies woukd like Sisu.

How I Decide What To Write In Newsletters

Newsletters aren’t just about finding something to say once a month and hoping people click. At their best, they’re strategic storytelling devices. They help you share useful information with customers and prospects in a format that’s easy to read, easy to understand, and, ideally, useful enough that they’d actually miss it if it stopped arriving.

For me, a good newsletter should tell people something about your industry, your business, your products, or your customers that they wouldn’t easily get anywhere else. It’s about getting your story out into the market, but doing it in a way that gives the reader something back.

If you’re going to mention products, try not to just say “here’s a product, please buy it”. Can you teach people something new, different, or genuinely useful about it? Can you explain where it came from, why it exists, what problem it solves, or why people use it in a certain way? Sometimes the most ordinary product has a decent story behind it, you just have to dig a little.

If you’re struggling for content, post roundups are often a good place to start. They work particularly well for small, local businesses because you don’t always need to invent a big campaign. You can simply pay attention to what your customers already care about.

And if you’re a local business, your local area is your superpower. Locality and community are two of the strongest drivers of relevance in newsletter content, so don’t sleep on them. Talk about what your customers are talking about. Promote the events they go to. Share a bit of local history. Mention the things that make your town, village, city, or region feel familiar to the people reading.

The other useful thing about newsletters is that, with clever calls to action, you can start to understand what your customers actually engage with. Which links do they click? Which topics get a response? Which offers are ignored? Over time, that starts to tell you what kind of content you should create more of.

So when I’m deciding what to write in a newsletter, I’m not just looking for “content”. I’m looking for the useful story. The thing that helps, explains, teaches, reminds, or connects.

And if you’re really struggling with newsletter copywriting, it might be worth talking to a small agency like Yorkshire Writers. They’re the people behind this Digital Garden, so I probably would say that, but still… newsletters are exactly the sort of thing that benefit from a bit of outside thinking.

Watching the Lionesses Grow

My wife and I are both fairly big football fans. She supports Leeds United, and I support Manchester United, which keeps things interesting in our house.

As well as following the men’s game, we’ve been watching women’s football for about years or so. Like a lot of women’s football fans, we mainly started by following England, and we’ve been lucky enough to see the Lionesses play a couple of times.

The game has come on massively since those earlier days. Back then, players like Karen Carney, Jill Scott, Faye White, Ellen White, Rachel Yankey and others were helping to build something that has grown into the game we see today.

At the time, it often seemed to be a game built around long passes, looking to exploit space between the lines, and shots taken from inside the penalty area. There was also, at least to my eyes, a noticeable difference in fitness levels compared with the modern game.

Then came 2012, which felt like a watershed moment for women’s football in England. The game began to develop quickly. More investment came in, standards rose, and for more players it became a full-time job rather than something they had to fit around the rest of their lives.

Today, it feels like a very different sport. There is far more tactical control, aggressive pressing, and a much greater emphasis on possession. The players are more athletic, the movement is more fluid, and the game feels quicker, sharper, more creative, and more powerful. You now see players striking the ball from much further out with real confidence.

It’s been brilliant to watch that growth over the years, and even better to feel that women’s football is no longer tucked away in the background. It is properly part of the football conversation now, and rightly so.

Come on Lionesses.