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Practical Reasons Your Business Need Social Media

TaftAve Creative Lab: Practical Reasons Your Business Need Social Media

Social media is now a necessary tool that businesses and organizations should learn to leverage.

Rewind to a few years ago, and you will find most organizations and business owners to be on the fence about using social media for their business. Skeptical business owners figured that platforms like Facebook and Twitter’s popularity will die off faster than they can put an online strategy in place–a very valid concern. After all, if you’re going to invest your business’ resources (whether it’s time, people or money), it is fair to expect some sort of return of investment, right?

If you still need convincing, here are some of the most practical reasons why your business need social media.  [Read more…] about Practical Reasons Your Business Need Social Media

Stop The Networking Bullshit

Can we Stop the Networking BS

Can we please stop wasting our time on social media and local events, trying to network? It all too often feels like wasting time pure bullshit. (Please excuse my French.) With the increasing awareness of the importance of a personal brand and having a community (also known as a tribe), everyone seems to be trying really hard to get better at networking. Working as a freelancer in PR and communications, it feels like a necessary evil that I have to fend off on a regular basis.

Perhaps many can argue that it’s my extreme introversion, along with the pitiful inability to endure small talk that is creating this aversion against networking. Honestly, I just think networking is pure bull and a waste of time.

NETWORKING IN VAIN

If you google network (the root word for networking), you get the definition:

interact with other people to exchange information and develop contacts, especially to further one’s career.

The very definition makes it sound so insincere. As if the very objective of the act is to get something some someone. So let’s pause and think about that for a second. Read the definition again and really think about it because the definition itself can explain why most networking efforts fail.

You see, if everyone attends a networking event–an event with the sole purpose of having people exchange information and develop contact, especially to further one’s career–most people go in there with the mindset that they will gain something for themselves. There lies the problem with traditional networking.

REAL CONNECTIONS

I am not against meeting people and making new and genuine connections. Au contraire mon frere! It’s not networking per se that I have a problem with, rather the lazy and self-centred connotation that it comes with. So instead, invest your efforts in making real connections, no fragile networks.

Expertise, not business cards. Looking for new clients? Hand out less business cards and focus your energy on helping others with your expertise. Sadly, being human makes all of us predisposed to self-interest. (Notice on social media how everyone seems to be talking, while nobody pauses to listen or answer anyone else’s questions?) Helping others by lending them your expertise instantly helps you stand out. You’ll have a higher chance of being remembered.

Quality, not quantity.  It’s not about the thousands of acquaintances, followers, subscribers, likes, shares or fans but the quality of the connections we make. Ten people who believe in my skills strongly enough to hire me for a job is much more valuable than a couple hundred people I could’ve handed my business card to (and never hear from again).

At the end of the day, people generally prefer to do business with people they know and trust. That trust is gained by being helpful and making a real effort to connect. I can’t speak for everyone, but I for one, can sense when people are talking to me for the sole purpose of bullshitting (also known as networking).

Bullet Journal Bandwagon and Planners

It’s December. 2014 is ever so quickly coming to an end. It’s almost that time of the year when we start to romanticize the prospect of a new year: a new chapter; a clean slate. With 2015 fast approaching, one of the things most of us start obsessing about: planners and organizers.

I have recently joined the bullet journal bandwagon.

I watched the video a while ago–possibly around the peak of the hype–but was apprehensive to try it out. I take a lot of notes for a lot of different things that aren’t necessarily related and I just couldn’t see how one notebook could hold everything, without being a completely disorganized mess. It doesn’t help either that being organized is something that doesn’t always come naturally to me–it has to be an unrelenting, conscious effort.

[Note: If for some reason you’ve somehow managed miss hearing about bullet journaling in the past, here’s the website complete with an intro video and documentation.]

However, last month the multiple notebooks, sketchbooks and another separate planner finally took it’s toll. I wrote notes about everything. My problem was finding them when I need them. So after days of non-stop deliberating, obsessing and eventual (& inevitable) overthinking, I gave in and decided to give bullet journaling a try.

Bullet Journal Icon Guide

So far so good.

The main thing I like about the bullet journal: the flexibility. The system is flexible enough that I only need to carry one notebook with me at all times. I no longer need to bring a planner, a meeting notebook and a sketchbook everywhere–especially when I have to travel very light.

That being said, I have not completely abandoned my hundreds of notebooks (Not an actual figure, just an exaggeration. I’m sure you get the point). While I am not getting an actual 2015 planner, I am still keeping my sketchbooks and dedicated notebooks for business and photography. You might think, “Well Denise, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of bullet journaling? You’re supposed to funnel everything into one notebook!”

Well, not really. I use the journal as a daily brain dump. I jot down note, to-dos, reminders, factoids, etc. into the journal. Then when it’s time to connect the dots and more extensively explore a topic (for example, a Photography technique that I am learning), the go to a dedicated notebook (or file).

Not convinced that the Bullet Journal is for you?

That’s okay. We all process information differently and not all systems work for everyone. You could check out some free printables I’ve previously made and see if they work for you. I will still be posting them on my fridge, especially for shared tasks and chores around the house. You may clink on any of the pictures below.

BLOG POST PLANNERS:

Printable Blog Planner Templates

TRAVEL CHECKLIST: (two versions available)

Art of Packing Light: Travel Checklist

WEEKLY PLANNER SHEETS:

TaftAve || Free Printable: Weekly Planner

I am always interested to know what everyone else does to keep their daily (and professional) lives organized. Any specific methods that worked better for you in the past? If you like these kinds of posts or find any of the printables useful let me know. Or if you have any suggestions on how to make these printables more useful, let me know!

Free Printables: Week Planner 01

TaftAve || Free Printable: Weekly Planner

As I’ve said multiple times on this blog, I am not an organized person—or at least not in the traditional, borderline OCD sense. Don’t get me wrong, I like being prepared; I like planning (I mean I write scripts ahead of ANY phone call, complete with an outline of my main points—yes, even when calling family!) and I definitely strive to always be on top of everything. The problem is, my system is—as many have pointed out—utterly chaotic. Organized chaos, of course, is my argument and it has worked for me for many years.

With ever evolving career and personal life roles however, I am starting to come to terms with the fact that I might have to dial down on the chaos and work on adding more organization into my daily life. My first step: finding a planner that works for me.

Back when I was still in high school, it was mandatory to have a planner to write every reminder and homework into. It worked. In fact, high school was probably when I was most organized and highly effective (which, in retrospect sounds pretty sad). I’ve tried keeping a planner with me throughout college and university and even now but it has never worked. I find that theres days, my planners are often not up to date and for a while, I couldn’t figure out why.

The thing is, my high school planner worked because it was specifically tailored for a high school student. The planners that I have been using the past few years weren’t working because they just weren’t for me and my highly flexible lifestyle. So I looked around for one that would work for me—from a Starbucks planner that I had my sister send me all the way from the Philippines to a handful of phone apps. No luck.

It wasn’t until recently that I finally gave in and decided to experiment with making my own planner. I haven’t quite figured out a perfect one for me yet, but I figured, since I’m already drafting them anyway that I could share them on this blog. Below are a couple of weekly planner pages. (Click the images to download.)

TaftAve: Weekly PLanner TaftAve: Week Planner 2
The pages are half letter sized and you can either pre-fill the interactive PDFs before printing or print a few and hand write. An idea is to pre-fill the weekly planner with recurring tasks before printing then laminating the sheet. You can then use a dry erase marker to write the rest of your tasks. That way you can reuse the same sheet over and over. Alternatively, if you don’t have access to a laminating machine (Is that what it’s called?), you may insert the page into a sheet protector.
I’m still in the process of brainstorming & prototyping my perfect planner and I’ll be uploading future versions if anyone find them useful. So, if you have any ideas or suggestions to make these planner pages more useful or effective, please let me know. You may also be interested in a few blog planner sheets, included as free printables in this older post.
If your using a planner that you find highly effective, let me know about them through the comments below.

Fake A Banana Bread

TaftAve || Fake a Banana Bread

Am I the only person struggling to keep on top of everything in my fridge? It’s a struggle to remember which food may go bad soon or which one would go stale when. And knowing about food waste stats like this and this, I feel even more remorseful of throwing anything out. My solution? Finding (easy enough) recipes that makes use of leftover ingredients and items that are about to go bad.

This is why I love making banana bread. One: It’s easy (read: pretty difficult to mess up); two: it tastes good; and three: it helps get rid of old, over ripe bananas—which we always have at our home.

It was perfect but then I remembered something that might be even better: Banana Bread Pudding. It’s delicious, even easier to make, lets you use over ripe bananas AND stale bread.
fakeabb02

Banana Bread Pudding

Ingredients:
4-5 slices of bread, crumbled by hand or cubed
1 large egg
1/3 cup almond milk
1 Tbsp sour cream
1 Tbsp 10% cream (or liquid coffee cream)
1 large banana, mashed
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinamon
optional:
  • nuts
  • dark chocolate chips
  • blueberries
Instructions:
  1. Preheat the oven at 350º F. Grease two mini loaf pans.
  2. Pour the ingredients into a medium sized bowl and mix really well.
  3. Allow bread to soak well by setting bowl in the fridge for 10 minutes or until oven is done preheating (whichever one takes longer)
  4. Pour into greased pan and bake for 40 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.
Alternatively you may use:
  • 2 hotdog buns instead of sliced bread
  • glutten-free bread or muti-grain bread
  • dairy and/or lactose free sour cream
  • coconut sugar, stevia or honey/ nectar instead of brown sugar
  • muffin pan or  instead of mini loaf

Note: The resulting consistency is of course not exactly like that of regular banana bread. It is heavier and more dense.

Full Disclosure: Let it be known that I am not a great cook. Most of what I know about cooking and baking or generally making anything in the kitchen, I learned in the last two years. Kitchen Adventures chronicle my attempts at making food that’s better for my health and my tastebuds.