Do you produce documents, or do you do work?

I really rather like this video interview with Rod Drury, CEO of the cloud accounting company Xero. I’ve been a happy Xero customer for a few years now – the system makes accounting comprehensible to the non-accountant, which is great!

In the interview, Rod talks about Xero’s switch from traditional Microsoft based systems to using Google’s offering, with all the social and collaborative stuff that entails. He describes how the availability of truly collaborative technology has helped to drive a culture change at Xero, around nimbleness and flexibility.

In one great line, Rod asks “do you produce documents, or do you do work?” – a question we’ve probably all asked ourselves at some point in our working lives.

Watch the interview below – or here’s a link – it’s well worth it.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Vf9nA4YOQ]

WorkSmart!

worksmartJust to let Kind of Digital readers know about a new blog I’ve launched, called WorkSmart.

It’s all about how we work in organisations and will cover stuff like use of technology for personal productivity and better team working, and also other non-techy tools and tips and thoughts on organisational culture.

You can follow WorkSmart in a number of ways:

I’m also trying something a bit different with the site itself. I’m offering a free membership system on the blog, which gets you the email newsletter but also access to member only resources which I will be adding over time. If there’s demand I might also add some kind of community forum – but we’ll see.

In the meantime though, do check the blog out – there’s a few interesting posts up there already – and subscribe using whichever is your preferred method.

The emergent task planner

etp
Photo credit: davidseah.com

I don’t know about you, but I love productivity hacks.

One of my favourite bloggers on this topic is David Seah, and as well as offering great insight via his blog, he also shares some beautifully designed templates and forms for helping to manage personal productivity.

One of his best is the emergent task planner. An A4 template that you use everyday to list the tasks you must complete that day, block out the time needed to do them, but also list those jobs that crop up during the day. It helps you juggle all these competing priorities and stay sane in the process.

You can download the emergent task planner as a PDF and print out a few to help you get started. There’s even some notes and guidance on how to best make use of it.

Do you have any favourite productivity hacks like this? Share them below in the comments!

“Technology at least as good as people have at home”

devicesA quick pointer to an interesting project in central government in the UK.

It’s looking at redefining the technology used by civil servants to get their jobs done.

There are a number of interesting issues around this agenda. The experience people have at home with software – particularly web based applications like Facebook, Amazon and so on – means that the systems they use at work are increasingly clunky and depressing.

As Stefan Czerniawski says in his blog post:

Traditional software is big and complicated, packed with features which most people don’t use most of the time. That has two consequences. The first is that they need training and support to be useful, the second is that it is difficult and expensive to change them. Modern software tends to be lighter, more focused, more flexible and more social. That makes it much easier to match the tool to the job.

It will be good to see what recommendations emerge from this project in the future.

Welcome to WorkSmart!

DesktopWorkSmart is a new blog about how we do our jobs.

It strikes me that there is a lot going on in terms of building fantastic user interfaces and processes for customers and end users of services – and this is great, of course.

But what about the people working behind those services, who are having to use systems which aren’t quite so delightfully designed with the user in mind?

The systems and processes we are all engaged with on a daily basis when we are at work often suck, and make our jobs a lot harder than they need to be.

On top of that, workers in organisations are often denied access to helpful productivity tools and services, which would make them more effective for their employers.

This is mostly down to culture, mindset and attitude. It’s about they way organisations are led, and managed.

WorkSmart will be covering all these issues. I’ll cover personal productivity tricks and tips, and new ways of working. We’ll provide great stories and case studies of where organisations are making life easier and better for their staff through enlightened leadership and management.

Anyone can read the blog of course. But I would be delighted if you would take up our free membership offer, which will mean you get our regular email newsletter, and in future will give you access to members only content.

Also, if you’d like to contribute articles to WorkSmart, just get in touch – I’d love to hear from you.

Load more posts!