I thought I’d try out the brand new Soundcloud HTML-5 widget on one of Jake’s new tunes. Soundcloud is a tool that’s been invaluable to him as an independent electronic musician just starting out, and he’s had to upgrade a couple of levels (from Free to Lite to Solo) to accommodate his fairly prolific output.
I really like what they’ve done with the new player, and how the artwork displays. Listen loud.
As you may have worked out by now, I’ve been working on a book that’s available for purchase as it’s being written.
I’ve already had some lovely feedback about Music in the Digital Age (and some people have already pre-ordered the audiobook). So I started to think about whether there was anything else that would make it a distinctively “digital age” product.
And then it occurred to me. It’s not just the Digital Age – it’s also the Global Age.
I’ve approached some friends who work in a range of connected fields (independent music, education, media and so on) who have as their first language something other than English. Some of them have kindly agreed to translate the book so that I can release other versions in the same way that I’m releasing the English one:
1) as a work in progress;
2) with regular updates;
3) as a pay-what-you-want download.
And so then I got ambitious, and wondered how many languages it could simultaneously be written in?
I’m aiming for 25. Twenty-six if you also count English, which is the version I’m doing. I might even be tempted to go for thirty.
Tagged: e-book, languages, translation
People are often surprised that I have an empty email inbox most of the time. Actually, it’s really not difficult.
Of course, until I found out about the secret of having an empty inbox, I was completely overwhelmed all the time, and always had thousands of messages in various states of read, unread, filed or unfiled. There’s a bunch of systems you can use – but I’ve taken what I think are probably the simplest and most repeatable steps of all the versions I’ve read.
Once you realise that there are only three types of email, it all suddenly becomes very simple. You don’t need a book to tell you how to do it, a special email ‘diet’ or a seminar that costs hundreds.
For this to work, you will need a single archive folder (Gmail has this automatically) – not a series of folders for lots of projects. You will need some sort of To-Do list (for me it’s Things). You will need a calendar or diary (I use iCal on the Mac). And that’s it.
Of course, it can take a while to claw your way to zero the first time out, but once you’re there, it’s easy to stay there – as long as you remember that simple fact: there are only three types of email. Every piece of email is one of those types. Process it accordingly, and that part of your system will always be up to date.
Tagged: Productivity
Tonight, I started recording the audiobook version of Music in the Digital Age. It’s being recorded as I write the e-book, and the entire thing will be available to download on completion.
Of course, in keeping with the way that I’m releasing the e-book version, you can preorder it now, and that will guarantee you get the finished work as soon as it comes out. You’ll get the introduction and the first section immediately to get you started – and, of course, it also adds a bit of extra incentive for me to get to work and make it as good as it can be.
There’s a comprehensive tracklist here, which will give you some indication as to what lies ahead… and when you download the finished audiobook, you’ll also get the e-book as a PDF and in both DRM-free Kindle and iBooks versions – so you can listen with your eyes as well.
The price is £5 as a preorder. It’ll be more once it’s finished, so get in early.
If you’ve been reading this blog for more than a week or two, you’ll know that I’m always on the lookout for ways of getting things done – specifically, software that helps me achieve more with less effort – or at least in a way that makes it feel like less effort.
I like doing lots of interesting things and I like being very organised, but at the same time I’m an extraordinarily lazy and disorganised person by nature – and I don’t like to be stressed or overwhelmed with too many tasks.
So the things that I do manage to accomplish come as a result of cheats and shortcuts, basically. Tricks that I play on myself and the outside world that make it feel like I’m getting ahead with less input on my part. That the tools are doing the work for me.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t – but I enjoy trying new things out. It’s a bit of a hobby. And I’ve started using a bunch of new ones recently… so I thought others who share my interest in such things (and I know of at least two) might be interested to check out the current toolkit.
Tagged: Productivity, tech
Out the window of my home office, across the road, there’s been a lot of squirrel activity lately. My eye is drawn to the comings and goings of the squirrels because of their rapid movement in the leafless trees – and because even though I’ve lived in the UK for over seven years, squirrels are still exotic animals to me.
I was watching a pair of them run backwards and forwards the other day, when I realised that the big tree straight ahead of me must be where they live. And then I saw the nest – or the ‘drey’ as Wikipedia tells me it’s called. It’s a clump of leaves and twigs halfway up the trunk of the tree – about the size of a football… and it has a little hole that the squirrels come in and out of.
At dusk, that’s where they disappear to. Not that I’d given it any thought, nor come up with an alternative hypothesis about where they go, but I was surprised to learn that they build these dreys and live in them. Makes sense though, I suppose.
If you look hard you’ll see the clump of leaves about halfway up the trunk. That’s it there.
Of course, now I’m seeing them everywhere. Hopefully, I’ll get to see baby squirrels in the Spring. I’ll wait and watch patiently – a bit like David Attenborough.
Nearly two weeks ago, I published a book I haven’t finished writing. In fact, I’m probably only about 15% of the way through it, if I’m honest. But I’ve been experimenting with a website called Leanpub that lets you do that, and people can get the book right up front, and then receive updates as you write them.
What’s interesting – apart from the feedback which has been broadly encouraging and positive – is that people actually seem to be paying for it, even though they don’t have to.
I’ve just posted the first major update to Music in the Digital Age and people should be getting emails about now that tells them how to get the new version. It’ll be interesting to see what people think of that bit of the process, and whether that was enough of an update.
Tagged: MitDA
So far in 2012 my mantra has been “little, and often”.
I decided not to make any New Year’s resolutions, but instead to make changes to the way in which I might do the things I already do. Perhaps not surprisingly, this has had a far more radical impact upon the amount I’ve been able to get done just in the past week or so – and even if I completely fall off the wagon tomorrow, I’ve managed to give myself quite a head start this year.
I started by going back to a system I came up with a couple of years ago: The 30-Day Calendar. I printed a few off, put individual task names at the top of each page and started putting a big X in the appropriate square each time I did the day’s task. However, it occurred to me that there must by now be some way of managing such a system using something a bit more sophisticated than a piece of paper and a sharpie pen.
And of course, there is.
Tagged: gtd
I’m going to be speaking at Un-Convention Voices at the Roundhouse in London on Saturday the 11th of February.
It’s a joint event running in parallel with The Museum of Modern Art in Medellin, Colombia, that features a day of panels, conversations, debates, performances and interactive sessions on the theme of political voices and social messages in hip hop, spoken word, social media, art and culture.
It’s an impressive line-up: presenters include Kate Tempest, Soweto Kinch, Gilles Peterson, Blak Twang, Steve Ignorant, Roxxxan and more – with performances from Cassette Boy, live hip hop from Colombia and an exhibition of The Art of Protest, including works by Banksy, images from John and Yoko’s bed-in, and lots more besides.
Tagged: London, unconvention
