A thoroughly subjective and potentially inaccurate extended metaphor about why weddings are Agile but pregnancy is Waterfall

Posted on February 19, 2018 by Hari Patience

Note – I wrote this 3 days before I went into labour.

Read the full post on Medium

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Mind the Product 2016 collection

Posted on September 30, 2016 by Hari Patience

In September 2016 I attended the Mind The Product conference in London. I tweeted throughout the day (sorry to my followers who were massively inundated with every  product related thought that passed through my brain) and afterwards used my favourite collation tool (Storify) to put my notes together.  Continue reading →

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Things I learned during a year of four hour commutes

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Hari Patience

Okay, I lie. It was only 9 months. But it was a bloody long 9 months of 4 hours a day on trains, tubes and buses and if I get nothing else out of it, I have read a lot of books.

It all started when I was offered a job by one of the world’s leading digital consultancies…

Read the full post on Medium

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Things I learned from running my first Kickstarter campaign

Posted on January 7, 2015 by Hari Patience

In November of last year I ran my first Kickstarter campaign. I wish I could say it was because I had invented a storage device for the iPhone or an actual working hoverboard, but sadly that level of technological acheivement remains beyond me.

Instead I wrote it to fund the design of the cover for my first novel. I needed £600, and, in the end I raised over £950.

I’m no Amanda Palmer or Veronica Mars, but during my month long campaign there are a couple of things I figured out about how to hit the target, and so I thought, despite this not being a digital publishing topic per se, I’d write it all up in a blog.

Hari’s tips on how to hit your Kickstarter target Continue reading →

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A day at the Newseum

Posted on October 6, 2014 by Hari Patience

Newseum

By all rights I should be writing part 2 of the search gospel but instead this week finds me in Washington DC filming and editing videos for one of my brands. I’ve already shot and chopped 5 interviews in the past 24 hours, so I’m way ahead of myself. I’ve even saved enough time to put together a Storify of the event so far, which always makes me happy (love that site).

But anyway, as this is a one day conference with some preliminary work needed on the Sunday I’ve been in town since Friday, mostly wandering around monuments and eating too much too rich food, but hey, this is America, it’s how they roll here.

(I can’t pull that off, can I? Far too British middle class to sell it.)

Anyway one of the things I dearly wanted to see was the Newseum. I went there once several years ago, but only made it through the door late in the day, so the whole experience was something of a mad cap rush to see as much as possible before security guards kicked me out. Not so this time, this time I had planned. This time I spent 5 whole hours in the place. Continue reading →

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Bye bye rel=author – Google removes authorship

Posted on September 1, 2014 by Hari Patience

So it’s been a while since I’ve written here. Not that there haven’t been things to write about but August was an incredibly busy month for me. Many many projects and not enough hours in the work day. But I couldn’t let this one go past without commenting on it.

Last week the great god Google removed authorship from search results pages.

The GGG had already ditched author photos from SERPS earlier this year, so this didn’t come as too much of a surprise, but it’s still a touch annoying. Not least because it was pretty much the only good reason to maintain a personal profile on G+, and now those are worthless for search.

(And before anyone starts telling me how useful and wonderful G+ is how we should all be on it? Don’t, just don’t. G+ is not a social network I would choose to use if there wasn’t a search benefit. It’s just not. That’s my personal prefence. Take it or leave it.)

Anyway, there’s goes authorship from the SERPs. So long authorship we barely knew ye.

Continue reading →

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Fast, Good, Cheap – Pick two

Posted on August 6, 2014 by Hari Patience

Fast, Good, Cheap - not my image

On days like today I like to look at Venn diagrams for the eternal Fast/Good/Cheap paradox. And then I cry.

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News Rewired July 2014 – Storify collections

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Hari Patience

Every News Rewired I tweet like a crazy person and forget to make notes. So Storify is a wonderful tool for me to keep track of things that were said.

Here are my Storify-ed, tweet-ed notes from yesterday:

Trinity Mirror and Newsroom 3.1 – Jo Kelly in the engagement session

BBCgofigure and social media banners – Bella Hurrell in the engagenent session

Facebook’s continued dominance and oversights – Karla Geci in Facebook for journalists.

Crowdfunding in journalism – Ernst-Jan Pfauth of De Correspondent and Lyra McKee in the collaboration beyond the newsroom session.

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Newsroom 3.1, #bbcgofigure, some truly scary Facebook facts and the value of Flappy Bird – things I learned at #NewsRW

Posted on July 23, 2014 by Hari Patience

News Rewired

So I spent today at the News Rewired conference in the Microsoft building at Victoria. As ever there were loads of nifty bits of data to plough through, the usual bread-based lunch, a goody bag with jelly beans (eaten by the end of the first session) and the familiar envy over just how swanky the office looks.

Sadly I don’t work in mainstream news or consumer publishing, so often many of the tips aren’t the kind of thing I can put in place for my brands. That being said, knowledge is power, and here are some of the bits that will be influencing some of my strategic choices in terms of digital publishing. Continue reading →

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12 things I have learned in 12 years of working on websites

Posted on July 22, 2014 by Hari Patience

Because lists are just so hot right now…

  1. “One tiny change” is anything but.
  2. Anyone who claims to know exactly what the Google search algorithm is and who has never worked at Google is either lying or delusional.
  3. Wikipedia can be incredibly awkwardly badly wrong – but it won’t let you fix it if you’re the primary source.
  4. You never go wrong keeping your LinkedIn profile up to date.
  5. Facebook privacy settings should be checked every three months – just in case.
  6. No one should ever say “can you make it pop more” unless they are talking about Rice Krispies.
  7. Wikipedia, TV Tropes, the Oatmeal and IMDB are sinkholes of time that you will never get back.
  8. The promise that “this time I will update my blog everyday” is broken more often than New Year’s Resolutions.
  9. If you don’t call it something sensible don’t expect search engines to find it.
  10. Grammar jokes never get old.
  11. If it exists, there is a Youtube parody of it.
  12. Lists make surprising easy blog posts.
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