Recent Events

Met with James Donaldson of Engage PR and Kenny Steele of Pinnacle atUnfiltered in the ONE Codebase Tech Hub. Unfiltered is on the first Wednesday of the month and is an informal catch-up (coffee and pastries) with the tech community in Aberdeen.

I also went to the Dundee and Angus Chamber of Commerce Summer Social at the Dundee Science Centre. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay long, but from what I saw, it would be a great event.

Recently caught up with...

Bryan Hutcheson is the Corporate Engineering Manager at Petrofac and Regional Board Member at NESCOL.

Rick Brooks is, amongst many things, an Aberdeen City Burgess, Councillor, Chair of TLC, and the PD&MS Head of Engineering.

David Oates, Owner of LetsRentUK, this start-up business focuses on an online database for creating and recording tenant references. Worth looking into if you're a tenant or landlord.

Guilherme de Rosso, a Growth Start-Up Business Adviser at Elevator. Elevator's support of Cada Global as a growth prospect has opened the door to many supporting organisations and specialists. If you've not yet been involved with Elevator, contact Guilherme, aka G.

Guilherme organised a meeting with Fiona Smith of Delfinity as part of the Elevator support package. Fiona had some great ideas on how to take forward CadaStudent, which I'll progress on before catching up again in late September.

I caught up again with James Donaldson, Director at EngagePR. Engage is an award-winning PR agency based in Aberdeen. Contact James if you need to get your message out there.

Productivity

The Marginal Gains Philosophy: If you want to be successful, embrace the power of marginal gains.

It's a philosophy created by one of cycling's most significant influences, Sir Dave Brailsford. It supplies countless benefits, from productivity to sustainable growth. If you work towards marginal gains, you're more likely to rise to the top and stay there.

With no apparent step change in productivity on the horizon, my focus has been on reducing the time spent on the day-to-day tasks that clutter my day. Improvements range from using new software to reduce the effort to new hardware to speed up and simplify workflows.

This approach has reduced my working day for repetitive tasks from 5 to 6 hours to 2 hours in the morning, leaving more time to think and develop strategies for the future, as well as releasing time to network and help others with social media and content marketing products and services.

Applications and Hardware

Here are some applications and hardware currently in my toolkit and being used to focus on marginal gains.

A Newsletter Application

After using standard email marketing applications for issuing newsletters, I thought I'd give a chance to applications that focuses on newsletter creation and publication only.

I evaluated two, Substack and Revue. Both appeared excellent, but I decided on Revue due to more integrations, including the seamless integration with Twitter (who acquired Revue).

If you're interested in producing a newsletter, Ali Abdaal has made an excellent YouTube video on the subject; see below.

Without the guesswork, there are no algorithms or fighting to be seen in a news feed, just your writing in front of your subscribers.

ConvertKit, Substack or Revue?

A Reading Application

I've been looking for a convenient way to organise and review content notes and highlights, and I think Readwise might be that app.

With spaced repetition, the app resurfaces my notes and highlights and sends them to me with the help of a daily email. This way, I can review and remember key ideas from the books and content I've read.

The main features of Readwise include:

• Importing from Kindle, Instapaper, Pocket, Medium, Twitter and Email

• Adding notes and images

• Searching through highlights

• Exporting to apps including Notion and Evernote (I don't use this feature)

The main reason for recommending Readwise is the daily digest via email. This provides for revisiting (spaced repetition) notes from previous books and content and is a valuable addition to my morning routine, especially if I'm improving my systems. I could also use "profiles" to provide themes for a specific day or time. Not tried that yet, but I'm sure I will.

Readwise is a paid app, but they do provide a free month for evaluation; if you want an additional free month, please use the link below:

Grow wiser and retain books better: Readwise sends you a daily email resurfacing your best highlights from Kindle, Instapaper, iBooks, and more.

A Second Brain Application

Having spent several years using various applications to manage my business, I decided I needed to start consolidating these apps into a fewer number, or even a single application (you can always dream) - that marginal gains thing again. At the same time, I've been collating digital repositories for the things I've learned and the resources from which they came.

Then I came across the Second Brain concept by Tiago Forte. Tiago proposes that "Building a Second Brain is a methodology for saving and systematically reminding us of the ideas, inspirations, insights, and connections we've gained through our experience. It expands our memory and our intellect using the modern tools of technology and networks."

That's all and well. But what does that look like?

By coincidence, I follow Thomas Frank on YouTube. Thomas has built a second brain template for Notion. So, I invested in his Ultimate Brain template and now have "an external, centralized, digital repository" and a task manager, journal, project controls, etc. As a bonus, Notion also integrates with Readwise (but as said previously, I don't use that feature).

We’re more than a doc. Or a table. Customize Notion to work the way you do.

Hardware

Live gamers and streamers love the Elgato Stream Deck because of its versatility. This small device packs features and integrations, making it easy to use with popular streaming software.

However, I'm not a gamer or a streamer! So why use it?

Imagine being able to control your computer, the apps and websites you use, and your most common activities just by pushing a button. This control is possible with the Stream Deck: a physical device that comes in different sizes and plugins into your Windows or Mac computers via USB.

My Stream Deck

The Stream Deck has customisable buttons (6, 15 or 32) that you can use to control almost anything on your computer.

Each button is a mini-display screen, so you can customise it with any image or text you'd like – no trying to remember application or system Hotkeys.

You can also have folders and multiple "Profiles" to add dozens of different actions, e.g. for Zoom call actions, etc. This ability makes the Stream Deck an incredibly versatile tool for quickly accessing your favourite apps, websites, files and settings.

I purchased the 15-button Stream Deck Mk 2 just a few months ago, and I can't believe how much I've been using it. Not only is it great for playing around with new productivity and automated workflow ideas, but its small size takes up hardly any space on my desk – it's just slightly bigger than the palm of my hand.

A few months in, I can say that the Stream Deck has become one of the most indispensable tools in my productivity arsenal, helping me save time and improve productivity throughout the day.

Using The Stream Deck for Productivity

Here are some examples of the things I do with the Stream Deck, and remember all of these happen with a single button press:

• Launch apps, files, and folders

• Open a predefined set of browser tabs and apps for a specific workflow

• Start a morning PC routine – immediately automating several workflows

• Lock the PC – ok, I agree, this is a pretty pathetic productivity tip

These are just a few examples of how I use it, but as you can imagine, the possibilities appear endless.

Stream Deck puts LCD keys at your fingertips for unlimited control.

New Created Content

How to use Google Trends for SEO - one of the most under-utilised and powerful tools for SEO, providing an invaluable tool for marketers.

What is a risk management plan? A plan that identifies, assesses, evaluates, controls, mitigates, and monitors risk.

Drop servicing, also known as service arbitrage, is selling a service you outsource to a freelancer or agency rather than completing it yourself.

Trending Created Content

The most popular trending content is no big surprise.

With college and university just a few weeks away from starting, freshers especially are looking for a bit of guidance.

Moving to college or university? Use the CadaStudent Checklist to help take only the essentials with you.

Also trending over the past month is the article on Risk Matrix Calibration.

The process of risk matrix calibration, also known as risk assessment matrix calibration, entails deciding on a range of risk reference values against risk categories such as financial cost, delivery schedule and performance.

Most Popular Curated Content

I also curate and publish content from others. The most popular of which (the sum of all types of engagements) are shown below:

In this guide, we teach you what Search Engine Marketing is and how you can leverage it to promote your business.

This guide to social media advertising has everything you need to succeed with paid social - top channels, costs, tips, and more!

Wondering what type of influencer would be right for your social media campaign? Read our quick guide on the four types of influencers.

Status of Cada Global Applications

GetRiskManager

Recent months have included the fixing of a few minor bugs and the development of new, just released features, including:

• Extra Storage

• Multi-users

• My Page

Use risk management software from GetRiskManager to protect and grow your small businesses or organisation.

Cada Social Media

Just added a new feature - watermarks for images.

Cada Social Media software helps with:

Referral Marketing

Want to get more customers?

Referral marketing can help you grow your business. Cada Social Media is a powerful referral marketing solution that allows you to run viral sweepstakes and contests and generate leads!

Social Media Marketing

Develop brand awareness and engage with potential customers with social media marketing.

Create, curate, manage and schedule posts to Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Google Business Profile, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest

Performance Analysis

Looking for social media software that can help you with performance analysis?

Cada Social Media is designed to help businesses use engagement data to grow an online presence and the business.

Cada Social Media Software - The only lead generation application you need for Referral and Social Media Marketing.

CadaStudent

Out of the ashes...CadaStudent has been updated and will soon be back online and available to help college and university students.

Providing the best way to manage your college or university education, CadaStudent offers tools to manage assignments and revise for examinations.