How to keep momentum

I'm struck by the challenges we all face to finish what we started.

• My customers have started pilot projects, but then got distracted by crises elsewhere in their business and become paralysed in decision-making. The short-term consequence is that we can't begin to deliver the cost savings they're looking for.
• My computer / iPad / iPhone / All the above flash notification messages and beep sounds as new messages, tweets and other events rush in, clamouring for attention.
• And that's without colleagues walking past my desk; or phone calls; or a tab in a browser catching the corner of my eye and taking me off this page...

We're living in a world that's rushing ever faster; and it's not acceptable to disengage: if I'm not running the social media treadmill along with anyone else then I simultaneously miss out on learning what I need to know and also lose the opportunity to get my voice heard.

It takes practice and discipline and taking time out to understand goal and priorities then focus to maintain any kind of momentum. As I'm replying to one exciting email enquiry from a potential customer, it takes an effort of will not to stop and turn my attention to another enquiry from an even bigger prospect!

Memo to self: I guess I fail more times than I succeed; hence me thinking about the need to focus in this post today.

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How to market in the digital age

Here's a blog post unlike my others. If I remember in the midst of everything else I'm doing then I'll come back to this post and update it as I go along. It'll be useful to me as a memory-jogger of the steps I've taken, in no particular order, to market our new app; and it might prove useful to others who have a similar task to perform.

And I'm writing it a day ahead of scheduled publication because tomorrow I've got a couple of back-to-back meetings in London and won't have time for blogging: this'll get launched while I'm in a meeting or travelling :)

• 
  I added the official Apple 'Download from the App Store' graphic on to websites including StarfishCI.com, MikeSchorah.com and about.me/MikeSchorah


• I used a URL-shortener to grab http://tiny.cc/StarfishCI so that I have a chance to send people to our page on the App Store without having to use a complex URL, and I can track how many times the link gets followed, too.
• I wrote a blog post about the software launch.
• I mentioned the launch in a post on this site.
• I edited our company page on LinkedIn and created a LinkedIn Product profile about it.
• I began to use Twitter a bit more to talk about the product, including automatic tweets to the blog posts.
• Added a Download link at support.StarfishCI.com
• Added a video at YouTube and connected it to our LinkedIn product page

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Running the technology treadmill

I've just finished up a conference call from UK to USA, while replying to an incoming text message and a couple of emails that arrived on one of the four screens ranged in front of me.

And who says men can't multi-task?!

The trouble is, the faster the pace of communication and the more channels I have available to me, the more I feel like I'm missing out or not keeping on top of things. The technology is meant to be at my service, but it often feels like it's the other way round and I'm serving it.

Nevertheless, the benefits are huge: we launched a new product over the weekend and, because it's in the App Store, we went global instantaneously. Without even trying, we'd got downloads in a dozen countries before Monday started in my part of the world. With benefits like that, I'm a tech fan not a luddite!
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