by Benjamin Ellis | Apr 27, 2011 | Management, Milestone Planner, Productivity
Work can take us to some odd places, and put us in front of interesting sights. Recently I ended up in Crawley, and as I walked along the high street, a window display that was taking shape caught my eye. I’d been watching for several minutes before I thought to...
by Benjamin Ellis | Mar 24, 2011 | On the road
I am definitely not an Apple fan boy. In fact, even though I’ve been a long-time mac user, I’ve earnt myself a bit of a reputation as an iPad hater. However, one thing Apple have done really well recently is to popularise the tablet format. Tablet...
by Benjamin Ellis | Feb 4, 2011 | Milestone Planner
We’re always making improvements to Milestone Planner, which we aim to release every couple of weeks (When we are really on a roll it can be every week!!). Sometimes it may be behind-the-scenes improvements and optimisations; sometimes tweaks to the way the...
by Benjamin Ellis | Feb 2, 2011 | Milestone Planner, planning, Project Management
I’ve come across two very different approaches to making plans over the years (OK it’s more than two, but I’m trying to keep it straightforward)… The first approach is where someone locks themselves in a darkened room with some ‘gantt...
by Benjamin Ellis | Jan 31, 2011 | Milestone Planner, planning
This is a stressful time for many of our UK friends, who have had to complete a self-assessment tax return. Here are a few tips to make it easier next time around, which probably apply to many things. It is all to easy to leave big things with a deadline until the...
by Benjamin Ellis | Jan 1, 2011 | Milestone Planner
A Happy New Year to you and yours! Around the planet millions of people are making, or have made, New Year’s Resolutions. But will they stick? This is a 101 on how to make those promises last. It was prompted by a tweet from the man behind Thinking...
by Benjamin Ellis | Nov 16, 2010 | Milestone Planner
Jim and myself have been on the road for a couple of weeks, talking with new, existing and future users of Milestone Planner. We’ve learnt lots, and back at the office the coffee bill has gone down! A lot of the new learning has gone into our latest release...
by Benjamin Ellis | Nov 1, 2010 | Knowledge Work
Last but one post on Likeminds, based on this interview by Mike McGrail of theBIGPartnership (@BigPartnership on twitter), where I talk about my keynote and a bit about Likeminds: Some of the key points The way that we engage with knowledge has changed. There is not a...
by Benjamin Ellis | Oct 29, 2010 | Milestone Planner, planning
I’m down at Likeminds this week, so I thought I’d follow up on the word cloud Jim shared yesterday with a cloud of the afternoon’s twitter discussions about Likeminds. A slight bit of self-interest, as I did my keynote in the afternoon ;) -but there...
by Benjamin Ellis | Oct 28, 2010 | Milestone Planner
We love word clouds at SocialOptic. They are a great way of getting a quick overview of a huge amount of information. So given that I’m back at the ranch while Benjamin is speaking at the Likeminds conference today, I thought I’d try and get a feel for...
by Benjamin Ellis | Oct 22, 2010 | Milestone Planner, planning, Productivity
Can You See It? There were some great discussions at this week’s TVSMC meet up about observing and visualising work, particularly in talking with Simon Bostock. The challenge is that “knowledge work” isn’t as visible as “traditional...
by Benjamin Ellis | Oct 8, 2010 | Milestone Planner, planning
For sometime we’ve been looking at the next level of planning detail in Milestone Planner: Actions. It’s very deliberately actions and not tasks or to do’s! All of us here have used various to do list tools over the years, and it almost always ends...
by Benjamin Ellis | Sep 22, 2010 | Milestone Planner
Busy times for the SocialOptic Team! We were delighted that a distinguished panel of judges selected Milestone Planner as a finalist in the first round of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition, ranking us as one of the top 5 mobile start ups in the UK. The...
by Benjamin Ellis | Aug 4, 2010 | Milestone Planner, On the road
A little while back the kindly folks at WOMWorldNokia lent me a Nokia N900. It’s a monster of a phone, and I was seriously impressed with it – It’s like having a desktop computer in the palm of your hand. For me it is a pointer to the future of...
by Benjamin Ellis | Jul 19, 2010 | Milestone Planner
At the end of last week, a number of new features went live in Milestone Planner. The first is a set of enhancements to the way that the timeline view is displayed. We’ve made the layout of milestones more efficient and aesthetically pleasing. That means you can...
