A Resolute New Year: New Year Series Part 3

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Namuli Katumba

For this year’s first newsletter we asked a few of our friends, colleagues and clients to let us know what they thought that the ‘trends’ would be for this New Year, 2011. In hearing some of their thoughts, ideas and hopes for what could be popular in the online realm, it got me to thinking how I wanted to improve myself in an online way. In fact once I got to trying to think of just three, I realised there were a lot of trends, now very much past, that I should really be jumping on (read catching up with!). So I apologise now to those of you who will read this and be screaming at me for not already being part of the movement and I hope that you’ll help me reach my New Year Online Resolutions!

1) Pimp my LinkedIn page

This is something I mean to do ALL the time; it has been on my ‘To-Do’ list for months and now I shall do it! Don’t panic, it’s not because I want to move on from Ultraspeed, but more because of the way that LinkedIn seems to be growing not just as a fishing ground for head-hunters but as a genuinely approved and recognised networking forum. A forum where I can finely pin point others that will have specific interests, skills or experience in areas where I would particularly like to grow my knowledge or discuss my views. But to be able to partake in this vastly growing community I have to make sure that others can recognise in my profile that I’m someone that does have something to offer or does fit within that space. Furthermore, a nicely updated profile might help other users find links to those they may be interested in working or networking with. So I guess I’d be doing my bit to help others as well here… hopefully.

2) Join more Online Groups and Forums

A lot of you could say that this is a no-brainer. With business booming in the past year I’ve found less time to go to networking functions. Unfortunately, the case has been that occasionally I have used up precious time on an event quite set apart from what I wanted to learn about or people that I wanted to mix with. This is the no-brainer part, if I become more involved with groups online I can do so at my own leisure, on my own schedule and work out whether the group is ultimately meeting my aims and therefore whether I’d like to join in on offline events.

3) Embrace Online Journalism

A movement that met some resistance from many, including myself, was the online provision of newspapers. I already get a lovely succinct email from various online magazines giving me choice samples of features, articles and webinars, but have, for some reason, always been quite against getting my everyday news in the same way. I recently was enticed to do a £1 month trial with a popular daily broadsheet and I’ve got to say I’ve not looked back. The links to other relevant articles, the opportunity to go straight to the back catalogue of articles by my favourite pundits, the freely available research sections have all been diverting and useful. What’s more, the experience taught me to not just read the daily presented 5 pieces that are offered on a plate via my inbox, but use the actual online magazines as the useful resources that they are meant for.

>So as I mentioned earlier you may shake your head in dismay, or just laugh at my Online Resolutions. However, the point is with any resolutions for the New Year, I believe, is to start small and from that I hope I will become more pioneering in my ways or at least amongst my peers. Next year, the aim is for me to be able to give my own predictions for the new trends for 2012, so watch this space!

Click here for Part1 & Part2

About Namuli Katumba

Namuli is Head of Account Management and Service at Ultraspeed. You can find her on Twitter at @namkat.