Do you know your legal obligations where social media is concerned? Are you up-to-speed with the terms of service of the platforms you’re using? Have your organisation’s communications policy and other policies been updated to encompass social media usage?

Below are the notes from a training session I gave last week on “Legal & Ethical Issues in Social Media” for Digital Community, a 3rd-sector programme being run for local community and voluntary organisations by East Belfast Enterprises. I’ve done a lot of work with charities, social enterprises, community groups, government and private enterprise on how to use social media to achieve organisational aims, whether that be recruitment of staff, volunteers and service users, press outreach, event promotion and much more. There are fantastic opportunities offered by new media channels, but it’s crucial that legal and ethical issues are considered when using them.

If you haven’t given these due attention until now, or just haven’t reviewed them recently, here are the notes from the presentation – please note that this general information does not constitute legal advice, which you should seek independently if and when required. As always, please share with anyone you think would benefit (note the handy buttons on the left!) and add any questions or feedback in the comments.

Remember that this is new territory in many ways, and laws are still being shaped by new cases. The onus is on all of us to keep up-to-date; ignorance is no excuse! See Mashable’s “5 Predictions for Social Media Law in 2012″ for an IP/media lawyer’s thoughts about what’s to come, and keep watching!

Legal and Ethical Issues in Social Media

(Download Adobe Reader free at http://get.adobe.com/reader/. I’ll create a HTML version of this presentation shortly and add the link here.)

I’ve licensed this presentation via Creative Commons as free to share for non-commercial use, with no alterations and with attribution – full info here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

More free stuff

I post useful links and shorter posts on the Soul Ambition: Social Media Facebook page – ‘like’ the page to avail of these.

I also recently uploaded this free eBook on stress management – please feel free to share!

The following is a guest post by Kevin McCaffrey of Conversion Rate Services – download a free white Paper on conversion optimisation at www.conversion-rate-services.com.

The best way to convert more customers into buyers is by using a conversion optimisation process. Conversion optimisation has been around for many years, but is still quite unknown. It is mostly overshadowed by its internet marketing cousins SEO, PPC and social media, but these are all methods of driving people to your website, while conversion optimisation is concerned with turning them into buyers once they get there.

The first step is to define clearly why your site exists. If your primary objective is to sell products, you should be using an ecommerce website. If you sell mostly offline, but want to use your website as a shop window, your primary objective is to get people to contact you and you’d use a lead generation website.

These are the two most common types of website. The goal of conversion optimisation on an ecommerce website is to get more people to buy; on a lead generation website it’s to get more people to contact you. Let’s deal with these separately.

Ecommerce Websites

Your primary objective is to get the visitor to buy something. There are some key pages on an ecommerce website that are great candidates for optimisation. These include:

• Home page
• Product category page
• Product page
• Shopping cart
• Checkout

There are various best practices for each of these pages. These can be easily discovered by searching on Google for “product page best practices” or “shopping cart best practices”.

Best practice guides are a great place to start when optimising your website, but they will only get you so far. What you really need to do is try and understand what your customer’s problem is and help them solve it. More on this later.

Lead Generation Websites

On a lead generation website, your primary objective is to get the person to contact you by email, phone or filling out a form. The key pages on a lead generation website are:

• Home page
• “About Us” page
• Product/service description page
• “Contact Us” page

Each of these pages must have clearly-defined methods of contact. You need to make it as easy as possible for people to get in touch, so make sure the following are clearly displayed on most, if not all, pages:

• Phone number
• Email address
• “Request Callback” form
• “Contact Us” form

Solving Your Customer’s Problems

Whatever your business area is, you are pretty likely to be an expert in that area. You’ve spent many days, weeks, months and years, learning everything there is to know about your chosen field.

This knowledge should be put to good use on your website. For visitors to your website who aren’t familiar with your brand, they’re pretty likely to be on your website because they are looking for a solution to a problem.

You’re probably already aware of the problems facing your customers, but to really put it into context from a customer’s perspective, pick up the phone to your last few customers and talk to them. Ask them what their problem was and how the product they’ve just purchased will help them to solve it. If you do this with a few customers you’ll start to find that they have similar problems, and describe the problems in similar ways. This will give you ideas for ways to improve your website.

Now you can start building some content for your website to guide your visitors to the solution to their problems. If you can be the subject matter expert and have the answer to every question your customer has, you’ll have much better chance of selling to them.

Giving Them Reasons To Convert

Your website visitors want to see some signals that they can trust you. If you haven’t got a well-known brand, you’ll need to put more effort into convincing them that they should deal with you. You can do this by adding these trust indicators prominently on your website:

• Testimonials
• Expert reviews
• Company achievements
• A strong guarantee

Great Tools For Finding Problems On Your Website

You can use best practices to decide on what to improve, you can make guesses or you can use some tools to see what your users are actually doing on your website and then ask them what they think. Here are some great ones:

Clicktale (www.clicktale.com) – Clicktale records what people are doing on your website. You can watch videos of how people move around and see what problems they encounter. Then you can fix the problems.

4Q – www.4qsurvey.com – 4Q is a great feedback tool. It surveys the people who visited your website after they have left. This is a great time to ask people what they were doing and if they were able to do it successfully. This will give you great ideas of things to improve.

How To Make Sure Your Changes Are For The Best

Making big changes to your website is a risky business. How do you know that a change you make is not going to do more harm than good?

Step forward a technique called A/B testing.

In A/B testing you have two versions of the page. The old is version A and the new, version B. If you send half your traffic to the old version and half to the new version you will soon find that one version does a better job than the other.

This is surprisingly easy to set up. There are plenty of cost effective tools to help you. One of the most cost effective is a tool called Optimizely. Go to www.optimizely.com, enter your URL and follow the instructions for a quick demo of how it works.

Elements On Your Page That You Should Try To Improve

Everything about your page can be optimised, so it can be a bit overwhelming deciding where to start. Here are a few ideas:

• Make headlines stronger
• Sell the benefits of your product
• Use bullet points to outline the benefits
• Use images/video to show products in action
• Improve your website copy
• Improve calls to action
• Read your copy out loud. If it doesn’t make sense, re-write it;

How Will I Know When I’m Done?

You won’t.

You’ll never be done. There will always be something to optimize. In all aspects of life there is continual evolution. The cars of today look very little like the cars of 50 years ago and even less like the cars of 50 years before that. It’s the same with your business and your marketing. It will continually evolve, it will never be perfect, but that’s okay.

The best benchmark to find out how you’re doing is always to ask your customers. Make them the centre of your optimisation strategy and you won’t go far wrong.

Kevin McCaffrey

Kevin is based in Belfast and runs Conversion Rate Services, the first dedicated conversion optimization agency in Ireland. Conversion Rate Services helps businesses get the most out of their online presence, by using conversion rate optimisation techniques and business intelligence to make business decisions and improve websites based on fact rather than opinion. Kevin also runs a regular “Conversion Thursday” event in Belfast. Follow him on Twitter at @ConversionRate_  for more details.

Want an easy productivity boost, to free up hours of your time? Up your typing skills! People often ask me how I have time to update so many social media pages, and assume it’s taken me hours, but in fact they’re usually just tiny, quick bursts, a flurry on the keyboard made more speedy by keyboard shortcuts (if you’re not using these and you’re spending a lot of time on the computer, that’s valuable time you’re wasting switching between keyboard and mouse).

An in-depth blog post like Anam Mara, Part 2: Seaside can take me a good five or six hours to write, edit, add photos to, re-edit, publish, and tweak, and at the end of a stint like that I always have a moment of deep gratitude for the compulsory 3 hours of typing class our school provided, once a week.

“Not having the time to post lots of content” is one of the most common complaints from social media users, and if you’re a slow typer, this will be even more true. Or maybe your job entails lots of report writing and admin, and you just want to be able to get that work done in a lot less time. Becoming a touch typist can help you free up loads of time – and there are a raft of free online typing tutorials you can use to get up to speed. The time investment of a few hours a week should save you exponentially more time in the long run. Here are a few resources to check out – and remember; just a short burst a day (or at least every couple of days) will get you up to speed in no time!

http://www.typeonline.co.uk/

http://www.sense-lang.org/typing/

http://www.goodtyping.com/

http://www.freetypinggame.net/

And one for the young’uns:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/

Happy clacking!

[Img credit: www.old-picture.com]

This post is a HTML version of this original, downloadable workbook (PDF file), which I created for a series of free, public workshops for Health In Mind. Please share this link with anyone you think could do with a bit of help in managing stress levels, staying motivated and being able to cope with life’s twists and turns.

This article by Tracy Dempsey is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Feel Better & Keep Moving Forward!

What is stress?

A good definition is:

“A condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize” (Lazarus)

In a nutshell, a thought or feeling of “I can’t cope with this”.

But there’s also good stress!

Good stress (eustress) is what gives us the edge and helps us perform well, learn and grow.

The thought or feeling: “This is stretching me, but I can handle it”.

In his work on happiness, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi outlined a theory that people are happiest in a state of flow – that is, when they’re fully absorbed in a task that is challenging but do-able, losing track of time. (Think back to your childhood. What were you most often doing when you experienced this state?)

Some common causes of (bad) stress

Social – problems or trauma in relationships with partners, friends, family, co-workers, etc
Biological – chronic pain, poor sleep, poor diet, depression, poor mobility, etc
Environmental – conditions at home or work (noise/light/temperature levels etc)
Life Changes – unemployment, debt, bereavement, sudden illness, etc

Looking at it another way:

External – other people, environment/circumstances
Internal – my perceptions (aka my story), shaped by beliefs, previous experiences, other people’s stories

Some common symptoms of (bad) stress

• Poor concentration/memory
• Anxiousness/racing thoughts
• Irritability/’snapping’
• Feelings of overwhelm
• Depression
• Poor sleep (too much, too little, heavy dreaming)
• Isolating yourself, or inability to be alone
• Procrastinating or neglecting responsibilities
• Using food, alcohol, drugs etc. to manage mood
• Skin conditions
• Headaches
• Nausea/dizziness
• Chest pain
• Digestive problems
• Frequent colds
• Unexplained bruises
• Poor hair health
• Nail biting, etc

Blame v. Responsibility

Whilst you may feel justified in blaming someone else, or some external force, for the things that are happening in your life, only you have responsibility for how you interpret what’s happening and deciding what you’re going to do about it. Stress can come from feeling you don’t have much control; but you can always take control over your reactions and next actions.

There are 3 types of business in the world: My Business, Your Business, Any Other Business. (Adapted from “Loving What Is”, Byron Katie)

My business: What I’m doing, my actions/reactions.
Your business: What you’re doing, your actions/reactions.
Any other business: Things that are just happening, outside of my control (economy, accidents, bereavement, etc.)

The only place you have any power is ‘my business’. Whatever anyone else is doing or whatever is happening, you can always choose your response. This means that no-one or nothing can ever ‘make’ you feel bad, and you can always make yourself feel better, when you want to. (Sometimes, you might prefer to continue feeling bad for a while, but you have a choice of how long to do so! All emotions are healthy in moderation, they’re only problematic if they’re excessive or feel outside of our control.) Learning to identify the source of our moods and change them if and when we want to is key to wellbeing.   [Page 2]

You may have seen over on the Soul Ambition events page that I’ve been doing some free public workshops via Health in Mind over the last while, on stress management, motivation and resilience. I’ve also done free webinars for www.learningpool.com on the same topics; I know there’s a desperate need for this kind of information. So, in the spirit of good karma, good Corporate Social Responsibility and gratitude for all the people who have been and are there for me when life’s being a bit more obstreperous than usual, please help yourself to this wee, free eBook – and share with anyone you think will benefit from it.

Note: Did you know that PDF files aren’t always compatible with screen-reading software and other accessibility tools? See RNIB’s free accessibility resources and the Web Accessibility Initiative at http://www.w3.org/WAI/.

As an accessible alternative, I’ve split the workbook into a multi-part blog post here.

Feel Better & Keep Moving Forward (PDF workbook)

(Download Adobe Reader free at http://get.adobe.com/reader/)

I’ve licensed this workbook via Creative Commons as free to share for non-commercial use, with no alterations and with attribution – full info here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

More free stuff

Health in Mind has a recently-launched site and Facebook page – click ‘like’ below for more resources, and ‘like’ the Soul Ambition “Life” Facebook page for a mix of articles, coffee-break diversions, inspirational quotes and whatnot.

I hope you find the workbook useful – as always, your feedback is welcome in the comments below!

Happy Friday, people! You may know from my blog post on using Twitter effectively that I don’t really do #FollowFriday, though I appreciate the thought when people take the time to do so! There are so many people I could mention in an #FF tweet, but I’m not sure how effective a technique it is to send followers their way, given how many long strings of Tweeps get shared thusly on a Friday.

I thought, therefore, it might be better for me to do a Friday blog post every now and again to highlight some of the great people I work with/admire/have discovered who are doing things I think are worthy of your attention! I hope you’re moved to follow them on Twitter, Facebook or even real life. (Not literally follow them, like. Crazy behaviour.)

So, here are my first Five On Friday (henceforth tagged with #5onFri) – in no particular order of greatness:

1. Seedhead Arts
seedheadarts.com/
www.facebook.com/seedheadarts
@seedheadarts

I’ve been a fan of (and occasional happy participant in) Adam Turkington‘s work since his trans and Urban Arts Academy wunder-projects, and love what I’m seeing from his new venture, Seedhead Arts. An arts events, management and consultancy business based in Belfast, Seedhead’s recent and ongoing projects include the Mid-Week Magic Club, upcoming festival Titanic Lockdown (New Order, Happy Mondays, Lee Scratch Perry) and a truly innovative venture turning a disused-but-beautiful building in Belfast into a thriving hub for the creative community – The Open Source.

I’m including Seedhead in this particular week’s list partly because Adam had a landmark birthday in the last week. And I missed it. But sure belated cake’s nearly better, for being unexpected, eh Adam?

2. Oh Yeah Centre Belfast
www.ohyeahbelfast.com
www.facebook.com/OhYeahCentre
@ohyeahcentre

I’ve enjoyed many a shindig in the former bonded whiskey warehouse that is the Oh Yeah Centre, from a La Faro gig-slash-ganch-a-thon to Palookaville‘s NYE bash, Palookananny (where we in Beat’n Drum were invited to intensify the mayhem with a live set). I’ve attended music industry talks and took part in one, talking about social media for musicians, and played a set for a Love Music Hate Racism gig, this time two years ago. There are many, many great people involved in this charity (including wonderful volunteers) but I want to give an extra-special, Derry (hi)-style shout-out to a dedicated, passionate, and great-craic woman who’s been at the centre of so much of the realised potential of the place.
She also had a landmark birthday recently.
I missed that too. (In my defence, I have temporarily decamped to the sticks.)

Charlotte Dryden, for you I’ll skip the cake and go straight to pints, maybe even in Sandino’s, in your home territory! Keep doing what you do, you’re only class.

NB: With tomorrow being International Record Store Day, the Oh Yeah’s got a special event on, in collaboration with DSNT – live music, merch and free beer at their Record Day Solidarity Event. If you’re nearby, drop in.

3. Scream Blue Murmur
www.facebook.com/screambluemurmur
@screamblue

From the Oh Yeah/Charlotte it’s an easy jump to Scream Blue Murmur, since Scream Blue’s Gordon is Charlotte’s fiancé. And since the first workshop I attended in the Oh Yeah was given by ex-Stiff Little Fingers drummer, the absolute gent that is Brian Faloon – who played in Scream Blue Murmur until he went and moved to the States for love. (I also already knew SBM’s Phat Bob from our previous shared career as code monkeys. Bob once borrowed my computer and returned it to my desk in its component parts. He thinks I’ve forgotten, but Bob, I’m just biding my time…)

How to describe Scream Blue Murmur – well, the official line is “spoken word/ruff-housin’/tribal fusion”, but it’s an ever-shifting, beautiful beast best experienced live – although for a mere £5 you can pretend they’re in your house, via the gift of Bandcamp and their brand-new EP Belfast Sun. The first time I saw them, I had a flashback to that great ‘Woman… Woooaaaahh-man!’ scene in So I Married An Axe Murderer – and then it got a whole lot more interactive, and raucous.
I did some social media work with SBM recently, and am looking forward to lots of behind-the-scenes/touring video footage – these guys and gals get around. (And they’ve promised they won’t leave the social media updating to Aisling, ahem. *subtle reminder*)

4. Health In Mind
http://yourhealthinmind.org/
www.facebook.com/HealthinMind
@healthinmindni

Health in Mind (NI) is a new, innovative collaboration between four mental health charities and Libraries NI. You may already know that I got into coaching after a (scary-at-the-time but ulimately transformative) experience of depression, back in 2004; I’m passionate about helping people boost their mental health before it becomes a problem and removing the stigma of mental illness. No-one is immune, and we can all increase our coping mechanisms to handle the big adventure we call Life.

I’ve already done one free stress management workshop for Health In Mind, in Strabane Library – participants shared a lot of great feedback and their own ideas on how to beat (bad*) stress. (*There’s a good type too!) The staff are really passionate about the project – and for most of the books I mentioned, were shouting out “We’ve got that one downstairs!” (and making notes of the others). Tomorrow, I’m off to Holywood Library to do another free workshop – 2pm-3:30pm, no registration required, and you can see more info on this event page.

Health In Mind recently launched a resource-full website, Facebook page and Twitter feed, so please share the links generously! And remember to like the Soul Ambition: Life page for links and resources too.

5. Bespoke Belfast
www.bespokebelfast.com
https://www.facebook.com/bespokebelfast
@bespokebelfast

Last, but by no means least, is fantastic boutique travel company Bespoke Belfast, headed up by my favourite Welsh-woman/Ulster adoptee, Melita Williams. I met Melita when I was delivering the “Go For It!” entrepreneurship programme, and was immediately impressed by her passion for travel, for outstanding customer service and for all the great things this area has to offer. We’ve since become ffrindiau da (did I get it right?!) and I’ve been so delighted to watch her take her company from strength to strength, diversifying from wonderfully unique vintage weekends and sporting event breaks to exclusive corporate experiences.

Melita’s just one of the warmest, most effervescent people I know – and is a complete magpie for hidden gems to enjoy! So if you’re looking for a truly special travel experience on this emerald isle, you could not be in better hands than hers. I mean, just read this: “All overnight trips include the unique Bespoke Belfast special bubbles and cupcake welcome reception where you will meet your personal travel co-ordinator and receive your luxury goody bag full of locally produced Northern Irish treats!” Does your usual travel provider give you all that..? Get in touch!

So to all those involved in my Five on Friday, and to you who’ve read this far, diolch a nos da!

Today I stumbled upon a marvellous thing on one of my favourite websites, www.lostateminor.com – a public wall where people could share their “bucket list“; the things they want to do before they die.

Last year, I came across and shared this blog post by Bronnie Ware, who shared the “top 5 regrets of the dying”, as observed by her in the patients she spent time with at the end of their lives. The post struck a real chord for me; as so many of the regrets were things I’d struggled with for years. (Except, no. 3 – “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings”; I’m not so much a ‘wearing my heart on my sleeve’ person as a ‘wearing my heart as a sandwich board, with matching hat and shoes’ type.)

The reason I got into coaching was that in 2004, I was diagnosed with depression, despite having a loving family and brilliant friends, a steady income, a roof over my head, no major health issues, and so many privileges enjoyed by all of us in the developed world. Lying in bed, counting my blessings, I felt all the worse – as though all these things were wasted on me, because I felt hollow, numb. I never got the point of wanting to die, but did at that point long to be in a coma for a while, just to ‘switch off’. (If you’re in a bad place at the moment, please see this list of resources.)

There were a lot of things at play – unhealthy thought patterns, fragile self-esteem, worry about what other people thought about me (let go of that, for one, and your life is infinitely better!), stress from work and debt, hormones and more. My overall story was: “I’m trapped in an unfulfilling career, earning money to clear the debt I’ve accrued trying to escape my unfulfilling career, or otherwise ‘buy myself’ some fulfillment; my friends are moving on and my life is shrinking, not growing.” Through applying ideas from the scores of coaching, philosophy and soul-searching books and articles I devoured, I learned how to change my story, drop the things that weren’t working for me and turn my life around – and the future went from being a bleak, restricted, grey corridor to a never-ending vista of wonderful people, brilliant adventures and infinite possibilities.

One of the best things I did for myself was to take up music again, after having abandoned it for years – I believe we are all creative beings, and need to express that. It was as if part of me had withered on the vine because I hadn’t been indulging in any creative activities – I still feel the difference if I let creative practices slip too long. In fact, there was a period a couple of years back when I was feeling that my mojo had taken a dip, even though I still found the coaching very rewarding and was sure it was a major part of what I wanted to do with my life. One day, I headed to Newry to visit good friend Declan Legge for a catch-up and to check out his Big Space Studios. I was still there when musician friend David McCann turned up to record some of his beautifully-crafted, wonderfully evocative songs. I asked if it would be okay for me to hang around and listen to the recording session – he said ‘of course’, and invited me to add backing vocals to one of his songs,’ Spark‘. (You can hear the full album at David’s “And Sang to a Small Guitar” bandcamp page – I love it!)

Well, that day is one of my favourite memories – curled up on the studio sofa, sunlight streaming in the window, leafing through music books and magazines while Declan manned the mixing desk, with David’s fantastic finger-picking and gorgeous melodies washing over me. Mojo restored!
(If you’ve let an old hobby slip, or haven’t tried a new one in the last while, I can’t enough recommend doing something about that – make time to play; it’s good for your health and good for the soul.)

So: As a celebration of all the wonderful things you can do with a life, and as inspiration to anyone feeling stuck and void of ideas, I thought I’d do a blog post version of that public wall inviting you all to share your ideas and goals for your future. Now, there are some great sites specifically for this kind of thing – bucketlist.org, 43things.com are worth checking out – but I’d love to hear your hopes and dreams below. Maybe you’ll inspire someone else, and maybe you’ll even find a collaborator for your project. Or maybe you’ll just give yourself a boost of motivation to move forward with your plans.

Tell us: What do you want to do before you die?

[Img via Sam Fitzpatrick at www.lostateminor.com]

Most of my posts on here are pretty lengthy – detailed ‘how-to’ posts, descriptive travel stories and so on. But since you don’t always have time to read long posts, and I don’t have loads of time between clients and workshops to write lots of them, I post shorter snippets and useful links on Facebook.

I recently split the Soul Ambition Facebook page into niche pages so you can ‘like’ as many or as few as are relevant to you. Choose from:

I also have a YouTube channel – I’m working on video content at present but in the meantime have shared useful/interesting videos such as vocal coaching, dance and meditation videos: www.youtube.com/user/soulambitiontv

For (my very amateur!) photos, I have a Flickr account.

And for a treasure trove of inspiration I’m loving Pinterest – I’ve pinned other people’s superior images of everything from treehouses to food to gorgeous scenery on my boards.

For music-lovers, feel free to add me on Last.FM so I can nosey through your musical drawers – I still love it most for new music discovery! (If you’re a musician, would love to hear your music too!)

And finally, for professional networking, and to read recommendations of my work, connect with me on LinkedIn:

You can also now follow the Soul Ambition company page:

Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions for content on any of these pages – hope to see you on a few of them!

Tracy

I know from my workshops and coaching that many of you are still quite innocently getting this profile/page thing wrong. Hard-working, time-strapped, resource-poor business owners with great products and services; charities and social enterprises who do fantastic work; talented artists and musicians and promoters who are just trying to get their work out there. Some of you have set up profiles in a rush; others have co-opted someone inexperienced to do it for you (or worse, paid a ‘professional’ who’s done it wrong), and are unaware that anything’s amiss. Some of you know you should be making the switch, but haven’t got around to it, and don’t quite understand why it’s so important. I believe Facebook is a fantastic tool for spreading the word about what you do and engaging the people who’ll support you – and I want to help you succeed with it! (This doesn’t apply of course to out-and-out shysters – but the transparency of this social media age will out them anyway.)

Passionate as I am about ethical business and music and worthwhile charities and so on, I’m also passionate about marketing not being too in-your-face. And Facebook is a social network, not a business forum. Let people engage with your business or organisation on their own terms; it’ll pay off.

Here’s why.

1. Your profile could be deleted at any time, and you could be banned

Using a personal profile (which has ‘friends’) for an organisation, instead of a page (which has ‘likes’), is a breach of Facebook rules, and therefore Facebook can pull down your profile at any time. In some cases, they’ve banned users for repeat offenses. This is because personal profiles are supposed to be one-per-actual-human-being, to keep things as transparent as possible (yes, I know) and to keep Facebook social rather than commercial, for the average user. Pages are add-ons, not the core service, and whilst Facebook allows you to pay for placed ads, they don’t want users to be so bombarded with marketing that they get fed up and leave.

Don’t throw good time after bad by continuing to update a profile that could get pulled at any time. Make a wee bit of time now to set up a legitimate page – or use the automatic conversion process (link and read-this-first info here) for switching a profile into a page. It’s quick and simple, but if you’ve got yourself into a real tangle here’s a post to help you sort it out.

2. Using a profile instead of a page makes your organisation look – at best – incompetent…

Pages have been around for a long time now. If you’re using a profile for business use, you can look like you don’t have a clue about social media – especially bad for people working in online tech, PR, marketing, etc. (I have seen it; instant credibility dive in those cases.) Whatever your industry, it looks like you’ve either not bothered to read any guidelines, or tried to and couldn’t figure it out. There is lots that is complicated about ever-changing Facebook, but this bit’s simple: One profile per human being, multiple possible pages for anything else.

3. …And at worst, shady

Some people will see a friend request from ‘Bloggs Business’ and just assume that you KNOW that you shouldn’t be adding them as friends, but are slyly or pushily trying to insinuate yourself and your products/services into their personal lives anyway. This is why some people won’t accept your ‘friend’ requests – and some even go so far as to report your profile. Maybe they’ll accept your ‘friend’ request but immediately hide your updates, or move you into a ‘limited’ list, rather than hurt your feelings by declining your request. (People really do this!)
At the least, you may be unwittingly leaving a sour taste in people’s mouths.

Think of it this way: at a social gathering, whilst you’d expect some people would be talking a bit about about their work and how it’s going, you’d probably not appreciate hearing too much business chat around you, while you’re more interested in who’s secretly snogging who, the latest <insert favourite band here> album, or where the host’s hidden the good whisky, etc. Maybe a few business people have gathered together in one room, and are excitedly wittering away about the subject – attracting some interested parties, and repelling others towards the dancefloor. Facebook is like such a party, where the host has kindly allowed you to set up shop in side rooms (pages), where you can talk plenty about your work to people who wander in to find out more. They’ve even let you pay to put up posters around the dancefloor (ads – am I stretching this too far?) – but you’re not supposed to butt in on their social chat uninvited.

Now, in the case of charities, bands, small, local businesses etc., the effect may not be quite as strong – because there can be a lot more goodwill towards you and people can be more forgiving. But people who don’t yet know you/what you do might still be put off. (From the charity point of view, think of the goodwill towards certain charities being eroded by pushy collection box rattlers on the high street – however good the work being done is, people want to get involved on their own terms and not feel harassed into it.) Regardless, if people don’t mind your profile so much as other organisations’, there are 9 other reasons here to switch!

4. You open the floodgates for unwanted ‘friend’ requests

People who do accept your friend request can suddenly find themselves swamped with requests from ‘sticker collector’ types (i.e. people who seem to collect ‘friends’ with no intention of building any kind of relationship – or maybe the wrong kind). In the past, I’d get lots of friend requests from strangers and notice that the only ‘friends’ in common were business profiles. Again, this nuisance factor harms your brand, and can annoy even your most loyal customers/fans or your friends and family.

5. Profiles have a 5,000 friend limit, pages have no ‘like’ limits.

If you’re a small, local business, this may not bother you – although if you have plans for growth or even high awareness of your brand, it probably should. Many organisations finally make the switch to a page when they stop being able to add/accept new ‘friends’ and become aware that they should have been on a page all along.

6. Pages have a whole host of ‘plug-ins’ to link your Facebook page to your website, blog etc.

Without needing to know how to code, you can add fancy ‘like’ boxes, with or without faces, or a newsfeed, to your website or blog. You can also now add a ‘subscribe’ button, if you’ve enabled that on your personal profile, but for pages, there are lots more goodies.

7. Pages have analytics, profiles don’t

If you’ve not yet used a page at all, you’re probably unaware that you can track all sorts of data on a page with Facebook insights – showing you at a glance the kinds of people (gender, age range, location) who are engaging with your page and how much they’re engaging with which posts – helping you tweak your efforts to engage them better. This is fantastically useful for monitoring and adjusting your marketing/funding efforts, your communications strategy, your sales/donations planning – and it’s all free! For pages. Not profiles.

8. New ‘timeline’ for pages allows people to message you directly

This is a biggie. I know from experience that some people who haven’t yet let go of a profile for their business – even after setting up a page – are holding on to it because they like being able to message people. With the new changes, people can now message your page. Note that you can’t message people first – you can only reply to them; but this is as it should be! Your loyal customers, family, friends and some super-nonchalant types might not mind getting messages from a business profile, but many other people do – why alienate so many potential customers? Letting people message you, however, is a great move for Facebook pages – some people wouldn’t ever write on your business page’s wall, but might feel comfortable privately sending you an enquiry.

9. Pages can write on other page’s walls, but not on profiles

So you won’t be able to write on people’s walls any more, as your business/organisation. This is as it should be. You will be able to write on the pages of related organisations – collaborators in projects maybe, or industry peers, or festivals, events organisations, funding organisations, etc.
They’ll be able to write on yours – which they aren’t currently able to do if you’re still using a profile. You want other organisations to be able to publicly praise/thank you for your work, or other bands to talk about how much they enjoyed playing with you at a gig, or other charities to signpost people to your organisation – this can all be done through pages. (If you’re thinking ‘I don’t want other pages posting on my page, then a) be aware you can adjust your settings so that they can’t, b) you may be missing the point of the many-to-many nature of social media tho’, and c) you obviously do understand the ‘nuisance’ factor and can now empathise with those people that didn’t accept your business as a ‘friend’!)

10. Your profile could be deleted at any time, and you could be banned

I had you at Number 1, didn’t I?

So, Facebook really can be a brilliant tool to help you increase engagement with customers, funders, press and peers. The new business pages are, I think, an improved way of doing so (blog post about that to follow). So go reap the rewards! Don’t put it off the switch any longer; as Stiller-as-Starsky says – do it.

Are you a long-time business page user, or someone who used a profile first and then switched? Are you seeing great benefits? How useful do you find the analytics? Please share your experience in the comments below in case it helps another reader!

If you want to improve your situation, the first step is to accept the situation you’re in at this very moment. This does not mean ‘settling’ or resigning yourself to it – it’s about not creating more stress by trying to resist where you actually are. A thread running through many philosophies and world religions is that suffering comes from resistance, and that only through surrender can you find peace of mind. (Suggested reading: Eckhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’ – Kindle edition here*.) Once you’ve surrendered to the present, you are in a much stronger place to start making changes for the future, with the healthy optimism that will help you stay motivated, spot and create opportunities and make lasting changes.

Is the job really a dead loss?

What you can appreciate about your current job? What’s working? What has it allowed you to learn, do, and be? What skills have you developed? What is it that you dislike? A lack of variety/too much change? Too much structure/not enough? Identifying what you don’t like helps you clarify what you want and start creating that – either in your current job or in your next.
How long have you been unhappy? Has it been a slow, steady decline, or is it due to a recent change? Do you dislike just one or two aspects of the job? Investigate to decide if this is a situation you need to leave, or one you just need to change. Maybe the company’s a good fit, but the role isn’t. Maybe some good structures and processes would fix the issue(s). Or perhaps the problem is conflict with a particular person(s)? If this is the case, ask for a talk to clear the air, and if need be, go to the next level up (however often) to calmly and assertively discuss the issue. Oftentimes this is all that’s needed for everyone to feel heard and respected and to vastly improve team dynamics. If this doesn’t help – if, for example, there’s a culture of bullying and ‘closing rank’ – then you really are better off out of it. No job is worth sacrificing your physical and mental well-being for.

Take responsibility

What are you doing that’s contributing to your bad experience? Are you constantly bitching about the job/the company/the boss, to everyone but the person(s) you should be talking to? Does your ‘story’ about the job make you feel terrible? (“I’m trapped/Why should I bother, no-one else does” etc.) Change your story to something more supportive (“This is a good opportunity for me to develop experience while I figure out my long-term goals/I’m glad for the security of this job whilst I develop my career plan/I can bring a lot to this while I’m here”).

Improve your health

If you’re not taking care of your health, you can’t expect to have a positive experience in the workplace, or indeed in your personal life. Nutritious eating, adequate hydration, exercise and healthy sleep patterns are all necessary for full engagement in your work, your relationships and your relaxation time. Mindfulness meditation is a simple, stunningly effective way to reduce stress and improve well-being. Mindful practices like yoga, t’ai chi or pilates are also a great way to build strength and switch off mentally.

What destructive behaviours are you indulging in? Smoking? Drinking excessively? Staying up late watching tv or browsing the internet? Commit to improvement – decide what good habits you want to put in place, how you’ll make those easy to maintain and how you’ll avoid slipping back into bad habits.
For a simple, immediate improvement, take a deep, slow breath. And repeat.

Think yourself happy, not stressed

A major cause of poor sleep – and thus anxiety, low mood and even depression – is ‘ruminating’ – going over things again and again in your head without taking action. Rumination leads to increased dreaming and less of the REM sleep critical for recovery and good health. What we focus on gets bigger – if you’ve something preying on your mind, ask yourself, “Can I do something about this?” If the answer’s “yes”, make plans to do so; if not, let it go. Pay attention to this mental habit of rumination, and simply say ‘stop!’ to yourself when you become aware of it. Replace this worrying with some quality daydreaming about what you’d like to be and have instead – imagine and enjoy the feeling of being in a job you love, before you even start planning how to get there.

Engage

Whether you’ve decided to stay on or to double your efforts to change jobs, you can instantly improve your experience of your current job by committing to giving it your best. Not (just) because that makes you a great employee, but because it transforms the experience for you. Instead of stressing out about where you are, choose to free up your mental and emotional energy to go about creating the next stage of your career.

[A shorter version of this article first appeared in Northern Ireland's "Belfast Telegraph" and 'Sunday Life" in January 2011, and was later added to www.facebook.com/careerbuilders, along with additional links and resources.]

*Amazon affiliate links – which I only use for things I wholeheartedly recommend!

[Img credits: Be Here Now - Katie Daisy on Flickr (and you can purchase a print here); Yoga photo - lululemon athletica on Flickr; Stop sign - thecrazyfilmgirl on Flickr]

Think of a number, any number… I bet I know what it is! What’s that? You don’t believe in ‘mind reading’? I thought not; most people probably don’t. So why is it, then, that many of us assume we can do it? In our private lives, in our working lives, we often think we ‘know’ what someone’s thinking, what they think of us, what they think is right or wrong – and worse, we assume they ‘know’ what we’re thinking too. A little crazy, no..?

“The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”

- George Bernard Shaw

Below are some of the most common examples of ‘mind reading’ I come across in my coaching. If any of these sound familiar to you, see if a change in perspective can help you improve the situation.

He should know why I’m upset…

There are two reasons why statements of this type don’t help you. First of all, if someone doesn’t know why you’re upset, then they just don’t; ‘should’ is a judgement that doesn’t change the reality. Being annoyed or upset that someone isn’t doing something you want them to doesn’t change the fact; it just annoys you or upsets you.

Secondly, you are expecting someone else to know what is going on in your head. Even though they don’t have access to your mind, your memories, your past experiences – which may be influencing how you’re feeling now – you expect them to be able to know what you’re thinking or feeling – and why – without you telling them. That’s a pretty tall expectation.

Of course, quite often we can guess what someone else is thinking or feeling, and why, from visual and verbal cues, and from contextual information. Some people are highly perceptive and good at reading expressions, body language, tone of voice and so on, but we’re all still operating with imperfect knowledge and often subjective bias. It’s still just interpretation rather than concrete knowledge. So for the sake of your sanity, and others’, give up on projecting superhuman powers onto others and get into the habit of clear and honest communication.

If you want someone to know how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking: tell them.
If you want to know how they’re feeling or what they’re thinking: ask them. (And then listen carefully, in case you had it all wrong.)

If she loved me, she would/wouldn’t…

‘If… would’ is another judgement, which has come about from your own past experiences and personal beliefs. Your experience of various types of relationships might differ wildly from those of the other people in them – working relationships, romantic relationships, friendships. As a result, you’re likely to have formulated a set of beliefs about what a relationship ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ be, what behaviour is or isn’t acceptable, and what you can expect from your partner/friend/colleague. The problem is, people often assume that the other person has these same beliefs, and it only becomes apparent that they don’t when problems crop up. Don’t expect your partner or friend to automatically share your beliefs about the various aspects of your relationship: discuss them, and agree on what boundaries, behaviours and ideas are acceptable to you both. In the workplace, it’s very useful if the company itself has a clear code of conduct, but that’s only a starting point for strong, well-communicating teams. A helpful exercise is to have team members discuss what ‘good teamwork’ looks and feels like – what behaviours/attitudes people would like to experience – and draw up a team contract to honour that.

They’ll think I’m stupid…

This is perhaps one of the most insidious examples of mind reading, and I hear it so, so often. Many of my coachees have reported not speaking up in work, or at home, amongst friends or in their families because they are scared of others’ opinions. It is a horribly debilitating and frustrating state of mind to be in, and it is completely self-imposed.

The main problem here is a belief that your opinion isn’t as valid or important as someone else’s. If this sounds like you, drop this notion now. Everyone has a right to their opinions, and to share them; how other people choose to react is up to them. Think of how many places in the world there are where people are imprisoned – or worse – for speaking their mind. When you face no such danger for speaking yours, why would you dream of playing the dictator and stifling your own right to speak?

If someone’s asking for facts and figures, and you know them; share them. If they’re asking for ideas and opinions, and you have some; share them. If you’re passionate about something and you want to share your feelings about it; share them.

Mind Control

Remember: you cannot control other people, or their actions, or external events; you can only control your own reactions to them. To borrow and tweak the words of Byron Katie in her book Loving What Is: How Four Questions Can Change Your Life*, you could say there are only 3 kinds of business in the universe: my business, your business, and Any Other Business.

Your time and energy are precious. Whilst you can learn to get better at predicting, changing or influencing other people’s actions and reactions (I am a massive fan of Derren Brown and cheeky NI mentallist David Meade), you can’t actually control them – trying to only leaves you frustrated and upset. If you stay instead ‘in your own business’, where you do have control, things will become so much easier.

A variation on this article appeared in the Belfast Telegraph/Sunday Life in August 2011, with a focus on working relationships. See www.facebook.com/careerbuilders for previous columns and career-related links and snippets.

[Img credit: www.derrenbrown.co.uk]

*Amazon affiliate link

February 14th. There are surely few dates in the calendar to cause such consternation amongst the general populace. Teenage angst can raise its floppy-fringed head to dent the confidence of the most secure single person and the day can be a minefield for new and established couples. (And it just a money-making PR stunt like recent “Blue Monday“, sigh…) If you’re a fan and are looking forward to yet another opportunity to show your love, great; likewise if Valentine’s Day doesn’t register on your radar at all.

But if you’re dreading the 14th, whether single or in a relationship, here are some ideas for improving the experience, or indeed making any day a better day for love.

• Buy yourself flowers/chocolates/wine/the lot. Whether single or in a relationship, you don’t need someone else to give you the things you enjoy; if they do – happy days, but the one person you should be able to rely on to make you feel happy and loved is yourself. If you’re feeling blue; stick on music that makes you smile, read a good book, watch a comedy (may I recommend Anchorman, which I can’t watch often enough).

• Give a donation to charity. Spread the love elsewhere – take time to think of all the love you have in your life, from family, friends, things you enjoy, and pay it forward. If you’re in a couple, how about making this the Valentine’s Day gift to each other? Gone are the worries about how much to spend, and what to spend on, and the resentment of feeling that you have to buy a gift to ‘prove’ your love for each other. Why not make V Day a day to spread a little love where it’s needed in the world, and just appreciate what it is you love about each other? (Note: ethical gifts such as the ones on the example sites listed below usually come with a card. Another minefield deftly side-stepped; no-one could complain about the lack of hearts around a picture of a goat. Could they?)

Concern: purchase a global gift in £ Sterling
Trócaire: Purchase a global gift in € Euro or £ Sterling
Save the Children: Purchase a global gift £ Sterling or US Dollars
Crisis: Purchase a kit; choose between welcome kit/wellbeing kit/skills kit/job kit/
housing kit

• If money’s really tight and you’re balking at spending any money but don’t want to ignore the day altogether, why not go traditional and make a gift for your partner – check YouTube for some ‘how-to’s, like this ‘turn an old record into a bowl‘ 5-minute project. (I can just hear the passive-aggressive types amongst you cackling evilly. Don’t do it.) Or maybe make a voucher entitling the bearer to breakfast in bed for a week, a ‘golden ticket’ for skipping partner-invite work do’s for a month, or a massage a week for a month (costume optional). Get creative!
  For the card, any Blue Peter attempt you could make would surely outclass Tesco’s PR effort…)

• If you find yourself judging the ‘health’ of your relationship by the cards and the presents you receive (or don’t) from your partner, it’s time to take stock. Ask yourself what it is you truly value in your relationship. Think about ways your partner expresses love for you that have nothing to do with gifts or spending money. People show their love in different ways – some through physical affection, some through practical support, some through words, etc. – but we have a tendency to judge based on our own preferred style. (If you feel you’re not getting enough affection, have a talk to your partner. Explain what it is that makes you feel loved; and remember that it is up to them to choose whether they want to provide this or not. If they can’t, or aren’t willing to compromise, then you can choose what you do in response. This is not about making demands: it’s about respecting each other’s right to ask for what you need and the right to choose whether or not to meet that need.)

• If you’re single, already love yourself and are now ready to meet a partner, be clear on what you’re looking for. And be clear about what you have to offer. Ghandi famously said:

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

A variation on that theme could be “Be the person you want to meet“. This doesn’t mean that you’re looking for a clone of yourself (remember that Seinfeld episode?) but that you’re already bringing into your life the qualities that you’re looking for. If you’re looking for ‘someone exciting’, for example, look at ways that you can make your life more exciting, rather than wait for someone to come along and add spice to your life for you. If you want to feel loved and appreciated, start by loving and appreciating yourself. Replace harsh self-talk; see yourself the way you’d want a doting lover to see you – good points loved, flaws kept in perspective. The more you value yourself the less you need reassurance from other people. Think about what your ‘deal-breakers’ are, i.e. the things that are critically important to you in a relationship. Hobbies and interests probably won’t be ‘deal-breakers’ (unless they’re highly specialised); personal values probably will. Be clear on what’s important to you so that you’ll more easily recognise it when you see it – and be less likely to waste time on ‘bad leads’.

• Take the focus off romantic love altogether; phone a friend, or a family member, just to say hello, or to tell them you love them. Call to see a neighbour who might be feeling lonely. Or just get together with other single friends or family and spoil each other a bit – cook a course each, get/make each other silly gifts, or just order in and veg out in front of a film. If you’re feeling like you’re not getting enough love, shift your focus to how you can show love to others instead, and see if you don’t feel that it is better to give than to receive.

• If seeing couples everywhere gets you down, treat it like a zoological experiment. Get out on the town with a load of mates and play the people-watching game ‘How long have they been dating?’ as you observe the mating dances unfold. You could even play for prizes, if the couples in question humour you when you trot over to ask them for the truth…

• For the real cynics amongst you, why not stage a fake-proposal-turned-tragedy, film it on your mobile and email it to some hilarious clip show, for a bit of cash? Note: this idea nabbed from local funnyman Keith Law – see his ‘unexpected proposal gag‘ vid on YouTube.

• Or finally, instead of trying to feel better, indulge in the misery! (People often assume all life coaches try to encourage people to feel happy all the time. I don’t; every emotion is healthy or even desirable in moderation, and gives you something to learn from. It’s about not feeling controlled by your emotions but learning that you can choose which to nurture at any given time.) In 2010, I performed in a Love Music Hate Racism gig organised by the NI branch. Originally planned as a ‘Black Valentine’ gig, it had to be rescheduled to April, so we dropped that tag but kept the original remit of 1930s/1940s-style songs of bleak love, misery and absent lovers. I covered these pain-laden songs (accompanied by the super-talented Rory Nellis – check him out!); indulge yourself.

Full “Black Valentine”: YouTube playlist

(Sneak preview:)

So to Hallmark and their ilk, I say: Down with commercial high-jacking of human emotions! And up with all kinds of love.

["Calendar" image credit: Dan Moyle via Flickr (Creative Commons) ]

Updated/expanded version of original article for the main site, www.soulambition.co.uk – so if it seems familiar, it ain’t plagiarism!

Can’t seem to get a break in the current job market, despite your best efforts? Feeling demoralized and demotivated? Feel like you’ve been on a long road and no end is in sight? In difficult economic times, you can be doing everything right and still not be able to bag a good job – here are some ideas for how to stay motivated until you do.

Optimise Your Job Search

First of all, review your current job search strategy. Are you treating your job hunt like a job itself – with structure, tasks and targets? You should be – you’re essentially your own boss now and your job is to create a satisfying career. Are you spending time staying up-to-date with your chosen industry, attending networking events, boosting your online profile? Perhaps the industry you want work in is in decline – in which case your time may be better spent re-training for a change, rather than chasing dwindling jobs. Or perhaps it’s developing in ways that mean certain, specialist skills are now required to do well – giving you the opportunity to study or train with your extra time. Do your research – online with websites such as COBRA or MINTEL and industry sites (check your local business library for free access, and bring a USB stick as you will probably be charged for print-outs); with your local business development agency; in trade magazines and general business press. Even if you’re not considering starting a business, a good knowledge of the issues business owners in your chosen industry are currently facing can only be a good thing for your employability.

Sort Out Your Finances

For many people, their financial situation is their biggest worry – so much so that they’d rather ignore it rather than face reality. Now’s the time to take control. Do a financial audit: check your credit rating with respected agencies (in the UK the big three are www.experian.co.uk, www.equifax.co.uk and/or www.callcredit.co.uk); list all your debts and find out what your interest rates are to know what exactly you’re paying back; and monitor your outgoings to see where you can cut back. Sites like www.moneysavingexpert.com have free tools and advice to help you, as well as forums where people share tips and discounts. If you’re in debt, use free services such as www.debtadvicefoundation.org
or The Consumer Credit Counselling Service’s, www.cccs.org.uk for advice and practical tools for managing and decreasing your debt. Starting to deal with debt will be a massive weight off your shoulders, whilst ignoring it could lead to serious difficulties.

Boost Your Health

How about your health? Are you feeling so fed up that you’re sitting about watching tv or surfing the net, snacking on comfort foods? This is highly dangerous – your mental wellbeing is tied-up with your physical wellbeing and you need to take good care of both, particularly during stressful times. Pick a cheap activity that you can enjoy – buy a home workout dvd (this is my favourite*!) or spend more time outdoors – even just put on your favourite music and dance around your living room. A ‘reason’ people often give for not being in better physical shape is not having enough time to work out – when you’ve an abundance of time you can try out new activities, even free ones like walking or hiking, and enjoy massive benefits to your physical and mental health.

Maybe use your extra time to boost your cookery skills – there are lots of great recipe sites and YouTube videos showing healthy, easy-to-prepare, low-cost meals that you can cook in bulk and freeze in portions – which will be extremely useful for when you’re back in employment!

Boost Your Mental Health

And don’t forget to feed your mind and spirit too – find inspirational articles, books, music, quotes and take time to enjoy them – use them to set yourself practical goals and enjoy the boost of achieving them. Pin up quotes you particularly love where you’ll see them often (I still have the poem ‘Invictus‘ above my desk, from back in my ‘Dark Times’). And make sure to keep your sense of humour – watch your favourite comedy shows/films; keep favourite cartoons/books to hand (or find them online); go to open mic nights (especially free/cheap ones – student nights are often good for this).

Declutter

Do that de-clutter you never had time for while you were working; tackle a room at a time, or even just a drawer. Bin the things that can’t be recycled, recycle what can and/or donate unwanted-but-useable things to a charity shop – which of course helps you keep perspective on your situation, as you think of those worse off than yourself.

Do the same with your mental habits! What outdated beliefs are you holding on to that should have been binned years ago? What beliefs need updating? And how could you freshen up your outlook? Try automatic writing as a way to get to the bottom of what’s going on mentally; you can achieve some real ‘Eureka!’ moments very quickly.

Learn a New Skill

Perhaps download a free language learning podcast from iTunes – ‘Coffee Break Spanish‘ is massively popular, or you could join me in learning Irish, aiming for Líofa (“fluency”) by 2015! I’m currently working through the BBC’s Giota Beag course – see their full range of online Irish resources at www.bbc.co.uk/irish/english/.

You could even study a few modules of a university degree for free; many of them have materials online to study at no cost (and usually for no official credit). See the Open Courseware Consortium’s website for more info. Some examples:

• iTunes U (UK link here, US here – or access directly via iTunes on your computer)
• Stanford University on iTunesU
• Open University’s OpenCourseWare
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) OpenCourseWare
• Notre Dame OpenCourseWare
• Tufts University OpenCourseWare
• University of Tokyo OpenCourseWare
• Carnegie Mellon University’s Open Learning Initiative
• …And finally, ” the world’s first tuition-free online university dedicated to the global advancement and democratization of higher education” – University of the People

For more bitesize courses, the BBC’s Learning website is great: www.bbc.co.uk/learning.

Find Free Entertainment

For entertainment as well as learning, become an expert at finding free events and activities, and go to them with fellow out-of-workers, or friends off work on maternity/paternity leave. Many arts organisations organise free events; find them online and subscribe to their ezines, follow them on Twitter, become a fan of their Facebook pages, etc. to be kept up to date.

Give A Little Bit

And how about volunteering? One sure-fire way to feel better about your lot is to get involved helping those dealing with tougher situations – and this is perhaps your best opportunity to donate your time and energy to a worthy cause. Aside from the knowledge that you are doing good, volunteering experience looks good on your CV – and you can target organisations/roles where the experience will actually boost your skills. You could choose to approach an organisation directly to volunteer for them, or work with a volunteer agency to find a suitable match – locally, nationally or internationally. Some useful links to check out:

• Volunteer Now (NI): www.volunteernow.co.uk/
• Volunteer Ireland: www.volunteer.ie
• Volunteering Ireland: www.volunteeringireland.ie
• Do-It (UK): www.do-it.org.uk
• Bunac (Worldwide): http://www.bunac.org/
• Global Volunteer Network: www.globalvolunteernetwork.org

You Are More Than A Job

Remember that your work situation is only one small part of who you are. Who are you outside of work? What are the various roles you play in your life, and other people’s? Who were you before your last job? Who are you becoming now?

Focus on the positives of your situation – you’ve an opportunity to create a better career, in the same field or a new one. You have time to deal with underlying issues (finances, health) that you might previously have ignored. And you’ve time to explore opportunities/do the things you wished you had time to do while you were in the 9-5.

Use your time wisely and you could look back on this period as a positive turning point
in your life!

[A shorter version of this article first appeared in Northern Ireland's "Belfast Telegraph" and 'Sunday Life" in January 2011, and was later added to http://www.facebook.com/careerbuilders, along with additional links and resources.]

*Amazon affiliate link – which I only use for things I really recommend!

Following on from the previous post on asking for help, if you are in a tough place right now, I’ve listed some websites below that may be of help to you with particular issues you’re facing – please do get in touch with them, even anonymously, to start getting help. And please feel free to add your favourite non-profit services in the comments!

General/Umbrella Services

Citizen’s Advice Bureau (UK): www.citizensadvice.org.uk
Citizen’s Information (Ireland): www.citizensinformation.ie
Reach Out (Ireland): ie.reachout.com

Crisis & Mental Health Support

Samaritans (UK & Ireland): www.samaritans.org/
Pieta House – preventing self-harm and suicide (Ireland): www.pieta.ie/
Suicide Prevention Lifeline (USA): www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
International Suicide Hotlines: www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html
List of Domestic Violence resources (UK): www.bbc.co.uk/health/support/domestic_violence_usefulcontacts_index.shtml
Women’s Aid (Ireland): www.womensaid.ie/
Amen – for male victims of domestic violence and their children (Ireland): www.amen.ie
Domestic Violence Hotline (USA): www.thehotline.org
One in Four – sexual abuse support (Ireland): www.oneinfour.ie
Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (USA): www.rainn.org
Mental Health America (USA): www.nmha.org/
Mental health charity Mind’s “People’s, Groups & Communities” listings (UK): www.mind.org.uk/help/people_groups_and_communities
Rethink Mental Illness (UK): www.rethink.org/
Aware Defeat Depression (NI): www.aware-ni.org
Aware (Irelend): www.aware.ie
WAVE (NI), charity for victims of ‘The Troubles’: www.wavetraumacentre.org.uk
Bullying support (UK): www.bullying.co.uk

For Young People

Young Minds (UK): www.youngminds.org.uk/
Rathbone (UK): http://www.rathboneuk.org/ (I’m a volunteer chair with Rathbone’s NI board)
Spun Out (Ireland): www.spunout.ie/
Teen Between – for support of young people with separated parents (Ireland): teenbetween.ie
Committee for Children (Worldwide): www.cfchildren.org/

For Families

Home Start (UK): www.home-start.org.uk
Family Support Northern Ireland: www.familysupportni.gov.uk/
Me Unltd (NI), support for women carers: www.meunltd.org
Age NI’s Advice & Advocacy Service (NI): www.ageuk.org.uk/northern-ireland/about-us/our-work/advice–advocacy-service/
Action For Children’s Family Support site: www.actionforchildren.org.uk/our-services/family-support
Gingerbread single parents charity (UK): www.gingerbread.org.uk/
One Family single parents charity (Ireland): www.onefamily.ie/

Bereavement Support

List of resources (UK): http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/support/bereavement_usefulcontacts_index.shtml
Child Bereavement Charity: www.childbereavement.org.uk
Bereavement Counselling Service of Ireland: Bereavement Ireland
Console, for people bereaved by suicide (Ireland): www.console.ie

Financial & Debt Advice

Consumer Credit Counselling Service (UK): www.cccs.co.uk
Debt Advice Foundation (UK): www.debtadvicefoundation.org
MoneySavingExpert’s Debt Help Plan (UK): www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan
MoneySavingExpert’s Budget Planner (UK): www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/Budget-planning
MoneySavingExpert’s Benefits Checker (UK): www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/benefits-check
Money Advice and Budgeting Service (Ireland): www.mabs.ie
Credit Counseling Agency (USA): www.creditguard.org

Health & Disability

NHS Choices (UK): www.nhs.uk
Disability Action (NI): www.disabilityaction.org
Sight-loss Charity RNIB (UK): www.rnib.org.uk
Sight-loss Charity NCBI (Ireland): www.ncbi.ie
Action on Hearing Loss (UK): www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk
Hearing Charities of America (USA): www.hearingcharities.org
Irish Wheelchair Association (Ireland): www.iwa.ie

Eating Disorders

B-eat – Beating Eating Disorders (UK): www.b-eat.co.uk/
Eating Association Disorder of Ireland (Ireland): www.bodywhys.ie
National Eating Disorders Association (USA): www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/
Overeaters Anonymous (Worldwide): www.oa.org

LGBT Support

Lesbian Advocacy Service Online (NI): lasionline.org/
LGBT Helpline (Ireland): www.lgbt.ie/
BelongTo (Ireland): www.belongto.org
Gaelick.com (Ireland): www.gaelick.com/
Stonewall (UK): www.stonewall.org.uk/
Advocate.com (USA): www.advocate.com

If what you need isn’t listed here, do get yourself somewhere where you can get online in private and search for support sites and forums. When I suffered from depression in 2004/2005 I found an online community of sufferers who helped me greatly – and when I was coming out of it I found that going back on to help others in a worse place than me helped my own recovery. You’re never alone in your experience.

Finally, for a message of hope from people who once felt like giving up, I just love this video by Pixar employees. It gets better.