The christmas party

Well here we are again either in anticipation of the office party or you may even already have the scars and hangover already. This week I would like you to tell me your favorite christmas party. Any gossip at them, who got off with who, you know the drill.
I ask because our one at our publishing party always has something going down (usually the mulled wine). One year I was in between 2 doctors (easy) doing the can can, I had my arms around their necks and had a bottle of bubbly in each hand. Fortunately the photographer was off somnewhere tasting the sherry, so no pics.
Also is what I would like to know is what others do and what lavishness and merriment they get up to, how big are the publisher parties? What happens to those people that work remotely do they crack open a turkey and eat it on their own?
What embarrasing moments have you had with your colleagues, anyone photocopied their bum yet?

I’m off to see a man about a dog now, so have fun.
Toodle pip

Tis the season to cover leave

Well, it looks like swine flu has not taken our countries by storm as of yet. I hope you all have a business continuity plan in case it still comes about. Talking of sickness, it is the season for fun frivolity and sickness. Around this time of year many people go off for various reasons, and yes even the hangovers kick in.

How much sickness happens in your offices and how does the work get covered? I know last year I touched on cover at Christmas and the census was that the office closes down for the holiday period (sounds like a good plan to me). There are some that are beavering away in the office, which I can only assume they are catching up as no other soul is working, so there is no one to instant message, email, phone, twitter, blog...

ISMTE will be working hard in the new year to ramp up the resources area and will be working on the 2 conferences that are being held next year, one in the US and one in the UK again. I think our members will be pleasantly surprised with the amount of work on the resources that will be taken in 2010. Watch this space.
Anyway off for a mince pie and a glass of something or other.

Toodle pip

Plagiarism and tools

Plagiarism seems to be the talk of the town lately, cross-check have been busy with a tool (I-Thenticate). It was originally piloted by various publishers and it appears to work. I'd like to know if anyone has taken the plunge and put this on their journal. We have dabbled and it is a very useful tool, the only thing we are trying to measure now is how much of staff's time it is taking. Questions like what threshold % should you give? At what stage of your tracking system should you have it. In an ethical world it would be at submission stage but then there is a cost involved and you are paying for something that may be immediately rejected. So at revision or acceptance stage?
What happens when something goes over the threshold you then need to investigate. You need to familiarise yourself with the policy of plagiarism and self-plagiarism. COPE will be able to help you there with a flowchart which are in the resources area of ISMTE http://ismte.org/resources.html

Can people leave some comments regarding what they think of it and what they are doing about it.

There have been presentations at publisher meetings and manuscript tracking meetings, so you should be quite aware of it.

Give me a hoot

Toodle pip.

A bad day

Having one of those days, so I am just going to rant today, feel free to join me ranting.

Had a bad night as one of the bambinos has a cold and had me awake nearly all night. So a grumpy start to the morning. Looked out the window and it was raining cats and dogs.

Walking to train station this morning had a Bridgette Jones moment, a car went through a puddle and soaked me from head to foot, the driver acually sped up to make sure I got a soaking.

Got into work this morning wet, cold and coffee less (starbucks was closed).

Took one look at my emails and wanted to find a small bloke to have a fight. Everything is annoying me today, even more than usual.

I think people can easily pick up on how tired you are and then go fishing to try to annoy you, unfortunately I always bite the bait.

Moan

Moan

Moan

I'm off for a very large glass of Merlot.

toodle pip

twittering tweeter

Twitter, I have finally moved into the 21st century and gone on to twitter. It is not very full filling though as I am twittering and only have one follower, rubbish, I have no friends :o(

I intend to use it as a source of information as I can follow networks such as the BBC or CNN, also when I do have some followers I intend to reach out to ask questions work related or personal related or just out of interest.

Recently there has been a big hoo haaa about Stephen Fry threatening to leave twitter, now that blighter has nearly a million followers, read the story on: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/nov/02/stephenfry-digital-media

If anyone wants to be my friend then follow me, I am only tweeting rubbish at the mo but intend to use it for better needs when i have followers. Or don't be my friend, then I will cry.

Now get following:
http://twitter.com/Garyebryan

Toodle pip

Kindle

Hi All
Kindle has arrived yipeeee!!!

What on earth am I talking about, I have no idea, all the twenty somethings in my office were banging on about the kindle has reached the UK. I sit there nodding trying to look enthusiastic and look like I know what the hell they are talking about.

It turns out it is a book, well I say a book it is a device that stores content. It was made by Amazon and if you own a kindle you can download e-books onto it and you have access to other digital media you can download. So you can download a newspaper onto it or a journal onto it, or articles onto it, anything digital i suppose.

On October the 19th the kindle reached the UK (hence the excitement) it is called Kindle 2 (international edition).

On Amazon.com there are about 300,000 items available to download.

Low and behold sitting on the train this morning this chap pulled one out of his briefcase (easy). It looked quite neat, I saw he was reading the Times newspaper that I assumed he had downloaded that morning. But no he started getting live news, so it is wireless too.

I then got glared at as I was now staring at his small screen and then a loud tut, so I had to go back to my paper based book which has the great look and smell and feel of.... well a book.

Must admit though it would save a lot of wall space on my bookshelves.

Toodle pip.

An election message from the president of ISMTE

October is a very important month for our society with two important activities that have to be undertaken.

ISMTE is to hold its first elections. The Executive Committee, as per our bylaws, chose the slate for 2010 including the positions of President and Secretary. This year all candidates are running unopposed. Despite this fact, legally we are obligated to hold a vote and you will be able to vote for the candidates via a personalized email sent by ISMTE.

Full details regarding the candidates and the election process can be found in the October issue of EON, now available at www.ismte.org. All the candidates have contributed significant effort over the last year towards advancing the aims of the society. There will be several opportunities to join the board in 2011, and new faces with fresh ideas and a willingness to work hard on behalf of the society are always welcome. Critical to an appointment to the board is a demonstrated record of committee work, an issue that segues nicely into our next important October initiative…

ISMTE is to make significant efforts to get its committees functioning industriously. Our goal is to dramatically strengthen the resources we offer and the training we provide. Members have expressed an interest in seeing greater depth to both areas. It is important to remember ISMTE is not a corporation but a volunteer-run organization. We launched so we could learn from one another, and being a part of either the resource or training committee, and developing materials alongside peers, represents a tremendous step towards meeting our educational goals. It is also a great way to make new friends and contacts. Additionally, we are looking for talented individuals that can help our membership and meeting planning committees. If you are interested in getting involved with a committee please let me know as soon as possible at journal@ahsnet.org.

Committees will be convening later this month so please let me know quickly.
Finally, we hope to be able to announce to members soon the appointment of a new executive director to replace Beverlee, who so unexpectedly died last month. This will ensure we are back to operating with 100% management efficiency.

Best wishes


Jason Roberts, PhD
President, ISMTE

Career Hunting, go on have a peek.

Morning all, or afternoon, evening (oh whatever).
In the times of recession and countries running out of money, and banks giving more out to the fat cats than they can afford. It is time to start keeping an eye on the job markets. Not that I am looking for a job, and not that I have the best job in the world. The best job in the world has got to be chief chocolate taster in a well know Swiss chocolate factory. Yummy. Or maybe a beer tasting brewery for the boys, grrrr.

Anyway, here at ISMTE we have a Career Centre, where you can do a number of things;

• Post an anonymous resume (US) or CV (UK).
• View new jobs each day
• View the resumes
• Post a job
• Post a personal job alert

If you go to http://www.jobtarget.com/home/index.cfm?site_id=7287 have a little play around and see what is around.

For example the other day a job in Boston was posted for a technical editor for the American Meteorological Society. There are jobs for copy editors, editorial assistants, production assistants, editors, project managers.

Create yourself an account and keep an eye on things, if you are a publisher you can view peoples resumes/CVs. If you are a company you can advertise yourselves or find others. I find it very interesting to see how the industry is moving and believe it or not their are jobs out there.

So if anyone finds anything or finds it useful the please feedback on how we could improve it. let me know as I am interested to see how helpful it is.

And if anyone wants to find me a beer tasting job on a small sunny island surrounded by lovely ladies then please let me know. Until then I shall be at my desk wading through copy for our next issue or maybe I might push the boat out and edit something. (Damn it).

Toodle pip.

DAY 2: Elizabeth Blalock posts on workshops

If you weren't at the ISMTE meeting in Baltimore, here's a sample of what you missed at August 5's Excel and Copyediting workshops:

Tom McLung showed us how to use conditional formatting and filters to identify data of interest in an excel file. VLookup lets you relate elements in one table to those in another (i.e., do you spend lots of time hand-assigning countries to regions for your reporting? VLookup can automate this task for you!). Pivot tables allow you to look at your data in flexible combinations, and, once created, can be used as a shell with which to process updated data. Mastering these and other excel features will streamline your reporting tasks no matter your peer review system.

Deborah Bowman of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy talked about the importance of creating a journal-specific style guide appropriate for your readers and their specialty. A general style guide will give the basics, but your journal-specific style guide can address issues you and your editor find particularly annoying (how about "firstly" and "lastly"?), as well as common errors you find when proofing articles. By noting these as you go along, you will, after several months, have a style guide. Deborah suggests sending important changes to your copyeditors immediately as a "tip of the day", while minor changes should be compiled and the updated guide sent once or twice a year.

There's still time to register for the UK meeting in Oxford on August 25 -- don't miss out![link for registration: http://www.ismte.org/conferences2009.html]

Elizabeth Blalock posts from ISMTE Baltimore Conference

For those of you not able to attend ISMTE's meeting in Baltimore, here's a taste from August 4's invited speakers:

Kent Anderson of NEJM and the Scholarly Kitchen blog alerted us to the importance of social networking for journal publishers. Might seem unlikely at first, but when our users are discussing publications on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs -- perhaps our publications ought to be out there, too (does your journal have a Facebook page???). To get an idea of out what's being said about your titles, go to Twitter.com and search on your journal's name; you might find a few surprises. With barriers to entry for these media at practically nil, Kent argues there is low risk in experimentation and high risk (i.e., obsolescence) in not giving it a try. Ultimately, you may understand your customers and the value of your content in ways you had never imagined.

Peter Binfield of PLoS One helped us envision the future of online publications, where they're all online-only, HTML supplants .pdf, publishers move closer to their users, and articles become more important than journals (and rating systems change). New toys, tools, technology, semantically enhanced articles, and online interactivity will create an environment of experimentation, where the "version of record" will come under discussion. -- And in a lot of ways that future is at our doorstep. Check out these sites recommended by Peter: ICEROCKET.com, friendfeed.com, authormapper.com

Conference time at last

Hi All
As you read this I am assuming you are all packing your suitcases and checking you have your passports in your hand bags and man bags, and you are heading in the Baltimore direction somewhere on the east coast of the USA.

Well you lucky people are in for a bit of a treat if you are attending the 2009 ISMTE conference, this year there are 2 speakers: Kent Anderson, The New England Journal of Medicine and Peter Binfield, PLOS One.

You will be starting off on Monday evening with a little cheese and wine, and I hear it is more wine than cheese, so go crazy ;o)

Then on Tuesday the real fun begins, one speaker in the morning and one in the afternoon based on 'ideas for your journal in the current climate' and 'what is the future of online publishing'.
On top of that there are 2 workshops one in the morning with Glenn Collins on 'Best Practice' and one in the afternoon with Irene Hames on 'Publication Ethics'.

I am sure after the first day you will having much more merriment in the bar and maybe a little nibble.

Wednesday you are in for another little treat with 2 workshops going on, the first is with Tom McLung 'Taking excel to a new level' and then a little later Deborah Bowman will be taking the 2nd workshop on 'Managing your journals editing'.

I am sure you will learn an immense amount at this conference and the networking will be invaluable, I am just gutted I can't be there as my twins are about to be born any day now.

But hey ho, enjoy with passion.

Toodle oo people.

Editorial to production and vice versa

Journal assistants, editorial assistants, are you aware what goes on at production stage? Once an article comes out of your online manuscript tracking system after acceptance it then goes off to the world of production. It is then when production get the article that it may transpire that there are things missing like conflicts of interest statements, copyright forms, too many references, too long an article, the list can go on.

So when an article is accepted it goes to you to check all of the deficiencies and there may be a period of process of toing and froing with the authors to try to get it perfect. 9 times out of 10 it does go perfectly but 1 out of 10 may not and something will be picked up by the typesetter or the copyeditor or the production editor. Then the article will either be sorted out there and then or it may go back to the editorial assistant. But if the editorial assistant is not clear why they want it how can they make it right next time?

In the world of working at home I still say the communication is not as strong as it is in an office but some have no choice and some will not agree with me (makes a change ;o). If the Editorial assistant knew the process of a production cycle then there would be a better understanding of the whole process.

I know some of you actually handle the whole shabang where you are the editorial assistant, production editor, copy editor, etc. But I would assume you are not alone and another set of eyes see it at copy editing stage?

Also would be nicer if production could understand the job of an editorial assistant more. This may stop any age old friction between departments?

Any I will leave you with that and see how you get on.

I'm off for a nice soak in the pool with a margarita in the blazing sun (yeah right, i wish)

Toodle oo

On Strike

We had a tube strike last week for 48 hours which affected the system for 3 days. What a pain, the streets were crowded it was amazing, people walking in the roads. Taxi's everywhere which I thought would milk the opportunity but actually behaved very well and had set prices to different landmarks in London and using the cab share option.

I was ok Jack as I can walk from my station but for many in our office some were walking 7 or 8 miles, which takes me back to train strikes a few years ago when our then Production editor cycled 35 miles to work and then 35 miles home.

This is where the homeworkers can kick in with the bonus of technology at home, but for some they do not have the technology and have to find other ways to work (you still need to publish your journal Right?).

Was anyone else effected by the strikes and what funny tales can you share, has anyone had to ski to work or get a boat etc?

It was a good cause for people to get some excerise, we were lucky with the weather too.

Anyway, off for a walk in the park.

toodle ooo.

A dogs life

At Highwire Press the staff are allowed to take their dogs into the office all day everyday, as long as they are trained. What a great idea if you like dogs. You can walk around the office and bump into all sorts of breeds and really is quite an eye opener. The dogs have their own little areas with their play toys and baskets near their owners.

I wonder if they have little laptops and mobile phones and start doing a bit on their blackberry’s, they probably attend many white collar dinners too (imagine the mess). I’d like live pate and a nice big bone please, woof.

Imagine sitting at an interview, ‘Well Mr Bryan you have passed the interview but we have on last hurdle for you, do you like dogs’ hmmm, what do you answer? You may be allergic to them but you really need the job. You may find the smell and all the droppings a complete turn off, but I need the job. See where I’m going.

Anyway if they take dogs in I am going to ask my company if I can take my Gerbil in and maybe my fish.

Do others have any experience with pets, animals or any other living creatures in their offices or homes?

We have a few animals at work but would rather not mention them :o)

Anyway of for a cat nap now.

Toodle oooo

Rejections

Good morning/afternoon/evening (wherever you are)
Many of you have to deal with decisions regarding your articles that get sent to your journals everyday Right?
There is nothing like having the power of being an editor and accepting an article for publication, but I wonder how you feel about rejecting them, do you feel pleasure, guilt or just don’t care?

The rejection of an article can be very disappointing to an author especially if it has not been peer reviewed. So why the immediate reject? Is it because it is just plain rubbish? Well sometimes it is, but more often a journal has to think about the priority of articles it accepts especially the large journals. Other aspects could be; insufficient originality, serious scientific flaws, or the absence of a message that is important to your audience.

I imagine there are many ways of reading a research article and many editors have their own little tricks and checklists they follow. I wonder how much of the paper is read, is it every word of the paper (I think not), is it just the abstract and a skim of the text, just the abstract, just the tables, etc.

If an article is rejected within 48 hours then surely that is a bonus to he author for not wasting their time or I wonder do they feel a bit disgruntled with a feeling of not having their article read properly.

Can you get the gist of an article just from an abstract, I know my answer I wonder if it is the same as yours?

Rejecting after review is another tricky one especially if it has positive reviews but it just does not quite make the grade, a difficult reject letter to write, but remember all structured criticism is a good thing and is to improve articles after revision with the reviewers comments taken into account.

At the end of the day just remember be very nice you your authors because without them you can’t pay your mortgage.

TTFN

Sweep up, mop up and clean up

I know what you are thinking, 'is he on about the housework?' (no sexist jokes please about a ladies work is never done) ;o)

Well, actually i'm not talking about housework so keep reading gents.

I received an email this week asking about advice on cleaning up the database for their manuscript tracking system. This has to be the most boring job ever recorded to have to be done within an editorial office (apart from the hoovering of course).

Over the years your journal will grow its database of users so you can have a large set of authors and reviewers, but over time people move and change jobs or even die, so the emails do not work. Also people will register on the system twice or three times with different addresses. All very annoying.

I gave my answer as follows:
We run the Duplicate record report every month to keep on top of it. We go down the list quickly, if you keep on top of it then it will take you an hour a month.
Also if we are working on a paper and see that a reviewer has been put on twice we will then merge it there and then.
We also clean our database once a year where we email everyone to update there record, this will then cause a major bounce back of wrong email addresses which you will then need to go and deactivate the records. You could discuss this with your developer on how best you can cope with this boring chore.

I wonder how others do this if they do it at all. Again I urge you to have a discussion on the ISMTE forum.

Anyway i'm off to iron my socks and pants.

Tally ho

Manuscript tracking systems

Hello earthilings, how are we all on this bright and sunny friday afternoon?

This week I would like to have a little discussion on online manuscript tracking systems. We use Bench>Press here at BMJGroup and it is a magnificent tool, we also use ScholarOne Manuscripts which is also a magnificent tool, I also here the same about Editorial Manager. There are a few more out there: Allen Track and EJ Press and some others. What one is the best? Do you have one but wish you had another? Did you used to have one but ended up with another?

Imagine the days when they did not exist and we had a typewriter each (yes I am so old, no jokes about candle light, thank you).

At the end of the day all of the systems are probably very good and meet most of the needs of a journal. Some have things that other do not, some copy other systems to try to make them as good and so on.

So at the end of the day why do editors struggle to use them. Even after 8 years of having one they still moan about it being clunky. But they forget that they used to have to send their post tied to a pigeons leg. Most of the admin is now done for them automatically. Oh! how they forget. Would love to see a discussion on systems on the ISMTE Forum http://www.ismte.org/

I have a great interest in this subject and I am sure many more of you do too, so come on bring it on who is the best :o)

Toodle pip.

Feeling a bit left out?

Do you feel that when you work in an editorial department or work editorially that you feel you get left out? I most certainly used to and found it quite bizaare as the manuscript tracking system is the centre of the universe. Ethical debates and policy were swept under the carpet. On agendas at editorial board meetings it would be all about content or society stuff, acceptance rate is up or down, what shall we commission next, etc. Nothing about the workflow that the editors work within, nor the interaction between the editorial office and the editors, nothing on the system itself. So maybe if it aint broke then don’t fix. But then why did I always get the feedback of ‘Oh this bloody system is poo’ what is wrong with it?
So even though it was not on the agenda I used to bring it up and mutter the odd word about system or policy and then all of a sudden there would be an hours conversation on it, wow we really are on this planet, we do exist. Editorial matters are now quite high on the agenda and editors can’t wait to hear about the innovation and hear the wish list of what we have in store and the ethics has become popular among some, where others see it as meddlesome. There is a difference between asking editors to do something different and getting them to do it. Interesting to hear from editors on this view. I think it is just a mind frame of change and change is difficult for most.
Editorial matters and policy matters are heavily discussed at conferences such as the user conference in Virginia last week for ScholarOne, no page is left unturned, also the conference with Editorial Manager in June.
ISMTE are also holding 2 conferences in August and are very important to the editorial office and production office. The first one on the 4th is in Baltimore and will be focusing on best practice in editorial offices and how to manage editorial boards. This will be your chance to focus on the important things that you day job involves. Also there will be speakers on Ethics which is a very high profile topic this year and years to come. Also the ISMTE will be holding a Conference in Oxford, UK, on the 25th and a guest speaker the former chair of COPE will be speaking about ethics and policy, also talk and workshops on authors and reviewers, again very important to your everyday needs.

Peer review stuff

Ahoy there shipmates, extreme apologies and will not leave it so long next time.
So, where was I? Ah yes, peer review, do we need it? What’s the point of it? It is expensive and time consuming. Why not just publish the thing in your journal and be done with it.
Ok now I will explain myself before an editor finds me and throttles me.
At a meeting about a year ago the discussion on the purpose of Peer Review came up (it was a room full of editors, ahhhh) and someone blurted out why not publish everything we accept as we now have the tinternet. The room went quiet, heads slowly turned towards this chap in a very nice Armani suit, he had a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his head and his bottom lip was quivering, I could read his mind (did those words just come out of my face). Everyone just carried on the discussion as though nothing had happened.

But he made so much sense in a roundabout way. At the end of the day the article you reject for your journal will be published somewhere else, will it not? So, ok let’s say we get 5000 articles a year on a journal, obviously we will not have the page room to do this in print, which is the beauty of the tinternet (sorry about the tinternet, my girlfriend has instilled that one into my little brain). If I accept everything that comes into the journal then that is a lot of reviewing and a lot of editor time and a lot of resource.

What if a paper comes into the office and we just hit the accept button and publish it without peer review (Whoa there reel him in) well why not do wiki sites peer review what is stuck up there? Look at all the April fools articles that are published, how many are believed? So if we have published everything online then surely this is damaging, as readers will read and take results and conclusions away with them and potentially kill someone. But we can do post acceptance peer review, another publisher has tried this. People read the article and make comments on it and people can make their mind up. You can be quite sure if you put up rubbish someone in that field is going to sqwark. Any way it is up to you now I want you to use the discussion forum to discuss this between yourselves, I personally think it is a very important subject and needs to be addressed. The forum is http://groups.google.com/group/ismte-discussion-forum good luck and have a good chat. Hopefully see many of you at the Manuscript Central user conference in a couple of weeks.

How many snow jokes can there be?

Snow has hit Britain properly this year for the first time in 18 years (confessions of ages welcome and confessions who can’t remember yesterday let alone 18 years ago).
Well, all I can say is again ‘thank goodness for the electronic manuscript tracking system’. I was fortunate enough to be able to walk to work but wish I had not bothered as only 1 other person made it into the office (not bad out of about 50 staff). But all of the editorial assistants have broadband at home and were able to work at home. Now this may sound strange to a lot of you as you are thinking ‘but we work at home anyway’ as I know a lot of you are remote.
But as a publishing company with the editorial office kept in house it actually becomes quite a novelty to be able to be snowed in and still be able to work, as I mentioned in one of my first blog post ‘back in the day’ how did we survive without technology.
I used to work remotely about 6 or 7 years ago and found that I lost my enthusiasm for publishing, sometimes I would not see anyone from the office for weeks, we used to talk but was not the same. It got very lonely and did not find it very productive. I then went back full time to the office and then found my passion and enthusiasm again quite quickly. Would be interesting how people do it from home on a regular basis, and how European and US compare with speed of internet and what communication we use.

Now, on a different note, I started to read the new edition of EON this morning which is the members newsletter for ISMTE (which is worth the membership alone by the way) and came across an article from Jason Roberts titled ‘New approaches to Peer Review’. The title reminded me of discussions I have been having with journal editors for months about Peer Review. I have not read the article yet but I will later and I am sure I will comment on it. I mention this as I would like to tell you about the conversations I have been having, let me give you a taster for another day. ‘Why don’t we publish everything that is submitted to our journals?’ There that’s got you thinking.

Always on holiday...

Many apologies for the delay on my next post, been a little busy and a little under the weather along with the rest of the country. Which brings me onto holiday cover on your journals, I hear that some journals just close down for the time the office admin is on holiday (vacation for you US guys), with a message saying we are away but will be back in 2 weeks. This is what we used to do but thought, hang on if I try to order something off the internet I am not usually told that the office is closed for two weeks, come back then. So why should an editorial office close down? We have a pool of people working on our journals and allow a certain amount of people to be off at the same time, we also keep a strict holiday chart for people to look at before they book anything big like that trip to Blackpool or Disney, we also keep a set of holiday cover notes in the form of a manual (online) for people to access to cover the journal. We have many checklists and sets of guidelines per journal which helps a great deal for our cover and has worked reasonably well for 2 years now. We also try to do the same if people go off sick as papers still need to be given out and emails need to be answered. I wonder how others do it. I know I touched on this at Christmas but holidays are a problem and unfortunately we can’t ban them. I know you Americans only get a few minutes holiday a year and us Brits get 10 months holiday a year (ha).

Now we are back...

Happy new year to you all, I do hope you all had much fun and games with the latest of festivities and many apologies to you if you were working over the festive period. (Ha, that’s your own fault, get on a time management course).
Don’t know about you lot but my office was like the Mary Celeste between Christmas and New Year, everyone must be out shopping or recovering from hangovers or just sitting watching the Queens speech. Hmm I wonder which.
The trouble is though it is all very nice taking the time off having fun, but look at the mess you come back to. Hundreds of emails, loads of voice mails, list of to do’s have grown ten fold. How do you cope with the world of email? I mean we never used to have it and we all coped reasonably well. Whenever I go on a course now some bright spark always throws a spanner in the works by saying ‘I do not get time to do that because I have 5 million emails to answer’. My answer to them is usually ‘use that trash button a little more pal and get on with your day job’. Email has become a mine field now, what needs to be prioritised? How long do I spend on email a day? What needs answering? What needs trashing? It is all quite difficult to manage and I am sure there are courses for people to go on ‘how to handle emails’. At least I do not get spammed emails on Viagra or extensions anymore and I am not talking hair extensions.
January is a bit of a dull month, it is dark, wet, cold, blimey don’t I moan in my old age. Some exciting stuff coming though. The EON newsletter has just gone out, and again what a great issue, I really must say that this newsletter is worth the membership alone, well done all those involved. You can also get a free one day trial now with ISMTE at http://ismte.org/amember/signup.php you may wish to have a look first to get a feel of what the ISMTE is about. You can now also register for the 2 conferences being held in August. Lastly I want to know who is reading this blog, you can make comments even if you are not a member (nothing rude). Just to get a feel of who you are and what you do. Talk to me or are you too busy with emails :o)
Toodle pip.