In response to Rob’s post regarding his unsightly working environment, I thought I’d show you all how an efficient Head of Development rolls…

But why, oh why, would one man need so many screens in his life?

There are many answers to this question; some might argue that I’m trying to look important, others (those that know me too well) might say I’m aiming for world domination - one website at a time. The truth, of course, is that there are many different configurations out there in the wild and seeing as our job is to cater for pretty much all of them, it stands to reason that the man at which the buck stops has to be in a position to emulate as many of these configurations as possible.

So, there’s the Mac for serious dev work and Mac testing, the desktop PC for most PC based browsers/rendering engines and finally the laptop for upcoming PC releases (such as IE8 etc). The laptop is also handy for those mornings you just can’t bring yourself to get out of bed. The iPhone is there for two reasons: 1). To show it off… I love it to pieces! and 2). because we all need to test our sites on this too!

For the record, I didn’t just tidy my desk for the sake of this blog post - the boss has seen my desk in complete disarray, so he might argue this fact - but as he says in his post, a clean desk facilitates high levels of efficiency.

To quantify, and as justification for my belief of “clear desk, clear mind” in a similar manner to Rob’s: I believe I have gone from 110% efficient to 125% - not only do I get all my work done in a day, but I also achieve a fair amount more than is asked.

Rob’s not far off, but as you can see from his picture he still has some way to go to catch up with me!

Will you just take a look at the state of this desk?!

Okay, it’s a fair cop. It’s my desk and I am sorry. enotions has gone through all manner of changes in the last three or four months. One area where we’ve worked hard to improve efficiency is the daily ‘to do’ list for each and every employee. It’s amazing how a list can cut through the clutter and focus the mind.

Can you see the remote anywhere?

I have my daily ‘to do’ list and I love it. I must have gone from getting 50% of my jobs done in a day to 80%+ and the feeling of achievement at the end of the day when you see all those crossed out jobs is sadly thrilling.

Now I just need to work on cleaning my desk at the end of a day. Perhaps then I’ll hit full efficiency and treat myself to a pay rise (what’s a pay rise?!)

But it’s a serious point. The mind shuns chaos, embraces order, and just like the cleanest web sites, going from A to B is child’s play when everything is in the right place.

The way we watch television is changing. Even now we are watching television on demand. In the (near) future, the vast majority will not watch scheduled television programming at all. We’ll put together our own schedules of the things we want to watch. In fact, I’ll wager that the likes of the BBC and ITV will give viewers a list of things to what to watch and let them choose.

It’s already happening. Online providers such as Joost give you select programmes when you like. BBC iplayer let you save programmes for later viewing in the week. On-demand is available anytime on terrestrial and satellite.

The infrastructure is in place. All that needs to change is the mentality of the viewer. And as ever, that’ll take longer to change. People are creatures of habit. They like their Eastenders on a Monday at 7.30pm and their news at 10pm. Give them a choice and many of them won’t know what to do with it.

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So I got a hard time for my earlier post about public speaking - rightly so, no doubt. Never know when to be quiet, me.

Anyway, whereas I make a clumsy stab at explaining myself, here’s Dan Pink of FastCompany writing about presenting;

“Why does communication about business remain so tedious? Most businesspeople describe their dreams and strategies - their stories - just as they’ve been doing for decades: stiffly, from behind a podium, and maybe with a few slides. Call it ‘Corporate Sominex’. Digital storytelling is more than a technique. In fact, it’s become something of a movement among about artists and businesspeople.”

(Courtesy of the FANTASTIC ‘Presentation Zen’ by Garr Reynolds)