As an Australian, I am afraid I struggle to build up the appropriate supportive fervour for an English sporting team no matter how long I may have lived here. Nevertheless, I am aware that English World Cup Football hasn’t been enormously successful over the past…er…decades, and despite everything I would like to see them do a little better if they could. And it seems that the FA would also like to see some improvement as well – and as a result, they have prohibited the players from saying anything via social media during the weeks of the World Cup.
Although one could see this as an effort to prevent the players from disclosing tactical secrets or letting any weaknesses slip out into the public arena, I am actually not so sure. I am pretty confident most of the players would like to see England do better as well, and most of them (one would hope) would think twice before giving their opponents an edge. Actually, I think this is more a case of trying, as the article says, “just to focus players’ minds on the task at hand.”
We live in a world afflicted by attention deficit disorder, in my humble opinion. With so much going on, so many things to update, look at, read, catch up on, respond to, announce or check, that fantastic state of pure, unadulterated focus is something that many of us rarely experience. However, no matter how clever we all feel we are because we can do so many things at once, in order to be the absolute best you can be, to truly become an expert or a master, you need focus. That might be an old fashioned way to look at things, but I do feel it still holds true…as does the FA.
I have to admit, there are fewer pleasures as wonderful as being totally in the moment when you are doing something. It is when you experience perfect focus, nothing else matters and time seems to disappear. The only thing important is what you are doing, and you could do it forever. I get it often when I am reading or studying. I also get it when I am running long distances. Unfortunately, when I get back to the ‘real-world’, with phones, Facebook, people, Twitter, email, forums, Skype and everything else clamouring for my attention, that feeling vanishes. I think that the reasoning behind the FA’s decision to do this is to ensure that the players are 100% in that moment without distraction. Personally, I don’t see it as a clamp down on social media, free speech, or anything of the sort. I see it as an effort to get England to win.
I guess the proof will be in the pudding. Will this be England’s year? And if so, will it be because they aren’t busy Twittering during half time?
Thanks to paulmorris for the image
Let’s do a little bit of basic mathematics. Bear in mind my numbers are just assumptions based on my own life – I am sure there are large numbers of variations.
I was listening to a past episode of 
With all of the running around I have been doing recently, I have left my Ada Lovelace pledge until the last minute unfortunately. But I have been spending a lot of my time recently working with women in business and I know all of us suffer from the problem of having too much to do, not enough time to do it in, and worries over what we let slip. Well, today’s exemplary woman in technology is one that proves that you can be clever, beautiful, and successfully achieve two very different careers.
I don’t actually have a lot to say about this as I am pretty stunned. I don’t know how long this page will stand although I know we aren’t the only ones who have taken screen grabs of the truly atrocious way that Nestle have decided to deal with its customers, critics and the general public.
The amount of content, information and words that is now on the internet is immeasurable. With the number of people blogging, the amount of blogs they write, the frequency with which they write them and the enthusiasm with which they produce them, have you ever wondered how you are going to get your voice heard? It seems that you spend time and effort writing a post but because of the cacophony of noise, it only takes the blink of an eye and it has been lost or forgotten and all that hard work has been wasted.
I have been in this business for several years now. I admit, I haven’t been working in social media as long as some, but I have a good four years under my belt which is a lot longer than a lot of others. That doesn’t make me special or clever in any way, but it does allow me to have something of a perspective. Combine that with my natural tendency to question, particularly when I sense people evangelising (which to me is an immediate indicator that it is not all wonderful) and it has led me to a number of conclusions.
One thing I am noticing with Spring arriving here in the UK is that there are more birds in the garden first thing in the morning. I can sit with my coffee and listen to them tweeting away (remember when a tweet was a noise that came from a sparrow?) and it heralds the arrival of the sun, blossoms and some warmer weather.
An 
