Heather Taylor : Writer, Filmmaker, & Speaker

I’m writing this as I fly over the Atlantic. It seems apt as I’m halfway between London and New York. Just as my life is.

10 years ago, on 31 December, 2001, I gave away everything I owned. Bed, pictures, ornaments, presents, posters, books, clothes, dishes, everything. I packed what I owned in one backpack and boarded a plane to London. I arrived in Camden in a uniform of jeans, hoodie, bandana, braids and steel toe boots. My backpack? It had a Canadian flag on it. I owned 3 pairs of shoes. I could move house with one trip on the tube.

10 years later and I’m off again. Trading Big Ben for the Empire States Building, St. Paul’s for the Statue of Liberty, the West End for Broadway. My new favourite bridge will be the one to Brooklyn instead of the one over the Thames. My coffee will come 50 ways and I’ll tip heavily for it.

I will be an outsider. My clothes are British as is my humour and my Canadian roots come out every time I say sorry, “out and about” or express my absolute living and breathing love of hockey.

But how could I not say yes when I was offered the job to come here?

Read more…

Alarm rings. Snooze. Snooze. Snooze. Shower. Brush teeth. Check watch. It’s what time? Find outfit still on drying rack. Throw on clothes, coat, and shoes. Hope makeup is in my handbag. Lock door. Unlock. Run upstairs. Grab scarf. No queue in cafe. Order with cash. Tap foot as barista takes his time making my drink. Shit. Bus. Run. Spill coffee. Check watch.

Sound like your morning? Maybe you’re like me. Starting the day with a sense of urgency, of being one step behind. The plight of a night person born into the world of 9-5.

My brain is most ready to work at 9…pm. It’s not condusive to a social life or, in fact, doing my day job. Its not that I can’t work at any other time, its more like my brain gets a rush, a jolt of creativity as soon as night hits. I have had many a eureka moment on the dance floor at 2 am.

I wonder if this is due to my extreme extrovert nature. I find it hard in the mornings. I’m completely depleted. If I’m home alone too long on my own I feel the same. It took me a while to figure out we are all like batteries. Introverts wake up as a full battery and every interaction with someone drains them bit by bit until, at the end of the day, they’re empty. Extoverts, like me, wake up drained and every interaction fills them up. I’m buzzing once night falls. I don’t need coffee. I just need people.

In my ideal world, I’d be able to shift how the work world works. The concept of 9-5 is outdated. Most traditional employers don’t understand that by shifting work patterns to suit the most productive time of their employees, they may actually get more work done. I see this working with developers. Reading the The Facebook Effect, you’ll see the story of a team of workers only starting the day in mid afternoon and coding into the night. What if they were forced into 9-5? Would they have been as successful. I’d argue, no.

For me, I’d work 11-7 while others might choose to work 6-3. We’d all be happy and productive and I would stress less in the mornings. But until that day comes, I guess I’ll continue to press snooze, and rush through my morning, spilling coffee in my wake.

What is the link between the on and the offline world. It’s us. Or “two worlds bound by flesh” as Benjamin Ellis says. The uniqueness of the individual can be a help and a hinderence depending on what you want to achieve.

So we have to start with the question, how does virtual become real?
It could be something that gives us inspiration, moves a conversation online to the pub with friends, 3D printing or physically going somewhere.

And if we flip that, how does the real become virtual? That’s done through recording, media capture – blogging, podcasting, pictures, etc. Read more…

I wasn’t going to lead a session at DellB2B but I decided that it would be good to talk about video. In the B2B space and even in the B2C space, it feels like there is a lot of content but is it any good? I was asked to give a few tips after my experience with Raptured (you can watch it on http://rapturedtheseries.com) Read more…