Digital Leadership Inspiration 68 | January Update âœ¨Â âš

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Welcome to the 68th issue of Digital Leadership Inspiration

Thank you for taking the time to open the email, here are the past issues.

Live Google Hangout

'9 Beliefs that Have Changed with Brexit and Trump'

Watch the live discussion with Filipe Carrera, Peter Milligan and Sofie Sandell.

Friday 3rd February 11 am CET, and 10 am UK time.

Join here

New blog post

'A quick review of my use of social media over the last year'

I have changed how I use social media a lot in the last year.

Here I give you a quick summary.

My goal is to spend less time online in the next year.

Hi everyone,

I hope you had a good start to the year, even with the political chaos we are in the middle of. My Facebook account is full of posts about what Donald Trump is up to at the moment and it's is more Trumpbook than Facebook to me.

A new year means a new start. I have committed to looking at what I can work on to create a better digital life for myself, and I would like to share what I am up to.

Photos

I am a digital hoarder and I have far too many photos and videos on my phone. At the moment, I have over 7,000 photos and videos - ridiculous. It’s not likely that I will need to look at photos from years ago, so I should get rid of most of them and only keep them from the last year or so.

In December, I started this challenge by developing all of the photos from 2016 that I wanted to keep as memories. Even if you store your photos digitally, they can vanish. The best way to prevent this is to develop them on paper and keep them safe. I used PhotoBox’s service and got the photos delivered within a few weeks.

I back up all my photos using Dropbox, and that creates a photo file on my computer. I went through that file and created a new folder where I put all the photos I wanted copies of and uploaded them to PhotoBox. It was pretty simple to do it, but it takes time to go through the pics.

My goal is to remove 80 percent of all of the photos on my phone to make it work faster.

I have heard that it’s good to back up your photos using Google Photos as well. I happen to be with Dropbox and will continue to use them. Read more about photos and storage here.

Passwords

I decided that I should get an application to help me with all of my confusing passwords. I researched among my friends on Facebook, and LastPass and 1Password got the most recommendations. I am about to pick one of them.

Newsletters

We move on and change interests over time and we need to let go of information that is sent to us all the time. I have spent 30 minutes per day for over a week unsubscribing from newsletters and deleting old newsletters that I will never read again. It’s a tedious job to do, but it was necessary. Building up too many newsletter subscriptions is not good for anyone.

I know there are some services that help you to unsubscribe from newsletters, such as unroll.me, but I was not happy with them so I did it myself instead.

Digital device care

I am not the kind of person who always needs the latest gadgets to feel happy about myself. I care for my mobile phones, computers and tablets. I don't contribute to the enormous mountain of electronic waste that often.

At the moment, the battery on my three-year-old iPhone 5s dies quickly after it tells me that it has 30 percent battery left. Then all the power is gone in about 30 minutes.

This has bothered me for a while and I started to research how to replace the battery. If you have an Android phone it’s easy to get a new battery, but it is trickier with an iPhone. In Sweden where I am based, there are plenty of stores that can help you, and I even found a website which tells you how to do it yourself called iFixIt.com.

To change the battery on my iPhone 5s costed about €50, and it was definitely worth it, and it only took ten minutes when I was in the shop.

All companies selling phones and mobile subscriptions are trying their best to convince us that we need a new mobile every year. We don’t, and if you look after your mobile phone it can last for a long time.

Thank you for reading and have a great weekend.

Sofie

PS. Download my 12 practical tips for how to use social media to build your reputation and share your key messages for some inspiration.

• Email: sofie@sofiesandell.com
• FB: https://www.facebook.com/sofiesandell

My CV in three paragraphs:
Sofie 3.0: It’s time to take the next step and work with digital development on a deeper level as a chief digital officer or digital ambassador. (Sofie 1.0 was working with B2B sales and management consultancy. Sofie 2.0 was focusing on the web, e-commerce and social media, and it was this that led to me speaking professionally about digital leadership.)

Quick points

What I am working on
I am involved in a project looking at gaps in digitalisation with companies based in west Sweden. It’s perfect for me and I have the opportunity to dig deeper into what the problems are. Love it!

What I am reading
A book about sugar, addiction and how it hurts us, written by addiction expert Bitten Jonsson. Sugar is the starting point for many people suffering addiction. Great read, I hope they translate it into English as well. Link here.

What I am watching
In January, I have been watching all three series of the Norwegian TV series Skam. Highly recommend it. If you would like to watch it with English subtitles, the internet is your best friend when searching for it.

Who I am looking after
Moving to Sweden meant that am co-responsible looking after two male sheep. We feed them every day and give them fresh water. Very cute animals.

Forward

New post in my Swedish blog

När känner man sig hemma egentligen?

Den senaste månaden så har jag fått frågan flera gånger om jag känner mig hemma i Sverige. Vad svarar man då? Hur känner man sig när man känner sig hemma?

’Känna sig hemma’ kan definieras på många olika sätt. Det kan vara ditt hem som gör att du känner dig hemma, en region, en plats, eller ett sammanhang. En del personer har en magisk karma och gör att folk som träffar dom känner sig hemma direkt.

Jag bodde nästan tio år i London innan jag flyttade tillbaka till Sverige, och vad som gjorde att jag kände mig hemma i London var:

När jag hittade i mataffären.
När jag hittade i tunnelbanesystemet.
När jag hade fått nya vänner som jag visste att jag kunde lita på. .
När jag hade en egen lägenhet. Jag bodde en gång med en hysterisk tjej, och där kunna jag aldrig slappna av och vara mig själv.
När jag var medräknad i olika sammanhang, föreningar, jobb och min träningsklubb.
När jag kunde det engelska ”systemet” bättre så delade jag gärna med mig av min kunskap till andra som inte var så insatta i hur allt fungerade. Det gav en bra känsla när jag kunde lite mer än 'London newbies' och betydde att jag var lite mer förankrad i hur saker i det engelska sämhället fungerade.

Från min erfarenhet som utlandssvensk så borde jag kunna svara på frågan om jag känner mig hemma nu när jag har bott i norra Halland i några månader, här är några tankar:

Jag har fått ett par nya favorit mataffärer.
Jag hittar lite bättre nu, och vet vilka avfarter som leder var på E6:an.
Jag har lärt känna några nya bekanta, och varit i kontakt med vänner som jag känner sen tidigare.
Jag saknar fortfarande en del sammanhang som jag kan känna mig hemma i, och väntar och ser vad jag ska involvera mig i.
Det svenska ”systemet” är ett mysterium, och jag kämpar med att lära mig hur allt funkar.

En annan sak som gör att man känner sig hemma är minnen, både egna minnen och gemensamma minnen med andra. Ju fler positiva minnen du har till platser, sammanhang och personer desto enklare är det att känna sig hemma.
Till viss del kan man själv påverka om man känner sig hemma eller inte, men det har också mycket att göra med omgivningen och hur man välkomnas där. När man känner sig välkommen så infinner sig också känslan av att vara hemma.

Förra veckan pratade jag med en bekant om hur man får högsta betyg på kursen han är ansvarig för. Han svarade, ”Jag ger endast högsta betyg till de studenter som bidrar till helheten och hjälper sina kurskamrater att komma framåt. Det spelar ingen roll hur bra dom presterar på proven, det är genom att samarbeta som vi utvecklas.”

Hans kommentar fick mig att fundera på vårt gemensamma ansvar för att skapa den där hemma känslan. Det är en hel del saker vi alla kan göra för att få fler att känna sig välkomna och hemma här i detta livet på denna jorden?

Läs fler poster på svenska här.

Online course:
Strategies for membership based organisations

About Sofie Sandell

Sofie Sandell is an international speaker who speaks about leadership, social media, marketing, branding and online communication. She is based in Sweden after spending almost ten years in London. In 2013 Sofie published her book first book on Digital Leadership, exploring leadership, your ability to improvise and creativity as driving forces for new ideas in the digital world.

Social media and new technology have created new habits and new challenges. It’s a gift that we should use carefully and with the best intentions. Our understanding of ourselves and the world changes hugely when we connect with new technology.

We live one life, and our online life is weaved into our real life.

Sofie runs a popular social media Q&A that raises some of the big questions about life in relation to social media, you are welcome to email her if you have any questions hello@sofiesandell.com.

Previously Sofie studied behavioural science, and organisation and leadership at Lund University in Sweden. Sofie is also an award-winning leader in a non-for-profit organisation.