8 . Glasgow Business October 2015
INTEL Stuart Patrick Chief Executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
Each issue we ask a major business figure what technology they use to gather the information they need to keep their finger on the pulse
Twitter is tempting but beware of the time trap
» Don’t let endless digital distractions derail your long-term vision
GADGETS/SOFTWARE THAT MAKE WORKING LIFE EASIER:
iPhone and iPad – “I must confess I don’t link my iPhone and iPad into the system. It is a conscious decision because I am aware of the extent to which technology has blended everyone’s working and non-working life. You can choose what is on your iPhone and select the contacts available on it. My access to my email traffic is all filtered by my PA and that is a conscious decision about wanting to maintain personal space. I do think productivity is potentially affected by never taking a break.”
WEBSITES/APPS/MAGAZINES/NEWSPAPERS:
“I’m not over-app heavy – all the newspapers and news channels that you would expect – Te Economist, Financial Times, Te Herald, Te Scotsman. “I don’t use Twiter – I think there is something
interesting about Twiter that is useful so I wouldn’t decry it but it has a tendency to shorten your time frame. You want to be strategic and take a longer-term time frame and Twiter is the sort of vehicle that almost forces you away from doing that. On the other hand, Twiter provides you with lots of insight into people’s opinions. But I don’t want to be drawn down into the constant, second by second, minute by minute, cycle. • Sites on German politics, German economics, German newspapers.
• Real Clear Politics (
realclearpolitics.com), an American political aggregator site. Politico. Stock market apps – “I’m more inclined to watch the weather than I am stock markets.”
• BBC and STV apps and Te New York Times. • Magazines: “I’ve always particularly liked Prospect as a more thoughtful vehicle for looking at the political environment.”
ESSENTIAL (BUSINESS) BOOKS:
“I’m not a great fan of business books if I’m honest, because they tend to be ‘this is your one best way, your bible to success, and frankly, action-learning in business is more important than trying to read about business. “If you’re reading the Scotish economy strategy just
now… we should clearly all be reading Tomas Pikety’s Te Economics of Inequality. “Te one book from an economic development
perspective that I have always found particularly valuable is the David Landes book, Te Wealth and Poverty of Nations. I have always found that to offer an incredibly helpful global perspective on why particular countries have done well. It gives you the long view and if there’s one particular challenge that we face in
business it is this issue around productivity. Encountering different perspectives on why the British record on productivity is disproportionately poor is hugely interesting for me.”
PRODUCTIVITY TIPS:
“Delegation is the primary means of increasing your productivity. Tere is a degree to which acting now, acting quickly and having the right resources around you to delegate to is what is going to affect your own personal productivity. “Technology and iPhones are a real
potential trap because you can spend hours focused on that tool, driven by lots of other people feeding things through to you. Te key to your personal productivity is to allow yourself the time to stand back, see what needs doing and then find the right people to do it for you. “Tere’s a balancing act between allowing an
issue to germinate enough in your mind that you can find a solution that’s appropriate without rushing in; on the other hand, if you let it run for too long it starts to dominate your mind and you start paralysing yourself with it and you don’t act. You’ve got to act quickly enough but with the right analysis.”
BEST PIECE OF ADVICE:
“My natural tendency would be towards considered analysis – that’s how you’re trained as an accountant. I believe that the best advice I’ve ever received is along the lines of ‘err on the side of taking action’. Take account of the potential downside risk but take the action. “Your gut will tell
you certain things but it can’t tell you everything, analysis will tell you certain things but it can’t tell you everything. So it’s a litle bit of both but err on the side of having a go.”
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