A Warm Welcome to May

May has finally come round again with the promise of a great summer in the UK and trees already blossoming up in Aberdeen.

So what’s in store for May? Well, first of all, it’s good to remember those who aren’t having such a good time of it at the moment, like a few people in the Netherlands and those people (and, er, pigs) suffering from swine flu. Not to mention the almost quarter of a million recession victims in Europe.

However, having just come back from an exciting and productive Smarter Start workshop in Paris (and having addressed my fromage-deficiency) it’s time to get back down to business. So here’s what I plan to be doing and writing about this month:

1. Top priority this month is putting in some serious spadework into the Smarter Start book we’ve been writing over the past year or so.
2. Also, following an impressive response to my tutorial on using WordPress for small websites, I plan to write a detailed follow up tutorial that is less “techy” and more usable for that overwhelming percentage of people who aren’t geeks.
3. Another tutorial is in the offing that aims to provide some detailed guidelines on how to structure the process of freelance work (not necessarily web).
4. I’ve also been interested in the concept of “Collective IQ” lately because I’ve seen how groups managed to build on each others ideas incredibly fast – a form of “speeded up idea evolution” if you will – and a small thought piece is germinating about that.
5. Finally, with MEP Elections coming up in June in Europe, I’m conducting a small research exercise about the Maltese candidates’ web presence and “social media intelligence” in terms of promoting their campaign. Some surprising (and not so surprising) results there!

Enjoy your weekend and public holidays people!