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Unlocking 10% extra savings when shopping abroad

The colourful stained glass dome that covers the ‘grand hall’ of Galeries Lafayette, Paris, France

Did you know that in many Department Stores you can automatically qualify for a 10% discount card simply by presenting with official identification at the store’s customer service desk?! Sounds to good to be true? It actually gets better!

On a recent visit to El Corte Inglés, Lisbon, Portugal, I discovered that this discount can even be used on top of any existing store discounts. Lot’s of items are on sale there at the moment for 40% off so adding the 10% you’re looking at a 50% discount right away. Not bad eh?

The scheme is designed for non-residents and the way it works is that they give you a card with your name on it thats valid for five days. The card is valid right across the store — the only limitation being that you can’t use it During that period you can accumulate 10% of the total price every time you make a purchase.

You can choose to either use this credit against your next purchase or else you can decide to let the value accumulate of each purchase on the card until you are ready to spend it. This card can also be used to help claim your tax refund if you are visiting from outside the EU.

This deal works right across the store — the only places it doesn’t work is the electronics department and the restaurants. It does, however, work in the gourmet food section which I was a little surprised about! To get best value out of using the card it’d be worth putting a bit of intelligence into the order you buy things in. I gather that Spanish branches of El Corte Inglés also offer a 10% discount card but I’m not sure if exactly the same rules apply in Spain as in Portugal.

Galeries Lafayette, in France, also offer a similar discount for tourists. The last time I availed of that it was even better than the El Corte Inglés programme as the former gave you a straight up 10% off each purchase without having to make an additional purchase to unlock your gains.

Well worth checking ahead with other Department Stores in other countries / regions before planning your next overseas shopping mission as I gather these “Tourist Discounts” are available in most large Department Stores around the world!

Had you guys heard of these discount offers before? What’s the best discount deal you’ve ever come across when traveling? Maybe you’ve got a great discount story or travel hack you’d like to share? Then let us know in the comments!

[richarddonelan]

Is this the best cafe in Lisbon?

Watch the video here

I found the most amazing cafe (‘Fábrica Imperial’) in Lisbon this week. Well worth a visit if you’re in town. It turned out that the owners have a great story too which you can now watch here. They wanted to create a space that created the feeling and comfort of having dinner in your grandmother’s house. The restaraunt is aptly decorated with lots of vintage furniture and electronics.

To keep with that theme, I used the 8mm Camera App by ‘Nexvio’ to apply this old school filter. I decided it shot and post in landscape rather than square because I wanted to be able to get the maximum real estate out of the camera. I floated with the camera to suit the comfort of the iv rather than directing her and we wrapped in one take which ensured we got the best interview we could!

Shot & edited entirely (for a change) with an iPhone 6s using the native iOS camera app and LumaFusion to edit. I used a RØDE Microphones Smartlav+ for audio and a ZEISS Camera Lenses 2.0x to blow out the background a little bit for the interview element.

A big shout out to Eliot Fitzroy for the tip that the 8mm App by Nexvio can be used just to add a filter and also for his EpicTutorials guide to editing audio (I couldn’t have figure out how to cross-disolve from the opening scene without his ‘Epic’ virtual assistance).

I decided not to use any background music because I already had nice natural background noises plus I felt the story was best opened with a wide outside shout that picked up the internal audio! Check it out for yourselves and don’t forget to visit Fábrica Imperial if you’re in Portugal anytime soon!

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Building resilience by squeezing out that little bit extra every day

Thanks www.ActionPhotography.ie for this awesome photo!

On my last night in Lisbon (Portugal) I was feeling a little fatigued on my walk home. Lisbon is basically a coastal city that sits on the side of a big hill. The most active parts, historically and today, appear to be along the coast. A lot of the buildings along the coast are historic and there’s a very cool old castle (St. George’s Castle) to explore. There is also a lot of residential, retail and business activity housed in mix of old and mainly modern buildings to the North of the coastline. I was staying in a very quiet neighbourhood about 4.5 kilometres inland. This meant that I had a bit of a trek to get back from anywhere that I’d visit during the day. I should mention also that a lot of this hill is around 45 degrees — so it’s a fairly steep climb too. For some reason I find it very difficult not to run (up) when I see a hill. So by day two I was was running home — I just couldn’t help myself!After a week of all that walking and running around Lisbon I was feeling a little exhausted and my legs were feeling the weight and heat of all that exercise big time. All the spring was gone from my step and I really felt like I was struggling by the start of roughly the last kilometre. That last uphill stretch ahead of me almost looked unsurmountable by that stage.I really hate to finish any physical activity weakly though, so I decided that I’d run the final two junctions, roughly 250 metres each, allowing a brief rest back to walking pace (and to safely cross the road) before taking off again and then ending with a brisk 400m on the flat section at the top to recover before walking back into the hotel. Well I made it. Two nice 250m uphill dashes at a brisk pace later and I was feeling great and I didn’t die. It’s mad how sometimes, when one feels really tired and like giving up, how a bit of concentration can help one to dig in and squeeze a little more out. The reason I felt so great was because I had achieved something way beyond what I’d first I actually started to doubt was possible. Obviously I was always going to make it back to the hotel but everyone knows what it’s like to be super tired right — especially late at night after a long day and a longer week of exercise?! We likely all hit points of lower energy like this from time to time but so many of us try and avoid such situations. I believe that, instead, we should all be proactively seeking out such moments as opportunities to build mental capacity. I actually apply this exact philosophy when out cycling too. There’s a really nasty section of hill between the Radisson Hotel and the top of Mount Merrion Avenue in Dublin (Ireland) which I invariably encounter every day that I cycle (which is most days of the year). It’s a roughly 700m grind at the end of any journey from the North or West of where I live. Anyone who cycles regularly and lives in South County Dublin will most likely know the section of road I’m talking about. It’s possible to cut off half way and avoid it but unless I’m carrying some mad injury I always make it my business to charge it. It usually feels horrendous, no matter how many times I take it on, or how fit I am, but I always fell great after it too so it’s 100% worth the effort.I reckon it’s so important to try and find ‘that last section of hill’ every day — some beasting or other that we have to option to avoid but will grow stronger as a result of tackling. I’m convinced that this is the best way to build resilience and in so doing keeps us prepared for the days when we have no option but to pin the ears, dig in and drive hard, forward and up. Obviously there’s a metaphor in here and the hill can be anything that we might struggle at but know we should be driving through. Have you got a daily ritual that you like to complete to help you train your own resilience or mental toughness?! Perhaps you’ve been inspired to identify something to take on? Let me know!

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What I’ve learned from publishing a blog post ever day for 30 days…..

It’s not easy but it’s not as tough as I thought it would be! Thankfully before I started I’d been keeping a list of ideas of things to write about. I’m lucky too in that people regularly ask me a lot of questions about photo and video production via various forms of social media instant messaging. This means you guys can look forward to more posts about photo and video workflows as the year progresses.

The toughest times have been after busy days or when I’ve been away from base. I was nearly caught out by sheer exhaustion a couple of times too. The worst was when I was nearly overcome by a serious case of the ‘nodding donkeys’ one evening — I literally kept falling asleep at my desk while trying to write! I also found it tough the times when I was away but still had to meet my midnight deadline. One night I got completely caught out because I’d gone off on a day trip up the coast of Portugal. I’d actually written that days post just after breakfast but had totally forgotten to push it live anywhere other than Medium.

The most rewarding times have been when someone liked, shared or commented one of my posts across the various platforms. On that note, so far I’ve been mostly interested in posting to my website (www.RichardDonelan.com) as I’m most keen to drive all the traffic there. However, I’m also keen to better understand how content performs on different platforms, so I’m also uploading to Tumblr, Facebook (the notes part of my page), Medium and LinkedIn. Measuring these platforms together, Medium and LinkedIn seem to be receiving the lion’s share of the interactions.

Interestingly the highest level of engagement has been coming from email, private messaging and telephone calls, rather than from ‘public comments’. Some of these communications have been to point out spelling mistakes but overall these have lead to interesting tangental conversations. I believe the lesson here is that when one shares something that strikes a chord with somebody else then it’s likely that the other party will want to continue the conversation, even if it’s in private rather than via public comments.

Speaking to the issue of my spelling mistakes…. Yes, I’m not proud of this issue, however, it is something that I’m working on! I’d like to blame autocorrect but would rather take personal responsibility for this shortcoming! Thanks to anyone who’d contacted me about this. Your feedback is very welcome and I promise to up my game in February!

To those of you who might like to start daily blogging themselves, be it through text, visual or video formats, my advice to you is to just do it! I’m convinced that there has to be at least one small thing that will occur each day that will also likely be worthy of being written down. Two of my goals for this (a blog post a day) project is to be more observant and to try and become a better story teller. I’m also convinced that such stories can and will be found and read if they are written well! Adding personalised stories for every post makes things a little more challenging but that isn’t impossible either. Especially seeing as most of us now carry around awesome cameras (on our smartphones) every day with us anyway!

Thanks very much for tuning in to read my daily posts so far. Please bear with me while I try and figure out what’s most interesting for you guys to read about. Please do also get in touch, via the comments or directly, to let me know what you’d most like to see me write about or to extend the conversation beyond the posts themselves.

Catch you tomorrow,

Richard

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Beware of the fake followers

Building a following on social media is a tough gig. It takes time and an awful lot of effort. Quite a while back I observed quite a disturbing trend that recently appears to be getting some mainstream media attention. Fake Followers!

What are Fake Followers, why should we worry about them and how to identify them. Believe it or not, it is possible to buy “fake followers” for many social media platforms. They typically appear in the form of ‘bots’ — robot or automated computer programmes to be more specific. These programmes can be written to create fake social media accounts which can then generate a revenue for the creator by using these accounts to follow other ‘real’ accounts for a fee.

The technology behind this activity can be vast and typically involves wiring numerous smartphones in a a collective often reffered to as a ‘click farm’. For as little as $6, it is possible to purchase thousands of followers on social media.

It is worrying if people (especially those that may be younger or more vulnerable) could be tricked into thinking that someone is more popular or influential that they actually are. The consequences can be dire in extreme circumstances where somebody might be left feeling inadequate if they can’t reach the sorts of ‘follower’ numbers that one of their peers or other party might appear to be garnerning.

Worse still, could be the consequences of someone following somebody else (due to their apparently high following) ownly to find themselves lead into some form or path of trouble.

It can be quite depressing also for people who are genuinely busting their guts to build social media channels only for some third party to suggest that their numbers are weaker than another especially in circumstances where that ‘other’ is in fact buying their following.

It’s usually fairly easy to spot a fruad — and yes, it is a form of fraud for sure as the act of buying fake followers is setting out to deliberately deceive or defraud a market or audience. There are tools like Social Blade which can help you spot the fakes. Visiting this website, and entering the details of the social media account you want to check out, you’ll be able to see a graph of their online growth.

Typically someone who has grown organically will have a slow steady curve whereas you’ll likely see an erratic spike or spikes for those accoutns that are cheating. This is guide more than a rule though as there could be other factors at play. A random television appearance could potentially give someone an unnatural spike in traffic so it’s important not to condemn somebody just because of what you think the graph is telling you!

Another way to verify whether or not the followers are real is to click into them and see how many people they follow, follow them and also what are the usernames and how do they relate to the profile of the type of person you think would be most likely to follow the account that you are concerned about.

The final and most obvious sign of fake followers is a scenario where someone has a couple of thousand followers (or more) but only appear to be getting a handful of likes and/or comments any time they post something. Typically there’s a fairly high ratio between followers and likes. If someone isn't getting at least 20% the number of their followers in ‘likes’ on Instagram then there’s a good chance that their followers are fakes. This is by no means an exact science but it’s a stat that I’ve observed regularly over the past year or so.

What should you do if you spot an account with lots of fake followers? There’s nothing you can do really as this is not an area that comes under any obvious current legislation in itself. So this is probably a question of morals more than anything else. Personally I think it’s important to try and avoid engaging with an account that has fake followers because doing so is only going to facilitate the deception further.

What are your thoughts on the phenomenom of “Fake Followers”? Let me know in the comments below!

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Surviving with less in a foreign city

Photo credit: Richard Donelan www.RichardDonelan.com

I’ve been hanging out in Portugal for the past week or so. I’m down here on a bit of a working visit to better understand the business environment here these days. I used to visit Portugal during the Winter time to train back when I took the old running quite seriously.

I always associate the place with fond memories — especially of the year that I ran a 56 min 400m after a few solid weeks warm weather training a few miles down the coast from here. By International Standards (well even by Irish standards) this isn’t such a great time but still really enjoyed the process of reaching it!

Back when we came to run Portugal was a very cheap place to visit. Today, however, the story is quite different. Portugal, well certainly Lisbon, has become a very expensive place to live with many locals being priced out of the property market entirely. I heard that the average wage here is now about €450 per month yet I notice many apartments for sale (here in Lisbon) for well over a million Euro.

As an alternative to the Economist’s “Big Mac Index” I often use a coffee index. The cheapest coffee I’ve found here so far was 60c but the most expensive one was €3.20. That’s a massive price difference which appears to reflective of the property and labour market pricing disparites also.

One former Blackberry employee told me that RIM be a great employer here- hiring a local English speaking population to run their customer support across the US, UK/Ireland and Australian regions. At the time they were paying very well but the cost of living was still fairly low.

That economic position has since evolved exponentially to a point where I understand the middle class have been virtually wiped out in some parts. Today you are either rich or poor if you live in Lisbon.

Watching Bloomberg last week I learned that both Facebook and Google are going to start investing heavily in their Portuguese operation. Facebook in particular are keen to see more engineering done here and they aim to hire 100 people in the Artificial Inteligence space asap.

Bloomberg has also been awash with news from Davos with nearly every interview question being prefaced by a reference to the next economic crash. It seems that the question on everyone’s minds is not “will there be another crash” but more “when the crash happens how badly will it be and how widely will it spread”.

I couldn’t help but think of the property inflation that’s been effecting Ireland in recent years as well as the concerns that the German’s and French have about the generous Irish Fiscal Policy for foreign companies. It’s a little scary to take a step back to think about how much these multinational companies (mainly American) really do impact on a European Nation’s economy.

I also wonder whether or not enough planning goes in (at National levels) to manage the longer term impact of such operations and related risks to an Economic region like the Eurozone. It seems to be that a lot of the same conditions are afoot today as we saw just before the last crash.

Sure we don’t have as much cheap money sloshing around the globe, we do however, seem to have a lot of money chasing tech. companies that have questionable long term value to add to the world yet they seem to be contributing to a lot of the challenges being faced right now.

Some of these challenges inlcude issues surrounding “Fake News”, global property inflation in highly sought after areas leading to an erosion of the middle classes like they’re seeing here in Portugal (and in California), not to mention this highly fluctuating Crypto “phenomenon” that’s emerged in recent times. I hope that there’s something more tangible than excitement and tax breaks underpinning these latter areas of current economic growth.

Overall I’ve found the Portuguese people to be very warm and welcoming and it’s been very interesting living here with not a lot of clothes, a laptop, mobile phone and my trusty Zeiss Exolens 2.0x! I tend to walk or run everywhere as the weather has been dry but there is also an excellent public transport system to help one get around should one need it. Food ain’t so cheap but you can find great food at good prices if you shop around…

I look forward to exploring the startup and engineering ecosystem as well as the local property market in more detail with a view towards identifying interesting stories to tell in addtion to possible business opportunites. If you’re based in Portugal or know of any interesting businesses or business people with stories to tell then please do get in touch via the comments below!

[richarddonelan]

Published again!

Photo credit: Richard Donelan www.RichardDonelan.com

Delighted to be featured again by Mobiography Magazine in their latest ‘Showcase Challenge’ Follow this link to their site to check it out! Herefollows the story behind that photo:

“Check it out here: Here’s the story behind the photo: Earlier this year I decided that I would challenge myself to ‘up’ my smartphone photography game. Part of this plan included shooting manually and in RAW. I wanted to shoot in manual mode so that I could start capturing more challenging shots. The decision to shoot in RAW was based on a desire to better understand what benefit (if any) this extra data can offer when shooting with an iPhone.

The most obvious benefits that I’ve unlocked while shooting RAW in manual mode so far have been: 1., The ability to fix the exposure of photos (shot in RAW) during the editing process. 2., The ability to better capture fast moving objects (in manual mode) because I can choose and lock my desired shutter speed before taking a shot. So far I’ve discovered two apps which offer these features: LightRoom (free from Adobe) and ProCam (€5.49 from Samer Azzem).

Testing these apps one freezing afternoon recently in Dublin, I spotted some Seagulls on the banks of the River Liffey. I opened up ProCam and quickly dialled in a reasonably fast shutter speed (1/818) to capture this shot. Uploading to Instagram cropped the photo square automatically. From there I used a black and white Instagram) filter to make best use of the flat, grey light and colours that day.

I made some additional minimal edits (in Instagram) to further bring out the grittiness of the scene and the weather that day. I was delighted with the end result and am very excited to experiment further with these manual camera apps. I can’t wait to discover what additional creativity they can help unlock!”

What smartphone photo or video apps are you guys using? Any that you couldn’t live without? Let me know in the comments below!

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Would a passive income of $500 million a year make you happy?

Photo credit: Richard Donelan www.RichardDonelan.com

Someone once asked me what my biggest life goal was. Almost without hesitating I was able to share my response. Peace of mind. This response clearly threw my inquisitor off guard. I’m quite sure they were expecting ‘world domination’ or an Italian sports car and a house in the Hollywood Hills.

The perhaps unfortunate reality of life is that (as the saying goes) money can’t buy happiness. It’s so true. Money can buy a lot of things but not happiness and certainly not peace of mind. I was reminded of this just before Christmas at a party with a bunch of the smartest tech people I know. The group is a mix of Irish and international engineers. You will most likely have used the technology built by some of these guys but will not likely ever know it. I mention this to contextualise the collective intelligence involved.

A common theme that evening was purpose. The consensus was that unless you’re solving a problem, and making the world a better place, that you are wasting your time and will never be settled, mentally. This is an important lesson to note if you’re ever hiring somebody with a technical or engineering mindset. Smart engineers are most often motivated by solving interesting problems more than by monetary reward. That doesn’t mean to say they don’t like money — just that their biggest driver is the pursuit of interesting problems to solve.

One of the guys shared a great example. On of his friend’s had invented a small piece of technology that generates him, on average, US$ 500m with next to no ongoing effort required to maintain this product. You’d think you’d be happy with this type of passive income right? Apparently though this guy is constantly striving to reach some kind of higher purpose. Fascinating eh?

Even more fascinating was how much this story seemed to resinate with the other engineers present. It also massively resonated with me. Although I’m not technically an engineer, I do have an engineering approach to problem solving and studied economics at university, a subject that is often classed as a science. The reason this story resonated with me was because of how closely it tied back into my belief that peace of mind sits at the top of human motivation (as defined at least in Psychology by Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs — a model of human motivation).

It’s my contention that if we can’t achieve peace of mind (whatever that means for us) we will never be happy no matter how much money we earn. For me, peace of mind means that I am not worrying about things. Most importantly it means that I am able to exist at peace in the present rather that rushing about all the time full of negative energy. I achieve this goal by maintaining a healthy diet, taking lots of exercise and avoiding toxic people like the plague. Achieving peace of mind requires a fair amount of work but it is well worth the effort of pursuing!

What do you guys think? What makes you happy? What are your biggest goals and do you think you will ever achieve them?! Let me know in the comments!

[richarddonelan]

Finding beauty on the streets of Dublin

I was delighted to have a photo featured by online smarthphone photography magazine, Mobiography, late last year. As part of that feature I was asked to write a brief “background story” relating to how the photo came to be and what techniques or tools I used to create it. As it was a nice story I decided to share it with you guys here today. So here it is:

“Fresh from Glen Mulcahy’s, RTE Mojocon 2017, I took to the streets of Dublin early the following Sunday morning for a smartphone photowalk. I’d just switched back to using my iPhone after a couple of months full frame DLSR use relating to a project I’d done for Canon.

Ambling along the Dublin quays, I happened upon the most striking vision standing at a very busy bus stop. It transpires that this was Artist and Model, Hazel Farrell (@hazeface on Instagram). Explaining that I was testing out the Zeiss Exolens 2.0x (thanks Zeiss), I asked her for a photo.

Rather than telling her how to pose, I suggested she might simply just forget that I was there and I’d snap away. I was amazed by how well the photo came out. This was snap number 10 of 10 and her look suggests that she’d fully relaxed and forgotten about me by then.

The quality of the natural light meant the photo only required minimal adjustments before posting it square to Instagram. Given the nature of the situation I could never have taken such a photo with a DLSR because it would’ve attracted way too much distracting attention for both me and the subject!” End

Would you like to join me on a walking tour in 2018? Perhaps you’d like to collaborate on a photo project or have me take your portrait? Let me know in the comments or else register your interest for a guided photowalk here!

[richarddonelan]

Training to failure

Have you ever failed at anything? People can have very different attitudes to the subject of failure and people who fail. They say that the Americans see failure as a badge of honour but that the Irish and English see those who fail as complete pariahs. These are probably extreme generalisations, however, there is some truth to them. Cultural differences definitely do exist when it comes to people’s attitudes to failure.

Personally I don’t think failure is ever ok in circumstances where the failure is due to deliberate carelessness or recklessness — especially where other people’s money was involved. However, if someone fails because of some external circumstance completely beyond their control, then I don’t think it’s fair that they be written off for ever just because things didn’t work out despite their best efforts.

For example, a lot of people involved in the transportation business in the early 2000’s got into trouble when “Allied Forces” decided to invade Iraq causing the price of oil to skyrocket. Could such an even have been forecast? Possibly. Should a small to medium sized coach or haulage company have been expected to predict and hedge against such an event? So should the owner of such a company then be labeled “a failure” if the rising prices drove (no pun intended) out of business?

It’s a funny thing but there’s not many Rugby or GAA clubs (especially not during pre-season) that will let a player get away with anything less than training to failure during a fitness session. This is the idea of putting in more than 100% effort so that there’s nothing left at the end of the workout. A similar concept exists in weight training. The logic in both instances is that athletes are encouraged to push themselves beyond what they may have previously thought possible with a view towards achieving a training gain.

Ultimately, such gains manifests themselves in the form of an increase in strength or aerobic capacity. Built on over time you end up with a fitter, stronger athlete. Caveat, you shouldn’t always push yourself, or others to failure, as it will result in eventual burnout. Nevertheless, when applied correctly, this exercise principle does form an extremely important factor in the development of atheltes.

With so many former athletes being brought out to speak about the parallels between sports and business these days you’d think that attitudes towards failure should be evolving. So why then is it still often seen as taboo to fail in business? Do we not need to do more to create a culture whereby it’s seen as ok (within limits) to fail?

No matter how calculated the risk, the reality is that most people take a massive risk anytime they try and innovate or set up a new venture. Just like with athletes, if we don’t foster an environment that causes people to go (eye)balls out from time to time, how then can we expect innovation and progress to happen?

What do you guys think? Where in the world are you reading this post and what are the attitudes to failure in your region? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

[richarddonelan]

iPhone Batteries or maybe even “Batterygate”…

Photo credit: Richard Donelan www.RichardDonelan.com

Overall I’m a pretty big fan of Apple. The first time I powered on a Macbook I instantly got what “It just works” meant. I guess this is kind of an inside thing. Something that you will probably only understand if you’re also a member of Club Apple. Maybe also something that you’ll need to have experienced the horrors of early PC’s to truly understand. Anyway, for me Apple devices have “just worked” very well, or at least they did, up until Autumn 2015.

My relationship with Apple started to become strained around that time for the following reason. I rather foolishly updated to the latest iOS of the day — iOS 9. The problems started almost instantly from there. I almost immediately noticed that the battery of my iPhone 5 wasn’t staying charged for more than an hour. Frighteningly, when charging the device from then on, it would become dangerously hot — literally too hot to touch. Soon after charging the battery would deplete to zero. The device had effectively been rendered unusable.

To be fair I’d done well by Apple up until that point. They’d completely changed computing for me — turning it from a negative chore to a fun experience, whatever the task, thanks to their awesome hardware and software. This was also my second iPhone 5 as the original had been replaced under warranty after nearly a year of use due to a recall on a faulty sleep / power button. Ironically that issue wasn’t even that bad but, needless to say, I was thrilled to get a free new phone almost a year after purchasing the original.

I guess this amazing experience to date contributed to how badly I felt when I tried to resolve the then presenting battery issue. Suffice it to say that the conversations around that issue went around in circles and, needless to say, I didn’t have a lot of time to keep chasing around like that. Eventually I decided that even though this device was only 9 or 10 months old, that I’d done pretty well because the original device I bought was paid for almost two years ago so I didn’t really feel that I was owed anything. So i capitulated and upgraded to a 6s.

The 6s was well worth the upgrade. The larger screen size (which I didn’t think I needed) turned out to be of fantastic value. The ability to record video in 4K was really exciting too — the first time this was possible on an iPhone. I largely forgot about my poor old iPhone 5 until I decided to power it on one day to see was it still alive and if so, was it still experiencing those weird power issues. Much to my amazement, not only was it still alive, (after another upgrade to iOS 9.whatever) it was capable of functioning as normal — well at least as normally as on older device could perform. The battery life wasn’t great but it no longer overheated when charging and it was possible to get a good few hours out of it before it had to be recharged.

At the time I had mixed emotions about this discovery. It’s resurrection evoked mixed emotions. At first I was happy to have a ‘b’ phone — always handy to have especially if using phone’s as photography / videography tools. I was also happy with the extra screen real-estate of the 6s, especially for editing, not to mention the memory upgrade form 64 to 128GB. There was one thing gnawing away at the back of my mind though and that was the fact that I couldn’t help but feel that I’d been duped into upgrading by what appears to in hindsight have been a known bug that Apple were subsequently able to resolve.

Flash forward to Winter 2017 and suddenly, crash bang wallop, my iPhone 6s starts to inexplicably power down at random times… The most annoying thing about this issue was that not only was it a known problem, I only found out that there was a battery replacement programme *after* I had just paid out for one of their battery cases!! The girl at the Apple reseller literally only decided to mention this while handing me the receipt.

Ok so maybe this was an unfortunate coincidence but it resulted in a really terrible customer experience. Why couldn’t she have mentioned it as I approached the till to double check if I was aware of this issue before buying the case?! To be honest about it I probably still would’ve bought the case eventually but I would’ve felt so much better about the experience rather than being left feeling fiddled, yet again.

Rock forward another year and Apple have finally admitted that they were slowing down some older phones as well as negatively effecting the battery lives of others thanks to iOS updates. In my instance, now both my same 6s and it’s battery case combined are now only lasting for a few hours. Thankfully I discovered during the week that Apple are not only finally offering an affordable (€29) battery replacement programme for all users, they also appear to have opened up this offer to include devices which had previously had free battery replacements under the “unexpected shutdown” recall programme.

It’s funny but when it’s been explained to me that phone batteries only last so long and some may need to be replaced how cool I can be with that. Especially when it’s only going to cost me €29 and I know it will be done properly (through Apple or an authorised agent) and by someone who is probably not likely to steal my data. It’s the not knowing and feeling forced into buying a new phone or possibly unnecessary peripheral that’s the real killer. In fact, other than this power issue, I’m still so happy with my 6s that I am most probably going to opt for this paid replacement over the next couple of weeks.

The moral of the story? Things break and technology fails. This is expected and most people are pretty understanding about it. What’s completely unacceptable is trying to cover up any breakages or failures. Dishonesty destroys relationships — simple as that. Worse still, dishonesty in a longer term relationship can be all the more hurtful and more difficult to unravel. As for Apple or any other tech company in this position my advice is come clean as early as possible. You’ll be surprised how much easier it will be to move forward if you can be honest with your customers especially your loyal community and fans!

What do you guys think? Have you ever had any similar experiences with technology or brands? How have those situations been handled and how did you feel? Let me know in the comments bellow!

[richarddonelan]

Today has been the best day of my life!!

I awoke to find my email inbox full up with exciting opportunities. For starters, I’ve had several emails from Russian girls to tell me that I’m fit and sexy (no arguments there).

It simply must be my lucky day because I also had an email to let me know that I’ve come into a load of money in the US *and* I’ve also been offered an incredible deal on a web design project. To be honest, at first I was a little overwhelmed by all of this exciting news — sure who wouldn’t be?!

After some careful consideration I’ve decided to ‘reply to all’ so that the Russian girls can use the money to build a website so that I can earn a passive income and live happily ever after.

[richarddonelan]

How much should you charge?

Photo credit: Richard Donelan www.RichardDonelan.com

Yesterday I promised to write on the subject of pricing. Pricing is required in all areas of business but today I’ll be focusing on the pricing of services delivered by individual self-employed or ‘freelance’ workers. This is never an easy subject to discuss which is all the more reason to do just that. Mastering this answer will make life so much easier by removing a whole level of unnecessary conversation and stress.

Let’s start by considering how much you should be charging for the services you’re delivering. There are a number of ways that this question can be answered so it’s well worth taking the time out to focus on the solution that will work best in your particular circumstances.

An easy option might be to simply pick the industry rate and benchmark your services against that. The problem with this approach is that you may not always have access to such a benchmark. Moreover, you may well be providing a lot of extra value that’s not reflected in such an incumbent pricing model.

Another option is to figure out what you might earn if you worked for a small to medium sized company or even a large corporate. What would your yearly salary be? Would you be receiving any other benefits in such circumstances, e.g., Health Insurance, Company Car, Car parking, Travel and Subsistence, Paid Annual Leave, Maternity / Paternity leave, Christmas Parties, Mobile Phone, Gym Access. Maybe you’d also be entitled to an annual bonus?What about a pension?!

What would these numbers add up to before and after taxes? Makes you think eh?! Now go and add up all of these elements and examine the total before and after tax. Then divide this number by 12, to get a monthly income equivalent, and again by 4 to get a weekly (5 day) breakdown. Finally, divide by 7 or 8 to get a basic hourly rate. What is this number?

How do these numbers now compare to what you’re currently charging for your services? Say an average working year is 11 months. Are you realistically going to be able to identify and deliver work projects for all of this time? What happens if you get sick or the economy contracts? Have you included a rainy day fund?

You really need to be considering these various elements before you ever start to talk to a customer about what you charge. Don’t forget either that you will invariably run up a lot of expenses in the daily operation of the business or service you deliver. These expenses have to be factored in too!

Most importantly, as I alluded to yesterday when I wrote “There’s no room for emotion in business”, it’s so important that when you are making decisions or having discussions around pricing that you are in the right mindset for that activity. There’s huge potential to really mess up this mission critical activity if you’re feeling in any way off form or out of sorts.

Case study 1 — You operate with no pricing structure because you’ve never sat down to figure one out: You answer. It’s ABC Ltd., a subsidiary of a large corporate. They want to “meet you for a coffee”. You think “great this could be just the break you were looking for”, drop everything to go meet them and then panic when they ask how much you’re likely to charge them and when you’ll be able to deliver by. You can’t think of an answer so you just spit out whatever comes into your head. This number is likely heavily influenced by your current state of mind so you’ll next quickly start to obsess about whether you’ve just quoted too low or too high. Sound familiar?

Worse still, you’ve gone out to have this coffee at your own expense (which you might not ever recover), when the people you’re meeting are on their company’s time. Maybe they don’t even have any interest in ever hiring your service — they just want a break from the office on company time and they just enjoy buzzing off new people, all the time absorbing the insight and knowledge of others at no cost to themselves.

So how can you improve on or ideally completely re-think this type of scenario? Planning. Think about all the various elements that I’ve already set out above. Factoring these in, properly work out what you should be charging as a function of what it actually costs you to live and to do business, i.e., what it costs you to deliver the service that you are providing. Make sure that you also factor in the costs of preparing for a job, getting there and getting back again not to forget also allowing for a bit of a runway for leaner times too.

Case study 2 — You’ve previously already worked out a stellar pricing structure based on mathematically working out how much it costs you to live and do business: The phone rings. You answer. It’s ABC Ltd., a subsidiary of a large corporate. They want to “meet you for a coffee”. You switch into action mode — no emotion involved. Great to hear from you. Can you please email me over an outline of what it is that you’re hoping that I can help you with. My rates are X per time with a minimum of Y units of time. If that’s agreeable then I look forward to proceeding quoting for your requirement on that basis.

This time you’ve sent out a clear message that you’re a serious operator that isn’t prepared to waste time messing about. The person on the other end of the phone should respect this as a positive indicator that you are a professional who will not waste time when delivering any project.

Moreover, you’ve delivered an honest and transparent message about your pricing strategy. Rather than obsessing about whether or not you’re going to get the job you’ve already gone back to progressing whatever you were working on last or already you’re already onto assessing the next sales opportunity.

You’re no longer wasting time or energy obsessing about what may or may not happen. Instead, you’re now confident that when work does come in that you will be able to make a living from it. If the phone doesn’t ring enough then you may have other issues to address but any such unknowns are currently out of the scope of this discussion.

Ultimately you need to figure out a strategy that will work best for you. In life and in business, being able to value yourself is absolutely the most important thing that you’ll ever have to figure out. The sooner that you can work this out the easier things will become. If you’re starting out and you’re struggling to figure out your worth then it will be all the more important to figure out what you cost. In other words, what does it costs for you to exist!

When you figure out your value, and a way to best communicate this, you will find it a lot easier to successfully do business. Perhaps you’ve already mastered this skillset? Please do let me know in the comments below if you have any top tips that you’d like to share about how you deal with, or have dealt with, the tricky subject of pricing!

[richarddonelan]

There’s no room for emotion in business

Photo credit: Richard Donelan www.RichardDonelan.com

This topic came up several times this week in lot’s of different contexts. It really is so important that we don’t allow emotion to interfere with business operations. This concept goes for sports too. The problem with being emotive is that it can really cloud judgment. It can also have an adverse effect when making decisions or negotiating.

Would you drive a car at night across twisty wet roads if you were super hungry and completely exhausted? Of course not — the risks of having an accident would be way too high. You certainly wouldn’t want to be playing sport when your energy levels are completely deplete either. In that instance your chances of doing something stupid resulting in letting your team down, or worse still, picking up an injury increase in such circumstances.

So why then would you make a critical business decision? As an exercise, this week I decided to write down the 10 biggest decisions that I’ve made over the last 12 months. Next I wrote down to what extent they were influenced by emotion. I then wrote down how my energy and stress levels were at the time of making those decisions. I was then able to rank these elements and graph them.

No prizes for guessing the results… My best decisions (as measured by their outcomes) were made at times when I was well rested, fed, hydrated and in a physically good state of fitness. There were a couple of outliers whereby I’d been sleep deprived by the underpinning decision making then had been underpinned by a sound evaluative process that had been worked out during rest times.

So what can be learned from this retrospective analysis. Two main things:

Avoid making decisions when you are cold, wet, tired, hungry, etc.

2. Develop SOP’s (Standard Operating Procedures) that can be deployed automatically in circumstances of stress.

An example of such an SOP is pricing. Figuring out pricing of a service, whether your an graphic designer or a plumber should be done at a time when you are in good form and not under pressure. Figuring out how much you should charge should be a function of a number of elements, e.g., f(market + time + education + costs).

There will always be variable elements in projects so you’ll also have to legislate for how best to factor these into your decision making process. The key takeaway I want to impart here is that making a decision about something as important as pricing (i.e., how much you should charge for providing a service) should be made scientifically and in advance of having a pricing conversation with a client.

Applying (and then mastering) such quantitate analysis will help you to remove emotion from the process so that you avoid all the stress and self-doubt that can otherwise so easily creep into a negotiation. Pricing is just one example here — you’ll be able to design and deploy similar formulas to other areas of life and business that involve critical decision making too.

Next week I’ll be writing on the specific subject of valuing oneself so keep an eye out for that. Let me know in the comments if you’ve got a question about anything I’ve discussed here or have any ideas for subjects that you’d like me to write about over the coming weeks. If you’re enjoying reading these posts then do please hit that like button or share with your network!

[richarddonelan]

Would you love to be a content creator?

Anyone can be a publisher today and this exciting opportunity opens up a world of possibilities. Today we are all publishers even if we are not aware of the fact. The democratisation of technology means that anyone who owns a smart phone is capable of producing and sharing broadcast quality audio and video. Technology also means that it is possible for people to communicate with each other on a truly global basis.

Increasingly brands and organisations are recognising the huge value in being able to have a two way dialogue with their customers or end users. Being able to engage, in real time, can give huge competitive edge to competitors in a market place. Those that master these skills will ultimately win out where those that don’t will struggle to remain relevant in such a fast moving and evolving environment.

The key to being successful in publishing (or content creation as it’s called these days) is the same today as it was in Kipling’s time. The story, and how we tell it is still the most important element. Structure, authenticity and relevance to an audience are also mission critical. Finding the stories is the easiest part because they all around us just waiting to be told.

So take out that phone and start making notes and taking photos and videos. Start today and with a little practice you will soon be dominating your relevant space or area of expertise. It takes effort but it will get easier with time and the ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ will start to happen in no time at all!

[richarddonelan]

How to get paid faster if you’re a freelancer or small business owner

When I first started working as a freelance videographer (summer 2015) I struggled to find any half decent online invoicing software. There were a few products on the market but most were very expensive and required users to also sign up to related expensive accounting software.

I found this to be quite frustrating when all I needed was a means to collect money electronically! In the end I decided to build my own invoicing solution using Stripe to process the actual payments. I created a simple template in Google docs that I could clone and edit to customise for each new customer. I’d then embed a payment link and save as a PDF before sending to the customer via email.

This worked very well in the early days but as business started to grow so too did the volume of invoices I had to deal with and eventually I needed to find a more scalable solution. In or about August 2016 I started searching again to see had anything exciting appeared on the market since I’d last gone searching. Thankfully, by then, a number of much lower cost, standalone, invoicing tools had been launched.

I tried a number of these before ultimately settling on ‘Invoice2go’, built a New Zealand based startup. Available for both macOS and iOs, it seems to work just as well when accessed via either platform. I gather that it’s also available for Android users but I haven’t tried that version yet. The best thing about this product is it’s simplicity.

Create an invoice, add a few details, set the tax rate, enter the amount that the item costs and add any expenses where applicable. The app can then calculate the total amount owed. I love that you can also store client and ‘item’ details for easy recall when dealing with recurring customers. These pre-populated elements really speed up the preparation of invoices.

Payment options range from simply including bank details, to attaching bank details as a detachable ‘remittance’ slip, to including a link to accept payment by credit / debit card or via PayPal. The app also allows one to set payment terms (i.e. pay by x date) that can be then linked to a reminder system that can automatically email out payment late payment reminder notifications should they be required.

I’ve found that the trick to getting paid quickest is to ask to be paid via a credit or debit card. Choosing this option within ‘Invocie2go’ will create a payment link in the body of the invoice. A copy of this link will also appear as a large button in the body of the email that the app generates when you are ready to send the invoice. This makes it very easy your customer to pay you as all they have to do is click on one of these links and then enter their card details.

There are always going to be cases where whatever you do you’ll still have to wait ages to be paid or, unfortunately worse still, sometimes not get paid at all. However, I’ve found that the majority of time when dealing with decent customers that this system has most definitely helped me to get paid quicker.

What tips or tricks have you figured out to help you reduce administrative burdens or increase your productivity? Would love to learn from your experiences here too so please do share any tips or tricks that you might have in the comments!

[richarddonelan]

How to get Apple Pay if your bank is still stuck in the dark ages

What? Your bank doesn’t support Apple Pay?! Fear not because I have just the solution! Enter Boon from Wirecard. This neat little service enables you to sign up for a virtual prepaid Mastercard that will function via your iPhone or iPad or Watch’s Apple Pay feature. Once up and running you’ll be able to pay for goods and services by presenting your iOs enabled device in place of a credit or debit card at store ‘point of sale’ units. 

Why should we care? It’s the weirdest thing but most of us will probably agree that we leave our wallets behind before we’d ever forget our phones if if we’re in a complete rush out the door! So the hassle this service could save in an emergency could be invaluable. Moreover, the potential convenience of not always having to carry a wallet could be a real ‘boon’ for many. See what I did there?! ;) 

What’s the catch. Best read the T’s & C’s but there doesn’t appear to be any. What’s more, the service is free to use for the first 12 months if you sign up before 1 February 2018. If you sign up after that that you’ll still be able to enjoy the first 3 months use free of charge. A monthly fee of €1.49 will apply thereafter. 

It’s not entirely clear if it costs to use the service if travelling abroad. It appears that a 1.25% fee will apply to non Euro transactions but I’ve written to them to clarify this. Top ups made from credit cards apply immediately but top ups from debit cards may take a day or two to apply. There had been a hefty enough fee to top up via credit card so I was thrilled to learn that this appears to have been removed.

Can they be trusted? Boon is a product of Wirecard Card Solutions which are regulated in the UK by the FCA. This allows them to conduct business across the EU. Read more here. Most importantly, they are trusted by Apple which is a fairly solid endorsement, for me anyway. Ultimately it’s a case of Caveat Emptor so you guys need to make up your own minds on this one.

To get up and running you’ll have to download the Boon App from the iTunes store. Good news for Android users too as this service is also available to download from the Google Play Store. Once you open the app you’ll be walked through setup process which is fairly straight forward. 

If you want to increase the transaction limits you’ll have to go through a more rigorous KYC procedure — basically just a matter of providing some information to identify who you are and then uploading some appropriate documents to verify same. 

Personally I’m very excited to think that this service will enable me to try out Apple Pay without having to switch banks which would’ve been a lot of effort and probably not worth that hassle just so that I could use Apple Pay... What do you guys think? Anyone using Apple Pay already? Let me know what you think in the comments!