The Anti Mentor?

👋 Hey, Must Readers!  I trust you had a good week.

I’m back with 11 must-read stories for you to read & an exclusive microblog about how to beat death by meetings!

As a reminder: Each week Must Reads shares stories you have unlikely read, seen in your feeds or on your messenger of choice. Hit share to help Must Reads grow and help to make people more informed

Must Read Articles Of The Week

1. Want Quick Wins: Hand Over & Hand Back Framework Templates are extremely popular on must reads and this week here is a framework to help improve work, you know of the handover but do you hand back formally? Chances are no! Here is a free template to be more efficient - Read the full article and get the free template 

2. What Big CEO’s Think About Return The Office 🤨 We are all at different phases of return to the office, some are back in others are not, some are shutting offices and leaving HQ’s optional but many large companies are still driving the standard, so here is what Google etc are actually thinking about returning to the office and what they miss - Read the full article

3. The No-BS Guide To The Metaverse 💯 The metaverse is reported everywhere, but a lot of the tech companies are misleading their audiences, here is the simple metaverse guide for work and for play - Read the full article

4. How Smaller Brands Are Leveraging TikTok ⚡️ Ever wondered how smaller less established brands are appearing in your feed? Ever wondered how a random thing blows up, smaller brands and their agencies break down how they leverage the new format, niche communities (TT is becoming the new creative Reddit) and leverage being creative not just paying for numerous ads - Read the full article

5. YouTube Move Creators To Shorts & Production Companies 🧐 YouTube is proactively changing the way they promote their content, subscribing to creators doesn’t guarantee videos are being surfaced and watched anymore. The next tactical move was moving you to your own home-feed (TikTok for your page like inspired move) is actually reducing views for YouTubers and placing more professional long-form content in your feed. What is the bigger picture? The birth of better platforms for creators and YouTubers. It’s likely a creator payment platform that is going to reshape the space, namely first mover to do this => creator first platform Patreon - Read the full article 

6. Amazon Prime Video Makes You The Marketers 🧠 What is the easiest way to turn your prime users into marketers? Give you tools to promote Prime Video’s content. Smart right! This is where network effects (you share their content to your audience to drive interest and then they gain sign-ups) come in and drive interest in a show or film by creating 30-second snippets, ultimately driving interest in Amazon Prime Video. This is something others have offered with images and even with short gifs but ultimately struggled with this tactic previously but this new approach is a very smart growth tactic that scales well - Read the full article

7. Luxury Gaming 💰 Gucci and Xbox have teamed up to release a limited-edition Xbox to leverage the theme for luxury brands going deep into gaming. Why? The time being spent and the money spent is huge and luxury brands need relevancy. Will this help Gucci and Xbox become relevant? Unlikely, but it is the ultimate swag few will get to show off and play on - Read the full article

8. Be Prepared To Be Livestream Fatigued 🛒 We have been told for around a year that shoppable live streams (everything becoming QVC) are about to take over. Many in the industry see it as the next battleground and many are pumping significant investment into the space. Payment providers like American Express and BNPL Klarna have been the first to really invest in the space to be relevant when it hits the mainstream. I often share the incredible numbers from 🇨🇳, including $2b of sales from this year’s Singles Day (that’s in one day!). Something to consider, in the West we have rushed to have more shoppable events and pulled forward annual seasonal events particularly in 🇬🇧, Black Friday (turned it into a week or a month which is madness), tried to roll out Singles Day & now many are struggling to see the impact through the noise of everyone doing it differently. Live streams will be spontaneous and planned and sponsorship might be the first way to go to get the wave moving away from bringing holidays and seasonal events forward - Read the full article

9. The Incredible Story Of Catching A Turtle Theif 🐢 An incredible story of the Terrapin, its history, the incredible price for one shell and why Scientists struggle to understand its decline alongside catching a turtle thief - Read the full article

10. Face Pay - Russia’s Surveillance System? 💳 Face pay is how you travel on the Moscow Metro (underground system) - it is extremely controversial and is leading to huge questions from inside and outside of Russia. As we move to depend more on technology, are we giving away more of our fingerprints/privacy for convenience? The question might be do we care if we aren’t doing anything wrong - Read the full article 

11. Need A Good News Fix? 🙋‍♀️ Here is a collection of good news stories that will brighten up your weekend - Read the collection

Is It Time For An Anti Mentor? As a big advocate of the concept and role of a mentor and having mentors in your life, this really helped reframe the benefits of different mentors. BTW mentors help you long term with guidance, coaches help develop key skills with deadlines, it is important to know the difference and select the right paid-for option. » Here are my coaching services.

The Future State Of Meta (aka Facebook) Why they are everywhere and talking about the future being digital (and being the metaverse)

» Read or » Listen

Microblog: How To Beat Death By Meetings

Did you know we have collectively increased the hours of meeting from 14 hours per week to 21.5 hours? That’s over half the working week and feedback on the majority of these meetings…they are actually status updates. Did you know there is such a thing called MRS (meeting recovery syndrome)? It is a big cause of stress and friction within business. Stealing time is one of the main unspoken causes of stress.

Problem Creator Or Problem Solver? Are you in control of the meeting or are you just attending as you have to or deciding to attend to be visible?

The best way to reduce death by meetings and meeting recovery syndrome is to be deliberate in planning and crafting meetings. From saying upfront why this has to be a meeting and why it couldn’t have been an email. Here 6 ways of creating the right criteria for a meeting and how for it to be successful. (1) Having an objective for the meeting - clearly state it (2) What success looks like from the meeting - clearly state it (3) Explainer why attendees are invited and why they are needed to attend - yes, explain ‘why’, they will thank you (4) Always have an agenda with time blocks - time blocks can be flexible but managing time helps get decisions and actions made (5) Have a chairperson to help guide the meeting and take notes to distribute - notes improves knowledge and centralises thoughts and processes (6) Have agreed on actions from the meeting with set dates - the chairperson is responsible to chase, rotate chairpeople meeting to meeting, share the power, don’t hoard it or rely on the hippo… 

Try it, this method works! 

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Until next week’s Must Reads, go well friends.

Danny Denhard