Maren Deepwell

Author: Maren Deepwell

  • Reviewing my tech stack II: Socials

    Reviewing my tech stack II: Socials

    I recently embarked on reviewing my tech stack (read the first part) and as soon as I published the post, I realised the socials weren’t really covered and yet form a big part of my communications tech stack. So in this post, part II if you like, I’m going to focus on my social tech stack.

    Now, I won’t be mentioning Twitter as I haven’t been active on there for a few years now, ever since I deleted my account. That won’t change. Enough said.

    Professional social channels – Share, like, follow

    I have some cross-over between personal and professional channels, but I try to avoid it wherever possible. It helps me stay offline more and helps folk reach me for work stuff via channels I am responsive to.

    BlueSky

    At the moment, BlueSky is my favourite social network, and probably where I interact the most with folk. Thanks to a lot of stirling work from folk in the education and edtech spaces creating lots of starter packs, I found finding folk I want to follow (apologies for the unintentional tongue twister) really easy. I love the vibe and the interactions, and I post a lot of updates there. Account: @marendeepwell.bsky.social

    Instagram

    A lot of my work ends up being quite visual, and I love sharing it via images. Instagram is a platform I started using more over the past few years, and I find it really helpful to connect with coaching folk. Account: @marendeepwell

    I should mention that I actively NEVER browse Instagram, and don’t use most of its features. I don’t produce video for it, and I don’t use or watch reels. My mute button is always on, so for me this is a quiet, static platform. I am not sure if it’s the luddite in me or simply my age, but I don’t crave more video in my life, hence Instagram stays mostly images and I don’t use TikTok. I did try it, and deleted it again after a day, which reflect my personal preferences as to how I like to engage with my online world.

    LinkedIn

    I have a love/hate relationship with LinkedIn, and its user experience baffles me. I really dislike its automated emails, have switched off pretty much all notifications, and struggle with the general tone of much of the discourse, but it IS extremely useful to me and the largest network I have on any social network nowadays. Account

    Mastodon

    I use Mastodon mainly for keeping in touch and connecting with edtech/open ed folk, and I really appreciate the federated space it offers. Having learnt at least a little about what it takes to run these servers and keep them alive, I especially appreciate Mastodon, but the downside is that its activity level (at least for me, and in the way I can engage) is quite limited. Account: @marendeepwell

    Threads

    Threads is probably my least active federated social media app, and I don’t particularly enjoy using it. Many folk I interact with on Instagram don’t seem active on here. No strong feelings, but I don’t use it much. Next.

    Podcast and Newsletter – Share, like, subscribe

    In part I, I mentioned the podcast and newsletter already, but I wanted to revisit them here as a way to keep in touch and connect with folk.

    Personal social channels – Family & friends

    These are really only used for people I actually know in person.

    Messaging Apps: Threema, WhatsApp, DMs

    Confession time: I am not a big fan of group DM chats. I join none unless I really need to and I am currently in less than 3. Unlike many people I don’t live in WhatsApp. I delete messages and conversations regularly and I switch off whatever I can in terms of notifications, live status and so forth.

    Also, I text in full sentences. With punctuation. And I am an old fashioned emoji user 🙂 . I don’t type with more than 2 fingers on my phone, mostly just one 😉

    I have a few friends with whom I use specific apps/methods of communication that keep us in regular contact and I deeply value. But mostly it’s just sending letters by post.

    Facebook

    Would prefer to leave. But can’t easily do so. But considering it. Sporadic usage. Sometimes useful.

    Instagram

    My personal account is private and very small (around 50 folk). It’s where I share pictures of my dog Posey, pizza and my day to day home life. It’s the most unedited of my social media accounts. For better or for worse.

    Image: Photo by Carl Heyerdahl on Unsplash

  • The Hybrid Working “1% Better” List

    The Hybrid Working “1% Better” List

    Since I first published this list of 25 obvious, yet effective, ways to improve your working environment, all the way back in 2022, it’s become one of the most read posts on my blog. Many of my coaching clients and course participants come back to this again and again, to find new ways to tweak their set up and improve their working environment.

    Given that we are once again in January, and given that this week I’d do just about anything to make work a little easier, I’ve gone back to review and update the list to include a few new things and approaches. There are a lot of things you can try to make your day a little more comfortable, calmer and more balanced. What will make a real difference to you depends on the way you work and your personal preferences.

    What makes this approach work (for me at least) is that the aim is to start thinking about making very small, incremental improvements, not big or radical changes that new year resolutions so often come with. I can always find ways to make myself 1% more comfortable, even on a bad day. And along the way, I gain a little more awareness and distance from being lost in digital productivity curves.

    My “1% better” list

    Use this list to find ways to make a small change, or maybe two, and see how things shift:

    Working environment

    • lights for different times of day, i.e. a work lamp, SAD lamp, fairy lights, a candle
    • a selfie or ring light
    • A place for a pet to be… if you can persuade them
    • a place for papers/desk tidy
    • open window or fan
    • heated seat pad

    Work set up

    • a new mouse mat or a mouse you like
    • wrist rest/mouse rest
    • glare protector
    • foot rest (cushion or yoga bolster can work, too)
    • headphones that suit your ears

    Stepping away from the screen

    • an alarm or similar that reminds you to take regular screen breaks
    • a physical reminder to go to a different room/downstairs/outside
    • cushioned slippers or shoes (particularly handy for standing desks)
    • a paper planner/diary you can use away from the screen to think/plan
    • a lunch date/appointment with someone away from your desk

    Engage your senses

    • scented candle or a diffuser for aromatherapy oils
    • music
    • new flavour hot (or cold) drinks to try such as new herbal teas or coffees
    • a secret snack stash (healthy or not)
    • something tactile like a soft throw or a fidget toy
    • a pet

    Analogue joys

    • a plant
    • a nice coaster
    • photos/pictures/art
    • a rock or shell from somewhere you like
    • record player

    Healthy habits

    • eye mist and glasses that help filter blue light
    • a water bottle
    • cleaning products for your workspace, i.e. eco wipes, disinfectant, screen cleaner
    • find a window sill or high shelf you can use as a place to have meetings with your laptop or a sit stand desk or desk shelf

    A few notes…

    If you haven’t done so in a while and especially if you have recently moved things around, checking in on your work set up from a basic health & safety perspective and reviewing display screen equipment guidance is a good first step.

    Many of us easily ignore or tune out constant factors that make working uncomfortable, like glare, noise, a bad chair and so forth. Try and look at your set up with fresh eyes.

    Ask yourself, if someone else had to use it for a week, what do you think they might like or find difficult?

    Support from your employer with purchasing office equipment for home working (or if you are self-employed here in the UK, you can apply for support with office equipment costs from the Department for Work) should help with making bigger changes, such as buying an adjustable desk, a suitable chair and other equipment.

    What are you going to try to make your day tomorrow 1% more comfortable?

  • Reviewing my tech stack: Part 1

    Reviewing my tech stack: Part 1

    As I get back to working and blogging after a nice break, my focus is on getting my digital domain on order. Since starting my own business I have added all sorts of services, subscriptions and platforms to my tech stack, and as my work has evolved, so have the tools I use.

    My aim for this review is twofold: first up, I want to make sure I am not paying for services or subscriptions I don’t actually make good use of, and secondly I want to make sure that the technology I do use is, wherever possible, aligned to my values. I should probably thank Zoom’s “we are an AI-first company” announcement for prompting me to find an alternative video call platform, ideally one that put humans before technology.

    I am blogging about this as I go along, so let’s see what happens. In the interest of transparency, I have added some current costs as well as my “status” and a personal “overall” evaluation. This is not meant to be anything more than my personal view.

    To make it easier, I have come up with three headings to group tools together:

    Organisational infrastructure

    Tools and platforms that help me run by business day to day.

    Google Workspace

    My business, small as it may be, still needs an organisational infrastructure, and after trying out various alternatives I have settled on Google Workspace to provide that. It’s a tool I have used for over 15 years, and it does exactly what I need it to, reliably and cleanly.

    Google Workspace provides my email, file storage and video call capabilities for informal calls and meetings. It’s where I work and live day to day.

    Cost: £6.00 per user per month
    Status: Here to stay
    Overall: Excellent

    Asana

    I use Asana to plan out by business objectives, and to schedule recurring tasks and actions from completing my tax return to logging CPD coaching hours. I used Asana in my CEO role and I use it also with other teams at the moment, and it has great utility in those context. For me personally, my little Asana instance of one user is a dream as I have been able to customise it exactly to my preferences and I use it pretty much only to plan out annual cycles of work or larger projects.

    Cost: free (at the level I am using it)
    Status: Here to stay
    Overall: Excellent

    Stripe

    Having tried pretty much every payment processor out there at some point, I had no great hopes for trying out Stripe. Fortunately I was wrong. For my (low volume) purposes, Stripe offers all round excellent functionality. It’s a standard fee structure, and I found it a pleasant surprise that most people seem to get on with paying invoices happily and quickly without support.

    Cost: transaction fees depending on turnover
    Status: Here to stay
    Overall: Excellent

    Domains, blog and newsletter

    This warrants its own category because it’s so important.

    Reclaim Hosting

    My primary domain, https://marendeepwell.com/ , is where my WordPress blog lives, and it’s been safely and happily looked after by Reclaim Hosting for over a decade. I am a big fan of this independent hosting company for many reasons, including their excellent service, personable support and fair pricing.

    I have been a Shared Hosting client for a long time and was also converted to Reclaim Cloud as my needs grew. I also have several domains which I manage here.

    Cost: Shared Hosting $60 per year + top level domains. Reclaim Cloud costs depending on usage.
    Status: #4life
    Overall: Excellent

    My blog and domain on Reclaim include my newsletter and mapping of my domain to my Google Workspace email account.

    Newsletter, MailPoet and Mailgun

    Since I started my newsletter, I tried out various WordPress plug-ins and also MailChimp and its equivalents. Eventually I settled on the Newsletter plug-in, and Mailgun to manage the actual sending of the emails.

    More recently, I started experimenting with MailPoet as an alternative and I am as yet undecided which one I will go with. MailPoet seems attractive as it has a nice design interface, and its integration with WordPress feels more light touch than the recently updated Newsletter plug-in, which is trying to integrate the blog and newsletter more closely (which I am not keen on).

    Cost: Mostly free.
    Status: in transition
    Overall: could be better

    Course/coaching delivery

    A lot of my consultancy work takes place within organisations who have their own tech infrastructure set ups, from security and sign-ins to file storage and video conferencing tools. Like many others in similar roles, I manage multiple profiles for platforms like Teams or Google or Slack. When it comes to delivering coaching and courses independently however, I try to find balance between form, function and feasibility.

    Zoom

    This is the platform I use nearly everyday and which I like the least. Despite the fact that it is reliable and easy to use, this is a platform I dislike and would like to find an alternative to. Ideally something more light-weight and less objectionable. For my purposes, I really *just* need a video call platform that offers recordings, and nothing more.

    My current contenders are: Google Meet (easy for me, but not always a good option for folk because of log-in issues), and Whereby.

    Cost: £15.59 per month
    Status: moving away from
    Overall: dislike

    Squarespace Courses

    In 2024 I started offering coaching courses, and tried out a whole host of platforms, starting with WordPress, dedicated course platforms and so on. This platform offers the functionality I need in terms of managed access, offering a fully accessible course design, it’s mobile friendly and relatively easy to learn (for me). As I produce my own course resources and (audio) content, this was the only platform I tried out that work for short-term development like courses and still resulted in a professional finish.

    Cost: £100.51 for 12 months (course module)
    Status: Working well
    Overall: Like the finish

    Moo

    Moo is a printing service that I love and I have used for many years. I use it to produce printed materials for my coaching, workshops and courses. It’s especially good if you need small quantities and lots of different versions of the same content.

    Cost: depending on product
    Status: Here to stay
    Overall: Excellent

    Personal productivity and communications

    This is a catch all category for everything else I use.

    • Canva: I have a love/hate relationship with Canva, and am always looking for alternatives. However I do find it exceedingly useful, especially when it comes to producing coaching materials and printed designs. After being offered the opportunity to pay 300% more per month earlier this year, it’s pricing has remained at £10.99 per month for me, for now.
    • Buffer: a tool which can schedule posts across various social media platforms. I do use (the free) version, but not enough.
    • Calendly: another tool which I use currently in the free version, but which I make limited use of.
    • Fission and AudioHijack: audio recording, streaming and editing, Excellent tools I bought licences for very happily and which I couldn’t do without.
    • Spotify for Podcasters: a podcasting platform experiment that stuck. Would like to move away from, but not a priority.

    In part 2, I’ll report back on what has changed and how I got on.

    Image: Photo by Carl Heyerdahl on Unsplash

  • The year in blog posts… 2024

    The year in blog posts… 2024

    Over the last couple of years I have started to round up the year with a final post of blogging about blogging. Last year’s post told the story of the 72 posts I wrote in 2023, and this year I am sitting pretty on… well, read on to find out.

    Back in June I took stock halfway through the year, and found that I had I published 35 blog posts in the first six months of the year, slightly fewer than over the same period the previous year (43), but still an average of six per month. March was the month with the most posts (thanks to lots of things to say about open education) and June was the month with the fewest (thanks to a deeply relaxing two weeks away and offline).

    Since then, I have added another 30 to the total, which brings me to 65 blog posts for the year!

    Hat tip by @visualthinkery is licensed under CC-by-sa. Remix by Maren Deepwell.

    Blog OR DIE! (Hat tip to Jim Groom)

    Now in this era of digital productivity, when the pressure to keep all your personal tracking graphs and dashboard trends pointing ever upwards, publishing fewer posts this year than the year before may not look – I am not actually sure what to put here. After all, what, I wonder, would “blogging success” actually look like?!

    Let’s just say that for me (and as this is MY blog, it’s me who sets out measures of success), this year has been one of fabulous blogging. I have enjoyed it, I have indulged in it and I have kept my practice alive and kicking!

    Over the summer, in the run up to the DS106 Radio Summer Camp, Jim and I had a conversation in which he came up with the slogan “Blog OR DIE!” and we ran with that as the plenary session of the event (and a lot of fun that was, too). Ever since then, the phrase has been stuck in my head as a battle cry for what I want my professional practice to be… and I have found in it both inspiration and motivation to keep going.

    So thank you, Jim Groom, patron saint of indie edtech, for reminding (not just) me how important it is to use the voice we have and the domains we own, to shape the open web.

    Top 10 posts

    And here, for a bit of fun, are this year’s “top 10” posts:

    1. Post that made me smile: … we did it again.
    2. Post that I stopped writing: Small things. Celebrated.
    3. Post that prompted fun conversations: Updating my short bio… or ‘Hello, I’m a dog person’
    4. Post that was the most useful to folk: How to get your blogging mojo back.
    5. Post with my favourite cover image: Christmas Jumper Day. A story.
    6. Post with the most comments: Twenty years of blogging… now on ReclaimPress
    7. Post that was shared most widely: A milestone moment on my coaching journey
    8. Post that was read most widely: What happens to our senses in the hybrid workplace?
    9. Post that had the most successful podcast companion episode: Six months of gold dust.
    10. Post that I enjoyed writing the most: The joy of not working.

    January (6)

    February (6)

    March (8)

    April (5)

    May (6)

    June (4)

    July (6)

    August (3)

    September (5)

    October (4)

    November (5)


    December (7)

    Thank you, dear readers and fellow bloggers, for another year of blogging – #4life.

  • Jolly Holidays on the Open Web

    Jolly Holidays on the Open Web

    It’s the time of year again… and as someone who works remotely with clients across different timezones, most of my ‘festive’ moments at work are unceremonious video calls that end abruptly as everyone rushes off to their next meeting. Meanwhile, across the various social media spaces I take part in, corporate messages of (apparent) goodwill mix uneasily with cheery commercial overload, making it hard to find the actual updates from actual people I care about. Jolly Holidays on the interwebs this isn’t!

    Fortunately we can breathe a little easier, as there is still real fun to be head online for those of us working in education and edtech, in the form of Reclaim’s Rewind 2024 series of free and open events on the radio, tv and social activities! I am really excited to be part of this, and to have a group of wonderful people to share the run up to the holidays with.

    Event logo

    It’s precious to me to take some time to celebrate community and have the opportunity to connect with colleagues, reflecting together on the highs (and lows!) of the year that’s been, and gather our strength and find some renewed inspiration before the new year starts.

    Kicking off the whole series was a team outing on Reclaim TV, sharing some of the best bits of 2024, the drama that shook the (edtech) world (hello, WordPress bros) and how the team have come out fighting the “good fight for indie edtech” on the other side. 

    Next up was what we called a “Case Study Bonanza”, featuring special guests from a number of schools that work closely with the team and the one and only Bryan Mathers:

    But… the best is yet to come! This week, there are the two biggest events coming up and I hope that you will join us, so here are all the details:

    Community Chat: Rewind 2024

    December 18th 
    For this final community chat of the year we are inviting ALL our special guests from 2024 to come together. You will hear updates of the exciting work happening across our community and have a chance to share your own highs and lows of 2024. This is our time to come together to say thank you and acknowledge and appreciate everyone who works in open edtech in Higher Education. 
    Event info

    Reclaim Rewind 2024: Live on DS106 Radio. It’s the HOLIDAY SPECIAL

    December 20th
    We are inviting you to join us for the one and only edtech radio holiday special, featuring guests from the legendary DS106 Radio Summer Camp. There is going to be story telling, holiday tunes and, if you are very lucky, even a bit of festive KaraOERke. The elves are working hard on that one. So listen in and play along as we ROCK the airwaves and ring in the holidays. 
    Event info

    There are also a couple of DS106 Radio hosts, myself included, who will be jumping on the airwaves to play music and chat, so follow the #ds106radio on Mastadon to find out what’s on, and tune in to DS106 Radio.

    It’s such a joy to be able to have some actual time together with folk without the clock ticking on yet another meeting, and to be able to dip in and out of the festive fun as I sit at my desk finishing off my work for the year.

    During the pandemic edtech folk became an educational emergency service, and everyone suddenly wanted to learn about how to use technology at scale, fast. Those days are fortunately behind us, and these days hype headlines about AI are more likely to pull focus. But for me, it’s definitely the human beings (not the technology) that made this year, and it’s all the unsung (edtech) heroes, grinding away at keeping the open web a possibility for future generations of students and educators, that I’ll be celebrating with this year!

    Wishing you, and yours, Jolly Holidays on the Open Web!

  • A thank you… for 2024

    A thank you… for 2024

    It’s been quite a year. My first full calendar year running my own micro business. My year of getting back into running. Of travelling more, and working a little less. My year of counting days spent on the beach and following the golden seam of creativity to wherever it may lead.

    Amidst all the ups and downs in my own life, my professional communities and the world at large, here I am at the end of the year, (nearly) ready to down tools and cosy up for Christmas by the sea.

    A big thank you to each and every one of you reading this, sharing a bit of my year, from blogging and book writing to coaching and consultancy.

    It’s been a real joy to collaborate and coach with you all these past twelve months, as my professional practice expanded to a new group coaching course and workshops as well as a conference on the airwaves!

    I have had the opportunity to do research and start writing on my next book as well as reports and articles, go to events and conferences.

    Snapshots from 2024, starting top left: Coaching moment, visit at Oxford University with Emma Procter-Legg, launching my leadership course, working with Physiospace in Cardiff, OER24 Conference catch ups in Cork, Ireland, more catch ups at OER24 with Leigh Wolff, and lunch with Anne-Marie Scott and Meredith Huffman, publicity shot with Lynne Taylerson, me in action giving a talk with Martin Weller.

    Looking back at the year, it’s certainly been a busy one! Here are some highlights:

    I am curious to see what the new year might bring… hopefully more opportunities to collaborate and work on projects with amazing people alongside time to develop my coaching and courses. There are a few things planned and in the works already, but certainly room for new things, too, so ping me if you have an idea 🙂

    Here’s to whatever 2025 may bring!

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