Never Mind the Manager » fun at work

Twitter Following Limit at 2000 users + a bonus

Frode Heimen — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 20:01:13 +0000

I reached a magic spot today while browsing for interesting people to follow on twitter. I like to browse for people with similar interests as me but today I could not follow more people because I reached a limit of 2000 people. I used google, as I always do when I run into unknown territory. Twitter is fighting spammers, with this 2000 people limit as I found out. The only way that I can follow more people is if I get 2000 followers myself. And it seems like there is a 10 % calculation. I can follow 2200 people if I get 2000 followers myself and so on. I am about 600 short and that piss me off as there is still more people I would like to follow. So I have started to use this tool: http://www.friendorfollow.com to find out who I follow, and who is not following me back, looking for inactive accounts to remove.

I use twitter like I fish, when I have time I spend time looking for the good gems. And most of my favorite links are often provided outside my favorite twitters in the main stream of flowing tweets.
I would think this is useful for several others as well, so I decided to write a piece about the follow limit at twitter.

The solution is easy, either remove those I once followed but no longer are active or you need to be one of my next 607 followers :) – http://twitter.com/frodeheimen - So follow me to help me follow more amazing people. Keep reading below for 10 ways to do a better job by tweeting.

Bonus: 10 ways to do a better job by tweeting!

I’ll add a bonus list with useful twitter hints to prove that you should follow me on twitter and become one of my next 607 followers. This is a list that will make you better at your job.

Use twitter search field and search for #funatwork – it is important to have fun while working to keep motivation up.
One more search for you: #motivation – You will find inspiration in twitter.
Find great bloggers and follow them on twitter. Find bloggers who write about leadership and work life. You can start by looking at the blogs in my blogroll to the right.
Search for keywords related to your profession. Anything from products to sales technics – you might find people fascinatingly engaged in plastic materials or radio transmitters whatever’s your fancy.
Search for the term #Fridayfun on Thursdays and compile an email to be sent on Friday morning to your co-workers. Spread some love.
Find bloggers who writes about your profession and follow them..
Spend a few hours a week to follow the tweet stream and pick up gems from the tweet stream.
If you build a good line of people you follow it might be hard to keep up. A good thing is to create an online newspaper like I did with the Cubicle Chronicles – a fun and easy way to keep up with the news passing thru twitter.
Create searches for your company name and see what others are saying about your company. If your company doesn’t have a twitter profile yet, make one. Could be smart to ask for permission…
And related to the one above: Search for and follow competitors. See what people write about them, and see what the company publishes themselves.

I hope this either gave you a solution to your twitter limit problem or that you found something interesting and useful stuff to do with twitter until you reach this limit.
In the meanwhile I would love to be able to follow more interesting people so please do me a huge favour, re-tweet this if you follow me, or follow me if you don’t. ? I still need 600 + – thank you.

Thank you so much for reading, oh… did you remember to follow me? (I made a new desing to my twitteraccount today too)
– Please do comment if you know other ways to become better at what you do by tweeting…

Bloggerhero and twitternoob

The best deck of cards ever!

Frode Heimen — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 18:59:59 +0000

I happened to come across a very interesting deck of cards a while back, and after finding myself drawn to this website over and over again, I decided to order one. And to my pleasant surprise they arrived within few days in my mailbox, (the real one attached to my fence outside). I knew I was really looking forward for these cards, not because a deck of cards is what I need, but because of the messages on this particular set. Self coaching tips, 52 of them, one for each week of the year.

Take a look at these awesome cards

Look at the 5 of diamonds, “Do I regularly connect with my staff? Do I know how they are doing outside of work? Did he win his match? How was her weekend? Do I know all the birthdays of my staff? Am I showing that I really care?” – One of my personal favorites are the queen of hearts; “Do new team members feel welcome and paid attention to? How can we plan their arrival better in the future?”

Color Overview

Clubs, Spades, Hearts and Diamonds not a deck of cards without them. This deck however is divided into four important areas of people management.

Clubs represent tips about growth of staff.

Spades covers appraisals and motivation.

Hearts is about knowledge, planning and organizing.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, and as important as diamonds People management.

I really love this deck of cards. There is one drawback, they are paper quality so they might get ragged when used a lot. But if you use them as a leadership tool and pull out one card per week you are in for a treat. The good news, aces are well deserved breaks. When I brought these to work, they created some fun and smiles as well. Buy one for all of your leaders and performance will increase.

You can order this amazing deck of cards from http://selfcoachingcards.eu/ or you can order them from Amazon as well.

Celebrating Monday Morning

Frode Heimen — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:49:58 +0000

Today we threw a surprise party at work. Three of us went into the office last night to inflate 130 balloons and decorate the place. Today we went in earlier than the others and cranked up the stereo, poured non-alcohol cider. All ready to greet our employees in the morning. Welcome to work! We had snacks, Rock n’ Roll, drinks and lots of balloons. Everybody smiled this Monday morning. A recommended thing to do for fun at work, just make sure you have an air compressor.

Fun at work is very important for morale

Make a random day a party, have fun at work. I have some great employees at my department and they deserved a little attention. It is cheap and affordable fun and the effect is amazing. What did you do today to celebrate Monday morning? (Thank you Shahab for a great idea!)

40 more or less fun stuff to do at work!

Frode Heimen — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:51:25 +0000

Praise one of your co-workers each day.
Bring candy, fruit or food to work on Thursday to share.
Say hello to at least two strangers at work.
Bring a deck of cards to use during breaks.
Smile.
Make a to-do list on Monday.
Go to work 30 minutes earlier on Wednesday to chat with the other early birds.
Write a thank you note to someone who deserves it.
Figure out one thing you can improve.
Wear blue clothes on Friday.
Take a meeting or a lunch outside the office.
Not allowed to wear shoes day.
Use a cucumber as a pointing device during meetings.
Have a breakfast meeting before work.
Go out and have a beer on Friday evening.
Make an internal marketing plan to increase consumption from the water cooler.
Bring a favorite poster to work and pin it on the wall. Cool if everybody does this on the same day.
Wear a funny tie or some other fun garment.
Radio Controlled Car Racing.
MS Paint drawing competition.
Play Chess.
Have a Card Game Competition. An easy one suitable for kids.
Use rope or a stick across the path of the doorway. Limbo entrance.
Punk Rock day at work… use your imagination and crank up the volume.
Bring your favorite book to work day.
Make a puppet theater.
Knowledge day, focus on one particular topic and share what you know.
Create a must hug zone, if two people are within the zone they must hug.
Not allowed to walk on this carpet, must dance on it.
Halloween or any other seasonal celebration.
If you have a river or a stream nearby, paper boat racing.
If you do not have a river nearby, paper plane competition.
Invite people from other departments over for a cup of coffee.
Great everybody that walks into your department with a handshake and a smile, fun if you can make everybody do this. Even more fun for large departments.
Applaud zone. Every time someone steps into a circle on the floor everybody must give a good round of applause. – Could be called, boost my self esteem zone.
Charity day – Do a fundraiser for a good cause.
Water gun fight.
Fill 200 balloons and spread them around the office, or fill one small office or cubicle with balloons.
15 things you don’t know about me – share with all co-workers.
Celebrate a birthday for someone nonexistent. Like “John 35 years”. Whenever someone asks, pretend not to be sure who it is. (Just an excuse for more cake)
(Pssst! Do your job first!)