Process Princess

I spent an hour on the phone today with the woman I replaced at Preventable Surprises. P.S. really wanted to hire a process person to help them with their website, their online dialogues, and their fundraising. An organisation of two highly functioning and fast-moving leaders needs someone to keep the wheels from coming off.

Instead, they hired me. They liked my resume and experience so much they decided they’d hire a writer rather than a process person. They of course need both. So the previous process person filled me in on the tools she used to manage the fire hose of information coming from Raj and Carolyn (CEO and Chair, respectively). These tools include a Google drive with maybe eight folders, each of which has more folders. Then there’s Basecamp, which has six screens for managing different functions. Then there’s Mailchimp, which allows you to circulate surveys and analyse results, as well as maintain e-mail lists. Each of these tools has a lot of bells and whistles that I could not really get on a first pass.

Anyone who knows me will find it laughable that I might be in charge of these different tools. I’m terrible with technology. Not quite a Luddite but, for instance, I’ve never learned how to download and listen to podcasts, even though I know I would really enjoy this. I have a pretty big resistance to learning new techie tricks.

But what choice do I have? Having 100 e-mails makes it difficult to know what to look at and which are the apples that relate to each other and which are the oranges that go together. My inbox at my new Preventable Surprises e-mail address is a mess. Assuming I can master all these new tools, here’s what annoys me. I already struggle to keep up with my yahoo e-mail and Facebook. I’m already neglecting Twitter and LinkedIN, both really important networking tools. And now I will have to also constantly check my P.S. e-mail, Basecamp, Google docs, and Mailchimp. I’m afraid Facebook is going to have to go. It’s a huge time sink and I’ve read as much analysis as I can handle about the Trump phenomenon. That gives me an extra 1-2 hours a day, so it’s a start.
8-5