THE SUMMER UPDATE EDITION

1. In CURRENT NEWS, I let you know that I’m “on a break” until Wednesday 31st July (CrowdStrike impact permitting!)
2. In BEHIND THE SCENES, I give you an insight into what’s been going on since the burglary
3. In NEW WATSON’S DAILY NEWS, I bring you up to speed with major new developments and ask you for a favour 😁
4. In WATSON’S DAILY AMBASSADOR NEWS, I give you the details for my first search for ambassadors for almost two years!
5. AND FINALLY, I leave you with a commercial awareness challenge…

So I’m going to be “on a break” (but not for very long!)…

Did you know that there is a podcast to go with Watson’s Daily? In this podcast, I discuss two stories from the day’s edition in a bit more depth with a Watson’s Daily Ambassador, my mate Ralph (on the Weekly podcast) or a special guest. The idea of this is to help to give you more of an idea of what talking about this stuff could sound like 👍 You can find the podcasts on the buttons below:

So, first of all, I’m going to be on holiday from tomorrow (Tuesday 23rd July) and will aim to publish Watson’s Daily again on Wednesday 31st July. This will all, of course, depend on CrowdStrike repercussions as I realise that disruptions are ongoing. I’d just like to take a moment to thank you for subscribing to Watson’s Daily – it’s because of all of you wonderful subscribers that I can actually go on holiday! I didn’t actually have a holiday for ten years until 2022 because a) we had a very young family, b) my wife was retraining in a new career and c) I put all the money I had into keeping Watson’s Daily going!

Thankfully, things have improved considerably over the years. Thank you – I am extremely grateful to you. It will actually be my first time setting foot on a plane for 12 years! Ironic when you think that I used to be on a plane twice a month on average for years when I was a broker!

I am hoping later today to record a podcast about CrowdStrike with a cybersecurity expert, so I should be leaving you with something good to ponder over while I’m away! Also, have a listen to the podcast I recorded with Ralph on the weekend where we talk about CrowdStrike and the future of smart glasses. This all happened before Biden dropped out of the presidential race – and I’m sure that there will be a lot of comment about that over the coming days and weeks. FWIW, I think he did the decent thing (eventually!) but he’s not made things easy for a successor. Kamala Harris looks likely to take over but I have to say that her tenure as vice president has been unremarkable. I think that the Democrats need to do something really drastic to stand any change of scuppering Trump and chums as Biden’s dithering has done a lot of damage.

Want to engage with myself and the team at Watson’s Daily about these stories? Why not ask us something in the Forum HERE. It’d be great to hear what you think!

There’s been a lot going on behind the scenes this year…

At the end of last year, I decided to get an “outside” office and move out from the spare room! I needed to do this to focus better on writing Watson’s Yearly (this takes a long time to write!). I was going to do this for a month only – but discovered that I loved working away from home so much that I kept on with the lease. It was one of those WeWork-type places (actually it was “Spaces”) and was not far from where I live, so it meant that I could get there really easily as it was only a short walk away.

Then in April, I went out with my wife at lunchtime on a Friday and when I got back I found that my office had been burgled and a lot of valuable stuff had been stolen. The CCTV footage showed that the burglar had been loitering outside, pretending to be on the phone and tailgated someone into the building. He then, incredibly, tailgated another person into my “block” and then forced my door to get inside. All of this had happened ten minutes before I got back! The staff were quite helpful at the time but the company itself proved to be useless, as was the police response. I had a phone call from the police three weeks after the incident asking me for the CCTV footage 😱😱😱! How useless is that?!?

Anyway, I had to move quickly and managed to set everything up again over the weekend so, in actual fact, there was very little disruption from a publishing point of view. I did, however, manage to lose four years’ worth of presentations though – and that wasn’t a great feeling.

Still, the whole incident and the way it was handled really p!ssed me off. I decided that I would use this incident as a catalyst to make Watson’s Daily bigger and better, but there were a number of things that I had to get in motion to make it happen.

First of all, I had to get a new office. Fortunately, someone in my network was extraordinarily kind and said that they had an office that I could use. It turns out that this place is actually vastly superior to what I had before for a number of reasons – so in a funny kind of way I am actually in a better position (although it was not a nice way to get to this point!).

Secondly, I had to do a complete rethink about workflow and how I was going to move forward. I want to scale up considerably but wanted to think about how to do this efficiently whilst not losing balance with the rest of my life! To this end, I took on a consultant to help me do an overhaul and, to cut a long story short, we decided to completely revamp the Watson’s Daily website and resources. I am all about moving forward, but always want to do so in the best way possible and ensure quality of content is paramount. I always want to make sure that you, as a subscriber, are getting the best of what I can do.

Thirdly, I have to implement all of the new things! You will be glad to know that this is going to happen very soon. I will do my utmost to make sure as much of the new content is available from Day One, but there may be additions along the way – so please bear with me! Everything is designed to make your experience as pleasant and as educational as possible. The designs look really good and I am very excited about launching all of this!

I have also been thinking about and experimenting with different types of social media content to enhance everything else you see. You will notice more of this as time goes on – so watch out for it!

Want to engage with myself and the team at Watson’s Daily about these stories? Why not ask us something in the Forum HERE. It’d be great to hear what you think!

A new Watson’s Daily is coming – and it’s going to be bigger and better!

So what’s coming then? Well, the whole website and app will look completely different. They have been designed to be more intuitive to use and just slicker overall. There will also be some important new resources that will help you to get a deeper understanding of concepts and industries so that you will be even better equipped for your own commercial awareness journey. If you think Watson’s Daily is useful now – just wait until Watson’s Daily 2.0! The website and content have changed quite considerably over the last few years in particular but I think that the time has come to bring it all together more effectively and modernise the whole thing.

As part of this revamp, though – there is something that you can do to help me! One of the things I am weak at is self-promotion. A lot of others in this same space are far superior to me in this regard and I am conscious that I need to up my game. The consultant I was working with said that there was a notable absence of testimonials on my website and marketing, particularly

since so many people have benefited from using Watson’s Daily over the years. I have been guilty of receiving nice comments – both in person and via messages – but then not doing anything with them. Therefore here is my plea to you: if Watson’s Daily has helped you in some way – e.g. helping you in your studies, in getting you that dream job, or just in your career – PLEASE can you send me a testimonial detailing how it has helped you and why it has helped you. This would be enormously helpful and would mean a lot to me. In an ideal world, it would be even better if you would be willing to do a 30 second video on this – so please let me know! I would like these testimonials to be published on the website and/or on social media channels. Whatever you can do would be enormously helpful – it won’t take you long but would be hugely appreciated.

Alongside all of that, I need people to help me. I have been hugely fortunate in working with a big team of Watson’s Daily Ambassadors who have assisted me with content creation, marketing and strategy over the years. I have not taken on any ambassadors for the best part of two years, but that is going to change right now!

Want to engage with myself and the team at Watson’s Daily about these stories? Why not ask us something in the Forum HERE. It’d be great to hear what you think!

I’m on the lookout for new Watson’s Daily Ambassadors! Would you like to be part of something exciting??

As I said above, I am going to be taking on new Watson’s Daily Ambassadors to help me with content creation, marketing and strategy. THIS IS AN UNPAID ROLE but I will personally help you with your skills and your knowledge in a lot of ways. Many ambassadors have, in the past, used their experience at Watson’s Daily to get their dream jobs because working with teams towards common goals to produce something valued and concrete is something that employers rate highly. Everything I ask ambassadors to do is with a mind to helping enhancing and developing employability skills that can be used in real world jobs and the time commitment is very flexible. I understand that you have a lot of commitments!

If you want to help a solid brand grow and develop in a positive and supportive environment whilst developing your own skills at the same time, please apply using this form. I am looking for people who are motivated and who have been helped by Watson’s Daily because if you’ve felt the benefits of it yourself, you are much better able to describe it to others! I will start interviews sometime in August. I do not have a specific target of how many ambassadors I’d like to take on – the most important thing for me is to get the right people👍If you think that is you, or if you know someone who fits the bill, I’d like to hear from you! For those of you who apply – good luck!

Also, if you have been an ambassador in the past and fancy helping with this massive revamp – then please send me a message!

I’ve had some brilliant ambassadors in the past and many have gone on to do some pretty impressive things. Why not join me!

Want to engage with myself and the team at Watson’s Daily about these stories? Why not ask us something in the Forum HERE. It’d be great to hear what you think!

…in other news…

Here’s something that you should try to challenge yourself! Try to pause the video and write a list before the video continues. However, don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t get the results in the video – the valuations change all the time so the companies won’t always be in the same order – but see how many you can get 👍