Well Connected

Each month, we hack the minds of tech entrepreneurs and digital disruptors to find out what makes them tick.

The apps Didier Elzinga of Culture Amp can’t live without

Favourite apps for work GoodNotes on the iPad, which I use with the pencil, and a meditation app called Insight Timer. I strive to meditate twice a day but it depends on what I’m doing. For example, I’ve timed my train trip home and it means I can board and focus on my breathing for seven minutes. Social network I use the most I consume mostly from Twitter but LinkedIn comes to my inbox more often because it’s my default way of connecting to different people around the world. Tech gadget that changed my life I’m a bit of a headphone freak; I have three pairs that I use. The Jabra Elite 65t headphones are my day-to-day. They’re so small that I can slip them into my pocket. My Nuraphones are what I use if the sound has to be incredible and I take the noise-cancelling Bose QuietComfort 25s when I’m travelling.

I have a normal phone and it still feels oversized.

Tech gadget that didn’t change my life

I would have said the iPad until I got the most recent one with the second-generation pencil and GoodNotes. The earlier iPad never hit the mark but now that I can use it as a paper replacement, I use it lots. It has the friction down to where the benefits of writing digitally outweigh any friction that’s there.

Book I’ve learnt the most from

The management book I recommend to people is Peter F. Drucker’s The Effective Executive, from 1966. It blows me away that a book that slim, which was written so long ago, covers a good chunk of modern management theory.

Social network I don’t rely on

I am on Facebook but I use it sparingly. On one level, I’m fascinated by Instagram and Snapchat because imagemaking was a big part of my life. On another, I hate taking photos when I’m travelling. I don’t want to be the observer; I want to be present.

Favourite news source

When I’m travelling I like to connect back home and look at local news sources. I read The Guardian and The New York Times – I think NYT has done the best job of creating what I’d call an aspirational masthead. My main news source is Hacker News, which is a very [Silicon] Valley-based web page run by Y Combinator.

Startup to watch

Applied. It was co-founded by Australian Kate Glazebrook in London – she worked in the British government’s behavioural economics unit and she’s built a company that helps organisations remove bias from the hiring process.