Mixing business with pleasure

Artist, model, TV presenter and businesswoman Sophie Morgan is clearly a woman of many parts. But online at least, she’s fighting a losing battle to keep work and leisure strictly separated

My boyfriend and I share my laptop, and I think it probably prefers him.

Like a strict mother, I give it its daily chores – research, work emails, Photoshop and Facebook – and I know that this intolerable monotony encourages it to irritate me like a naughty child, crashing at awful moments and losing invaluable documents. For my boyfriend however, it behaves impeccably and he rewards it with hours of googling, games and music playing.

So as you can tell my digital relationship is a business one and I had intended to keep it that way with me as the strict parent.

Accordingly, one site that I’ve “bookmarked” is the business networking site www.linkedin.com. Here, where “relationships matter” you can strengthen your existing network of contacts and, in creating your own profile, extend your connections. I find it really great for connecting with people that are otherwise hard to find.

I’m also studying for a Literature degree with the Open University and as part of the course I am taking Creative Writing. I have a mind like a sieve, and although I read everything I can get my hands on I find quotes impossible to recall, stuttering around their fuzzy outline, jumbling up one with another until they are rendered unintelligible. www.thinkexist.com is a quote generating website which stores thousands of well and lesser known quotes. You can type in an author, a topic or a keyword and it will spit out hundreds of inspiring quotes to act as a catalyst for a short story, provide intriguing imagery for a poem or simply food for thought.

On my daily rounds I also spend time cleaning up my own websites and blogs. I have my personal site, which I sell my artwork through, www.sophiemorgan.com as well as a new business I have just created called IMperfect, www.imperfect.uk.com. This is where I spend
most of my online time, replying to emails and brainstorming new ideas. It is an exciting project aimed at the young disabled community, and while still a work in progress it is something I am dedicated to and believe will help instigate change.

The other day my laptop was left sleeping on a page, which I had never been on before, www.spotify.com, an ingenious website where you can search for tunes and find many. Old, new, underground or obscure, it’s there, available to listen to and stream free or then buy if you want. This website has opened up a whole new world of music for my computer and me and it seems that now our relationship may become a more fun one!