Back in 1993 Nick Loggie was working as a marketing consultant in Jordan with a World Bank team to develop the local engineering industry. The World Bank website had come on line in 1992 and in August of that year Microsoft Windows 3.1 for workgroups was released – the era of the mouse had come. One of the problems the local industry had was reaching out to importers around the world to introduce their products.Researching from the eastern Mediterranean stopping in the Germany, Italy, France, UK and USA, he found using the very crude Internet, opportunities for these companies. In particular there was a company that produced spectacle frames. Their product was extremely visual and their unique problem was to be able get a handle on what was coming up in the industry to be able to keep a pulse on the changes in designs, to be able to be there ready to offer exciting news frames before their competition in other developing countries. He introduced them to the internet and they were subsequently able to find suppliers and ask for catalogues which allowed them to march international designs at a fraction of the cost of Italian or other designers and manufacturers. Websites were crude but they were enough.

Through his foresight of international communication and by coding basic webpages hosted in the Ministry of Industry’s server, he led a team that built very crude webpages with text and images of these glasses. The results were extraordinary and demand increased steadily over the next few years.

This was the start of a vision of using the Internet as a marketing channel and when in 2001 he partnered up with award winning graphic designer and Founding Partner Pilar Vidueira to form dyPunto, that dream was realised. As the business expanded it evolved into Adlibweb in 2006. They had a vision of being able to service a niche – companies that wanted to use the web as a means of reaching out and expanding to other countries.

Even back then in the medieval ages of SEO, Adlibweb was offering and achieving incredible results using good solid coding and link building, PPC campaigns for their clients many of whom still form a core of satisfied agency clients. The world has moved on from those days and the inbound marketing opportunities abound with the dawn of social media. Adlibweb has maintained its insight and deep understanding of the way the internet is going and now helps companies expand their digital presence.

So in the style of Lifehacker’s “This is how I work” series: This is who Nick and Pilar are today:

Location: Somewhere between Alicante, Edinburgh and Rome
Current Gig: Founding Partners Adlibweb
One word that best describes how you work: vigorously and exactly.
Current mobile device: iPhone 6s
Current computer: iMac / MacBook Pro

What apps, software, and tools can’t you live without?

They say I am addicted to technology, but I sure am grateful for:

• Gmail using Chrome – I arrange my life around the GTD inbox method using the multi inbox of Gmail to help me organise an prioritise. People slay Google but really they give us so many free services I don’t believe it to be well deserved.
• Brackets Editor – just a really simple contextual editor for coding almost anything.
• Photoshop / AI –  for those tricky image bits
• Filezilla – just a working tool.
• Typora – for uninterrupted simple Markdown writing. great advantage is you can export directly to HTML
• Spotify – just necessary

What’s your workspace setup like?

We have  27″ and a 21″ iMac on our desks desk. When out and about we rely on my trusty MacBook Pro and iPad for reading.

What’s your best time-saving shortcut or life hack?

Just simply Getting Things Done. Whilst not a strict advocate of David Allen’s methodology but we do put a lot of his elements in practice. We combine that with the Pomodoro technique for emails. So NOT multitasking.

Getting up early and having those two hours before anyone else is working to focus on one key idea and then execute it or rough it out for work later in the day.

What do you use as a To Do manager?

Gmail with GTD labels and Highrise

Besides your phone and computer, what gadget can’t you live without and why?

A café press and a notebook.

What everyday thing are you better at than everyone else? What’s your secret?

Persistence – we just keep going until a task is done. When we started the agency up we learnt not be afraid of learning a new task or a tasks that appear to be just mountainous.  We make sure it just works!

What do you listen to while you work? Got a favorite playlist? Maybe talk radio? Or do you prefer silence?

We have a load of playlists on Spotify as we have a very eclectic tastes. We have a agency list that we keep updating. Right now we have a list called Morning and Afternoon that is good to get lost in when we need to concentrate really hard. Sometimes it is nothing – sometimes we need just quiet.

How do you recharge? What do you do when you want to forget about work

Nick had a skiing accident and broke the ligament in his knee a few years back and has now discovered running and try and get in about 30km a week.  Pilar does strenous walking as well as keeping up the skiing when she can. It is great to have some thinking time.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Be positive and always look for the lessons learnt.