This year's CIH Housing Conference in Manchester had a packed agenda with some potentiallly great sessions to pick up fresh ideas and share experiences from.
Here we shared some of the key questions and suggestions we've made over the course of the past year in articles on our website, Guardian Housing and 24.dash.com which might oil the cogs of your housing mind .

Don’t take part in an ugly dogs competion - be a best in breed!
A recent round table of senior people within the housing sector echoed what many have been saying for some time in concluding amongst other things that ‘social landlords will increasingly need to demonstrate the value of every £ they spend’.  They recommended fresh ways of looking at value for money, which don’t involve taking part in an ‘ugly dog’s completion’. If you’d like to take part in a good looking dogs competition, we have a fresh and creative solution already being used by many across the sector, which Raglan and Catalyst Housing are the latest landlords to benefit from. 

Landlords face some forthcoming uncomfortable choices on maximising income under welfare reform.
Not wanting to be associated with a mass use of county courts, while rent arrears debt is certain to be the first and highest debt on the insolvency claim route.
In many respects it will come down to whether the landlord wants the money or the tenancy.
Barry Marlow poses the uncomfortable question in this article. Might it be better and cheaper to leave the tenants where they are and just collect the rent?  

Whether you're an existing or aspiring leader, and in whichever sector you work, at a time of significant change ( aka all the time) you need to be on top form.
This great article by Glenn Llopis in Forbes.com contains 15 key habits which great leaders exercise everyday.
Get exercising, or put some nudge theory into practice and remind your leader to go to the leadership gym more....

At the CIH conference next week you'll hear digital hipsters claim that e-mail is dead & dreadful, & that you have to adapt to social media.
Social media has its benefits, but e-mail is not dead, it’s evolving, and still apparently workers’ most effective collaboration tool.
Its far from perfect: Three-quarters of all e-mail is junk, and we’re wasting lots of time on internal messages to 'cover our backs'. Read this great infographic by Barry Gill, and make your own mind up on the future......