TheWayoftheWeb

Content and Digital Marketing Specialists

Marketing

I’m still here…

By

It may not seem like it, but I’m still here! And I’m remembering why quick informal ‘Tumblelog’ style updates can be so useful when there’s not enough time for the epic style which suits WordPress better, because at the moment there are a number of plates spinning, and not a lot of time to write my own stuff.

Just some of the multiple dinner sets currently rotating at high rpm include:

  • 1 big client contract coming to an end – already had one team member say I’ve made their job much easier, which is nice.
  • 2 really interesting proposals for new business, including one which is right up my alley.
  • 2 Jodanma website builds either reaching client sign-off or completion. Which means we might be able to put some awesome plans into practice for the actual Jodanma site at last.
  • A couple of new writing assignments for clients.
  • A decent output on OnlineRaceDriver and FPSPrestige, plus the launch of a third niche gaming site with MMO News now up and running (Anyone who fancies volunteering any articles etc, PR people looking to send out info/review copies of games, or advertisers, please do get in touch!)
  • Some business admin stuff.
  • Talking to a number of very skilled people about bolstering both the marketing and design/development resources I can offer.
  • And the joy of having major car maintenance issues, and all the other accumulated stuff that goes on when I’m not glued to a laptop…

Plus there’s numerous other existing leads and clients, videogames to test and review, WordPress continuing to deliver interesting new bugs and problems, and a final potential longterm project to flesh out in the next couple of weeks. But it does mean that I’ve got a stockpile of things to write about when I get the chance to sit down and blog again, so it’s almost like a holiday in terms of recharging my creativity here. Except with less of a suntan.

Ebooks evolving: TEDBooks launch as Kindle Singles

By

The launch of Amazon’s Kindle Singles has been accompanied by the launch of TEDBooks – short nonfiction works designed for digital distribution by following the type of idea which has resonated from the global series of TEDTalks, and presenting it in less than 20,000 words, which is enough for a single sitting. And you can read them via any device with a Kindle App: iPad, Mac, PC, Android, iPhone, Blackberry and Windows 7 smartphones, as well as the Kindle itself.

Longer than a typical magazine article, but shorter than your typical book, it’s an interesting approach which sees three books available at launch for $2.99. The line-up is The Happiness Manifesto: How Nations and People Can Nurture Well-Being by Nic Marks, Dangerism: Why We Worry About the Wrong Things, and What It’s Doing to Our Kids by Gever Tulley, and Homo Evolutis: Please Meet the Next Human Species by Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullan.

The presumption behind the books is that their length and cost will see people choose them in preference to magazines or other short entertaining diversions, and I think it’s a fair gamble to make. I don’t think it would work for everyone, but the ideas which are shared at TED events are always interesting, engaging and designed for you to want more. It also means I can self-serve myself the topics I really want to know about, rather than paying a few dollars or pounds more for a magazine, which often contains things that I either don’t care about or don’t read if time is short.

It’s interesting to see projects like this, and Seth Godin’s The Domino Project, all taking a new look at how publishing works in a digital world, and pretty much starting from scratch and building from there. Does a book need to be a certain minimum length? Does it need a traditional print version, or the standard marketing and promotion? Will people go for something for a couple of quid or bucks, and will they choose that over a longer, more general, and more expensive magazine?

It’s also interesting that these ideas are coming Amazon, TED and Seth Godin, not a traditional book publisher. That’s not to say traditional publishers aren’t changing, but it seems like starting from a fresh perspective could reveal a lot more about the future…

(Incidentally, an alternative source of TED inspiration are the videos of TEDTalks available via Youtube. I can’t recommend it highly enough if you fancy watching talks ranging from the likes of Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Richard Dawkins through to the likes of Christoper ‘Moot’ Poole – the founder of 4Chan.)

(And if you’re intrigued or interested in what books I’m currently planning to obtain for myself, here’s my current tech/marketing/digital culture wishlist on Amazon – this isn’t a cheap ploy for presents (Although they’re always nice), but it’s the one place I’ve gone to the trouble of updating recently with recommended additions to anyone’s library. I’ll have to go back through the various book sharing social networks to provide a complete list of everything already assimiliated. Anyone got any recommendations?)

Out of the Toy Box thinking

By

Working from home on my own business has a number of advantages. One is that the time and money spent on a daily commute can be used more effectively – especially as I can start work about 10 minutes after waking up! It also means I can spend more time with my family, which means clients get the work of a happier, more motivated person. But not only that, they also get more creativity…

I’ve read a fair bit on how to encourage creativity, attended a few courses, and have some friends and contacts who run extremely effective courses designed to help kickstart creativity in the workplace. And I’ve picked up some valuable lessons and advice. But probably all of that is roughly equivalent to spending a bit of time with my son each day!

Yesterday I took less than a handful of breaks from work, and yet in that time I became a cat, the Gruffalo, and invented a marketing campaign to make bathtime attractive to a toddler. And spent a bit of time in the evening deconstructing why certain children’s stories work far better than others for both toddlers and adults. (I’d currently recommend Horton Hears a Who, and Tatty Ratty)

And all without having to pay or travel to a course somewhere to get some new insight into effective writing and content techniques, plus a reminder in conveying the benefits (You get to play with your ducks and splash your mummy), rather than the features (You’ll be clean).

If you don’t happen to have a handy toddler, then I highly recommend one as a creativity generator (Before obtaining one of your own, I’d suggest a testing with family or friends – family parties are a particularly good opportunity). And if you’re a client, I’ll throw in an afternoon of building blocks and trainsets for free!

My 10 essentials for a new PC

By

With a new PC it can be hard to avoid installing every single game, program and app which is suddenly available. But at the same time, there are definitely certain things which are pretty much essential for me. I’m assuming you already have internet security and anti-virus software as it’d need an entire in-depth post of it’s own. All of the following links are free, and non-affiliate links. They’re just bits of great software I couldn’t live without…

Toolbox

Firefox: Competition has been a great thing for browers. Internet Explorer 8 is much better than previous versions and Google Chrome definitely has it’s uses. But for me, Firefox is my default browser – partly because I’ve used it for years, and partly becuase of the following Add-Ons which I always install:

  • Aviary Talon Screen Capture – great Firefox add-on for capturing screenshots, whether it’s a full page or just a section. Aviary also provide a really good online image editing tool.
  • Diigo Toolbar – With the recent rumours Delicious could be closed or sold, I’m really glad I started using Diigo a while ago. Not only does it provide an easier way of autoposting to blogs (If you don’t want to play with the Delicious API code), but it also allows you to automatically send anything bookmarked in Diigo to Delicious anyway, meaning you have two copies, and therefore an always-current back-up if either service fails.
  • Stumbleupon Toolbar – I’ve always loved Stumbleupon as a way to discover content I’d have never found elsewhere. I’ve also seen the very beneficial effect if can have on blog traffic, and if I really like something and want to send traffic to it, Stumbleupon and Reddit are the two choice which always really work.
  • SEOMoz SEO Toolbar – Incredibly useful for any SEO work, and makes research and analysis so much quicker in the toolbar.

Spotify: Music is incredibly important to me while I work, either to block out the ambient noise created by my son, or to evoke the right mood (I have a playlist of classical and soundtrack selections for relaxed working, and some loud punk and metal when deadlines are close!) The free option is now limited to 20 hours per month, and I’m upgrading now I’m working from my laptop 24/7. (Note to American readers – you have Pandora, we have Spotify).

Tweetdeck: My most subjective choice is using Tweetdeck as my standard Twitter client, as there are a lot of viable alternatives. But having used it for quite a while, and appreciating the power and flexibility of it, I definitely think it’s one of the easiest and most effective ways of managing multiple accounts. One tip I do have if you’re working with lots of your own and client accounts is to have one desktop client for personal accounts (e.g. Tweetdeck), and one for client accounts (e.g Seesmic), and that way you’ll have to try even harder to get the two confused!

Windows Live Writer: Producing content for a number of client sites alongside my own means that I really can’t afford time when I can’t be writing. Live Writer allows you to not only write offline, but after a first verification, it’ll pull down all your tags and categories from your blog, allow you to format images etc in your post, and generally do everything that it’s possible to do without an internet connection, so all you need to do is connect and click ‘Publish’. Handy if your shortsighted train service limits you to 15 minutes free internet access. Plus it’s got some handy timesavers like automatically linking key phrases.

Skype: It may have recently had a major outage, but Skype is an awesome bit of communication tchnology which happens to be well integrated into my Nokia smartphone, meaning that it’s far more useful than other IM technology. And being able to save on telephone charges is important when you’re a small business, as well as having IM as an answering machine!

Dropbox: The only link on the list which benefits me in any way (If you sign-up and install Dropbox from the link, we both get a bit of extra free space). We all know how we should be constantly backing up – and we also all know know often we forget. Or find ourselves in a remote office without the file we need.

Dropbox allows you to not only store fairly large files online (Up to 2GB is free as standard), but also allows you to either sync your whole desktop or selected folders automatically. And you can access your folders via the web from anywhere, so even if you’re borrowing a computer, you can get hold of that presentation you needed. It’s saved me several times in the past, and also means that in addition to physical back-ups, important documents also exist online. I’m a big believer in the 3 copy rule – one copy on the computer, one on a physical back-up, and one in the cloud in case a thief, a fire or something similar takes out both physical stores.

There are loads of other applications which can come in handy, such as a good FTP client, but those are a lot focused on specific tasks, whereas those 10 essentials above cover most general PC usage, and make life so much easier.

I’d really love to know what applications you can’t live without, and whether you have alternatives to mine that you prefer? The one application I’m sorely missing is OtherInbox Defender, which recently switched from a standalone product to integration with Gmail. It’s still useful, but if you know of a standalone alternative, I’d be really, really keen to know about it!

The meme-ing of Christmas

By

I’d been meaning to write about how social networks really do seem to have killed something with regards to blogging – the blog meme. Rather than posting and tagging people to get their opinions, which used to happen a lot a couple of years ago, people are just asking the same questions on Twitter and Facebook. Bit of a shame for longer answers (And the chance to get some backlinks!).

And then Eaon tagged me in a blog meme.Originally started by Rob Campbell.

Bugger.

So, in response:

1/ Best single thing [personal &/or professional] you did/achieved in 2010.

Professionally, the best thing by far has been the fact that rather than sign-on for unemployment benefit whilst applying for every job available, I took the opportunity to try to start my own business. Thanks to a great number of wonderful people I’ve managed to secure some great clients, avoid bankruptcy, and although I’m still speaking to people about potential permanent roles in the future, I can limit it to those opportunities which are truly amazing, and that can stack up against building up my own empire.

Personally, I also have to say I’m immensely proud of finally turning some talk into action, and starting up Digital People in Peterborough. So far there have been two pub meets, with about 15 people coming along to each, plus around 40 people signed up for the old site. So with a new site and a new year, it should be even better in 2011.

2/ Most shameful thing [personal &/or professional] you did/achieved in 2010.

Probably the biggest source of shame has been launching a new business and a couple of personal sites when I have a young family to support and spend time with. The balance between work, my own sites (ORD and FPSPrestige), and my family is getting better with time, but it can definitely be a struggle at times. And as a result, this blog has suffered quite a bit in terms of regular updates providing value to everyone as well as hopefully attracting a little bit of new business. Plus 140Char has been effectively shuttered since October.

3/ Ad industry scandal or scoundrel of the year.

I’m not strictly an ad man, and don’t fancy picking out something from one of the bad advertising lists elsewhere, so I’ll generically call out all of the businesses who typically spend lots of time and money on shiny adverts which promise lots and don’t deliver.

That includes companies who are now claiming to be social or engaged as bandwagon jumping, but haven’t invested the time and effort behind the scenes to make it part of their actual business process. At it’s core social media and engagement is about customer service and conversation, and not pitching someone one week and then sending him a generic PR link-building request the next (It’s happened to me several times as people failed to click on the About page on this site, for example).

4/ Your overall rating for 2010 out of 10. [1 = shit / 10 = showoff]

7.

It’s been a challenging year, and the current economic and political environments aren’t making life easier. But I’ve managed to conquer several obstacles, and I’m pretty proud of both my business, and some of the resulting efforts of my clients. I don’t think 2011 will be easier or any less hectic, but I’ve got a far clearer picture of what I need to be doing, and it seems like the last month in particular has built a lot of momentum for 2011.

5/ What do you think will be the most overhyped advertising related subject of 2011?

Augmented Reality (AR) is a good example of fantastic technology which really isn’t being used very well by a lot of people. (Looks like Forrester agree with me on that one). But I can’t see that stopping more companies jumping on mobile, tablets and technology like AR without stopping to sort out their underlying business strategy and approach first. I’m confident that most magical solutions generally fall back to a base level fairly quickly, and that includes Apple platforms like the iPad and the iAd ad network.

Technology is awesome and something that I truly love, and there are great opportunities in utilising new technology as soon as possible. But if your basic plans don’t work with the most basic of tools, then any new technology solution is just going to mask it in the short term.

Who am I tagging:

Apparently I need to pick on five people and distract them from their Christmas relaxation, so I’ll go for:

Start growing your business today Contact Us