Instead of doing a traditional brochure for the dayjob I decided to have a bit of fun, at my expense mostly and commissioned Tommie Kelly to make a comic for Mulley Communications. The result is pretty damned good. (Biased) I posted it out to a few people and yesterday there were a good number of tweets about it giving good feedback. I fired some ideas to Tommie, he took them and created the comic. It was a quick and painless process. He’s taking commissions too if you want him to do something as fun for your company.
It gets in my penchant for trains, use of colourful language and that red shirt that so many dislike. Me as Willy Wonka was his idea, really. The cover image comes from this photo by Phil. What I like is that in the digital world where I do most of my business it is...
Both the IIA/Irish Times/Prosperity and the Digital Marketing Institute have been press releasing and posting about their FETAC Diplomas. As well as emailing me asking to blog them.
After checking with FETAC it turns out these Diplomas are not FETAC approved just some component of them. Anyone that knows FETAC know how strict they are on this use of their logo and name to sell courses like these.
An email from the Digital Marketing Institute stated “FETAC Accredited Diploma in Digital Marketing” so that got me wondering.
This was their site earlier:
And their Twitter:
Since changed to this, though note the website address:
Press releases sent out though with this line too, which some outlets picked up without checking. All news to FETAC.
Then this is from the IIA...
Matt Cutts from Google did a presentation in Paris a while back and during it made some suggestions about what can make good content for a blog, content that might get you some quality traffic:
Provide a useful service – Blog about legal issues for example
Do original analysis/reporting
Provide great information/tutorials
Blog from a creative niche
Write code and open source it
Live Blog
Make lists
Create controversy
Network via your blog
Start an event/conference
Here’s his 107min presentation:...
Free Facebook stickers for your business.
Getting stickers printed for some clients/friends and decided that I might as well open it up to other companies in Ireland.
Want to avail? Sign up here....
The young lad Traynor’s accent is spot on there!...
Remember the first impression you have of your boss? Maybe so. It was considered a very (good or bad) that cross your mind once to see someone or something, usually lasts forever. Therefore, to create a “first impression” about the business of any product / service is as important as trade relations, as in the case of humans. Furthermore, since there are many companies with the same type of products / services, you must do something for your corporate identity to stand out from the crowd. So how do you convince customers to find the product or service, not his opponent? Well, maybe a lot of business strategy, but the main theme of the design of all of them. While business owners can design a logo in the evaluation of power, arguing that it would be a method of selling fancy...
Some thoughts on The Times and their paywall as relayed to a journalist recently, though in a slightly expanded and modified form.
Isn’t it sad that it’s 2010 and only now are papers doing something in this always-on multimedia world to up their game? Now we are told we’ll get some quality content after all the years of decline in quality and readership. Something is needed to bring back quality, maybe it’ll be the idea of paywalls that will bring it back and then maybe a different model to retain quality will happen. This recent presentation from Hal Varian from Google actually shows newspaper revenues have been under attack since the 50s.
Google has never been a threat. Terrible content has been. Looking at the media these days, you can’t tell which news...
I notice that the Irish Business Against Litter have an interesting logo:
Here’s SuperGorm getting his Goatse on....
Worst recession ever. Banks not lending money. Ireland is all sorts of fucked. Nobody is spending a penny. Stealth redundancies en masse. House prices are plummeting.
And with it…
Office space is dirt cheap.
Every price can be negotiated.
Deals are much easier to do if you are someone with cash.
There are oceans of talented graduates looking for work and who’ll work damned hard to retain their position.
Colleges are throwing interns at companies.
People have more free time (unfortunately for some) to beta test your products or services.
The media want good news stories.
It’s cheaper to fail now.
Some great companies started in a recession, Google wasn’t one....
Public events where I’ll be in the next wee while:
Still some spaces for the Branding and Communications workshop on Thursday 22nd with it@Cork. Free for members.
Also a few spaces have opened up for the Online PR Course in Dublin on May 4th.
Measure It! meanwhile is on May 5th in Dublin. Two hour event from 10-12 in the Odeon. For PR people, marketing people and those in digital who want to share practical solutions on issues they are having with social media.
Media2020 is booked out. My 5 min talk on gadgets might have me show off my iPad. Using Keynote for iPad to design the preso.
Social Media for Business with Limerick City Enterprise Board. June 9th. Massively subsidised for members....
And these were my notes from TEDx Liffey.
Accidental Business Man
A few years back people asked me to show them how to blog. They offered me money to train them. It went from there to online marketing training to whatever it is I do today. I never saw myself as a business person. Right now, in this time slice of my life, I happen to be someone with a gob that has a business
Jacked in the day job
So as I trained more people and companies, I eventually and after a bit of protest from myself, left the day job and started a business. Goodbye gourmet chef, 9-5 , 5 days a week job, hello just me, alone without support. So I told people I was in this business lark and worked flowed in. Pretty much still works like that. I don’t seek work.
Waking up not wanting to go to work
In the past few...
The IIA are running a week-long event called Digitise the Nation. It takes place from the 16th to 21st May 2010. The idea is everyone chips in and does a little to get people using the web more effectively. Workshops, discounts, art using tech etc. etc. While an IIA initiative, I’m told they’ll highlight non-members too that run events for it.
Lots of ideas on the Digitise the Nation page. Here are some more that were sent on:
* In Dundalk, we have a member who is filming from the Museum and streaming to 5th and 6th class students as basis for history homework and projects.
* Kavaleer (award winning digital animation business based in Digitial Hub) showing primary school students how digital art is created… showing children how cartoons are made and inspiring...
An article last week in the Sunday Tribune entitled “The Blame Game” questioned where were the realists during the past few years. Marc Coleman (former Irish Times writer and Newstalk economist) was mentioned in the article in this paragraph:
Outside the political spectrum, former Irish Times writer and Newstalk economist Marc Coleman published a book titled, The Best is Yet to Come. And Bank of Ireland economist Dan McLaughlin slammed negative reporting about the economy. He was adamant that we were in for a “soft landing”.
Note: Profits of said book were donated to the Forgotten Irish fund
Subsequent to this he has sent a letter into the Sunday Tribune and CC’d a copy to a large number of people in the Irish Media, check out the dig at the end too,...
Fun survey from LastMinute.com in the PR box today. They surveyed us Paddys on their website. Bloody hell, I’m shocked at some results.
9% of those asked “Did you ever hook up with someone on a social media website such as Facebook?” answered yes.
One in 3 have cheated on a trip abroad
One in 5 have had a secret hotel rendezvous
Six in 10 have had a holiday romance
85% believe in monogamy in marriage
38% have engaged in sexting
70% of 18-25 year olds are sexting on the sly with someone they’re not married/partnered with
That 9% one has to be much higher than that or maybe we use Twitter now?...
I’ve been back and forth with the Radisson Blu Galway for over a week about the crap service they gave for the Blog Awards. Below is a list I sent the hotel of what I have subsequently been told were “minor issues”. I unfortunately trusted others that I would be guaranteed good service from the hotel, instead I got the worst service of any hotel I’ve done business with in 6 years of running various events. All these complaints have been forwarded to the GM of the Radisson Blu Group but I have yet to hear anything from them either. So much for good quality hotels in Ireland. The amount of additional stress added on to myself and others on the night of the hotel because of the below was uncalled for and should not have happened. This is what you don’t want for...
Galway, Cork, Dublin
To answer some of the emails and messages about training events:
April 14th, Blogging Workshop with Galway Executive Skillsnet.
April 22nd Building Cost Effective Reputation for your business Free for it@Cork members.
April 29th Social Media for Business in Cork with PFH – €150
May 4th Online PR Training Course in Dublin – €210...
I’m doing a training course with PFH towards the end of April, €150 for the day, course max is 15. It’s fairly practical in nature. A few people have been on to me about doing a public course in Cork, so here you are. You better book it now! Email: training@pfh.ie Or ring Catherine 021 230-3010 or Sally 021 230-3040
Outline for Social Media for Business
Introduction
What is social media?
What are the current and upcoming trends in online marketing/social media
LinkedIn for business
The benefits of using LinkedIn for business
Making a LinkedIn profile that gets you and you business noticed
Seeking out leads and partners with LinkedIn
Building your reputation through sharing your expertise in LinkedIn Discussions
Facebook for business
Why is Facebook relevant to my...
(Disclaimer: I’ve done work for Innovator and IntertradeIreland in the past)
Innovator are doing a few workshops on “Demand Led Innovation” around the country in the next few weeks.
Some details here.
This practical two day workshop using design thinking principles will guide you on looking at your company and markets in new ways and show you exercises on how to transform your business, allowing you to generate new revenue models for existing and new markets.
250 euros for two days, two staff can go along. More details.
Now they’ll be using the Civil Security sector (Travel security) as the industry used to develop new business ideas but the principles work for all industries. I’ve chatted to them about this and already have come up with some ideas around...
The night before last I watched a documentary about Jerry Seinfeld called Comedian. I think it was via a recommendation from Garr Reynolds that I bought it. It’s the story of how Jerry Seinfeld decides to go back and gig as a comedian after putting together all new material. Comedians, it seems, always have a stock of trusted material that they can use. His peers are surprised and shocked that he’ll be using just new material.
We go with Jerry as he goes back to basics, does 5 min stands, perfects them, goes a bit longer, gets to 20 minutes eventually and eventually goes for longer and longer stints. We see him bomb and stall, we see him hold his notes in his hand and use them as crib sheets. We see comedians stress with animation that you never EVER start with new material....
Released by Nathan Shaughnessy is this handy app for law geeks, politicos and everyone else. Bunreacht. And it’s free!
Love this app, very handy. Perhaps urban legend but Mary Robinson apparently carried a copy of the the Bunreacht around with her all the time. For the budding Marys, now it’s an app. (May not guarantee you become president one day) One thing I’d like though is for it to be copy and pastable....
A-well-a everybody’s heard about the word w-w-w-word, word, word, w-word’s the word. A-well-a word, word, word, the word is the word, Wordcamp!
35 speakers, some of them lip-smackingly good (from a genuine content distribution perspective), two days, three streams. 50 quid. 50 quid for two days! There’s value for money and there’s this. Plus 200 geeky folks networking. G’wan, go, even for one day....
I gave a talk at the Internet Growth Alliance’s iGAP event last week. The title of the talk was Junkinomics, spammers and Obamabollox. I’ll expand on the first part of the talk in this post.
In the past few years many businesses didn’t consider what they did as a total act of survival. The Celtic Tiger made most people fat and comfortable (phsyically and mentally) and fed into a fantasty that doing nothing would still guarantee comfort. Yet even during the boom times people were still falling into complete poverty, people were homeless, pretty much lived a daily life of being starved and too many people were in constant survival mode.
Today if you walk around Dublin you’ll encounter junkies, beggars and homeless people every few minutes. They all want your money...
In a single sentence: 4M quid spent, no stats on usage.
The Irish Times today has a story on Mobhaile, which was a website created so county councils and community groups could have an online presence. My first interaction with the site was via blogs that it hosted for a time. I was reminded of it a few years ago by a fellow blogger and then saw mention of it last year too, so in December 2009 I did an FOI about it after reading Dáil transcripts pointing out at least 2M was spent on it. In turned out to be 4 Million.
The expenses for this system are below. Was it a success? Well they spent 4 million quid and then shut it down and how did they measure success? Well they didn’t know the number of visitors or logged in users as they never enabled logging of this information....
If you’ve not booked your ticket to the Digital Festival that’s on in Dublin on February 24th then perhaps this discount that they sent on might entice you.
The discount code is BFSDMULL which brings the ticket price down to €275+VAT @ 21%. So that’s 100 euros off. I’ll be availing of that myself. Some people I greatly respect and admire will be speaking....
Test your risk intelligence.
Got this via a press release:
As the current financial crisis demonstrates, many people are bad at thinking about risk. Expert gamblers, however, seem to be an exception. They are less prone to the cognitive biases that affect most of us and as a result, they can think about risk more clearly.
In the next lecture of the 2010 College of Science, Engineering and Food Science (SEFS) Public Lecture Series at UCC, Dr Dylan Evans will present his initial findings from recent interviews conducted with expert gamblers and outline some ways for thinking more wisely about risky choices.
The lecture titled: “Risk Intelligence” – How expert gamblers can teach us all to make better decisions” will be delivered on Wednesday, February 10th at 8pm in Boole IV...
That new device from Apple (avoiding putting it in the blog post title or body to avoid Googler traffic during the hype cycle) is going to make using the web easy for people who up to know found using a mouse, keyboard and a browser a tad intimidating. Webstats show that iPod Touch traffic has been quite strong and growing and this larger version is going to bring a whole new demographic online who might never use such an onbnoxious pointing device. A device without a “real” OS so no need to install patches, no need to shut down properly, no need to figure out all the shite UI gotchas and so on. A thin piece of glass that we touch and the full blown web and all the data she carries.
I’m sure it’s killing those that want the web acessible only via oily machines and...
I’ve been telling people that they should be able to pitch themselves/their business in a single Tweet. If you can’t explain what you or your business does in 140 characters then you need to work on your pitch. If you’re in a lift with Bill Gates and he asks you what you do, can you tell him before his bodyguards chuck you out on the 5th floor?
Huge amount of Irish businesses in the past few minutes are doing just that by tagging their twitter messages with #biztweet...
Spoke about this at the Online PR course on Saturday on what doesn’t work. Heads up to the PR companies out there that are trying to engage with us but are wondering why it is not working. Here’s the template that yourself and your peers are using and it doesn’t work. The implied bits are in ( brackets )
Dear < insert blogger's name >,
Love your < insert blog name > and especially liked < insert recent blog post title >, it was certainly food for thought. I’m contacting you today to let you know about a new campaign we are doing for a client. (50 quid if you can actually spot a difference between this and the same campaign last year) The feedback so far (by the people afraid to be critical of the spend) has been great. I think the readers of your < insert type of...
it@cork are currently looking for a marketing exec on a part-time basis.
Details:
We are looking for a person with PR and Marketing experience to temporarily fill the role of the Events and Marketing Executive who is covering the Programme Manger’s maternity leave. Experience of organising events would be a distinct advantage. The position is part-time, 3 days a week; the successful candidate would ideally be available from February 1 to July 30 2010.
For an informal discussion of the role contact Alison Reilly, Acting Programme Manager 021 2307076 or send your CV and a cover letter to alison itcork.ie
The role requires:
* Experience in Marketing and PR; event organisation experience would be a distinct advantage.
* Excellent communication and organisational skills with the...