Monthly Archives: January 2008

business, News

IOD Going Green and Going Global

The IOD convention 2008 will be carbon neutral. Very interesting stuff,

This is a key part of a general drive by the IoD to champion the reduction of energy consumption throughout the organisation and it is fitting that our flagship event should lead the way in this cause. The IoD has partnered with The CarbonNeutral Company to make this happen. Activities such as travel, transportation of equipment, lighting and temperature control all produce C02 emissions. To make the event CarbonNeutral® all the C02 generated by the event will be measured and balanced out with verified, carbon-saving projects. The result is a net-zero carbon footprint.

http://www.annualconvention.iod.com/

development, Quality

Providing Transparency for Customers

Transparency is one of the hit words at the moments. Banks have to do it, we want our government to do it, Relationships would certainly be easier if we knew what the other person was thinking. In fact it would seem that the whole world is getting in on the act and rightly so. We want to know if we are being overcharged for the service or a corporate holiday that is disguised as a business trip. Of course transparency can be manufactured so that the customer only sees what the transparent business would like them to see, but it is hard to fool all the people all the time, As a writing style can reveal a lot about a person/company. It is very easy to get a marketing company to write a marketing blurb that has been researched with tens of thousands of pounds. Much harder but cheaper to get the MD writing a blog. That does depend though on the company. Jonathan Schwartz Sun Microsystems CEO blogs in a very transparent way. Allowing readers to see changes of thought by crossing out words in his blogs. While one would never be able to put that into a sales tender. His blog is one of the most read and influential in blogsphere. Blogs that I would be interested in reading would include Tony Blair in his present job as peace envoy, John Humphreys presenter of The Today program on Radio 4, Any major bank CEO, Putin, to a name a few. Who would you like to see?

Ask a Question, Marketing, sales, work connexions

Would You Like To Spend Less Money On Advertising?

How much do you spend on advertising? How much would you like to spend?

Have you ever considered what may happen if your employees kept either internal or external blogs? Do you think you could generate a whole wealth of material for marketing from the activity that blogging represents?

Not only that but you can also use the comments, with one post you are doing market research, advertising your business, and generating marketing material. (think about the possibilities this suggests) and if that is not enough to lower your advertising costs, consider for a moment what could happen if your company engages in matters that concerns its business, for example: local community events, debates about skilled workers, legislation, online or offline you will generate a profile and a talking point about your company. Try it… it is also worth considering to engage a PR Company to help you along the way.

development, E-Commerce, Quality, work

Web 2.0 Saving Time

Implementing projects correctly

Last night on the radio I heard a comedian joking about how women want to know what men are thinking, I can imagine that a lot of men would claim to have no idea what women are thinking. In fact his question what people are thinking can go much further. Often when we do not understand one of the first questions that we ask is what are they thinking? Communication is more than a billion dollar industry. From phones to newspapers to meetings. In short each and every one of us spend more time communicating or trying to communicate than anything else. Why is it then that so many of us get it wrong?

I am not going to pretend to have the answer to that question. A friend of my recently commented that the process of writing clarifies the brain as to exactly what the situation/problem is. There is many a time that I have wondered what is going on in the company I work for. So imagine this. A company decides that it wants to improve a process. For example it wants to reduce software support to employees and educate them at the same time. A possible approach to this problem would be to organise meetings with different departments. Send out an email asking for ideas and feedback from employees. To organise and carry out this improvement it would require a small medium seized company at least one person to project manage, someone to sort out the information, someone to analyse the information, then more meetings to discuss the findings. Eventually you would have a recommendation that can be debated all over again. If by the end of this process there is still the will to implement it, you have truly done well. Of course there is no guarantee that your solution will work at all. How can web 2.0 deal with this?

Well imagine that you set out your vision on paper, and then allow people to comment. It is incredibly simple. Each user can see what issues have been raised and add comments if necessary. The project manager can modify and direct the discussion as the project evolves. This is clear accountable communication . Returning to the question about building a help desk, it allows every problem to be logged so that there is no repeat use of time to express the same points. One can even track the time involved producing accountability for budgeting future projects. Brilliant… if only everything was that simple I would not mind what anybody else is thinking.

brand, Marketing

Real Time Advert Statistics

Without a doubt there is one area that the internet thrashes all competition hands down and that is statistics and user information. On the advertising campaign you can see everything. From when they first visited to which page they went to, when did they comeback? How long did they stay? What sort of computer do they have? Which country are they are from? Is that country planning to invade yours etc. Some people have a great deal of fear about so much information being available and how to use it. The rest of us just get on and use the information to cater for our products and understand our markets.

 

There was a time a few years ago, a little bit less now where you came across a poll on a website. Websites would ask questions like who would you vote for in an election campaign? Should Policemen be paid more? What is your favourite colour? etc. Now days that is not strictly necessary because you can track the user when he enters your site and see where it is that he clicks (goes). For example if I do a blog post about money I can see that it has attracted more page views then a post about writing letters. I am sure that it happens that marketing campaigns go live before they are tested on the market. It would be the only explanation for such miserable campaigns like modo , or Iceland’s freezer food . If they had taken five minutes to put a few trial pages on the internet they could have seen if anybody was really interested in their marketing message. We at Work Connexions provide statistics for adverts and blogging. So you can see if you are onto a winner before you go and print up five thousand copies and publicise the press release.