Category Archives: development

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, business, development, E-Commerce, work connexions

Content is Timeless

1 Comment

As with the last couple weeks I have been blogging about why communities and online social media groups are going to grow significantly more and will change all forms of media in the next 18 months. Is this really interesting? Well the change could be, as advertisers are going to have so much choice to reach their target market that marketing departments are going to be expanding and working overtime to understand and use this technology.

There is nothing essentially new in blogging, in the old days you had magazines and papers where people submitted or where commissioned to write news pieces about relevant issues. The readers than replied to that by sending in a letter to say what they thought about any relevant topic. After about a month that whole particular topic would pass and the readers would move on to discuss a new hot issue. In the online media if you can write one good article in theory that article can be discussed for 6 months, a year, two years. So from one piece of advertising/writing you can get so much more advertising milege. As the article sits on the internet it can become internet real estate growing in value over the months as traffic comes to the site and comments increase. If you are going to say something on the internet, it is good to remember that although it may be a fast form of communication, your writing contribution will be there possibly for a long time.

I could write about the new year now as I am typing this on the last day of year but that would limit its market. So to gain the maximum affect, It is good to take the long term view. Whoever would have thought that about online media?

business, development, E-Commerce, Marketing

Communicating What it is Your Company does

How many times do you get asked; what is it that your company does? The thing that most people who work have in common, is that they have worked for several companies.

Practically every time you are introduced to somebody, the first inevitable question asked , whether in a private or a professional setting, will be: What is that you do or what line of business are you in? For me the answer to this question would vary as I would try out different explanations to fit in the situation, suit the enquirer or similar.

There is no one answer that fits all. For example a recruitment company may say we recruit executives with a proven track record. Another company may say we recruit and train office staff. For each segment of the market you have to adapt your message.

Sometimes a deep explanation may be necessary for the enquirer to understand what it is that you do an you may (or not as the case maybe) have to give more back ground information. A lot of people ask me what Wcx does. We tried a number of different explanations such as “Social networking for businesses” “One stop development shop” In the end we have chosen this one “Work Connexions does your Advertising, Marketing, Recruitment and Blogging. Online and offline” Of course this is only the start of effective communication “a short one liner”. It will be every companies top concern to prove the buyer that uses their products and services it does just what it says.

On balance one of the reasons why I like blogging is that it gives everyone involved in the company, project, etc the chance to understand how a company or organisation communicates with its employees and customers.

business, development, E-Commerce

Web 2.0 Business and Product Development

The number of adverts that I see for a business development manager, or a relationship manager in the papers and on job boards I find to be amazing. It would seem that every company has something to develop; even my local butchers spent half an hour telling me how there has been no free range chickens sold in this area for the last 20 years. Now he may be right, but it does not solve my problem. I tend to eat very little meat nowadays as it is so damn hard to tell where it came from, how was it kept, what it was feed etc… Was it allowed to wander around outside? Has it been properly hung etc? Of all the businesses, that I can think of my butchers would do very well with some product development.

I cannot think of any reason at all why do not think for the life of me that our butchers is going to employ a thirtyish looking business developer, dressed in a suit to explain his products to the customer. This is something the head chopper feels he can do perfectly well. How much more custom would he get? At presently he is the only butchers in the village… Developing a relationship with your customers is difficult, especially in a highly competitive world as the one we live in, where every corner you turn there is somebody ready to quote a better price, do it faster, guarantee for it longer.

Why would anybody want to employ somebody just to go and talk to potential customers? Well the truth is they may not want to just that. But if there was that golden touch business developer who could go out and bring back the golden eggs, with the use of his or her persuasion, then you have got a foot in the door and you would have been able to open the box to much greater business and all for less than 40,000 a year. Surly though, the true role of a business developer will always remain with the MD. You may have many skills in your organisation , from people that can program computers underwater, to scientist who know how to calculate rockets landing on the moon but if you cannot get the money to pay you staff, you will all have go home.

It is possible that business developers have the most to lose from Web 2.0. as their means to and end is generally undefined. Imagine having something tangible for a process for business development. Web 2.0 can document that process. Not just for one customer but for all customers providing a backup and a status report, from the start of a product, to customer interest, to selling products, to customer feedback.

business, development, E-Commerce, Websites, work connexions

Content, content, content.

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There are a lot of companies on the internet that would like to promote your website. Costs vary from £1,800 to 100,000+ For the novice web entrepreneur or newbie in the internet business it is a very comforting thought that you can pay SEO companies to increase visitors to your site. All these companies offer legitimate services using ad words, link building, tag optimisation , etc. (As we do too, the only difference with us is you just pay an hourly rate).

The main key to increasing traffic to your website and maintaining that traffic is content. If customer x goes to website y and likes the website he will most likely come back to look some more. If it is a static website with no changeable content chances are the site will not receive a second visit. Once they have read the four pages of information (about us, who we are, what we do, where we are, etc) they are not going to go back. The same applies if the content is very well written, comparable to a novel, even then they would be unlikely to; Who of us likes to read our book while sitting behind a computer? Something which leads me to a significant minor point that any website would not do themselves any harm to have a few PDF’s that people can download and print and read while they are sitting on their comfortable sofa drinking a cup of tea.

Almost daily I receive confirmation that there are any number of good ideas for business. A good idea is not enough by its own, it takes dedication, skill, demonstration that company x is good enough to get my business. Which is why ,the tools of web 2.0 are so important (blogging, forums, commenting, etc) The market is changing. A well written CV with a few qualifications and a pleasant smile used to be enough to get a job. Nowadays companies can research each applicant. If you have not written content to backup what you are doing, it is going to be very hard to achieve your goals. This used to be achieved by articles in the printing media. It is now available to every one on the internet. In the form of a profile and a blog . (Wcx, this company offers Wc3 legal compliant blogs and profiles) On the plus side by writing a little bit about what you do will have its own personal benefits, company benefits and will probably save you a few thousand quid.

business, development, E-Commerce, Marketing

Web 2.0 for every Business, this Christmas?

It has puzzled me why the uptake of Web 2.0 in certain industries and places has been so slow. On one hand I can understand it, effectively web 2.0 can represent a loss of control. If your company engages in open communication with its customers and employees one may perceive a loss of control. No longer are topics discussed by a few individuals with in close proximity of each other. They can be discussed by whole departments across continents. What one customer may write about an employee or product is no longer a conversation with two or three people but can be seen and read by a hundred times that number.

Sherrilynne of Strive Pr  pointed me to this recent blog “ Social networking could turn out to be a costly “white elephant” for businesses that rush to invest in the technology. ” While some companies may be debating the merits and the cost of web 2.0. Can one really run the risk of not implementing and engaging your company in what is effectively the most important communications medium since democracy.

 

Yes there is risk that your business could suffer, but can you afford to dismiss it. If you have a service to offer and you work in competitive industry than you have to compete. I have listed some of the positive and negative advantages of web 2.0 below. 

 

Positive Advantages:

Direct Communication medium to customers, and employees.
Increased web visitors – potential increase business.
Increased web presence – lower cost of marketing.
Business and product development.
Content is Timeless – With any other form of communication the life span is limited. 
Real Time Statistics – Measure the Success of a promotion campaign.
Saves Time – Implementing projects correctly.
Lower advertising cost.
Generates marketing information for use in offline media.
Provides transparency for companies.
Can be used to make part of an assessment of an employee’s performance.

Disadvantages:

Reputations can be damaged and business lost if not properly implemented and handled.

There might be some more disadvantages but I cannot think of them now. This is what Wcx does, also I notice have given myself 13 topics to blog about over the next couple of months.

development, Personal

Feeding the Brain, what do you read?

 

Recently I have been reading a few books that make different connexions to the unconscious mind. While twenty years ago little reference in mainstream media was made to unconscious or super conscious thought. It has in recent years started to be more talked about. It was Carl Jung who first defined the unconscious so it has been discussed in limited groups for some time.

 

One of the books I am reading talks about auto suggestion and how that relays information in to our unconsciousness that later on will appear in a different form. For example as dreams, recollections, spontaneous thought and actions. Some people argue it is the predominant driving force of our persona. I can agree with the argument for this. As much as we like to think that we are in control it is surprising how often we get surprised. Things that we thought we knew about ourselves our not as straight forward as we possibly first thought. Our minds are extremely powerful pieces of equipment. Being able to master this tool or just being aware of it will reap huge benefits.

 

The power of the brain can be more powerful than some people can handle, hence why some people seek to change their state of consciousness. Even now with all the modern development very little is known for sure about how the brain works and how much of it we are using. In that respect computers are very primitive indeed and our books that feed the brain very powerful.