Lincolnshire Enterprise Network - Boat Trip

Ahoy there owner Managers! The Lincolnshire Enterprise Network has booked the "Brayford Belle" for a canal cruise to welcome potential new members to the Network. Men and women running their own small businesses who are interested in networking should put Friday, June 2, 2006 in their diaries. Newcomers will meet existing members and hear all about LEN over a drink and a buffet as the "Belle" saunters along the Fossdyke Navigation to Saxilby and back to Brayford Pool in Lincoln city centre. "We’ll meet from 6 p.m. and sail at 6.30 p.m.", says chairman Terry Johnston. "There has always been a social side to LEN and we thought this was a good idea for the membership and a very good opportunity to talk to those micro businness owners (up to 10 employees) interested in expanding their circle of networking friends." "We'll all be able to sit back, relax and enjoy the sights of Lincoln and the surrounding countryside from a different perspective. The Fossdyke was built by the Romans and it’s the oldest canal in Britain. It’s delightful to sail." The event is free to members and visitors as LEN wishes to expand the Network and raise its profile. The Belle offers a first class buffet whatever the weather in its heated lower deck with large picture windows. Passengers can also sail on the top deck which affords unrivalled and unrestricted views. Parking is beside the departure point in the multi-storey car park on Lucy Tower Street If you run your own small business please book your passage with a call to Graham Winstanley on 0845 090 0081.

Iomart anniversary blog

It's sort of fitting that on the anniversary of my "Battling with Iomart" blog I had a meeting with a client whose domain we are attempting to move from that company. The story so far. Iomart call my client back in February of this year saying they were recommended by a well-known organisation within my client's industry for providing websites. My client decided to let Iomart do their website, and as it transpired were less than impressed with the end result, a two page website. Interestingly, a Google search returned a ufindus directory entry on the first page, but when I looked for my client's site among the listings far more inappropriate sites were listed in ufindus way above my client's entry - and when I clicked on the link to their site it came up "Server not found". The link was mis-spelt and consequently of no use to man or beast! Iomart, trading as ufindus, charged £199.95 plus VAT for the set-up of the website and an ongoing £29.95 plus VAT per month. Minimum contract period of 12 months with mandatory 60 days notice in writing to terminate. Fortunately, my client didn't sign the contract. However, the domain transfer is proving to be as complicated and error-prone as all the other transfers I've done involving the parent company, Iomart. First of all, ufindus require a fax on letterhead paper from the domain owners to request the transfer. Not unreasonable. Next they require the customer to login to their control panel in order to pay the £50.00 (plus VAT, no doubt) transfer fee by credit/debit card. Now the first problem is encountered. The username and password for the control panel doesn't work. Neither does the forgotten details process. A phone number is given in case of problems with usernames/password. The number is called and my client was told ufindus didn't have an email address to send the details to. My client must now send a fax to ufindus requesting the username and password, with an email address for the details to be sent to. I understand the organisation referred to earlier are considering legal action against ufindus to prevent them saying they are recommended by said organisation. It is only my opinion, but I'd say there are better companies to deal with when it comes to organising a web presence. And so it seems nothing much has changed at ufindus/Iomart. I wonder what next year will bring...

How do people get to grips with Web 2.0?

Andrew McAfee, associate professor, Harvard Business School has posted a very interesting article about the emergence of Web 2.0. He argues that the Web is like an ant colony; the low level activity of Web users is akin to worker ants whose tasks seen at the "local" level will not give the observer clues as to the big picture, but their activities definitely shape the high level structure of the colony. McAfee goes on to say that the high level structure of the Web is built on on the activity of millions of Web users adding links to sites they find useful, and he cites Google's page ranking algorithm as a major factor in this process. But getting to the nub of the title of this post, McAfee asks the question: "What are the best ways to get a Web 1.0 workforce comfortable using Web 2.0 tools?" Well, first of all what is Web 1.0? Think email, shopping carts, search engines and anything that helps numero uno to achieve what it is they went onto the Web to do.And for Web 2.0 think of tools that help the "collective good" move forward. OK, so that's only one element - but it is a major, if not the major element of Web 2.0. And, as it happens, for the forward thinkers it is also a means of helping businesses gain further competitive advantage, but that's another story. Sorry, back to McAfee's question... "What are the best ways to get a Web 1.0 workforce comfortable using Web 2.0 tools?" I know this is not a sophisticated response/answer, but often the answer lies in simplicity. Last week, or maybe the week before, I was keen to talk about del.icio.us to two business associates, John Kirk and Andy Blow. After initially explaining the concept it wasn't until I demonstrated how to use a del.icio.us account that the penny dropped, and the lights came on. After that there was no stopping their thoughts and ideas about how this Web 2.0 tool could be used to good business advantage. So, it's simple really - let's get out there and show/demonstrate to people what it's all about. After all, it's not that complicated, and once folk get their heads round it they'll start to get the BFOs. :)

Website Traffic - Quality or Quantity?

Do you know what really gets my goat when it comes to all this talk about internet marketing? It's the incessant messages about driving more traffic to your website. It seems all these "experts" want to talk about is the quantity of traffic, how they can increase flow of traffic to your website. What seems to be missing is a few words like, relevant, targetted and interested traffic, people who have an interest in what you have to sell or say. To give you an example, I run a number of sites for testing purposes, and from the results I've achieved I can tell you that it is far better to have fewer visitors to your site who are looking for what you have to offer than a whole heap of "sniffers" looking for the next freebie. A set of results I checked out recently showed that running a banner ad on a general purpose site produced thousands of visits, but virtually no sales, whilst a link (that cost nothing) on a special interest site produced a healthy number of purchases. Moving on, with Web 2.0 developing at the rate it's going the website owner now has many more effective marketing tools at hand to drive significantly more relevant traffic to his/her site than ever before, but there seems to be a lack of guidance from the experts who are still promoting web 1.0 (the old style web) tools. What makes the difference with these web 2.0 tools is that they can put your site in the way of your relevant traffic - thus increasing your chances of doing business with a greater percentage visitors. Now isn't that what we all want?

Tips on solving an Epson Printer "problem"

We've recently bought an epson C46 printer and found the article linked to, via the link at the bottom of this post, very helpful. Apparently, Epson are now building in an "all flashing lights" warning when the printer has done a certain number of pages - and it stops working! Well, the people at AB Cartridges know how to deal with the situation without it costing you to have an Epson dealer "fix" it. Check it out here: Printer Cartridges Blog: Tips on solving an Epson Printer "problem"

Anyone for "MARKET RESEARCH"?

Go check out this article on "MARKET RESEARCH" - it certainly rang a few bells for me. It's not totally negative about market research, but it does make a very valid point. Having said that, perhaps you'd humour me and add your comments at the end of this post about a difference of opinion I had with a very dear business associate, Clive Catton (BTW, he's a superb IT support guy) - we're just not going to agree on this unless you the reader can convince me I'm wrong! If you were'nt already aware, I work from home and in the main it's a good thing for me. Now, Clive insists that to attract bigger clients (I'd substitute "bigger clients" for "clients with bigger budgets") I should have a card without my home address on it. I don't advertise the fact that it's my home address, nor try to hide it. But my view is that by not putting an address on my business card people will wonder what I have to hide. Clive maintains that people won't mind, and that if they Google the address they'll discover it's a residential one and could be put off. I'm considering reprinting my cards and would really appreciate your views - address or no address - and your reasons... please. :)