DigitallyMinded – exploring business, marketing and the new media thingy — Page 2

Life’s too short

June 15, 2011

That’s what people say when they can’t be bothered to do something, “Life’s too short.” It’s a lazy cop out from losing weight, from saving money, from knuckling down – and we all know it’s bull s**t as we say it. Sure, life is too short to pull your hair out over every lost Twitter [...]

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Tablets to take over

June 1, 2011

The tablet isn’t a new invention but the iPad has created a phenomenally popular category that was a non-starter before Apple invested. A recent study by Google’s Admob services indicates tablet owners generally use them for more than an hour a day, usually at evenings. GQ editor, Dominic West, wrote in July’s magazine, “We’ve been [...]

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Twitter (non-injunction) thoughts

May 22, 2011

Twitter is front page news this week but a friend emailed me asking my thoughts on something other than super injunctions. He wrote, “If twitter’s all about engaging with people, conversations not campaigns etc, why is @delloutlet doing so well? Both in followers, and in direct revenue according to them. It goes against everything I’ve [...]

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Has News Corp backed a winner?

April 3, 2011

News Corp’s readership numbers are on the up since they introduced their paywall last July. Surely that’s all good news? The Times and The Sunday Times has grown from 50,000 monthly digital subscribers in October to 79,000 at the end of February. They seem to have brushed under the carpet the fact that the growth [...]

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Is intern such an ugly word?

March 27, 2011

Unemployment is over 2.53m with 18-24 year-olds accounting for 18.3% of that alarming figure. Kamikaze pilots have easier missions compared to graduates scoring an interview with over-subscribed job ads. Unfortunately they often don’t help themselves, so here’s my two pennies worth. Firstly, there’s loads written about CVs but here are a few tips to show [...]

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Digital stamps

March 20, 2011

Silicon Valley can get carried away with the Angry Birds’ Series A round of investment and Apple’s iAds, but Denmark are giving us a great example of digital innovation helping the man on the street right now. From 1st April the Danes will be able to text a number that will reply to the phone [...]

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Three books to kick you

March 13, 2011

Do you like business books that inspire you to move into action, or books that break down what someone did in their business? If it’s the former then this month has seen a couple of excellent releases for you: Gary Vaynerchuk is a hustler. His second book, The Thank You Economy is out this week. [...]

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Innovate or deteriorate

March 6, 2011

Some business leaders say they can’t change because their demographic is 55 year olds and changing would jeopardize their custom. Changing would mean devaluing the offering. Changing would be a risk we don’t want to take. I’ve even heard, “We know our customer base is dying, but the boss wont change anything we’re doing.” We’ve [...]

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Football fantasy island

February 27, 2011

Most of us look at our labour rates. A restaurant owner will write her rota and give hours to waiters and chefs based on anticipated takings that week – for example 8% of takings will be spent on wages. I’ve been told Tesco store managers aim to keep labour below 5%. Well, if you think [...]

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Is your marketing director for the toilet

February 20, 2011

The Internet has only really been around for the masses since Microsoft brought us Windows 95 and the ever-present Internet Explorer. But over 15 years on, digital and digital marketing still remains a bolt on for many businesses that should really know better. I’m always amazed when strong marketers tell me their marketing director (not [...]

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Linked In tweet up

February 13, 2011

Linked In added the Signal this week. It’s a new product that, “gives you a whole new way to consume information and news that’s most relevant to you as a professional.” Hmm… The trouble is, I fervently disagree with those who hook up their Twitter feed to Linked In. It’s failing to understand that different [...]

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Are answers where the dollars live?

February 6, 2011

Answers.com sold this week for $127m. This coupled with the growing buzz around Quora, highlights the fact that Q&A sites are the poster-boy targets on the web. Added to that firestorm is Mahalo giving up on human powered search and pivoting to answers. Although it looks like they’re going for ‘how to’ queries more than [...]

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Never too early to train

January 30, 2011

Like most UK retailers and caterers I’m avidly watching two TV programmes running at the moment: Mary Portas’ Secret Shopper and Michel Roux’s Service. Secret Shopper Mary Portas is her usual truculent self and she’s right to bemoan retail service – on the whole it’s dire with a capital D. Despite embarrassing some of the [...]

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Tech transfer windows

January 23, 2011

Two of the world’s top tech companies announced overhauls at the top this week. Sadly, Steve Jobs’ health will see him step aside for an as-yet unannounced successor at Apple (Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook will stand in at least in the short term). And Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, surprised most of us by tweeting, [...]

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How to get a pay rise

January 19, 2011

If your firm doesn’t have a robust, progressive appraisal system that will automatically promote you for good performance (unlikely outside a very large organisation), then you need to demonstrate your ability before asking. This lets you knock on the door and say, “I feel I’m deserving because of X, Y and Z,” rather than, “I’d [...]

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Mental boxes

January 13, 2011

Chris Brogan is a business hero of mine. He’s built his own escape velocity in every sense. His blog is great a platform showing a balance of marketing, business, new media and raw advice. This has got him to AdAge’s marketing list at #3 (behind King Seth and the much-overrated Copyblogger). He shares ideas and [...]

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Cancel is still a dirty word

January 6, 2011

January challenge: take a look around T-mobile’s website and try finding the page that lets you cancel your mobile contract. Go on, take a minute. Good luck. If you think call centre telephone systems are a way of companies sending you round in circles, this site was designed with the same penmanship. Not only is [...]

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Free websites

December 30, 2010

A website isn’t a necessity for every single business in existence but few would argue it’s a massive opportunity. When business people ask my opinion about website designers or what type of site they should employ, I say 90% should use a blog. This will usually cause a lifted eyebrow or two as the word [...]

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Marketers stole Christmas

December 23, 2010

It’s rare that I’m in front of the TV as much as I have been this evening and I don’t mean to be a humbug but a couple of things have struck me under the bombardment of advertising: – Many would argue the marketers have appropriated Christmas. On the face of tonight’s TV advertising they’d [...]

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Meeting Mr Microsoft

December 17, 2010

Neil Thompson is the MD of Microsoft UK and Ireland and I recently saw him speak about his 18 years in innovation. He ran through his career in one of the world’s most influential companies; from exaggerating his skills at his job interview to today’s cutting edge. It was a walk down memory lane for [...]

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Communication faux pas

December 10, 2010

Picture the scene: your three-year-old wakes at night screaming as if placed in boiling fat. She is uncontrollable. After 30 minutes without change you call NHS direct and get a midnight appointment for the hospital. There, the doctor can find no accountable reason for the agony, whose only brief respite in noise is because of [...]

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Harvard MBAs caused all the trouble

November 26, 2010

That’s the headline written and assumed all too often. With George Bush, his Treasury Secretary and the heads of Lehman Brothers all holding MBAs is it any wonder? Granted, the MBA’s graduating now are taught ethics, CSR and Harvard’s ‘Leadership and Corporate Accountability’ course, but they didn’t really exist in the 60s and 70s when [...]

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Retailing depth

November 21, 2010

Seth would say there’s a dilemma when wanting to grow your customer base of going deeper or wider with your product offering. Victor Churchill in Melbourne is a fabulously extravagant example of going deeper. They’re in the meat business but they’re anything other than a simple a butcher’s shop. This store takes things to an [...]

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