Archive | March, 2009
March 30, 2009

Before You Hit Send

I send and receive a lot of email (I’ve mentioned this more than once in the past).

In order for an email to catch my attention it needs to be engaging at some level. It doesn’t need to be an artistic masterpiece, but something clear and engaging.

Yet again today I got an email which was the exact opposite of this…

To start with the subject line was a disaster. Starting the subject line with a colon looks odd and when you couple that with a total disregard for proper capitalisation it springs out at me for all the wrong reasons.

What about the content?

Weird coloured text doesn’t add anything.

As for the content… a totally uninspiring mish-mash of buzzwords that doesn’t even read like coherent English.

Now if they’d actually taken  few minutes to read over the email before they hit send then maybe they’d have realise the error of their ways…

Well maybe they wouldn’t have …

If you’re going to send out a mass email check before you send it.

I’m an individual – maybe you can’t do a proper personalised email to ME, but sending to “colleagues” is just silly. If you want me to feel like a number, then you’ve won. Thanks. You’ve just made my Monday!

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March 29, 2009

Firefox Plugins To Make Things Easier

I use Firefox both in work and at home, so I’m used to using it on both OSX and Linux (Ubuntu). Since so much of what I do is either centred around email or web based systems, my usage of my browser and a few other tools, is quite important to me. Things that make my life that little bit easier are always welcome.

So which addons do I currently have installed:

  • Google toolbar – shows a site’s pagerank and gives you access to a few other handy little tools
  • Zemanta – a handy tool for bloggers which allows you to easily access images and links based on your post’s content. You can also use it to easily link to products on Amazon
  • Mozbar – direct access to the Seomoz tools
  • Delicious – probably the addon I use most. I spend a lot of my time bookmarking sites, so doing it via a web service like Delicious makes sense
  • Alexa sparky – gives you access to Alexa data on any site you’re viewing
  • Ebay toolbar – if you use ebay as much as I do then this makes it a lot easier to track your current bids (I was trying the AIR desktop, but it was annoying)
  • Blacknight domain search – allows you to search for available domains directly from within Firefox

Which Firefox tools / addons are you using?

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March 29, 2009

Stop Thinking Like An Employee

If you want to run your own business then you need to work at it.

You cannot expect your business to run itself.

You cannot expect to work “normal” hours.

You cannot expect to work a “normal” working week

If you can’t deal with any of the above then simply give up now.

Sure, everyone needs to strike the balance between work and their private life

However, if you’re running your own business you need to realise that you cannot think like an employee (conversely your employees won’t think like you do either, but that’s another discussion)

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March 24, 2009

Creme Egg Madness

This must have taken hours to prepare.. Very cool – though a terrible waste of a creme egg

Thanks to Phil for mentioning it on Twitter

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March 16, 2009

Off To Germany

I’m heading off to Germany in the morning to attend WebHostingDay (bit of a misnomer, as it runs over 3 days)

It looks like there will be quite a few people going that I know from ICANN meetings, so it will be a good chance to meetup and catchup (aka drink beers )

If anyone wants to meet up please let me know

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March 16, 2009

Nominate People For NetVisionary Awards

If you haven’t done so already take a couple of minutes to nominate people (not companies) for the Net Visionary awards.

Nominations close on 27th March

Nominations are open to anyone.

You cannot be nominated for a category you won in the previous two years

UPDATE: Stupid typo – sorry – was reading an email from Nominet earlier .. that’s my excuse

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March 14, 2009

Obama Has a Lot To Live Up To *Cough*

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March 13, 2009

Woohoo! Blacknight ICANN Accredited!

I’m overjoyed about this one …

Full details over on the company blog

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March 12, 2009

Tshirt For Twitter Fanatics

Tshirt For Twitter Fanatics

You may remember the “I’m blogging this” tshirt…

Now meet the “I’m tweeting this” version:

im tweeting thisFind out more on ThinkGeek

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March 11, 2009

Using Twitter To Prove A Point (Sort of)

Using Twitter To Prove A Point (Sort of)

When you run your own business you can end up becoming heavily invested in your business’ success and failure. Comments and feedback, both positive and negative, might affect you more than you would like to admit.

Over the last few years the company I founded has grown from operating out of a bedroom (or two) to having a fulltime staff of close to 20.

Over the years we’ve improved some things, made a total mess of others, delighted some people and really annoyed others. (In many instances the “love” and “hate” is directed at me personally, as I am the most visible person associated with the company).

The harsh reality is that no matter what you do you cannot and will not please everyone all of the time.

Since I’m interested in my industry I track certain keywords on Twitter, so watching people talking about some of our competitors can be very enlightening.
 GoDaddy, which is simply massive in terms of its customer base, proves my point.
Just watch how people react to them over a 24 hour period.
You will see both ends of the scale.
They’re all talking about the same company during the same time period, so it’s really fascinating (to me at least) to watch.

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