Kashflow: a smart move
An invitation from Kashflow turns into subscription
A couple of years ago, I tried out the web-based book-keeping package, Kashflow and got quickly annoyed with one or two interactivity issues that put me off going ahead with the trial. Here’s one: “Please fill in letter 8 of your password”. Bit difficult to proceed when my password only had 7 letters.
When signing up for something (a trial or a listing) requires a heavy investment in time, I find myself hyper-critical if the interactivity design makes that process even more time-consuming. Back then, I gave up on Kashflow.
A couple of months ago, I got an email inviting me to have another look. I did, and because it seemed to have grown up since I first saw it (and because I needed to do some book-keeping) I signed up for the trial.
This time around, the trial immediately made my book-keeping easier, with the result that I’ve signed up.
Some lesssons:
1) Bend over backwards to make peoples’ interaction with your stuff effortless - especially when you’re expecting them to input a lot of their own data in order to use your product
2) Go back and check again with people who might not have wanted to use your services the first time round
3) Make your stuff pay off immediately. I.e., make it fully functional and get people hooked.
Got the approach right, Kashflow - and it’s a good product, too.
Google Trends: the best and the worst of the internet
Does Google Trends reflect or increase the spamminess of the web?
We discussed Google Trends the other day in The Mu Show with Guy Dub (producer of this video showing you how to use Trends to create extra blog traffic). It’s an application in Google that shows you the 100 hottest search phrases in Google at that moment.
And it’s constantly changing so you can keep track of up-to-the-minute trends.
At first, it looks like a bizarre mix of subjects - making you wonder what the logic is behind all those searches.
Until, of course, you realise that the underlying logic is TV.
The hottest search phrase in the US are either TV quiz questions (”What happened in London on September 7th 1859″ for something called the ‘Marriott Giveaway Quiz’) or reaction to TV events like Rick Astley’s surreal (internet swindle) best act ever award at the MTV awards. Read more
Even the feedback you ask for is meaningless..
… if you don’t allow it to challenge your assumptions
Earlier this year, I evaluated a site and in my feedback pointed out that the biggest threat was that their claimed benefits were in fact, ‘non-benefits’. Like many, many businesses, they had decided that what they wanted the benefits to be = what the benefits actually were for their customers
And like so many businesses, I was pretty sure that they weren’t listening when I gave them my report (both in writing and verbally). Why? Because my feedback challenged their fundamental assumptions about what the experience of their site was like for their customers.
Today I received an email announcing that the site is shutting down. I’m sorry to see it, but it’s no surprise.
It serves to remind me once again that inflexible assumptions about the benefits our products and services is the quickest way out of business.
Password & login overload
Have you lost track of all your logins and passwords? I have.
Every free or paid resource needs a login and a password - with the result that most people end up using the same combination all over the place. At least you think you do. Until you come back to log in to, say your domain name control panel (see, I don’t even know the name of the place I’m trying to log in to - what hope is there I’ll remember the login and password??).
Only then does it tell you “incorrect login or password”. Shit. Which? And why? Since I think I used the same ones… didn’t I?
The problem is complicated by the fact that I have several accounts with 123 Reg (I think) and because my browser is holding the last one I signed in with and the site doesn’t have a ’sign in with a different user’ option, the browser never actually logs out so I never actually get to sign in - or try (yawn) - with the ID I think I need. Read more
Sickie woo!
A special ‘Facebook Darwin Award’ to Kyle Doyle for ‘SICKIE WOO!’
None of the kids I know who use Facebook (our own included) spend any time thinking about the impact of the portrait they’re creating of themselves.
Or the ‘history’ they’re building. Or the forces behind the data they’re sharing. They don’t even see Facebook as something to talk or think about. It’s just there, invisible. They just use it without thinking.
Just like this guy who - internet legend has is - tried to pull a sickie but didn’t think that his bosses might check on his Facebook status. Like most online stories some say it’s true, some say it’s faked.
Either way it’s funny - but when it’s stopped being funny, it’s just worrying. All you have to do is take a look at the news feed of any 20 year old Facebook user to see the same lack of caution and awareness.
Is blogging dead?
Blogging is dead says Radio 4’s ‘Today Show’, Twitter’s the next thing.. yawn
According to the techies cited on the Today Show, it is. Why? Because the web is now stuffed full with faceless, automatically generated crap. I totally agree with that bit, though I disagree that blogging is dead.
Interestingly, blogging was discussed only from that egotistical point of view; all ‘me’ telling ‘my’ (hundreds of) friends what ‘I’m’ doing now. As far as I’m concerned, from that ego point of view, blogging never got born in the first place.
What nobody talked about in any depth was what blogging actually IS: a publishing platform you can use to create and reach an specific audience (if what you say has some use, interest or other value). Nothing about business, education or politics
Poor old John Humphries didn’t know what blogging was - or Twitter for that matter. Luckily he was helped out by his guests, a couple of thirty-somethings. You know that ultra-cool kind who embrace everything. Unlike teenagers who, like, just embrace the latest thing.
So is blogging dead?
Blogs-as-diaries were dead from the outset as far as I’m concerned. And blogs that exist just as gobbledegook loaded with AdSense Google ads should be.
What is online reputation management?
Interview with online reputation management guide, Sam Deeks
What is Online Reputation Management?
Sam: It’s making sure that you know what people are saying about you online, giving people the chance to say good things about you - and being able to respond quickly and effectively when somebody says something bad about you or your business.
Does everyone with a business need to consider ORM these days?
Sam: They do. In the online world, what you say about yourself is propaganda. What other people say about you is the truth. And the first thing most people do when they want to find out about you these days is go to Google.
They look at the first couple of pages of results to see what people are saying about you on review sites, in discussion forums and in blogs - sites that increasingly rank alongside or even higher than your own website in the search results.
A single negative review can put off prospects from buying. Just think how you react when you’re looking to book your holiday hotel and you find a really bad review on TripAdvisor.
Online conflict - the plastic bag of reputation management
From my very own ‘online conflict’ case study, 4 tips to safeguard your reputation
A search on my name ‘Sam Deeks’ brings up a result from something that happened a year or so ago. I wrote a post on our blog about my experience of business networking and the kinds of characters, approaches and shenanigans we’d experienced. Although I mentioned no names - or organisations for that matter - someone felt I was referring to them, and posted a personal dig at me on their online forum.
Their online networking site and forum is very busy - hence that reference to me is on 1st page in Google. It’s a great reminder that when people try to pull you into conflict online your response is going to be around for a long, long time.
Luckily, I’m happy with how I responded then - and now.
Here are 4 tips that might help you if / when you find yourself under attack:
1) Don’t react. Reaction is usually a way of not feeling something. What was it I wanted to avoid feeling? Anger, fear. Sadness. I hate conflict. I hate being not liked. Add to that, I was a bit ashamed because the guy was right. I was referring to him, among others. That’s a hard pile of feelings to sit with. The reason we fight so quickly is to avoid facing feeling those things. Sit with them because they’ll teach you something.
2) Respond. Once. After you’ve sat with whatever feelings are there (if you’re not covering them up by fighting in the forum thread), reply. Those feelings will soften you up more than fighting will. When you reply from that place, you’ll be more human, more empathetic and you won’t escalate conflict. Say your piece, own your part in it if you can and leave.
3) Don’t take it personally. When people get angry with each other they’re just dumping undealt-with feelings on each other. Deal with yours (see points 1 and 2) and you won’t make your upset other peoples’ business. Similarly, you won’t interpret their upset as your business either.
4) Leave it. The desire to return to conflict is an addiction. Resist it, there’s nothing good about it, it will only keep you addicted and reactive.
Make no mistake, these 4 points aren’t easy - which is why the world is fuelled by conflict on- and offline. Learning how not to react takes time and effort but most of all it takes us getting to a point where we’re sick and tired of being drawn helplessly into cycles of fighting - and where we want something different
A great business and personal development tool
Apply this tool to your business and/or your personal life and you’ll be surprised.
This cycle just works.
What I mean by that is it works whether your point of view about something is positive or negative.
What we tell ourselves about something dictates the way we act. The way we act creates results that affirm the point of view we hold about that thing or situation.
Take a look at any situation in your life with this little model and you’ll see it applies.
The real power of this tool, however, is when you start at the results end. If you list how things really are; track backwards and list the things you actually did to create those results, you’ll then be able to work out what your real point of view about that thing is.
Not the point of view you think you should have, or the point of view you tell people when they ask you.
No, the real underlying one that creates the world you actually live in.
Q: Do lemmings commit suicide?
A: Yes. No. Ah, who cares?
According to some, Wikipedia is regulated by ‘the wisdom of the crowd’ - a group’s innate tendency to avoid error and smooth out the distortion of knowledge.
Nancy Williams said in her podcast that Wikipedia defined ‘truth’ as ‘knowledge about which there is no serious dispute’. Wow. So something can be true because nobody can be bothered to contest it? A quick look at Wikipedia and I couldn’t find that definition. Ah. Did she say it? Did I make it up?
All I found was a mass of clever academic stuff I personally couldn’t be bothered to read, let alone dispute. Clearly someone was bovvered and truth itself was on hold while some clever people disputed it. Whew.
It’s a worrying world… isn’t it? I don’t know what to believe. Most of us will believe anything. We’re all lemmings! Except lemmings don’t commit suicide, they never have and never will. It’s just that not many people can be bothered to point that fact out.
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