Using a Wiki for business: too much like hard work

September 30, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Is your business Wiki hard work?  Could it be a solution without a problem?

We all know what Wikis are, right?  They’re web pages that everyone can edit with the result that no one person ‘owns’ what’s written.  It’s the embodiment of the self-managing, self-leveling, self-policing ‘wisdom of the crowd’.  A democratic body of knowledge owned by everyone.

We all know a Wiki, right?  Err…yes! Wikipedia.  It’s that big online encyclopedia that anyone can add to or change – you know that thing that’s always right up there at the top of all Google searches for practically anything.

The thing about Wikis is that they sound like such a good idea in theory.  The software’s free; you’re already using the computer anyway… all you have to do is find a problem to point a Wiki at.

This is what Common Craft had to say about Wikis in 2007:

It all makes sense.  Firstly there’s a clear problem: ‘how do we keep track of what we need and who’s bringing what?’

Secondly there’s a tangible pay-off to motivate people to engage with it: ‘if we do this we’ll end up with all the right gear and have a great camping trip’.

Someone called me this week to discuss the merits of using a Wiki to ‘liven up a business’s Intranet’ and – more tellingly – to download the intellectual property of its employees.  My advice would be that if you have a clear problem that a Wiki can solve with a tangible pay-off for those involved in creating and using it, then go for it.  If, on the other hand, it’s just a nice-sounding idea about creating a shared pool of knowledge or worse, the desire to squeeze people for their knowledge so they don’t take it away when they leave, then it may well turn out to be a mistake.

If you’re going to use a Wiki for business, make sure that it solves an obvious problem and that the people you want to use it get a payoff for the time and effort required to create and input the stuff that has to go into it.

There is another option.  Just the tools in place and just see what happens  – like Wikipedia itself.  In a most un-businesslike fashion, you’ll need to let go of any attachment to the outcome.

And if nothing happens, it’s worth bearing in mind that Wikipedia itself is the product of several hundreds of millions of internet users.

Filed Under: business insight, how to Tagged With: , , ,

Spotify invitations: No longer needed with Spotify ‘Open’

September 18, 2009 By

Spotify ‘Open’ free to everyone without invitation!

**Ignore the rest of this post and head on over to Spotify!! :-) **

Since the Spotify iPhone app was released there’s been a surge in traffic here looking for Spotify invitations.  Back in January, I played a small part in Spotify’s online marketing strategy – by helping spread the word about the free service and giving out invites.

It was nice to be able to create 600+ accounts for happy people at the time but Spotify’s strategy has moved on, so I’m not able to help any more.

For those of you interested in the way blogging can create traffic to your site, the recent surge in visitors to my site (see stats below) coincides with Spotify’s release of the iPhone app and their return to ‘invite-only’ free membership.  That traffic is the result of one or two carefully-worded and well-timed posts in January 2009.

Picture 3

Filed Under: Benefits of blogging, how to Tagged With: , , , ,

Installing a vodafone dongle on your mac?

September 8, 2009 By 7 Comments

Tips for installing Vodafone’s USB Modem stick on your MacBook Pro

vodafone-usb-modem-lite-h11) Make sure that Vodafone have assigned numbers to your sims.  Didn’t happen for us.  It took an hour of 0870 phone calling to get that part sorted.

2) Use installer disk to install Vodafone Mobile Connect software (put icon on your dock)

3) Use this software to ‘connect’ to internet with your dongle

4) Try running browser…ah.  Not connected to internet.

5) Go to Network in your system preferences

6) Choose ‘Vodafone 3520′

7) In ‘Telephone number’ box, overwrite what’s there (in my case it was something like “*/***99*#”) replacing it with “*99#’.  Account name is ‘web’, password is ‘web’

8) Click connect and it should work

So how come this installer disk placed the wrong phone number in my preferences?? Another half an hour on the line to (very helpful) technical support lady at Vodafone confirmed what I suspected: that Vodafone really haven’t been that bothered about supporting Mac users.

Or giving them any readable instructions either.  Which is a pity because it then falls to people like me (and other bloggers) to fill in the information vaccuum.  Oh, and if you’re trying to do it with Snow Leopard, you’ll have even more trouble. ;-)

Filed Under: feedback, how to Tagged With: , , , ,

Yet another guide to Twitter for business… yawn.

August 3, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Oh, my.. God.  Everyone’s doing it.  Writing guides to Twitter, I mean. So here’s mine.

Twitter is a way to publish / broadcast little chunks of information (140 characters).  That can be text, links to interesting things or repeating things other people have said.  This takes place within a global network.  You build up your network by following other people or being followed.  Often people follow the people who follow them.  Sometimes they don’t.

Everyone you follow or who follows you is part of your network and each person in your network has their own network.  You can explore all the people in the network of someone who is in your network.  Wherever you find interesting people you can view them and their tweets (their ‘feed’).  If you want, you can follow them.

When you follow someone, their tweets appear (along with those of everyone else you follow) in an overall ‘feed’ of tweets from everyone in your network.  When you’re following 20 people, that’s quite a few tweets a day.  When you’re following 10,000 people that’s a hell of a lot of tweets a day.

What’s the point?  Well, you can follow people who are particularly interesting in terms of your speciality of niche, for example.  How do you find them?  Maybe you already know them – in which case, you find out their Twitter name and follow them.  Maybe you find them because someone you’re already connected to in Twitter has them in their network.  Or, maybe you find them by searching all Twitter’s tweets for certain keywords.   If you search for ‘nasa’ you’ll get back a list of tweets mentioning ‘nasa’.  You can skim through all the people tweeting to decide who you think has something useful to offer you and follow accordingly.

Twitter makes it just as easy to find every time you’ve been mentioned (offering lots of potential for measuring the success of online marketing efforts).  It allows you to send private, direct messages to people that you follow and who are following you.

Once you’ve created a Twitter account, there are many ‘Twitter clients’ you can use to manage your Twitter communications whether via a browser, your iPhone, a blackberry or your laptop.

The beauty of Twitter is that it’s brief, almost instantaneous and global.  It is faster than the news networks meaning – increasingly – that it’s the place for breaking news.  And it’s currently free.

On the plus side, Twitter is the fastest global communication tool currently out there with all the power and searchability of the internet built in.  It’s what social media is really all about.  It’s so good that it will kill Facebook off within a couple of years.  Use it to offer people valuable information and links and you’ll go far.  Use it to feed your overblown ego, on the other hand, and you’ll find yourself on a fast-track to damaging your reputation in no time.

Do’s:

  • Do give away useful information (via links or by ‘re-tweeting’ things other people have given away)
  • Do ‘big up’ other people in your network and get introductions going
  • Do be a real person (not a cool nickname and avatar)
  • Search for people talking about the things you care about and follow them

Don’ts:

  • Don’t follow people just to build up your numbers
  • Don’t try to use Twitter to get rich quick
  • Don’t be indiscreet (personally or professionally)
  • Don’t post 100 tweets a day, it’s really boring
Filed Under: how to, online networking

Make your blog work with the iPhone

June 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

WPTouch plugin makes your blog readable by iPhone

If you’re a blogger, you might like WPTouch, the plugin for WordPress that once activated, outputs a version of your blog in a format designed for iPhone users.

It’s brilliant! But how come I didn’t know about it before?

Well, I can think of st least two reasons, depressingly common in online media. First of all, there’s the dire and counter-intuitive interface of the WordPress ‘Extend’ plugin repository. Try finding something there to solve a problem you might have. No chance unless you already know the name of the thing you need to solve the problem…in which case, you wouldn’t be bloody well looking for it, would you?

Then there’s a peculiar tendency of developers to give their plugins names that give no hint of what they might do in case they might help you solve your problem without sufficient frustration and suffering. I mean, ‘WPTouch’? Why not ‘ConvertWPtoiPhone’ for God’s sake?

If a friend hadn’t told me about it, I doubt if I would have found it at all. Mad – particularly since it opens your blog up to the entire world of iPhone users, especially via Twitter.

Its worth remembering that this mobile internet stuff is really still in its infancy. It’s taken me over 30 frustrating minutes to write this on my iPhone and I haven’t got the energy to try to work out how to copy and paste a link URL, but miracle of miracles, I’m doing it on train travelling at 125mph.

Mustn’t grumble, eh? :-)

Filed Under: blogging technique, how to, iPhone Tagged With: , ,

Idiot’s guide to WordPress 2.7

April 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Thanks to Dave Coveney at Spectacula for this free idiot’s guide to WP 2.7

In my experience, open source software can suffer from a lack of sensible documentation.  Not surprising.  Would you want to spend day after day writing a big fat manual no-one’s going to pay you for?  Not bleedin’ likely.

Which makes Dave Coveney’s ‘WordPress 2.7 User Guide’ something of a find.

It’s worth downloading this if you’re starting out using WordPress – Dave’s tips will save you some headaches and a bit of time.

Those of us who have found out some of that stuff the hard way – we salute you!

Filed Under: blogging technique, how to Tagged With: , , , ,

How to get extra traffic to your blog / site

February 14, 2009 By 1 Comment

Responding to what’s going on with the right titles is key to driving extra traffic to your site

Would you like hundreds or thousands of extra visitors to your site? It’s not that hard to do. Here’s how:

1) Set up a blog. Either add one as part of your existing site or create your site AS a blog (we did).

2) Keep your eye on what’s going on in the world so you know what people are searching for in Google. Google Trends will tell you the top 100 US searches. Watching TV will give you other clues. Breaking news will create waves of search traffic.

3) Write posts about the things people are searching for – with the keywords upfront in the titles. Make sure you re-iterate those keyphrases / words in a header at the start of your post.

Here’s a real world example.

Late December, someone sent me an invite to a free music streaming service called Spotify. I signed up, downloaded the player and dived into enjoying the music. It was clear that Spotify were marketing this service via ‘invites’. Each new sign-up got 5 or so invites to share with friends.

[ding!] Opportunity [ding!] It was obvious that invitations were limited but as soon as people heard about Spotify, they would be searching Google for invitations.

So I posted here to ‘harness’ that traffic.

To arrive at the keywords/phrases I asked myself what people would be searching for. “How do I get a Spotify invitation?” was my choice of phrase. So that was my title. I followed that with a header: “How do you get a Spotify ‘free account’ invitation?”

The result? Top of Google for that search question. So lots of visitors – including Spotify who gave me loads of invites to give away on their behalf. Benefit to them? I did their marketing for them.

Benefit to me? 2000+ extra music-loving visitors a week.

So that’s the principle. It’s mechanically quite easy. There’s nothing magical about this site or the posts I make. Now you can see that the mysterious – and dreaded – ‘search engine optimisation’ (SEO) simply means putting the right keywords in your post title.

If you’ve got a blog, go away and play. If you haven’t, get one started and play. Spend a few weeks just hooking into Google traffic to see how easy it is.

The next thing we’ll look at is how to use the same technique to get extra traffic from your target market to your site.

Filed Under: Benefits of blogging, blogging technique, how to, marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Ways to create confidence in prospects online

December 17, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Ways to create confidence in prospects online – #1: Have a website and make it good.

This sounds obvious but there are still many people doing business who don’t have a website. There are some who don’t think that their prospects come from web searches, so why would they need one?

The reason is that whether they come from Google or not, prospects will still use Google to research you and your company. That means they will either find your website or they won’t.

If you DO have a website, it had better be good – and confidence inspiring because it will form the basis of their first impression of you (more about that later). If you DON’T have a website, that fact alone will also form the basis of their first impression. That impression will be that you’re either too scared, arrogant or poor to invest in a website.

Unless ‘not having anything to do with computers and the internet’ is clearly part of your USP then NOT having a website in this day and age is going to go against you.

So get one – but keep the following tips in mind:

  • DO NOT fall into the trap of ‘doing it yourself’ to save money. Get a professional web designer to do it!
  • Learn whatever it is you need to know to be able to make good decisions about hiring the right web designer (no matter how much it scares or confuses you)
  • Plan out exactly what you need your site to do for your business and why – with someone who ISN’T your web designer first
  • Take that brief to your web designer

And most of all, make sure you have enough control of your content and understanding about how to maintain your site so you don’t have to run to your designer every five minutes to make changes. People who end up over-dependent on their web designer after their site has gone live usually end up with bad feelings both ways.

A good designer will create a site that will address your basic business aims while empowering YOU to keep it going on a daily basis – and you’ll both be clear and happy about the contract between you going forward.

Filed Under: how to Tagged With: , ,

How to complain about paypal in the UK

November 26, 2008 By

If you’ve found it impossible to complain about Paypal, you’re not alone

Have you had your account frozen by Paypal who refuse to release your funds no matter how much of the requested information you supply them?

Have you had a scam pulled on you and found that not only has Paypal sided with the scammer, but they’ve frozen your account or closed you down altogether?

Are you going insane just trying to get a real human being to answer your calls? One who doesn’t treat you like an international criminal when they finally deal with you?

To most people, it seems as though Paypal is unregulated. It appears to be able to do anything it likes and there’s nothing the individual can do about it. Back in 2009 I tried to find out who regulated Paypal in the UK and didn’t get very far. The FSA said that it did regulate Paypal and the Financial Ombudsman Service said that they would listen to complaints about Paypal but nothing seemed to happen and the problems just got worse.  A couple of years ago, the FSA dropped out of the picture and Luxemburg regulator CSSF took over.

I chose the title of this post carefully “How to complain about Paypal in the UK” because I knew full well that this information wasn’t easy to find. Paypal certainly weren’t telling anyone who regulated them. My original post started getting lots of traffic and plenty of comments.

The stories that you’ve left here are unbelievable. Unbelievable that a business can operate this way and get away with it. Read them and get a sense of how angry people are at this rogue business.

Until recently, this was just a tale of frustration and disgust. But that looks like it might be about to change.

Take PayPal to the County Court and win!!

Thanks to contributor Duncan who alerted us to this September 2011 story from The Independent about a UK woman taking PayPal to the County Court and winning. The judge ruled that it was unlawful for PayPal to continue to hold her account funds after she provided the required evidence. 

I’m going to try to get in touch with this lady, so more details (hopefully) to follow.

Register your frustration where it will make a difference – Facebook

Got a problem with PayPal freezing your account? Join the Facebook group now! It’s brand new but it will quickly become the place to turn up the pressure on Paypal. Instead of dozens of websites accumulating angry Paypal customers, let’s bring it all together in one place.

And while you’re at it, please consider signing this online petition.

 Well worth a try:

Recent posters report direct intervention by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) to resolve their ‘frozen account’ problems.

And if all else fails:

Lastly, you can try CSSF, the body that regulates Paypal in Luxembourg.

Filed Under: how to Tagged With: , , , ,
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