The Bamboo Tree – Clare’s choice of reading

Clare reading Donal O’Leary’s ‘The Bamboo Tree’ at Elizabeth Finn Care’s Christmas concert this week

Imagine reading in front of 500 people. Scary.

Imagine doing it immediately after James Fox, Kate Adie, David Astor and Joanna Lumley.

That’s what Clare did this week at the Elizabeth Finn Care Christmas Concert in London. I think I was more nervous than her.

As it happens, she was great and the piece she read – The Bamboo Tree – by Donal O’Leary was beautiful; a real breath of fresh air into the traditional Christmas stories.

Afterwards, she met the celebs and was introduced to HRH The Duchess of Gloucester. The choir and the soloists were sublime – the true sound of Christmas as we remember it.

Wacky New Website for Entrepreneurs and Business Startups

EnterpriseCafe.tv is now open, serving help and advice for would-be entrepreneurs and business startups

Designed by ‘mu:kaumedia (using the same Brian Gardner template as this site), Iain Scott’s new entrepreneur website launches just at the moment when recession starts to bite in the South West UK.  The site,  www.enterprisecafe.tv, features his off-the-wall video podcast, a regular blog plus his kilted Enterprise Agony Uncle advice line.

With more job losses in Cornwall announced last night, more and more people are going to be looking at the option of setting up their own business as an alternative to job-hunting in a squeezed economic climate. Google search volumes are starting to climb for phrases that include terms like ‘redundancy’ and ‘unemployment’.

The site is in its infancy but it’s open for business and looking to help people think inventively, creatively and resourcefully about starting out in business – and develop the confidence to do it.

CX3650 black ink cartridges – free to a good home

We’ve got 5 surplus black ink cartridges for Epson CX3650 / 3600 series going free to a good home

It’s just wrong to throw these away so if your business can use them, please get in touch and let us know and we’ll send them to you.

Leave your contact details here.

Business Startup podcast: EnterpriseCafe.tv launches today

New video podcast for business startups kicks off with ‘Entrepreneur’s A to Z’

Today sees the launch of Iain Scott’s ‘EnterpriseCafe.tv’ – a site dedicated to ‘feeding your enterprising soul’.

Among the weekly video offerings is Iain’s ‘Entrepreneur’s A to Z’ – a less than reverent look at the things you need to know when starting out in business.

Other video offerings include ‘Bucket or Bookcase’, ‘Espresso Shots’ and the one and only ‘Enterprise Agony Uncle’.

You’re welcome to contribute to EnterpriseCafe.tv by phone, email, mp3, YouTube, Viddler. You can even leave a voicemail for Uncle Iain and star in a future show!

Animated Twitter Avatar – first sighting

Mobatalk’s Michael Bailey nips in with a neat animated Twitter avatar.

Is this a first? I’d like to know. Seems that he’s created a bit of a frisson today with his animated ‘coffee drinking’ avatar.

Click to see the amazing moving avatar here! Click the picture (right) to watch Michael’s top Twitter animated avatar insider tips (worth $697)!

I’m so not-clued-up with Twitter that I don’t exactly know how to follow the conversations, but seems there has been some grumbling about Michael’s move.

Err… why exactly?

Online marketing podcast – The Mu Show

Be part of our new online marketing podcast – The Mu Show

Join us every two weeks as we bring our unique blend of serious silliness and common-sense talk to the world of online marketing, communication and reputation management.

Take part – email to sam [at] mukaumedia.co.uk or easier still, comment on our 24/7 voicemail line 01752 548771.

Got a simple, easy-to-understand marketing tip you want to share?  Call the voicemail line, share your tip and plug your business too.

Know a big company that would benefit from a dose of social media ‘dripping tap’ treatment?  The Mu Show’s the place to do it.  Just call 01752 548771 and tell us who and why.

Check out the show here - and if you’ve got ideas what you’d like to hear, let us know.

Internet marketing / online marketing in Devon – the Mu tip

Guy DubWhere would I go for cutting edge internet marketing in Devon?

To the guy who’s #1 and #3 in the natural search engine results – Guy Dub of dubonlinemarketing.co.uk.

He’s smart, ethical and he actually lives in Exeter. And despite a logo that looks like a 1970s cigarette brand, he’s definitely worth talking to if you want to know how to boost your online traffic.

Listen to Guy talking about Google Trends in The Mu Show podcast – and expect more from him here soon.

Fish spillage – I claim this term, Googly-speaking

“Fish spillage” – It’s an in-joke, please humour me

fish spillageA couple of years ago there was a headline outside a Plymouth newsagents that read “Extra: Fish Spillage”.

Made me smile. A great combination of words.

Imagine how pleasantly surprised I was to find another fish spillage story from China on BBC news this morning.

Not such good news for the spilled fish, though, watching them flapping helplessly across the road in their death throes.

Fish spillage. Fish spillage. Fish spillage. I like the sound of that.

Video meets Twitter – Mobatalk

Mobatalk logoMobatalk is a quick and easy way to video blog using Twitter

Mobatalk developer Michael Bailey was the man behind ‘MyChingo’ – a neat little audio comment / message recorder. I remember trying that out last year and being impressed with the quality of the audio it recorded.

‘MyChingo’ used whatever microphone you had on-board your Mac or PC (webcam, plugin, built-in) to record and store audio messages on the MyChingo server. What was especially nice was the widget you could put on your blog to let your visitors leave you messages.

What went wrong? I’m not sure – we didn’t really ever get into using it properly possibly because as fast as we’d found it, Michael put a price tag on it.

Now, there’s Mobatalk. I gave it a quick go and was impressed by how easy it was to record a video clip and get it out as a tweet. And I was also impressed with the quality of the video, too. Go there and click the ‘alpha testing underway’ link and try it out. I had a problem with the Java (the record button didn’t show up in Firefox on Mac) but I switched to Safari and it worked fine there.

Mobatalk is one of those little applications that has great potential – and the link up with Twitter makes good sense. All I can say is that I hope Michael keeps it free. ;-)

Business start up video podcast – Iain Scott’s Enterprise Cafe

A quick behind-the-scenes audio peek at ‘the making of Iain Scott’s ‘Agony Uncle’ video blog for his new business startup site – ‘Iain Scott’s Enterprise Cafe‘.

Look out for his 3 times weekly video podcast- now serving!

And be sure to look out for my Darth Vader impression (even I haven’t seen it yet!)