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Businesses could learn a lot from the Irish Government’s Communications Strategy.

 Business Advice, Communications, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Nov 222010
 

Over the last two years the Irish Government has given us a very good demonstration of How NOT to Communicate Effectively.

  • Mushroom Management. If you feed people a load of crap and keep them in the dark then they will produce the goods. As the Irish Government have found out, if you give people very little information and when you do talk to them you are economical with the truth, then eventually you will be found out and you will be in a much worse situation than if you were straight with them in the first place.
  • Set realistic expectation levels. In general the expectation levels of our customers are set by us. So don’t tell them it will take two weeks when you know in your heart it will take at least four. You are much better to be realistic and conservative with your estimates and if it you exceed those expectations then you will get the credit but you have allowed for unforeseen eventualities.
  • Deal with any issues up front. During any project there will be problems and anyone who says otherwise does not live in the real world. When issues arise deal with them straight away and be realistic about their impact. People are realistic and know that things don’t always go to plan. If you keep them informed and show you have a clear plan to sort out the problems, they will generally give you the space and time to sort it out even if it takes a while.
  • Don’t keep making the same mistakes. In the words of Oscar Wilde ” To lose one parent is unfortunate, to lose two sounds like carelessness. “. Everyone makes mistakes and people will forgive you once for making a mistake, but they will expect you to fix the situation and put measures in place so that the same mistake is not made again.

The result of not following these simple rules can be clearly seen in the situation the Irish Government find themselves today.

What to do with all those Business Cards you collect.

 Business Advice, Smartphone, Uncategorized  1 Response »
Oct 292010
 

Like everybody else in these tough times I have been doing a lot more business networking and with all that networking / business shows comes business cards. Lots of Business Cards!

Like everybody else I had a huge pile of Business Cards sitting on my desk waiting for me to input them into Google Contacts. After entering about five card details I got completely browned off and started looking for a better way.

That’s when I came across CamCard for Android. CamCard is a Business Card Reader that is available for all the main smartphones and it works brilliantly.

Just take a photo of a business card and the app will use OCR to read the card details and populate the standard contact fields and allow you to save them to your phone or Google Contacts. Gets it right 90% of the time and saves you loads of time.

Don’t be stuck for words.

 Business Advice, Marketing, Newsletter, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Oct 222010
 

Often when I’m talking to customers, particularly in these tough times, they say they would like to start an Email Newsletter, Ezine or even a blog to help promote their business but are terrified of having to write the content and don’t know where to start.

They also say that they don’t want their newsletters to appear unprofessional or unfocused like some of the Ezines they see coming into their inboxes.

Well you’re not alone. When I need some help in this area I work with people like Deirdre O’Flynn in Spellcheck Editorial Services.  Deirdre can point you in the right direction and turn your raw ideas, or unfocused ramblings in my case, into clear readable content that concentrates on getting your key messages across to your customers.

So whether you just need help getting started with your first brochure or need to keep your customers updated with a quarterly business newsletter, a little external input goes a long way.

Wexford Social Media Mashup at Wexford Fringe Festival

 Social Networking, Uncategorized, Wexford  No Responses »
Oct 202010
 

I took some time out yesterday afternoon to attend the Social Media Mash Up at part of the Wexford Fringe Festival. Thanks go to Roisin Markham for making this event happen.

This was the first of these type of events that I had attended so I didn’t know what to expect. There were people there coming from a business perspective, from an artistic point of view and people who just had a personal interest.

Some very interesting and lively conversations about how people use social media for personal use, business use or both. If they use it for both what are the pros and cons of keeping business and personal identities separate.

What tools do people use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blog?  And how do you use these tools. Was very refreshing to discover that most people have the same issues and fears about social media.

Will definitely attend the next event of this type in Wexford and would highly recommend it to anybody who uses social media.

Retail Security in 2010 Free Workshop

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Oct 042010
 

Sovereign Security are holding a Free Security Workshop, in Whites Hotel on Wednesday 06th October from 6pm to 7.30pm. The workshop will examine the elements of securing business and profit.

Please feel free to attend or inform your networks as they will get free benefit on how to secure and make more profit from their business in todays tough economic environment.

In today’s difficult economy, it may be tempting to cut expenditure on security. However, our cash-strapped economy can also lead to an increase in internal theft, shoplifting and other security breaches. Yet, simple security measures can help to secure your business against crime from inside and outside your business.

In this FREE seminar, we will examine:

  • How to deal with shoplifters
  • How to prevent losses incurred by employees
  • How to move cash securely
 Posted by at 17:23

Which Browser, Firefox or Chrome?

 Browser, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Sep 172010
 

Ok, I spent the last week using Google Chrome as my default browser to see if it was any better than Firefox and the results are in.  Before I reveal which browser I have decided to go with I’ll give you my experience of installing and using Chrome.

  1. Downloading and installing Chrome was very easy. When I installed Chrome, it recognised that Firefox was my default browser and asked me did I want to import my settings. When I said yes it imported all my Bookmarks and saved passwords, which meant I was up and running straight away.
  2. The main reason I wanted to try Chrome was that I had heard that it was quicker and it was. But it was only marginally quicker  and for most pages there was no real difference.
  3. I did like the Chrome interface. It is very clean, simple to use and has some nice features like opening multiple pages on startup.
  4. While there are not the same number of extensions available for Chrome, most of the useful ones are.

Having used Chrome for a week, yesterday I switched back to Firefox to compare again. The first thing Firefox did was ask me to upgrade to the latest version which was released during the last week (3.6.10).

When I switched back I could not perceive any change in speed (might be the upgrade to 3.6.10). Also with a quick search I was able to get Firefox to open multiple pages on startup.

At the end of the day I have decided to stay with Firefox for several reasons;

  1. For everyday use there is no perceivable speed difference.
  2. The availability of extensions and a strong Open-Source development community is a big plus.
  3. In some ways I view Google the same as I view Microsoft. I don’t think it’s a good idea for Microsoft to dominate the Operating System market and the Applications market. It stifles innovation and allows for abuse of a dominant market position. In the same way I don’t think it would be good for Google to dominate the Internet Applications market and the browser market. Don’t get me wrong I am a big fan and user of Gmail, Google Apps and Android.
  4. As a final note I have seen the latest Firefox 4 Beta and it appears to  have a similar clean, user friendly interface. So there is a clear path for the future.

Here is another useful article which addresses the same issue.

Finally, just to throw the cat among the pigeons, Microsoft have just released Internet Explorer 9 Beta. So that’s another one I’ll have to check out.

Vodafone Ireland DO NOT provide a Business Class DSL (Fixed Line) Broadband Service.

 Broadband, Uncategorized, Vodafone Ireland  No Responses »
Jul 152010
 

For those of you unfortunate enough to have been migrated from BT Ireland to Vodafone Ireland’s Fixed Line broadband you already know how bad the service is. For those of you considering moving to Vodafone here are some things you should consider.

  • During the three years I was with BT Ireland I only had one major problem and that turned out to be an eircom problem when they were upgrading the fibre link to my local exchange.
  • When I was first moved to Vodafone, I could not log on to their network. It took several phone calls and several days to fully resolve.
  • I have a range of Fixed IP Addresses and when they were first migrated there were major problems accessing Irish sites like Revenue Online, AIB Banking Online, AER Lingus, etc. It took about fifteen phone calls and over a week to resolve the issue.
  • On one occasion they de-allocated my Fixed IP Addresses and my servers were no longer accessible from the Internet.
  • On numerous occasions the connection has gone down for several hours without explanation and because they have denied there was a problem, I have had to spend hours double checking my configurations only to discover that it was a Vodafone problem after all.
  • Since moving to Vodafone my Upload and Download Speeds have been reduced by approx 30%.
  • The Vodafone connection cannot sustain a Skype call even during the morning when there is no congestion on the network.

Now before anybody comes back to me and says it might be my phone line, let me point out the following;

  • This all worked fine when I was with BT.
  • I am approx 100m from the exchange (Attenuation Down 13db, Attenuation Up 7db)
  • For legacy reasons I have another DSL connection with another provider to the same exchange, which works fine and has done during all these Vodafone problems.

I do have to say that throughout these problems I have found the Vodafone Staff to be very helpful, but having nice people working for you does not make up for a network that is simply not up to the job.

Handwritten Sales letter- FAIL

 Business Advice, GoreyBiz, Online Directory, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jun 022010
 

I know that in these tough times we all need to do everything possible to promote our businesses, but it is critical that any promotional activities are honest and are NOT misleading.

Recently I received a “supposedly handwritten sales letter” from a local online business directory. At first I thought, this guy has very neat handwriting, but then I looked closer and realised by comparing the same word on two diferent pages over a lamp, that it was just a downloaded font. I suppose the fact that he didn’t even bother to personalise the letter should have been a hint.

Handwritted Letter - NOT

To see the actual letter click on the image. Here is the first paragraph;

I just got this very impulsive idea… I had to jump on it and print this handwritten note before i had a chance to get it typed and think it all out clearly, So …Before I change my mind – I want to make you this “UNBELIEVABLE OFFER”

For me, if they are not being honest about handwriting a letter, then what else are they not being honest about? As to their service, check out this post about Local Online Business Directories.

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