Just a quick signpost to the latest website that I’ve produced. I hope you find it interesting as an insight into the kind of web-strategy that small and medium-sized businesses use today. Enigma Creative Design had a website that used Adobe Flash – it was very difficult for them to combine the high visual impact [...]
Posts under ‘Web strategy’
It’s easy to run an ‘open research department’
I thought I’d write a post pulling together some advice I’ve been giving to a few of my clients recently on how a good research department can be built within a small organisation that doesn’t really have the resources to manage one under normal circumstanes. Firstly, if you’ve got information and data, making it widely [...]
Viral fraternalism: Why trades unions have the most to gain from social media tools
Even after Googling for ten minutes or so, I was unable to work out whether it was Groucho Marx or George Burns who said, “The secret of acting is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” That may be true for actors, but one of the hardest lessons that brands, politicians and marketers [...]
RSS + lateral thinking
If there is one bit of technology that I would urge every non-techie to get their head around, it’s RSS – ‘really simple syndication.’ This is a facility that most modern websites have added to them allowing visitors to take bits of content and use them in a variety of ways. The most obvious use [...]
MP’s websites should save MP’s time – and make their constituents happier’
In heavily contested constituencies, most sitting MPs have a good website. That’s part of the reason that many of them were returned in 2010. But how many MP’s websites help them to step up the quality of their work as an elected representative? Speaking to MP’s researchers (having shared an office with an MP’s team [...]
Bootstrapping skills – mailmerge
This is a short post about a subject that someone in your office needs to know about. A basic understanding of how mailmerge works, along with a bit of lateral thinking can help you get your information out very effectively – and save you loads of work. It’s as useful a bit of knowledge as [...]
Leadership blogging tips 1: Target your audience
Short. Classy. Targeted. The busy influential people that you most want to have a conversation with are not likely to be impressed by ‘digital incontinence.’ Peter Jay was upbraided by a sub-editor at The Times for writing his column too densely. He replied: ‘I am writing for three people in England, and you are not one of [...]
Potent Facebook
You may have seen this already, but it’s worth another showing. Using Twitter may offer some instant gratification, but it’s worth remembering just how potent Facebook is as a medium. The Conservative Party’s digital manager Samuel Coates recently tweeted that a Tory microsite got something in the order of ten times as many referrals from [...]
New series: Leadership blogging – a primer
I’m going to be publishing a series of practical advice posts here on ‘leadership blogging’ -how social media can help influential people increase their influence – and (perhaps more importantly) be more influenced by others in useful directions. These posts won’t really tell you what to say if you decide to start using blogging tools [...]
Like building a block of flats without doorhandles
In my scarce spare-time, I’ve started work on a non-commercial ‘hyperlocal’ website in my neighbourhood. It has brought home to me just how near-yet-far local social networking is from achieving what it could do. It’s in it’s early stages, but go and have a look at Finchlinks and tell me what you think? The whole [...]
