What will the year 2009 bring? Good news?

Tell *Auntie to shut up!

Diane Morrison, based upon Neilsen data, suggests that UK mobile internet usage is growing at 8 times the wired usage rate, rising from 5.8 million to 7.3 million.

The EMarketeer is projecting steady year on year internet usage growth all the way up to 2012.

According to the Office for National Statistics internet sales rose by 30% in 2007, the first part of 2008 showed even better figures.

After considering all of the above, are we still in the deflation camp? What other wisdoms can we garner from Google searches?

• Ten upsides for CIOs to consider. I like the off shoring comment. Because of deflation, you are actually better off keeping the work here! Did we not all worry that the UK was going to be turned into one giant theme park for Chindian visitors?
• Feedback 3.0. I love this one. You can now nail someone at a party who is blathering on about web II. Yes, bring this one on. About time the likes of DABS and Ryan air got a feel for what people think f them.
• Become an Information Entrepreneur, Mr Hillel Porath says that this will be “hot”.
• SaaS is the way forward. Even Larry Ellison of Oracle fame apparently thinks so.
• Virtualization is real. The data protection market is going to grow.
• What smart companies must do? The executive summary is this: Work hard on your website.
• Business tips for 2009
• Web marketing tips, not a 2009 thing, but well worth the read.

In my view there are many positive ideas here. Instead of letting the Beeb fill our heads with terminal decline, we can actually find somethings that are moving ahead.

The messages that I am picking up are all about change, focus, efficiencies, innovation and taking action. If a herd of bulls are stampeding towards you, what are you going to do? It is human nature to get an adrenaline rush and to take action. The broadcasts from the media would have us believe that we are all like lemmings and that we should all just follow each other into the depths of an uncomfortable place.

Now is the time for action, you can start by turning down *Auntie’s volume. 

*”Auntie” is an affectionate name for the BBC

Here’s to a great 2009

Paul Imre

P.S. I do like the BBC. But in my view some of journalists do enjoy the misery a bit too much. (eg. Mr Robert Peston)

Seasons Greetings

Ho, ho, ho and all that Santa Stuff!

A BIG THANK YOU  to our clients, partners, staff, suppliers and all other interested parties for making 2008 a great year for IMRE LTD.

We wish you _all_ health, wealth and happiness for 2009!

For those of you with too much time on your hands during the festivities…. you may wish to have a go at this flash game. BUT first make you that you have upgraded your browser with the latest security patch from Microsoft

http://www.eyegas.com/attackofthesprouts/

 

My mother could have planned better than Napoleon!

This was a quote presented by the Business Boffins to a small business planning session sponsored by Business Link. The event was great, well attended, well presented and gave us lots to think about. But after the event, writing the actual business plan was, shall we say, a challenge.

Anyway, the quote is interesting and should ring true for all small businesses. Napoleon took a great Army to Russia, in fact, so did Hitler and both came unstuck by the very cold winter, normal for that part of the world. Your own mother would have looked at the battle plan and would have said. “Where are the gloves and winter coats?” The main message here is very clear - you don’t need to be a genius. Some common sense and a pragmatic approach could have saved many lives.

Round one of business planning left us with a tome to write and a feeling that business plans were for other people and not us. Surely there must be a better way?

Enter Paul Norman of Gibside Associates, who is a sailor that likes to keep things simple. In fact sailing is the perfect analogy for small business planning. You have a boat, a crew, and a destination. Before you set off, you need to plan and it helps to have charts, tide information, weather forecasts and a compass. All very simple things and all are very obvious.

We spent a day with Paul and we now have a very simple methodology that will help us to map out what we do next. I am not about to reveal his materials in this post……. but will say this. The business planning stuff presented to us came from the real world and not from academia. Gibside Associates use this stuff in their own businesses.

I highly recommend Paul Norman as he is anchored in the real world; he has a few battle scars, is very direct and can clearly communicate. If he were to go up a creek, I am sure that he would have a spare paddle!!

“Where will your marketing take you?” - asks Isocube.co.uk

It has been a real pleasure working with Marcus Potts, but boy was it damn hard. We got there in the end, with lots of ideas, real partnership in terms of working through the issues and the good old Expression Engine.

As Marcus says, “where will your marketing take you?” What an interesting question. Do we ever think about this?  Often we state what we would like or need:

• I want a website
• I need a website
• I need a logo
• I want a logo

Really? So why? How will any of this help my business?

To make progress we might tighten up our requirements:

• I need brand consistency (so a logo on my website, brochures and business cards)
• I need to grow my sales (ah, use the web as a means of communicating your offer and to reach more people perhaps?)

Ok cool, now we are getting somewhere and this leads us to the big question. I as the potential client want a website, but this must be formulated into brand consistency and wanting to grow sales.  By now we should be beginning to see a huge gap. Mr business man is running around putting out fires, delivering to clients, fighting cash flow, paying Gordon, and at some point he or she must take time out to think and to make that mental leap from want or need to having a vision for the framework that is needed to solve the real problem.

Cool, we got there in the end eh? But, now image that you are Isocube. How do you attract people and take them on a journey from apparent basic needs to an understanding of what should actually be done?

Well, for a start, you need to communicate at all levels:

• I can give you a logo
• I can give you a website
• I can look at your branding
• I can help you with telesales / customer support / CRM etc etc
• Infact, I can help you with almost anything!

When we sat with Isocube and worked thorugh everything that they could deliver to clients we actually ended up with an enormous list of possibilities. (We could have easily defined 70 or 80 services and products that could be sold and delivered either individually or in groups of related items.)

How do you build a website for that? Now factor in the cross relationships and you end up with a massive matrix. Here are some examples:

• Growing sales could mean: 
  • marketing messages
  • testimonials
  • logo design
  • website
  • data
  • telemarketing
  • preventing loss of clients through better service
• A website could involve:
  • logo design
  • marketing massages
  • SEO
  • hosting
  • testimonials

Rome was not built in a day and you certainly can’t change all of your marketing collateral and customer support procedures overnight. BUT Isocube does need to be able to explain to a potential client that there are dependencies and that the client will need to plot a course. In fact a map is needed. EUREKA!

The map concept allows us to come up with a solution.

• Remember that we asked the question “Where is your marketing taking you?”
• We have lots of services
• We have lots of dependencies
• We need a map
• We need to plot a course
• We need to know where we are starting
• We need to know where we are going

The image below perfectly frames all of the possibilities and is infinitely adaptable.

The map can be used to group relevant products into an instantly understandable work shedule. We know where we are and we know what is going to come next. Infact we can hop from on line to another as certain stations allow it. For more details visit the Isocube website.

Now that we have revealed the simple conceptual solution to explaining the Isocube offering, how did we actually implement this as a website? In a word, with the Expression Engine and lots of elbow grease!

Essentially each product is like a datasheet which collects standard “bits” of information, for example:

• Product name
• Short description
• Categories
• Relationships with other products
• Casestudies

These are then put into a database for later display within web pages. The magic is in the details and this is where the Expression Engine comes to the fore via the provision of an easily manipulated framework. Obviously there is a lot more going on behind the scenes, but the essentials are that thought must given to the data design, grey boxing and page flow.

If you can dream it, well then the Expression Engine can be used to accomplish it!

For more details contact us or get in touch with Marcus Potts at Isocube.

Please note that IMRE does not take credit for the Map idea. All credit for this belongs to Isocube, we at Imre provided the “glue” and mechanics to turn the vision into a website.

Education, Education, Education ( MCL2 )

Who said education, education and education?
Well he has moved on, having not sorted out the Uk Education system he decided to meddle in the Israeli-Arab situation and buy a few houses along the way….. thanks Tony

So, forget the Gov and the people with the letters “PM”or “MP” after their names as they are barking up the wrong tree.

If you are into Web, SEO, Social Media, blogs, gaming and all that that other stuff in the soup or if you want to learn more or if you want to network, well  then there is only one thing you need to do.

Get down to the latest Social Media Mafia event on December 13th - it is FREE. ( MCL2)
http://mediacamplondon.pbwiki.com/register

We will be there. If you are not convinced trawl through facebook, flickr and search on Chris Hambly and read our previous posts.

Now this will be Education, Education and Education. (and Fun! Make sure you meet Jo!)