What will 2010 bring?

First things first, goodbye 2009, we are not going to miss you. What a year it has been. 2009 was difficult, challenging, testing and requiring one to run faster and faster just to stand still. Good, decent, upstanding and respectable clients went bust and some of the methods used by receivers are truly shocking, even the Times commented on this. All good for experience I suppose.

Last year as I looked forward to 2009 my Google searches did not reveal much to tickle my fancy. This year however there is plenty to digest. As a first observation more people seem to be looking forward, which I fully understand, more are taking guesses and are making interesting predictions.

The Scotsman even compares the previous year’s predictions. Nice. http://bit.ly/8GQ9zo

These are my favourites:

• Fox news: http://bit.ly/797XKz
• Regular geek: http://bit.ly/78W9Op
• Little box of ideas: http://bit.ly/6oYfNO

At Imre we probably need to pay more attention to these predictions.
Marketing Vox:  http://bit.ly/4N7TEo

Then there are all of these:

• http://bit.ly/76pz7R – Good to know where gold and energy prices are headed.
• http://bit.ly/84IPiR – I am always interested in leadership. Those that have vision and can lead their troops into battle are worth their weight in gold. But this Murdoch thing seems foolhardy or is it just big balls?
• http://bit.ly/4ZLZBJ – Looks like HR managers will be busy, a good thing.
• http://bit.ly/7NwljJ - Gobbledygook.
• http://bit.ly/5vya4M -Fraud will be up, up, up and up. Now that is a one way bet.
• http://bit.ly/8hUeNy – Written in 1997 and predicting the 2010 political landscape.
• http://bit.ly/53w4yN Trendwatching.com. I remember them from last year. These people are very insightful and really do a good job. Urbany? Fluxury? All good to test your spell checker.
• http://bit.ly/5jv1M9 – Value is the new black.
• http://bit.ly/4J7WvZ – The future of social change on the web.
• http://bit.ly/6puGXl – 8 news media trends for 2010
• http://bit.ly/79LwzU – An actual blip in the Netcraft hosts curve. Then totally amazed to read about the growth of “nginx” :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nginx All new to me! (Did I work in hosting?)

So where does that leave us with the thinking for 2010?

Value, radical thinking, relentless change, social media maturity where we can expect the likes of toobla.com to tie up the lose ends to make things more workable. Local seems to come up again and again.

And for our clients?

Most are using smart phones, those that are not, really need to make the jump. Devices such as iPhones will bring home how local services can work, and also where there are a few spare minutes, dipping into social media is entirely possible. Most clients say that they do not have time for social media activities. I think 2010 will be the year that those  who are not taking part in the conversations will find themselves exposed.

Cmon 2010, help us forget 2009! And it is time for an African team to show that 2010 belongs to Africa.

Happy new year from the IMRE Team!!

Late update:
From the Beeb for UK Manufacturing. Good for 2010.

Amazing testimonial

What an amazing testimonial! The above image was taken from Linked-in and shows a bit of Jo’s Bio. See more on Jo and Rooi Ltd here. Plastered all over linked-in! Still can’t believe it.

The missing piece of info here is that Jo helped us launch into twitter _and_ passed on a good few people to track _and_ just helped me with some research to help an Imre client to make sense of Social Media. (When I say some research, I mean solid pointers and notes from experience of stuff to try and avoid.)

THANK YOU JO!

Where to start with Social Media?

To start with Social Media you need to dip a toe in somewhere. Then you need to listen. Here is a blog article that came to me via linked in.

• Marketing in an Economic Downturn – Social Media to the Rescue

All businesses understand the power of networking. Social Media enables networking at another level and the costs are low!

Twitter and productivity?

There is an old joke that talks about the creation of Europe. It goes something like this.

1. The French wanted a Europe to stop the Germans from constantly invading.
2. The Germans needed a Europe due to Panzers being out of fashion.
3. The Brits wanted to join Europe after being kicked out of all the colonies.
4. The Irish wanted to join because the  Brits must have known something!

As far as Social Media goes I am a bit like the Irish.  I have been watching the dudes from the Social Media Mafia as I think they must know something. If the Irish can join Europe, well then I can join Twitter.

BUT – my biggest worry about all of this stuff has been around productivity. So I asked that question on Twitter and this is what I got back:

loudmouthman @audio yes education and insight, when applied to process and motivation is excellent tool to do things well, rather than more. 28 minutes ago from web in reply to audio

So I held these beliefs that Social Media must have a huge cost. Loudmouthman put a spanner in this line of thought only after a few seconds of me having raised the issue.

If you have read Clive Woodward’s book on winning, you will know that rather than trying to raise performance by 100%, using one method, you are much better off improving 100 things by 1%. In terms of Social Media the maths may actually look more like this:

audio RT @i_paul @audio One person loses say 10% but a hundred people gain by one or two percent? The bar moves up for everyone. Thats cool 39 minutes ago from web

So time to be more like the Social Media Mafia peeps. Time to engage and take action.

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!!

To understand the current economic crisis – go dog walking!

Normally if you want to understand the state of the world economy you would read the papers and watch the telly….. But I found a better method, dog walking.

I was in Costa today with the Sunday Times and the latest copy of the Economist trying to understand if this was the end of the world as we know it.

Enter Alan King, the owner of Jack, the lab that crashed into me and sent me flying with the result of a knee injury that required me to use a pair of crutches for 3 months……

Let me tell you about Alan. At the moment he can see two things. In his day job he gets to visit the top UK manufacturers and comes home filled with gloom and doom about the state of the UK economy. In the evenings he is a “prosumer” creating and mixing music. For fun he created a website and uploaded some of his work…… Bang! Number one in the charts, loads of contacts massive demand for his music…… an amazing introduction to a whole new world.

If you ever get around to reading Wikinomics they will tell you all about the category six storm that we are about to be hit with. What? Say again – about to be hit ? No ! The current banking turmoil could be this category six storm. To get an idea of what a category six is, we must first understand that hurricane ratings stop at five! This is it folks, we are entering a period of consequences, to quote Churchill. Never will things be the same again.

Massive down turns, serious changes, collapses of banks, unemployment, a complete restructuring of the global economy… But also with incredible opportunities!

Now lets think of Alan again, should he ever lose his job, heaven forbid, he is actually sitting on a huge plan B. This plan B is all about the reach that is possible through social media, the internet and tribal interests. Build it – or rather create it – and they will come.

Forget the papers, the BBC and the traditional media. Go walk your dog and talk to the real economy. Be prepared for massive change and massive opportunities! Change happens and now is the time to be prepared.

More info on Alan and his rise and rise in the alternative charts:

• http://www.stillband.com
• http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=835066

коли под наем

Imre is a hit with D2K International

We are still creating the website, but here are the comments so far:

That is superb and it delivers the message we want to put across. Many thanks.
Harry Hodgson
CIO
D2UK Limited

This looks terrific! Thank you for your excellent work.
Tim Bovy
Chief Executive
Digital Document UK Ltd

We will reveal more later.

Follow up to “How hard can thinking be?”

Iain Chalmers of The Holst Group commented on our post and stated:

If you think that we are losing the economic battle to these countries now, just wait until they start to think better¦

This dialogue happened before I ran into an old teacher friend who pointed out a youtube video along similar lines.

Alternatively see the video clip here: Shift Happens

The news is great that at grass roots level teachers have woken up to this and are motivating our kids to wake up. BUT what about Gordon? Cameron? Education Education and Education? What is going on? We as small businesses are now dependant on the future capital of our youth. What are the schools churning out? and what are our leaders upto? Quoting the video clip: “China has more gifted and talented students than we have students.”

Someone needs to put creativity back into Education, Education Education!

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