Steve Felice will take up the reins in a couple of months. His remit is to lead the company in selling more packages of technology products and services to customers, including web hosting and cloud services.

Felice will look after all customer business segments, including public, large enterprise, small and medium enterprises and consumer.

Dell hopes that the new appointment will help it to develop and market its products to create a sales organisation that is “more customer-focused, more collaborative and better able to deliver innovative and practical solutions that meet customers’ needs.”

Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell, told one industry website: “These changes will enhance our sales and marketing efforts, bringing us even closer to our customers and increasing the speed, agility and responsiveness of every aspect of our business.”

“Steve has been a trusted colleague for more than 12 years and shares my passion to serve our customers. Under his leadership of Dell’s sales and marketing organization, I am excited about the many opportunities ahead of us.”

Doubtless the emphasis will be stronly on internet marketing.

According to a new study published by the Carbon Disclosure Project, companies could achieve considerable cost savings and carbon reductions by 2020 by migrating their IT systems to shared data networks.

The study found that many companies will not take too much convincing to make the move. Many of those surveyed are already planning a move to the cloud and plan to increase their adoption of cloud computing from 10% to nearly 70% of their information technology by the start of the next decade.

The Carbon Disclosure Project says that companies who do this could save millions of pounds, with that figure running into billions in the case of larger companies. This is because organisations that use cloud computing buy less hardware and use servers that are located elsewhere, which cuts down on running costs.

Some people argue that the cloud also reduces the amount of time that it takes for a company to start trading.

Paul Stemmler, from Citigroup, told one news website: “Carbon reduction is one driver, but not the primary driver. “The primary driver is time to market. Developers used to take 45 days to get new servers, but in the internal cloud infrastructure that we operate in our own private network, it takes just a couple of minutes.”

Each time I go, I get slightly more inspired to give a go to a campaign of my own to complete the film I started making in 2006, but continue to have one or two reservations about it…more for the effort required to do a good campaign than the lack of belief that it will work!

Yesterday morning was a Comms Breakfast talk hosted by Michelle Rodger the co-founder of a new Scotland-based, Crowdfunding platform Bloom.

Before we go on talking about that, let us start with the definition of each term because though they are often used interchangably they are  slightly different in definition and aim.

Wikipedia describes Crowdfunding as “the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations”.

Whereas Crowdsourcing is “the act of sourcing tasks traditionally performed by specific individuals to an group of people or community (crowd) through an open call.”

Crowdsourcing, (a term first coined just a few years back (in 2006) by Jeff Howe in a Wired Magazine piece called “The Rise of Crowdsourcing”) is more geared toward user generated solutions or content. Funding as it sounds deals more with the monetary aspect.

GO GO MAKE IT HAPPEN!

In Cannes @ MIPCOM, I had the chance to attend a small talk by CEO of what is arguably the second most well known Crowd Funding site – Indiegogo. Slava Rubin presented a lightning fast talk – starting with a great video of an example of what could be funded on Indiegogo (see video here Satarii) – which is practically anything (even IVF treatment or funerals!)

Ruben defined Crowd Funding as “a lot of people getting together who have a passion to make one idea happen”. (He ads that often you’re getting something in return, a “perk” or reward or something).

Slava says there are “four reasons anyone funds anything in life”:

1) …they care about the person, the cause or the campaign

2) …they want the perks – the products,  the service, the experience, the limited edition item, the ‘behind the scenes’,…

3)…they want to be part of a group, or something bigger than themselves

4) profit

The last one was not considered in this occasion, because it’s so hard to fund through the crowd anything for profit (“practically illegal” he says).

Slava Cites Factors in a Successful GoGo Campaign:

1) An Honest Pitch – be sure that yours is personal and engaging

2) A Video – Campaigns perform 122% better if they have a video on it. Note: not a trailer but a personal message (stating what’s in # 1)

3) The Right Deadline – Choose the time from 1-120 days. Choose a goal that’s fit for purpose, optimise for as short as possible while still being relevant and working. The average is 30-70 days.

4) Have Unique Perks – Make the perks unique, creative, low, high and medium. Make sure they’re not something someone can pick up too easily (if at all) elsewhere!

5) (like #1) Honest and Engaging copy in the campaign that is inline with your video and pitch. “This is who I am”…state your aim because, first and foremost, people want to know WHO they’re funding more than the film/project/product etc.

Slava’s Other Suggestions:

- be proactive – if you have four more people on your team, you’ll raise 70% more money then if you try to go it alone.

- do many updates, more than thirteen constitutes 65% more money raised than if you do five or less updates

- your number one tool for promotion is email, then Facbeook, then Twitter. Effectively “email destroys FaceBook and Facebook destroys Twitter” in terms of engagement and calls to action.

- be consistent – you need to keep asking, at least seven times or you won’t get it (the support). Be super direct. State clearly in the subject line “31 Days to 100,000 Euros for this Movie”.

He closes talking about “Social Proof” in the first 30% or 40% of monies donated is likely to be your family and friends (and presumably their spheres of influence) but as you get passed that you start getting what he calls “stranger dollars”. People who don’t know you who will start to contribute to your campaign.

The whole idea of Crowdfunding as I said at the start of this is intriguing. I’ve seen incredibly successful campaigns, and some much less so. I don’t know about you but seems every week I am contributing to someone’s film, or album or project of some description.

Though there are a few hundred of these types of sites, it’s exciting to see one launching right here soon, in Scotland, called BLOOM – Venture Catalyst (I love that last bit!)

If you have some money to spare, why not find some projects to be a part of?

Incidentally here are my Three favourites:

PledgeMusic – I’ve contributed to at least six albums on here this past year.
KickStarter – I have contributed to around four films this year on KickStarter.
Indiegogo – I’ve contributed to one (or possibly two) film on this platform this past year.

Special Mention has to go to:
Bloom – the one I’ll keep an eye out this coming year!

Maybe early in the New Year I’ll create a campaign of my own to complete my film and we’ll put the theory to the test…Watch this space!

]]> http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/2011/11/using-crowds-for-funding-or-sourcing/feed/ 0 http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/2011/11/logos-qr-codes-cyberlogos/ http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/2011/11/logos-qr-codes-cyberlogos/#comments Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:01:11 +0000 Thea http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/blog/?p=1683 So a while back I wrote a wee blog about QR Codes. Well, I thought I’d follow that one up a bit, as last week I attended the October New Media Breakfast about them.

The speaker of the day was Jim Divine from Cyberlogo.

Citing the rise of handsets, Jim urged the use of QR Codes, specifically ones containing logos, to connect with clients.

Some great examples were shown -  such as Jim’s own Twitter-inspired cyberlogo (Pic right), one for T3 Magazine, and one for Cake Decor (Pic left: a chocolate chip looking logo) and a make-up company too.

Possibilities are endless.

BEST IN SCAN

If you’re looking for a good scanner (of the many out there) – Jim recommends i-nigma. (I immediately downloaded it and began scanning on my Blackberry. Worked a treat).

Or if you’re an iPhone person Optiscan might be the one for you. (From iTunes: “Optiscan lets you create, scan and share QR codes straight from your device”.)

Like the sound of that.

One of the great advantages of these QR codes is their versatility. You don’t have to link to just a site, you can link to your V-card details, a calendar event, an SMS or a direct dialer to a phone number.

Another advantage is you can, through many QR code creators, update the link as time goes to keep it fresh. There will often be a charge of this, so get your initial code from a place that will allow changes if it’s one you’re going to be updating.

Personally speaking, I find QR Codes challenging. They don’t always work for me and that can be frustrating. In fact on this page on Jim’s site I couldn’t even get them to load! That said, with Gary’s iPhone they often worked better. (So more fool me for having a Blackberry I guess).

Finally if you are considering using QR Codes yourself, take a look at this piece in the Drum recently to make sure you’re not ‘doing it wrong’.

In our training workshops we quote a misconception about social media. “A lot of people think it’s another channel for marketing. It isn’t”. And then we explain the importance of “a conversation” and a fundamental shift in the way you interact with customers and get your message across.

It strikes me that as soon as you think of social media as a form of marketing, you’re doing it wrong. Social media at its best is an attitude, an ethos, a way of life right through the core of the company – like the writing through a stick of rock, where you’re engaging with your customers on instinct.

Of course, you have aims and objectives. But good social media keeps these hidden. The consumer should never be able to see your intentions, your marketing fingerprints shouldn’t be visible.

Apple is a great example. They opened a new store at Braehead recently. Most companies would have promoted this heavily and discounted on price. They didn’t. I received an e-mail from Apple telling me the store was opening. The mainstream media covered this. On the day Apple employees at the store held a ceilidh in full view of everyone before the doors opened.

What did they do on social media?

Nothing.

What did the crowds who turned up do on social media?

Everything. They wrote blogs, tweeted, shared pictures and video and discussed the whole experience.

It strikes me that most businesses’ marketing objectives for the opening of a new store would look like this…

i) Get the person to come to the store

ii) Get them to buy something

I reckon Apple’s objective would have been something like this…

i) Get the person to tell someone else about the store opening

Who’s doing the better job of marketing?

Even if the traditional company achieves big footfall and shifts products..at what cost has this been achieved? There’s the costs of the campaign leading up to launch, then the cost of discounting.

The Apple approach doesn’t cost anything. It gets more people into the store and more people paying full price for the products.

The ceilidh and chanting the Apple employees took part in before the opening of their Braehead store wasn’t the intense “team bonding” session I originally through it was. Instead, it’s extremely subtle marketing. It’s not about what they’re doing..it’s carefully designed to make me, as a consumer do something for them. In this case, the blog I wrote and the video I shot of all the staff coming out to meet the customers.

It’s me telling other people about the store opening via social media and I was convinced I was doing this because I wanted to.

Now I realise Apple made me want to.

And I’ve got another piece of insight because of my role as Gadget Guru on STV’s “The Hour”. We’d contacted Apple’s PR team several times over the years asking for product demos we could use on the show – iPods, iPhones, iPads etc. They never played ball. I thought maybe our show wasn’t big enough for them but it turns out they hardly ever let anyone preview their products. I thought they’d forgotten all about us but just before the Apple store opened at Braehead I received an e-mail from their PR team.

Would the STV cameras like to attend the opening of the new store “and speak to the crowds who’ve turned out about why they’ve queued through the night and how excited they are”?

Doesn’t that speak volumes about this company’s approach?! Anyone else would have promised behind the scenes access, an interview with the management, maybe even an exclusive free gift. Not Apple. All they’ll do is let the media speak to some of their biggest fans! And although STV stayed away on the day, several other outlets did turn up and that’s exactly the coverage they got.

Fascinating.

No other business is like Apple. But we can learn from them. And this demonstrates that if a business has got things right at its core, then they’ll have success on social media without typing a single word.

I started by taking a show of hands of how many were on LinkedIn (LI). Pretty much everybody – as you’d imagine. Then, I asked how many felt like they were utilizing it to its fullest potential (because frankly, most people, in my opinion, aren’t). About three people raised their hands. This talk wasn’t for them! It was my hope that the vast majority of the audience would go away with even just one tidbit to try at home later.

So if you’re not a LinkedIn expert, then this one’s for you. Starting at the top here we go…

(1) MAKE YOUR HEADLINE NEWSWORTHY

Make yourself interesting. Avoid sticking “Business Development Manager at ACME WIDGETS” as your headline. That tells me absolutely nothing about you or your company. If you don’t change the default text, LI just uses what you put for your most recent job entry.

You just have to remember you’re more than your JOB TITLE – so consider giving a bit more information. Imagine you were walking up to someone at a networking event, how would you introduce yourself and describe what you do to them in an interesting way?

Also your headline is a key search area on your profile – so use it wisely.

(2) CHANGE THE DEFAULT TEXT

Do you have a website? Does it have a name? If so, then put that. The default text in LinkedIn merely says “Company Website” or “Blog” on your profile (see above).

Honestly, I can’t believe how many of my contacts haven’t bothered to change the default text there, and are thus they’re missing out more key search optimization. As in the example above of someone who has more than 500 connections. Room for improvement there, my friend…

So if your profile says “Company Website” – or “Blog” then please do me a favor, go home and change it to its real name OK?

(3) PICTURE PERFECT

Stating the obvious here but don’t leave it blank (i.e. the grey default avatar), or stick your logo in as your profile pic – save that for your company page.

Instead use a good, professional headshot whenever possible.

LinkedIn is not Facebook – so avoid your holiday snap, a cropped picture from a night out with your friends, and always remember that first impressions matter.

So put your best FACE forward…

(4) DYNAMIC PROFILE

Don’t make your profile read like your CV – with bullet points listing the tasks you do. Ditch the dryness and find engaging things to say about yourself, your job and or company. Use positive wording, correct spelling and good grammar. (Write it in Word and paste it in if needs be.)

Make people WANT to connect with you. A good example, and I am not just saying this because he pays me – is NSDesign’s head honcho Gary Ennis. His profile tells a story, not just lists a bunch of things he’s done or achieved. It has personality (see the last paragraph – magic, juggling, geeks etc – you get a good snapshot of what he’s about…) and I believe it makes you want to connect with someone when they do go that extra paragraph if you will.

And speaking of connecting – that’s what LinkedIn is all about…so when you do….

(5) ALWAYS BE PERSONAL

If you’re going to add someone to your network, it’s good to start off with a comment on how you came across them, where you met (if you have met somewhere), or how you’re connected if by a group, contacts in common and so forth.

One thing to avoid is using “friend” for someone you’ve never met or spoken to.

Even if you have met, never leave the default text - “I’d like to add you to my professional network” – please, please, please, always be personal with a message. It only takes a minute.

One guy added me recently. I didn’t know him. We’re not in the same industry. He didn’t put a message and he called me a “friend”. For principle, I hit “ignore”. I know not everyone is as picky as me about this, but equally I’ve spoken to a lot of people who are!

If you want to connect with someone, then be worth connecting to in your request!

(6) GO ON GROUPS

If you don’t know a person, but want to connect with them, find groups they’re on and join and begin genuinely engaging on them.

Groups are an amazing opportunity to learn information, find jobs, become aware of opportunities and events – as well as to connect to people who you might not have ability to get in front of so easily otherwise.

Local groups are a fantastic source of getting relevant information, sourcing contacts, various specialist recommendations etc.

Recently on one of our local groups, there was a post offering a funded trip, for a content conference in Cannes called MIPCOM. I replied and I just returned (blogs about that to follow here soon!)

This was an opportunity I’d never have been aware of had I not been actively engaging and monitoring that group.

So definitely check out relevant groups to your interests or sector.

(7) RECOMMENDATIONS

You can use LinkedIn to get past OR present colleagues, suppliers, customers or bosses – to say a few nice things about you.

Some people I’ve come across have NO recommendations and others seem to go to the other end of the spectrum and have zillions.

For me, I personally would opt for few quality recommendations, over quantity but to each their own on this one and it may differ according to your sector.

(8) TAGS

Only recently, I discovered that if you go into your Contacts you can tag them. You may wonder why you’d want to do that, but say you were having an event in Glasgow and you wanted to message all of your contacts that were local, you can type in “Glasgow” and it shows you all the people you’ve tagged with Glasgow and you VOILA you can message them all in a ‘oner’.

Please don’t use this feature to SPAM people or you’ll quickly start losing connections!

(9) DATABASE DOWNLOAD

Has anyone ever lost their phone, or their contacts due to an email malfunction? I updated my software on my Blackberry a few months back and overwrote my entire address book accidentally (nightmare!). But with LinkedIn’s contacts area, you can export all your contacts (via a variety of formats) and import to your computer email program and/or into you phone’s address book.

I highly recommend periodic downloads of your contacts. Just because, you never know…

(10)  GET CONNECTING!

My top and final tip is just get out there and start connecting. Like anything in life, you get out of LINKEDIN what you put into it. It’s work to build up a solid network online just as it is to do so OFF. But if done right – it can lead to more contacts, mentors, suppliers, clients and maybe even friends.

Thank you.

PS: Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn but only if you make your request personal

On its blog, the internet giant wrote: “Technology improves, people’s needs change, some bets pay off and others don’t. Over the next few months we’ll be shutting down a number of products and merging others into existing products as features.”

Amongst those being scrapped include Aardvark, the social question-and-answer service that allows users to submit questions to people in their social networks.

Google acquired Aardvark for US$50m (￡30m) around 18 months ago. The service was founded by a team of ex-Google employees.

Other services to be closed down include Google Desktop, Fast Flip, Google Pack and Image Labeller.

Meanwhile, Google Maps will no longer support Flash APIs and Google Web Security will cease to be on sale, although it will continue to support existing customers.

Google says that shutting down these services will improve the overall Google experience. All the Googlers working on the soon-to-close projects will be moved over to “higher-impact products”, according to the organisation. These products are expected to include Google+, as well as web applications such as Gmail and Google Docs.

The news follows the shut-down of Google Labs a few months ago.

Jessica Ennis wants to win a gold medal at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

That’s her goal and I’m convinced she’ll achieve it.

What’s interesting is the work she’s doing right now in order to make sure she does.

We’ve had some insight into her regime these last few days because she’s given some interviews to promote the event.

Alongside all the gruelling training sessions and careful diet she sticks to, what’s fascinating me is her mental preparation.

There’s still more than a year to go until that heptathlon gets underway but even now, Ennis is being incredibly disciplined in her thinking. 

In an interview with The Guardian she revealed she hasn’t let herself picture the stadium yet, but “probably will next year but not until the latter stages before the competition”.  Note how specific she’s being about this – she’s actually decided when she’ll allow herself to start thinking about it.  There’s a level of detail and a commitment to the decisions she’s made which puts her apart from most of us.

She also made it clear that despite the attention and comments she gets in the street, from the media and even her fiancée at home she firmly keeps her focus. “I do not think about it” she says.

I’ve never sat in front of a life coach but I’ve thumbed through enough books in Waterstones to know that “positive thinking”, “visualisation” and “goal setting” can be big parts of achieving success in sport, business and life in general.

But that interview with Jessica Ennis really hammers home the discipline required in your thinking to get what you want, even months in advance of a particular event.

Without turning ourselves into machines, there’s a lot we can learn from her and her Team GB colleagues.

In a  Malcolm Gladwell sort of way, Jennifer kicked off asking the audience to hazard a guess at a variety questions like where she’s from, how she voted in the last election, if she was in a relationship (and if it was with a man or woman) etc.

The idea being that we form an opinion of someone in the first seven seconds of contact. Incidentally, Holloway asserts this holds true even if that contact is online.

WHAT’S YOUR MESSAGE?

Have a think for a moment about what your profiles, for instance on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook – say about you, your business and your personality.

I don’t think I was alone in leaving the room wondering about what mine say about me, and vowing to do an audit of each before the day’s end.

Much emphasis of Jennifer’s talk was placed on LinkedIn which, of course, most of us realise is a valuable tool for business and networking. (You may have read my post last winter 8 tips for Getting the Most out of LinkedIn…)

We all need to promote our personal brand according to Jennifer and to add personality to it – even on LinkedIn.

PEOPLE WORK (BUY OR DO BUSINESS) WITH PEOPLE THEY LIKE

The talk really boiled down to one, simple premise – “we do business with people we like” (well, at least whenever possible). So we need to be as likable as possible – both online and in person.

The thing is we all need to put our best foot forward, of course we do, but we also need to keep in mind that we’ll never be able to control how other people perceive us.  There will always be people who love us (our company too) and those who loathe us. We don’t have any real control over either group.

“PERSPECTIVE IS A MIRROR NOT A FACT”

One gentleman thought Jennifer’s own profile picture was “shifty” whereas others liked it and even called the picture “cheeky”. It reminds me of my favourite quote that “perspective is a mirror not a fact”.

It would stand to reason that the one most likely to do business with her was the one who found her “cheeky”.

PROFESSIONAL PROFILE PICS

Have a look at your own LinkedIn profile, if you have one that is. Is the profile picture a professional one? It should be.

Leave out the glam wedding day shots, or the one where you’ve cropped out your best mate in a face-lock.

Instead opt for a clear head shot with a hint of personality. [NOTE: One amusing example showed was a woman who looked like a vamped-up sex kitten, but was actually a lawyer; she, arguably, went overboard on trying to show she wasn't a stereotypical lawyer, I'm just sayin'...]

AS FOR THE CONTENT…

As for the words filling your up your profile be sure to add something interesting. For instance, a prime example comes our very own MD’s profile. In addition to talking about all of the ways NSDesign can help you and your business, – there’s a little bit about Gary’s own personality in there too:

“A true people person, Gary’s other interests include magic and juggling, which he often uses to entertain the masses – from local playgroups to conference delegates!”

I love it. This, I’ve no doubt, will be a conversation starter with some people out there.  It won’t interest everyone of course, but it might just the line that causes someone out there to do business with him.

OTHER PROFILE SUGGESTIONS:

• Take a look at your own profile/s online and assess the photo and the copy.
• Put yourself out there and promote yourself (and your business) with “conviction”.

• Ditch any “Old School” worn-out patter, add some personality and  blow your own trumpet (at least a little).

• Find your own balance between under-selling and over selling yourself.

On that note, I’m off to critique and revise my own profiles and maybe add a little about that Road Trip I did back in ’06 – and the documentary about it I hope to one day make…

These things are everywhere it seems. Can you go a day without yours? Many people can’t. I can but honestly it’s a struggle. Over the last few years, they’ve really become our lifelines – it seems.

When it comes to searching, hand held searches are now said to outnumber desktop searches four-to-one*.

And of course mobiles are not just for talking anymore…Oh no, we can listen to music, have video chats, browse the web, see what our friends got up to at the weekend on Facebook, check in at our various destinations on the fly, watch video clips on  YouTube, show off our holiday pics,  Tweet about what we are doing and where at any given moment,…and a multitude other fun tasks on the mobile handsets of today.

So it seems only natural that the more forward-thinking websites owners of today have started to consider mobile versions of their business websites.

SOMETIMES SMALLER IS BETTER…

As anyone has tried to view a full website, (which may look great on a desktop with all its bells and whistles) on a mobile phone, well, let’s just say that the user experience is more often than not, less-than-pleasant.

Full sites seldom look right on small screens, they often involve a ton of scrolling (up and down, and side-to-side), and it’s usually a downright nuisance to find even the most simple of details – like the company’s phone number or an email address for fast access or communication.

Recently, James at Glasgow-Chauffeur.com launched his very own mobile website www.theglasgowchauffeur.mobi through us – making him (most likely), among the first chauffeurs in Scotland, if not the world, to embrace this new, simple and effective mobile-optimised technology.

“I’m really excited about my new mobile site. It’s easy to navigate and users can now book right through their phones, call me at the click of a button, send an email, or even look at our picture gallery to see the cars. It’s fantastic! ” – James Walker

LESS IS NOW MORE!

Whilst James may be one of our first UK clients to embrace this new mobile technology, he won’t be the last. In fact, a while back we launched this simple, affordable solution for anyone who would like a mobile version of their current website.

Like James, for under a hundred pounds (inc VAT!) you can have your own DIY clean, attractive, easy-to-set up and easy to navigate website for all mobile platforms (including iPads and the like).

The icons are inter-changeable and can be swapped out to suit your needs.

For instance, if you’re a restaurant owner, you might wish to take table reservations through the mobile site.

Also, you can not only change the icons but you can change the wording of many of them – for example  where it says “Keep Me Informed” you might change it to  “Join Our Newsletter”.

The choice is yours.

If you’re a hairdresser maybe you might want to add a coupon for 25% off your next haircut through you mobile site?

This is all easily done. You set the “valid to” and “expiration date” to suit your needs. Adjust as desired.

Though we’re not seeing evidence of this yet, I do believe once the mobile sites become more common place – Google will deliver mobile versions of websites first when people are searching on a handset. It seems only natural. These forerunners, like James, will most likely benefit by being in the systems first.

For those of you who do have a mobile site created, make sure you’ve followed the steps in one of our previous blogs on optimising mobile websites.

Have a look at the NSDesign mobile site on your handset today to see just how simple and effective the navigation is.

If you’re interested in having a mobile version of your own site, then please get in touch with us today. We’d be only too happy to help!

* stat according to gomobi