Great Way of Updating Contacts
November 27, 2008 at 9:30 am
With the best of intentions to update my Twitter following list, I never do. I often think it would be so beneficial to visit the websites of all the people following me, and find new folks to talk to, engage with, learn from. But I never do because I like to knock off work after the mandatory 10-12 hours!
Now that’s been made easy with the beautiful Mr Tweet. It’s a nifty little app that recommends people who are following you that you should follow. And recommends people you should follow that you’re currently not. This bit is based on who you follow, and who they follow also.
I like it. It’s neat, informative, works really well, and absolves me of guilt for not updating my following list. It gives you information about the person, the number of times they tweet on average per day, and their following response action - ie. follow everyone, follow some, etc. I don’t care about that last bit. I’m not in the business of following to be followed.
The one thing it doesn’t do is filter for annoying people! There are quite a few recommendations that I have simply ignored because I used to follow them and their constant moaning or bitching just got me down. For what it’s worth, I like to use Twitter to listen to people who:
- Have something interesting to say
- Are generous with their links, ie find something great and pass it on
- Are funny, witty, amusing. Positive, light, fun.
- Are not self obsessed and only tweeting about themselves and their lives
If this is you, and I haven’t found you yet, do please follow me on Twitter. When I see your follow, I’ll always have a look and if you seem sound, I’ll follow you too.
Tales of Good News
November 25, 2008 at 12:55 pm
A new site of ours has just gone live - The Rose Project -and it’s a bit of a beauty I must say! Check it out and see for yourself how refreshingly different it is to have a charity that is not just guilting you with pictures of starving babies.
The Founder of The Rose Project, Mary Donohoe, made it quite clear in our initial brief that this site was to be about rejoicing in the strength and spirit of the African people. She believes that for too long Africans have been portrayed as passive recipients of our charity; and that is not the case. They are grateful, but they are strong spirited people. Sure, they’d have to be to cope with the loss of an entire generation that HIV and AIDS has brought to that continent.
I loved working on this project because I travelled to Malawi 10 years ago. Of all the African countries that I visited, Malawi was the one that stole my heart. The people are so gentle, so wise, and also so much fun. You can see that in the Kaso video on the site where the kids are so exuberant and full of LIFE! Or watch the story of Granny Banda - one strong woman who is raising her 6 grandchildren alone. In a land of no social welfare, this 64 year old cuts stones with a pickaxe to make money to support her family.
Key Features of The Rose Project Site:
- It’s about sharing the good news - you can see that with the “How Donations Helped” featured prominently throughout the site. Browse the stories in video or text format and I guarantee your heart will be touched.
- You can of course make a donation! There are a range of ways - you can give money or time. Or you can choose to wrap all your Christmas presents in their gorgeous designer wrapping paper. Costs €5 for 5 sheets and every cent goes to fund much needed projects.
- Keep up to date with news by subscribing to The Rose Project’s blog. Or you can follow them on Twitter where they promise to only give you good news. And if you’re on Facebook, there’s also a group.
Like all Brightspark productions, this one came about through the pooling of talents of a range of different people:
- Angel Gonzalez on design
- Jess Kelly on video editing
- Ken Stanley on development
- Heidi Jermyn on additional whizzyness
- Adrian McCarthy of Wildfire Productions for amazing source video material
- Anne Carthy for her patience positivity and good humour
- The Rose Project Team (Mary, Bernie, Niamh) for learning to use basecamp and their patience and good humour
I’m Not Sure How I Feel About This
November 25, 2008 at 10:58 am
Damien Mulley’s blog won best blog at the Golden Spider awards last week. I think he deserves it, it’s a great blog, consistent, well written, newsy and he’s not afraid to tell it like it is.
But I’m not sure I support his decision to attend the very awards he has slagged off so much. Not only that, but he got taken as a guest of eircom’s. His commentary on the night is nauseating:
I’m very very grateful for the Award and for how I was looked after at the event. They covered the ticket too, not like I’d pay for one! The Golden Spiders staff were awesome and made sure everyone had a good time.
Slurpy mc slurp. I don’t like it.
If you have principles which I believe Mr Mulley does, then stick to them and don’t roll over to get your tummy scratched when “Big Telco” offers you a ticket for a black tie event. He talks about the web being open and that’s why he set up the Irish Web Awards, and how exclusive awards ceremonies are rather like holding the Olympics but only for rich white men.
Well in my opinion, Mulley attending the Golden Spider Awards (email law breakers that they are) is like Mandela attending a KKK Rally! How the mighty have fallen.
Coming Over All Christmassy
November 25, 2008 at 9:32 am
We’ve got our decs up - come visit the site or my twitter page and get into the Christmas spirit! They are up a little early this year, maybe the Dublin City Centre initiative of duping us all into believing that Santa’s coming early by putting up the decs early worked?
Write for Web Training - this Friday!
November 17, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I was quoted in The Sunday Business Post the other week saying that it’s a lot harder to find examples of really bad website writing nowadays than it used to be. I started delivering web writing training back in 2002 and back then it was very easy to find examples of how things shouldn’t be! TD’s were often used as examples of those whose sites tended to be crap. But last year’s general election saw many of my favourites improve their online writing style.
I’m preparing a fresh set of examples for the web writing training course that’s being delivered this Friday. I choose examples that are relevant to the sectors of people who are attending. Corporate Ireland has switched on to the importance of web content. No longer is it acceptable to simply paste in your marketing brochure.
What participants in my course will learn is how we read online and how to structure their writing to make sure it works. Setting up content so it scans easily, ie when people land on your page and give their attention for a couple of miliseconds - does your content make them want to stay?
Then when they make that all important decision of engaging with your content, is it written in a way that they will take it in? A mix of tabloid journalism style with clear explanatory messaging is what we’re after here.
The course is suitable for those who have to write stuff that will be read on the web. It includes writing killer email copy, as well as some little tweaks to style that work for intranets.
It’s very practical and requires no study afterwards; all the messages get planted direct into your head. There are a few places left. If you fancy entering 2009 with the knowledge of how to write to be read, contact me and I’ll put your name down for this Friday.
Ring of Confidence
November 14, 2008 at 8:54 am
We all know the claims that a certain toothpaste makes in relation to our teeth. But where do dentists go when they want that extra ring of confidence when it comes to online?
The Irish Dental Association has recently relaxed the rules on dentists advertising. Congratulations guys, and welcome to the 21st century! As a member of the public, I can confirm that I don’t feel suddenly harrassed to go get my teeth cleaned. But thanks anyway.
A bunch of the brightest and best Dublin dentists approached me and said they wanted to look good and be found online. As that’s what we are all about, we were able to deliver. An ultra clean and bright site, followed by search engine optimisation to ensure that these guys rank high when you and I search for teeth whitening, dental implants, and even dermal fillers! 
Optimistic Post
November 12, 2008 at 11:13 pm
At last month’s Dublin Chamber of Commerce networking, it was a fraught and frantic affair. There were plenty of new faces from the areas of law, architecture, and finance. People who had been far too busy to attend before. The room was packed. I left feeling a little like I’d just been at the ballroom of the Titanic minutes before that famous ice berg hit.
There was a lot of talk of ‘how are things for you?’. And anxiety about where things are going and what we can come to expect.
I’m just back from this month’s event and I have to say things are looking a little more up. We’re not through the woods yet, definitely, but my feel is that business has started to move again. I think we just endured a month where nothing happened from when the credit crunch went mainstream (end Sept) to around end October.
My thoughts were that there was a lot of high level strategic thinking going on: how are we going to deal with this new environment? I know there will be some blood letting, but I do believe that the wheels have started turning again.
And that’s a good thing.
What do you think? What are your experiences?
World Usability Day
November 12, 2008 at 8:32 am
is tomorrow and Irish usability experts, IQ Content are running an event to measure the top transport websites in this country for usability. They’ll be hitched up in the Dandelion Bar all day tomorrow and they want you to drop in and take a usability test.
What’s that? Just drop on in, enjoy free coffee and scones, and you’ll be asked to visit one of the transport sites to book tickets, search for schedules and destinations, and other simple tasks. At the end of the day, it should be pretty clear what works - and what doesn’t. The guys from IQ Content will be posting the results on their blog.
2 Other Good Reasons To Take Part
- For each participant, IQ Content will donate €10 to Concern and The Dublin Simon Community.
- And, if you make a donation of your own on the day, they’ll match it.
The Dandelion Cafe Bar is just beside the Stephen’s Green Centre. Do drop in - help Concern and The Dublin Simon Community, and take part in Ireland’s only World Usability Day event!
Win x 2 plus 50g Joy
November 7, 2008 at 10:19 am
Take two of your favourite clients. Introduce them to each other. The result is a double win that benefits the people of Malawi (where I left a little piece of my heart). That to me is an upshot of being in business!
I’m currently working on a new site for The Rose Project, a ground-breaking charity that helps people with HIV and AIDS in East Africa. I think of it as the ‘thinking woman’s charity’ because they just get on with doing the smart things that need to be done.
Like for example, their programme to reduce the transmission of HIV from mother to child. HIV is passed from mother to child in about 58% of cases. But this does not have to be. There is a vaccine that you can give to pregnant women if you reach them before the 26th week that reduces the risk of spreading the HIV infection from 58% to just 2%.
So what do The Rose Project do?
They are building a maternity hospital in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi and from that base they will be running a prevention of transmission from mother to child programme. They bring in nurses and doctors from Norway to assist with technical knowledge transfer. They do loads of great things, smart things that make real differences to people’s lives, but more on them later. The site’s going live in a few weeks.
But in the meantime, back to the tale of joy….
The Rose Project has teamed up with 5 Irish designers who have agreed to create five unique designs, celebrating the beauty and colour of Africa.
John Rocha, Helen Cody, and Aideen Bodkin and graphic designers Maree Hensey and Fiona Hanley have come up with amazing designs. This 100% Irish made, recycled paper can be used to add a little touch of designer magic to your Christmas gifts this year, but it’s not so jingle bellsy that you can’t use it for other occasions throughout the year.
All proceeds from the sale of the gift wrap will go directly to the funding of specific health programmes in East Africa - like the prevention of transmission of Aids from mother to child.
The Rose Project need to distribute their paper NOW to make sure it’s in the shops by Christmas-time.
And that’s where the introduction to another favourite client, Clerys, came in.
Clerys love the idea. They love it so much they’re going to base their windows around the concept. They are taking in thousands of rolls of this gift wrap that saves lives and it will be available throughout all of their stores. So make sure you pop into any Clerys store to buy your Christmas wrapping paper. There’s going to lots of other interesting initiatives between the two but for now, I have to keep them under wraps!!
