KLM’s Email Marketing
March 31, 2009 at 12:47 pm
It really annoys me when the big guys with the large budgets blatantly break the law, especially when it comes to email marketing. Airlines are particularly bad. Today’s Law Breaking Emailing Airline is KLM.
Story So Far
- I recently entered a competition to win a prize to somewhere fabulous with KLM. I did not tick the box to receive email offers from them, and I remember thinking at the time whether I was in with a hope in hell of winning. Question: do you think marketers will ever give a prize out to someone who hasn’t taken the action that they wanted?
- Since then I have received 3 emails from KLM Ireland since Feb 27. None of these emails give me the ability to unsubscribe. That is against the law. It’s also pretty basic. Why would you want to market to people who do not want to receive things from you? You’re also wrecking your own stats.
What Can I Do?
- How do I get my name off their list?
- Is it going to be like the case with Easy Jet France when I booked a flight with them in 2003 and they are still sending me emails in French – ones which I need to login to their site with a user name and password to get off?
- I’d be tempted to take this one to the Data Protection Commissioners again. After all, KLM is a giant corporate that is deliberately flouting the law. But when I look at the registration of the email address being used to send this piece of spam, I find that it’s KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in Schipol. Will our intrepid Data Protection Commissioners have the will to take it up with someone outside of our little emerald jurisdiction?
If you have any suggestions on how I might get my name off this list in an obstrusive fashion, I’d love to know.
Bottom of KLM Spam Email, no opt-out:
Bottom of Aer Lingus Email, with opt-out:
aer lingus does it right
Tags: KLM Spam Email
Chic Geek Gadgets
March 30, 2009 at 5:53 pm
I was invited to bring along my favourite gadgets to the PC Live! radio show for the ’show and tell’ show. A bit unnerving at first because I’m not really that into mobile phones, games, laptop dongles or other gadgets. But I surprised myself by bringing not one but two gadgets! You can listen in here.
What did I bring?
Why my electric eyelash curler and a Kodak Zi6 video camera of course!
While we’re on the subject of chic geeks, the next girl geek dinner in Dublin is taking place at the end of April. Details are going on the Girl Geek Dinner website tomorrow, so keep your eyes peeled, register fast, and come along for a wonderful evening of chat, fun, and geekery.
Tags: girl geek dinner, PC Live, Show & tell
Networking With A Difference
March 27, 2009 at 12:49 pm
This week I attended two new networking events. The first was on Tuesday and it was aimed at creatives. Ooh very interesting – fashion people, photographers, cool musicians, film people and the like. It took place at D-Light Studios, a large warehouse just behind the Five Lamps. A lovely large studio space with natural light, perfect for shoots… but will someone please tell them that when you host an event the following items are key to a successful night:
- Food and drink
- A host to welcome people
- Someone to open the door
We stood in the freezing cold for 10 minutes outside before someone came to open the door. I wasn’t impressed by the organisation, but I was impressed by the following cool new people that I met:
- Timi Martins of Rap Ireland – a hip hop magazine covering all aspects of the culture
- Padraig Mannion of Studio Rua
- Claire O’Connor of Lil C Couture – save your click, it’s just a placeholder site
- Photographer Hu O’Reilly who has an exhibition of his work for Medecins sans Frontieres in Chad running in Filmbase 16-23 April.
- Aisling Nelson of Rangoli who makes gorgeous wedding jewellery. She’s also got a blog.
- Conor Lynch of Connector – who’s going to be on the Dragon’s Den on 2 April at 10pm
On Thursday I went to the launch of Cater Pass by the Catering Industry Skillnet. I was there as a guest of my favourite catering website client, 3Q Catering. I was looking forward to it all week because, instead of it being regular “everyone mill around a function room” networking… it was taking place in an Italian Cookery School!
What an amazing place for an event!
There’s a big kitchen and on arrival we all enjoyed some delicious Italian wine, cold meats, and other tasty nibbles. Then the cookery class began proper. We were making home-made meatballs in tomato sauce, and spinach and ricotta ravioli – with a cream sauce. I enjoyed mixing up the meatballs with my bare hands!
When the food was cooking, we had a presentation about the new Cater Pass which was being launched. When the food was ready, everyone sat down together to enjoy and eat. Lots more red wine a -flowing, people laughing, a thorougly enjoyable event.
If you are looking for an interesting venue to host a team building event, a product launch, or just a night out with friends, I totally recommend you check out the Italian Cookery School at City Link Business Park at Kylemore Luas Stop.
Free Money This Way Please!
March 25, 2009 at 3:54 pm
If you have even the germ of an idea, now’s your big chance! Get on over to the iQ Content Prize and find out how you can win €10,000 to translate your idea into a business. Think of it as a trust fund for sending your baby off to a good school.
Today iQ Content will reveal what you’ve got to do in order to make it to the shortlist.
Good luck to you!
Tags: iq content prize
Ada Lovelace Day Today
March 24, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.
The post below is a bit negative and unsupportive of the cause. If you’d like to read someone else’s thoughts who really gets it, then click on over here to Ireland’s Favourite Grannymar!
Ada Lovelace was the founder of modern computing, along with Charles Babbage. She was the only daughter of the poet, Lord Byron, and was born on 10 December 1815. A month after she was born, her mother moved back to her parents home. It seems that the great Lord Byron was disappointed that his ‘glorious boy’ was a girl. It’s a pity that he didn’t know that the sex of his child is all his own doing and not the fault of the mother.
Lovelace met and corresponded with Charles Babbage and during a nine-month period in 1842–43, Lovelace translated Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea’s memoir on Babbage’s newest proposed machine, the Analytical Engine. With the article, she appended a set of notes. The notes are longer than the memoir itself and include in complete detail a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the Engine, recognised by historians as the world’s first computer programme.
She died at the age of 36, was famous as a traveler in the Middle East and some have claimed her to have been a bit of a party-er with a reputation for drinking, gambling and scandal. I think I’d really like to have been her friend.
Ada Lovelace Day Today
Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Wanting to play my part, I was all set to write about women who excel in technology, but I ran into problems. I think my definition of technology is too limiting. I was trying to think of women who have come up with things that have set the world on fire in terms of hard core tech – code-crunching stuff. Not designers. Not bloggers. Or digital evangelistas. Or super project managers. Or amazing all-rounders. Thinkers. Creators. Innovators. I can list a whole lot of them for Ireland alone, but I can’t come up with a single Female Technologist – in the definition I have in my head of it.
Bill Gates. Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Steve Jobs.
Michael Dell. Jeff Bezos. Jerry Yang.
These are all men. Men who have created technology that has changed lives.
What are there no women there?
Why wasn’t Google started up by two girl maths geniuses out on a college campus? There’s no denying that girls are outperforming boys in schools. So why is it that they are not as visible as they should be? Is it because the girl maths geniuses are out doing other things and have more balanced lives? Is it because society breeds women to not have the combination of talent and ballsy-ness that is required of successful entrepreneurs?
I’ve said it once and I”ll say it again – I don’t understand how so few women work in the web.
It’s an area that lends itself to all types of skills and offers a high degree of flexibility. It offers careers for those who are design oriented, writers, programmers, problem solvers. Maybe it’s because it’s not seen by young women to be sexy? If you’re a great organiser, maybe it’s more exciting to work in Events than the Web. If you’re a writer, you might aspire to being a journalist or a PR press release writer and get to go to lots of new product launches… than being someone who writes for the web. I don’t know. If you have answers, please share them with me.
In the meantime, I’d like to share three things with you:
- This year, the leaders of the G20 countries are making a plan to fix the economic crisis. We20 is a new social networking site that helps you meet, in groups of up to 20 people, to make your own plan. Something most definitely for the women. Because we all know that when we want to make something happenm, you get a woman on the case! Now’s your chance to change the world here.
- Tonight a splinter group of the Girl Geek Dinners are meeting for drinks in the Long Stone pub in Dublin. If you’re knocking about town around 7pm and you fancy meeting some like minded souls, get on down!
- Girl Geek Day is happening this Saturday in Dublin. It’s the first time it’s happening and it looks like it’s going to be great. Kind of like Barcamps in style, but only for girl geeks – get down with the sisters, support, give a demo, do something. And of course, enjoy!
Tags: Ada Lovelace Day, girl geek day dublin, We20
5 Ways To Get Funding For Your Business… Plus 1 Really Good One
March 23, 2009 at 4:11 pm
1. Enterprise Ireland
Often the first port of call for technology start ups, and of course they say they welcome approaches from “anyone with a good idea”. They have to. They are the Government’s funding hand-out body and they can’t be seen to discriminate against any good ideas.
If your idea is really wacky, you might find it hard to get money out of EI. They’re not known to be great risk-takers, and it’s staffed by civil servants who may not necessarily understand new and emerging technologies.
Plus, despite there being a variety of funding options available you’ve got to jump through certain hoops in order to get your hands on them. Many EI recipients of funding will tell you that the paperwork is arduous and in some cases, the time cost of completing the paperwork is greater than the value of the sums received.
2. Enterprise Boards
The enterprise boards are located around the country. Find your local enterprise board.
They are part funded by the Government and the European Regional Development Fund and their goal is to assist new business start-ups through funding, training and mentoring. Training and mentoring is all very well, but if it’s money you’re after, you can go for the following funding from your local enterprise board:
- Feasibility grants – money to investigate the potential of your idea, maximum €7,500.
- Capital grants – up to a maximum of €75,000 if you’re investing in machinery and equipment or altering your business premises, this can be helpful.
- Employment grants – up to €7,500 can cover part of a salary – a very small part.
Enterprise boards tend to spread their net wide, preferring to help many businesses with smaller amounts of money so note that the amounts shown above are upper limits – in practice you’ll probably get a lot less. You’re also facing the same issues as with EI in terms of paperwork and avoidance of risky decisions. Although the Board of your local enterprise board will be made up of some private sector people, they tend to be bank managers who are not known to be most tech savvy.
If you’re in with the enterprise boards, you’ll be eligible to take part in the Redeemable Preference Share Scheme. It’s like a repayable grant but no ownership rights are passed to the enterprise board.
3. Banks
Given that banks are in crisis, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to get any money out of them.
In the glory days of the Celtic Tiger, banks were handing out cash willy nilly. Apply for a car loan and you’d be offered triple the amount you applied for “in case you might need it”. As a result, many people accepted loans from the banks and bought cars and consumables way beyond what they could actually afford.
But approach your local bank with an innovative technology idea, no track record of working for yourself, and not even a full year’s turnover, and the chances are you’d be laughed out of it. Even back then.
Back in the days before the Irish people had to bail out the banks, if you lied and said you wanted a swanky new Audi A4, you’d probably have gotten the funding. If you said you were starting up Twitter and told your bank manager that your app was going to set the world on fire, you probably wouldn’t have got anything.
“You’re doing what with 140 characters?”
4. Friends & Family
People who love you believe in you. If you really love them, don’t borrow money off them.
Borrowing money off friends and family is only desirable if the investor in question has no risk attached to the funds, is quite happy to sit on the sidelines and not meddle in your business. Uncle Tommy’s ideas on web design might not be what your business needs.
But given that all the people who had the money are now broke or feeling like they are, it’s very unlikely you’ll find someone like this to invest in your business.
5. Venture Capitalists
Venture capitalists invest in businesses they see as having potential. Representing the extremely high-risk end of the equities market, they are under pressure to bring home equally high returns for their investors.
They aren’t interested in you if you’re looking for less than a cool million. And if do manage to get your hands on some VC funding, you’re likely to pay a high price in terms of equity and control of the future direction of the business.
Horror stories abound about VC’s pushing start-up MD’s out of their own businesses. These guys are the barracudas of the funding world – sleek and shiny, always skimming around near the top, but they’d bite your hand off given a chance.
If you do wish to go down the CV route, they are represented in Ireland by the Irish Venture Capitalist Association. You’d think their website would be a good place to start, but looking at it, you might think again!
And Now For The Good News!
This week IQ Content is announcing the details of the IQ Content Prize.
What’s the prize? €10,000 to help turn a good idea into a great business.
What’s the catch? There is none. No equity handover. No strings attached. It seems these really are the good guys!
The application process has already been communicated and it looks mighty lean. They’ve stated that they’re going to keep the application process really simple, with a low barrier to entry. Enterprise Ireland take note!
Closing date for entries is 8 May. A shortlist will be announced on 10 June, you could find yourself giving your pitch on to IQ on 25 June. By August you could be working on the information architecture of your own creation. Imagine what you may achieve by this time next year!
So what’s stopping you?
Now’s your chance to get your hands on some easy dosh! If you have an idea bubbling around your head and you’d like to take it to the next level, visit the iq prize website on Wednesday and find out how to you can get started.
Good luck!
Tags: iq content prize, sources of technology funding ireland
Three Mobile: Nosy Gets
March 20, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Consider this: you want to buy a new mobile phone. You’re thinking of a rather smashing Sony Ericsson K770i. You go online and have a look round to see what kind of deal you can get. Three Mobile, the newest kid on the Irish mobile operator block, offers you one with a plan for €49 a month.
You check the specs. Decide it’s for you and hit the buy now button.
The phone’s supposed to be for free. You’re choosing a €49er plan. But what’s this unexplained, unannounced ‘administration fee’? Are we on the Ryanair site?
You continue to the checkout. But this is where the real intrusive behaviour happens.
Best practice online forms only ask for information that is absolutely necessary. So for example, on an ecommerce site, you only ask for data that will help to close the sale. If you’re working in an organisation and the marketing department wields a lot of power, you might be forced to add those fields in – but for God’s sake, at least have the battle to make them non-required.
Three Mobile. How Dare You Ask Me For My Marital Status?
And asking for my sex when I’ve just given you my name – I don’t think that is necessary.
Meekly I hang my head and tell the phone company that no, I’m not married. And yes I am a woman in my 30’s. Looking around for a love counselling button, I look further down the page.
What an array of employment options there are to choose from! And as if it isn’t bad enough that I must tell Three Mobile what kind of work I am in, I also must identify how I fit in the pecking order.
Who Wants To Know?
Maybe there’s some cute guy in the marketing department who will ask me out if I tick Skilled and Employed?
They even want to know how long I’ve been employed there.
What if I’ve just lost my job and my work perk of a paid mobile phone? So if I’m not feeling bad enough already, now I can feel worse about myself as I tick unemployed. And if I do that, they don’t want to know. They don’t care how long I’ve been unemployed. Their length of employment dropdown crosses its arms and sniffily looks away.
Those generous guys at Three Mobile are always giving away promotion vouchers. In fact, it’s a requirement that I must have one!
Oh, but I don’t have one. So like a loser I have to click ‘none’ in that required field. Wow, maybe if the guy from Marketing had called after all he might have gotten me one.
Next up I get to tell them where to deliver my spanky new phone. I give them my address. Hhhm, seems like Three Mobile haven’t gotten to grips with the Irish post code system yet – no Dublin post codes listed. But that’s OK because they made it another required field that I must given them delivery instructions.
Dear Three. Please deliver my phone to Dublin 3
But now they want to know more about my living arrangements.
Whether I’m living in a furnished apartment rented, or an unfurnished one. Or worse? Am I still living at home with parents? Gosh that marketing guy will probably dump me if I tell him I’ve just lost my job and have had to move home. Maybe I’ll say I’m living in Other.
Three Mobile you are living in another planet if you think that you can get away with asking such intrusive and unnecessary questions.
- Why do you need to know about my marital status in order to sell me a phone? That is particularly intrusive and smacks of the 1950’s.
- Why do you need to know about what kind of rental accommodation I’m in? Or whether I live in a council house? Will you offer me a more downmarket phone if I tick that?
- Who do you marketing people think you are?
Yes you’re the newest mobile operator. But that doesn’t give you the right to force me to tell you things about myself that you don’t need to know. I can understand how your slimy marketing folk are dribbling down their sheeny grey suits in an attempt to ‘know their customer’. But in the world that we live in, smart companies get to know their customer by establishing trust. They only ask questions about what they need to know and in turn are rewarded with sales. Gradually as time goes by and I have come to know and trust them, I might choose to give them more.
There are other places where I can take my business. And incidentally Vodafone is currently offering a better deal on Sony Ericsson’s.
Tags: Intrusive Forms, Three Mobile
Listen To Me
March 19, 2009 at 8:11 am
Chattering away with Niall Kitson, Editor of PC Live! Magazine and Dusty Rhodes of the PC Live! Radio Show.
- I’m talking about Web 2.0 and how it’s dead and gone
- I’m pimping Jobless and Proud
- And Niall’s talking about the Eircom IMRA deal about file sharing
Listen to it. It’s a good show. You can subscribe to it on iTunes.
Tags: Jobless & Proud, PC Live, Web 2.0
RTE Asks Us What We Think
March 18, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I dislike RTE because:
- Presenters way past their sell-by dates get paid exorbitant amounts to annoy us. Same presenters wouldn’t be employable outside of the state broadcaster. And why is Lucy Kennedy everywhere? I don’t know anyone who finds her amusing or even talented.
- The website uses Windows Players for video content. Mac users are unable to access. This flagrant ignorance really annoys me.
- They don’t take risks like UK channels do. I’m not talking ground-breaking risks, but just mild ones like actually allowing 20-somethings write comedy rather than 40 year old men who know nothing but just happen to be on the Montrose payroll (The English Class, Leave it to Mrs O’Brien, The Big Bow Wow anyone?)
But giving credit where it’s due, RTE is finally doing something that should be applauded. Acknowledging that ‘television is changing’ they put out a call 5 months ago for film makers to put forward new and creative ideas for drama. The finalists are now over on the Storyland part of the site and we the people of Ireland can vote for the ones we’d like to see produced into a second episode.
Amazingly, the videos can be viewed by all! They play as Flash videos. Now why can’t the good people behind Storyland have a word with their colleagues over on the main site?
You’ve got until 5pm on Monday 30 March to cast your vote. Go now.
I don’t want to sound like a whinger here, but the few I’ve looked at all look crap.
- Happy Slapper is just 29 seconds long and doesn’t reveal enough
- The intro to Pub World is too long, it took about 2 minutes (out of 4) before anything actually happened. Lots of overacting man looking surprised in pub before that.
- Chez Spuds‘ description reads well, but I stopped it after 10 seconds as it looks like another attempt at humour not working
- Same for Rental Boys. I like the concept, but unfortunately it’s another bad example of stereotypes.
I applaud RTE for this ground-breaking attempt at user generated content. But it’s just not doing it for me.
PS – I don’t hate all of RTE’s stuff. Last year’s drama ‘Raw’ was worth staying in for. Excellent stuff.
Tags: RTE Storyland
Happy St Patricks Day!
March 16, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Thanks to Declan for reminding me about The Big Geraniums. They were part of the soundtrack to my college times. This is for all the Irish diaspora overseas. Don’t be home sick. Be happy. And make sure you at least get out to lunch on St Patricks Day. In fact, if you work with someone who’s Irish and you live in London, Sydney, New York, or Chicago, it is your duty to take that person out for a pint at lunchtime.
Tags: St Patricks Day, The Big Geraniums
