I Got A Gold Medal
February 26, 2010 at 10:41 am
Last night this here blog won gold!! A very pleasant surprise indeed. We’d made it to the finalists at the 2010 Digital Media Awards in the Best Blog Category, but I really didn’t expect to get anywhere. Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw on the wires that we’d won a Gold Medal – came second.
The award went to Ronan Lyons and well deserved too. Check out his blog – it’s economic commentary and analysis – bleak reading, but tells it like it is. I commend Ronan because it must take a fair bit of time to put the thought and research in that he so obviously does. I also have a little snigger every time I see his name in print because my madser nephew who is 5 is also called Ronan Lyons. His larger than life personality kind of supercedes any impression of thoughtful economic analysis!
I was also glad to see Kavaleer win in the Best Animation category. I’ve been working with them recently on developing a social media strategy for their kids cartoon Garth & Bev. Check out the blog here. All design lovingly created by CookieWeb.
Tags: digital media awards 2010, social media strategy garth & bev
Why Should I?
February 25, 2010 at 4:26 pm
The good people at Vodafone know a few things about marketing – rule 1 says you must extol the benefits when you’re trying to persuade people to do things. Why then have Vodafone Ireland (in a nod to getting down with the social space) added Twitter and Facebook logos to their customer log in page but with no statement as to why or what I will get?
It’s not like they have nothing to lure me in with – they’re running a competition on Facebook where I can win a €3000 shopping spree – why not mention that?
My advice to businesses wishing to tempt visitors over to their social spaces is to give a little flavour of what they can expect there – and not simply the Facebook or Twitter logo. A witty comment from a fan on Facebook. Or a helpful customer service tweet would show me what to expect and would lure me over in a flash.
Tags: social media advice
Digital Festival Review
February 24, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Late on 23rd February, I answered a tweet from @johnbreslin and scored myself a free ticket to the Digital Festival taking place in Dublin the next day. With an impressive line-up of speakers, clearly not the usual ones dragged out for digital events this side of the Irish Sea, I was very pleased with myself.
Sadly the Digital Festival did not live up to expectations.
My take on it is because the festival organisers did not work hard enough on briefing their world-class speakers. I’d go so far as to surmise that they didn’t brief them at all. I think they booked them, gave them a topic, then left it at that. The result was that:
- Shel Israel merely promoted his book. I’m not going to promote it further here, but it’s a book about happy stories coming out of Twitter. I sat there seething that this man was blatantly promoting his book instead of inspiring me – and thought we have plenty of happy stories from Twitter here in Ireland. We don’t need an American to fly in and tell us about it.
- Martin Bailie from Glue gave an interesting talk that touched on things like memory and how we learn. Very interesting but off brief. He even started his presentation by saying he’d been asked to talk about ‘digital consumers… they don’t exist’ so he promptly spoke about stuff that interests him.
- Russell Davies on blogs? Nope. He talked about everything and anything but blogs. But what a wide topic to give to someone – talk about blogs – ridiculous!
Other failures on the part of the organisers included:
- Technology break-down when the sole Irish speaker was about to give his talk. OK that can happen, but surely an experienced event organiser would reshuffle the speakers so that someone (like the ones listed above) who weren’t technology dependent could go on and talk while the techies worked to solve the problem. Instead, Tim Duggan from Mercury Girl Inc, delivered a very poor performance talking through his powerpoints. I felt sorry for him, so I stayed in the room, but when it became apparent that said talk was merely a lengthy description of his portfolio, I left the room and went to grab a coffee.
I’m all in favour of doing more with less – the mantra of succeeding in Ireland these last few years. But there are some things you just don’t scrimp on – refreshments and wifi at a conference are two of them.
- Yeah yeah I know I didn’t pay for my ticket to the Digital Festival, but for those who did, they were left with a bitter taste in their mouth… it certainly made up for the one course rice and chicken meal that was the all included lunch. No starter. No dessert. I paid €2 for a plate of biscuits to share with my table.
- Biggest failure of all – no wifi. You could pay for bitbuzz or you could go to the hotel reception and ask for a 1 hour voucher. That’s totally scabby and shit. If you’re running a conference for digital people, surely to God you know that buzz will be created by said people tweeting your event while it’s on?
I left before the last speaker, I’d had enough. It was a waste of a day as I didn’t learn anything and I was so hungry I couldn’t muster the energy up to network properly.
My advice for anyone planning on putting on a digital festival:
- Sort a deal with the hotel for free wifi
- Go the extra mile and provide a proper lunch
- Work hard to push your speakers to deliver talks that will stimulate and inspire
- Sit back and cream in the cash!
The Digital Festival organisers only achieved 1 out of 4. #FAIL
Tags: digital festival dublin, how not to run an event
Whose Site Came First? Concern or Trocaire?
February 18, 2010 at 11:01 am
I always use Trocaire’s site as an example in my web writing training as how to break the number 1 rule of writing for the web.
It’s all about Me Me Me. When you’re writing, you should always spin your content so it’s written to the person reading it and not ‘all about us the business and how great we are… bla bla”. Trocaire is a good example because it carries a beautiful design and is constructed with an eye to the user’s intentions, so at first glance you might think it’s a great site. Only when you engage with the content do you realise that it’s not doing all it should be.
So I’m quite familiar with the site. You can imagine my surprise this morning when I looked at Concern’s site and found… they are more or less the same thing!
Here’s a screenshot of the Trocaire homepage:
And here’s its twin sister from Concern:
I think Trocaire’s design is probably a little older – hence it’s the one that has been ‘heavily drawn on’. So stand up the designer of Concern and tell us – are you the same person who did Trocaire? Or just heavily lacking in the ideas department?
PS – while we’re on the subject of not-for-profits website design, can I just say that now nearly 80% of our work on the Rose Project has been hacked away from whatever pro bono ‘designer’ they’ve got on the job. Am actually going to take that site out of my portfolio as it’s not reflective of the kind of work we do. Note the pictures of the organisers at various ‘do’s’ shoved in above the stories of the real people being helped? We were asked to deliver a site that matched a brief of tell the stories about people that are being helped and make it easy to donate. That’s what we did.
What they’ve done now is insert lots of back page of Tatler type images, hide the donate button and instead feature the organisation’s mission statement.
Tags: concern ireland website, rose project website, trocaire website, website design not for profits
Google Dublin : Website Clinic
February 15, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Heard about this from Jason Roe of taking on Ryanair fame. It’s on Thursday 25 February in Google Headquarters from 7-8pm, and is free!
- Any business owner with their own website
- No particular online experience required, all you need is a website
- It’s completely free
- The event is limited to 50 participants only on a first-come, first-served basis
Definitely worth it if you can get a place. Sign up here.
Tags: Google Clinic
Debbie Metrusty (@debbiemet) RIP
February 15, 2010 at 8:39 am
There are some people on Twitter who are just generous souls; who always have a kind word to say, who respond to a tweet where you may be thinking you made a bit of an ass of yourself, people whose warmth carries over into the virtual world. Importantly these people also have Real Lives going on, they do not merely exist on Twitter.
Debbie Metrusty (@debbiemet) was one of those people.
I first met Debbie at the Twitter meet-up at Electric Picnic ‘08. She was so into her indie tunes, had an impressive list of ‘must see’s’ and I actually count her as the one who opened my eyes to Florence & the Machine… and Marina & the Diamonds…! She had retrained as a landscape gardener and was all excited about her home in Cloughjordan Eco Village. She loved cats. She was an early adopter of all sorts of new Twitter apps. And was one of the organisers of Dublin Twestival.
I couldn’t believe it, when I was dossing in college on Saturday, and I came across her obituary notice in The Irish Times. It couldn’t be. Such a exuberant lovely person has been taken from us – just like that. It is shocking. Alongside the tweet about the Irish Times notice, her reply from only last Wednesday was sitting in the column beside it.
The funeral is on tomorrow in Glasnevin, Sabrina’s blog has all the most updated details (and some really lovely comments too). I think everyone’s shocked and saddened by Debbie’s passing. Rest in peace don’t really work for someone so young and full of life. But they’re all we’ve got. So Debbie – Rest In Peace. You will be missed. And God bless you.
Tags: Debbie Metrusty RIP
Very Responsive Home Page
February 13, 2010 at 1:08 pm
@burkie noted this on Twitter on Saturday:
Ulster Bank have a welcome message to Halifax on its home page.
Tags: Home page, ulster bank
My Favourite iPhone App
February 10, 2010 at 8:53 pm
I’ve had the iPhone three whole weeks now and I haven’t written a single thing… I am talking about it, oh boy! With friends when we meet we fall into a routine of show and tell for iphone apps. With taxi drivers, it’s more of a competitive thing – see who’s got the better app. With my brother who also recently got one and had to be shown how to use the app store itself (bless!).
My favourite app of all is to do with a very basic physiological motion and that is sleep. I’m not alone. Sleep cycle is the number 1 paid app across the world. I love the fact that we’re all so human and flock to the apps that fulfill our most basic of needs!
What it does:
Because we don’t move when we are in a deep sleep, the app monitors your movements and charts your sleep – deep sleep, dreaming, waking up, etc. You set the alarm and it will readjust itself within half an hour to ensure that it goes off when you’re in a light sleep. When you wake up from a light sleep you wake up feeling more refreshed. It’s great!
The only downside came on Monday morning when I had to get up really early anyway – the alarm reset itself to go off half an hour earlier – at 5.45am which was not a good thing.
Here’s my sleep pattern the night before last, a pretty good sleep:
Tags: iPhone app, sleep cycle
What Title Will You Choose?
February 8, 2010 at 7:30 am
I’ve always loved the sign up form for Harrods. The array of titles to choose from tickles me every time. Which title would you choose? Brigadier General? Viscountess? Her Royal Highness? Or just plain old Countess?
Tags: Great Registration Form, Sign Up Forms, Usability
If You Want To Know What Drugs Do
February 5, 2010 at 9:00 pm
If you think that drugs is about having a quick line of coke in slick bar somewhere, wiping your runny nose as you down your vodka. Or dancing all night with your hands in the air, in love with strangers around you who tomorrow will not be your friends. Then read on.
I’ve recently completed a blog site for a community group in my local area. It’s called Sankalpa and they work with people who want to come off methadone and benzos. Methadone rehabilitation Dublin. Inner city areas are no longer riddled with smack (well not as much as they were in the 1980’s), but boy is it easy to get your hands on benzo’s… those horrible drugs that keep you sedated but alive. Imagine being successful coming off smack and then having to live in an area that’s coming down in opportunities for benzos?
Sankalpa work at changing people’s lives. They educate and promote nutrition, herbs, and juicing. They teach people how to cook real food and change habits of a lifetime to keep their bodies healthy. They use art therapy to help people bring out their stories about the why, the what for, and to face some of the memories that have been so long locked away. They provide training in computer skills, maths, art, ceramics… they help to place feet firmly back on the right road again.
There are so many inspiring stories coming out of Sankalpa (and the lots of other local groups around this country). It must be hard for them in this climate and the fact that they are not helping people from Haiti. Sankalpa is run by a team of really open and forward looking people. They’ve started a blog – it makes great reading… from recipes for smokers cough tea, tips on how to use lemon balm and other herbs, and interesting research in this area… but what really gets me are the real life stories.
Fair play to people like Des, David, Lynne and others who tell it like it is in all its ugly truth.
To all the people making a go of it at Sankalpa big RESPECT.
To anyone reading this who has skills in video editing, podcasting, photography… Sankalpa need you. They’ve great plans this year to produce lots of rich media. If you’d like to help in any way at all – you can!
Now for all you people out there who still think coke is cool, read David’s story. And next time you end up in some after hours house party, think about Des - sure you might have even partied in his house?
