The 101 most useful websites

Out of millions to choose from, the UK’s Telegraph picks the 101 most useful websites.

Something to remember ‘something nice’ with

Here’s a nice little idea.

And here’s the visual cues:

Plenty of scope to copy that in B2B campaigns. And I will. Unashamedly.

Sliderocket – Best in show

Sliderocket presented at Under The Radar in the US yesterday – scooping, wait for it, three gongs….Best in Show, the Judges Choice award, and the Audience Choice award.

Take the Tour.

I think this is one of those ‘Miss it – Miss out’ moments.

You see, SlideRocket is a rich internet application that provides for every part of the presentation lifecycle. It integrates authoring, asset management, delivery and analytics tools into a single hosted environment that allows you to quickly create stunning presentations, intelligently manage your assets, securely share your slides, and measure the results.

SlideRocket differentiates itself from other presentation products by being Web-based, feature-rich, easy-to-use, secure, and complete. SlideRocket is also unique in that it includes a community marketplace where content and services can be shared and transacted.

SlideRocket is the first online productivity application that embraces business level features such as collaboration, robust security, dynamic data binding and business integration with applications like Salesforce.com. SlideRocket also embraces the best of the Internet with features like asset tagging, web content mashups, embedded data services and seamless rich media support.

Very cool.

Out of Office

In an era of ‘On Demand’ service and the continued blurring between ‘work’ and ‘play’, is it wrong to put up an Out of Office notice on your email these days?

I am beginning to think most people display far too old fashioned notices – and hide behind them.

I am out of the office from x – x with limited access to email. I will return your email on my return.

I guess it is up to each individual, but please. No access to email? An increasingly unlikely story.
If you are that way inclined, say it as it is;

I am on vacation and taking a break from work and emails. If appropriate I will return your email on my return. If your matter is urgent contact x on x who can help you in x business hours.

For the rest of us how about:

I am on vacation. I will be accessing my emails from time to time but don’t expect an instant reply this time. If your matter is urgent contact me on Mob: xyz.

I really think it is time to cut out the crappy Out of Office email shenanigans. What’s the worst one you have received?

Résumé (or CV for us Brits)

I really like Seth Godin. Who wouldn’t in a role like mine? But today he got it wrong.

He said;

If you’re remarkable, amazing or just plain spectacular, you probably shouldn’t have a résumé at all.

I agree that jobs don’t get filled by people emailing in résumés, especially jobs in start-ups, or remarkable organisations. You need to raise your head above the parapet – either by knowing someone on the inside – or by standing out from the crowd. But here’s what I think – you’d be daft NOT to have a résumé.

In a world dominated by ‘average’ and ‘ordinary’, the easiest, fastest and most efficient means to show how remarkable you are is to stand out alongside ‘average’, and show it for what it is.

Be close enough to warrant comparison. Far enough apart to stand out.

update 18/03/08 Think about it. The fastest runner on earth runs the 100 metres like everyone else.  He doesn’t go off and create his own gig to show how fast he is……

Yes the bog standard résumé format is crap. But remarkable, amazing and just plain spectacular folk will use this fact to their advantage. They’ll re-write the rules, but still under the banner of a ‘résumé’. They’ll also realise that re-writing the rulebook for getting employed is a bad idea. Because some cretin, somewhere in corporate-ville will ask for a copy anyway.

Bother having a résumé. Just make it unlike anyone else’s.

What does it feel like to be 2 yrs old?

This blog is two years old today.  On 16th March 2006 I decided I wanted to blog, and on 20th March 2006 I made my first post ever.

That’s just 730 days, or 17,520 hours ago.

And yet I feel I have achieved so much, and learnt so much.  For instance in that time the blog has appeared in the AdAge Power 250.

Since I started the blog (as an experiment to dip my toes into user generated content and social media) I have made 330 odd posts. But more importantly I have been part of hundreds of conversations, online and offline. And built connections with subject matter experts in Singapore, Chicago, Edinburgh, New York, Japan, Australia, and lots of placed in-between.

What a ball its been.

Here’s to the next two years in the blogosphere (and amongst the twitterati! too).

Please help

Sport Relief

(I should apologise for bringing you here by illicit categorisation and tagging, but I won’t. You might have wasted just 10 seconds. Hopefully you will make the choice to change someone’s world in less than a minute).

Google your way to being wacky. Or pretentious?

You decide…..

Thanks Laura :-)

So you do XP huh?

Introducing the PairOn.

‘Grown up’ social networking

There is a good piece in silicon.com today about LinkedIn, and how their CEO believes that it is very different to Facebook and the other social networking sites.

I agree, and somewhat bizarrely disagree completely.

I’m very much in tune with LinkedIn’s CEO and his thinking about LinkedIn’s role and ‘reason for being’. In fact I really struggle to understand why B2B professionals would not want to use the service – truth be told I am amazed it’s free.

But to assign other social networking sites into a ‘juvenile’ camp is naive. Maybe it is just semantics, and I am reading too much into it?

Take Twitter for instance. Over the last few days I have been following various people as they post comments (tweets) in real-time about events at SXSW (a music, film, and interactive conference and festival) particularly the uncomfortable keynote with Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook‘s CEO) and Business Week‘s Sarah Lacy.

Hilarious. Live. Connected. Interactive. And certainly not juvenile.

Ok. Possibly not as thought-provoking or grammatically sound as a blog or elements of LinkedIn (e.g. Answers) but as a forum to share a stream-of-conscious babblings. Ideal.

Now the blogosphere is catching up on the whole Zuckerberg thang- with more detailed descriptions and reviews. But ultimately I learnt a great lesson in my use of Twitter over the last 48hrs. Its sufficiently different. Spectacularly different. And if you follow the appropriate people – seriously grown up.

Just like LinkedIn. Only different.

By the way I am here if you want to connect My LinkedIn Profile, My Twitter

It’s official. I need help.

As my current Marketing Manager is going on maternity leave, I need help. A years worth of help. It’s official. Email me with you CV if you think you are the up to the mark

This really is an exciting opportunity to contribute to a leading UK SI, Salmon. Salmon’s UK marketing department is small, but its lead generation efforts are big; to match the the aim of driving the achievement of Salmon’s annual revenue targets.

You will need experience in business-to-business (B2B) marketing in a high-tech (software, hardware or IT services) environment; and you will naturally enjoy demonstrating skills related to integrated marketing programmes, and working well with internal stakeholders.

From day one, you’ll enjoy understanding Salmon’s brand values. And when you are ready (you’ll be a quick learner) you’ll thrive on communicating our core values and building sophisticated campaigns; successfully helping to plan, execute and measure integrated lead generation campaigns.

For the listaholics…….

Main duties

• Help to plan, execute and measure integrated marketing programmes, against agreed objectives and budget
• Sound marketing administration
• Assist in the planning and execution of PR, seminars, conferences, user groups, direct marketing
• Work with salespersons on a day-to-day basis, providing support for their activities
• Create content for internal and external communication, both email based and print based such as email updates, Newsletters, customer win postcards
• Maintain list of customer reference sites for sales use, press opportunities and case studies
• Liaise with Salmon’s business partners and suppliers, in a professional and conscientious manner
• Maintain marketing relationships, processes and systems with business partners
• Maintain Salmon’s CRM system (Salesforce), sourcing and managing data for external communication
• Maintain and update the Salmon website
• Create collateral/presentations to support Salmon’s services and solutions
• Maintain marketing budget

Experience and skills

The successful candidate will need to be able to demonstrate their experience in the following:

• B2B marketing in a high-tech industry
• Successful execution and measurement of lead generation campaigns
• Effective copywriting for corporate website, micro site, emails, eNewsletters, direct mail
• Organising seminars and conferences
• Measuring campaign performance against objectives
• Integrated campaigns: – PR, events, email marketing, web
• Microsoft Office, especially MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Word

Experience in the following is desirable:

• UK IT Services market
• Using Salesforce.com or similar CRM systems to track and report on marketing campaigns
• Digital and Email marketing
• PR Administration, and/or Romeike Media Disc
• Adobe / Macromedia Contribute, Photoshop, Acrobat

Don’t delay. This position will be filled quickly.

Mad Men in the UK

New to the UK and the BBC, Mad Men is a Golden Globe winning drama series set in the world of advertising in 1960s New York.  And with Emmy® Award-winning executive producer and writer of “The Sopranos” Matthew Weiner behind it, Mad Men really is the provocative drama that UK Marketing professionals should catch.

My advice is to cook a good meal, sit down with the wife, and watch it. ….under the pretence of course that the working day has ended…..When in actual fact you are thinking about the approach back in 1960′s, and how it applies (or doesn’t) in today’s era of multiple channels and a plethora of media types.

That’s what I did. Enjoyed it too.

What you are, what you want, what you love doesn’t matter. It’s all about how you sell it.

Manipulation of the media. Hell, that’s what I pay you for.

For UK viewers, it’s on iPlayer for another 4 days.

For the tech heads amongst you the throw away line to the newbie; “now try not to be overwhelmed by all this technology,” was just great.

Can someone help me though? What’s the difference between an Account Executive and a Creative Executive? lol.

Twitter on paper

I have mentioned Lee and Sachi LeFever’s WIKI and RSS video’s before.

Their series of short explanatory videos (The Common Craft Show) fight complexity – with simple videos in plain language. They call their format “paperworks”. I think they are simply great.

Their latest video is all about Twitter – and again is worth watching.

Use Twitter?  Follow me here.  Be warned I am new to this!

What’s your favorite question?

Those who ask “why” are typically more holistic or whole-brained thinkers.

Those who ask “how” are typically more box thinkers.

And those who ask “why not” are typically the challenging thinkers.

And yet all types, of course, are equally valuable and equally required for innovation!

Great .pdf manifesto by Corinne Miller the Founder & Principal Consultant of InnovatingResults!

When is your next Grand Opening?

I was recently invited to Apple’s store opening in Milton Keynes.

It got me thinking. 
If you are a technology business professional there is no reason why you can’t put on a “Grand Opening” the next time there is a new office, or an “Open Day” when a new Service is launched, or a “Country Tour” when a new product is launched.

Invite your prospects.  Invite your customers.  Get them to mix together and bring their curiosity, experiences, enthusiasm and orientation – it can be the best thing you can associate yourselves with.

If you are a software, hardware or IT Services marketing professional setting up a place to test-drive, experience or catch a free workshop is a golden opportunity.  And add a sprinkle of peer group – more’s the better.

All that said though – I would definitely advise laying on qualified ‘concierge’ staff (in easily spotted attire, a branded polo shirt will do), to provide hints and tips and a guide to everything.

In an era of web 2.0 (and 3.0), of new marketing techniques and new thinking generally – ‘old’ thinking and ‘traditional’ techniques still bear fruit for the lead oriented marketer.