Archives for 2007

Comments off temporarilyPosted on November 4, 2007

Just a quick note to say I’ve temporarily disabled comments on this blog - I’ve been hit hard by spammers over the weekend and Akismet isn’t catching them so they must be doing something new/tricky.
Comments will be back in a few days.
Thanks

Tags: spam

3 ways to make best friends of Marketing and ITPosted on October 25, 2007

One of the biggest parts of my job over the years has been as the conduit between marketing and IT departments - in fact, it’s one of the key ways I have sold myself in interviews as it’s a really important role to have within any organisation.
Marketing and IT traditionally have an acrimonious relationship. [...]

Tags: IT, Marketing, politics, random thoughts

My new personal assistantPosted on October 23, 2007

I’m beta-testing a new personal assistant. Ok, she’s not a real person, she’s I Want Sandy, an electronic organiser.

It’s pretty simple to use, I email or text (well, in the US I could text her, from Australia I can’t yet) a message like “remind me to buy a birthday present for Josh on Friday [...]

Tags: Cool websites, innovation, trends

Blog requestPosted on October 22, 2007

I’ve just had an email asking -
“I wanted to know if you could post a blog about this new advertising trend, advertisers are looking at your skin in a whole new way by Handvertising! You also take a look at the Handvertising samples and information on our site at http://www.HandvertisingUSA.com”
So here we go. Handvertising is [...]

Tags: Marketing

Virgin CharterPosted on October 17, 2007

Virgin has been very busy in America, launching Virgin Charter (although the service won’t be live until February). It’s the perfect premise - as air travel gets more and more unpleasant, particularly in the US, why not make it easy for people who can afford it to charter their own plane.

It’s something I’d definitely [...]

Tags: innovation, trends

Web Design Survey from A List ApartPosted on October 16, 2007

A List Apart has just released their findings of their first Web Design Survey.
It’s very interesting, they had 33,000 respondents so I assume it’s one of the biggest surveys undertaken in our industry. I think they have learned a lot for the next survey, such as not asking ambiguous questions - when asking ethnicity [...]

Tags: Analytics, innovation, trends

Zappos is amazingPosted on October 15, 2007

I’ve heard countless stories about Zappos being a company that really understands customer experiences and how to keep people passionate about their brand. If they don’t have the shoes you’re looking for in stock, their customer service people will try to find another company that sells them and then will tell you where to get [...]

Tags: random thoughts

Call a blind charity instead of Alan, Alicia and AaronPosted on October 10, 2007

A great idea for a charity fund raiser comes from the Netherlands, where “Lingue Braille” have setup a service called “A Blind Call“.
The premise is pretty simple - you save their number in your mobile with the name as A Blind Call. I assume they’ve done research into how often people leave their phones unlocked [...]

Tags: Cool websites, innovation

Another terrible user experiencePosted on October 7, 2007

I’m not sure if any of you have had the misfortune of having to call the RTA lately but they need some serious lessons in how to treat their customers.
I’m trying to book myself in for my motorcycle test. You actually can do it online (one small mercy) but I have a question that [...]

Tags: Usability

Is SEO Evil?Posted on October 2, 2007

Scott Gledhill of the Molt:n team recently did a presentation on Is SEO Evil? at Sydney’s annual Web Directions South. The presentation went well and Scott received some great feedback and questions afterward on the topic, so have a watch.
This audio from the podcast has been synced to the slideshow (a slidecast is the [...]

Tags: SEO, wds07