Author: Paul

Pinning your hopes on the next big thing

Internet by Paul0 comments

I met a futurologist once who was deeply embarrassed about his job title, but provided a fascinating hour-long chat on trend-spotting.

He said identifying the next big thing was as much down to probability and predictability than a sixth sense. You look at current trends and how they are evolving for an insight into what might happen next.

I likened his role to BBC’s Tomorrow’s World programme, which served up a tantalising glimpse into the future that in hindsight was not always very accurate. But he shook his head and claimed to be far more conservative in his predictions than the BBC show ever was.

I was reminded of that encounter during the last few weeks as I took a look around Pinterest.

It is relatively new on my social media radar, but the site is actually two years old. Not exactly the new kid on the social media … [Read More]

Don’t go changing…three words that don’t apply online

Internet by Paul0 comments

Don’t go changing. The first three words of a famous song might provide sound advice in matters of the heart, but they make absolutely no sense at all when it comes to business.

And it is certainly true when it comes to doing business online. Standing still online is never an option.

Change is good. Change is what we should all embrace.

Yes, I know, that’s all well and good in theory but when it comes to practice we all have a certain amount of fear and loathing when it comes to change.

If we encounter something new when we ae expecting the familiar, our first impressions are not always positive. In fact, they can be downright hostile.

That is just as true online, witness the fall-out from any new developments and announcements from our favourite search engines or social networking sites. Twitter’s recent announcement on the “open exchange of … [Read More]

Do you like your customers?

Internet by Paul0 comments

The customer is always right. But do you have to like them too?

Social networking has changed the way many firms handle customer service. And those same social networking sites have given other firms the type of PR headaches they have spent years studiously trying to avoid.

Learning how to make best use of social networking sites is vitally important these days. A growing number of companies are taken a carefully considered and measured approach to using social media channels to interact with their customers…and even to like them.

Customer engagement has never been so easy...or so immediate

These companies are actively engaging in a very public conversation with people who buy their products and services, causing a mini revolution in terms of traditional customer service.

Social networking is revolutionising customer service. There are more and more examples of companies using Twitter to deal with individual customer complaints and get … [Read More]

Socail medai is’nt desroyting spellin and grammer

Internet by Paul0 comments

I waved goodbye to my last full-time role in the newspaper industry six years ago and immediately found myself embroiled in an online row regarding the quality of the blogs the company I had just left were introducing.

The subject matter of the blogs was not the issue. The poor spelling, grammar and overall style of many of the individual posts was, however, proving a major source of distraction and irritation.

It wasn’t just me complaining, regular readers were not impressed either. When such mistakes were pointed out, apologies were forthcoming…initially.

But there came a point when the newspaper, the bloggers and their editor went on the offensive and stopped apologising for the regular mistakes. “The rules have changed,” I was reliably informed. “This is blogging, it isn’t journalism. So that stuff about spelling and grammar doesn’t always matter these days.”

My argument did not change. It came down to … [Read More]

Giving you information at your fingertips

Internet by Paul0 comments

The way we get our news and gather information is changing at a pace we have never seen before.

There are now so many ways to get up-to-date on what is happening locally, nationally and internationally it would take a while to list them and far too long to digest them all. It is also a list that continues to grow by the day.

From 24-hour television news to the continued rise of Internet use, we can have a bewildering array of news and information sources available to us 24/7 with a flick of a TV remote or click of a mouse. We have the world at our fingertips.

It has led some to complain of information overload, but such claims miss a vital point.

We have the best possible filter available to us – we get to decide whether we access this information or not.

The opportunity to find … [Read More]

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