Eggblogg

First Friday Lewes is working!

This is nice, yesterday I got not one but three unsolicited testimonials for First Friday Lewes, the informal networking group I set up last May. Business coach Hugh Fenton told me "the first person I spoke to at my first meeting in November is now a client."

Garden designer Mary Stevenson has had one new client and done 2 proposals for people she met at First Friday Lewes and said "I think it's a combination of Lewes/ more creative people/ relaxed venue/ and good hosting.  You are the only networking host who takes the trouble to introduce people."

Our next meeting is this Friday 1st February, new members welcome and it's FREE. See the website for details.

On target?

I'm not keen on all that aggressive vocabulary you find in marketing textbooks - all about hitting, targeting, ambushing, guerilla tactics etc.

But this nice pic from Mrs Webby just has to prompt a post about targeting.

It reminds me that it's very easy to think you're targeting the right people when actually you're missing the mark by a mile. The moral of the story? Look at the issue from all angles, not just your own perspective!

eTips - on resisting the temptation to spam

The latest edition of eTips is here, it's about 'grey areas' in email marketing ...I'm no longer replicating eTips articles on this blog, but will post links to them when I remember.

Are Rose & Adelson digging their grave?

Over the past two days there has been a great commotion in the Digging world and my word but it’s been fascinating to observe! For those people that aren’t heavily involved in the social media scene this is what’s been going down…

Yesterday Digg 'launched a new algorithm to try and prevent groups of users from gaming the system.' This sounds perfectly reasonable to me but then again I’m not a top digger...

I do understand that Digg wants to give new people a chance to get on the front page, but don’t these people who have dedicated a lot of time and effort to Digg deserve some recognition for it? It seems to have been the last straw for top Diggers who feel they are being penalised and that Digg is no longer a democratic news site. They retaliated by writing an open letter to Digg airing these and other grievances. Understandable, I think, under the circumstances!

I think the worst of it has to be the wide spread complaints about the lack of communication from Digg. Of course they deny this fervently and say that they don’t intend to ignore messages sent to them and that they hope to put in place a method of two-way communication to alleviate these complaints, blah blah… But surely this should have been in place a long time ago!? Is it just me or are these people just playing a very dangerous game?

On a site like Digg, where we can have our say at anytime, with access to a great big audience, would it not be wise for Rose and Adelson to open up the doors of communication a little more? Shouldn’t they have communicated with Digg users before it got this far? Maybe they would have saved themselves a little of the negative publicity. What do you think? I would really appreciate your comments because it just baffles me!

Three writing tips

Jennifer at Catalyst Blogger has passed on the 'meme' of writing 3 tips on writing, then tagging 5 writers to do the same...hers are all spot on, so what else can I say...? Here goes:

Cut, cut, cut ... I can't say I follow this advice when blogging (!) but if you're NOT aiming for a stream-of-consciousness effect then do it. Amazing how many useless adjectives, cliches and, well, words creep into those early drafts. Ahem!

If in doubt, check it out ... always have a decent dictionary to hand. And a style guide from a reputable publication. I use The Economist Style Guide but there are plenty of others. if you expect people to pay you for writing there's no excuse for poor spelling or punctuation.

Go for a walk ... if you're staring in frustration at a blank screen, a walk is what you need (unless it's raining, perhaps). Fresh air, things to see, space for thinking.

So c'mon peeps, what are your top tips? (Apart from do not use the word 'peeps'...)