Will technology come up with a good solution for our business problems?

Back in December I posted a short piece about whether there really is a future in writing software any more. The piece was driven by some comments made about some research initiatives in new software tools going on in Microsoft & Sun and how they would affect us going forward. While we have a lot [...]

What’s permission got to do with it?

Welcome to the third and final entry in this series of customer communication blog posts.  So far we’ve looked at how frequently to contact customers and what communication method best suits you.  There’s just one final piece of the communication puzzle that I want to share with you – permission and relevance. Why are you [...]

At last some news: Social Business Software!

At the end of last year we were asked to make our predictions for this Blog. The problem with making predictions is that you tend to focus on what is newsworthy at the time & then predict the outcome; I’m guilty as charged (my predictions are here if you are interested). Having confidently predicted what [...]

How should I contact my customers?

Welcome to the second part of my blog on customer communications – thanks for coming back! My last entry looked at frequency of communications, which leads us naturally into looking at what’s the best method of communicating with customers?  You’ll not be surprised to hear me say that again there’s no ‘one size fits all’.  [...]

To email or not to email?

I recently saw a question on Linked In where someone was looking for advice on customer communications.  They wanted to know how often they should email their customers.  The reality is that there’s no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to communicating with customers. Working out what’s right for you The good news is [...]

Data loss, could you recover?

I recently heard about a friend of a friend (this is not an urban myth – but reality), who had the misfortune to “lose” his bag in a bar in London. Once he realised it had gone his first thoughts were, “what’s in there – laptop, wallet, car keys, and oh heck – house keys”. [...]

Twitter – Distraction or delight?

I’m going to hold my hands up…I’m not an early adopter. I’m happy for others to buy the first version of a new gadget or sign up to the next big thing online. That way, they get all of the bugs out of the way before I take the plunge. So you won’t be surprised [...]

Green is still good for business

A new survey shows that despite the downturn, many companies are still committed to sustainability. Amy Fetzer reports. In these volatile economic times, it’s encouraging to see many businesses still believe it makes good sense to think sustainably. In fact, initial results from a survey I am conducting indicate the downturn is actually increasing many [...]

Economic slowdown: It’s not all doom and gloom

While the economic slowdown has made the majority of us increasingly cost conscious, are UK consumers really cutting back as much as the media lead us to believe? Although 2009 is said to be one of the worst years on record for the high street, with sales expected to decline each year until 2014*, there [...]

There’s still snow disruption like snow…

Further to my last post, I thought we had seen the last of the snow and last night 100 cars were stuck on Haldon Hill in Exeter spending the night away from family. The thought of getting stuck on the roads in snow in 2009 would not have been at the forefront of my mind [...]