Sydney’s Districts Are Going Wireless

Today Sydney has joined the ranks of global technology cities by announcing a plan to roll-out free wireless network services in 2008. The wi-fi network will cover the Sydney CBD and North Sydney plus the business districts in Liverpool, Parramatta, Wollongong, Newcastle and Gosford.

In many aspects this will provide the mechanism for Sydneysiders to utilise the best that internet technology has to offer. It will provide benefits to business people (particularly useful to my fellow small business owners), government authorities and tourists.

But is it all good?

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My Sort of Networking

It is time to fess up – I am NOT a fan of networking. In fact it could be said that I hate it. The people who know me best have seen the cynical look on my face at “networking events” (I go whole hog at times – rolling eyes, sarcastic comments, looking for an opportunity to make a bee-line for the door.

I’m not saying that I can’t do it. In fact if you caught me on a good day and I was in a group of people that I found interesting you wouldn’t know the difference.

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Things To Create a Great Website

Questions! That’s the game I’m in – well answers really are, but most of my day is filled with questions. Questions from clients, prospects, friends and relatives on how they can get this to work, or what sort of technology should they get next, or how to get more exposure on the web. But I must say the #1 question I get asked is “What do I need to do to have a great website?”

Over the past few years I have gathered, through personal experience and through reading the wisdom of others (a lot of it Seth Godin), a list of things that won’t guarantee you online success but will take you along way down the road. Now this list is not exhaustive and it will be controversial to some but most of it is plain common-sense wisdom.

• Make it about the reader (they are more interested in themselves than they are in you).
• Make it easy for the visitor, not for you.
• Organise your site the way a real person would use it.
• Let them look at all they want.
• Be clear to communicate why people would be there.
• Each page should have one primary objective.
• Make a different page for each important thing and make that important thing the most obvious thing on the page.
• Fight the urge to be all things to all people. Your choices won’t suit everyone but is that really all that important.
• Don’t make people jump through hoops to get what they are looking for.
• Most people don’t just hang around your site looking for stuff – just like they don’t turn up at your office just to shoot the breeze with you.
• Have logical steps that keep the visitor with you until they reach their objective for being there or your objective for the site/page.
• Have a customised page for error messages or failed searches that is more than the usual “can’t find the page” information. Provide some information that might keep the visitor with you, like top 10 things people download, articles or products.
• Use a “tell me you saw this error link” on your customised error page.
• Don’t ever have an under construction page. Use the space an have a static “flyer” with your contact information or don’t have anything.
• You may not be able to test everything but you MUST test the money path.
• Say thank you.
• Have a send this page to a friend link.
• Do something to start a conversation.
• DON’T use pop-ups.
• Find sites that work well and learn from their organisation.
• Don’t just create it and leave it – make sure there is regular updates to the pages.

What do you think? Are there any other tips that you would add to the list?

Heads Up on PayPal Subscriptions

Just a quick reminder today about what to do when you cancel a service that has been paid for via PayPal’s subscription service.

This was a recent lesson for me when I cancelled my subscription to MyBlogLog. The instructions on their site about cancelling the service said the usual click here to cancel, etc and so I did. What I wasn’t aware of (and neither were the guys at MyBlogLog until I flagged this issue with them) was the automatic subscription payments were still coming out of my account. So there was obviously something missing.

What had to happen was that I needed to go into PayPal and manually cancel the subscription myself.

So here are the steps you need to follow to cancel the subscription in your PayPal account.

1. Click the My Account tab.
2. Click the History subtab
3. Choose the Subscriptions field from the Show drop-down menu.
4. Tick the From box and change the date back two years.
5. Click Search.
6. To view the details of a specific Subscription Creation, click Details in the Details column.
7. At the bottom of this page, click Cancel Subscription.
8. On the confirmation page, click Cancel Subscription again.

So now you will need to provide some type of notice of cancellation to the service provider and then go in and cancel the payment in PayPal.

(BTW – The guys at MyBlogLog have now amended their cancellation instructions to highlight the fact that it’s a 2-step process).

Now I am $3 lighter this month I might go out and splurge on a coffee

[tags]Paypal, subscription, MyBlogLog[/tags]

Are Your Clients Listening?

Seth Godin … those of you that have been long-term readers you will know that his wisdom forms a regular part of my morning blog reading.  But I haven’t quoted him for a while, haven’t seen much of a neeed, that is until this morning.

In a post called “The Zen of Venn” the last paragraph conveyed a point (very directly and articulately) that I have been having many conversations with clients and colleagues about over the past couple of years.

Before you embrace your wonderful solution to the marketplace’s problem, first decide how many of consumers are choosing to listen to messages like yours. Are they listening in a medium you can afford?

All Products are Conversations

Hugh McLeod has nailed it again!

What more can I say? Well maybe :

Technology and the Power of Influence
10 Ways to Become More Fluent in Technology
100 Keys to Solo Success – #26 Give Away Your Wisdom

Spell With Flickr

Ever wanted to spell out a word using images? Even if you have never though of doing it before I am sure that will spend at least some time having fun with Spell With Flickr.

Might be an interesting addition to your graphics creation tools for your website, blog, invitations or other documents.

Not sure what Flickr is? It is a very popular image storing/sharing service. Have a look here.

Pam Slim’s Favourite Things

Pamela Slim, of Escape From Cubicle Nation fame, is having some end of year fun. She is putting a twist on Oprah’s annual “Favourite Things” show and having her own version called, of course, “Pam’s Favourite Things 2006“.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens (oops, sorry I digress).

Pam is inviting all creative small business owners (and you must be genuinely small – not big masquerading as small) to email her with the details of your product. She is looking for products (and I suppose services if they were suitable) that would be an outstanding edition to everyone’s Christmas list.

You’ve got until November 30 to get your email to her. She will post her list on December 1.

Pop over and read more about the details of this project and how to contact Pam.

Well done Pam on finding another way to support our fellow cubicle escapees! This is such a good idea that I might just have to do a “Leah’s Christmas Wishlist” as well.

Getting It Under Control for Christmas

A quick alert - this post contains some shameless promotion for a couple of great women who happen to be friends. Read on if you are interested in getting Christmas happening a little more effortlessly this year.

As a woman who juggles the challenges of also being a business owner the next few weeks until the end of the year are a mad countdown of what needs to be done for clients, family and friends before the year is finished. That in itself is a challenge, but wait there’s more – Christmas! Hang on a minute who said there was time for a major holiday, and all its associated running around, in the next 6 weeks (now wait it is less than that now).

This year I will be having my Christmas sanity saved by Karen Wallace and Chris Owen! Now it would be nice to think that they were here just to save my sanity but OH NO! THey are actually on a mission to save Chritmas sanity one person at a time – and that means you too.

Now you could think (much like I did) “I don’t need help. I’m a grown woman, can run a business, raise a family, and keep life rolling along. I don’t need help with Christmas.”

I know what is possible at this time of year but did I do it? Not always! What Karen and Chris have done is pull together all the great ideas, tips and resources that will remind you that Christmas can be done your way.

You can get their sanity saving wisdom via an e-book, CD or even a party with a group of friends. Very fittingly this program is called SOXS – Save Our Xmas Sanity.

And they are now giving our presents !!!!

Between now and Christmas each person that purchases a copy of the downloadable e-book will go into the draw for a special Christmas Sanity Saver Kit.

So maybe it is time to stop pretending that you’ve “got it all under control” and start opening up to extra ideas.

(Could you imagine if you ran your business the same way as you ran Christmas – and you do get help for your business when you need to – don’t you?)

Want An Online Video? but only know how to use PowerPoint

Unless you have been living in a bit of a hole lately you would know that online video is becoming a very popular online tool. Everyone from your teenager, to your neighbours are getting their 15 minutes of fame online.

The business world is also getting online with video … the recent Dove Real Beauty Workshop video has, according to Unilever (the manufacturers of Dove) been effective than a $5m SuperBowl advertisement.

So you think that it might be time for your small business to get some of this video action. After all once it is made then it is just a matter of sticking it up on the web.

But there are a couple of small sticking points – you don’t have a video camera, and even if you could get one you’re not quite sure how to get the images onto the computer, let alone edit it into something resembling a short, memorable piece of business promotion. So you think that you’ll wait until the kids get it sorted out and then you will use them.

But wait! I might just have an idea that might get you most of the way there. As a business person you have probably at some stage had to tackle the demon called PowerPoint. If you have a reasonable level of skill in slinging a few PowerPoint slides together in a way that is professional and can get you message across then there’s a new service that might just help you get what looks like a video (just a series of moving PowerPoint slides but you don’t have to tell).

SlideShare (still in beta) bills itself as

“a place to share and discover slideshows. Upload your slides! Share with a link, or embed in a blog.”

I haven’t had a chance to play with it myself yet but the brain has already been ticking over with all the possible uses I could come up with for clients (and me).

[tags] SlideShare, Powerpoint, online video, small business marketing[/tags]

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