It’s the ‘Ender of an era!
As a teenager I was madly in love with David Essex. His pictures were plastered all over my bedroom walls, I went to his concerts, I even wore white flares for a while, his signature look! 
He was beautiful – his long, darly curly hair and twinkling eyes sent my hormones into overdrive and I thought I was in love!!! I was actually lucky enough to talk to him in the BBC bar one night after a Top of the Pops appearance – I thought all my Christmases had come at once!!!
Imagine my surprise, therefore, when tuning into an episode of Eastenders recently and hearing that lovely lilting voice of his, turning round to the TV and being confronted by this elderly looking man, somewhat out of shape, white-haired and bald – oh how I could have wept!!! The voice was the same, the sparkly eyes were still there – but where has that sex symbol gone?
Oh, and the goatee beard is a definite no no!!!
I wish he hadn’t taken the part in Eastenders and I could forever remember the long dark curly haired boy he used to be. My dreams of when he would “Hold me Close” and “Make me a star” would remain intact.
Tempting fate?
There will be no more Chinese proverbs from me for a while! I was heading back to my car in central Glasgow this afternoon when I managed to fall flat on my face in the middle of Ingram Street! I think I just tripped – I’m not sure – but my left leg is badly scraped along with my pride! Pedestrians on my side of the street just carried on walking as if I were invisible (obviously assuming I was worse for wear with drink!). I would however just like to thank the rather lovely young man who ran across the street, dodging traffic, to check I was alright – there are some good people out there!!!
I’m stuck on you!
Far too often we find ourselves complaining about poor customer service, reading about the problems we face with difficult suppliers and consequently being inordinately pleased at having received the barest minimum of success when ordering things online.
It is important, therefore, to make sure that when you receive a service which is above and beyond what you could ever expect, that you make sure you shout this from the rafters and give that organisation the credit it deserves (and hopefully a few more orders as a result!).
Friends, please let me introduce you to www.motivationinlearning.com, based in Co. Down, N.Ireland and in particular their subsidiary www.superstickers.com.
I was looking for some reasonably priced stickers for a promotional event I was organising in Falkirk and a google search led me to the Superstickers site. It was extremely simple to upload the image I required onto the website, I ticked the box stating I was happy with the image and sat back and waited for my stickers to arrive. Sure enough, a few days later they were dropping through my letterbox, carefully packaged, and exactly what I wanted. I was delighted.
Coincidentally, a couple of days later, a business acquaintance asked me if I knew of somewhere she could get some stickers from and I naturally told her about superstickers.com. I suggested that since I had all the details to hand, if she provided me with her logo I would have the stickers made for her. This she agreed to do and I duly went through the same process for her stickers, uploading the image onto their website, paying the requisite amount and was prepared to just sit back and wait for the delivery as I had done on the previous occasion.
I was surprised therefore to receive an email a couple of days later from Superstickers saying there was a problem with the stickers. When they ran them off, the image was blurred and they asked if I could send them a jpeg file of the image to see if that made things clearer. I emailed them the file straight away and thought no more about it. Imagine my surprise therefore when I received a phone call from Rita at Motivation in Learning to see if there was another solution as the file I’d sent was still not producing a good enough quality end product. After a brief discussion we decided that it would be best if they substituted one of the images I’d sent with something they already had and the very next day I received the finished stickers which are absolutely perfect and exactly what I’d wanted.
All this for an end product that cost less than £10. I wholeheartedly recommend Motivation in Learning and Superstickers. The service is above excellent, the people delightful and the finished product is of a quality that is second to none
Twiddly diddly dee – tweet tweet!!
At least once a day someone says to me “I don’t get Twitter” and I can see why. It took me a long time to understand what Twitter is all about so here are a few pointers of where people go wrong:
1. Creating an account and not using it – Twitter is littered with dead accounts. Usually what happens is a business creates an account, starts following people to get followers, then can’t keep up with a pace that is needed and they give up too soon. Often they expect overnight results, but that won’t happen. Don’t expect huge results and major ROI quickly. Twitter is a slow, organic growth platform in most cases.
2. Not engaging – Twitter is a conversation. If all you do is talk, but not talk to anyone, you’re boring. Reach out and start conversations with others. Don’t just stand up and shout out into the air.
3. Not replying to @mentions – It’s not just about engaging others actively, but also responding to others when they @mention you. If someone speaks to you, and you don’t respond, they will assume you aren’t there, don’t care, have automated your Twitter, or all of the above. When that happens, you can bet they won’t interested in what you have to say when you tweet.
4. Not building an audience – Your Twitter following doesn’t just grow. This isn’t an “if you build it they will come” proposition. You need to work to build your following, and that usually starts by you regularly, and strategically, following others and then engaging them.
5. Not tweeting enough – I’m going to step out on a limb and say there really is no such thing as tweeting too much. But not tweeting enough can be a real problem. Relationships are built on interaction. Rationing yourself to a certain number of tweets per day/week is a big mistake. Do you ration how often you interact with people in person?
6.Not following anyone – There is no rule that says you have to follow everyone who follows you, but you do need to consistently follow others. If you have a gazillion followers and don’t follow anyone back, that means all you care about is what you have to say, and don’t give a stuff about anyone else. Sorry, but it’s not all about you.
7. Not retweeting/sharing – Twitter works best when you tweet out a nice variety of content. That includes retweeting or sharing the content of others that you think your followers might be interested in. This is just one way of being a good citizen of the Twitter community. Plus, if you regularly share the work of others, they will be more likely to share or retweet your content.
8. Heavy handed sales – There is a place for some sales content on Twitter, but I see a lot of folks who do nothing but sell. It’s clear that they aren’t on Twitter for relationships. They don’t view you as a person; you are only a potential customer. The problem with that view is that if you don’t move from potential customer to real customer, they no longer have any interest in you. Mercenary relationships don’t work.
9. Not providing relevant content – We could debate about this for a long time as we all have different ideas about how to define “relevant” content. And the answer will be different for all of us, based on who we are, what we do, and our intended audience. But if all you do is link to non-compelling content, you’ll be ignored.
10. Retweeting retweets of themselves – These are people who break their arms patting themselves on the back. I especially see this a lot within the marketing community. @MarketingGalA tweets that she won an award. @MarketingGuyB retweets her and appends it with a congratulations. @MarketingGalA retweets @MarketingGuyB’s retweet as if to say, “Hey, this guy congratulated me for winning an award, this makes me special!”. The real problem with this is that the people who are guilty of this seem to do it all the time. Get over yourself.
11. Incomplete profile – One of the first things you need to do before you really start using Twitter is to make sure you have a complete profile. This means having a proper image, as well as a nice description of who you are and what you do. This should also include your location. People like to have some sort of context and want to know who’s on the other side of your account.
12. Not publicising that you’re on Twitter – You can have the best Twitter profile and be great at engaging, but you need to find ways to let your customers know you are on Twitter. This includes online methods such as your email, website, and Facebook page. This also includes using various offline methods that inform your customers when they are actually in your business.
13. Not integrating – Twitter doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You might want to include a Twitter widget on your website, or make sure that your blog gets pushed out to your Twitter followers automatically. There are many different ways that you can integrate Twitter with your other online properties.
14. One dimensional presence – Don’t just tweet the same sorts of things. None of us is one dimensional. We have a wide variety of interests, as do our followers. Play into those. Some people do nothing but spit out inspirational quotes. If that’s all you do, people will get bored quickly. Remember, Twitter is real life. Act on Twitter the way you would in a face to face setting.
15. Only automating via Facebook or only scheduling – An easy way for businesses to manage a Social Media presence is for them to link their Facebook updates to Twitter. I have no problem with this unless this is all you do. Remember, the name of the game is engagement. More often than not, businesses that do nothing but post the same content on both platforms, will end up only monitoring one of them, and that’s usually Facebook. If you aren’t monitoring Twitter, you can’t respond to people who might try to engage with you. Plus you won’t be engaging others proactively. If you do link Facebook and Twitter, make sure you are also spending time on Twitter alone, engaging, replying, and offering other content.
16. Having a protected account – This one makes no sense and drives me bonkers. I have no problem with individuals protecting their account, but if you are a business, your goal is to build up a nice following. By protecting your tweets you are adding an extra hurdle for people when they want to follow you. They have to request, and you have to approve. Quite frankly, when I see a business do this, I don’t even want to follow them.
What’s in a name?
So the Beckhams have decided to call their new baby daughter Harper Seven – the latest in a long line of celebrity nonsense names! We’ve seen it so many times before. However, is it just me or have they not thought that this could get shortened to “Harpie” in time – or that it sounds vaguely like the latest space mission – Apollo 13, Harper 7? Perhaps it is just that David needs an excuse for another tattoo and is running out of skin space?
Please vote on my poll below – it’s just for fun!
The EdinBRA Moonwalk
I know I’m a bit late posting this but I am still suffering from a lack of sleep after what was the strangest way to spend a Saturday night but I will try to convey the emotion and sense of occasion that the Moonwalk brings to all those who take part, in whatever capacity.
At 8.30 pm on Saturday 12th June I dropped my good friends Kim & Joanna at their fellow Moonwalkers rented apartment in the Royal Mile – what an amazing place to stay – right in the heart of tourist land and easy access to the historical and cultural centre. I then followed their minibus to Inverleith Park where the big pink tent was waiting.
I wasn’t able to go into the Moonwalk Village as this was purely for the brave souls about to embark on their marathon (or half marathon) around the streets. I decided to grab a coffee and wait for them to start at the start (and finish line). The wait was a good 2 hours but myself and the few other hardened souls that were there with me were kept entertained by a power failure to the time clock and the lights around the start point – it was literally 5 minutes before the walk started that the power was restored and we could actually see something!
At 11.30pm the huge crowd of 10,000 walkers surged towards the start line – an incredible sight – and the 2011 Edinburgh Moonwalk was underway. The “entertainment” was a man in a pink kilt talking to the crowd as they crossed the start line (I’m thinking he must be a minor Scottish celebrity but precisely who he was I’ve been unable to find out!) and some people on stilts – not sure what that was all about! With a huge lump in my throat I went back to the car and began my epic night as support vehicle to my pals who had ordered hot coffees at the halfway point if possible.
I hadn’t really thought this through – with this number of people let loose on the streets of Edinburgh in the wee small hours – would I ever manage to catch up with them during the walk? I decided to check out the area around the 13 mile mark, only to discover that this was around Silverknowes Golf Club and the road had been blocked off to traffic. Now this isn’t a part of Edinburgh that I am particularly familiar with so I back tracked to the nearest water stop and asked the volunteers there whereabouts in the walk I was. They assured me that this was just past the 12 mile mark and that the first walkers were expected at around 1.40am. I found a parking spot and prepared myself for a long wait. Sure enough at around 1.40am the first few superfit athletes began to pass me. I was amazed to see that one of the front runners was actually walking in heels – bet she regretted that the following day!
During all the time I was waiting my friends, Kim & Joanna, were keeping in touch via their mobiles and I let them know that I would meet them with steaming hot coffee at the 12 mile point. They were only 8 miles in at that point so I knew there would be a longish wait. At 3.00am I called to check where they were and they said they’d just passed the 12 mile marker. Panic set in. I’d promised them hot coffee and hot coffee is what they shall have! I screeched off at the top speed my borrowed Corsa could manage and headed back to the Shell garage at Maybury where I was now becoming a familiar face at the coffee machine. Three steaming cups of coffee on board, I headed back to my vantage point, only to discover that I’d missed them by literally 30 seconds and they were now on that road which had been blocked to traffic!
I was a woman on a mission! What could I do and, more to the point, where was the next best place to catch them up? Checking the rather useless map that the organisers had provided, I decided that Granton seemed like a good bet and, bearing in mind there were the rest of the 10,000+ walkers to negotiate, I was back on the road in no time and heading for Granton. Pulling up by a bit of waste ground, I was able to park and ask one of the walkers how far in they were. 15 miles was the reply so I knew I had a bit of a wait but at around 4.00am there they were – cold and tired but still in one piece! With (the now) lukewarm coffee consumed they continued with their walk – more than halfway through but the sun had risen by this time and they were on the final leg.
All I could do now was head back to the finish line and wait. With 4 hours to kill (and only a John Grisham for company) this seemed like the longest part of the night by far but eventually, at just after 8.00am they arrived back and their marathon ordeal was at an end.
I watched them cross the finish line through a sea of tears – both happy and sad. I am so proud of each and every one of the good people who took part in the Moonwalk, whether they walked the distance or were volunteering throughout the night. I am especially proud of the breast cancer survivors who took part (yes, I mean you Jane and all the others!). I was bursting with pride when I saw Kim and Joanna – I love you both!
As most of you know, I am a breast cancer survivor – 8 years and counting. Please give generously whenever you can as your money goes to help people like me have better chance of survival. Thank you.
Thursday’s Conundrum
Can anyone help me? I am trying to find out why, when putting petrol into my car, I am unable to put in a round figure of, say £40 – it is always £40.01. The same thing happens if I try £30 or £50 – is it possible to stop the pump at an even number or are they programmed to go over by 1p for a possibly sinister reason – keeping 1p coins in general circulation when they are pretty useless otherwise??? Answers on a postcard please!!!
Walking on the moon?
This Saturday night sees the wonderful occasion that is the Edinburgh Moonwalk. This is the 6th time this event has been held in Edinburgh where over 10,000 men and women come together to walk a marathon (26.2 miles) or a half-marathon (13.1 miles) challenge through the night to raise money for Breast Cancer projects across the UK.
“It really has become a much-loved night in the city’s busy calendar and it just keeps on getting better” Nina Barough Walk the Walk
Survival rates for breast cancer have been improving for 30 years. The most recent breast cancer survival rates in England are for women diagnosed in England in 2001 to 2006. For this group of women five-year relative survival is 82%. The estimated relative twenty year survival rate for women with breast cancer has increased from 44% in the early 1990s to 64% for the most recent period.
One year breast cancer survival rates have increased from 82% for women diagnosed in 1971-1975 to 96% for women in 2004-2006 (England)
Similar increases have occurred in Scotland. Breast cancer survival rates for Scottish women diagnosed in 2000-2004 are 94% at one-year, 78% at five years, and 65% at ten years.
Please sponsor this terrific cause and help the good work continue. Full details can be found at http://www.walkthewalk.org.
Making Ugly Update
I am delighted to announce that the first full length feature from the production company SquareBoxYellow “Making Ugly” will be completed in ten days time. We are currently submitting entries to selected Film Festivals and I can confirm that we have already been selected to show at the EPIC arts festival in New Orleans in October 2011 http://epic.pointsmag.com/. On the competition front we are in the final of the International Trailer Festival, please visit the site http://bit.ly/hG0avh, search for “Making Ugly”, run the trailer and give us a vote. Thanks to everyone for their support.
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