IoM blogging successes

The Isle of Man blogosphere growing (slowly but surely). And this week has seen two highlights.  First of all, Derek ‘The Bandit’ Richardson’s excellent South African tech podcast, Switched On, featured quite a long discussion about life (and technology) in the  Isle of Man. Also, my blogging friend from the North, Babooshka of the Ramsey [...]

A quantum of solace for IoM

Ok! Enough of all the optimism. I’ve been trying to keep these columns focused on the positive stories about the technology sector, but it seems silly to continue to ignore the biggest story of year: the economy. In fact, even Bank of England Governor Mervin King has finally used the dreaded ‘R’ word and the [...]

BCS IoM Masterclass: SEO

Venue:   Ballakermeen High School, Douglas Date:      Wednesday 29th October 2008 Speaker:  Dotperformance Time:       Doors opened at 18:00 for an 18:30 start. Web site visibility – the ease with which potential customers or visitors can find a web site among a myriad of competitors – is a crucial factor in a site’s success or failure. Hundreds [...]

October 26: PR top 5

1. Debbie Ng had a right rant about clients which made me laugh. I especially enjoyed the comments about the IT guy.  Giggle. 2. In ‘Why you need to be looking at Twitter’, Mitch Joel explains the basics and talks about the microblogging service’s potential for organisations. 3. Donovan Sharkey’s analysis of some recent data [...]

Ta for ThirdThursday

Thanks to everyone who came out last night to the Isle of Man Social Media Club’s ThirdThursday meet up. I was a bit disorganised in setting it up and so we were a week late, but eight social media enthusiasts showed up, and we had an interesting discussion, nonetheless.  Check out Owen’s blog for pix [...]

Silly meme

Paul Ballard hit me with a meme earlier this week.  In the spirit of sharing a bit about myself and fun, here we go! Top three non work websites: Weightwatchers Facebook eBay Top three karaoke songs: American Woman Moonage Dayream Like a virgin Top three weekend cocktails: G&T Gin and Tonic Gordons and Scheweppes The [...]

Strive PR’s October e-newsletter

If you’re not using  RSS and newsfeeds we publish a monthly e-newsletter just for you so you can still get our news and information about media, marketing and communications. If you are using RSS to get  Strive Notes and don’t wish to receive the newsletter, feel free to send a message and we’ll take you [...]

Can a PR pro help a start up?

I’m chuffed to have been invited to take part on the upcoming FIR live panel discussion on the value of PR for start ups.  Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz are co-chairing and so far the panel includes: Rob Lane, CEO, Overlay TV (and several previous startups) Mike Manuel, PR practitioner, Voce Communications Katie Paine, KD [...]

How to make money from free software

How can you make a business out of something that is available for free?  It seems an unlikely model for business success, but the people at the bottled water companies sure seem to have it figured out. However, it’s something that folks in the open source community have been grappling with for years.   If your [...]

Third (Fourth) Thursday October

Just a note to let everyone know there will be a meeting of the Isle of Man Social Media club this Thursday at 18.00 at Paparazzi in Douglas. The club’s credo is ‘if you get it, share it’. And that’s what these get togethers are all about.  Anyone with an interest in Facebook, blogging, Twitter, [...]

Twitter housekeeping

I just spent a half hour going through the profiles of some of the people following me on Twitter. I had assumed that as my follower/following were just about the same that I knew most of my followers. How wrong I was.  I was surprised to see that I was not following half of my [...]

Link love August and September 2008

All you August and September linkers and commenters, please feel the love from Strive Notes: Paul Stallard Owen Cutajar Steve Coleman Nick Pledger Reg Crowder Travelwires.com Leo Cussons Antony Mayfield Neville Hobson Beyond Digital Media Chris Heuer Leo Bottary Sally Whittle Rachel M.  Esterline Tom Altman John McGlothlen Chris Brogan David Jones Nickop Massimo Carraro [...]

October 17: PR top 5

A couple of sleepless nights means that I’ve had time to catch up on my reading. Here’s some stuff I really liked. 1. Some excellent advice for PR newbies from Matthew Stibbe. Don’t ring and say, ‘Did you get the press release?’ Sound familiar anyone? 2. More good advice. How to write headlines that pop, [...]

It’s not ThirdThursday!

Well actually it is ThirdThursday and we should be having a meeting of the Isle of Man Social Media Club today. But with all the travelling I’ve been doing lately, it kind of sneaked up on me.  I only just realised a minute ago that today should be the day. So what should we do? [...]

State of the blogosphere

Technorati is the Google of the blogging world. It’s the most comprehensive source of information on the ‘blogosphere‘ and, since 2004 the company has published an annual report which analyses the trends and themes of blogging, and this year’s study makes for interesting reading. Technorati tracks blogs in 81 languages and bloggers from 66 countries [...]

eBusiness in the Isle of Man

I’ve always thought that the Isle of Man is a paradox. The Island prides itself on its Victorian heritage and cleaves to technologies of yesteryear with the electric and steam trains along with horse-drawn trams and the Laxey Wheel. And at the same time it showcases some of the best telecommunications and IT infrastructures in [...]