Why network with successful people? Because as a result you will become more successful when you network with people more successful than you.

One thing that everyone needs is visibility, have a blog like this helps, but perhaps now and more so in the futuretwitter and other social sites will be used as an effective tool for broadcasting and consuming information.

1. Offer something they don’t have

The number one reason to start a blog or to be a journalist isn’t to position yourself as an expert or get your thoughts out there. 99% of bloggers and journalists make almost nothing (relatively nothing), but the network that they gain from giving value to successful people, is priceless. See, the one thing that all successful people have in common when it comes to needs is that they need visibility and promotion for their brands. With a blog, you can provide that to them. When you first start your blog, you can’t because you won’t have enough readership to prove the benefit to them.

2. Give something for free

Unless you have something of extraordinary ‘one of a kind’ value to give to successful people, you are better off giving them something for free in exchange for an endorsement or referral later. A lot of consultants choose to do this or have to do this when they are first starting out, so they can build credibility and a track record. Obviously, people are more inclined to accept that type of generous offer than pay a complete stranger or someone who isn’t as wealthy or successful. If you receive an endorsement from them, you can use it on your website or on LinkedIn to attract new business or opportunities. Also, if they talk about you or promote you back, you gain visibility with other influencer’s, which can further your career.

3. Take genuine interest in their brand

If someone emails you and is sincere, you are more inclined to answer their email. If someone is reaching out to you asking you for favors, especially when you are more successful than they are, you are going to disregard the email. Genuine interest goes a long way in this world, especially because people are so used to being used and abused, as well as spammed daily. There is a great opportunity right now to locate people who are closely aligned to your brand and reach out to them. Even if you’re less successful than they are, they will at least answer you based on flattery.

4. Get noticed by them

Successful people take notice of other successful people. There are like secret code words and there is an ancient language they all speak . A great way to connect with them is to be where their eyes already are. For instance, if you speak at an event they are speaking at, it’s easy to start a conversation around that and for them to already know who you are. Also, if you write an article for a blog or traditional news site that they read, you might earn some respect from them.

5. Find people who know them

The shortcut to meeting successful people is by meeting them through your personal contacts. Your friends’ endorsement can save you from a random outreach and make it more personal. LinkedIn is so important because you can see who knows you and then strategize. Networking gets easier once your network gets larger. When you’re first starting out, it will be hard to implement this strategy, but as you grow older, it will become much easier to meet successful people this way.

Believe it or not QR or Quick Repsonse codes have been around for a while now. QR Codes are common in Japan, where they are currently the most popular type of two dimensional codes.

A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed.

QR Codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards or just about any object that users might need information about. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader software can scan the image of the QR Code causing the phone’s browser to launch and redirect to the programmed URL.

You can use your phone to read QR codes by installing Kaywa Reader.

And make your own QR code like we have below on the same kaywa site.

QR code containing website link for callendercreates.com

An introduction to barcode scanning on youtube

We are pleased to announce our latest project that we have worked on with East Hampshire District Council (EHDC).

INTRODUCTION
easthampshire.org is a community site which features daily news updates and an extensive event listings of what’s happening in and around the the East Hampshire Area. Also interactive maps, and information on towns and villages in East Hampshire.

This is not the main portal site for EHDC as you may think, but a companion/sister site that has features that are useful for anyone wanting to learn more about the East Hampshire area.

You don’t have to live in East Hampshire to be able to appreciate that in a traditionally rural area so much is happening. Furthermore, you don’t have to register to enjoy the wealth of information constantly being added to the site, however, to get the customisable and personalised features that the site offers you can register for free.

COMMUNITY BASED SITE
EHDC want the site to be a hub for community information with free pages for groups, customisable profiles, and links to other local websites.

As you can visit the site and learn about the area, also the people that feature on the site. We hope it wil draw people closer together in this rural county. It features content generated by members on the site, as well as featuring social networking features such as member profiles, being able to comment on various sections of the site. As the site grows from visitors generating content as well as the EHDC team publishing content, it means that for the first time a two way dialogue on-line can be created on a local government site.

Visitors to the site can learn from a number of interesting sections on the site – news, events, towns and villages, and local groups. You can pinpoint the news for example down to street level – using geo-coding and Google maps on the interactive map, something that has not been done at this level before by a council run site.

All visitor’s to the site have the opportunity to submit their own news or event item, which is moderated by the EHDC team and then published on the site. As a group admin, a club secretary for a local club or group – for example, the Greatham Gardeners club group, they can add events automatically to the site, using a form that sends their details directly to Yahoo Upcoming. This information is then pulled back into the site, and featured on their group page. Allowing all visitors to learn about the group, and possibly attend the event.

As part of this ‘add event’ feature the person entering details into the form can geo-code the event, as well as ‘tag’ the event – meaning the event is shown on various parts of the site at the same time, as well as being featured on upcoming’s service.

For example view the event for “Plants and Gardens of the Italian Lakes at Greatham Village Hall” on easthampshire.org, listing detail, map detail and the same listing on upcoming.

SOCIAL FEATURES
The site is quite innovative in the way it uses already existing web services to do the work for us. Why create something that is already working and proven? We have integrated social elements in the site using the API’s of Yahoo’s upcoming, del.ico.us, and Google Maps. We also have geo-coded events and news items, so users can get driving directions for events, for example. And also find out where exactly that news item is referring to.

The events all feature hcalendar using microformats. With the correct coding we have structured the event listing so that that search engines and other aggregators can retrieve such events, automatically convert them to iCalendar, and use them in any iCalendar application or service, such Google calendar.

Although not a social feature, we have added OpenID to the site, so users don’t have to remember their username and password. With OpenID, it means that users can log on to different web sites using a single digital identity, single sign-on. This relates to data portability and means that you don’t have to remember all those different passwords for each website account.

CUSTOMISABLE FEATURES
The main aim is to let people be creative and pull their information from various sources on this site, as well as external sites.

By choosing which town or village you are interested about during registration, boxes featuring events and news based on your choice will automatically appear on your homepage.

There is a ‘netvibes’ style homepage where you can move the boxes around the page depending on your preference. You can also choose which boxes appear. As well as having your delicious bookmarks on your easthampshire homepage.

The RSS page means users can be updated by using their RSS reader on new details on any town or village in East Hampshire.

WHAT’S NEXT?
We’d love to hear your feedback either on here, or directly on the site. Is this the future for council sites that are embracing current and future web technologies?

We hope this will attract some attention from other community sites, and set new standards in how councils can communicate with member of the public.

The site is still in beta and we have more interesting features planned for the site planned, early 2009. Watch this space!

For more information checkout easthampshire.org’s brochure:

There is a plethora of online services that allow you to create charts and diagrams online, in the cloud.

Lovely charts is very powerful service, think of a web based OmniGraffle or Visio. Where you can create – flowcharts, sitemaps, wireframes, organisational charts, network diagrams, screenshots

Whether you are a designer, manager or just need a service to record ideas – I’ve suggested to number of clients using a service like this to ‘mind-map’ desired features on a site, or creating a site map for web site.

Lovely Charts is going to be in demand the next few months. They have been in public beta since November by the way, so keep an eye on their site for more updates.

They just work, very clean and intuitive to use. Not all of them have collaboration and exporting (PNG, SVG, PDF) features which makes the ones that do feel like they are going to stick around.

Here are some similar services

www.bubbl.us
www.mindmeister.com
www.mindomo.com
www.spinscape.com
www.mxgraph.com
www.protoshare.com

These type of free collaborative services are already very popular, and the services that can scale with user growth and be correctly funded will surely add new features to make their service more powerful in 2009.

Why do these web services exist?

• Online services reduce the need for smaller agencies to buy expensive licenced desktop based software
• A majority of ‘cloud’ based services are practically free
• Always on, and access the files where ever you are in the world – no need to carry a USB stick, you just need an internet connection
• Great for working remotely with clients and suppliers who may not have the same software

As it is all done through an internet browser like Firefox it makes communicating much more instant and makes your project process a whole lot smoother and enjoyable for all involved.

The files shared through these services can also act as a specification for your work, making your project tighter by having documentation to refer to when ever you need to.

Conclusion: Free services + being able to communicate more effectively with your team and clients = WIN

Ideally you should be monitoring the vibe of your relationship with your client throughout the project process. However, at the end of a phase, like a launch, or new site release is best.

Why review? At the most basic level it’s time for you the service provider/supplier and your client to get together and be upfront and honest about what worked and more importantly what didn’t so you can avoid the same mistakes again in the future with them and with you other client relationships.

It’s OK to make mistakes, we’re all human, if you do admit it and be authentic. At the same time embrace negativity, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Our surveys usually follow a set pattern of questions (5 being the highest grade):

1. Overall how happy our you with the service given (1 to 5)
2. Quality of information given (1 to 5)
3. Personal service given (1 to 5)
4. People you have dealt with – how much do you think you could rely
on them to do a good job (1 to 5)
5. In terms of how you feel overall about the service provided by
(Company Name) (1 to 5)
6. Would you feel comfortable referring you to a friend or colleague
(1 to 5)

This type of survey can be done face to face during a meeting, or if a number of people are involved build this survey on wufoo or surveymonkey.

Why not even involve your colleagues and co-workers to see how you done. It’s a really valuable chance to find out how you done. And the only way to develop and build your business from a good to a great business that your clients will refer personally to people they deal with on a daily basis.

Feedback from your clients brings value to the products your business is selling. It gives more confidence and trust to the client, making future work always more likely.

Remember, it costs less money to keep existing clients than find new ones. Look after them, and you may just find that they will do marketing for you as well as be open as you should be in your dealings with your customers.

How do you do it? We’d love to know.

Notes from last night’s Christmas event from Chinwag:

A personal favourite of Chinwag’s regular events in London’s west end. Looking into the crystal ball to predict how we will all use the internet, and our habits around on-line life in 2013.

The evening started off with Sam Michel in a santa hat, announcing a few formalities. With the host Richard Titus summarising whether the long tail will be applicable in 2009 where free services will survive against paid services. This subject wasn’t really covered in detail, and not even any brands like ‘Google’ were mentioned as the analysis or predictions on future technologies were not that detailed.

The three main topics from the speakers were:

1. Mobile
2. Data portability / Interoperability
3. Personalised usage of the web

List of Speakers:

Jonathan Mitchener – Futurologist and Principal Research Scientist, Devices, BT
Simon Collister – Head of Digital – Consumer Practice, Weber Shandwick
Jamie Coomber – Head of Digital Strategy, Profero
Neville Hobson – Communicator; Blogger; Podcaster, NevilleHobson.com
Richard Titus – Head of User Experience, BBC Future Media and Technology
Ewan MacLeod – Editor, mobileindustryreview.com

MOBILE – The first question came onto the subject of mobile – how do you expect to use mobile?

“A gadget in your pocket that can tell you anything you want to know”
” Be able to send flowers in 3 clicks from your handset”
“Check which friends are online”

“The mobile is the first internet experience for many handset owners in India. There is a deeper penetration of the internet using mobile than desktop in this country”.

Fact: 306 Million mobile users in India 2008, with 610 million in 2012.

The desire’s of people accessing mobile are increasing, but can the infrastructure cope with this demand? Need to be sure before the ‘flood gates’ open and the innovation increases.

The subject of mobile Commerce came up as the last point of this topic which could have gone on all night, and at some points looked like it was going to.

“Can we buy something with a phone in 2013, like a can of coke? and can we use it like a prepaid oyster card?”

Will we have monetary payment using mobile, everyone nodded and the general consensus was a big ‘yes please’.

Monetary payment is happening in Africa, where farmers are being innovative by using phone as a way of not only improving their lives, but doing business. Farmers can text a service which will reply back with the current grain price on market day. Farmers can choose when to sell, when the price is right.

Women in Africa are communicating with other businesses such as butchers, they can text ’save me some meat, I am arriving to pick it up today’.

So it looks like in what we thought we developing nations, that mobile is changing the lives of these people that we can’t believe.

EASE OF USE

‘If you make it easy for people to use, they will use it’

Whether a web tool or application is open source or not isn’t seen as a factor as to whether you use it or not. People on the street won’t care what it is. It’s down to usability – whether they can use it or not.

DATA PORTABILITY

We are waiting for data portability, where you can join a new social network and take your friends with you. ‘By 2013, we bloody well hope this can happen’. Will Google’s Opensocial solve this? We don’t know yet.

It’s not a technology thing, we just just need to get companies to speak and work with each other. ‘That’s the hardest part of it’. ‘Standards yet to be agreed’.

PERSONALISED ‘ON DEMAND’ USAGE

In 2013 we will be strongly focused on ‘bringing real life conversations together’, feel that we do this already but processes to do this will obviously get ’smarter’.

With all this new technology we will ‘pay money’ not to be connected, where places guarantee there is no wireless broadband.

To be able to turn off the noise, and be able to filter out the good stuff, content you require.

The work / life integration – How do we deal with life on the web and using applications that cross the work / life mix. These boundaries are becoming more blurred on a daily basis.

The topic of ‘constant partial attention’ was described as being a factor for internet usage, where you are able to consume and tap into different avenues of your online life.

eg: facebook – friends, plaxo – address book, and linked.com – your business contacts.

Leading to be able to make sensible choices on who we can connect with and when.

All in all, some thought provoking comments from a very diverse panel. A good night, some nice people met and a good chance to catch up with what is happening in the big smoke.

Merry Christmas Chinwagger’s!

Small businesses lost 79,000 jobs in November, the largest decline in more than seven years (Source: ADP)

OK, so we cannot ignore statistics like that, and it just takes a visit to the City in London to find out something is wrong with the economy in this country.

Spending on Public Relations (PR), and advertising is the first to go from a companies budget before staff cuts, wage reductions – Are you noticing this yet if you are a digital company? Let’s look towards filling this gap by being creative and innovate:

Some of the best innovations are done during times of economic downturn

Innovation can be done cheaply, picture this – two geeks in a garage, wearing sweaters, trying to get an online experiment to work on an old macbook.

Innovation inspires, educates and entertains societies

That’s the amazing thing about being based in Brighton. It’s all about small groups of people working collaboratively at coworking locations across the city or at events like barcamp Brighton.

However, I want to think in terms of a revolution, rather than a downturn.

Revolutions are seen as ‘fundamental shifts’ in our lifestyle, and social interactions. They only happen usually once within our lifetime. Which lead to redefining what it needs to get the job done, and how people use these methods from a revolution.

As good things usually come out the end of revolutions like this, the Industrial revolution, the Internet revolution, now this financial revolution - we don’t actually know what will come out of this – I feel this is why a lot of people are worried.

I hope the ‘big R’ doesn’t mean that peoples creative taps are turned off. We are currently in a time of radical change, now is a chance to connect with people who you may not have done with before.

Stand out, put a sweater on and get down to a geek event near you!