Dear Amazon, Please use fewer trees March 4, 2010
Posted by James Ainsworth in Chaff.Tags: amazon, Box, Mouse mat, Packaging, Paper, Waste
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I ordered a new mouse-mat from Amazon.co.uk. There was nothing too controversial about the mouse-mat; blue in colour, rubber in material and near flat.
Why did it come in a 30 x 40(cm) box stuffed with brown paper? Why put the postman through such a cumbersome delivery when a padded envelope would suffice and more pertinently fit through the letterbox without needing someone to answer the door?
Bristol Twestival 2010 – are you coming? February 19, 2010
Posted by James Ainsworth in Wheat.Tags: bristol, Bristwestival, Concern Worldwide, twestival, Twitter
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Bristol’s twittering masses will be gathering for a night of fundraising, fun and frolics on Thursday 25 March. The Bristol party is open to anyone who uses the Twitter short messaging service and those curious about Twitter, tweets and online social networking too.
The second annual Twestival event is a worldwide campaign that has flourished from its humble beginnings in February 2009. As part of the two hundred plus parties taking place across the world on the same day, the location for the Bristol party is The Tunnels; an inspirational venue housed under two converted railway arches near Bristol Temple Meads. The first 150 ticket holders will receive a goody bag as a thank you for purchasing a £5 ticket, with all proceeds going to the Twestival global designated charity.
The Bristol event last year raised over £1500 for charity:water and the combined global funds helped to install a much needed fresh-water well in a village in Ethiopia. This year, the fundraising efforts are for Concern Worldwide, an international humanitarian organisation transforming the lives of the world’s poorest, most marginalised children through education. This year is set to be bigger and better than ever with the increase in the number of people using Twitter.
Bristol’s Twitterati will be able to meet their online acquaintances, put faces to names and make new friends during an evening of entertainment and a prize-packed raffle draw of items generously donated by local businesses and organisations to aid the worthy Concern Worldwide cause.
Bristol’s party was the first in the world to start selling tickets for this year’s event so you will have to move fast! Will you be joining us? Get your tickets here.
More info: http://bristol.twestival.com/ or Follow updates on Twitter @Bristwestival
I have given up direct chocolate for Lent February 17, 2010
Posted by James Ainsworth in Chaff.Tags: Chaff, chocolate, easter, food, Lent
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I have given up chocolate for Lent. The more astute of you will now be thinking “Should have given up clichés too”. I am not doing this for religious reasons, nor am I doing this for significant self-improvement either. Like New Year’s resolutions-I don’t subscribe to them-if something needs changing why wait for January to fail to do anything about it?
So I have given up chocolate. There is a caveat. Direct chocolate is a no. Indirect chocolate is OK, in moderation.
Direct chocolate is a chocolate bar; a hot chocolate, a piece of chocolate cake. All the interesting kinds of chocolate are off; the ones where chocolate constitutes the bulk ingredient or even the full or partial name of a product.
Indirect chocolate is the cocoa powder on my full fat milk cappuccino (like I said, this is not for the personal gain brought on by the loss of weight). Indirect chocolate is the decorative drizzle on a truly delicious cheesecake. Indirect chocolate cannot be helped. These are not for sinister food reasons, more for something to do to keep a modicum of health.
Further to earlier discussions on Twitter, direct chocolate is not a concept whereby friends who offer me chocolate are spurned (granted they would be bad friends indeed if they tried to pass on chocolate during this period) It is also not linked to the theory of passive smoking. Should I accidently ingest chocolate whilst in the company of a chocolatier there would be no ill will.
The aforementioned astute ones will now have sussed that I have given up chocolate merely to generate another blog post for the Chaff pile. Well done.
That’s a lot of T-shirts February 10, 2010
Posted by James Ainsworth in Chaff.Tags: branding, collaboration, creative, entrepreneurial, stop motion, t-shirt, youtube
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This video is creative, entrepreneurial and just a little bit special, not to mention a great example of collaboration. As Brandflakesforbreakfast observe, I do indeed wish I was them. Is there anything stop motion can’t do?
Online Community – a force for social good February 9, 2010
Posted by James Ainsworth in Wheat.Tags: charity, community, like minds, likeminds, ROI, Social Media, twestival
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Community has been given a new lease of life online. As soon as you hop on to a network of people you are more than just connected. Community offers a range of elements, from support to strength in numbers.
Too often people can fear the idea of a business community because they think that being active within one will mean revealing too many secrets, especially in a community that contains rival companies. From the offset this can create a strained atmosphere, a stifling of group creativity and also, cliques.
A recent example, allbeit offline, of a barista introducing a dis-loyalty card in London’s trendy (Obligatory prefix) Shoreditch, is testament to businesses uniting together for the greater good.
Like Minds is proving to be a bit of a social change movement, with a lofty aim of generating £100,000 of revenue for the City of Exeter and in doing so proving the often questioned ROI from social media. The conference will bring great benefit to more then just the attendees and in turn will make a great gesture of support to the local business community. Other conferences do nothing or simply make a token gesture of planting a tree to offset carbon emissions.
Coming together for social good is something that social media is uniquely set up for. The boundaries are reduced, the red tape of charity is snipped, and things just get done. Take the Twestival organisation, initially, a near impromptu coming together of Twitter users in a handful of cities hosting a simultaneous putting-faces-to-avatars meetup, doubling up as fun-filled fundraising event. In this its second year, it is a more coordinated affair and because of the exponential growth of smartphones and users of Twitter, it will be a more powerful force for good. Bristol’s Twestival takes place on Thursday 25 March.
I am wary that the role of social media is overplayed in circumstances. Social media is an enabler and nothing more but for charitable and community gain it can certainly get things going.
How do you work within a community and what opportunities has community presented you?
Condiments 2.0 January 18, 2010
Posted by James Ainsworth in Chaff.Tags: Firefox, Google Chrome, IE, internet, Internet Explorer, Ketchup, Snobbery
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“Ketchup is a simple and gorgeous web app for sharing meeting notes, ideal for home businesses that can’t boast a secretary. It’s free for a limited amount of time”
How useful, I thought. A free web based application that could be applied in the workplace and increase the integration of everything ever with the web. The review appeared on the Enterprise Nation website, a useful resource for home based businesses.
My interest in clicking through to the Ketchup website itself was sufficiently piqued thanks to the explanation of the simplicity of using the app, that and the name is a conversation starter in itself.
Keeping track of meetings, who said what and when that very ‘what’ was to be done by can be an infuriating consequence of meeting notes that dont make sense two hours after the conclusion.
A name like Ketchup for a professional business application already suggests a tongue-in-cheek attitude resides behind the branding but if you have the misfortune to land on their website using Internet Explorer you are in for a surprise.
OK, the message is a touch cheeky and other good web browsers are available but not only is the door shut to you as a potential user, the almost holier-than-thou-message you get is internet snobbery at its worst. Sure, IE has its foibles and I have a loyalty to Chrome for personal usage but why not cater for a further 37%, especially when there is evidence of the application changing to a paid for version in the future.
Just in case I thought it was just me suffering a momentary lapse or a complete funnybonectomy and getting uptight, I consulted my Twitter following and got the following reasoned responses:
As a Mac user, I sometimes find sites I can’t access at all. My thoughts aren’t printable. Let’s just say I go elsewhere
If you’re using IE, you deserve everything that’s coming to you. might be doing yourself out of a lot of traffic tho.
I’d be grumpy and wouldn’t go back, unless I got that message regularly from lots of sites due to using an ancient browser.
What do you think? If a website was condescending about the browser you were using and didnt let you use their site…what would you think?
Nothing to see here December 13, 2009
Posted by James Ainsworth in Chaff.Tags: Christmas, reconstruction, sinister
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That’s right, move along now. This blog is undergoing a ’strategic review’. It shall cease to provide content, a reduction in function and endless requests to click to here until the new year.
This is due to a relocation of Me and the need to change the purpose, design and function of this blog for Me. In the meantime you could do no worse than to check out the following blogs:
The Fixed Factor – cycling and sinister foods in equal measure
EmailFail – the good, the bad and the html purist
Trick Click – a great website packed with resources
…a pinch of salt – the tastiest blog in Bristol
Answer Me This! – The best podcast around
Happy Christmas y’all and see you in the shiny new year!
Please Vote me your Golden Twit November 15, 2009
Posted by James Ainsworth in Chaff.add a comment
The @MarketingDonut Twitter account (Essentialy, my online professional guise) has been shortlisted in three categories for the very first Golden Twits awards. The Twitter awards are being organised by The Drum, a PR industry online publication.
Obviously I am delighted to be recognised as a Twit, golden or otherwise. I would very much appreciate if you would click through and then press the VOTE button to give us the nod.
BELOW: Shortlist details lovingly borrowed from the GoldenTwits. Original is found here
Your company: BHP Information Solutions
Twitter username: @MarketingDonut
Why do you deserve an award?: Our Twitter account has made small business advice accessible, engaging and an enjoyable daily resource to help small firms to thrive
What were the objectives?: Use Twitter as a means of sharing the best ideas & using our following to get involved to share experiences with a wider connected audience
What have you achieved?: #mydonut trending topic online conference for smallbiz. UGC from our followers to create a Marketing Manifesto. Fun, laughter & conversation
Categories: Business to business, Information service, Public service
