that canadian girl

Lately, I’ve been meeting tons of great owners of small businesses with fantastic ideas, boundless enthusiasm and passion for their work. What struck me was how poorly equipped they were, technologically speaking. From working with computers that only booted when they felt like it, printers that had to be coaxed into cooperating and accounting still [...]

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In the spirit of Christmas generosity, I’m giving away a half-day of consultancy to a local startup or entrepreneur who needs help marketing and promoting themselves. Cambridge and East Anglia are full of clever people doing amazing things, with many solo flyers or startups creating great products. In some cases, you might just need a [...]

This is the third and final part in a mini series of posts on using a community forum to exchange ideas with your users. Part I: Why and when should I start my own community forum? Part II: Setting up your forum: Top tips for using Get Satisfaction Part III: Making the most of user [...]

I was making dinner the other night; salmon fillets wrapped in parma ham, steamed in the oven with a bit of wine and broth, with a bashed-up Vivaldi potatoes in a wasabi mayo dressing and some nice green beans. I popped the salmon in the oven hoping it would turn out right, hoping the parma [...]

It’s rare that I start a blog entry by apologising for the radio silence – but it’s also rare that I go nearly an entire month without blogging – so please accept my apologies for going a month without publishing anything. It’s certainly not for lack of things to write about, that’s for sure. The [...]

In the past year, I’ve been providing in-house training for companies who are approaching blogging and social media with excitement, but need some guidance to ensure they do things right. I’m now opening up the “Intro to Blogs & Social Media in Business” training course to the public, with a few dates in September and [...]

It’s entirely possible that Britain has had the only three days of sunshine it’ll get this summer, and while I’m writing this, it’s monsoon weather out there. Regardless, summer is an interesting time for anyone working running a small business, so here are a few tips to beat off the heat both in your home [...]

With many years of moonlighting and now nearly a year under my belt working full time for Pepsmedia, we felt lately that it was time to refresh our site to reflect the shift in what we’ve been doing for our clients. Much of my time this year has been focused on strategic planning for blog [...]

This year’s must-have accessory for any business or marketing team seems to be a community manager. Over the past two weeks, I’ve had nearly a dozen emails – either direct or via LinkedIn – from companies who were calling upon my network to find Social Networks Managers, Community Relations Executives, etc. [If you're of the [...]