that canadian girl

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 [...]

Those who have followed the Alfred development in the past year will know that we’ve discovered a lot through building our own community around it (possibly the most awesome community out there!) Last month, I gave a talk at Cambridge Geek Nights, sharing some tips, tricks and discoveries we’ve made while developing and marketing Alfred. [...]

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 [...]

In case the news hasn’t made it to your corner of the office yet, here’s a YouTube video perfect for a Friday. IKEA’s campaign involved releasing 100 cats into a London IKEA store and letting them roam free. Whoddathunk hanging halogen light fittings made such great cat runs… Aside from the fact that I’m a [...]

Over the past 10 days, Morgan Stanley, an established global financial services provider with offices across the world, saw a 15 year old teen create a lot of noise while interning at the firm’s London office. Matthew Robson was tasked with the project of writing a report on how teenagers consume media, the kind of [...]

As more businesses start peppering their marketing plans with social media projects, activities that previously were reserved for the geeky early adopters are now coming under scrutiny when used for commercial endeavours. With all this new media growth, there’s no clear rule book yet. We’re writing it as we go, and just like the Bible, [...]

I came across Tara’s post here about taming her inner critic, where she questions her abilities at live interviews and doubts her own writing skills. I believe we all have moments like this. But some are worse than others… [I'm about to make a bold generalisation and some will have want my head off for [...]

In the corporate world, there are more blogs than ever. Along the lines of 70% of Fortune 500 companies will have at least dipped a little toe in it by this year, according to Wikipedia’s utterly incomplete entry. For a handful of us, it’s an integral part of the job; important internally, important externally, yet [...]

Recently, there has been a rise in the number of press releases I’ve received, an observation many bloggers around me have confirmed. But these PR emails are accompanied by intros as uncomfortable as the teenage “Will you go on a date with me? Yes/No” scribbled by the nerdy girl who sat next to you in [...]

What’s the first thing you notice when you approach a Starbucks store? Almost always, it’s the aroma. Even non-coffee drinkers love the smell of brewing coffee. It’s heady, rich, full-bodied, dark, suggestive. Aroma triggers memories more strong than any of the other senses, and it obviously plays a major role in attracting people to our [...]