chriscarlaw.com

Here is a social experiment that factors in how much we rely upon the Internet in today’s world.

This experiment happened by accident as I have not had internet connection for over three months. But when it was magically activated today, after a great arm wrestle with my ISP (which will be posted in another post), I felt a need to share the behavior of someone who has been unable to be free in the online world.

The symptoms of a lack of internet use include a flurry of clicking, going through websites in hyper speed, downloading sites from my brain and into the screen. All these questions that I required answers to were now being answered (well most) and I now had the freedom to buy online cheaper than I would have in a retail store. (There were so many opportunities I could have saved buying online than buying retail since I have moved up to Brisbane)

Im sure people would also relate to having questions you don’t necessarily want to ask people for fear of being judged or from others being prejudice. Perhaps it’s just that I like to do research without such a commotion going on around in a work environment or perhaps it is because I want to find out the answers from an expert and not a work colleague. (Google doesn’t hold grudges for asking a question, doesn’t judge and can find an expert in less than a second for you)

These are the things that cannot be achieved in a work time lunch break.

• Posting items on Ebay
• Downloading music
• Researching business ideas
• Online Stockbroking & research

The most I have achieved in a work lunchbreak is an hour browsing on facebook and i was left with the bitter feeling that i hadn’t really achieved that much in an hour.

This begs the question, how many people don’t have internet access at home? And what are they missing out on compared to those that do? 60% of households have internet access according to the Australian Government in 2005-2006, but I would estimate the figure is now around 70% now in 2008 looking at the trends.

No wonder why workplaces are now being more lenient at work with internet usage.

I haven’t written a post lately, mainly due to the fact that I have moved again and Internet access is down until it is connected. I may be moving interstate and this will affect the posting frequency again. However, knowing that blog posting is something that can be done whilst on the move do I really have an excuse? After reading the four hour work week I don’t really have an excuse(thanks Tim!)

Anyway, ive resigned to the fact that borrowing friend’s computers and blogging in internet cafes will be a regular occurrence over the next few months.

I wanted to discuss how communication skills are so important to work successfully whether you are an internet startup or you work in the IT industry.

I didn’t realise how much my communication skills have helped with my goals.

More employers need their technical staff to deal with clients face to face. Programmers whom once could survive with working in the background are now dealing with clients directly as well as doing some technical support on the side. Not to mention that most people leave a company wishing to do consulting work of some type. The face to face interaction skills are very important.

I believe that much of what we will be seeing over the next 5 years on the internet will have to do with online broadcasting. I have already outlined this in one of my previous posts. Business Education and seminars are already being done online. For this to occur you need communication skills. The way forward is scary and exciting at the same time.

I would encourage all IT people to develop their writing skills and speaking skills. Do more public speaking, do a communication course or find a way to develop them. This will help you so much more to go into consulting if that’s what you want to do and help increase your worth with the way things are progressing especially in the online broadcasting sense.

I thought id just post a quick one to let you know that the CeBIT Web expo is coming around the corner.

It is located at Darling Harbour Sydney on the 20th-22nd May. You can book tickets on the CeBIT website here.

What the expo will provide is the latest in Web technologies and ‘next generation’ business tools.

It will cover web marketing, great keynote speakers from the industry (ie Google) and SEO information to help get better rankings for your site.

Check it out if your in the Sydney area, im sure it would be worth the time!

Video online is becoming a very powerful tool in online marketing.

Just in my job hunting, I have realised that to make myself more marketable I require a video resume to introduce myself to others and establish a connection especially if im looking outside of the area I reside.

There are already businesses that are specializing in video resumes such as Candidates Alive. Candidates alive are a company that link up with Recruitment consultants to film video for their clients. This in turn makes it more effective for the recruiter to fill the role that is required.

Other businesses such as Real Estate in Motion are using video as a tool to sell property. This means basically you can be anywhere in Australia and inspect a property of your choice.

Even the educational videos that I have posted previously by Frank Kern are exceptionally good to create massive amounts of traffic to his site. Dumping your intellectual property into a video format can start a chain reaction in online communities, using your website as a ‘go-to’ resource on whatever you are showing them. The great thing about these type of videos is that they are free. They promote stickiness. People see the value that they are getting and not as a profit making exercise. One thing you know, bloggers like me will be discussing your video resource if it provides value to people.

You may be still skeptical about video and why you should feature it on your website. If this is the case, you may want to look at the points below.

Why video?

• It allows you to see who you are dealing with
• It allows you to build trust and acceptance
• It allows you to educate concepts that you couldn’t possibly do another way
• It allows you to build a relationship

Still unconvinced? Well then maybe online video content is not for you.

But for those that are interested, where do I start?

You can start by buying a webcam and recording a weekly presentation with some tips on ‘storage solutions for your home’ or ‘how to remove wine stains off your shirts’ depending on what you specialise in. This is a good idea just to start.

Another option is if you are looking at recording a presentation, similar to the Frank Kern one above, you can use software called Camtasia. It is a screen recorder whereby you can record whatever it is that you are showing on your monitor.

Perhaps it is time for your business to start thinking about how video can benefit you?

I wanted to express today a thought of how you can either break or make a sale online.

Today I have trawled through over 30 web design sites after using the search term ‘web design Melbourne’ and something occurred to me. Some of them make it very hard to read their content.

It is very frustrating for a person to have to put their nose touching their monitor when they want to know what the company is about!

What is the online sales process? Get ranked well on google search, impress them with your website (and even at this stage it is not guaranteed that they will contact you), and after some deliberation, they may send you an email or fill in your web form. Even then we are still not sure if they will do business with us.

It surprises me then, how many companies are blessed with great google rankings, only to have poorly readable content.

These days, all the browser has to do when they come across to your site if they cant read your content well is click the little red cross on the top right of the screen to leave your site. It’s that simple.  So wouldn’t you place some effort into making sure that your content is readable?

Here are some examples in my search for ‘web designers melbourne’

Not so good sites:

Design Junction
This website content is too small and is very difficult to read. The content is bunched up in ‘blocks’ of text which doesn’t make it easy on the eye. This is one where you are just hit over the head with a sledgehammer by a wall of text.

Evolution7
This text is even tinier than the above example. I wouldn’t even try to read this.

Gee Multimedia
Still too much text. The first page has six paragraphs which in my opinion is way to much when your main goal is to get the browser to take some action.

Here are some better examples:

Reactive
A lot more easier on the eye. One paragraph is all you need to tell me what you are all about.

DT Design
This site is much more flash orientated (moving graphics). As per the above example, it tells me what the company is all about in a short paragraph.

Don’t get me wrong, im not anti text or content. When building or creating a website there just should be usability and practicality in mind.

Keep in mind that content should be in a font that people can read (size 12 is a good size) and that there is not a whole heap for the person to digest at first. You want to ease them into contacting you, not giving them chunks and chunks of text which may overwhelm them.

Today whilst looking for work I thought how handy it would be to have a tool where you can place all the people you have contacted into a database for future use. I have met a lot of people along the way, people I probably will need to contact again. I have used databases in the past with my previous roles and realized how much you begin to rely upon such a system.

Firstly, what is a Customer relations management tool? (or CRM for short for the sake of abbreviations)

A CRM is some form of software that acts as a database for your contacts. It will initially have no contacts in them until you start adding them or exporting them from elsewhere into the system. You can then use this database to outsource work to, to source new suppliers, or to call up a prospect that you may have met the other day. Used properly, it is a very effective tool.

The great thing is that the people whom you have met never leave you. You can look them up at any time,.

Most CRM’s allow you to allocate certain people into groups. This is also a handy feature as you can label people into groups such as ‘gold member’, ‘silver member’ and bronze member’ of your services. In my case with looking for work right now, I would probably create the following groups; ‘pre-application’, ‘post-interview’ and ‘rejected application/approved application’.

You can also create email campaigns using a CRM. Instead of having 3rd party email software, the CRM usually has these built in. This is also very handy as you can target certain groups for your sales and marketing campaigns.

Below I have listed some of the popular CRM tools that you can use and which i would recommend:

• Goldmine
• ACT!
• Sales force

This way, you can create an asset that is your range of contacts. Never will you have to remember someone that you met a week ago off the top of your head again!

I have been using another great resource online for startup e-commerce businesses. It’s called Nett Magazine.

What’s great about Nett Magazine is that it is free from all technical jargon you may come to expect with many web developers. Web developers that you consult with can often implement functions on your website that you don’t use, and therefore end up paying for.

Nett Magazine helps the person who doesn’t know a lot about business on the internet to get educated on particular concepts.

Even though I have some knowledge coming from a consultative background, I still use it to keep up with the current technological trends.

(As we are focusing on online business, the best bet would be to trawl through the ‘Web’ section of the website. There are other areas related to small business such as HR, Finance, Legal, etc. If you ask me the site should have remained fixated on the web side of things)

In the magazine I particularly liked the article which focuses on a successful online venture, Vibewire, which targets the youth market. As im looking to venture out into the youth market myself, it helps me to understand the market research required before a business concept is devised and also helps me to get a greater idea of what the Y Generation are all about.

Nett magazine also has regular contributors such as Justin Herald. I have discussed a little about Justin and his accomplishments in my previous article here. Im sure his articles are motivating and inspiring for small business especially.

Overall, im sure that you will find some of the articles on this site useful to you when looking at starting up your web business

Its no secret that Facebook is a great marketing tool when used correctly.

I was a late adopter to this social networking site but already im starting to see the advantages of using it to access a large audience.

If you start building your contact list, I believe it can be used to get what you want. Just one of these methods is affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is a concept whereby you promote and sell someone else’s product to a targeted audience for a commission.

(Frank Kern explains Affiliate marketing in more detail which I would recommend in my previous post here. However, he uses his own website as a list building tool rather than facebook)

How do you go about selling a product to people on Facebook?

1.    Figure out what market you are going to target (preferably a niche market, for instance home filmmakers or elvis fans)
2.    Find a product for that market
3.    Contact that market via your profile, requesting that they go to abc website to purchase the product you have in mind.

The other advantage iam seeing is that Face book is assisting me with my professional goals to get what I want.

I have recently sent out this message to a targeted audience looking for work:

‘Dear All,

Please let me know if anything comes to mind.’

I believe this is a form of affiliate marketing. Its a way to use facebook to get what you want. Already I have several leads stemming from this post.

Iam the product, selling my services for an end result.

In the end, we should try to make the most of the networks we can tap into. Not only do we not have to go to networking functions to pick up business (or get a job) but we can do it in the convenience of our own home online.

One of the best ways to learn about a topic is from researching. Whatever you are learning to do, whether it is how to get better web traffic, how to setup a blog or how to choose a domain name, you will get this information from somewhere.

I tend to not like to write too much if I can help it.

A friend I have whenever she learns something new, she writes it in an exercise book with tabs located throughout the book on each topic. While this can be a good method for some people, I find it time consuming and hard to find the section that you want effectively.

What I find one of the best methods to research a topic is finding articles in the newspaper, cutting them out and placing them into a scrapbook or folder. I put the date on the article, and simply staple it into an exercise book.

Some of the advantages of this include:

1. If you need to quote from a source, newspaper articles are better.
2. Takes less effort and time.
3. By placing the date on the article, you know if the information is out of date or not.
4. Newspaper articles are usually written by knowledgeable sources in the know. Just to make sure, check the source and see if there is an expert behind the article.
5. You can cut the article out and if you are pushed for time, you can leave it on your desk to read later. If someone is talking to you in a seminar, you can’t always leave in the middle as you will miss the rest.

We can’t always come up with the answers ourselves, so having a book full of articles you can staple in can be a good resource for your business.

Just the other day, I read in a Magazine about ‘Reverse Auctions’.

I thought this would be an interesting topic for some out there that are looking for some real bargains.

We all know how Ebay has been the premier online shopping website for quite some time. Ebay works on the premise that the highest bidder wins. Well, Reverse Auctions work pretty much the same. What happens with reverse auctions is that someone will bid on a new model Nikon Camera for 3 cents.

Sounds pretty good, right? Well there is a catch. If someone bids the equal amount as you, BOTH your bids are canceled, and priority goes to the next highest bidder.

There is also another catch in that most of these reverse auctions make you pay $5 or so to make the bid.

It is virtually a ‘lucky dip’ to get a ridiculously cheap product.

It is not uncommon for some people to win Ipods for $4.15 or a guess watch for $5.20 (in actual terms, if you factor in the $5 for the bid, these products would be $9.15 and $10.20 respectively)

I guess the great thing about these kind of websites is that it gives you a chance to get a great product for a very cheap price.

However the downfall is that it can be more like playing roulette and seems like a bit of a gamble. You could literally spend hundreds on bids before you even are successful at winning a prize!

Some of the reverse auction sites can be listed below:

Lowbids

Hedgehog

Play Limbo

Unique Bid Homes

Has anyone tried these reverse auctions and what have been their experiences?