Illawarra ITeC

WOMEN IN BUSINESS MENTORING PROGRAM - Graduating Class!

2011-12-14T18:09:00.000-08:00

On Friday December 16, 17 Illawarra businesswomen graduate from the NSW Government’s Wollongong Women in Business Mentoring Program at a ceremony at the Wollongong City Council.

Nigel McKinnon Regional Director of NSW Trade & Investment thanked Illawarra ITeC for delivering the program on behalf of the Department.

“The Wollongong Women in Business Mentoring Program helped the business women plan a growth strategy and tackle the challenges facing their businesses,” Mr. McKinnon said.

“The graduates increased their first hand knowledge of the energetic businesses operating in the Illawarra.

“The women come from businesses across a wide range of industries and I extend my congratulations to each of the graduates.

“Regional businesswomen make a significant economic contribution to their communities especially across the Illawarra,” Mr McKinnon said.

Illawarra ITeC Business Development Manager Virginia Wren said the Women in Business Mentoring Program helps improve business development, confidence and networking.

“Many friendships are forged during the program and lots of business-to-business sales gained,” she said.

Angie Bokenham of Whereabout Bookkeeping said the program differs to others she previously taken part in.

“I am answerable to my mentor more intently than in previous programs, and am more closely monitored by my mentor,” Ms Bokenham said.

“I set the goals for the business and therefore the onus is on me to work harder to achieve them.

“This can be extremely challenging, but it is designed to push me beyond my comfort zone.

Virginia Wren said the Women in Business Mentoring Program challenges participants.

“Being in business can be isolating especially if you are a home based business.

“The women who took part in the program said it is great to have a business mentor all to themselves; someone with whom they could brain storm ideas with and talk about the pressures of being a woman and being in business,” Virginia Wren said.

The 17 graduates are-

Jan Haley of Kids Skylark Karen Boyle of Back in Black
Kerrie Exner Iwanski of All Care Computer Services
Angie Bokenham of Whereabout Bookkeeping
Odette Goodwin of Smarter Building P/L
Pam Howard of Australian Recreation and Education Tours
Sarah Goodwin of Boost Juice Wollongong Centre
Luciana Ferrini of LF Accounting and Business Services
Julie Core of Green Poppy P/L
Francine Bishop of Mayvin Training Institute P/L
Julie Rollinson of Drab2Fab
Terri King of Bakers Delight
Meagan Donnelly of Graham Chegwidden Solicitors and Barristers
Megan Devine of Smillie & Devine P/L
Nadine Campbell of Asha Holistic Health
Rebecca Moore of Mary Kay Cosmetics
Pip Atkins of Mindfully Done

Online Anonymity - a thing of the past

2011-11-24T17:51:00.000-08:00

A very interesting article from smh.com.au about the extinction of anonymity on the internet. Food for thought...

When you think about how much information we unwillingly "post" on the World Wide Web, it was only a matter of time.

Being anonymous online is a powerful tool. Leaving aside lower case anonymous users, in the last month, the Anonymous online hackers' movement has targeted a pepper spraying policeman, released 38,000 emails of a US Department of Justice investigator and threatened (then retracted the threat) to release the names of collaborators with a Mexican drug cartel.

Internet users generally think that they gain anonymity by using a pseudonym and that they have a "right" to be anonymous whilst conducting their activities online. When this "right" and the power it holds is challenged by the government or by businesses, it can cause a furore e.g. by previous SA Attorney-General Michael Atkinson last year (who retrospectively repealed a legislative amendment requiring users to post their real names and addresses with any online comments they made about a certain election) or by online platform Google + (which recently relaxed its real names policy).

The Supreme Court of the United States constantly reminds American courts that the First Amendment right, the right to freedom of expression, includes a "right" to anonymity. In Australia, we technically don't have a “right” to freedom of expression. As such, we don't have a “right” to anonymity either.

Frankly, it doesn't make much of a difference; the right to anonymity in the United States isn't a freestanding right that exists outside of all other rights and laws. Rather, as in Australia, the “right” to be anonymous online competes with public interests, such as being subject to the law in areas like defamation, racial discrimination and intimidation, and where law enforcement agencies need a user's identity information to aid with their investigations.

For example, the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 makes it an offence "to do an act, otherwise than in private, if the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group."

In this case, an act is not done in private if it "causes words, sounds, images or writing to be communicated to the public". There are a few exemptions for acting in good faith and reasonably in the context of art, academic and scientific works and debates or comments on matters of public interest, but it's not difficult to find comments online which could potentially fall under the definition of the offence and aren't covered by any of the exemptions.

Then defamation - to be defamatory, an untruthful statement communicated to anyone who is not the subject must expose the subject to ridicule, lower their reputation in the eyes of members of the community, cause people to shun or avoid them or injure their professional reputation. Again, it would only take a few seconds to find these types of comments online.

The Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 could also apply where users are being intimidated or harassed in their personal capacity. In the legislation, the definition of intimidation includes conduct amounting to harassment of the person, or “an approach made to the person by any means (including by telephone, telephone text messaging, emailing and other technologically assisted means) that causes the person to fear for his or her safety”. This is quite a broad definition which could cover a range of comments that people make on blogs and even news sites.

For a number of years, users have accepted that their public post on a news site or blog might result in hateful, abusive or disgusting responses from anonymous users. But lately, as more popular websites provide for public comments, the sheer amount of negative content means that users are starting to push back. This change in attitude is likely to lead to a more pro-active stance on uncovering the authors of such communications, particularly where the communications have breached the law.

In these circumstances, a user could seek to identify the author of a defamatory or racially discriminative post through the author's internet service provider (ISP) - and it is possible that a court would order the author's ISP to hand over their details.

Even if the comments were posted from an overseas location - if it was published on an Australian site with Australian viewers, there could be enough of a link for a court to say that they would hear a case against the author of the statement in Australia.

These days, it might be safer to take a breath and think about what you're posting on public properties as what was posted anonymously might not remain anonymous.

Article written by JY Lee, Associate in the technology, communications, commercial, media and IP group of the law firm Baker & McKenzie

Did you Tweet today?

2011-11-13T13:17:00.000-08:00

Social media is one of those things that small to medium business’ are falling short on, according to BRW.

The e-Business Report from Sensis, looking at the online habits of small and medium enterprises, shows only 18 per cent of businesses use social media. Report author Christena Singh says that many businesses are wary of tapping in. “Social media is one of those areas we’ve seen consumers jump onto much faster than businesses,” Singh says. (BRW)

So if consumers are on the bandwagon- why aren’t you?

Social media is a cost effective, low effort form of dialogue straight to your customers. And all it takes is a little bit of time and some very basic tech-know-how.

Lets look at the main forms of social media you should consider for your business.

Why have a Blog?

Blog software is easy to use. Simply write your thoughts, link to resources, and publish to your blog, all at the push of a few buttons. Blog software companies such as: Movable Type, Blogger.com and Typepad all offer easy blogging tools to get started.

Blogging is a low-cost alternative to having a web presence. For small business owners without the time to learn web html or the money to hire a designer/developer, blogging offers an inexpensive method to get your company's name out on the Internet.

Updating the weblog is a much quicker process than contacting a web designer with changes or doing the coding and uploading yourself.

Business blogs provide your small business with a chance to share your expertise and knowledge with a larger audience. A powerful benefit for consultants and knowledge workers.

How should my business use twitter?

1. Be more interested in helping than making money

Twitter followers are people. They don’t have dollar signs plastered on their foreheads. Help these people out and they will help you back. They may not always have the money to purchase your products but they will happily retweet a product for you.

2. Create relationships first

Before you go into blasting business messages through Tweetlater, it would be advisable to create relationships first. Twitter is a huge community. No one will care about your tweets if they don’t know who the hell you are. Talk to people first. Interact.

3. Introduce your company at the right time and place

I remembered encountering a Twitter follower and we had a nice chat. The only problem is he loves his company and product too much. Of course that is not really the problem. The problem is that he introduced it to me almost right after I said “hi” to him. I tried to change the conversation but then he would steer the conversation back to his company and his product.

You know what I thought during that time? Hey! This person is more interested in my money than me. He didn’t want to have a relationship with me. He just wants my money right away. And as you can expect, I lost the interest to buy. Furthermore, I didn’t think about promoting him to my friends.

The lesson here is to promote your product at the right time and place. Your Twitter profile is there for a reason. Use it. And learn to warm up conversations. Ever heard of an icebreaker? Don’t steer conversations to your product immediately.

4. Don’t repeat the same message

One of the most popular problems of Twitter users today is spam. There are idiots that think that if they repeat a particular message a gazillion times, they will get sales. Well let me tell you something. Your message will quickly get trashed into the bin with a fast unfollow from the person you spammed. Even if you are promoting, there is a right way of doing it. Post your message once and ask people to retweet your message for you. Repeat only after 2-6 hours if necessary.

5. Reach out a helping hand

Help other people in your niche. Retweet their tweets as well as help them in other social networks such as Digg and StumbleUpon. Don’t concentrate on you and your products. Promote the products of others without asking anything in return. Concentrate on building a network of people who help each other, a community.

Business Benefits of Using Facebook Applications

Branding - Facebook can be a great resource for generating brand awareness. Facebook is becoming popular amongst various age demographics and can be a create interception point for building your relationship with you consumers and prospects.
Customer Engagement - Using Facebook applications can be a great way for communicating promotions, contest and events. Again it is another interception point that can be leveraged to entice consumer engagement with your brand, your products or your service.
Drive Web Traffic - Facebook can act as a portal point for driving traffic to your site and other online properties.
Reputation Management - can be a useful tool for seeing what users are saying about you and your brand. In addition your Facebook profile can now be indexed in the search results and as a result can provide another favorable listing in the organic search results of the engines.
New Customer Acquisition - Facebook provides an opportunity to find consumers you may have not otherwise discovered.
Lead Generation - Similar to the previous point is that Facebook can act as another potential lead gen tool that can be used to qualify leads. Reviewing potential prospects' profiles may help you build a relationship with your prospects and aid in the lead generation qualifying process.
Client Retention - provides another potential interception point to build the relationship with your consumer.
Access to the social world and it’s inherent value - aka the cool factor. You never know who is using Facebook. Consider the following scenario: a potential prospect could be doing research on your brand or organization and may use Facebook to see if you have a presence there. Then they see that you have a Facebook profile and see a number of positive posts about your brand. This in turn can shape their sphere of influence and could end up being one of many deciding factors as to why the prospect selects you over another vendor. The perception that Facebook is "IN" and the fact that you are using Facebook could help influence their perception of your brand. Having said that, there are still may who are anti-Facebook so it could also affect the perception about your brand. The fact remains is that Facebook continues to gain popularity and it is not going away anytime soon.
The Viral Effect - Take word Of mouth to a whole new level. Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd... Facebook is attracting quite a crowd.
Feedback Mechanism - Using Facebook and the various applications available can help you understand consumer behavior based on the sharing of content and commentary on the social networking site.
Build Business Use Cases - Facebook can provide you with an opportunity to build successful business cases as you target specific vertical markets with specific business objectives.

To Blog or Not to Blog

2011-11-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

With the importance of Social Media in business marketing, it seems that everyone has a Blog. But what is a blog? What are the benefits of a blog and more importantly- Do You Need A Blog????

This article from better business blogging may help you identify if your business would benefit from a Blog.

1. What is a Blog?

There are lots of different opinions and descriptions of what a blog is, so it would seem sensible to start with a brief overview.

A good place to start for some background on the terminology of blogs and the blogosphere is Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org). There, blogs are described as:

“The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”.

Blogs did indeed start life as a personal online publishing system which allowed individuals to quickly and simply write, publish and distribute their own opinions via the internet on any subject that took their fancy. These would then appear in chronological order, hence often giving the appearance of a diary type format.

Mainly because of this, blogs are still often described as Online diaries however, this is now akin to describing a PC simply as a Word Processor. Certainly, in both cases, it is one of the uses that they can be put to, but it barely scratches the surface of what you are really able to do with them, particularly from a business perspective.

Looking at blogs in another way, they could also be considered as a special type of website. However, by using the special characteristics that a blog offers, they have now been converted into a hugely effective marketing and communications tool for businesses (see below).

2. Special Characteristics of Blogs

So what are the special characteristics that blogs have which make them so great both for personal use and for business use?

The main elements that you should be aware of so that you can make best use of them for your business are:

· No technical knowledge required: you dont need technical expertise to write a blog. You add pages or articles through a Windows type of interface so there is no need for a web designer to update it for you can do it all yourself and in double quick time.

· Readers can leave comments: your readers can respond to your posts so that you can start to see who is interested in the same areas as you or as a business open a conversation with potential clients, suppliers or partners. The perfect opener to developing a relationship and a network!

· Automatically organised: categories and archives are integral parts of a blog and each post will automatically be placed correctly according to the selection you make. This gives great organisation and structure to a blog which is perfect for visitors and Search Engines alike and allow you to concentrate on the content;

· Search Engine magnets: with regular posts, categorised content and search engine friendly links and addresses, business blogs become ideal places for Search Engines to find the type of content they love and you can rank very highly!

· Instant distribution of information: using RSS and pinging, blogs allow you to widely distribute your latest news and information, both instantly and automatically to Search Engines, directories and your readers (and potential customers!)

· Multiple Authors: not only can one person add content but you can allow access to any number of people so that you have several authors contributing to a topic or a series of topics. It also opens up the possibilities for blogs as tools ideally suited to internal communications within a company.

· Internal and External Links: blogs thrive by links and referring to other articles so that conversations and ideas can be taken up and developed. At its best, this allows a viral effect in terms of promotion and helps develop both relationships and networks.

· Permalinks: every post and every category has its own individual address, forever! This means that you can refer to them in articles, emails, newsletters etc safe in the knowledge that they will always be found. Another great feature for the Search Engines.

3. What are Personal Blogs?

A personal blog is generally set up to allow the author to discuss their views on anything and everything, so the topics change with each post according to mood or inclination. This is where blogs started and it is essentially a personal diary or scrapbook, which can be great fun to both read and write.

There are now tools which are freely available to allow anyone to set up a personal blog quickly and simply – for a Business Blog, it is better to use a blog platform over which you have greater control. The most well know is Blogger, owner by Google, though there are others which are as good if not as well known. Contact me if you would like a list of free personal blogging services available.

4. What are Business Blogs?

Business Blogs developed as a natural progression. They use the same technology but tend to be very targeted in terms of their subject matter and focus on a specific market area or niche. In fact, something to bear in mind: the most successful are set up with both an audience and a business focus in mind which they then stick to. Why? Because the audience they are looking to reach will expect it – that is why they were attracted to it in the first place and that is why they will return and recommend the blog to others.

In general terms, it is a powerful marketing and communications tool which helps companies to communicate better with stakeholders of all types, from customers to suppliers and from partners to employees. Companies do of course use blogs in very different ways, each according to their own requirements. However, those which have used them most successfully, have managed to develop better relationships and greater trust with their target groups, and hence market themselves more effectively as a result.

In addition, with the arrival of Search Engines as THE research tool, this focus proved to be doubly beneficial for a Business Blog owner. The tighter the focus of the content, then the more likely it is to be keyword rich and so gain the type of Search Engine results that would make an SEO professional proud! A well set-up Business Blog has a structure which just adds further weight to this.

5. Why should a business have a Blog?

Firstly, lets make it clear that a Business Blog is not a place where you keep and report a diary of your companys activities a personal blog may sometimes be used as a diary, but a business blog most certainly is not!

You should think of a Business Blog much more as part of your online marketing toolkit, indeed as a central element of it. It can be used in a number of different ways according to your business requirements but all centred around the ideas of two-way communication with prospects and customers (essentially leading to conversations and connections) as well as general marketing and business development.

Specifically, a blog can be particularly beneficial in:

· Differentiating your business, products and services

· Attracting prospects and developing new business opportunities

· Promoting your business through the Media and online Public Relations

· Acting as a central element of your Search Engine marketing

· Researching and Developing new Markets, Products or Niches

· Developing Communication channels to your market

· Helping to enhance and build your visibility and brand

· Positioning Yourself as the Expert

· Improving Internal Communications

In all of these areas, you will find that Business Blogs are not only very effective but also very cost effective as well.

Blogs help to personalise your company and the products and services that you offer, which increases the value of your organisation in the eyes of your customers. This in turn will build much higher levels of trust so that, in fact, the readers of your Blog often become your most passionate word-of-mouth ambassadors.

On top of that, the inbuilt distribution facilities such as RSS and pinging, as well as the blog specific marketing opportunities that trackbacks, comments and social bookmarking all add extra ways and means to promote your blog and therefore your business. You also have the fact that blogs are very search engine friendly because of the way that they are written and organised (automatically, I might add) and because the philosophy of linking is an integral part of the blogosphere as a result, business blogs have the tendency to rank more highly than other types of websites.

A Business Blog is a flexible and yet powerful marketing tool for small businesses and large corporate companies alike which offers a surprisingly large range of options and benefits. In fact, once a business has the chance to have their questions answered about blogs and understand what they can offer, the focus of the questions tend to change from Why have a blog? to What sort of a blog will be best?.

6. Benefits of Blogging?

As you have been reading this overview, you have probably been thinking about some of the ways in which you could use a Blog for your own business perhaps with a view to reaching new audiences, improve visibility on the web and their interactions with customers, as well as actually increase sales. It is now an important part of the online marketing for your business!

Dont forget that a Business Blog also gives you, your company and those who work for it, a place to collect and share ideas and relevant information with your customers and prospects. This in turn generates mutual trust and builds to a relationship which is more like a partnership than the typical supplier-customer sales relationship.

The benefits that you can enjoy are:

· Develop your position and your reputation as an expert – Demonstrate your knowledge, expertise and experience on matters relating to your industry and give yourself the chance to show your expert position in your specialism.

· Business Differentiation – a blog will give you the opportunity to show how your business and services differ from (and are hopefully superior to) those of your competition. Done well, it will set you apart in terms of the benefits you offer.

· Search Engine Marketing & Visibility Higher rankings and therefore greater visibility on the main Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSNbecause of the updated content, great (automatic) structure and the focused content which will attract Search Engines and readers alike.

· Creating a real dialogue with those who matter - You have the opportunity and the ideal tool to start to open up new and very real communications channels with your customers, prospects, partners and suppliers.

· Public Relations & Press Releases While not the ideal use for blogs from the point of view of blogging purists, business blogs remain fabulous marketing tools to distribute and then promote your company information and press releases.

· Lead Generation additional visitors, better positioning and improved search engines ranking all provide the chance to develop an increased lead generation opportunity.

· Brand Awareness – An ideal channel through which to put your brand in front of the customer and communicate what it stands for you could be a small company or multinational, either way you are strengthening your online position.

· Educational Marketing – Show how your products and services can solve your customers problems rather than rely on interruption marketing and in your face selling. You could also look at this in terms of relational marketing because thats exactly what youre creating, better relationships with your marketplace.

· Internal Communications a blog is an excellent tool to help to share information easily within your company, manage projects, develop teams and hugely improve the internal communications.

A Blog is also very easy to use because you can write using a Word type of interface which means that you do not need a web designer to put information on the web for you any more – anyone in your organisation with access to the internet (and permission, of course!) can update and add information as required!

7. What to consider when starting a Business Blog

Whether you are a large corporate organisation or an independent consultant or small business owner, as you start a Business Blog, there are a number of elements that you should be looking to consider to give your blog every opportunity for success.
While the exact requirements will differ according to how you intend to use your blog, there are certain questions that you will want to have answers for before you start to write it.
In particular, there are three key questions which will underpin all of your blogging activity; they are:

i) What do you want to do with your Business Blog?
Make sure that you have a clear vision of what you want to do with your Business Blog are you using it as a customer service tool, as a marketing or branding method, to promote a particular product or service, as a market research or product development tool or any number of specific uses it is well suited to. Going through this process will ensure it has focus and will not become a jack of all trades and master of none – the more focused it is, the more successful it is likely to be.

ii) Who is your target audience for your Business Blog?
Avoid trying to make it be all things to all people it isnt possible. Once again focus is important, so decide on your target audience and write the blog for them with content they are looking for and a style that they will warm to. If you have lots of different groups that you wish to appeal to then you might be better off setting up separate blogs to cater for each of these specific areas.

iii) What results are you looking to achieve?
What goals do you have for your Business Blog and just as importantly, how are you going to measure them? There is going to be time and effort involved and you will be looking for specific results at the end of it – therefore, from the start, its good to know what results you are looking for. So decide on the criteria you want to work with and how you wish to measure them.

Following on from these, there are a number of other areas which are sensible to consider. Some are technical in nature while others relate to the running of the blog and its promotion.

i) What Blogging software to choose?
There are a number of options available each with different benefits by deciding what you wish to do with it, what it will be integrated with and what degree of control or customisation you require, you will be able to focus in on which would be best for your needs. The best advice is to choose one which will grow and develop with you as well as fitting with your current business and technical requirements. Free hosted software (such as Blogger) will seldom do this or give you sufficient control, so look at Wordpress (full version) or Movable Type for self hosted systems and Typepad for a hosted solution as good starter points.

ii) Should I host it on my website or on a different domain?
As a general rule, if it sits comfortably alongside your website and complements the information on it, then integrate it into your website. If, on the other hand, you are looking to present an objective view on your industry or want a separate identity for branding purposes then choose a separate domain name and run it separately.

iii) What to call the Business Blog?
Either let it reflect your company and branding, or make sure it contains your keywords or preferably both. As a rule of thumb, though: choose something which you are still going to feel comfortable with in a years time. You might like to check some additional ideas on choosing a Business Blog name at www.betterbusinessblogging.com/blogging-basics/what-to-call-your-business-blog/.

iv) Look and Feel of the Blog
If you are using it as part of your website, then integrate the look and feel with that. Theres no need for your visitors to really know that they are on a blog – remember its the benefits that blogs offer that is important, not the technology. If it is on a separate domain, then design your Business Blog with the image you want to portray but dont use the default template that the blogging software provides. Why? Default template = zero differentiation!

v) How will it integrate with your other marketing activities?
Blogging is an excellent marketing tool, as well as having being strong in other areas. However, it is not a magic wand to cure all marketing ills, so it is necessary to decide how to best use it in conjunction with your other marketing, business development and customer service activities.

vi) Who will be blogging and how often?
If you are a small business or individual, then the decision about who will be blogging will be a straightforward one. For a larger organisation, the decision will depend on what the blog is focused on and hence who will be the best person to write with knowledge and passion about it. As for how often you should blog, frequency isnt as important as consistency so try to post regularly and keep your readers informed. As a caveat, however, you should be posting at least twice a week to give yourself the best chance of success.

vii) How to deal with comments?
Receiving comments on a blog is one of the more satisfying aspects of blogging because it shows that you have engaged your readers enough for them to want to comment. Some companies, however, view it with dread because of possible comments being aired which are not entirely positive. While I would always recommend being open to and responding to comments, the decision ultimately is in the hands of the blogger.

If you have thought through these elements, then you will be in a much stronger position to set up your blog and concentrate on writing the posts and building your readership with a strong base in place.

iii) What results are you looking to achieve?

What goals do you have for your Business Blog and just as importantly, how are you going to measure them? There is going to be time and effort involved and you will be looking for specific results at the end of it – therefore, from the start, its good to know what results you are looking for. So decide on the criteria you want to work with and how you wish to measure them.

Following on from these, there are a number of other areas which are sensible to consider. Some are technical in nature while others relate to the running of the blog and its promotion.

i) What Blogging software to choose?

There are a number of options available each with different benefits by deciding what you wish to do with it, what it will be integrated with and what degree of control or customisation you require, you will be able to focus in on which would be best for your needs. The best advice is to choose one which will grow and develop with you as well as fitting with your current business and technical requirements. Free hosted software (such as Blogger) will seldom do this or give you sufficient control, so look at Wordpress (full version) or Movable Type for self hosted systems and Typepad for a hosted solution as good starter points.

ii) Should I host it on my website or on a different domain?

As a general rule, if it sits comfortably alongside your website and complements the information on it, then integrate it into your website. If, on the other hand, you are looking to present an objective view on your industry or want a separate identity for branding purposes then choose a separate domain name and run it separately.

iii) What to call the Business Blog?

Either let it reflect your company and branding, or make sure it contains your keywords or preferably both. As a rule of thumb, though: choose something which you are still going to feel comfortable with in a years time. You might like to check some additional ideas on choosing a Business Blog name at www.betterbusinessblogging.com/blogging-basics/what-to-call-your-business-blog/.

iv) Look and Feel of the Blog

If you are using it as part of your website, then integrate the look and feel with that. Theres no need for your visitors to really know that they are on a blog – remember its the benefits that blogs offer that is important, not the technology. If it is on a separate domain, then design your Business Blog with the image you want to portray but dont use the default template that the blogging software provides. Why? Default template = zero differentiation!

v) How will it integrate with your other marketing activities?

Blogging is an excellent marketing tool, as well as having being strong in other areas. However, it is not a magic wand to cure all marketing ills, so it is necessary to decide how to best use it in conjunction with your other marketing, business development and customer service activities.

vi) Who will be blogging and how often?

If you are a small business or individual, then the decision about who will be blogging will be a straightforward one. For a larger organisation, the decision will depend on what the blog is focused on and hence who will be the best person to write with knowledge and passion about it. As for how often you should blog, frequency isnt as important as consistency so try to post regularly and keep your readers informed. As a caveat, however, you should be posting at least twice a week to give yourself the best chance of success.

vii) How to deal with comments?

Receiving comments on a blog is one of the more satisfying aspects of blogging because it shows that you have engaged your readers enough for them to want to comment. Some companies, however, view it with dread because of possible comments being aired which are not entirely positive. While I would always recommend being open to and responding to comments, the decision ultimately is in the hands of the blogger.

Final Words for a Great Man

2011-10-31T15:59:00.001-07:00

On Sunday, The New York Times published "A Sister's Eulogy for Steve Jobs," written by the Apple icon's sister Mona Simpson. Simpson read the eulogy at her brother's memorial service on Oct. 16 at the Memorial Church of Stanford University.

The 2,300-word essay has since grabbed attention online for its intimate recollection of their time together, and the painfully frank details of his illness.

Simpson herself is a novelist and professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles.

She begins by recalling, as an only child with a single mother, her first meeting with Jobs. "Even as a feminist, my whole life I'd been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I'd thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother."

Simpson paints a vivid picture of her brother as someone exceptionally dedicated to his work, but also full of affection for his family, wife Laurene and four kids. "When Reed was born, he began gushing and never stopped. He was a physical dad, with each of his children. He fretted over Lisa's boyfriends and Erin's travel and skirt lengths and Eve's safety around the horses she adored."

When discussing Jobs' declining health, Simpson recalls that his family "watched his life compress into a smaller circle." She describes his rehabilitation after a liver transplant in 2009, and, in painstaking detail, his final hours surrounded by his family.

"Steve's final words were: OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW."