Twitter is fastest-growing website 2008/09

According to research by Hitwise UK, Twitter is the fastest growing website of the year. Traffic to the micro-blogging site has increased ten-fold (947%) from January 2008 to mid-January 2009.

The site, www.twitter.com, is the 23rd most popular social networking site in the UK and has risen from being the 2,953rd most-visited website to the 291st most-visited.

Hitwise’s Research Director, Robin Goad, said: “If anything, the service is even more popular than our numbers imply, as we are only measuring traffic to the main Twitter website. If the people accessing their Twitter accounts via mobile phones and third party applications (such as Twitterrific, Twitterfeed and Tweetdeck) were included, the numbers would be even higher.”

“Many people seem to find Twitter addictive: the average amount of time that people spend on Twitter.com has more than trebled from less than 10 minutes a year ago to half an hour now.”

The most-followed celebrity on the site is currently Barack Obama, who has over 647,853 followers. UK celebrities are also popular – Stephen Fry has more than 362,797 followers, John Cleese has 124,064, while Jonathan Ross has 180,114, even used the site to communicate to fans during his suspension from the BBC.

The BBC has also fared well from Twitter’s success as around 10% of Twitter’s traffic goes to news and media websites. BBC News currently ranks as the 7th most popular site visited after Twitter.

However, Facebook remains the most popular social networking site overall with a 37% market share – on Christmas day 2008 the site received 1 in every 22 UK internet visits – far out-performing You Tube, the next most popular site with a 17% market share.

How to find the right people for your organisation

Make sure you know exactly what skills will be needed for the role. If this is an existing role, it’s always worth trying to learn from your experiences with the current job holder to help you establish your ideal replacement. What does the current person do well, what are their weaknesses and is there anything new you want brought to the role and or the team? It isn’t always easy, but try and think ahead to where the role is going and what further soft skills it might be useful for them to have.

Fight the Credit Crunch with IT

I’m pleased to announce that the ‘Fight the Credit Crunch with IT’ workshop we delivered for EEDA’s takeITon campaign has now been published as 4 online rich-media seminars!  This was acheived using a recording of the morning workshop at the prestigious Hethel Engineering Centre in Norwich.  You get to see me delivering the seminar and see the presentation alongside, plus there are links to useful content from the workshop.  You can easily jump around the sections, as required.

This means that that people who came can revist some of the information, plus anyone who missed this workshop can now see me in action and get the benefits of the workshop directly from the takeITon website!

Just use this link to watch the 4 online seminars taken from the workshop: ‘Fight the Credit Crunch With IT’ Video

Facebook celebrates fifth birthday

Popular social networking site Facebook celebrated its fifth birthday on the 4th of February this year by giving users each a free virtual gift.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 and currently boasts over 150 million users. It has overtaken MySpace, which has around 130 million users, as the world’s favourite internet social networking website in recent years.

In his blog, Zuckerberg thanked Facebook users: “While we at Facebook make products that enable people to share information efficiently, Facebook is mostly the product of the people who use it.

“Without you and the connections you make to others, the products we create wouldn’t have much meaning.”

The blog also shares images from the website that show the development of Facebook from its humble beginnings in a Harvard dorm room to the multinational and multilingual social network it is today.

As a thank you to users, Facebook is offering each user a virtual gift free of charge, which is available from the Facebook Gift Shop.

Zuckerberg also commented on the state of Facebook and the internet today: “The culture of the Internet has […] changed pretty dramatically over the past five years.

“Before, most people wouldn’t consider sharing their real identities online. But Facebook has offered a safe and trusted environment for people to interact online, which has made millions of people comfortable expressing more about themselves.”

Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

Derrick Cameron, MD of Eximium Limited said “Social networking has become a massive phenomenon in recent years and studies have shown that it can sometimes be as valuable as business networking. So much in business is about who you know and where you make these contacts is irrelevant.”

How to find the right people for your organisation

Make sure you know exactly what tasks are involved within the role. Sit down with the person who does the job and review and update the job description. It may have evolved considerably from when the vacancy was last filled.

How to Market Your Business Online

I ran the first two of my ‘How to Market Your Business Online’ workshops for EEDA’s TakeITon campaign yesterday at Sprowston Manor Hotel, Norwich.  With more than 60 people attending, I was delighted to see how popular the sessions were and how engaged everybody was. 

The feedback was excellent with many people taking time to tell me what a great difference the briefing made to their understanding and approach towards online marketing.

This seminar is a follow up to the earlier ‘Fight the Credit Crunch with IT’ briefing for EEDA, which also forms part of their TakeITon initiative.   However, attending the previous seminar is not a pre-requisite!

I received some great feedback from Penny Lindop at Penny Lindop Designs this morning.  She attended one of yesterday’s workshops and was very complimentary of both the content and my delivery.  She has posted a great comment on her blog, which you can view by clicking the following link:

Card Art Norfolk blog

If you would like more information or to attend one of these free workshops, please use the following link:

TakeITon website

I’m off to Bedford on Thursday to deliver another 2 of these sessions.  It’s quite hard work delivering so many seminars in such a short space of time, but very rewarding – especially when business owners like Penny are finding them so useful!!

The Queen’s new website

The British Monarchy launched a revamped version of its website on Thursday the 12th of February.  The Queen attended a reception in the Blue Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace, to mark the occasion.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee OM, KBE, inventor of the World Wide Web, travelled from the US for the launch, and said a few words about the history of the web. He then introduced a short film featuring students at Kingsbury High School where the Queen launched the first version of the Monarchy website in 1997.

The Queen, 82, who visited Google last year, is keen to make her website, Royal.gov.uk, more user-friendly and relevant to modern-day society – it is visited by approximately 250,000 users from around the world each week.

The new website has a more accessible design and utilises a number of new technological features, such as Google maps integration with the Royal Diary of Engagements, integration with the Royal Channel on YouTube, a password protected Media Centre, a new Personnel module to allow job applicants to apply online, and a new search function.

It also features a wealth of new content including expanded information on the Commonwealth Realms and a new section on Royal animals – such as her infamous pet Corgis and Dorgis.

Rarely seen video and documents from the Royal Archives will also become accessible, including the original recording of the Queen’s first public speech (as Princess Elizabeth) on 13 October, 1940, with a radio address to the children of the Commonwealth.

 “It is important to move with the times and keep your websites up to date with new technologies and as user friendly as possible”, said Derrick Cameron of Eximium Ltd.  “It must draw people to it and keep them interested once there”.

How to find the right people for your organisation

Read people’s CVs carefully.  They can give you a real insight into what the person thinks is important to a potential employer, and their communication style and skills, e.g. if the role demands attention to detail, then a CV full of spelling mistakes will tell you that they are not the right person for the job.

As I get older, I find that I am more and more aware of my own mortality.  As with everyone, I am finding people close to me are passing away and more often than not, from cancer.  I give more to cancer charities than any other now, because it is something close to my heart.

I have two teenage daughters who I rarely get to see these days. We pass in the hall way like flat mates as one or other of us dashes off to a work commitment, while the other is off to socialise with friends.  I am finding more and more now that I have to arrange and schedule quality family time otherwise it just never happens.

I was thinking about both of these a month or so ago, when it struck me that we could do the Race for Life together.  They were both very good cross country runners when they were at school and it’s something that I’ve been thinking about doing for a while.  We can train and do the race together, which means regular quality time together and we can raise money for a very worthy cause at the same time.  Both the girls agreed to run the race with me, so I signed us up for the 5k in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire on the 14th of June. 

If you have daughters and you would be interested in raising money for Cancer Research together then why not go to the Race for Life website and see where your nearest race is.

http://www.raceforlife.org/

If you do not wish to participate, but would be interested in sponsoring me, please click the link below:

http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/jackieeggleton

‘How to Market Your Business Online’ Workshop

As many of you will already know, we created and delivered a series of 6 workshops for EEDA starting in November last year, as a key part of their takeITon development programme.  These FREE seminars were aimed at SME business owners and managers and entitled ‘Fight the Credit Crunch with IT’, and I’ve now delivered this workshop 8 times, with a further 2 planned for next week.  It is also available online via the takeITon tv channel.  These events all went extremely well and the feedback received has been very positive.

So, I’m delighted to say that we have now developed the second workshop for the takeITon programme, entitled ‘How to Market Your Business Online’, covering the essentials of online marketing - including the creation of a online marketing plan during the session!  So far, this workshop is being held at three venues across the region with two sessions available each day, as follows:

• 17th March  — Sprowston Manor Hotel, Norwich
• 19th March — Bedford Swan Hotel, Bedford
• 26th March — Selwyn College, Cambridge

These sessions are all fully booked.  However, there is a further event being held at our very own Basepoint Business and Innovation Centre on 30th April, which still has spaces available.  To book, contact Basepoint directly by either calling Heather Pedder on 01582 434 206 or email her at heatherpedder@basepoint.co.uk.

However, there is every chance that EEDA will be able to run this again at further venues - watch this space!

For more information about the new seminar see the takeITon website.

Debenhams’ IT investment pays dividends

With daily statements from retailers reporting poor sales figures, Debenhams has bucked the trend by recording positive financial figures for the Christmas period, based on store trading and boosted by a strong e-commerce performance

Debenhams Direct, the online branch of the well known department store registered a growth in yearly visitor numbers and sales up 39.2 per cent and 37.4 per cent respectively. Despite posting a 3.3 per cent drop in like-for-like sales for the 12 week period since 21 October, the retailer reported an increase in profit from last year’s figures, with a ‘creditable’ festive season.

“Our increase in profit is pleasing and reflects our stated intention to invest gross margin gains in strategic promotions as needed but overall to run the business focusing on cash profit rather than just sales,” said Debenhams’ Chief Executive Rob Templeman.

The organisation has spent in excess of £30 million since 2007 on upgrading its IT systems in both the front and back offices. Measures have included the implementation of a programme to use radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to record in-store stock levels, as well as a data conductor to gather sales data from stores across the UK.

“In these times of economic recession, it is good to hear that a high street name like Debenhams is trading profitably,” comments Derrick Cameron of IT business specialist, Eximium. “We work with many clients from the retail sector, and having efficient software in place which is able to give you the information that you need is an essential part of running a retail organisation. Having a wealth of information at your fingertips also enables a business to analyse how they are performing and what they can do to improve. It seems likely that the investment that Debenhams has made in upgrading its IT systems will have had a major impact on performance.”

How to find the right people for your organisation

If you are looking for someone for a specific technical role, consider setting them a task to complete when they come in for the interview, although don’t just surprise them with it when they arrive!  Let them know of your intention in advance so that they are prepared for it.  Completing a task for you in this situation will show you how they perform under pressure and will give you a practical insight into what sort of person they are. You may need advice as to what to ask them.

ICT Training in Schools

I was interested to read an article about the content of ICT lessons in schools. My daughter left school without a qualification in ICT. After studying for two years, the whole year group discovered that the practical work submitted by the school, didn’t meet the qualifying criteria. A failing on the schools and the examining bodies part. Now I find an article about how the skills taught in these lessons are failing the brighter pupils.

Technology plays such a big part in all our lives today, both working and domestic, that we should ensure that we equip the kids of today with all the information and skills available to us. After all, they are the business people of tomorrow.

To read the article in full, click the following link:

http://tech.uk.msn.com/news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=14732444

Security spending takes larger slice of the IT budget

Protecting systems takes bigger slice of shrinking budgets according to reports from Forrester Research. The reports show that spending on security is increasing in proportion to IT budgets – that is, the spending is remaining constant, whilst IT budgets are reducing. It is predicted that this trend will continue as security becomes an increasingly important issue.

“Even during challenging economic conditions, IT security remains an integral part of business operations as firms look to maintain their current environment as well as plan for the implementation of new initiatives,” explains Jonathan Penn, Forrester Business Data Services Analyst.

The two studies found that businesses have similar security concerns irrespective of the size of their organisation and that these businesses felt there was a growing need for improved data security. It was felt that the need for specialised skill sets and more attention to the budget have led to a growth in managed security services.

However, the day to day practicalities of handing data security were dealt with differently at larger organisations where IT staff regularly report directly to chief executives or company presidents on security matters. In SMEs, IT workers cite a lack of dependable security systems and difficulties in convincing executives to invest in more sophisticated security systems.

Derrick Cameron of Eximium, who advise businesses on a range of IT issues including data security, is not surprised by the reports conclusions. “In the UK, there have been several worrying security breaches which have heightened everyone’s awareness of the issue. One of the more positive side effects of these embarrassing lapses is the fact that they have made businesses more security conscious. These organisations now need to ensure that they have the right software in place and that they are using it correctly to safeguard against mishaps.”