Pinterest for Business in a Nutshell
A round-up of why Pinterest is the new "big thing", how to use it and some business tips about how to engage with an audience on this social media platform.
Transforming Business with Social Venture Capital
Investing is a calculated gamble, and even VCs work on odds of 10:1 most of the time. Getting involved at the entry level may seem like a great idea, but you'll probably be working on odds closer to 1000:1 if not much, much lower so be prepared to put in the time early on before you start to see any kind of return on your investment.
6 Signs your Website needs Updating
The technology used on the Internet is changing all the time, as are the browsers that render or display the code that has been lovingly crafted by your designers and developers. Techniques that were popular only a couple of years ago are now obsolete and you may need to rethink (or maybe just tweak) what you are doing on the web to make the most of your investment in the medium. Here are 6 areas you should review to decide if you need to do some work ...
Cloud Computing: Security against the Unexpected
One of the key features of Cloud Computing is the self-managing provision of computer resources based on incoming demand. This means that the Cloud always ensures that however many visitors arrive at your website - whether this is 100 or 100,000 - the experience each and every one of them receives is the same. In other words: no slow loading, no 'exceeded bandwidth' errors, no problems.
What is Cloud Computing?
I was talking to a friend yesterday about this very topic - he asked me what it was - and then I read a post on ZDnet that I thought was going to tell me the answer. Here's the post: What's Cloud Computing and What's Not? However, the post just told me there was a lot of debate about the issue and that a task force was working towards a definitive definition. Not much use, so I thought I would add to the corpus of articles and definitions by publishing my (Emissary's) definition of Cloud Computing.
The Future Web – Web 3.0
We're still in the early days of Web 3.0, but there is a quantum shift on the horizon and we need to be ready for how pervasive this shift will be in our physical lives, and ready for it in our organisations digital ones. There is a lot of research being conducted into the role social media will play in our corporate future and I will be following this to see how close to my vision Web 3.0 comes.
The Internet Maturity Model
Looking at the evolution of an organisation and its web presence (in a similar sense to the SW-CMM - software capability maturity model), we can abstract a generic model for the "maturity" or evolution of a company's web presence. This model can be mapped onto a simple graph which can be used as an indicator to highlight the level of complexity (and thus cost) of the required web solution.
Architecting Great Websites, Introduction
In this 8 part series, we explore how we architect great websites. Here we outline the seven building blocks of a website and provide links to each article describing them in more detail.
Marketing & Social Media Latest
Cloud Computing Latest
How To Latest
Most Recent Articles
Dear Mobile Operator
I have been using mobile phones for years, but innovation seems limited to design, convergence and being able to access the web, stream videos, download music, access Facebook, MySpace, network, etc, etc. The basic way we use phones as a voice tool hasn't changed, and sadly hasn't been challenged until now.
Read More
Cloud Storage: On SugarSync, DropBox & Live Mesh
This article is a report on my recent experience with "going virtual" using the Cloud-based synchronisation tools SugarSync, DropBox and Live Mesh. Results are generally promising, although there were a few teething problems, and I have included pointers for you if you are experiencing similar issues.
Read MoreHarnessing Entrepreneurial Manic-Depression
A start-up puts you on an emotional rollercoaster unlike anything you have ever experienced. You flip rapidly from day-to-day – one where you are euphorically convinced you are going to own the world, to a day in which doom seems only weeks away and you feel completely ruined, and back again. Over and over and over. And I’m talking about what happens to stable entrepreneurs!
Read More
Tweet 3D Launched
This visual tool allows you to view any user's tweets as a floating tag cloud. The engine filters the posts to create an emphasis on the topics the user is tweeting about so you can quickly get an idea of the topics they have written about recently.
Read More
The Future Web – Web 3.0
We're still in the early days of Web 3.0, but there is a quantum shift on the horizon and we need to be ready for how pervasive this shift will be in our physical lives, and ready for it in our organisations digital ones. There is a lot of research being conducted into the role social media will play in our corporate future and I will be following this to see how close to my vision Web 3.0 comes.
Read More
Cloud Computing vs Dedicated Servers
No matter what the name, you, the developer, will still be dealing with reliability and accountability. Using someone else's infrastructure for your application will forever be a business risk. So, is Cloud Computing the way forward, or is it too early to tell?
Read More
Marketing with Twitter
Twitter provides a platform for micro-blogging. So what is Twitter? It's similar to your subconscious - a list of things you might like to blog, but are either too short or not quite on-brand (for business blogs), or conversely too business-like (e.g. blatant self-promotion) for personal blogs. But how do we apply it to marketing?
Read MorePopular Posts
Latest Tweets
- Cold and wet April hits pub and restaurant sales http://t.co/ZX06xi7S via @BigHospitality Would agree with this from our experience. #in 9 hrs ago
- Holo: Funky Dots Illusion http://t.co/xJ8oCwSu 22 hrs ago
- The Stouwen Tablets is out! http://t.co/U7A3RHa1 ▸ Top stories today via @pj 1 day ago
- 4-inch #iPhone rumors reaffirmed by Reuters sources: http://t.co/xoVeDlJk Sounds good. The iPhone needs a make-over as I said before ;-) 1 day ago
- Apple wins dispute over http://t.co/uqQZdiOt domain name: http://t.co/Tt6ucJK3 #in 1 day ago
- The Stouwen Tablets is out! http://t.co/U7A3RHa1 ▸ Top stories today via @slashfilm @thebizangel 2 days ago
- The Avengers Effect: #Shawarma Sales And Movie Product Placement: http://t.co/ljMJFQOn 2 days ago
- More updates...
About Me
I have co-founded two ventures to date: Meejana Ltd & Emissary Ltd. The former is a Lebanese restaurant based in Weybridge, Surrey and the latter is an Internet company serving various clients throughout the EMEA region.
I am a highly creative, visual and analytical thinker with the ability to apply a broad range of experience to solving business problems. Prior to “flying solo” and forming my own companies I provided management consulting in both business process engineering & web strategy for blue-chip companies including Abbey, FedEx, GKN and GE Capital. I have worked in and around IT since 1986. This is also underpinned by my recognition for professional, academic and civic achievements by The International Who’s Who of Professionals in 2001.
Alongside my IT career, I have also designed and directed numerous events, ranging from educational, to corporate and social. These have included the Hallowe’en Horrors charity productions for Fort Amherst in Kent, dinner dance events for 600+ guests, outdoor catering for 10,000+ people, and numerous fantasy live role playing and murder mystery events which I have produced, written and directed.
I also deliver IT security consulting and training for SSR-i as an approved IT security trainer.