When we first started these Wed Wednesday events we surveyed you on what topics you wanted covered and this was as always a hot one.

In this session we’ll have an exciting panel line up featuring everything from techs to everyday business owners who regularly enjoy great success from their e-marketing activities.

The event will be held on Wednesday 22 July at the Mooloolaba Surf Club at 5.30pm. Tickets are just $30 and can be purchased online at: http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/events/cms/13/web-wednesday—emarketing prior to the event. Students with ID can attend free by calling ahead!

Phone: (07) 5451 1315 

or Email: admin@thecreativecollective.com.au

If you haven’t noticed that the word Twitter is somewhat of a ‘buzz word’ at the moment, you must have been living under a rock. But the question is, should you be doing it and what are the tangible results it can return?

Worldwide traffic to Twitter.com reached 10 million visitors in February 2009, up a whopping 700 percent from the same time last year, according to comScore.

As a creative agency we’re expected to ‘keep up with the Jones’s’ so of course when Twitter reared it’s birdy head last year, we made a point of climbing the tree to check out what all the tweet was about (sorry it’s hard to write a piece about Twitter without having some fun with the ‘twitterisms’.)

So perhaps firstly a how to set up a Twitter account would be a useful piece of information to some of you who have not yet got on the bandwagon. If you’re well into twittering and want some real tips, skip ahead to the next star set now.

*****

Like setting up a web-based email account such as gmail, yahoo or hotmail, it’s pretty easy and of course free. Simply go to http://www.twitter.com and click on the big green button the front page (at least it was green the day we went there) which says ‘get started –Join!’

The rest we’re sure you’ll navigate your way through no dramas – enter full name, username (just like domain names people are snapping up twitter territory with good usernames that reflect the niche they would like to dominate the market they are trying to target or something else suitably witty so choose something with this in mind), password, email and a code to copy. All pretty straight forward.

If you like to display yourself as a unique individual you may like to click on the settings tab and customize the look of your profile. You may also like to find what other friends from any given email address (that is an online one i.e. gmail, yahoo or hotmail) is already on twitter. You may search to find new friends in the form of celebrities, business people or groups in line with what you do. Once you’ve faffed about with the menu options, you’re now the proud owner of a twitter account.

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But here’s the crazy thing: after examining some 300,000 Twitter accounts, a Harvard Business School professor reported earlier this month that 10 percent of the service’s users account for more than 90 percent of tweets. The study dovetails with recent analysis by the media research firm Nielsen asserting that 60 percent of Twitter users do not return from one month to the next.

And we’ve got a pretty good hunch why this is. It’s because people don’t know what to do with a twitter once they have one. They haven’t yet worked out how potentially powerful their twitter account can be.

Essentially with twitter you have 140 characters to  tell people what you are doing. Which whilst it may sound like a mindless and timewasting past time can actually produce real commercial returns. The key to getting the return is, like any other marketing, setting out with a specific objective in mind. Before you write another ‘Tweet’ to your Twitter account ask yourself what it is you want to achieve from Twitter? Is it (and all of these things are possible with Twitter):

•  Building Community—creating a strong community of followers that ultimately help drive business objectives and bring in new customers

• Customer Service—using Twitter to successfully engage with customers needing help and showing a personal side to your company

• Selling—driving online and offline sales by using Twitter to post promotions, discounts and offers

• Prospecting—creating demand and pinpointing potential customers needing the type of solution your product/service/event offers

• Branding & Awareness—employing Twitter in creative ways to increase awareness around a product, person (celebrity) or business

• Fundraising—using Twitter to spread the word about important causes i.e. events, deadlines to help someone etc.

Well Twitter can do all of these things.

To put these in context here are five case studies of businesses we’ve uncovered online who have used twitter for real commercial success.

1. Twittering for Local business

A New Orleans local pizza shop ‘Naked Pizzas’ got onto twitter and signed up anybody and everybody it could find in its local area. With his first concerted effort at a Twitter-only promotion, the owner was able to drive 15% of daily revenues with Twitter.  And of those 15%, 90% were new customers!  Not bad for a guy who didn’t even have an account 5 weeks prior. And, here’s the crazy part, it’s all him.  No expensive PR firm.  No “Social Media Expert”, just a guy on a mission to change the world one pizza at a time. Now you know what they can do when things are quiet? Run a special! Within minutes of twittering an irresistible deal, their pizza sales can go crazy.

2. Well known brand tries to invigorate itself

Skittles, the lolly brand started a twitter conversation about the brand in the hopes of bringing the product top of mind and getting exposure through viral means. Skittles posted a live, uncensored feed of any tweets talking about Skittles on their website as a brand like Skittles can only be helped by more exposure and it’s not exactly something that people are going to moan about! Skittles was in a position to benefit from the publicity largely without taking a hit to its brand.

3. Twittering for a good cause

Bonnie Sayers, a mother of children with autism, decided to use Twitter to promote awareness of autism and to allow those who live with it to share their experiences and knowledge with others.  Dubbed “Twitter Autism Day” and connected with the #ASD hashtag, this was a HUGE success both by the standards of the benefits it created for those who participated as well as the number of tweets it generated.  It became a “trending topic” on more than one occaission during the day. Parents and care givers sharing their experiences over Twitter was a great way to connect with others who had experience with autism, and it gave those who wanted to help the opportunity to help spread that awareness through following along and retweeting.

4. Big Dollar Dell figures

In a blog post this week, Dell the computer giant revealed that it has generated more than $2 million in revenue from @DellOutlet, one of its many Twitter sites. Not bad for a little twittering! The secret formula for Dell has been to use Twitter as a way to extend exclusive offers, discounts and other forms of savings. Everyone loves a bargain, right? Before you knew it, thousands of people were following @DellOutlet -and it’s numbers are now in excess of 600,000.

5. I’ll have that to go

When J.R. Cohen, Operations Manager for CoffeeGroundz (@coffeegroundz) Cafe in Houston, Texas first heard about Twitter from one of his customers, he was puzzled but intrigued. Today, he credits Twitter with almost doubling his clientele and with opening his eyes to a whole new way to build Community. Seeing an opportunity, Cohen started taking to-go orders via direct message from any of his Twitter Clientele.

Cool Twitter Tools / Twitter links you have to know about

On a final note I’ll leave you with some fun links to check out. They’re some of the coolest twitter tools we’ve found in our travels. Feel free to share others via comments.

• http://twitterholic.com/ - Check out the current leaderboard of the most followed people on twitter. Celebs such as Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, lily allen, Britney spears and Martha Stewart feature as to smart media outlets such as Time.com, The New York Times, Good Morning America and Nightline (also American) to politicians scuh as Barrack Obama.
• Search.twitter.com works well for finding your friends, celebrities, or organizations, or for searching for specific topics you’re interested in.
• http://twitgoo.com/ or www.twitpic.com - Make your twitter account more visually engaging by adding pictures. These could be product images, social pics of you or your colleagues at an event, your work, attendees to an event or just inspirational/arty things.
• http://www.tweetlater.com — You don’t have to tweet on a daily or weekly basis. Get smart and tweet ahead of time. This system allows you to post tweets to be sent later as well as to send automatic messages every time someone new follows you. Users can set up Tweets to happen later on the day, week, or month. Also allows you to set up Twitter alerts for any keywords, people, companies, etc. that you want to track. Alerts are sent to you via email. Also allows you to auto follow those who follow you and send them a welcome message.
• Twtvite - Send invitations and track RSVPs online.  Example: http://twtvite.com/wlsvw
• Twtqpon - Create coupons for distribution on twitter or anywhere online.  Example: http://twtqpon.com/7uz1
• Twitterfeed - Have a blog?  Automatically tweet (send a message) each new blog post.
• http://www.tweepler.com/ - Evaluate new followers & decide if you want to follow them back.

We’d love to hear of any other top twitter tips or tools you’d like to share. Send them through via a comment!

Yvette Adams is the director of The Creative Collective http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au, an award winning creative services agency based in Queensland, Australia offering the full range of creative services including PR, awards applications, websites, internet marketing, seo, graphic design, print production, photography and more. They won the 2008 Queensland Small Business Champions Specialised Small Business award and Yvette won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year and has been a finalist in numerous other local, state, national and international business awards.

Are you trying to upload images to your website and having a few dramas? Time and time again we see our clients and others on the world wide web who are having a crack at updating images on their website upload HUMUNGOUS pictures. This is not a good idea for several reasons:

 1) You’ll take up valuable bandwidth and potentially pay more money for your hosting bill

 2) Your website download speed will slow and cause mega frustration to the user causing higher bounce rates (or people who click on and straight back off on arrival), and decrease the chance of repeat visits.

 3) It can throw a page’s alignment and overall look completely out making your website/brand and hence your company seriously devalued.

Other times we see pictures that are uploaded which are stretched/skewed, pooly lit or constructed or just generally with no love or care applied. It brings the site and hence your brand and professional image DOWN.

So what’s the solution?

In-house we tend to use Adobe Photoshop but with a retail price tag of around $1400AUD we realise this is serious overkill for people with basic computing skills who simply need to edit pictures to be suitable for upload to their website.

Your options apart from the professional and costly programs include those that you download to your hard drive and those that are online. So here’s a few suggestions (all f’ree!). Four of the best are Paint.NET, Photoscape, Gimp and Picasa But you can choose from many more, including Photofiltre, PhotoPlus, Vicman (ugly interface) and Pixia (very Japanese).

Free downloadable options: 

http://www.getpaint.net - Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins. Paint.NET features layers, painting and drawing tools, special effects, unlimited undo history, and levels adjustments. If you want something that’s near professional class, download it.

http://picasa.google.com/ - Geez it’s hard to provide tips of the week without mentioning a Google tool - they have so many cool ones on offer! Picasa is a software download from Google that helps you organize, edit, and share your photos. It is designed to make it easy for you to download pictures from a digital camera, organise them and edit and share them. Picasa offers you some basic editing and attractive enhancement tools which are very easy to use. It can also turn out posters and collages. However, Picasa is primarily photo organising software, and if you are not careful from the start, it will take over your photos and organise them the way it likes. Of course you can over-ride it – I think!

http://www.picnik.com/ - Picnik is very popular and it’s no wonder because it can make your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful editing tools whether you know anything about photo editing or not. Tweak to your heart’s content, then get creative with oodles of effects, fonts, shapes, and frames. Even better it integrates with other Web2.0 services.  

Photoscape - It doesn’t look the prettiest on loading the page and it’s functionality doesn’t include layers (which are kind of handy). However its features do include:

•          Editor: resizing, brightness and colour adjustment, white balance, backlight correction, frames, balloons, mosaic mode, adding text, drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red eye removal, blooming. It also has some very funny filters.

•           Page: Make one photo by merging multiple photos at the page frame

•           Combine: Make one photo by attaching multiple photos vertically or horizontally

•           Print: Print portrait shot, visiting card, passport photo •   Splitter: Divide a photo into multiple parts

•           Rename: Change photo file names in batch mode

GIMP for Windows - Whilst the name is remninscent of Pulp Fiction, GIMP for Windows is a popular open-source image editor. It has been called the “free Photoshop,” and does have an interface and features similar to Photoshop, but like Photoshop it’s not the easiest of programmes to learn.

Online solutions:

Your other choice when it comes to image editing is to upload your photos and work on them in cyberspace, using free online programmes. Of course if you do a lot of editing online your internet usage will skyrocket. So be aware you may need a more generous – i.e. expensive - broadband plan. If you would like to try an online editor, here’s a few of the best:  

http://www.Picture2life.com  -In some ways it’s just another online image editor. But it’s interface is kind of different with a descriptive side panel stacked into four vertical tabs and the ability to see how the picture will look if the effect is applied before you commit.

 http://www.pixlr.com - Advanced online image and photo editing tools, just choose your flavor, jump in and start creating! 

http://www.splashup.com  - Splashup is a web based photo editor that looks like a desktop application. Open files from your computer or from most popular photo sharing sites. Splashup also has the ability to import images from your webcam. Nice.

What image editing programs have you found useful? Let us know.

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jk

With only a few weeks left in the Australian financial year, it’s a good time to analyse how we maintain our accounts and whether our current procedures and processes are working for us. Here’s some cool technology to check out that you might find handy in the new financial year:

1. Freshbooks

Last year we discovered a fantastic online accounts system called Freshbooks and fell in love.

The average business owner in Australia will opt for MYOB or Quickbooks who have massive market shares. There’s no denying that these are good programs and tick most boxes, but if you’d like further features such as:

• The ability for your clients to log in and check their live statement at any one time saving you numerous phone and email inquiries
• The ability to set auto-reminders to clients who owe you money! This saves you hours in follow up and you have a written record of all communications - they go out automatically!
• The ability to program in any recurring invoices which will go out automatically without you having to manually enter them or send them.
• The ability for your clients to pay online via credit card via paypal (no online merchant facility required)
• The ability for staff or contractors to log their hours live in the system and then convert them into invoices so you know at any one time
• The ability to customise the look and feel of estimates and templates a lot easier than you can in MYOB to make your stuff pretty + much more, this is definitely worth checking out.
• Quick and easy reporting on a variety of levels

Check out Freshbooks now: https://www.freshbooks.com/?ref=5738b25382878-1

2. Shoeboxed

How good does this sound? Shoeboxed will transform your piles of paper receipts into professional-looking invoices in FreshBooks. Shoeboxed also Shoeboxed scans and turns your business cards into contact lists? They can digitize your contacts into Outlook, Apple Address Book, Gmail, Blackberry, Salesforce, Act, and many other programs! Cool huh?

Check out Shoeboxed now: http://www.shoeboxed.com.

3. Xpenser

Record expenses via whatever means are available to you quickly and painlessly. Send them in via Email, SMS, Twitter, IM, or voice (call a number and say your expense). From your Blackberry, email “Lunch 78.50 with BigClient” and it’s recorded. From your phone, SMS “exp groceries 27.13″. From your computer, IM “Equipment 889.19 backup server”. From your phone, call and say “taxi 39 office to airport”. Use the Web interface to edit and finalize them or export them to your favorite financial management software. No more forgetting your cash expenses, no more half-day expense entry sessions.

If you track expenses or do expense reports, give it a try. We’re pretty sure you’ll like it. It’s currently free which is even better.

Check out Xpenser now: http://www.xpenser.com.

Happy accounting!

Entries are now open for the 2009 International Women in Business Awards, also known as ‘The Stevies’. The awards are open to all women executives, entrepreneurs, and the organizations they run - worldwide. The Stevie Awards are the world’s premier business awards competitions and feature four major awards programs in all – the American Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, The International Business Awards (the deadline for which is June 12) and the Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

For the first time ever, the awards have a dedicated regional coordinator for the Australia and New Zealand region, a previous International Women in Business Awards finalist, Yvette Adams who is based in Queensland.

Adams who runs her own creative agency says being involved with the awards as a finalist in 2008 has provided an exceptional lift to her business.

“Going to New York was a magical experience and has definitely been beneficial to my business in numerous ways. I’m now very proud to be assisting other enterprising Australians and New Zealanders go through the process I did last year,” says Adams, 32-year-old who is also a mother of two.
All organizations and individuals worldwide may participate – public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small. There’s an early-bird entry deadline of July 31 where entry fees are discounted. The final entry deadline is August 31. Late entries will be accepted through September 30 with payment of a $35 late fee. Entry details are available at http://www.stevieawards.com/women/.

Entries may be submitted in more than 54 categories including Best Entrepreneur, with categories recoginising entrepreneurs operating in different company sizes, best new product and best new service, as well as media and marketing categories honouring creative output such as Website of the Year, Blog of the Year, Advertising Campaign of the Year, marketing campaign of the year and more. For a full list of categories visit:  http://www.stevieawards.com/pubs/women/awards/282_1448_8468.cfm.

“In challenging economic times like these, there isn’t a more cost-effective way to reward and honor your valued employees than to nominate them for a Stevie Award,” said Stevies president Michael Gallagher. “And there isn’t a more cost-effective way to build or burnish your organization’s brand than to win one.”
Further information can be seen at www.stevieawards.com or by calling Yvette Adams on 07 545 11315 or 0405 022 977.
EDITOR NOTES
About The Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in four programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, The Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more at www.stevieawards.com.

Why Enter?
There’s no more cost-effective way to reward and honor your valued employees or yourself than to nominate them for a Stevie® Award. And there’s no more cost-effective way to build or burnish your organization’s brand than to win one.

Who’s Eligible?
Any organization anywhere in the world may submit entries: large or small, public or private, for-profit or non-profit. The 2009 awards will honor achievements since the beginning of 2008.

How Do We Enter?
First choose your categories – in the Womens program there are 54 categories to choose from, from Executive of the Year, CSR Program of the Year, and Best New Product or Service of the Year to categories for ad campaigns, annual reports, and more than a dozen categories for web sites.
Write your entries according to the instructions in the online entry kit, then submit them through the web site at www.stevieawards.com/iba - it’s very easy to do. You can even pay your entry fees online.

You Can’t Win If You Don’t Enter
Results will be announced at the end of June, and this year’s honorees will be celebrated at an awards dinner in September.

Sponsorship opportunities

Sponsorship opportunities exist for The 5th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business.
To discuss any of the following sponsorships, contact Yvette Adams at 0405 022 977 or info@thecreativecollective.com.au or fill in a no obligation expression of interest form at:
http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/html/cms/170/international-stevie-business-awards

Like many out there, I’m a busy working mother. And with a 2 year old and a 5 year, getting to the supermarket is a veritable nightmare between the ‘I wants’ and the ‘no you can’t haves’, the embarrassing potty training incidents in the aisles (think puddles) and the attempts at innocent stealing.

So I was soooo excited when someone told me that shopping for groceries online was FINALLY available in the regional area where we live. I’d used online shopping in England for 2-3 years before I left and came to Australia in 2004 and had been missing it ever since.

Signing up was as easy as getting an email account and to keep things easy, I repeated the use of usual username and passwords so I could easily jump in and shop again next time.

I started off ‘browsing by aisle’ but that was a little cumbersome. Then I discovered ‘quick lists’ which was very clever in that it emulated your traditional offline shopping list, where you could literally write down items you needed i.e. ‘rice’, ‘bananas’ and so on and it would quickly pull up a list of all available brands and sizes of rice.

All in all my first online grocery shopping experience via Coles took me around 45 minutes to complete which still bettern than the 1 – 2 hours it would take me with 2 kids in tow. Naturally the first time was always going to be longer than the second or the third time when you have the ability to remember previous orders, delete items, add items and potentially check out inside 10 – 15 minutes.

Perhaps one of the best features (which was also there when I used to shop in the UK) is the ability to keep a running tally of your spend, which in economic times like these can be a pretty useful thing.  No more being tempted by the items on sale at the end of an aisle which just happen to be your favourite chocolate biscuit!   

On Coles you have the option to get the order delivered inside 3 delivery brackets – a 4 hour block (for a $9 delivery charge), a 3 hour block (for a $11 delivery charge) and a 2 hour block (for a $9 delivery charge). I opted for the 4 hour block on a Friday afternoon – 4pm – 8pm when I knew I’d be in.

Sure enough, right on 6pm the next day, my supermarket messiah (otherwise known as the delivery man) arrived.

Not only did he bring them up the drive, but inside the door and onto my bench. Pure heaven. No lugging of cans, heavy drink bottles, bags and babies any more for me.

All bags were knotted and as I eagerly unveiled each package I was pleasantly relieved to discover that no goods were damaged and everything I ordered was there. There was a nervous moment when I moaned to my partner that they’d given me the baby baked beans can instead of the normal size…until  I realized that I must have selected the wrong size; the yoghurts I’d ordered had been replaced by yoghurt ice-blocks (another stuff up by me) and I’d mistakenly clicked on some Uncle Bens fried rice instant packet mix stuff by accident whilst browsing for normal rice. But all in all, 3 mistakes for a first timer – not too bad and besides stuff the kids would eat anyhow. Not like I’d ordered pet food when we don’t even have a pet.

I’ve been raving about the option to anyone who would listen since. So far I’m getting no where with my retired mother who is in her 50s. Although she is quite capable on the computer and admits it might be a good option for her when she’s older and less mobile, for now she says she prefers to pop in as she needs things to get ‘out of the house’.

My sister on the other hand has no kids, but works and likes as much free time for fitness and time with her partner and dogs outside of working hours. She ordered online last week too, and also swears it will now be a regular method of nourishing her cupboards and fridge each week.

Next week I think I’ll try out Woolworths, or maybe the lure of a pre-written shopping list from last week that should take moments to amend will prove too tempting…

Yvette Adams is the director of The Creative Collective http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au, an award winning creative services agency based in Queensland, Australia offering the full range of creative services including PR, awards applications, websites, internet marketing, seo, graphic design, print production, photography and more. They won the 2008 Queensland Small Business Champions Specialised Small Business award and Yvette won the Young Entrepreneur of the Year and has been a finalist in numerous other local, state, national and international business awards.

Our next Web Wednesday event is one HOT topic – Marketing your Business online via Video! 

Posting videos online is a huge growth area on the Net. Come along and discover:

• The market – how it all started, how it’s grown and the opportunities now available
• Why should you consider video marketing to benefit your product/service/business
• What types of people are already using it
• Format options and their applications
• Hard copy versus electronic copies
• Ideal Durations for different mediums
• Key considerations before you get started
• Packaging considerations if creating hard copies – people do judge a book by it’s cover!
• Distribution options
• Project sequence
• Marketing your Video on online using video networks such as: You Tube, Vimeo, Yahoo!, MySpace and many more!

 Book now: http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/events/cms/11/using-online-video-marketing-to-build-your-business

Plus hear specific case studies from Bruce Levick who has managed large scale video production projects for Australia Zoo and had amazing success with it!

Bruce Levick

After graduating with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in the early 90’s, Bruce spent 2 years in pre press design while studying/self training in website design and development.

In the mid 90’s, he started experimenting with the online medium and eventually moved into full time online commercial design and development by late 1997.

Bruce has worked for many clients over 10+ years on various projects, from the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, Cairns Taipans, Jupiters Casino to the Queensland Governor and recently finishing up a four year stint managing the Australia Zoo stable of websites but continuing to contract to them.

With a broad range of skills from design, development, multimedia integration and rich internet applications, Bruce is a specialist in taking projects from concept through to completion.

Bruce has been published in the Design Graphics Portfolio edition for website design and has also been a runner up in the Asia Pacific IT Awards.

Don’t delay registering – we expect this event to be extremely popular, especially with a hot topic like this:

http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/events/cms/11/using-online-video-marketing-to-build-your-business

MEDIA RELEASE

24 March 2009

International business awards now represented by Queensland woman

Yvette Adams, director of award winning local creative agency, The Creative Collective on the Sunshine Coast has been announced as the recently appointed position of the International Stevie Awards Australia/New Zealand representative having attended the Stevie Awards for Women in Business as a finalist in New York last November and acquainting the CEO, Michael Gallagher.

The Stevie Awards are the world’s premier business awards competitions and feature four major awards in all – the American Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and The International Business Awards.

Beginning with The American Business Awards in 2002, The International Business Awards in 2003, The Stevie Awards for Women in Business in 2004, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service in 2006 the organisation aims to raise the profile of exemplary companies and individuals among the press, the business community, and the general public.  

“Going to New York was a magical experience and I made sure I networked my little heart out, both prior to going online using mediums such as Facebook and Linkedin.com and of course while I was there.  This included introducing myself to the CEO of the awards, Michael Gallagher where we discussed the possibility of me assisting him to grow the profile of the awards in the the Australia/New Zealand region.  After a few emails on my return we worked things out and I’m now very proud to be assisting other enterprising Australians and New Zealanders go through the process I did last year,” says Adams, 32-year-old who is also a mother of two.

A variety of sponsorship packages are available for the first time to Australian and New Zealand companies who may be interested in having their brand associated with these prestigious awards. Interested parties should fill in an online form here: http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/html/cms/170/international-stevie-business-awards where a downloadable sponsorship package is available for download.

Entries for the 2009 International Business Awards are now being accepted. Interested business owners or entrepreneurs can request an entry kit on this link now: http://www.stevieawards.com/pubs/iba/general/173_704_3149.cfm and it will be emailed out to them. The entry deadline is 15 May 2009. 

Further information can be seen at www.stevieawards.com or by calling Yvette Adams on 07 545 11315.

ENDS

Award winning creative agency The Creative Collective has announced its latest topic for its monthly Web Wednesday event – How to Self-Diagnose Your Website.

The agency’s director and event organiser Yvette Adams says that although many businesses now have a website, very few even know that they often have free in-built web statistics, or have the access codes or the know how to log in and see what is going on with the performance of their website. 

“Sadly too many business owners still get live with their website and tick that job off the list. But the reality is that once you are live you need to not only conduct quite a lot of pro active marketing both online and offline to get the thing working, but you also need to keep a close eye on how it is performing so you can make the necessary changes until you start meeting your business objectives,” says Adams.

Adams says most websites do come with an in-built statistical program but that there are many free or cheap other resources that business owners or those responsible for the company website should be familiar with.

“Tools such as Google’s free Google Analytics system, Google Webmaster Tools and other free or cheap resources we will share with attendees on the night can give you phenomenal insights into how users find your website, what they do once they are there and what niche you are intentionally, or accidentally, carving out for yourself on the World Wide Web.  This information is essential for you to know, particularly in a market where things may be on the decline so that you can identify any problem areas and quickly and easily make the necessary changes to get things moving in the right direction.”

Adams says that whilst professionals can of course be engaged to conduct website analyses or audits, she believes it is far more effective for the business owner or person responsible to take at least an interest in the affairs of their website so that if they need to, they can direct others as to what outcomes they are seeking, or even look to make any necessary changes themselves which she hopes the event will assist in achieving for the attendees.

The next Web Wednesday event is the second to be held this year and The Creative Collective continue to regularly attract sizeable numbers to their informal monthly events. The next event will be held on Wednesday 22 April at the Mooloolaba Surf Club at 5:30pm. Tickets are just $30 and can be purchased online at http://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/events/cms/9 prior to the event.

ENDS

For more information contact 07 545 11315 or email webwednesdays@thecreativecollective.com.au.

I'm now the proud owner of a BlackBerry Storm

Recently I became the proud new owner of a brand new Blackberry Storm– my first foray into the world of 3G phones. Despite the fact that it makes complete sense for me as a business owner and power internet and email user to combine phone technology with electronic communication, I still waited until my two year contract was up before I eagerly jumped ship from a terrible Optus subsidary service provider (Soul Communications - do not GO there!!!) over to Vodafone.

To get my Blackberry Storm for free (otherwise retailing at approx $800) I’ve gone onto another contract but with unlimited emails, text and internet access and a geneous phone cap plan I’m pretty confident it’s the plan for me. Features such as * Wireless Email, *Organizer, * Wireless Internet, * Phone, * Camera, * Video Recording, * Media player, * Built-in GPS, * Corporate Data Access, * SMS, * MMS also have me pretty sorted.

Anyway I was excited as can be to get my hands on my new Blackberry which I did around 10 days ago now. It made complete sense to get it right before I took a 10 day business/pleasure trip to New Zealand. In that way I could send emails to keep wheels turning and balls up in the air while I was away and also get a little used to it while I was away without the pressures of manic deadlines.

My first Blackberry experience was quite laughable and I don’t mind sharing. Perhaps if you or a person you know has had similar novice experiences with new technologies it’ll make you feel better.

So here I was, LOVING the fact I can get on Facebook and either check out what others are up to or update my own status via the new Blackberry phone, and I went to make a simple status update: ‘Yvette is…playing with her new Blackberry’.

The first attempt read:

“Yvette is…”

Eek – Yvette is nothing! That’s highly unlikely to EVER happen!

The next read:

“Yvette is O”

No, not ‘Om’; not ‘OhMiGod’ – just ‘O’. Bloody muppet. Not at all intentional of course (bloody fat figners on the intuitive keys built into the LCD screen I was cursing to my self)

The final:

“Yvette is loving her new Blackberry’ Whew!

And a couple of quick deletions of the prior two posts and my online reputation was ceremoniously redeemed with me cursing my fingers that suddenly seemed very fat when it came to dealings with the SurePress™ touch screen.

But that wasn’t the end of the struggle with the new technology. And all of this may come as a surprise to those of you who may consider me as very techie. The funny thing is that while I am very technical minded on some levels, when it comes to a few gadgets, including phones I really do struggle sometimes.

My theory on it is that it’s because I’m a Gen X/ Gen Y cusper. You see if I were purely a Gen X I may not have even bothered with the Blackberry. A nice looking, functional handheld phone with perhaps a few bells and whistles in the form of say a camera and Bluetooth might have been more than enough for me to handle. Sound familiar?

And if I were a Gen Y I probably would have been in the iPhone queue when they were realised in Australia or switching plans well before the expired just to get my hands on the Blackberry and playing with my phone non stop ever since I got it to get it all totally ’souped up’.

Instead I sit somewhere in the middle as a true cusper would. You see I’m techie enough to have taken the leap of faith into going 3G but I’m also phobic enough to have stalled a number of standard procedures like synching the phone with my Outlook (one of it’s main features), and getting all my old contacts off my old sim and on to my new phone which the sales rep in the phone shop was unable to complete for me and encouraged me to seek more help on (with hundreds of names, even with a bit of a cull the re-entering manually of them is totally out of the question).

I’m also struggling with blue tooth (never had a phone that offers this before) and getting my ring tone to be suitably ‘cool’ and ‘me’ and ‘non standard’ (never been one for common!) I hope to have a fav tune ringing out every time my phone goes within the next 24 hours.

I’m also planning to up the anti on my twittering regularity and figure my new piece of equipment will assist me in making this happen (as will my PA!)

On a TOTAL sideline, ever wondered how a mobile phone like mine ends up with the name of a wild berry fruit??

Like any product or service, it’s not just about creating the thing or conceiving the concept, there’s a LOT in a name. A previous blog post I wrote about why we love blank canvasses when it comes to branding goes into my spin on this in more detail. If you’re looking at creating a new product or product line, offering a new service, re-branding or establishing a brand, READ THIS BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING!!!!

But in essence the name has to be cool (but not too cool or exclusionary), marketable to both early adopters and a broader audience and catchy/memorable. The name also has to be protectable and by that I mean be able to be protected by various trademarks and copyright laws . The combination of these factors can present a challenge to say the least. I know. Just recently I’ve tried and I’m still on the brain storm buzz for a new company I’m looking at starting (stay tuned on that one).

But just in case you’re the type that doesn’t mind a little mindless trivia from time to time here’s a couple of interesting insights into names I’ve mentioned in this little ditty and how they came to be (taken from http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/267197/how_10_famous_technology_products_got_their_names?pp=3&fp=39&fpid=26195)

BlackBerry

Canada’s Research in Motion called on Lexicon Branding to help name its new wireless e-mail device in 2001. The consultancy pushed RIM founders away from the word “e-mail,” which research shows can raise blood pressure. Instead, they looked for a name that would evoke joy and somehow give feelings of peace. After someone made the connection that the small buttons on the device resembled a bunch of seeds, Lexicon’s team explored names like strawberry, melon and various vegetables before settling on blackberry - a word both pleasing and which evoked the black color of the device.

Twitter

When cofounder Biz Stone saw the application that Jack Dorsey created in 2006 he was reminded of the way birds communicate: “Short bursts of information…Everyone is chirping, having a good time.” In response, Stone came up with “twttr,” and the group eventually added some vowels. It’s hard to think of a more evocative name in the tech world than twitter, but what began as what Stone described as “trivial” bursts of communication developed into a powerful means of networking, breaking news, and forum for the 44th US president’s campaign.