thinking: relating- celebrating :-)

On Friday a new and helpful law for NZ based businesses comes into effect.

“On 2 May 2008 the Limited Partnerships Act 2008 will come into force.

The Act has been introduced to promote sustainable growth* in New Zealand’s venture capital and private equity industries. (*my emphasis)

Limited Partnerships are a form of partnership involving general partners, who are liable for all the debts and liabilities of the partnership, and limited partners, who are liable to the extent of their capital contribution to the partnership.”

and …..

“Features of Limited Partnerships include:

• separate legal personality
• an indefinite lifespan if desired
• a list of activities that the limited partners can be involved in while not participating in the management of the Limited Partnership (safe harbour activities)
• tax treatment for Limited Partnerships.”

for more on this and the new R & D (15%) Rebates scheme check R&D Tax Credits and Knowledge Hunting which are some notes I made at a recent event.

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Here is a great little conference (Freelance08) on next Wednesday, May 7 and Thursday, May 8 at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Auckland.

It offers huge value for members of the freelance nation. Also a chance to hear from Nicky Hager, Brenda Ward, Virginia Larson and John Cranna as well as old favourites David Cohen and Rod Oram.

The scope is wide enough to include useful business tips for all contractors regardless of whether they get paid to write for a living. And at $100 for the whole day it is very good value.

Registration needs to be before close of business tomorrow so don’t delay. I’ve decided to go along to a few sessions myself. So if you make it, be sure to say hi.

As it happens still do some some contract research and writing for various business documents and it is always helpful to understand the best ways to frame up that kind of work since the creative element and the craft often has to be rationed to the budget at hand.

There is also a big difference between a quick note and a research piece or marketing content and that is not always so easy to explain or get paid for.

Breakout sessions: Freelancing nuts and bolts (Some examples only)

• Hawking your wares overseas
  David Cohen, journalist Tracey Barnett, journalist
• Negotiating – a way to better pay
  Jenny Ruth, freelance business journalist Julia Thorne, photographer and writer
• Slicing/dicing your interviews/expertise
  Gill South, freelance writer Rod Oram, journalist and commentator
• Making your writing a business
  Baubre Murray, director, Dowse Murray Chartered Accountants Simon Penlington, partner, Jones Fee, barristers and solicitors

Hat tip to Kim And Phillipa for nurturing this idea. I believe this is the 3rd conference and it looks like the combination of practical help and actual facetime together has achieved some critical mass.

See you there?

Related posts that you may also like

• Media Meltdown or New Era @ Dow Jones – sale of Dow Jones to Murdoch
• Media Chess – Murdoch Style can Murdoch make the numbers work
• Attention Profiling online trends
• When Self Publishing Makes Sense the power and choice shifts to the author
• One Little Song & Publishing Futures content producer and a consumer same time
• Creative copyright thinking creative commons

“media futures”

The early internet was an exciting era and we’ve all come a long way since then; but then again looking at many of the websites I see on a daily basis I’m not so sure.

This post is my way of opening up the conversation to see if we can do much better in marketing terms and offer some helpful ideas towards that.

Internet History
Sometime in 1995 I started thinking about my very first website after meeting an early internet pioneer who was at the time publishing “how to” guides on such topics. Soon after that I learned html and some other programming skills and developed my very first website while primarily working in sales and marketing roles.

In those days, as an early adopter I had email but web surfing (as it came to be called) tended to expensive as most ISP’s had data based plans and web browsers themselves were in their infancy.

The first easily available web browser was Netscape which we typically installed off a CD rather than downloading. Microsoft Explorer didn’t really happen till later in ’96 which really seemed like the effective start of the web for all.

It seemed at the time we could simply take the company profile and place that online and use it as part of our marketing process. We very quickly discovered 2 key moments of truth.

1. Our company profile wasn’t that good as an external marketing document and needed to be reoriented for online use. It was ok as a supplemental document where we had met in person with existing or potential clients but as an introduction for new business it needed work.
2. The actual mechanics of web based publishing (coding) and technical constraints of web browsers and dial-up access were somewhat limiting even if you could get a site online but still very exciting as a potential marketing resource.

Current and Future Current Needs
Fast forward 13 years – now websites have replaced business cards for many businesses and are now often the first point of exploration for many prospective customers and existing clients.

This makes having a website an essential item, but is that website as useful and effective as it can be?

We have seen massive improvements in technology and infrastructure and most importantly in pricing so that the combination of affordable broadband, digital media and popular culture has created a world wide waste where anything goes.

We’ve now had a decade or more of technicians, graphic designers, advertisers and self proclaimed “web experts” reinvent the web based on their particular skills or areas of interest as each new fad or trend comes along.

Now the actual signal to noise ratio is so loud that what is needed is to refocus on the fundamentals of why we are all online in the first place.

How does your site stack up?
Leaving aside the huge array of technology factors for the moment here are 5 related questions we should all reconsider for our website or online persona / branding.

1. How does your website measure up on the basic (4 p’s) of product, price, place (distribution), and promotion?
2. Does it create opportunities or does it diminish or your distract from your brand values? (what is your brand about?)
3. How does your website support the transformation of strangers into prospects; prospects into customers and customers into advocates?
4. If marketing is an ongoing conversation what does your website say about your business, about you and about your brand?
5. And more significantly how do all these elements contribute (or not) to make it easier for your clients / customers / staff and your to succeed in reaching your goals.

Faced with the very real day to day demands of our business and personal lives it can be a challenge to make sure that our website/s – webface is a complementary and accurate representation of our intentions and objectives.

Next Steps
Fortunately that is where DialogCRM can help by matching your thinking with the actual execution of the finer points of an online marketing programme. We can review and optimise existing websites as well as planning and execution for new sites or projects.

Every effective website needs to be seen in the full context of your overall marketing objectives even if this seems obvious, have you done this?.

Only then should you look at the myriad of technology choices and options that can make or break your website. Naturally we have some ideas and opinions on that and would be delighted to discuss with you.

For an interesting technology history and future perspective all wrapped in one its worth checking out Ray Kurzweil TED video on – “How technology’s accelerating power will transform us”.

Note: the questions are helicopter level- each one of them is worth more discussion and if you would like to contribute or even just make a quick comment I’d love to hear from you.

In fact if you have 500 words I’ll make it a guest post with full credits given for your hard earned insights.

There is a great deal of hype around software as a service (or SAAS) at present. If you need help with sorting the hype from the useful content and want to know how we might be able to help keep reading.

If you have already got it all sussed click here to reward yourself with a free tshirt and check back soon for the next post.

Products
In most businesses a combination of software product + applied services + sustainable sales and marketing disciplines are needed in order to succeed.

Software
We have used and experienced a very wide range of CRM & ERP related products and vendors over the past decade and can help you assess the strengths and weaknesses of the products you may be considering.

For most projects there is no single right answer as you often have to leverage existing investments in other systems which is one way we can help with independent review and analysis of the options and combinations.

Increasingly it is the interface and interplay between front of house systems like CRM, websites, email marketing, RSS and blogging platforms where we see huge potential for a holistic best practice customer relationship focus.

Knowing a wide range of software products very well will help us ask the right questions on your behalf, if you would like help with product selection or ongoing project implementation. There are also some newer products becoming available that we can also introduce should the opportunity be suitable.

Services as a Product or SAAS*
It seems everywhere you look now there is a new “*software as a service” product. Essentially these are services developed as self service style products with pricing and self drive options for the savvy and lots of new complexity for the software consumer.

Ultimately for smaller and medium sized businesses SAAS offers the potential to outsource some IT needs and avoid most of the back room technical issues.

For CRM or marketing activities there maybe strategic implications. In the early days many of us were nervous about customer records being held at a remote data centre but ironically they are often more secure there that in the “back room” at most businesses.

What has now happened with SAAS is that there now more choices of service based products but the actual project complexities don’t go away. There is a still a great need for configuration, customisation and alignment of business processes and software frameworks.

The temptation by vendors has been to downplay the technical side and oversell the pricing model of x services for y$ per user per month or some variation of that formula.

The flipside is that many SAAS vendors are still working on their business models and the reality is that extra expert services still need to be budgeted for if you are to have a successful project.

Some vendors have also confused online distribution for online marketing and sales. For example just because you offer an online application or service doesn’t mean you don’t have to invest and pay sales and marketing staff.

Somewhere in the pricing equation there has to be a budget to pay for the real and hidden costs of not doing the job properly. This also applies even and especially if you decide to use open source software.

At DialogCRM we specialise in practical ways to best use and fully utilise those products and/or services that help with developing the best customer facing results.

We can work alongside your current team or partners to provide independent product review and analysis and or implementation services as well if there is a need to fill the product / skills gap.

For many business projects selection of a product or supplier is seen as the end when it is really only the beginning. Every system lives or dies on how well your staff and culture articulate and maintain sustainable relationship strategies and desciplines.

We also have the capability and methodologies to discover and enhance the thinking that best serves your business and turn those ideas into action. To read more about crm strategy…