Announcing Drivvel.com – a place to share and discover great copy!

 

I felt a need. A need to share copy and find inspiration. And my blog post on that subject generated enough positive comments to spur me to action. An lo, Drivvel was born.

Visit drivvel.com to see what I’m talking about.

How / what / why ?

Drivvel exists for a few reasons:

1: We need a place to find inspiration

Where can you go to find ideas to help you work with words? Drivvel is that place. It’s a place for copywriters, project managers, web editors, content strategists, designers and developers to fill their minds with winning ideas.

2: We need a place to show off

Wordsmiths are too often in the shadows. Let’s start showing off!

In time, Drivvel may serve other purposes. For now, it’s something everyone can use to share copy, and to find inspiration.

Thanks

Thanks to all of the good people who took the time to try out Drivvel when it was little more than an idea. Thanks to Jack Hooker for his initial design and development work. And big thanks to Aegir Hallmundur who created our logo and redesigned our entire look. And thanks to Relly who came up with our name!

Commit yourself: make changes and build momentum

Motor Bikes Racing At Snetterton Scanned (16)

I wrote a blog post recently for Freelance Advisor, which was all about motivation, and what I do when fear or inertia slows me down.

One of things I wrote about was the tendency for momentum to build as soon as you take action, how the first push is the hardest, and how life takes over once you put your back into it. I was just browsing through one of my partner’s psychology books (Motivational Interviewing) when I found a quote that resonates with what I wrote:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness, concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream events issues from the decision.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In Praise of Cheap: the Quick n’ Dirty Road to Glory

Faster

What follows is a short rumination on a common choice: the choice between what you can afford today and what you can afford tomorrow.

Okay, so I agree that cheap is bad. “Buy it cheap, buy it twice,” we say. Andy Budd wrote an excellent blog post on the merits of buying quality (Why I can’t afford cheap.) which I really like and very much agree with.

The Fast Side of Cheap

But I’ve experienced the other side. I’ve personally felt the benefits of just doing. Cheap might be quick and dirty, but often the alternative is waiting until you can afford something better.

I frequently encounter people who delay significant life changes or big steps forward because they’re waiting for some other criteria to be met… “I can’t do this until I’ve got that,” … “I can’t start my business because I can’t afford Z,” … “I can’t do X because I’m waiting for Y to happen.”

Sure, it makes sense to invest in quality, but sometimes it’s better to just get going.

Quality can wait; life will not.

Professional deformation: why all your problems look like nails

clous : ombres et lumière / nails : light and shadows

Thanks to Dave Stone for blogging about Déformation professionnelle – the expression that brilliantly describes:

a tendency to look at things from the point of view of one’s own profession and forget a broader perspective. It is a pun on the expression “formation professionnelle,” meaning “professional training.” The implication is that all (or most) professional training results to some extent in a distortion of the way the professional views the world.

I’m very conscious of this effect, so I seek out conflicting points of view and the opinions of people from other industries.

My awareness of déformation professionnelle encourages me to blog negative views of SEO (twice) and social media.

I love this quote from Wikipedia’s déformation professionnelle article:

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Thanks Dave!

How to Do More on the Web – Part 4

See also: P1 / P2 / P3

Part 4: Helping Searchers Find Your Site with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

People are looking for you. Every day, they go to a search engine (like Google, Yahoo or Ask) and type in the words that reflect their query. The search engine scans the internet, and offers a list of results that match their query.

If your website appears high up the list, the searcher may click on your site. If your site is the 120th result in the search results, you will probably not receive a visit from that searcher.

An overwhelming majority of people never make it to the second page of search results. This means that if you’re not on the first page, less than 20% of people will even see your website, and even fewer will actually click through to your site.

Clearly, it’s crucial to appear as high as possible in the search results whenever people are searching for an organisation like yours.

Getting Started with SEO

A good place to start is keywords. Keywords are the words that people use when searching. Your keywords may be your:

  • Company
  • Industry
  • Products
  • Services
  • Brand names
  • Activities
  • Key people
  • Common questions that people ask

Pretend that you are a potential customer. You are looking for yourself. Now think: what keywords would I use when searching for the things I provide? Make a list of all the words that you would use.

Think laterally, and remember that not everyone uses the same words to describe a thing. Consider every synonym and possible way of approaching a query.

Now, go to the Google Keyword Tool, and type in your list of keywords. Google will provide you with an extended list, including every similar term that it thinks is relevant. Bear in mind that Google is just a computer, so it may produce a few bad results.

Google’s Keyword Tool is useful for two reasons. Firstly, it helps you consider all relevant keywords, and may suggest a few that you hadn’t thought of.

Secondly, it shows the monthly volume of searches for each term. This means you can see exactly how many people are searching for each keyword – which means you can decide which keywords are worth aiming for.

A Note on Selecting Keywords

Because ranking highly in search results requires a concerted effort, you should prioritise the search terms that will bring you people who want to buy something.

So if you’re a hairdresser, there is little value in attracting a million people who are searching for hairdressing advice. Those people are not likely to be buying anything. A more profitable search term is hairdresser Brighton, as this suggests the searcher is looking for someone to cut their hair.

Pursue the keywords that will bring in relevant traffic. If a hairdresser appears #1 in search results for hair loss, there is no real benefit. The hairdresser would get lots of visits, but the visitors would not be looking for hairdressing services – making the visit pointless and without value.

Using Keywords in Your Website

Google ‘reads’ the pages of your website. If you use words like hairdresser, hair, products, beauty, conditioner, shampoo and styling, then Google will know to offer your website when people search for a hairdresser.

There are a few important places that keywords should be used:

  • Meta keyword
  • Meta description
  • Page title
  • Headings
  • Sub-headings
  • Body copy
  • Links

Meta Data

Meta data is information contained within the code of a website. It’s invisible to human visitors, but readable by search engines. Think of meta data as a signal to the search engines.

Every single page on your website should have a page title, meta keywords and a meta description. These are all opportunities to tell search engines what that page is about. Don’t be tempted to stuff keywords into these areas – just be honest and use keywords that relate to the content on that page.

On-Page Keywords

Headings and sub-headings are deemed to be important carriers of information by the search engines.

How does a search engine know what text is a heading? Because web developers put headings inside heading tags. The main heading is encased thusly:

<h1>Main Heading</h1>

The second heading uses <h2> and so on.

It’s important that, wherever possible, your headings include relevant keywords for that page. Using keywords in this way does not have to mean artificially stuffing keywords into every space available. It’s often perfectly logical to include keywords in relevant pages, because they help your human visitors to scan a page quickly, and know that it contains relevant information.

Once you have written headings and sub-headings that contain keywords, ask your web developer to make sure they are contained in heading tags.

Body Copy

The text beneath your headings is known as body copy. It’s important that this copy also contains your keywords. Don’t worry about how often your keywords are used.

Providing that your copy is clearly about the subject you are hoping to appear in search results for, and you use the language that other people use when thinking about that subject, Google will be able to interpret your website correctly.

Links and Anchor Text

It’s important to understand how search engines interpret links in your website’s pages. The important thing about every link on your website is your choice of anchor text.

Anchor text is the text that makes up a link. In this link: Jam Jars, the anchor text is Jam Jars.

When search engines ‘read’ your web pages, they read and follow links. Because my link to the website of Freeman & Harding has the anchor text Jam Jar, search engines assume that Freeman & Harding has some relation to Jam Jars.

This is a crucial point. It is very important that you understand how search engines interpret links. Every link on your website has multiple benefits. Links not only help your visitors to navigate your site, but they help search engines understand where your links are pointing.

If you use anchor text without keywords, you lose an opportunity to guide the search engines’ interpretation of your website.

Link Anchor Text Example

A hairdresser might have a link on their Home page, leading visitors to their Products page.

Good: Now view our professional range of hairdressing products

Bad: Click to view our hairdressing products

The good example contains relevant keywords, and gives search engines some context. The bad example is a wasted opportunity, unless you are hoping to rank highly for something as generic as products (which would be folly).

Links to Your Website (Backlinks)

Search engines use complicated mathematical models to calculate the relevance of websites to a searcher’s query. One piece of the equation is the number of links to your website from other sites.

These links are also known as backlinks. Search engines consider every link to your site to be an indicator of quality, on the assumption that nobody would link to your website if you had nothing good to offer. The more links your site has pointing to it, the better the search engines’ perception of your site.

This is why many website owners will beg, steal and borrow in order to gain good links to their website. Good links are valuable, and can have a significant influence on your site’s performance in search results.

Good Links, Bad Links

Not every link is good. A link to your website from a ‘bad neighbourhood’ – a part of the web populated by spammers – is not worth much, and could even lower your site’s reputation.

Links are good when they are placed in good, reputable websites. Good links are also those that use keyword-rich anchor text.

If somebody wants to link to your website, ask them to use anchor text that reflects the keywords people use when looking for you.

Developing Good Links

It’s not easy to gain links. The best approach is to offer things that other people want. Then people will want to link to your website. Without some kind of useful content, it’s hard to justify links to your site.

Guides, tutorials, resources, interviews, articles and blogs and are all good, honest ways of providing useful material that people will want to link to.

One effective strategy is to write articles for other websites. Many blogs request contributions from outsiders – and these normally offer authors a by-line (a one-line bio that says who you are and what you do) and a link or two to your website.

Writing one-off articles for good, well-established blogs takes time, but you will gain good links from a quality website. The alternative is…

Article Marketing

An article marketing industry exists which purports to help people gain links by offering their articles for free to any website owners who want them. It’s a nice idea, but the reality is that the only site owners who want these generic – often poorly written – articles are spammers or people with low-grade blogs. So you might get a few links, but they will be from such poor sites that they provide absolutely no SEO value. Good links come from good sites with at least some PageRank.

Directory Submission

Many people believe that submitting their site to hundreds or thousands of directories is the easy way to gain links. While you will gain plenty of links, those links will be buried in the depths of dusty directories, far from the eyes of man and a long way from anywhere valuable.

DMOZ is the most important directory, closely followed by Yahoo (which you will have to pay for). Join a few other directories, but don’t invest a huge amount of time in this. Very few people use directories to search for businesses.

Further reading: Bad SEO: Polluting the Web

Advertising

There are many ways to advertise on the web. Advertising can be costly, but it can also be very effective. A well-judged ad in a well-chosen space can drive significant numbers of qualified visitors to your website.

Google Ads

If you decide to run a Google Adwords campaign, one of the most important things to do is to run two different adverts for the same product or service. Monitor which ad is more successful, then replace the less successful ad with something better. Running a split campaign allows you to constantly refine your ads.

Because Google Ads are very small, the copy must be used with care. Every word counts!

Example:

London Cocktail Bar

Covent Garden Cocktail Bar WC2
No Hire Fee for Private Parties
www.theinternational.uk.com

A note of caution

It’s easy to spend lots of money with Google Adwords. They can be very successful, but make sure that the return warrants the investment.

Writing for Your Customers – Your Web Copy

The words on your website’s pages are what do the work of selling, persuading, inspiring or communicating. Graphic design, imagery and clever web technologies like Flash help to create an impression, but it’s the copy that talks to your visitors*.

(* Unless you’re offering complex or novel software or web applications, in which case a professional screencast may be the best way to demonstrate your offering. Not sure what a screencast is? Ask me – I can recommend a professional screencaster.)

At the start of this guide I asked you to think about your customers. When you come to write copy, draw on your findings. Your copy must appeal to your visitors. It should start by telling them quickly and clearly what’s on offer. Then it should explain why that offer should interest them.

Make sure your copy details the features of your products and services. Then, explain how those features provide benefits to the user.

Further reading:
Writing for the Web – A Quick Guide on What to Write and How to Write It
10 Ways to Instantly Improve Your Marketing Copy

How do Your Customers Think About Your Products?

What language do they use? Make sure you use this language in your copy. Your internal corporate language may be jargon-rich, and intimidating or nonsensical to outsiders. Don’t try to sound clever or ‘professional’ by littering your copy with fancy words that only industry-insiders will understand.

Good copy is conversational and uses words that everyone understands.

Bad copy is cold, formal, and distancing.

Good copy brings people into your world.

Bad copy creates a barrier.

Short sentences are good. Contractions (can’t, don’t) are good.

Simple, plain English is good. Clarity is good.

When writing copy, aim to deliver a message. As soon as the message is delivered you can (and should) stop writing.

Ask a friend or colleague to review your copy. The best reviewer is someone who is unfamiliar with your products, services and industry.

Ask them if, after reading your copy, they understand your offer enough to consider buying something from you.

Provide Detailed Information (for Those Who Want It)

While it’s important to deliver information carefully, in a controlled manner, don’t forget that visitors to your site may have many questions. You need to answer their questions.

Ensure that detailed information about your products, services, working methods, company structure, key personnel, qualifications, contact details, clients, experiences, attitudes, world-views and waist measurements is available to those who want it.

Obviously, the key thing is to make this information available, but not unavoidable. Don’t litter the path of the fleet-footed – the nimble visitor who wants a modicum of information before they decide whether or not to contact you.

Calls to Action

Your website exists to achieve something. Whatever that may be, it probably requires your visitors to take some kind of action. Now, if you want somebody to vote, or buy, or register, then you must ask them to do so.

The simple of act of asking a visitor to take a course of action is called a Call to Action. It’s as easy as writing:

  • Order now
  • Subscribe here
  • Register today

This may sound obvious, but it’s often overlooked. The Call to Action is an essential ingredient in successful websites.

Social Proof – Evidence of Previous Interactions

Because the web is fertile ground for spammers, con-artists and thieves, web users are naturally cautious and suspicious. If you want to sell on the web, you’ll need to address this issue. How can you build trust with just your website?

One very simple and honest tactic is to harness the power of social proof. Social proof can be provided in the form of testimonials, client logos, a portfolio of past work – anything that proves that your organisation has done real work with real people.

It’s good to get into the habit of requesting testimonials from clients. If you’re shy, try LinkedIn’s interface for requesting recommendations. This way you don’t have to put anyone on the spot.

If possible, display testimonials with links back to the person or company who provided it. This gives your social proof depth and authenticity.

Giving It All Away

Offering a sample or some kind of free trial is a good way to begin a business relationship with your new customers. Free samples are another way to overcome the problem of trust: by sampling your goods or services for free, people can evaluate your offering without any risk.

Improving Your Search Engine Performance by Providing Useful Content

A popular strategy for getting more visitors is content. If you are an accountant, your website may not be very interesting. You can reasonably expect people to visit your site when they want an accountant. Everybody else is going to ignore you.

Clearly, if you’re an accountant and would like a more lively website, you’re going to have to add something more interesting. If you provide useful or informative information – in the form of guides, articles, calculators, widgets, links, tools or advice – then people will visit your site. People will also link to your website, which will help your search engine performance.

A great example of providing useful content to customers and website visitors is http://www.yorkshireaccountancy.co.uk/

Creating a Journey through Your Website

Every page of your website should have pathways. Always give your visitors places to go. Each page should lead logically to the next. Gradually lead each visitor through your website – enticing them with your product’s benefits, explaining your product’s features, answering all of their questions about the ordering process, reassuring any concerns they might have, and finally asking them to place an order.

Contact Details

Make it easy for people to contact you. Don’t hide email addresses – you may be worried about spam but a good spam filter will prevent 99% of junk getting through. Have a contact form, but also provide an address, a phone number and all relevant email addresses. Websites that only offer a contact form appear to be distancing themselves from their audience, or just plain hiding.

Further reading:

Gaining Trust on the Web

Social Media

‘Social Media’ means blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, forums – any media that involves or allows social interaction. Social media allows a website to exist in other spaces. Social media allows you to appear before new eyes – finding a new audience and expanding your reach.

Social media is difficult for businesses to use well, because these are largely social spaces, not commercial. The people who inhabit social spaces often resent organisations that burst in with a marketing agenda.

If you want to explore social media, and how it might help your organisation, step in cautiously – listen, look, and contribute gently. Represent you first and your company second.

Further reading:

Twitter: Make the Most of Every Tweet (You Receive)

Corporate Twittering: A Marketing Mess in a Social Space?

Why Twitter? – Method in the Mayhem

Twitter – the Simplest Little Big Complicated Website in the World

Straplines

One of the most crucial aspects of a successful website is clarity. From any page, at any point in your website, it should be immediately obvious where you are, and what is being offered.

A strapline, tagline or slogan is the short sentence that accompanies an organisation’s logo at the top of their website.

The strapline is a good opportunity to increase clarity, and explain exactly what you do.

Good straplines are descriptive and short. Bad straplines are witty, clever or vague, such as: Creative solutions for business.

The End

That’s it for now. I’ll compile all of this guide into a PDF for you to download. As I probably said at the start, I wanted to put down a few ideas for selling on the web – a few basics that website owners should know.

Let me know if I’ve missed anything significant!

You Can’t Please Everyone: Business Advice from Haruki Murakami

Wind-Up Bird
I ‘ve been a fan of Haruki Murakami, ever since @megnog bought me The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I’m now reading What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Murakami’s running memoir.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this with you:

“…you can’t please everybody. Even when I ran my bar I followed the same policy. A lot of customers came to the bar. If one out of ten enjoyed the place and said he’d come again, that was enough. If one out of ten was a repeat customer, then the business would survive.

“To put it the other way, it didn’t matter if nine out of ten didn’t like my bar. This realization lifted a weight off my shoulders. Still, I had to make sure that the one person who did like the place really liked it. In order to make sure he did, I had to make my philosophy and stance clear-cut, and patiently maintain that stance no matter what.”

What a peculiar idea! Murakami’s suggestion – that sometimes it’s better to pursue the business that makes sense to you, rather than desperately trying to please every customer – is vastly contrary to the modern preoccupation with pleasing everyone and countering every criticism.

Aiming for Success Leads to…

…not a lot.

I’m reading Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, which is an account of his time in several Nazi concentration camps and an introduction to his own school of psychotherapy, logotherapy.

I’ll probably be blogging about a few of his ideas, regarding the peculiarities of the human brain, but today I’d just like to share this with you.

In the introduction, Frankl writes of his surprise at this book’s success, and of his bewilderment that subsequent books had not been as successful, despite his best efforts. Because of this, he would tell his students:

Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself…”

Innovation: Jump in the Pool

Still Pool in the Storm
Last week I attended Connecting Innovation – an event designed to “look at the opportunities to work together, the ways creativity is cultivated and how productive partnerships can be formed”.

For me the event was worthwhile because of the interesting people I got to meet, and because I got to hear Charles Leadbeater speak.

When Charles was talking about innovation, he referred to the way most people learn to swim. While you may practice strokes on dry land, you only learn to swim when you get in the pool. Innovation can’t really happen until you “get in the pool”.

Charles’ point resonated with my experiences. I’ve learnt most of what I know by combining research (reading online and offline) with doing. I’m a firm believer in learning by doing. I recommend it.

If you’re tackling something new, try getting in the pool.

You don’t always need to wait for approval or a certificate to authorise you to do something new. Sometimes the best way to learn is by experimenting independently.

Nyouse: Connecting People to Press

To diverge slightly from copywriting for a moment; I’ve been busy cooking up a side-project which might interest you:

Nyouse.com, pronounced “news”, is a new website that connects people with journalists.

Do you have a story to tell? Do you have breaking news that the world needs to know? Do you have a whistle to blow or an announcement to make?

If you do, then use Nyouse! It’s very easy…

Just follow these steps:

  1. Log in to Twitter.com (you’ll need a Twitter account to use Nyouse. But they’re quick to set up and free to use.)
  2. Write a message that explains your story. Twitter messages (a.k.a. tweets) are limited to 140 characters so you’ll have to provide a flavour of your story, rather than all the details.
  3. Direct your message @nyouse or include the hashtag #nyouse
  4. If you want to indicate the location that your story is connected to, include the first half of your postcode as a hashtag. e.g. #bn1 for Brighton
  5. Wait for a journalist to get in touch.

Find out more about Nyouse on the Nyouse Blog, or read my post on Words By Me.

Nyouse is built on Inuda’s SocialPlume Twitter application, and is sponsored by Inuda and Kendall Copywriting.

Writing Things Down to Get Things Done

Obvious: If you write things down, they’re more likely to get done.

Less obvious: If you write down a commitment to do something, and give that written commitment to people you respect and admire, then you’re even more likely to keep your promises. This is because you will have engaged one of the principles of persuasion.

In Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini shares his comprehensive research into the psychology behind persuasion. Cialdini was, by his own admission, a terrible sucker for salesmen’s tricks and he sought to understand how marketers manipulated him into decisions he didn’t want to make.

One of the six universal principles of persuasion is commitment and consistency. Basically, you and everyone around you strive to remain consistent. Socially and culturally, it’s important that we are viewed as people who stick to their word, who make consistent choices and who can be understood on the basis of past actions. Inconsistent people are difficult, flaky, unreliable and undesirable. Clearly, in any society, consistency is a valuable trait, and the need to appear consistent is paramount.

It is this human need to appear consistent that marketers abuse. I won’t go into the depths of Cialdini’s fascinating research here (I recommend you read the book) but I would like to share one story from Influence.

A woman had struggled for years to quit smoking. In spite of reading numerous studies linking smoking to cancer, she hadn’t been able to quit. Eventually, after reading about yet another study, she realised that her pride was troubled. It was embarrassing for her to be smoking when it was so clearly a bad choice. She decided to use her pride and her need to be seen as consistent to help her quit.

She bought blank business cards and wrote, “I promise you that I will never smoke another cigarette”. She gave the cards to family, friends and, after some hesitation, the man she adored. Now, the woman hesitated before giving the card to her lover because she couldn’t risk him thinking less of her. By sharing the commitment with him, she was binding herself to it.

And it worked. She never smoked again.

So if you’re struggling to get something done, try writing it down and giving your promise to the people that matter most. Make your promise to the people that you could never disappoint.

Sometimes we can use the principles of persuasion against ourselves, in order to achieve positive goals.

Invention – The Ideo Way

I’ve just been watching a program about Ideo (an amazing design company), after Dave Stone mentioned it on Twitter (thanks Dave!).

It’s incredibly interesting to see how Ideo tackle design challenges.

My favourite thing from the program is the way Ideo employees are allowed to change their work areas. One guy rigged up a rope to lift his bike into the air, reducing clutter. Nobody complained, so someone else did the same. Soon, everyone was storing their bikes in mid-air. The process of innovation was not started with consultation: somebody tried something and waited to see if anyone complained. Nobody did.

I like that. Sometimes, life’s too short to consult everybody on everything. So if you want to dangle your bike from the ceiling, just do it. And ask forgiveness if anyone complains.

Literary junk food – why you shouldn’t limit your vocabulary

hotdogsopt

“If you consciously restrict your vocabulary – and some companies do this – you end up with the linguistic equivalent of junk food…”

John Simmons –  We, Me, Them & It

I’ve previously blogged about the importance of not dumbing-down corporate communications. It’s clearly a difficult balance to get right; I’m also a big fan of clear, easy to understand writing.

So how do you get it right? How do you communicate clearly with your audience but retain some depth and idiosyncrasy?

Sadly, you’ll have to decide for yourself which words will help your cause and which will baffle your reader.

But I would suggest you make sure that anywhere you need to convey information, make it clear. Be more free and playful with anything less critical. Let your corporate personality shine through when there’s less risk of ambiguity – or someone missing a key fact just because they don’t know what an unusual word means.

(Picture courtesy of Marshall Astor)

Feed Your Imagination – Writing Tip #5

Gluttony

Your imagination will not feed itself.

If you want to write, you’ll need ideas to fuel your writing.

If you fill your brain with lots of interesting stuff, interesting stuff will come spilling out.

Consider your inputs as imagination fuel. What kind of things are you exposed to? Do you have a life filled with routine? If you’ve had the same job for a long time, take the same route to work, have the same old friends, re-read favourite books, only read a static selection of magazines and only ever watch the same shows on TV, you’re not giving yourself much chance of having a great idea.

Expand your circle of influences. Change things in your life. Do something you don’t normally do. Accept an invitation that you wouldn’t normally. Be adventurous. Watch a film that doesn’t naturally appeal to you.

New experiences, outside of your usual range, can trigger new thoughts.

The more you put into your brain, the more you can expect to get out.

(Picture courtesy of Sekator)

Brighton Idea – Connecting You to Compost

Premasagar Rose, Brighton-based web worker with Dharmafly, has submitted a brilliant idea to Social Innovation Camp ahead of the conference in April.

If you rue the waste of perfectly good vegetable peelings, but have neither garden nor compost bin, Premasagar’s idea may change the way you recycle!

As Premasagar writes on sicamp.org:

‘Social Compost’ [working title] would be a drop-dead simple website, based around an interactive map. There would be an option to add yourself to the map and to offer either kitchen peelings or mature compost. You could use the map to find others who are offering either peelings or compost.

So with Social Compost, those without gardens can find a loving home for their compostable waste.

As someone who religiously cleans, sorts and recycles rubbish, I hate to chuck out so much good fodder.

Visit Social Innovation Camp to register your support for this idea. One day Social Compost could be a reality.

Cool Site – Band Namr

If you’re in a band with no name and want some suggestions, check out Band Namr, a nifty new site by Brighton websmith Paul Burgess.

I should warn you that if you find spoonerisms that, when undone, reveal rudeness, you may not want to follow that link.

Many of the band names are hilarious, but given the success of the Arctic Monkeys, it’s fair to say a few of the names are viable!

Band Namr got me thinking… what about Product Namr? A site for businesses who struggle to find a great name for a new product. People could post a summary of their new product and users can submit suggestions. Or businesses post a selection of possible names, and users vote for their favourite…

Let’s chat about your projectContact us