Nice Girls and Quechup + clarification from a Director

(Since I wrote this original post I received a comment below from Glen Finch a Director of Quechup clarifying my problems).

As someone who monitors Web 2.0 developments I was aware of Quechup and their controversial email spamming techniques.

However as they had claimed to have turned over a new leaf I was somewhat surprised to receive an email from Nicegirl, who indeed did look like a ‘nice girl’ with her adorable puppy.

Nicegirl

Intrigued, I registered with Quechup and was somewhat disappointed to be greeted with this page.

Blank screen

Yet another example of empty promises of Web 2.0?

I should say that I was somewhat suspicious of Nicegirl’s user name. As I would be receiving an email from father@christmas.com.

A new comment from “Glen Finch” was received on the post “Nice Girls and Quechup” of the weblog “In through the outfield”.

Comment from Glen Finch:
As the first comment rightly states you were already a member of Quechup, registered with the username ‘infield’. You then registered (a second new user) and are suprised that you did not have a message in the inbox. Why would you? – this was a new user you had just created, if there had been an email already there from a member this surely would have been cause to raise suspicions, but not the opposite. Let me clarify a few points for you, I do so as a director of Quechup and as spokesman for the company. 1. To receive notifications from Quechup you have to be registered as a user, this is only done by people completing our registration form. We have never purchased emails, shared emails or acquired emails from anyone, period. Moreover our policy states that we will not sell or share members emails or other details and we never have. This means at some stage you or someone that knows your email address registered for you at Quechup. We track and store registration and login details so we can provide the date, time, IP address and country of location where the registration took place. 2. Regarding our address book checker. Yes we received several complaints about the way this worked in September 2007. How it worked was printed directly on the page above the feature (which was optional), the checker has worked this way for nearly 2 years without such complaints. However, given the amount of complaints we realized that address book checkers were much more common on such sites and that users were not reading how they worked before using them and that the manner in which Quechup’s worked was not what had become the perceived norm. We recoded it and changed the way the feature worked within 4 working days. As testiment to Quechup’s policy against spam we have always had the following policies in place: A member cannot send an invite to an email address more than once to stop pestering type spam. Quechup does not send ‘reminder’ emails for invites (unlike other sites such as linkedin) Members can only send messages to 1 member at a time to stop the service being used for bulk mailing. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Quechup is certified by SenderScore the industries leading email ‘SafeList’ accreditation program. Companies such as Windows Live/Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and SpamAssasin use and rely on SenderScore for providing a SafeList of email senders. In total over 67% of consumer mail boxes in the world depend on SenderScore as to wether email is safe or spam. Maintaining this accreditation means adhering to strict anti spam policies and meeting criteria from Windows Live, Yahoo!, SpamAssasin and other sources on a daily basis.

Web 2.0 explained in Plain ‘English’

Explaining different aspects of Web 2.0 presents quite a challenge, so it is great that Sachi and Lee LeFever have created a set of videos to do the job for us.

They aim to make topics such as Twitter and RSS accessible to their ‘moms’, which is good news for the rest of us. As they say in their About Us section of their website: “We are two passionate people and Common Craft is our company. Our product is explanation.”

Here is their ‘Wikis in Plain English‘ to give you a flavour.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY&feature=user]

P.S. The reason for the quotes in the title is of course because the Plain English is in fact Plain American via Seattle, Washington State, U.S.A.

Ways to prevent ‘Death by PowerPoint’

I have had a great interest in presentations, the good, the bad and the ugly, for many years now.

This is partly a result of having to overcome a phobia of public speaking. I know you are going to say that no one enjoys standing in front of an audience. And that many people have trouble sleeping the night before, and some are even physically sick before going on stage. However my fear of presenting used to take the form of insomnia and panic attacks beginning up to four months before, and building up as the big day approached.

Also, fairly early in my career, my job including producing and presentations for senior managers within my company. I remember spending much time reducing overly numerous and wordy sets of slides down to something digestible and attractive, only have the managers revert to their original slides minutes before the presentation. One classic example involved our Economist who was asked to present on the tricky topic of Stock Futures and Options to our trustees. As I watched him lose his audience due to his ‘killer’ slides I wanted to to ask him if he had ever wondered why he was being asked to present on this topic for the third year in a row to the same audience.

I also remember attending a conference in which the speaker tried, and failed, to get through 120 detailed slides in 45 minutes. It was an incredibly stressful experience as an observer, and goodness knows what it was like for the presenter.

Yesterday I attended a one day training course aimed at improving the presentation skills of the Business & IP Centre team, and wanted to pass on a few key learnings from the day:

1. Engage your audience – and in order to do so you need to understand who they are, what they want and what you want to communicate to them. Don’t just churn out the same presentation each time. Tailor it to each audience.

2. Ditch the; tell ’em what you’re going to say tell ’em tell ’em what you said, approach. Instead jump straight in with some kind, such as a powerful story, example or anecdote in order to ‘hook’ your audience from the start.

3. Keep you audience’s attention throughout using: the power of the pause (the longer the Death by PowerPointbetter), questions (rhetorical or actual), engaging examples or stories.

4. Get rid of all of your PowerPoint slides that don’t explain or illustrate a point. How many times have you seen presenters simply reading their bullet points out?

For more details on this point have a look at this presentation on SlideShare.net

Re-united with my ‘green meanie’

Although this blog’s primary aim is to cover entrepreneurship, innovation and business information you may have noticed my other interests popping up from time to time.

However, I didn’t want to burden you with my sad loss of my beloved motorbike last Autumn. She didn’t crash or self-destruct (a common 2-stroke phenomenon) but when a coil failed it was the end of the road until I could get a replacement. Given her age and rarity it took me until last week to find a suitable part on eBay and actually win the bidding.

 

Kawasaki KR1-S

Today she came back to life and is now back in my life and I couldn’t resist sharing the good news here. For those very few of you who are actually interested ‘she’ is a Kawasaki KR-1S 250cc two-stroke twin from 1991.

Many people have tried to explain the attraction and excitement of motorcycling with perhaps T E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) coming towards the top. Here is a snippet from his RAF journals called The Mint (summary below from here and full text from here)

“Another bend: and I have the honour of one of England’ straightest and fastest roads. The burble of my exhaust unwound like a long cord behind me. Soon my speed snapped it, and I heard only the cry of the wind which my battering head split and fended aside. The cry rose with my speed to a shriek: while the air’s coldness streamed like two jets of iced water into my dissolving eyes. I screwed them to slits, and focused my sight two hundred yards ahead of me on the empty mosaic of the tar’s gravelled undulations.

Like arrows the tiny flies pricked my cheeks: and sometimes a heavier body, some house-fly or beetle, would crash into face or lips like a spent bullet. A glance at the speedometer: seventy-eight. Boanerges is warming up. I pull the throttle right open, on the top of the slope, and we swoop flying across the dip, and up-down up-down the switchback beyond: the weighty machine launching itself like a projectile with a whirr of wheels into the air at the take-off of each rise, to land lurchingly with such a snatch of the driving chain as jerks my spine like a rictus.”

There is even a DVD of Lawrence on his cherished Brough Superior SS80 SS100 Boanerges

Facebook comes to life at the Business & IP Centre

FacebookSince first joining Facebook a few months ago I have had mixed feelings about this latest (and greatest?) form of web social media. I am sure this is also true for many of you too  based on conversations I have had.

The downside are the high level of childish applications which can appear to dominate Facebook, such as Hot or Not, and variations on that theme. This is particularly annoying as Facebook is marketed as a more professional and mature version of Bebo and MySpace which are specifically aimed at children and teenagers respectively.

However, there are significant upsides to using Facebook, particularly communicating to far flung relatives and friends. It also enables me to keep a weather eye on my two teenage kids (but don’t tell them…)

Another real benefit was shown last night when we had a networking meeting at the Business & IP Centre to celebrate reaching 1,000  members on our Facebook group. It was wonderful to meet the real people behind their Facebook profiles and to engage in conversation in the way that is only possible face to face. We have posted photos up on our page to prove it was ‘real’.

Alex BellingerAlex Bellinger the founder of SmallBizPod was there with his microphone and plans to put up a podcast on his site shortly.

Nike goes green – or is it greenwash?

Nike_shoeThanks again to the wonderfull Springwise I have been alerted to green activities by the corporate giant Nike. The recently introduced product is called Trash Talk, and is made entirely from ‘environmentally preferred’ materials and recycled waste.

Aparently Trash Talk is the brainchild of Nike celebrity endorser Steve Nash. The All-Star guard for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns (basketball star to those of us outside the USA), is a committed green-living advocate.

The retail price of one hundred dollars proves that going green doesn’t have to damage the profit margin.

Many new business are taking a green stance from the outset. However many larger corporations have been accused of using  greenwash instead of making genuine changes to their operations. It will be interesting to see how long it takes before the likes of Greenpeace acclaim Nike as paragons of greenness.

Your views on digital copyright

The British Library is concerned that the shift from print to digital publishing is undermining the traditional balance at the heart of copyright and could make it harder for researchers to access and use information, and undermine innovation, research and heritage in the UK.

The Library made a significant contribution to the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, but now wants to hear your point of view. The results will be incorporated into the Library’s response to the UK Intellectual Property Office’s ‘digital exceptions’ consultation. http://www.bl.uk/ip/

Please note, the questionnaire is open to UK residents only.

Here is a summary of The British Library’s Principles on Copyright Law:

1 Public Interest

Public interest policy formation must consider the impact on the creator, the citizen, the economy, the education system and our culture – for today, and for future generations to come.
2 Balance
Creativity, innovation and a democratic civil society requires copyright law to strike a balance between the private interest of the creator being recognised and remunerated for their work, and the interest of the citizen in ensuring access to information and ideas.
3 Digital is Not Different
Copyright law should enshrine the principles of creativity, access, recognition and remuneration as it always has done. Exceptions should apply to all formats including digital formats.
4 Law Aligned with Realities
Rationalisation and simplification of the law will lead to understanding and respect for copyright.
5 Technology Neutral
Copyright law must be informed by technological advances, but specific technologies should not be enshrined in law.

The cool Wattson from DIY KYOTO

In the networking area of the Business & IP Centre are several illustrated examples of ‘success stories’. These are entrepreneurs and inventors who have made use of Centre and gone on to achievement.

One of my favourites is the Wattson from DIY KYOTO who’s wonderful motto is, “to value simple things, and seek to produce products of perfect convenience and utility, elegant in their conception and efficient in their operation.”

The WattsonIf you have been reading this blog for a while you may have noticed my interest in product design and the Wattson is a perfect example of form and function combined into one. Not only does it look elegant whilst showing you how much money you are spending on electricity, the coloured glow emanating from its’ base gives you an immediate sense of your consumption as it changes from blue (good) to red (bad).

This achievement has been recognised by Stuff Magazine who awarded the Wattson number 8 on the cool list of gadgets for 2007, beating the iPod nano into 10th place. An amazing achievement for such a young company.

The librarian as sherpa

One of the earliest links to my blog was from Library Sherpa.

tensing-norgay.jpgThe reason Tracy, the creator of the blog chose the name made me wonder if this could be a good way of describing what librarians do in the modern age. I like the idea acting as someone’s Sherpa Tensing, navigating them through the treacherous world of information peaks and troughs.

“Why Library Sherpa?!
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a sherpa is defined as:
“A member of a traditionally Buddhist people of Tibetan descent living on the southern side of the Himalaya Mountains in Nepal and Sikkim. In modern times Sherpas have achieved world renown as expert guides on Himalayan mountaineering expeditions.”

I came up with the name as an homage to the indigenous people of the Himalayas, combined with my profession. The original intent for this blog was to be a forum for me to assist or guide people through the rocky terrain of the library and librarianship.”

library_sherpa.jpg

Everyday Marvels of Design

As a late Christmas present to myself I bought a copy of Humble Masterpieces: Everyday Marvels of Design by Paola Antonelli the Curator of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Each page is devoted to a design classic and I am still working my way through. However I have already come across two of my favourite items.

Spartan Swiss Army KnifeOn the very first page is the Swiss Army Knife which I first came across back in my Scouting days. I have owned one ever since and always take it on my travels. There are now over one hundred different models to choose from, including one with a USB computer storage chip. My favourite has always been one of the simplest (see photo). I have only just discovered it is called the Spartan, which is very apt given my youthful Scouting experiences.

ScrewpullThe other design classic is the Screwpull Corkscrew which surprisingly was invented as late as 1979. I have tried many different types of corkscrews over the years and have found nothing to touch the Screwpull. What makes it even better is the simple construction, light weight and low cost, which makes it ideal for pick nicks. The key to it’s success is the Teflon-coated helical screw which enables the screw to penetrate the cork and then pull it out of the bottle in one continuous action.

By a strange quirk of fate, the copy of the book which arrived from Amazon’s used books service originally belonged to Gwinnett County Public Library in Lawrenceville, Georgia in the United States, and still has a security tag in the back. I can only assume it did not prove to be a popular item, and to use a librarian’s term was de-accessioned.