I was reading an article on the BBC website, Ouststanding Mistakes, this morning when I was reminded of The Book of Heroic Failures. It enjoyed huge – if brief – popularity when it first came out and I’m thrilled to find it has its own Wikipedia entry. Some of the mistakes listed in this article certainly appeared in this book too:  Major General John Sedgewick, for example, who died during the Battle of Spotsylvania, and whose last words were reported to be, “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.”

I wept with laughter over the book, as did my siblings and my parents. I even have a friend who had an appendectomy at the time it came out and to this day blames me for her scar: she claims she broke her stitches laughing at the book I had given her to while away the hours in hospital.

I’ll certainly never forget the story of the World’s Worst Bus Service which I won’t repeat here – go and get the book and read it yourself – but I’ve forgotten most of the tales. I must dig it out and read it again. It’s so consoling to read of other people’s disasters and to realise you might not be the planet’s biggest idiot after all – hence the enduring popularity of the Darwin Awards.

I could now round off this post with something pious and business-like about how to be careful what you post on Facebook and Twitter blad-di-blah so you don’t end up featured in such lists, but you know what? I can’t be bothered – I’m going to find my copy and have a good old laugh.

So if you’re on the tube later today and see a woman giggling helplessly over a tatty old paperback, don’t change your seat or draw your skirts aside – it could well be me enjoying a trip down Memory Lane.

As a regular user of Facebook I’m increasingly concerned by some of the absolutely appalling material there is on there. The potential for on line bullying over which you have no control is immense.

I came across one page today, which will remain nameless here since I won’t sully my own website with it, which said contact us if you think any post about you is unfair – no promise to take it down you notice. This is wrong on so many counts and just the first 3 that came to me are

1. The abused must actually read the page
2. A great deal of damage is done before the abused gets to see it
3. It could easily be seen as inciting libel, which is, after all, illegal.

Report what you don’t like

If you don’t like something you see on Facebook report it and encourage as many of your friends to do the same as possible. It’s really easy – posts or pages  - and Facebook can’t be expected to spot everything. Tell them about it.

How to report things on Facebook

If you get an objectionable post on your own page, click the cross in the corner, if a whole page is objectionable click on the cog at the top right of the page and if a post on another page is objectionable, click the minus sign. Then simply follow the instructions. Job done.

After having nothing but specialties in my several years on LinkedIn, I’m delighted to say that when editing my LinkedIn summary last Friday I discovered I can now edit the spelling and have specialities instead.

There – I feel better now!

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Let’s face it lots of ideas – which would never have seen the light of day otherwise - do after a couple of glasses of wine. I can only think that the powers-that-be at LinkedIn were in that mellow state when they came up with endorsements and rolled them out without really thinking it through.

Easier than a recommendation

On the face of it, there’s nothing wrong with endorsements, they take less time than recommendations and you don’t have to ask for them. Had LinkedIn stuck to suggesting your connections endorse you for the specialities to which you lay claim then fine, but I’ve been endorsed for some really silly things, I don’t even know what some of them mean. I can only imagine that there is some algorithm picking up random words from my profile and amalgamating them or perhaps picking up specialities from people with similar skills. Who knows?

I was asked today if one of my former colleagues knows about science. Well, yes – he does. But only his particular little bit of it. If you were to ask him about the causes of diabetes in rats I think he would be stumped, but he knows a fair bit about optical fibre technology for all that. And really, can’t we ALL say we know about science? If LinkedIn had asked me if he knew about optical fibre technology I would have had to agree and it would have been a bit special, but science? That’s just clutter. I’m not going to give him the pain of being found in irrelevant searches by having a silly endorsement and hence losing his LinkedIn search ranking. If it’s not relevant then mostly I’d suggest you ignore what LinkedIn puts out there.

Lego

You may have noticed some of your connections being endorsed for Lego recently. It’s doing the rounds at the moment to show how silly it all is. I’ve just slipped it into my LinkedIn Summary just to see……… If you get asked to endorse me for Lego then please do. By the judicious uploading of pictures of my 8-year-old son’s creations I hope to beat all my business partners in the Lego stakes.

Weeding out the odd stuff

BUT, it’s really not necessary to endorse everybody LinkedIn suggests for every skill LinkedIn suggests.

No really.

I don’t want to spend time weeding through the endorsements I’ve received for things I don’t do (and sometimes don’t even know what they are) every time I sign in. If LinkedIn asks you if I know about something and you have no idea, then don’t click endorse. Really – I won’t be offended. I won’t even know! So the next time you see this

feel free to ignore it and I’ll be grateful for the more appropriate endorsements that come my way!

I hate infographics.

 There. I’ve said it.

Every so often I need to get something off my chest. Today it’s infographics in the firing line.

According to Wikipaedia, infographics are “graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present complex information quickly and clearly.”

Why oh why then do I increasingly have to read detailed text to have the remotest idea as to what the blasted infographic is supposed to be telling me?

I suspect the preponderance of free internet tools to create infographics has some responsibility for this problem, but just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you MUST. Pretty colours and a change from your standard blog layout are not sufficient excuse in my book.

Again, according to Wikipaedia, infographics can “improve cognition by utilizing graphics to enhance the human visual system’s ability to see patterns and trends.”

Oh if only…..

With this in mind, my major complaints are

• Too much text meaning I’ve read practically a text book by the time I’ve worked out what’s going on.
• No structure – one section does not logically lead to another.
• Too many sections – the impact of a strong visual is lost.
• It’s not a mind map. Your mind is unlikely to work as mine does.
• If I have to scroll through several screens to see the whole thing it’s too much.

What’s prompted this outpouring? I clicked a Twitter link that interested me this morning and was presented with an infographic. To see the whole of it I had to scroll through 10 – yes that’s 10 – screens. It was very text heavy, which meant that if I could have been bothered it would have taken a while to read. And there you are. That’s the whole point. The person who produced it – who is not going to be named here – WASTED a lot of time and completely failed to share information with me because its length and complexity put me off. For goodness’ sake, use the darn things properly or not at all.

All publicity is good publicity

Which idiot said that? It’s only good if you’re aware of it and the sad truth is that for most of us the publicity is too low-grade to hit the headlines. Think about it for a moment though. If you’re about to buy goods or services for the first time, what do you do? An  internet search perhaps? I thought so.

Let’s extend this – if people are buying from you for the first time, what are they likely to do? That’s right – an internet search.

This means that what people say about you and your brand on line is important. Do you know what they’re saying? Or even if they’re saying anything?

It’s good to talk

People give out product reviews and chat on social media – they even write blogs like this one. If you get a mention you want to know then you can join in the conversation.

A really easy way to find out if you’re being talked about is to set up Google Alerts. Not everybody knows about it. If you already have a Google account you can find it under more > specialised search. Simply use your business name, product, your own name, in fact any search term you like, set the frequency of the email alerts and the type of mentions of which you want to be notified and Bob’s your uncle.

How’s it going to help?

If somebody says how wonderful you are you can say thank you! If somebody’s having a problem with you or your goods, you can try to resolve it. It shows you’ve got your finger on the pulse and can respond to your customers – present and potential – quickly.

Google alerts are also great for gathering information on your industry and indeed your competitors. If you haven’t already done it, get them set up today.

Friday last week was not one of my better days for an assortment of reasons. I had to postpone an 8.30 am meeting because the washer on my kitchen hot tap (that’s a faucet for any Americans reading) failed catastrophically at about 7.30 am, resulting in my having to switch off the water supply and the boiler (and it was freezing on Friday). This meant I couldn’t have a shower at home and had to detour to a friend’s house to shower on my way to the meeting which delayed everything by about an hour. Just one of life’s small niggles.

I left Nigel sorting out the tap. Or so I thought. The tap has not been taken apart for years – why would it be? – and since we live in a hard water area it was seriously scaled up inside. It required such an effort to take it apart that the inevitable happened and the seal on the connector below the sink went too. When Nigel put the new washer in the tap it turned out it was the wrong size (our kitchen taps were evidently produced before the UK went metric) and so the morning deteriorated.

I arrived home to get on with the rest of my workload to find a very stressed man who couldn’t make any more coffee because the water was off.

I took a deep breath and went off to the local DIY store to buy the right-sized washer, clutching the old one as a check. I think I got the right one but the old one was so worn and split it was hard to tell. The only helpful hint on the pack was “Pliers may be required.”

As I contemplated my kitchen 15 minutes later I reflected that “pliers may be required” didn’t even begin to cover it. The cupboard under the sink was empty; the back of the cupboard had been pulled out through the front (a good trick if you can do it – we clearly cannot); an assortment of tools including, but not limited to, pipe wrench, pliers, monkey wrench and hammer lay littered about the kitchen; the step ladders (?) were blocking the hallway and despite the water being off there was water running from the seal below the sink. Nigel and I spent the remainder of the morning alternately swearing at each other and wrestling with the joint beneath the sink which was completely seized up and, of course, in the most inaccessible position imaginable.

Just in time for lunch we made the seal water-tight again.

Then I opened my email for the first time that day – four hours later than usual and, to keep up the plumbing analogy, there was a veritable flood.

Did I say Friday wasn’t my greatest day?

Most of it could be put off until later to deal with, but the one that really put the finishing touches to my day was from a client wanting to know what I was doing behind the scenes for their website. The short – and true – answer is nothing. I have been waiting for some considerable time now for some content – any content. The theme is finished, the site built and all the social media platforms set up, but there’s pretty much nothing on any of it.

“Pliers may be required” kept popping into my head.

The client’s contribution to any contract is every bit as important as our own. We can set up WordPress websites and social media platforms till the cows come home, but until the client provides copy with which to populate it we’re hamstrung. If I’m contemplating the use of hardware to get it I have to wonder whether the client is really committed to the project or not.

I don’t particularly want to have to take pliers or to meetings with me. I usually content myself these days with a smartphone in my handbag and, in extremis, a laptop, but if you are contemplating setting up a business website you really need to equip yourself at least with the raw materials. You do have to remember that nobody knows your business like you do and sometimes you really do have to empty out your cupboards to get to the right bits. The problem often is simply that thinking you need a website is not enough actually to get you one that’s been worth the effort. Before you launch yourself in ask yourself these questions.

• Do I know why I need/want a website?
• Do I know what information I want to share?
• Do I know what kinds of people I want to attract (be specific – who is your ideal buyer?)
• Do I know what my ideal buyer is likely to be searching for?
• What will be my success criteria?

You need to answer at least these basic questions before getting started. We’ve got all the tools we need to do the job for you, but we can’t do anything without the raw materials.

Pliers image courtesy of Dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There’s not much nice about going to the doctor’s and most of us would choose not to be there if we could – not a reality I’d want to augment! However, having paid a visit yesterday and got over the embarrassment of  opening a conversation with the words, “Doctor, it’s my feet,” it was nice to have a few minutes peace and quiet to sit and browse through a magazine, which is something I rarely get the chance to do.

But now, even the magazine experience is becoming interactive.  Here’s something an associate of ours, Graham Harris, put us onto. It’s an app called Layar and the London Property Magazine are really ahead of the game with it. It allows pages to be brought to life with augmented reality. If you like the look of a property and it has a Layar icon, just scan it using your smartphone app and Bob’s your uncle, a video tour of the property is yours. Neat eh? You’ll never get me out of the waiting room!

Refuge does some fabulous and sadly very necessary work. We’re really happy to support The Crocked Monsieurs with this new fundraising initiative. You can find out more about it on their Facebook page, but in the meantime let’s try and get them some airplay.

Find it and buy it on the amazing tunes website – like it and share to boost their chances of airplay.

This blog – written by yours truly – originally appeared on theSocial Media Bureau’s Blog. If you’re using LinkedIn for business it does cover some pretty important points and, though I say it who shouldn’t, it’s well worth a read.

100% Woman

Or at least – my LinkedIn profile is 100% complete!

Ian is the King of Writing Blogs About Social Media Seminars. I can always find an excuse not to bother, yet I’ve been forced into it by the same question popping up repeatedly about LinkedIn profiles.

The answer is yes – it is important that your profile is at 100%.

Why? Simply because the search algorithm used by LinkedIn will rank the most complete profiles highest. In practical terms, if you want to be found then get your profile complete.

Aha – I hear you say – but how?

Well, there are various suggestions that LinkedIn gives you every time you visit, but they aren’t the only ones. At my (fairly) recent LinkedIn seminar in London at the end of November, I came across one attendee who simply didn’t know how to complete her profile because LinkedIn kept telling her add another position, but since she was in her first job after college she hadn’t one to add.

Although she had previously done bar work to make ends meet as a student, she didn’t feel that it was appropriate to include that on her LinkedIn profile. What she hadn’t considered, however, is that during her time with her company she had taken on a great deal more responsibility and her role had changed from what she did when she first started work. Once she realised this she was able to define two roles clearly – albeit for the same company – hence two jobs and a 100% complete profile.

There are other ways of achieving completeness: if you followed all the suggestions made by LinkedIn when you first signed up you’ll find they add to more than 100% so it’s always worth seeing if you can achieve completeness by beefing up other areas if you really can’t split a single role in two.

The plot thickens if you’re actually still looking for your first job. Don’t forget you could include any voluntary work or internships in that section. Personally I wouldn’t hesitate to include student jobs, Saturday jobs and so on. It goes to providing a picture of the kind of person you are – one who is prepared to work for a living. If you’re somebody looking for a first full-time job then remember that is precisely what employers will want!