E-scape Blogs

Digital Jersey - How a meetup helped create the official body representing the Island's digital sector

Mon, 14 May 2012 12:28:56 +0100

It’s been quite a year since we launched Digital Jersey. When we set out to bring Jersey’s digital professionals together, we had no idea how successful the concept would be. Just twelve months later, Digital Jersey has become one of the focal points for networking within the Island’s digital industries. We never would have guessed that in such a short space of time Digital Jersey would have morphed into a government initiative to promote technology within the Island and across the globe.

Since the formation of Digital Jersey "Limited" a number of people have asked us how this affects the original networking group. So in this blog we attempt to set out exactly how we see the evolution and future of Digital Jersey.

The Idea

We were inspired by the work of Abigail Harrison of Bluedoor PR, who had created a networking group called Digital Surrey. We felt that Jersey lacked an accessible networking forum for IT professionals at all stages in their careers and so created Digital Jersey. We didn't know how well received or effective the group would be, we just wanted to meet other on-island digital experts in the spirit of collaboration and sharing, so we could learn from one another and pass on ideas.

In the course of this first year, we’ve held a series of well-received events centred around a broad range of inspiring and knowledgeable speakers who have helped to inform and create debate. The inaugural meeting included a presentation from HSBC, other events have seen speakers from the UK and on-island experts like Ian Ronayne, offer us the benefits of their knowledge.

Digital Jersey event in June, 2011

If there was one particular event that acted as the catalyst for pushing Digital Jersey to centre stage of the local IT community, it was probably Ian’s presentation about Jersey’s telecoms industry. Ian sparked a lively debate about pricing, regulation and the rationale behind Gigabit Jersey. All of this led to a great discussion about the Island’s lack of an IT strategy and the direction of the Island’s economy.

The Survey

The debate also revealed a hole in our knowledge of Jersey’s digital sector, so inspired by the meeting, we approached Mark Loane of C5 Alliance and suggested we create a survey that would quantify the size of the industry in Jersey, its aspirations and the views of those who work within it. We agreed that there was a need for some sort of benchmarking exercise which would give everyone a better feel for where the industry was and how people saw its future.

Mark and I teamed up with Steve Hickson, of E-scape, Ian Ronayne and Kirsten Morel to get the survey off the ground.

The findings of the survey were presented to a healthy audience of about 80 industry professionals and very importantly, local politicians, at the Digital Jersey event in November last year. It was clear that the survey had captured the attention of a lot of people and there was a real willingness to get things done, to grow the industry and to make a success of Jersey’s digital talents.

The Working Group

It was at this event that Ed Daubeney spoke to the audience and let everyone know that he’d been working on an IP/e-commerce strategy on behalf of the Economic Development Department. He invited us to join the working group which included a number of people already operating in the digital arena and who wanted to secure government funding to set up a body that would represent the IT sector. This was fantastic news, it’s exactly what people had been asking for within Digital Jersey. We weren’t going to turn down the chance to help create the organisation that would become Digital Jersey Limited.

We provided Ed’s group with all of the survey data and offered Digital Jersey as a channel of communication to the wider industry. Digital Jersey’s success at engaging people within the industry meant it was well placed to continue this work and become a key means for communicating the views of the sector.

Ultimately, the working group managed to secure £300k of funding from the States of Jersey, which is hugely exciting news. The industry now has an organisation dedicated to its promotion and support, both at home and abroad.

The Future

We believe that Digital Jersey can play a key role by providing a means for individual IT professionals and businesses to get their views heard. This will help ensure that Digital Jersey Ltd is an inclusive and transparent organisation that’s accountable to the sector.

There’s no doubt that its board and CEO, once appointed, will have a huge task on their hands and they won’t be able to work on or achieve everything that everybody wants to see happen. At times, we’ll need to be patient and understand that there are severely limited resources (£300k doesn’t stretch that far when it comes to international promotion!) but if we work to make Digital Jersey Ltd a success, helping it bring in new business and create new jobs, then it should be able to attract more funding, both public and private. Over time, this will enable it to take on more initiatives and help develop more areas of the industry.

The Results

You can see that a year is a long time in the technology sector. When we created Digital Jersey, we had no plans for it to go so far and certainly didn’t envisage that it would play a role in creating an industry representative body. But that’s the beauty of the digital sector, it’s unpredictable and fantastic at achieving things.

Over these past twelve months, we believe we have achieved more than we set out to do but along the way we have never lost sight of our principal aims:

getting people together
meeting great people
shaping the future of the Island and its technology sector

We’ve only just started but our achievements so far are very encouraging and if we all continue to work with the same spirit of collaboration and enterprise, then there really is no limit to what we can achieve.

Looking forward, it’s clear that we need to focus on developing skills within the Island, creating opportunities for future generations. We will continue to make connections and hold regular events that bring us the benefits of people’s knowledge and experience. With proper funding, we should be able to attract more speakers from outside the Island and raise the group's profile, creating even greater engagement within the digital community.

Of course, none of this would have been possible, and none of it will be possible, without the enthusiastic engagement of everyone who has contributed to the Digital Jersey group and turned up for our events. Keep on coming and engaging, ultimately, it is you, your views, knowledge and expertise that are essential for the group’s future. It's been a great initiative to be involved with and we are pleased to have been part of something that is changing the face of IT in the Island.

It’s been an exciting year and if it’s anything to go by, we really can’t begin to imagine what the future holds!

Please post your comments and questions below. You can also join the debate on LinkedIn, suggest a speaker or follow us on @DigitalJersey.

SilverStripe SEO Module - sneak preview

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 15:01:13 +0100

We have some very exciting news for everyone who is interested in the SilverStripe CMS!

We have combined our SEO expertise with our SilverStripe skills to put together a dedicated SilverStripe SEO module. The module is designed to manage content optimisation to help you dramatically improve your SEO rankings.

Who is the SilverStripe SEO module for?

SilverStripe website managers, website owners and copywriters
SilverStripe developers and web agencies
SilverStripe SEO specialists and digital marketing agencies

Where did it start?

Every good SEO agency will tell you that on-site SEO is still one of the most fundamental aspects of any SEO campaign. Since my recent blog about SilverStripe and SEO we've been involved in a number of SEO campaigns for SilverStripe sites. During this period we have developed an on-site optimisation framework that we now apply to all SilverStripe websites to make the website content even more SEO friendly. Unfortunately, the process is time consuming because it involves keyword research, copywriting and keyword validation. There are parts of the process that need to be performed outside of SilverStripe (e.g. Excel, keyword tools etc.). In addition, the process requires a stong understanding of SEO, which means that in most cases it can't be handed over to the client.

On-site optimisation on steroids with SilverStripe SEO module

The SEO module is an extension to SilverStripe and adds some extremly useful SEO features that improve the efficiency of the SEO process. It's like running an SEO campaign on steroids and what's more, the way we have built the module will force you into SEO best practice, which can do wonders to your rankings on Google!

SilverStripe SEO module - some features:

Keyword management - probably the most important part of any SEO strategy, you can assign primary and secondary keywords that you want to target in the SEO campaign. This information is used by the page analysis tool that could help you optimise your content.
Page analysis - the module will validate the most important elements of on-page optimisation (i.e. URL, Title, meta description, and heading) and highlight pages that could be improved.
SEO score per page - each page is validated and scored so that you know which pages need your attention.
SERP preview - you can see just how your search listing is going to appear on Google.
Content overview - view all SEO elements on one screen.
SEO Analytics - allows you to concentrate efforts on important pages by excluding or starring pages.

Next steps

We have just completed the first round of testing and will be implementing the module on some client websites. There are tons of features that we still need to add but we are very keen to get this beta version released ASAP.

Please let us know what you think and get in touch with us if you are interested in testing the beta version or you would like to deploy it on your website. We really would appreciate your feedback.

Online and offline worlds don’t need to collide. E-commerce guide for bricks and mortar shop owners.

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 23:10:24 +0000

Read our e-commerce tips for shop owners looking to integrate bricks and mortar locations with e-commerce.
Last week we gave you an insight into the idea of joined-up approach to your marketing activity, in other words connecting the online & offline efforts. Surprisingly, our experience is that many retailers seem to ignore the opportunities of joining up the traditional and digital and do nothing to mitigate the risk of the shrinking offline revenues. Such inactivity threatens retailers' survival in the medium to long term.

UK retail key highlights and numbers

According to British Retail Consortium (BRC), which represents most major retailers in the UK, the figures show footfall (i.e. customer numbers) - was down 0.9% in January 2011 compared with a year ago.
Double digit growth in online sales - the value of internet retail sales in 2011 was £27 billion, accounting for around 9% of total retail sales, this is up from £23.4 billion in 2010 (15% increase YoY) source: BRC.
Recent research indicates 72% of adults use their broadband connection for purchasing goods and services (UK)
And finally 14% of the UK high street shops stand empty (source: BBC). This metric could hit 50 per cent within three years, as half of all high street leases are due to expire by 2015 (source: Jones Lang LaSalle - property consultancy)

Philipp Schindler, vice president for northern and central Europe at Google, said at the World Retail Congress: "It's time to stop differentiating between the online and the offline world. Your customers don't see it that way – everything is integrated." Here’s our starting point for those who are interested in joining up their traditional sales methods with digital technology.

Bricks and mortar - ideas for shop owners - large and small!

"Showrooming" (i.e. when shoppers visit a store to see a product in person, only to buy it online at a lower price) is one of your worst enemies. Retailers could offer special products that set them apart from competitors and are difficult to compare. If it’s not possible and you are confident that you offer a reasonable price you could encourage users to compare prices with online retailers whilst they are in the store. They will do anyway!
Keep commoditised inventory small to make more room for high end products and products that people want to examine and compare, you can encourage customers to order commodities online.
There are two main reasons why customers use mobile phones in your store: 1) to look for reviews 2) to compare prices. This is a strong indicator that they are at the end of the buying cycle. If you want to close the sale you need to provide this additional information just like on a website, e.g. make the product reviews and testimonials easily accessible in your store. If you have an app to do this, offer it in the store. This will keep them away from the competitors’ websites.
Price match - if you can’t match the online price you are likely to not only lose the sale, but also a long term customer.
Also shoppers would rather use smartphones than consult store associates (source: Accenture) - makes sure the additional product information can be easily accessed. You could display QR codes or short URLs with links to your website.
Retailers need to make the shop visit fun so your customers feel that it's worth making a visit.
Offer loyalty programmes to incentivise customers who come into your store.
Allow customers to use smartphones to check availability, reserve and order items at store locations.
Advertise special product categories, such as Bestsellers and top-rated prodcuts, to make it easier for customers to find and buy what they are looking for.
Train your staff to ensure they can update/monitor your social media pages to speak to customers online.
Connect with your customers online - use social networking sites to build relationships with your customers. Make sure that the staff at your store are aware of the online conversations and can easily access social networking sites.
Encourage your staff to use web chat to offer customer service to customers browsing your website.
Make the online customer database available to your staff in the store. You can impress your customers and save their time by knowing their profile and past purchases.
Research your products and have all the information needed to help your customers make the decision in the store, e.g. read online reviews, common issues, alternative products and prices.
If you have a website take advantage of the local Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to target the keywords that contain the locations of your stores.
Add your business location to Google Maps and Google Places to make your store easier to find on Google Search.
Offer coupons and discount vouchers for customers who visit the shop.
Review and adapt your store layout to seasonal cycles and trends. Use online insight to identify trending products and themes.
Promote links to your website and social media sites i.e. Twitter, Facebook, G+
Reach your target demographic through social media marketing and paid ads on Facebook
Add discount vouchers and offers to receipts. This is a great opportunity to upsell and x-sell your products. You can also ask customers to register online.
Customer satisfaction surveys are cheap when they are published online. You could ask your customers to complete the survey online during their visit in the store.
One registration. If you have a loyalty program and you are asking your customers to provide their personal details make sure you can input them into your database, which can be accessed online.
If you are confident that you provide value for money you can offer free WiFi in the store to encourage customers to browse and compare your product with competitors.
Make sure your website is optimised for mobile search to target important location based queries so that users looking for your store location can find your address and map.

E-commerce tips for shop owners who are looking to expand their reach by offering and selling your products online. Remember before you invest your time and money to build an e-commerce site you can test the waters by selling on Amazon and Ebay.

Offer different payment methods, including allowing customers to order online and pay in store. There are customers who don't have or don't want to use credit cards online.
Online presence will also increase your offline sales (mainly telephone). You need to ensure that your staff are aware of online offers and can close the sale on the phone.
Ensure that customers can order online and collect in the shop – save them shipping costs!

Ask your staff and gather insights from your physical stores to add to the website content, e.g. FAQ and additional product information.

Use Google Analytics reporting and analysis to find out how many visitors come to your site every day. Every visitor to your site is a potential customer.
Use web chat to communicate with the customers who browse your website at the moment. If you are worried about the resources the web chat feature could be enabled during the quiet periods in the shop.
Create paid search campaigns to increase traffic and sales from your target markets. PPC is the fastest way to reach potential customers. You can tailor your ads and calls to action to location and encourage customers to call or visit your store.
Use email to keep in touch with your customers, make sure you can segment your audience by location and customer behaviour. e.g. promote your bricks-and-mortar stores to online customers who live near the shop or advertise last minute offers to online shoppers.
Make sure your website is mobile friendly – more and more people own smartphones and use them to buy online.
Use animation and video to give a demonstration or explain complex products. Encourage your online visitors to come to your store for more information.
If you have the budget you could develop virtual fitting room or virtual mannequins to help customers buy the right size and increase the confidence in online purchase.
Make sure that online vouchers can be redeemed in-store.
Collect customer reviews on products in the stores and aggregate them with your online reviews.

Conclusion

The number of offline shoppers is likely to shrink as more people buy online. This will be good for customers, who are going to see a much better integration of online and offline retail experience, i.e. joined-up customer service and buying process. From the retailers point of view these could be fun and exciting times too. The world wide web presents a lot of opportunities and business owners need to act quickly as the times of quick sale at the store location are over.

References and further reading
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204624204577177242516227440.html
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/1935685/brick-mortar-store-commerce-site
http://www.internetretailer.com/2010/12/06/shoppers-would-rather-use-smartphones-store-associates
http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/8919-why-retailers-need-to-embrace-mobile-internet-in-stores
http://googleretail.blogspot.com/2012/02/smartphones-and-tablets-influence.html
http://www.economist.com/node/21548241
http://gigaom.com/2012/02/26/retail-needs-a-reboot-to-survive/

2012 Marketing Trends: Where traditional meets digital seminar

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:30:00 +0000

We believe that 2012 will be a year of real opportunity, if you are smart, use your budgets effectively, demand more in terms of creative thinking and strategic applications and you produce campaigns that are measurable. We believe that 2012 will be about the five M’s: Money, Mindset, Method, Message and Measurement.

For those of you that were unable to attend the seminar, here is another chance to view the presentation and explore how a properly integrated offline and online marketing campaign can work to your advantage this year.

Watch the 2012 marketing trends seminar:

Tip: Navigate through the slides whilst playing the videos for a full experience.

Thanks for joining us and don't forget to leave your comments below!

The use of Social Media in the Wealth Management Industry

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:02:36 +0000

The use of Social Media in the Wealth Management Industry has been much discussed within E-scape and amongst our clients and any guidance on this area is always well received. Intelligent Wealth have recently published a white paper on the use of social media in the Wealth Management Industry and have allowed us to post it here on our blog.

Download the white paper

Our New Year's Resolutions for 2012

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:45:56 +0000

Much expense has been spared in creating this, our shortlist of favourite resolutions for 2012. If you have any that you think may be helpful then please feel free to contribute.

Switch my username to “password” and my password to “username” to make each a lot harder for hackers to figure out.
Stop saying," Ooh, that feels nice" whenever the security guys frisk me at airports.
Our New Year resolution is: 1280 by 1024 pixels!
Try to drive closer to the speed limit.
Tweet more.
Try to figure out why we *really* need 9 email addresses, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and G+ account.
To have a better online and offline life balance.
To do less Facebook stalking.
To check my work e-mail account at least once this year.
Stop buttering my doughnuts.
To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up any more of my time!
Ensure my NYR doesn't go in one year and out the other.
Philosophical one: Let go of what I am and become what I might be.
Lay off the Bikram yoga a little bit.
Maybe take this whole zombie-"Twilight" thing a little less seriously.
Spend more time with neglected children (my own).
Continue working for our clients after the World's End on December 21 2012.
Only wear my Raspberry trousers when entertaining at home.

What are your New Year's resolutions? We'd love to hear them.

Is SilverStripe CMS SEO Friendly

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:54:44 +0000

Why is it important?
Choosing a Content Management System (CMS) is probably the most important decision when you build your website. There are a number of CMSs, including open source, license or proprietary systems. As you probably already discovered, most of the suppliers claim that their systems are Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) friendly. Unfortunately, very often the decision makers have a limited knowledge of SEO and would probably have difficulties validating their SEO friendliness.

We’ve seen many examples of modern websites built on CMSs that caused many headaches and subsequently turned the SEO process into an expensive nightmare.

What are the features of a SEO Friendly CMS:

Design and Content SEO Requirements
Custom meta description and page title tags
Custom page headings (H1, H2, H3 etc.)
Clean HTML template
Custom link text (anchor text)
Sitemap for users
Custom image attributes and tags
Custom meta tags templates (for large, database driven websites)
Duplicate content control
Social/sharing buttons integration

Technical SEO Requirements
Static, customisable URLs
Clean URLs with no additional name/value pairs
Handling 301 redirects
Simple directory structure
One version of a URL to reach a page
Breadcrumbs navigation
Custom 404-error page
Sitemap generator for search engines (XML)
Speed and page load
Noindex/nofollow support

Does SilverStripe meet the above criteria?
Out-of-the box SilverStripe CMS is just a blank page and flexibility is one of its strengths. All of the websites we’ve built on SilverStripe CMS since 2009 are SEO friendly. The SEO effect was mainly achieved as a result of collaborative work between the web development team and our in-house SEO experts. We developed in-house processes to make sure each SilverStripe deployment meets all important SEO requirements.

UPDATE: 17/04/2012 - Read our announcement about the SilverStripe SEO module, which is designed to manage content optimisation to help you dramatically improve your SEO rankings.

Conclusion
Choosing the right CMS is half the battle. SEO objectives need to be considered from the outset in order to identify any potential SEO barriers that could crop up throughout a project life cycle from design to migration. Once deployed, focus needs to be on content and social aspects of marketing to encourage content sharing to attract links.

Do you have any comments or need help choosing the CMS? We would like to hear from you.

It's "odds on" for Online Gaming in Jersey

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 12:23:26 +0000

How prepared are we for Egaming in Jersey

You may or may not be aware that online gaming legislation was recently passed in Jersey, Channel Islands. There has been considerable excitement in business circles locally because Egaming as an industry fits very well with Jersey’s increasing demands for a diversified economy.

The Jersey Gambling Commission has been formed and Jersey is actively looking for customers to move their operations to the Island. Initial prospects look good, a delegation of ministers, government officials and businessmen visited Israel (an active Egaming technology centre) in April of this year. We went along (see our blog article) and some of the big gaming operators were very interested in what the Island has to offer.

Offshore Egaming is not new, Guernsey, through the Alderney Gambling Control Commission have been very successful over the past 10 years in attracting significant online gaming businesses, along with Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus. There is no reason why Jersey cannot do as well, if not better, particularly as many of the other offshore jurisdictions have shortcomings that Jersey could turn to its advantage. Although the Commission has been formed and the legislation is now in place a few hurdles still lie in the way as far as gaining access to the UK for our potential customers, but there is plenty of scope across the rest of the world whilst access to the UK market is being sorted.

As far as getting the industry in Jersey moving, it just takes one “high roller” to move their operations here and others will follow. And there is plenty to entice; we are already one of the world’s most reputable offshore financial jurisdictions, in a favourable time zone for doing business, boasting an enviable technical and support services infrastructure. Jersey is also a wonderful place to live. So as part of the Islands’ plan for business diversification Egaming offers pretty good odds!

But how does all this affect E-scape? Well as a digital services agency we offer a host of services that fit the needs of online businesses, such as digital marketing, web design and development, usability and mobile development. You can be sure that we are putting considerable effort into networking with gaming companies, learning how they operate and just what their needs are. We’ve taken steps to restructure our business to fulfill those needs in a high quality way. It’s a gamble, but one that will hopefully result in a payout!

One other but highly important string to E-scape’s bow is our history of game development. We’ve had a 10 year relationship with Camelot, the agent’s for the National Lottery in the UK, building online scratch-card and instant win style games for the National Lottery website. This experience gives us a clear understanding of player behaviour and we are expert in delivering game concepts that encourage repeat play through high levels of engagement and a positive player experience, whether they win or lose.

Though niche our games work for Egaming operators in a number of positive ways by delivering increased and additional income streams; they provide light relief for hard-core players and are great vehicles for introducing new players to the online gambling theatre in a soft way by encouraging high levels of trust in the brand.

Through this expertise we are actively engaged in developing relationships with just the type of company’s Jersey’s new Egaming legislation is designed to attract.

Watch this space. With some good planning and little bit of luck we should see both E-scape and Jersey being dealt a winning hand very soon!

The Increasing Use of Mobile Devices in Jersey

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 10:58:28 +0000

There has been signficant hype and discussion surrounding the emergence of web access via mobile devices. Almost half of internet users in the UK connect to the internet via their mobile phone. So we wanted to see what the picture was like locally. We thought we would investigate this ourselves using data gathered over the past 12 months from a range of Jersey websites encompassing a variety of industries and users.

Below is a graph showing the split over the the last 12 months of every mobile device OS to access these websites.

Figure 1. Mobile Device % in last 12 months

As you can see the clear majority of people are using iPads to access these sites, followed by iPhones in a comfortable second position. This would seem to be higher than we expected it to be. Is this the effect of Jersey based users showing their affluence? Well, according to the latest eCustomerServiceIndex (eCSI) results from eDigitalResearch and IMRG, tablet owners are more engaged with retail brands, making more purchases and website visits compared with smartphone users.

To analyse this further, we grouped all Apple devices (iPad, iPhone and iPod), which all run the iOS operating system, and compared their use to what has been coined by many as Apple’s closest rival on the mobile devices market, Google’s Android.

Figure 2. iOS vs Android in last 12 months

As you can see, based on our data, Apple’s iOS clearly has real market dominance and with a 93% share compared to Android's share of only 6%.

Our final analysis was to see what trends, if any, have occurred with regard to mobile web access as a whole during the last 12 months.

Figure 3. Percentage of total mobile device visits over 12 months

As you can see in the graph above, not only does mobile web access represent a considerable portion of the total visits to these websites, but it has increased significantly since Oct 2010, from a mere 5.3% to just over 17%. That is significant growth!

In conclusion, this brief analysis helps to highlight the ever increasing importance of web accessibility for mobile device users and therefore for website owners. If you're not mobile compliant, then there is a big market out there that you are ignoring. If you would like to discuss your mobile requirements please give us a call.

E-scape achieves first for Channel Islands with Google AdWords Certification

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:38:39 +0100

We are pleased to announce that we achieved Google AdWords Certified Partner status from Google. E-scape is the only business in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man to have attained the necessary standard.

The award is important because it enables local businesses to have access to the highest levels of online marketing expertise and knowledge locally. In order to achieve this status, not only did we have to employ Google qualified staff within its team, but we had to achieve a level of business directly with Google that entitled us to Partnership certification.

Steve Hickson, Managing Director of E-scape said "We are delighted that our work with Google has been recognised by attaining Partnership status. It is an excellent achievement that reflects our proposition that local businesses need to have a presence in the online marketplace. External competition for local businesses in all industries is growing and it’s critical they become involved in the digital world. This accreditation sets a standard for achieving the best results from online marketing and it is an important milestone in our business strategy.”

Attaining Certified Partner status is rewarded with direct support from Google, training and access to marketing tools including entry into Google's Partner Search where potential clients can locate you, new business coupons and opportunities to attend exclusive Google events.

Luke Szkudlarek, E-scape's Head of Digital Marketing, added that "There are still businesses locally that have not employed online marketing tools but who want to gain experience of this rapidly growing opportunity. Now with the support from Google we’ll be able to achieve even better results for our existing clients and, importantly, introduce new clients to the benefits of online marketing, giving them confidence to push their campaigns online and also achieve better results. It's really great news and a fantastic reward for all the hard work we have put into Pay Per Click campaigns with Google."

Quit trying to pimp the workflow

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:00:00 +0100

Why forcing a technology solution to fix your workflow is a waste of time and money

A conversation that seems to crop up on a fairly regular basis is one that I am sure most of you are familiar with. It goes along the lines of...

"We need to make process X more efficient, let's get a super whizz application installed that will make it easier to do things and will let us do all these other things at the same time."

My response is nearly always in the form of a question, and nearly always the same question.

"Before you run off and do that can you tell me exactly what the process is and what your problems with it are?"

It's right about then that I see a lot of puzzled looks and head scratching starts. A sudden realisation occurs that when they actually think about it the workflow, it isn't really that well defined and the problems with it are actually more fundamental business wide issues, rather than specific issues with the actual workflow.

Sadly what often happens next is many rounds of discussions trying to argue that even if the problem space isn't 100% defined, application Y is bound to make things a bit better which is surely better than nothing at all, isn't it?

The answer to that position is a resounding 'No, it won't!', followed by a slap to the head for even suggesting that it would. The fundamental mistake that most businesses make in operations these days is patching workflow problems with perceived "silver bullet" technology. Also when I say "workflow problems" in reality it's usually only the symptoms of the underlying problems that are being addressed rather than the true cause. You have to dig deeper.

The first and most important thing to do is actually to step back. Getting a higher level view of the overall situation before getting down to the nuts and bolts makes sure you're not busy defining your way into a dead end, or working on only part of the actual process in question. Invariably workflows do not work in isolation, so having an understanding of the different workflow couplings and integrations is essential.

Once you have a handle on the entire problem space, then you can get down to defining the actual workflow you are trying to address. There are many ways to achieve this, but one method that is as good as any is to grab pencil and paper and actually map it all out in one or several flow diagrams.

Now we're getting somewhere. The problem space is understood, we have a visual definition of what the actual workflow is, now what? Time to implement that super whizz application because we have a definition to work with. Wrong. The next step is to implement the workflow using minimal technology, just enough to make it work, aided with manual processes, and simple technical additions, nothing fancy. This is the validation and testing phase. If you have truly understood your workflow and got that definition right, even a fairly manual process will still give you tangible improvements over the old broken way you were doing things. It's not exciting, it's not flashy but it works. And importantly it's probably cost you nothing other than some management time to setup and actually fix your workflow.

If you haven't got things right it should be fairly obvious and also simple, cheap and quick to amend how your doing things to get it right.

So what about the flashy technology. Well, assuming your new semiautomated workflow is doing well, then you should have confidence that you understand your system now and are therefore in a strong position to move to the next stage of full automation. From here on in your are looking at a cost/benefit analysis to pick the right time to invest in the right technological upgrade to get that final level of workflow optimisation. You're no longer trying to fix problems, but improve efficiency in an already well established and functional workflow.

Google+ and +1 What does it mean for businesses

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 09:53:06 +0100

Google have introduced +1 in March, but the changes including Google+ were only released today. The recent development only confirmed the rumours that Google have been working on their own social network. But it’s much more than just another social networking tool and the changes will have significant implications for businesses.

Here are some of my thoughts on how these changes will impact businesses and not only those based in Jersey.

1) Businesses will need to be more social. 99% of businesses are already on Google and have their content regularly indexed by spiders, so now, like it or not, your website is part of the Google+ social network and any user can recommend your brand to their friends.

2) Alternative to business pages on Facebook – creating a business page on Facebook is a big ‘NO’ for many companies. But expanding your presence on Google will be less controversial, as most website content is already indexed by Google.

3) Website becoming even more important. Google+ and +1 fill the gap between websites and social networks. Improving users’ experience on your website could earn you personal recommendations and subsequently accelerate your marketing efforts.

4) Higher rankings on search engines (SEO implications) - Google will use +1 as social signals, just like external links in the past, but could be more important because they come from humans rather than websites. This could accelerate your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) efforts and subsequently improve your organic search results.

5) Improved CTR and conversions from your Pay Per Click (PPC) ads on Google. Advertising on Google could earn you social points +1s, personalised annotations that appear on ads after they’ve been +1’d should increase your ad performance.

ACTIONS

1 – Add +1 button to your website to encourage your website visitors to share your content.

2 – Create useful content. Review your website, add new pages, tools, video to encourage users to share.

3 – Advertise on Google. PPC ads could offer you a very cost effective way of earning personal recommendations, which will improve your performance on Google. As a business owner this is something you just can’t ignore.

Israel & E-gaming - What are the opportunities for Jersey?

Fri, 27 May 2011 17:12:17 +0100

New E-gaming Legislation

The States of Jersey passed new Gambling legislation that paved the way for e-gaming operators to be licensed in Jersey in March 2011.

Our Work in E-gaming

We wasted no time in meeting with the new Regulator and explaining that we had been producing online instant win games for the last 8 years for Camelot, the operator of the UK National Lottery.

We also explained that we were keen to expand our product offer and restructure our gaming business model by engaging with both platform providers and gaming companies to get involved on a more integrated basis. The Regulator, like many perhaps, was unaware of our experience and we have had regular contact with the Regulator since.

Where does Israel fit in?

The Regulator also told us about a possible visit to Israel that the Economic Development Department of the States of Jersey were organising, to push the Island's e-gaming industry. We met with Wayne Gallichan, Director Inward investment and International Trade at Jersey Enterprise and he explained that together with UK Israel Business they were hoping to put together a delegation of politicians and business leaders to go to Israel to meet the innovators and key players in the e-gaming, finance and clean tech industries.

We were duly invited to join the delegation and become project partners with UK Israel and after various meetings and an ever changing agenda, we found ourselves answering the many searching questions put to us by Israeli security at Heathrow. If you have never flown to Israel, this is an unnerving experience but one that clearly demonstrates the Israeli attitude of not being messed with.

So Who Went To Tel Aviv & Whom Did We Meet?

We were based in Tel Aviv, a group of 25, including two ministers, the Chairman and CEO of the Jersey Gambling Commission, the CEO of EDD and the CEO of Jersey Finance together with partners and MDs of banks, legal firms, accountancy practices, hosting/telecom providers and of course, us.

Playtech

On Monday we met with Mor Weizer, the CEO of Playtech, the world's biggest e-gaming platform providers with a market capitalisation of about £750m. These are the big boys at the party. Mor was an inspirational talker who enthused us all and we will definitely be taking things forward through their subsidiary, GTS, with whom we have already been in discussions.

Spiral Solutions

After a lunch hosted by the British Ambassador, Matthew Gould, we travelled to Galilee to meet with Spiral Solutions, who help gaming companies get to the markets they want, especially in the mobile arena. Another coach ride back to Tel Aviv had us arriving just in time to go straight to the Hilton where we were being hosted for dinner by Bank Leumi, Israel's biggest bank. I spent the evening sat next to one of the Regulator's delegation and we had a very pleasant dinner.

Neo Games

On Tuesday we had a number of meetings lined up which included ringing the opening bell at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, a presentation by Neo Games and discussions with Israel's largest firm of lawyers and the Israeli office of Moore Stephens. All these were interesting and brought home the importance of Israel in the e-gaming sector. It's really strange listening to Israeli business men and women talking about Alderney and the Isle of Man.

On Tuesday evening we attended an open evening where guests had been invited to come and chat to the Jersey delegation. We met other gaming companies and also e-marketeers and again it was a fascinating and enjoyable time.

How Can Jersey Benefit?

Jersey has the opportunity to have a thriving e-gaming industry. Once the first business is licensed, all the others will ask why and the floodgates could well open.

Jersey, as a leading financial services jurisdiction has a superb infrastructure and is continually improving its offer, making it attractive as a gateway to Europe.

The success of Jersey's e-commerce industry can be easily replicated for e-gaming as there are many synergies between the two industries.

Jersey has a large number of highly skilled complementary businesses that can provide assistance to the e-gaming industry. There are opportunities for so many local businesses.

So was it worth the money and time?

Well, firstly we gained a large amount of knowledge about a market and country of which we knew very little. We also saw how influential the Israeli presence is in e-gaming and information from 888 and Gigi Levy was insightful. We also confirmed what we believed, that the games we build are at the top of the tree when it comes to quality and engagement. And Jersey has been well placed on the Israeli's world map!

Will we get any direct business out of the trip? - it is difficult to tell, but these things often take time to gestate. What we did also get from this trip was to get to know influential business leaders and civil servants with whom we have broken bread and passed four days together. These relationships may well produce more direct work than we get from Israel and that is no bad thing either. We have raised the awareness of E-scape both in Israel and also in Jersey itself and if there is another trip going that holds relevance to our business, you can count us in!

Is this the Cookie Crunch? ICO guidelines on changes.

Fri, 20 May 2011 13:17:49 +0100

From May 26 the new European privacy laws will change how cookies are stored and used. These changes will require advertisers and website owners that track information online (usually via cookies) to seek consent from site users in order to do so. This will affect most websites and online marketing campaigns.

The UK Government and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) have issued some guidance and we have set out the main points for you below, as well as including other comments and information about this change in the UK Law. We believe that although this is UK Legislation that has eminated out of Brussels, Channel Island (Jersey, Guernsey etc.) businesses should treat themselves as within the remit of the law in order to keep up with best practice and to avoid any negative publicity.

Key points

The ICO guidance PDF is the key document and it is meant to provide practical guidelines in relation to the new cookie legislation.
The guidance has been described as "work in progress" due to the fact that the ICO couldn't publish any guidance until the law was published in the UK.
In short, the new rules will effectively require opt-in consent to use most kinds of cookies.
The new legislation comes into force on 26 May 2011.
Period of grace max 12 months - "We are not going to be going in on day one with a heavy hand. There will be a period of grace, but that will not last longer than 12 months. And if I receive complaints on day one – which I will – we will examine how far efforts have been made to comply," Christopher Graham, U.K. Information Commissioner.
The most controversial area, third party cookies (ie. required by ad networks), remains problematic and unclear.
These are self regulation rules and the ICO doesn't really know how they are going to enforce the new law.
The new rules impact advertisers and website owners.
The government is working with the major browser manufacturers to establish which browser level solutions will be available and when. I.e. if the user visits your website, you can identify that their browser is set up to allow cookies of types A, B and C but not of type D and as a result you can be confident that in setting A, B and C you have his consent to do so. You would not set cookie D.
Possible solutions - some example methods of obtaining consent from website users (dependent on how intrusive the cookies are) e.g. Pop up, accepting T&C when signing up, Settings-led consent (i.e. consent gained when user confirms how they want the site to work - e.g. remember language selection), Feature-led consent (i.e. agreeing to the functionality being 'on'), Functional uses (analytics), Third party cookies (e.g. ad networks).

Our suggestion is that website owners should wait and see what big websites that operate in their sector do with their T&Cs and if they introduce some opt-in mechanisms.

Next steps for website owners

However, if website owners are very keen and pro-active, here's what we'd recommend:

READ:

ICO Advice note

Wall Street Journal Blog

PC World Blog

AUDIT: Check what type of cookies and similar technologies you use and how you use them.
COOKIE TYPES: Assess how intrusive your use of cookies is.
CONSENT: Decide what solution to obtain consent will be best in your circumstances.
FINALLY, Stay abreast of official interpretations and enforcement policies, such as those promised by the ICO, that may offer more detailed guidance on cookie notices and consent mechanisms.

Naturally, if you want to come and discuss your individual cicumstances with us, please just give us a call on +44 1534 491096 or you can always post your questions at the end of this blog.

Why we chose SilverStripe as our CMS

Tue, 03 May 2011 09:00:00 +0100

In simple terms, what is a CMS?

First of all it might be worthwhile defining what we mean by CMS or more completely, a Content Management System. For the purposes of this entry we will limit ourselves to website systems, so in that arena, a CMS is a web application used to manage the content of a website.

Typical features allow for a site structure to be created from pages, with the content and features of those pages being defined by the administrators of the website (who may or may not be skilled in the coding of HTML web pages). SilverStripe is one such system from a selection of hundreds of similar systems available today. CMSs vary in function, cost and complexity from the most basic offerings to systems that cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to deploy on sophisticated hardware architectures. Some can be limited to working with low numbers of pages in simple brochure-ware sites to those capable of managing libraries worth of pages. Their feature sets are just as varied, so the selection of a CMS to suit the needs of any particular business or website can be very difficult.

The situation before SilverStripe

I joined E-scape in mid 2008, at that time the company was utilising a mix of custom code, and a few CMS systems mostly MODx and Text Pattern. Both of these systems are PHP based Open Source CMS. They were both fairly basic and they both had some pretty serious limitations that were preventing E-scape from meeting our clients business needs. It was clear at this point that a new and more feature rich CMS was required. The ideal CMS needed to meet some basic requirements for selection, some of which were:

It had to be Open Source
It had to have an active and helpful developer community
Ideally it needed to be backed by a commercial entity to provide longevity to the project
It had to work on Linux and Mac OS X, and if it worked on Windows it was a bonus
It had to have an easy and intuitive management system for our clients to use
It had to have a clear and easy to understand template language to make it easy for our design and production team to work with
It had to provide a clear and extensible code base to work with that could be controlled with traditional Source control tools
It had to not rely on a database for system configuration
It had to provide page revisions for roll back of content changes
It had to allow for draft changes
It had to be easy to learn - quickly
It had to perform well
It had to be sellable to our clients

The major contenders

First of all we looked at a broad range of systems that were developed in PHP, Ruby and Java. Of these we eliminated the Ruby offering, Radiance, because we felt that it was at the time a hard enough sell to get a traditionally Microsoft client base to accept PHP which was well known, let alone a relatively unknown platform such as Ruby on Rails. This was a real shame as Ruby on Rails is an excellent platform that we wish we could develop with as well as PHP. The major contender in the Java arena was Alfresco. Alfresco at the time was more targeted at competing solely with Microsoft Sharepoint and was only just starting to extend into the Web Content Management area. So as well of a lack of maturity, it was rejected due to its complexity and minimum cost of deployment - its just too big for most small businesses.

So in the PHP frame we looked at a large cross-section eliminating a large number for not meeting the basic requirements. Of those that were left we had, Joomla, Drupal, a possible rework of MODx and SilverStripe a relatively new system out of New Zealand. Joomla was ultimately rejected for its poor user experience and overly complex template system. Drupal was rejected because its development cycle was far too aggressive and its context based editing system was confusing to use in conjunction with the rest of the management interface. The MODx option was more complicated. The promised re-development of MODx on paper met all the requirements, there would be some cross over of skills which would also be of benefit. In the end however the time frame was against us and the new release was just not going to be with us in time. We had to move to a new platform sooner rather than later. And so SilverStripe was the one still left standing.

So what made SilverStripe stand out in the first place?

First of all it was featured as an up and coming platform to watch by a few different reviews of CMS platforms that happen on a fairly regular basis. Its interface when compared to the outgoing MODx and Textpattern was fresh and intuitive and it met all of the requirements in our list. Beyond that though, it promised to be more than just a CMS for us. It was built on a Framework called Sapphire that could be used for more general web development beyond the scope of the CMS. This was definitely a bonus as one of the things you learn pretty quickly when dealing with customers and web sites is that no two are the same and every customer wants just that little bit more than the last. So with a decent framework supporting the CMS, we were confident that it would not limit us in the future.

From a developers point of view, the clean division of code and configuration from user interface and content management was refreshing. Being able to work in code for all of our development with out any need to configure deployments through a web interface would allow us to heavily integrate our development and release processes with a solid source control system. This would provide a much needed reduction in the amount of development work and tweaking that was being done to production environments. In fact the actual goal was to eliminate any direct changes to production systems to protect their integrity and increase the level of service to our customers.

The verdict after a couple of years usage?

A CMS's strengths on paper are one thing but what about in practice. Has SilverStripe lived up to expectations? In summary a resounding yes! There are of course a few areas that have caused us some issues for instance third party modules not keeping pace with the main line updates. To be fair this is not an uncommon situation with platforms that allow strong developer integration and extension. Of course the fact that the entire platform is Open Source has meant that in those cases where we have had problems we have had the ability to correct them ourselves if needed.

SilverStripe as a platform for our development has not stayed static either. The core development team have steadily improved the CMS over the time we have been using it, introducing new features and improving overall performance and security. In reality this continued development is probably more important than the initial feature set that we settled on in the first place. A static platform is of no use to us as a business as we continue to develop new and inspiring websites and applications for our customers.

What does this mean to our customers?

SilverStripe and its continued maturing and growth over the last couple of years has fostered an environment within E-scape that is benefiting existing and new customers alike. We have a growing team of experienced developers who are getting more and more comfortable working with a platform that is not only great to work with, but is also allowing them to challenge their own skills and knowledge to go that step further towards excellence. Working on a platform that is stable but continuing with an active and relevant roadmap of enhancements and extensions gives our customers confidence that they will get what they ask for and not be blocked from growth in the future as their own needs evolve or adapt to their market place. Continued growth of our skill base in SilverStripe is also making our offering to clients more cost effective as we build up a library of our own modules and building blocks to speed delivery to market for client projects.

And what about the future?

Right now its an exciting time to be a SilverStripe developer. The core team is working hard on version 3.0 of SilverStripe CMS and the Sapphire framework. This release is a watershed event for SilverStripe as it includes a complete rework of the Sapphire framework finally de-coupling it completely from the CMS, re-working the ORM to provide a more rational, consistent and intuitive interface as well as a whole raft of other features and enhancements. For the CMS this release features a radically redesigned user interface that provides a visually more pleasing experience combined with some significant improvements to the usability for content administrators and contributors.

I am following these developments very closely and am very excited about being able to bring these improvements to our customers.

10 things Big Brands can learn from Small Business Marketing

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:36:34 +0000

I always believed it was difficult to manage complex online campaigns with national or global reach and relatively big budget. I’ve gained most of my digital marketing experience working with blue-chip, established companies with strong brand awareness.

I joined E-scape in Sept 2010 and since then I have been managing a number of successful online campaigns on Google, Facebook, Twitter for local businesses in Jersey. I have to admit that the journey from large brand to small business marketing has been much more difficult then I thought it would be. I’ve learned an awful lot in since I joined and still learn something new every day.

Some of the things I discovered small businesses do extremely well and have been doing them for ages! I’ve tried to group these findings under logical headings and share the ones that could benefit those who manage big marketing budgets or marketing for blue-chip clients brands.

1) Scrutiny
Every business owner I met loves to get involved in marketing planning. No surprise there as it is their business and their own cash. They understand their business better than anyone else. As such all elements of the plan are questioned and scrutinised. There is no sign-off or multi-layered approval process. But, believe me their due diligence is extremely effective and not a single penny is wasted.

2) Micro optimisation and targeting
When it comes to local marketing activity all campaigns are extremely well targeted. As such the lead/sale conversion rates are higher when compared to large, nationals campaigns. A conversion rate lower than 5% is just not good enough. Try convincing any business owner to invest in online marketing when less than 1 in 20 clicks generate sales.

3) Naturally social
The strength of small businesses come from relationships and a large proportion of new business can be attributed to word of mouth. It is very natural for small business owners to directly connect with their customers, suppliers and potential customers. As such small businesses didn’t take long to embrace social media marketing. A lot of these businesses have been effectively using Twitter or Facebook without any complex policies or expensive strategies. It isn’t that difficult! If you want to know how to do it just have a word with one of them!

4) Multi channel tracking and attribution
Whilst working for a large bank I was very proud when we implemented a sophisticated multi-channel click to sale tracking system. As it was very innovative and new it has taken quite a long time to get it right. A couple of months later I moved to E-scape and had to design and deliver a PPC campaign for a small insurance company in Jersey. We quickly created a tracking solution, which links Google Analytics with the client’s back office platform so then they can match campaign clicks with leads, sales and even work out life time customer value. The implementation cost was tiny and seemed to be the only way forward for our client. Now, think how many big brands can accurately track and attribute clicks to sales?

5) No buzz words
Big brands love big agencies. There must be a degree of business BS and buzz words whenever big agencies are involved. These type of large agencies prove to be costly, I was always surprised how much some of these people are paid. They have the gift of smoothly incorporating all important buzzwords into conversations. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the actual results. Small business owners can’t afford to employ schmoozers. Not suprisingly, they are better off employing hard-working people & agencies with actual skills and desire to work.

6) Improvise, adapt, overcome
Small companies have the ability to change and adapt to changing marketing conditions at an incredible pace. No lengthy sign offs, no process obstacles and very little or no legal barriers. In large companies the process from the moment when the problem is identified to the implementation phase could take months sometimes longer. As such, it’s sometimes easier not to do it! In the meantime small businesses benefit from the most recent technology, available tools, specialised niche agencies and more!

7) Creativity? Just do it
New ideas? Small businesses are not limited by the process, compliance or approvals. Many good ideas in a corporate environment end up in the drawer. This is mainly due to the necessity for the innovators to provide a business case, go through lengthy approval process or/and convince many clueless people that it’s a good idea. This isn’t the case when speaking to small business owners. They tend to have more common sense and generally have eyes wide open to new ideas and give you full ownership of driving these ideas forward.

8) Cost per click counts
When your budget is £15 per day NOT £15k then your Cost Per Click suddenly has a more tangible impact on the actual click volume and sales. Once again, micro targeting and micro optimisation leads to finely targeted campaigns and excellent results.

9) Feedback and pressure
The easiest way to improve the efficiency of your marketing spend is to get the marketing managers to chip in with their own money to the marketing budget or at least pay for their mistakes. Small businesses put an enormous amount of pressure on campaign managers and give constant feedback on the results. There isn’t much room for mistakes or wastage.

10) Power in simplicity
No schmoozing, no buzz words, pure skill and hard work generally leads to cost effective solutions. Small businesses have a lot of common sense and agencies don’t need to waste time trying to impress them. If you can’t put your idea in simple terms and present in less than 30 seconds it is unlikely to work and even less likely to get the client excited.

Conclusion
Not a great surprise that small companies are more efficient, nimble and innovative. Of course there are things they can learn from big brands too, particularly in relation to applying best practice and generally “doing things properly”.

I strongly believe that small and swift changes are the key to achieving high efficiency in any form of digital activity. This is how small businesses operate, add social media marketing to the mix and you will have a very successful marketing campaign. Big brands with their multi million marketing budgets can only dream of similar results.

What do you think? Agree/disagree? Any observations that I missed? Look forward to your comments.

Open Source - what it should mean to businesses

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:31:09 +0000

A bit of a look back

Open source has been with us for much longer than most people would think. It has been a fundamental part of the Internet since its inception running up to the 1990s. Indeed the very first web browsers and servers were freely available to download, use and experiment with before the Internet had broken out of military and academic fields. So what is Open Source exactly?

In its simplest terms it can be defined as computer software that is made available for use and modification by its authors. There are many different ways, or licenses that are used to achieve this from a legal standpoint. There are also lots of opinions on how Open Source relates to the terms 'Free as in Beer' or 'Free as in Freedom'. But the important factor to take forward is that there are no license costs, and you have the right to use and modify the software to meet your needs. Further, in most cases you are free to distribute those modifications as part of a business with minimal, if any, requirments or restrictions from the original authors.

So today, over twenty years on, there is a massive pool of open and freely available software to address a vast array of user requirements with an equally impressive community of developers and experts offering support, advice and service for free or commercial gain.

The argument against

With the array of software and expertise out there, why is it that Open Source has been seen as a pariah by the business community for so long? The usual arguments thrown about are, in no particular order;

that the quality of the software is poor
that support is ineffective or unreliable
that nothing is truly free and the cost of retraining staff is prohibitively expensive
that there are always hidden costs
that it is a security risk to use Open Source
that it just can't be as good as the best commercial products out there
something is bound to go wrong and you'll lose your job because you chose Open Source

The list goes on, and to your average decision maker its a convincing argument. Or so it has been until events such as global economic crisis with extreme financial pressures have forced businesses to seek out any avenues for savings or survival. Even the path of the damned that leads to Open Source has become well trodden in recent times. All very dramatic but what's the real picture when you take away the fear mongering from the commercial software providers and ill-informed?

The argument for Open Source

With the levelling of the economic playing field businesses are re-evaluating Open Source and paying more attention to the claims of its benefits and potential cost savings. More and more large organisations are moving away from the traditional platforms and software providers to embrace the Open Source option and are reaping the benefits of doing so. Some of the largest businesses in the world have based their entire operations on Open Source, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Amazon. And it is not just web giants, the London Stock Exchange operates from a derivative of the GNU/Linux Open Source operating system. It's also not just large businesses. If your business has a website that is run on a system provided by any one of the thousands of web hosting company, then the chances are that it is run on the Apache Web Server one of the most widely used Open Source systems available today.

Open Source covers all aspects of software and business in some way or another, from where you expect it, running web servers and Internet services, or as an Office Suite in your business, or driving your mobile phone, to places you would never think of, such as running your Fridge (Electrolux Infinity I-Kitchen), or in your TV (Google TV).

So what are the counter arguments, why can Open Source be trusted in your business?

It's cost effective - by the mere fact that there are no punitive license fees your business is able to use that expenditure on alternatives such as digital marketing to increase your revenue in more direct terms.
It's as secure as commercial software (some might argue more secure) - this is due to the very openness of its code. Everyone gets to see how it works and evaluate it for security and quality. There is nowhere to hide any dirty secrets, short cuts or shoddy code. Not if you want your project to be accepted by the community and succeed.
It's quality is more visible - for the same reasons it is more secure, everyone can see what your doing.
It's protected from vendor termination - how many times has a commercial product suddenly been discontinued because of a change in direction by the owning company. With Open Source you are protected as there is always the option to develop the code with other parties. In fact it is quite normal for long running projects to have changes in leadership, bringing fresh ideas and impetus to flagging development cycles.

So how does E-scape use Open Source?

The first thing is, that E-scape does not exclusively use Open Source to run its business. Sure we could do it if we really wanted to, but it doesn't always make sense. The Open Source world is not a replacement for commercial software, it is an alternative that can often be uses in harmony with existing commercial systems. We find the best tool for the job be it Open Source or otherwise. Of course we always check out for an Open solution before looking commercially, why pay for something when it might be out there for free. But even if there is an Open option it still has to do the job properly before it gets selected.

So we have not chosen to use the Open Source operating system GNU/Linux on our desktops becasue it just does not quite work well enough for us. However, we do use it for all our web servers as it out performs everything else in that role. Because we have chosen to use Mac OSX on our desktops we have a whole load of Open Source tools pre-configured for our development team right away. Web Servers, development languages, databases, and most of the core operating system for Mac OSX are open source. We also have a large list of commercially bought tools to assist with operating those Open Source systems.

We do nearly all of our development in PHP, Java, and Javascript. All of these languages are Open Source, or Open Standards that are freely available for implementation by the development community or commercial entities.

With this combination of commercial and Open Source solutions we are able to cost effectively deliver an Open solution for most of our clients, that gives them all of the benefits and freedoms that we enjoy so much about the Open Source world.

The power of Twitter - an example of how to use Twitter successfully in business

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:30:04 +0000

Recently I had the opportunity to experience the true power of Twitter as a consumer and see how that power was turned into a positive customer experience by a business participating fully in their social network. As an online agency E-scape uses several Cloud based hosting solutions which up until recently were only available in US data centres. One of our primary solution providers, Rackspace recently made their Cloud solution available via their UK data centre and so it was a perfect time to start the migration of a few clients to servers closer to their target market.

The first part of this process was to create a new user account with the UK service. Easy right? Not so much as it turned out. After several failed attempts to complete the processes I contacted Rackspace's "fanatical support" to request assistance. Using their online chat service an agent tried to diagnose the problem without much luck. Not a problem sometimes front line support can't solve the problem so I was informed that someone would call me back shortly to assist.

Two hours later and no call. Not so fanatical after all then. Back onto support, go through the exact same diagnostic process with another agent. Told again that someone would call. Benefit of the doubt given, wait for the call.

Another few hours and another call with no results and it's time to act. So out goes a tweet mentioning Rackspace and expressing my dissatisfaction with the situation so far.

@jasonstratford: Been trying to setup a UK @rackcloud account since 9.30am. So far a Jersey address seems to be a problem that no one can fix. #fail #in

Fifteen minutes later I have a response on twitter with an email address of someone willing to sort it out.

@Rackspace: @jasonstratford sorry you're having trouble! Could you send details to twitter@rackspace.com so we can help sort things out?

A couple of emails later and I am on a call with that person being walked through the process to diagnose the problem with an activation agent waiting on the call to take over as soon as the account is set up. Now that's more like the "fanatical support" I was expecting.

So what have I taken from this experience?

First, voicing a complaint in a public forum can shake the tree and get results. But it's best to keep it civil as being pissy is going to be counter productive.

Second, the first is only true if the company your complaining to takes their social presence and reputation seriously.Your can get a good idea if this is true by reviewing their presence. If its filled with lost of positive feedback and personal interactions your on the right tracks.

Third and finally, a strong and positive response in a public arena can turn a failure into a win for both the customer and business.

We are still happy Rackspace customers and although their support initially showed some pretty big problems, in the end they solved the problem and kept a customer. Not a bad save for having someone keeping an eye on their Twitter account.

How to search in Jersey - Local Search Tips

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 12:54:41 +0000

Searching Google from Jersey, Channel Islands could be frustrating. Take a look at the examples below:

Even on Google.je Google struggles to differentiate between New Jersey, US and Jersey, CI. As you can see in the screenshot below Google thinks that Papa John’s or Domino’s are available in Jersey, Channel Islands. Island’s local restaurants such as Pizza Quarter or La Cantina don’t even appear on page 1. There are things these businesses could do to improve their visibility on Google to ensure search engine users could find them. But, let’s just concentrate on user experience for a while and see what searchers could do to find local results on Google.

Similar situation when searching ‘pizza delivery’ on Google.co.uk, Google returns lots of irrelevant results.

Let’s see what happens if we add Jersey and search google.je. The number one result is correct, but position number two is occupied by a New Jersey restaurant.

This issue isn’t only related to local restaurants, similar problems occur when searching for hotels, jobs, real estate agents, plumbers etc.

Although you can’t change or improve Google’s algorithm to make the search results more relevant you can refine your search queries to filter out irrelevant results. Here’re 6 simple tricks I’ve been using since I arrived in Jersey and they will definitely make your search results more accurate.

1) Add -NJ to your search query, Americans often add New Jersey acronym to the address, -NJ will get rid of everything with NJ.

2) Add -city, quite a lot of results return businesses based in Jersey City.

3) Add -new this is another negative search term, will effectively remove everything including -new i.e. New Jersey etc. Of course keep in mind that if you are looking for a new car you shouldn’t use -new as a negative keyword.

4) Include Jersey – adding the location name is always a good idea when searching for a local business.

5) Include St Helier or another parish if you know where the business is based.

6) And finally for local search avoid using google.com always start from google.je or google.co.uk they are more likely to return local results.

Any other tips? If you have any other clever ways of refining search results on Google please let me know and we’ll add it to the list.