That Was The Year That Wasn’t

When I was small, there was a TV programme called “That Was The Week That Was“. It was the first satirical programme on TV and set the ball rolling for later series such as “Not the Nine O’Clock News” and “Have I Got News for You”. These programmes poke fun …

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How much will you spend on Christmas Day?

On Christmas Day, shortly after the presents are unwrapped and the chef for the day goes into the kitchen to start boiling the sprouts, the Internet will burst into life. For the past few Christmases, online activity in the UK has peaked between 10am and 6pm. That’s the eight-hour gap …

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Daily Mail

Interviewed for an article on the psychology of the phenomenon of “catfishing” online

Are you making the most of links?

The other day I received an email asking me for a “link swap”. The person who sent the email lavished me with praise about my website before saying they’d love to have a link on such a site. If I gave them a link, they promised me they’d return the …

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When you should post on social media?

The other day during a consultancy session with a food industry client one of the directors asked a fairly common question that I get asked a lot. When is the best time to post things on social media? The glib answer is, “when your contacts are using the networks”. However, …

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Is your writing blocked?

How much time do you spend each day staring at a blank screen wondering what to type? Much more than you think is the answer. Years ago, “Writer’s Block” used to be the preserve of fiction authors who suddenly found their typing dried up. Unable to carry on writing they …

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Should you sack your web designer?

This week I was at a conference where I was spending the day “in surgery”. The idea was that I would have a series of 15-minute appointments throughout the day. People booked an appointment with me to talk about their web presence and to help me “diagnose” their issues and …

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Are you digitally literate?

The other day I was running a masterclass for a client who had asked me to help their younger staff understand the boundary between the professional and personal use of social media. The people attending were all recent graduates and were about 23 years old, on average. They had all …

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Can you rely on “the cloud”?

This week presented me with a problem I was not expecting. A month ago I wrote an article for a client while I was in a hotel, away at an event. I stored it on Google Drive and sent my client the link to the file.  A day or so …

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