Buzzing the Purple Cow

Been reading a few marketing books of late. Quick, easy to comprehend, page turners to stimulate a bit of creative thinking about raising the profile of Esendex. Couple worthy of note.

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkableby Seth Godin is essentially a list of brainstorming prompts and examples to get you thinking. The premise is that to stand out, a business needs to be different. A purple cow in a field of brown ones.

I enjoyed it, it didn't take me long to read and it got me thinking. Some of the reviews of this book have been quite dismissive and probably as a pure marketing book they're right. As brainstorming aid however I think it hits the mark.

Buzzmarketing: Get People to Talk About Your Stuffby Mark Hughes on the other hand was a probably a bit too long. It played heavily on his achievement while working for Half.com to convince a small town to change their name from Halfway to Half.com. The publicity gained from this catapulted Half.com into the public eye and ultimately under eBay's wing.

There are some interesting case studies but I struggled really to find anything that was relevant to me and my business.

End of the summer Business SMS slump?

Summer is traditionally a quite time in many businesses, especially in France and Spain. Phones ring less frequently, inboxes are manageable, Out of Office replies are more prevalent and desks are empty as people enjoy holidays.

Normally this would be accompanied by a drop in traffic. Less people working, less to send. Not so this year, in the UK and Ireland at any rate, our traffic has barely dropped off.

I've excluded Australia from these observations because of the seasonal dfferences. They're deep in winter so must be getting loads done.

As Julian posted in Bad News is Good For Business!, we've had our fair share of extreme circumstance in the UK this summer which does drive usage for our customers. But the general base load of traffic is pretty consistent with previous months perhaps with just a slight reduction in the growth rate we normally experience.

I wonder if this is another indication of how entrenched SMS is becoming in the business communication mix. Business continues through the summer so communication continues. Where previously certain sectors were early adopters of the technology, a broader profile of business types now use SMS, ironing out those seasonal differences.

Alternatively, we've experienced such stellar growth in the lead up to the summer that this has swamped any seasonal variations we would expect to see. I guess we'll find out in September.

The Oldest Swinger In Town is looking for another partner

Seems the Oldest Swinger in Town is looking for another network connection which would, if my information is correct, double their network links.

Unfortunately for them the network they approached passed them on to us. This can happen if the network doesn't feel the request justifies, for a variety of reasons, a direct connection.

They decided not to interconnect with us.

Premium Rate SMS Abuse

One of the downsides of running Premium SMS services for customers is having to deal with irate subscribers who feel, rightly or wrongly, that they have been charged for services that they didn't subscribe to.

When a subscriber has an issue, they generally call their network operator who calls up the details of the service provider who run services on a given shortcode. If they get this right, not always by any means, the subscriber calls us.

We, as a service provider, have a dedicated number for these and can quickly cancel any subscriptions and give the subscriber the details of our customer so they can approach them for a refund.

All this is fine if the subscriber acts reasonably, this isn't always the case.

It never ceases to amaze me how people deem it acceptable to scream abuse at people over the phone as if that is going to help expediate matters.

My team are on the front line and no matter how much I reassure them that's it's perfectly acceptable to hang-up on people who act this way, they are still affected by it.

It's grossly unfair that some reactionary little prat with anger management issues can upset and offend people at will with no comeback on them.

It does come with the territory but I wish these people would learn to act like adults. The world would be a better place for them and the rest of us.

SMSTextNews Unlimited Drinks Event

Went along to the SMSTextNews Unlimited Drinks Event. Was a well attended, well organised event that was well worth attending. Seems my attire was appreciated.

Ewan has done a great job building SMSTextNews into one of the main hubs for information in the industry. Probably taking over from 160 Characters as the place to go for UK focused mobile news.

Being in Nottingham I don't get to many of these events but it tied in quite conveniently with a meeting with our non-exec's in London. So the intensity of a focused morning review and justifying budgets was cushioned by a nice lunch followed by an evening of drinking and networking. I've had worse days at work.

The only negative was having to leave relatively early to make sure I got back to Nottingham the right side of midnight.

Telegraph Fittest Director - uh-oh

Received the assessment programme for the Fittest Director today:

The assessment will measure strength, power, cardio respiratory ability, balance and flexibility and will consist of the following tests:

Strength - This will be assessed in the upper, lower & core area of the body; which will not only test muscular strength and endurance but also their core functioning. There are 4 mains exercises, bench press with barbell weighted to half body weight, reps to failure, pull-ups to failure and the plank to target core strength. Finally, for the lower body, half body leg press, as many repetitions to failure.

Muscular Power - Vertical jump, quick and easy assessment that gives a great indication of lower body power.

Cardio-respiratory functioning - assessed by completing the cooper 12min run - how far you can run in 12mins. From this we measure VO2 Max.

Balance - Single leg stork stance, this can be performed blind or with vision. Blind is much harder. This will test your proprioception (the ability to sense whether or not you are going to fall over!).

Flexibility - Straight forward sit & reach test, assessing the flexibility of the trunk and hamstrings.

Not exactly playing to my strengths. Given I stopped going to the gym and the last time I looked at a weight machine was sometime last year.

Anyway, being able to bench press doesn't make you fit, endurance events are where it's at. Where's the swimming/cycling/running for an extended duration assessment? 12 mins running, tosh. Give those buffed up gym monkeys a real event to participate in and we'll see how fit they are.

Maybe ;-)

Telegraph Fittest Director

In a story that started with being at parental home on a Sunday with only the Telegraph to read (what is it about retirement that turns people into Telegraph readers?) I ended up entering Britain's Fittest Director.

It seemed like a good idea. No doubt there would be a chance of a bit of exposure for Esendex. So sacrificing my self-respect for the cause I signed up.

I've been shortlisted.

This would be fine if I hadn't embellished slightly how much training I really do. It was more along the lines of what I hope to be able to do in a week rather than what I really end up doing.

It would also be fine if I had a few weeks to get myself back in the swing of things. Unfortunately the evaluation session is on Friday.

So the challenge now,

Not to be Britain's Least-Fit Fittest Director.

Will let you know.