Julian101.comThoughts, Lessons, Business Tips from ProWorkflow.com’s Serial Entrepreneur - Project Management Software

The other day, I was thinking about heading to Church on the weekend, and knew there would be lots of people to catch up with. One of my pet dislikes is having to re-ramble a canned pre-amble… ie: saying “How are you… I’ve been up to ???” over and over to different people, friends or new.

We keep a personal family blog which has a good summary of all the cool activities the family gets up to… There’s many hundreds of photos online… And a picture is worth a thousand words, so I thought “How can I give people quick access to the blog, so they can see what we’re up to and what we’re about”.

Easy!

Step 1. Save the blog locally

Change the blog settings to show all posts in one view. Save the entire blog as a “WebPage Complete” from Internet Explorer’s file menu. This will save the entire blog as HTML and images etc.

Step 2. Copy the images to the iPhone

Then view the file folder, sort by ‘File Type’ and you’ll see all the images. Simply copy these photos to the iPhone using the iTunes software. Because they’re all blog photos, they’re already the right size to copy, and when iTunes optimizes the photos for the iPhone, it’s really quick!

Step 3. Sync the iPhone!

Then view the photos on the iPhone in the Photo Viewer. Awesome! So anyway, I went along, saw some people to catch up with and when they said the inevitable “What have you been up to?” I simply gave them the iPhone and said “Have a flick of these photos!” Between the groovy iPhone and looking at the photos, they were so engrossed, that I was able to slip away for a piece of cake and cuppa while the iPhone filled them in. It even drew a crowd!

Not sure if I’d call this a life hack or not, but it’s definitely a good conversation optimizer! A bit geeky, but I’m a bit of a geek…

Pretty amazing though that you can summarize a few years of your life with someone in a few seconds of photo flicking! Anyway, here’s a vid of the final ‘Ex Blog - Life Photostream’.

————-
About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com
————-

w this Google Street View parody video today. In the tradition of all things webby, it’s probably really old and everyone’s seen it, but thought I’d share anyway. Pretty scary about the privacy issues surrounding Google Street View though. I wouldn’t want to be a Google lawyer!

Republishing Note:
Anyone is welcome to republish this article as free online content, provided that the paragraph below is included in the full form as shown.
————-
About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com
————-

Technorati Tags: Google Street View,Maps,Privacy,Topography

I’ve had a few good chats lately with Patrick Macfie from Start-up.co.nz about what they’re up to with the Start-up venture. This is a great New Zealand based resource for people needing startup advice, info, resources or simply to see who else in in ’startup mode’ as well.

Whilst our company ProActive Software, developers of the ProWorkflow Project Management Solution aren’t in startup mode any more, I wish this website had been around when we were. There’s a lot of  great material worth checking out. I asked Patrick to send through a bit more in-depth info about the website and what they’re doing. Here’s what he sent through.

Why Start-UP?

The idea for Start-UP came about as a result of our own online startup experience/ failure.  A friend and I tried unsuccessfully to launch an online service and in the process lost a whole heap of cash (I’m talking six figures).  During our Startup journey we spent a lot time scouring the Net looking for any information that could point us in the right direction and people that maybe able to help us. I quickly realized that there was a real lack of locally relevant content and that there were some really big barriers online companies faced to being successful here so we decided to do something about it. 

We were really determined that others wouldn’t suffer the same indignity we had gone through on our startup journey and wanted as many people as possible to get access to the right info and advice and decided the best way to do that was through a mainstream media channel like TV.  We had always remarked that our experience would make great TV so I pitched the idea of a documentary television series based on the journey of a group of kiwi online entrepreneurs trying to break into the international market to a long time friend that was a TV producer.

Through the series we wanted highlight the challenges that we had faced and hopefully offer up some answers on how to do it better.  The plan was to utilize that mainstream TV coverage to drive people back to the Start-UP site where they could get access to more practical information.  So really we’re now just in the early stages of execution on our go to market strategy, the TV series went into full time production last week, the website is up and running and the community is building nicely and somehow we managed to launch a magazine in the middle of it all.

What do I hope it’ll do for the industry.

I really hope that we can draw attention to the potential that the online space has to offer the NZ economy, we’re not looking to be industry spokespeople or anything like that (I think that’s wanky in a web 2.0 world) but I do passionately believe that the online space represents the single largest export opportunity that this country has in the near future.  We want to encourage growth and investment into the sector and we want to shout about the successes and learn form the failures.  We want to provide a mainstream media channel for online startups and create a community of online entrepreneurs that share knowledge and experience for the benefit of the community that results in better online businesses coming out of NZ and impacting the World.  

Patrick MacFie
Founder Start-UP - http://start-up.co.nz

Keep up the great work guys… I’ll keep coming back and watching with interest! We need more resources like this.

Republishing Note:
Anyone is welcome to republish this article as free online content, provided that the paragraph below is included in the full form as shown.
————-
About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com
————-

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/11/29/how-i-use-twitter-and-you/

This is an interesting article I came across about how someone uses Twitter. Well worth a read if you’re still trying to find a good use for the tool…

Personally, I’ll be using Twitter for Networking, Feed posting and keeping up with the general ‘culture’ of all things online.

————-
About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com
————-

Well - it’s nearly the end of Movember - http://www.movember.com/.
I’ve had a crack this year to see if I can create a worthy moustache.  Here’s my effort at restyling my face:

—————— MORE INFO ———————

Movember (the month formally known as November) is a moustache growing charity event held during November each year. At the start of Movember guys register with a clean shaven face. The Movember participants known as Mo Bros then have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their moustache and along the way raise as much money and awareness about male health issues, in particular prostate cancer as possible. Movember culminates at the end of the month at the gala partés. These glamorous and groomed events will see Tom Selleck and Borat look-a-likes battle it out for their chance to take home the prestigious Man of Movember title.

————————-

- I quite like the facial fuzz - grows on ya (literally)!

Julian Stone, CEO - www.proworkflow.com

Benjamin Franklin said insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” and that’s what many business have been lured into by using traditional marketing methods in the online world.

There are two general choices for marketing online, static marketing (traditional) and organic marketing (where users decide what information is worth spreading), both are effective however the static marketing campaign is far more costly and losing it’s effectiveness as the number of business using static campaigns continues to grow.

“Old marketing methods are failing because users are beginning to wise up Rise Up against the old brute force advertising that tries to win users over through sheer volume, using abrasive web-page banners, unrelated Adwords displayed on the page, or repeated newsletters, most being restricted by anti-spam laws,” says ProActive Software Ltd’s CEO Julian Stone who’s company has been researching online marketing methods in the hope of finding a better way to promote their product.

ProActive Software Ltd, the flagship company for project management software ProWorkflow.com, has been using various forms of online marketing for the past five years and has recently changed their approach to online marketing, rejecting traditional static marketing, to organic marketing with solid results.

Read the rest of this entry »

Isn’t online marketing by definition, expensive? Not necessarily.
Online businesses are coming to the realization that in an organic environment like the Internet, organic marketing is required; paying for traditional or static marketing only gets you so far before it becomes ineffective. The consumer now controls your marketing.

What is wrong with the old methods?

Old marketing methods are failing because users are beginning to wise up (Rise Up) against the old brute force advertising that tries to win users over through sheer volume, using abrasive web-page banners, unrelated Adwords displayed on the page, or repeated newsletters (most being restricted by anti-spam laws).

The old methods no longer work effectively for two key reasons. One is the fact that they are a ‘flash in the pan’, directing users to websites only so long as you continue to pay for the campaign, the second reason is consumers are now at the stage where they either ignore them or go out of their way to block them (with plug-in based browser or email filtering).

Read the rest of this entry »

Whilst doing some Web 2.0 marketing research, I came across the following slideshow. I wanted to share it as I agree with virtually all of the points raised and they back up another article we’ll be releasing this week… This was presented at the InnoTech eMarketing Summit at the Austin Convention Center.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be sharing some tips and advice (and resources) about the changing face of marketing and how to wisely spend your company’s time (not money). Check out the slideshow.

| View | Upload your own

——————————
Republishing Note: 
Anyone is welcome to republish this article as free online content, provided that the paragraph below is included in the full form as shown.
——————————
About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project, Task & Time Management specialist for: ProActiveSoftware.com, ProWorkflow.com & Julian101.com

Share this post :

This is further information to a post I did on the 25th Sep called “The Unseen Pitfalls of Google Adwords Marketing” (http://julian101.com/2007/09/google-marketing-pitfalls) where I talked about the unseen downside to Adwords. The rising bid price and lowering conversion rate. It’s slowly changing for the worse and if you didn’t measure it, you wouldn’t know. I have been tracking this for some time now and hope this research saves money and time for companies thinking of, or using Adwords or other PPC marketing.

There are many FREE marketing methods we use that bring good traffic, convert to sale well and are no hassle. In fact about 90% of all ProActive Software’s traffic, trials and subscriptions come from FREE marketing methods and customer referrals!

GOOGLE ADWORDS & PPC INFLATION!
(it’s worse than oil price increases!)
Firstly, as a disclaimer, I think Adwords is a fairly good concept, and I’m not wanting to speak out against Google, rather it’s the general PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising model that’s got me concerned. I’m just using Google Adwords as an example and we’ve been tracking a limited sample campaign for 12 months.

Need proof?
Download our PDF analysis sheet and take a look for yourself.
Here’s the link: Google_Adwords_Analysis.pdf

Read the rest of this entry »

I couldn’t resist sharing this link:

Web2.0 Company Simulator Game
http://www.onemorelevel.com/games.php?game=566

This is a cool online game where you try to simulate the growth of a successful Web2.0 company to the point you hopefully get bought out by Google… Brilliant! It’s always worrying and fun (and educational) to watch how quickly you can burn through IPO/Venture money.

I reckon these guys should build another game called “SimWeb2.0 Company - Bootstrap Edition.” to simulate starting a profitable software company from no money and no investment. That takes a completely different skill set. One I can respect.

Both are good ways, but in either case you need to fully understand the game you’re in - or you’ll be burnt. ;-) What’s interesting though is that you can have money, or not have money and arrive at the save destination in business. Plenty of people have done it both ways…

Read the rest of this entry »