Darryl King’s blog ireckon

Readers of this blog will know I like Twitter. And there are many others like me out there.

Yesterday I received my email advising me that because I don’t live in 1 of 3 countries, I would no longer receive the free SMS updates of the people I was following on Twitter.

Part of the attraction of Twitter is that you get to interact with it in a very cool way using your mobile, and out and about you get to interact with the people you follow. True mobile interactivity.

Due to their huge growth and of course the costs of this service they have turned it off.

While I won’t quit on Twitter just yet, I have started to look around at alternatives. Frankly I would probably pay for the SMS’s but that is not an option they have put in place for us Aussies. Well not that I have seen yet anyway. I don’t expect to get everything for free, like many users on the net, and am more than happy to pay for a service i get utility out of, but it seems their planning hasn’t factored me into their equation.

Facebook has an embedded widget for smart phones so that you get basically the same deal as being online, I get updates like messages on my phone and it costs me, not them - that’s smart thinking.

Maybe Twitter should have thought through all its options before it shut the gate on a community that has been extremely loyal through all its downtime and other issues.

I guess they feel the USA audience is enough to see them through the rough times, but that only creates more ill-will in the smaller countries that have high usage and uptake rates like Australia. I see a pal of mine in the UK bemoaning the same deal there, so that big audience isn’t going to be happy either.

Twitter, maybe this time the Whale of success might sink your boat!

Ireckon has been a proud supporter of the Beacon Foundation, a national not-for-profit aimed at helping young people create their own future. They work with schools to provide positive influence and leadership to help young people avoid unemployment and to think forward.

Today I got to experience first hand the work they do, and how well it works.

Ireckon was asked to provide some financial support to Forest Lake High School, and we were invited to hand over the cheque to the Student Leaders involved in this year’s program. The presentation was held at their assembly for Years 10,11,12 and not only did we get to have our small minute of involvement but watched and listened to the senior staff and school leaders conduct their assembly.

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Those familiar with the historic fairy tale of the 3 little pigs will recall that 3 pigs set out in the world to make their way and fortunes. Each of the pigs chooses materials to make their house from. 1 chose straw, 1 chose sticks and 1 bricks.

The first 2 are able to finish their houses quickly and set about doing other things, while the 3rd pig takes a lot longer to build his brick house. As time goes by the wolf appears looking to feed on the pigs and one by one attacks the houses with some famous lines “Little pig little pig let me in” and “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down”.

The first 2 pigs meet a horrible end when the wolf is able to blow their houses down and swallow them up. The 3rd pig’s house being built on solid foundations and in a very strong / solid way is able to easily repel the wolf’s efforts to blow it down.

The wolf then tries to outsmart the pig to get him out of the house but the pig uses its head to outsmart the wolf and in the original versions ends up killing the wolf in a boiling pot of water (a trap).

Okay so you are wondering where this is going?

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Systems are important for business. In previous posts I have mentioned that as we have grown we have tried to find ways to improve our systems constantly so that we can continue to maintain the service levels we aim to.

Any business owner knows this can be hard.

As your business changes sometimes you don’t change enough to see it at the same time, and have to keep stepping back to check what is and isn’t working.

Recently I was lucky to be provided some feedback by one of our customers that highlighted where the system had broken down for her, and that was worth gold!

Today I experienced it (I see it lots) at another business.

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So here is something which is hard for all service businesses. Losing a customer, or customers who want to cancel their subscriptions. Remember that customers who choose to go elsewhere, or just have no need for your service anymore are not necessarily lost forever.

We recently chose to use a Search Tool called Keyword Spy to do some strategic reviewing of a campaign. We subscribed for a couple of months, which was great, and got great value out of it.

But in good systematised cost control, my Chief of Search (yes that is his title), came and said we can cancel that sub for now because it isn’t needed at present. We regularly do this as we use possibly 50+ tools to keep up with a whole bunch of areas to do with Search Optimisation and Marketing, so hibernating the ones we aren’t using at present is part of the beauty of Software (or tools) as a Service (SaaS).

That is when the problem started.

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