Archive by Author
So you want to be a money-making blogger?
On many levels it seems like the ideal job – write a few articles in your pyjamas at home and only leave the house to bank the advertising cheques. But of the literally millions of blogs started every year, almost all of them end in a pitiful death of outdated posts and no visitors.
We started [...]
The effect of the recession on Christmas spending
For retailers this time of year is a major source of income, often floating the business for the rest of the year. With consumer spending down, what can be done to maintain profitability? Try using Google Insights as free market research.
For example, have a look at the historical searches for the phrase “homemade Christmas gifts”:
Notice [...]
Ideate is Hard Core
I was digging through the Google Analytics stats for Ideate, seeing which keywords are sending traffic from search engines. This month the fourth most popular keyword for us is “hard cores video” [sic]. Crazy stuff. So I went to Google and did a search (parental guidance advised):
See who comes up number 5 out of 52,900,000 [...]
How we use Dropbox to be more efficient at work
There are plenty of file-sharing and online backup programs on the net, but for us none have come close to being as useful to our business as Dropbox. Here’s how it works:
1) Go to the Get Dropbox website and download the small desktop app (free, and available for Windows, Mac and Linux)
2) During the installation [...]
Google Maps car spotted in Plumstead, Cape Town
I’ve heard rumours of the Google car starting to map out the streets of South Africa, but I never would have expected that it would have reached the sleepy suburb of Plumstead in Cape Town. My wife spotted it doing the rounds this morning.
Here is the link to the map that will hopefully be displaying [...]
Hiding behind anonymous e-mail
I recently dealt with the SARS office in Cape Town via e-mail in an attempt to make an appointment about VAT and PAYE registration for a new company. Here is the correspondance:
From: Me
Sent: 17 August 2009 01:37 PM
To: Appointments.Bellville
Subject: Wednesday 19th August
Please could I make an appointment for 10am (or slightly later if unavailable) on [...]
10 simple lessons when applying for a job
I am involved in recruiting the next Yuppiechef employee, and once again I am struck by the lack of basic skills that would really help job-searchers everywhere. I understand that applying for a job can be a long process with no feedback from literally hundreds of companies. It’s important to also understand that the average [...]
Small business during the recession
I was interviewed today on Radio 2000 about running and growing small business during tough times. Shane managed to catch the second-half on video:
Here are the questions that I prepared. The last questions were thrown at me out of the blue, so they’re not written down here.
How do you ensure that your business benefits from [...]
How much should I pay you?
Compensation of staff is a tricky subject in any sized business, but perhaps more so in small business where there is no HR department to hide behind and years of past practice to follow. Is there such a thing as “market-related”? How much is flexibility worth? Should staff know each other’s salaries?
Joel Spolsky, a software [...]
My, My, My
While sitting in Cape Town traffic this morning I spotted this loyal ANC member doing his bit for the party:
Something bothered me about it, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what. Then it hit me – it appears that Jacob Zuma is saying “My ANC, My Vision, My Future”, which I was subconsciously [...]
