Business Essentials – Product

Four widely recognised essentials for business success.

1. Product

What is product?

It is what your business does.

It is important to have a clear definition of what you do for customers. Products are often considered to be physical things that are made or that someone else makes and are traded, such as food items, clothes, toys, etc. but in business “product” is the output of the business. So it may be a physical entity as already described or it could be a “service” such as book keeping, life coaching, web design, etc. It could also be something more ethereal such as data or information processing, storage or supply.

So “product” is what a business does or produces. But it is more than that. Product is what makes money.

It is important to have a clear focus on what the business is there to do. What it can do, what it cannot. It is important to at least have this firmly in your head if not physically written down somewhere.

Many organisations compose a single sentence to define their business objectives called a “Mission Statement”. This is more than a clever or catchy sound-byte slogan for inclusion in a promotion or logo, which has its place, of course. A mission statement is the reason the business exists. Not something like “we are here to make loads of cash”, that’s assumed. It needs to be something that defines the nature and character of your business. It is important that the true meaning of the statement doesn’t get lost in clever or grandiose pomposity. Part of its function is in the process of generating the statement by stimulating self analysis of the business by the participants.

Whether or not this Mission Statement is published and displayed to customers may not be important. It is important that owners, directors, leaders and employees know, agree and understand what the prime objectives are.

One risk especially in the early stages of a new business can be a lack of focus. New and diverse opportunities can appear and every customer can ask for something slightly different. Perhaps it is easier to see these things with hindsight than to discern at the time. Customers mean cash coming in so it is very attractive to chase after any that come close. A good businessperson will see new opportunities and exploit them but the danger is to be spinning in circles or spreading too thin, wasting time, effort, perhaps burning up limited cash flow reserves and in the end achieving very little. Over-trading or poor cash flow control can be lethal to any business but especially to new, more vulnerable ones.

Consider a scenario. A man buys a fishing boat and starts catching fish. He lands the fish and sells them. He could do that by sitting on the harbour side waiting for anyone passing. He may advertise and in time people may know he is there and come specifically to get fish. This is not a good use of resources. While he is selling fish he is not fishing and the expensive investment in his equipment (boat & nets) is idle. Of course fishing has other restrictive implication such as EU quotas, tides and such things but leave these aside and extract the principle. It would make more sense to specialise in catching fish and sell them to a distributor. The profit per unit in this sale would probably be less than a direct-to-customer sale but pulling fish out the water is where the money in that business is. Provided there is a distributor who will buy as many as can be caught, every fish is effectively money in the bank. If there is a limit to how much the distributor will take, catch the quota and quit. If an additional distributor can be found you can keep going.

Translate this into your business. What is your “product”? What are your fish?

There are things that need to be done but that don’t add “value” to the product. They are necessary but keep them to a minimum. Sailing to the fishing grounds and back is necessary but it is not actively pulling the fish out the water. So sail to the nearest fishing grounds, not the far away ones unless there is a business case, such as there are richer pickings. Move the product (fish) on to someone else as soon as possible to leave you free to do what you do best. Catching them. That is your speciality.

A distributor specialises in moving product from suppliers to customers or outlets. These may be wholesalers, retailers or direct-to-public. In the fish scenario the distribution resources would be a chilled van, refrigerated storage and the customers are markets, supermarkets or fishmongers.

The principle here is focusing on what will make you money. That is your “product”. Investment in resources, be they time, equipment or skill improvements, must be aimed at being efficient at that and don’t get diverted.

The fisherman’s product is fish. It may even be a specific kind of fish. The distributor’s product is moving fish from suppliers to outlets. The outlet’s product is supplying the public. The product is where they make their money. Ancillary activities may be required to facilitate, ease or otherwise aid the prime business product but they should be kept to a minimum and must always be directed at optimising and maximising the overall output.

A fishmonger requires storage areas so that when a customer comes in he has enough to provide the requirements but there is no intrinsic value to storing fish. The value is achieved by selling it to the customer. The storage is required as not having the fish would result in no sale. So storage resources facilitate the process but do not directly add value.

Of course there are larger businesses that can do it all. Fishing, distribution and the retailing but it is unlikely a small start-up business could find the massive investment to fund, employ staff, resource equipment, develop skill sets, etc. to start this scale of operation. As the one man fishing enterprise develops he may employ people, expand his fleet and as revenues increase he may extend his interests into other related areas by direct development, mergers or acquisitions.

But in the early days the fisherman needs to decide whether to specialise in cod or haddock or scallops or do a bit of each.

Probably not many readers will be contemplating starting a small fishing business but the same principles apply to almost anything.

So far the emphasis and our little scenario has centred on what your business can do. Identifying the product.

Consideration needs to be given as to how much demand there is for your product.

Is it something people want? Will they buy it from anyone? Will they buy it from you? Why should they buy it from you and not someone else? What is unique about your product?

Is there an existing market for the product? If there is how much of it can you capture? If there isn’t, is it because no one is interested? Can you make them interested? If yes, then you have a product that will sell. If no, then you may have a “product”, but it is not viable.

Market research is essential to determine whether there is demand and the level of any demand. Without it business is a guess and may be void.

Whether they realise it or not, every business has a mix of factors affecting whether it succeeds, fails or bumbles along somewhere in-between is dependent on the quality and relationship of all the ingredients in that mix. The aim of this is to encourage you to stand back a little, identify and reconsider how your business relates to these essential aspects.

The internet is a wonderful place and many are seeking an opportunity to monetise their web activities. There are many great ideas that can only or uniquely work on the web, there are some that are proven traditional businesses that can be tailored to suit or be enhanced by developing an on-line version. However, underlying them all is the requirement to have sound business principles and practices.

The dot com boom around the turn of the millennium turned to bust for many. Large investments fuelled the boom as speculators sought to grab a piece of the new on-line marketplace, but they did not understand the underlying principles and their business models failed resulting in bust. The experience has soiled the idealism of on-line trading but provided a realism that has spawned more stable business practices and more robust trading methods.

The latter day trend is in blogging and social networking. The wider surfing public and big business have been slow to catch on but have been increasingly recognising that there are numerous social media moguls relatively quietly raking good money from their web activities. These may range from individuals in their bedroom through to global brands. The result is an explosion in social media wannabes mixed in with some big names, sometimes brands, sometimes celebrated individuals but all seeking to cash in on the perceived gold rush.

There can be no denying that it is working for some. The “fake it till you make it brigade” and associated scam merchants perpetuate the dream but cloud the waters and there is no proper way to collect or validate data to analyse the demographic.

While many existing success stories continue to succeed and some newbies will join them in their success, there is going to be a massive number of disappointed failures. Whether this will amount to a collapse of the trend to monetise social networking, mirroring the dot com boom and bust, remains to be seen. Either way there will still be some winners, mainly the companies providing the real products via affiliate schemes but also those who keep their nerve and have the acumen.

I trust the message hasn’t been lost in overly fishy tales.

What is your business product?

What part of the system makes the money?

Write it down. Prepare a mission statement.

What part of the business have you invested or will you invest your scarce and valuable resources?

Is that investment being justified by prudent usage of the resource or is it under-utilised?

Is your product something people want?

Are you focusing on what brings in the money and not getting side tracked?

Have you done any unbiased dispassionate market research to establish whether there is any interest in the product?

Are you prepared to adapt your product or business model to meet market expectations?

Once this series of questions has been answered, return to the start and determine whether some of the first answers require to be changed. Once the business is up and running these questions need to be continually or periodically reviewed to identify changes or trends that require the business to respond.

Clearly this blog is not a comprehensive guide. Business and marketing professionals may find it simplistic but I trust it provokes some thoughts that will be useful.

I intend to write further articles on three other aspects of the mix of essential ingredients, plus a few more things to contemplate. Probably about one a week as time and inspiration permit.

The tradesman’s charter

As a truly professional tradesman:

1. I will use your garden flower beds and driveway as an ashtray.

2. I will cut and mix materials like plaster and cement on your expensive mono-block driveway with little or no precautions against spills and splashes.

3. I won’t clean up these spills or splashes, whether on the mono-block, adjacent vehicles, walls, doors, etc.

4. I will enter every room in your house whether I need to be there or not.

5. I will leave the doors open in these rooms so that the whole house gets covered in muck.

6. I will re-open these doors each and every time you close them.

7. I will look at all your stuff from the top of the loft, all through the house and into your garage. I’ll do garden buildings too, given the chance.

8. I will comment on the stuff you have in these places so that you know I really have been there, looking, just in case you miss me in the act. Clearly, it is all my business.

9. I will use your lawn as a tip for all the debris removed from the project.

10. I will forget to bring dust sheets.

11. The ones you supply will be used as an apology of an attempt to protect your expensive carpets.

12. I will make a token gesture to clean these carpets at the end of each day although deep down you know this is only removing the top surface muck and the fibres are engrained. You might consider replacing them. It wouldn’t add very much cost to the job.

13. I will use lots of your household products as working materials in the execution of my labours. This might be toilet rolls for cleaning up grouting and soaking up plumbing spills and leaks. It could be spray cleaners to remove plaster/grout from the bath surface. The list could be endless. Make sure you have a good supply of sponges in. These cloth wipes are good too.

14. I will use your floor brush in my token attempts to clean up, including the plaster and tile dust on the garage floor. Don’t worry that your brush will be utterly trashed and unfit to take back into your house again, never mind used for future cleaning activities.

15. Despite written agreement and charges included to remove it all, I will not have enough room in my van to remove very much of the rubble, broken toilet pans, etc. and offer to come back in a few weeks to remove it. You can dance round it while you do the gardening projects you planned for the next few weeks that you booked holidays off work to do. The next door neighbours selling their home will surely appreciate it all piled against their fence for that time too, as will the rest of the neighbourhood.

16. I will use your garden hose to fill my buckets from your external tap. The condition of your hose when I am done is none of my concern and I may leave it lying around uncoiled and cemented up.

17. With or without your knowledge or permission I will use tools and anything else I choose that can be found anywhere in your house or garage, even if this means digging through old boxes stashed at the back of your garage. Perhaps it could even be a pot from the matching set in the kitchen.

18. Once used I will discard these borrowed items anywhere without any regard for their condition or any attempt to restore them to original or even usable condition. This may include but not limited to leaving plane and surf-form blades sharp edge down on your expensive and unique hallway table.

19. I will use the clear space in your garage as my workshop for the duration of the project without asking and with no regard as to whether it would be any inconvenience to you.

20. I will not consider whether you have items in your garage (now my workshop) that may be damaged by the dust and immense mess I will make.

21. I will not attempt to secure the garage by leaving it open and unattended for long periods with no respect to your repeated requests to keep the door closed or to the value you may place on any items within, even if not financially very valuable.

22. I will remove fixtures and fittings, damage them or throw them away irrespective of whether they are connected to the project or require to be re-used or reinstalled.

23. I won’t check whether existing installations are operational and blame them for being previously faulty when they don’t work after the project is complete.

24. I will not do any work that wasn’t agreed in explicit detail prior to commencement even although it would make total sense to anyone that it would be required by default as an integral part of the project.

25. I will not specify the quantities required nor check that the materials supplied by the customer are adequate to complete the project prior to starting (or at least at the outset when they could be ordered in on time) and claim additional costs for addition work time required by delays in supply.

26. I will perform the installations in the most illogical way to ensure maximum wastage or use an incomprehensible layout, thereby running out of materials. A side benefit of this is that it will look like a pig’s breakfast too.

27. The cost of a single or small quantity of materials required to complete the project will be the most expensive per unit item(s) as delivery and minimum order quantities literally result in costs of 10 times what the original unit price would be for volume with free delivery.

28. I won’t comply with statutory regulations or safety requirements for electrical installations making them potentially lethal.

29. Removing an old installation and fitting out a new one does not mean plugging any external holes or gaps created in the process unless specified in writing in the quote. I wont mention or discuss them until the job is done, if even then.

30. I won’t be bound to replace any lagging, insulation or lids on loft water tanks or pipes that I may remove in the execution of my work. If you’re too old, infirmed or technically inept to go and check these things for yourself when I’m done, should these subsequently freeze up in the winter and flood your house etc., there will be absolutely no recourse or way to prove that I was in any way liable. Isn’t that why you have insurance? You can do without proper water, bathing and heating in your house in the summer. Live a balanced lifestyle with a week or two in the midst of winter also. Perhaps there will be a foot of snow on the ground at the time too, like last year, for the perfect “White Christmas”.

31. I will use the cooker to light my cigarettes and forget to turn off the gas burner. With a minimum flame that no one will notice and without any pots on, this may eventually blow out in the draught leaving the gas flowing without a flame to burn it off.

32. I will wander around the house saying I can smell gas.

33. I will demand payment on completion without allowing any viewing or inspection and resisting access due to any excuse, e.g. the floor grouting  is still setting and cannot be walked on for 24 hours minimum. You wouldn’t want to damage your good new floor would you? Plus I couldn’t repair any damage, caused by you for walking on it prematurely, without considerable extra cost.

34. I wont be concerned that my failure to properly connect essential plumbing fittings will cause a flood at midnight that will warp woodwork, damage carpets in adjacent rooms, and pour water down into your kitchen below.

35. It will be of no concern to me that the said kitchen, which has just been plaster skimmed and painted to a very high standard by other proper professional tradesmen at great expense, will now have a major crack and water stains.

36. I won’t be concerned about you having no running water, heating or bathing facilities while I sun myself, somewhere foreign, hot and sunny.

So get your house in order. I’m a tradesman and I’m here to make your quality of life so much better. It won’t be cheap but we are the best.

Disclaimer: Please note this blog is a satirical article based on recent (ongoing) experiences with tradesmen and in no way represents any terms or conditions of products or services offered by noyo or affiliates.

Radio ga ga

Alleged to be the transcript of an actual radio conversation between a US naval ship and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October 1995.

- Please change your direction 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

- Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to South to avoid a collision.

- This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

- No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

- THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER ENTERPRISE, WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE US NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!

- This is a lighthouse. Your call.

Rapid income generator warning

Have you ever looked at these websites that promise amazing income for a few hours work every day? No experience beyond basic computer skills, no website required, no blogging, just copy, paste and watch the money roll in.

I’ve never tried any of these systems but if you search for it and visit the websites that are listed they look fantastic. The system they promote sounds too good to be true. Lots of money for very little work. In this country we are frequently warned that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is.

So being sceptical and having read enough, I attempted to close these websites  but they keep popping back with annoying messages like “do you really want to leave this site?”, *big discount, today only”, etc. It takes very many attempts to totally kill these annoying pop-ups. So be warned. When something resorts to that kind of tactic I am definitely not signing up for it.

I can see me un-following people who promote such sites.

I know almost everyone is on Twitter to promote something. So I expect it. Like many others there is affiliate marketing tastefully located around my blogs, but it is just a question of what and how it is done.

Want to be a millionaire? Send me a fiver and I’ll tell you how. In some of these cases it is maybe 10 times that. In the Scottish vernacular, aye, right.

It would be interesting to hear from someone who has successfully used the system without having to pay them to verify their income claims or explain how it works. I suspect no one will be forthcoming. I challenge someone to prove me wrong.

Saor Patrol at the Edinburgh Festival

Saor Patrol at the Edinburgh Festival.

Here’s a taster

Pittenweem Arts Festival

A new photo gallery of the Pittenweem Arts Festival with images from 2009 and 2010 is now on-line, here

Some knitted fish at an exhibit.

There’s a new Glasgow

As a child. all through my teens and twenties I lived in a small village in the West of Scotland. The open fields, river and rural life were great.

What was also great was that it took only 30 minutes on the train to get into the City of Glasgow. In these days the M8 motorway and Kingston Bridge made a 40 minute drive right into the heart of the City possible with light traffic and around an hour even at peak times. Unsurprisingly Glasgow was frequented by my family and friends for entertainment, shopping, further education, work, business, dining out, etc.  I knew my way around practically everywhere. Glasgow was my city. Glasgow “belonged to me”.

Times change and with circumstances changing, trips to Glasgow became infrequent. Apart from occasional events in city centre venues I’ve hardly been there over the last 20 years.

Earlier this month there was a function close to the River Clyde and I took the opportunity to go into the city early and walk around with my camera. I discovered there is a new city emerging from some of the areas that were decaying and tired when I was younger.

Glasgow is thriving with glitzy new buildings and bridges. Steel, concrete, modern façades, gleaming glass, stone, contemporary materials, state-of-the-art designs, shapes, curves and domes reflect modern architectural trends while respecting the heritage of ancient times, standing shoulder to shoulder with classical city structures worth keeping.

In the midst of the burgeoning regeneration of Glasgow’s new financial district there are still glimpses of the past. Sometimes these structures  are monuments of a proud heritage, like a massive redundant shipyard crane, while others are scenes of dereliction, soon to be transformed, I trust. Turn your back on the grand new structures and cross the Tradeston Footbridge. The sight greeting you is old Tradeston and beyond that the historically notorious Gorbals.

A closer look at the building immediately south of the bridge reveals just how close the decay is, just beyond the manicured gardens of the modern development.

That image of an overgrown building is poignant to me as I recall visiting there in my twenties to buy photographic supplies at “Barrets” on the ground floor. I was a frequent visitor to numerous premises  in that area in connection with business interests at that time. Nostalgia.

The next building beyond that still has “To Let” signs on the front. I hope they will be short lets.

Not everything is new. I recall standing practically on this very spot under the Kingston Bridge many years ago with a 35mm film camera shooting a similar view. Very little in that scene has change in 20 years.

The city centre has also changed in many ways, with new restaurants and shops regenerating the heart of the city. One day I will return to document more. In the mean time I’ll sign off with an evening image of the Glasgow Science Centre and the world’s last sea-going paddle steamer the “Waverley” berthed at the quay.

If you wish to see more of my walk along the side of the River Clyde, including some “Digital Art” versions, click on the “Photo Gallery” page.

Twitteritous.

NHS the last bastion of waste?

According to the BBC, “Diabetes costs ‘out of control’“.

During the recent general election campaign all political parties promised continuing support for the NHS. Politicians were awash with their sound-byte guarantees to protect it with “ring fenced” funding and promises of improved services in critical areas like cancer care.

Clearly they were all running scared. To give the merest whiff of NHS “cuts” would be scandalous and a vote loser. The media and opposing parties would pounce, never  let go and the damage would be politically catastrophic.

So we are left with an elephantine money drain larger than almost anything else in the country, if not actually.

To clarify my position. The concept of the NHS is wonderful. Free healthcare for all, irrespective of class or the ability to pay is a fantastic ideal.

The cleaners, porters, kitchen staff, nurses, doctors, surgeons, admin staff and even the maligned managerial bean counters all have committed, caring and dedicated personnel within their ranks, among others whose work ethic and competency may be debatable.

You all know there is a “but” coming. If the NHS were a restaurant, I would be dining elsewhere and the government would send in Gordon Ramsay to get it sorted out.

There are good people (but not all) involved and many good aspects to the system too but there must also be huge wastage and inefficient systems that would be completely unacceptable in a commercial enterprise. Note, I am not advocating privatisation. Profit from other people’s misfortune is distasteful. Inefficiency with public money is too.

I have little inside knowledge of the system but as a consumer of the “NHS product” I have a growing list of experiences that are almost farcical. I’m sorry but it is true.

I give you only one, for now.

I have been receiving prescribed medication for a condition that, in Scotland at least, entitles me to prescriptions that are free of charge. That is wonderful, thank you.

I made use of the repeat prescription service at the local pharmacy which is joined to the health centre.

Due to unpleasant side effects, the dosage of one drug was halved by reducing the quantity taken and a different drug additionally prescribed.

I continued to collect my repeat prescriptions, including the new drug but was surprised to discover that the system was blind to the reduction of the original one. So I received the old quantity. Just as well I’m compos mentis and could understand my correct dosage as the labels on the boxes were wrong. I told the doctor who frowned and said that it “shouldn’t be”, checking the computer and I also told the staff at the pharmacy, also being assured it would be changed in future.

I continued to receive incorrect medication no less than three times as I collect it on schedule. Each time I told them and was assured it would be changed. I had a sizeable stash in the end. Two months supply X double the quantity X three =  a years supply of medication, given out in 6 months.

I decide to use my initiative. I cancelled the repeat prescription. I told them why I was cancelling it. Wait for it…. They told me to just bin the surplus and start again with quantities balanced to match the schedule. Just to be clear. This was perfectly good, in-date, useful-to-me medication. I just had too much of it. Much to their surprise and disappointment I still cancelled the automatic reorder. As a conscientious citizen I worked my way through the 6 months oversupply as needed. You can thank me now

Each time I collect my prescription now they kindly inform me there is a repeat ordering service available. I politely decline.

I am not alone. I know a man who has MS. He recently told me he had drawers full of drugs that doctors have prescribed for him over many years. Try this, try that. In an age when “alternative” medicines are under scrutiny as “unscientific” it makes me wonder at the efficacy and scientific basis of conventional NHS medicine. He was also told to dispose of them when he asked what to do with them.

Critical thinkers will correctly point out that part of my issue was with a commercial business and not the NHS. However, the system and interface between the pharmacy and the NHS practice didn’t work. Doctors were not checking. They were simply signing anything that was asked by the pharmacy irrespective of the cost or implications to patient’s health. Perhaps if it came out their wages they would be more careful.

So dear tax payer. The smiling face in the TV ads that tells you how wonderful the repeat ordering system is at your local pharmacy (a national company), is costing you money. And most certainly more than it should. TV ads are not free. They are paid out of the revenues of product sales. That product might be free-to-the-patient medication or at a subsidised charge, but it is not free to the tax payer nor indeed to NHS budgets.

An unseen cost of this wastage is to the people who might get drugs or treatments but are refused due to cost. Assuming my experience is not unique, this “opportunity cost” is also a loss to projects that could be funded for useful research into cures for terrible illnesses.

The NHS is the “elephant in the room” at Westminster. It is being ignored for fear of electoral catastrophe.

Throwing more money at the NHS has not worked and will not work. Sadly, cutting the NHS funding would probably result in cuts where it hurts patient care. We need thorough reviews by capable people to weed out wastage and clueless inefficiencies. Sadly history has shown that such reviews are costly and don’t deliver the required improvements. Party politics in a democracy do not serve the people well in this matter.

I am grateful there is an NHS. I am grateful  for all the good quality care I have received, although there have been times it was questionable. I’d be even more grateful if they sorted out their systems and provided proper care, sensitive to the needs of patients and with a conscience towards the taxpayers and society they serve.

The NHS may be one of the last great bastions of waste that is politically untouchable. Who will have the courage?

Top blogs

Social networking has taken off. It’s viral and addictive.

I’ve been tweeting, facebooking along with a few others for a while and more recently blogging. I’m still attempting to figure out what it’s all about. The motivation and interaction between people on these is diverse and complex. Each site has its own character with corresponding pros and cons.

To me, MSN and Skype are about instant messaging or direct audio or video links. From that aspect they are a different mode of having a telephone to contact people via a computer.

They also make an effort at broader social networking. MSN and Microsoft’s “Windows Live” allow people to create profiles, post images and other content which can be shared with friends or total strangers. I found it was a dissatisfying experience as all sorts of strange characters wanted to befriend me. I quickly moved on from that.

LinkedIn is like a directory of professionals. It is  a network seemingly motivated by those seeking career opportunities or perhaps to reconnect with workmates or ex-colleagues.

The worthwhile ones for me are facebook, twitter and the blogs that feed off them.

Facebook
My facebook experience was started to allow me to see  a friend’s photographs. This quickly developed into a means to connect with current friends and reconnect with some older ones. The original idea of simply looking at photos gave way to feelings of potential stigma at only having a handful of friends. Not so many of my friends were on-line two years ago, however the attractions of the web have drawn many of them on-line and correspondingly my facebook “popularity” has grown to a very respectable 140+. Not an insignificant contribution to the soaring 500 million facebook subscribers globally, if I may say. The magic number that allowed me to relax and feel that I wouldn’t appear to be a sad loner was 50, don’t ask me why. When the 100 mark was passed I was cruising.

While many must use facebook, as with other social networking sites to find people of like mind or common interests, invitations to “facebook” with total strangers have been declined as that space is for my personal network. It’s for people I know and trust. There are a few on the extremities where the relationship is somewhat tentative, but at least I know who they are.

It is fascinating to see how childhood acquaintances have turned out. Who they married or not. How much their children resemble them, whether they still have the same ideals and aspirations. People can change. Some have done surprisingly well while others make me feel sad.

With facebook I have resisted the impulse to promote or discuss my business activity unless asked and even then in just the gentlest of ways. I do see a number of “pages” that overtly promote activities, events, organisations and businesses so I may soon adopt a new persona to leverage the opportunity.  But my personal space will still be just that.

For now facebook is simply and only my social network.

Twitter
With Twitter it seems to me that everyone is selling or promoting something. I’m bemused at the Twitter button, “report for spam”.

It is so hard to conduct a meaningful discussion with only 140 twitting characters and no knowledge of whether the person will reply immediately, in 10 hours, 5 days or ever.  Replies to my tweets often leave me racking my brains and browsing back to find what is being replied to. Usually, the moment has passed.

Gaining followers and promoting whatever motivates twitters is the name of the game. 140 characters are enough to promote websites, blogs or simply one’s self. Keeping it all low key minimises suspicion and the risk of getting the dreadful “report the spam” clicked in anger against you.

Through twitter I’ve encountered some very nice people along with a host of wannabe money making scams. Amid the clamour is useful information, humour, curiosities, thought provoking comments, crudity and stupidity.

I believe through time I will make some good friends, albeit entirely virtual ones. One or two may make it through to real-life.

“Wantrepreneurs”, wannabe entrepreneurs will be interested to note that I’ve already made a few pounds from being here. There have been several opportunities to do work and the money is already in the bank for some of them, while others may take more time. I’ve had enquiries for my services from around the globe!

Statistics show that the traffic directed to this blog and my other websites has increased dramatically, although converting this to cold hard cash is another story. It is early days but my “google affiliate marketing” has netted me all of about £0.30 in two months. Hardly life changing, apart from maybe to destroy hope in the concept. We’ll see how the others do in due course.

I’ve deliberately published different styles of posts to see what is popular.

Embedding some of my favourite YouTube videos has provided some immediate hits but unique and original content is clearly best.

Blogging
People blog for varied reasons. Amid the host of superficial nonsense, which can be entertaining but time sapping, there are some extremely interesting and stimulating ones.

Some people simply keep an on-line “diary” of their lives and activities for no apparent benefit other than to share something of their existence with the world. That may be by written text, images or both.

Some are clearly promoting causes or ideas, while most have a mercenary undercurrent, if not blatantly full-on.

The following blogs are some of my favourite so far, with apologies to those I’ve omitted. There are a few others that nearly made it. I’ll keep them for another day.

Joanna Paterson’s, “Confident Writing” gives extremely useful tips, as you might guess, on how to write confidently. Partially motivational it encourages people to make a start while offering practical tips and instructions to make the articles interesting, structured and readable. I need to pay more heed to it myself. We all start somewhere.

Marion Anderson’s, “the second half of my life” offers helpful thoughts and encouragement to people to face up to the psychological and emotional challenges they encounter as they progress through life. Marion is a professional “life coach” and her articles will resonate with many who know exactly what she is talking about, but perhaps still seeking answers.

Judy Adamson’s, “Art and Design” articles are inspired by aspects of her life as an artist as well as showing some of her art. She is also adept at short anecdotes and personal reflections that can be humorous and insightful. Plus she linked to me so that has to be worth a mention. Take note!

Lesley Miller’s, ‘wheniwas8′ is where people are encouraged to contribute a short comment about what their aspirations were when they were 8 years old. In return they are invited to contribute 1 unit of the currency of their country towards a children’s charity of their choosing. The site does not collect or process any money, it simply encourages donations.

Clearly all these sites have a vested interest in their own existence. But they are also all giving out something worthwhile or giving back something that is useful to the on-line community or the real world.

So they are well worth a visit and are my “top blogs” so far.

I will keep you posted for any new ones that are worthwhile, along with my own social networking experiences, its relative success or benefits.