Statistic reveal that the majority of entrepreneurs are white males, in their forties, who live in the South East. The article shines light on some interesting statistics on small business owners:

• Age Category: under 35 (9%), 35 to 44 (25%), 45 to 54 (31%) and 55 to 64 (26%)
• Sex: Women (14%), Men (86%)
• Education: No education (11%), A Level or equivalent (29.4%), degree or equivalent (21.8%)
• (66.67%) First time business owners/managers with no prior experience
• 50% of the entrepreneurs have worked in the sector they began a business in
• 8% of UK businesses are Ethnic Minority Led (EML)

Although the statistics are really compelling I would strongly advice anyone starting a business to ignore these completely! Statistically I should be doing fairly bad :

• Under 35
• Postgraduate degree
• No prior management experience
• Ethnic Minority

Why should these statistic be ignored ?

Firstly, experts like Mike Southon in his book The Beermat Entrepreneur says anyone can start a successful business and most of the skills are learnt on the job. Secondly, although these statistics do favour a certain section of the population, the unfavourable factors make a great story for newspapers, press releases etc. Actually with the right amount of effort combined with the correct attitude can provide you with a deeper penetration.

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Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Mumbai attack on 26th November is a testimonial of the use of Twitter as a news source. Thausands of twitter posts tagged started flowing into the twittosphere from the start of the dramatic Mumbai attacks. To make the news relavant to the target audience twitterers added a tag #mumbai. At an average about 6 tweets were sent tagged #mumbai per minute. Some contributing to latest news, others retwittering the news and some just adding to the noise with speculation.

Twitter forced the Indian government to issue a statement asking users to STOP twittering:

<Source BBC> Indian government asks for live Twitter updates from Mumbai to cease immediately. “ALL LIVE UPDATES - PLEASE STOP TWEETING about #Mumbai police and military operations,” a tweet says.

Although this did not stop major media sources recommending Twitter as Mumbai news:

BBC NEWS (link): Emergent007 tweets: The situation will get far more complicated as night falls in Mumbai … Read Emergent007’s tweets.

CNN (Source Video stream. Thanks @OutsideMyBrain): “Twitter one of the best sources of news during a situation like Mumbai“.

Obviously twitter based services were actively spreading vital Mumbai info. My favourite is BreakingNewsOn:

Twitter as news source

Techcrunch earlier reported how they couldn’t understand why Twitter was not a news source in their blog post. In my opinion Twitter is certainly a news source and although there are quiet a few inaccurate tweets flying around. There are others constantly correcting and making suggestions. Also at this point the reputation kicks in and people reporting accurate and confirmed news get more Kudos.

Incidents like Mumbai Attacks are  also the time when maximum following the quitting of Twitter accounts takes place. Anyone shouting and spreading inaccurate news is actively removed. Apart from potentially disrupting the military operation in Mumbai there are some really positive things which came out of Twitter:

1). Users were Retweeting messages asking people to donate blood to a local hospital, traditionally that would take days to arrange:

2). Some users were pointing to official/unofficial sources to get more news about their loved ones involved in the tragedy (the link points to source):

3). Last but not the least the latest news from twitter was flowing at a much faster rate compared to CNN’s Live Video, NDTV Live and BBC’s news live updates.

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Multimedia

1). BBC iPlayer- Watch BBC programmes

2). Favtape - Listen to music in your browser. The successor of Muxtape

3). YouTube - Watch Movies and Listen to music videos

4). Vimeo - Mainly watch geeky videos

5) Flickr- Upload pictures and share with friends

6) Picnik - Modify Flickr pictures in the browser

Documents and Presentation

7) Scribd - To upload White papers and sometimes presentations

Slideshare - Upload powerpoint or keynote presentations

9) Google Docs - Share and collaborate of documents

RSS and Share

10) Netvibes - RSS feed reader

11) ShareThis - Badge which we use to share web pages through del.icoi.us, digg etc

12) Del.icio.us - Bookmarking favourite links

Project Management and client interaction

13) Basecamp - Tool we use for client and team collaborations

14) Trac - Tool we use to maintain a Wiki for clients and developers can link this with SVN (i.e. subversion)

15) OSTicket - For customers to log tickets to complete an outstanding task

16) Backpack - For client mood boards and wiki style presentations

17) Protoshare - Quickly mock up wireframes for clients and produce specification document

Sales and Marketing

18) Twinkle - Micro blog through twitter using the iPhone

19) TweetDeck - Microblog through twitter on MAC or PC. Also excellent to discover conversations

20) Highrise - To track the progress of sales enquiries online

21) Wordpress - Blogging online, not only for Kwiqq but also for our clients

22) LinkedIn - To connect with colleagues and business community online

23) Jajah - Speak to our client abroad through our landline (for free)

24) Google Talk - To chat and video conference with clients and developers online (through browser or application)

Tools for Development

25) Zend Framework - A framework we use to develop sites for our clients

26) Joomla - We also use joomla for client CMS (Content Management System)

27) OpenId - Preferred way to provide login and identity maintenance for our clients

28) Google Calendar - Tools we use to manage our development teams time and activities

Tools I use personally

29) AroundMe - Fantastic iPhone application find restaurants, banks and other venues close to you

30) BabelFish - Translate text from almost any major language to English and viceversa

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Image via Wikipedia

Over the last few months we have been working on two social websites: East Hampshire Council and the British Council. The East Hampshire Council site was developed in collaboration with Callender Creates, Design Studio based in Brighton. The sites are very different, below is a quick analysis of what each site does:

East Hampshire (EastHampshire.org)

East Hampshire is a social network / community site which features daily news updates and an extensive guide of what’s happening in the East Hampshire Area. The site has several social features like OpenID, integration with Upcoming.org, del.ico.us, Google Maps, Geo-coded images and RSS/Atom export. The aim is to let people be creative and pull their data from various sources and then import them when required.

The site is not only aimed at people living at East Hampshire council but also others who want to visit the attractions. The site is still in beta and will continuously develop over the next year. For more information checkout EastHampshire.org’s brochure:

British Council (OurSharedEurope.org)

Our Shared Europe is closely tied in with the book (Our Shared Europe) by Ehsan Masood. The aim is to create more understanding and awareness of the many contributions that Muslims have made in history and continue to make in present-day Europe.

The site is a semi-social site and our aim is to encourage the community to contribute using services like Scribd and share links with others using the website.

Overall we have really enjoyed working with the two council. We are thoroughly impressed how open to collaboration and suggestions the councils were. Guess we are increasingly seeing the launch of Council 2.0 in the UK.

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• Scattergun marketing: It is the effect where marketers invest money into a campaign where the aim is to get as many eye balls as possible. Sort of firing many pellets into the air hoping that one or two might hit the target. Most however miss and fall harmlessly to the ground.

A good example are companies using traditional media like Newspapers, TV and Radio. The usership here is varied and only a small proportion of the subjects are really interested in your product and only a tinier proportion of them will buy or use your product or service.

• Sniper marketing: As the name suggests, is focused on targeting your demographic as tightly as possible. Producing campaigns where losses are minimal.

So how do you go about producing these campaigns on social networks:

1. Choose your social network carefully: Just because your entire demographic is on Facebook doesn’t necessarily mean that it is most favourable for your campaign. Example: It makes more sense for John Lewis to push its furniture and products on MyDeco.com (Social network for interior design).  Obviously most of John Lewis’s client are available on other social networks but this is an obvious fit for them.
   
2. Targeted advertising on social networks: It is now possible to target a demographic on sites like Facebook (go to Facebook Advertising) where an advertiser can specify who would see their adverts. You can choose from a wide variety of categories to select your target demographic: Age, sex, location and also keywords. A good example of this is how dating sites target singles on Facebook: Similarly there are examples of investment websites like AngelsDen targeting company directors. Obviously the ROI (Return on Investment) is really high for such campaigns.
3. Using Humans V/S Automated marketing: It is almost inevitable to have real people marketing and continuously interacting with your customers. Often though it is difficult to identify what conversations are going on in the webosphere and how could your marketing staff interact with these potential customers. This is where Twitter could be a nice way to monitor the topics people are actively discussing. Using Twitter.com in conjunction with TweetDeck or Twitter Search is an interesting option, whereby you can specify keyword or phrases of interest to you. Below I’m searching for cheap mortgage. I found more than 100 conversations :
4. Time consuming + engaging = generates sales: The process of sniping takes time and requires you to engage with your customers. There are various ways you can do that: On linkedIn you can ask them questions One example is: Hitesh Mehta asking a question about user experience of a RSS Reader. We (Kwiqq) have run a simple White Paper campaign on top social wesbite tools with a lot of success. With readers converting into clients.
5. Deals to be made: Lastly if you are a corporation or a major influencer in the market. The ability to leverage your position is even higher. Here is an example of how Online Hotel Booking company Booking.com provide feedback to users and hence gets significant traffic through Google Maps (see ‘Overview’ section):

There are still opportunities for several deals in this space. One hot property is TasteBook.com, allows users to make their own cookbook. A company specialising in cookery products would be ideal to strike a deal with TasteBook.

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1. Innovation is good although copying ain’t too bad (shsssh!): Apparently no one is interested in a campaign which sounds or look similar to your competitor. Although the  reality is copying makes penetration easier. See these two videos (Numa Numa Song), the first one was the original ( 21,696,400 views) but the copycat titled the video ‘Fat French Man Dancing’ and got first rank for the phrase on Google.
   
   Hence the key issue here is to be aware of what your competitors are upto. Be original although do not refrain from copying at times !
2. Latest news translated: Generally it is good practice to leverage the current or latest news. One way to do so is to build a viral campaign which combines your marketing message with the latest (hot) news. For instance in the video below iPhone was used by a magician to showcase his talent and get significant attention
3. Don’t be too obvious: Develop Social Media Marketing which is not directly about your product or service but inline with general public. This would get you more attention Eg: Techlightenment’s Bob Dylan Facebook application allows you to send a message to a friend. Instead of building an application to buy Bob Dylan’s album or single, it allows you to connect with your friends in a fun way. In the process people are reminded of the album and hence buy it
   

   Bob Dylan Facebook Application

4. Entertaining V/S Serious: Some companies have the burden of producing serious content for all their marketing campaigns. All videos, audios etc need to be professionally done and have to go through a major quality control procedure. Nothing wrong with that, although in the process there is chance of making the content less engaging. What ever the procedure engagement and entertainment should be the number one priority to get more people to interact and perhaps remember the campaign. The video below worked better for the US army recruitment than the professional content, simply because it is more engaging for the end user :

   Professionally produced US army training video:

5. Push the campaign hard: For a good ROI you need a critical mass of people to view your campaign, in order for it to seriously go viral. One way of doing that is to plug it wherever you can. Often it is good idea to comment on relevant blogs mentioning your campaign !
6. Diversity in medium: We often forget that not everyone is on Facebook or YouTube. It is all about varying  the medium to connect with your target audience. A campaign should hence be run on your blog, video (YouTube), podcast, facebook, linkedIn… A great example of it is Barack Obama’s election campaign. Several mediums were used to connect with people all around the globe
7. It all takes time: A good campaign takes time hence don’t be disappointed if you haven’t received significant traffic in the first week/month. It takes a while for the message to spread, sometimes as much as one or two years. Don’t stop campaigning though, I’m sure success is just around the corner

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Image via Wikipedia

Thanks for attending my Digital Futures presentation at Middlesex University. I really enjoyed meeting everyone on both the days. I thought it would be good to answer some of the frequently asked questions:

Q. “What is your salary Raj” ?

A. This answer will still be unknown although I can confirm I’m doing alright

Q. “How do I become millionaire” ?

A. Unfortunately there is not one simple answer for this. If you are looking to be seriously successful you need to find the next big thing. Not what was or is already a proven golden goose. Although there are numerous example of good implementation of old businesses which made it’s founders serious fortunes.

Q. “Can we get an internship with Kwiqq” ?

A. We are currently not looking for interns although we will be next year. Please drop in your CV and a covering letter to hr@kwiqq.com. Please include the words: “Interns Middlesex University”, so I know how you heard about us.

Q. “How can I contact you” ?

A. You can contact through several social networks here is the list:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Flickr
• You Tube
• Friendfeed
• Twitter
• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Upcoming

Q. “What If I want to build a social network but I can’t really afford it” ?

A. Not sure if this might solve your problem but Make Your Mark is running a competition ! Winners get a chance to spend time with the Kwiqq team in our offices. We will help you develop your social network too. To enter go to Social Network Competition

Q. “Where can I find your presentation” ?

A. Below

Raj Anand Digital Futures Presentation

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When researching a site we made at Kwiqq for Play N Trade I did some research into gamer social networks. The best of class was GamerVision.com, there was lots of chatter, users adding posts, commenting on each others opinions and all the rest. I was reminded of this in my headless chicken state and it brought me back to the real point (in my mind) to social networking, to expand your horizons and interact with people you may not have met but share similar experiences. This must be a strong reason for socialising in this medium but I think it is one that is too often overlooked.

This is something I will keep in mind at the start of a project with the blank canvas. How do you allow the users of the network to interact comfortably with those they don’t know. I am sure this could be easily built into the system, and in some cases like GamerVision is done very successfully.

The experience also makes me pleased to be working at Kwiqq because we build the sort of niche social networks that users need, as an antidote to networks of headless chickens.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

So I have been following the word ’social’ on TweetDeck to figure out trends in the socialsphere. This morning I saw a really fascinating trend where users were tweeting (or actually spamming? ) with the message:

“See how big companies use social media: : http://blogcouncil.alltop.com”

The first person to blog about it was kitchenwench who posted:

After which there were 6 users who posted exactly the same tweet at 23.01 yesterday:

Then at 8.01 this morning:

Then at 9.01am, 10.01am and finally at 11.01am:

Interesting facts:

• All the accounts were different
• At any time approximately 5 people twittered
• The message didn’t have any Retweeter, RT or Re-ping signs.

So what is going on ? Are these accounts hacked ? Or is it just one person with several fake accounts ? Is there a commonly known application which update several twitter accounts at once ? Is this a ploy to get a higher pagerank / traffic ?

What ever the case the fact is that blogcouncil.alltop.com is actually a really nice resource for companies to see how corporates are using social tools. Although not being upfront about things and spamming the twittersphere with links is clearly malpractice !

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Raj Anand Digital Futures Presentation