What I’m reading…
New Day, New Job
Mar 16th
I haven’t posted lately because I haven’t had the chance to settle down and focus. I’ve had a month with a lot of change. For at least the past 6 months I’ve known that my time working in Financial Services needed to come to an end. Nothing wrong with it, per se, just that it’s not the best fit for my interests. Knowing that, I forced myself to figure out what it was that I wanted to do…
There were some things from my work that I did enjoy – a people focused job with a component of helping others with concepts that they don’t necessarily understand. I wanted to keep those aspects when I chose a new career. But I needed, this time, to make sure that the industry suited me as much as I could suit it.
I’ve always been into technology and it struck me that I was going home at the end of the day and reading sites like Gizmodo, Mashable, TechCrunch, and Digg in the entirety of the day’s updates. I’m constantly scanning Twitter and Facebook, throughout the day on my phone and computer. And if I had such an interest, why wasn’t I thinking about working in that industry?
Take off the suit and tie, pick up the laptop, smartphone, and Wired you idiot!
I’ve met a lot of great people while networking to enter this sphere. There’s a lot of creativity, ingenuity, and intelligence that’s hard not to be impressed by. And, overwhelmingly, all signs were pointing me in the direction of one company: Syncapse.
Happily for me, I’ve been given the opportunity to join their team and will be working on helping companies manage their social presence in an effective and measureable way, using the SocialTALK platform. I think it’s a great product that addresses the concerns that you frequently hear from companies entering into Social Media – efficiency, governance of the workflow, and understanding the impact of their activities. SocialTALK will be my worklife for the next while, but I’m excited about it:
I’ll try not to pump the company tires too much on this blog going forward, but I’m excited about the change and what it’ll mean for my being able to enjoy tech and Social Media more from now on!
The whole World sings All You Need is Love
Jan 3rd
Well, I missed this when it came out but I’m truly happy I’ve come across it now. Anyone that knows me knows I absolutely LOVE the Beatles – and so whenever I see their name or a song out on context, say on Gizmodo, I get very excited.
This is a video where performers from 156 countries recorded All You Need is Love simultaneously, at the same tempo, and then joined the recordings to make one track. The cause was to raise awareness for the (RED) initiative and the result is just amazing.
World Cup Draw…
Dec 4th
It’s an absolute sham that France drew Group A. For all intents are purposes, they might as well have been placed in Pot A afterall as South Africa’s group was always going to be the easiest.
Where’s the justice, I ask?
A new kind of Bank: Using Viral Marketing grow
Dec 3rd
Very cool marketing strategy being employed by Umpqua Bank on the U.S.’s West coast. Focus on improving the customer experience and turning branches into “stores” and community drop-ins. Offer non-traditional services and innovative word-of-mouth, or “handshake” marketing to bring customers in their now.
As I said, it all sounds very cool and they’ve seen tremendous growth in recent years, but I’d be interest to see their financial statements to know if they’re able to be profitable. And, I’ve learnt in Banking, that service is great for attracting clients but returns on their investments is what make them loyal.
Article here: http://bit.ly/2jHSox
Branded Logins vs. Open Standards
Dec 2nd
An interesting article @ ReadWriteWeb regarding today’s announcement that the two internet giants, Yahoo and Google, will be adopting the login credentials of Twitter and Facebook. Discusses the consequences of the decisions – is it realy for the ease of universal logins or a way to generate more traffic and revenue…? Your answer will probably come down to how cynical you feel today…
