#DoncasterIsGreat??

This market town is heaving..!!  You may be surprised to hear such news during times when people speak of a double-dip recession and power moving from West to East, but Doncaster is literally humming; and if you’re a tech company it’s a great place to be based.  Just ask my neighbour Amazon.

In fact, I know of several companies who are at early stages of moving operations to Doncaster.  Yes, it has a lower operating cost, there’s also a plentiful supply of labour too, but there’s exciting things that are being planned as we speak and that’s in post 16 education.

Let’s me share with you what’s so wonderful.!

1.  #LearnPod11

Ever wondered about how Social Media technology can literally change lives for the better?  Well, that’s what Doncaster College is doing.  They are holding an unconference called #learnpod11, looking at how social media technology can be used to improve education in post 16 education.  Sounds a bit normal doesn’t it?  Well, no.  This is un-normal.

There are approximately 120+ people arriving at Doncaster college tomorrow, who are all learning practitioners.  Some are educators, other private sector practitioners, all coming together in Doncaster to share ideas and share their “thought leading” best practice.

This event is so, so exciting as it preps this town up for forward thinking and labour ready for the next half a decade.  Great news for this town.

http://learnpod.org.uk/

2. RadioShow called “DoncasterIsGreat”

Now, this is funny.!  A Twitter hashtag come radio show, hosted by the Head of the Law Society, Andrew Isaacs who is a fellow member of Doncaster Chamber.  Haha.  Go get’em Andrew.  I saw Andrew mention this hashtag first on LinkedIn.  I had to say “Great.  Do it.”  I like backing positive things.  I had only met Andrew once in person at Doncaster Rovers football club evening, I liked him, he’s enterprising.

6 months on, he invited me to be his first guest on the radio show.   Andrew is no fool, he a solicitor; and now he’s a talk show host.  If only every town had an Andrew Isaacs.!

Tune in on Tuesday’s @sinefm 102.6 FM at 6pm-8pm

3. YorkshireMafia coming to Doncaster

I love it.  YorkshireMafia.  Yorkshire has so many similarities to Sicily landscape it’s quite unreal.  I mentioned Yorkshire Mafia in a previous blog post.  I think as a “come together”, Yorkshire Mafia do something very special and I’m very pleased that they are coming to Doncaster to host a Drinks Evening.  Everytime I’ve been to a Yorkshire Mafia event, I’ve been astonished by the presentation, behaviour and slick approach they have to putting things on.

I have to say, that had their been little momentum online, I feel Yorkshire Mafia would have overlooked Doncaster.  The fact is, Doncaster is humming, Yorkshire Mafia is humming and the Don is coming to Doncaster on 25^th July.

If you want a great evening amongst like minded people, come along a join in a pleasant evening inn Doncaster with other Mafioso.

See: The First YM Evening I went to >> @mafiayorkshire

4. Doncaster Market – Best 2011

This is one of the things I like about Doncaster.  Fresh food at the centre of the town.  It’s a real market town with a living breathing market, voted best market 2011.  That’s quite an accolade!   There’s about 15-20 butchers, a separate fish section, fruit, an indoor market and of course a flea market.  If you’re fed up of the high street, you’ll love it here.

I do.

5. Superfast Broadband – Digital Region

At the moment, we are seeing the convergence of “digital” and “creative” in to a single sector; I’ve described it as a car crash for some, but for others it spells new opportunities.  In Doncaster, plans were put in to place a number of years ago to ensure that the town would be at the forefront of digital service delivery with superfast broadband.

This is becoming generally available right now and makes Doncaster a fantastic place to be.

http://www.digitalregion.co.uk/

The Star – Doncaster is Heaving.!!

>> Well, read yourself.  The Star has titled it’s article “Boom Town – Doncaster”.  I say, listen out for #CreativeBoom c/c @KNCreative, it’s coming.!

http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/business/boom_town_doncaster_despite_economic_downturn_1_3558064

Changing perceptions in 2 years

When I arrived in Doncaster only two years ago, all I could see online was a company called Free Press (local Newspaper, reporting violence, crimes as headlines) and on television coincidently there was a high profile national news item about  two young boys who became over night super villains.

I had friends phoning me asking why on earth I felt Doncaster was a great place to be based.  Everyone who visits thinks the same as I do:  it’s humming.  It takes time, I’ve vetoed  Doncaster Chamber of Commerce for their lack of ability to embrace modern social communications channels. In fact, listening to admin departments tell decision makers how to “do business” and then sit on their policies is far too slow and political for me.   Outside of these ‘big fish, little pond’ approaches, business is taking place at a fast rate.

Doncaster is Great.  In fact, Doncaster is humming.

For the people who have said to me “Doncaster has no economy” and “Doncaster Creative sector is not a proper sector”, I say:  swivel on this.!

And to that “stupid” Newspaper that profits on bad news

It may be time to start talking about the “good things” rather than strangling your own town.  Take it from me, bad news might sell papers, but it’s a dwindling market…  #notw???

So, if you were wondering who @andrewisaacs is and why it is that I retweet him, you’ll know.   He’s one of about five people I’ve found who are outwardly positive about doing business here and not at all concerned what ‘the powers’ think.  In fact, he said to me “I want to make Doncaster the new Silicon Valley”. What can I say:  “Go get’em Mr Isaacs..!!”

Moving Forward >> #DoncasterCreative

There’s some noises being made locally at a grass roots level about the creative sector and I hope to be coming back and writing something about #DoncasterCreative in months to come.

Go Doncaster.

The latest press release from Information Commissioners Office states “UK businesses must ‘wake up’ to new EU law on cookies, Information Commissioner warns”.

Following the 25^th May 2011, every website owner will be required to ask permission for Cookies to be stored or accessed on a consumers computer.  This is a new law.  It is coming in to force very quickly and each and every website owner is required under law to be compliant.

If you would like details on how to check whether your website uses cookies and what you need to do to comply to this law, feel free to register your interest below.

People who should probably register…

1. Website Administrators who manage but did not develop the website
2. Website Owners who purchased a website from another
3. Website Developers who are unsure of legal side to things
4. Internet Consultants who want a resource pack

I will be providing a number of tools depending on demand (1) small low cost self help pack for those who wish to understand the compliance aspect of this from a working document and (2) technical support tele-seminar.

The contents of the tools will include:

• What this law means to you, the public
• How to determine if your website uses cookies
• How to find out what the cookies are used for
• Applicable Techniques for notifying and gaining opt in for use of cookies
• How to ask your Web Developers for assistance
• How to approach a Website Service Provider about the subject
• What to do if you use Open Source software (WordPress, Joomla, ZenCart, etc)

The documentation I am preparing will be used as a resource pack for my own customers.  For those who wish to purchase the support pack, I will provide you with a royalty-free license to rebrand and distribute the pack to your own customers.  This might be a great press pack for you or it may just be a great download for you to offer.

Something worth noting:

If you feel that this kind of regulation rarely applies to you, you may note that Advertising Standards Authority changes that came in to force on 1^st March 2011 to extend their remit to online activities (including websites and social media), recently saw them flex their muscles quite quickly after releasing the legislative changes.  Read this article titled ASA flexes muscles on first brand website ruling.

If you would like more information from me on this topic, please register your interest appropriately.

PRIVACY STATEMENT

Your personal data will be held on a 3rd party online system called MailChimp.   Only subscribe to this mailing list if you a comfortable in knowing that your data is stored with MailChimp.  Your data will not be processed in anyway, other than to send you the relevant information that you have asked for.

My credentials:

I hold an honours degree in Business Information Systems, have worked as an analyst/programmer and have worked alongside systems development for 10 years covering most aspects of the web moving from systems design in to marketing systems design and later in to design.  I am currently webmaster for a number of data-driven websites, have seen through a number of legal disputes on behalf of clients relating to the Internet and still get involved with data-modelling.

I currently manage work-flow for a series of web-based products and have been tracking the changes in Internet law for sometime.  I also supply solicitors and other regulated industries with an internet based compliance product for a period over five years.

I am inviting you to a free-bee digital event where I’ll be doing some Avatar magic for a few people.

On Wednesday this week, I am running a low-key event online.  I’ve asked you and a few others on Twitter to look at this page because I’m inviting you to get some work on your Avatar done as a free bee.

If you’re unsure what an ‘Avatar’ is, well, it’s your profile photo.  Perhaps for Facebook, perhaps for Twitter.  It seems there are a whole host of people who have photos taken, professionally or as DIY attempts and just need them sharpening up professionally to help them stand out.  That’s what this event is for.  Feel free to take part…  it is free to attend, free to take part and the first 10 or so people can have their photos rehashed during the lunch hour.

For details of the event, enter your contacts and I’ll send through the details.

• It’s totally free.
• The event is being held digitally (yes, you can attend remotely from your computer – it will be on Facebook!!).
• It’s a chance for a few people to get some graphic design work done on their Avatar

Why do the event? It’s quite simple.  Rather than having lunch and getting side-tracked by Twitter,  I should really do a few favours for others who may not have access to graphic designers and marketing designers.

What will we be doing:

• Removing backgrounds
• Recolouring backgrounds
• Tidying up images
• Sharpening images
• Removing unwanted elements
• Colour changes
• Re-shaping / re-sizing photos to aspect ratio

All the above and maybe a bit more.   Email will be sent out on Wednesday.  Hope to see you there.

It looks like the EU is leading the way with Privacy and Transparency on the web.

Thanks to @mattlambert for Tweeting out the first link I’d seen about this ePrivacy EU Directive due on25th May 2011.  Matt was tweeting this link about email, which I may cover in a separate blog.

The Internet is Changing.!

So, what is happening?  On 25th May there is a change in the law as part of an EU Directive called European e-Privacy.  As it comes in to effect, the owner of a website will be responsible for informing visitors of any ‘cookies’ used to track visitors, their details and movements on the website.

I studied Computing Law as part of my degree and the sphere of Digital Marketing crosses over with what I do.  Privacy remains a key interest of mine.  Watching how the ‘Social’ Web handles Privacy has been like watching a car crash.  $iPeople + $iTheInternet != $iPrivacy

As some of you who follow me on Twitter will know, I take what can only be described as an keen interest in the law in relation to Digital Marketing.  Why?  Well, it’s an integral part of my profession. I work in this sector and it’s important to be up-to-date with changes in legislation.

The last big legislative change was the change in Advertising Standards Authority remit to cover the web  (and social media). This was a bold move by the Advertising Standards Authority effectively making your Twitter activity a considered part of advertising remit, requiring them to be descent, truthful and not misleading.  I await the first case to be tested in the High Court.

This EU Directive, will come in to operation on May 25th 2011; it seems the EU are trying to lead the way.

How does it affect you, the website owner?

Strictly speaking, if your website uses Cookies (and many don’t) you will need a user interrupted message that states you are using cookies; and in addition you will need to provide information about why you store them and what they are being used for.

How does this affect you, the email marketer?

Strictly speaking, if you have a hyperlink inside your transmitted message, the landing page on the website will also need a pop-up – this of course is only required if your website system / landing page actually uses cookies.  If it does and believe me, so many of the online email marketing service providers do use these, you may, in the not too distant future be finding that the service includes ‘pop-ups’ notifications about cookie tracking.

Sessions & Cookies

I’ve always disliked cookies.   Unless you are dealing with millions of users who never login, a cookie is pretty naff, especially when all the data you really need can be stored on the server side against either the login session.  A cookie is a text file created on your the users computer when a connection is established to store small pieces of data.

A unique session (unique reference between your browser and the website) identifyer is created when you access a website from a browser.  It is usually stored when you login.  Cookies are not needed to achieve this, but they can be used to give the website extended tracking functionality.

A cookie is a text file that a website stores on your computer.  What a cookie can do, is store the details of  the current session identiyer on your computer.  No cookie equals a new visit from that computer.  An existing cookie says what the last session was from that computer.

A cookie is created on connection of the website, meaning the session details are stored even if you haven’t actually logged in to your account  with a particular website. Cross-analysis is like forensic science, telling whether the user navigating without logging in and by tracking multiple cookies, it can even make judgements as to whether you browse from different locations annonomously.

Yes, Cookies are used for this and they can be cross-analysed to workout where you access the site from, even when you’re not logged in.  Normally, this information is less important, unless that is, you actually want to track movements across computers and other such things every time someone returns to your website.

The usual guff is that a cookie is used for storing user settings, but budgets permitting, it is used for oversight of browsing habits across a network of inter-connected or owned websites.

It’s all interesting stuff.!

What’s the point of this legislation?

The Internet is unregulated.  It always has been and it was founded on an unregulated model.  As business and commerce have moved in, it seems that in a commercial setting many of the larger corporations and rogue small ones are doing some serious data collection, mining and tracking, which could be said to invade privacy without informing you the user that it is even going on!

The EU Directive is set out to put a control measure in to require firms to inform you, when data is collected and stored as cookies.

How does this affect you, the consumer?

Simple.  If you are aware of a website that is tracking you, you will be able to complain to the ICO (Information Commissioners Office) if they’ve not explained how and why.   this is a bit meaningless in my opinion as the average user is probably unaware of cookies even being used, let alone where to find them or what the data in them might mean.

Assuming that people do complain and that collective are enough of a body, the complaint will of course be escalated and dealt with at the highest level.  To get noted, there will have to be a serious level of complaints about a company, service or website.

The Issues on the Table

There are a couple of issues at play here:

1. For developers, the issue will be about creating a User Experience that’s not hampered by pop-ups, yet complies to the EU Directive.
2. For service providers within the UK, compliance will probably mean business buyer for the service will deliver an Interrupted User Experience due to the fact that the service need to comply and include the necessary pop-ups.
3. For service providers outside the EU, they will of course not be regulated by EU Directives and will no-doubt see an increase in business due to firms wanting to source better user experiences for their end-users.
4. Exporting of services to non safe-harbour countries will be on the increase.  Commercially, the trend will probably see people moving services away from UK IP’s as a work-around.
5. Regardless of where the IP address is based, each UK company will be required under law to be compliant, switching to non EU places is like the fox hunting with the wolves.  I imagine, every company operating in the EU will be required to follow the directive.
6. Browsers.  The responsibility could be put directly on to those who supply browser software.  If this is done, it would mean that developers wouldn’t have to shoulder the cost of explaining everything to their visitors.  The issue here however is that Browser software is not EU Regulated and the EU is only a small part of the Internet.

As with most UK Compliance Law, it is all about self-regulation.

How will it be regulated?

They don’t know.  But you are responsible for it.!   The ICO have yet to decide how they are going to regulate this.  Regulation is usually top down, taking the largest cases and dealing with them to set a precedent.  Once the ICO has worked out how the regulations are going to be enforced, it will be interesting times for the likes of the very large websites, eCommerce providers and so on.

If you would like to read more about this, visit the BBC feature:  New Net Rules to make Cookies Crumble. AND if you wish to see something hilarious in action, visit:  David Naylor – EU Cookies Directive.

What do you think?

Do you think that the EU are driving home important legislative changes to control large corporations?  Do you welcome the changes or do you think it’s a load of fluff?   Let me know…

Share your own blog post below

If you have blogged about this EU Directive, feel free to drop a link to your blog.  If you would like to comment on this blog post, feel free to do so.

I have my entry ready.

Last year, @robertz and myself had a little sunflower growing competition.  It was for fun, something for us Twitter’ers, who like Twitter and use it for what it is, to participate in.  Low-key, just a few random connections.

My entry is in!

It’s posted on the right hand side.   I’m going to do something different this year.  I might follow Gordon Ramsey’s approach to Xmas Turkey’s and name these sunflowers after Twitter ppl, just for a laugh…  LOL.

I started growing the Giant Sunflower variety.  Packet of seeds, £ 1.00 from the local market.  They’re off and I’m taking the South Yorkshire contingent in the sunflower competition.

You’re very welcome to join in.

If you’re in to the outdoors, growing your own, looking after bees, pollination and such, you will know just how important things like sunflowers are for helping the bee population, which is massively under threat at the moment and has been for the past few seasons.

This is a really simple thing to do.  Easy to join in with and a bit of fun.  Best thing of all, they look pretty stunning and are really easy to grow.

How to join in…

Buy a packet of Giant Sunflower seeds.  Post your story on to Twitter.  Use your iPhone, HTC, Facebook Page, whatever, just join in and have a bit of fun.

If you do want to join in, tweet @tweetsbyskeet or @robertz on Twitter.  Hashtag #twunflower.

Yesterday I found myself in Harrogate at a Drinks Evening with The Yorkshire Mafia.

What a breath of fresh air.

Having moved to Yorkshire and wanting to meet other like minded people locally who are in business, I have to say Yorkshire Mafia do things that are in keeping with the way I like to see things done.

It was simply a pleasant evening with a whole mix of people at a great location in Harrogate.  The event was put on and those who wanted to book, booked.  They closed off at 300 people and the boutique hotel was buzzing with people by 7pm.

This is the first Yorkshire Mafia drinks evening I’ve been to.  I spoke to a good handful of people I already knew and was introduced to good number of others.  The best way for me to describe the evening was ‘chillaxed’.  It seemed to follow exactly what was put out recently in one of the broadsheets (feel free to drop the recent link in as a comment below).  It said Yorkshire Mafia is a place where people go as buyers to meet others.

I have to say I was delightfully surprised to attend something that had a good mood about the place, diverse people and of course an event that seemed to keep the networking day-walking junkies out of the room.

I have to say the Balmoral Hotel in Harrogate was perfect (please feel free to punch their website in the comments box when you comment – they deserve a link if anyone has one).    The right feel about the place, well organised and generally really good service with polite staff.  One of the best things about this event is that the organisers are not organising the event to sell you their magazine advertising space, or their new wizzie website solution.  In fact, it was there for people to come together, meet others and a simply network.

The people who wanted to be there, were there.  It was really good to see such a well put on event.

One point I will mention is about the caterer who made the tiny fairy cakes.  They were quite simply the best cakes I’ve seen for a long time.  One of the designs that I saw had the Yorkshire flower on it.  These were exceedingly better cakes than Mr Kippling!  Please post a photo and leave a comment on the blog.

One of the best parts about attending I have to say was the preparation and the well organised manner that this was put on.  On a personal level, I am extremely busy, I am really quite short on time, as are others and it was good to see that the careful thought had been put in to asking an SMS service provider to send a personalised message to give the PostCode location of the hotel and a contact phone number.

Driving from South Yorkshire, due to arrive at 5.45pm for a 6pm start, having never been to Harrogate, I was able to leave work with my txt message on my phone, punch the location directly in to the SatNav en-route and let it guide me in.  Ample parking, somebody at the outside entrance of the Hotel to welcome me in and what I can only describe as fantastic company inside.

All in all, Mafioso do things right.

Thank you so much to those who emailed me this morning, it was great to meet you all.

If you are wanting to share your experiences from last night’s event, feel free to comment here or drop a link of to your own blog.

AND, just in case you were wondering, the event was very normal, un-pompous and simply delightful to be at.

Pass round some good kalma…

If you like Twitter, then you’ll like @hlsbs.

Why?  Self confessed Twitterholic.!!   Top banana and in my book an all round good egg.    If you’re not sure what all this kinda language means, generally, it’s all good.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think @hlsbs introduced me to Twitter.  I think..!!  But I’m not sure.  That was 13 months ago on 19th August 2009.  I checked the date I registered.  Twitter is all about community right?  If so, then I’d say @hlsbs certainly deserves a bit of a Birthday Twitter Celebration for her starting her business 12 months ago and sticking to it and Twitter like glue.

Quite a challenge, especially at during the recession.!!    As the song goes “with a little help from your friends” // so, if you’re wondering what to tweet today, do something good and pass this on:

Birthday Wave º¤ @HLSBS º°¨¨°º¤ø #1YEAR „ø¤º°¨¨°º¤ ¸TODAY – TODAY„ø¤º°¨¨°º¤ø ¸„ø¤º°ø START THE WAVE @businessgp @totally4b º°¨¨°º¤ PASS IT ONº°¨¨°º¤ ¸

All you need to do is copy and paste the above text straight in to Twitter.

If you’re good, swap out the last two names, for two followers of @hlsbs to help make her have a Twitteriffic Day.

Thanks.