Replicated on this website, I’ve moved away from the dated strapline (‘computer scientist and IT professional’) in order to better reflect my career path, hobbies and passion. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m proud to present:

John Alexander Rowley – Computer specialist and online marketing professional’.

So maybe a strap-line launch party would be a bit much, but I thought I’d take this time to go through the new lines added to the new cards – coming to a wallet near you soon.

computer and technology specialism

Ok, number one. I think the first few words are pretty obvious (especially to those reading articles on this site). The vast subject of computing and even broader area of technology is fundamental to my education, career and hobbies.

My grandfather used to say “There’s no such thing as a specialist”, and I tend to agree. However, the definition for ‘specialist’ over at ‘the free dictionary’ is pretty accurate to what I’m trying to convey. ‘One who is devoted to a particular occupation or branch of study or research’. Add something about pastime into the mix, and we’re just about there.

online marketing strategy development

This is much more accurate to my career path than the previous ‘IT Professional’. Whilst I hope I remain professional, I definitely don’t work in IT. I’m sure there is thousands of online marketers across the country that get as wound up as I do when approached with the line “Oh, you’re in IT then, right?”.

Online marketing is another massive and complex area, covering campaign analysis, brand promotion and online presence management, to name but a few. Add email & social marketing, search engine optimization and Pay-Per-Click analysis and you’ll hopefully have an overview of what this sentence is attempting to define.

website production and analysis

Half way through now. Phew. The keyword ‘production’ caused some concern. Attempting to summarise ‘design and development’ (as per previous business cards), website production covers the whole journey of a website: initial graphical mock-ups, structure design, coding, maintenance, updating and migration. Not to mention database management and server setup / migration.

The ‘analysis’ postfix was added to identify the overlap between online marketing and website production. As mentioned SEO and PPC, as well as SERP supervision and keyword investigation are all integral to producing a successful website.

business information management

My final point relates to my final year and experience in the industry in an effort to depict my business comprehension. With one third of my final university year being business orientated (as well as a twelve month placement the previous year) I feel this is justified as I continue to develop my personal credentials.

Studying and actively engaging in elements such as project management, KPI production and business analysis assists me in fine-tuning my knowledge of organisation’s critical information. Handling and analysing this data is defined as the process of ‘business information management’.

Interesting. Moving away from the 15 year old structure is surely a good thing – we all know how quickly technology develops – but replacing the entire curriculum with an open-source code based emphasis doesn’t seem like a great move, in my opinion.

The opinion of a computer scientist

As a ‘Computer Scientist’ (I don’t really think of myself as one, but I have the skill-set to call myself one at times like this) I understand the importance of being able to code. But as an ‘Online Marketeer’ (more inline with my job role) I respect the importance of knowing basic (and advanced) office IT skills.

Take for example Excel. It was the primary focus in ICT, with emphasis on advanced calculations and spreadsheet design. This will be removed and replaced with basic game development in some specific language (currently under industry review).

Now, I love being able to code. But I admit it’s not exactly a ‘life skill’. The number of people I encounter who can’t use a simple excel chart, Word document or Access database is incredible. I don’t think anyone can argue that being able to write a simple program is more important than basic IT office skills.

So why are these office critical skills being replaced? What’s the proportion of A-Level students who go on into a computer science orientated career? Compare this to those who go into an office based career where tools such as Excel, Word and PowerPoint are used almost daily. I think you’ll find the later is a much higher number.

The result of changing the curriculum

My expectation of changing the curriculum is that a lower number of students will take the ICT A-Level. Those that do will be more likely to proceed into a computer science degree. However, I expect this to be due to creating a more niche subject, rather than the effect of the course on it’s students.

In summary, the conversion rate of students moving into a computer specific career will increase, however the number of conversions will drop as more versatile students decide against the coding based A-Level.

If I were to have a say on the progress of the ICT course, I would suggest bringing the existing curriculum up to date (whilst maintaining the tools used). Almost an ‘ICT for an office environment’ course. In addition, an ‘Advanced computing’ course could be created, for those dedicated to software engineering and alike.

Of cause, that’s just my opinion.

So, we used a migration specialist, SEM Solutions, to aid with the process. They handled the database copying, which is always the tricky bit, and uploaded the entire file-structure (public_html in the case of the old server). This is really the first two points to be aware of.

1 – Exporting / Importing databases can be hard! Make sure you know what you’re doing before attempting this (I tried it once and ended up having to recover my articles via wayback-machine and Google Cache, although that was a few years ago!).

2 – Check your full URL paths. When linking directly to files, if you include the web root folder from the FTP be sure it’s the same on the new server. For example, on the new server is uses ‘http_docs’ rather than ‘public_html’ as the web root folder.

There’s another similar issue here; the server back-end UI. Be sure you inquire about which one comes with a server before making the switch.

3 – CPanel vs PLESK. Parallel PLESK is new to me, as I’ve always used old faithful CPanel. PLESK, despite looking less functional and more dated (in my opinion, at least) has similar sections in terms of functionality. It’s quite well documented too, as is CPanel, meaning a switch between the two shouldn’t be too much of an issue (it wasn’t for me, at least).

There was one final issue, which caused the delay in migration. It’s a site specific problem, but it can be applied to almost any website with a contact form.

4 – Mail Transfer Agent. The issue we encountered was the following: We have a contact form. It adds data to a database. It also emails the data to a range of email addresses and produces an XML (more to follow). The contact form was functioning, but it seemed sporadic in the emails (they always came through blank despite the data being added to the database. The solution, you ask? Well, after a few days of head-scratching we discovered it was in fact ‘\r\n’ in the functions file of the form being rendered differently by the new server’s MTA (QMail as apposed to EXIM). This produced an additional line break which ended the header section of the form.

As I said, site specific. But if your experiencing similar issues it’s worth checking the PHP functionality for unnecessary line breaks!

5 – Permissions. A final note – Check your permissions! The XML mentioned above was failing to be created (even temporarily) due to permissions! This is something a ‘live chat assistant’ can usually do over the chat-box.

Skill Set #1: Design

First things first – You need a good design. The attractiveness of a webpage can affect the users perception of credibility, the read rate and of cause, overall bounce rate. Here Photoshop is your greatest ally, quickly (a relative term at best!) mocking up several designs at (again relatively) little cost.

This skill set is as much about prior experience as it is intuitive design ideas – although the two do generally go hand in hand. Knowing what your audience likes is, perhaps, a skill of it’s own – ‘Monitoring’. Being able to take ideas from thought to paper (or canvas, in the case of Photoshop) is another paramount feature of designing.

Skill Set #2: Development

Phase two – The area that most ‘Website Developers’ are associated with. And with good reason. This code orientated skill set is based on taking the designs (from oneself, in a self sufficient methodology) and converting them to a functional structure. This often includes the knowledge of HTML, with DIV’s being the favored method for website structure.

CSS, a styling method, is also a must know language for development. The method in which a self sufficient developer does this is up to the individual; either opting for the quicker inline technique, or the more structured style sheet approach.

Skill Set #3: Content

This is the area that many, including myself, find most challenging. When done well it seems effortless and can definitely be the difference between a successful website and a struggling domain. But creating content for a page is a lot harder than it may seem from an outsiders perspective. Text is the key to most websites, and can change rapidly with altering trends. It does seem, for now at least, that the whole ‘Web 2.0′ friendly and personal approach is here and in full swing.

Text is only the start of it: There is images to contend with too!

Skill Set #4: Marketing

Often overlooked, this is probably the most important factor to producing a successful website (along with content, which is king, of cause). AdWords, Search Engine Optimization and all those other online marketing tools are essential for getting the word out to your potential readers / customers.

Managing your search engine result position (SERPs) with your chosen keywords is a fun and ongoing battle. SEO isn’t a one-time action: It takes constant maintenance (within reason) to ensure your audience keeps on flowing to your site (and converting, if that’s how you roll!).

Skill Set #5: Analyzing

The final piece to the self sufficient puzzle, analyzing those visits to the site is important in order to identify your strongest areas, possible pages of improvement and generally keep track of how you’re performing on the web.

You can track your performance against others, too. Competitors, friends or similar websites. Analyzing a developed website doesn’t mean that you’re finished: A good (proactive) self sufficient web developer will continuously use these individual skill sets in parallel to get the best results.

Demographics

Aligning your company’s demographic to that of social media users is critical in proving the campaign / strategy is worth while. There’s lots of useful information on demographics of social media users out there. For example, he older generations involvement with Facebook has almost doubled over the last year (up to 43%). Different social platforms have different demographics, so be sure to check out a range of sources to see which platform/s are most useful to your campaign! (LinkedIn is the most used social network for over 50′s, however it’s a very B2B platform, which may not suit all strategies).

Engagement

So, you’ve selected your demographic. If only it was that simple! You’ve also got to consider how your target audience interact with social media. For example, do 45-55′s comment on blogs more than 25-35′s? Theres one source (Forrester) who have a pretty awesome hierarchy ladder/model which considers the engagement level of users (Inactive/Spectators/Joiners/Collectors/Critics/Conversationalists/Creators). Identifying the percentages for each of these groups within your demographic can help you plan your strategy more precisely and predict which elements of a platform will be most utilised.

Strategy

Now you’ve got your demographic, your interaction model and your platforms of choice. It’s time to use that information (there’s lots more you should collect, too!) to produce your strategy. This essential document will map the usage and policy of your social campaign. To produce one can take time, but there’s lots of online documentation. The basis of a strategy usually orbits around four sectors; Monitoring, Analysing, Interacting and Engaging. This approach should form the foundations of a personal, customisable and iterative strategy.

Benchmarking

Your social campaign has been running for a while. Is it successful? Don’t know? Then why bother? Just like PPC, SEO and pretty much any other business element, things should be tracked! This tracking falls into two main sectors: Return on Investment and Key Process Indicators. Tracking these goals can be tricky, but there are lots of free (and paid) tools out there to help! Followers : Following ratio is a good example, as is Sentiment, strength and passion.

Results

Without results, don’t expect your social strategy to survive. This is linked (obviously) to benchmarking. It’s been shown, however, that if it’s done well, it can have amazing results! Take, for example, the 7 million views of the ‘Royal Wedding’ video hosted on YouTube by T-Mobile, the 20 million impressions by the ‘GoGranny’ SuperBowl campaign or the 25% increase in users for Under Armour’s ‘Ultimate Intern’ Twitter competition!

It all started on Tuesday, the first of the month and the first day of the new financial year for EvoEnergy. The previous day, however, had been far from tranquil. With government cuts affecting almost every sector, the FiT (Feed In Tariff) which effects Return on Investment (ROI) for solar panel installs was cut by 50%. No problems as such with that, it was forecast a long time ago. What was more of a shock to solar specialists, however, was the December 12th deadline (three months prior to expected!). Anyway, that’s probably as much (if not more than) I’m aloud to say on the subject. Needless to say, EvoEnergy sold a ton of stock on Monday and it’s been a pretty manic week for the company (all with a positive outlook, however). You can read more here.

Anyway, so my new position as Online Marketing Associate is based around the website structure / maintenance, E-Marketing and Campaign analysis. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the basics.

My own little desk space comes equipped with a lovely new laptop, 22” screen and peripherals, located to the right of the copywriter. There is also Suzy (Marketing Manager) alongside Daniella and Rachael, who make up the marketing team (headed by Tom, the Group Marketing Manager).

So, what’s it like!?

EvoEnergy is already a great company to work for; They provide tea and coffee (which is a great start) and gives the general atmosphere of the internal workings! The composition of young, skilled, professional enthusiasts makes the office a bussing place to thrive. There’s even a Kitchen area and sofas to ‘relax’ (although there hasn’t been much of that this week!).
Another great touch is the interaction and “real life” approach of the CEO, Dr. Kevin Hard, who is in and around the office regularly, and has real involvement with the office happenings.

So there is it, a bit of a review of my first “real” (excluding Thermo Fisher Scientific UK Ltd) week at work! Bring on next week (after a bit of a rest, please. Going out on “work nights” is proving a bad return on investment!

What?

For those of you that don’t know, Google Analytics lets you track traffic, keywords, campaigns and other interesting stuff that basically makes a successful website (page hits, visitors, demographics, traffic… The list goes on!). So, you used to have a 24 hour wait to see useful results, but now you can track website traffic down to the second (or minute, or hour). It’s a great dashboard layout (as is all of the Analytics pages… AdWords should take a leaf!) and is simple to understand. Wondering why you need to know who’s on your website at any specific time? Well you’ll have to wait until the ‘Why?’ paragraph, I’m afraid!

Where?

To get there is easy! Just log into your Google Analytics account (If you don’t have one, why not!) and make sure you’re using the new version. (You can switch to the new layout in the top right). Done that? Good! Now, go to the Home tab (top left) and then select “Real-Time” from the left most column! Hay presto, you’re done!

Why?

For some, knowing who’s on your site at a specific time is well useful! For example, say you just sent out a new email campaign. Gone are the days of waiting 24 hours to see conversion rates via Google Analytics, now you can see your page views increase as it happens. You can also get a better idea of how web behaviour changes throughout the day (for example peeking / dropping at lunch?) and lots of other cool stuff, too! I could watch it all day!

So there you have it

So there you have it, a very (very!) brief overview of Google Analytics Real-Time! It (could) change everything. At the very least, it’s a cool, and long awaited for some, feature from Google.

One. Steve Jobs has sadly passed away.
Two. It’s getting really cold after a lovely warm start to October.
Three. Apple have just released their newest iPhone in the range, the iPhone 4s.

Now, I’m a bit of a sucker for Apple tech… They’ve got me each and every year since the original iPhone was announced back in 2007. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it’s 2011, and I’m preparing for (yet another) upgrade from my iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4s. Now, I’m not going to debate whether its a viable upgrade for one main reason: My 18 month upgrade has come to an end (3 months early as I’m a gold priority O2 member), so it’s time to get a new phone!

I decided to take a look at a couple of options, and found that there is a more cost effective way of buying an iPhone than the typical 12/18/24 month iPhone contracts that O2 provide (Yes, I’m on O2, so I’ll be focusing on that.. Although similar tariffs will undoubtedly be available on Orange et al!).

Here’s the round-up for an 18 month contract (which I signed up to 18 months ago!).

Minutes: 600 per month
Texts: Unlimited (Debatable!)
Internet: 500Mb per month
Handset Cost: £140.00
Cost per Month: £42.00
Contract Term/Length: 18 months
Total Cost:(18 x £42) + £140 = £896.00

Now, bare in mind that if you intend to upgrade when the new phone comes out (presumably in 12 months) you’ll be eligible for 1 month early upgrade (as you paid over £520 already in the past 12 months) so will have 5 months worth of contract / £210.00 (18 months – 12 months paid – 1 month early upgrade = 5 months x £42 = £210.00) to pay off.

Here’s the alternative: Upgrade to a simplicity package.

(The one I’m upgrading to is O2 simplicity 600 12 month)

Minutes: 600 per month (same as above)
Texts: Unlimited (Debatable!)(same as above)
Internet: 500Mb per month (same as above)
Handset Cost: I’ll come back to this!
Cost per Month: £21.50 (Half as much as above)
Contract Term/Length: 12 months (6 less than above)
Total Cost:(12 x £21.50) = £258.00

What’s it all mean?

Now, that total cost does look a lot less.. But you do have to buy the handset at it’s full amount. This is usually around £500. Add that to the cost and you’ve a grand total of £758.00.

Now, Simplicity’s £758 is £138 less than the iPhone tariff mentioned above (£896). There is one major advantage, and one minor disadvantage to the simplicity method:

Advantage: The Simplicity method means that after 12 months, when the new iPhone comes out, there is no contract to pay off. If you think about it logically, with the iPhone tariff you’d not only have to sign up to another 18 x $42 a month contract, but also pay £140 for the phone and an additional £210 contract cancellation charge. That’s a total of £111 (18 x£42 = £756 + £140 + £210 = £1106 over 18 months). The simplicity tariff means you’ll not be paying any contract cancellation fee, simply signing up to another 12 month £21.50 per month contract and buying another handset.

The slight disadvantage is that you have to find the bulk of the money (£500+) at the beginning of the upgrade, where as the iPhone specific contract you pay a more even price over the 18 months. That said, if you upgrade each year then expect to pay at least [handset cost] + ([# months] x [cost per month]) at the beginning of the next upgrade!

Still confused?

There you have it. It’s a bit confusing, I know… To be honest writing this article helped me understand it myself a little better. Basically, if you can afford to pay the £500 for the handset (SIM free) and signing a “SIM ONLY” contract, then you’ll be saving money (around £138) over 12 months, compared to the bundled contract and iPhone deals.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to my timeline Facebook profile (annotations to follow!)

Iv’e blacked out the parts of the profile which remain (pretty much) the same, and highlighted four new / highly altered page areas.

When you see the new layout for the first time, it’s quite shocking. Not much has remained the same. I think a lot of people will be put off by such a large change at first. Anyway, that’s not what I’m here to talk about… So let’s get onto the four annotations.

Firstly, there’s the all new “cover” for your profile. This is a banner across the top of the profile, which users can customize by uploading their own images. Note that I’ve already been playing with mine, to incorporate the profile picture (which lays over the top of the cover). The introduction of these “covers” is a huge step for brand awareness via Facebook pages, as I’ll discuss in a minute!

The second alteration is the timeline. Contrary to previous speculation (including my own previous article) the timeline takes a vertical approach, rather than a horizontal one. The “horizontal rumors”, as we shall call them, were imagined with the possibility of reducing the amount of content under the fold of a typical profile. The ATFC (Above The Fold Content) has been addressed with annotation four, however!

Annotation number three comes in the form of conglomeration. Friends, Photos, GeoTagging, Likes, Music and much more are now accumulated in respective groups (almost like Folders) which can be expanded independently. This generally tidies the profile (in my opinion) and leaves more room for the all important “wall”.

The final point is the wall itself. Facebook have divided the area into two columns (4″ to 9″ wall, for those in the building trade?!) to maximize on space saving. This works well, especially with a blue timeline running down the middle to show when individual posts were added.

It’s a good looking, next generation profile layout (and it’ll look lovely if replicated for Facebook’s iPad app!).

What does this mean for Brand Awareness and Online Marketing?

Ok, so that’s an introduction to some of the new features of Facebook timeline profiles, but what does this mean in terms of online advertising?

Well, for starters the cover (as aforementioned) provides a huge amount of screen space for getting brand identity out there. Take the space as a free 850 x 315 billboard! It’s the first thing customers will see, and it makes a big impact if done well. Grab their attention – check!

Take, for example, the RedBull Facebok profile. It’s clever use of the cover really stands out, and accompanied with the custom background (I’ve not looked into this yet, but I think it may only be for pages rather than profiles) and clever display picture gives a great aspect of brand identity. You’re not going to confuse this page for “Monster: Energy Drink” anytime soon! RedBull have a large online marketing presence, and some of their campaigns have been added to the wall; Including a video and imagery.

Similarly, McDonalds have produced a great looking cover, and let the profile picture do the explaining. That’s fine for a globally recognized brand, but smaller organisations may have to do a little more explaining in their banners! Anyway, so McDonalds have promoted their Free WiFi with a lovely large promotional image and used the “about” information (below the profile picture) to describe their service (not that they particularly need to!)

To conclude, the new Facebook interface brings much more customization and a greater identifiable page to the profiles. Remember the day of totally custom MySpace profiles? Well, it’s not quite THAT changeable, but it’s a perfect blend of standard format layout and unique profile content!

The new Facebook layout will give a new slant on Facebook based marketing, and I think we will see more and more organisations taking to social media advertising as this new layout is rolled out.

First off there is the revamp of the Facebook profile pages, up until now laid out somewhat uniform, with the profile picture on the left, paragraph of information at the top, stream of tagged photos parallel and the wall below. It seems, however, that this is soon to change; In favor of a timeline approach style! This new style will (probably) conglomerate tagged pictures, status updates and activity on the social networking site, to eliminate (or at least reduce) the amount of content hidden beneath the fold (beyond the view-able screen without scrolling).

Secondly, as discovered a while ago, the iPad Facebook application is “launching soon” according to a 9to5 Mac article. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if it launched alongside the Facebook UI updates!

So, this change again will inevitably cause a current of opinions in the world of Social Media… With everyone holding their own thoughts (and most posting/tweeting their feelings) be prepared (Social Sandbags?) for the next wave of “I love/hate the new Facebook layout” status’.

I leave you with this famous quote from Winston Churchill;

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.