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Today I have mostly had enough of upselling.

I mean, okay, sure, it can be an effective marketing tool. While you have the customer as a captive audience, why not try to make more money out of them? In some circumstances I even quite like it - by all means tell me that for an extra

I also think it makes a difference what your business is.

If, say, you run a charity rescuing animals from neglect, then it makes great sense to have a regularly updated blog about every successful job you take on or complete successfully. Telling visitors to your site that you've just rescued a half-drowned kitten, or that Fido (rescued six months ago) has recovered to a clean bill of health and he has now been placed with a loving family... it's going to make you money. I'll also be interested to learn that my payment has gone towards purchasing a new van for rescuing distressed animals.

If, on the other hand, you are an accountant, I will have no interest in reading that you have taken on a job for Fred's Chip Shop or closed the books for the year on the Paperclips Ltd account. Nor will I care that my payment has bought a new set of filing cabinets.

I agree with Steve that it can create a fantastic "human face" for a business but I'm not convinced that every business needs one.

I blog on a personal basis and as a disability activist. I blog about once a week, participate on forums on a daily basis, I tweet whenever I feel I have something to say, and I follow about thirty blogs for online friends as well as reading single posts that are linked to by the people I respect. I love being part of the blogging community. In terms of reading, it's both educational and entertaining; in terms of writing, it's something I'm good at and there is an audience for my topics.

My personal blog has been boosted by links and online community involvement. I have a good reputation on that side. I participate in events and I have the sort of network that you only get from several years of immersion. However I'm trying to keep the personal and business sides as separate as possible - as long as I have any say in it, none of my personal public output will include my business name, and none of my business public output will include my personal screen name.

This is mostly because of problems with trolls. I get a troll on the personal blog, I can ignore it - it doesn't bother me in the slightest if some twit decides to reel off a broadside about f-ing cripple scroungers blah blah blah, it just means I've "made it" as a blogger.

However on a business blog, that same troll comment becomes a part of my business presence and all of my customers can read it... ugh, no thanks. Of course it's possible to delete troll comments but that antagonises them into google bombs, etc, for which I really don't have the time or the energy. A blog with comments turned off kind of defeats the object.

In business terms, on first engaging with a company I'll be interested to read infrequent and relevant blog entries, that say things like "We have officially opened our new store in Anytown, Mr Celebrity attended to cut the ribbon and a marvellous time was had by all, here are some pictures." This one is a good example - she blogs when she has news or new product pictures to share, and to a new visitor it gives a good picture of her core business. But I'll get irritated if a blog is just full of meaningless waffle and links to tired news stories that I have to wade through to get to the relevant information simply because the person running it feels obliged to post something, anything, every Friday.

I've never felt compelled to follow a company blog, although I do sometimes follow company Twitter feeds if they are interesting. I also like to follow links to particular individual blog entries that provide interesting commentary to relevant news topics.

I have no idea whether this has answered your question or not. So much for me complaining about waffle.

We had great fun* stalking our way around town trying to work out exactly when it was that they were here. We reckon it was the first hot bit of last year, around about May or June (lush vegetation, people wearing t-shirts, but we still had our old red recycling box with no lid). The actual centre of town was probably done on a Sunday or very early in the morning (based on open/not open shops and availability of parking) and we know they went past Jephson Gardens at 11.25am (assuming the clock to be correct).

They got the town I grew up in on a Perfect Summer Day as well, it made me feel very nostalgic.


*value of fun may go down as well as up, always read the packaging

In fairness to brave techiebods of any nationality - my partner and I get phoned up with all tech queries for our respective families, and if we had a fiver for every time we've had to trick someone who is insisting "of course it's properly plugged in!" to remove all the cables, put them all back, oh look it works again... we would be able to pay for our wedding already.

I intend to test it to the post-office and back - not too long a journey, but with a major hill, badly-aligned dropped kerbs, etc. I also intend to be wearing my bombproof bike jacket, just in case the braking isn't everything I am being led to expect...


Damn right it's good! I'm wondering though, for the home delivery, could you have a tiered system? eg within 3 miles is

As I understand it, each wheel is in two parts - a wheel with a tyre on it, and then a push-rim that's maybe an inch smaller in diameter. Both connect in to the battery, gearing, and general voodoo in the hub. So any pressure on the rim, has to go via the hub and associated trickery before it gets to the wheel. The biggest challenge will be stopping my other half from dismantling it.

As for the petrol, no idea. I could understand if it had stayed the same price - once you've trained your market to accept paying over

I'm not crying too much as (1) I can't drive and (2) I've just been approved for these babies and am eagerly awaiting my test-drive.

I think it's hand in pocket time.

That said, I can't see why an aircon unit would have to necessarily be office waste. It *could* be household. Although obviously this one isn't and It Would Be Wrong to say that it was.

Mike will tell us off if we go with my first idea which was to take it apart and see if any bits look interesting/useful and put the other bits in the bin as and when they fit.

Granted, but the culture of response also has to be considered.

Some time last year we went for lunch at this quiet, slightly posh restaurant, but there was this 20-something American waiter who seemed to be the new shift manager, and he was Being American about it.

So you had all these reserved British types looking baffled because they were expecting the usual service and no question more intimate than "and how would sir like his steak cooked?", but all of a sudden there was this American kid loudly intruding on conversations, asking to know what they had done that morning, what they intended to do that afternoon, trying to make friends... that's probably great service in the States, but here we don't know how to respond to it and even feel resentful of the intrusion.