Archive for the 'About Precedent' Category
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Communique
Communiqué is Precedent’s own email newsletter. It covers insightful articles, ‘best from the blog’, and news and information about upcoming events and seminars. This month’s theme is digital marketing as we’re officially launching or new digital marketing offering. Dean Russell discusses what this means for you, why it’s about more than just email campaigns and why now.
Why would I want to subscribe?
Our newsletter is designed to provide useful information on everything from web 2.0 to branding and digital marketing. It’s free and delivered every two months.How do I subscribe?
Simply click on the ‘signup for our newsletter’ link on our home page and fill out the form. All we need is your email address.How do I unsubscribe?
Simply click on the unsubscribe link in the newsletter or send a blank email to unsubscribe@precedent.co.uk with ‘unsubscribe’ in the subject field.We value your privacy. We never have and never will sell your email address to another company and we won’t send you any ad-email or spam. In fact we only ask for your name and email address for the newsletter
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History at the Races
As a consultant at Precedent, every now and then, you get to work for a client with a very different business to those we would normally consider to be in our core areas. Newmarket Racecourses is just such a client. Many aspects of its business are familiar, such as venue hire and event promotion, and the actual horse racing is not unknown to anyone who has had a flutter on the National, but never have I worked for a commercial client with such a rich history and heritage.
You can find out about the site we planned, designed and produced for Newmarket elsewhere, but for me the beauty of the job was, as advertising execs like to put it, ‘living the product’.
When Newmarket first came to us they made it quite clear - the new website had to be delivered before the first race meeting of the season. And so it was. Everyone at Newmarket was really pleased, and I was invited to attend the first race meeting of the season as a guest. Arriving via the ‘posh’ entrance, I was introduced to numerous employees as ‘the man who sorted out our website’. They had all had a look at the new site and they were delighted with it too. This felt a little strange, since in normal circumstances the only feedback we receive about our work is from our direct client contacts. Even stranger however, were the hourly announcements over the public address system informing the ten thousand or so, racing fans in attendance, of the launch of the new Newmarket website, a site that not only contained all the latest news from Newmarket but also ‘celebrated the rich history and heritage of everything that is Newmarket’. I prayed the site hadn’t gone down.
Which brings me to the point about the history and heritage of Newmarket, since up until this point I had only seen pictures of Newmarket, talked at length to the client about marketing objectives, and read all about why it is considered ‘The Home of Racing’.
But there I was, living the history. A history that goes back to when Charles II realised that the heath land around Newmarket, and in particular the mile long straight now known as the Rowley Mile, was ideal for racing horses. This same straight, alongside which me and many others were losing our shirts, has been used continuously since the 17th Century, and is still used today for classic races such as the 1000 Guineas – named after Charles’ liking for betting 1000 Guineas on a single race, a sum that at the time would have bought the whole of the town of Newmarket, and a substantial part of the surrounding Suffolk countryside, if not the whole county. And I was there, in the thick of it.
But it wasn’t just the ancient history that I was a part of, what about the modern history? Who among the crowd will remember the day that they looked across the parade ring to the ‘VIP’ area, near the weighing room, and remarked to their friends, “Heh look, there’s Michael Owen talking to Frankie Dettori”? I mused on my way home that evening that maybe one of these celebrity spotters might have then asked “And who’s that other tall bloke in the brown jacket?” and one of the Newmarket staff, on hearing the question replied - “ That’s the man who sorted out our website”.
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This week’s signposting
This is some of the stuff we’re reading:
1. web 2.0 participation lower than expected
Web 2.0 sites have lower levels of audience participation than is commonly assumed.2. A guide to CSS Support in Email: 2007 Edition
handy guide from our friends at Campaign Monitor on email support for CSS3. Video messaging platform
An online video messaging platform ideal for both personal and business communications. It offers everyone the ability to create and receive video messages in a self-contained, spam-free environment.4. Stop Using Your Shoppers
According to experts, up to 70 percent of shoppers to abandon their carts before completing the purchase5. Web counting tools ‘need change’
The way web audiences are measured could be ripe for an overhaul, according to two reports out this week -
Project management
A project manager is a client representative and has to determine and implement the needs of the client, based on knowledge of the firm we have and are representing.
The ability to adapt to the various internal procedures of the company, and to form close links with the client them is essential in ensuring that the key issues of cost; time; quality; and, above all, client satisfaction, can be achieved.
We are always getting asked what we do as project managers, just to clear this up… we are responsible for:
provide a day-to-day central point of contact
- by telephone, email and regular meetingscoordinate the Precedent resources for your project
- requesting resource time at our weekly production meetingsmake sure your project stays on time and budget
- informing you when timescales and budget before a problem occurs
- documenting and maintaining a project plan
- estimates, billing and budget control- keep your project running smoothly
- project documentation and specification
- day-to-day tracking and recording of changes
- regular project status reports
- providing quality control
- organising meetings
- purchasing outside resources eg. print and photography -
Want to switch to us?
The speed and ease of changing broadband providers is set to become much easier after new legislation is introduced from the end of February. The new rules will soon stop adsl providers charging customers for wanting to switch suppliers and will remove delays from the process.
Any broadband firms that make it difficult for customers wanting to leave and move their broadband account could risk heavy fines from watchdog Ofcom.
Most problems involve so-called ‘MAC’ codes, or Migration Authorisation Codes. These codes are issued to departing customers by the broadband provider they wish to leave. The MAC is passed to the new provider by the customer. The process identifies their connection, so the new provider can locate it and swap it over.
All broadband companies must supply MAC codes to customers within five working days. It will also become illegal to charge for issuing the codes. Previously, the process of obtaining your MAC code could take weeks and numerous email or phone conversations with the broadband provider.
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This week’s signposting
A selection of our recent reading taken from the internet over the last week:
1) What is me.deium
Medium is essentially a Firefox extension that allows the user to visualize a little more of the world outside or around their individual browser. Users can see friends browsing, watch the browsing activities of others and chat with people anywhere.2) Top Ten Truths About the Digital Ecosystem
Services displace products. In the digital world, as bits substitute for atoms, products are reconceived as services. This is the threat that Google poses against Microsoft.3 )If you’re ever stuck on words as I often am, here’s a great online thesaurus with a difference
4) Social networking sites used by more than half US teenagers online
More than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites, according to a survey of teenagers conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.5) CMS Do’s and Don’ts
for understanding your customers needs and building a site to meet those needs. Usability testing can help improve the odds that your users’ needs are met when your new site launches. -
You win, we win
Time’s annual Person of the Year award has gone to… you.
That’s the collective you, the ‘you’ that are writing your blog posts, sharing your pictures and videos, commenting, rating, syndicating. Across the country, across the age ranges and socially groupings you’ve been doing so in unprecedented numbers this year.
2006 is the year that we stopped being consumers of the internet and became participants in it.
As Time puts it:
‘It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen
before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the
million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis
MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping
one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world,
but also change the way the world changes.’The full Time piece is worth reading, but while I think Time pretty much ‘gets’ it, I think it still manages to even underestimate the scale and significance of what is going on.
Yes, most of this is happening in the online ’space’, but it is extending everywhere, driven by the change taking place online. It is changing not just the internet, but every other medium along the way.
Television programmes are relying ever more on your input, radio stations are extending their phone-in content featuring you, advertising and marketing campaigns are seeking to use ‘you’ to sell their products. Newspaper columnists, once able to sit in lofty judgement above us all are now subject to our comments, positive and negative. The top-down editor/director/producer knows best approach is dying fast.
We - you - now determine how we consume content, when we do, where we do so.
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We are recruiting!
We’re busy. We’re very busy. That’s a good thing and it means we need more really good people to join us. So, why not take a look at our recruitment pages and see if there might be something that’s right for you.
We are currently recruiting for:
- Strategy Consultants
- Web designers
- Web developers
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More Care
After our work during the summer, on the Care International brand strategy, we have also just designed the 2006 uk annual review for them. A nice small format, with lots of great facts and figures. Click on the thumbnail for more images. Once again, a big thankyou to Care for supplying the amazing images.Comments Off
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This week’s signposting
This is our weekly review of what has been catching Precedent’s eye this week:
Wikimapia
An imaginative ‘mashup’ between Wikipedia and Google Maps.Prosumers
Consumer meets producer. Social networking technologies are making this concept a reality.Yahoo’s Frazier Miller Says Local Search Is Like Social Networking
Advertising Age piece on ‘What Flickr Has to Do With Finding Things in Your (Real) Community’Digital Divide: The Three Stages
The economic divide is a non-issue, says Jakob, but the usability and empowerment divides alienate huge population groups who miss out on the Internet’s potential.
