The Streamme blog

Tourism Queensland in Australia recently underwent a global search for someone to take “the best job in the world”. The advert to which over 34,000 people responded to was posted on line a few months ago with the instructions of posting video applications.

This week Ben Southall, 34, was named the new Island Caretaker for Hamilton Island with a job description of “explore the islands of the Great Barrier Reef, swim, snorkel, make friends with the locals and generally enjoy the tropical Queensland climate and lifestyle”. Tough job, eh?

Whilst Tourism Queensland have shelled out for the websites, promotions and PR as well as Ben’s salary of £73,500, they estimate that for US$1m, they actually generated US$70m of global publicity. Now that is some marketing campaign.

The lesson here is an obvious and almost clichéd one; think outside the box. Tourism Queensland’s ingenuity has earned them a huge reward from relatively little payout. Millions of people now see the Great Barrier Reef as the paradise destination and I’m sure you can guess where people will want to go to escape the stresses of everyday life . . .

It’s important to continually review and, if necessary, modify the way your business works. That’s why we’ve decided to launch a new package for Streamme.

WebStreamme is specifically designed for use on the internet. We’ve come up with a way to produce effective, quality 90-second videos for just £500. This means that entry into the professional video market is now more affordable than ever. WebStreamme works just like any of our other packages. You get the same experienced crew with the same high-end kit.

We’re all excited about this new development, because it means that we can provide video to people that may not have considered it before.

Take a look at this link: Jenga Gun

Now, first of all - that’s brilliant. I want one.

I’m sharing this link because it demonstrates a point I’d like to make. This man has seen a problem - removing blocks without knocking over the tower. People have a tried and tested approach to this - using their hands to gently slide out the looser bricks. This is a fairly effective method, a good number of bricks can be removed like this before the tower falls - it is a good example of the tried and tested solution.

This man hasn’t been happy to just leave it at that, he can do better. Now, I’m not sure if the gun would allowed in traditional Jenga rules, but it gets the job done.

An innovative solution

Innovation in any field is what is required to stand out from the crowd. Finding a way to fix a problem in the best possible way is why your clients are paying you. Just because a method is tried and tested doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.

I’ve just spent an interesting few hours reading through website logs. Yes, I know that doesn’t sound too fascinating, but once I got into it I became hooked.

For some back story, we normally use Google Analytics to keep track of who visits Streamme and what they do. However, due to a small error on our part Analytics didn’t work for a period last month. While trying to rectify the situation I remembered that our server kept logs so I downloaded them with the intention of filling in the blanks.

I became a little dismayed when I realised I had tens of thousands of lines to wade through, but with a bit of filtering I began to make sense of it. After removing logs of ourselves looking at the site, along with the plethora of bots that check it for search engines etc. I began to uncover humans visiting.

It’s quite good to know how many people get to us through different sites and I’ve found looking back at how people find us very interesting. Analytics is a wonderful tool for seeing the overall trends of people visiting the site. However, being able to track the paths of indiviual visitors has given me a different outlook. Hiding 1000s of lines of logs most of the time is a good thing, but it is sometimes good to try it the old-fashioned way.

The point I’m getting to (and there is a point to this) is that sometimes we can get lost in the easy way to do things. A lot of the tools we use make our lives easier and give us a broad view. Our accounts let us know how well we’ve done over the past year. However, it’s also good to look at the details; how did that particular meeting go, what did I achieve today, could that email have been better? Combining the broad view with the detailed view is a little more work, but it helps us to improve our business and keep on the top of our game.

We’ve been busy this past week setting up our NewStreamme service. NewsStreamme gives an opportunity for local businesses to showcase themselves in a short piece to camera. They explain who they are, what their business does and why they’re better than the competition. The response we got on our first NewsStreamme shoot on Thursday was astounding. Paul and I visited the 4networking event in Bishops Stortford. At first there were quite a few nerves in the room, but once people began signing up the ball really got rolling. We managed 14 people in just 2 hours, and each had time to think about what they had to say and deliver it the way they wanted. Despite the apprehension everyone did a really good job and I think that comes across well in the videos.

For us the experience was really useful. It was great to see people engaging in using video and I hope we allayed some of the fears or misgivings some people may have had. We work with video every day, we know how effective it can be. But to get that message across to busy people interested in the most effective use of their marketing budget requires some real thought. We won’t be coy with this, NewsStreamme is not a totally charitable act, we’ve raised our profile and driven traffic to our site. However, we’re not ashamed of engaging in a mutually beneficial activity. Honesty is the best policy. We want to grow our business, but the best way to do that may just be to help you grow yours.

We have just launched our NewsStreamme page in the video panel on the right. NewsStreamme is a community page featuring local companies that want to promote themselves to a wider audience.

Why not take a moment to go through some of the videos and meet the people behind the business.

The list of companies will be ever growing to eventually create a directory of the best companies in Herts, Essex and Cambridge.

For more information about any of the companies featured or about how to participate in NewsStreamme please call us or drop us an email.

Football, a rare topic in the Streamme office, has been under discussion recently with the ever more frequent news of managers being sacked. We have heard of Felipe Scolari being fired from Chelsea after only 7 months and rumours starting of Phil Brown being forced out due to unrest in the stands. Football is high profile and demanding - yet increasingly fragile as every club seeks faster and greater success to balance against the extraordinarily large funds required to run the enterprises.

At the other end of the scale, Tony Adams was also relieved of his duties not too long ago after only 15 weeks at the rather less wealthy Portsmouth. Since the Manager had been in charge he had been forced to sell two high profile players (for budgetary reasons) yet was still expected to climb the table with a team constantly weakened and thus under-performing.

And this is the interesting point. You cannot expect instant results within football - or business. There is no quick fix, no magic formula. It takes hard work and time to build up a successful business. By all means look at the immediate situation – cash flow, customer and staff relations included – but know your long term ambitions and work towards them in a planned and steady way. But be on the lookout for lucky breaks: if you are offered XXX XXX at a knockdown price, go for it!

The problem with snow is that here in England we just don’t get enough of it. The result is that whenever it does snow, the newspapers go into standard headless chicken mode and the headlines are predictable: Standstill Britain; The Big Freeze; Snow Chaos.

A chicken yesterday - not being headless

Inevitably, the letters pages of newspapers and blog posts are full of complaints that “they can keep things running in Sweden”.

Well of course they can.

Swedes can be reasonably certain that each year they’re going to get about 5 months of snow - with 30cm per day being typical. So the likelihood of snow is high - and if nothing was done about it, Sweden would also “grind to a halt”. The result is a heavy investment in systems to deal with the consequences: plentiful snowploughs, compulsory studded winter tyres for all road vehicles, enhanced insulation and so on.

But if we were to make that investment in the UK the headlines would again be predictable: “Millions spent on equipment to be used once every 15 years”. You see what I mean?

Dealing with snow - and many of life’s other inconveniences - is a matter of managing risk. If the cost of avoiding the problem is worse than the cost of the problem then save your money!

If it does snow and the world grinds to a halt, it’s not the end of the world. Look for the benefits. Stay at home, read, talk, share ideas.

Having recharged your batteries and made the odd snowman (snowperson?) you may even find that work is more enjoyable and productive on your return.
And the snow will eventually go away…

With all the current turmoil in the economy, it would have very been easy to just let the words ‘quantitative easing’ pass over you without a second thought. The news at the moment is awash with reports and analysis about banks and big business, and with them come the inevitable industry jargon. You only have to see the extent of the BBC’s guide to economic jargon to get a feel for the problem.

‘Quantitative easing’ essentially means printing money. Why use these vague, meaningless words when there’s a simpler, more honest and frankly shorter way to say the same thing? Saying ‘We’re going to print more money’ instead of ‘We will engage in quantitative easing’ is much more direct, and therein lies our answer.

Politicians are some of the worst offenders when it comes to hiding behind jargon, but they are by no means alone. Take Baroness Vadera’s now infamous ‘green shoots’ remark. As an inexperienced public speaker, she made the mistake of providing the media with a soundbite to lambaste her with. This is what people are trying to avoid when they use jargon to cover up what they really mean. This may work well if you’re trying to avoid giving the tabloids a quote to throw back at you, but it also breeds distrust from others.

When you’re discussing your business; with clients, suppliers or contemporaries, try to avoid covering up subjects you don’t want to talk about with jargon and weasel words. These techniques are transparent and leave you looking dishonest and shady. It is much better to be upfront about what you’re uncomfortable talking about. Yes, it may be embarrassing to admit ignorance on a subject, but unless you try to learn, you’ll never progress. You’ll often find people are more than happy to share their knowledge and experience with you.

Business is all about people. By trying to trick and deceive those you are in business with you run the risk of losing their trust. Now, more than ever, being seen as a trustworthy and reliable person in business is one of the most important traits you should covet.

Jargon is a dirty word…