Are you a discrete, senior and inhouse thought leader in Direct Resourcing? Do you want to network with your peers?

*Only Senior HR & Resourcing Heads of large enterprises public & private participate in the DRTT.

*The hosts are the Senior HR & Resourcing Heads of large enterprises like the Financial Times, CapGemini, BT, Legal & General, BBC, and Transport for London.

*DRTT is more about the strategy of resourcing, and less the doing, as you have teams who do while you direct.

*What price would you put on being able to meet your peers from the companies above and understand how they are tackling the big issues?  The DRTT membership is completely free of charge, so look at the Calendar of Think Tanks below and either call me on 07979 751 562 or email me at c.fpayne@mrted.com to let me know which you want to participate in …

I do not actually know the guy (nor do I know anyone that does) but apparently Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, is not known for his people skills.
The image you get from reading articles about the young billionaire is best described as ‘unkind’ and ‘anti-social’. His brainchild however (the thing that got him on the Time’s World’s Most influential People list in 2008) is now forcing me to work on my personal growth. (Is that Alanis Morissette I hear in the background?)

Friends of friends
The situation used to be like this. You, mostly, like your friends, which is why they are your friends in the first place. Your friends’ friends however, much like your in-laws, is an entirely different story. Even though there much be some sort of ‘common ground’,there is absolutely no reason why you should particularly like or give a hoot about friends of friends. If you did: they would be considered your friends as well wouldn’t they? Chances are you are a very social person and you can get along nicely with all sorts of people in terms of  ‘chitchat’ and  exchanging superficial niceties for the time being. Not me. I am better described as being a ‘difficult’ person. Although I work hard to keep a friendly face I hate people who, in my personal view are superficial, egotistical, short-sighted or just plain stupid. As will be the case with your friends as well: some of my friends socialize with those people as well.
(note: to my friends that are actually reading this. No, I don’t mean any of your homies…)

Situation 1.0
Back in the old days, before 2.0 that is, the aggravation and annoyance could be kept at acceptable levels.The occasional birthday party was survived by simply avoiding certain people and conversations and if you somehow got stuck with any one of those, it made great gossiping material. The prospect of that would keep me sane. Every once in a while you could also ’skip’ on a social date when you found out ‘they’ were going to be there, should that date occur at a time when you just ‘couldn’t face it’. So everybody was happy. My friends’ friends were still retarded, polluting and selfish pigs and I was still the -secret- intellectual snob. How times change.

Situation 2.0
Now is the age of the online social networks and hey, aren’t they heaps of fun? I cannot remember what I used to do with my spare time before LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook and the mere thought of ever having to do without any of them sends a shiver of fear through my spine. but for all the blessings particularly Facebook has brought me, it’s also confronting me with my second worst nightmare… my friends’ backward friends. See, I like reading what my friends have been up to, seeing what they thought was interesting and listening to what they feel is worthwhile to share with their own circle. But I do not necessarily enjoy reading the comments their friends feel they have to write beneath them. In the best cases they make me laugh and feel superior, in the worst cases they enrage me with their stupidity to the point where I just want to throw my laptop out of the window (I have already mentioned that I am a little, little man haven’t I?). And to add injury to insult, in some cases I have to put up with comments by friends of friends of friends, vague acquaintances of friends, family of friends and colleagues/business contacts of friends as well. Just shoot me.

Becoming a better person
The answer to this problem is quite obvious. I should stop being such a stuck up prick and start (excuse the cliché) practising what I preach and let people who-do-no-harm just be. The alternative -blocking all friends that have annoying friends-  just does not appear to be a viable option. And for the worst cases of  ’short-sighted, superficial, egotistical and plain stupid’, I guess I should learn to have more understanding, patience and respect. Damnit Zuckerberg, my personality used to be just fine!

Today’s Wall Street Journal includes an interesting article about the Wednesday 10 group–a network of (at the time) up and coming businessmen in New York that was formed in 1957.  The group was the brainchild of former columnist William Safire, and the article coincides with the group’s first meeting since his passing.  The rationale for the group sounds quite similar to claims about the importance of social networks, organizing for innovation, and the power of weak ties:

When Robert Menschel, a senior director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., was considering deals involving large consumer companies such as Procter & Gamble, he would pick the brain of fellow club member Ed Meyer, the former chief executive of Grey Advertising.

“We were all young kids starting out, and it is easy when you are so involved in building your career to lose touch with other people who are outside your field,” says Mr. Menschel, who has been at Goldman Sachs for 55 years. “It helped me to understand why other people do what they do—which is important in life and in business. You don’t learn anything from talking to sameness.”

The Wednesday 10 comprised, at various points, more than 20 men; the goal was a number small enough to maintain intimacy yet large enough to ensure that at least 10 members would show up for each of the monthly Wednesday-night meetings. No more than two representatives of any one industry were permitted. The idea was to combat insularity, to keep the men connected to people and events outside their own professions.

The engineering of the group is particularly interesting: keep the group small enough so members could develop some sense of intimacy, but large enough to ensure decent and consistent attendance; and ensure that no single industry was overrepresented.  By ensuring diverse membership the group could benefit from an exposure to ideas and viewpoints from outside their day-to-day professional circles.  Additionally, the members would invite guest speakers for each session, further benefiting from a diverse membership that could tap into various experts from all sorts of fields.

There are, of course, questions to what extent the group succeeded in maximizing diversity and guarding against sameness.  However, the fact that these individuals in late 1950 were cognizant of these issues and tried to guard against them by organizing the group in a specific way is quite impressive and instructional for folks living in the age of social media.

I happened to be checking out the site for Elastic Path a few days ago (if you haven’t heard of Elastic Path, check it out – great local success story with an impressive list of customers), and noted the corporate blog. As we’d been discussing corporate blogs in class, and I’ve also been exploring how they can be used in conjunction with my day job, I clicked through to see what this one had to offer.

I was doubly rewarded. Not only is Get Elastic a great example of how a corporate blog can be used to highlight a company’s expertise in its market space, but it’s also full of really practical discussions around online retailing and ecommerce in general. The posts are topical, pointing out best practices used by a wide arracy of online stores to influence conversions and drive sales, and they include screenshot examples to illustrate the discussions.

There are several elements that make Get Elastic successful as a corporate blog:

1. Focus – The blog is focused on ecommerce practices and maintains a professional tone, positioning the company as an expert in this field. While it is fronted by a single person, the entries feature her expertise, not her life.
2. Low-key approach – While there’s no question the blog is linked to the company, it keeps the sales pitch to a minimum and offers valuable information that even non-customers will likely come back for or subscribe to. A product like what Elastic Path sells is not something a prospect would purchase casually or regularly, so the key to success is staying top-of-mind for prospects so that when they find themselves in a situation where they need an ecommerce software solution, Elastic Path gets into the consideration set. Get Elastic provides a reason for prospects to keep coming back and maintains brand mindshare.
3. Integration with other online marketing activities – One recent entry provides a summary of a webinar the company recently offered and has posted online for free (with registration). The webinar features Brian Walker of Forrester Research discussing trends in B2B ecommerce, and the summary does a nice job of hitting the highlights, while still leaving the reader interested in viewing the whole webinar (assuming they have the time). At the end, it includes details on the next webinar the company has scheduled.
4. Conversations with experts – While Linda Bustos, who maintains the blog, is an ecommerce analyst and quite knowledgeable, she also engages with other, more “neutral” third party experts, not only in the webinar mentioned above, but also in podcast interviews. This adds to her credibility with readers and supports her own expert positioning.

If you’re looking for an example of what a corporate blog (even one not fronted by the CEO) could add to your marketing program, this is worth a look. If you’re interested at all in ecommerce and online sales, it may also be a good one to add to your feeds.

Earlier people was not much aware of Social Networking Sites, they really don’t know the advantages of Social Networks. The areas of Social networking Sites was limited, but now changes in technology and of course the area of Online Social Networking Sites get changed. Now with the help of Social Networks you can even earn, and also can expand your business.

Online Social Networking Sites are going to be the next big opportunity for network marketers to expand their maximum businesses. Social network marketing is one of the most leading, viral and realistic type of advertising ever formulated.

If you want to stand up a successful business, you have to build a social network and learn how to influence your network. Building a successful business used to be easy. You just had to advertise your business and people would contact you. The problem is that people no longer pay much attention to advertising.

People rely on their friends and associates to refer businesses and especially professionals. So, you have to make an effort to communicate with your social network and educate them about what you do and how you serve. And you need to support your network by finding out what they need and offering advice, making connections and serving them.

The benefits to building your social network are marvelous. Here are 6 keys on how to influence your social network.

1. Get Out and Meet People
2. Build Relationships
3. Stay in Touch Through Social Networking Sites
4. Support Your Network
5. Connect People Together
6. Ask for Help

These are the main and major Keys to expand and advertise your business through your social Network. With the help of these main keys you will surely advertise your business. I will describe these keys in my next blog entry. Keep reading my blogs. So with the help of online social Networking and your own social Network you can get benefits.

For More Information

Social network

Social Networking Sites

Online Social Networking

The Author is an Executive with www.whizkraft.com

Social networking sites have become common in today’s world. Online Social Networking is beneficial in all ways. Whether it is our personal or professional life, they are truly great way connect with friends, colleagues and establishing new relationships online. Not long ago, we used to associate the term ’social networking’ with something which was personal and concrete. However, with the advent of the Internet, we have now become more eager to display our social networking capabilities on the web.

According to psychologists, the excitement of establishing new relationships over the Internet can be credited to the expanding growth of social network sites. Without a doubt, these social networks help us a lot in establishing contact with our friends, colleagues and relatives, but it is also true that we need to be aware of the common security issues in situation of these social networking sites.

Let us now take a general idea of how we can protect ourselves from being a sufferer to these security issues,

1. Never ever share your password with anyone, not even with the closest of your friend/family.

2. Just after you finish typing in your user name and password, remember to turn off the ‘remember me’ button. This helps immensely in protecting your ID from any security issues present in these social networking sites.

3. Make it a compulsory habit to always logout of the social networking site after you have finished using it.

4. After filling up the required information in the registration form, never forget to edit the privacy settings of the same. If possible, it is always recommended to change the settings to ‘viewable only to my friends’ rather than ‘viewable to everyone’. This way you can save your profile from being visible to everyone in public.

5. In case, you find that your profile has been fiddled with, immediately report the matter to the ‘report abuse/abuse sections.

These small steps can work wonders in providing you with the most solid protection against all possible security issues prowling in such social networking sites. Social networking is fun but with a little care we can avoid our personal content/details from being a part of the public.

For More Information

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Social networking Sites

Online Social Networking

The Author is an Executive with www.whizkraft.com

General advice on spreading word about your music on social networks.

Seth Godin explains that its all about quality relationships rather than quantity.

Interesting post about Dan Schawbel who is a Personal Branding Consultant who works with schools and small companies. It talks about using social media as a branding tool as a teacher. The concept of creating a brand as an educator is not a new one. But I honestly hadn’t thought of it in this way before. Teachers Talk About Social Media

Note:  This is part 4 of the series on The Dangers of Facebook

Part 4 Dangerous Fan Pages

Time for me to scare away your fan pages.  No, hopefully not but there are a few things to consider and certain fan pages to stay away from.

Apartment or Housing Association Fan Pages

Are these necessary?  Do you want people to know where you live?  Becoming a fan of your apartment complex is a pretty clear sign that you live there.

Common Security Questions

Let’s take a look at some common security questions to see how they relate to fan pages.  These are questions used to protect accounts and reset passwords for all types of things like email, rewards accounts, banks, credit cards, health and car insurance, etc

1. What is your favorite sport?
2. What is your favorite team?
3. What is your favorite tv program?
4. What is the color of your father’s eyes?
5. In what city were you born?
6. What is your favorite color?
7. What is your work address?
8. What is the name of the high school you graduated from?
9. To what city did you go on your honeymoon?
10. Where did you vacation last year?

Ok…that’s enough of those.  Those were just a sample of 10 common questions that are commonly asked.  Let’s say your favorite team is the New York Giants and you have become a fan of them.  You might have given away the answers to questions 1 and 2.  Maybe not.  but maybe.

You’ve become a fan of “The Office” on your Facebook account…do you also list that as your favorite tv program?  Is your father’s pic on your Facebook account..showing his eyes?  Is your high school listed on there and were you also born in that city?  Are you a fan of the place you vacationed last year or went on your honeymoon?

Yes, I know this may be reaching some but just wanted everyone to be aware of this information.  Think about these things when you setup your security questions…whatever it is, don’t use it in your Facebook account.  Don’t refer to it at all.   The more information you make available the easier it is for someone to guess your password or security question answers.

Becoming a Fan reveals yourself to other Fans

You’ve just become a fan of your favorite bar in town.  Now you are getting friend requests from people who have seen you at that bar and are also fans of that bar, which is how they found you.  That’s great if you want to become Facebook friends with everyone from the bar…but obviously very dangerous because you don’t know any of those people.  Fan pages are great for businesses but very revealing to individuals on a lot of levels.

Don’t accept friend requests from people just because you are both fans of things.  You don’t know them…don’t become their friend.  Don’t become fans of things that could be considered controversial if you are looking for or will ever be looking for a job.  Recruiters may use this information to remove you from consideration or it can be used against you by a current or future co-worker.  Also, becoming a fan of political views reveals a lot about your personal beliefs.  This may or may not be something you really want to reveal.

Becoming a Fan of a Venue

I’ve started seeing more and more of these occurring.  Big concert venues are using Facebook to promote their concerts which is a great marketing strategy.  The problem is when you post on that page or confirm that you will attend that event.  If you post on that walls page, you just introduced yourself to thousands of people who you don’t know.  If you confirm that you will attend a concert on Dec 1^st…you just confirmed that you will be out of the house that night.

There’s no reason to confirm on a Facebook page that you will be attending an event.  Why are you doing it?  Do not post something on that venue page’s wall either.  It’s one thing to post on a message board of your favorite band.  You create a user name and that’s it.  It’s not directly linked to the actual you…doing it on Facebook links to the real you.  See the difference?   That fan page is not a message board and don’t use it as one.  If you want to find out about events at a venue..sign up for their email list.  Why do you need to do it on Facebook?

Summary

There are plenty of things to think about before you sign up as a fan of something.  Think about what security answers you have out there and whether this fan page reveals that information.  Think about what type of people may also be fans.  What are the chances that a criminal is also a fan of the bar, the concert, or the restaurant that you just became a fan of?

You just introduced yourself to them and they may be waiting to see who divulges more information through wall postings and event confirmations.  And what about the guy who approaches you at the bar on Saturday night and says he remembers seeing you on the fan page…Sunday afternoon you get a friend request from him on Facebook.  Who is he?  What do you know about him?  If you become his friend..did you just reveal your address and when you would be out of the house and attending a function at that bar?

Get Ready for Part 5:  Your Naive Friends

MacNewsWorld provides an interesting article about the increasing desire for consumers to discover music via streaming, subscriptions and social networks as opposed to iTunes.

MySpace continues their campaign to create primary music discovery destination network. Article and analysis by Mashable

Billboard provides a good article as to why major brands need to begin aligning themselves with online musicians.

From the article, “Music is playing such a critical role on fast-growing social networks that brand owners can no longer ignore it for brand-awareness strategies, says a new report by Heartbeats International, the Sweden-based international marketing agency.”

Today we announced we have quickly surpassed 20,000 followers on our Twitter campaign.  We intend to incorporate the use of Twitter and other social media outlets as part of our initial support strategy when the SOLVE doorway version “Beta 1.0” is released this December.

Ann Collins, SOLVE Project Manager and Social Media Consultant for the eDoorways Corporation, says, “eDoorways has impressively surpassed the 20,000 follower mark in less than three months on Twitter.  Many companies are successfully using the connections they have on Twitter to better support their customer base.  However, one mistake they make–one that eDoorways is certainly attempting to avoid–is to go after quantity rather than quality when it comes to their contacts.”

Twitter is a great way to gather relevant input about a company’s product and services.   It also allows a company significant insight into how a company can best serve its customers.  However, Collins contends that while she could have easily moved the company past 3x to 5x’s the followers within the same time frame, the best way to get the most out of this social media effort is to build each relationship by hand – one follower at a time.  This method is likely to produce more prospective customers, business, supporters and even perhaps contribute to a company’s growing shareholder base.

Gary Kimmons, Chairman and CEO of eDoorways, states, “With over 25 years experience, Ann is considered an expert in her field of project management and social media.  With her assistance, the efforts we began with our corporate blog to promote corporate transparency has increased tenfold; in fact, with the emphasis shifting away from the blog as a means of communication and over to our twitter account and other social media vehicles.  This is truly an exciting time as the relevant input gathered via the social media push has assisted in developing our focus groups and expediting our beta releases beginning with version ‘Beta 1.0’ within the next 30 days or so.”

The “Beta 1.0” release of SOLVE in mid December will transition the company into using social media as a method of connecting businesses and consumers in “real-time,” at the exact moment of consumer need.

Ann Collins stated, “Because the social aspect is so important to how each doorway will ultimately function, eDoorways has made it a point to become active and develop relationships in the top existing social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. One of the ways eDoorways has used various social media outlets is to convey the company’s philosophy, strategy and goals, which has been a great method for engaging people in conversations about creativity, empowerment and technology.”

She added, “eDoorways has been very careful to hand pick people and companies that are in their target market and who are considered thought leaders, whom they can also learn from. The work they have put into creating these relationships makes them extremely relevant.  Not only are they connecting and creating relationships on Twitter, but the eDoorways Facebook fan site is also growing quickly and has become a very active community of people interested in the eDoorways philosophy and the progress of the company’s service offering.”

Sources close to the company believe that by the time SOLVE “Beta 1.0” is released, eDoorways will have an astonishing several thousand Austin Texas business preregistered to use the “real-time” platform – also anticipating extreme viral growth in 2010 and an inclination to roll out nationally much sooner than expected.

An interesting post here on the development of platforms – especially LinkedIn. The drive to tighten the “loose ties” of web 2.0 is interesting and may bring a degree of perspective on the “death of the VLE” debate (see here, for example, and my earlier comments here). There does seem to be a human desire to seek something clear, identifiable and “there” especially in respect of ‘identity’ and where “everything solid melts into air”. In some ways VLE (as a sort of platform) may well last is because they are something identifiable – a corporate brand not just for the supplier/ university but also for the individual student. I am not just an atomised student but rather a student of THIS institution. Similarly, as a professional, identity may come from being in a professional network and so the Personal Learning Network/ Environment is a way of solidifying that (in a digital manner!) – which also moves with the individual (I am an independent professional working for company X but my professional identity is in being part of a professional network which moves with *me*).

A bit rambling but I will try and build on this later (once the workload reduces – a mythical time perhaps!)

Analytics can be very helpful to your website, blog, online communities and the like. Though Google Analytics is widely known, it is not the only way to measure and analyze the visitors surfing your webpage. Nonetheless, it still is a fair way to do so and is free. But times have now changed and marketing has evolved in every aspect. The tools for analytics have become more apparent and expressive in the form visuals. They are here to help you with internet marketing in UAE.

Image credit: www.makeuseof.com

Let me introduce you to one of the best visualization tools called the Heatmap by CrazyEgg. This tool easily shows you what’s hot and what’s not on your web page via a heat map. It lights up those spots every visitor has clicked on the page in colours ranging from red (most clicked) to blue (least clicked).

Basically, the heat map tracks all the information on visitor clicks during the allotted period of time and then transforms the visits visually. While this heat map is fascinating to visualize, the results it squeezes out are even more fascinating.

Like the Heatmap, there are other visualization tools for different purposes available in the market like Fidg’t, Digg’s visualization, Twitter’s visualization, Facebook’s visualization, Debategraph, etc.

Visualization just helps you understand your visitors better and helps improve your site. If other analytics tools are difficult for you to understand, visualization tools are the ones for you. Either adopt one, or let an SEO company in UAE like Online Marketing Dubai inform you about the results.

Image credit: flickr.com

Search engines are really helpful especially when it comes to attracting customers to your site. As mentioned in my previous blog, the web marketing service called search engine optimization or SEO is highly important and the 1^st step to a successful internet business. To back this point, I found some advice from a well-known marketing veteran Lee Williams who also says-

“Google is where most of your customers will start their online journey. Ensuring your website ranks well for your products and/or services is critical. Your first priority is therefore to ensure your site through search engine optimization (SEO).”

Now for other ways to get your site noticed.

Online directories are a great way to draw the attention of promising customers. Here they will already be on the look out for a store within their locality. When they see you fall in that bracket, you win!

Banner ads are another way to promote your trade (for a price). But be careful about how you use them. Therefore, gaining some knowledge about such advertising from internet marketing experts in Dubai is always a better bet. Similarly, Adwords and Pay Per Click also help.

Next up is social media. Facebook, Twitter and Linked In (specifically) can create more awareness about your brand and your online portal as well.

[Traditional online tools like e-mails and newsletters should not be abandoned.]

Online Marketing Dubai not only brings more traffic to websites, but also focuses on turning visitors into customers. Contact www.onlinemarketingdubai.com for our services.

As I investigate the cross-pollination potential between the Mobile Market and Social Networking market, I have come across the following recent data I wanted to share, for those of you that have not already seen it. At the same time, I would be greatful for any similar data you all might have that is worth sharing. Thanks.

First, the AdMob Mobile Metrics Report for October tracking Smartphone Operating System trends, showing Apple up 6.9% to 32.1% of total mobile web pages requested, followed by Nokia at 19.6%, down 2.6%. Skip to Page 7 to see the Worldwide breakdown. (Download the report) But for me one of the highlights in the market is the massive traffic growth from Android phones, jumping almost 300% in 6 months from 7% to 20%! The writing is on the wall for the iPhone. Good that Nokia’s newest N900 is at least Linux-based…a step in the right direction.

Second, (thanks to TechCrunch) check out Morgan Stanley’s “Economy and Internet Trends” Presentation at Web 2.0 last month. Skip to slide 29 for the section on Mobile Internet.
Of the “key themes” raised in the presentation, I would distill the driving forces for mobile down to 1) Location Based Services, and 2) Social Networks+Mobile.
Clearly the carriers still control the floodgates, but IMHO the first one to relinquish its restrictive price politics for data will have a huge opportunity.

I lost my wonderful Dad this past Saturday night. It was the most difficult experience of my life watching him die a natural death during his last week. A week before he died he ate his last scrambled egg, and by the next day he didn’t want anything to drink aside from very small sips to keep down the inevitable dryness and choking. This is a biological reaction when the body is failing and is in the early stages of death.

As the week went along we noticed that Dad’s pulse rate went up gradually, yet his blood pressure was normal as was the oxygen level in his blood.  I wondered how long he could live with no nourishment. He told us how much he loved us and we had a lot of kisses. He has always been loving so this behavior was an extension of the man we knew and loved. As the days progressed he choked more often and found it harder to bring it up. Dying people can’t swallow over time and as they become increasingly dehydrated, they have less to swallow, so it’s a lot more concentrated than a healthy person’s saliva. We helped him get the “stuff” out of his mouth and I started to smell death a few days before he died.

We all cope with death differently.  My Mom kept telling my Dad that he looked good, and that everything would be OK. As the week passed, she changed her tune to thanking him for all the wonderful years and all the joy and love he had given her. They were married for 62 years which is so awesome!  Mom kept chattering to him and wiping his face to give him relief. It seemed to me he would rather have been left alone to be quiet for some of this time.

My brother, Steve, stood by and continued his toil to keep Dad comfortable by changing his adult diapers, cleaning him and finding ways to make his life more pleasant. His bedside manner was better than incredible. He gave my Dad such comfort, and had been caring for him every weekend since May 2008 earning him the title of Saint Steve.

In these last couple of weeks we shifted his body to prevent bed sores. He much preferred being on his back, but after a few days he seemed to be uncomfortable regardless of what position he was in. He had this odd restlessness where he wanted to rub his head and eyes quite often. I gradually realized that this was a form of anxiety and that pharmaceuticals could help this. It took me a couple of days to realize that this was anxiety and not just a nervous habit. 

I had the honor of sitting with Dad the last night of his life. It was frustrating as by now his breathing was labored, and I wasn’t sure how often I could give him pharmaceuticals such as morphine. I was afraid to give it to him while he slept.  It was interesting that he could sleep at all in hindsight as he must have been so uncomfortable.  I think he took comfort when he heard my Mom’s rhythmic snoring, and he also knew I was sitting by him quietly with the lights out praying for him to be peaceful. 

As soon as he roused at around 6:30 a.m., I gave him morphine and another anti-anxiety drug. He relaxed within 10 minutes, but had moved his face to resist the meds even though he could no longer hold his neck straight and didn’t have enough energy to talk at all. The hospice nurse told me that he probably thought I was attempting to feed him and he didn’t want anything.

I had such mixed emotions about giving dad morphine as I felt like I was killing him. Actually it brought him relief as he was able to breathe more regularly and it was calming. The very small amount that you give a person will not cause him to choke, and it will be absorbed by the gum tissue so you can give them morphine while they sleep. Hospice didn’t explain this to me until late in the game, else he would have been peaceful sooner than he was.

I learned that the human body’s ability to hold onto life is a strong instinct even while dying. Pharmaceuticals helped my dad relax so he could die peacefully. Another big help was the use of oxygen towards the end. We were lucky that my sister-in-law is a nurse and she knew about this. About 3 hours before he died his pulse was up to over 140+ beats per minute. Then it gradually slowed and his breathing became shallow and he died. Once his heart slowed, he lived only about 2 hours. We sat around his bedside at home as he died and that was very bonding.

We were very blessed to have my father in our lives. He was a giver his whole life even the day before he died. Early in his career he defended Japanese war criminals. He saved the US government millions of dollars in the 1950s and 1960s through procurement deals he negotiated with the Japanese, when millions of dollars was a lot of money. He continued his procurement work at the Pentagon until he retired in 1984. He was a religious man and helped the less fortunate in so many ways, helping orphanages in Yokohama, visiting prisoners of all sorts of description. What I really loved about him was his warmth and his uncanny ability to make each person he spoke to feel like they were so important.  He didn’t multi-task and gave a person his undivided attention. Many of us in this crazed world of social networking could take a lesson from my Dad.

Hotels offering free wifi are where it's at | pic Dreamstime

As I write this I’m sat in my local pub, enjoying the warming glow of it’s log fire and a glass of my favourite red. For a change I decided to bring my laptop to my local to work from here for a couple of hours. Like I say, this isn’t my usual workplace, but I fancied a change of scene and given the freedom of freelance life I was able to indulge.

Even then the key to me heading to the pub as late afternoon turned to evening was that I was able to work there because it offers free wifi.

This wouldn’t be the greatest boast, but I live in a village of just 800 people, who enjoy a none-too lengthy list of amenities – two churches, two pubs and a shop. So my forward thinking local has scored – as I can get online I’ve come over, had two coffees, a glass of wine and what the hell – I may even throw caution to the wind and have dinner here.

So it leads me to question: if my local, in a tiny village in middle England can offer free wifi – benefitting from the associated food and beverage revenue – why do hotels big and small insist on charging guests for wifi?

Social networks are buzzing with the whys and wherefores of free wifi in general, while blogs such as London Hotels Insight (in an open letter to London hoteliers) and World of James have highlighted the fact that hotels that charge guests often outrageously high rates for wifi will soon be losing their business as a result.

I won’t repeat the arguments the two bloggers above have already raised so ably. But I will agree that wifi is a necessity – not just to freelancers like myself, but business people, gap year travellers, holidaymakers – in fact anyone that stays in a hotel. 

The internet has become completely integrated into everyday life. Nowadays one of my minimum requirements of a hotel is wifi and if it’s provided free of charge I’m checking in faster than you can say internet café. 

Yes there are costs attached to the provision of wifi in hotels, but these can be recovered in other ways – through the use of advertising on online access points or just built into the nightly fee – after all internet access is not a luxury these days, but a necessity like running water and electricity. To charge a premium for wifi, often across cumbersome payment platforms, not only leaves guests feeling ripped off, it smacks of small mindedness. Instead hotels should reap the benefits of keeping guests on site who will eat and drink with them while surfing, tweeting and skyping. On many occasions I’ve tweeted observations of a hotel’s great facilities, but it loses its immediacy and interest if I have to wait till I’m able to get to a reasonably priced internet cafe, so chances are I won’t bother. 

It’s time more hotels moved into the 21st century and joined their Web 2.0 embracing guests there, for today it is on Web 2.0 platforms that brands are being researched, reviewed, and their reputations realised. 

Instead of harping on about hotels that don’t offer free wifi I’ve started a twitter list of hotels that do provide guests with the service they deserve as we head into 2010. You’ll find the hotel free wifi list here. Perhaps it will help you chose a full service hotel and persuade archaic ones to up their game. Let me know of hotels on twitter that offer free wifi and I’ll add them to the list. Equally if you are a hotelier offering free wifi tweet me @sarahleetravels and I’ll add you to it.

Jeder Krawatteneisbaer kennt sie, jeder Krawatteneisbaer nutzt sie: Studi, Facebook, MySpace und co. – social networks!
Doch wo genau treiben sich die einzelnen Krawatteneisbaeren unter euch herum und wie ist die Verteilung unter den sozialen Netzwerken?
Genau das bietet der Krawatteneisbaer für euch nun veranschaulichend in einer grapischen Übersicht. Ganz frische und aktuelle Nutzerzahlen – für euch zur Verfügung gestellt!!! Eine recht interessante Verteilung ist das. Schaut doch einfach mal selbst, wo ihr euch im <Balkendiagramm> wiederfindet.

Viel Spaß wünscht euch der Krawatteneisbaer!