Earlier this week I was following a forum post on the Steve Pavlina website with the topic Manifestation Secret That Always Works. Basically the original poster said:

Want something?

Just Ask For It.

Not God, necessarily, just ask another person for it. Yes, I know it’s not metaphysical or anything, but it works.

That’s it, that’s all you need to know. Well, there is one other thing, sometimes, if you ask the wrong person, you will get a no. In that case, keep asking until you get what you want.

It was an interesting discussion which I was minded to respond to…

I could do with some more money this weekend as it’s our 11th wedding anniversary and I want to take my wife out for a meal. As it stands it will be little more than a burger as we’re not getting paid until next week…Tuesday, Thursday AND Friday! We need a timeshift calendar as an anniversary gift.

And I thought heck, let’s try it!

I’m asking for…$100 to take my wife out for an anniversary meal. For this I am willing to offer my time as graphic designer, copywriter and marketer.

Do you have a job or task which you want taking off your hands? Has it been sat there for weeks or months just gathering dust? What would you give to just to get it out of the way so you can move forward again.

Take a look at my blog bio – is there anything there that you feel you could tap into that would make life a little easier for you?

Do you need a logo creating or a leaflet designed? What about some advertising or brochure copy? Maybe you need advice on social networking or someone to review your website who will see it with fresh eyes?

If you have such a task in mind please use my Contact Me page on my blog to get in touch – I’ll be happy to help in any way I can.

I may have ended up breaking the forum rules here but if I don’t ask I don’t get. Maybe the powers that be will look at it as some kind of LoA experiment!

Robert Green’s mistake for England against USA continues a long run of World Cup villains for the national side. In every tournament since 1966 there has been someone who has has seemingly conspired to derail England’s chances in the game’s greatest contest.

To be clear not every culprit listed below applied the mortal blow but each in their own way has contributed to make life for the rest of England team extremely difficult whether in qualifying or in the final tournament itself.

Well, Robert Green made a terrible mistake to gift the USA a 1-1 draw in Rustenberg last night it’s true but I’m not too disheartened. It wasn’t a brilliant performance by any stretches of the imagination but I do believe they will get better. USA was probably the toughest group match and they did create a few chances so there is cause for optimism.

It’s always better to improve from the start than have a fantastic group stage and then fade away in the later stages as they did in ’82 in Spain. England won their three group matches but then drew 0-0 twice to go out in the second round.

In Euro2008 Holland beat World Champions Italy 3-0 in their first match, France 4-1 in their second and Romania 2-0 in the third but lost 3-1 to Russia in the quarter-finals. Probably the best team of the tournament didn’t even make the semis that year.

I’ve been watching England in major championships for 30 years and they hardly ever start well. In fact 3-1 v France in 1982, 2-0 v Tunisia in 1998 and 1-0 v Paraguay in 2006 are our only victories in 12 opening matches.

I’m surprised that no-one has mentioned about how many tragic incidents have so far befallen the World Cup in South Africa. I don’t want to be alarmist but I’m beginning to wonder if there is a curse. Here are a few incidents that have occured over the last couple of weeks…

Nelson Mandela‘s great-granddaughter Zenani (13) died last night in a car crash when the car taking her home from a Soweto concert on the eve of the World Cup overturned. The car’s driver has been arrested for drink-driving.

South African tenor Siphiwo Ntshebe (35) died on 26 May after suffering from acute bacterial meningitis. He had been selected to sing ‘Hope’, the official anthem of the World Cup, at the opening ceremony.

On one of the World Cup discussion forums someone commented on the poor quality pictures at the Mexico World Cup in 1986. I have to admit they weren’t great but I wouldn’t have had them any other way.

From the BBC Sport website…

Penalty-takers will no longer be allowed to halt at the end of their run-ups to try to fool the goalkeeper.

The International Football Association Board has decided it is “unsporting behaviour” and made it a yellow card offence in time for the World Cup.

Personally I think that a player can take a penalty any way he jolly well likes as long as it’s a single kick at goal. The feinting and stutter is actually a fairly tricky skill which is why so few do it. It’s an unnatural way of approaching the ball especially in a pressurised situation.

Because it is a skill and a single kick, it should be allowed. It’s not the takers fault that the goalkeeper commits himself by diving early.

Feeling a need to depress myself at England’s desperate penalty shoot-out record I thought I’d look back and see how it all stacked up with kicks taken during regular matches also. It makes grim reading…

Since the World Cup quarter-final against Cameroon in Italy in 1990 where Gary Lineker netted twice, England have had 25 penalties in active play and of these 18 were scored and 7 were missed. A 72% success rate.

This blog doesn’t get used much these days as it is full of random comments on a wide variety of subjects and I have another blog for my thoughts on marketing and communications. I have decided, however, to use this place for my comments on football and the upcoming FIFA World Cup.

Check back later today when the first of my posts go live!

Welcome to the Pleasuredome (Deluxe Edition)

I’ll begin this review by not reviewing it. Disc one, the main album, has been remastered but I’ve not listened to it in full yet so I don’t know how that stacks up. However, as I’m deaf in one ear I’m probably not the best person to talk about it. For this reason I’m focussing on the bonus disc and the delights within…

There is no question it’s excellent compilation of rare and unreleased material but it is not without its flaws. I was particularly looking forward to the demos of Two Tribes, War and Welcome to the Pleasuredome as well as the long mix of Ballad of 32 but more of which about those in a moment.

The second disc to this set begins with the fabled Relax (Greatest Bits) from the cassette single…sorry, singlette. This really is a perfect summing up of the Relax experience and it’s just a shame we don’t (yet) have a release that includes all those fantastic cassette mini-albums in a digital form. After the work Ian Peel has done with the ZTT’s archive that may change but for now I’m happy take this.

One of my tasks in recent weeks has been the co-ordination and design of the latest edition of the London Internet Exchange’s membership magazine, HotLINX. When the first edition was published in the year 2000, it was intended to be an occasional, LINX member only newsletter. Over time it has developed to become a regular quarterly publication read by stakeholders right across the Internet industry.

Articles have covered technical and regulatory news, LINX member stories, event reviews, meeting sponsor advertorials, opinion pieces and helpful ‘How to…’ guides. Recipients include LINX members, vendors, colocation providers, news agencies as well as government officials and policy makers concerned with Internet regulation.

Traditionally HotLINX contained eight pages with a print run of just a few hundred copies. Following the success of the relaunch issue in August 2008, it quickly expanded to 12 and then a 16 page format with an increased circulation of 1250 printed copies distributed to some 50 countries worldwide. Then, in November 2009, LINX commemorated its 15th anniversary with a special edition of the magazine and made all archive issues available for download, some for the very first time.

The latest issue, HotLINX21, went online at 9.45am on Thursday 18 February and, as I type, has had over 450 downloads. This has helped all downloads break the 12000 barrier since August 2007. While these are not huge figures they have been seen in the context of the target audience and the rate of growth over the past year.

There has never been a time in history in which news is more readily available. Forgetting traditional newspapers and magazines for moment we have television, radio, Internet and simple word of mouth but this barely scratches the surface as to what is available.

In the online world there are dedicated news websites, specialist industry forums, comment through blogs and the growing impact of social networking which makes certain news stories almost inescapable. It can be overwhelming if we take this information at face value but how we digest the detail could yield a host of different business opportunities.

More and more people are using Twitter in a business context these days to help promote products and services. No longer is it just being considered as a banal method of telling friends and family what you had for dinner but a genuine bona fide business communication tool.

Personally I have three Twitter accounts. One is for my employer for general announcements and information with a second individual work account for more general industry chat. The third one is my own which is mostly used for simple personal updates. It will be through this account I shall explain a few of the techniques you can use if you are new to Twitter.

I felt I should make ‘the new to Twitter’ clear as this is not meant to be for the regular users who have figured out how to use the thing. This is for those who may have set up an account and seen absolutely no benefit thus far. There are several reasons why this may be the case and I will come to those shortly.

A few weeks ago I started reading Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcom Gladwell.

This particular book looks at how certain circumstances in formative years play a lot bigger role in individual success than we might otherwise give credit for. It also says that it isn’t just natural talent that’s the key – it takes hard work and dedication and even mentions a figure of 10,000 hours ‘practice’ in 10 years to master a particular skill.

Mozart has already been given a hard time because his early works as a six year old weren’t exactly compositions but arrangements of other people’s material. What is widely regarded as his first outstanding piece wasn’t written until he was in his early 20s. A little harsh on a child prodigy but I get his point.

These types of examples make the book kinda amusing too as it challenges the unchallegable. Stuff you used to just accept as fact is clearly a load of nonsense according to old Malcy. Anyway, from what I’ve seen so far it is a very good read. Thought-provoking and inspirational and I can whole-heartedly recommend it.

This post is a comment on British situation comedy, broadcasting and how we as individuals have changed over the last generation. This was inspired by a blog post on BBC Writersroom by Michael Jacob, a leading comedy bod at the Beeb. In it he refers to a new sitcom called Big Top and says:

As is traditional with virtually every new BBC1 sitcom, Big Top has received a massive critical kicking, both in newspapers and on writers’ forums. I can never quite understand the snobbishness of aspiring comedy writers, who tend to unite in loathing any show which is popular with audiences. Two Pints and My Family spring immediately to mind.

Personally I cannot comment on this particular show as I haven’t seen it but I found what he said and the way he said it particulalrly interesting. I understand what Michael Jacob is getting at and I agree with him to a point but I think there is far more to this story than there is at first glance.

Yesterday I attended a one day workshop entitled Building the Employer Brand run by the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

I found the content very interesting particularly in light of the recent recruitment work I’ve been involved in. It was thought-provoking and gave rise to a number of questions and methods for building stronger internal colleague relationships while also making a business more attractive to customers and potential job applicants.

The programme looked at the following:

• What is branding?

This was an introduction to the concept of the customer and employer brand.

• Why is the employer brand important?

This considered the components of the employer brand, and how this relates to the customer brand. We were also asked to look at how our own employer brand was currently perceived, and whether it needs to change or develop.

• Developing the employer brand strategy

In this session we considered a number of the different aspects of employer branding e.g. organisational values and behaviours, reputation of the organisation, perception of the value of work, challenge & interest as well as individual staff achievement.

• Communicating the employer brand

To finish the day we covered the aspects of our employer brands which need to change and what information is needed to find these out. This enabled us to build a list of key points outlining the changes needed.

We were given a book called Brand from the Inside by Libby Sartain and Mark Schumann to take away which, from what I’ve read, looks to be an excellent guide and I look forward to reading more. I may even do on an ongoing review so I can cover the topic in more detail.

There are three dates currently in place for this course next year in April, August and December. These can be found along with the course overview on the CIM website.

THERE IS TABLE SET FOR A CANDLELIGHT DINNER WITH A SLOVENLY GUY (PAUL) SAT SLOUCHED IN ONE OF THE CHAIRS. ELEGANTLY DRESSED SHEILA APPROACHES WHISPERING AGGITATEDLY INTO A MOBILE PHONE. AS SHE REACHES THE TABLE SHE HANGS UP AND SMILES WEAKLY. SHE SITS AND TAKES A SIP FROM A GLASS OF WINE.

PAUL:
You took your time. Didn’t realise powdering your nose could take so long. Just how much have you snorted?

SHEILA NEARLY CHOKES.

SHEILA:
Not enough, clearly.

WE HEAR A RAISED VOICE IN THE BACKGROUND BUT CAN”T HEAR WHAT IS BEING SAID.

RACHEL:
(OUT OF BREATH) Sheila, I got here as fast as I could.

SHEILA:
Thank god! Paul? This is Rachel Tomms from Trading Standards. She’d like a word about the content of your Lonely Hearts advert.

Questions to consider when writing a newsletter are:

Why am I writing a newsletter?

• what do you want to achieve by having such a publication?
• what are the long-term goals?
• how often will it be published?
• how will you judge its success or failure?
• What format will it be? Will it be print only, email or PDF download?

Who is my readership?

• what type of person will be reading the newsletter?
• what is the appropriate style and tone of the publication?
• what impression do you want to make?
• do you want feedback and will this be managed?
• who else is writing for your market and how?

What should it look like?

• what the most suitable format if it is being printed? (paper stock, colours, layout etc)
• how many pages will it have?
• what type of imagery should be used?
• will anyone else be contributing content?

What is the schedule for production?

• when do your readers need to receive your newsletter?
• has adequate time been built in to cover production and printing?
• who are you relying on to produce content or deliver copies?
• have you allowed time for thorough proof reading and sign-off procedures?

I hope these brief checklists were useful to you. I shall return to this topic in due course to give a more detailed overview of the subject.

Alan Ball - Playing Extra Time

I got this book as part of a football book box set last Christmas and hadn’t quite got round to reading it but once I started, I couldn’t out it down. The ’66 World Cup happened before I was born but as an England fan I always had great affection for the little man that ‘ran himself daft’ that day.

This book got right into the detail of both the playing and managerial side of the game and the injustice of how heartless football clubs can operate. Obviously we only have Ball’s side of the story but such is the cynicism in the game I’m not entirely surprised to read about how it was, and is, being run.

I think what got me was the total lack of respect for someone, one of only 11 who have won football’s greatest prize, was treated at times. I was shaken to read that a 10 year old boy had spat him while he was manager at Stoke and how he was made to carry the can for the farce that was Manchester City in the late 90s.

On the family side there is the moving tributes to his wife, Lesley, who died of cancer and for his family and friends. I think what particularly hit home for me personally was that her death followed a not dissimilar pattern of my mother’s some five years later.

Alan Ball died two years after this book was written but reading it he seemed so alive that he must still be around somewhere. I remembering him playing for Southampton and always noted his managerial progress because of the England connection so when he died of a heart attack in 2007 I felt I’d lost a relative too. By a quirk of fate his funeral was two years to the day before my mother died.

I may have made this review a bit more personal to me but if you are a football fan then this is a must read. In a way, despite the problems he encounted along the way, he saw the golden age of football from the sixties until it began to eat itself with the money men of the Premier League.

The 1980s pop group, Frankie goes to Hollywood, are back in the public eye with a remix of their classic track, Relax, and a new Best of collection called Frankie Say Greatest.

The marketing for this has been interesting. It has come on the back of the Virgin TV advert and commemorates the 25th anniversary of the bands debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome. Singer Holly Johnson’s solo albums are now all available to download online for the first time with physical CD reissues planned for next year I understand.

A few weeks ago there was a teaser campaign with Frankie Say Coming posters across London and last month the Frankie Say T-Shirt was the focus of 25 years of British fashion design. Not only that, CD promos of 11 remixes of Relax have been circulating and unsurprisingly these tracks can now be found on the net. This was always likely but is it all a ploy by generate interest? If that was the case it has certainly worked.

Does the name Mark Wallington mean anything to you? No, I’m not talking about the former Leicester and Lincoln City goalkeeper but the author and TV screenwriter of the same name.

He’s probably best known for his book 500 mile walkies but there were a few others that made it to TV too including the Missing Postman with James Bolam and Happy Birthday Mr Shakespeare starring Neil Morrissey. The latter, coincidentally, that saw a relationship start between Morrissey and co-star Amanda Holden which reportedly lead to the break-up her marriage to Les Dennis.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I’ve recently been re-reading his book called The Day Job about his life a jobbing gardner in 1980. What will perhaps be interesting to people on here is that his ‘other’ job was as an aspiring comedy writer. It talks about meeting director John Lloyd and Dave Allen and finally getting two sketches on Not the Nine O’clock News. The news comes the day John Lennon was shot.

If you want to read a funny book and get a flavour of someone’s struggle to be recognised in the comedy world I would heartily recommend it. You can even read some of the book online.

Also of interest is that his writing partner at the time was Dick Fiddy, a TV historian who wrote Missing Presumed Wiped: Searching for the Lost Treasures of British Televison.