Announcing: The Loop, and the Checkup
This week I’m launching my newsletter, The Loop. The Loop is going to go out more or less weekly, and it will have short tips and inspiration on building an online presence that helps you develop stronger connections with your audience. Probably the odd joke. When you sign up for the newsletter, you’ll be able to download a copy of my workbook, The Website Checkup and Cure. This has been a long time in the making. Back in January, I started offering professional website review and planning to businesses as a coaching service. This is pretty much my system, presented in a...
Read MoreKiss of death
I used to do loads of new product development research, lugging prototypes and mock-ups around Britain in my little tin-can Citroen. I was a qualitative researcher, where we prided ourselves in really getting under the surface through discussion and maybe some creative games. Getting to the truth of the matter. We were absolutely not the sort of researchers who dumbly reported people’s literal response. Sometimes the short cuts were useful though. I came out of one group furrowing my brow about the future for this particular product. Possibly it was the cake bar aimed at...
Read MoreIt’s February. Time for a New Year change!
I have been blogging as The Human Element for three years now, posting reasonably regularly if not all that frequently. Over the last few months, I’ve been thinking hard about what I want to do with my online presence here, and indeed with my future business. And it’s time for a change, dammit. The conventional wisdom is to focus intensely on a particular niche. I find it hard to focus. My work is spread across different subjects, all of which I love immoderately. I began my career as a baby academic. Then I worked as a market researcher who loved qualitative methods and...
Read MoreOnline science and Beyond Blogging
This past Wednesday was Beyond Blogging, a workshop/brainstorming session held at the Wellcome Trust and hosted by Shane McCracken and Sophia Collins of ‘I’m a Scientist – Get Me Out of Here’. Some thoughts It was an interesting day. I don’t know all that many folk in the science communication world, so it was great to put names to faces. The event also brought together people with very different backgrounds in engagement, including a number of people with hardcore geek credentials. Overall, I found the discussion more useful than the eventual brainstorming,...
Read MoreSome thoughts on learning new science
I’m now half-way through my Higher Certificate in Genetics. The course is run by the redoubtable Institute of Continuing Education at Cambridge, and every Tuesday evening for the last two terms, I’ve been knuckling down with about 15 other mature students to learn about DNA and modern evidence for evolution. It’s been interesting. I was a straight-arts student at school, fairly steeped in language, literature and history, who went on to do experimental psychology at university. To my friends in Art History or German, I was Nearly A Scientist (Although Weird). ...
Read MoreQuick overview of Research 2010
I attended the MRS Conference in London this week, invited by Ray Poynter to perform (there’s no other word for it!) a five minute piece at Tuesday’s Ideas Rush. I have not been to this conference for absolutely ages. Met quite a few people from former lives and it was great to see them (shout-outs to Anna Cliffe, Yvonne Burr, and Ann Morgan), not mention putting faces to more of the Twitter names. There was more going on than I could possibly catch, and the parallel sessions meant that I ended up running from one room to another to try to catch things. There was a...
Read MoreManifesto
Some of us find it quite simple to put our real organisations and authentic selves online.
Others - well, let's just say that some of us can't bear to look at our own websites.
My mission is to help you transform your online presence so that other people understand and appreciate what you really have to offer. So that you can achieve what you want - whether that's better engagement, more readers, or more sales.