The Chameleon Net blog

The Un-Measurable Success of a Profitable Poker Night

rossm@chameleonnet.co.uk (Ross Miles) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:00:44 GMT

The general consensus is that no matter how good your idea, strategy or marketing campaign, without KPIs or specific goals it is hard to qualify the success of what you have done. Also, when it comes to social media activity RoI is notoriously hard to measure.

So how much is a positive mention on Twitter really worth to your brand or product? If you cannot measure something and assign it a monetary value, does that then make the actions that caused the comments harder to justify? Why am I even asking these questions!? Well I recently attended a networking event for people in the digital and eCommerce industries in the guise of a poker evening, paid for by my employers under the agreement that I was to return and blog about my experiences, so let me continue…

The event was definitely well received. It ran smoothly and was carefully organised with the 60 players drawing their table numbers before play started, with professional dealers on each table. The venue was pleasant, centrally located and the staff were always accommodating. We got a free drink, some dinner and the cash prizes were certainly well received by the top 6 finishers. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and am already looking forward to its next incarnation later in the year. I should probably add a qualifier that I finished in the money and went home with a tidy profit. However, regardless of my financial gains I enjoyed the experience and would happily attend again. But was the event a success?

Strictly speaking we were at an industry networking event. Before we were seated and the first cards were dealt, people seemed to keep themselves to themselves, with the conversation limited to colleagues advising less experienced colleagues on the rules of Texas Hold ‘em. As soon as our chips were on the felt steely glares were exchanged and any chatter between players became poker related.

After one hour we broke for the buffet dinner where people joked about the lack of networking taking place around the tables and the serious nature of play! However, this did prove to be an ice-breaker to allow us to at least exchange business cards.

After around another 30 minutes of play ‘Barry the Broker’ jokingly introduced himself and laughed at how we hadn’t even told each other our names after an hour and a half of play! As the hands went on and players dwindled the tension on the tables led to more banter, but again, it wasn’t as if we were discussing possible business partnerships as the re-raises went in.

By the time we reached the final table of 10 rapport had been built through shared experiences and bad beats. Even some of the players who had been eliminated were hanging around, gathering around the table watching as we duelled out the final hands as the blinds and antes escalated at an alarming rate. It was around this point that I began to realise that by virtue of staying alive by the skin of my teeth a few times and making some outrageous bluffs (which I then showed) I had become a recognised figure at the table which put me in the enviable position of being ‘rememberable’, which is surely the purpose of such an event for me!

The morning after I made an effort to track down anyone tweeting about the event, send a quick e-mail to those I exchanged business cards with and added one contact on Linkedin. People tweeting about the event were positive and even those that mentioned their losses did so punctuated with emoticons. Did I uncover any immediate opportunities for Chameleon Net on the night? No. Did I leave enough of an impression for people to remember me? I hope so… I just have to hope they also remember I work for a Digital Solutions Agency!

So why the intro about measuring success and RoI? Well I was trying understand if the poker night was a success in terms of it being a networking event. Strictly speaking on traditional criteria it would be hard to say yes, but in those difficult to define, social-esque ways, it was. My positive feelings towards the event organisers have increased. No-one I encountered had a negative word to say about of the event. I did hand my business card out to several people, some of who eventually saw me make some ballsy bluffs on the final table (all-in three times in a row with 2 6, 2 3 and 2 7 on flagrant steals!) which meant I was someone they now remembered rather than just a random card in their pocket the next day.

In the same way that it can be hard to quantify my success with interaction via social media, it is difficult for me to quantify my success in selling Chameleon Net during that evening, but what I did do was establish personal connections with people on a real one-to-one basis, which hopefully makes me an approachable person when their company needs a digital solution.

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Top Tips For Understanding Mobile Users

richardk@chameleonnet.co.uk (Rich Kirk) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 09:24:18 GMT

This topic was covered at yesterday's "Money Talks" seminar. I said I would post some info on how you can segment your mobile users within Google Analytics; well here it is! What appears below is cut from an article I wrote for Marketing Pilgrim in the States. You can check out the full article here.

Understanding Mobile Users: Entry Level

Even if you feel the implementation of a mobile strategy is a long way off for your company, and you have no technical skills whatsoever, there is no excuse for not starting to try and get a handle on who your mobile users are, and how they interact with your site. This is a customer segment that will grow in the future.

Demographics You can easily build up a picture of mobile web users through the plethora of surveys currently being released. Here are a few recent stats:

74% of iPhone users are over the age of 25, (31% are 35-49) and more than 70% of iPhone users are male. [see here]
64% of key decision makers in marketing departments are using mobiles to view emails [see here]
Leading mobile browsing systems worldwide (May 09) = iPhone/iPod Touch 37.2%, Opera 24.6%, Nokia 17.9%. [see here]
In 2008 61% of all smartphone owners had a household income of greater than $70000, compared to just 49% of normal mobile owners. [see here]
40% of “smartphoners” in ‘08 would access the internet at least once a week on their device, (78% for iPhone owners specifically). [see here]

Behaviour as well as looking at the demographics of people browsing the mobile web, it’s also vital to understand their goals are likely to be different to those of folks browsing on a computer. Conversion points for mobile users are often basic things such as finding a shop location, contact information, or viewing product details. Generally speaking goals are more immediate and information based. More traditional goals such as purchasing or accessing documents will only be undertaken as a last resort where a computer is unavailable.

Mobile users break down into three rough categories:

“Time to burn”: browsing between events / meetings etc: your goal is to offer bite sized chunks of interesting content in order to attract repeat visits later via traditional browsing methods.
“Monitors”: Users who browse your site for specific data that changes over time: stocks and shares, sports scores etc. Identify the information on your site which gets repeat visits and make it as easily accessible as possible.
“Need it Now”: Live information e.g. running information, store locations, opening hours etc should all be easily accessible from your mobile homepage for those people who are relying on your brand rather than just browsing.

Understanding the key differences between your mobile and traditional users should directly inform the architecture of the mobile version of your site. For instance: An airline may focus on selling tickets online, but its mobile site should focus more on check in information, live flight times, and airport locations for people who are about to fly. Similarly, a financial services company might view their website as a place for prospective customers to research their products, but their mobile site could add value by offering simple services to existing customers e.g. balance checks.

With a bit more budget you can start to build up data specific to your organisation. Marketers should be equipped with smartphones, as using a mobile browser is the best way to understand and discover the difficulties and opportunities surrounding your brand and the mobile web.

Understanding Mobile Users: Intermediate / Advanced Level

Google Analytics provides a segment for iPhone users, but a broader mobile segment for analysing this traffic would be preferential. The most obvious way to construct this segment is by grouping together the different types of mobile browsers currently on offer, but this list is ever-changing and many of these browsers are poor at executing JavaScript: mobile data will be missed altogether and the segment will be less accurate. [ more info here]

A better option is to construct a GA segment based around screen resolution, as there is a greater accuracy of data collection:

Open a new custom segment within your GA dashboard
Select “screen resolution” as the segment’s dimension. You can find this by drilling down on “Systems”.
Select the match type “Matches Regular Expression”
Paste the following regex into the next field: (^[1-2]?[0-9]?[0-9]|^3[0-1][0-9]|^320)x([1-3]?[0-9]?[0-9]$|4[0-7][0-9] $|480$ )

For the more advanced technicians amongst you the installation of mobile-specific tracking software is a further option, however this can be costly and difficult to integrate with GA. Bango Analytics, Mobilytics and Amethon are key players in this sector.

UPDATE APRIL 2010: GA now offers mobile website tracking for FREE.

Once mobile users behaviour on your site is isolated marketers are able to analyse top content, entry and exit points, site search, etc. It is crucial to try and understand mobile user’s goals this data. These goals will define the architecture of your mobile site.

I hope that's useful: Try applying this segment to your website and looking at monthly visitor numbers over the past 18 months: usually a pretty telling statistic.

If you're struggling to get buy-in for a mobile site, why not sit your boss down, give them an iphone and get them to complete a key user action on your site?! - better still set them a time limit of the average time it takes a desk-bound user to complete that goal.

It’s all about user-centricity

danm@chameleonnet.com (Dan Martin) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:54:03 GMT

We all know that achieving success online is about more than just having a great website.

Now, more than ever, taking a holistic user centric approach to online activity means that we can create effective, joined-up communications, and an integrated online strategy.

It’s difficult to focus on one specific online tool in isolation; you can’t think about the website without thinking about how to maximise your SEO and PPC advertising. And once you’ve got people hitting your site, what tools are available for them to interact with it, and also engage with you without needing to come back? RSS feeds, blogs, social engagement and online communities all spring to mind. So how do we decide where to begin?

You probably already have a clear idea of what your objectives as an organisation are, so a good place to start in figuring out your best approach towards achieving those objectives is to concentrate fully on understanding your target audience and how they want to be communicated with. Without doing this you will have little chance of building a relationship with them that will benefit both parties.

So put your customer hat on! A user-centric approach makes your content, communications and online functions focus on the needs and desires of your audience, helping you to:

Reach out to your audience and engage with them, wherever they may be
Pull them into your site or online portals
Get them to interact with you
Keep them connected to you in a way that’s easy for them

One great example we have been involved with that epitomises this thinking is the innovative 'Challenge' site we created for Diabetes UK. It's a great example because it puts users (supporters and fundraisers) at its heart.

People who use the Challenge site are able to connect their supporter profiles to their online social networks, making the user experience easier, while extending the reach of the Diabetes UK brand further.

Did you know, for instance, that on average Facebook users have about 150 friends? Every time someone posts an update from Diabetes Challenge through Facebook Connect, that message is multiplied to their friends.

And very importantly this site does not work in isolation from Diabetes’ other online presences. For example, it communicates in real-time to their CRM system, helping Diabetes UK achieve a 360 degree view of their audience members, and allowing the charity to communicate with its supporters in a more tailored fashion.

At the concept stage of the Challenge site, we worked strategically with Diabetes UK’s to consider who their audience was and how best to target them. This strategic slant is essential for any agency to work effectively. If you don't let agencies into your strategy or at least your key objectives, start now!

The results of Challenge have been extremely good, exceeding expectations, and the site is a major success. Amanda Neylon, Digital Media Manager at Diabetes UK, will be telling the story of how the Challenge site evolved at our next seminar on 22 April, so to hear more about it, please do sign up to come along...

Top Tips For Charity Digital Marketers: Jan 2010

richardk@chameleonnet.co.uk (Rich Kirk) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:54:16 GMT

Two weeks into the New Year and already Christmas feels a lifetime ago. For many marketers, January is a quiet month, with conventional wisdom saying that apart from a few obvious products (gym memberships, savings accounts etc) acquisition / sales will be average at best given the previous months gluttony.

However, January is a really exciting month for charity marketers, especially those dedicating time and resource to the web. We run the pay-per-click search advertising for several charities, and we always see an uplift in the number of donations made in the weeks following 1st January. These conversions will usually originate from a brand keyword search, or a search on the issue your charity is associated with, suggesting that these January donors are aware of who you are and / or what you do, and have been triggered by the passing of the New Year to give you some cash. Whether this is driven by Christmas guilt or a desire to start a new year on the right foot matters little, what matters is that as a charity you take advantage of it.

Here’s our top tips:

Defer December spend: that Christmas campaign you were thinking of running? Save it! People are stressed, busy, preoccupied and generally frazzled in the run up to Christmas. Your message may achieve greater penetration and be afforded more thought in the New Year

Target your warm leads: cross reference the following:

newsletter subscribers
people who’ve signed your petitions
people who have fundraised for you
people who have sponsored your fundraisers

with your list of regular givers. Those people that aren’t giving via direct debit are a good group to target with email, social networking or even offline material around the 1st January.

Ramp up your PPC budget for the month and spend it effectively: Have you checked your AdWords scheduling recently? Do you know if your daily budget enables your ads to be shown 24 hours a day? Do you use bid adjustment to spend your budget at the most profitable times of day? Failure to do these things may mean your organisation misses out on a great deal of potential regular givers through a lack of visibility in search results.

For many charities, January will be a peak time for getting people to sign up to do various fundraising events in 2010. The London Marathon is one particularly lucrative opportunity. As a result however, competition in search results amongst charities is extreme. First page bid estimate for “2010 London marathon” in Adwords right now is $1.25, and $1.50 for “london marathon charity”. Maybe 1 in 100 people who clicked on your ad for that term would download an application, so now is the time to investigate the long tail of keywords for events like this, especially if your budget is not very big. Keyword research should inform not only your PPC campaigns but also SEO. Whilst there is little point aiming for a top 3 spot in the “London Marathon” SERP, you could get a real win optimising around “run the London Marathon for charity”.

Finally, a word on improving website performance, with special regard to acquiring regular givers. Recent research shows that the way you present amounts of money on your site affects the number of people who convert. 3 price formats were tested in the study:

Dollars and cents numerical format with a dollar sign ($00.00)
Numerical format without a dollar sign (00.)
Scripted or written-out prices (zero dollars).

It was found that adopting option 2 led to significantly more acquisition. Even if you have the most convoluted CMS, testing this would not be a great deal of work. We recommend trying an A/B test using Google Website Optimiser if you want to improve your site's performance: delivering a percentage increase in donations would be great way to start your organisation’s year!

Of course, our top tip is to get in touch with Chameleon Net if you think we could help you with search marketing or website improvement!

Analytics > Assumptions

richardk@chameleonnet.co.uk (Rich Kirk) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:58:42 GMT

Last week at Chamtech09 (our digital trends seminar in the City) I spoke to two great audiences on the need to do away with decision-making and assumptions when it comes to creating online content. I argued that simple analytics data and customer feedback should drive the development of a web presence, and that a marketer’s focus should primarily fall on turning more visitors into customers; getting more visitors should be of secondary importance.

It was great to speak to a bunch of people who could obviously see the benefit of this approach, and I hope that I’ll be able to work with as many of you as possible in the future.

In this post I wanted to expand on a few points I raced through on Thursday, especially around the development and operation of a Google Analytics (GA) strategy.

“The numbers in my GA reports don’t add up”

There are numerous reasons why GA might not track an individual visit. The most common ones are:

User has no java support enabled so GA code is not read (>5% of web users)
Users are blocking the first party cookies GA needs to place on your computer (>5% of users)
Code is not implemented correctly on certain pages of your site (Best practice = implement it once in a piece of content that is called by every page e.g. the footer)
Code is being interfered with by other javascript on the page. Fix this by ensuring the GA code is called before these other scripts.
Browser fails to execute the code (increasingly problematic as mobile browsers are susceptible to this)
Pages are failing to load properly.
User bounces before page load completes (often explains why your adwords clicks > visits from adwords). This problem is increasing due to mobile browsing growth. Bloated sites often designed for computers rather than mobiles and the 3G network are especially vulnerable.

A common problem arises around unique visitors (aka “the hotel problem”) and it can be seized upon by people looking for a reason not to invest time in GA as an example of its “inaccuracy” (I know, I’ve been there!). Luckily, the problem is fully explained and illustrated on Wikipedia, as is the issue of total visitors not being equal to new visitors + repeat visitors.

Link tagging

You can track the RoI of every link you put on the web by attaching a source (e.g. person / dept), medium (e.g. email / banner ad / social campaign), campaign (e.g. twitter competition / april newsletter) and an individual content tag to each link. GA allows you to analyse the behaviour of users via the individual link they arrived on. Very quickly you can start to attach a pounds and pence value to links, campaigns, marketing channels and people within your organisation. Who doesn’t want to do that?!

You can create these links really easily in excel spreadsheets as they all follow the same pattern (links broken down by section for easy viewing, obv. this would be one URL string normally):

www. ursite.com/?

utm_source=xxx

&utm_medium=yyy

&utm_campaign=zzz

&utm_content=123

In each case you would want to make the utm_content tag an individual descriptor for that link. E.g. if I was going to send out a Chameleon Net newsletter containing a link to our blog the link would be (again, broken down for easy viewing):

http://www.chameleonnet.co.uk/blog/default.aspx?

utm_source=chamnet_marketing

&utm_medium=email

&utm_campaign=june_newsletter

&utm_content=blog_home

Within the GA dashboard, under traffic sources > campaigns, you can quickly compare the successes and failings of different source, medium, and campaign tags. Then you can easily drill down to the individual content tags for more granular detail. For each tag you’ll be able to see a host of metrics, most importantly goal conversions, but also bounce rate, time on site, and of course visits/visitors/unique visitors.

Pretty neat huh?

“My goals are hard to track”

A number of Chameleon’s clients are charities or NGOs, whose website in many cases provide information rather than make a sale or get an email sign up. For these organisations simply getting someone to read a page is the goal online; the real conversion, i.e. that person taking action, occurs offline in the real world. Goal tracking still has a lot to offer, and maybe you need to think about how your site and your offline conversions interact: e.g. display a unique phone number so you can track how many calls your site is generating.

Another idea might be to flip the situation and instead of focussing on where people are going within your site look at where they are coming from. If you have particular traffic sources that send traffic which tends to bounce out of the site straight away, isolate that traffic and look at its top landing pages. There may well be an obvious disconnect between the content on those pages and the traffic source / audience.

Alternatively, you can look to diversify the traffic sources for your site. Social networks are the web’s watering holes and you can easily (and cheaply) search for and enter conversations around your campaigns. We advise on developing landing pages aimed at audiences you don’t normally target and the process of entering these online conversations. GA will be able to let you know if you’ve developed a new audience and whether they are exploring your site beyond the landing pages you have set up.

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Phew, long post. Hope these tips help you and your digital marketing teams.

Remember; your site is made up of sources, (your audiences: get granular by using segmentation) behaviour (the content they browse) and most importantly; defined goals. Without goals your site has no purpose: identify the pages that your user sees when they’ve done what you wanted them to do, then work back through your funnel.

Hit me up in the comments below if you've got issues you want answering!

Lessons from presenting to a Higher Education audience

surajs@chameleonnet.co.uk (Suraj Shah) — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:57:10 GMT

Earlier this month, I was invited by CASE Europe to present a session on International Student Recruitment at the Beyond the Hype seminar. The seminar was led by Pamela Agar, Head of Digital Media and Marketing at Imperial College London and Alison Wildish, Head of Web Services at University of Bath.

These are the slides from the session which I presented:

CASE Europe were kind enough to email me the evaluation of my session. I scored a few 'below average' marks, mostly 'average' marks, a batch of 'v. goods', and a handful of 'excellents' for the following criteria: knowledge of subject matter / topic, presentation skills, and ability to respond appropriately to audience.

Specific comments included:

A little too vague on the specifics, makes me wonder how much is theory and how much has actually been put into practice. Some hard stats and examples from any successfully completed campaigns would have been illuminating.
I liked the way he interacted with audience by taking a query from one of the delegates. But I was hoping to see a result e.g. collecting data on recruiting Law Students from China by phone for KCL - would have liked to have seen how Chameleon.net displayed this data as results (or maybe I got the wrong end of the stick?)
Suraj tried to be interactive but again, because international recruitment isn't necessarily the direct responsibility of those in the audience this was difficult. I think maybe there was too much to be covered in a short space of time.
Far too little detail left me thinking this was little more than a thinly-veiled advertisement.

As I intend to keep presenting to higher education professionals, I'm really grateful for the feedback offered by delegates so that I can improve my presentation style over time. It's also helped me realise that I need to prepare more useful content to present with the right level of detail.

In response to the first point asking for hard stats, the thing is that the strategy which I presented is still fairly new. However, I will be in a position to deliver examples from successfully completed campaigns in a few months time as a result of the work we are doing with clients at the moment.

There was of course quite a lot to cover in a short space of time, so my presentation was meant to only give a top-level overview. Although I had mentioned this in the introduction, I will now need to ensure that I clearly frame the session appropriately.

I'm concerned that one delegate was left thinking it was little more than a thinly-veiled advertisement, but as my intention is to keep serving the higher education community better over time, I hope what I deliver and what comes across is less about advertising and more about informing (and entertaining).

Anyone reading this thinking you'd be happy to spend 30 minutes with me to become a better public speaker, I'd certainly value your support. Tweet me @surajshah

Seminar on Digital Student Recruitment - an overview

surajs@chameleonnet.co.uk (Suraj Shah) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:36:38 GMT

Chameleon Net held a seminar on Digital Student Recruitment for the higher education sector yesterday, Tuesday 24th February 2009.

Drew Davies, Head of Online Marketing at Chameleon Net spoke about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategies for student recruitment.

Helen Aspell, Head of Digital at the Equality and Human Rights Commission and former Head of Digital Marketing at University of Southampton, spoke about User Experience, the heart of an engaging digital presence.

Drew Davies then spoke about Protecting Your Online Brand, where he shared a case study of the work Chameleon Net has done with Barnardo's UK on their opinion-polarising "Break the Cycle" campaign.

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The seminar was well-received with feedback such as "Very useful & thought provoking", "Excellent - one of the best I've been to", "Impressive venue and tasty danish pastries in the break!", "Stimulating & Exciting", "Very well organised & professional", "Engaging & felt very current" and "Very interesting, frightening & enlightening!"

More on Chameleon Net's work in the higher education sector can be found at www.chameleonnet.co.uk/education

Introducing.... Higher Education!

surajs@chameleonnet.co.uk (Suraj Shah) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:21:19 GMT

Highlights of CASE Europe’s excellent “Introduction to Higher Education” one-day seminar giving insights into what’s hot and what’s not in higher education now and in the near future, how to maximise on the various types of donors, reaching out to “Generation Y” alumni, which factors and roles have the greatest influence on student choice when selecting the right university, and overcoming key challenges as a senior marketer at an HEI.

Although Chameleon Net have been working with higher education institutions for over 4 years, I have only started dipping my toes in this sector since August 2008. Fair enough, I understand the web and have an appreciation for all things digital, but as I get deeper and deeper immersed in the higher education sector, it’s evident to me that there are some gaps in my knowledge. It got me thinking: “How do I best serve the Higher Education sector over the coming years?” Hence, I signed up to attend a seminar titled “Introduction to Higher Education” which was run by CASE Europe and led by Peter Reader, Director of Marketing and Communications at University of Portsmouth.

In the 30 years since he attended university as a student, Peter has worked in six UK universities (Sheffield Hallam, Plymouth, Loughborough, Southampton, Bath and Portsmouth) in mostly externally-facing roles such as fundraising, marketing, communications, government and community relations. His professional interests include crisis management, communications and reputation management. These interests coupled with numerous presentations he has given around the world meant that I was keen to hear his views about the sector, including what’s hot and what’s not.

The full-day seminar which took place in London yesterday, Tuesday 12th January 2009, kicked off with welcome and introductions by Peter, and then dived into a session by Peter Reader on Current Issues in Higher Education.

Universities are split into two types – those who select and those who recruit. Selecting universities are those who have the privilege of receiving many more applications for a course than places available. An example of this would be the University of Bristol who have approximately 30 applicants per place on their English degree. Recruiting universities, in comparison, are those who have less applicants than course places available. These type of universities have to actively recruit for new students. Obviously most universities fall somewhere in between these extremes, where some of their courses may be heavily subscribed and they’d need to go through a tougher selection process, and some courses which are undersubscribed and require strong recruitment efforts.

Location of the university is becoming a greater factor in the decision a student makes about the institution they attend. Compared to thirty years ago when there were less universities than there are now, and even though students can travel a longer distance in shorter time, students are still opting to attend a university closer to home than halfway across the country. The rising cost of attending university and the difficulty of getting even part time jobs in this current economic climate has meant that students want to keep their weekend jobs to help pay for their education and want to choose a university which is easy to get back from at the weekends.

There are only three UK universities which are internationally recognised on a wide scale – Oxford, Cambridge and London (!) International students buy into the brand of a UK HEI, so this is why Northumbria University (whose students are 17% international) decided to rebrand from “Northumbria Newcastle” to “Northumbria”.

Data natives are those who were born with a keyboard in their hands while data immigrants are those who have had to learn about the web. As most of the staff at a university are data immigrants they are forced to think like data natives and build student recruitment campaigns from that perspective.

Some of the hot issues for HE in 2009 are the pay award and the recession. According to Peter Reader, if the 8% pay increase is not awarded this year then it may lead to industrial dispute, academic staff may stop marking papers, and students will end up suffering as a result of it. On the flip side, if the 8% pay increase IS awarded, then the money needs to come from somewhere – perhaps job losses are on the horizon for non-academic staff. Friction between academic and non-academic staff may be inevitable, although I sure hope not.

In a recession there are two things that always tend to get taken off the budget in the commercial sector: marketing and training & development. This is bound to have an impact on the number of employees being sent to university to do part-time courses. However, with a severe lack of jobs available, many job-seekers may opt to apply for higher education study to build up their academic credentials.

As for how higher education shapes up in the coming years, be prepared for larger and fewer universities (such as the successful merger of University of Manchester and UMIST), and new entrants into the market such as the University of Phoenix who are attacking the European post grad market by offering distance learning to 90,000 students across the globe.

Following a refreshment and networking break, it was down to David Rider, Director of Development at The Robert Gordon University, to open us up to what universities should use development and alumni relations for.

Philanthropy, popularised by the likes of Andrew Carnegie and Bill and Melinda Gates, is actually considered as all voluntary action for the public good which, based in values, includes giving, asking, joining and serving. People engage in philanthropic activities when their values align with the values of the organisation they are serving (financially or through other means). What this means is that to attract long term donor investment, your university must clearly tell the public what the values of your organisation are, allowing people to engage in philanthropic activities with your university and give towards something they feel strongly about.

Mission statements need to describe why the organisation exists (i.e. fulfilling societal needs) and not just describing its function. This is because as a university you’re looking for funding and support because you want to do something with that to change people’s lives, not just to reach the £100,000,000 goal!

As David Rider put it, “It’s not the bricks and mortar you’re telling people to invest into, it’s what comes OUT of the bricks and mortar.” Therefore, when building your fundraising campaign, consider which of the following causes your campaign addresses: reducing human suffering, enhancing human potential, promoting private equity and justice, providing human fulfilment, supporting experimentation and change, supporting pluralism, and building community.

There are three groups you can receive donations from: Individuals, Trusts and Foundations, and Corporates.

Donations from Individuals: Staff tend to have an association with their own institution, especially if the university is their own alma mater – so start here. In the USA, a letter goes out to parents asking for donations. Alumni including honoraries (a.k.a. Celanthropists / celebrity philanthropists) are a good source of donations so long as the institution’s values align with their own values. Other sources of individual donations are governors, affluent ‘friends’, and philanthrocapitalists. With individuals, you go through a cycle of identifying who they are, informing them about the university and causes, involving them by inviting them to the university, getting them to invest in the cause, and communicating with them how their investment has impacted the cause.

Donations from Corporates: Donations for a specific campaign at a university can often give a company good PR. Other ways companies can pump money into universities, is through workforce scholarships, up skilling (to gain a competence advantage) and through research (to gain a competitive advantage).

As for reaching out to “Generation Y” alumni, David gave a brief overview that Generation Y are under 25s (born 1983 onwards), they tend to have helicopter parents who fly over their heads and swoop in to clear away any challenges their child faces, they are digital natives and technology dependent, and demand immediacy of information and feedback, and from everybody!

Next... lunch: CASE held the seminar at the Etc Venues near Moorgate station in London – a truly exceptional choice of location for one thing if nothing else – their catering facilities! Lunch was absolutely delicious and catered for my vegan palate. I was served stuffed green peppers with some type of potato and a salad on the side. They took almost as good care of me as the chefs at the resort in St. Lucia took care of my wife and I on our honeymoon 3 weeks back – well done!

Back up in the seminar room we were challenged with a post-lunch practical exercise. Facilitated by Peter Reader, the interactive session gave us an opportunity to explore student choice in the ever-changing Higher Education market. In groups of 5 or 6, each group were asked to select one of the fictional universities. Our group chose ‘The (private) University of Windsor’ which had a striking resemblance to (the very real) University of Buckingham which is the only private university in the United Kingdom, was founded in the 1970s, and whose Former Chancellor was Margaret Thatcher.

Each member of the group were assigned a role (prospective student, parent of prospective student, school or college careers adviser, HE course tutor, Vice-Chancellor, or Students Union President), and during the role play were asked to to list why students would be attracted to our institution, why they would not be attracted to the institution, and which roles have the greatest influence on student choice. What became clear was that in all the groups, the choice of higher education institution was less about academic results and was more about location of the university. Also, depending on the type of university it was, the role which had greatest influence over student choice was different. i.e. the VC has greater impact at the private University of Windsor, but less so at the New University of Thames Gateway.

We were then asked to list who we would market the university to and communications channels we would use to market to them. Although all the groups shared a whole variety of communications channels, not a single group mentioned prospectuses. Isn’t it amazing that a university often spends £100,000 each year on producing and distributing prospectuses, and that wasn’t even a comms channel that was considered? It turns out that prospectuses are usually for the benefit of the prospective students’ parents rather than the students themselves.

Following the practical exercise and a short break, Alison Steel, Director of Marketing and Communications at Glasgow Caledonian University delivered a session on challenges faced by senior higher education marketers and how to overcome them.

It turns out that on the whole, university marketers tend not to have much authority with university management, especially the Vice-Chancellor, and it is often very hard to fight institutional inertia. Budgets are set and then the marketing ideas are set around the budgets. However, if you wish to make any progress with academics, the phrase to use is “evidence based” – try it out and see if you get any buy-in from academic staff as a result of it.

So there you have it – all in all a very information-packed day which offered a good foundation for anyone starting a career in higher education.

It’s important to note that Alison Steel, David Rider, and Peter Reader are all very well established in the higher education sector and volunteered their and resources to present at this event. Kudos to all three of you, and CASE Europe, for giving us “freshers” such a good foundation within this complex yet welcoming and caring field.

You’ll be pleased to hear that Helen Aspell, former Head of Digital Marketing at University of Southampton will be gracing our own seminar on Tuesday 24th February 2009. Keep the date in your diary for Digital student recruitment: macro strategy, micro issues which is free to attend for senior higher education marketers and student recruiters.

You can also check out our education portal at www.chameleonnet.co.uk/education for details of our web solutions for HEIs.

Quick Web Wins in Higher Education

surajs@chameleonnet.co.uk (Suraj Shah) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:18:25 GMT

As an Account Manager at Chameleon Net, my primary role is to spend time with Higher Education professionals to establish their digital needs and see where there is a match with the services we offer.

This week at the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Chameleon Net hosted a digital marketing educational seminar for some of the UK’s most dedicated marketing, communications, student recruitment, alumni relations and web professionals.

It was wonderful to see that what I have spent a significant amount of time on over the last couple of months, from the initial invitation calls and emails, to ongoing conversations and getting final confirmation on attendance, resulted in such a wonderful turnout of individuals dedicated to the work they are doing within the sector.

Would you believe that those who attended came for a two and a half hour seminar in London from as far north as Northumbria and Glasgow, as far south as Portsmouth as far west as Ulster?

The session which ran on the afternoon of Tuesday 25th November focused on Quick Web Wins for HEIs and covered...

Low risk, low cost ways to positively affect your brand by participating in Social Networks and measuring the results
Ways you can tap into the blogging community before blog marketing becomes saturated
How to use User Generated Content (UGC) on your site to create a powerful marketing impact, and avoid the potential pitfalls
The latest methods to protect your reputation online
New technology you can deploy quickly to gain quick wins including rich internet applications and widgets

For the benefit of those who attended I have put together a selection of summary slides from the seminar.

Some comments from our attendees:

“Very useful & interesting. Wasn’t a pushy sales pitch.” – Lindsey Summerhill, eMarketing Officer, Northumbria University

“Well run, engaging content.” – Paul Hough, Manager: Student Web and Communications, University of Ulster

“Very Informative.” – Helen Anderson, Assistant Director Marketing & Communications, University for Creative Arts

“I expected more of a sales pitch – so was very pleasantly surprised – v. useful!” – Sarah Empey, Press & PR Manager, Goldsmiths, University of London

“Good, talked about the issues we have.” – Amanda Hall, Marketing Manager, Brunel University

“A useful insight into things that can be done on the web!” – Krishna Tirbhowan, Marketing Officer, Birkbeck, University of London

Face to face with the real chameleon (small 'c')

lucie@actualmarketing.co.uk (Lucie Bickerdike) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:25:22 GMT

Last week I and Actual group Directors Stephen and Suzie had the pleasure of attending Chameleon Net’s 10^th Birthday bash at London Zoo. It was great to meet up with the team, and to make the acquaintance of a couple of recent recruits. Without wanting to be too gushy, it’s evenings like this that make us thankful for such lovely clients. In true Chameleon style it was an unorthodox evening, with a drinks reception – of course – in the Reptile House, with a party in the Pavilion later in the evening. It was nice to share the party with the wallabies and emus just outside, who were all wide awake and surprisingly sociable!

This month has shown that Chameleon’s work is becoming more widely recognised for its innovation and creativity, and that the company has climbed a long way in a decade. Chameleon Net’s fantastic campaign site for the latest Diabetes UK campaign made it into the news pages of New Media Age, the company won a silver W3 Award for the innovative Bucks New University website, and we were also proud that Vicky reached the finals of the competitive Women of the Future Awards.

So, what’s in store for the next ten years? As the internet grows and the industry matures (according to a recent survey, 30% of UK digital agencies were founded more than ten years ago), Chameleon are in a strong competitive position with a grown-up, experienced and confident offering. Happy birthday Chameleon Net – and here’s to many more!

Chameleon highlights, 2003-2008

danm@chameleonnet.com (Dan Martin) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:49:37 GMT

In the process of planning for Chameleon Net's 10th bday celebration (today's the actual day, by the way), it occurred to me that I'm celebrating my own anniversary of sorts - October marks 5 years of my being here at Chameleon.

Time has flown by and a lot has happened, that's for sure. So in the spirit of the both Chameleon being 10, and me notching up 5 years service, here are my highlights of the past semi-decade working in web with Chameleon (in no particular order).

1. Watching the web move a breakneck speed. This never fails to outstound and entertain me. When I arrived at Chameleon in autumn 2003 we were working on founding our in-line CMS code library - seems quite a standard set of functionality now - but I hadn't seen it anywhere else at the time. Just over a year later we were pioneering ePR with early adopter bloggers, and establishing the building blocks for our modular hub & spoke e-commerce platform, something that still 'wows' clients. Last week one of our longstanding Devs - Steve - was working on some proof-of-concept with iPhone applications and our CTO Carl's just built an Adobe Flex website deployment tool. It's amazing. It just doesn't stop!

2. Having meetings in unusual places. Most organisations needs a web providers these days, which can take you to some odd locales to meet clients. We have something of a mini-competition at the office to judge who has been to the strangest. My favourite (i.e. the most oddball) was the a meeting I had some years ago inside Sunbury telephone exchange. This year I've been to two offices with 20 ft waterfalls in the foyer, but only one where there is a large two-level coy carp pond. Jeremy says his most impressive meeting, visually, was at the top floor of Barclays Global in Canary wharf, with floor to ceiling glass. I also reckon Jeremy and I tie on fun transatlantic meetings - mine at UNICEF HQ in New York City, and Jeremy with a memorable pitch at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachussets.

3. Relocating. Soho Square was great (we were there until 2006), but genuinely not a patch on Smithfield, our home for the past two-and-a-half years. The feel of the area is perfect to promote a relaxed yet vibrant team. Plus it allowed the business to break out of our confined serviced office space in Soho and set us up for the growth we've experienced since in our dedicated premises.

4. Setting up the Chameleon Net events programme. One of the things I felt strongly about when joining Chameleon was the role educating the market has to play in being a company at the cutting-edge of the sector. I still feel the same. We've been running our educational seminars since 2003, and we've had over 700 people attend and give us great feedback, which is a testament to our speakers' knowledge and great content. Our latest sector-specific ones in November (Plug: for the Education and Publishing sectors) are already proving really popular.

5. Working with clients (outside of the norm). There's definitely a feeling of going the extra mile here, which sounds a bit cheesy, but it's true nonetheless. Two of my highlights... 1) when we worked with our client The Foundry to not only develop a business-changing e-commerce website for them, but also jointly to put together a really compelling award entry for the 2005 London e-commerce awards, which won the 'Best Sales and Marketing Award'... and 2) when the Tsunami hit east Asia on Boxing Day in 2004 everyone was off on their christmas break, yet between ourelves and UNICEF we got the campaign and donation pages setup the same day, and the site took over £1M in essential donations in 5 days. Everyone here felt like that was a really impactful thing to do.

6. Creating and launching the first direct-to-consumer sales website for Random House, the UK’s largest general book publisher, in 2006. Of particular significance for me since I manage this account for Chameleon, but if also felt like working on an industry-shaping site when few publishers were going down that route at the time, and most were just happy to send their visitors to Amazon and get sales that way.

I could go on, and probably would if it hadn't already taken me 10 days to finish this blog because I keep coming up with different things to add in :-)

So... here's my 'and finally' point, and for tradition's sake it's a bit unusual and includes an animal...

7. Not content with the likes of iStock and Corbis, we took a new slant on our own branding in 2004 by hiring 'Mela' the Chameleon from ‘Animal Actors’ and holding a photo shoot in a kitchen in Walthamstow (thanks David!). He's the little fella you can still see if you look top left in our logo.

A little CASE of Reputation Management in Higher Education

surajs@chameleonnet.co.uk (Suraj Shah) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:42:11 GMT

In August, Vicky (our MD) and I spent an afternoon at the CASE Europe Annual Conference in Brighton. The conference was attended by Alumni, Communications, Development and Marketing professionals in the Higher Education sector across Europe, although mostly the UK.

CASE, which stands for Council for Advancement and Support of Education, is an international network of professionals leading the advancement of education. CASE runs a number of conferences, seminars and workshops, and the CASE Europe Annual Conference dealt with some of the big issues as well as the smaller, day-to-day matters that occupy those immersed in the Higher Education sector.

The first session I attended was titled Crisis vs. "No Comment", where a panel of speakers explored a number of situations where they talked about whether to consider the issue a crisis and do something about it, or simply state "No Comment" and let it slide. It was encouraging to see that Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) generally respected other HEIs and would be more interested in supporting each other rather than make the others look bad. The sector as a whole seems to really appreciate the karmic philosophy of "what goes around comes around".

This first session allowed for a large amount of audience participation where representatives from various universities were able to either share their own experiences of how they handled situations, or ask questions to the panel. One situation I had read about before attending the conference was about a university student who created a video that slated the course she was studying on and posted it up on YouTube. This student was subsequently suspended from the course, and I was curious about how other universities may have treated this situation...

From the response given by the panel that I posed the question to, it appeared that most universities would rather sweep such a situation under the carpet and 'let it go away' rather than engage in an online conversation to resolve the friction created on the web. It turns out that although most universities have grievance procedures in place to handle complaints offline, many universities are simply not yet prepared to deal with issues that arise in the digital landscape. This tends to 'lettings things slide' which unfortunately snowballs into prospective students wanting to back out of courses that they are just about to start. More on online reputation management at the article "How To Manage Your Online Reputation".

The panellists of the Crisis vs. "No Comment" included Tara Brabazon, Professor of Media Studies at University of Brighton, Ann Mroz, Editor of the Times Higher Education magazine, Peter Slee, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Student and Staff Affairs) at Northumbria University, and the panel was chaired by Ian Rowley, Director of Communication and Strategy at University of Warwick.

The second and final session that both Vicky and I attended (remember, we were only there for the afternoon!) titled "Buzz, brand and budget" was presented by Helen Aspell, Head of Digital Marketing Communications, at the University of Southampton. As we are the official digital marketing partner of the University of Southampton, it was only right that we attended the session to support Helen, and I'm glad I was there as it was really very well presented. Helen talked about why social media technologies such as Facebook, Second Life and Twitter are crucial to your brand, how to choose what to get involved in, and how the effects can be measured.

One area that Helen touched upon was the use of video to promote your university, which certainly peaked my attention. From the informal research I've been doing recently, there are many universities at the moment who are putting their promotional glossy 'corporate videos' up on YouTube, and clearly these videos are taking a lot of heat from the universities' own student - see comments to the following promotional video at University of Coventry's YouTube channel.

> >

This video attracted a mix of comments such as "Just graduated from there, that video makes it look so much better than it is." and "Cov Uni should be knocked down and replaced with a duck pond.", to "Im a student there and i love it. great place. quiet city. perfect for students." It also attracted comments from Coventry University's own reputation management team such as "just to let you know that a lot of the campus is being knocked down and rebuilt over the next few years, so expect things to look a lot better"

What Helen Aspell at the University of Southampton pointed out is that YouTube is NOT the place for 'corporate videos' of your university. YouTube is the place for 'authentic' videos that portray student life as it really is, ideally filmed by the students themselves. There was one incident that Helen mentioned during her talk, where one of their freshers posted a video about how hard she was finding her first week at the university, and that she really didn't like her halls where she was staying at, and was considering leaving her course and the university. The following week she posted a second video that shared about how actually the course isn't so bad, and she's making friends, and she now will stay on the course. This is the kind of video that is better to have on YouTube, as it gives a genuine account of university life. I wonder how other universities are using YouTube and other video social networks as part of their digital marketing strategy...?

Attending this conference in Brighton was certainly worth the trek from London down to Brighton, and I intend to be there next year. The next CASE Europe annual conference is 24-28 August 2009 in Liverpool (England) and you can register to attend at www.case.org. If you're attending, be sure to come over to our stall (yes, we intend to have a stall there) and say hi!

Also, if you are in a strategic role within Higher Education and want to know more of our thoughts on Online Reputation Management and other HE-related topics, you may want to take a look at a summary of our free seminar: Quick Web Wins for HEIs, which took place on Tuesday 25th November at London Chamber of Commerce, EC4.

Chameleon Net is (nearly) 10!

danm@chameleonnet.com (Dan Martin) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:03:37 GMT

Well it's nearly upon us. We knew it was coming, but here it is. On 31st October this year Chameleon will be 10 years old, and we're embarking on a whole bunch of fun to celebrate over the coming weeks. (Not least by behaving like 10 year olds on our temporarily kid-like blog ;-) )

A decade is a lot of time in anyone's book. Particularly in the life of a web agency. When we were established Vicky wanted us to be a one stop shop for all things web, a bold move back then, but the right one of course. Even so, who knew it would work out so well?!

Seriously... In '98 the web was a different kettle of fish to what we see today. To kick of our 10th anniversary blogging, I thought I'd have a quick look at the web world circa 1998...

When we started up, Google looked like this...

...and really was still in Beta :-) Google is also 10 this year, so we're in good company. You can check out the last ten years of the world's favourite search engine at: http://www.google.com/tenthbirthday/

An early client of Chameleon's were these cheeky chaps, with an ambitious website also founded in 1998:

A concept probably before it's time, sadly, and a story that didn't end too happily for well-publicised reasons - fortunately nothing to do with us, and we got paid too, which I don't think can be said of all their creditors!

I didn't realise until today that usability guru Jakob Nielsen archives his popular Alertbox commentary online (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/). Well worth a browse for insightful titbits and the odd amusing misfire prediction (nobody's perfect!).

On 1st Nov 1998, a day after our founding (no doubt a busy and disorienting day in Harrow), Jakob writes about Yahoo:

"Yahoo's home page has an average download time of 3.0 seconds according to the Keynote performance index. This is one of the fastest download times among major websites. " Bang, zoom!

He also notes that "since Internet bandwidth is very limited, Yahoo emphasizes a slim design and forgets about emulating television or glossy magazines." We were all on piddling 56k modems at the time don't forget, so the thumbs up from Jakob for Yahoo.

He does argue however that "Advertising Doesn't Work on the Web" and that "Yahoo's financial reports show that Web advertising is a very poor revenue generator". Hm... not so sure that prediction panned out all that well.

Old screenshots are fun, so here's a Yahoo one:

Look familiar? I expect so, because Yahoo looked more or less like this until about 2004.

A final bit from the Nielsen archives, just since it shows how things have changed. On 29th Nov 98 he advises that web pages should be left online indefinitely because "search engines are slow in updating their databases". Word, Jakob. Chameleonnet.co.uk has received 3,154 hits from search spiders so far this week alone.

Things have moved on. We all know that, but it's a bit dizzying sometimes to think just how rapidly the web has evolved. Chameleon started in a climate of snail's pace modems, search engines that spider and index every other week at about teatime, adventurous but ill conceived web-only startups, and the beginnings of a world dominating brain child of two adventurous geeks in California (sorry Larry/Sergey).

Exciting and turbulent times were ahead. I'll do a bit more digging and pick another exciting year in the life of Chameleon for one of my next posts, so watch out web lovers.

Digitise or Die (or “Much Ado About Digital”)

jeremyd@chameleonnet.com (Jeremy Davis) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:12:00 GMT

In my ongoing mission to become the David Dimbleby of the Web Industry (and beyond?) I recently spent an afternoon chairing a “Question Time” style event for movers and shakers in the UK publishing industry: “Digitise or Die” was the inaugural annual event run by The Bookseller, the leading trade publication for the book industry, with the sole intention of focusing on the issues facing the book business in the digital age. And issues there are.

Pretty much ever since Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440, the only way you and I could get our hands on a book would be if a Publisher printed it (the only way to create multiple copies on anything like a large scale) and a bookseller sold it to us. Simple. Oh yes, and of course and author needs to write it.

So, publishers find authors, groom them, coach them and generally hone their talent so as to (hopefully) create not only a great piece of writing but also a rampant commercial success. Of course the publishers would have to kiss a few frogs but hey, sometimes when you get your prince he turns out to be a darned good catch (JK Rowling, Terry Pratchett, Dan Brown anyone?)

So, that model’s clear: Publisher finds the creative talent, publishes the work, markets it, sells it to retailers and then you and I buy it. Hang on a minute…that sounds familiar…creative talent…publisher…seller…consumer…Ah yes I’ve got it! It’s the music business!

And that is essentially the problem facing the book business – how to not do what the music business did. In the digital age the roles are unclear: anyone can be an author (just add talent), publish a book, mass produce it, reach an audience (if it’s any good) and distribute it worldwide, absolutely free.

Perhaps books are just content, and the web is very good at distributing that for free. So who’s going to pay for it? Yes, the book business is probably going through its biggest change in over 500 years, when Gutenburg, quill in hand, said to himself “there MUST be an easier way of doing this!”. Anyway, back to my Dimbleby impersonation....

With research done and cue cards in hand, off I went. There were several speakers in the morning and then my session was in the afternoon. Tension was in the air…what does the future hold? speakers included Jason Hanley from Google (who are digitising content at a rate of knots) and he aptly demonstrated the speed at which the internet, in only 15 years, has been able to reach an audience of 1.5billion – way faster than the decades it took TV or radio to reach anything like those numbers. Yes, the internet is REALLY good at delivering content.

All in all the event was developing a fairly dramatic atmosphere and like any drama there had to be a bad guy. And there was. Enter, stage left, Andrew Keen, self proclaimed “Anti-Christ of Silicon Valley” and both irreverently funny and deadly serious all at the same time. And his message? That book publishing is finished as a business, either for the publishers or the authors. Content has gone digital and digital content (as the music business is finding out to its cost) is largely free on the web.

As a popular author himself he should know – most of his money, he says, comes from live appearances (c.f. Madonna, Rolling Stones?), not book sales. Although a word of qualification here: as far as I know Andrew has one popular book to his name and that’s hardly a career. Most creative artists would expect to have to produce a substantial body of popular work before they can think about retiring…but I digress. And so to the afternoon session....

In front of an audience of book industry bods I chair an interesting discussion that ranges from the role of the author to the role of the high street bookseller. My fellow panellists included Andrew Keen, Kieron Smith (MD of BookRabbit.com) and Yang May Ooi, who introduced interesting ideas about how the nature of storytelling has changed with the digital age – maybe the book is a format from another time.

Our session was then followed by an excellent presentation by our very own Drew Davies who gave the audience a whistlestop tour of effective SEO techniques.

One thing was very plain throughout the day: Change is afoot. There is fear. There is excitement, anxiety, confusion and (as in all times of change) opportunity. My sense is that there will indeed be winners and losers in the publishing sector over the next few years and the landscape may look very different.

When the dust settles we will see who grasped the opportunities for delivering high quality digital products in a way that consumers want. Content is here to stay and if it’s good enough I think people will pay for it too. The challenge that faces the book business (and the music business) I think is how to position itself so that it adds value, not just the mechanism for distributing content. Value is always attractive....

Next question…ah yes…the man at the back with the yellow tie…yes you, sir!

A media insight into Chameleon's online world

lucie@actualmarketing.co.uk (Lucie Bickerdike) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:01:32 GMT

Lucie is Chameleon Net’s PR account executive at marketing and PR consultancy the Actual group (www.actualgroup.co.uk)

When Chameleon Net asked me if I’d like a regular ‘blog spot’ on their site, I was chuffed but a little nervous. Surrounded by the creative and technical insight provided by the blindingly bright Chameleon Net team, how would my PR perspective of the company and their work fare?

But the fact is that Chameleon Net do some really exciting work that deserves to be shouted about. This month, .Net magazine was so impressed with Chameleon’s new Médécins Sans Frontières website (www.msf.org.uk) that they asked us to produce a tutorial that walks readers through the process of creating the dynamic homepage banner. The piece, written by Daryl and Louise (with co-ordination and proofreading efforts from myself!), has not yet been published but watch this space for the finished article!

Chameleon Net are also pleased to share the expertise used to create such innovative work. I had the pleasure of attending their latest seminar, titled ‘Quick Web Wins’, on 24th June. Offering ‘practical, tactical ways your organisation can harness the web for short-term results’, the seminar was a great way for non-technical folk (myself included!) to get a better grip on the latest web techniques – and, most importantly, how to translate this knowledge into visible results.

At the seminar Jeremy observed that, while the media continues along its doom-mongering ‘recession’ track, the online industry is thriving. Still effectively in its infancy, the industry is constantly innovating and creating new opportunities for companies to increase their revenue using online methods. It’s an exciting time for companies to explore the possibilities on offer.

Drew’s talk on blogs and social networks was bang on trend. You can’t move in the new media press for articles on how social media can be exploited for by business. Bloggers have gained a name for themselves as pretty useful journalistic commentators on a broad range of subjects, and it is because of this that search engines tend to place blogs near the top of results. Many companies are now regularly contacting bloggers as part of their online PR activity and targeting users of networks as potential customers - but what we all really want to know is, as one member of the audience said, ‘how do you begin to measure ROI on this type of investment?’ It’s a sticking point faced by PR – and, to some extent, marketing – practitioners across the land, and there is no absolutely scientific answer. Perhaps the most successful companies are those willing to take a chance on new methods?

Speaking of hot topics in the new media press, Dan touched on one at the seminar that seems to have got them all a-froth: user-generated video content. According to .Net (177, July 08, p.15), Flickr users are none to happy about the possibility of video, or ‘long photos’, as well as photos being uploaded and shared on the site. Not everybody’s a fan of social networking sites, it seems, with one Flickr user commenting: ‘What will be the next step? Pokes? Third party applications that you have to invite 20 friends to use? Music playing on each member’s page to slow the site down even more?’ Ouch. I have to say I agree with the mag when it suggests that comparing the ability to upload simple video to an all-out MySpace style assault on users is taking it a bit far. It got me thinking, though: are social networking facilities actually a hindrance to users when they’re misappropriated? Perhaps this is an issue worth exploring for companies looking to monetise these sites – user experience is the all-important factor.

Last year, Chameleon’s ePR campaign for Tefal’s Jamie Oliver Survival Kit cookware sensitively navigated the rocky terrain of blogs and user videos, achieving high visibility for the product on dozens of UK blogs and a fantastic level of consumer participation on the mini site, which invited user video content. The success of the project showed that while these techniques are still in development, if you approach them with a real understanding of consumer requirements your brand will almost certainly be enhanced.

Plymouth/Dakar - We have made it to Africa!

chris@chameleonnet.com (Chris Thorn) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:04:26 GMT

So we have made it to Africa! We have had a very eventful journey so far.

We crossed the Millau viaduct in a blizzard and flashed by a speed camera in France.

In Spain things got more eventful. Some youths tried to car jack us in Barcelona; in Valencia we got a puncture and after parking car overnight returned to find it had been towed away by the police!

In Tarifa we managed to cause a scare in a shop by accidentally setting off a camping gas canister.

In comparison to that our first day in Morocco has been much quieter but great fun.

More soon... Chris and Richard.

--Sent via BlackBerry--

Plymouth to Dakar Rally

chris@chameleonnet.com (Chris Thorn) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:01:33 GMT

As many of you may know I am taking part in the Plymouth to Dakar rally. A colleague and I will be setting off tonight, to drive to Portsmouth to catch a ferry bound for France. The plan is that we will then drive through France, Spain, take a ferry over to northern Morocco and then on through Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal and finally arrive in The Gambia in about three weeks time.

If we make it, the car will be auctioned off and the money donated to two local charities.

The Gambia is a small, poor country that struggles with having a population the size (roughly) of Birmingham and a land area that is more the size of Scotland. More than 75% of the population are subsistence farmers and therefore desperately needs all the support it can get.

The first charity supported by the rally is the Association of Small-Scale Enterprises in Tourism (ASSET). The second is the Gambian National Olympic Committee (GNOC).

ASSET operates in the tourism industry and was set up to help thousands of Gambians to scoop up more of the crumbs from the tourism table and to 'give a voice to the voiceless'. So it lobbies government to do more for the juice pressers, the fruit sellers, the tourist taxi drivers, the official tourist guides and people with many similar jobs, all of whom struggle to gain access to the tourists who are managed by the tour operators and the bigger ground operating companies.

By contrast the GNOC is about improving the quality of life of all ordinary Gambians by providing sporting facilities. In the Gambia, there is huge interest and participation in sport. The Gambia has a huge numbers of 'football pitches' - patches of bare sand - at least one in every village. Very few people can afford the kit that gets bought for kids from the age of two or three in the UK. Football boots, footballs are in very short supply and to see a goal with a net is almost unknown. The GNOC struggles hard in these circumstances to offer a variety of sporting activities and to build stadia around the country. The National Stadium, where our car will be auctioned, is apparently an impressive building but it is the only one of its kind in the country. The GNOC is building more facilities as and where it can but has very limited funds.

ASSET and GNOC ensure other Gambian charities also hear about the rally and are able to apply for some of the proceeds. In addition, they will also do what they can to monitor the way the money is spent in order to make sure it goes where it was meant to.

Since the rally began in 2003, hundreds of thousands of pounds have been raised, which has made a huge difference in a country as small and poor as The Gambia. We hope will be achieved again this year!

So although we will be having fun on the trip, we will be donating our car to these charities. If you would also like to follow our lead, it would be great if you could donate something to either UNICEF or Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without borders) both who do fantastic work in Africa, making a real difference to thousands of lives.

I have set-up specific fundraising web pages so you can donate; simple go to either of pages below and get your credit/debit card out!

http://www.justgiving.com/msf-plymouth-to-dakar

http://www.supportunicef.org.uk/Plymouth_to_Dakar

I hope to keep you all up-to-date with our progress on the Chameleon blog, which can be found at: http://www.chameleonnet.co.uk/blog/default.aspx

Or if you want to find our more about the rally and see up-to-date field reports from us and the rest of the teams, you can to the official Plymouth Dakar challenge site at: http://www.plymouth-dakar.co.uk

'New Web' seminar - three hot discussion points

danm@chameleonnet.com (Dan Martin) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 00:29:00 GMT

I thought it'd be worth outlining three particular areas discussed in conversations at breaks and during the Q&A slots at the end of each session at the recent seminar.

Attendees were asking:

1. Should we set up a corporate Facebook profile?

2. What are the pros and cons of implementing AdSense on our site?

3. How much of a risk is it to allow UGC on our site and deal with negative comments?

So here are some thoughts...

1. Facebook. Clearly this is one of the most popular online social spaces going at the moment, and naturally companies want to know if it's appropriate for them to get set up with a presence on Facebook.

The simple answer is to decide whether or not you have anything useful to contribute in the context of connecting individuals within your company with the other individuals using Facebook to communicate.

If the answer is a strong 'yes' then it may well be worth looking at what you might achieve and how.

If the answer is a 'maybe' or a 'no', then I'd question whether it is of value, because the risks of blundering in and making yourself unpopular, or of spending budget on something that delivers poor return, could rule it out as an avenue.

Even if you don't set up a Facebook profile, one thing is for sure though: your target audience is out there networking, so it is definitely worth considering which methods could work for you to communicate directly with them, something we are helping a number of clients work out.

If you haven't given much thought to whether it's appropriate or not, but are pressing on regardless, it probably won't end well!

2. AdSense. Monetising your website can be an attractive proposition, and Google's AdSense (the system whereby you can opt to display adverts through Google's AdWords programme on your website) is one of the main options.

Our experience is that AdSense is limited in how effective it can be to generate income, and that ensuring that appropriate ads appear on your site can require a significant management overhead.

Here are some specific criteria to help determine whether AdWords can be of benefit to you...

1. You run a site in an industry where people are used to seeing advertising (e.g. magazine style content). This will mean people find them less intrusive and that a portion of your visitors will have a propensity to convert.

2. You have enough traffic to make it financially viable. There's no sense in spending a lot of time and resource managing the ads if there is not enough revenue in it to make that profitable.

3. You are willing to accept that ultimately you do not have total control of some content that is displayed on your site.

4. You are also willing to accept that, despite the tweaks that can be made to the visual format of Google Ads, some visitors will find their experience devalued, given the presence of AdSense on many poor quality, cheap and 'spammy' sites, and possibly will think less of your brand.

The short answer is that there are a few situations where we would recommend AdSense is used, but they are exactly that - few.

However, if you want to look at the revenue streams through on-site advertising, a more worthwhile option could be either niche providers who specialise in syndicating certain types of advertising, or to set up your own ad management functionality and solicit ads yourself, and only select those you feel are a good match for your site's content. It may require a little extra effort and cost up front, but you get greater control, and of course you get to keep all the income too.

3. User Generated Content (UGC).

In our view, getting involved with user generated content is one of the great opportunities of doing business on the new web.

The reason for this is that it creates a dialogue between you and people you communicate with, and it shows to everyone you engage with that you are a transparent, customer-facing organisation that is happy to talk to people, confident about its product or service, and comfortable with dealing with all situations, both positive and negative.

OK, negative comments about your brand can be a bit scary, because if you allow people to post content on your site, they may well say what they think, so some companies are understandably nervous of this.

But the greatest risk is not participating.

People will make their thoughts known online whether you like it or not. They are probably talking about you right now. Do you know what they are saying? And if so, would it be appropriate to join in?

At least on your own site you know how people are feeling and what they are saying to each other. So why not be part of that conversation, and fix problems when they go wrong. If you do that, not only have you engineered a 'brand success' with an individual when you remedy an issue, but everyone involved in the dialogue can see it too.

'New Web' seminar - quick update

danm@chameleonnet.com (Dan Martin) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 23:20:37 GMT

Just a quick thank you to all who attended the latest in our series of free educational seminars on Thursday 11th October at The Groucho Club in Soho.

The event was titled: Debunking New Web Myths - The Realities of Commercial Success with Web 2.0.

We felt Web 2.0 had been in circulation long enough now to warrant a bit of scrunitising, breaking down the fact and fiction, and making some sense out of what is effectively the Internet's buzzword du jour.

We really felt the seminar was a great success, in fact our most subscribed to date with around 60 attendees, particularly important when trying out a new topic and slant.

It seems that sentiment was echoed by the attendees, especially those who have kindly allowed us to publicise their comments, such as Catherine Demajo, Head of Magazine Marketing at Time Out who thought it was “a great seminar”, Andrew Oldfield, Website Resources Manager at The Housing Corporation who thought it was “fantastically useful”, and Emma Simon, Marketing Director at Walker Books who said we were “engaging, enthusiastic and informative”.

It's great you guys felt the seminar was suitably valuable to share those comments with a wider audience. We appreciate it too, so - thanks!

We'll be running the seminar again very soon, so keep your eyes peeled...

(BTW, I'll be submitting a specific post or two on more topical seminar-related stuff over the coming days.)

Chameleon Net Treasure Hunt - Results

danm@chameleonnet.com (Dan Martin) — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:13:45 GMT

Some of you may know that last weekend the Chameleon Net crew were at large in Brighton dressed as pirates, disturbing locals and passers-by alike on a charity treasure hunt in aid of UNICEF.

A big thanks to all those who donated and pledged money to the event, which raised £550 for the good folk at UNICEF who do an excellent job in their mandate to make sure every child should have clean water, food, health care, education, and a safe environment in which to grow up.

The money raised was all channeled through the 'My Fundraising' website that we recently built for UNICEF, currently in Beta, and soon to be released for general public use.

The site allows people to set up their own fundraising events, tell their friends and family about them, and then take donations through the My Fundraising site straight to UNICEF without any intermediary bureaux taking a slice in the middle.

We wish UNICEF all the best for the full release of the site. We'll post a notice on this site when it goes live, and we encourage you to get involved in the future.

It certainly gives you an excuse to do fun and silly things, as you can see...

(L-R) David, Daryl, Leissa, Chris, Vicky, Dan, Louise, Jon, Drew