Many professionals today spend several weeks of the year away on business trips. Whether it’s for a meeting or a conference, staying in contact whilst travelling used to be quite a challenge.  Staying in touch with colleagues, supervisors and family is not the laborious task it once was, however; today we have so much technology at our disposal, that there’s no excuse not to keep in contact when travelling. Some companies are taking the initiative, to ensure communications are continuous, even when staff are travelling on a business trip. On the website BusinessTravellerMe.com, it was announced...

Michelle Rodger, a columnist for the Scotsman, recently wrote about the importance of technology in attracting new talent to the workplace. Those who have just recently graduated are comfortable with using multiple gadgets on a daily basis, and if companies aren’t up to speed with such developments, it can be off-putting to potential employees.   A lack of technology in the workplace may suggest a stagnant and overly traditional company, which will most likely not appeal to younger recruits. So how do businesses find a balance between having the latest technology and their actual needs? The first...

Working within the promotions industry, we know the importance of the internet and how it’s vital for business. New research shows the internet is worth £100bn a year to the UK economy, a study has concluded.   The research, which was commissioned by Google, found that the internet accounts for 7.2% of the UK’s gross domestic product (GDP). If the internet was an economic sector it would be the UK’s fifth largest, said the report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). This would make the sector larger than the construction, transport and utilities industries. Some 60% of the £100bn a year...

Internet leaders Google have implemented a feature dubbed ‘remarketing’, which enables advertisers to tailor online ads based on users’ web habits. The feature works by detecting when users visit a brand’s website, and then targeting them with ads for that brand on other sites they visit within Google’s Content Network. It seems like the first significant step, to the futuristic scenes in science fiction, with adverts talking directly to individuals.   Center Parcs (that isn’t a typo), are one well known brand who’ve adopted this strategy. For example, they give a...

We sell promotional products to all different sectors of the economy, and to a wide range of business and organisations. Our main client base is made up of public sector organisations like schools, councils and the NHS. We also sell promotional material to lots of charities, and to large businesses via marketing agencies.   One sector we haven’t broken into is the space industry – yet! The government in conjunction with industry and academia, have said the UK space industry can become a much bigger global player, employing thousands of highly skilled workers and turning over approximately £40bn...

Marketing site Brand Republic recently interviewed the great British public, asking for their opinions over the proposed plans to change the image of dear old Mickey Mouse. The consensus was that Mickey should not be changed into cunning and cantankerous character as it would “spoil the essence” of the 71-year-old Disney character and be “a very expensive mistake. Not only that, but how many six year olds know what cantankerous means anyway?   Similarly when ordering promotional products, I always advise people to use the same branding across all their products, and only change your...

Printed promotional USB drives are popular corporate gifts for all sorts of businesses. If you’re planning on giving lots out, you probably won’t want to spend a fortune on an individual USB.   Bracelet USB drives are one the cheapest promotional flash drives available, but their quirky appeal means despite their low cost, they are still popular. A younger audience in general I think would approve of a printed bracelet flash drive, as it’s a promotional gadget that they can really get to grips with. The beauty being that silicon branded USBs are extremely hard wearing – which is ideal for...

Anyone who has ever used an E-mail, thinks Spammers are as popular as Nick Griffin in a Mosque. No matter how many times you ask me, I will not be tempted to buy Viagra from Singapore (at least not for a few years). Similarly in my business E-mails, I’m not tempted to by ‘best price USB’ from Hong Kong, when Spam E-mails are written in pigeon English.   If you’re a fellow blog writer and are non to impressed by spam mailers, check out http://www.stopforumspam.com, which is a very useful website. The site was created to be used as a central database for known forum spambots – so well done...

People have been going mad about Twitter, but is it all media hype? ‘Micro-blogging’ still remains in the hands of the few according to Harvard research. Despite the fact that where constantly told the whole world is tweeting about everyone else just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content.   Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network. However, the Harvard team found that more than half of all people using Twitter updated their page less than once every 74 days.   And most people only ever “tweet” once...

A recent study carried out by Soc­ial Media Affairs (SMA), found 19 per cent of bloggers identified as Conservative Party supporters, compared with 16 per cent each for the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats.   With perpetual PR disasters for Gordon Brown and his cabinet, I’m surprised that the deficient isn’t double this. However Labour bloggers have refuted this claim, with one of their parliamentary candidates Lucy Powell hitting back: ‘I thought we’d moved on from social media in politics being about how much traffic one blog gets versus another and towards how we actually adapt to a...