09.29.06
Posted in Personal at 2:31 pm by Christine
Very sad news today about one of my favourite (and most legendary) restaurants in Cape Town, the Madame Zingara.
News24 reported today that the Madame (and Cara Lazuli) both burnt to ashes in the early morning hours.
The restaurant drew an eclectic Cape Town following and tourists from far and wide for their famous Chilli Chocolate Steak and bizarre entertainments.
Some good news from the posting on the offical Zingara site is that it seems as if they will rebuild the Madame (more than likely even better than before) and hopefully reopen by early next year.
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09.14.06
Posted in General at 3:17 pm by Christine
With “brand” being on my mind quite intensely the last 2 months with deciding on where I want to align myself for the next 5 years and having been “living in my inbox” more than usual, I thought it appropriate to share a few branding secrets with you specifically focussed around email.
Not that they can’t be found anywhere else online. These are a few fundamental items as relates to email marketing. They do to some extent of course also work well in a very general sense for all media.
They’re so simple, yet so many people “forget” or “bypass” these elements.
- Know your “brand relationship”. In other words the context of which your audience is engaged with your brand.
- Understand how your audience perceives your brand.
- Be aware of how your brand “appears” to others when it lands in the inbox. (multi-platform testing, testing and then some more testing!)
- Establish and follow through with an engagement program.
- Have a disaster recovery plan.
I’ve experienced a few “disasters” and not many people have a recovery plan in place. Most just cross their fingers and hope for the best!
That is a tricky one though, let us say for example you’ve “accidentally” sent out an unpopulated email to the entire database. (I’ve actually experienced this one on the receiving end) what do you do?
- Quickly send another mail in apology
- Send out the correct mail without saying anything
- Say nothing and hope for the best
- Send out an apology mail and a separate “correct mail” and hope that the entire database does not unsubscribe?!
- Do an “all in one”
In that particular instance the company chose to quickly send a mail in apology and then the correct email. Having been on the receiving end, I did find it quite annoying to receive so many emails. I would rather have suggested the “all in one option”.
It is very subjective though and no matter how you try and recover, there is always the chance of the fateful “unsubscribe”.
On another occasion I received a blank mail (again), but this time the company followed the typical “say nothing and hope for the best” routine. I was infuriated, but I did not unsubscribe only because I really enjoy that particular newsletter.
There are many elements to be aware of before embarking on an email campaign or even if it’s just sending out or replying to a client email. Even the smallest elements in your opinion may affect the perception of your client or correspondent.
Keep these elements in mind and spend a little more time with your email or newsletter before you send it off next time.
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09.06.06
Posted in General at 1:03 pm by Christine
Well spring has reached us southerners and the recent weather we’ve been having has given us a small insight as to how hot our summer will be in Cape Town this year! If you have not visited Cape Town, this would be a good year to come – especially if you like it hot!
So Google is in the hot seat (again) today. Have they gotten tired of putting up the good fight…I guess China was just the beginning.
On the weekend Google decided to roll on over and hand over their Orkut user’s data to the Brazilian government. The Brazilian Government are investigating a few groups who have been labelled for allegedly expressing and encouraging racism and homophobia amongst others. As Media Post expressed “Of course, in some countries, expressing opinions is criminal. But Google’s headquartered in the United States, where the First Amendment is supposed to protect people’s right to express themselves, no matter how offensive their views.”
At least they did initially not adhere to the request, but after being threatened with up to $23 000 a day in fines, Google agreed to comply. On the flip side, I guess one has to be sensitive to the local authorities and business etiquette when conducting business in other countries and hoping to thrive there.
As entrepreneurs, we all hope for world domination or at least of extending ones empire across the seas. The game of chess is never-ending and mostly one has to move carefully, quietly and make very tough strategic decisions that may bring us closer to our end goal. Patience is key. Bellowing your intentions to the rest of the world does have its advantages, once you have the upper hand to your opponent.
Speaking of “bellowing your intentions”, in lieu of all this data handover pretty soon, everyone will be downloading this new FireFox extension named “track me not” that helps to thwart attempts by search engines to track or make sense of your data by masking your IP address and sending nonsensical queries in return.
Your data stays the way it was intended to be. Private. Well then again, in our conspiracy filled and innovative industry, it will only remain so for that long I guess.
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