This afternoon is my presentation to the MD of my Communications Strategy and Tactical Plan for her company.

I’ve put together a spiffing presentation in Director (even though I barely scratch the surface of it, I really love using it — it knocks the socks off PowerPoint, but the learning curve is steep).

I’ve fine tuned the printed report — all that remains is to let the nerves settle, say a little prayer and get on with it.

Presentation starts at 1.30pm — wish me luck!

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My favourite marketing guru after Seth Godin is Robert Middleton.

He has a couple of workshop and intensives coming up in NY (July 16/17) and London (July 23/24).

If you get the chance, definately get along.

And if you haven’t heard of Robert before, check out his free workbook and chapter from his outstandingly good book, “The InfoGuru Marketing Manual”. I have yet to read any marketing ‘how to’ material for professionals that comes anywhere near his work…

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There’s been an interesting discussion going on over at Jack’s place regarding comments appearing in blog rss feeds.

I’d love to see comments, but as long as each new comment doesn’t then trigger my feed reader to think that the parent blog post is ‘new’ each time.

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Arrgh!!

A colleague lent me a copy of the recent Jean Michel Jarre album ‘AERO‘ (see, I am old! - “album”) and I suddenly remembered why I spent the better part of a decade listening to every one of his albums over and over and over again.

But it highlighted again the difficulty of reducing a passionate listening and music creation life down to just eight pieces. How can any list incorporate the diversity of my listening and do it justice? How do I fit in more Status Quo? More Tom Waits? Some Thomas Dolby? Some AC/DC? Thousands of hours listening to trance? Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Chopin, the Cure, the Police, Pink Floyd, Albanoni’s and Barber’s Adagios, Brian Eno, more recent additions like Switchfoot…

Or what of those one-hit wonders that somehow you keep humming in your head at 4am on a wet sleepless wednesday: The Cult’s ‘She Sells Sanctuary’, REM’s ‘Everybody Hurts’ and ‘Losing My Religion’, Tears for Fear’s ‘Pharoahs’, Jellyfish’s two great albums and ‘Ignorance is Bliss’?

Arrgh, the agony of decisions. I now despise a once-good friend for starting me down this path [smile].

So, change to the Music list for my Desert Island Discs:

• ‘Oxygene 2′ by Jean Michel Jarre
• ‘Your Song’ by Elton John (but the ‘Moulin Rouge’ version by Nicole and Ewan; watching Moulin Rouge at a Cinema in the Park a few years ago on an early date was key for the good lady wife and I; we fell in love there and both cried over Satine’s death)
• ‘Once Bitten Twice Shy’ by Ian Hunter
• ‘Paper Plane’ by Status Quo
• Live version of ‘The Piano Has Been Drinking’ by Tom Waits
• ‘Don’t Stop the Dance’ by Bryan Ferry
• ‘Dare You To Move’ by Switchfoot
• ‘Eagle Rock’ by Daddy Cool

And if I could only take one song? Oxygene 2.
My luxury remains an anchored yacht.

And if I couldn’t take ‘Good Omens’ as my book, then how would I separate any of my Le Carre or Len Deighton spy books? Arrrgh…

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Thanks to the ever-amazing Constantin for this.

He put me onto Roller weblogging software as a possible (and free) option for installed blogging software for my client. Certainly looks interesting and the price is right - just depends on my client’s IT bods and if they are able/willing to support it.

A potential visit to Sydney shortly to visit the IT chappies will no doubt clear up some of the fog around the issues they have - bandwidth, support, extranets…

Incidentally, they have quoted a colleague of mine (prior to my involvement) a very large sum to create an extranet. I would be interested in any folk’s views on how much an extranet might cost to set up if I provide the server and co-locate its hosting. Any ideas, folks?

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Yippee!!

This week’s podcast is now live and ready for grabbing.

And in this week’s feature-packed issue I discuss how to build bridges of communication, plus consider 38 ways we can stay in touch with our clients.

At just 8 minutes and 04 seconds long, it’s a bargain!

Download it now and listen to it immediately.

Or have your Doppler or Ipodder feedcatcher automatically download this and every new podcast of mine by hovering your mouse over the following link, then copying and pasting the shortcut into your feedcatcher: subscribe to my podcast feed

Links:
Robert Shaffer - High-Impact Consulting: How Clients And Consultants Can Leverage Rapid Results Into Long-Term Gains; Alan Weiss - Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional’s Guide to Growing a Practice

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“I don’t believe it!” said Victor Meldew. Neither do I.

I have my power supply for my notebook back for a week and it dies again. The reseller took it off me last time it failed, sent it to Sydney, and it took 2 weeks to come back with a ‘nothing wrong with it’ tag.

So there’s nothing wrong with it again, I would assume…

Grrrrr….. really doubtful I will be buying any more gear from this supplier (link and name not supplied until they hit ‘three strikes’).

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Found a great question asked by Katherine Ters over at the IABC Memberspeak forum, asking if Mission Statements were going out of fashion.

I can imagine mission statements going (slightly) away simply because the vast majority of readers of a mission statement are not emotionally impacted by them.

To take a ‘cluetrain’-ian perspective, the mission statement is, by and large, a statement of how well ‘we’ (the company) will do, not how ‘you’ (the customer) will directly be affected. Most mission statements miss the WIIFM factor.

If markets, both internal and external, are now conversations (and there is growing evidence that this is indeed the case) then the mission statement is a one-way monologue. And who wants to listen to yet another highly-paid executive lecture you when you are an employee or customer at the lower end of the food chain and are struggling to make ends meet… High ideals are great when you can afford them, but high ideals don’t feed the family.

However, the mission statement cannot afford to die entirely, because without it a company’s ‘reason to live’ dies with it. If you don’t know why you are or why you should be in the marketplace, don’t be.

To add another twist to the discussion, I came across this link to FastCompany and their mission statement:

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