The other day Roger Vanstone wanted to know what the USP is for Better Networking.  Aarrgghh, sometimes I want to pull my hair out because it is not always easy to determine the USP.&nbsp

Last Tuesday I was lucky enough to pop in to the online chat here at BN and get some fantasticly useful feedback on a website I was working on. I've started to change the look of the site somewhat

 Today I received three text messages from my mobile phone operator of 7 years, Beeline, They invited me to come to their office to receive a gift for being their dedicated customer. Well... I we

Hello, friends, I'm back. Back from Anapa - a small town on the coast of the Black Sea very popular for its sandy beaches, warm climate and multiple hotels of all kinds and degrees of affordability bu

  Top Tips For a Winning Elevator Pitch    When you meet new people at a networking event, the question, ‘What do you do?’ inevitably arises. How do you handle it? Stumble out a few well-worn phrases

Dear fellow BetterNetworkers. I'm addressing you both as a new member of the Management of BetterNetworking (thanks for the honour, Romany!) and as an SEO, even if a former one. it so happens t

  Recently Romany Thresher and I were in deepest darkest Kent. Yes, that's right, just outside Ashford in Great Chart. We were attending a Tweetup at the Hoodener's Horse Pub. There were about 2

 In one of my previous Anapa blog I mentoined the lady who always sat in front of our dining hall selling tickets to various excursions (sitting day after day on the beach quickly gets boring, so

 Tomorrow is the day when I depart from Saratov to Anapa - a lovely town on the nothern coast of the Black Sea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anapa Please don't get deceived by what Wi

  I was reading a blog called 26 tips for good social media participation.  I noticed that many people join networks and then sit back hoping for something to happen.  You do know it n

 My first working day outside that company - a little more than a month with them was enough to see that it was a mistake to join them. I've learned something from them, but less than I expected,

1 I could live with, 2 mmm but now 3 different people all saying to me that they have to be very secretive about the fact that they do work for me part time because their day jobs do not allow them to

As I use BN, sometimes something will cause me to say to myself "hey, i like that..." Like quite a few of our members, I've experienced other networking sites - the one I know best is Ecademy. It's b

An endless topaz sea stretches before me, with its mysterious reefs and silver sunbeam kisses.  No footprint other than mine dents the sand.  I follow a hermit crab’s sandy trail to

I decided to share this today, it was something I received in an email a long time ago, not sure who the writer is so sadly I cannot give credit but I felt it was a very true reflection to how life

Last Thursday, 28 May, I had the privilege of being the ‘expert’ on the receiving end of questions on my specialist subject. This was the first online Chat organised by Better Networking

OK, so one of my natural talents is to generate ideas and one of my reasons for starting a business community is my passion to help small and home businesses to generate ideas for their business. I

Sounds a bit like a breakfast cereal… But let’s get slightly serious. What happens if you can’t pay your VAT? Will the VATman make you bankrupt? What penalties might you suffer?

  Last Saturday Lari & I went to a lesson devoted to the Argentine Tango. Now, we've been ballroom dancing, on and off, for years – it's how we first met in, ahem, 1969. We've watc

The government seems determined to reduce road deaths by lowering the speed limit.  Is this likely to be effective?

The theory is now a fact. A bold statement that can be backed up with solid facts. Having spent between 12 and 16 hours on average a day observing at first one, then a lot more different SMM sites, bo

I wrote a blog post today for my blog on my website. My biggest quandry was what to use as a title. I hear and read that the title you use is important. It's what makes people stop and read further.

  “Two African Woman coming from London to....” WHAT, BUT THE ONE WOMAN IS WHITE, SHE CAN'T BE AFRICAN! Raising the topic over lunch with friends the other day, wonderi

Ok, I had it all in my head, was trying to sleep early tonight but no good so here I am at 2:17 am in the morning and now I forgot what I wanted to say.  Oh yes, got it now. I had such a lovely

Although it seems the internet has overtaken traditional media in every way, newspapers and magazines still get printed, purchased and distributed. For many businesses, local newspapers don't appear

Living in a community creates obligations between people. These can be a good thing, but too many obligations can weigh us down. This has happened to me recently when I agreed to do a number of things

Born to Sparkle? Here is a sequel to Business : Do you Sparkle Do you hate your job? do you hate your life? Does your business and your life reflect that inner sparkle?Would you like to learn how to r

My current number one client, where I'm in the final stages of implementing a new software system to manage their sales and operations processes, has just hired a Call Centre trainer - he started yest

So your twitter account is up and running , you are following people and people are following you.   You are running @tweetdeck , you have created a group from the people you are following and

  A few years ago while working for a cruiseline my colleagues and I made an interesting observation. One week we would have a cruiseship full of people who would be drunk and disorderly. 

My friends know that last summer I learned to ride a bike - the art most people master as kids. It turned out to be much harder to do at 36 than it is when you are small, and a few times I was ready t

'Every child deserves a happy childhood and the chance to grow and experience a full life' So soon after enjoying being spoiled by my 'grown up;' daughter and her husband for 'Mothers Day' yesterday,

We all know that connecting and helping each other online is what makes the world go round.   I was just thinking about our blog sites and then it dawned on me that most of us are probably have not ev

I've got lots of business cards: my own business cards. I was offered an incredible deal a few years ago and had a million or so printed (all right, not so many). So here they sit in nice plastic boxe

Basic Human Rights for Self-Development You have the right to have your needs and feelings be as important as anyone else's. You have the right to experience and express your feelings, if you choos

A week, maybe two ago I wrote a simple little post on what I thought about this thing called Social Media Marketing. I did it for a site that I had only being actively using for 3 months. It good some

It's a natural reaction not to want to admit to ignorance, especially in a business environment where status is jealously guarded. But often admitting that we don't know something can improve reputat

Yesterday (13th October) my daughter with her class, the teacher and a few parents (me included) went to a settlement not far from Saratov called Selo Zolotoye (Golden Village). They have a small fact

  The art and Science of Prayer - As printed in Kindred Spirit 2008 Oh please God... Have you ever prayed? I mean really prayed? Perhaps in times of desperation you have begged for help from a

The criteria given by accessites.org should satisfy any web perfectionist. Well, maybe not my current boss - they have forgotten that all images should be .jpg and not .png, unless transparence is abs

I wondered whether it was just me (as I have been too busy to blog or twitter much) but twitter really does seem to have gone quiet. I like twitter a lot, but wonder if it is declining. If so, what's

Hello Fellow Ecademists and Optimists I hope you are having a wonderful day and/or evening.Just share with us your thoughts about the following :Being knocked down by the system ... what would you

 Well, that's right, I'm changing my job again. It was nice at Viscomp, with a kind boss and friendly colleagues, but, unfortunately, there have been too few projects lately, and so, too little m

I discovered Posterous the, at the moment, free blogging site this past week. I found it after seeing that @subutcher (Su Butcher) and @essex_courier (Sarah Arrow) had tweeted about their postings on

 Sorry if you already know this, dear reader, but it means you are in the minority. The myth about Russia being frozen year round over all its territory persists abroad, and the press is not help

lesson one to have your business good running set up a goal two poles and a net you need to be s.m.a.r.t. to reach it what is smart lets be honest the book says specific measurable accept

Brownie points? Yup, on  Andrew Marr's programme this morning he was a studio guest and at one point, referring back to the war, he said something like "thank God that the British were the first

In a recent survey of tourists from a variety of nations, London was rated top for its parks and its nightlife, but bottom for cleanliness and cuisine, as well as being the most expensive. &nb

There is probably no lonelier place than to find yourself an outsider in your own family. Look at the Ugly Duckling, did he not, with his feathers all stubby and brown, feel like an outsider in his f