A recent client meeting trip into London got me thinking about content audits again – what they can do for a business or organisation, why they happen and why ‘audits’ and ‘inventories’ are NOT the same.
And as the topic keeps coming up, I thought it might be helpful to get it all down here. Continue reading “What a Content Audit Is, What It Isn’t and Why You Need One”
I recently nodded my way through an article about ‘digital estate sprawl’ because I’ve definitely seen a lot of it the last few years; especially as the phrase ‘digital transformation’ becomes more and more misunderstood as ‘just make it digital.’ And it’s not just in large organisations where you can see how and why it happens so easily.
Any size company can find itself with a digital footprint that has expanded more … organically than strategically. It’s an issue Imogen Hitchcock at Beaumont addresses in ‘Why websites are like gardens – a new approach to building website content‘ – but applied to an entire digital landscape instead of just one site.
And it’s not only the number of websites that creates the overgrowth. Continue reading “Are You Managing Your Digital Landscape”
Does the cost of stock photography sometimes leave you reeling? Join the club! I’ve been shopping for and using stock photos for over 25 years and the price tag can leave me speechless on occasion.
While cost is very often what sends people hunting for free or cheaper sources of stock photography, there’s another reason that becomes bigger as time goes on — lack of choice. Have you noticed the same pics showing up on multiple paid sites? Me too. There’s a particular coffee cup, for example, following me from 123RF to Dreamstime, Bigstock to Canstock, Shutterstock to Deposit and back again.
So I go hunting for something that doesn’t look like the same picture everyone else is using on their content about the same topics. And even if I don’t see them everywhere, shots on the major sites can be perfectly fine but … predictable. Technically good, of course, but safe, cookie cutter … boring.
Not surprising then that we attempt to escape high cost, repetitiveness and blandness by Googling phrases like “free stock photos” or “hi-res free photos.”
Only then we find out how bad some of the “free stock photo” offerings are. Well, maybe not so shocking if you subscribe to the “you get what you pay for ” school of thought. But even taking that into account, some of them are breathtakingly bad. Luckily there are increasingly good places to find high quality, absolutely free stock photos.
All the sites below offer free high-resolution photos under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license which means:
No purchase, permission, or attribution* required. Continue reading “Searching Out Stock Photos”
Video conferencing is great – and I suspect we will be using it more and more even after we get through the current crisis. That said – in the same way that not all jobs can be done remotely, not all meetings can be done that way indefinitely. At some point – probably before a vaccine is available but when R rates are down – physical meetings of some kind will be needed so there will need to be some thought about how to safely hold them.
I’m deliberately using the word meeting to differentiate it from an event or gathering since – at least in my opinion – event and gathering imply a larger scale, less controlled attendance. Events and gatherings will be, we can assume, much further down the road. But meetings – which for the purposes of this piece are invite-based, agenda-driven functions for work or organisational reasons – may well be needed sooner and they cannot be arranged or managed as they used to be.
Everything must now be arranged with an added awareness of COVID-19. This is the fact that underpins everything you, as a meeting or event organiser will do: There is a risk that attendee might – unwittingly – expose others to the COVID-19 virus. Clustered exposure can lead to hot spots and localised spikes – and for meetings where attendees come from any distance, broader spikes.
So, these are some steps you may wish to take: Continue reading “In-Person Meetings in the Age of COVID-19”
One of the recurring themes in a lot of ‘what does the COVID-19 workplace look like’ pieces is ‘work from home, work from home, work from home.’
I work from home. I love working from home. I know lots of people who love it and lots of people who don’t like it at all. I’m also aware that lots of jobs that can’t be done entirely or even partially from home. So, let’s set aside working from home for a moment and talk about what the COVID-19 workplace looks like when it’s … well, at the workplace.
Well, it looks social distanced.
Yup, this is going to be part of the workplace workday long-term and there is no getting around it. On the assumption that we’re all operating to at least the WHO recommended standards (1 metre between people) or more (most places in the UK are working at a two-metre standard) – how do we do that?
How hard can remote working be? Well, if you are only doing it for a few weeks, not very.
But if you are planning to make it the operational norm for your organisation – the shift from traditional ways of working to remote working can be more complicated than you think.
Mind you, this is all off the top of my head so it doesn’t actually get into the true nitty gritty. Just makes – I hope – the point – that this isn’t something that large organisations (and even most medium size operations – can simply flip a switch on and have it work straight out of the box.
Continue reading “Remote Working: It’s Not Just Emailing from a Coffee Shop”
If it’s February, then it is Winter City Break time. As our city break to Porto (booked via British Airways holidays) last year had been superb, we decided to see what BA had to offer this year and this time we chose Rome.
I’d been to many times but it was all new to ModParlPhotos. We selected a hotel near enough to all the key spots to remain walk-able but also one that wasn’t quite in the middle of it all. When we are done for the day, we are done.
So, once again, everything booked in a single go via the BA holidays website – flights (BA), car service (TMTS Rome) and hotel (Hotel Glam Rome). Continue reading “Winter City Break: Rome”
Sharing is part of what makes social media social. It shows the your potential audience that your content offers more than just a hard sell. No one is going to spend more than a minute longer than they have to for a hard sell. Sharing not only encourages trust and engagement, it boost the likelihood that they will share/recommend your content to others.
So what should you be sharing? Goodness, the list is endless. Continue reading “Sharing is caring. And good practice”
Off we went last month to Four Seasons Costa Rica, located on the absolutely gorgeous Peninsula Papagayo.
This trip was all about my mother – who was celebrating what we shall call ‘a significant birthday.’ She’d been there before and had such an amazing time, when she had her choice of of anywhere in the world – this was her pick. She is, I should point out, very particular about her holidays so her desire to return spoke volumes about what we could expect and both @modparlphotos and I were very much looking forward to it. Then we started researching the area and what we might do and see – suddenly, it was all monkeys and tree frogs. At least if you asked my camera-wielding husband. 🙂
The first thing that struck us about the Four Seasons Costa Rica was the immense approach to the hotel itself. Like a lush, tropical, and sedate roller coaster. Arriving from the nearby city of Liberia (and that is the nearest airport), you go through the gates of Peninsula Papagayo, a 1400-acre protected landscape where the resort is located. You then drive down a long, meandering, breathtaking road taking in palm trees and carefully curated greenery, past the equally well-curated Arnold Palmer–designed golf course. Just when you think this hilly drive broken up by breath-taking views will go on forever, you reach the resort’s own gate and you are there.
And this is what we found. Continue reading “Four Seasons Costa Rica: Flora, Fauna & Food (A Review)”
Wednesdays are when I try to do a bit of industry catch up – you know, read up on trends, stats, who has moved where, what campaign has struck what chord etc. It’s also a chance for me to do the reading and collecting the most interesting takeaways so that you – who very likely have better things to do – don’t have to. My latest reading: “Engaging Your Audience With Visual Content 2018” by Contently and Libris. Definitely worth a read.
We all know visual content isn’t just decoration for your posts and tweets. It’s an amplifier, a booster. Gets more eyes on your info and engages viewers more fully – thus increasing the likelihood that they will take action on your info or offer. So, we know that but how is the use of visual content taking shape this year? This goodly sized report is full of lots of interesting info about what’s being used, by whom and how. Here are a few of what I see as key takeaways. Continue reading “Focus on Visual Content”
