30 Dec 09 Goodbye CorporateMag Theme
About a year ago I found and liked the look of the CorporateMag Theme and so decided to use it for this blog. But having done so, I found it was broken in places and the developers had pretty much abandoned it and its users to their own devices. Fortunately I have some devices and I was able to fix all that I needed to fix to make it work properly. I was happy to post my repair work back on the theme’s web page and ever since I have been running a kind of clinic for other users who cannot work out how to fix the broken bits. And yesterday morning another of these arrived:
Hey Dave, I was hoping you could help me out on using the corporatemag theme. There doesn’t seem to be documentation anywhere on how to use it. I figured out that I need to use the custom field of “thumbnail” on posts to get the featured posts images loading on the homepage. But how do you get the content previews showing for your Pages on the homepage? And how do you get the image carousel to work? I can’t seem to figure out how to get either of them working. I’m assuming it’s with the simple use of other custom fields similar to “thumbnail”. Can you share what custom fields you use please? I would really appreciate it!
So I had a quick look and lo-and-behold it all broke again.
So to cut to the chase, but I am giving up on CorporateMag Theme and no longer able to help out others with it any more. I am instead installing the beautifully pared down Google Chrome Theme from Smashing WordPress Themes
19 Dec 09 Wonderful, wonderful #Copenhagen
Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
115 people hit town
To squabble and fight
Over the global blight
Then clink and drink one down
To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Where Barak barracked Jaibao
Then he sailed away
And nothing had changed
Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful
Copenhagen for me
16 Dec 09 Rage Against The X Factor
#Xfactor I read that Simon Cowell said that the Facebook campaign to get Rage Against the Machine’s (RATM) 1992 song, Killing in the Name, to Christmas No 1 ‘stupid’ and ‘cynical’…”
Which of course it is, but to be even handed about this, the use that Cowell makes of mass media is cynical.
Cowell has his own private TV channel-to-market. He overwhelmingly uses it to manufacture pop stars for his own label, and promote other artists of his. He also times the whole thing to cash in on the most lucrative time for music sales. This is overwhelmingly to his benefit and no one else – cynical would you say?.
What makes me sad is that while The X Factor is aired, there cannot be another proper Christmas song like Merry Xmas Everybody (Slade), Happy Christmas – War is Over (John and Yoko), I Believe In Father Christmas (Greg Lake), Stop The Cavalry (Jonah Lewie) or even White Christmas (Bing Crosby). Those songs have some lasting appeal and seasonal poignancy, but the X Factor ‘product’ is generally forgettable or even disposable, as are many of the ‘stars’ manufactured by the show. YTou don’t think so? Series 1 – Steve Brookstein; Series 2 – Shayne Ward; Series 3 – Leona Lewis; Series 4 – Leon Jackson; Series 5 – Alexandra Burke; Series 6 – Joe McElderry. While Leona Lewis seems to have cracked it, it’s about time. The others are all very distant memories and one suspects that Alexandra Burke will be next years Leon Ward and this year’s winner, Joe McElderry, will ultimately be another Shayne Ward.
I have no specific problem with Joe McElderry. I am sure he is a nice guy, he does have a good voice, he looks like Donny Osmond did when he used to activate hormones in teenage girls and at least Joe has won a ‘talent competition’. Or has he? Cowell says the RATM campaign is aimed at him. I rather think it is aimed at the thing he has built. “Is this a singing competition” judge Danii Minogue asked before judging against the diatonically deaf duo of Jedward. However, in a previous week, having savaged their every performance, Cowell kept them in the show at the expense of Lucie Jones, one of the better vocalists in the competition. Cowell’s cynical support of Jedward was clearly to maintain ratings and ad revenue, because they were less talented, less entertaining and less likely to win than any other act. FFS they were booed every bloody week.
So, while I don’t really like the Rage Against The Machine single (you are not really meant to, it is acid in the eyes sort of art), but I hope it succeeds. Not for its own merits, but to open up the future possibility of some proper Christmas songs which are not so cynically mass marketed.
15 Dec 09 Software for nothing
Quick note to self really. I am researching a piece of written work about whether you need any expensive software, or any software at all to run a business.
I have a friend who works from home, but he found it tricky to concentrate with all the distraction and then if he had to go into town for a meeting it would be a waste of much of the day getting there and back.
So he started to work from the local library. There is free wi-fi and good desks and chairs – coffee machine, cafe, right in the middle of town and totally free. They even provide computers – but you have to have a liobrary card and they limit it to 1 hour, but the principle is there.
Now, I have been using a free invoicing system called Zoho for a while which also has an online version of word and excel. So what about everything else? Is it possible to run a business for free?
So I started to think that you could run a business for free. Yoiu could get accounti
To be continued…
11 Dec 09 Dropping Pianos on Accountants
Dropping A Piano (Accountant underneath)
‘Accountancy Recruitment’ is a two word title, both words being metaphors for ‘sedative’. Have you ever seen a job ad for an accountant that read “…exciting opportunity for the right accountant”? It is somehow not believable, an oxymoron. My first thought is that the ‘right accountant’ would have to have so little electrical activity in the brain that magnolia paint would be an exciting opportunity.
But then every now and again you come across an article such as Chris Cutting’s what happens when you drop a piano on an accountant. The point he makes is that in a given set of circumstances there will be many who will follow the same set of ‘rules’. The things you always do, the sum total of experience and education. For most, the temptation is, when something goes wrong, to tighten your resolve and do more of the same things as properly as you know how. The result is that you end up doing it wrong again, only this time thoroughly.
Those who know me, will know that one of my favourite phrases is “If you keep doing what you do, you’ll keep getting what you get”. For marketeers and designers, this is a self-evident truth. People will call us in to make a difference and then systematically try to force us to spontaneously provide exactly what they had that they decided needed changing. I once worked at BP and we had a load of consultants swanning about the place. If you went to fetch a coffee, they would declare your seat a ‘Hot desk’, sit there and not leave it until the end of the contract. But one such consultant from Andersens imparted the following wisdom upon me. “If it ain’t broke …break it”. It basically means that you can keep doing something for years and watch it work. Then one day it won’t work, the world changed while you weren’t looking. But because you have always done things the same way, it leaves you bereft of alternatives.
The points he, and Chris Cutting make is a good one. His is remedial, suggesting that you need to periodically tear down systems and proceedures and rebuild them. Chris’s, on the other hand, is preventative. He says that you need to find the sort of person who will have it within them to look up from time to time, spot the problem and break the inertia to avoid the problem.
For the right accountant, that is an exciting opportunity, and I imagine that finding the right accountant is not always the easiest thing to do.
The only thing I would add, is that if anyone does manage to drop a piano on an accountant, can they film it and get it on YouTube – there are lots of good SEO, Social Media and Marketing reasons why you should.
