Rob Jones's blog

Blueberry Bunch releases the Home Entertainment Collection

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 02:05:00 -0800

A little something that I've been working on for a while: Blueberry Bunch and our first package, the Home Entertainment Collection.

At Blueberry Bunch we partner with top brands to bring our customers hand picked lifestyle collections at tempting prices. Our brand partners gain exposure to new customers and our customers get a great deal on a complete package of specially selected products and services.

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How to talk to designers

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 03:48:00 -0700

A lot of people don't know how to talk to designers.

They might get a design for review and request that the text be moved left a bit, the title colour changed to grey, and the photograph converted to sepia. Of course, if those suggestions were any good then it's likely that the designer will already have tried that and a hundred other things before sending the design over - being a back seat designer doesn't help anyone. The designer can go ahead and make all of your changes but it's just going to waste everyone's time as you manipulate the design via the phone or email (you're designing it now, not them) until you eventually end up with something you're happy with (but isn't as good as it could have been), a bored designer, and a bigger bill at the end of it all.

Why did you hire this designer anyway? If you were so good at design why didn't you design it instead of designing by proxy? Here's the question: did you really want the black box moved down a bit and the text moved over or were you trying to fix a problem, to achieve a result? The latter.

So why not hire a good designer and let them do their job? Get your design for review, notice that it feels too cluttered, doesn't emphasise your brand enough, feels too serious, or whatever and then tell the designer this and let them figure out a solution. That's what they're paid to do. Tell them what you want to achieve and why, then let them work out how.

This approach isn't limited to graphic design. Have you got a web developer who's changed something that you're not happy with? Don't tell him to make X do Y and W link back to Z. Tell him what the problem is and why and let him work out how to fix it. As a bonus you now won't have to take responsibility for the solution if it doesn't work - so you won't feel too bad about asking him to work overtime to fix it.

Tell designers WHAT and WHY, not HOW. Win.

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Triptiv launches online booking

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:56:48 -0700

Now, for the first time, travellers can book the Bolivian salt flats tour of their choice online.

Booking is now live on Triptiv, our tour provider comparison and booking service for travellers. For the moment we're just doing tours of the Bolivian salt flats (Salar de Uyuni) - the place that inspired us to create this service.

Tell your friends who are travelling in South America to check out triptiv.com/uyunisaltflats

At the time of writing there are a number of cosmetic updates that need to be made, the site is by no means finished - we'll get around to that - but we thought that it was important to enable this functionality now rather than later.

Big thanks from me and Cat go to John for the development work and Jenny for talking to tour providers en espanol.

Tell me more (optional)

In addition to our existing reviews and rankings we've enabled a number of tour providers to offer online booking through our website. Not everyone wants to book in advance, but some people do. This really is a big step forward. Previously it wasn't possible to do this online: third parties offered some booking but gave no choice of tour provider - and one tour provider (maybe more) let you email them your details and called that online booking. These systems failed in one or more ways to address a number of important issues:

Knowledge - Which is the best tour provider for you? Even some issues of Lonely Planet suggest you ask other travellers as reputations change over time
Security - People don't like handing over credit card details to Bolivian tour providers - we use PayPal
Choice - There are so many tour providers and tours, different factors are important to different people - do you want the cheapest? The safest? The most comfortable? ...
Price - Our prices are the same as those offered by the tour provider

In return for delivering bookings to them, tour providers pay us a small commission on each booking - so everyone's happy!

Ps. If you're thinking of visiting the salt flats, you really should.

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Open your eyes to opportunities in hidden markets

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 07:19:00 -0700

There are business opportunities everywhere in all sorts of industries that most people know nothing about. Often this is simply because they haven't come into contact with the industry yet. How many fantastic opportunities are there out there that you know nothing about? Maybe it's time that you learnt about some of the opportunities available in healthcare, more specifically the £8bn adult social care market.

Back in February I was involved in writing a research paper that uncovered some of the trends emerging in this industry. If you're in the industry then you should definitely read it - and if you're not, maybe you still should.

How do these trends translate into opportunities for you? Let's take a look at one example - the growth of direct payments.

A change in funding means patients are becoming employers >> specialist insurance, payroll, more...

The government is pushing direct payments, where patients receive cash to be spent on care instead of the care itself. Expenditure is growing at 31% per year creating a new, large and growing market. Whereas care was previously provided to patients by the local authority, patients are now becoming employers of carers and as such must take on the responsibilities of employers (this does not apply to those using agency staff). Let's not forget that these are individuals in need of care and not sophisticated businesses with HR departments - so they might need some help meeting their obligations.

One such obligation is a legal requirement to hold employers liability insurance. Companies like this one and this one are now starting to fill this need (opportunity) by providing specialist packages combining legal hotlines, insurance and peace of mind. This is great for the insurance companies who can sell either b2b to the local authorities (large contracts) or b2c directly to the individuals, plus their offering includes services around the core insurance product which are usually higher margin than straight insurance.

Another responsibility is running payroll: and lo, payroll companies are stepping in with specialist products.

What else do these people need? What do the local authorities need? What do the carers need? Is there an opportunity for you?

Opportunities abound

This was just one change, creating one set of opportunities. There are many other changes taking place in adult social care, perhaps one of those holds an opportunity for you? Or perhaps there's another as yet unknown market that you should get to know a little better?

Adult Social Care Market - Cairneagle - Feb 2010.pdf Download this file

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Can mobile power the people?

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:15:00 -0800

gpfm_community_power11_white_paper_lores.pdf Download this file

In parts of the world such as India and East Africa a large proportion of the population, especially in rural areas, does not have access to grid electricity. Yet many of these villages have mobile phone coverage and the networks are planning on rolling out more. Clearly the networks need to power their masts - so, could they power the villages as well?

According to a white paper recently published by the GSMA, the global body for the mobile phone industry, the answer is yes - and what's more, the best way to do it may well be using sustainable 'green' energy sources. The paper concludes that there is the potential for 200,000 such green Community Power projects worldwide, which could provide electricity to 120 million people.

I was lucky enough to be part of the Cairneagle team supporting the GSMA in this project.

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