Search Engines, The Future….

"Search Engines, The Future…." proved to be an illuminating refresher from Helen Mitchell (of Ascendancy Internet Marketing)  on what's happening in the world as represented to us by Google. 

We've all begun to notice the gradual changes creeping into Google's organic results listings now that "univeral search" is beginning to expose the contribution of blogs, video, products and map locations. Helen took us through the fascinating challenge of keeping our websites ranked up there and in the Google-public's eye. Why all the focus on Google? Well, it does now seem to have the lion's share of the search engine market in the UK. 

We had a whistle-stop tour of the contribution of intelligence fed back from iGoogle and Google Gadgets; and a good opportunity for comparison of experiences with pay-per-click advertising. We've often described this group to ourselves as a sort of 'self-help' group - and the lively conversation that Helen's talk generated certainly flushed out lots of observations and experience to share and learn from.

An interesting observation: in the chit-chat over a pint beforehand (yes, this was our regular "Unplugged" session in the Corbett Arms, Upton Magna, this month)... I got into several "have you heard from [[whatsisname]]? conversations, most of which were elucidated by some gem that someone had read on Facebook. Now it seems only yesterday that this particular "F" word was perceived as belonging in the domain of our youthful progeny... and now it's gradually embedding itself into our everyday experience... 

Still, nice to know we still do have these regular meets... and do some proper 'social networking'... ;-)

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Recession ? Where there are problems there are opportunities.....

Why are the media and the chancellor predicting economic doom and despair, particularly the worst for 60 years? Surely all this negativity can only worsen the economic climate further?

This month's 'Unplugged' event (Corbett Arms, Upton Magna) was predicted to be about discussing the opportunities, (and yes, where there are problems, there are opportunities) particularly for the smaller specialists such as ourselves.  

David Phizacklea (of Joraph) provided a pithy reflection of his evolving business strategy in the light of a much-heralded recession looming over the horizon, which prompted much fruitful observation and discussion from everyone in our lively band of practitioners!

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Labels/Categories...

I would like to suggest that we categorise the postings. I think we need to agree upfront what these are and what they should be used for.

I would like to suggest that we categorise the postings. I think we need to agree upfront what these are and what they should be used for. So here are my suggestions:

1) Admin - Blog Site Admin like site feedback...

2) UKITA - Anything to do with the national organisation/other branch business.

3) Event - Adverts and Reports

4) Soapbox - Items that talk about issues. Should be informative and could contain a link back to the contributor's site. So this is like a virtual Unplugged Talk. This could be used to precis an Unplugged talk or followup an Unplugged talk....

5) Skill Request - A request for certain skills.

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Why not have a look at the Main UKITA website???

We are the Shropshire branch of the UK IT Association which is a fantastic body that supports small and medium sized IT companies.

Why not visit their website to find out more...... See Main UKITA Site.

Why not attend one of the many events and find out more.....
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