Adria richards and that ‘joke’

When is a joke between two people private? The answer it seems is never.

Last week in the United States at a PyCon programming conference a developer who worked for PlayHaven made a joke amongst other things about ‘dongles’.

Adria Richards, a developer for a company called Sendgrid, was sat in front and tweeted this;

Not cool.Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and “big” dongles.Right behind me #pycon twitter.com/adriarichards/…

— Adria Richards (@adriarichards) March 17, 2013

The developer was thrown out of the conference and subsequently fired from his job.

This act led to the lynch mob on the internet attacking Richards on Twitter with a flurry of offensive comments. Pressure was put on SendGrid to fire Richards and a few days after the original incident they relented. On Facebook they wrote;

Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards. While we generally are sensitive and confidential with respect to employee matters, the situation has taken on a public nature. We have taken action that we believe is in the overall best interests of SendGrid, its employees, and our customers. As we continue to process the vast amount of information, we will post something more comprehensive.

So at the end of it all two developers lost their jobs and the internet was outraged. This could have all be avoided had Richards turned round and said to them that the joke was inappropriate. The fact that she tweeted their picture and publicly shamed them was not the smartest idea and made her position untenable.

Once something hits the web there is no going back, think before you tweet.

Google Keep

In the wake of announcing the demise of its Reader service, Google last week launched a new product – Google Keep. The note-taking app was released last Wednesday for Android devices, to mixed reviews.

Keep was immediately thrown into the ring with the likes of Evernote, although I don’t necessarily think Google is going after the note-taking giant. If they were, surely they would have released it across all platforms. I agree with Danny Sullivan’s take that it’s simply a service for Android users to sync notes across different devices, like you can with the iOS Notes app. It’s something that was missing from the Android setup.

So what’s the app like? Being an Android user myself I was looking forward to testing the app as most of my life is synced to Google anyway. My initial thoughts were that it’s a typical Google product, simple, clean interface, easy to use, and did the job. There are a variety of ways to enter a note; you can add a standard note, a list, take a photo or speech input. There is also an ‘Add quick note’ textbox at the top for additional simplicity. The notes appear as tiles that can be colour customised, re-organised, and synced to Google Drive.

The app looks good, but once you start using it on a day-to-day basis you realise that there’s a few things missing. The lack of a sharing function is a bit of an oversight, if I want to send a shopping list to my girlfriend for instance, there should be an option to share it across to her Keep account. There is also no way to set a reminder for a note, which is very annoying. This is a bit of a dealbreaker because it’s such a basic feature for an app of this kind, I couldn’t replace Any.DO or Google Calendar without this functionality. It’s also hard to access your notes on the web, I was expecting a ‘Keep’ tab to have appeared on Google’s black bar but instead I have to manually type in drive.google.com/keep/. I’m sure there is an easier way, but the fact is it’s not intuitive.

In my opinion, Google have got an opportunity to make a really good app out of Keep, but it’s not there yet. I’m sure there will be numerous updates in the next couple of months that will make all of these improvements.

Have you tried Keep yet? What do you think?

Dropbox buy Mailbox for $100M as reservations reach the 1 Million Mark

Early in the week, reports were going around that Dropbox were launching a bid to buy Orchestra, the company behind Mailbox. It was reported in a blog by GigaOm, that Dropbox paid more than $50 million for Orchestra. However, this was questionable with other sources saying the fee was much closer to $100 million.

On the official Mailbox blog, they wrote about moving to the new office move after being bought by Dropbox. They also announced that they reached the 1 million reservation mark after six weeks of being available in the Apple store. After our blog on release, the demand still remains high for access to app. With this benchmark they also released version 1.1 of the app to fix a few bugs and adds “shake to undo” to its feature set.

“Today we’re releasing an update to Mailbox in the App Store. Among hundreds of fixes and improvements big and small, we’ve added shake to undo—the feature our users asked for most. You can download the version here if you haven’t already updated.”

What will Dropbox do next with Mailbox? Rumours circulating around a file attachment integration with Dropbox’s own services.

TWITTER TURNS SEVEN

Twitter reached the ripe old age of seven this past week, and it looks like its popularity is going to continue to grow.

When did you first tweet and how often do you use it?

And We’ll leave you with this Chrome Experiment called Maze to keep you busy during the week – Try it on the PushON Homepage! 

The post Digital RoundUP 25/03/2013 appeared first on PushON Ltd.

24 students, talking about 24 different issues in the newspaper, so why not Issue24? The 25th Issue will be an industry debate at Dukes92, on Tuesday 10 May 2011, where a panel of industry big-hitters will explore the headline question that all graduates want to know: what skills are employers desperate for in this difficult market. An invited audience of 150 will hear the story first hand.

Interesting topic considering the recent £9,000 price hike in university fees. Are graduates living up to what the industry needs? One thing I see lacking isn’t really a skills one, it’s an understanding of “real world” practices and after graduating from this innovative course myself.. the key for me was the facilitation to speak to and work with the industry directly.

This course now runs a project called Professional Practice (which I help deliver), devoted to students running an actual live project for themselves in a team. And I think this goes some way to bridge the gap between being a student and working.

The students will also launch their website, www.issue25.com, and interactive app, including an interactive map of where the key Design Thinkers are in Manchester

Programme Leader, Roy Chilvers, says:

“The students have been working closely with Adrian Bentley, Creative Director of Manchester-based Just Good Ideas, to conceive, brand, engage and deliver on this project. I doubt there will be anything produced from any group of students about to become available to the jobs market that can get anywhere near this for quality, ambition and innovation. These students know design, and they now know what it is to do business. That’s their edge, and that’s the real issue”

For further information on the project and the event, follow them on Twitter @I25ue.

The post Students showcase their thinking behind design appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Monday – MFN are having a talk on Affiliate Marketing at The Castle Hotel
Tuesday – at 4:00 MDDA are running a Celebration of 20 years of Digital Manchester at their Offices. Then at 6:00 make your way over to the BBC on Oxford road for Social Media Cafe.
Wednesday - There’s an interesting event at The University of Salford called Privacy and Identity: Can We Govern Information in a Digital Society? From 1 until 4pm
Thursday - Northern Digitals in (surprise surprise) The Northern from 6pm
Saturday – Is the Think Visibility full day conference in Leeds which we’re going down to in full force. Say Hi.

Phew.

See you there!

For a full calendar of events, look on our design and digital events calendar
If you want your event added, contact Rebecca on info@pushon.co.uk

The post Events this week appeared first on PushON Ltd.

When I started at PushON about 3 months ago, I was asked almost immediately whether or not I played football. Having a relatively good level of fitness and a large appreciation for the game I instantaneously said yes, thinking that team sports may be a nice change to the lonely gym visits and it would also allow me to bond with my new work mates; both of which it did. There’s nothing quite like a kickabout with the lads and PushON have now been playing more or less every week. Then came the announcement (and challenge) of the Manchester Creative Cup on Sunday the 10th of October, this gave us something to train for and to get serious about… *cue Rocky music*…

Pre-Cup Training:

We have, up until now had several games in preparation for the cup, all with varying …err… success. Teams that we’ve played include: The guys over at Return On Digital, the Melbourne lot and the CTI Digital rabble. While we won’t be publishing the scores of our previous matches because we’ve ‘forgotten’ them (unlike Return on Digital who’ve documented their Quest for Creative Cup Glory over on their blog) we are always keen on any challengers looking for friendlies.

If you are looking for an opponent between now and the cup then get in touch with our player/manager jordan@pushon.co.uk or @Jordan_Wilson on Twitter.

As there are now 32 teams entered into the Creative Cup, there’s also opportunities with other teams, so far the best points of contact we’ve found are:

• @dave_ashworth and @jbutcherseo over at Return On Digital
• @cybermag from CTI Digital
• @MelbourneHost for the guys at Melbourne Hosting
• Also the guys at Tecmark are keen for a game too

Also make sure you follow the #creativecup hashtag on Twitter.

Team Profile:

Just to strike fear in the hearts of our opponents, we thought we’d give you a short introduction to our team…

Position/Role:

Webmaster – Manager (apparently…)

Kieron Hughes (@kieronhughes)

Team – Liverpool Football Club

Nickname – Physios Favourite (Jordan’s recommendation)

Favourite player – Dietmar Hamann

About – Went to my first game in 94 (Brazil vs Japan at Goodison Park) with my Dad, and was nearly run over by Kenny Dalglish while on the way out.

Domain Registration – Goalkeepers

Roy Wilding (@RoyWilding)

Position - Keeper

Team – Cue shite “I support me legs cos they support me ” gag, none really, Everton when I was at school but only because you had to at least pretend to support one…

Nickname – The little short fat one

Favourite Player – Neville Southall, might of looked like a sunday league reject but was awesome in nets…

About – Not really that keen on Football, would rather watch Rugby but desperately trying to get the cool kids to like me in the office, sad really.

James Sims (@Jamesims)

Position – Keeper

Team – Burnley

Nickname – Simsy

Favourite Player – David Seaman

About – Not being fit enough for a more active position (story of my life) makes me a natural goalie, and also the rock solid cornerstone of the defensive line. Best footballing moment: watching Burnley win at Wembley! Not something you see every day!

Keyword [Opponent] Researchers – Defenders

Sam Rutley (@samru)

Position – Defender

Team – Manchester City

Nickname – The Bear

Daniel O’Malley (@danlukas)

Position – Right Back. In spite of being left-handed. And having a weak tendon in my right ankle. Seems to be some merit in this SEO-type as personality-type thing.

Team – Watching soccer (he’s Australian…) turns you into a girl. Fact.

Nickname – O’Malware

Favourite Player – Hidetoshi Nakata

About – Real men play Speedball.

Mark Mayne (@djmayne2001)

Position – Defender

Team – Manchester United

Nickname – Mayney

Favourite Player – Eric Cantona

About – Emile Heskey is a beast and my new FIFA hero. I am a big Man United fan and consider myself the Eric Cantona of five-a-side.

Linkbuilders – Midfielders

Tom Procter (@tomprocter)

Position – Defensive Midfielder

Team – Manchester United

Nickname – “Tisch”, “Tommy P”, “Timp”, “The Cat”, “Tuffers”

Favourite Player/Player that you’re similar to – Puyol… Horrible.

About – In your face. OOO-RAH!

Ned Poulter (@NedPoulter)

Position – Midfielder

Team – Birmingham City Football Club

Nickname – Nedders, Nedley, Nedlington, Ginger, The Ned, Nedular, Nedwar… (there’s lots)

Favourite Player – Sebastian Larsson

About – “The greatest and most popular sport in history with more than 5 times the TV audience of the next most popular (cricket – every radio and TV in the sub-continent is permanently tuned to Pakistan/India cricket matches – that’s a big audience). Only Americans call it ‘soccer’ owing to their vast ignorance of what goes on outside their national boundaries and the misnomer which has them thinking than a corruption of rugby, with all the danger and most of the skill removed can also be called ‘football’. ‘The Beautiful Game’ can be played anywhere, on almost any surface, by any number of players, for almost any length of time. And is. There is no country on earth that doesn’t play. It has inspired more passion, more courage and more excitement than any other sport in history and dwarfs everything else.

Position – Midfielder

Team – Nottingham Forest

Nickname – TheFuckwitt

Favourite Player – Stuart Pearce

About – Brian Clough made me laugh and Forest played football in a way that seemed to make sense and look beautiful at the same time

Authority Link Winners – Forwards

Jordan (@Jordan_Wilson)

Position – Forward

Team – Blackburn Rovers

Nickname – …

Favourite Player/Player that you’re similar to – David Dunn… weighty, from Blackburn and occasionally plays football.

About – This team is the only power I have within the PushON office, which I intend to abuse at all opportunities. My goal is to make sure we aren’t the worst team at the Creative Cup… as unachievable as that may be…

The post PushON Ready For A Challenge for the Creative Cup appeared first on PushON Ltd.

For more information please check out:

http://blog.heaven-spa.co.uk/

Heaven Spa
Heaven Spa have two of Manchester’s most reputable spa salon’s and a leading online beauty retail site.

Contact Details:
Cath Murphy
Heaven Spa
cath@heaven-spa.co.uk
T: +44 (0)161 870 1789

http://www.heavenspa.co.uk

The post Final Beauty & The Geeks Night Reminder appeared first on PushON Ltd.

• Tweet Deck – Twitter Client. In marketing we all understand the need to follow conversations and be able to engage in them quickly and easily. The standard Twitter interface makes this extremely difficult so making use of a comprehensive Twitter client such as Tweet Deck can make this much easier. The three panel layout means you can see track your direct messages, your standard responses and also the overall Twitter conversation of the people you follow.
  http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
• Tweet Scan – Brand Monitoring. This tool is excellent for finding out what is being said about you, a topic or a particular business. Tracking what people say about your business is extremely important. This tool is a great customer feedback tool as you can see what people are saying about your product or brand.
  http://www.tweetscan.com/
• Monitter – Real Time Keyword Monitoring. This tool allows you to type in multiple keywords and track the conversation around those in real time. This gives marketers the chance to see what people are talking about around particular topics and themes. This gives us the chance to release pages or news items around this coversation. This means that your site is keeping up to date with the latest trends and gives people a reason to come back.
  http://monitter.com/
• Twitter Tools Plugin – Keeping Your Readers Up To Date. Twitter Tools is a plugin for wordpress that allows you to post new post url’s to your Twitter feed automatically. This drives traffic to your blog or news section. If you post a lot of new blogs each day then this probably wont be the tool for you. Tweeting to much can annoy people.
  http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress
• Twitter Local – The Local Angle. This is something that i came across and have not had chance to fully research it however the concept behind it is interesting. A lot of SEO campaigns are going local these days so with this tool you can now track what people are saying in a particular geographical area.
  http://www.twitterlocal.net/

This list could essentially be endless as the number of tools being released is rapidly growing. If you think we have missed an essential tool then why not drop us a line. It is also worth checking out Julia Roy’s blog. She does an excellent weekly round up of Twitter.

The post Top 5 Twitter Marketing Tools appeared first on PushON Ltd.

The post Manchester Digital Social Event appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Paul Fabretti from KMP in Stockport gave a great presentation on the reputation monitoring and online sentiment tool he uses.  We had our ears pricked up for this one in particular because we’ve been using a reputation monitoring tool to help with our organic online marketing campaigns.  We’re particularly interested in analysing the data to shape online marketing plans, but also in using it to tackle negative and ride on the wave of positive PR.

There was also discussion about whether we need a professional body specifically for our industry.

I personally don’t think the British Computer Society covers what we do in the slightest, and as for Marketing, although the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), and the Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM) do courses for Digital and Online Marketing, it’s perhaps a bit of an afterthought.

I’m sure there was a branch off for digital from one of these institutions a couple of years ago, but it looks like nothing came of it. (If anyone has any information on this, please let me know).

Cathy Parker suggested a Digital Marketing Institute would help represent businesses working in our industry.  For example, in the case of Government Legislation – a professional body would more likely be called on for input.

This was all very interesting, and then we watched Spain versus Russia in the pub and carried on drinking… poor Julia’s not too pleased with the result.

The post Digital Marketing & Drinking Social appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Friends Reunited developed a reputation for rekindling lost loves and on the odd occasion enabling them to a point of consummation. But not all relationships have such a sordid motivation though. There are those people who just moved elsewhere and who writes letters these days? These are relationships worth reviving because they mattered and it is simply opportunity to maintain that relationship that was missing.

It can be similar with business. I know people who are expected to be on the Golf Course every Friday with clients because that personal relationship matters, and via that social contact you learn what you have in common, thereby making the business relationship just that bit more than business.

As a client, you are happy to spend that bit more, to give preferential treatment on that next contract. As a service provider you are happy to go that bit further for your client and in fact, you understand better how to service that client. Now, I’m not suggesting that online social networks will ever, or should ever, replace that human interaction. That is what makes us human, however, they do give us the means to extend the choice of interaction.

So, to return to the question of “What is Social Network Service Marketing”? It is an opportunity to build relationships with people who you share an interest with. It is an opportunity to demonstrate the personality of you and you business. It is an opportunity to go out and find interest groups, to research your audience, to make your brand have depth. Your audience now owns your brand. It certainly works for us.

We know that potential clients have looked over assets and not liked the way that we do things. We are informal in our approach. We’re happy that they know that they would not be comfortable doing business as it saves their time and ours. We have won business above bigger competitors because the client appreciates our understanding of the medium and our approach to it. They appreciate our uniqueness.

The whole point of the post was a lot simpler when I started. A very old friend, Steve Wood, whose work I have always loved has been back in touch. We’ve known where each other is for some time but Facebook has enabled the communication. He’s an artist who used to cover art for such as the Boo Radleys.

He has a piece in a competition which I think is great and he’s made a load of us aware of it via Facebook. We know like and trust him so we check out the piece of art and take the time to vote for him. Because I like his work, I am more than happy to talk about it, and in fact, I’m eager to recommend it. Go on, give him a vote.

The post What is Social Network Service Marketing? appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Tonight a few of us at PushON will be making our way down to the Manchester International Festival Pavilion for a get together of other bloggers in the Greater Manchester area. It should be a great opportunity for us to discuss the pros and cons of blogging and find out from other bloggers what it is that motivates them to blog.

With WiFi available at The Pavilion it should be a good opportunity for use to take advantage of some ‘Mobile Blogging’.

The meet up is being hosted by the team that write the BBC Manchester Blog who are covering the International Festival via blog.

We look forward to seeing those of you that are attending tonight and for those of you that can’t make it we’ll attempt to blog about the event live.

The post Bloggers Meet @ Manchester International Festival appeared first on PushON Ltd.