Essex Business Forum

Chairman’s Blog, Thursday 16th May 2013

Average turnout, 25 members present. A lively meeting nonetheless.

Geoff Todd delivered the Ed Slot. As an ex farmer he extolled the virtues of “farming “ as opposed to “hunting” in networking terms. A useful insight that helps demonstrate the value of the occasional contribution by different members.
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This morning saw the launch of the Billericay meeting of Essex Business Forum, at the Ivory Rooms.

It was well attended with plenty of guests many of whom have already signed-up to become full members and others all promising to return next week to take part in the first “full” meeting.
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Chairman’s Blog Thursday 9^th May 2013.

A good turnout – 27 Members and 2 guests.

Stewart Oldham an IT Consultant who was “observing” in anticipation of Billericay’s launch meeting on the 14^th May 2013 and Angus Brown a Personal Trainer who I believe was seen with a membership form in his hand when he finally departed the premises.
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Chairman’s Blog – Meeting Thursday 2nd May 2013

Good attendance, 27 in all including guest Barry Hicks from RM Magazine and Magician.

A Lively meeting was very effectively kicked off by David Plumley’s Education Slot when he emphasised the importance amongst other things of fully preparing your 60 seconds and 10 minute presentations. As if to illustrate this he explained “I have got something here and I am working through it”. Your comments are invited as to what that might have been or could have been.
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Chairman’s Blog – Meeting Thursday 25th April 2013.

Reasonably well attended meeting, 25 members and 1 guest Alan Pegg who has made application to join and has been accepted by the Committee. Hopefully we will be able to induct him next week.
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TWELVE IN A BOAT (a personal recollection of a day well spent)

There were 12 disciples, the English Criminal Justice System is based upon 12 good men a true. It is only if you call them a dozen that you run into complications. Dozen is derived from the French douzaine (what do they know about it) and a Baker’s Dozen is 13.
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Chairman’s Blog – Thursday 18th April 2013-04-18

A reasonable turnout 26 members 1 guest, Alan Peck of B Bright Cleaning Associates.

The Education Slot was delivered by Alan Shaw and it lived up to our wildest expectations. His topic was Quality; quality travel, quality hotels and quality airlines. I had no problem with the title, given the Company that I represent. Alan Shaw apparently thinks it’s a good thing that you embrace quality in your travels. He found himself sitting near to Neil Kinnock on a flight… but he did not exchange any words with him.
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This Morning I received an email from a client and friend Brian Painter. Brian was asking my opinion on the views of Chris Cardell in his email message about 5 important changes to Google that every business owner needed to know.

Part of the email read:

As a business owner and a smart internet marketer, your fortunes are closely tied to Google. Here are just five of the recent changes that directly impact your business:

 

1 SEO is on its last legs. The proof is everywhere. Google continues to make changes that make the chances of beating them close to zero. I’ve been warning that this was going to happen for many years. You MUST build a business that is not dependent on search engine optimization.

Here is my response to Brian on this comment:

SEO is not DEAD, it is just changed. What has died are the quick-win and dodgy tactics that people used to do to trick google into having their websites rank well. Google is now getting much smarter and knows how to beat these systems.

I predicted last year that the term SEO was on the way out (which is a shame as I named my business after this play-on-words! – Eseyo Ltd.) and instead a name called “inbound marketing” would replace it. The things that I have to do in my job now are more than just SEO they are also Social Media, Email Marketing, Analytics, Conversion Optimisation, Web Usability and much more and they will all be branded as part of “inbound marketing” soon I think.

I completely agree that if you have a business which is based on dodgy tricks to try and cheat your way to the top of Google then your time is up. If you haven’t already been penalised then it is only a matter of time. If, however, you engage in what is called “White Hat” SEO then you are safe and stand to gain a huge advantage as those less honest and “clean” website profiles get washed aside.

Chairman’s Blog – Thursday 11th April 2013

Good turnout, 30 in all including 1 guest Stewart Roberts who now has the membership form and will be joining, hopefully for the next meeting and Alan Shaw who arrived at 8am… that’s Greenwich mean time.
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Chairman’s Blog Thursday 4th April 2013

Reasonable turnout, 25 members and one guest, Stewart Roberts for the second week.

March’s performance league was won by Kevin Brooks with 240 points. Well done to Kevin.
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