Saturday 13 December 2008

Web Wise

Does anyone still use traditional libraries these days? You know, places where you can go and actually hold actual books in an actual building designed for just such a purpose! Well, I do - albeit on increasingly rare occasions!

I was in my local library today, where I picked up an interesting looking book called "Web Presence - Creating an eBusiness out of chaos". I've not had a chance to sit down properly to explore it in any great depth yet, but it looks like it just might present a few nuggets of useful information.

The general consensus these days, it would appear, is that you'd have to be a fool not to use at least one of the myriad online tools as an integral part of your business promotion/marketing plan. Sure, some types of enterprise might argue that they really don't have a need for it, for whatever reason. And that's fine... although something of a shame and a missed opportunity, I think.

By now, I hope, it is clear where I stand on this. If you still don't know, maybe you should check out the main GBP website, our YouTube channel, or the front page of this Blog in order to see how we are spreading the word further.

The more I look into how I can develop my business activities, the type of work I undertake, and the way I supply my imagery, the further I am drawn down the internet superhighway. On the right here, you will see some of the blogs which I regularly follow; these are of interest to me - and possibly/hopefully they will be to you, too - and what is really exciting is that we just don't know where our associations with them might lead. I have already formed new synergies and re-established past connections this way alone, and from what I can tell, there is a virtually limitless range of possibilities to be explored in the future.

Now, it's long been known that our American counterparts appear to be much more open to the 'cross-site, open-networking' potential of the net. And a great deal of these guys have been sharing information left, right and centre for years. One of my favourite exponents of this, as you may know, is Chase Jarvis, who recently posted a video entitled "Making The Web Work For You". I would recommend you take a look because, in Chase's own words, "
If you're at all thinking of blogging, video, the web, or sharing information, then you will pick up a thing or two, guaranteed. Keep in mind, it's almost entirely unedited. But there are some nuggets in there. Nothing flashy , just a couple of us guys talking about blogging and how we use the web in our profession. There's a Q+A session at the end as well". Incidentally, it also features David Hobby (who you may know as Mr. Strobist) and David Nightingale.

Let me know what you think of that video. And if you have any suggestions/ideas/recommendations of your own, please feel free to put them in the comments section below so that everyone can benefit from them.

2 comments:

Pete Tiley / Bike rider. said...

Good stuff again. I was reading the dreadful Sportshooter page, which is inherently American and very US biased. They reckon that photographers who blog are on the way to failure. I don't. Like you, I think it is a great insight into ones thoughts, plans and images and blogs tend to grow which can in turn yield more business. I am not looking for work via my blog, it just helps me put things down so to speak as I was getting email and messages on flickr asking about workflow, who to shoot rugby and so on.

Above all else, I quite like writing random stuff and it takes me back to when I was keeping a diary as a kid.

Pete.

Giles said...

Thanks again Pete.

Is this the article you were talking about?

You know, I used to check out Sportsshooter on a virtually daily basis. I found there to be a lot of good 'general' information for the field, and the 'Special Features' videos always provided a nice glimpse into things like kit and technique. But I've not looked on there for a while...

... Which is why I am surprised to hear about these anti-blogging sentiments. Those guys always seemed to be so much about the openess/sharing approach. Of course, we should perhaps say that maybe this was just one guy's opinion!

And as for writing itself - there is something quite theraputic about it in a funny kind of way, I think. Myself, I like to write later at night (check the time stamp on this reply!), when I know the phone won't disturb me and I can really concentrate on getting my thoughts down.