Technology - Taste - Travel
Mel, following a foray into the world of acting is now Community Manager at Microsoft Advertising, a position that takes him across the globe speaking about internet marketing and social media. This, his blog, is a collection of news and anecdotes which Mel hopes will inform as well as bring a smile to peoples face.
I like this approach. Waitrose has always been seen as a more up-market brand of supermarket and some would say more expensive.
So in a recession when you’re trying to attract people that are saving their pennies, why not just stick your products and prices up on a bill board?
People are looking for value for money and this advertising of their “essential range” demonstrates that they’re not all the expensive after all!
Watch Michael Jackson’s Memorial today at 10am PST in Silverlight!!
Got to be a career highlight! 
I get the funniest emails through from my blog:
Hello ,
Am XXXXXXXXX and would like to make an Order of Hand Dryers from you and would like to know the types and sizes you have as well as the prices and the types of payment method that you accept.Thank you and Waiting to hear from you very soon,
Regards
XXXXX
How do you respond to that!?
I’ve just designed a site for the Budleigh Salterton Art Club in Devon!
Me….a web designer?! Who’d have thought?!
I used Office Live to do it and it took about an hour to set up and launch!
You get to register a domain for free for the first year and you get free web hosting, free design tools and templates to create and edit your site and, to cap it all off, you get free support by phone and email – not that I needed it because it was so easy to set up the site!
You can pretty much add in anything you want at a click of a button:
Seeing as it’s an art club I added a photo gallery but you can have a multitude of modules including contact forms, event calendars, stock lists and even a quick fire map & direction section!
The navigation look and feel is very much like Microsoft Office, as you’d expect being called Office Live! But my point is it’s so easy for the web novice to find their way around and get a new half-way decent website up and receiving traffic in just a couple of hours.
Check out the 3 Step Guide on how to get started and see how other companies have got on with the system at their customer gallery!
It may not be as super-pretty as something a professional designer could whack out, but in these cash-strapped times there is a bunch of retired budding Van Gogh’s in deepest, darkest Devon who are very happy with the result!
It’s not recommended and a bit anti-social, but if you do then don’t be stupid enough to Tweet about it!
This guy has now deleted his Tweet but remember your Tweets live on in Twitter Search!
Spotted this ad for John West Tuna near my flat at the weekend. I’m not sure what the bloke with the fiddle is all about but my eye was drawn to the USP – “No Drain Tuna”
Now they’ve obviously done some market research and found that some consumers are reluctant to buy their product because it’s too “fiddly”.
(I think I’ve just got the fiddle reference while writing that last sentence…………groan!)
But is our time so precious that we’re now looking to save a few seconds while opening a can of fish?
Maybe it’s because we’re too busy blogging and tweeting?
I’ll be “trawling” your comments for an answer soon I expect!
Having spent so much time over the last few years in the US where food and service tend to be very good, I’ve been getting more and more frustrated with restaurants in the UK which tend to either be too expensive, serve awful food or sufferer from shoddy and indifferent service.
When asked to go out for dinner or trying to arrange a date in London I’ve found it a bit of a lottery. Do we spend a load of cash to have a decent night out? Do we shrug and laugh at the less than attentive waiter or waitress? Do we just accept the food isn’t that fab because, well, that’s just the way it is?
Last night things changed as I was introduced to an oasis in this culinary desert we call our capital.
The Bedford & Strand bar and bistro near Charing Cross is simply delightful.
I turned up there with four mates from school. We get together every 3 months or so to catch up, chew the cud and find out what’s going on in each other’s lives.
We used to just hit a pub and sink several pints but now in our late thirties (did I just admit that?) we prefer a more refined evening of food and wine!
A small door way on Bedford Street hides some pristine stairs which take you down to a bar and restaurant buzzing with media types and folks drinking in the fantastic atmosphere and wine.
A mixture of French and British food, the menu is reasonably priced averaging around £14 for dishes like pork belly, fish cakes, steak tartar and sausage and mash.
The service was excellent, the manager – Kate – was chipper, funny and informative, not batting an eyelid when I simply said I didn’t like the cassoulet I’d ordered.
She just changed it!
The wine was very good and the extensive selection was nicely laid out on the menu by price bracket.
They also have a deli counter which is open all day serving excellent cheeses and meats.
Really it was excellent! It felt like we should have been in a rustic gaff somewhere in the French country side or a faux Euro-bistro somewhere in Manhattan, but we weren’t.
We were in central London, just shy of Covent Garden getting value for money!
As we left, actors from the theatre musical Joseph piled in for a post show beer and included a taller than you’d think Gareth Gates!
With all the wine we’d drunk it was a “long and winding road” home I can tell you!
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