Questionaire

Anybody out there who wants to fill in one of ReEvolve's careers questionaires? Feel free to contact me to get hold of one. They don't take very long to fill out and you get to be part of ReEvolves project. Since we mention your name you could think of it as free advertising!

I visited the RSPCA Finchley Branch yesterday to talk about doing some volunteering for them. It went really well and I'll probably end up doing some marketing for them. All this is completely separate to the stuff I'm already doing for Re_Evolve, but I think it would also be a much smaller time commitment so I should be able to take it on.

I am actually very fond of the RSPCA anyway. When I was sixteen I volunteered at their Southridge Rescue Centre, which is one of the main places the RSPCA rehomes animals from. I spent most of that time cleaning out animal cages and grooming cats, but it was a good experience. Besides I like helping charities.

10 Tips for NaNoWriMo

Yes, I will keep on going on about it :)

So NaNoWriMo is one of may favourite events of the year and pretty much the only reason I look forward to November. Of course, many people many be dubious about whether they really can write 50000 words in a month. I know that I was when I first tried it. Now that I've managed the goal twice I can almost convince myself that I'm qualified to give others advice. So without further ado here's a quick list of things that I found useful.

******************************************************

1) Write whenever you get a free moment. It sounds obvious but you'd be surprised what you can write in fifteen minutes if you put your mind to it.

2) Keep a running word count. The NaNoWriMo site encourages you to do this anyway and they display your results in graph form. It is incredible to watch that little graph grow as you feed more into it.


3) Listen to NaNoWriMo's podcast. It gives you focus and lots of little tips on how to write, which brings me to...


4)Sugar is your friend. Unless you're dieting or diabetic of course. Then it probably isn't. However, sugar will give you a great rush and inspire faster writing. You can also use food as a reward for reaching a certain target.

5) Don't let writer's block happen to you. Especially with NaNoWriMo when the aim is to reach a certain number of words rather than to create a master piece, writing the first thing that comes to mind can be really effective.

6) Listen to your characters. I always find that my characters evolve as the story goes along. Don't fight it; this will make you write slower and waste precious time. If your character decides that he wants to do something you didn't plan because it makes more sense to him go along with it. Just don't complain about your characters talking to you too much in public, people will give you weird looks.

7)Use NaNoWriMo's forums. You need to procrastinate every once in a while, so you might as well do it by talking to other people who are torturing themselves. They might eventually guilt you back into writing.

8) Don't watch any TV at all. Well, maybe not at all. I certainly don't keep this rule very well! What I have found is that the less TV or film I watch the more original ideas I have. But maybe that's just me.

9) Keep busy. If you have other things going on it will focus you on writing. Or drive you slightly insane. Either way you will get things done and it's more fun than sitting blankly in front of a computer.

10) Tell everyone you know about NaNoWriMo. This will help you write, mainly because once people know what you are doing you'll have to finish it to save your reputation. Remember, friends who know you failed are friends who will never let you forget it (in the most affectionate way of course). Being able to tell people that you completed your goal is the best motivation there is. Post your word count widget everywhere so that they can watch your progress.

So there you have it, my take on NaNoWriMo. Seriously give it a go, it's never too late to start writing.

The Weather Outside...

Is frightful! And I mean that in the strongest sense of the word. Sure, the snow looks all sparkly and pretty now, but in reality it's just made everything cold and wet.

Better yet last night I think it caused a power cut. The power was coming and going for an hour before it cut out completely at 9:30. It came back again around 12:30, which I was accutely aware of because I'd left the light on my bedroom on without realising it and when the power came back it woke me up. True, in the grand scheme of things that isn't too bad, but it does give me yet another reason to not lke snow.

At least the trains were running into London this morning. I was half expecting them not to be. But I'm glad that I was able to get in to work at Re-Evolve today, I don't like it when the weather stops me from doing things.

This time every year...

I think I have cold coming on, and as my title suggests it's become something of an annual tradition. Then again half of the rest of the world seems to agree with me so it's not quite like I'm in bad company.

It's also the time of year when I remember that it does get quite cold again. During the summer months I usually magage to forget how much I dislike winter and as a result I'm always unpleasantly surprised.

The upside is that during autumn and winter there are always lots of events on during the run up to Christmas. I can rely on those to improve my day! Right now The London Games Fringe is coming up, and November holds a special place in my heart as NaNoWriMo. In truth it isn't National Novel Writing Month so much as International Novella Writing Month, but I do look foward to it. The goal of writing 50000 words in a month is quite doable (I have managed it twice before) and if nothing else it is a great excuse to stay nice and warm inside with my laptop. Even my annual cold can't stop me from doing that!

Giant Database?

Does this sound slightly scary to anyone else? I really don't like the idea of the government keeping tabs on everything I do. I mean emails and telephones calls would be bad enough, but keeping track of all the Internet sites I visit? It isn't even as if I go on any that I'd mind people knowing about, I just don't want the government to know exactly how many Disney and cute animal websites I visit everyday!
The personal information they could amass is much more terrifying, and not just because it could focus on me. It may be because I'm a lit student but a Big Brother state isn't something I think we should be aiming for. Of course I'm not the first person to say it, but it does make things all the more alarming that I feel the need to repeat it. Admittedly the government spying on us is nothing new, but it used to be a little bit funny when you could trigger having a phone call recorded by repeating the word bomb. I had some friends who used to take it as a challenge to see if they could set it off. "Yeah, that party was a BOMB last night!" *click* "Hey it worked!" Maybe the answer would be to fill all our communications with rubbish so that no one would bother reading it.
Oh well, I'm sure the government allegedly has our best interests in mind, they just come over really creepy with their suggestions sometimes.

Forum3

I went to Forum3 this weekend, which is sort of like a careers fair for charities looking to find people to volunteer or work for them. Actually it was much nicer than most of the careers fairs I've been to in the past because there were far more companies exhibiting and everyone there was really keen to talk to the visitors. At careers fairs I often get the feeling that the people running the stalls are there under duress (or maybe I just felt alienated by the fact that all of the careers fairs at my university seemed to focus on careers in law and finance).

Anyway Forum3 was a nice experience and I met a lot of charities which sounded like they would like people with my skills to volunteer. Given the huge variety of charities exhibiting there if you were interested in volunteering anywhere it would be a great place to go, and from the large crowds there was obviously a lot of that interest present. If nothing else it was a great way for the charities to raise awareness about their work.

Market Crash?

Yeah, that's not a good thing, right? I mean from an economic point of view it's bad enough, but I can't help but think about it in terms of how it relate to me personally.

I suppose that isn't all that unusual, let's face it everyone is most concerned about themselves. The problem is I look at all these layoff and think "Well, that ups the competition for me considerably." Frankly it isn't a good scenario for young people trying to enter the work place, and we can feel slightly justified that the situation isn't our fault because we haven't had a chance to mess up the economy yet. I'm sure my generation will do something stupid en mass eventually, but the point is we haven't yet.

In a way I suppose this means that trying to find out how to break into the world of work is more important than ever. Any advice we can provide will definitely be needed.

Oh well, on the plus side being worried about jobs is better than my other first thought on hearing about the recession was "At least we'll get some cheerful films out of this." Seriously, whenever there is a depressing period in history Hollywood will make a larger number of happy films. It's like they're saying "Life sucks? Don't worry, here's a musical." And that is why we have The Wizard of Oz and Footlight Parade.

Useful Marketing Blog

This blog looks like it will have a lot of useful information for me to learn from. To be honest I've yet to read it all yet, but what I have is pretty thought provoking.

Even better you can subscribe to a set of email marketing lessons. I've had a look through the first one and the advice seems really good. All of it is based around internet marketing so it's relevant to the things I'm interested in as well

More on Blogging

http://simonworld.mu.nu/archives/037779.php

This blog entry amused me, and made me realise that getting a blog noticed will be an uphill struggle! Oh well, I've got to start somewhere and I've never been adverse to free advice.

Internet Marketing

So I've been looking into Internet Marketing recently to try and figure out how to get that big old bundle of interwebs working in my favour. Considering how much time I spend surfing on there you'd have thought I'd have picked something up by now, but wouldn't you know it there's more to it than knowing how google works.

All of this is why I spent a good portion of yesterday reading Internet Marketing, Strategy Implementation and Practice by Dave Chaffey, Fiona Ellis-Chadwick, Kevin Johnston and Richard Mayer. With all those names you know there has to be some good ideas in the book! And there were, but more importantly it was well written. That's not to say that every page held me gripped, it's probably not possible for any reference book to do that, but the ideas and concepts were clearly explained and the writing style was easy to read. You can find out more about the books at www.pearson.co.uk/chaffey. I was reading the third edition, but there's a later one now too. Either way there are some good links on that site.

Most importantly the book gave me some ideas for things that Vital Re-Evolve could do to raise their profile. I love information that I can use (for good, not evil).

Some thoughts on the British Museum

Talk about your grand marketing schemes! There's nothing like a poster as tall as your already considerably large museum to draw attention.

Actually I'm not really very keen on what the British Museum had done here. Sure it's impressive and you definitely notice that they have an exhibition on Hadrian on. But blocking out part of the facade of your beautiful historic building with what is primarily an expanse of black? Can't say I think that was a particularly great decision.

Then again it does fit with all the other marketing materials the British Museum produced for the exhibit, so at least the expanse is consistent. I have to admit that it does fit rather nicely with the museum's theme of presenting important and significant artifacts. I don't have any arguments as far as the appropriateness to the brand is concerned! By making the advertisement the size of the museum itself it does give the exhibition a sense of importance. The sombre colours also reinforce the significance of the exhibition. It would be hard to take any billboard that size covered in rainbow hues particularly seriously. It would look even worse next to the classic British Museum facade too...

Researching Museums

I’ve been researching how various London museums market themselves these past few days. I have to say that I do love these museums, mostly because I like the concept of learning for its own sake. Very rarely do I go to one of these places because I need to research a specific subject anymore, it’s normally because I want to see the assorted pretty and cool objects or art on display. My tastes are pretty eclectic too, I’m just as interested in the fashion display at The V&A as I am in the dinosaur skeletons at The Natural History Museum or the combination of art and medicine at The Wellcome Collection.

However, not everyone has the time or the inclination to see every London museum so it’s important for these places to provide information to potential visitors on what they offer. This is what made me think that the marketing produced by museums would be interesting to explore. Each one has a different feel and theme to it which might appeal to different age groups, genders, nationalities and other variables. The need to attract both tourists and local visitors was one that I found particularly interesting. Not to mention that when you consider the different campaigns for different exhibitions within the same museum there’s a lot of information available from even a small selection of museums.

Incidentally The Science Museum and Natural History Museums are my favourites. I love the interactive displays and their subject matter. Not to mention the Natural History Museum has a gorgeous building. Then again most of the old places do. The British Museum is very impressive. Since they all have posters on them they’re part of the marketing as well!

Marketing Presentation

Last Wednesday I went to a marketing presentation on "How to Market your Business" by Stephen Campbell at the Westminster Reference Library. To be honest it was something that I needed to do to improve my knowledge of marketing, but it was also very useful for finding out about strategies to promote yourself. That's what I really needed to learn about, simple ways to make yourself more visible on the web.

It also made me aware that there are a lot of useful course out there to that you can take advantage of in order to improve your knowledge of something. I'm going to have to try and find a few more of these sorts of things to go to, especially if they are free like this one was.

On a side not the Westminster Reference Library is a good place to start finding things out as well. It's stocked with books for any research project, and if you work there there aren't any other things to distract you. Perfect if you get distracted by shiny objects like I do!

Most curiously the Westminster Reference Library is located just off of Leicester Square, which means that I must have been around it many times before, and yet never realised that it was there.

Sarah's Opening Post!

Hi there!

The idea of these blogs is to provide a log of what volunteers on Vital Regeneration's Vital Re-evolve project are up to. The goal of Vital Re-evolve is to provide a resource to young people looking to get into business and to do this we volunteers are researching various aspects of our chosen interest.

I'll be looking at marketing, and have so far been looking at the type of media produced by museums in order to market their exhibitions and facilities. The aim of this is to break down the techniques used by them to attract customers, in this case tourists and researchers. I'll be writing up my finding soon, so keep checking back for this and other developments.