Diary for September 2010
24th Project Management | DCCI
This workshop aims to take a practical view of project management, the key tools and processes to deliver a successful result on time, on specification and on budget. By the end of the workshop participants will be able to :- • Agree the fundamental actions in setting up a project • Describe the tools to use to analyse and specify project parameters • Establish SMART project objectives • Set out a project plan • Identify and manage sub tasks and conting...
17th Leadership Skills | DCCI
In partnership with the Dorset Chamber Leadership Academy The Way Ahead Training & Consultancy is introducing a series of practical one-day workshops. The workshops will offer the opportunity for leaders and managers to come together to learn how to put new knowledge and skills into practice. The first in the series will focus on ’Leading the Team’ and covers the following areas: Qualities, role and responsibilities Leadership models Situational leadership Ethical l...
15th Advanced Email Marketing | DCCI
Get smarter with your email marketing. Understand the factors of relevance and context together with egmentation; strategy, creative execution and testing have in effective success. Learn how to measure campaigns and benchmark your performance. Plan strategic event triggered lifecycle communications and increase your open rates and click through rates. Leverage segmentation and align campaigns with your communications strategy by utilising focused landing pages and hubs, resulting in b...
14th Networking Skills Seminar & Training | DCCI
Are you looking to start networking but are a bit nervous? Are you a keen networker and want to learn how to get more out of it? Dorset Chamber run these events to help members get the most out of networking. Andy Edwards (Nine5Three Ltd) uses comprehensive, tried and tested methods to increase confidence, ensure you gain the best out of a networking situation and overcome any fears you may have in 'working the circuit'. We encourage all new members of the Chamber to at...
8th Effective Business Writing | DCCI
How many emails have you deleted today? How many more emails, reports, letters, and websites are you going to junk, delete, trash, or skim? All of this costs your business money. There’s the obvious cost of mistakes and misunderstandings caused by poorly written reports and emails. But what about the hidden cost of the stress we’re under to create professional documents to a deadline? Whether you’re writing a business plan, tenders, reports or just want to communicate m...
3rd Negotiation Skills Workshop | DCCI
Do you find it challenging to be effective in difficult business situations? Whether it’s buying or selling, obtaining resources for a project or funding for a new initiative, finding a supplier or buying or selling a new product or service, negotiation is inevitably at the heart of the process. To do these things effectively it is essential to understand the structures, techniques and approaches available to you as they seek to positively influence an outcome. Sales and other peop...
30th International Health and Safety Magazines: New Issues Online
Bay Publishing's website features a complete archive of the back issues of all of their magazines, and for older issues you can read their entire articles in full. Built into the site that we created for Bay Publishing is a facility for uploading the text and artwork for each magazine article as it is published. The site then shows the magazine covers for all issues along with an index of articles published. After 3 months the full contents of the articles are then made public on the ...
28th Glowing Review in The Telegraph for Wooden Cabbage
This Summer Martyn and Susie Lee's gorgeous Dorset bed and breakfast was featured in a brilliant review by The Telegraph's Fiona Duncan. (Their B&B is called "Wooden Cabbage" after the local name for stunted oak trees.) She writes, "If there were an Oscar for service in this sector of the industry, no one would deserve it more than Susie and Martyn Lee. Hardly surprising that they tell me their establishment is being used more and more as a hotel than a fleeting...
21st Design Updates for OSE Directory
We've just finished making a handful of new design changes to the OSE Directory website. Building on the successful and fast loading original design we've now added a new twist with rounding the corners of the central site background, and adding in a subtle gradient to make the overall design stand out from the page. www.osedirectory.com We've also reworked the major button navigation elements on the home page and added in one or two other subtle refinements. ...
20th New Brand Relaunch for Photography Studio
This month we have rebranded and relaunched the website for Seven Springs Studios' portraiture services. Having joined the successful, national Click and Fresh networks for portrait photography and makeover photography, photographer Andy Whale wanted his website to reflect his new involvement with these networks. We took his wonderful photos and created a new look for these pages, creating a strong, dynamic and fun feel to the sites. We split the site into two halves, one...
10th Real West Dorset
In the past fortnight we've helped to make a few improvements to the Wordpress news site "Real West Dorset" - www.realwestdorset.co.uk This has included setting up and configuring YARPP (Yet Another Related Posts Plugin) and the Google News feed generator. They're now both working well, and YARPP in particular really enriches the content on each page. We got to know Jonathan Hudston, the editor for Real West Dorset and the company he works for (Water...
8th Seach Engine Performance Boost for BioPortfolio
Since launching the completely rebuilt BioPortfolio website we have been waiting with bated breath to see how well our SEO and design theories would stand the white hot heat of Google's reality. BioPortfolio is by far the biggest website we have worked on to date, with almost three quarters of a million pages (and growing), masses of live content, huge cross-referencing of information and a quarter of a million site visits per month. Tackling such a behemoth was a daunting process...
6th Wonderful Show - Highlights on Video of the 2010 County Show
We've just added in the video of the highlights of Dorset County Show 2010 to their website. The show was brilliant fun, and on Saturday we had a great time enjoying the events and exhibitions. The videos were put live during the course of the show, with us working with Silverstream TV to load the preview and mid-show videos right from the showground. There is also a new video of the Dogs Got Talent show that took place over the weekend. You can see the stars on the Coun...
3rd A Quick Response for Dorset County Show Website Videos
We've been working hard to make the Dorset County Show as up to date as possible this year. In addition to providing the facility to upload LOADS more content we've also been beavering away with Silverlight TV and Watershed PR to make sure that the site is full of up-to-the minute content. Tonight Silverlight released their show preview video, filmed and edited this afternoon and by 5pm it was live on the Dorset County Show website; we'd added it to the rss feed and now y...
2nd New Spot the Dog Competition for September
The new "spot the dog" competition for September will be put onto the Symms Fabrication website in the next couple of days. Symms Fabrication manufacture feed bins and agricultural machinery and they've used the Spot the Dog feature to attract many more visitors to their website, getting their name and website known more widely in the region. http://www.symmsfabrication.co.uk/spot-the-dog.php...
1st Final Preparations for the Dorset County Show
As the Dorset County Show approaches we've been working on the show website to make sure it is as up to date as possible. The event timetables are now listed along with information about the headline attractions. Before the end of this week we will also have links set up in readiness for the competition winners' listings too so you can keep up to date with this year's champions as the show progresses. The site is now getting in excess of 2,000 visitors per day. T...
Alacrify Ltd. 01300 320076. jon@alacrify.co.uk
