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Oh crikey. There were a lot of reports of the test version of Windows 10 running dog slow, but assumed they would be fixed for the production version.

This may be of interest: How to fix slow boot-up issues after free upgrade

Hmmm maybe ditch the phones and just use Twitter and Facebook for customer service 

Saves listening to people moaning, I mean talking. Be glad when Clives back from his hols!

Had to Google her, still none the wiser  Obviously not on the Radio 2 playlist

What a great thread, I told you we'd missed you Paul 

Freedom of speech is essential for any democracy, unfortunately it's part of the package of a tolerant and enlightened society. It seems nuts to a lot of us having an imam being allowed to live and preach in our country, while knocking Western beliefs. Likewise why do we tolerate an organisation like the English Defence League which is in affect a bunch of football hooligans with extreme right wing views.

Opposite ends of the spectrum, but the alternative is a Police State, tightly controlled press and views and opinion driven underground as Barney said.

But does that mean that "hate speech" or strong beliefs should be allowed media air time? 

Our society is far from perfect, and there are plenty of things we get wrong, but I would sooner allow free speech including extreme views, but allow it to be covered under existing law and legislation. So if you have a strong opinion that goes against the populous, you should be allowed to voice it. But if you incite hatred, either from the pulpit, microphone or website or use terminology or actions which cross the line, then we should let the full force of the law come down on that individual or organisation.

If we decide collectively that the letter of the law isn't strong enough, or a belief or view is undermining our society, then we do something about it. eg petitions, talking to MPs, making it newsworthy. This is democracy, its slow, cumbersome and frustrating at times, but it's also ever evolving as we all are, as are other nations such as the USA, France, Germany etc.

I think we live in a genuinely fascinating time, which our great grandchildren may look back at us through the lense of history in shock and horror. But we are all shaped by our own family and community histories. Think of the world our parents and Grandparents grew up in, and the social, political, economic and technological changes they have witnessed which has shaped their beliefs.

Even thinking of the changes I've seen in my lifetime. In the 1990's I remember being on guard duty, and the inside of the pill box had names and photos of former serviceman who had been dishonourably discharged for being gay, and given 24 hours to leave the base and never to return. Not sure if they thought we would all suddenly go gay? But, wrong or incredible as it sounds now, it seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, and I can't remember ever hearing anyone saying it was a bad thing. When you joined, you had to make a declaration that you weren't homosexual. Those were the rules. 

Then more incredibly you have the likes of Apartheid in South Africa only formally ending in 1994, all of this is very recent living history.

It's no wonder there are so many extremist and narrow minded views still around the world. It will no doubt take another couple of generations for them to subside. But if you look how far we have progressed in the last 100 years, I think free speech, common sense and a sense of increasing morality will prevail. Which will hopefully act as a heavier counter weight to extremist views, from sexuality to religion, no matter how much air time or publicity they get.

Remember the BNP and the public outcry that it's leader Nick Griffin appeared on Question Time? Couldn't get better media exposure, which in fact sealed their fate to the point the BNP are now pretty much a spent force.

But lets let the legal system handle hate speech and crimes, and if it's not working, change it, which should go for any democratic Country, UK, USA or anywhere else.

Absolutely, it's called the freemium model. Give stuff away for free as a hook for upsells or future custom.

It's a risky strategy, get it wrong and you give away more than you make, but its a valid business model and one we adopted from day one.

Is it me or does this sound familiar? 

Have you posted something like this under a different account?

I'm sure we had a member from Poland who was looking at starting up an English Teacher franchise in the Balkans, or am I having a deja vous/dementure moment 

Blimey, we have too bleeding edge members, pushing the boundaries and finding the bugs for the rest of us

Be interested to see what you think of it in a few months and can win over my cynicism with all things Microsoft 

Originally Posted by mrb

“With regards to your other question, should SEO be part of marketing?   It depends what your target audience is.  If you want to drive customers to your business via online platforms then yes, it should be. 

”

It's tough in your currently thinking about your marketing strategy. If you are a small business looking to recruit an internal marketing person, what sort of skillset would be realistic I wonder? 

Very few people will have a traditional marketing background, online expertise, SEO guru as well as things like public relations. Then factor in on/offline reputation management, you would end up with a jack of all trades, master of none (me ) or a very experienced resource who will be prohibitively expensive. 

I'm lucky, Angela comes from a 20 year plus marketing background, and was quick to embrace the digital world. But personally I think SEO is or should be a dedicated discipline in it's own right, managed by a spotty headphone wearing youth.

Anyone else got any thoughts?

I've never been a fan of customer service gripes in public, although we happily deal with them. Instead if someone has an issue, best thing to do is pick the phone up or email us, we're not hard to get hold of!

But what about those companies that are hard to get hold of?

A while ago, we had our VAT number hi-jacked and a lingering consequence of this are rogue fraudulent websites set up using our details, which I spent ages getting closed down. But a few persisted, overseas ISP's can be unhelpful, and anything hosted in China, best of luck

Unfortunately the directory industry doesn't have the best track record when it comes to correct data, ourselves included. Data is a fickle beast, there's lots of it, and it's always changing.

But a lot of site use automated scripts and bots to hoover up your data and generate listings, which you will have no knowledge of.

In our case, we ended up with a number of listings with some fake data and some real! So you try emailing politely, get no where and end up with the one communication tool that works, twitter!

All of a sudden progress! Stubborn listings I've been trying to get rid of for ages have suddenly vanished 

Does anyone else have to resort to customer service via social media, or are you on the receiving end and have to deal with customers who prefer to talk in public rather than contact you directly?

Finally, at last, it's been confirmed... there's none

Old school marketing and that new fangled digital marketing stuff are now one of the same. At least according to Marketing Week, so it must be true!

Great quote:

“It is not about doing ‘digital marketing’,it is about marketing effectively in a digital world,”

The crux of the article is digital marketing burst onto the scene at the dawn of the 21st century, with marketing teams upto that point very traditional in their approach.

Then a spotty youth may be have plopped in the corner as he has set up a blog, and became the fledgling digital marketing team. 

Then disciplines like SEO exploded onto the scene, who on earth manages them and what team do they live in? What do they even do???

All of a sudden big organisations have a split marketing team, traditional and digital, often with neither team really understanding what each other did. Or digital marketing was outsourced to often low quality overseas based (no way I hear you say) "agencies".

With the dominance of Google, the birth of Social Media, most businesses now are reliant on a digital presence that the balance of power has shifted from conventional marketing to digital. But there are genuine skills that easily cross over for seasoned old school marketeers, and lacking in a lot of new generation digital newbies.

Writing good copy, PR, understanding your audience, how to generate leads, engage with customers, style, presentation, brand etc. It really is just marketing, from creating and designing a flyer, to setting up a PPC campaign. It just means the marketing industry is more diverse and there are more opportunities.

But if you are the sole marketing person in your business, then you really do have a challenging (but interesting) job role!

Now the question is, do you consider SEO as part of marketing, or as a separate discipline? Would a member of a big firms marketing team be expected to know all about SEO as well as general marketing, or is it still the dedicated spotty youth in the corner with the head phones on reading Search Engine Land?