Thursday, 6 May 2010

Web Hints – Check before Sending

chris black and white for blogI received an email newsletter this morning from an extremely large organisation – and no, I’m not going to tell you who it was because, although they’re probably too well behaved, someone there might just decide to check through my various blogs, newsletters and other communications and discover all my mistakes, of which I’m sure there are loads.

Anyway, the first line contained this phrase; ‘Upadate to Paud Search’ which I thought was rather special, so I immediately contacted them (as you do when you’re as interfering as I am) and drew their attention to it, and had a charming, very fast response.

I know that I’ve written about this before, but my main point here is that one of the major dangers of ‘online’ everything, is that we now move in a warp speed world, where we abbreviate text messages to disastrous effect, frequently don’t check what we’ve said to make sure that it cannot be misconstrued, and click on ‘send’ without thinking. 

Having sent a friend overseas (where they use strange words to replace ours) a text that ended up being totally misconstrued earlier this week and caused no end of problems, I know all of this only too well.  And no I’m not going to elaborate on that one either.

So.  The answer is, of course, to check before sending, read everything through, check all your links in emails and newsletters and, particularly, check all your headings – those are the very worst to get wrong, because the recipients are likely to think you really don’t know what you’re doing, and hit delete without reading the rest of your message.


Funnily enough (well to me, anyway) I’ve just had a call to go on a live drive-time BBC radio show this afternoon, no, not to talk about the election, which subject I’m avoiding as much as possible, but about the importance (or not) of your appearance.  Boy do I have a lot to say about that? I could talk for hours.  I think I have 15 mins.  ‘Funnily’ because the word which got misconstrued in my infamous text was ‘tube’ which was read to mean television, but really meant underground (metro/railway).  I’m now confusing myself.  Oh well never mind. 

I’m happy to say that my daughter is now living the high life in New Zealand with our marvellous friends, having flown from Cairns to Brisbane and on to Christchurch.  Something tells me the backpack is going to be left by the wayside from now on.

I spent yesterday with IMRG and eKomi, who I do some work for, and discussed some of the Distance Selling Regulations, which I wasn’t sure about and will be writing about as soon as I have further clarification.  We also talked about Henley Regatta, to which I used to go every year as my son Sholto rowed there, and whether to go or not this year and brave the weather.  It’s a wonderful occasion – I think rowing is one of the best sports, but I have lost so many pairs of shoes to the mud there.  The jury’s out on that one but you can be sure I’ll let you know……………………………………………….

And please look for any (non) deliberate mistakes in this blog, and at www.thesiteguide.com, I’ll be only too happy if you point them out to me.  I’m now about to read this through for the fifth time before I publish.

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