Deys.ca | Bill Deys

So I had a little weekend project. I’ve been on the whole local and organic kick for the past while and you can’t get more local or organic then growing your own! Now my garden isn’t up and going yet, I had to do a little construction. Why? Well a few years back we tried a garden. We pulled up sod, put a little divider fence in, got a nice selection of stuff all planted, and… Well we have rabbit, we have pet rabbits but, they aren’t the problem. Our neighborhood is crawling with wild rabbits, and they loved our veggies. Might as well have set a table setting out for them! We tried marigolds to no avail. So I build a 4′ X 8′ wood frame, 1′ deep and put a 3′ removable fence around it. Hoping that will keep them out. Now I need to get a load of dirt to fill it up! I am going to cheat this year and get some veggies that have already sprouted but next year I’m going to do my homework over the winter and get things going early!

My next step is to grab an old pool filter from for to convert to a rain barrel and plumb it up to the down spout and get a watering system hooked up! Pics of that when it’s in!

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Who really wants to be marketed to?

We have things like TiVo to skip ads on TV, and ad blockers to hide the banners on websites. I think that is some proof of my point.

So why do people think it could be even remotely effective to JUST push ads on social sites? Really think! We don’t like to be interrupted when we can’t control it so we build new tools to gain back the control. With all these social sites the control is baked into them from the start. That is where the phrase “permission based marketing” came from. Users who choose to follow you are giving you SOME permission to market to them. Abuse the privilege that the user has the control to unfollow you.

So how do you get, and keep, followers. We first let me ask you a question. Don’t you like to support that guy you know in the shoe business more then the chain store that interrupts the finale of LOST? Be that guy you know. When you’re on Twitter don’t just push links. Be a real person, talk a bit about what you are having for lunch, about the hockey game last night. If people see you as that person, then you are that guy they know who is in the shoe business and when they go looking for shoes guess whose name will pop up!

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Technorati Tags: friend, marketing, permission, tivo, Twitter

If you’ve spent 2 minutes on an android phone you may have noticed that you have five home screens. The main screen, the one that the hone button gets you to is in the middle then you have two screens to either side. It seams kind of backwards at first but after a limited time on my Nexus One I’ve realized that its far better. You see it minimizes the number of screens you have to flip through to get to either end.

I’ve already set up my iPhone sort of like that. Eight screens, main is the third, two to the left and four to the right. Double tap the home button jumps to the search so that isn’t an issue.

I just need to find a jailbroken app that let’s me set the screen a single home button press goes to!

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Technorati Tags: android, iphone

I’ll be on John Meadows‘ On The Log Podcast soon.
London Geek Dinner this week.

What do High School Marketing classes look like today?

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After hearing a rumour in the community about a kickback we are getting for hosting the event at Chaucers. It’s not true and I’d like who ever is starting this to own up and/or prove it!

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#GDLDN tonight and my thoughts on ideas from Spark Episode 97

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Went to the Bills game and had an idea for an iPhone App

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