Turn your card over. What do you see; useful content or a missed opportunity?

There are several things you could do with the back of your business card. If you’re like me, you’ve got cards in your collection from people you don’t remember, working for businesses you don’t understand. So why not use the space available to spell out what you offer or the benefits your business can provide. Give me some context to help me remember you and I’ll be more likely to call you in the future.

Here’s another idea. Chuck Green suggests including some useful information on the back of your card. Why? Because you want people to hold on to your card ’til they need it. If you’ve given them something useful along with your contact details then the lifetime of your card in other people’s hands should go up.

The reverse of my new card lists my favourite Excel keyboard shortcuts. These are the best ones, the ones that save me from having to reach for the mouse every few seconds. I think they’re great so, if you get one of my cards, try them out the next time you’re in Excel.

Viewing Ling’s website is quite an experience :- you won’t have seen many websites like this before.

• It fails many of the rules from Web Pages That Suck,
• it ignores all rules of style and taste,
• it takes no account of usability,
• it is written in bad english
• and yet, somehow, it works*.

*- actually, not everyone likes it, but plenty do and the business seems to be growing.

How is this possible?

My theory is that LingsCars.com works because Ling is unusually transparent. (The humour helps too). Just look at some of the things she says:

- on when you may contact her:

I am human being, not robot! Office hours: Mon-Fri 9am to 6pm

- on speed camera information:

This page just for your info, but quite interesting, I think! Hey, I am only Chinese Contract Hire Expert human, so don’t blame me if some details wrong here, and you get ticket, but I do my best for you.

- on encouraging customers to buy now:

Physical stock is always limited, as cars cannot be made to appear by magic, there are only so many sat in corner of field. So be brave, grab a bargain and avoid me having to make phone calls to disappointed people who have left decision too late.

This is transparency to a fault. You can’t fail to recognise that behind this website is an identifiable person running a real business and working hard for her customers. Would you prefer a bland corporate image, espousing platitudes on belief in quality, how employees are the most valuable assets, etc.? I wouldn’t.

Anyway, in an attempt to make the site look less like it was created by an accountant, I’ve put some more effort into the style, as you can see here. Hopefully visitors will now find it to be a little more attractive and welcoming.

I still intend to get a professional in to do a proper job, but I’m now content to leave that for the future so that I can get back to developing Isolist, my forthcoming software product.

Reconciliation is a very common recurring task for many management accountants, arising where the value recorded in one place needs to be reflected accurately in another. Given their responsibility to record and report organisational activities and, further, be able to substantiate the financial results, accountants need to ensure that their general ledgers correctly reflect the transactions sourced from other systems – the task called reconciliation. If you are a management accountant then you’re likely to be familiar with it.

Reconciliation Tools

The basic tool that accountants choose for this task is very often Excel. I do so myself, whenever I have the source data in a useful electronic form.

In truth, a database system such as Microsoft Access might be a stronger application to use. The matching of records in two separate tables is a core function of Access, not of Excel. Nonetheless, Access does have some downsides for the average accountant. It is less familiar, its workings are more opaque and therefore harder to trust and it’s harder to manipulate individual records or calculations when required.

As well as being the application of choice for many management accountants, Excel is also a very common crossing point in data exchange between different systems. Many systems can export to or import from Excel directly and if not, can use CSV formats that are Excel-compatible.

Going with the flow, therefore, IsoList is an Add-In for Excel – i.e. a program that extends the native functions of Excel. With IsoList, an accountant will be able to continue working in Excel as usual, but achieve significant gains in the mechanical part of a reconciliation – matching off records that match and identifying those that don’t.

I’ll update with news on the development progress as it happens.

I choose that MoVerve is trustworthy as an organisation and operates with integrity. These principles have clear implications for newsletter distribution, such as being sure that all recipients have chosen to receive the newsletter and providing easy means of unsubscribing at any time. Good practices on newsletter distribution are not hard to follow, but do I have other obligations?

My first step in newsletter preparation has been to look into the UK Data Protection Act and the website of the Information Commissioner provided what I needed to know. I found out that, although I will use computers to process personal data, I am exempt from notifying the Information Commissioner of this since the data is only for MoVerve’s own business processes. Nonetheless, I am required to meet certain standards in processing any personal information and also must provide a copy of the information that I hold about an individual on their request.

The good news is that the principles for personal data protection required by law coincide closely with good newsletter distribution practice. I need no changes to my plans in order to comply with the law. As examples:

• the requirement to keep only relevant and not excessive personal data is very much in line with presenting as few barriers as possible to people wanting to subscribe. If I ask potential recipients for all sorts of addresses, telephone numbers, preferences, etc. merely to send them a newsletter then I wouldn’t be surprised if very few bother to subscribe
• the requirement to keep personal data accurate and up to date is precisely what is necessary to ensure I treat subscribers’ wishes with respect. If someone requests to unsubscribe but my data is out of date or inaccurate then I might continue to send a newsletter to that person in error. Subjecting correspondents to such a poor level of service would break a lot of trust
• the requirement to keep personal data secure is, again, a major factor in the trust that I would like correspondents to place in me. If email addresses entrusted to me are passed on or otherwise leak out of my systems then I deserve no trust from potential customers and shouldn’t be surprised if they look elsewhere.

It seems that UK Data Protection Act is positively business-friendly – it encourages practices that are actually good for business!

* – apart from by spam filtering software, of course

Does it strike the right tone? Does it avoid sounding unduly staid or unduly casual? Can it carry a marketed brand? Is it memorable? Is it easy to say? Does it look good on paper? Is it available as a .com? (NB, although these questions have been horribly practical to me over the last month, they are rhetorical to you!)

Honestly, I found choosing a good name really hard. In fact, I’m not going to claim for myself that I have succeeded, but I’m reasonably content. I found the notes provided by Igor fascinating. I also see why an industry exists to serve the problem of finding names.

More business items looming on my task list include logo and website designs, which should spruce up these pages nicely over the next few weeks…