Blog•
on September 27th, 2010•
In work I do with the local Atlanta Hong Kong Information Center, I had the opportunity to travel to Hong Kong last year for the annual forum that took place at the Hong Kong Convention Centre. It is a 2-day conference in which the HK economic & trade office leaders from around the world get together to learn the latest about Hong Kong and meet people from around the world. It was a fascinating event and I am heading back there this year in December.
Last year was my first time in Hong Kong and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. I learned a lot about the current economic state of Hong Kong and about ways in which the country was growing.
Here are the details about this year’s Hong Kong Forum:
Date: 1 – 2 December 2010
Venue: Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre
Admission: Member associates of the Federation of HK Business Associations Worldwide
The Hong Kong Forum is the annual flagship event of the Federation of Hong Kong Business Associations Worldwide, which has grown to having 33 Hong Kong Business Associations in 24 countries with more than 10,000 members across Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America. The Forum is the perfect occasion for individual associates around the world to meet, network and gather updates on the latest trends and opportunities available in Hong Kong.
New event:
Dialogue with China CEOs: A newly introduced session with business leaders from China to talk about their secret recipes of running successful private enterprises on the Chinese mainland.
Some of our speakers this year (Listed in the order of speaking schedule)
Pansy Ho, Managing Director, Shun Tak Holdings Limited
Alex Chu, Deputy Chairman & Executive Director, Dah Chong Hong Holdings Limited
Royce Yuen, Executive Director, Fantastic Natural Cosmetics Limited
John Chu, Chairman & CEO, Centro Digital Pictures Ltd
Victor Fung, Honorary Chairman, International Chamber of Commerce
Richard Watson, Managing Director, ATC
Stanley Lau, Managing Director, Renley Watch Manufacturing Co Ltd
Ling Lanfang, President, Silk Road Holding Group Co Ltd
The Hon Wong Yan Lung, Secretary for Justice, Hong Kong Special Administration Region (Invited)
Blog•
on September 22nd, 2010•
Below is a link to an interesting article from an India-based website called SiliconIndia. In the article, the author describes how mobile devices around the world will exceed the number of computers by the year 2013. The study showed that more and more people are accessing websites via mobile devices as opposed to desktop or laptop computers. Here is a link to the full article:
http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/People_prefer_to_go_online_on_mobile_phones_over_PCs-nid-71845.html
Blog•
on September 17th, 2010•
The following list of 16 reasons to have your own website comes directly from Digital Music News and it applies specifically to musicians. But this goes further to apply to your company as well. Take a look at this list and see if these reasons convince you to finally go forward with your new website:
Here is the original article at Digital Music News – http://digitalmusicnews.com/stories/091610websitereasons
- You own your website.
- You are branding your artist/band name – not a third party website.
- You never know if that third party website will exist in the future or be as relevant. What happens to all that work that you put into the third party to help them create THEIR brand not yours (eg, MP3.com shutting down)? How much time was devoted by artists on MySpace the past 5 years? All your “friends” left and unless you captured their email through your official site, then you are in trouble.
- You control your search engine results. Be ranked #1 for your artist/band name. If you have your own dedicated domain name it is easier and also you can receive search “juice” or “pagerank” to your official page by linking to your official site from social sites as well as others linking to you.
- It is a long-term strategy.
- Visitors to your website have a much higher sales conversion ratio than third party sites.
- You control all the content and brand image.
- You portray professionalism. Would anyone in the press take you more seriously if you had a website – versus not having one? First impressions count.
- You can funnel and aggregate all your social media and widgets in one location, where it is convenient for your fans to find information about you
- Flexibility: you can create polls and add any programming, widgets or any modules of your choice without being limited to third party restrictions.
- You have no fear of being deleted because you are being too “commercial”.
- You can own your shopping cart and keep more profit for your sales.
- You can add your own advertising and sponsors on your page.
- You can offer product bundles and competitions for your fans.
- You can build credibility with your fans, create a fan club area for your superfans as well as dedicated message boards to interact with your fans.
- Invest in yourself and not others. Websites are like cheap virtual real estate property. Why wouldn’t you invest in your domain name for only the costs of a few Starbuck coffees a year?
If you think of any others, please add them to the comment box below…
Blog•
on September 16th, 2010•
In case you’ve been in a cave the last few weeks, Google just introduced an upgrade to their search process that delivers search results instantaneously as you type. If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a test drive – http://www.google.com/
So what does this mean for you as a Google user and for you as a business owner who has a website. Here are a few thoughts:
First of all, as a Google user, you’re search results will be coming in much faster. 2-5 seconds faster. As you are typing, Google is giving you suggestions.
As a website owner trying to gain customers/users through Google, this changes the playing field a bit. While Google giving suggestions while you are typing help you as a user, they also direct people certain ways within their search. This was present on Google previously, but the suggestions show up in the search bar as you type. So before, someone might have come to your website because they typed in a long search string. Now, they will be guided towards specific top searches. They will still be able to type in their full search, but choosing one of the available options will be faster. Thus, more websites will be chasing fewer top keyword options.
This is smart on Google’s side as more people will be competing for fewer top keywords, making ad revenue go up for people paying bigger money for the top keywords.
I want to make one thing clear here. Google has not changed their algorithm. So, the work you’ve done in the past for Search Engine Optimization will still be valid. But more sites will now be chasing after the top keywords that Google directs the user to.
Blog•
on September 3rd, 2010•
This is a blog about using WordPress in order to create a wiki area for team collaboration purposes.
First of all, what is a wiki area? If you are familiar with Wikipedia, a wiki is a website page that can be edited by any number of people. The changes made can then be reflected immediately or can join a line queue of approval before they proceed to the live website.
The way this could play out for you is to have a spot on your church website where church members can go in and add their name next to a date/time to bring food to someone in need. It could also be used as a collaborative team effort to write a paper or even edit website content through different concerned parties.
So, first things first, there is a plugin that deals directly with a Wikipedia-type function. This plugin is called WordPress Wiki. But, I am not going to write about using this. I am going to write about a different option. My experience with WP-Wiki was that it did not function well within WordPress 3.0+.
Here are instructions to set up your own wiki page that can only be edited by people to whom you provide a username & password:
- Add the following plugins to your WordPress admin area
- Create a new page that will become your Wiki area page.
- In your WordPress menu, go to Appearance > Widgets and click on Widgets.
- Add the Sidebar Login Widget to your sidebar area.
- Now, in your WordPress menu, go to Users > Add New.
- Create a new user with an Editor role. Be sure to note the username & password.
- Go to the menu item Restrictions > Pages. In this area, choose to ‘Restrict Selected Roles for selected pages.’ Put a check mark next to the Page Editor for the wiki page.
- Now go to the menu item Roles > Pages. Here you can assign your new user the ability to become a page editor for the new Wiki Page you have created. These past two steps will limit the pages that can be edited to just the new wiki page.
- Now test it out. Go to your new wiki page. Enter your username & password. After logging in, you should be able to double click on any text on that page to edit it.
- Now, send an email to those with an interest in editing this page. Give them the URL, the username & password, and instructions on how to double click to edit and to click save to populate the changes.
If you have any questions or additional information, please use the comment form below. Happy wiki!
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