Plain Advice Blog

Branding Disaster

Chris Bell — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:12:10 +0100

I had no idea about any of this, but it seems that over in the Land of the Lawyer, sorry, ...

"Some people make money, others make history"

Chris Bell — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:07:41 +0100

The alarmingly early death of genuine all-rounder Anthony H. Wilson is a blow to anyone who ever owned a Walkman. ...

The Comedy Value of PowerPoint

Chris Bell — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:40:08 +0100

First it was Dave Gorman using a familiar PowerPoint backdrop to his 'Googlewhack Adventure' show. Now at the ...

How to talk to the press

Chris Bell — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:15:40 +0100

Guy Kawasaki points us to a video discussion of how to deliver the elevator pitch to esteemed members of the ...

Updated website

Chris Bell — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 13:37:02 +0100

Just updated the Plain Advice website including lots of new offers and the ability for people to buy our services ...

How NOT to organise a conference

Chris Bell — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 09:46:37 +0100

This is all completely extraordinary. A conference on democracy and security in Prague, featuring some of the world's most famous ...

Plain Advice works for free

Chris Bell — Thu, 31 May 2007 20:55:08 +0100

Some pro-bono work for the Thorpe Salvin Garden Trail.

These guys are multi award winning volunteer gardeners and do a ...

Who is this advice for?

Chris Bell — Thu, 31 May 2007 13:15:14 +0100

I saw this article appear on Digg just now. Clearly someone thinks that this is good advice - but who ...

i-Phone - You heard it here first

Chris Bell — Tue, 15 May 2007 20:23:39 +0100

Normally we would never dream of blowing our own trumpets, but this falls squarely in the 'You heard it here ...

Simple Adjustments

Chris Bell — Mon, 14 May 2007 16:48:03 +0100

Sometimes it is the simplest adjustments to a product that make it infinitely better. Consider the Whoopee Cushion. Not much ...

Plain Advice Prediction

Chris Bell — Tue, 01 May 2007 22:55:15 +0100

Couldn't resist joining in the debate on this one. Predict how will the iPhone fare in the big, bad world?...

More measurable website

Chris Bell — Tue, 01 May 2007 07:39:42 +0100

So after hours of agonising about the structure, dozens of minutes wondering about the content and about twenty minutes checking ...

VoIP still terrifies European Carriers

Chris Bell — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 10:21:41 +0100

Mobile telephony has always been a slightly strange industry. I have seen sales projections made by Nokia in 1995, confidently ...

Ultimate niche marketing of commodity product

Chris Bell — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:02:36 +0100

Not only do they have the world's most intimidating website - check out http://www.luvaglio.com/, but now they also have ...

Innovation with no context just looks silly

Chris Bell — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 11:34:18 +0100

In spite of the tax breaks given for R&D there is much evidence that shows that companies are only D'ing ...

Digg this - I Hate 'Social Network Marketing'!

Chris Bell — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 12:38:35 +0100

Using social networks for marketing purposes is nothing new. The hype surrounding adverts for big brands on YouTube is an ...

Pshycological profiling coming to iTunes?

Chris Bell — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 08:28:47 +0100

The lately late Kurt Vonnegut once wrote that there is only one question you need to ask a person the first ...

America's only genius is dead

Chris Bell — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 08:05:27 +0100

So what now for America? The news of the death of Kurt Vonnegut comes as a shock but not a ...

BA loses bags, says sorry

Chris Bell — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 08:32:15 +0100

British Airways is the best airline in the world at losing luggage, according to the Air Transport Users Council....

That's what I call customer service

Chris Bell — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 23:17:00 +0100

It's a 300 mile journey. To drive from Cardiff to Sunderland would take about six hours. On a good ...

Breathe life into your presentations

Chris Bell — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:35:20 +0100

So we all know the rule that there should be no more than five words on any PowerPoint slide. If ...

Hyperreality comes to Hicksville

Chris Bell — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 10:45:35 +0100

So the first thing I find out this morning is that in 11 towns in the US, the 7-11 is ...

Look out for your invitation

Chris Bell — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:48:48 +0100

Another competitive event.

This time we are giving the keynote for our friends at Holbrook Business Systems. The event is called "Creating Competitive Advantage" and is being held at their offices on May 2nd. It's invitation only so if the postman brings you a nice fat envelope make sure you reserve your place with some urgency.

Check here for more details.

Get ready for the next event!

Chris Bell — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:44:11 +0100

Having just put the last event to bed, we're moving on to the next one already.

Learn how to compete. Properly.

Hilton, Sheffield, April 15th. £50 including VAT and lunch.

Book yourself a place!

Get yourself some of the good stuff

Chris Bell — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:39:17 +0100

Plain Advice stuff is now available

Feel the quality!

Innovate or Simplify?

Chris Bell — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:57:20 +0000

Need some new ideas

Chris Bell — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:43:45 +0000

Why not go to our website and tell us what you are up to and what you are hoping to acheive. We will give you some free ideas about how to get to where you want to be. No catches. No gimmicks. No obligation.

If you're pitching for funding for your business we can help you get to the point.

If you're about to give a presentation to your customers we can tell you how to make it more memorable.

If it's appraisal time at your company, we can tell you how to make your acheivements throughout the last twelve months seem all the more creditable.

Try us out.

Competitive Googling

Chris Bell — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:20:34 +0000

Here's a really simple way of using the power of Google to make your company more competitive. It requires a ...

Think you can't describe it in a picture?

Chris Bell — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 19:17:19 +0000

This is a great example of how you can illustrate complex ideas with a simple diagram.

From http://indexed.blogspot.com/ (subscribe to ...

In praise of constraint

Chris Bell — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 13:14:00 +0000

One of the ideas that scares businesses and business people most it seems is the notion of constraint. Constraint means ...