Southern Malawi was hit by Cyclone Freddy. My home city, Blantyre, was hit badly. Many parts of the city experienced flash floods and mud slides. Soche, Manja, Ndirande, Chilomoni, Machinjiri. Other parts of southern Malawi are suffering. Mulanje, Thuchila, Phalombe, the lower Shire, Zomba. The equivalent of 6 months of rain fell within a few […]
My robotic future
I chatted* Facebook support to get an issue at the day job fixed. The Facebook support person decides to call me. I answer the phone and don’t understand a single word. Another call. The same experience. Having spoken to a lot of support hotlines, I know the company wants my consent to record the call. […]
Less is more: Creating display ads in different sizes
The challenge:For 6Sense display and Google Display networks, I encounter ad sizes which are incredibly small (for mobile use). Display ad sizes vary immensely. There are very wide banners. Skinny and tall skyscraper ads. Squares. Oblongs. For use on desktop and mobile. At work, I pick a mix of sizes for desktop and mobile. Unfortunately, […]
Writing is a superpower
Find ways to improve your writing skills. English Composition class is every day. Writing is a superpower: SEO = WritingEmails = WritingTwitter = WritingFundraising = WritingLanding Pages = Writing Write every day. Consistency is key. — MATT GRAY (@matt_gray_) July 24, 2022
The CMS of the day
WordPress dominates the CMS market. A statistic floated by this week, citing over 60% market share. WordPress continues to dominate the content management systems (CMS) market and is currently used by 64.2% of websites that have a CMS, according to data from W3Techs. https://t.co/wBWoIbgQKi#WordPress #cms #websitedevelopment #seo #digitalmarketing pic.twitter.com/lyTpxRfo40 — SearchEngineJournal® (@sejournal) July 15, 2022 […]
Memory Corrosion
Besides demand generation, being invested in brand activities to be “top of mind” when clients move into the buying phase is super important. Here’s a recent piece that I bookmarked on LinkedIn. “95% of B2B buyers are not in-market for your products right now.” This LinkedIn Marketing article describes a concept called memory corrosion. “When […]
Marketing reading list 2022
Saw this reading list yesterday. For future reference. Any recommendations?
Chiperoni weather
When temperatures drop in Blantyre, tweets show up in my timeline. Kuzizira. Rainy drizzle weather. It’s chiperoni time in June and July. I am far away from Blantyre in sunny and warm Basel. Enjoying a very warm and sunny European summer. Trying to get into the habit of writing on my own blog instead of […]
The boring flower snapshot: New contributions
Tulips flowering away. Beautiful purple and white flowers standing out. Added to my Flickr album “The Boring Flower Snapshot“.
Coffee from Chipunga, near Mzuzu
I finished drinking my souvenir of Malawi coffee last week. I like the strong, rich flavour of Malawi coffee. It’s strong, it’s chocolatey, it’s earthy. Each time I wonder how I could help to promote Malawi coffee and its unique taste in Europe. Rather than importing green beans, could we import roasted beans? Rather than […]
Discovering, Crawling, Queuing, Rendering, Indexing and maybe later Ranking
I watched this video on SEO Rendering. I found a transcript.
Georgia O’Keeffe
I went to see the current Beyeler show on Georgia O’Keeffe.
Italian films
I watched and re-watched several Italian or Swiss-Italian films recently Vecchi Pazzi Pane e Tulipani Agata e la Tempesta
Jog log
I went for a walk/run today. Probably about 6 km. 2 hills. Some stairs. Lots of sun. Stopped to take photos with my Samsung A6.
Why do I use LinkedIn – and other questions
I’ve been asked to talk about LinkedIn. This isn’t the first time. Most of the talks, I’ve given were about how to use LinkedIn “technically”. Given that LinkedIn has been available for over 15 years and there are many excellent online courses and webinars on how to use LinkedIn features, I suggested a session on […]
Anecdote to remember
I was waiting at a red traffic light on my bicycle. I was the only bicycle waiting. No cars. And the red light phase was quite long. After some time, another cyclist stopped next to me and immediately the traffic robot switched to green. I joked out loud: “You saved my day. Without you I […]
Tulipani
Last autumn I planted some tulip bulbs in my small garden. My Flickr stream is currently full of snapshots. My own tulip mania. A selection:
Orange
Orange photos
True blue
Photos containing the colour blue:
Yellow, yellow
A collection of photos showing the colour yellow
Red
Here’s a selection of Flickr photos that contain #red:
Beyeler by Renzo Piano
Photos of the Beyeler Museum in Riehen, Basel-Stadt.
Jog log
Dear blog, I am happy to report that I went running on 5 out of 7 days this past week. The plan is to replace my daily outdoor swim with a slow jog. Today I did the 2 hills tour. Starting at Bettingerstrasse, running along the Wiese river, via Sonnenhalde and Wenkenpark. More than 6 […]
Favourite podcasts
The Hidden Brain by NPR:https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510308/hidden-brain?t=1594925472583 I listened to this one all about debt:https://www.npr.org/2020/06/15/877401074/buy-borrow-steal-how-debt-became-the-sugar-rush-solution-to-our-economic-woes This episode all about scarcity was particularly impressive: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/05/748207152/you-2-0-tunnel-vision Ted Radio Hour by NPR:https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510298/ted-radio-hour About loneliness: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/01/886292087/listen-again-meditations-on-loneliness How I built this by NPR:https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this How Ben and Jerry Ice Cream was founded: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/20/818918341/ben-jerrys-ben-cohen-and-jerry-greenfield The Story behind Recaptcha: https://www.npr.org/2020/05/22/860884062/recaptcha-and-duolingo-luis-von-ahn ARD Radio Tatort (crime fiction […]
“The boring flower snapshot” returns
The boring flower snapshot is still going strong. I cycled past a field of flowers this week and stopped to take some snaps. The light was beautiful. Taken with my smartphone… As they say, the best camera is the one that is with you. View my album “The boring flower snapshot” on Flickr.