Matt Norman
News and comment from my world...
An email campaign: Why I converted.
A recipient's view
Last week I received an email. It asked me to do something and I did it. The way it was written made it a very effective marketing email for me personally.
Now you may know that I work in a marketing department. And one of my jobs is to play a part in sending bulk emails for my company. So I do have an interest in email marketing and some experience in it. But let’s look at this email and see why it got to me.
Glug
A couple of weeks before a swimming holiday, I came up with the idea of buying an underwater camera. I had a photo in my mind. One of my kids swimming towards the camera underwater. That’s all. I considered an underwater housing for my dslr, but for the one shot it didn’t seem worth it. I also considered just buying a disposable underwater camera, but really didn’t want to go that way.
Read More... 10 May 10 Add comment | Permanent Link
More Moondust
Way back in the day, a year or so after I read the Hitch Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, and was instantly hooked on science fiction, some one, probably called ‘David Hartley*’ introduced me to ‘A Fall Of Moondust’ by Arthur C Clarke. If I recall correctly, I first heard this story as a BBC dramatisation recorded from the radio onto cassette tape. As the dramatisation was abridged, I probably - the exact details escape me - read the book shortly after. It was one of those books that gelled with me - and I listened to the tape until it wore out.
Read More... 02 Feb 10 Add comment | Permanent Link
Goodbye Borders
This morning the BBC announced that Borders the bookshop was closing down. This made me sad. Since I moved from Birmingham I have missed the huge bookshops that I had grown up going to. I first went to Borders in Inverness, and was astounded at the size of it. It had a coffee shop, a decent scifi selection, and loads of magazines. One day I found out that Borders was coming to my town, and now I go into the shop at least once every two weeks.
I’ve spent many an hour in Borders’ Starbucks, whiling away the hours with a Caramel Macciato, reading a magazine or a book from the shop.
But I’m not surprised its closed down. I got to thinking - when was the last time I bought a book from Borders? A coffee - yes. A pen - yes. A photo album from Paperchase - yes. But a book? Erm. I remember the last book I bought. I found an interesting book on Sharepoint that I needed for work. I flicked through the book. Liked what I saw. But then what did I do? I took a picture of the ISBN on my phone camera and PUT THE BOOK BACK ON THE SHELF, went back to work and bought it from Amazon.
Conventional bookshops are wonderful places. Places to meet, to waste time, to browse. But are they places to buy books anymore? I’m sorry Borders, I love your shop - I love being in there - But I’m sorry that I haven’t bought from you. I hope all bookshops don’t go the same way. But I’ll wager all but second hand and specialist bookshops will one day disappear from our streets.
Look at them all. A huge sale. No place to park. Stuffed full of customers. Why could we not have bought from them all along? Why are we here now? Its ironic that they are going to get their best trading times in the few days before they close for good.
30 Nov 09 Add comment | Permanent Link
MOONDUST
Just finished listening to MOONDUST: In search of the men who fell to earth. This was a fascinating account of, well not just the Apollo programme and landings, but of the author, Andrew Smith’s personal attempt to meet and talk to all of the people who have walked on the moon.
I was quite amazed at how long ago this happened, and that the first landing was when I was about 10 months old. When I asked my mother if we had watched it, she said my dad probably did, but she didn’t. Was I there? Did I see the ‘LIVE FROM MOON’ flashing ZX81 style graphics overlaid on the screen while my father was excitedly watching, along with most of the rest of the world? I’m sad I missed it - if I did - I’m sad I will never know about what happened then, where I was, if I was by a turned on TV. But I feel it did happen. Men went there.
But what of it? I remember when I was growing up I always heard people say ‘If they can put a man on the moon they can [insert some kind of unfixable social problem here].’ But did they? No. No government can truly fix the worlds problems.
I haven’t heard people talk about men on the moon for a while that way. And It’s not surprising that now, people doubt they ever went there. I think they did, but wish they had carried on going. The book says that China was trying to get to the moon again. I’m not sure when this was planned, or if they still are, but would love to see full HD images beamed back from the surface and to watch it live with my kids. Of course now we DO have the technology to do a realistic hoax, but also probably have the technology to detect it as well.
I’m not going anywhere with this post. The book was interesting and really gave me a thirst for finding out more about Apollo than the standard Discovery channel programmes and the Right Stuff and Ron Howard’s Apollo 13. I’m going to try and find if any of the 12 men who did walk on the moon, of which only 9 are still alive, have any biographies available on audiobooks. I may write again about them if I find any.
Image from NASA archives from wiki which states it is public domain. Used without permission but assumed ok.
06 Sep 09 Add comment | Permanent Link