Leanne Nelson+ by | Jul 24, 2013 | Gallery, Websites
Australia Family Style is a blog aimed at parents travelling with their children. It has a standard blog layout with categories separating information into easy to find sections. The site is built on WordPress, an easy to use blogging platform that offers a great deal of customisation. The basic design of Australia Family Style includes social media links for sharing on each post, a single sidebar for adding navigation and advertising, as well as advertising spots in both the header and on posts. The Australia Family Style website is a great example of a simple WordPress blog. It’s a design that can be customised for a personal blog, a hobby website or a simple informational business...
Leanne Nelson+ by | May 24, 2013 | Business
This week’s happenings across my Twitter, Facebook & Feedly streams that caught my eye. “The Unexpected Antidote to Procrastination” via Havard Business Review Surfing is the key according to Peter Bregman. But don’t worry. You don’t actually need to get wet, or even go anywhere near the beach get this antidote. “Teen Develops Computer Algorithm to Diagnose Leukemia” via Mashable The good things we can do with computers are just astounding. What’s even more astounding is the age of some of these kids doing these good things. Stories like this never cease to uplift me. “How to Generate More Leads With Your Blog” via Social Media Examiner According to a recent survey by Social Media Examiner, many businesses are looking to increase their blogging activities in the future. This is a grea t little how-to for achieving some real results from your blogging efforts. “Why you should ban email (sometimes)” via Inc. As a little add-on to my email management tips earlier this week: Is email free Friday, better than casual Friday? What do you think? I hadn’t heard of email free days before, but I like the idea! Margaret Heffernan reports on the successes some (large) companies are having with email free...
Leanne Nelson+ by | May 21, 2013 | Time management
You turn on your computer, go make a coffee and sit at your desk psyched for the day ahead. First things first, you check your email. Ugh. The inbox fairy bypassed you again last night. Even worse, there’s a good number more emails in there than when you shut it down last night. The scenario repeats during the day as you check, shuffle, reply and reread. All the while your inbox is growing more unwieldy, a greater source of stress, by the hour. What are the benefits of maintaining a nice inbox? You don’t waste valuable time checking each (usually not time critical) email as it arrives. Not only does it take time to check the message, it distracts your focus from the work you are doing. Time to check email + time to refocus on task at hand = Time you probably don’t have You don’t run the risk of missing important messages in a sea of irrelevant “stuff” When you do check your messages it will be a much quicker exercise There are a few simple processes that you can put in place, rather than let email chew up any more of your valuable time and mental energy that it needs to. 1. Keep the checking in check The first and possibly most important change is to minimise how often you check your email. Don’t let your time be guided by your inbox! Turn off email notifications. Very, very few people need an alert for each and every email as it arrives. If you have a job where it is critical you must see every email as...
Leanne Nelson+ by | Apr 17, 2013 | Information Systems
WordPress has recently been subject to a brute force attack where sites using the default “admin” have been hacked. You can read about the particulars of the attack here. Whether or not you’re using the default username or another common one, it’s probably pertinent to review the security setup of your WordPress sites. Here are a couple of things you can do in a few minutes that will greatly improve the security of your site. Change your username from “admin” WordPress now enables the username to be changed from the default “admin” during installation. I highly recommend you do this. If your installation is already complete WordPress doesn’t allow you to change usernames directly. There are two fairly simple work arounds. Add a new user & delete the “admin” user Select User from the main WordPress menu Select Add New Enter your user details, making sure to: select an appropriate user name (that isn’t admin, administrator, etc!) change the Role from Subscriber to Administrator Hit the blue Add New User button Log out of WordPress, then log back in with the new user details you just created Navigate to the User screen again Tick the little box next to the user with username “admin” Delete this user (under Bulk Actions). You will be asked if you’d like to delete or reassign this users posts. Make sure you reassign them!! Alternatively, you can change the admin user’s role to subscriber. Install a plugin to do it for you There are a number of plugins, like Admin username changer, that will allow you to change a username once the user...
Leanne Nelson+ by | Apr 12, 2013 | Business
Over the last 10 or 15 years many companies have been discovering reasons for outsourcing that will improve their business. It has become increasingly common for companies to send various business processes out to a third party for completion. Like many other organisations, the manufacturing companies I worked at during the 1990’s started heavily outsourcing processes in order to capitalise on external resources and expertise as well as to cut costs. Many other industries have since taken advantage of outsourcing all sorts of processes from call centres to product development to, you guessed it, administration. While large companies have already discovered many reasons for outsourcing, small and micro business owners are very well placed to take advantage of this trend. Outsourcing business processes where the business owner may not have the time, expertise, resources or passion required makes perfect sense. Time Small and micro business owners in particular are often “jacks of all trades”. And it’s no secret small business owners are strapped for time. It’s not unusual to find them preparing a sales presentation one minute, screening resumes the next and then later in day (or usually night!) tweaking their website to add new products. That’s before you even look at the day to day phone calls, emails, to do lists … Time is a valuable resource for us all, perhaps THE most valuable. Why waste it doing something you don’t enjoy, or that takes three times as long because it’s not in your skill set? Outsourcing business processes that are not where you’d rather be spending your time, but still need to be done is a great...
Leanne Nelson+ by | Sep 7, 2012 | Information Systems
We are bombarded with information and data everyday. So much information, that a lot of the time it loses its meaning to us. It’s just more noise. That’s why I love a good infographic. Infographics have become quite popular in trying to give some context to the mountains of information out there. David McCandless has a wonderful knack of putting data into a visual format that makes it so much easier to understand. He manages to make what could be quite bland tables of numbers meaningful, sometimes even entertaining. Take a...
