Bit of This and a Bit of That

Issue 2 of this round of The Commissioner gets sorted today. Zookoda the thing to it's incredibly small mailing list (Katherine and myself so far) and Katherine will zap it onwards. The Zookoda e-mail version is a response to our commissioners who don't fancy having to open attachments, they like to go straight to the links..... They asked, I supplied, Katherine's distribution list gets both it and the attachment because there may be library folk who print the thing. Actually been a good bit of CAS that's gone down well outside the North West (Can't believe it all began here!)

PCT Librarian's meeting at St Helens, costing and pricing the key topic, went OK. Very C&M though. Snow hasn't been bad, led to the odd apology but most folk made it OK. Positive vibes to Beryl.

Back and I solve the Nigel Crisp conundrum, that old implement called the phone and a call to Monitor leads me back to the DH where I am quizzed as to whether I've looked on their site before being put through to their folk who deal with Foundation Trusts. They let me know that no letter exists, what I am after is section 15 of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003. Problem solved! Pauline catches up with me job partially done. Just need to locate the Green Book now.

Home and time to sort the kitchen. Must resist the temptation to do the news..... We're letting Helen loose on it tomorrow!

The Dentists - Kebab House Crawl

The sights and sounds that entertained a much younger me - the person I still am in my head!

Let's Make It a Good Day to Bury Bad News

Friday

Fuck knows! I remember being knackered by the time I got home, I remember being told that we have a call centre going in opposite us, I remember Ad the Lad being around the gaff, of other things if you were there - remind me! Seem also to remember a training trip to the works and taking Nicola to the home of the Space 1999 corridor.

One thing I am sure of I had an unwelcome trip into town to sort some currency for our trip to see the Mouse. Unwelcome because town is a pain to drive in with the big dig. Leave the car at the Max Escher car park. Wander into town.

Saturday

On much safer ground here, nip back to town to fetch the currency ordered yesterday, run around with a quick tidy up because the folks are due at 12.00 and I didn't do much the night before. Also fight with a Google Spreadsheet to kick off discussion about equitable funding for the BMJ Journals for next year. Comes together OK.

The folks arrive and we drag them to Damons for food, then into the No Mercy and my cunning plan to zap them round Speke Hall is thwarted when we discover it is closed. Instead we end up in town. Deep joy!

Home, feed the family and watch everyone playing a game of Disney Trivial Pursuit.

Sunday

Highlight of the day is a wander about with Cal riding his bike. Deep joy! Nevertheless it was nice to see the folks.

Monday

Up early, begin the news that I'd avoided all weekend and catch up with some washing up. Running late before leaving for work. Feeling kinda disconnected.

Sort Zookoda with Helen and Tracy who ask intelligent questions. Hope it makes more sense to them now. Zap a report to Linda that is overdue. Chat to Shan along the way and offer to facilitate at an event she's putting on about commissioning. Send Ken news of a journal and access to it.

Home and Monday means frantic feed the family and get Monst to work. D-day today. Listen to '6 Billion People'. Which reminds me to check Dave's blog 'Hobo Tread' which makes me laugh and is a cracking read. Watch 'Life on Mars' which returns for a second series soon. Love the ad below.

Djamolidine

Latest e-mail marketing metrics. Some interesting phenomena beginning to emerge, there is a good forwarding rate where we have established a personal relationship and it seems to be the forwarded mails that are opened most. Conforms to viral marketing patterns then. Key thing seems to be the value placed on the sender not the content.

I concede defeat in trying to map a blog template to the design in Helen's head. Nearest compromise I can come up with is promoting the archives in the sidebar and renaming them 'Articles' which is probably a bit more user friendly. Might need to tart up the header but it's getting there. Leave fuller instructions for Helen on Zookoda. Of course I continue to rave about it as a tool. Let Alison from the LDB know about it today (Tracy I've left some marketing books for Alison - not as yet issued - she's dropping the laptop and projector back some time tomorrow and I've asked her to check the data cable is with the projector).

Discuss the printable CEO with Tracy, as ever I'm only a tool away from solving my problems (I know though that I am the basic problem!) Point her at the Rough Underbelly Task Manager. Fetch the train ticket for tomorrow's Land of Manc gig and pass Hammy House which is really being knocked about by the developers. I'd have been easier to knock the bugger down.

Of a less work related nature I listen to 'Heads and How to Read Them' (thanks to whoever left it on my desk for me) and instantly I get transported back in time to my year in the Smoke at Library School at UCL, to a time in Oxford which Bob's excellent Gigography (at the Dentist's homepage) tells me was the 17th October 1991 when I lost myself in the music while moving at around 1000 mph away from the place I wanted to be while standing about 8ft away from it at the Jericho (don't worry if that don't make sense to you it does to me!) I also get transported to moving in to Nursing Home South at Napsbury, only to find the next day I had to move to a gaff above the laundry because I wasn't a nursing student! Strange how music is a trip in itself. Other listens for the day include the very excellent Nikki Sudden and Abdoujaparov (who prompt me to pic up the phone to call Christina - she was in the car when I first listened to 'Air, Odeon, Disco, Pub', oddly enough easy enough to date that if I ask Tracy because it was the day of her wedding!).

Mic rings with good news on a job, I send the reference today so it should be sorted for him. So the sidies are off to live in Chesterfield, hope they don't cause the twisted spire to straighten up. Made up for him, sounds like a good job.

Home, cook, hoover, play with blogs. Off to the Land of Manc again tomorrow.

Now, Where be I?

Losing track of days so I'm hoping this brings me to a sense of where we are in the week!

Wednesday

First off it was Happy Birthday Callum, all of eight years old. I get up late (around 7'sh which means I'm chasing my tail sorting the news - which means I don't get time to chat to Helen about the delights of Zookoda).

Helen (a different one from the other Helen, look this is gonna get confusing be warned) comes over from Leeds to chat about the delights of Primary Care Librarianship. She's cool and has shared attitudes with us as a service. I'm impressed, poor girl put up with me rambling on....

Leave early to fetch the bike for Cal from Halfords, pick Monst up, head to the school and pick up Cal, Aaron, Liam and Jack. Owen who was also meant to be with us had hurled earlier in the day and been sent home. Quick trip down the East Lancs to Frankie and Benny's. everything is sorted, service is good, food is good and we get out in time to see 'Flushed Away' at the Showcase. The kids behave and the jobs a good 'un.

Home, cake and candles with Lil from across the road, write the start of a Zookoda guide for Helen (feeling guilty because I haven't spent enough time with her hatch the plan to catch up with her at Warrington the following day). Crap TV and bed beckons.

Thursday

In early sort the news, start playing with a blog format for the Nursing E-Newsletter that Pat asked us to pull together the other week. Get told we got the wrong bag of post. Nip to a tenants meeting with a very military gentleman chairing (later learn he's just back from Iraq) that lasts 3 times longer than necessary. Interesting thing is that the PCT folk in the room are all losing the will to live by the end of it, the others bang on, and on, and on, and on.

Dash downstairs and chat to Nicola as I frantically beat up printers and rush away to Warrington. Arrive to find everyone at lunch. Chat briefly to Helen (not of Leeds) explain the guide situation (feel slightly less guilty). Vicky asks a favour (which she knows I'm gonna say yes to anyway). Steve and Mo bum a lift back to Liverpool.

Sort some e-KSF training with Linda Black for Tracy and myself, get a promise of some for Nicola and Helen too. See friendly Public Health folk, chat sort out some materials. Big up the LMI.

Meanwhile Cal goes to St Marks to see if he likes it as a school to go back to mainstream at. That goes well, Monst is impressed at the teachers flexibility (the accommodate some of the things that Cal Likes to do into the mornings lessons - cool or what!) All goes well and Monst contacts the LEA to give the thumbs up. Monst has done a cracking job there with minimal support from me. Result. Now just to determine the how and when!

Home, eat, washing, blog catch up, bed beckons. But before that I investigate the new Blinklist Broadcast Widget which results in this page in minutes. I of course ask it to do stoopid things. Mightily impressed, need to drop a mail to Christina.

Counting Beans etc.

The metrics of the Zookoda e-mail newsletters look interesting, well they do to a sad old library git like me! Play with the Commissioner with Beryl, forgot that IT over the water make the Minions of Doom our side of the Mersey look like they are laid back and chilled. Blogspot sites are blocked over there as being adult content.

Monst calls this morning, she's succumbed to the curse of the nurse, the bad back, poor thing is flat out upstairs her back in spasm, movement is painful so tea and food need to be transported to her. I head home early to be back when the boy arrives, shove on a last minute curry with the stuff hastily taken out of the freezer this morning and we manage to eat before the boy is due at Beavers. Next stop an attempt to clean the living room and fetch the boy from Beavers.

Tomorrow is Critical Appraisal training in Chorley. Years since I did that sort of thing, indeed I think it was the first training that David put on when he got up here. Certainly it was Gateway House as a venue. Anyway having looked at the Chorley Citizen for the last few years and having visited the hospital it pains me to say I still don't have a Scooby where it is. The AA tell me.

Get Cal to bed, finish tidying, relax and kip beckons.

More CAS and Sleep!

Formally reveal the existence of the blog version of the Commissioner, the Current Awareness Service that the good folk of the North West Primary Care Librarian's Group are putting together for the commissioning folk. It's a nice piece of joint work that seems to be going down well. Throw in an email version through Zookoda, a feed run through Feedburner and we get some metrics beyond the mailed pdf version. Increasingly guess we need to have proven return on our efforts.

Home and fetch Monst up to Faz, watch shite TV, quick blimp here and job done. Bath, book and bed, feel knackered.

More Marketing Bits and Bobs

So to the Zookoda experiment, there nestling in my inbox today was a kind message giving me broadcast permissions for the account I set up the other day. In the interim I'd created a mailing list for our Modern Matrons, and established the mail I wanted to send out.

The advantage as far as I can see is a pretty looking mail that asks to be paid attention to (it appealed to my inner-Paul)

As opposed to earlier efforts when I adopted the DIY approach.

The other advantage is though the metrics, I can see what's happening to the thing as it goes out (of course I get stoopidly excited about this).

I guess though the key thing about it is the fact that as a tool it's made me think about segmentation, headline benefits and all of the stuff that I should be thinking about. That and the metrics are important in that we've never really had a concrete way of measuring things. See the reading pays off.

Nine Million Bicycles? Don't Ask Me... It's the Olds

Begin to play with Zookoda, looks a handy marketing tool to me. Useful right now as we begin the process of ramping up marketing for the BMJ journals etc.

Meanwhile the kids tonk Liverpool. More smiles from me at work tomorrow, really miss Christina at times like this.

Also make another attempt to get my shit together about being a bit more organised. Slim Timer is an option worth a punt, feel like I'm losing track a bit right now, not helped by N3 probs today.

Talk the old fella through I-Tunes at some point tonight too......