First office computer

New computer arriving today should help with the creation of marketing collateral and organising the company email a bit better. 

It's here: It's big! It's noisy! It has a giant 24" screen!  Exactly why did you buy this one dear?!?

Hi, my name is Grace and I'm a Microsoftholic

Surprised by how dependant I am on the MS Office suite of programmes to actually get anything done properly.  Tried to set-up the email using the default server but am struggling to do things like add a signature with a graphic to make it look nice.  Also not impressed to find that all the emails I send seem to end up in the recipients junk mail box.  Hmmm, that will make things a little harder.  Am definitely going to have to sort myself out a new computer and make a gold sacrifice to the software gods - Oh please look favourably on this small business, and smite me not with rubbish operating systems such as plagued my forefathers (Vista) but deliver me something usable lest my wrath of frustration be unleashed upon the new computer and husband.

The IT Crowd (of 1)

Webmail has been set-up.  You can contact me on grace.wooller@videostasis.com now!  Or at least you will be able to once I link up Outlook to the email server.  Quick call to the videostasis IT dept. to log a helpdesk request.  In my capacity as Chief Information Officer (yes, they warned me I would have to do everything myself), I have prioritised my helpdesk request to the top of the queue and will now attempt to try and sort out the email.

Oh crap, my version of office doesn’t come with Outlook.  Thanks retarded EU anti-competition regulation for making Microsoft break-up it’s office suite and sell it to me on a piecemeal basis thus increasing my costs. Grrrrr (angry because I’m spending money unnecessarily growl)

Marketing on a budget

Organised a meeting (cup of tea) with the Chief Marketing Officer (me) to discuss our marketing collateral needs.  Have to decide on what would make a good welcome/marketing pack for our contacts on campus to drive awareness.  Given our limited budget we are a bit restricted but think we can at least get some basics out there.  Definitely need some little A5 flyers to hand out and some A4/A5 posters to go up on noticeboards on the campuses.  All exciting stuff as the business becomes a little more tangible.  Am going to have to engage a design person to put together some basic marketing collateral content.  Hmmm, even for the basic things like just putting the logo and background blueprint onto something is going to cost a few hundred quid.  Am wondering whether I should hire a Brand Manager (me) and buy Photoshop and try and do it myself.  Given I am only after something reasonably simple, maybe it’s worth doing?  It’s a fine line between paying somebody who knows what they’re doing to get it done quickly and correctly to trying to save a few pennies here and there.  Mind you, given the administrative error at EuroMillions (they didn’t pick our numbers again!) I don’t have the deepest of pockets to fund the business from and so have to be mindful of how every penny is spent.

Summer intern project

Bit of grind work today for our summer intern (me) locating contact details for all the student union activities officers for each university.  Given our success with Keele University, I think this is the point of contact on campus most likely to be interested in the concept and also be able to offer the greatest support in spreading the word on campus (if we can’t make it in person).

Social media is go!

LinkedIn and Facebook accounts now up and running.  Looks like we finally have a social media presence.  Guess I need to start tweeting and posting.  Should be fun!

Social media is starting to come together

Lots of little activities to keep me busy: setting up social media accounts and starting to populate them with a bit of content.  Twitter and Google+ accounts now up and running.