The eBusiness Champions project took a group of SMEs to Dublin on the 22^nd – 23^rd of June 2010 to visit Enterprise Ireland and learn from some of their successful ebusinesses.

 This was a great visit and so many ideas and inspiration to take away and implement in the UK businesses. Much more content from this trip will follow, but for now here are some of the presentations…

Ok, so I have “picked” a little bit on the “dinosaur developers” who just developed the web site that the client has asked for. However, we have all done this and quietly bit or teeth whilst thinking this is all wrong – but the customer knows best, right?

Anyone involved with web sites, be it the developer, the designer, the business owner or any other staff will have heard no end of “well, I think green is better for the links than red”, “I think dropdown boxes are better than tick boxes”, “I don’t think anyone will watch the video” …

These can be very frustrating meetings that often lead to no improvement to a web site what so ever.

This isn’t a trick question or a bad joke, but have you thought about the difference between a web developer and an online marketing advisor (agency, consultant etc)?

What happens to your personal and business details when you submit them to the eBusiness Champions programme

1. It is our objective to adhere to the Data Protection Act of 1998 and all reasonable efforts will be made to comply with the law in full. We are committed to protecting your privacy and security and value your participation in our program.

2. The purpose of requesting, collating and storing your data is to successfully administrate, certificate, and support you and your business throughout the eBusiness Champions programme, and to make you aware of important developments relating to the course and our services.

3. We will only use the information collected from you with your consent to tell you about our services and will never willfully disclose personal information about you to any third party (excluding organisations essential to the programme, as detailed in section 5 of this document), without first receiving your permission, or unless we are under a legal obligation to do so.

4. Consent to collect and use the data in the manner detailed in this data protection policy is inferred by you supplying your data at the time of registration and by you clicking to agree with the terms and conditions of study that include but are not limited to this data protection policy.

5. In the course of facilitating your successful registration to the eBusiness Champions project at no cost, and to ensure that you receive suitable support from the eBusiness Champions team, it may be necessary to share your data with the following organisations:
5.1 ESF (European Social Fund)
5.2 Castle College Nottingham
5.3 Our partners on the eBusiness Champions project, including: New College Nottingham, Loughborough College, South Leicestershire College, De Montfort University and Hibernia College, Dublin.

6. eBusiness Champions cannot be held responsible for data specifically supplied to our project partners being used for any purpose other than that intended and detailed above. Please contact the individual partners for their Data Protection Policies.

7. In the event of any problem on data protection being indicated to the eBusiness Champions team we will make immediate attempts to investigate the complaint and supply details of any steps taken to resolve the problem promptly.

8. Your data may be stored after the project completion for quality assurance and audit purposes. We are happy to supply you, on request, with all details we hold on you as a past/current learner assuming we still hold the data and it has not been deleted beyond the timeframe detailed.

9. All reasonable efforts will be made to ensure that all sensitive data is held in a secure and orderly manner and not accessible to third parties. All learner data will remain within the EU.

10. Your data will only be accessed by those members of staff and parties essential to your successful participation, usually your support team which comprises expert tutors, and senior representatives of the programme development partners.

If you are unsure of any items defined in the data protection policy please contact us to discuss this.

We heard this phrase for the first time at the Internet Conference a couple of weeks ago and I think it is great! The Northwest tourist web site was showcased on a big screen and a big “wow” went through the room – the web site had the “John Lewis effect".

What effect does your website have on the visitor? Do they instantly thing “wow”, or do they instantly want to leave?

Sometimes it is just easier not to reinvent the wheel… or at least a bit of inspiration can be helpful… and creating email marketing templates is definitely one of those areas…