I’ve just migrated two of our support services to Zendesk. The service looks great it’s got some neat features. However they’ve just announced a staggering set of price increases.

The starter pack is a good offering however – 34% increase per user for regular subscribers? WTF? Also, now there’s some sort of complicated features matrix.

C’mon guys, keep it simple!

Here are some of the sites I’ve looked at advertising on (most expensive rates first)

• Guardian Jobs - £750 for 30 days
• TheBookseller.com
  • £315 for a month online ad inclusion in one email bulletin.
  • £250 for one-off small panel ad in their weekly magazine – interesting that print is cheaper than online in this case.
• Chinwag – £149 for 30 days
• Leed.co.uk – £146 for 30 days
• LinkedIn – £130 for 30 days
• PublishingTalk – £60 for 30 days
• Twitjobs – £49 for 30 days
• Gum Tree – £28.79 for 90 days – This was exceptionally good value. Very happy with the price, quality, and quantity of responses.
• Free listings
  • SYP Jobs board
  • BookCareers.com
  • IPG Jobs board

So far, Gum Tree has delivered the best results in terms of quantity (and probably quality too). Second would be LinkedIn.

Edit – Added a few more and corrected LinkedIn & Chinwag sort order

• It was a bit confusing to know what sessions were available and where to go. This sorted itself out after about an hour but it was a bit disorientating for the first bit. I put some of this confusion down to my unfamiliarity with the format.
• Twitter helped understand the mood and interests of attendees – it wasn’t as useful for organising and coordinating sessions though. This might be partly due to patchy wifi.
• Although DHH’s views on business and startups is brilliant I didn’t learn anything new from his talk. He is a great speaker and doesn’t waffle.
• I enjoyed DHH vs. Eric – this debate (as remarked afterwards by one attendee) was a bit black and white, and at some points, emotive – however it was good to see two guys at the top of their game converse. Probably the most interesting panel-like discussion I’ve seen in a while.
• I don’t know the definition of a leanstartup. Salim said it was a framework for addressing the biggest market risk and learning from that.
• I also don’t know if that even matters. Clearly I’ve got some reading to do though. Probably starting with CustDev.com, Brant Cooper, Metrics for Pirates and Four Steps to the Epiphany.
• I was surprised by the amount of terminology and theory that was involved in some sessions. This was a barrier to my participation and understanding of the session. Clearly I’ve got some reading to do (see previous point).
• Other sessions I attended -
  • Bootstrapping lessons run by @chrismdp
  • Lean Marketing by by Matthew – which ran for a mammoth 1 hr 45 mins … all good though.
    • Need to look up VITO letters and
    • work on our referrential-ality – completely bad up word but  basically the full use of existing customer base in developing new business. Something that I’m now aware we’re not fully exploiting.
  • There were a few other sessions that I attended but ‘voted with my feet’.
  • Each attendee wore coloured stickers notating their interest (tech, creative, entrepreneur). This was a good idea. I could look into a session that looked popular and gauge whether it would be of interest to me based on the distribution of sticker colours.
• Anything VC related was really of interest to me. However there was clearly a VC interest thread running through the day.

What did I come away with in the end?

• I met some interesting people
• Experienced a very different unconference format. I was inspired by this – and probably will feel more comfortable about how to participate and contribute next time.
• I came away with some new knowledge about organisations that support startups (and that aren’t VCs!) – e.g. Creative Futures – which I’ve signed up to.
• Knowledge
  • £50k is the average size of first investment from Seedcamp, and that this is supposed to last between 3 and 6 months.
  • A good tip from someone in the audience. If you’re focusing on delivering a new product then make sure you don’t over look the potential of offering consultancy to sustain immediate growth. It will help you to prove customer base and promote stability of revenue
• New terms
  • Vanity Metrics – i.e. page hits, registrations, etc

I take my hat off to the confidence of the organisers to pull off something like this. It worked really well.

Would I go again? Yes, probably.

The initial ‘Prepay’ sign up offer allowed you to make one payment, in advance, for your first year’s subscription to Xero and was only available at the time you started with Xero.  Going forward your subscription will now revert to regular monthly invoicing.

I initially felt a bit annoyed about this. I didn’t expect to be forced out of our annual billing. Here are the numbers:

• I used to pay £189 p.a.
• I’m now going to have to pay £19 per month (£228 p.a.) – only £39 more
• As an early adopter I received a special deal that entitled me to multi-currency features added to my account for free – so in effect, I would have to of paid £24 per month.

So overall, I’m still winning. But only just. I’m glad that Xero offered it’s early adopters (like me) some sort of life-long privilege. If they hadn’t then I wouldn’t be so happy about their email.

Firstly, I was disappointed that the candidates from Respect, Conservatives and BNP didn’t bother to turn up. The Respect are the incumbent party in the constituency – however attendance and participation is not one of their strong points. Zakir Khan had sent along someone else to stand in for him.

Here are my notes on the debate:

• Labour Rushanara Ali
  • Was the most attacked candidate (probably because Respect wasn’t in attendance).
  • Got a good feeling for her background and experience – which she clearly has lots of. Also very articulate and straight talking.
  • Her ending sound bite was a plead to not protest vote Labour in this seat as the margin is so slim. The risk is another year of Respect.
  • 7/10
• Green Farid Bakht
  • I was surprised by this candidate. He’s articulate and switched on.
  • Gave a very good response to a challenge about Green credentials from van Terheyden.
  • From his final sound bite – he’s clearly not expecting to win however encouraged a protest vote to send a message.
  • 7/10
• United Voice Hasib Hikmat
  • Scary! Zero tolerance policing, same sex schools, anti-gay according to his education policies.
  • Effectively became the pseudo-BNP for the night.
  • 2/10
• Liberal Democrat Ajmal Masroor
  • A good orator but quite populist too.
  • Basically echoed the standard Lib Dem policies to date.
  • I just feel he’s too popular (and sometimes comical!) and not a true statesman.
  • 6/10
• Pirate Alexander van Terheyden
  • Aside from Pirate’s policies on copyright and surveillance reform, I didn’t pick up much in terms of policy from Alex.
  • Mostly talked to the gallery on populist issues and baited other candidates.
  • Didn’t really talk about what he’d do in office except keep Brick Lane police station open 24/7.
  • 4/10

Questions were submitted 30 mins before a one-hour panel discussion. I felt that this limited participation and it wasn’t clear how questions were selected. I wished that I’d contacted the organisers a few weeks ago and suggested that we use something like Google Moderator. The debates were very well managed  though – full credit to the chairman for his firm control of candidates.

I’m also pretty pissed off at the behaviour of my own MP, George Galloway. He came out opposing the bill and didn’t bother to make a stand and vote.

His voting performance is way below average. In his current term he only attended 7.6% of votes in the House – way below average and quite frankly disgraceful.

I hope that the constituents of  Poplar and Limehouse take this into account when it comes to electing their MP, as George Galloway is standing as one of the candidates. He’s all talk and no action in my opinion.

Dear George Galloway,

I write to you to request your support for an Early Day Motion to debate the Digital Economy Bill fully in parliament

Details of the EDM are here:

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=40883&SESSION=903

As you have already indicated your opposition to this bill, I hope that I can rely on your support.

Yours sincerely,

It took me less than three minutes to do. I hope you can do it too. Feel free to reuse my email quote as a template.

Hoping for another response on this.

Turns out that my account had been hacked by someone in China. Serves me right for having such a weak password in the first place. I’m now using super-strong passwords thanks to 1Password (Mac only).

I must admit, I’m quite impressed that Google have implemented this feature.

I was surprised to get a response so quickly. Here is his reply to me.

Thank you for your email – I share your very justifiable concerns about the draconian measures contained in the Bill, and I am also angered by the way the government is preparing to rush it through – with the loyal support of the opposition and certain Lib Dem peers it would seem – without any time for proper debate or scrutiny.

I can only see this whole debacle as one last reckless insult to democracy from a regime that should have placed itself before the electorate long ago.

I’ve recently been expressing opposition to the Bill on Twitter and Facebook.

I am also writing to the Speaker to ask for proper Parliamentary time for scrutiny and debate.

Naturally I am in favour of the workers in all the relevant industries receiving fair remuneration, but I do not think that forcing through this Bill, with all its inherent dangers, against the profound misgivings of the public, is the way to go. Given time, and good will, I am sure that mutually acceptable solutions could emerge.

Once again, however, this government is prepared to trample over your human rights in the name of political expediency. Surely the last days of a dying government should have been devoted to more productive matters. What about freeing local councils to directly invest in housing? Or reforming the laws that criminalise photographers and people peacefully protesting? Or agreeing to a Robin Hood tax on the banks?

With best wishes

GG

Apparently George received over 100 similar emails of protest from his constituents (according to his Twitter feed). This is actually the second time that I’ve contacted George – and I must admit, he has replied pretty damn quick on both occasions.

However actions speak louder than words. While it’s good to expression opposition online via Twitter and Facebook, he will get the opportunity to debate and ultimately vote on the bill. Unfortunately, George has one of the worst voting records in the house. I hope that on this occasion he takes action.