From a bedroom hobby, this form of marketing is now my full-time job and as you can probably tell I love it. As well as working during the day, in my spare time I carry out jobs for friends, family and others on a freelance basis. This portfolio of work has grown over the years to the extent that now I have decided to consolidate it into a brand new company.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce Cuppa Marketing Ltd.

Now this does not mean I have given up the day job. Far from, I am still committed first and foremost to my work in higher education marketing. But it means that anyone that now comes to me to draw on my expertise and experience in my spare time will receive a full, limited company experience.

This has benefits for both me and the customer, and it also allows me to branch out to offer services through my various contacts in the industry.

I am very excited about the venture and hope you will be able to follow along as it grows. In terms of blogging, you will notice Cuppa has a blog too. I am not abandoning this blog in favour of a new one, but you may notice this becomes more personal as I move more industry-related posts over to the company blog.

So why Cuppa? Well it is about creating a sense of warmth and familiarity around marketing. Marketing, brand and design companies are often cool and contemporary, but with it a little cold and distant. The approach with Cuppa is to present something a little different. Basically, have a chat with us over a nice cuppa and see what we can do.

Of course, behind the casual ease is solid professionalism, extensive experience and fresh ideas.

So check out the new website, and get in touch if you want to find out more.

Current “family” filters on mobile networks demonstrate that the automated blocking of sites due to their perceived content causes major problems for “innocent” sites caught in the clunky drag nets of this method of censorship.

While the government has pledged to do more to restrict public access to various types of websites (namely porn, although as the article shows the reach will inevitably go further than that) many, including the “big five” of the online world, have raised serious concerns over the practicalities of implementing such widespread blocking, not to mention the implications on our rights to access information.

The fact is many websites already get blocked by these filters, seemingly without them containing any dangerous or offensive content. It is very had to tell if a site has been blocked short of getting connections to all networks and ISPs and testing them. O2 do offer a URL checker, and this alone offers an eye-opening insight into how poor this technology is.

My site, for example, is blocked if parental controls are turned on, and is classified as “Real Estate”. Even basic crawler technology would be able to tell the content of this site is nearly 100% marketing and social media (sorry if you came here looking to sell your home), and yet blocking code which the government is proposing to roll out as a blanket scheme is unable to work this out.

Also I don’t understand why my site would be automatically blocked with parental controls switched on. I admit a child would be unlikely to find my content interesting, but otherwise it wouldn’t be “dangerous” to view surely? Further more, the only site I could find (after an admittedly short check) that was not automatically blocked under parental controls is Wikipedia, which contains unsuitable content such as this.

So what does this mean for us web types? Well simply put, we need to stand alongside Google, Facebook, Twitter et al and make a stand against these silly proposals. While attempts to prevent and respond to abhorrent acts of terror and extremism should be a priority, this cannot be at the expense of freedom and rights. Nor can it be an excuse for the implementation of a backwards and ineffective policy which will do nothing but restrict access for innocent parties. After all, we know how to bypass these blocks if we want to.

We now have an always on, multi directional, instant and throw-away marketing environment across all industries and sectors, and while it is refreshing and exciting it also throws up some new problems.

“Content is king” say the words scrawled over and over again on every marketing manager’s wall. Content drives shares, likes, retweets, follows, pluses and pins. Content drives search rankings, engagement and dwell time. Content improves open, forwarding and click-through rates. But with the demand for content, it can be easy to lose focus and to lose quality.

All marketing is now fast paced, and that it is why it is more important than ever to take a step back and give yourself space to be creative.

I know, it sounds impossible doesn’t it? Especially when marketing departments are stretched more than ever to produce more with fewer resources, but it is vital.

When brands give themselves space for creativity they generate game-changing content but when they suffocate under the pressure for content, they end up churning awful “like” bait with little benefit to their product.

So when trying to come up with that next great tweet remember to go for a walk over a hill, sit under a tree, row a boat across a lake or, you know, go and make a cup of tea and give yourself a bit of space to create.