A Grand Day Out

I had the great privilege of attending the Oxford Brookes University, School of Technology graduation ceremony on a very warm and sunny Friday afternoon last week.

Markus Boritz accepting the BOCC Prize from Director Tracy Walker

BOCC sponsors an annual student prize at the School of Technology. The prize, entitled  'BOCC Computer Systems Development Award' aims to encourage excellence and the development and effective use of World Wide Web and computer systems techniques in project work.

The award is judged on the effective use of development techniques, as well as accessibility and security issues. Students also have to provide the details of which technologies they have employed in developing their applications and their reasons for making their choice.Oxford Brookes University short-list students and then BOCC awards the prize at that years Graduation Ceremony.

Ian Redmond OBE, delivering his acceptance speech

This years winner was Markus Boritz, with his dissertation on 'Approaches to Application Development for High End Mobile Devices: A Comparative Evaluation', which was supervised by Professor David Duce.

It was great to celebrate with the students on their graduation day, as well as congratulate this years Honorary Graduant Ian Redmond OBE, the renowned tropical field biologist and conservationist.

His acceptance speech was very inspiring, as he talked of his work with gorillas and elephants, working alongside Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall. He also encouraged us to think about our impact on the world and what we can all do about the conservation of our planet.

How Exciting is Your Website Content?

I'm sure that you've heard this many times before, but your website is nothing within interesting, valuable, quality, interactive and above all up-to-date content.

If you have, but haven't yet reviewed your website with this in mind, then you really need to take action. It's so true - if you want to increase your visitor numbers and your websites visibility in search engines, then take a good look at your content.

Content sells - it sells you, your organisation, your products and services. It's about creating content that people will want to read, find engaging and want to share; as well of course as making it search engine friendly and readable.

Start off with thinking about a logical approach to the information you want to share. How easy as a visitor is it to find details about you. Make content clear, precise and to the point. Make sure that you focus on and include the most important keywords and phrases in the first paragraph of each web page. Look at your tone of voice - just be yourself and remember to write as if you were just talking to someone.

Content however, is no longer just about the written word. It's about providing interactive content, such as Flash, video and audio that will engage your website audience. Get people to engage with you, communicate about issues and just generally network with each other and your organisation. Using tools for business, such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn can all help to enhance both your websites and companies visibility.

SEO is all about continually updating and monitoring your website. Reviewing the content, creating interesting articles, investing time in posting to Twitter and Facebook. It need lots of work to make your website a success and to continue to keep your organisation visible in search engines.