Don’t you hate it when you have a LOT of good ideas for blog posts, but without the time to write them up..? Well, that’s been the case for me so far in January. In fact I’ve only made a lousy 3 posts.

It got me to thinking about how important it is to set the expectations of my loyal readers (..?). Just like when you have clients and customers who get accustomed to a certain level of service, you have to keep it up, or at least manage the process of changing that level of service.

So, to set your expectations, I am going to write the following blog posts in the next two weeks:

• a round-up of the next London Bloggers Meetup - yes it is tomorrow and yes it is going to be great!

• a summary of all the other promises I’ve made on this blog - think back to subliminal advertising, reader polls and more,

• 5 Top New Year Business Boosters (yes that’s right, you can see that idea has been lingering for a while),

• a review of the excellent Own-IT event I attended recently.

So there you go. Now you know what’s coming, your expectations are set, and I can carry on happily neglecting my blog for another couple of days..

All the best!
Andy

In the past year or two there’s been plenty of talk about the value of blogging for business, with plenty of positive and negative sentiment. My own opinion, not biased at all by the fact that I write a couple of blogs, is that they’re fantastic for businesses.

Why do I think this, well a couple of reasons off the top of my head:

• blogs open up a manageable two way dialogue with customers, creating an open relationship and possibly even community,

• blogs are quick and easy to setup and present a cheap way for small businesses to develop a web presence,

• blogs are great for search engine optimisation i.e. improving your search rankings and attracting traffic,

• blogs provide a creative outlet for your employees to show the human side of your business,

• blogs are great public relations tools where you get to control the message.

But it seems I’m not the only one who thinks this. A recent article on Startups.co.uk also supports the value of blogs, referencing case studies like Stormhoek Wines - check out their guide to blogging - and a handful of others.

I had intended to post the link up here but for the life of me I can’t find it, but why not check out www.startups.co.uk anyway, it’s full of very useful advice for entrepreneurs.

If you’re new to blogging or want to find out more, why not come along to the London Bloggers Meetup for some inspiration! Or instead just get started with a blog at www.wordpress.org.

The next edition of the London Bloggers Meetup is nearly upon is and I’m delighted to announce the launch of a new blog to support the events. From now on this is where I’ll post reviews, photos, links, write-ups and anything else in relation to the meetup.

So if you are thinking of coming along, or just want to find out a little more about what it’s all about, then head over to the new blog. If you want to register for the next event - the New Year Bloggers Extravaganza - then head to the Meetup page and sign-up. At the moment we have 37 people confirmed for the next one!

A quick note of thanks to Qype who is supporting the event by putting some money behind the bar and running a competition on the night. That’s right, Qype will buy you a beer for attending, so what more incentive do you need?

Last year I posted about whether or not companies should send out Christmas greetings cards, or if in this day and age it’s more appropriate to send ecards (making a donation of the cost saving to charity). Well it seems 2007 saw a bumper crop of e-cards (in fact I only received 1 work related traditional Christmas card) being sent. However this year the motivation was more around reducing carbon footprints than CSR.

So it seems the traditional card is falling from grace and slides further towards the trash can. In all honesty I doubt it matters much how you send your Christmas greetings, as long as they are genuine, timely and consistent with the rest of your communications.

With that in mind I thought I’d share a couple of ecards I received this year.. enjoy! (It would be nice if they actually said Merry Christmas though… is this political correctness gone mad).

ICICI Bank - nice but where’s the Christmas message..?

Fresh Minds - a London based research agency

If you received any particularly good Christmas ecards them send them on and I’ll post them up here.

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!