Evening all! sorry I missed my Sunday afternoon slot yesterday but I didn't make it to the library. Working from home was the more appealing, but not quite as productive, option that won!
Anyway. So I'm working on my interactive assignment and proposing for an online community to be facilitated at http://www.mothercare.com/ for everything pregnancy and baby related, as I have seen how successful other communities like this are online. However there is only one identifiable direct competitor http://www.babyworld.co.uk/, which offers visitors both an online shop, and forum facility. All other pregnancy forums identified did not have a shopping facility.

And as Mike rightly pointed out today, why would consumers use my empty forum, when they could just Google "pregnancy forum", and find a better one. I still think the idea and proposal will be valid, however will have to take into account that this may be a limitation to the idea.

BUT, from the resource centre present on the mothercare website, mothers could be redirected to these other forums and the value of information would still be added by mothercare, however the potential of return to the site would be much lower ( I imagine).

Oh dear I'm not very articulate tonight! yer but, neoww but, he said she said yer but! Forgive me, its nearly bed time but I wanted to leave a note.

So, topic at hand. Today's seminar task was to email a company with a fictitious complaint, or comment to see what kind of automated response was sent back. We also discussed the idea of ganging up on one company and all sending numerous emails from numerous addresses to see if we could cause some kind of crisis. The ill-fated company is yet to be decided upon, as is my personal complaint. And its because I thought if I made this comment on the forum, others might think me a little crazy.

But I couldn't help it, in my research, Iv been reading pregnancy forums all week!!! So the thought that came to mind was that we could all email a condom company (e.g. Durex) and for everyone to say their condoms broke and everyone is pregnant, 300 people all at once! And we are demanding them either to pay for child support or a hefty sum of hush money! I don't know, I imagine they will have had complaint's like this in the past and therefore might have an automated response all ready for it! Who knows!?

I don't think I will do it tonight as I think my craziness has peaked for one day. So I will say goodnight now, and hopefully have a more interesting, not baby related complaint to talk about tomorrow!

Sweet Dreams!

Hello again,
Not long since I last visited. You will be glad to hear the glasses arrived this morning, not in time for the celebratory drinks. But I will forgive ASOS because they are so pretty! and came in the most enormous box? And they threw in a few freebies, ryvita minis, some magazines and these weird Loreal gel pad thingies that are supposed to reduce cellulite? Sounds like a load of crap to me, but I thought I would have a play. I currently have one on my stomach, which i will remove in 5-6 hours, and I'll let you know the results another time.

Any way, so, for the last couple of months, I and a few others have been organising this event which is supposed to promote an alliance with the Bournemouth University Marketing Students, and the Wessex Branch of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. It has been a very good experience with a really successful outcome. But it has been a very frustrating experience also. I know as students preparing to go into the businesses world, one must expect to be stabbed in the back, or have the rewards of your hard work reaped by another. But its such a let down when it actually happens. When thanks was given to those that arranged the event yesterday, and a post event drink was being arrange, people that had no involvement whatsoever dominated the attention of the speaker and from then on were 100% involved, leaving those that have given up hours and hours arranging the event in the shadows.

And those that were claiming to have contributed to the organisation of the event had ignored every email requesting volunteers for taking control of various things that needed to be taken care of if the event was to go to plan. So if I, and others had done the same by ignoring these arrangements, the event would have been a complete failure.

It was quite the opposite though. The speaker was Paul Charles, Director of Corporate Communications at Virgin Atlantic, who gave a really inspirational presentation that engaged the audience throughout. It was so informative and applicable to the students work. There was a panel session after that allowed for audience members to ask questions to the speaker, 2 members of the University Staff, and the chairman and director of the Wessex branch of the CIM. Paul also surprised everyone with the prospect of winning 2 tickets to any Virgin Atlantic destination, which was subsequently won by a final year International Marketing student. This concluded a hugely successful night that I feel I played a big part in arranging. I will try and forget about my anger, and really appreciate the fact that I had the opportunity to be involved in such an exciting event, and I seized it.

I will leave you with the thought, "seize every opportunity that comes your way!", and as this is my first evening with my beautiful martini glasses, I shall seize the opportunity to use them and christen them with a white wine spritzer and a heat crossword. Not overly James Bond but it works for me!

Hello all, well, it appears that writing in the library on a Sunday afternoon is "my thing"! So I might just have to keep it up. This week has been none too eventful, well apart from the hissy fits being thrown left right and centre! I think every ones tension threshold is at maximum limit at the moment, so I'm a little fearful as to what is in store between now and .... the end! which might seem far away, but its literally an issue of weeks and days.
I do get sad at the prospect of my education ending as I will never have experiences quite like university again. But when you're at the point of your course that I am in now, all you are waiting for is the end, the ability to wake up in the morning an not feel guilty when the first thing you do is to not head to your laptop, or reach for a journal and a highlighter! yuk!

But ...there are lots of fun things one can do with a lap top and the internet, and fortunately, my course has the requirement for me to do so!!! I shop Therefore I am!
Seeing as I haven't been able to justify going out shopping to myself since, well, Christmas!!! I do escape my work quite frequently and head on over to the shopping centre that is the Internet. My main targets recently have been eBay, Amazon, and ASOS (As seen on screen), all of which I have made a purchase from in the last 3 weeks!

Amazon, was a "boring" (e.g. relating to my academic needs rather than my superficial need for pretty things needs) purchase and it was a book about marketing on the internet, I left a review this time due to the number of times I had used the library copy, I was sick of returning and therefore bought my own copy. It was my first review, I doubt it will be my last, but I cant say I buy books that frequently :s so I always doubt the validity of my comments! I do however read the comments of others when I am contemplating a purchase that I am not entirely sure about.

On eBay, quite interesting actually as somebody in our forum brought attention to the SD memory cards and their availability on eBay, and whether or not they are real, and from Japan etc. That very week I got me a new mobile phone, which has a fabulous camera in it, but without a memory card! damn vodafone!!! Anyway, before I made my purchase, I had a lengthy discussion with my housemate, who is conveniently a guru on buying an selling phones and accessories on eBay! Who recommended a 512Mb card, and to make sure it was from a U.K. seller so I would not have to wait weeks for it to be transported around the world, and pay double the price for transportation! which I did, and paid 13 english pounds, and it was delivered by the Posty a mere 2 days later! happy eBay-er hannah. And good feedback for "tmduk".
A few weeks previously I was shopping for ink cartridges on eBay as my student funding wasn't keen on purchasing authentic Epson cartridges! God forbid! And again, my guru housemate stepped in, not so much to point me in the right direction, but to warn me of faux ink sellers, who merely re-fill empty cartridges a quarter of the way, and sell them on. So I was prepared, but only paid a fraction of the Branded price. You will be glad to hear, the cartridges purchase d work fine, and have lasted quite well (considering the amount of crap its been churning out recently).

And finally, my favourite one!!! I was having my weekly shop on ASOS a few days ago (not that I purchase something every week from there, but I touch base every few days, see if they've added anything appealing to the clearance section... sigh ) Anyway, months ago I had these beautiful black wine glasses which I loved and nurtured ....AND SOMEBODY BROKE ONE!!!! steaming! That was ages ago and my lovely housemate did try to heal the pain by getting me some fabulously huge red ones which hold at least half a bottle of wine in each (needless to say, they're all we use now!).... anyway, we're also rather partial to the occasional tequila margarita in our house. So we do need a cocktail glass selection in the cupboard as well! And whilst shopping this week, hannah came across some black cocktail glasses, and was super excited!
Fortunately, they were not purchased immediately....I'll tell you why...

After our lecture last week on websites that completely dominate an online industry, for example, amazon = books, eBay = buying and selling (exchange and mart?), lastminute.com = travel agencies. A site that was mentioned made such an impact that I went and investigated straight after the lecture. www.hotukdeals.com, was soon added to my favourites! What a goldmine! But at the top of the list when I visited for a second time yesterday, were at least 3 promotional codes for ASOS.com to get 20% of purchases! how convenient!!!

So as of about an hour ago, the glasses have been purchased (at a discounted price) and should hopefully be with us to have a celebratory drink on Tuesday. There is a guest speaker coming to the university on Tuesday, which myself and others have been organising. Venue, catering, tickets, distribution and a whole bunch of other stuff that I have spent hours on this week, and will be quite relieved when it goes according to plan and is over and done with.
I shall go home to give the good news to my housemate, and discuss whether the purchase requires a celebratory drink tonight also?

Chin Chin!