The latest ads for Benylin caught me with the strapline, ‘Take a Benylin Day‘ . The site encourages people to decide whether they should struggle into work or stay at home and watch DVD’s and read magazines.

Now, if you are ill you should stay off work, that’s a given. But this site seems to be pitching for people to stay at home, encouraging them with DVD choices to watch and some tips on how to call in sick.

The whole campaign seems leaned towards staying at home and enjoying yourself, which seems a little at odds to using Benylin to get better and back to work. But maybe I’m just a curmudgeon.

On a side note the DVD review section is a wasted opportunity, opting to link through to Yahoo movies rather than add bespoke reviews which would boost SEO content opportunities. However, I stumbled across Stop-Loss which looks like a good film…

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The opinions expressed on Innovation Station are those of their authors and may not endorsed by, nor representative of associated companies or employers.

Fred Wilson, a respected VC and active Twitter(erer) posted a new article suggesting VC’s (or his business specifically) will be investing next year, despite economic difficulties.

It is easier to invest in thin times. The difficult business climate starts to separate the wheat from the chaff and the strong companies are revealed. With many investors on the sidelines (particularly corporate buyers/investors and ‘momentum’ investors like hedge funds and the like), there is less competition to invest in these ‘winners’ and the prevailing valuation environment means you get more equity for your dollar invested. That’s quite a recipe for success.

However, Fred also warns that investing in difficult times is not always fun…

But its not a lot of fun to be operating in the ‘thin times’ even as an investor. Most good firms have a portfolio full of companies that will be struggling to stay afloat and the VCs will spend more time working with their companies in this environment.

Read the full article here.—————–

The opinions expressed on Innovation Station are those of their authors and may not endorsed by, nor representative of associated companies or employers.

Great news for all mac keynote users, you can now easily upload your presentations to slideshare.com.

Check this presentation to see how to do it.

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The opinions expressed on Innovation Station are those of their authors and may not endorsed by, nor representative of associated companies or employers.

I am writing an article on the future of blogging. Some people I have spoken to think that the closure of some blog sales channels and Jason’s retreat from blogging are big signs that blogging is dead. Personally, I think it is alive and well. Like many things covered in the press, if they are not ‘hot’ or ‘new’ they gain less attention.

We are in a global recession, this puts pressure on some businesses and we will see some bloggers and blog companies go out of business – but that may not be indicative of the industry.

So what say you?

• Is blogging dead?
• Can one make money from it? (for money, read income – not neccesarily squillions)
• Is there a big future for blogging – or is it just fine as it is?

I would love to hear your comments – I will be preparing a wider article to be posted on www.cheeze.com/blog and would love to have your comments.

This is what Dean had to say about it…

Blogging is the basis of all social media and saying it’s dead is like saying houses can remain upright without foundations.

There is an obsession with the new – new equates to relevant and meaningful. Now that blogging is not new, being established, it’s “dead”. This is so far from the truth it beggars belief. New is simply new, nothing more, nothing less.

Look at the way blogging platforms are evolving, case in point, WordPress. A couple of years back WordPress would have been something you might have added to your website, now it is a widget-ready, open source, fully-fledged content management system big enough to run a company’s entire online offering, with enough money-producing activity around this single platform, providing work for countless designers, coders of templates, adapters of themes, to rival the economy of a small country.

That’s just WordPress. Then look at all the blogging platforms still in business. Then look at all the blogs which people don’t even call blogs anymore, which are built into MySpace, Bebo, Facebook (where they are called status items, posted items and comments – aka blogs).

Blogs are podcasts, podcasts are blogs. Blogs are also radio shows, online newspapers, and old media empires…

Underneath that, as much as they have become seriously professional, blogs are what they always were – web logs, diaries, journals, written in every language know to humankind, by and for the total amateur, replete with intimate accounts of life’s minutiea, ranging from the despairing, tedious, confused, homogenous, and utterly boring to the completely remarkable, hilarious and inspired.

Just because they were not invented yesterday does not make them dead. Blogs in fact have only just grown up.

I would love to hear your opinion..

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The opinions expressed on Innovation Station are those of their authors and may not endorsed by, nor representative of associated companies or employers.

I have been fortunate to speak at a number of events over the autumn. What has struck me from attending these events is the amount of video content that is being crammed into a presentation as a means to demonstrate a point.

Now, I have always been loathed to add videos to presentations as I know that technology and live presentations rarely work together, but what concerned me more was their use as almost ‘filler.’

If you think about it – you have to talk for 30 minutes, if it is unique content that is a lot of content to be prepared. So, if you add, say 3 videos and 2.5 minutes each, that’s 7.5 minutes done, well over 10% of the entire duration.

I don’t mind seeing videos if they help demonstrate something that cannot be easily described or demonstrated but for a presenter to kick back with a video for 3 minutes and then say, “and that demonstrates…” in my opinion is plain lazy.

YouTube has a wealth of great videos, but if I wanted to watch videos I would sit at home and watch YouTube, not attend a conference at great expense. So please can we stop showing videos and get back to presenting and explaining?

The same view applies for sticking images into slideshare presentations, but I’ll leave that for another post.

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The opinions expressed on Innovation Station are those of their authors and may not endorsed by, nor representative of associated companies or employers.

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The opinions expressed on Innovation Station are those of their authors and may not endorsed by, nor representative of associated companies or employers.

This is another great example of immersive video – not only can you spin 360 you can also zoom in. I think the previous video was better but this is still pretty impressive..

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The opinions expressed on Innovation Station are those of their authors and may not endorsed by, nor representative of associated companies or employers.

I saw this video on Toodlepip’s blog. I loved it so much I had to copy it here. I don’t know much about the video technology or the company behind it but you will have to admit, its pretty cool!

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The opinions expressed on Innovation Station are those of their authors and may not endorsed by, nor representative of associated companies or employers.