Chase Jarvis, David Hobby and David Nightingale spill the web secret

If you don't stop by Chase Jarvis blog regularly then maybe you should. He's a cool photographer but of late he's mixed it with philosophy and now one of the coolest videos I've seen in a long time. Ok the video quality is not great, but think of it more as an audio podcast and just listen to 80 minutes of Chase, David Hobby (the strobist himself) and David Nightingale (Chromasia) discussing life as a "blogtographer" and where they think the world is going for sharing the ideas out. You could call this video the web marketing 101 text book, but I think it's more the web community text book.

Thanks you guys this is just what I need to hear.

The visitors will read this in 30 posts time when it'll be everywhere else - at least I got it whilst it was still warm.

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I hate telemarketing from carphone warehouse and AOL

Today Carphone Warehouse / AOL called me at my home offering me services I didn't want and requested a heap of personal details from me. Unsurprisingly I didn't give them any details, but I did give them a little lesson in making their day a lot worse. After spending some time talking to "Lynne" who claimed to be calling from a London office of AOL she committed the sin of customer cold calling - she called me a liar, claiming that her experience in the communications industry supported her claim that "no one else will beat this deal", at this point the blood boils and it's time for some efforts to waste their time just like they are wasting mine.

My approach, ask for the registered address of the company doing the calling and the company they are calling on behalf of. Tell them that this is so you have the correct details to lodge a complaint with the relevant authorities.

Second ask for the name and operator number or employee number of the person calling. If they refuse; ask to speak to their supervisor.
They want information from you to sell you a product, you should know who is selling the product and what the product is. I also like to know the companies who follow this practice of cold calls in the evening when all I want is a cup of tea.

So by now the operator is so far off their script that they realise that it's time to speak to their manager or supervisor. Tonight I got put through to "Adam" who after some questioning from me said he was in South Africa, and informed me that even though he was paid monthly for his work he didn't know the name of the company he was working for or the business they were involved in. In fact after a further five minutes of requesting information on the name of the company he was representing and the registered office address of the company he decided to end the call.

So Mr Carphone Warehouse / AOL I don't want your broadband deal, you have no products that I have ever owned yet you think that you can sell me a better deal than the ones I currently have. Strange that when you consider that none of the deals on your website match the requirements I have for a broadband supplier.

What's more strange is that the Carphone warehouse or AOL is not on the list of registered companies with the telephone preference service - a service designed to protect against breaches of customer requests not to receive telephone marketing. However if you register with TPS then it's illegal for a company to call you for marketing purposes unless you have given them permission to do so.

Some useful links maybe:
Information Commissioner's Office
Ofcom
You can always refer to section 21 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 for more guidance. You can also ask for companies to remove you from their lists under these regulations.

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Standard model release form for free

Free stuff always sounds good, legal stuff for free is usually not worth having as lawyers like money as much as photographers, but thanks to a post on the British Journal of Photography blog I now have a sound legal framework model release and I don't have a legal bill.

You can get your own free download of the form from www.contractstore.com a fine repository of business legal forms. Most cost money, but for a short period the model release is currently free. You might find the photographers terms of business form valuable too though that will cost you.

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