Ahoy there owner Managers! The Lincolnshire Enterprise Network has booked the “Brayford Belle” for a canal cruise to welcome potential new members to the Network.

Men and women running their own small businesses who are interested in networking should put Friday, June 2, 2006 in their diaries.

Newcomers will meet existing members and hear all about LEN over a drink and a buffet as the “Belle” saunters along the Fossdyke Navigation to Saxilby and back to Brayford Pool in Lincoln city centre.

“We’ll meet from 6 p.m. and sail at 6.30 p.m.”, says chairman Terry Johnston. “There has always been a social side to LEN and we thought this was a good idea for the membership and a very good opportunity to talk to those micro businness owners (up to 10 employees) interested in expanding their circle of networking friends.”

“We’ll all be able to sit back, relax and enjoy the sights of Lincoln and the surrounding countryside from a different perspective. The Fossdyke was built by the Romans and it’s the oldest canal in Britain. It’s delightful to sail.”

The event is free to members and visitors as LEN wishes to expand the Network and raise its profile.

The Belle offers a first class buffet whatever the weather in its heated lower deck with large picture windows. Passengers can also sail on the top deck which affords unrivalled and unrestricted views.

Parking is beside the departure point in the multi-storey car park on Lucy Tower Street

If you run your own small business please book your passage with a call to Graham Winstanley on 0845 090 0081.

It’s sort of fitting that on the anniversary of my "Battling with Iomart" blog I had a meeting with a client whose domain we are attempting to move from that company.

The story so far. Iomart call my client back in February of this year saying they were recommended by a well-known organisation within my client’s industry for providing websites.

My client decided to let Iomart do their website, and as it transpired were less than impressed with the end result, a two page website.

Interestingly, a Google search returned a ufindus directory entry on the first page, but when I looked for my client’s site among the listings far more inappropriate sites were listed in ufindus way above my client’s entry - and when I clicked on the link to their site it came up "Server not found". The link was mis-spelt and consequently of no use to man or beast!

Iomart, trading as ufindus, charged £199.95 plus VAT for the set-up of the website and an ongoing £29.95 plus VAT per month. Minimum contract period of 12 months with mandatory 60 days notice in writing to terminate.

Fortunately, my client didn’t sign the contract. However, the domain transfer is proving to be as complicated and error-prone as all the other transfers I’ve done involving the parent company, Iomart.

First of all, ufindus require a fax on letterhead paper from the domain owners to request the transfer. Not unreasonable.

Next they require the customer to login to their control panel in order to pay the £50.00 (plus VAT, no doubt) transfer fee by credit/debit card. Now the first problem is encountered. The username and password for the control panel doesn’t work. Neither does the forgotten details process. A phone number is given in case of problems with usernames/password. The number is called and my client was told ufindus didn’t have an email address to send the details to. My client must now send a fax to ufindus requesting the username and password, with an email address for the details to be sent to.

I understand the organisation referred to earlier are considering legal action against ufindus to prevent them saying they are recommended by said organisation.

It is only my opinion, but I’d say there are better companies to deal with when it comes to organising a web presence.

And so it seems nothing much has changed at ufindus/Iomart.

I wonder what next year will bring…

Andrew McAfee, associate professor, Harvard Business School has posted a very interesting article about the emergence of Web 2.0.

He argues that the Web is like an ant colony; the low level activity of Web users is akin to worker ants whose tasks seen at the "local" level will not give the observer clues as to the big picture, but their activities definitely shape the high level structure of the colony.

McAfee goes on to say that the high level structure of the Web is built on on the activity of millions of Web users adding links to sites they find useful, and he cites Google’s page ranking algorithm as a major factor in this process.

But getting to the nub of the title of this post, McAfee asks the question: "What are the best ways to get a Web 1.0 workforce comfortable using Web 2.0 tools?"

Well, first of all what is Web 1.0? Think email, shopping carts, search engines and anything that helps numero uno to achieve what it is they went onto the Web to do.And for Web 2.0 think of tools that help the "collective good" move forward. OK, so that’s only one element - but it is a major, if not the major element of Web 2.0. And, as it happens, for the forward thinkers it is also a means of helping businesses gain further competitive advantage, but that’s another story.

Sorry, back to McAfee’s question… "What are the best ways to get a Web 1.0 workforce comfortable using Web 2.0 tools?"

I know this is not a sophisticated response/answer, but often the answer lies in simplicity.

Last week, or maybe the week before, I was keen to talk about del.icio.us to two business associates, John Kirk and Andy Blow. After initially explaining the concept it wasn’t until I demonstrated how to use a del.icio.us account that the penny dropped, and the lights came on.

After that there was no stopping their thoughts and ideas about how this Web 2.0 tool could be used to good business advantage.

So, it’s simple really - let’s get out there and show/demonstrate to people what it’s all about. After all, it’s not that complicated, and once folk get their heads round it they’ll start to get the BFOs. :)