Something I’ve not mentioned before is how incredibly valuable it is as a tool to connect with journalists which in turn helps you get coverage for your business.

There a a lot of friendly, accessible journalists on Twitter and it’s well worth following them and looking for opportunities to get your company in the media.

Don’t forget the ‘social’ element of social networks. Too many people (in business generally, not just Twitter) deal with others as if they’re a job title rather than as a real person.

If you’re going to bombard a journalist with press releases and self-promotional links then you wont get very far.

Treat them like real people, join in the conversation when there’s nothing in it for you, help them where you can – that’s what creates a real human connection.

So when Harry Hack at Widgets Weekly is writing a story about the new Doodlyflip, you’ll immediately spring to mind as someone that is a bit of an expert on Doodlyflips and he’ll ask for your opinion.

Here’s my personal top three tweeting journalists (in no particular order)

@sparky000, Web Editor at Management Today
@RichardTyler, Enterprise Editor at The Daily Telegraph
@Dan_Martin, Editor of BusinessZone.co.uk

Want more?

Last week Andy Barr at 10Yetis PR Agency posted a list of the Top 100 Journalists on Twitter.

Here’s his top 10:

1. Olivia Solon – Wired - @Olivia_solon
2. Caitlin Moran – Times - @Caitlinmoran
3. Fleet Street Fox - @FleetStreetFox
4. Harry Wallop – Daily Telegraph - @hwallop
5. India Knight – Sunday Times - @IndiaKnight
6. Neal Mann – Sky News - @FieldProducer
7. Rory Cellan Jones – BBC - @Ruskin147
8. Charles Arthur – Guardian - @CharlesArthur
9. Vikki Chowney – Econsultancy - VikkiChowney
10. Josh Halliday – Guardian - @JoshHalliday

For the full list, visit his blog post.

Do you have any tips on how best to use Twitter to get media coverage?
Either from your perspective as a business owner or a journalist?

Share them below in the comments section.

A very popular feature is the PayPal Import service that takes data from PayPal and converts it into accounting data.

After listening to your thoughts on how we can improve this service we’ve decided to make a few changes…

No Additional Charges

First and foremost, this service is now completely FREE!

Forget about having to pay a premium for hourly imports or settling for the cheaper weekly option.

Now your data is automatically imported throughout the day – and if you’re feeling impatient you can click the “Import Now” button for instant results.

All of your sales, purchases and transfers via PayPal will be brought into KashFlow where, with just a few clicks,  you can convert them into accounting data.

Easier, Faster Setup

One of the areas a lot of people got frustrated with was getting it all set up, so we’ve worked hard to make those vital first steps a lot easier for you.

Our new setup process guides you though a few simple steps so you’ll be importing your data from PayPal in minutes.

So please, check it out and let us know what you think using the comments area below.

Existing users can enable this feature in Settings -> PayPal Imports.

If you’re not yet using KashFlow for your accounting and want to take it for a spin, register here for a free trial.

We’ve just released a new feature that automates the whole process of Credit Control.

You can automatically email your customers to remind them that an invoice is about to become due. And if they don’t pay on time then more emails can be automatically sent to harass remind them about it until they do pay.

As you’d expect, the feature is highly configurable: Create as many emails as you like, saying whatever you like, going on whatever day you like at a time you choose. Have the emails BCCd to yourself and a note automatically added to the invoice.

Oh, and of course you can include a link in the email for the customer to click and pay you straight away. Once they pay then the invoice then your accounts are automatically updated to reflect the payment.

Enable the feature in Settings -> Automatic Credit Control and watch your cashflow improve significantly.

All you need to worry about is what you’re going to do with the time this frees up.

If you’ve not yet discovered how much better life is when you stop struggling with bloated confusing accounting software then take a free trial of KashFlow now. No card details needed – if you don’t like it you just walk away.

I think I actually swore out loud when I realised my iPad battery was dead and I hadn’t synced the book to my phone.

As there were no abandoned copies of the Evening Standard around I instead used my time to catch up on the various blogs I subscribe to via Google Reader (they were synched to my phone!)

With over 1,000 unread posts (yes, I’ve been slacking lately) there was a fair amount of chaff in there.

But I noticed that of the posts I really enjoyed, most were from the Unmarketing blog.

You an guess from the title that it’s a marketing-focused blog. There’s some really great content there.

So as well as a FollowFriday tweet today (done properly), I thought I’d post this as a Friday blog recommendation.

All I need now is a catchy hashtag and the idea of bloggers regularly recommending other blogs they like just might catch on.

You can read the UnMarketing blog at http://www.unmarketing.com/

The number of trialists and paying customers just keeps going up and up.

We have a team of 5 people providing email support. They deal with all sorts of queries from pre-sales questions like “Does your software do…” through to “How do I…” and some more complex accounting-related questions.

It’s incredibly important to us that our customers are happy with the software and are getting the most out of all the very sophisticated features it offers.

So to cope with the growing demand and to shift to a more pro-active approach to looking after our customers we want to hire a couple more people. As well as dealing with email support we’d also want you to pick up the phone and reach out to our existing customers and trialists to offer them help.

Whilst you’ll be given training on the software and a general guideline of how to approach these calls, a lot comes down to using your own initiative to make sure it’s effective.

This isn’t a sales role. We believe that by helping potential customers get the most out of the software then they’ll naturally want to subscribe to it after their trial.

Existing accounting knowledge and/or experience of working in or running a small business would be useful but not essential.

Passion, enthusiasm and aptitude are much more important than experience.
You’ll need to be a quick learner (there’s lots to take in and the software is constantly evolving).
You must have great written English and a good telephone manner.

The role is full time and based at our office near London Bridge.
The salary is dependent on your experience.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in then we’d love to hear from you.
Please email us with your CV, salary expectations  and a covering letter.

No agencies.
Our usual notice applies: If you are an agency and you call/email about this role anyway, then I reserve the right to include you in a future blog post about recruitment agencies who can’t read and can’t be any good anyway or they wouldn’t have to phone people who explicitly said “No Agencies”.

So we’ve obliged:

For Existing Customers and Trialists

You can get PayPal Imports for free.

We’ll connect to your PayPal account and regularly copy across all of your payment data. You can then convert it into Invoices, Payments, Customers, etc. We’ll even deal with the accounting for those annoying PayPal fees!

Simply log in to your account and go to Settings -> PayPal Imports to get up and running.

For New Customers

If you don’t yet have a KashFlow account then you can now get one for free for 6 months. Simply register for an account here and when prompted for a promotional code enter KFXMAS2011.

You’ll then be able to try the best accounting software on the planet for free for six whole months before deciding whether to subscribe or not.

This code will only work up until 31st December 2011 – so be quick! Register Now.

Wishing you a great Christmas and a prosperous 2012.

When I first got into computers and the Internet in the early-mid 90′s there was already a strong sub-culture. 

There was a well-known text file around referred to as “The Hackers Manifesto”.

It was nearly 10 years old at the time and considered ‘lame’ and clichéd even then.

But it still resonates with me now, 20 years later. Especially the parts I’ve bolded.

Enjoy:

\/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\/
by
+++The Mentor+++

Written on January 8, 1986
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Another one got caught today, it’s all over the papers. “Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal”, “Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering”…

Damn kids. They’re all alike.

But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950′s technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?

I am a hacker, enter my world…

Mine is a world that begins with school… I’m smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me…

Damn underachiever. They’re all alike.

I’m in junior high or high school. I’ve listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. “No, Ms. Smith, I didn’t show my work. I did it in my head…”

Damn kid. Probably copied it. They’re all alike.

I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it’s because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn’t like me…
Or feels threatened by me…
Or thinks I’m a smart ass…
Or doesn’t like teaching and shouldn’t be here…

Damn kid. All he does is play games. They’re all alike.

And then it happened… a door opened to a world… rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict’s veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought… a board is found. “This is it… this is where I belong…”

I know everyone here… even if I’ve never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again… I know you all…

Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They’re all alike…

You bet your ass we’re all alike… we’ve been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak… the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We’ve been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.

This is our world now… the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn’t run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals.
We explore… and you call us criminals.
We seek after knowledge… and you call us criminals.
We exist without skin color, without nationality, without
religious bias… and you call us criminals.
You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it’s for our own good, yet we’re the criminals.

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.

I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can’t stop us all… after all, we’re all alike.

+++The Mentor+++�

Working in a start-up is nothing like working in a “big” business.

Some people simply aren’t cut out for it.

There are four attributes you MUST have to work in a start-up business.

Make sure you’ve got them before you leave the comfort of your corporate job and discounted gym membership. Or if you’re the start-up owner, look for them in all your hires, it’ll save on P45s.

Initiative

There are no procedure documents. Your job description is fluid. You won’t get clear and detailed instructions on how to do what’s asked of you. You’ll get a fuzzy outline at best.

It’s up to you to fill in the details.

It doesn’t matter if you get it wrong, as long as you can explain why you made the choices you made. After explaining it, others might even see that you weren’t “wrong” after all.

Everyone is overworked in a start-up,  there will always be things that need to be done but no one is doing them. Spotted one of those things? Do something about it, even if you’re not asked to.

If you’re someone that needs regular guidance, direction and hand-holding, then working in a start-up isn’t for you.

Passion

You have to really care about what you do.  I mean really.

If you’re in digital marketing then you need to be the kind of guy that spends his evenings reading EConsultancy.

If you’re in customer services then you need to be genuinely upset if you’ve got an unhappy customer.

If you took the initiative and others disagree with you, you need to be able and willing to passionately defend your choices.

If you go home at 5.30 and don’t think about work again until 9am then working in a start-up isn’t for you.

Enthusiasm

It’s  bloody hard work working in a start-up.

The perks certainly aren’t as good as they are in the corporate world and the hours are longer.

Being enthusiastic about what you do not only helps you get through the day, but it’s infectious – it helps your colleagues too.

If you don’t have a genuine enthusiasm for what you do then you’ll end up hating your job.

Aptitude

You can have all the passion and enthusiasm in the world, but if that’s not coupled with the innate ability to actually do the job then it’s not worth diddly squat.

Of course, everyone thinks that they have the aptitude. So this is more a warning to the potential employer rather than the employee.

Just because someone is passionate and enthusiastic, it doesn’t mean they can do the job.

Three out of four isn’t enough. You need all four.

Got all four? Great! Although there are other considerations too.

Speed
Things move fast in a start-up. You need to move fast, think fast and work fast.

Change
By its very nature, a start-up is still evolving. Things will change quickly. What was 100% certainly definitely important yesterday may be totally irrelevant tomorrow.

Clarity
Talking is quicker than writing. Ideas and problems get bounced around regularly. Clarity in verbal and written communication is incredibly important.

Conciseness
Did I mention everyone is busy and over-worked? Say what you need to say. Don’t use 100 words to say what you mean if 12 will do the job.

It’s not all bad

After reading the above you’re probably not so keen to work in a start-up any more.
But it’s not all bad.

There’s huge variety in the work that you do, you learn lots, you might just change the world (or a small corner of it).

And of course you get to work with passionate and enthusiastic people.

Oh, and we’re hiring!

If you’re not already buying a grey suit and reading the KPMG careers page, then you might be interested to hear that we’re hiring.

Specifically we are looking for people in customer service (talking to SME customers on the phone, helping them to use our accounting software) and for people in a-role-that-doesn’t-have-a-name-yet that will involve visiting accountants and training them and their clients on our products.

Interested? Email us.

You can listen to it here.

We’ve had lots of media coverage over the years, but this one interview generated a *lot* of traffic, sign-ups and customers.

It was a great night and we’re grateful to all of you who attended.

Amanda Eatwell took lots of photographs on the night, which can be found on our Facebook page.

We hope to see even more of you next year!