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The post How AI is Transforming User Experience (UX)  appeared first on Tech Digest.

We all know that getting a song added to an editorial or algorithmic playlist on Spotify can help boost streams and lead to more fans discovering your music. It’s well documented that you need to submit your upcoming releases for editorial submission via either Spotify For Artists or Spotify Analytics. But how do you get...

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Like many people who live in America I have donated to US political candidates and campaigns. And like many people who live in America I have subsequently found my entire life suddenly and completely overwhelmed by text-messages and e-mail spam and phone calls and any number of other venal, stressy, desperate campaign messages. Now of […]

Elon Musk’s Twitter in the name of ‘Free Speech’ has just banned anyone mentioning that they have accounts on other platforms – whether that be Truth Social, Facebook, Mastodon or anywhere.  This is an unconscionable move clearly designed to disincentivize people from leaving the platform, locking them into his ecosystem. It is petulant, childish, selfish […]

This is an exceptionally long post detailing pretty much everything I learned at an event shortly before Christmas at Meta’s offices in San Francisco. I’ve been delayed in writing it up because of traveling back to the UK for Christmas and other commitments – and because I wanted to capture everything. It’s roughly written, and […]

“Investors, both individual and professional, want more than just the data that independent services can provide. They want the company’s own story and investment vision. What they don’t want is to wade through complex or irrelevant information.” Investor Relations on Corporate Websites, Nielsen Norman Group

Understand investor jobs-to-be-done

Primary users of investor relations areas on a website include, obviously, investors themselves but also analysts and financial journalists. There is an important secondary audience of potential customers and employees too. But the core audience is generally looking for:

• Company background and overview
• Press releases
• Stock exchange filings
• One-page financial overview
• Annual reports
• Quarterly reports
• Historical financial information
• Executive biographies
• Share price information
• Press and IR contact details
• Corporate governance information

Of course, each company will go beyond statutory reporting to add content and user journeys specific to their needs. For example, if they are dealing with specific events in their company history, such as acquisitions, crises or if they are approaching an IPO.

Interestingly, according to NN/Group, some of the fancier functionality that you often see on an IR site, such as webcasts, slides and investment calculators, were less important to real users. “People research company financials are more interested in getting facts quickly than in the technology used to deliver them.”

Best practice examples

GE Aerospace does well with very clear navigation on a fast-loading site that is designed to get people to the information they are looking for quickly.

Microsoft’s IR site clearly surfaces stock price information with a tidy design and recent company news, but we are not fans of carousels as a user interface solution.

In contrast, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) has the leanest, text-only IR page, which, like GE’s, aims to get visitors to key information as quickly as possible. Notably, they offer HTML and PDF versions of key reports, and we think this is good practice. PDFs are not great for usability but have an important role in communicating statutory information in a compliant way, so it’s important to find a user-friendly, SEO-friendly parallel structure to sit alongside them.

Michelmersh combines Microsoft’s visual approach with direct access to the most important information.

Core and optional functionality

We use a tool called Octopus to collaborate with clients to design a website’s information architecture and the high-level structure of individual pages.

For investor relations areas, the following site map templates from NN/Group are good starting points for high, medium and low-priority content. But each client is different and so understanding client needs and their users’ needs is always a project in itself.

Don’t forget basic website usability

For more information about how Articulate tackles the website design and development process, including information architecture and user journeys, see How we build websites at Articulate. For the end results, take a look at our Portfolio.

We think all sites - and all visitors - deserve a well-designed, easy-to-use website that helps them find the information they want. In particular, this means that IR areas need to be:

• Mobile-friendly. The widespread use of PDFs makes many IR sites difficult to use on mobile devices, representing an opportunity for forward-thinking companies to improve the user experience by offering HMTL options.
• Searchability. IR information should be searchable alongside other site content, either with a domain-specific search box (i.e. just the IR section) or as part of an integrated site-wide search.
• Accessibility is a basic requirement for a modern website, yet 97 percent of websites have fundamental accessibility issues. Designing for accessibility is good for every visitor. For example, our blog’s speed reading mode and audio player help people engage with our content whether they have specific needs or not. See our article about why accessibility is crucial for website design.
• Loading speed. Google and GE prioritise loading speed and ‘time to find’ for visitors over fancy imagery and functionality. This is in line with NN/Group’s user study findings. Some clients prefer more fizz and ginger on their IR sites as part of their investor brand, but this should never come at the expense of loading speed. For more on improving Core Web Vitals (as Google calls them) see: Don't lose traffic because of Google’s Core Web Vitals.
• SEO. Investors, journalists and advisors, like most of us, use Google to find information. IR areas should get the same SEO attention as the rest of the site. For more on our approach to SEO see: The ultimate SEO guide for B2B technology companies.
• PDFs vs. web pages. IR pages are loaded with PDFs for annual reports, statutory filings, and other important documents. It may be the case that these files have to be in PDF format—we’re not lawyers, so we can’t say for certain—but we think it would be valuable, as with Google, not to also make them available as web pages, even if it is a high-level summary page with a link to the downloadable PDF. There are strong usability reasons to avoid PDF files if at all possible.
• Carousels. We strongly recommend against Carousels. Buy us a pint, and we’ll bore for England about why.
• Use of videos, webcasts and podcasts. IR pages often feature investor briefings and other content in video format. This should never be a substitute for clear, scannable, searchable text. Where possible, provide transcripts or summaries. Where possible, provide short (<4 minutes) highlight reels as well as longer content. Videos should have captions and chapter headings so that people can find what they need quickly. Never autoplay videos.

Examples of investor-specific functionality

Company overview

“Offer a brief company overview that highlights a few significant facts, along with a link to more detailed corporate information.” For example, Causeway’s website has this succinct summary right on its homepage as well as more detailed information in a ‘Why us’ section.

Biographies

“Provide information about the company’s high-level managers, including each person’s name and job title, a recent picture, and a link to a full biography,” advises The Nielsen Norman Group. For example, HealthHero has a really easy-to-use, highly visual, and on-brand biographies section on its About Us page.

Press information

Journalists don’t just need press information, they need relevant, high-resolution images, logos, PR contacts and company information.

Press releases

Your news page should look like high-end news site or blog with all the support infrastructure such as the ability to sign up for alerts, search for specific information, filter and sort the information, as on this example from TCN.

ESG reports. Your investor brand goes beyond statutory reporting. Increasingly, environmental, social and governance information influences investment decisions and build investor confidence. HPE does a great job of communicating its progress in this area, and, ahem, we think our own Impact Report is pretty good, too. (Related to this, see our guide to establishing a strong ESG tone of voice.)

Security, availability, access controls and approvals

• Security and access control. IR areas often include market-sensitive information such as earnings announcements or new product introductions. For this reason (and others), it is important that any content management system (CMS) used for IR pages should have robust security and access controls, meaning that only authorised users can add or modify IR pages. We recommend HubSpot Content Hub which has granular user permissions, access control to specific assets (e.g. individual web pages) and (with an Enterprise tier) SSO integration and role-based permissions.
• Content approvals. HubSpot also has the option to require approvals before website changes are published. This may be valuable to ensure that legally responsible people, e.g. directors, have a final review and approval of statutory updates to the site, even if they delegate the content creation to others.
• Scheduling for publication. With time-sensitive and embargoed information, it is important to be able to set a specific publication time and date for content so that you can prepare the pages in advance but make sure they are published at the right time. With HubSpot, this is possible for pages and blog/new posts.

How Articulate can help

We design and code signature websites using our proprietary Nucleus technology, which are hosted on HubSpot Content Hub (CMS). See our website services page for more information.

Brochure websites are old-school. Instead, our team will build you a marketing engine that drives traffic, leads and customers, all while telling your brand story.

If you’d like an SEO, usability, or content review of your investor relations website or if you’d like us to help build a new one, please get in touch.

Service Level Agreements are the secret sauce for ensuring marketing and sales are singing from the same song sheet. Qualifying inbound leads is an exercise in cooperation between departments.

Every website project starts with a leap of faith.

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way,” - John C Maxwell, best-selling author, speaker and coach.

Genuine thought leadership is a powerful differentiator for any business.

Articles and reports that demonstrate true expertise, authority and insight stand apart from your competitors’ me-too blah-blah. They build trust, enhance your brand, help close deals and defend your margins.

High-quality content also avoids the Google penalties that come with spammy or AI-created content. Don’t take our word for that, here’s what Google has to say about creating helpful, reliable, people-first content. (See our take on AI in marketing too.)

What is high-quality content?

Thought-leadership copywriting provides unique insights, presents new research and uses data. It covers complex subjects in a new and engaging way. It is designed to expand readers’ understanding. It manages to be persuasive but not pushy.

Everyone can write, but not everyone is a writer. High-quality marketing content requires expert copywriters. (Read more about what a copywriter actually does.)

To get it right, writers require a deep understanding of their audiences, clients, products, the wider context of the industry, and the current shape of the market. For businesses embracing thought-leadership content, that’s where the true value lies.

But you have to invest time, money and marketing effort to realise this value. That can be challenging when business leaders and decision-makers can’t see the return on investment (ROI).

Let’s explore the ROI of copywriting and thought leadership to help you build a business case for their value.

What are the likely costs of copywriting and thought leadership?

The short answer? It depends. The long answer? There’s no one-size-fits-all cost and most writers will offer packages or tailored pricing. According to a study by Clutch, the average UK digital agency charges approximately £98.10 per hour. Research by DDIY suggests that a monthly content marketing retainer can cost between £1,805.78 and £23,551.50.

Of course, an hourly rate doesn’t tell you much about how long something will take or the required level of expertise needed to do an outstanding job.

That’s why, at Articulate, we charge for copywriting on a fixed price basis related to the length and complexity of the piece.

For maximum transparency and flexibility, we have a tariff—a kind of menu—of common writing deliverables such as case studies, white papers, or thought leadership articles. Our fixed prices include research, interviewing, writing, project management, editing, proofreading two rounds of revisions (if required), keyword optimisation, and, for blog articles, meta descriptions, a featured image and a couple of social posts.

Our marketing retainers start at £4,100 per month and one-off copywriting projects start at £5,000 for things like a case study library or a lead generation campaign centred around a flagship report or ebook.

We charge for website copywriting slightly differently, on a per-word basis, because of the additional complexity of integrating it with design, search engine optimisation and the rest of the development process. Also, in our experience, writing website copy for clients is like writing poetry and demands a high level of experience and client knowledge for your most important marketing asset.

Broadly speaking though, the cost of a content project will vary depending on the following factors: the who, the what, the when, the where and above all, the why.

The Who

Freelance copywriters and marketing agencies will charge different prices because, of course, their overheads and offerings are different. An agency may cost more but brings benefits such as editing, additional skills (e.g. SEO, research), better availability and turnaround times.

Then there are factors such as years of experience, location, specialisations and so on. You might also consider an in-house or staff writer who will require a competitive salary.

There are specific skills required to be a good marketing copywriter, including:

• Marketing know-how
• Business, sector and client knowledge
• Interviewing skills
• Research and analytical skills
• Search engine optimisation, e.g. writing with keywords
• Agility with tone of voice and messaging
• Self- and pair-editing
• Proofreading
• Social media writing skills
• Content planning and ideation

It’s helpful to put a good marketing copywriter with a reasonable level of skill and five or more years of experience in the same bracket as, say, a lawyer or an experienced, professional journalist writing for a trade magazine or reputable newspaper.

Typically, in an agency, they will work in teams that provide complementary skills and coverage for illness or holidays. All of this is hard to replicate in-house. (For more on this see our article: Should you hire a marketing person or a marketing agency.)

The What

The nature of your business and its content can impact how much copywriting will cost you. For technical or niche businesses, you’ll need to work with writers who understand your industry thoroughly or who have the skills and processes in place to learn about it efficiently.

You might not need to work with specialists if your company wants more generic content. But generic isn’t going to cut through the noise. Similarly, the length of your copy will affect the price, too. Some providers charge per project, others per word.

The When

How quickly and how often do you need copywriting and thought leadership content? Time-sensitive projects may incur additional costs to help you meet deadlines. And the more content you need, the more it will add up. A freelancer will struggle to produce tens of thousands of words in a short period of time but an agency can bring a whole team and a well-oiled production process to the challenge. You can, however, explore these helpful tips from the Articulate Marketing team on how to make every piece of content work harder for you.

The Where

Where are you posting, hosting or submitting the writing? The platform will impact the word count and, in turn, the price. A detailed report, an eBook or a long-form pillar page will set you back more than a 750-word blog post for your company website, for example. Similarly, copy for your home page might be short but it is very important and getting it right might take longer and cost more on a per-word basis than a more general piece.

The Why

Here’s where it gets interesting. You might know who you want to work with, what you want them to produce, when you need it and where it’s going. But do you know why you’re doing it? Have you considered who you want to read your thought-leadership content? And what you want them to do once they’ve read it?

From top-of-the-funnel content for brand awareness and lead generation to bottom-of-the-funnel content for conversions or customer retention, your copywriter needs to know what role your content plays in the context of your wider business.

In our opinion, the ‘why’ separates good writers from bad ones — and both kinds from the likes of ChatGPT. This is why we call our writers ‘marketing copywriters’ because they understand how to weave their work into broader marketing objectives.

So, what’s the ROI of copywriting and thought leadership?

Whether you choose to go external or in-house, there’s significant value in investing in the art of copywriting. Here’s why.

Demonstrate relevance and expertise

A study by Edelman and LinkedIn found that 73 percent of decision-makers say an organisation’s thought leadership content is more trustworthy for assessing its capabilities than its marketing materials.

The same study found that 80% of respondents want to see third-party data included in it, and 44% believe the highest-quality content helps them better understand a business's challenges and opportunities.

Decision-makers want to know why they should work with you. And your knowledge, experience, and expertise are your differentiators. The ROI? As many as 60 per cent of decision-makers say they’re willing to pay a premium to work with a business that produces good thought leadership.

Establish your brand and raise your profile

While thought-leadership and content marketing materials are busy showcasing your expertise, they’re also putting you on the map. Readers get to know your brand and tone of voice (TOV). Decision-makers may even share your content online, quote your research in their content, and reference your work conversationally.

The front of a buyer’s mind is a powerful place to be. Especially when we consider that 70 percent of C-suite executives said thought leadership content made them question their current B2B relationships — with 54 percent realizing other vendors might better understand their needs, according to a study by Edelman and LinkedIn.

Reach new audiences

A key part of establishing your brand with thought leadership is connecting with new audiences. Businesses often have a clear idea of who they want to work with and who wants to work with them. But growing your brand presence with thought leadership content means you’ll start to appear in new places online.

For example, when Basecamp founder Jason Fried tweeted about his company’s new ad, which called out Google’s paid ad strategy, he subsequently received over 1,000 backlinks to the company’s website. Depending on how you value backlinks, that could be worth up to $500,000 in SEO benefits.

This kind of thought-leadership content will help you rank for new search engine queries, generate more backlinks, appear in different social media feeds and so on. You might even find that your successful written content creates entirely new opportunities for you — podcast appearances, webinar invitations, the chance to speak at industry events and so on.

Build existing customer loyalty

Your written content doesn’t just serve the purpose of attracting new audiences. It’s a valuable tool for staying connected to your existing customers (and re-connecting with previous ones, too).

According to Accenture, 80 percent of businesses spend less than a third of their time and budget on customer-focused messaging. This presents a clear missed opportunity when considering loyal customers' ROI.

On average, a loyal customer is worth up to 10 times the value of their original purchase, according to the Office of Consumer Affairs. And, Bain and Co found that increasing customer retention by two percent has the same impact as reducing costs by 10 percent. Remember: the grass is greener where you water it!

Content is still king

Powerful, engaging, well-written thought leadership content has a functional role to play, too. Of course, establishing your brand, growing your audience, and giving your customers something to talk about are important. But high-quality written content is necessary to get discovered online. For example, brands that regularly update their blog get 67 percent more leads than those that don’t, according to Absurd Insights.

Similarly, search engines are starting to prioritise the quality of the content they promote to users, cracking down on misinformation, clickbait, spam, and AI-generated content. For example, Google looks for content showcasing experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. This is called E-E-A-T content and thought leadership is precisely the kind of writing that reflects these crucial areas.

Recent Google updates penalise companies that fill up their site with cheap AI-generated SEO content. This tactic is just empty calories and now it’s creating marketing heart attacks for companies that tried it. The need for high-quality EEAT content has never been higher.

The final word

The ROI of thought leadership is going to take a lot of work to prove. That’s because it’s about more than just numbers. It’s about value. An AI-generated blog post will save you time and probably be fairly accurate. It may even generate a small amount of traffic (before Google recognises it as AI and penalises you for it, that is). But well-written thought leadership is a conversation starter. It’s the kind of content people are still thinking about after they’ve logged off. It makes potential customers think — and start questioning whether they’re working with the right providers. It’s full of insight, personality, colour and expertise. You can’t put a price on that.

Personalisation in marketing works because personal connections matter. That extends beyond your customers, too. Personal connections include the relationships you have with your suppliers, your stakeholders, your employees, industry peers… the list goes on.

Meet Dominic Reid, London's 'Mr Big Event'.

Nutcrackers, Snowmen... and A Very Naughty Christmas.

Further to yesterday's post, this is a list of thoughts prompted by a request from Linkmachinego on the topic of being an anonymous writer and blogger. Maybe not exactly a how-to (since the outcome is not guaranteed) as a post on things I did, things I should have done, and things I learned.

It's not up to me to decide if you "deserve" to be anonymous. My feeling is, if you're starting out as a writer and do not yet feel comfortable writing under your own name, that is your business and not mine. I also think sex workers should consider starting from a position of anonymity and decide later if they want to be out, please don't be naive. Statistics I made up right now show 99 out of 100 people who claim 'if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear' are talking out of their arses.

The items in the list fall into three general categories: internet-based, legal and real-world tips, and interpersonal. Many straddle more than one of these categories. All three are important.

This is written for a general audience because most people who blog now do not have extensive technical knowledge, they just want to write and be read. That's a good thing by the way. If you already know all of this, then great, but many people won't. Don't be sneery about their lack of prior knowledge. Bringing everyone up to speed on the technology is not the goal: clear steps you can use to help protect your identity from being discovered are.

Disclaimer: I'm no longer anonymous so these steps are clearly not airtight. Also there are other sources of information on the Web, some of which are more comprehensive and more current than my advice. I accept no responsibility for any outcome of following this advice. Please don't use it to do illegal or highly sensitive things. Also please don't use pseudonyms to be a dick.

This is also a work in progress. As I remember things or particular details, I'll amend this post. If you have suggestions of things that should be added, let me know.

1. Don't use Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail et al. for your mail.

You will need an email address to do things like register for blog accounts, Facebook, Twitter, and more. This email will have to be something entirely separate from your "real" email addresses. There are a lot of free options out there, but be aware that sending an email from many of them also sends information in the headers that could help identify you.

When I started blogging, I set up an email address for the blog with Hotmail. Don't do this. Someone quickly pointed out the headers revealed where I worked (a very large place with lots of people and even more computers, but still more information than I was comfortable with). They suggested I use Hushmail instead, which I still use. Hushmail has a free option (though the inbox allocation is modest), strips out headers, and worked for me.

A caveat with this: if you are, say, a sex worker working in a place where that is not legal and using Hushmail, you could be vulnerable to them handing over your details to a third party investigating crimes. If you're handling information some governments might consider embarrassing or sensitive, same. Google some alternatives: you're looking for something secure and encrypted.

There are a few common-sense tips you can follow to make it even safer. If you have to bring people you know in real life in on the secret, don't use this email address for communicating with them even if only about matters related to your secret (and don't use your existing addresses for that either). Example: I have one address for press and general interactions, one for things related to my accountant and money, and one for communicating with my agent, publisher, and solicitor. I've also closed and opened new accounts over the years when it seems "too many" people are getting hold of a particular address. Use different passwords for each, don't make these passwords related to your personal information, and so on.

I unwisely left the Hotmail address going, and while I did not use it to send mail, I continued to read things that arrived there. That led to this failed attempt by the Sunday Times to out me. It was an easily dodged attempt but something I would have preferred to avoid.

People can and do register internet domains while staying anonymous but I never did. Some people registered domains for me (people I didn't know in person). This led to a couple of instances of them receiving harassment when the press suspected they were me. In particular Ian Shircore got a bit of unwanted attention this way.

Because all I was ever doing was a straight-up blog, not having a registered domain that I had control over was fine. Your needs may be different. I am not a good source for advice on how to do that. But just in case you might be thinking "who would bother looking there?" read about how faux escort Alexa DiCarlo was unmasked. This is what happens when you don't cover your tracks.

2. Don't use a home internet connection, work internet connection, etc.

Email won't be the only way you might want to communicate with people. You may also want to leave comments on other blogs and so forth. Doing this and other ways of using the Web potentially exposes your IP address, which could be unique and be used to locate you.

Even if you don't leave comments just visiting a site can leave traces behind. Tim Ireland recently used a simple method to confirm his suspicion of who the "Tabloid Troll" twitter account belonged to. By comparing the IP address of someone who clicked on to a link going to the Bloggerheads site with the IP address of an email Dennis Rice sent, a link was made. If you go to the trouble of not using your own connection, also make sure you're not using the same connection for different identities just minutes apart. Don't mix the streams.

The timing of everything as it happened was key to why the papers did not immediately find out who I was. The old blog started in 2003, when most press still had to explain to their audience what a blog actually was. It took a while for people to notice the writing, so the mistakes I made early on (blogging from home and work, using Hotmail) had long been corrected by the time the press became interested.

Today, no writer who aims to stay anonymous should ever assume a grace period like that. It also helped that once the press did become interested, they were so convinced not only that Belle was not really a hooker but also that she was one of their own - a previously published author or even journalist - that they never looked in the right place. If they'd just gone to a London blogmeet and asked a few questions about who had pissed off a lot of people and was fairly promiscuous, they'd have had a plausible shortlist in minutes.

After I moved from Kilburn to Putney, I was no longer using a home internet connection - something I should have done right from the beginning. I started to use internet cafes for posting and other activities as Belle. This offers some security... but be wary of using these places too often if there is a reason to think someone is actively looking for you. It's not perfect.

Also be wary if you are using a laptop or other machine provided by your workplace, or use your own laptop to log in to work servers ("work remotely"). I've not been in that situation and am not in any way an expert on VPNs, but you may want to start reading about it here and do some googling for starters. As a general principle, it's probably wise not to do anything on a work laptop that could get you fired, and don't do anything that could get you fired while also connected to work remotely on your own machine.

3. There is software available that can mask your IP address. There are helpful add-ons that can block tracking software.

I didn't use this when I was anonymous, but if I was starting as an anonymous blogger now, I would download Tor and browse the Web and check email through their tools.

If you do use Tor or other software to mask your IP address, don't then go on tweeting about where your IP address is coming from today! I've seen people do this. Discretion fail.

I also use Ghostery now to block certain tracking scripts from web pages. You will want to look into something similar. Also useful are Adblocker, pop-up blockers, things like that. They are simple to download and use and you might like to use them anyway even if you're not an anonymous blogger. A lot of sites track your movements and you clearly don't want that.

4. Take the usual at-home precautions.

Is your computer password-protected with a password only you know? Do you clear your browser history regularly? Use different passwords for different accounts? Threats to anonymity can come from people close to you. Log out of your blog and email accounts when you're finished using them, every time. Have a secure and remote backup of your writing. Buy a shredder and use it. Standard stuff.

Another thing I would do is install a keystroke logger on your own machine. By doing this I found out in 2004 that someone close to me was spying on me when they were left alone with my computer. In retrospect what I did about it was not the right approach. See also item 7.

5. Be careful what you post.

Are you posting photos? Exif data can tell people, among other things, where and when a picture was taken, what it was taken with, and more. I never had call to use it because I never posted photos or sound, but am told there are loads of tools that can wipe this Exif data from your pictures (here's one).

The content of what you post can be a giveaway as well. Are you linking to people you know in real life? Are you making in-jokes or references to things only a small group of people will know about? Don't do that.

If possible, cover your tracks. Do you have a previous blog under a known name? Are you a contributor to forums where your preferred content and writing style are well-known? Can you edit or delete these things? Good, do that.

Personally, I did not delete everything. Partly this was because the world of British weblogging was so small at the time - a few hundred popular users, maybe a couple thousand people blogging tops? - that I thought the sudden disappearance of my old blog coinciding with the appearance of an unrelated new one might be too much of a coincidence. But I did let the old site go quiet for a bit before deleting it, and edited archived entries.

Keep in mind however that The Wayback Machine means everything you have written on the web that has been indexed still exists. And it's searchable. Someone who already has half an idea where to start looking for you won't have too much trouble finding your writing history. (UPDATE: someone alerted me that it's possible to get your own sites off Wayback by altering the robots.txt file - and even prevent them appearing there in the first place - and to make a formal request for removal using reasons listed here. This does not seem to apply to sites you personally have no control over unless copyright issues are involved.) If you can put one more step between them and you... do it.

6. Resist temptation to let too many people in.

If your writing goes well, people may want to meet you. They could want to buy you drinks, give you free tickets to an opening. Don't say yes. While most people are honest in their intentions, some are not. And even the ones who are may not have taken the security you have to keep your details safe. Remember, no one is as interested in protecting your anonymity as you will be.

Friends and family were almost all unaware of my secret - both the sex work and the writing. Even my best friend (A4 from the books) didn't know. 

I met very few people "as" Belle. There were some who had to meet me: agent, accountant, editor. I never went to the Orion offices until after my identity became known. I met Billie Piper, Lucy Prebble, and a couple of writers during the pre-production of Secret Diary at someone's house, but met almost no one else involved with the show. Paul Duane and Avril MacRory met me and were absolutely discreet. I went to the agent's office a few times but never made an appointment as Belle or in my real name. Most of the staff there had no idea who I was. Of these people who did meet me almost none knew my real name, where I lived, where I was from, my occupation. Only one (the accountant) knew all of that - explained below under point 9. And if I could have gotten away with him never seeing a copy of my passport, I damn well would have done.

The idea was that if people don't know anything they can't inadvertently give it away. I know that all of the people listed above were absolutely trustworthy. I still didn't tell them anything a journalist would have considered useful.

When I started blogging someone once commented that my blog was a "missed opportunity" because it didn't link to an agency website or any way of booking my services. Well, duh. I didn't want clients to meet me through the blog! If you are a sex worker who wants to preserve a level of pseudonymity and link your public profile to your work, Amanda Brooks has the advice you need. Not me.

Other sources like JJ Luna write about how to do things like get and use credit cards not tied to your name and address. I've heard Entropay offer 'virtual' credit cards that are not tied to your credit history, although they can't be used with any system that requires address verification. This could be useful even for people who are not involved in sex work.

Resisting temptation sometimes means turning down something you'd really like to do. The short-term gain of giving up details for a writing prize or some immediate work may not be worth the long-term loss of privacy. I heard about one formerly anonymous blogger who was outed after giving their full name and address to a journalist who asked for it when they entered a competition. File under: how not to stay anonymous.

7. Trust your intuition.

I have to be careful what I say here. In short, my identity became known to a tabloid paper and someone whom I had good reason not to trust (see item 4) gave them a lot of information about me.

When your intuition tells you not to trust someone, LISTEN TO IT. The best security in the world fails if someone props open a door, leaves a letter on the table, or mentally overrides the concern that someone who betrayed you before could do so again. People you don't trust should be ejected from your life firmly and without compromise. A "let them down easy" approach only prolongs any revenge they might carry out and probably makes it worse. The irony is that as a call girl I relied on intuition and having strong personal boundaries all the time... but failed to carry that ability over into my private life. If there is one thing in my life I regret, the failure to act on my intuition is it.

As an aside if you have not read The Gift of Fear already, get it and read it.

See also point 9: if and when you need people to help you keep the secret don't make it people already involved in your private life. Relationships can cloud good judgement in business decisions.

There is a very droll saying "Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead." It's not wrong. I know, I know. Paranoid. Hard not to be when journos a few years later are digging through the rubbish of folks who met you exactly once when you were sixteen. Them's the breaks.

8. Consider the consequences of success.

If you find yourself being offered book deals or similar, think it through. Simply by publishing anonymously you will become a target. Some people assume all anonymous writers "want" to be found, and the media in particular will jump through some very interesting hurdles to "prove" anything they write about you is in the public interest.

In particular, if you are a sex worker, and especially if you are a sex worker who is visible/bookable through your site, please give careful consideration to moving out of that sphere. Even where sex for money is legal it is still a very stigmatised activity. There are a number of people who do not seem to have realised this, and the loss of a career when they left the "sex-pos" bubble was probably something of a shock. I'm not saying don't do it - but please think long and hard about the potential this has to change your life and whether you are fully prepared to be identified this way forever. For every Diablo Cody there are probably dozens of Melissa Petros. For every Melissa Petro there are probably hundreds more people with a sex industry past who get quietly fired and we don't ever hear from them.

If I knew going in to the first book deal what would happen, I probably would have said no. I'm glad I didn't by the way - but realistically, my life was stressful enough at that point and I did not fully understand what publishing would add to that. Not many bloggers had mainstream books at that point (arguably none in the UK) so I didn't have anyone else's experience to rely on. I really had no idea about what was going to happen. The things people wrote about me then were mainly untrue and usually horrendous. Not a lot has changed even now. I'd be lying if I said that didn't have an emotional effect.

Writing anonymously and being outed has happened often enough that people going into it should consider the consequences. I'm not saying don't do it if you risk something, but be honest with yourself about the worst possible outcome and whether you would be okay with that.

9.  Enlist professional help to get paid and sign contracts.

Having decided to write a book, I needed an agent. The irony of being anonymous was that while I let as few people in on it as possible, at some point I was going to have to take a leap of faith and let in more. Mil Millington emailed me to recommend Patrick Walsh, saying he was one of the few people in London who can be trusted. Mil was right.

Patrick put me on to my accountant (who had experience of clients with, shall we say, unusual sources of income). From there we cooked up a plan so that contracts could be signed without my name ever gracing a piece of paper. Asking someone to keep a secret when there's a paper trail sounds like it should be possible but rarely is. Don't kid yourself, there is no such thing as a unbreakable confidentiality agreement. Asking journalists and reviewers to sign one about your book is like waving a red rag to a bull. What we needed was a few buffers between me and the press.

With Patrick and Michael acting as directors, a company was set up - Bizrealm. I was not on the paperwork as a director so my name never went on file with Companies House. Rather, with the others acting as directors, signing necessary paperwork, etc., Patrick held a share in trust for me off of which dividends were drawn and this is how I got paid. I may have got some of these details wrong, by the way - keep in mind, I don't deal with Bizrealm's day-to-day at all.

There are drawbacks to doing things this way: you pay for someone's time, in this case the accountant, to create and administer the company. You can not avoid tax and lots of it. (Granted, drawing dividends is more tax-efficient, but still.) You have to trust a couple of people ABSOLUTELY. I'd underline this a thousand times if I could. Michael for instance is the one person who always knew, and continues to know, everything about my financial and personal affairs. Even Patrick doesn't know everything.

There are benefits though, as well. Because the money stays mainly in the company and is not paid to me, it gets eked out over time, making tax bills manageable, investment more constant, and keeping me from the temptation to go mad and spend it.

I can't stress enough that you might trust your friends and family to the ends of the earth, but they should not be the people who do this for you. Firstly, because they can be traced to you (they know you in a non-professional way). Secondly, because this is a very stressful setup and you need the people handling it to be on the ball. As great as friends and family are that is probably not the kind of stress you want to add to your relationship. I have heard far too many stories of sex workers and others being betrayed by ex-partners who knew the details of their business dealings to ever think that's a good idea.

So how do you know you can trust these people? We've all heard stories of musicians and other artists getting ripped off by management, right? All I can say is instinct. It would not have been in Patrick's interest to grass me, since as my agent he took a portion of my earnings anyway, and therefore had financial as well as personal interest in protecting that. If he betrayed me he would also have suffered a loss of reputation that potentially outweighed any gain. Also, as most people who know him will agree, he's a really nice and sane human being. Same with Michael.

If this setup sounds weirdly paranoid, let me assure you that journalists absolutely did go to Michael's office and ask to see the Bizrealm paperwork, and Patrick absolutely did have people going through his bins, trying to infiltrate his office as interns, and so on. Without the protection of being a silent partner in the company those attempts to uncover me might have worked.

I communicate with some writers and would-be writers who do not seem to have agents. If you are serious about writing, and if you are serious about staying anonymous, get an agent. Shop around, follow your instinct, and make sure it's someone you can trust. Don't be afraid to dump an agent, lawyer, or anyone else if you don't trust them utterly. They're professionals and shouldn't take it personally.

10. Don't break the (tax) law.

Journalists being interested in your identity is one thing. What you really don't want is the police or worse, the tax man, after you. Pay your taxes and try not to break the law if it can be helped. If you're a sex worker blogging about it, get an accountant who has worked with sex workers before - this is applicable even if you live somewhere sex work is not strictly legal. Remember, Al Capone went down for tax evasion. Don't be like Al. If you are a non-sex-work blogger who is earning money from clickthroughs and affiliates on your site, declare this income.

In summer 2010 the HMRC started a serious fraud investigation of me. It has been almost two years and is only just wrapping up, with the Revenue finally satisfied that not only did I declare (and possibly overdeclare) my income as a call girl, but that there were no other sources of income hidden from them. They have turned my life and financial history upside down to discover next to nothing new about me. This has been an expensive and tedious process. I can't even imagine what it would have been like had I not filed the relevant forms, paid the appropriate taxes, and most of all had an accountant to deal with them!

Bottom line, you may be smart - I'm pretty good with numbers myself - but people whose job it is to know about tax law, negotiating contracts, and so on will be better at that than you are. Let them do it. They are worth every penny.

11. Do interviews with care.

Early interviews were all conducted one of two ways: over email (encrypted) or over an IRC chatroom from an anonymising server (I used xs4all). This was not ideal from their point of view, and I had to coach a lot of people in IRC which most of them had never heard of. But again, it's worth it, since no one in the press will be as interested in protecting your identity as you are. I hope it goes without saying, don't give out your phone number.

12. Know when les jeux sont faits.

In November 2009 - 6 years after I first started blogging anonymously - my identity was revealed.

As has been documented elsewhere, I had a few heads-ups that something was coming, that it was not going to be nice, and that it was not going to go away. We did what we could to put off the inevitable but it became clear I only had one of two choices: let the Mail on Sunday have first crack at running their sordid little tales, or pre-empt them.

While going to the Sunday Times - the same paper that had forcibly outed Zoe Margolis a few years earlier, tried to get my details through that old Hotmail address, and incorrectly fingered Sarah Champion as me - was perhaps not the most sensitive choice, it was for me the right move. Patrick recommended that we contact an interviewer who had not been a Belle-believer: if things were going to be hard, best get that out of the way up front.



So that is that. It's a bit odd how quickly things have changed. When I started blogging I little imagined I would be writing books, much less something like this. Being a kind of elder statesman of blogging (or cantankerous old grump if you prefer) is not an entirely comfortable position and one that is still new to me. But it is also interesting to note how little has changed: things that worked in the early 2000s have value today. The field expanded rapidly but the technology has not yet changed all that much.

As before, these ideas do not constitute a foolproof way to protect your identity. All writers - whether writing under their own names or not - should be aware of the risks they may incur by hitting 'publish'. I hope this post at least goes some way to making people think about how they might be identified, and starts them on a path of taking necessary (and in many cases straightforward) precautions, should they choose to be anonymous.

Mini-comic you can print yourself

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From pre-race confusion to post-race joy, from 17th on the grid to a stunning win, here's how Max Verstappen's Brazilian Grand Prix unfolded on his radio.

Niels Wittich's unexpected departure as Formula 1's race director recreates the circumstances in which Michael Masi was thrown in at the deep end.

If you are home alone tonight on Halloween and fancy something spooky and electronic to listen to, please allow me to direct you to the annual Homebrew Electronica horrorthon! Promising “spooky bangers, creepy electronica and twisted soundscapes for Halloween night”,...

Muskegon’s supply-side reforms designed to ease home price inflation

So, why don't we, translators, get imaginative and enhance our incomes by adding a few items to our rates? I envision my future bill to my clients to look something like this:

Translation	50.00
Availability fee	2.50
Keyboarding fee	3.00
Administrative fee	2.00
Billing fee	1.50
Software usage fee	1.75
Hardware usage fee	1.80
e-mailing fee	1.65
Alertness fee*	1.60
Innovation fee **	2.50
Bundling fee***	2.00
Total payable	70.30

Feel free to add your own bright ideas to this list.

Thanks to witty Gabe Bokor from Translation Journal Blog.

This post looks at how to translate the names of the two* main types of public-form Spanish notarial acts, escrituras públicas and actas notariales. It also identifies handy language to use in translations of them. Escritura pública An escritura pública records an act executed before a notary. How you translate the name of an escritura […]

How should you translate into English the terms de una parte and de otra parte that you find at the start of Spanish contracts?   What’s the job of de una parte and de otra parte in a Spanish contract? If you’ve read a couple of Spanish contracts, this seems obvious. But there is a […]

What is a registro? A registro, as in the Registro Civil, is an official place or list for recording information or events. The one registro can even be both a list and a place. For instance, the Registro Mercantil and the Registro de la Propiedad can each be three things: a list (i.e. a set […]

Process Modeling has been a very active research topic for the last decades. One of its main issues is the externalization of knowledge and its acquisition for further use, as this remains deeply related to the quality of the resulting process models produced by this task. This paper presents a method and a graphical supporting tool for process elicitation and modeling, combining the Group Storytelling technique with the advances of Text Mining and Natural Language Processing. The implemented tool extends its previous versions with several functionalities to facilitate group story telling by the users, as well as to improve the results of the acquired process model from the stories.

Special counsel Jack Smith looking at stepping down before Trump takes office and is discussing how to end prosecutions  CNN

As mobile devices become prevalent, there is always a need for apps.  How hard is it to develop an app especially a cross-platform app? The paper shares an experience in a project involved the development of a student services web app that can be run on cross-platform mobile devices.  The paper first describes the background of the project, the clients, and the proposed solution.  Then, it focuses on the step-by-step development processes and provides the illustration of written codes and techniques used.  The goal is for readers to gain an understanding on how to develop a mobile-friendly web app.  The paper concludes with teaching implications and offers thoughts for further development.  

Aim/Purpose: The objective of this study is to understand how video lectures of the same length and content as the current face-to-face lectures can be designed and implemented to have a positive effect on student performance, particularly when there is a campus shutdown. Background: In a number of South African universities protests by the students are on the increase. Often, they lead to the cancellation of academic activities such as face-to-face classes and examinations. Methodology: A quasi-experimental design was used on two video lectures to (1) compare the performance of the students who did not watch the video lectures and those who watched the video lectures, (2) compare the performance of each student who watched the video lectures on the test topics covered in the videos and the test topics not covered in the videos, and (3) determine the factors that influence the effectiveness of the video lectures. Contribution: This study contributes to the literature by investigating the effectiveness of video lectures in improving student performance, the factors associated to the effectiveness of such lectures, and the complexity or simplicity of the two video lectures used, and by providing possible solutions to the challenges identified in relation to designing video lectures. Findings: In terms of student performance, there is no significant advantage arising from watching the video lectures for the students who watch the video lectures, as compared to those who did not watch the video lectures. It is also found that the student performance on the topics with video lectures is significantly associated to the students’ commitment, prior performance, the quality of the content, and the design of the videos. Recommendations for Practitioners: This study recommends how the accounting video lectures can be designed and highlights the environments in which the video lectures of the same length and content as the face-to-face lectures should not be used. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers should replicate this study by using short length videos of better quality and appropriate length, which incorporate current issues, games, are interactive, and so forth. Impact on Society: This study examines the use of educational video lectures in order to minimise the impact of disruptions at university level. Future Research: Future studies may use randomly selecting treatment and control groups. They may consider a nationwide research or using qualitative interviews in examining the use of educational video lectures.

Aim/Purpose: One of the most fascinating developments in computer user interfaces in recent years is the rise of “chatbots”. Yet extent information system (IS) curriculum lacks teaching resources on chatbots programming.. Background: To better prepare students for this new technological development and to enhance the IS curriculum, we introduce a project that teaches students how to program simple chatbots, including a transactional chatbot and a conversational chatbot. Methodology: We demonstrated a project that teaches students how to program two types of simple chatbots: a transactional chatbot and a conversational chatbot. We also conducted a survey to examine students’ perceptions on their learning experience. Findings: Our survey on students’ perception of the project finds that learning chatbots is deemed very useful because chatbot programming projects have enabled the students to understand the subject better. We also found that social influence has positively motivated the students to learn chatbot programming. Though most of the students have no prior experiences programming chatbots, their self-efficacy towards chatbot programming remained high after working through the programming project. Despite the difficult tasks, over 71% of respondents agree to various degrees that chatbot programming is fun. Though most students agree that chatbot programming is not easy to learn, more than 70% of respondents indicated that they will use or learn chatbots in the near future. The overwhelmingly positive responses are impressive given that this is the first time for the students to program and learn chatbots. Recommendations for Practitioners: In this article, we introduced a step by step project on teaching chatbot programming in an information systems class. Following the project instructions, students can get their first intelligent chatbots up and running in a few hours using Slack. This article describes the project in detail as well as students’ perceptions. Recommendations for Researchers: We used UTAUT model to measure students’ perception of the projects. This study could be of value to researchers studying students’ technology learning and adoption behaviors. Impact on Society: To our best knowledge, pedagogical resources that teach IS students how to program chatbots, especially the introductory level materials, are limited. We hope this teaching case could be of value for IS educators when introducing IS students to the wonderful field of chatbot programming. Future Research: For future work, we plan to expand the teaching resources to cover more advanced chatbot programming projects, such as on how to make chatbot more human-like.