It is not just what you are good at...

The feedback from my questionnaire is flooding in. It is fascinating to hear the feedback. I was initially a little cynical, thinking that it would just be good for data capture, but it really is influencing all my plans. (As is this blog, as following a comment I may well go to Zoomerang rather than Surveymonkey in the future - thanks Rob).

The thing that is most interesting is that it is highlighting some real weaknesses that I had not considered. Chief amongst those are my spelling and grammar! At school I was a scientist then since have done a couple of arts degrees, so it is clear that the humanities (and English) are not my strong points. It goes against the grain to say it, but this criticism is so worthwhile, it never crossed my mind that this would be an issue. Potential customers are saying that if they see a typo either they would log straight off, or they would just trust the sight significantly less.

It reminds me of a conversation that I had with...the head of the Swindon Festival of Literature (sorry, were you waiting for a good name for me to drop? as they don't get much better than that). He was saying how Will Self attended his festival as there were no spelling mistakes on any of the correspondence. Three things struck me, first being: my surprise this a critical issue and that standard documents must be littered with typos; secondly, that this should matter, and finally how smug the guy was to focus the conversation on a banal comment about his qualities. Apparently I should have taken note, as it is an area of concern that is deeply relevant to many people.

I am not saying that I will never make a typo, but at least now I know that I am crap at spelling and really must get someone to sub-edit. So apologies for my English, on this blog at least I will stumble on as before but hope that my honest approach to sharing information will compensate for all other errors.

p.s. Is is mitigating circumstances that fact that I have a dog who appears to relish licking my legs while I type? Yuck, it is off putting.