Josh Mehlman

This week I started working full time at Editor Group as the Online Strategy Leader. This means I’ll be helping clients create meaningful and useful online content, build online communities, get their sites noticed by search engines and use social media effectively.

I know from experience that a lot of companies out there have websites, because you’ve got to have a website, but aren’t really sure what a website is for. They’ve got Twitter accounts or Facebook pages but might only use them for product announcements or marketing offers.

Hopefully with all the things I’ve learned from editing Nett and talking to online business owners for the past couple of years, I can help these companies understand how best to use all the online tools at their disposal.

Gosh, it’s been a busy week; been doing so much I’ve hardly had time to self-promote about it. Outrageous.

The last issue of Nett with my mug on the editor’s page came out last Friday, including my interview with twin brothers Brian and Vincent Wu, founders of clothing retailer Incu.

The best interviews to do are the ones that defy your expectations. Plenty of small business owners aren’t shy about telling you how great they are, which gives you plenty of material for the story, but leaves you feeling a bit cheap and dirty at the end of it. Not these guys! You definitely don’t expect successful fashionistas to be friendly, humble and modest, but Brian and Vincent really are and I’m sure that has a lot to do with their success.

Over the last year, Incu managed to land a coveted deal: the rights to distribute UK brand Topshop in Australia. Considering how many Australian women buy from Topshop UK online, this is very big. The guys from Incu also told me exclusively about their plans to (finally) open an online store next year, and once again I think they have exactly the right approach.

I’ve also been doing some exciting news stories for ZDNet on stuff like telecommunications tenders, state government IT policies, how bad state governments are at looking after our personal data and ERP consolidation projects.

Aside from this, it’s all been about making clients happy by meeting their insane deadlines, finding somewhere to live and even showing up at the odd IT industry Christmas party. Phew!