Authors:

Carla BLOG.jpg

Carla van Straten was previously employed by Sound Idea Digital as a Content Marketing Agency Manager and a Digital Journalist.


Her qualifications include a Bachelor of Social Sciences degree in English Literature and Social Anthropology obtained from the University of Cape Town.

Her main fields of interest concern online education, business management, 360 degree employee development, technology and technological disruption.

Connect with her on LinkedIn


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Personas of Web Development Clients - A Mindful Approach

As web designers and web developers, consider the persona of your client and work towards accommodating that identity.
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Gender Demographics: SEO Beyond Mutually Exclusive Groups

Targeting ‘Demographics’ in your digital marketing strategy still counts – just not the way it used to. Demographics are still on the top of Google’s analytical means of determining what displays on page one of your search results.
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From Banner Blind Viewers to Active Advert Killers – YouTube Pre-Roll Ads

It is greatly appreciated that users are given the option to skip the ad. However, given the option, YouTube users will indeed press the skip button.
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Cherish your Consumer’s Critique – A Case Study With Chappies South Africa

Customer feedback is the one true piece of intimate information that allows you to review the success of a product or service through the eyes of your consumers. It is therefore invaluable.
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When Expert Knowledge & Exceptional Writing Come Together

Any writer should undeniably also be a researcher. However, it is highly improbable to learn the technical details of specialist fields in a couple of days, before the article is to be published.
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Google Hangouts as a Component of Your Digital Marketing Strategy

The Google Hangouts platform is great for social interaction between multiple participants. However, users are utilising this platform for more than merely informal chatting.
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What Builds a Likable Business?

Fancy branding and cutesy advertising no longer work as the defining factors for closing a sale.
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Google Glass: Wearable Tech as Social Surveillance Devices

Google Glass wearable technology is yet another building block to add to the complex structure of technological disruption.
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12 Ways to Market your Company Blog

This article lists 12 tried and trusted ideas for enhancing the visability of your main online marketing machine, i.e. your blog.
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Blog Writing and the List Form Convention

Presenting blog articles in the form of lists is a popular blog writing convention.
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The Basics of Content Curation in the Digital Sphere

Using curated content for populating your website or blog for the purpose of digital marketing is a great idea. It is a professional and respected way of providing your browsers with valuable and insightful information.
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Recipe for a Successful Long-Life Company Intranet System

A company intranet will work only when it works for you, but to achieve a successfully functioning company intranet, you need to put some work into it as well.
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eLearning in a Non-Computer Based Environment

eLearning for staff training and assessment is possible in a non-computer based environment via interactive response technology software and devices.
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Website Overhaul: What to Consider When Redesigning Your Website

As any form of fashion does, web design elements gets outdated as rapidly as they are born.
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The Content Marketing Client: Client to Supplier Relationship

When the project at hand is content marketing, the client supplier relationship should be a partnership.
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Motivate and be motivated Part 2: Management & Leadership

To motivate those who work alongside you, you need to practise intelligent listening, in-depth understanding, and courageous talking. .
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Motivate and be Motivated: Part 1

A commitment to something, anything, will start and it will perish if you are not constantly motivated to continue.
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Creating Quantities of Quality Sales Collateral Content

A sales person needs to climb a series of consecutive steps in closing a corporate sale. Sufficient resources at his or her disposal are crucial to the sale.
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The Pitfalls to Using Open-Source Learning Management Systems

Think twice before settling for a Learning Management system that is open source and free to download at the click of a button. When we see the word open-source, we assume that we are scoring a free LMS that we can use and customise with various Plug-Ins, but nothing in life is free, and even software freely available comes at a price. An Open source LMS is not a no-compromise no-worries alternative to non-free-source systems.
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Lifelong Learning in the Age of Warp Speed Technological Advancement

When technology is evolving at a warp speed, being resistant to such change, and stagnating in knowledge consumption means that you are not just standing still anymore, you are actually moving backwards. Do we realise the true extremity of the situation that we find ourselves in? It is time to look at Lifelong Learning as the solution.
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Creating a Corporate Culture of Lifelong Learning

Focusing on a group of corporate employees, whether it is a small company, a department within a company or a large enterprise, I would like to argue that a reputable culture of Lifelong Learning can be established and maintained.
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Lifelong Learning meets eLearning – Employee Development

It is fact that knowledge is power. ELearning methods create the perfect learning scenario for people who want to continue learning in a way that is manageable and undisruptive to their daily routines. In other words, eLearning is the perfect match for a corporate employee committed to Lifelong Learning (LLL).
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MOOCs: Making Education a Responsibility Irrespective of Social Status

Any new technology replacing another is socially disruptive for better or for worse, more accurately, for better AND for worse. Free quality education, accessible by anyone anywhere is bound to have great social implications, especially since education has been so closely associated with the term “elite”. But if something shifts, tremendously, something else must take up the space left behind. We no longer have to stand in line, waiting to reach the soup lady, because that is our only dinner option. No, the line is gone and every person is provided an entire buffet. It is now up to us to dish up. MOOCs are busy blurring the cracks of social dividedness, and the value of one’s own education is becoming nothing short of a personal responsibility.
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eLearning Technology – The Pace of Learning

As individuals there are a variety of factors that influence our ability to understand concepts and these factors, whether it is poor attention span or unforeseen absenteeism, will influence our learning progress. Progress happens in time. To manage progress, we must manage the time that is granted to learners to make such progress. There are tools belonging to the eLearning methodology that accommodates individual learners in learning at their own pace.
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Comparing Organisational Change to Social Rituals of Change

Organisation change management is a science in its own right and much has been written on the process of managing inter-company changes like the adopting of new systems such as task management software, or a change in the hierarchy of command. This article does not explain change management procedures in a step-by-step manner. This article is concerned with understanding the phenomenon of change in a business environment as compared to how we approach change in our social lives.
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The Vocabulary of Leaders

We think in language. How we define our thoughts, feelings, pursuits and the way in which we communicate these to the outside world, is all dependent on the vocabulary at our disposal. In order to properly and healthily reason with oneself, one must have a sufficient vocabulary to do so.
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Setting Up eLearning Exams: The "open-book" Approach

Content, and the dynamic ways in which it can be delivered in eLearning courses, is one of the main aspects that make online learning incredibly effective for the acquiring of knowledge. The main shortcoming however, as it seems to be believed by many, is the way in which a learner's acquired knowledge is tested.
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The Power of Feedback in eLearning

Many studies on feedback communication have focussed around feedback provided to the messenger by the audience. This article is focussed on the feedback provided by the messenger, after the audience has responded to the original message.
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eLearning Management: Effective Video Lectures

The most important component of an online course has to be the video lectures. A sophisticated learning management system (LMS) will incorporate video lectures into course modules so that it can easily be viewed and downloaded to keep. Carefully placed within the learning path of the LMS, video lectures can serve as introductory content to a given topic, explanatory content and/or summary content and should function in collaboration with reading materials, quizzes and assignments. The video lecture has the important task of binding all learning components together in a comprehensive manner.
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Online Education in SA Part 1: Textbook versus eBook

Sound Idea interviews Karen Walsta, Educational Consultant, to find out more about online education in the South African context
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The Flipped Classroom - Blending eLearning with a Modern Classroom

Bringing together the best of both worlds, the Flipped Classroom is a revolution in its own right. It is not a new pedagogy on its own entirely, but rather an approach to education which marries online learning with interactive experiential learning.
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eLearning Advances - Learning Analytics and Content Curation

Technological innovations are focussed on turning the Elearning experience into one that is completely learner orientated; supporting the needs and requirements of individual learners.
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Online Education and the State of the University

How does online learning affect the state of the university? Is the university immune to technological disruption? And what is online learning doing to the way in which we understand the concept of knowledge?
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eLearning Explodes!

The new method of education and training has spread across the globe like a wild fire, scorching traditional learning methods in the process. eLearning is completely changing the landscape of education as we know it.
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