Earlier this year I researched and wrote a series of case studies for the Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC). These case studies - which focused on the 2007 winners of the Creating the Future Awards - can now be seen on Showcase, a newly-launched library of case studies from the ASC.

The Showcase website is a good example of how video and photos can help to bring a case study to life - and the site makes effective use of tags to help people find case studies that are relevant to them.

The Creating the Future awards promote organisations, partnerships and individuals helping to transform our cities, towns or villages, and celebrate achievement across the public, private and third sectors.

In 2007, award winners ranged from a new kind of library and learning service in Tower Hamlets, to a development forum for graduates working in regeneration in Merseyside.

Roger Johansson of 456 Berea Street talks a lot of sense when it comes to issues of web standards, accessibility and usability. In Click here and other meaningless link phrases he provides some sound advice on writing good link text.

Link text should provide a meaningful description of where the link goes to, or what action will take place when clicking on the link. So, no more peppering your webpage with ”click here” – next time you create a link on your website or blog, stop to think about whether the words you’re using are doing the best job possible.

You’d think that taking the time to proofread any email marketing you’re sending out would be a no-brainer. It really should be – proofreading and quality-checking is just as important for email as it is for any other form of marketing communication.

The reason I bring it up is because a few days ago I received an email from a major organiser of events, conferences and awards related to marketing and new media, which contained a glaring error. Seeing the name of the awards misspelt in the subject line of the email is not a very good incentive to opening the email and reading the content – it makes it all too easy for the recipient to delete the email straight away.

Mistakes do happen and typos sometimes slip through, but I can’t help but think that this particular mistake should’ve been spotted before the ‘’send” button was pressed.