What is GSM?

GSM (technically ‘grams per square meter’) is a measure of the thickness of your inside paper or cover. Typically the thicker the paper the higher-quality your book will feel. Fusion Books soft-cover books are typically printed with 150 gsm inside pages and 350 gsm cover. The exception is a very large book (over 150 pages) where you may choose to have thinner pages (for example 130 gsm).

Twitoilet
A couple of years ago in a Japanese shopping centre bathroom a businessman discovered he had no toilet paper in his cubicle after doing his… uh… business. He desperately posted on twitter that he needed help. Amazingly one of his followers was nearby and brought some toilet paper straight to him!

Alibibook
A young man named Rodney Bradford was charged for robbery however his Facebook was used as an alibi. At the same time of the robbery he had posted “Where’s my pancakes?” on Facebook from his father’s home. When this evidence was shown to the judge, the charges were immediately dropped.

Face-on-iguana-book
A couple, in their early 20’s from America, were holidaying in the Bahamas and posted a picture of themselves eating an iguana which they caught and prepared. They were later arrested for killing the lizard, an animal on the endangered species list.

Doc-tter
Web designer Patrick Johnson woke up one day to discover half of his face was numb and droopy. To his 347 followers he tweeted, “I feel like I’ve had a stroke. Half of my face doesn’t work properly.” He soon received a reply from business manager Marj Beattie; “If you are truly serious, get to the doc – Bell’s palsy facial symptoms mimic a stroke.” He took her advice and went to hospital immediately. Her diagnosis was correct and saved his face from long term damage.

Twittraveller
British Blogger Paul Smith started the Twitchhiker project in 2009. His goal: travel as far around the world as possible in 30 days using only twitter and not paying for accommodation or travel. If he was stranded anywhere for more than 48 hours he would have to finish the journey. He used the entire 30 days thanks to his twitter followers and ended up travelling from the UK to parts of Europe, across America and then all the way to Stewart island at the south of New Zealand. The entire thing also helped raise money for the charity, “Water”, who received five thousand pounds when he finished.

So there are a few amazing stories that have happened thanks to social media! I’m sure there are many more though. What’s your social media story and do you think you could ever do something as cool as Paul Smith?

Let us know! Oh and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter, you never know what might happen.

It is a great way to show your staff that you care about them

The employment market is increasingly competitive and alarmingly for some companies, it is not just staff wages that are the most important factor to attract great staff. The importance of having a great work environment, where people look forward to coming to work, is becoming increasingly important. When I was in San Francisco recently, where the job market for engineers is incredibly fickle, an engineer said to me, ‘We don’t want to feel the work is being extracted from us’. I couldn’t agree more, your job can never just be a ‘day job’, you are spending such a huge portion of your life at work, arguably the best hours and years of your life; as directors and managers it is our duty to not only affect our team’s enjoyment at work, but to affect their lives.

A yearbook is an excellent opportunity to tell your staff you care about them, you appreciate their efforts. Our staff proudly showed their family and friends, we even had special requests for additional copies of our yearbook so they could be sent back home to parents living overseas.

So what do you include in a company yearbook?

Company yearbooks can be as simple or as complex as you want. One of our favorite part of of our yearbook is the Profile section, this is where each of our staff answered a few questions about the year’s events.

Previously my experience of profile pages came from when I was at school: the graduating class created a yearbook and everyone had to fill out their responses using pen and paper, submit them and one poor girl had to type them all up. Luckily technology has come a long way since then and profiles can be created very easily using Fusion Books online system. Each company gets a special code and their employees can simply fill out their profiles online which is automatically submitted into their yearbook. Of course your marketing manager can read over the profiles before they are printed.

We also included snaps we took throughout the year, at the office and at social events. At the start of the yearbook I included a special message to our staff in the form of a poem to make it interesting.

It provides a great opportunity to celebrate your team and your company achievements, also to highlight the little things that made your office a great place to work.

As we are launching in new countries around the world, we feel it is our duty to add a quirky twist in the form of a right of passage for potential licensees.

Fusion Books France’s Directors, Julien Beuvignon and Ainhoa Emaldi Azkue were the first to be introduced to the Scratching Ceremony, whereby the potential Directors have to read the Fusion Books Oath and then, using coins from their territory, scratch the Fusion Books Global Map. This was a lot of fun and is the start of their new journey into the adventure that is Fusion Books.

Special thanks to the French artists who created our 2012 video:

> Graphic Artist: Ainhoa Emaldi Azkue, Fusion Books France

> Motion Design: Fx at Dizuite.com. Check out his work on www.dizuite.com

>Matthys for the beautiful music (Collectif MoïMoï).
Track : “1985″, released on Backhome
Listen all his tracks on :

http://soundcloud.com/matthys

http://soundcloud.com/backhome-klangwelt

If you want to have a peak at the video in French visit Fusion Books France’s website www.fusionbooks.fr