All posts by Editor

Personal, Quality, work

Gossip and Chatter Not Just in The Office

We cannot help but speculate what the next mobile phone does, or if Britney will ever make music again. Every day thousands of thoughts will cross our mind from seeing an attractive girl to wondering what will happen in the book we are currently reading. Lots of us share these thoughts with other people. When we are out and about, in a restaurant or just down the pub. For a large percentage of us we are able to leave it at that….Just speculation. What happens though when people start speculating on line , in forums, on blogs, and wikis?

Well a couple of things can happen depending who does what, where and when. If the speculation is in a enclosed network such as Face book, or a closed biz forum, unless you are a member of that particular group, it is very unlikely that you will see it on the internet. The other option is that someone blogs, or posts something in a forum. Here there are a number of things you can do. If you disagree with a post or information that has been written about you on the internet you can contact the administrator of the website and ask him/her to remove the post and in most cases you will find that they will oblige. That should be the end of the matter….. but If Google or any other search engine picks up on the url post/topic, then you will have a secondary problem. Although you will not be able to access the page, it will appear on search engine results for a possible period of up to 6 to 12 months. To solve this you have will have to contact the search engine and ask for the page to be removed. Usually if you are successful the offending page will be removed within 24 – 48 hours after this request.

A preventive measure to protect your online reputation is to create your own profile. This can be done simply by joining a online community. If your are purely concerned about your professional reputation then I recommend these site for professional profiles Work Connexions , Linkedin . Effectively, by creating your profile you are then in control of what is written about you. For example some minor comments that somebody might make in a blog or a forum would be unlikely to appear higher then your long standing profile with a high ranking community transparent page. Try it, search for your self on the internet now.

Personal

Economic Models Explained Using Cows

It came my way via email. I have no idea who wrote it.

Economic Models explained with Cows – 2007 update

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States , leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called ‘Cowkimon’ and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the sh1t out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are a Democracy.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

business, development, work

Regarding Encyclopedia Salesmen Hate Wikipedia

Seth Godin, has posted an interesting blog post on his site: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/encyclopedia-sa.html

And CNET hates Google
And newspapers hate Craigslist
And music labels hate Napster
And used bookstores hate Amazon
And so do independent bookstores.

Dating services hate Plenty of Fish
And the local shoe store hates Zappos
And courier services hate fax machines
And monks hate Gutenberg

Apparently, technology doesn’t care who you hate.

I have noticed this too, and would also add recruitment companies for Linkedin and possible Facebook too. Still change is coming.

Another interesting follow up to this post can be found here:

http://www.businessopportunitiesandideas.co.uk/539/who-hates-you

“Would Linux be so popular if Microsoft didn’t hate it?

Would Eminem be so popular with kids if their parents didn’t hate it?

Would the Sex Pistols have been so popular if they weren’t hated by the establishment?

Would the Vigin Atlantic have done so well if British Airways didn’t hate them?

Would the cheap airlines have done so well if the flagship carriers didn’t hate them?”

My comment… I thought the blog was going to go the other way and he was going to say. “Do not start a business if everyone hates you” but he did not.

business, News

IOD Going Green and Going Global

The IOD convention 2008 will be carbon neutral. Very interesting stuff,

This is a key part of a general drive by the IoD to champion the reduction of energy consumption throughout the organisation and it is fitting that our flagship event should lead the way in this cause. The IoD has partnered with The CarbonNeutral Company to make this happen. Activities such as travel, transportation of equipment, lighting and temperature control all produce C02 emissions. To make the event CarbonNeutral® all the C02 generated by the event will be measured and balanced out with verified, carbon-saving projects. The result is a net-zero carbon footprint.

http://www.annualconvention.iod.com/

development, Quality

Providing Transparency for Customers

Transparency is one of the hit words at the moments. Banks have to do it, we want our government to do it, Relationships would certainly be easier if we knew what the other person was thinking. In fact it would seem that the whole world is getting in on the act and rightly so. We want to know if we are being overcharged for the service or a corporate holiday that is disguised as a business trip. Of course transparency can be manufactured so that the customer only sees what the transparent business would like them to see, but it is hard to fool all the people all the time, As a writing style can reveal a lot about a person/company. It is very easy to get a marketing company to write a marketing blurb that has been researched with tens of thousands of pounds. Much harder but cheaper to get the MD writing a blog. That does depend though on the company. Jonathan Schwartz Sun Microsystems CEO blogs in a very transparent way. Allowing readers to see changes of thought by crossing out words in his blogs. While one would never be able to put that into a sales tender. His blog is one of the most read and influential in blogsphere. Blogs that I would be interested in reading would include Tony Blair in his present job as peace envoy, John Humphreys presenter of The Today program on Radio 4, Any major bank CEO, Putin, to a name a few. Who would you like to see?

Ask a Question, Marketing, sales, work connexions

Would You Like To Spend Less Money On Advertising?

How much do you spend on advertising? How much would you like to spend?

Have you ever considered what may happen if your employees kept either internal or external blogs? Do you think you could generate a whole wealth of material for marketing from the activity that blogging represents?

Not only that but you can also use the comments, with one post you are doing market research, advertising your business, and generating marketing material. (think about the possibilities this suggests) and if that is not enough to lower your advertising costs, consider for a moment what could happen if your company engages in matters that concerns its business, for example: local community events, debates about skilled workers, legislation, online or offline you will generate a profile and a talking point about your company. Try it… it is also worth considering to engage a PR Company to help you along the way.

development, E-Commerce, Quality, work

Web 2.0 Saving Time

Implementing projects correctly

Last night on the radio I heard a comedian joking about how women want to know what men are thinking, I can imagine that a lot of men would claim to have no idea what women are thinking. In fact his question what people are thinking can go much further. Often when we do not understand one of the first questions that we ask is what are they thinking? Communication is more than a billion dollar industry. From phones to newspapers to meetings. In short each and every one of us spend more time communicating or trying to communicate than anything else. Why is it then that so many of us get it wrong?

I am not going to pretend to have the answer to that question. A friend of my recently commented that the process of writing clarifies the brain as to exactly what the situation/problem is. There is many a time that I have wondered what is going on in the company I work for. So imagine this. A company decides that it wants to improve a process. For example it wants to reduce software support to employees and educate them at the same time. A possible approach to this problem would be to organise meetings with different departments. Send out an email asking for ideas and feedback from employees. To organise and carry out this improvement it would require a small medium seized company at least one person to project manage, someone to sort out the information, someone to analyse the information, then more meetings to discuss the findings. Eventually you would have a recommendation that can be debated all over again. If by the end of this process there is still the will to implement it, you have truly done well. Of course there is no guarantee that your solution will work at all. How can web 2.0 deal with this?

Well imagine that you set out your vision on paper, and then allow people to comment. It is incredibly simple. Each user can see what issues have been raised and add comments if necessary. The project manager can modify and direct the discussion as the project evolves. This is clear accountable communication . Returning to the question about building a help desk, it allows every problem to be logged so that there is no repeat use of time to express the same points. One can even track the time involved producing accountability for budgeting future projects. Brilliant… if only everything was that simple I would not mind what anybody else is thinking.