All posts by Editor

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Dyslexia and Work

A couple of years ago a boss of mine pointed out that dyslexia is just another word for laziness. In some ways he is right, it is often perceived as being lazy. His argument was that he had overcome dyslexia by working hard. For some milder cases this is very possible. How can people live with dyslexia and what can companies do to help, or more importantly how do individuals help themselves.

A very good example of dealing with dyslexia  is demonstrated by Richard Branson. He suffers from not just word dyslexia but also number dyslexia. To quote Mr Branson. ‘Nothing is impossible if you surround yourself with the right people’. This was his solution to the problem.  What I think is very interesting in this story. Is that he is probably the biggest Marketing asset Virgin have. In my view, while Richard Branson might not be the world’s number one speller he has quite clearly other qualities. In the present business atmosphere we tend to look very much towards written qualifications. Which means that a lot companies have very little diversity.

Why is diversity important? Diversity is strength. This is best explained in the following situation. If you have a computer network all machines running on identical systems and a virus gets into the system, you can guarantee that every one of those computers will get infected. If you have a network network running on several different systems, it is not possible for one computer virus to bring down the entire network. Companies are much the same. Diversity makes a company stronger and more able to meet the challenges it faces.

Emotional intelligence is not generally recognised as there is no real way to grade it. But it is a very important skill. When companies are thinking about a specific role, they may have to think more about teams. What is going to diverse the team? What is going to make it stronger?

I am not sure where this quote is from but it is very relevant to the situation: ‘If everyone is thinking the same, then somebody is not thinking’.

Building teams is a complicated process. But it is the most beneficial where the different individuals complement each other  and are recognised for it.

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25 years on Manx Tails

This month we see an anniversary of a local publication on the Isle of Man that has managed to survive 25 years. No mean feat for any magazine in this day and age. How has it managed to do this? There are several contributing factors to this in this blogger opinion. On the Isle of Man we enjoy a rather small population, which means that competition is not really possible. There may be only room for one magazine. As effectively there are at least nine advertising outlets for businesses (radio, papers, websites) to choose from, everyone is competing for a slice of the pie. So one would imagine that the product would have be really good. For a free magazine it certainly fulfills its market. It is hard to speculate just how successful the magazine is as the company is privately owned. But is has been around for a long time. I am interested in other peoples thoughts about advertising and magazines in general on the Isle of Man.

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How do you blog when you sell uninteresting products?

As the title of the blog suggests this is a rather unusual question. I am sure that there are many bloggers out there who would tell you not to even begin. Well I am not sure that I agree. In fact when I read a lot of the “How To Make Money Online” blogs, I felt that they do not have anything to sell. Of course this is an illusion, as they are they are selling what they are seeking and they are doing this with nothing more then their own desire to make money. There are hundreds of money making blogs out there. I am sure there are just as many toilet roll companies. If the money making blog can successfully sustain interest in their topic then the question is how does the toilet roll company, when intrinsically there is nothing of great interest in their product.

An answer to this question is simply that they talk about how they are selling their product. Just the same as for example a money making blog……

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Independent Consultant

There comes a time in every business, whether it’s just starting up or has been going for many years when the decision makers are too close to see what is going on. It is a natural process. As owner of your company you are concerned with all aspects and thus cannot give individual time to certain areas or they just get left to one side. An independent consultant, whether that be in IT, human resource, or marketing can do these things. They can often very quickly get to the root of the problem. Because they are outsiders to your organisation and you are paying them, they know that they have to produce results. The only way to produce results is to tackle the problem.

A couple of very interesting links from Seth Godins blog today.

http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com this one is about website design

http://www.jott.com/Default.aspx and this could be the next mobile revolution

Here is one I found myself about starting up your own mobile phone friend network http://www.sonopia.com/mvc/network/main.html?html=/mvc/network/start.htm

 

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The Better You Are The More Coaching You Need

“Coaching is a hot topic”, says Mike Southon, and we highly recommend that if you don’t have a coach, you should get one. We often say that the better you are at something, the more you need coaching. Look at Roger Federer, Tiger Woods and Wayne Rooney; they are at the top of their professions, but get coached almost daily, always looking for that extra bit of ‘edge’. The above  is a quote from Mike Southon. But it fits perfectly into our ethos. We like to think that contributors to this site out helping others with different areas of their business. If you signed up for any of RSS you should already be able to locate great resources.

Here is one great link all about Coaching: http://www.beermat.biz/all-podcasts.php