Category Archives: Management

Management, Personal

Getting On with People

With out doubt one of the greatest business assets of any company or individual is the ability to get on with people. Bill Gates is obviously very good at it but just about any person in business has to get on with people. What if though it crosses your social or religious views. Do you think you can still get on with them?

Many people find this a great problem. Somebody thinks or acts differently than they would like. What would you do?

Do you agree with them smile and keep peace or do you tell them what you think? How good is it to keep things hidden from others and how good is it to express it?

Many questions and know clear rule of thumb.

The important thing to remember in human interaction is that you are only responsible for yourself. If the other party behaves in inappropriate manner it reflects upon them and nobody else. No matter what they are saying about you.

Taking time to respond or not to respond at all is the greatest control over the situation one has and usual is of more of a benefit to yourself and every body else in the short and long term.

Making sure you are happy and challenged it is the only way forward.

Management, Relationship

Hopes and Dreams

1 Comment

It’s not rocket science but this being double o day with the Olympics on the eighth and all, something different.

The root of this blog post is about what Churchill describe in the second world war when he visited his old school. He stood up said. “Never never never give up”. and than sat back down. These few words have reappeared through out history. You see them more recently in self help books by Paul Mc Kenna, or how to get rich by Naploean or in great sport to name but a few. Incredible simple words. But it is what distinguishes success from failure.

In another life time I was a musician. Extraordinarily passionate about music. I had some success and some failures. When my Son was born I decided it was time to do something else. Ten years later I remember hearing very similar music to what I had been making back then. It was then that I realised if I had pursued what I had already been doing for many years I too could have cashed in on what become very popular at that time.

I firmly believe that you can do anything, not everything though. When committed to one true desire mountains can move. There are more than enough example of this from Ghandi through to the fantastic array of modern entrepreneurs that are responsible for so many of the innovative products we see today. It starts with an idea.

Management

Losing The Vote

July 08 saw a by election defeat for Labour. Only two days before the election they had seemed to be doing well. To say that it was unexpected is putting it mildly. So why did Labour lose the seat. They appeared to be running a well run campaign. All the polls before polling day thought that they would hold the seat. I remember watching it at home on TV. While the current most talked about reasons is general unhappiness with the economy, houses prices, and the credit crunch. I think it was something else too.

What was very interesting while watching this on TV was the way Margaret Curran the Labour candidate behaved. There has been some speculation that the former Labour MP had behaved in a dishonorable way with relation to his expenses. The by election was called due to him standing down claiming ill health. When the current candidate Margaret Curran was asked about this on TV she tired to ignore the question. She than tried to demonstrate what a strong candidate she was by talking about her own agenda. What she failed to realize was that nobody was really interested in her agenda; they wanted to know about the former MP and his expenses. When repeatable asked whether she had visited the offices of the former MP who was claming it as an expense. She looked most annoyed and carried on ignoring it. She could have done much better to have said the truth. If she did not believe it was ill health than she should have said so. A least people could have warmed to her, or more importantly believed her. Instead she carried on denying it and acting in a most unreal manner. I think it was that moment that people decided they had enough and rightly so. At least with the other party (SNP) they are selling something they believe in.

They are two morals to this story, one sort out your history and two believe in what you are selling.

Management

New Packages From Skype

Skype have just released some new packages, they are pretty cool as a long term user of Skype I can recommend them. You can make video conference personal/business calls. They also have a nice selection of telephones which are certified with their software. One of the main reasons that people use Skype is that it is cheap, very cheap to make local and international calls. You can call other Skype users free charge and Mobile phones can be called at low prices too.

Half year ago the service went though an over subscription period where the users had a less than perfect line quality and a few dropped calls, but since then it has increased it services and it now providing a top class quality service.

This what the website explains about Skype Mobile:

“If you have a mobile workforce, 3 Skypephone is the mobile they can use to stay in touch with free calls and instant messages to the office, clients, and anyone else on Skype. It’s a slim-line mobile packed with features – including Skype at the touch of a button. Travel with Skype, and have its benefits 24-7.”

Give it a go here:
Get an Unlimited World calling subscription from Skype
Call anywhere in the world for free on the 3 Skypephone

E-Commerce, Management, money, Traffic

How Much more does your Youngest Employee Know about the Internet than You ?

What does it mean having a presence on the internet, can you buy a office and move your staff in. Well the answer to the question is yes. For internetholics it has been well known that you can buy virtual love to real estate on line. This can take several forms, Second life for example allows you to interact with an array of potential customers, build a virtual office, hire staff. You might well be thinking now this is great, this is just what I need, low overheads, no sloppy staff, work from wherever I choose. But there is a problem. While there are virtual millionaires on second life. Their virtual business supports a real life business and vice-a-versa.

So what does this mean, well there will be any number of businesses out there who have dipped there toe in the internet water to see what is on offer. If you really want to make that website pay for itself along with your internet connection and computers there are a number of things you will have to do.

First it is about getting as many links as possible pointing to your website. This is done by interacting and commenting in communities. Web 2.0 now offers users the chance to do traditional business but with new technology. The problem with this is that is not very well understood in general by people over 35. So the boss of your local taxi company, accountant etc does not really know what a blog is, or a virtual business etc. Now if they do not know, how can anyone expect it to be taken seriously in the company ranks. Of course you will have your office junior who will have a virtual girlfriend, do virtual sports, already spend a large percentage of his money on the internet and related hardware etc. While the rest of the your staff will struggle with an email attachment that the virus scanner has disallowed because it was told that it is possible for a photo to have a virus in it. Yes it is possible but in the whole of my 12 year IT career I have never come across it. Given that almost 50+ percent of photos on the internet are JPEGS. It is a threat but a low threat and one that we can live with. One cannot really compare it to the risk of not getting your work done for the client and the time it would involve to check every photo.

So a balanced sensible approached is needed for work and business security so it can work at an optimum. No longer can staff say “Oh I do not understand” when a web page fails to load and the message on the screen reads your internet connection is on available at this time due to maintenance work. Involving your company on the internet is fundamentally about involving your employees. We do seminars about web 2.0 but it has to come from the top down. I suggest that smaller companies get the youngest employees to tell them what they know about the internet. This will serve two purposes one you see just what the internet can do, and two you will have a starting point to building an online presence for your company.

ideas, Management, sales

How to Get Lower Priced Petrol?

See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it

We are hitting 123.9 a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying 2.00 a ltr. Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the ‘don’t buy petrol on a certain   day campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn’t 
continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT,whoever
thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.

Please read it and join in!

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us  to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take  aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place
not sellers. With the price of petrol going up more each day, we  consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the  price of petrol come down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not
purchasing their Petrol! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here’s the idea:

For the rest of this year DON’T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.
If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It’s really simple to do!!

Now, don’t wimp out at this point… keep reading and I’ll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send it  to  at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)… and those 300 send it to at  least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) … and so on, by the time the
message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached  over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and
pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it… ..

THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That’s all.(and  not buy at ESSO/BP) How long would all that take? If each of us  sends this email out to ten more people within one day of receipt,
all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the  next 8days!!! Acting together we can make a difference . If this makes
sense to you, please pass this message on.

PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE   RANGE 

It’s easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your  petrol at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc. i.e.  boycott BP and Esso
 

business, Management

Leadership Doing What One Says

It has been interesting week here in Great Britain, we had some local elections and the current Labour government lost a large majority of their seats. It has been interesting to watch Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour party. I had the impression that with so much experience he should be able to handle the job. It appears not with the recent blunders in government. He has not shown leadership more sort of being led by public opinion.

 

Whether one likes Tony Blair (ex Prime minister) or not at least he had some idea of what he was doing and did not pander to criticism. Leadership is about Leading and ultimately to greater things.