Friday, July 21, 2006

Shut Down

Well it will be shut down for a while as I’m going away on holiday and not taking the laptop and trying to avoid any place that have networks!

Curious isn’t it that the Americans take “vacations”. That sounds rather “professional” as if they’re going on some form of self-improvement or doing something charitable (if spending US dollars in England can count!). By comparison “holiday” sounds a bit 1950’s to me, it does sound like a “jolly” - which is only right, as that is what it should be, time to re-charge the batteries and put a fresh perspective on things. I rather like the French idea of shutting down the entire country and disappearing off to enjoy three weeks of fun. So back late August with fresh inspiration!

Friday, July 14, 2006

Why is it so expensive to leave this country?

I know this start is a conversation killer but….I watched a great TV programme yesterday. It was about David Walliams' heroic efforts in swimming the English Channel for Sport Relief. End of that plug.

It did strike me that swimming the channel is actually quite a good way of evading modern-day piracy, which is what ferry companies seems to be doing to us on this little island. Why is it so expensive to leave this country? While technology increases and lowers costs, prices creep down and inflation is low. Yet it still costs an arm and a leg to take a short hop on a boat. You’d think a sea-faring nation we’d be able to do better that that!

Unless you have a PhD in reading timetables and an almost telepathic knowledge of arcane bargain-buys, coupled with the sheer tenacity of endurance to arrive at a ferry port on the south coast at 2am, then the reality is a ferry ticket is the price of a small house. That’s without factoring in the size of your car, height of roof rack and top box, inside leg size and hair colour. Want to travel across the water quickly and easily - No chance, Sit in line and wait. I thought the tunnel may shrink the cost and compete with rip-off ferries, not a bit of it, they both increase their prices – it must be the most expensive per mile trip, aside from the Virgin flight to outer space, and at least they don’t charge extra for a return ticket!

Swimming the channel. Suddenly seems like an easy option to me.

Friday, July 07, 2006

wimbledon priority week

So in the same week that it was officially a heatwave in merry ol’ blighty, Wimbledon has been stopped due to rain. Um...sounds like a typical English summer to me!

Interestingly heatwaves are like priorities – there are different levels of them. As anyone who has ever called a help desk will have learnt to their cost. “Priority sir, certainly Sir” - Blithely you think you’re now near the top of the queue. You’re not even on the list. Well you are but below “clean the bird cage out”. Make sure you find out what the levels are, not only may there be priority levels above priority one, but there may be grades of priority one. Oh just call a help desk and find out!

Anyway heatwaves are the same. In this case Monday was a heatwave category three. The only thing more serious was category four – an emergency. Actually as we know now the only thing worse is the weather changing and it being hot and wet as opposed to hot and dry. Well at least I mowed the lawn (priority one last weekend).

Monday, July 03, 2006

twenty-four seven

Well the internet is 24/7, but I’m not, so had the weekend off and here I am again Monday morning. I’m rather in agreement with my friend, who provides technical support, as he says, 24/7 between the hours of 9-5!

We need our downtime and this obsession with having everything available all the time is self-defeating. As we rely more and more on unlimited access to everything from supermarkets to service help, it creates an unrealistic demand on ourselves and on each other. What started out as flexible working soon transforms into the modern equivalent of shift work. That useful tool, the mobile becomes a slavish necessity. People start to never switch off, and then find they’re stressed out. And in reality this “always-on” isn’t that great. Sure the shops are open, but then they only get one or two deliveries a day, so all the fresh bread is sold out by the time you get there at 10pm!

So what are we gonna do about it? Well I for one am moving my daily blog to a weekly one, freeing up my time for some more “quality time” with myself. Try it, be selfish, don’t answer that email, switch off that mobile. Ah bliss, the peace.

Friday, June 30, 2006

nearly the end of the week - tdf time!

So it’s nearly the end of the week, and I’m looking forward to the start of the Tour de France, starting this Saturday, and ending as always on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, July 23rd. The tdf is truly one of those great sporting spectacles, full of drama and passion. Somewhat marred by the plethora of accusations and counter-defences about drugs and doping.

The cycling news is full of names, new and old, from false accusations like Lance Armstrong (7 times winner of the tdf), David Millar (admitted charges and back after 2 years) to Manolo Saiz, the cycling team director at the centre of a doping storm in Spain, who has decided to quit. And the latest, just this morning, that Ullrich (this years possible tour winner) is now out. Yet it’s an old story, with new twists. Being of an age where I can remember the shock of finding out that Ben Johnson (US athlete) cheated to win the 100m olympics; I’m always disappointed about those who try and lie and cheat their way out – drug-taking may be one thing, lying about it is another thing entirely. So we’ve seen the crocodile tears of team and individuals, yet I can’t help feeling for Tyler Hamilton, a renowned cyclist, who answers his accusers direct on his website (see links).

I have absolutely no idea about the science of the accusations, the fact is that all his appeals have fallen on deaf ears, and he won’t be competing at this years tdf. The trouble with Tyler is that I, for all my human frailties, really believe him. He just plain walks talks and sounds honest and truthful. I’ve never met the guy and like people on the TV you see in the street – ooh don’t they look different, much taller, shorter etc – I have no real idea. But I do have an instinct, that he’s just downright honest, and for those of us who watched him cycle on during the tdf with a shattered collar bone (and ive had one - let me tell you I couldn’t walk much less cycle up mountains like he did), I’m in awe. I would really like to hear black and white argument that the cheats are, and the rest aren’t, and accusations are just that until proven. With poor old Tyler he’s being trashed in public. I just believe in Tyler and think there’s been a mistake. Trouble is we don’t really know. But a common dose of humanity suggests we try and believe in our sporting heroes, and for that reason I will still be around watching the TV and enjoying the TDF for the next 3 weeks. And Tyler and Jan (Ullrich), I’m real sorry you are not there.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Networking Event

I attended the first networking event of the UK’s most popular online business support community (UK Business Forums), held just outside the dynamic new city of Milton Keynes. Organised and hosted by Richard Osborne, it gave this “virtual” community a chance to meet up for the first time and to generally “network”. The day before the event we received the list of attendees, an interesting mix, from accountants to web designers, from business support organisations, consultants, charities, toy and joke shops to an eclectic range of professional services including supercar hire, and what I think must reflect the international nature of online communities, someone from “Bulgaria Next Big Thing”.

On attending (well signposted organisers!) we had corridor interaction, messing around with badges and trying to find people to talk to. Then ushered into the dining area we sat down at tables and Richard did a brief introduction. Surprisingly there were far more people from outside of the online community, so I’m not sure what that says about the UKBF community, maybe just that being online, distances don’t matter, whereas for actual meetings it does. A nice touch was that we were asked to move around the tables during the meal changeovers, which did provide us the opportunity to really network – as it was not co-ordinated we sometimes ended up with people we had just met with, but generally that worked well. Even better at each table there was a facilitator to move things along, this was a good approach, although some facilitators clearly had more experience and were more adept at this activity than others.

We had a good guide to “networking for novices” by Michael Markham, from Stanair, I found it really entertaining and useful. Michael made it interactive and gave some time for the “elevator pitch” from selected participants, and he did it all without running overheads or powerpoints. The man just stood, and talked (well, he moved around quite a lot as well), great show, thanks Michael. He provided time for us to rush around collecting as many business cards as possible (the winner got one of the elevator pitches) and lots of brilliant tips on how to network. A really thought provoking one for me was to ask “how can I know if someone I’m talking to would be a good prospect for you?” . Learn to ask that, learn how to answer that, and I think your networking performance will increase wonderfully. For that alone it was worth attending. And as we left people were buzzing and swapping business cards and chatting so all in all a good event, thanks Richard and Michael. And thanks to the UKBF, more @ http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/f

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

carbon copy all

Its interesting to view the response from the recent networking event i took part in last friday. It was aimed at a bunch of us interactive types so youd think we'd be quite good at following up - after all it was about NETWORKING.

First, no-one hurriedly got on their PDA and tipped us an email (well maybe they did but didnt include me) late friday. Some enterprising sorts actually did some stuff over the weekend, well done them, but then I wasnt around to get it til Monday, when my inbox was pretty full anyway!


No, most managed to get thro' the weekend and start thinking about it Monday - as did I.
I sent the same missive with a few variations one by one. Thats polite isnt it? Replies varied from a mass email response (great to meet you whoever you where) to a "proper" reply. Nice one you know who you are!

By Tuesday things got desperate with the late-comers either mass mailing us - who wants to see loads of email addresses in the "To" list. Besides which, I dont want people seeing my email mass mailed around. At least learn bcc guys! Worse still by this time we were getting the corporate war & peace (this from small business people) with endless attached pdf's (yeh right im gonna download and read that, thanks) and assorted messages with attached jpg's png's and doc and pdf's - any more three letter acronyms available people? Now its eased off, still waiting for a mega unique tailored offer email. But then maybe I should look at my own. Off i go.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Getting Started

Given that even the BBC are doing blogs, albeit it about the world cup, it must be time for this particular marketing animal to develop his own blog sphere, so here it is.

Oh No, writer's block! More Later.