An interesting new publication from Google drifted past today, the way these things tend to do as you surf around the interweb.
The first issue is all about data – how it’s exploded in the past few years, how we’re going to manage that technically, and how we can live with the near-endless volume of “stuff” at our fingertips.
It’s not a low-budget production – a good read and beautifully designed.
Tags: books and media, Google
Interesting to see that it’s possible to apply for a court injunction to prevent unfavourable references to oneself, and then also to have the existence of that injunction kept secret.
We could go round in circles on the fine print over to whom the injunction is relevant (the gentlemen of the press) and how they would have been made aware of its existence (telepathy?), but if there had been any doubt then this surely shows how far from reality some folk have drifted.
I was at a seminar on Social Media yesterday and it was made quite clear that the law regarding defamation applies every bit as much online as in traditional media. I’d therefore like to make it clear that I am drawing your attention to the Herald’s report about the question which John Hemmings MP asked in Parliament, and I’m not referring at all in any way even slightly to Sir Fred Goodwin’s astonishingly arrogant attempt to step away from the mess he’s made of a once-proud bank.
Tags: silly fools
Good to see that the BBC have started a new series of The Bottom Line with Evan Davies on Radio 4. I’ve subscribed to the podcasts for a couple of years and I listen when I’m travelling to work.
It’s a business discussion programme with three guests who are usually senior executives with some interesting viewpoints. It’s good to hear how successful people grow and manage their organisations; very occasionally a guest will come across as a complete prat…
Sometimes the topics aren’t relevant to our line of work at all but I usually learn something useful. The best guests say what they think and don’t seem to feel the need to follow a party line, and it’s surprising and refreshing when someone at the top of a household name company takes that approach.
Find out more here; listen on iPlayer, download the mp3s, or subscribe to the podcast to get each episode automatically.
Interesting post on the BBC this morning – should you be able to choose your own computer, at the company’s expense, so that you can work remotely? “Self-service computing,” as someone called it.
The underlying theory is good – keep the company data safe, secure and under company control while allowing colleagues to choose the computer system they want to work at – but oh dear, there will be all sorts of grief if everyone goes away and buys whatever they think is best.
Firstly, not everyone understands or wants to understand the technology – what spec do you really need? And what will PC Planet or a call-centre or a website try to sell you? The knowledge gap can be expensive.
There are huge benefits from having company standard-issue equipment – for one thing, sharing of knowledge and the user experience (“how do I get it to do this…?”) – and you only have to find the answer to a problem once and you can apply it to everyone’s workspace. Supposing your home computer is good, and well set-up, and you have the three-year support agreement sugegsted in the BBC article, who is going to sort out your special two-grand Sonajitsudello PC with the huge screen, the forty-quid printer, and the cheap broadband with customer service from a call centre five thousand miles away at five-to-five on a Friday when that tender absolutely has to go out?
This all sounds a bit half-baked – a crude cost-cutting exercise which is only going to give pain somewhere down the road. The possible liabilities where a solicitor, for example, cannot respond to clients or negotiations in a timely manner because the self-selected computer system is out of service are just too messy to contemplate.
Enabling remote working for resilience, flexibility, and security is absolutely a beneficial thing to do if it’s appropriate for your approach to business, but keep control over the systems being used or your colleagues will resent the extra responsibility and it will become an expensive nightmare to manage.
Tags: BBC, mobile working, remote access
Just a quick post to let you know about our holiday arrangements over Christmas and New Year, as well as a few brief notes on some topical items.
We are looking forward to Christmas at 56 Hanover Street – if you’re passing by the office in the next couple of weeks then keep an eye out for our Christmas tree in the window above Starbucks (it’s the first time we’ve had one!) and by all means pop in for a cup of tea if you’d like to say hello.
Waverley Lane Holiday Arrangements for Christmas and New Year
On a related note, we are having a staff training day in our office on Thursday 16th December, and we would ask you to bear with us if we are not as available as we would like to be that day, especially in the morning.
Tags: holidays, mobile working, remote access, Xmas