Given this seasonal display of occasional, once in a lifetime, global warming/cooling, normal behaviour it set me to wondering why any business is still without a decent business continuity plan and what lessons we can learn from the world around us.

Lesson one has to be to expect the unexpected and plan to adapt.  The snow and ice we have seen recently has stopped some companies in their tracks whilst others have continued to deliver as though nothing had happened.  Last year following a brief snow storm I surveyed a number of haulage companies about their snow preparations.  Here is a selection of answers:

• We delivered in Devon but couldn’t get over the border to Cornwall

• We delivered in Cornwall but Devon was too dangerous

• We give everything to a courier and I assume they delivered

• We couldn’t get out but phoned all clients to check if they were short of supplies and arranged for other companies to deliver to those who were running out

• We sent our drivers out with a blanket and a thermos flask and instructions to turn back if it got too slippery

I know which of those companies I would have wanted to be a client of and to work for!  Hopefully the worst of the winter weather is over so we have several months to spend some time thinking about winter weather and how we can overcome it for the safety of our staff & clients and the benefit of the business.  Um – thinking of that long hot summer ahead – what challenges will that throw up for our transport systems?

For more information on Business Continuity Services please contact Alison Griffiths (Gerranium).

Alison is a member of the BSI committee which is responsible for the Business Continuity Standard.

There’s a saying in business that goes like this, “If you want to succeed, identify a problem and solve it.” Heard that one before? You probably have. When you identify a problem and offer a solution, you also put yourself in the position that you now have a vested interest in being right. So remember, as you read on, that “I would say that wouldn’t I?” All I ask is 2 things.

1. Keep an open mind.
2. Share your views with me. Let’s have a debate about this.

If schools are doing more than ever before, but employers continue to complain, the problem has to be one of the following:

• The wrong issues are being addressed.
• The right issues are being addressed but the training is wrong.
• The training is right, but there’s too little of it.

I am firmly of the opinion that the third one is where the problem lies. Let me draw an analogy. Let’s say it’s your kid’s G.C.S.E. year. During the course of a parents’ evening, you are told, “we will make sure that, during the next 12 months, your son/daughter gets at least one lesson in each subject.” “One lesson?” you say, “One lesson?”  “No need to worry,” you are told, “the teachers are of the highest standard and your child is very bright.” Would you feel reassured? But this is how we approach employability training. Whenever I take part in mock interview sessions, teachers always tell me how grateful they are for the advice I shared with their students and how much the students enjoyed the experience. It gives you a warm fuzzy feeling to be appreciated. But these kids are 15 to 16. Many will go on to university. It might be another 5 years before they have an opportunity to put these tips into practice.

If you want your child to get a really good grade in maths, don’t you insist on the following?

• The maths teacher is a good maths teacher.
• The maths teacher is there for you son/daughter right up to the time of the exam.
• The maths teacher is approachable, so your child can go to him and ask him to explain quadratic equations again. The teacher should be, not just a good trainer, but also an excellent mentor.

Here’s another analogy. Let’s say you wanted your child to learn to swim, or ride a horse. Would you simply throw him into the water, put her on a horse and hope for the best; or would you pay (now there’s a dirty word) for professional coaching. What about learning to drive? Would it make sense to employ a full time professional who teaches driving skills and nothing else, someone who teaches swimming and nothing else, someone who teaches horse riding and nothing else? Isn’t that what you would do? If you want to be outstanding, at anything, you employ a specialist coach. Ask Usain Bolt. Ask Venus and Serena Williams. So, tell me, where are the professional coaches who will devote themselves to  our young people, making sure that they gain the employment worthy of their talents and who will help them again and again and again, if necessary, until they do?

That, my friends, is the missing ingredient.

For more information on Life Coaching please contact Barry Jackson (BWJ Enterprise), accredited coach for effective communication skill development and self-improvement, based in Gloucestershire, UK.

Precise solutions, cutting through the jargon
and straight to the point!

Based in mid Devon our team deliver professional IT solutions to small and medium sized businesses across the South West.

From design to conception we can source, develop, install and support your IT requirements (on demand or as an ongoing IT partner).

We also offer in-house development services; bespoke CRM systems, content driven web presences and mobile applications.

We believe each client is unique and take pride in delivering a service that suits your business, microsoft partners and mac users, whether it be for Windows or Linux.   

We are committed to charging a fair price for a far from ordinary level of service, find out today by taking advantage of our free IT review of your business issue.

CALL US: 01363 881 406

EMAIL US: via the ‘Contact Us’ tab

VISIT US: www.bowitsolutions.co.uk

Featured Business 15th March 2010 in The National Pages UK Business Directory

Domain names are used in various networking contexts and application-specific naming and addressing purposes. They are organized in subordinate levels (subdomains) of the DNS root domain, which is nameless. The first-level set of domain names are the top-level domains (TLDs), including the generic top-level domains (gTLDs), such as the prominent domains com, net and org, and the country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). Below these top-level domains in the DNS hierarchy are the second-level and third-level domain names that are typically open for reservation by end-users that wish to connect local area networks to the Internet, run web sites, or create other publicly accessible Internet resources. The registration of these domain names is usually administered by domain name registrars who sell their services to the public.

Individual Internet host computers use domain names as host identifiers, or hostnames. Hostnames are the leaf labels in the domain name system usually without further subordinate domain name space. Hostnames appear as a component in Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) for Internet resources such as web sites (e.g., en.wikipedia.org).

Domain names are also used as simple identification labels to indicate ownership or control of a resource. Such examples are the realm identifiers used in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), the DomainKeys used to verify DNS domains in e-mail systems, and in many other Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs).

Domain names are often referred to simply as domains and domain name registrants are frequently referred to as domain owners, although domain name registration with a registrar does not confer any legal ownership of the domain name, only an exclusive right of use.

Information courtesy of Wikipedia

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The Linux kernel is released under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2), plus proprietary licenses for some controversial binary blobs, and is developed by contributors worldwide. Day-to-day development takes place on the Linux kernel mailing list.

The Linux kernel was initially conceived and created by Finnish computer science student Linus Torvalds in 1991. Linux rapidly accumulated developers and users who adopted code from other free software projects for use with the new operating system. The Linux kernel has received contributions from thousands of programmers. Many Linux distributions have been released based upon the Linux kernel.

Information courtesy of Wikipedia

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Expert copywriting for UK businesses

Since you’re reading this, you’ve probably got a product or service to sell? And you’ve probably Googled “expert copywriting” because you want to connect with your customers?

No problem.  That’s what we do at EarthMonkey – we’re a creative powerhouse! We write copy, we design and we bombard you with choccie biscuits as we chew over your marketing stuff and hammer it into shape.

But who are we exactly?
Well some people call us ‘creative types’.  Or ‘UK SEO copywriters’.  Or even ‘copyriting experts’ if their spelling’s not up to scratch!  But we like people to call us what we’ve been for the last 3 years: ‘that bunch of writers and designers with monkeys all over their website…’

So - are we the copywriting, design & marketing people for you?
That depends.  But if you want a captivating piece that screams at your target market, the answer’s yes.  We’ll always have something hiding up our sleeve. 

From sales letters to SEO web copy, from newsletters to big glossy brochures, we’ll turn our hand to anything – just as long as it gets you business!

To discuss your project,

CALL US ON: 029 2026 3613

EMAIL US: via the ‘Contact Us’ tab

VISIT: www.earthmonkey.co.uk

Then sign up for our newsletter. It’s free…and indispensable!

Featured Business 13th March 2010 in The National Pages UK Business Directory

H. floresiensis, which lived from approximately 100,000 to 12,000 before present, has been nicknamed hobbit for its small size, possibly a result of insular dwarfism. H. floresiensis is intriguing both for its size and its age, being a concrete example of a recent species of the genus Homo that exhibits derived traits not shared with modern humans. In other words, H. floresiensis share a common ancestor with modern humans, but split from the modern human lineage and followed a distinct evolutionary path. The main find was a skeleton believed to be a woman of about 30 years of age. Found in 2003 it has been dated to approximately 18,000 years old. The living woman was estimated to be one meter in height, with a brain volume of just 380 cm³ (considered small for a chimpanzee and less than a third of the H. sapiens average of 1400 cm³).

However, there is an ongoing debate over whether H. floresiensis is indeed a separate species. Some scientists presently believe that H. floresiensis was a modern H. sapiens suffering from pathological dwarfism. This hypothesis is supported in part, because some modern humans who live on Flores, the island where the skeleton was found, are pygmies. This coupled with pathological dwarfism could indeed create a hobbit-like human. The other major attack on H. floresiensis is that it was found with tools only associated with H. sapiens.

Information courtesy of Wikipedia

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