You may be wondering “what is this all about?” Everyone is talking about the Heartbleed bug and we are being told to change all our passwords. There is so much noise about this latest security vulnerability that it is causing some level of panic amongst IT professionals and productivity loss as people divert focus from their primary activities in an effort to understand their vulnerability. Continue reading
The all-encompassing cloud will come of age in 2014 – The age of the consumer
The idea of life, the universe and everything being in one place… the cloud is here to stay – shadows and all.
It’s a bold statement. Let me explain…
Back in 1999 a theory emerged that suggested in the future everything would connect. The future is here.
This is a notion we are going to hear more and more about in the coming year… This is the idea of ‘IoT’. The Internet of Everything. There is an excellent explanation on Wikipedia, but in a nutshell, IoT says everything we do at work, at play and in our sleep; All the organisations we sign-up to, the clubs we join, the places we shop, the things we consume, the websites we visit etc. etc. etc. are all joined-up because they are all identifiable and recognised by a huge central computer. All this data being drawn into a black hole and then blasted out again in a billion different directions. Continue reading
How the BBC managed to rain the Mandela’s parade
Technology is shrinking the globe and flooding us with information. Technology enriches our lives. But we are all still at the mercy of human error.
I was moved by the Ceremony to celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela. I watched the build-up to the celebration of Mandela’s life and the unfolding ceremony held in that rain drenched stadium whilst sitting at my desk at work on my Mac. As I watched the BBC coverage, the twitter feeds and social media responses which accompanied it I was reminded of the first time I had watched such an event in this way… and how far we have come in cyberspace. Continue reading
Chancellor needs to stay on track in the autumn statement
Being bullish in the China shop, being restrained at the dispatch box and opening up the market to ‘peer to peer’ investment models… All eyes on Osborne.
Remember, remember the 5th of December. We maybe in the depths of winter and the leaves have all fallen off the trees but this Thursday is a golden opportunity for the UK economy when the Chancellor delivers his Autumn Statement – hopefully something UK business will find memorable for all the right reasons. Business needs the Chancellor to make it feel warm with confidence not dazzled with fireworks.
I urge the chancellor to avoid using the time on his feet in the house to crow about the economic upside of the past few months. True, he has more money to spend than he did at this time last year but this is not the time for lighting the blue touch paper and standing back. He needs to be measured and in some ways restrained. Continue reading
Awards, rewards and actually making things better
I am all for recognising people’s achievements. But it is what they have done not how they are rewarded which really counts
Good luck and best wishes to all the contenders for the IAB Annual Dinner Awards at the ICC in Birmingham tomorrow night.
Although the Institute of Asian Business is firmly grounded in its origins in and around the Pakistani Asian business community in Birmingham it’s achievements and aspirations reflect a countrywide mood of all Asian businesses. Continue reading
How Transputec put itself in the IP EXPO picture and turned selfies into business leads
Sometimes we get mesmerised by the power of the technology at our fingertips… mixing the old ways with the new is often the best way to communicate
In my last blog I made a lot of noise about the importance of feedback. I often do. It is the oxygen every company needs to stay alive and grow.
The closer we are to our customers and their needs the better. That may sound a little like I am stating the obvious but it is so easy for big, busy, bustling companies to lose touch with the nitty gritty of their business…the small details which make up the big picture of what a customer really needs to be happy. That small talk around the meeting table often throws up the snippets of information which can turn a business lead into a customer or a customer into a supporter spreading the word to others… It’s all about understanding what makes them really tick. But, of course, when you filter table talk through the technology of social media you have a very powerful tool for communicating feedback and reacting to it.
Feedback is precious and a golden opportunity to innovate
If you read between the lines news from the rare metals commodities markets might have you thinking the march of technology has ground to a halt. A recent piece in the Financial Times flagged a collapse in the price of obscure metals to their lowest level in years. Ruthenium, Iridium and Rhodium are all taking a nose dive of the world markets. These are three of those ‘hard to get at’ metals sitting in a deserted corner of the periodic table which are vital components in the machines which run our lives. Computer hard drives; smart phone screens and flat screen TVs, to name a small few, all depend on tiny slivers of these metals to make our world go around.
Britain’s Cloud Atlas will ignore geography and closes the gap
Building railways and houses is one way to generate wealth across the nation but technology is probably better at refreshing the parts other initiatives cannot reach
As the Labour Party conference puts away it’s bucket and spade and departs Brighton and the south coast it was the ebb and flow of opinions about the perceived North/South divide which struck me most about this year’s seaside gathering.
Ed Balls began the week questioning whether funds for the HS2 rail link could be better spent elsewhere on housing and Harriet Harmon harped on about the need for a cost benefit analysis on the super-fast, super-costly project. Meanwhile, Maria Eagle reinforced Labour’s commitment to the scheme. But they have all got it wrong? Narrowing the wealth gap and closing the North/South divide is not a really a physical or geographical challenge. It is technology which will make the difference and close these so-called economic gaps – not billions of pounds on rolling stock. The way to connect the country rests in the cloud – and I don’t mean more internal flights.