Archive for July, 2006

Tribute to Friday

Friday, July 14th, 2006

Days like today keep me going. I’ve nearly finished off my big presentation, and very impressive it is too. “The web: how it’s changing, and how it’s changing everything” – how’s that for melodrama? England 408-4, the best Guardian OBO coverage in a long while, plus the new Black Heart Procession album on my lunch break. Finally managed to find an NHS dentist. A weekend of sunshine, cricket, bicep curls and levelling Paladin awaits. Good times.

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I hate Qjump

Wednesday, July 12th, 2006

Whoever ‘designed’ qjump.co.uk needs to fall off a very tall building. And then have an anvil land on their head, a la Bugs Bunny. Such an appalling website that I won’t even waste breath on explaining how it could be improved. Oh, and the bastards have charged me £52 to get to Bristol. Supersaver return? Forget it buddy, the sun’s out. Whoever privatised the rail network needs to fall off an even taller building.

What’s that? I should get a car?

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Drowning in data

Tuesday, July 11th, 2006

Recently I’ve been drowning in data – my company has been asking local entrepreneurs for their opinions on the business environment. I’ll admit that the data entry side isn’t particularly exciting, but the answers have been illuminating. I won’t go into detail because we’re still at an early stage of the analysis, and of course my company of course should be the first to publish the results, not me. However, one thing is clear. Small business owners have complaints about many things: the government, tax, councils, availability of premises, and so on. But, when asked “Would you do it all again?”, an overwhelming majority says yes.

Good for them. There’s a lot of support available, but there’s no hiding the fact that ultimately running a business is very hard work. I think it would be fascinating to compare this trend against those in ‘regular’ employment. My hunch is that if you asked the average office worker whether they’d choose the same path again, you’d get a substantially less positive result.

Data can be powerful and persuasive. It can easily drag you along in its current, and that’s something I need to be cautious of. As a species we’re notoriously bad at working with statistics and understanding probabilities. It’s why we fund anti-terrorism activities above cancer charities. It’s why we go to casinos and put everything on Red. Hell, 5% of us believe that there is a conspiracy to harm us. Daniel Gilbert talks more about this in an excellent speech at SXSW Interactive (29MB, mp3).

I really enjoy working in business support, it’s a challenging and important sector. It’s vital though (and I think our customers would agree) that we look beyond the data and turn it into action. That’s the real challenge, and it’s where the real benefit lies.

Tags: smallbusiness, sme, entrepreneur

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Turn this crazy bird around

Monday, July 3rd, 2006

It’s a bit of a shame really. I quite enjoyed the role of the naive native who, at the age of 27, had never even been on an aeroplane. I’ve just got back from Barcelona, and I’ll admit I’m not a huge fan of flying. It’s not that it’s particularly scary (I have too much faith in statistics for that), it’s more that it’s unpleasantly alien. You don’t experience g-forces in the z-axis while on the earth’s surface, and I can’t say I’m particularly fond of my head being pushed into my neck. I do hope I’ll become accustomed to it – my New York itinerary includes a 24-hour round trip. Still, there is something quite beautiful about seeing the tops of clouds for the first time, and it was of course ridiculously fast.

As for Barcelona itself, well, I’m sure you can paint your own picture. Hot, beautiful, touristy. Pickpockets and prostitution. I’d been appointed as the official Spanish speaker thanks to a decade-old GCSE. Never again. I’m thinking of Tokyo in 2007, but I’ll be damn sure to learn the language if I do.

Categories: aeroplane, flying, barcelona, holiday