Martyn Proctor's Blog

Recession

2009-02-20T23:55:00.002Z

OK, so the market isn't feeling so good - but the media hardly helps here! Even the dear ol' Beeb were going on about even more job losses - another 450 somewhere (oh, any by the way, someone's creating 7,000 new jobs as well). Sounds like net good news to me. Does the media have to sensationalise everything? I can live with it if I listen to local commercial radio or read the Sun, but I expect the BBC and the broadsheets (as were) to be objective and let me form my own opinions.

But yes, times are hard out there - but remember many companies will use this as a smokescreen to review their cost base and offload cost (people) without being noticed. What to do? Same as ever in my book - understand your clients' needs, adapt your proposition, and get out there and stop thinking yourself in to depression.

My business, su53, isn't doing badly - and we've repositioned to move faster, accept smaller work packages from clients, adapted propositions towards cost reduction - and targeted taking on business that larger less flexible less dynamic businesses are missing out on. We'll see how we fare....

Time Travel brain-ache thoughts

2008-02-18T21:21:00.003Z

"Anything is possible" I always say - how about this:-

The giant atom-smasher being built at the European centre for nuclear research, Cern, near Geneva, could create the conditions where it might be possible to travel backwards or forwards in time. If true, this would mark the first time in human history that a time machine has been created. If travelling back in time is possible at all, it should in theory be only possible to travel back to the point when the first time machine was created and so this would mean that time travellers from the future would be able to visit us. As an article in this week's New Scientist suggests, this year – 2008 – could become "year zero" for time travel.

Is this really a serious proposition?
The New Scientist article points out that there are many practical problems and theoretical paradoxes to time travel. "Nevertheless, the slim possibility remains that we will see visitors from the future in the next year," says the magazine says, rather provocatively. Apart from the practicalities, what's to stop time travel?

The biggest theoretical problem is known as the time-travel paradox. If someone travels back in time and does something to prevent their own existence, then how can time travel be possible? The classic example is the time traveller who kills his grandfather before his own father is conceived. Cosmologists, renowned for their imaginative ingenuity, have come up with a way round this paradox. They have suggested that there is not one universe but many – so many that every possible outcome of any event actually takes place. In this multiple universe, or "multiverse" model, a woman who goes back in time to murder her own granny can get way with it because in the universe next door the granny lives to have the daughter who becomes the murderer's mother.

So will we one day be able to travel into the future?

Yes...

* There is nothing in the laws of physics to prohibit it, and events in Geneva are pointing the way and could be a first step

* In physics, so the saying goes, if nothing is prohibited, it must happen at some point

* All we need to do is to work out how to manipulate black holes and wormholes, and away we go

The wanderer returns

2008-02-10T23:42:00.000Z

I am pleased to confirm that I'm back and blogging once again. Busy 2nd half last year but thankfully the light at the end of the tunnel didn't turn out to be a train... So 2008 promises new ideas in the world of SAP Security & GRC and running a small but growing business (employees 8 and 9 start next week), new ideas around merging two quite different sets of kids into one 7 bed farmhouse (see picture) and avoiding anything to do with Victoria's horse Dobbin. When she gets it.

PDAs

2007-09-25T20:26:00.000Z

Well the XDA Exec has gone (hooray - rubbish battery life, awful phone, absolute brick [breeze block] but nice keyboard) and in comes Blackberry 8800. Nice. Still think Palm beats it for PDA functionality by a mile, and I'll take on ANYONE with Graffiti v thumby keyboards or predictive text. Victoria has the Perl - very stylish but RUBBISH for typing, don't do it! I do miss the realtime MS Synching - Blackberry is way behind - flaky and manual. And no camera! How will I survive? (easily for now, roll on next generation - gettimg close methinks. Wifi on new Blackberry sounds good, if the battery can cope with that as well as the inbuilt GPS). Overall, it does what I want and is easy to use, and has fewer faults than anything else I've tried. Somehow still doesn't wow me though.

Virtually Working?

2007-07-12T22:43:00.000Z

So, I posted about this ages ago, but time, technology, services and thinking have moved on...
So now I have a job again, and a vaguely normal life (lacking in time and boat but thats another story for another blog!) I thought it would be good to reflect on my virtual office set-up now it's matured and services have come, gone or settled in my browser...

Email
I use Gmail @ home, I've got my "broadband attached email account" picked up in there and the email from my domains and my gmail account all splatted into one simple, but functional light email client in Gmail....

Calendar
So, I use Google Calendar... it's simple, effective and accessible.. I get daily agenda emails telling my what I'm meant to do etc.

I use Plaxo to synchronise my Google Calendar to my Outlook 2007 Calendar at work so I know what the hell I'm meant to be doing work and socially...

Tasks
At work I use Outlook 2007, at Home I use Remember The Milk, Google Calendar puts the time based tasks into it and therefore Plaxo replicates them to the on-line Plaxo Task list and Synchs them into my Google Calendar.

Contacts
From Outlook 2007 to Plaxo, autosynched oh yeh and I use LinkedIn and that gets synched into Outlook (and hence to my work Blackberry) etc so thats covered

Docs / Spreadsheets
Work it's Office 2007 - favourite functionality so far is Smart Art (or Smart Arse Art as I call it) and saving as a PDF... at home I use Google Docs/Spread, again functional and the integration is good...

Messaging
Eek, this is where it gets messy:

@Work - MS Office Communicator + GTalk (embedded in my iGoogle page) + Skype
@Home - GTalk + Skype + Live Messenger (a lot less now)
@Everywhere - Jaiku + Twitter + Facebook for random adhoc messaging, presence and personal insights
Music
iTunes to manage the music on my ipod video 30gb
Last.FM for my music exploration and on-line or random listening (like now!)

News / RSS
Google reader is packed with 162 subscriptions, iGoogle for summary stuff and I use FaceBook for those personal "news"

And well a lot of this is crosspopulated so Jaiku aggregates blog posts, flickr uploads, twitter and music from last.fm and then this gets pushed to Facebook which also has some google reader shared items (also on my blog), I can twitter a task to Remmeber The Milk and it appears there and then gets synched into Plaxo..

Wow, it seems messy but the number of "things" is reducing and I'm settling into a rhythm and a subset of tools that give me what I want twith the flexibility to add more..
let me know what you do...?

software strategy strategy applications strategy innovation software innovation

Build A Sales Machine: "Manufacturing" New Business

2007-05-20T13:56:00.000Z

Link-> Build A Sales Machine: "Manufacturing" New Business

Sound sales management thinking here from Aaron in the US. Nice ideas, cogently expressed - perhaps a useful checklist for experienced sales managers, or a useful insight for those getting started in that role. Kinda wish I'd written it first!

Lichfield - a citizen's view

2007-05-20T13:14:00.000Z

I think Lichfield is a fine place - with few downsides. Let me share my thoughts on this sunny and peaceful Sunday morning...

Good

Fantastic cathedral www.lichfield-cathedral.org/
Great city architecture and history www.lichfielddc.gov.uk/site/scripts/documents.php?categoryID=1106
Excellent theatre (the Garrick) www.lichfieldgarrick.com
Location - M6/M6 Toll easily takes you North/South/East/West
Great train service! (provided Virgin don't wreck it with new timetables)www.lichfield2london.org.uk/petition.php
Airfield nearby (Tatenhill - www.tatenhill.com)
Loads of good restaurants (Qmin/Eastern Eye for Indian, Ruby or Lee Garden for Chinese, Thrales for English, Chandlers for brasserie, Pizza by Goli for family Italian, Ma Ma Thai for... well you work it out! http://www.siamcornerthai.co.uk/siamlitchfield.asp)
A few superb pubs (Queen's Head for top real ale and character, Nelson at Chorley or Plough at Huddlesford for country pubs)
A nice park (Beacon Park)
Good festival www.lichfieldfestival.org
Shops ! Waitrose; M&S Food Hall; Salloways jewellers; Tudor cafe
and a nice new hospital all of our own...

Not so good

Awful planning consents in the 80's/90's trashed too much of the City - getting better now
New build housing density much too high - building problems for the future?
Too many chains of naff teen alco-pubs and consequent Saturday night problems
Not enough political challenge to the Council
Over exposure of our MP, Michael Fabricant, smiling into the camera everywhere

Anyone else have a view?

Powerpoint Presentations are Dead...

2007-05-17T21:41:00.000Z

...long live the conversation and reputation....

But if you need to sweat some more value out of those powerpoint assets then try SlideShare

Staffing - Permanent v Contractors v Associates?

2007-05-04T19:48:00.001Z

Associate employees.... I've an instinct that this approach to resourcing could be ideal. People can work flexibly, build their own profile and value, and I as employer get flexible resources levels and low HR overheads - and avoid the headaches and risks in permanent employees. It's different to contractors as I'll go back to the same people, we'll get to know each other, I'll invest in training and knowledge exchange, and care for my best associates so they come back. Does that all work or am I idealistic? Perhaps they won't be quite as loyal or committed to my business growth as permanent staff?

I'll let you know...!

The "new" digital age

2007-04-09T06:14:00.000Z

The thing about exponential growth is that we all think there is one "take off" point. But of course, that merely depends on where you look at the curve from. It takes off more and more - that's what exponential means. In the late 80's we saw the exponential take off of PC's and the internet. The 1st real digital age perhaps. Then around 2000 we saw age 2 - e-commerce and the standard that everyone used the internet - it's not special anymore (amazing yes, special no). So perhaps now we're entering the 3rd age - that of collective consciousness. I explained this to my partner Victoria - a very astute solicitor - thus: human knowledge and ability used to get driven from small groups of bright people physically networking, usually in universities, constrained by how many people could work together. The 3rd digital age of applied blogs, RSS feeds, intelligent search engines, etc now means that constraint has gone and that millions of bright people can apply their intellect, and absorb tangential & lateral thinking, as they focus on their intellectual challenge. That is scarily powerful.

I find the control of this fascinating. You might say there is none. But actually the entire community's collective ethics are the rules. There are loads of examples of the collective mindset bringing down unacceptable behaviour. It's a bit like an updated set of 10 e-Commandments, but proposed by the community itself.

Phew. And this is just our view of the exponential curve today. It would be way beyond our parents yet our children will wonder why we dawdled along like this.

The thing about useful stuff is: Zoho Meeting - it just keeps getting better

2007-03-30T21:46:00.000Z

The thing about useful stuff is: Zoho Meeting - it just keeps getting better says John Wilson. Blimey, that looks dead handy says me. But how on earth do you work out which whizz bang technology to adopt? I've got a business growing fast, needing 24 hours a day from the management team (and some dosh, should anyone fancy), and I can't see why we can't run it all in a virtual and low overhead environment. OK, occasional social sessions will be well worthwhile, but City based glass & chrome office blocks? (Haven't yet found a client who says "yes, charge me double so you get a nice view of the Houses of Parliament")

But I haven't time to specify requirements, validate software, consider its future proofness, etc. And anyway, my needs will be different in a few months probably. What to do, eh? Perhaps need someone clever and trusted to do a virtual business set-up site reviewing the best essential 6 functional things you need to do business safely.