Whooah Biz

Skype have just released some new packages, they are pretty cool as a long term user of Skype I can recommend them. You can make video conference personal/business calls. They also have a nice selection of telephones which are certified with their software. One of the main reasons that people use Skype is that it is cheap, very cheap to make local and international calls. You can call other Skype users free charge and Mobile phones can be called at low prices too.

Half year ago the service went though an over subscription period where the users had a less than perfect line quality and a few dropped calls, but since then it has increased it services and it now providing a top class quality service.

This what the website explains about Skype Mobile:

“If you have a mobile workforce, 3 Skypephone is the mobile they can use to stay in touch with free calls and instant messages to the office, clients, and anyone else on Skype. It’s a slim-line mobile packed with features – including Skype at the touch of a button. Travel with Skype, and have its benefits 24-7.”

Give it a go here:
Get an Unlimited World calling subscription from Skype
Call anywhere in the world for free on the 3 Skypephone

What does it mean having a presence on the internet, can you buy a office and move your staff in. Well the answer to the question is yes. For internetholics it has been well known that you can buy virtual love to real estate on line. This can take several forms, Second life for example allows you to interact with an array of potential customers, build a virtual office, hire staff. You might well be thinking now this is great, this is just what I need, low overheads, no sloppy staff, work from wherever I choose. But there is a problem. While there are virtual millionaires on second life. Their virtual business supports a real life business and vice-a-versa.

So what does this mean, well there will be any number of businesses out there who have dipped there toe in the internet water to see what is on offer. If you really want to make that website pay for itself along with your internet connection and computers there are a number of things you will have to do.

First it is about getting as many links as possible pointing to your website. This is done by interacting and commenting in communities. Web 2.0 now offers users the chance to do traditional business but with new technology. The problem with this is that is not very well understood in general by people over 35. So the boss of your local taxi company, accountant etc does not really know what a blog is, or a virtual business etc. Now if they do not know, how can anyone expect it to be taken seriously in the company ranks. Of course you will have your office junior who will have a virtual girlfriend, do virtual sports, already spend a large percentage of his money on the internet and related hardware etc. While the rest of the your staff will struggle with an email attachment that the virus scanner has disallowed because it was told that it is possible for a photo to have a virus in it. Yes it is possible but in the whole of my 12 year IT career I have never come across it. Given that almost 50+ percent of photos on the internet are JPEGS. It is a threat but a low threat and one that we can live with. One cannot really compare it to the risk of not getting your work done for the client and the time it would involve to check every photo.

So a balanced sensible approached is needed for work and business security so it can work at an optimum. No longer can staff say “Oh I do not understand” when a web page fails to load and the message on the screen reads your internet connection is on available at this time due to maintenance work. Involving your company on the internet is fundamentally about involving your employees. We do seminars about web 2.0 but it has to come from the top down. I suggest that smaller companies get the youngest employees to tell them what they know about the internet. This will serve two purposes one you see just what the internet can do, and two you will have a starting point to building an online presence for your company.

See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it

We are hitting 123.9 a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying 2.00 a ltr. Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the ‘don’t buy petrol on a certain   day campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn’t 
continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT,whoever
thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.

Please read it and join in!

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us  to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take  aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place
not sellers. With the price of petrol going up more each day, we  consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the  price of petrol come down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not
purchasing their Petrol! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here’s the idea:

For the rest of this year DON’T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.
If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It’s really simple to do!!

Now, don’t wimp out at this point… keep reading and I’ll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send it  to  at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)… and those 300 send it to at  least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) … and so on, by the time the
message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached  over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and
pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it… ..

THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That’s all.(and  not buy at ESSO/BP) How long would all that take? If each of us  sends this email out to ten more people within one day of receipt,
all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the  next 8days!!! Acting together we can make a difference . If this makes
sense to you, please pass this message on.

PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE   RANGE 

It’s easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your  petrol at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc. i.e.  boycott BP and Esso
 

It has been interesting week here in Great Britain, we had some local elections and the current Labour government lost a large majority of their seats. It has been interesting to watch Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour party. I had the impression that with so much experience he should be able to handle the job. It appears not with the recent blunders in government. He has not shown leadership more sort of being led by public opinion.

Whether one likes Tony Blair (ex Prime minister) or not at least he had some idea of what he was doing and did not pander to criticism. Leadership is about Leading and ultimately to greater things.

With out a doubt one of the most important criteria for running and managing big projects or teams. Is the ability to keep your cool when everybody else is flapping around like chickens. The ability to deal with stress could be described as, how big is your capacity? What do you do when things go wrong? Bury your head in the computer.  One of the most important strategies is to handle things calmly. What can seem like the end of world one day. Will a day later seem like a mild problem and a month later nothing more than a little annoyance.
The reveres is true of course if one lost their temper and shouted at somebody or sent a very direct email. Work and relationships that have been built up for years could be lost in a fraction of second.  So if you want to master the situation. Keeping cool is the winning trick.