Some jobs are just plain boring In the dim and distant past I was a Development Manager for a frozen food company. My role was to launch new products, beef-burgers, potato waffles, ready meals, you get the idea. Part of the job was very exciting, but part of it was as dull as dishwater. The […]
Do Dragons Nurture Ideas or Slaughter Them?
Imagine you are an entrepreneur You have a great idea that needs funding, what do you do? Find a venture capitalist or business angel and ask them to invest. The chances are the first one will say no, but if it is a good idea and you ask ten dragons then maybe one will say […]
The Beauty of Low Tech
This is a guest post I had my eyes tested at Specsavers a couple of weeks ago: I got my eye test, but not without three separate initiatives on my part and one wasted trip to the store. Too much technology All of this happened despite Specsavers having: Perhaps they had taken a leaf out […]
Clever Capital Investment or Shiny New Toy?
If you have ever called a call centre, no doubt you have used an IVR (interactive voice response, press 1 to change your address…press 2 to… you get the idea). The public is generally a little damming about them, to quote Wikipedia: “IVR is sometimes criticised as being unhelpful and difficult to use due to […]
The Monument
In the manufacturing world they use the term “monument” to refer to any piece of equipment that is too big for its purpose. They are expensive pieces of capital equipment that drive massive economies of scale at a local level but fundamentally mess up the total system. Because of their inflexibility they must be “fed” […]