entrepreneurship, innovation, business information and stuff
Sunday 5 November
Wikipedia Reference Desk has six subsections: Humanities, Science, Mathematics, Computing/IT, Language and Miscellaneous. In true wiki style, answers are provided by editing the question and answer page.
Almost a hundred questions a day are being asked. The tone is predominantly civilised, and many of the questions get good answers. You might say it’s like Yahoo Answers without the yahoos.
Wednesday 1 November 2007
What an inspiration Jo Fairley is. Not only did her partner found the Whole Earth but when he refused to sell chocolate because “it contains added sugar”, she set up Green & Black’s the worlds first organic chocolate.
Here is a snippet of their ground-breaking story:
It all started back in 1991 when Craig Sams, founder of Whole Earth – the pioneering organic food company – was sent a sample of dark 70% chocolate made from organic cocoa beans. His wife, environment columnist for The Times and confirmed chocoholic, Josephine Fairley, found the half eaten bar on Craig’s desk and sampled some for herself. The intense flavour was unique and unlike anything she had tasted before. Jo was convinced other chocolate lovers would appreciate it in the same way she had and they set about making the world’s first organic chocolate. The final product was a high-quality, bitter-sweet dark chocolate bar, packed with 70% cocoa solids – enough to make chocolate fans sit up and take notice..
As the brand began to gain a loyal following, Maya Gold was added to the range in 1994 – the product of a holiday Jo & Craig made to where they discovered cocoa farmers were being penalised, as some larger confectionery companies tried to drive cocoa prices down. They agreed to pay the farmers a fair price for their crops and created the flavour of Maya Gold to capture the taste of the rainforests where the cocoa is grown. This way of doing business didn’t seem different to them – it was what came naturally but it subsequently earned them the UK’s first Fairtrade mark.
Monday 30 October 2007
Today I installed the brilliant Googlepedia plugin for FireFox which gives a Wikipedia entry side by side with Google search results.
Discovered that the City Business Library (see previous post) does not have a Wikipedia entry, whereas The British Library has a pretty impressive one.
As does Googlepedia (surprise surprise).
I’m not sure how successful this attempt to ‘get them while their young’ will be. Especially given the hostile nature of the Internet press coverage of the story.
With the opportunity to earn a ‘Respect Copyright badge’, Los Angeles Boy Scouts now have an extra level of ‘encouragement’ to protect the copyrights. The badge has been developed by the Motion Picture Association of America. As part of the program, the boys get to tour Hollywood studios to see all the different people impacted by copyright violation.
“Working with the Boy Scouts of Los Angeles, we have a real opportunity to educate a new generation about how movies are made, why they are valuable, and hopefully change attitudes about intellectual property theft,” said Dan Glickman, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America
http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/respect-copyright-badge-boyscouts-brainwashed-by-mpaa1/
Tuesday 24 October 2007
As part building up our relationship I spent the morning at the City Business Library finding out more about their impressive collection of information. In some ways it was a trip down memory lane being surrounded by Pension Funds and Their Advisors and the like.
They have a very strong collection of internal investment and finance publications.
Monday 23 October
I just came across this article from the Guardian on surviving life in the workplace. The tips vary in quality, but my favourite by far is no.5. I can remember coming out of more than one appraisal spouting my bosses views.
5 Treat appraisals as auditions for panto
An appraisal is where you have an exchange of opinion with your boss. It’s called an exchange of opinion because you go in with your opinion and leave with their opinion. When you have had a bad year, the best approach is a balance between cringing apology and groveling sycophancy, something like: “My respect for you is so intense that it sometimes distracted me, thereby causing the continual string of major cock-ups that have been the main feature of my performance this year.” Interestingly, giving appraisals is actually as hard as getting them. The secret is to mix criticism with recognition. For example: “You’ve made a number of mistakes Martin, but we recognise you made them because you are a total idiot.”
Guy Browning offers 20 top tips for surviving life in the workplace
The Guardian Wednesday October 18, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1924681,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=11
Sunday 22 October
Given that average age of a company is only 12 years, 1,400 is pretty good going.
The oldest company in the world, which was founded in 578 in Japan by a group of people from the ancient Korean kingdom of Baekje, will go into liquidation in January. Kongo Gumi dates its foundation from the year when carpenter Shigemitsu Kongo built Shitennoji. Kongo had been invited to the island country by Prince Shotoku. His descendants continuously maintained the family business, and the construction firm was named the world’s oldest company by the Economist monthly.
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200512/200512150009.html
Friday 20 October
As chartered librarian the idea of a search engine which might somehow be related to the most famous classifier in history appeals.
However this young lady can only be described as the illegitimate child (or grandchild more likely) of Melvin Dewey as she doesn’t seem to have any appreciation of search techniques and gets quite grumpy at times.
http://www.msdewey.com/
Thursday 19 October 2006
Keeping an eye on new trademarks can give a good insight into what might be round the corner in terms of products.
iPhone tantalisingly close as Apple register trademark. Dual model rumours start.
An Apple iPhone or two could be a step nearer as there are reports of Apple officially filing for the ‘iPhone’ trademark. An analyst from Prudential Equity also believes that his ‘sources’ and ‘recent checks’ suggest that Apple could release two models – one a smart phone and the other a slim music phone. At least one of them will have wi-fi connectivity, and a keyboard for messaging.
American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu has written “Our research indicates that an Apple-designed smart phone has moved from concept to prototype and recently has progressed to near completion as a production unit. We believe this smart phone has been in development for over 12 months and has overcome substantial challenges including design, interference, battery life and other technical glitches”. http://techdigest.tv/2006/10/iphone_tantalis.html
Wednesday 18 October 2006
I just stumbled across this story on the Mirror newspaper website:
DRAGONS’ CON – Winners miss out on £1.3 million Investors back out of their deals
By Nick Owens And Louise Ford – 17 September 2006
HIT TV show Dragons’ Den is today branded a sham – where most of the winners never receive a penny.
The super-rich Dragons pledge tens of thousands of pounds to struggling entrepreneurs to help their businesses.
But a Sunday Mirror investigation reveals how 13 of the 19 contestants promised cash on the BBC show have not received any. The total amount unpaid comes to almost £1.3 MILLION.
In the meantime many of their businesses have floundered.
Today furious contestants lift the lid on what really happens – or doesn’t happen – when the cameras stop rolling. We can reveal how.
