Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from September, 2011

Mansion Tax - why it's a bad idea

A 'mansion tax' would be unfair, impractical to implement, and would bite hands that feed us. What's the difference between a hoodie who raids a shop to take a TV because he doesn't have enough money to buy one for himself, and a politician who advocates taking someone else's money because it doesn't affect him or most people who vote for him? This might sound a ridiculous comparison, one party being irresponsible, and the other believing they're taking responsibility for the well-being of society, but I'm suggesting in reality there are some unhealthy similarities between their attitudes. "It doesn't matter if I'm not the one losing out - it will only affect a small number of people who can probably afford it". The hoodie grabs TVs they can't pay for, the latter is planning to grab money from people who own larger houses than them. Both do it because it's easy and their peers encourage them to do it. It makes them popular a

The Marketing Virus - it's closer than you think. Scary!

If you read my earlier blog about the Marketing Virus and perhaps felt that I was being a little over alarmist, watch this:

Respect - Especially for Football Referees

When my kids were young, they would come home from school saying they hated Lucy, Kate or James. Like every parent I used to agonise over what advice to send my little darlings back to school with which a) wouldn't get them detention / prison sentence, and b) might help them turn adversity into advantage by avoiding retaliation and potential escalation. Eventually my advice boiled down to one simple idea for them to remember: If you make some one feel good about themselves, they'll feel good about you. So if Lucy calls you fat and ugly, instead of hitting her or insulting her back, why not try "I love your hair, or can you teach me the words to that song....". Not only will that take all the wind out of her sails, she probably won't jeopardise you not saying nice things again, so she may start being nice to you. Worth a try? If it doesn't work, you can always bop her. Psychologists call this Cognitive Dissonance. In a nutshell there are three components

RBS - no help to the UK economy - and we own the bastards!

My business banks with RBS. We're only still there after around 20 years because I suspect all banks are much the same and I don't fancy the turmoil of trying to change from one bunch of wankers to another, until this week, that is.... My history of banking with RBS started in the mid 1990s when I finally got sick of the mess Lloyds were making of simple things, like supplying cheque books and statements. RBS (prior to their buying Natwest) were supposedly a bit different, especially for Guildford (hundreds of miles South of Scotland - non-Brits might be wondering). So my previous company started trading, at a loss of course for several years while we found our feet and our customers found us. I build companies who sell something called Software As A Service (SAAS). It used to be known as an ISP (Internet Service Provider) and today it is starting to be known as a Cloud Solution provider. But basically we don't sell software, we provide services over the internet (and oth