Age, experience, hindsight – they are all a funny thing. Back in my youth, I’d have laughed quite hard at businesses that would bring in consultants to tell them facts they already know or even facts that should be blatantly obvious. As I’ve become older, more experienced, perhaps a bit jaded to the insanity I [...]
Those who know me, know that even at my grand old age I’ve been sporting some teenage mouth gear lately. As such I’ve been having frequent visits to the Orthodontist. What does this have to do with IT, you ask? Everything. On my first visit to my orthodontist practice, I needed some x-rays, which I [...]
A Non-Apology Dear Marks and Spencer Manchester. It was me, and I'm far from sorry. I took my basket of Dine in for 10 goodies, selected from your specific chilled shelves to your self-check-out. Your staff manning the area ignored me, watched me struggle with my laptop bag, basket and shopping bags and drop my [...]
” I have crushing responsibility but inadequate resources and no authority to implement change.” – Trevor Pott I’ve been dwelling on quite a number of things I’ve read of late. As many of you may have read, I’m like the Stig of the IT Management world, the tame IT Manager. It may be that MBA [...]
People have probably heard this a lot from me in recent weeks. It’s a rant that’s really grinding my gears for a while and really my biggest bugbear of what IT has become. When I try and articulate what we do, my thoughts always go back to the good old days of IT. Where the [...]
I’ve been blogging a bit lately on UK technology policy and strategy lately, we’ve looked at the actual technology that the Northern Powerhouse requires and skills. I’ve tried to give some examples of where we’re really struggling and need that strategic help from uk.gov but are sadly lacking in anything with substance. Currently, the Northern [...]
“Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.” – Obi-Wan Kenobi It’s been bugging me this question for a number of years, and I’ve thought about the parallels between the IT department and [...]
Back in the days when I was a respected young professional, well before I had the delusions of grandeur and the audacity to become an entrepreneur (that’s entreprenoor up North) my career was very much intertwined with education and skills. I was asked to join the board of ENERGUS in Workington, Cumbria whilst we were [...]
I used to call the Northern Powerhouse the M62 corridor. Not quite as affluent as the M4 corridor, but it was ours, local and err, Northern. The M62 corridor from Liverpool, past Manchester, across to Leeds and eventually ending in Hull is perhaps the largest and most easily accessible business area in the North of [...]
It’s been some time since I’ve specifically written anything on the topic of Hyperconvergence. This isn’t to say that the subject has gone away, being ignored or anything like that. Quite to the contrary, hyperconvergence is bigger than ever… […]
You’ve come up with a business idea. You may or may not have been following the dream for years. Blood sweat and tears have gone into your company. You’ve struggled, but you got your first, then second member of staff. You have a team. You have people working in an office, at home and even from [...]
It’s a little known fact that I have bragging rights that I conducted some of the UK’s first research into Shared Services. Now if you’re a small or medium business, then that’ll mean nothing to you and also negate any bragging rights I have about it. Indeed, but what I learnt during my time on [...]
I recite this tale to those who listen, quite often. I’ve actually refrained from talking about it publically for some time in the fear that I may offend some potential clients or scare some people off. It’s not until recently until a valued partner of ours pointed out that the people we scare off, probably [...]
Continuing the theme of help from last week's blog where I categorised the type of help that seems to be common at the moment. Whilst like I always say, no business and no person is perfect, being a boutique IT consultancy allows us to give that care and attention to our customers that I think [...]
Those of you that follow my blog have probably realised that I have a lot of peeves, in fact I wouldn’t have a Peter Griffin like blog category called, ‘Grinds my Gears’ if I didn’t. Blogging isn’t necessarily a tool solely to name and shame those who have wronged you either (unless it’s Microsoft). I [...]
Language is a funny thing, it’s funny how a catchphrase or label can turn words from having positive to negative connotations. Coalitions in the second world war were the norm for governments, quite positive, after all we triumphed. The current UK coalition, well the jury is out. George Bush once use the phrase “coalition of [...]
Recently I’ve been doing a lot of work for clients moving them from older version of Microsoft Exchange – even as far back as Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2013 or to Microsoft Office 365. I frequently recount to my customers that when I started doing IT work, I used to put Exchange email systems in [...]
If like me you’ve spent years in the IT industry, you’ll have no doubt had to dabble in telecoms. As such you’ll have a few choice words to say about BT, indeed any telecommunications provider. We all have our opinions on BT, but things have really changed since 2006 when through a competition ruling BT [...]
The last number of years of recession merde have yielded us some strange phenomena… companies and their employees seem to have become stupider (maybe the ones I deal with) and the average amount of people with a “can’t do” attitude to customer service has gone through the roof. It is my sincere belief that the [...]
Happy New Year, yes it is February… believe it or not I’ve written or semi-written several New Year blog articles, but here at Unleashed we’ve had a crazy beginning to 2015 and for me personally. Finding something to write about and be relatively quick and fluid, isn’t something that often comes naturally (quite usually when [...]
