Recent Archaeological research shows football invented in Wales

The first reference to football being played in this country was actually in Wales over a thousand years ago. The beautiful game was watched and played by hooligans as it is nowadays was probably introduced to Great Britain by the Romans in Wales and was played in the great Amphitheatre in Silurum Venta (aka Caerleon) by soldiers of the Second Augustan Legion during breaks from sacking, pillaging and general mayhem. Watched...

The Railway Chronicles - starlet's bags under eyes forces new photo shoot

I was on the way up to see one of our northern NHS clients this time on what is now the national express line (what happened to the GNER?) - this was to be a difficult discussion about why they could not have a piece of software which is valued at well over a hundred grand installed for four pence halfpenny - but that’s not the subject for today as I must protect our beloved clients. I was reading through some...

Just reading an article where one of the key messages was 'A bad process automated is still a bad process' - something everyone in the IT industry would surely agree with.

I argue that the same rule applies to outsourcing. If something is causing you a problem you need to fix the issues before you outsource - or you will still have issues!

You cannot rely on an outsourcing organisation to fix bad processes, miraculously ensure poor performance turns into high performance,...

Some years ago I was sitting in the accountancy module B212 'window dressing and off balance sheet techniques' during my Masters course when the lecturer at the time piped up that one of the biggest fears in finance was the fact that mortgages were lent long whilst money was saved or acquired from the market short. In principle short money can be called for very quickly whilst paying back a mortgage on demand is impossible. A interesting discussion took place as we considered the possibilities of...

Brown solves world hunger and financial markets in a day.

I am becoming used to seeing Gordon Brown in his many guises or relaunches (currently around number seven) giving out the impression that he is more or less single handedly running every ministry in this country. From facilitating mergers between banks, solving Clostridium difficile in hospitals, greeting our hero Para Olympians back home to lagging. It is the latter theme I would like to dwell on as I was astonished to see...

Car park Charges abolished and then chaos ensues

At the beginning of the financial year in gods country (Wales) the first minister announced that car parking fees, the subject of much controversy in the principality and elsewhere, were to be abolished. This 'lead' was not followed by the Department of Health in the UK at large who said England would not be following the Welsh example -"We have no plans of forcing hospitals in England to subsidise their car parks with resources that...

In the gaming world, not many franchises come even close to being compared to World of Warcraft. The popular game boasts the largest online gaming community, estimated in the millions, in the world. For gaming fans and experts, conventions like Blizzcon 2008 are a way to mingle with other gamers, cosplayers, and game creators. Conventions are also where game companies try out their developing wares, show off their best products, and often announce and/or debut their next big thing.
Blizzcon...

Reading in the Observer today a very interesting article by Barbara Ellen (Opinion page 11) about the continuing excessive number of independent school pupils who attend OxBridge. With only 7% of youngsters educated in the private sector, 40% of OxBridge students are from these exclusive schools. The view seems to be that these pupils are brighter, get better grades etc., therefore poor OxBridge tutors have little choice but to give the places to them.

I have personal experience...

In an earlier article I discussed my research into managing the transition of people in an outsourcing situation. I highlighted the problems people experience, anxiety, lack of control, resistance and reduced performance. Many also found it very difficult to treat their previous employer as a client, and were not able to feel a part of the new company to which they had been transferred.

An outsourcing transfer can be viewed as a form of transition. This change process involves...

[FONT=Arial]The Mythic Entertainment is going to have a weekend event about the warhammer online. The following is the main content:
Over 100,000 people are preparing to descend into the Age of Reckoning, we have invited the vanguard host to join us this weekend (August 22-25) to an exclusive Preview Weekend event!
Attendance is by invitation only and is guaranteed to all Closed Beta participants, Collectors Edition Pre-Order customers, and the first lucky 50,000 Standard Edition Pre-Order...

Stress From Outsourcing can Kill

I was struck by the similarity in the situation when people are laid off during redundancies and the stress caused by the move from one company to another during outsourcing - it strikes me that this is an under researched area and something we as managers should pay more attention to.

Pioneering studies in Scandinavia that took place some years ago, where centralized health care allows researchers access to vast databases of medical...

Business ethics is a form of applied ethics that examines the principles and moral or ethical dilemmas that arise in a business environment. Business ethics is relevant both to the conduct of individuals as well as the organisation as a whole and is an increasingly important issue for all organisations. Business ethics is a topic covering the practices that corporations should adhere to in order to establish an ethical, fair business.

Business ethics, is informed by rich and multiple...

Kevin Keegan pushes World War from top news slot

I could hardly believe what I was seeing and hearing the other day when the nice BBC man opened the news with the statement ' today's top story Kevin Keegans future with Newcastle in Doubt'. Not Hurricane Gustav, Russia about to move on Poland, Brother Browns give aways to his pals up north or Alistair Darlings torpedoing the UK economy. No - a story about a second rate football manager in a northern team in some god forsaken place...

An article in Computer Weekly highlighted the problem that the salaries for mid-level IT staff have increased due to greater demand due to Outsourcing. Companies need experienced staff capable of overseeing project work, managing virtual teams, negotiating service line agreements and so on (the hidden costs of outsourcing) – but they don’t need the lower level skills because most of those jobs have been outsourced to lower cost economies such as India.

It seems project managers and...

Yahoo Mash was touted to be Yahoo's answer to MySpace, Facebook and Bebo and as the latest in social networking were hoping it would be big. Mash attempted to enter the already crowded social networking arena and has failed with the announcement that on the 29th September it will close and users will no longer be able to access anymore. Yahoo seemed to me to be taking an awful lot of time ironing out kinks and getting ready to scale up to full release and scaling over a year or so was a big mistake...

Mythic Entertainment shared with us that the open beta test of their MMORPG Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will start on September 7th.
But most Chinese gold-farming operations have offered services such as " [url=http://www.item4u.com/Warhammer-Online/Power-Leveling]Warhammer Power Leveling[/url] " in which they assume control of a player's character and turn it into a high-powered hero far faster than the original owner could manage themselves.
Now Chinese-based game...