Ministry for Holes

matthewm@madesimplegroup.com — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:50:23 GMT

I had lunch recently with a good friend and business contact of mine, Andy Stern. As it was a lovely day, I booked to eat outside at a local Thai restaurant based on Clerkenwell Road. Everything was perfect apart from the road works going on adjacent to where we were sitting as some utility company, a Gas one I think, were working down a large hole.

Now I have nothing against people engaging in good honest hard work on a hot day –that’s exactly what these gentlemen were doing. My problem is the fact that this part of the road has already been dug up and filled 3 times in the last year, most recently about 8 weeks ago when some other utility was being dealt with.

In this day and age, it can’t be beyond the ingenuity of mankind to come up with a solution to this. It just doesn’t make sense to dig a hole, work in it, fill it, and then do it again 6 or 8 weeks later.

I have come up with a solution and if my tongue weren’t placed firmly in my cheek, I would actually send this on to the government. I really believe that we need a Ministry for Holes or at least a department within some other Ministry. Once some utility company applied to dig up one bit of road, my new Ministry would simply contact all the other utility companies, and place some public notices in appropriate media to announce that hole was going to be dug at some stage in the future and if they want to do anything with it, now is their chance. Failing any response, they would not be permitted to do so for another year. Of course I hear you say, what about emergencies and of course these would have to be dealt with. However, I am convinced that it’s just a matter of planning in most cases. It’s a well known fact that a lot of this work is carried out in the summer and some simple coordination of planning would save this country considerable sums and enable me to drive home without sitting in traffic and of course, most importantly, eat my Thai meal on the sidewalk, (that’s a pavement for you anglophiles), without the smell and noise of a large hole.

Anyway, that’s the end of this rant. But here’s a short video of something I found confirming to me that I’m not the first to have dreamt up this outlandish concept: remember this?

Phishing

matthewm@madesimplegroup.com — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:36:08 GMT

Like most people I meet, I seem to be inundated with a variety of different emails from people whose intentions are not exactly honourable. Whether it be the online provision of certain medication or just completely irrelevant and unsuitable material, I sometimes wonder whether our firewalls and anti-spam filters are letting through more spam than genuine mail. Perhaps it’s just that these people are cleverer or as one person in the US told me, the proportion of spam to genuine mail is something in the region of 9:1.

Perhaps one of the most insidious areas of such emailing is the practice of Phishing. This is where emailers, pretending to be some other organisation, try and get information about you so as to carry out some other crime. The one that many of us will have come across is the email purported to be from a particular bank. Often this is by way of a “security alert” and asks you to reset your password or provide certain other information.

A more worrying and plausible email I received recently was purportedly from the Inland Revenue! This suggested I was due a tax refund and asked me to enter my bank details so the payment could be made directly to my bank account. On the face of it, the email was quite convincing until one click through to the website and I saw none of the links on the page were clickable and the telephone number was non-existent.

Nevertheless many unsuspecting people will I am sure provide their bank details.

Of course, for the people doing the “phishing”, this is purely a numbers game. They send out so many emails, (remember many of us have more than one email account), in the knowledge that a percentage, albeit a small one, will be duped.

Many of us have become more web-savvy over the last few years so that we recognise these emails when they arrive and in many cases, report them to the banks and even the police. However there is a growing band of new adoptees, particularly of the silver surfing community, who may not be aware of all the scams that exist online.

Whilst many of these emails are not particularly sophisticated, they will still catch a fair number of people. For more details on the dangers of phishing, or should you wish to report any electronic crime, visit www.antiphishing.org.

That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.

info@businessmadesimple.co.uk — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:54:56 GMT

Hi again

After much deliberation, brainstorming and late night discussions over numerous cups of tea with my loved ones,
I have finally come up with a company name… drum roll please… Earthly Events! I like to source and use organic and
fair trade products and foods where possible in my life, so I’d like this to be part of my business as well. I think I
will be able to target a unique market and I believe the name will speak for itself. I also believe that the name will portray the company values.

I have been looking at the Companies Made Simple website and there are quite a few packages to choose from to form my company online, I’m not sure whether I need the extra bits like the Registered Office address? I don’t think I’ll be trading for a few months so maybe I’ll start with the Bronze Plus package – I can have my certificate framed and hung on the wall in my office.

I plan on forming the company by the end of next week!

The Apprentice

matthewm@madesimplegroup.com — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 06:56:51 GMT

In common with about 7 million others, I am afraid that I am hooked on the Apprentice (Wednesday nights on BBC1). For those of you who have never seen it or read anything about it, this is a programme where Sir Alan Sugar sets a variety of tasks for 16 aspiring “apprentices” who are competing with each other for a job with Sir Alan Sugar’s organisation and a 6-figure salary. Each week, as the series progresses, one of the contestants gets fired.

Freakonomics

matthewm@madesimplegroup.com — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:02:16 GMT

Last year I read a really great book called Freakonomics. For those of you who like an interesting spin on conventional topics, this is a must read. It is written by an economics lecturer at the University of Chicago together with a writer from the New York Times and follows a series of Blog postings that the two of them made back in 2003.

Just in time!!

matthewm@madesimplegroup.com — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:07:48 GMT

Over the years, I have made connections, friendships and alliances with people from all walks of life and in many different situations and I value all these relationships as part of my ongoing business development. One person who I met recently, Mike Bird, has kindly participated in a podcast and also provided a testimonial for our company formation service. He also writes the excellent “Bloomstorm Briefing” as part of his site www.bloomstorm.com. In his most recent issue, he writes an article about “living with change” making particular reference to the subject of timekeeping.

Hello my darling!

matthewm@madesimplegroup.com — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:27:19 GMT

I suppose the biggest event of the week, even speaking as an accountant and tax adviser, has to be the postponement of the Cheltenham race festival. The budget passed by with hardly a whimper, much as I suggested in my earlier posting. Apart from the fact that it was so benign and lacking in anything controversial, you have to say that anyone with a name of “Darling” starts off at a great disadvantage.

Oh what joy!

matthewm@madesimplegroup.com — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:17:16 GMT

I don’t know about you, but whenever I look back at old photographs of my youth and innocent years(!), I am struck by a number of things particularly:- · Who is that young handsome, dashing man with all that hair. · Despite all the hair what an awful look. · How could I possibly wear clothes like that. There is absolutely no question that what once seemed fashionable and trendy so quickly just simply looks naff. Our feelings at the moment of a particular incident are so different when we look back in hindsight.

Enterprise Culture

matthewm@madesimplegroup.com — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:46:05 GMT

have been involved with the SME sector; (with emphasis on the S part) for almost 25 years and have always felt that generally, the small business in particular gets somewhat of a raw deal from government. On the one hand, they are saddled with the responsibilities of new legislation brought in because of the indiscretions of larger businesses, (Enron etc) and on the other hand, they bear the brunt of tax initiatives which were largely introduced to tackle far bigger businesses.

Batten down the hatches

matthewm@madesimplegroup.com — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:38:44 GMT

Yesterday morning, driving into the office, I could literally feel the car being battered by the strong winds and driving rain. Reports on the radio from other parts of the country, particularly the south west were of 80 mile an hour winds, trees being uprooted and general mayhem as river levels rose and the threat of serious damage rapidly grew.

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