Cicero on the Economic Crisis

steve — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:15:15 +0000

“The budget should be balanced,
the Treasury should be refilled,
public debt should be reduced,
the arrogance of officialdom
should be tempered and controlled,
and the assistance to foreign lands
should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt.
People must again learn to work,
instead of living on public assistance.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero 63 BC

Misleading Excel

steve — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:44:57 +0000

We all know how Excel spreadsheets can go wrong. Here’s an argument that misuse of Excel led not only to climate change, but also to the financial crisis.

Be very careful out there when you’re handling spreadsheets!

IT Joke

steve — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:42:53 +0000

Travelling together in a car are 3 engineers: a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer and a software engineer. The car stops unexpectedly. The mechanical engineer says “Let me have a look at the engine”. He disappears under the bonnet for a few minutes, fiddling with hoses and plug leads, without success. The electrical engineer then says “It must be a dead fuse”. He spends the next few minutes rotating the fuses, switching the lights and indicators on and off, trying the ignition, all without success. The three engineers think quietly for a minute. Finally the software engineer declares: “I know the answer. We must all get out of the car, then get back in again.” Sure enough, this does the trick.

Simple explanation of the financial crisis

steve — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:36:22 +0000

Great video for anyone who wants a simple explanation of the crash.

How not to do a graph

steve — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:25:42 +0000

Jon Moon is an expert on clarity & presentations. His website has some great examples of good & bad presentations, including this.

Another crash is inevitable

steve — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:21:09 +0000

Rather depressing analysis of the 2008 crash and a prediction that the same or worse will happen again.

Email is dying

steve — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:47:29 +0000

Did I hear cheers of approval at that statement? As someone with a 100- a- day inbox, I’m of the view that ’something must be done’ but am not sure what.

There is an argument, set out here, that email is becoming an outdated technology that will soon be replaced by SMS and social networking.

I’m not sure it’ll ever completely go away, but when a technology stops offering new benefits and starts to become hated, that’s when something better is likely to spring up and take its place.

Where are you now?

steve — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:47:28 +0000

Here

Social Networking

steve — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:50:13 +0000

We’re told that to be true citizens of the modern world, we must constantly be Facebooking, Twittering or otherwise leaving our footprint on line.

For many people the question about these sites is ‘haven’t you got anything better to do?’ but when it comes to business life, we may have to think more carefully.

One of the hallmarks of a successful person is the size and quality of network they are able to call upon. Business networking sites allow this activity to be monitored and measured with the greatest of ease. LinkedIn seems to be the leader in this market, but there are some competitors described here.

These sites are great, but there is no subsitute for a face to face meeting and a connection online can soon lose its value if it’s not kept fresh by regular contact.

Betrayal at Redmond

steve — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:47:12 +0000

Intuit and Sage have owned the small business accounting software market for the last few years. There are some powerful network effects at work here. Most small businesses will take the advice of their accountants, who will recommend the packages they are conversant with. In addition, it’s easy to find staff who are familiar with these packages.

So these companies have built very strong positions.

A couple of years ago, it looked as though Microsoft were going to break this duopoly apart. Their Office Accounting (OA) product was priced at less than $200 with the cut-down Express version available for free.

Reviews of its functionality were very favourable and while it was rather resource hungry and slow on older computers, you had the benefit of the Microsoft behemoth standing behind it and there seemed no reason to recommend Sage or Intuit.

The product has proved very successful, particularly in the USA. I’ve personally steered several people away from the established products and used OA whenever I’ve needed to implement a new package for the last year or so.

Now, quite suddenly, Microsoft have announced they are stopping marketing and development of OA. Support will discontinue in 2014.

Annoyed, embarassed, infuriated, spitting with rage - I’m not happy about this!

MS’s website says

we have determined that existing free templates within Office used with Excel was a better option for small businesses

..which is clearly dangerous nonsense. Nobody in their right minds would use Excel for accounting in place of properly structured software.

But what can you do? Microsoft aren’t going to listen to me.