mutterings and rants

By Dominic Monkhouse, published on Real Business 17/03/2011

An iPad not only makes you look like you mean business, but it can revolutionise your IT consumption and productivity.

When you’re on the move, an iPad is a lightweight lifeline to your business: unlike many laptops, it has a brilliant battery life and it’s much faster.

With the right apps, you can become even more productive than you are when sitting behind your desk at the office. Gone are the days when you need to scribble notes down in your notepad in meetings – which, let’s be honest, it’s not like you would ever write them up. Gone are the days of you appearing rude, hiding behind your laptop.

The iPad is the ultimate out-of-office companion and can really change the way your business works.

Here are the top five iPad apps that any business owner should have:

GoDocs – This is a really useful app that allows you to download and access Google Documents effortlessly from your iPad. For those not familiar with Google Documents, it’s a Google service that allows you to create and share your work online, and store your files on Google’s secure servers. Basically it allows you to move your documents to the cloud, which in turn enables you to access them quickly and easily without access to your server, relieving you of any IT headaches.

iWorks – This is a must-have app if you want to edit documents on your iPad. This document-editing suite is comprised of three individual Apple apps: Keynote, Pages and Numbers. It allows you to create new documents, or edit existing ones. Pages is a word processing app: it supports Microsoft Word files, so you can read and create documents, compatibility is not an issue. Keynote enables you to create presentations from scratch – including animated charts – which means you don’t have to worry about USBs, and you can work on presentations while on the way to meetings. Numbers says what it does on the tin – it’s an application for managing numbers (but is the weakest of the three applications). The iWorks package is a must for any business iPad user, allowing you to work remotely and with ease. However, you can buy each app separately.

Skype – This brilliant app turns your iPad into a phone, so you don’t miss those all-important conference calls. The new iPad 2 also has a camera, which will allow video conference calls too. It works over 3G as well as WiFi, and allows you to make free calls to other Skype users. If you want to call landlines or mobiles, you simply purchase credit and away you go. I would advise investing in some earphones with a microphone, so if you’re on a busy train or in a restaurant, you can give the call your full attention.

Evernote – If you don’t have this app already, you can thank me later. Evernote allows you to note down any inspirational, or not so inspirational, ideas you may have (or anything that’s noteworthy, to be honest). Evernote also organises your notes so you can access them quickly and easily. And get this, you can search for text in images too!

Feeddler – Another fantastic app which I use every day is Feeddler. It allows you to reed RSS feeds offline, which is brilliant when you’re constantly going through tunnels on the train. The 3G on the line from Southampton to Waterloo is patchy so this is a favourite app of mine when I’m commuting into London.

An iPad really can change how you run your business. It can transform your productivity, making your business technological processes modern, efficient and fun, rather than a painful headache.

Posted in digital, tech
Tags: Business, IPad

I couldn’t resist republishing this article

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-cant-find-paris.html

I just checked and PARIS (the paper plane) is still the top search result. Go to here to see the story told by Lester Haines on this world record attempt – PEER 1 Hosting played its part by being the sponsor for the event.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Google Can’t Find Paris

If you use Google to search for [Paris], the top search result is a Wikipedia page for PARIS (Paper Aircraft Released Into Space), “a privately-organised endeavour undertaken by various staff members of the information technology web site The Register to design, build, test, and launch a lightweight aerospace vehicle, constructed mostly of paper and similar structural materials, into the mid-stratosphere and recover it intact”.
Most likely, the top search result should have been the Wikipedia page for the capital of France, but a bug replaced it with a page about a curious project.

Posted in PEER 1, tech
Tags: Google, Paper Aircraft Released Into Space, PARIS, PEER 1 Hosting, Register

Image via Wikipedia

 

By Nick Booth on November 12, 2010 5:23 PM | http://www.microscope.co.uk/blogs/it-in-context/2010/11/camerons-plan-for-silicon-end-at-olympic-park-is-doomed-says-monkhouse.html

Why East London Can Never Be a Silicon Valley

David Cameron’s attempt to emulate silicon valley in London’s Olympic Park will be a disaster, says Dominic Monkhouse, MD of Peer1 Hosting.

Unlike California, London’s East End is not a magnet for creatives wanting to live the good life, said Monkhouse. “The thing about Los Angeles is it’s a nice place to live. I don’t think people will say that about a bunch of bleak industrial estates,” he said.

If the climate wasn’t enough of an advantage, California also has one of the world’s greatest universities on its doorstep, Stanford. You can’t become a hotbed of technical innovation without a great university as your foundation, said Monkhouse.

Silicon Fen has Cambridge University. Silicon Glen is fed by Glasgow and Edinburgh universities. “What has east London got? East London polytechnic? I don’t think you’re to attract the top talent there. Even if you did they’re not going to meet anyone inspiring and they won’t want to stay in the area afterwards,” said Monkhouse.

“It’s a total waste of money,” he concluded.

Posted in tech
Tags: David Cameron, East End of London, Silicon Valley

Dominic Monkhouse, Real Business, 15 October 2010

General Electric recently came out and said that the government’s cap on immigration will damage its ability to do business. As the MD of a UK company, I’m in total agreement.

The cap has been introduced to try and stem the number of immigrant workers being brought into the UK. There has been a lot of talk about this and a lot of opinions – mostly, rather bizarrely, in support of the cap.

I, like most people, have heard a British builder, electrician or plumber complaining that they are losing out on work due to a new foreign outfit that is able to undercut them. I get that – and I get that there could be problems. But this cap doesn’t do anything about this. This cap is all about non-EU nationals, so the people able to come freely to the UK and work for lower rates are not in any way inhibited by this new cap.

What this new rule does do, however, is prevent UK-based companies from employing experienced, qualified staff from outside the EU who could benefit the company and, ultimately, the UK economy.

Far from resolving issues of UK immigration, I think this new cap will cause deeper issues. There is a strong possibility, as GE suggests, that with stringent rules around staff nationality, global companies will remove operations from the UK just to get round them.

There is, of course, the other side to the argument – that UK companies “should” be looking to use UK talent within their businesses to support the British economy and unemployment efforts. Well, I think the government ought to be looking at the problems surrounding immigration, foreign employment and the UK economy in a completely different way. Preventing qualified, skilled professionals coming into this country isn’t any sort of answer. Instead, we need to do something about the immigration of unskilled workers or people entering illegally. We also need to look at the ability for EU citizens to freely enter the UK for work at substantially lower rates due to cost of living abroad verses the UK.

This cap seems to be a complete misfire that has come out of discussions surrounding the issue of immigration – and the actual answers have been lost.

Posted in immigration
Tags: agreement, argument, British, Business and Economy, Cable, cost, discussions, Dominic, Economy of the United Kingdom, editorial, efforts, employment, General Electric, guardian, immigrant, immigration, Instead, Monkhouse, Observer, operations, opinions, problems, Real Business, recovery, rules, talent, unemployment, verses, Vince, workers

Image via Wikipedia

Well well well, Lawrence Jones over at UKFast has put fingers to his keyboard to write a few kind words about me and my time at Rackspace. He even goes so far as to say I have been an inspiration to him. Ah Lawrence i am touched!

“He built Rackspace on very specific core values. Values that he lived and breathed.”

read the article in full here http://www.lawrencejones.eu/search-marketing/tag/server-beach/

Posted in customer service, Leadership
Tags: Customer Management, customer service, Dom, Lawrence Jones, PEER 1, Rackspace, UKFast

Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

You see, its nothing more than just plain old common sense. You find something you can be passionate about and turn it into a business. Then you surround yourself with like-minded people who share your passion and you can change the world, well at least a little bit at a time.

Yvon Chouinard puts it all so beautifully. He even seems a little embarrassed about having been so successful without any formal training. But i don’t think formal training exists for the leadership he displays, you either have it in your heart or you don’t, it’s a long long way from the business school taught spreadsheet driven way of profit maximisation. It shows how the concept of find a job you love and never work another day in your life can be put into stunning effect. He creates a place where others want to work and that’s a damn fine thing to achieve!

His goal isn’t to make money, that’s an outcome of what he does through the good economic times and the bad, he aims to make amazing clothing for the sports he loves. He often forgoes short-term profit to look after his employees or in the pursuit of excellence – values driven business to the core.

The book takes the concepts of the service profit chain model and walks you though their genesis at Patagonia. I can’t recommend this book enough, I loved it. I only regret I didn’t read it years ago.

Posted in customer service, Leadership, reading
Tags: Business, Dominic Monkhouse, Leadership, Management, Money, Patagonia, Service-profit chain, Yvon Chouinard

PC Advisor 5/2/2010 Carrie-Ann Skinner http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=3212032

More than four in five IT managers do not use cloud technologies, says PEER 1 Hosting.

Image via Wikipedia

Research by the web-hosting company also revealed that more than a third of those that don’t use the cloud admitted it was because they didn’t have enough knowledge of the technology.

Peer 1 said that nearly half of those surveyed said they would consider using cloud technologies in the future, with two thirds attracted to its availability and reliability.

Furthermore, the performance benefit offer by cloud technology was cited by 69% of IT managers as a popular reason for employing the technology, while 43% said the security offered by the cloud was the biggest draw.

Dominic Monkhouse from Peer 1 said the company conducted the research to gain a better understanding of IT decision makers’ perceptions of cloud hosting.

“The results clearly illustrate that there is lot of confusion around the benefits and limitation of cloud hosting. There are some very mixed messages out there.”

Monkhouse said that while there are many benefits to the cloud such as a reduction in costs and increase flexibility for businesses, the industry can help IT managers make an informed decision by providing standards that will address concerns around security and compliance.

Posted in PEER 1
Tags: Business and Economy, cloud computing, Dominic Monkhouse, hosting, PEER 1 Hosting, Virtual machine, Web Design and Development, Web hosting service

We’re delighted to announce today that our Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) programme has attracted sponsorship from Peer 1 – the international hosting firm which has demonstrated it has the Right Stuff by backing our audacious upper-atmosphere plane plan.

For those of you not up to speed on PARIS, we’ll be carrying the Vulture 1 vehicle aloft strung under a weather balloon and main payload package, then releasing it from an improbable altitude.

Peer 1′s Dominic Monkhouse described it as "huge privilege to be involved in such a ground-breaking programme" and said he was "looking forward to getting first intelligence back as to optimal location for our next data centre build and creating a galactic peering point."

Asked what attracted Peer 1 to PARIS in the first place, Dominic explained: "I’m a firm believer that we’re not the only ones out here, and if that’s the case, then there must be a bigger market for hosting I can be first to tap into."

He added: "PEER 1 is all about innovation, doing things better than anyone else and delivering outstanding performance, so we see significant parallels with the quality, engineering and excitement surrounding the Vulture 1 Mission. And, at £121,000 a seat, anyone can get involved with Virgin Galactic; Vulture 1 is far more exclusive."

Of course, releasing paper aircraft into space is not without its risks, but Dominic was upbeat about the mission’s prospects. He enthused: "As the great philosopher Derek Trotter once said, ‘He Who Dares Wins’, so I’m less concerned with risk than with the exciting opportunity Vulture 1 represents to push the boundaries of the possible – one of our core values is ‘anything is possible’.

"It’s such an important mission for our country in the international space programme that I’m sure landowners would be proud to have been associated with any fallout. And there’s always eBay to soften the blow."

Finally, we asked Dominic if he knew anyone diminutive enough to be our Vulture 1 test pilot. He offered: "Wencesleyne Ong is our smallest person, she is tiny, she almost fits on the palm of my hand, so should fit in the cockpit on Vulture 1 without difficulty. Perhaps nominations should be made and put it to a vote. Otherwise, ask Champion, our PR agency – they can’t say no and most of them are wider than they are tall."

Wencesleyne Ong, we should explain, is Peer 1′s live chat person who pops up on the company’s website. Sadly, she’s a tad too tall even at an 800×600 screen resolution, so we’ll have to give Champion a bell.

Well, this is splendid news indeed, and it’s time to get down to it. We haven’t been exactly idle over the last couple of months, and now have our main and Vulture 1 payloads specced up, and have a provocative plan for the aircraft release mechanism. We’ll give you a full update on Friday. ®

More about our sponsor…

PEER 1 hosts one per cent of the internet, looking after websites for 10,000 global customers. It provides managed hosting and dedicated servers with the best customer service in the industry, no overage fees and connectivity to its 10GB SuperNetwork™.

Posted in cloud, PEER 1
Tags: PARIS, PEER 1, The Register

Image via Wikipedia

Known to all as “Monty”

An inspirational leader, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery was once asked to name the three greatest generals in history. Half smiling, he replied, "The other two were Alexander the Great and Napoleon." It was a characteristic remark, utterly self-assured and mockingly arrogant.

Dwight Eisenhower, World War II boss of the brusque field marshal, said that Monty was tops at winning the admiration of his men and in fighting set-piece battles. Other descriptions included "as quick as a ferret and about as likeable."

At the battle of El Alamein he knew that Rommel was very short of fuel and that the Germans could not sustain a long campaign. When Rommel attacked, Montgomery was asleep. When he was woken from his sleep to be told the news, it is said that he replied "excellent, excellent" and went back to sleep again.

Monty’s philosophy of battle was that he always decided beforehand where the arrows would go. He insisted that it was his job to “make the enemy dance to his tune”, and that it was up to him to compose the tune carefully beforehand. His attitude was simple. First you arranged for victory to be inevitable, taking as long to do that as you had to. You rehearsed the battle until everyone knew what they had to do. Then you went ahead with the battle, and won it. Then you set up the next battle, and won that, and so on until the war ended. Monty’s soldiers were delighted. Thank God for a general who knew how to win battles.

The man was a legend! But why is this on my blog? Well we held a recent leadership day and one of the exercises was to review inspirational leaders and discuss. Monty was my pick and so thought i would share the summary.

Share this post :

Related articles by Zemanta

Posted in Leadership
Tags: El Alamein, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, Leadership, Monty, PEER 1

Image via Wikipedia

Rajan Sodhi thanks for your comments. Some coverage in BIG Marketing for small business of a piece by Steph Welstead of Growing Business.

The most inexpensive yet impacting way for small businesses to compete with the big boys is to lead with remarkable customer service. I know you’ve heard this before, and I’m almost certain you’ve made a similar claim – “We have great service” or “Our service is why people buy from us” – and yet more often than not, the service isn’t that remarkable. In fact, it’s fairly ordinary. Many mistake providing friendly, attentive service as exceptional when it’s actually the simple expectation or norm. So, what does remarkable service look like?

In an article titled Service-Led Battle Plan by Growing Business, business operator and customer service evangelist, Dominic Monkhouse reveals his approach to taking on his former Internet company (and industry leader) with a commitment to delivering remarkable service. He outlines his philosophy that every instance of human interaction is a moment of truth for a business – something he learned during his early days at retail giant Marks & Spencer.

Read full article

Share this post :

Posted in customer service, PEER 1
Tags: service excellence, customer service, Business, Small Business, Philosophy, Marks & Spencer

For the past two years, around Movember each year, health professionals across the UK have started to notice a spike in cases of what is commonly known as Moustache Envy.

Sufferers of Moustache Envy are often riddled with feelings of regret for not having grown a Mo, stuck with the smell of shaving cream under their nose because they didn’t make an effort for the cause, and a niggling sense of professional inadequacy because their Mo Bro colleagues seem to be getting the largest slice of cake on Fridays.

Socially it’s no better. Sufferers of Moustache Envy are forced to stand by while their Mo Bro mates are showered with attention on the streets and they endure long lonely nights while Mo Bro mates hang at cool parties and compare their new Mo styles.

None of these sufferers have Mo’s. All of them had the chance.

Avoid Moustache Envy this Movember http://uk.movember.com/register/

Share this post :

Posted in Movember
Tags: Movember

Amazingly simple and interesting viral idea. At itlab we gave all new employees £5 and ask them to go forth and commit random acts of kindness, part of helping them see how to live the core values and learn to deliver on Service Obsession^TM.They then shared their daring dos; some bought chocolates and tried to give them away to very suspicious passersby, others donated to the homeless or bought multiple copies of the Big Issue, some acted solo whilst others teamed up and pooled their money – whatever, it didn’t matter it was the doing something that counted. So I was intrigued to read about a scheme to spread random acts of kindness even further. KIND sells healthy snacks through a host of stores in the USA including Starbucks and their rational is that happy people are healthier and kindness causes happiness so KINDED is a brand extension and fits with their core values. Well done to you! Oh and they also donate at least 5% of their profits to fostering global kindness.

In case you cant picture it this is the sort of behaviour they inspire; “someone held three sets of doors for me as i was rushing to the train”, “someone sent a tart to my table at le pain quotidien”, “a total stranger paid for my sandwich”, good on them.

WordPress Tags: random kindness,BEKIND,KINDED,KIND,Service Obsession

Share this post :

Posted in customer service
Tags: Big Issue, Kindness, Random act of kindness

Why oh why does Microsoft call touch screen phones Pocket PC and non-touch phones Smart Phones. They are the only ones to use these descriptions; I have downloaded the wrong version of software more than once.

Anyway, I have had time to notice other things that work better now I have been playing with the phone for a day or so now. Battery life is better and this may be because system resources are being used less than under 6.1. Used to have issues using the Bluetooth connecting in the car if I hadn’t remembered to disable the Wi-Fi – that all works now. Text messaging is improved with conversation mode, I can now use the native views and not rely on HTC TouchFLO. It used to drive me mad when I sent a txt and it didn’t manage to send right away that it just got stuck in drafts, this is fixed. On the screen shot (above) you can see the windows button – this is now on every screen and makes it much easier to navigate and lock the phone. Remaining battery charge is now a percentage rather than bars – this is more accurate and gives you a better understanding of remaining handset life. Rotate screen now allows you to run any application in landscape mode. The new lock screen is a huge improvement and handling incoming calls when locked is a breeze.

Much has been written about the windows mobile market place – blah blah blah. Perhaps this will turn out to be a place to visit to get access to the app you can’t live without, today is not yet that day.

Piece from gigaom on the launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 http://gigaom.com/2009/10/11/microsoft-mobiles-worst-week-ever/

Skyfire – sometimes you will want to view sites running flash elements and so than you need Skyfire as your optional browser.

WordPress Tags: HTC,Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5,improvement,Skyfire

Share this post :

Related articles by Zemanta

Posted in tech
Tags: Bluetooth, HTC Corporation, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, Smartphone, TouchFLO, Touchscreen, windows mobile

Nice to get hands on with the new version of Windows Mobile. It’s not a great leap forward more a nudge in the right direction. I prefer not to use the stylus and this is now possible (at last). Menu items that before needed a sharp thumb nail, at least, can now be selected with a blunt finger. Oh and not useful but love the rain drops running down the today screen when the local weather is crap (like today), followed by the regular swipe of a windscreen wiper blade – useless but fun.

What applications do I use every day?

Google mobile apps – including Google Maps and search. I use Google Maps ever day. Why call 118 118 when you can find local stuff easily and free. I also have Latitude turned on so when I am meeting people they know where I am, useful when meeting son after school.

MyMobiler – allow me to view the mobile on the PC screen and control the mobile with keyboard and mouse.

Nimbuzz – chat client that supports MSN, jabber, facebook and calls via Skype.

Opera mini 5 beta – best mobile browser available.

WordPress Tags: Windows Mobile 6.5,Google,Latitude,MyMobiler,Nimbuzz,Skype,Opera

Share this post :

Posted in tech
Tags: Google Maps, Nimbuzz, Search Engines, Skype, windows mobile