Last week Scotland was faced with battering winds reaching speeds up to 150mph, now the Met Office are predicting violent snow and thunder storms so once again we are bracing ourselves for further travel disruptions and battening down the hatchets - quite literally.

Two weeks ago thousands of public sector workers took industrial action which caused 2667 schools in Scotland to close forcing parents to take holidays from work to stay at home and look after their children; that is unless they had flexible working practices and resources in place to enable working from home.

So is it any surprise that there is a growing demand for call conferencing and video conferencing.  Not to mention other factors including the continued economic slowdown and the record breaking petrol prices. 

The recent riots that have visited the streets of London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham have caused mayhem and destruction to businesses, property and possessions on an unprecedented scale. The most visible disaster unfolding before our very eyes on the 24 hour news channels was the burning to the ground of the “Reeves of London” furniture store; a family run business in Croydon that has traded for five generations since the 1860’s. Their business was torched and destroyed in a matter of hours on Monday 8th August.

Put your hands up if you keep these three things separate, or with the growing use of smartphone’s, ipad’s etc.  Are you always switched on?

The latest Ofcom research summarised that over a quarter of adults now own a smartphone and there has been a dramatic increase in people accessing the internet from their phones also.  Specifically 21% of adults in Scotland now have a smartphone, and 21% of adults access the internet, a 6% rise over the last year. 

Again……It’s Easier Said Than Done!

You would have thought that after officially finishing last in June 2010, there would be reluctance for Commsworld employees to sign up for the event... how wrong I am.  When muted for this year it was the same nonchalant response from people... “Put me down for that”….”aye, and put me down as well”. It trips easily off the tongue.

I am delighted to say I have now completed my 5 years cancer free period and have now been given the all clear, pretty good really. First of all I am astonished at just how quickly these 5 years have come and gone and as before I can’t thank the staff at The Western General Hospital in Edinburgh enough, they really do save lives.

Now the world of technology is starting to go ballistic, terms like Consolidation, Mergers, Acquisitions, Unified Communications, Software as a Service (SAAS), Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Virtualisation are all starting to stir up excitement again after the relatively recent world banking crisis shocked everyone and brought the business machine to a standstill.