Hi I am Ricky Nicol, Chief Executive and Founder of Commsworld a Scottish based telecommunications organisation with offices in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow a company I am very proud of and one that I believe is going places. I find myself in a fast moving industry I love working in alongside highly dedicated and talented people who have a drive and determination to make a difference for themselves and our customers. I am married to the most wonderful woman I know and blessed with two kids, Sean and Becky, who I love to bits.

Life has been good to me and things were going along merrily until February 2006 when I was diagnosed with cancer, the big C, Squamous Cell Carcinoma to be precise. My world quickly changed and the things I took for granted, good health and independence came to an abrupt end.
Don’t know about you but cancer to me was a death sentence, many relatives, including my Mum had all died from this dreadful disease. To me there was no cure and I prepared for same making sure my family would be ok when I’m no longer there to care for them, clearing debts, finalising will etc. Telling my kids I had this, they were 10 and 16 at the time, was difficult and they didn’t really understand.

However here I am 4 years later in pretty good health and apart from a few scars where I had a neck dissection almost back to normal. I attend hospital once every four months which come May will be twice in the next year. The treatment (as difficult as it was to cope with) I received at The Western General Hospital in Edinburgh was, and still is, absolutely brilliant. I can’t thank the consultants and staff enough their dedication and care is amazing. 

Now back to today and the changes in technology over that relatively short period. Social networking for example really seems to be catching everyone’s imagination and not just for the kids. Businesses seem to be quickly embracing this medium and it is becoming quite a normal thing to do. It reminds me, in a strange way, of the C.B radios that people ran with back when I was a teenager, people communicating in their own small group of friends and contacts only on a far far larger scale.
Most people, including me, thought they were weird and a few years later we were all doing this, in a fashion, with mobile phones.

The world really is a smaller place today, my Father in Law at the grand old age of 76 connects to his relatives in Perth Australia both video and voice using Skype, which he downloaded and set up on his own.  Oh I may add he is quick to highlight to me ‘’it costs nothing’’!
This is the same man who would, in the past, send parcels of information to his sisters with photos, local papers etc and at a fair cost and time delay. My kids communicate with their friends, and others who they are getting to know, in real time from wherever and whenever they wish, oh ‘’it costs nothing’’ they are quick to point out.

Changed days to when we set up Commsworld in 1994 and sent a letter to a client on a Monday, received a reply on the Thursday and replied back on the Friday, a whole week passing and no progress made. We then went mad and got a computer (which sat in a corner) with an e-mail capability!!! I would get an e-mail, occasionally, print off and read same and get my wife (who worked in the business) to type back a reply, I could not type as I was a man!
When I got into the flow of things I remember ordering pizzas, for one of our late Tuesday meetings for the team, via e-mail to Domino’s only for them to call the office to ensure what they had received was genuine as ‘’we have never received an order via e-mail before’’ I wonder how many online orders they receive today.

Now that we are in an ip connected world with all forms of communications converging at a phenomenal speed, what will the next few years bring  ‘’will it cost nothing’’ and if so who will be the commercial winners and losers going forward in the world of business.
Interesting times indeed, I believe over the next four years we will see faster changes and an acceleration of the technologies; in fact we could look back to today’s Twitters and see them as equivalent to weird people using CB radios.