Oct 29
As a young man growing up, I followed many sports stars – Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalgish, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, but my sporting inspiration was Zinedine Zidane. He was so naturally gifted and so intelligent with the ball. This week, I found inspiration not with footballers, but at youngsters no more than 18 years old who won the apprentice of the year awards at the Zenos annual conference, where I also had the pleasure of presenting my view on the ‘Evolution of IT, Jobs and Learning’.
Zenos is a quite amazing company. 400 staff, mostly young and very dynamic, but what really stands out is the camaraderie, the culture and the ethos that drives this team of people led by Jason Moss and his management team. They live to help the next generation acquire the skills that will set them on the road to a new chapter in their lives, a career IT.
I selected Ashleigh Carr as the Zenos-CompTIA apprentice of the year. He is 18 years-old. He has Crohn’s disease. Our CompTIA A+ certification helped him find himself and a job at the Royal Bank of Scotland in IT Support. Most of 400+ audience were in tears as I presented the award to him (and we gave Ashleigh a 3D LED TV as a cool gift to go along with his award). We must never forget, this is why we exist, helping Ashleigh and others like him to get a job and make progress in the world of technology.
I will always love football, basketball and most other sports, and I will always enjoy watching the best talent grace our stadia. But this week has taught me that our inspiration comes from these youngsters, who overcome adversity to achieve results and aim high, and get the jobs they apply for. If that is our future, there is hope. Presenting at Zenos this week, and handing out this award, was my finest hour at CompTIA. Thank you Jason, Claire, Nicky, Richard and all the fantastic Zenos team.
Jul 29
I was closely watching the exchange in the US over the debt issues and President Obama supported the Gang of Six plan to reduce trillions of debt over 10 years. In a news debate on TV, the panelists claimed it was led by somebody with whom the President had a close relationship over the years. No surprise.
Now apply this to technology and to every walk of life. Despite the new platforms and tools now at our disposal, doesn’t business still get done when people make a connection with each other and find a situation that benefits both parties? Hasn’t it always been the case, and will it not always be that way? I think so.
I do enjoy the US – such good service and huge choice of everything you care to buy. Little wonder that so much innovation stems from there. It seems to have this knack of combining ideas and people to create some of the most innovative and forward thinking applications of technology.
Look at the image above. In a Brookstone store, I found this cushion; it was a remote control embedded within the softest material. Tacky in some respects, ingenious in others, but it sells! The US has such a willingness to try things, to embrace failure as a step in the right direction; as one leading author claimed, “By failing in a project or task, that is one less mistake that can’t happen next time.”
I enjoyed being a part of the Service 800 event where the theme was excelling in customer service. I had a chance to present to the group and engaged in some interesting conversations with individuals from 3M, GE Healthcare, Lexmark, Siemens and others, as well as some quite brilliant personalities from CompuCom. Some of these great people were kind enough to share a testimonial for me (see the tab above). Europe can benefit so much by watching and learning from these service experts.
Jun 04
Attended a few good events recently; presented at the British Telecom apprentice managers event in Gatwick, Brokerbin’s UK partner meeting in Manchester and the ElementK Learning Practitioners seminar in St Paul’s. Some excellent new contacts through those, and enjoyed them all. By far, this was the best thing I heard: “The best things in life aren’t things.”
Apr 14
How we consume is changing very quickly. In our non-stop world, with barely time to think, let alone face-to-face interaction, there is an opportunity. Digital content is expected for free in the modern internet era, and yet there is a lot of cash in the consumer pocket up for grabs – how, by enhancing our personal convenience. Save us time, make difficult choices easy, give us what we want, when and where we want it, and fast – make our lives easy and you could reap some real rewards.
Dec 31
This is exactly what the web is all about. A producer from Uruguay who uploaded a short film to YouTube in November has been offered an £18.6m contract to make a Hollywood film. Fede Alvarez’s short film “Ataque de Panico” (Panic Attack) featured giant robots invading and destroying Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. It is 4 mins 48 seconds long and was made on a budget of £186, but has attracted more than 1.5 million views on YouTube. Within days he was contacted by Hollywood studios and is now planning the new movie – you see, it can happen.
Dec 12
Just back from the windy city, one of my favourite places, Chicago. Favourite not for its weather or the sightseeing, but the people – large portions of food, good attitude, great people. Enjoy reading US papers every day for snippets of news – learnt that 5 million tweets are now recorded daily and bloggers post 900,000 new articles every day. That is enough to fill a broadsheet for nearly 20 years! Also discovered TweetLater, which allows you to schedule tweets to post when you are offline. The wonder of information.
Nov 26
I hear Kellogg’s is using new technology to stamp out imitation cereals. They will be branding every corn flake with its logo. They make 67 million boxes annually, and the new technology will burn its signature onto every individual flake. The originals are always the best.
Nov 21
The web has become the biggest store in history and most things are free – 100% off. Consumers are saving money and playing free online games, listening to free music on ‘we7′, cancelling basic cable and watching free video on Hulu, killing their landlines in favour of Skype. How do we compete with free? How do we learn to embrace it?
Nov 09
I read that a lady in Korea has just passed her driving test at the 950th attempt. I passed first time, then smashed my dad’s car. Sometimes – often – it is better to fail and learn from the experience. What the current wave of technology does, is let us try things; try using Twitter, try a Facebook page, try putting video instructions onto YouTube, because we can learn as we go. It is better to take a leap and try stuff than spend hours discussing it! You can always correct course along the way.
Oct 31
When you work in sales and marketing, what a customer says about you is worth 10 times what you say about yourself. This testimonial came in from Dave Cruse, the founder of a great little company and supplier search engine called Conjungo, where technology buyers identify and shortlist suppliers. It is probably my proudest testimonial:
“There have been all sorts of Events, Summits and Conferences during 2009 yet none have bettered the CompTIA annual member conference held at Ascot Racecourse recently. The organisation from start to finish was superb and highly professional, the speakers gave an excellent added dimension with very topical content and your very own Matthew Poyiadgi was simply outstanding and well worth seeing. Finally, to listen to James Caan of the Dragons Den was inspiring to say the least. Congratulations on the best event of 2009.” David Cruse, CEO and Founder – Conjungo.com
As a young man growing up, I followed many sports stars – Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalgish, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, but my sporting inspiration was Zinedine Zidane. He was so naturally gifted and so intelligent with the ball. This week, I found inspiration not with footballers, but at youngsters no more than 18 years old who won the apprentice of the year awards at the Zenos annual conference, where I also had the pleasure of presenting my view on the ‘Evolution of IT, Jobs and Learning’.
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