Just a short blog to start what will be a busy week with work and moving.
On Friday, with the help of the great folks at Richardson Moving and Storage, we move from Redcar to my home town of Middlesbrough and into the thriving Digital & Creative space of the Boho Zone and specifically Boho 5 (Bridge Street East, Middlesbrough).
Our email, website, mobile number and bank details will all remain the same but we cannot port our land line number as that belongs to the Palace Hub and as soon as we are settled and got the new number we will let you know. We have a meeting on 3rd August with the MFC supplying Cornerstone Business Solutions to sort out our telephony so should have a great solution pretty quick.
Cornerstone are part of our soon to launch BNI chapter in Middlesbrough and one of many quality businesses we will be working with over the coming years as we move to the next stage in Tad Web Solutions' growth. We have a fantastic digital and creative team in the soon-to-launch chapter which will really help us all grow including graphics/branding, print, video, an online advertising agency hand-picked by Google for mentoring (one of a very limited group) along with us and Cornerstone - going to be something special. There's also great teams in the construction and related industries and a brilliant financial and professional services team plus a couple of great health & fitness companies that will grow into a brilliant health/fitness/beauty and well-being team.
If you do business in Middlesbrough you should pop along for breakfast at the Thistle Hotel at 06:45 on Tuesday and see what you're missing out on.
Sunday, 26 July 2015
Sunday, 19 July 2015
Working with Colleges & Schools
I had a great meeting with Joanna, the Principle of Stockton VIth Form College, this week. We arranged it based upon a brief conversation we had at an event where I was very impressed by their plan to provide students with work experience,
We have had a few students for work experience in the past with mixed success, largely dependent upon the organisation involved. It went really well with both MacMillan College and Kings Academy but badly with Redcar College. Last summer we had a Summer Intern from Teesside Uni who was brilliant, we've had 2 French students for a while via the Uni, one was great, one wasn't and we now have Michael for almost a year as an Intern and who we plan to have as the next employee if he wants it - he's that good.
Therefore, I'm very keen to work with educational establishments to provide opportunities and experience but as a micro business it can cause problems. The reality is that a school work experience person probably ties up a member of staff for a full 5 days, a college one for around 3 days and a uni one from the right academic background around a day tops. That is work not paying its way and significant for my business
A typical school or college work experience is for a full week and we simply cannot do that regularly as we are too busy to leave a staff member as unproductive for a week.
The solution, and a really great one from Stockton VIth Form, is to have work placements every Friday of term. That means devoting around 0.5 days of staff time per week and is manageable. The reality may be that over a year that is more staff time than we currently commit but the issue for us is more about devoting a big block in one go than spending the time which we see as valuable for us, the college and the student.
The net result is we are happy to have 1 student, either in half-term or term blocks, throughout the year. We win as we get the chance to work with some great young people and potentially cherry pick some future employees, the college gets to sell the fact that its computing, graphics and English students get the chance to work on commercial projects and have real experience, and the student gets to put that on their CV (and may even get a job out of it longer term). Win, win, win!
There is also the feel good factor we get from simply contributing. You can't ignore how much better you do as a business and personally by contributing and feeling good about what you do. Guess who is reading The Happiness Advantage at the moment!
More than that, after a good chat and meeting some key staff, we will be looking to help out by providing commercial graphics projects for students to supply "real-life" projects with payments for work used and I'm also going to be one of the businesses involved in their local board for delivering their STEM specialism.
Very happy and very excited about building this relationship and a very refreshing attitude from a forward thinking college.
We have had a few students for work experience in the past with mixed success, largely dependent upon the organisation involved. It went really well with both MacMillan College and Kings Academy but badly with Redcar College. Last summer we had a Summer Intern from Teesside Uni who was brilliant, we've had 2 French students for a while via the Uni, one was great, one wasn't and we now have Michael for almost a year as an Intern and who we plan to have as the next employee if he wants it - he's that good.
Therefore, I'm very keen to work with educational establishments to provide opportunities and experience but as a micro business it can cause problems. The reality is that a school work experience person probably ties up a member of staff for a full 5 days, a college one for around 3 days and a uni one from the right academic background around a day tops. That is work not paying its way and significant for my business
A typical school or college work experience is for a full week and we simply cannot do that regularly as we are too busy to leave a staff member as unproductive for a week.
The solution, and a really great one from Stockton VIth Form, is to have work placements every Friday of term. That means devoting around 0.5 days of staff time per week and is manageable. The reality may be that over a year that is more staff time than we currently commit but the issue for us is more about devoting a big block in one go than spending the time which we see as valuable for us, the college and the student.
The net result is we are happy to have 1 student, either in half-term or term blocks, throughout the year. We win as we get the chance to work with some great young people and potentially cherry pick some future employees, the college gets to sell the fact that its computing, graphics and English students get the chance to work on commercial projects and have real experience, and the student gets to put that on their CV (and may even get a job out of it longer term). Win, win, win!
There is also the feel good factor we get from simply contributing. You can't ignore how much better you do as a business and personally by contributing and feeling good about what you do. Guess who is reading The Happiness Advantage at the moment!
More than that, after a good chat and meeting some key staff, we will be looking to help out by providing commercial graphics projects for students to supply "real-life" projects with payments for work used and I'm also going to be one of the businesses involved in their local board for delivering their STEM specialism.
Very happy and very excited about building this relationship and a very refreshing attitude from a forward thinking college.
Sunday, 12 July 2015
The Last Post
No, not the last time I'll be writing nonsense on here I'm afraid, but a little story about snail mail (and another reason we are moving).
We're now working with a company called QA International Certification Limited, to create some web-based software that will automate some of their back end systems allowing access for staff when they're mobile, providing limited client access and greatly increasing productivity. We're excited about the project and the potential it has for worldwide sales and a fruitful partnership. I've got to know one of the directors quite well, a really nice and down to earth fella who I have a lot of time for.
Even as a stand alone job, without it's huge potential, it's a good contract for us and like all jobs we insist on an upfront payment, in this case of 50% as we are committing time and resources to the job. Due to holidays of the financial controller the 1st payment was delayed but only a little, this was all amicably agreed and a cheque was promised in the post. I'm happy with all of that.
Our post gets "placed in our locked pigeon hole daily", we pop down and pick it up, simple system. By Friday there was no sign of a cheque nor direct payment into our account, meaning I need to chase this up which can have the potential for looking like a lack of trust. I thought I'd leave it until Monday morning, carefully think how I want to broach the subject diplomatically (really not my strong suit that) and contact the director I know.
Late on Friday expected visitor arrives and I go to Reception to pick him up to be told that there's a load of post been here for days at Reception (including aforementioned cheque and another payment).
This is to add to the new business cards for Michael which were for the Tees Valley Business Summit on Wednesday but we didn't get until Thursday, even though they came on Tuesday but we weren't informed.
Fortunately I waited before contacting clients about overdue payments.
Someone at Redcar Council asked me why we were leaving - there's not enough hours in the day to tell them everything!
We're now working with a company called QA International Certification Limited, to create some web-based software that will automate some of their back end systems allowing access for staff when they're mobile, providing limited client access and greatly increasing productivity. We're excited about the project and the potential it has for worldwide sales and a fruitful partnership. I've got to know one of the directors quite well, a really nice and down to earth fella who I have a lot of time for.
Even as a stand alone job, without it's huge potential, it's a good contract for us and like all jobs we insist on an upfront payment, in this case of 50% as we are committing time and resources to the job. Due to holidays of the financial controller the 1st payment was delayed but only a little, this was all amicably agreed and a cheque was promised in the post. I'm happy with all of that.
Our post gets "placed in our locked pigeon hole daily", we pop down and pick it up, simple system. By Friday there was no sign of a cheque nor direct payment into our account, meaning I need to chase this up which can have the potential for looking like a lack of trust. I thought I'd leave it until Monday morning, carefully think how I want to broach the subject diplomatically (really not my strong suit that) and contact the director I know.
Late on Friday expected visitor arrives and I go to Reception to pick him up to be told that there's a load of post been here for days at Reception (including aforementioned cheque and another payment).
This is to add to the new business cards for Michael which were for the Tees Valley Business Summit on Wednesday but we didn't get until Thursday, even though they came on Tuesday but we weren't informed.
Fortunately I waited before contacting clients about overdue payments.
Someone at Redcar Council asked me why we were leaving - there's not enough hours in the day to tell them everything!
Saturday, 4 July 2015
The Joys of Microsoft Office 365
MS Office is pretty ubiquitous and lots of the free versions of office software are, in my opinion, pretty rubbish. So we use Office 365 on all machines whether PCs or Macs.
The good news with 365 is you automatically get updated versions and this week we have found the bad news is that you get updated versions!
The issue is we're working with a new client to create a customer management system that is web-based and automates much of their contact messages. Their old system is written in VB and uses an Access database (yes I know!). So a starting point is to get the old database (when I say database I mean single Access table) and convert it into a usable and suitably normalised format.
All good so far but when I try and access their replicated database Access won't open it as it's too old. A quick search via Google and Microsoft have answers for this, "Step 1 Open the database ..." Er it doesn't open is the problem, the solution can't start with that. It was looking like uninstall Access 2013 and install an old version with the Jet driver and then do the conversion.
Then after a good swear at Microsoft an idea popped up. Does Excel still have a Jet driver in its import from database routines? The answer was yes and the new spreadsheet can be used to import into something useful like mysql for further use with a little sql work to get everything in the right format.
A great example of "re-framing" in positive psychology jargon and we can now crack on and create the solution, no thanks to Microsoft though.
The good news with 365 is you automatically get updated versions and this week we have found the bad news is that you get updated versions!
The issue is we're working with a new client to create a customer management system that is web-based and automates much of their contact messages. Their old system is written in VB and uses an Access database (yes I know!). So a starting point is to get the old database (when I say database I mean single Access table) and convert it into a usable and suitably normalised format.
All good so far but when I try and access their replicated database Access won't open it as it's too old. A quick search via Google and Microsoft have answers for this, "Step 1 Open the database ..." Er it doesn't open is the problem, the solution can't start with that. It was looking like uninstall Access 2013 and install an old version with the Jet driver and then do the conversion.
Then after a good swear at Microsoft an idea popped up. Does Excel still have a Jet driver in its import from database routines? The answer was yes and the new spreadsheet can be used to import into something useful like mysql for further use with a little sql work to get everything in the right format.
A great example of "re-framing" in positive psychology jargon and we can now crack on and create the solution, no thanks to Microsoft though.
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