The Friday Round-Up
Let's start with enterprise. Bad Entrepreneur explains the value of setting goals that are challenging, but reachable.
The advice is sound: focus on a particular earnings figure per week. For BE, It started out of necessity. He set a figure that he needed to get him out of a financial hole, then "ate, slept, breathed and focused on" that figure.
Now's he's got a new one to obsess him -- it's higher, but still "seeable", not a dream number. It's created a virtuous circle -- the more reachable your target, the more likely you'll achieve it and want to raise the bar a bit.
My question: How scalable is this idea? Could it work for departmental target-setting?
And for (cod) ingenuity, Squander Two presents Britain's answer to the Apple Mac, the Shrovis-Bishopthorpe Envaliant III. Its sellout feature? "Shrovis-Bishopthorpe lead the pack in considering the internet a nuisance. To this end we have installed a lock, so that the decision to leave the real world behind... is anything but a thoughtless one."
An in the virtual world, as social networks take off, so do 'anti-social networking sites', the most populous of which is Germany's hatebook.org.
If you're a little sunnier, the trend also extends to 'auntie' sites, too, such as SavvyAuntie -- for P.A.N.Ks (professional aunts with no kids -- not to be confused with Universal Aunts, who were auntie-style escorts for children travelling alone. Do they still exist?)
Initially targeting US working non-mums, the site offers godmothers and aunts advice and gift ideas, as well as an agony-aunt column. One current question is about how siblings share out their care for an ageing parent -- step forward, SavvyChildren.com?
Enterprise is alive and well in London, too. Andrew Charalambous has launched Club4Climate at King's Cross, London's Club Surya. Forget the dry flush loos and the solar panels on the roof. This is the genius bit: "...the most impressive jewel in the Surya crown is a dance floor which uses piezo crystal technology to convert the kinetic energy of the dancers' footsteps into re-useable power for the rest of the club."
In more traditional enterprise, a bid for growth paid off for the Co-op this week, with the Somerfield purchase dubbed 'transformational' for the Co-op brand, according to CEO Peter Marks.
Onto financial delights...
Are you feeling the crunch, asks Brand Republic. (Yes, apparently we are.)
If you're not... you soon will, says Sir John Gieve. We have "quite a long way to go" before we reach the end of the downturn. Inflation's rise to a 16-year high of 3.8 per cent last month ambushed the Monetary Policy Committee, which now predicts inflation to exceed four per cent for the rest of the year.
Robert Peston examines the OFT's findings regarding current account charges (ie. they are unfair). Time to buy a strong box for under the mattress?
At Adam Smith, Eamonn Butler asks what Chapter 11 rules would mean for UK businesses. The plus: they give companies a bit of breathing space before the bailiffs start breaking down the door.
The minus: they rarely prevent the inevitable -- in the US, Chapter 11 has largely been the refuge of the airlines, says Dr Butler. But it's only putting off the inevitable in some cases and allowing less-than-efficient businesses to limp along, rather than using the Darwinist approach UK companies adhere to. I'd never have thought of British businesses as redder in tooth and claw than their American cousins, but there you go.
Comment is Free adds that Chapter 11 can become the refuge of scoundrel businesses looking to avoid paying employees or worse. It's the liquidators, says Prem Sikka, that regulatory reform should target.
BG took home Investors Chronicle's Share Champion award 2008. It beat Whitbread, Shire Pharmaceuticals, BAE Systems, BHP Billiton and fellow finalist Aero Inventory (which services aircraft) to win, scoring points for its investment in liquid natural gas production and distribution, as well as in cutting-edge, deep-sea oil wells in the North Sea and in Brazil.
Last, if you're still with me, you might want to read 50+ Personal Productivity Blogs You've Never Heard of Before...If you've got time to read all of them, you probably don't need help with your time-management (or you really, desperately do).