Things go up. Things go down. When this happens along a historical timeline you can see that it’s cyclical. Stock market sentiment, share prices, inflation, interest rates and economic activity in general are all examples of systems that are subject to ebbs and flows in fortunes. Ultimately economies are just rather large businesses, made up • Read More »
Archives: business
SMART Goals, The New Thing
January 5, 2022 | By Paul Mackenzie Ross | No Comments | Filed in: business.I did smile today when someone sent me an email explaining SMART goals. It’s always so interesting to see such a mature business tool being realised by a new audience. SMART, the acronym for Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound (or Timely), has been doing the rounds since it was first published in Management Review • Read More »
Doing vs Thinking: A Work Theory
March 5, 2020 | By Paul Mackenzie Ross | No Comments | Filed in: business, philosophy.Working at a digital marketing agency, I spend a lot of time analysing not just the campaign data of the SEO and PPC work we do, but also the workflow and the processes. Granted, we are so busy that there’s not always time to analyse and philosophise, but when we do it has to be • Read More »
The Absurdity of “Get Brexit Done”
December 17, 2019 | By Paul Mackenzie Ross | No Comments | Filed in: business, politics.So, the results came in on Friday 13th December – The British people want to “ get Brexit done”. Of course, they also didn’t like Jeremy Corbin, a radical Labour MP who was subjected to numerous character assassination attempts but who didn’t defend himself against them anywhere near strongly enough. They also had no love • Read More »
The Self-Employed National Insurance Rise
March 11, 2017 | By Paul Mackenzie Ross | No Comments | Filed in: business.So Philip Hammond raised the rate of National Insurance for the self-employed in his first budget. Not only did he break an election pledge but the raise has been defended as “fair”. Is it fair? Here’s my opinion. As an employee, I sign some forms when I join work and hand my employer my National • Read More »
The Slickest Brand Switch Ever?
September 2, 2015 | By Paul Mackenzie Ross | No Comments | Filed in: business, design, Internet, news.Wow, that was smooth. Google has simplified its logo, ridding the world of the slightly old-fashioned, serif font that we have known for nearly 17 years and replaced it with a sans-serif font. Initially, I was both surprised and a little dismayed that something so familiar was replaced without a word of warning but, at • Read More »
And Now the Small Business Signatories
April 27, 2015 | By Paul Mackenzie Ross | No Comments | Filed in: business, politics.With less than two weeks to go until the election we now have a letter from 5,000 small businesses pledging their allegiance to one party and it’s the blue party again. Furthermore, that letter is once again published in The Telegraph where, this morning, the newspaper’s website calls it a “boost for David Cameron”…
These 100 Big Business Signatories
March 31, 2015 | By Paul Mackenzie Ross | No Comments | Filed in: business, politics.Having been out of the professional business and journalism loop for the last year, the item in the news today that caught my ear was that The Conservatives wheeled out their 100 business leaders as signatories backing another parliament of blue bosses. It seems that, in retaliation, The Labour Party said that “zero hours contracts” • Read More »
Taking Advantage of Small Business Ignorance
April 10, 2014 | By Paul Mackenzie Ross | No Comments | Filed in: business, Internet, tech.I recently received a phone call from a local small business, asking for my assistance. Owning a mass of domain names, websites and email accounts, they were having trouble understanding and managing their portfolio, so I agreed to step in to organise and consolidate their web assets.
Startups Acquires is4profit
March 6, 2014 | By Paul Mackenzie Ross | No Comments | Filed in: business, Internet, news.Crimson Startups Ltd, the publishing company behind the Startups and GrowingBusiness websites, has announced its acquisition of is4profit Ltd, who run the www.is4profit.com small business advice portal.