Archive by Author
The death of file search and the rise of predictive “push”
Posted on 09. Mar, 2012 by Andy.
If you’re a fan of Downton Abbey, you know that the most favored servants are those who have come to know their employers’ needs and preferences so well that steps are proactively taken to ensure that members of the Grantham family are never in need of anything. Just as they begin getting hungry, a meal [...]
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How the web has powered work for 20 years
Posted on 02. Nov, 2011 by Andy.
2011 has been a year of milestone birthdays in tech. September saw Google become a teenager, email hit the big 40 in June, and even Twitter turned five back in March. Perhaps the most significant tech birthday this year, though, was the World Wide Web itself turning 20. In 1991 British scientist Tim Berners-Lee posted [...]
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The apps that feed our mobile communication addiction
Posted on 19. Oct, 2011 by Andy.
When I originally thought about writing this post a few weeks ago, Steve Jobs had yet to resign from Apple. However, his resignation and my original idea for a post, focusing on our addiction to information on the move, actually complement each other rather nicely. Jobs has succeeded in transforming the way we consume information [...]
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The Remote Workforce: How Do You Keep It Together?
Posted on 28. Sep, 2011 by Andy.
It’s no surprise that advances in connectivity, hardware and software have resulted in workforces becoming increasingly mobile. Gartner recently revealed that smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2010 increased by almost 50 percent over the same period last year. People no longer have to be tied to their desks all day, every day. As [...]
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Finding Talent: Using the Web to Hire a Team of Peers
Posted on 21. Sep, 2011 by Andy.
When Alastair and I founded Huddle in 2006, it was a typical startup story. We identified a problem, came up with a solution over a few drinks and before we knew it the two of us were spending every waking hour developing our idea. Our mantra was, and still is, “go big or go home” [...]
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Going Virtual: Can Any Organization Do it?
Posted on 14. Sep, 2011 by Andy.
When you hear the phrase “virtual business,” it’s likely that the names of pioneers such as Amazon and eBay spring to mind. Hot on the heels of these two goliaths, you may also think of online retailers such as Dell, Zappos.com and ASOS. However, thanks to advances in high-speed connectivity and the rise of cloud [...]
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Another month, another outage: This time it’s a bumper edition
Posted on 09. Sep, 2011 by Andy.
It was tempting to call this post The final instalment of the importance of being up trilogy, as it follows hot on the heels of my musings on the outage of Microsoft’s BPOS service (The importance of being up: Part I) and the outage of Office 365 (The importance of being up: Part II). On [...]
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The Challenges of Being a Modern Employee
Posted on 07. Sep, 2011 by Andy.
In today’s 24/7 digital economy, it’s hard to believe that just a decade ago many organizations were still trying to establish how – or even if – they could deploy email in their offices. Now, thanks to the mass adoption of high-speed communications and advances in hardware and software, the office can be wherever your [...]
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As email passes 40, is a midlife crisis on the cards?
Posted on 31. Aug, 2011 by Andy.
A few months ago, electronic mail, or email as it’s now affectionately known, hit the respectable age of 40. When Ray Tomlinson, a young computer engineer, sent the first email in 1971, he could only have guessed how it would impact the way we communicate in both our business and personal lives. Email has transformed [...]
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Back to the (Office of the) Future
Posted on 23. Aug, 2011 by Andy.
Over the years, there have been numerous articles musing on what the office of the future would look like, but how have those past predictions matched up to reality today? Back in 1975, BusinessWeek published “an in-depth analysis of how word processing will reshape the corporate office.” In the article, industry experts were divided over whether they [...]
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Amazon leaps into the government clouds
Posted on 19. Aug, 2011 by Andy.
This week, Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched its GovCloud service, targeted solely at US government departments and contractors. AWS GovCloud is physically and logically accessible by US persons only, meeting regulations such as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Consequently, it enables US government agencies and contractors to process and store more sensitive workloads [...]
