Pyjamanating

National Work from Home Day is this Thursday, 15th May.

So what do the people who already work from home do to celebrate such a day? Go out and evangelise about the benefits of homeworking perhaps. Or get together for a social event like the Social Media Cafe in London.

Stay at home and make use of the broadband wifi by sitting in the garden and answering the occasional email.

Taking part in National Work From Home Day

Many people can easily do their jobs from home. Apart from enhancing work-life balance for staff, with added health and leisure benefits, and reducing the need to travel, working from home significantly improves productivity, enabling businesses to be more competitive.

Many smarter working practices are very simple to implement, and it is these that organisations are being encouraged to try during Work Wise Week:

* Allowing staff to come in either an hour later or an hour earlier, with a reciprocal hour shift at the end of the day. This would enable staff to avoid the busiest travel times, effectively staggering the rush hour and making the journey far more tolerable for everyone.
* Allowing staff to take a half hour lunch break each day, and then let them leave at 3.00pm on the last day.
* Allowing staff to work from home on Thursday May 15, National Work from Home Day. Even a small reduction in the number of people travelling on the roads or by public transport on that day will have a significant effect on congestion and overcrowding.
* During Work Wise Week, ask staff to cancel all external face-to-face staff meetings, and instead hold them by conference call, either video or telephone. This would save time and resources, and reduce congestion and pollution.
* Where appropriate, allow staff to roster their own shifts during the week.

How Much is a Top Google Ranking Worth to Your Business? : SEO Book.com
In the UK Google not only has nearly 90% of the search market, but – according to Hitwise – Google controls a full 36.55% of the traffic going to UK websites. And, due to how search works, that 36.55% of traffic is generally more targeted and more valuable than the remaining pool of traffic.

Freelancers ‘like being their own boss’
Freelance workers generally love being their own boss, and this is one of the bonuses cited by Journalism.co.uk’s latest Freelancer of the Fortnight, Caspar van Vark.

He said: “Some freelancers like being able to work in their pyjamas, but that’s not for me. I have a desk in a shared office and I put in normal days.

“What I love is being my own boss, and not answering to anyone. I also love the unpredictable nature of freelancing. Assignments can come out of the blue, and I enjoy the variety.”

Social Media still on rise: Comparative global study
Research highlights:

1. Social media is a global phenomenon happening in all markets regardless of wider economic, social and cultural development.

2. Asian markets (not including Japan) are leading in terms of participation, creating more content than any other region

3. All social media platforms have grown significantly over the three Waves: Video Clips are the quickest growing platform, up from 31% penetration in Wave 1 to 83% in Wave 3

4. Social Networks: 57% have joined a Social Network, making it the number one platform for creating and sharing content: 55% of users have uploaded photos, 22% of users have uploaded videos

5. The widget economy – 23% of social network users have installed an application – 18% of bloggers have installed applications in their blog templates

6. Blogs are a mainstream media world-wide and a collective rival to traditional media (184m bloggers world-wide, China has the largest blogging community in the world with 42m bloggers) – 73% have read a blog, 45% have started a blog

7. Social media has strong impacts over brand’s reputation – 34% post opinions about products and brands on their blog – 36% think more positively about companies that have blogs

Social media by waves: Universal McCann survey:

global-survey-march08.PNG

According to his survey report, ‘Britain’ is 7th in a league table of European countries for percentage of population that regularly use the internet.

Survey: Iceland leads Europe in net use – Research – BizReport
Survey: Iceland leads Europe in net use
Iceland has the highest percentage of population aged 14 and above in Europe that uses the Internet on a regular basis, finds recent research.

by Helen Leggatt

The survey, by market research firm GfK, found that 88% of the population of Iceland uses the Internet regularly.

The Scandinavian countries of Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden came next, followed by Austria and Britain.

Could it be that climate drives Internet use? The Scandinavian and Icelandic climates are colder than those of the countries where Internet use is lowest – Malta, Spain and Portugal – and daylight is in shorter supply.

1. Iceland – 88%
2. Finland – 81%
3. Norway – 76%
4. Denmark – 76 %
5. Sweden – 73 %
6. Austria – 67 %
7. Britain – 63 %
8. Germany – 61 %
9. Slovenia – 61 %
10. Estonia – 60 %
11. France – 56 %
12. Italy – 53 %
13. Ireland – 45 %
14. Portugal – 43 %
15. Spain – 35 %
16. Malta – 25 %

Norway has just been ranked the most technologically advanced country in the world, for the third year in a row, in The World Economic Forum’s latest Global Information Technology Report.

I would suggest that it’s not so much a cold climate as lack of daylight in the winter months that drives Northerners to spend more time on indoor pursuits.

Web expected to overtake TV as UK’s top ad medium – ZDNet.co.uk
The internet will usurp television as the biggest advertising medium in Britain by the end of 2009, according to a report published on Monday.

Best cheap broadband internet and TV deals

I’m looking around for the best broadband deals for daily internet access in London and I’m seriously considering SKY TV. Now SKY may not be the first company you would think of as an Internet Service Provider but I figured once they decide to add a service to their core satellite TV business they are going to make sure it becomes totally reliable and fast enough for dependable use. That’s how they’ve maintained their dominant position in the subscription TV business for decades. The trouble with smaller companies is that they can get bought out by larger ones and then you can end up stuck with a legacy service that is expensive and of poorer quality. That’s happened to me twice already, which is why I’m looking at SKY TV with broadband as a possibility, in particular the SKY MID product which should give speeds of up to 8Mb with a 40Gb monthly bandwidth cap for only £5 a month. For the amount of youTube, TED and BBC iPlayer content I watch online that should be plenty, I spend most of the day working with text and graphics (email, web and RSS tools) which hardly use any bandwidth at all by today’s criteria.

In fact I could probably get away with the free SKY BASE broadband, which is definitely the best broadband deal you can get, but for professional purposes a little bit of overkill is not a waste of money.

SKY plus

I’m going to order the SKY+ ( Sky plus ) box for a one-off charge of £99 so that I can play with the linked series recording, and take advantage of pause and rewind of live TV, which is something I used to enjoy in the old Homechoice days. I won’t bother with the HD though, because my old TV and eyesight aren’t up to it. You’d need one of those new widescreen plasma TVs to get the full advantage, and five point one speakers surrounding the living room for the dolby digital lol.

No, I’m turning the offer round and regarding the SKY TV service as coming free with the fast reliable broadband, rather than the other way around as advertised, but they amount to the same thing really, probably the best broadband deals for the UK currently.

Concerns Raised Over Plans To Merge Schools from Worcester News
City councillor Andy Roberts, who is chairman of the governors at the junior school, said after much consideration his school has decided to support the proposals because they believe a single site will bring more opportunities for both staff and students.

Cricinfo – Players and Officials – Andy Roberts
Deadpan and deadly. Wicket or boundary, not a flicker of emotion would be evident save a gunslinger’s narrowing of the eyes. Andy Roberts kept his emotions in check. But under the veneer was an intelligent cricketer with a fertile brain, plotting and planning the downfall of batsmen as if it were a military campaign. The modern West Indian game based on the heavy artillery of fast bowlers, that served so well for a quarter of a century, began with him.

Andy Roberts (aka Mr Wiki)

Originally uploaded by Thayer18

Also known as Mr Wiki according to Thayer.