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HAPPY BANK HOLIDAY!
Team CRN is looking forward to the long weekend and even more so the absolute avalance of news that is set to come our way next week as everyone starts returning to work after the summer break.
I think a lot of people have been holding back.
We are well prepared for it here! Bring it on!
Goodbye ConSentry
Reports have emerged this week about NAC vendor ConSentry which closed down last week, making all its staff redundant.
ConSentry was the pioneer of NAC and had quite a niche channel following in the UK so it was a shame to hear the news. But what will this mean for NAC as a whole?
I am amazed how quiet the news was kept as well - almost as if it didn't want anybody to know it had gone out of business.
I'm wondering just how many more Q4 failures we are going to see in the coming months - it has been a really quiet summer so far.
I'm rich!
Just weeks after winning €500,000 on one Lottery - I've just been informed that I have won a further $750,000.
I really don't know what I'm going to do with all this money.
As usual it is simple. I just give away my bank details, date of birth, copies of my front door key, car key and roughly what times I'll be out my house in the next week or so - and the money will find its way to me. Genius plan.
These fraudsters are consistent I'll give them that.
I just hope no-one falls for this scam. They always seem to manage to find someone that does.
Secret Crush
I had a great meeting with a contact of mine who I have known for many years (and for the sake of her own street cred rating will remain nameless).
We were talking merrily about work and what we had been up to at the weekend and I mentioned my well known crush on Bono from U2 after going to see them in Cardiff at the weekend.
She then admitted that she has a secret hankering for none other than Peter Andre - he of the 'Mysterious Girl' fame!
Well now that Katie Price is out the way I think she should make her move.
U2
I'm a little like a zombie today after a crazy weekend in Cardiff seeing my favourite band of all time - U2.
The 360 Tour was absolutely brilliant - I cannot believe U2 gets better every time I see them. I have been attending their concerts since I was a fresh-faced 17-year-old and have racked up concert number seven now.
I can't wait for the next one.
However the one downside to the concert was the six-hour drive there and the five-and-a-half hour drive back - all in one day!
Someone in Cardiff needs to sort out the road situation there - it has definitely gone down as the worst journey I have ever made in the car. EVER.
Ageism in the industry?
We were sent an interesting press release today about a firm whose two 60-plus year old salespeople have just won awards for doing a great job.
I wasn't sure what to make of the release - whether to view it as extremely patronising of older workers, or just a great PR exercise.
I have come down on the positive PR side because I think the older workforce are often overlooked when it comes to handing out credit.
Older workers have far more experience of both working environments and life than their younger counterparts. And they certainly don't act as if they know it all, like many younger people coming into the workplace tend to do nowadays.
The truth is we could all learn a lot more from them than they could learn from us.
Over the past five years I have watched a close family member re-enter the workplace and she has proved to be a valuable and much loved member of her team and very respected by customers - not only because she is very good at her job, but because her experience of life means she knows instinctively what people need and how to go about doing it.
Older people are hard working and are an asset to most teams. And their achievements often go unnoticed because they don't like to draw attention to themselves.
It would be interesting to see some figures as to what the average age of worker is in most IT organisations today.
Saying that though - the age of chivalry is dead - it is often the older male commuters that push you out the way to get on the train and would rather stare at the floor than give their seat up for an elderly or pregnant person.
So it is not all brilliant. Trust me to find a negative angle!
Channel Pigeon
Hats off to Chris Hanson, intenational sales director at Computacenter who is trying to raise as much money for charity as possible by doing a sweets for tweets stint on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square tomorrow.
Pigeon Chris is defying Ken Livingston's pigeon ban at the same time - more reason to celebrate.
He is raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support, Willow Foundation and The Children's Trust Charity, by donning a giant pigeon suit. I hope it doesn't get too hot tomorrow or in fact too wet!
The crowd will be fed treats in return for tweets, which will appear instantly on Chris's Twitter page here.
To find out more about what Chris has been up to, and also to make a donation to worthy causes - check out his Twitter page.
Best of luck Chris from all of us at CRN!
Car booting
I've recently started attending car boot sales again as a seller - it made me realise how important it is to get your technique exactly right or people just won't buy.
In other words, just give stuff away.
I have a garage full of stuff to sell, which has to go so I can make room for my motorbikes! I have my priorities in order.
Selling at car boots is like entering another world. Not always a pleasant one at that. Some of the people that go along to these things are unpleasant to say the least.
It is amazing how some people look at you like you are an alien when you dare to ask 50p for a former prized possession that has hardly been used.
I was selling a DVD player for £5 - and some cheeky woman tried to knock me down to £2. I had great pleasure in telling her where to go.
Then apart from the quality items I had some absolute tat that people didn't even quibble about - they just paid the money and took the rubbish away with them. Go figure.
I estimate that I have about 10 boot sales to get through before I give up and take everything to the tip.
I'm rolling up my sleeves for a few arguments along the way.
Wasps
Another completely channel-centric observation from me - but why is it that a tiny creature such as a wasp can make people freak out?
These creatures, which as I was discussing at an outdoor business lunch where wasps were buzzing around earlier this week, actually do have their uses - they eat flies and caterpillers for one - but they have the knack of reducing grown men and women to cavorting, flapping idiots in one buzz.
Take this poor girl on my train this morning. She was enjoying her early morning coffee with just a hint of sugar (I assume) before Mr Wasp decided to swoop in for some fun. She was practically in tears as this wasp stayed glued to the same spot mere centimetres from her face.
After throwing her handbag and coffee on the platform and failing to escape its clutches, a hero commuter came to the rescue, gallantly trying to kill the offending insect. The wasp escaped, the train came and everyone was happy again.
I detest wasps as much as anyone - a sting right inside my ear when I was four years old was really the defining moment for me, but I have learned that no matter how hard you flap - they won't go away. The best thing to do is to ignore them.
Something tells me that this girl won't be taking sugar in her coffee again.
Dangerous avocados
I had a great meeting with a contact of mine the other day who was sporting quite a nasty injury to his finger.
Expecting him to say that he caught it in a car door, or was injured while hunting for food to feed his family, he surprised me when he said it was caused by an avocado.
Of course the avocado hadn't actually physically attacked him, but the use of the wrong knife had resulted in a nasty cut that left him with a practically severed finger.
Apparently his surgeon told him that there was a growing number of cases he was seeing that resulted directly from avocado misuse.
I'll never look at the fruit in the same way again.
Hello, I made the police take your bike away
I had one of those cringeworthy meetings yesterday when I came face to face with the man who had chained his bike to mine on Monday.
He was extremely apologetic which made me feel even worse because he had to buy a new lock, actually track down where his bike was being held and was given a dressing down by the British Transport Police.
It was a very uncomfortable moment and I didn't know where to look!
However he has definitely learned his lesson and hasn't tried to muscle in on anybody else's bike stand since that moment.
Bad start to the week!
There are days when everything that could go wrong does - and for me it always seems to be on a Monday morning.
Today - not only was my train 30 mins late - but when I arrived at where I park my bike - some idiot had gone and chained his to mine, becuase there were no free spaces left in the bike park.
Now in their defence, I don't think this was deliberate at all - he had tried to lock it to the stand - but it was extremely frustrating just not being able to ride off as usual.
After uttering a few expletives such as 'bother', 'darn' and 'gosh', a very kind NCP person came up to me and asked what the problem was.
When I showed him, he suggested we visited the British Transport Police to see if there was anything they could do with bolt cutters!
I was just going to leave the owner a rude note and schlep to work on the bus (a journey which I hate with a passion, but not quite as much as the Tube) - but I decided to go along with it. After all, he was being so helpful.
After visiting the BTP and registering the problem, a uniformed officer duly came along with a station person and a pair of boltcutters. He then cut through the offending bike's lock and my bike was finally free.
The police officer then took the other bike off to keep it safe in lost property.
Oh to be a fly on the wall when the owner of the bike discovers what has happened and has to waste an hour of his day (just like I did) trying to get his bike back. Plus the cost of the lock - it wasn't an expensive one - I don't think even I could have been that cruel and let them destroy a valuable lock - just one of those £8 from Halfords jobbies.
I do feel a little bit bad for them - but they should have taken more care when locking up their bike and gone to another level in the car park where there were empty parking spaces.
Something tells me they will be doing just that in the future!
Wobbly Table
I've just been for a very high brow business lunch (ahem) with a contact of mine and as usual the meeting couldn't start off nice and professionally.
The table wobbled quite a bit. In fact I thought our drinks were going all over the floor at one stage as it lurched to and fro whenever either of us moved.
We had a go at repairing it ourselves and trying to be subtle about it, before the entire waiting staff got involved and actually managing to make it worse.
After several attempts, with restaurant staff crowded round us and other diners staring like we were some kind of idiots, we finally moved one table across to a non-wobbly table.
Which we should have just done in the first place!
Running like a girl
The heavens have literally opened here this afternoon and there is nothing I like more than watching people try to get out of the rain.
Of course it is no laughing matter when I'm caught out in the downpour.
There was this one guy who amused me greatly today, wearing a pink jumper and holding a cup of coffee. He ran like a complete girl with his pinkie finger in the air.
That image will keep me entertained for the rest of the afternoon!
Train Strike
For the past two weeks we have been hit by the train strikes going on at National Express, meaning members of CRN cannot get into work.
Obviously because we are a modern type of company, home working is not an issue and it works just fine for us - but not everyone is as lucky. It is also the inconvenience that this type of thing causes that gets my goat.
These train workers have the average commuter over a barrel because there is often no alternative to travelling into work, so you have to admit defeat. Despite the fact that you have paid ridiculous money for the ticket in the first place - which is itself a scandal.
While these strikers are selfishly pursuing their greedy goals of getting even more pay and time off, people whose own jobs may be on the line due to the economic downturn, and who also haven't had a payrise this year and guaranteed gold-plated pensions, are forced to go home, at a time when they can least afford it.
There is talk of these strikes going on every Thursday and Friday for the rest of the month, costing London firms millions in lost productivity.
I really hope the strikers get nothing they ask for. And then they wonder why commuters get so frustrated and take their anger out on them.
Actebis
Interesting to see that Actebis has been sold on yet again. This time to a German private equity firm.
The distributor pulled out of the UK market in 2007 due to declining sales, but has managed to hang on in Europe.
This will be the second time it has been sold in two years - first to Arques Industries in 2007 and now to Droege Group, which claims it will help the firm increase its share of the IT market.
I wonder if a return to UK shores is on the cards?
Channel Debate - final question
Today sees the launch of the final Channel Debate question: Is there a lack of trust in the channel and what can be done to overcome that?
The debate has definitely picked up steam over the past five months, with plenty of videos being posted - and lots more to come. We have also had loads of written comments from every corner of the industry.
Please do visit the channel debate final question and leave your thoughts on the topic. We really do want as diverse a range of views as we can get.
