How long before Twitter clamp down on accounts?

Posted by adi on Feb 27, 2009 in Default

Today has seen a jester register the http://twitter.com/sirfredgoodwin account to poke fun at Sir Fred Godwin, former Royal Bank of Scotland ceo, who suffered in the press recently for plans to receive a hefty pension from his former role at a time when the government are bailing them out.

It raises the interesting issue of how long it will take for Twitter to tighten up the procedure for registering accounts.  There are a few examples of Twitter squatting on famous brand names, such as http://twitter.com/coke

It seems only a matter of time before a big brand, or famous name, complains about such activity.  At the moment no email verification is required to setup an account so it is very easy to setup up numerous accounts.  With the website becoming more mainstream some form of domain name style system seems an inevitable step, maybe even a way for Twitter to make some money.

Tags: Brand, Fred Goodwin, Royal Bank of Scotland, Twitter

The Arsene Wenger approach to recruitment

Posted by adi on Feb 26, 2009 in Work

Jacqui Smith poked the nationalist hornets nest recently by announcing that the government were making it harder for foreign nationals to enter the UK for work.  This comes on the back of calls by Gordon Brown for British jobs to go to British workers last year in the Commons.

So it comes with some relief that the Chartered Management Institute have shown a high degree of common sense in declaring that an individuals skills are the primary concern when employing them, and not their nationality.

What I like to think of as the Arsene Wenger approach.  The Gooners manager has often been criticized by the media for not picking English players and his general argument is that he picks the best players regardless of nationality, with the intonation that the young English players at the club simply haven’t been up to the mark until recently when more English youngsters have made first team appearances.

In the global economic crisis we’re stumbling through it’s incredibly important that markets, both financial and labour, remain open and flexible.  The moment we start following protectionist policies is the moment we start entrenching this recession deeper and further than we can possibly imagine.

So well done to the CMI for sticking its neck out for what’s right and proper.

Tags: foreign, labour, management, migrants, Recruitment

Hell does not begin to sum it up

Posted by adi on Feb 1, 2009 in Play

Well today was the Hell of Ashdown ride.  Suffice to say, whatever could go wrong did go wrong.  The train to the start was delayed by around 40 minutes (on a 30 minute journey!) because some loony locked himself in the toilet and was threatening to kill himself.

Finally rolled off at 10,10am, a full 50 minutes after my scheduled start time.  The next few hours were pretty good.  It was cold but the sun was shining and the riding was good.  Completed ‘The Wall’ to the top of Ashdown Forest and felt good.  The wind up there was horrendous but was nothing compared to what greeted us in the valley.

The forecast had been for snow today for most of the week but this morning it was scheduled to hit us in the evening.  Did it buggery.  It was a full on blizzard for the next hour or so of riding.  Couple the snow with the howling wind and it was in your face, horizontal style snow.  Absolute murder.  My fingers and toes were as good as gone as I lost all feeling in them pretty quickly and it was a miserable experience.

Thankfully for the last ten miles or so the sun came out, and with my legs feeling ok I was able to complete those at a decent pace to complete the course in 4hr 41mins.  A bit slower than I was hoping for (sub 4hr 30min) but given the horrendous conditions I was pretty pleased.

The organisation for the event was superb and the poor souls stood marshelling the course in the snow deserve an enormous amount of credit.  And the cooked food upon our return was very welcome indeed.

To cap things off the train home was late arriving, then delayed by twenty minutes getting back to Waterloo.  So all told an eventful day and, whilst I doubt I would have agreed when the snow was falling, an enjoyable one.

Tags: cycling, hell of ashdown, snow