“SEO is evil” That’s the topic of the first debate at Barcamp Leeds, hosted by Dominic Hodgson and one of many sessions in this two day event of hot topics and debates initiated by attendees.
Yuuguu is proud to sponsor such an event that helps spread experience and technical knowledge regarding all aspects of Start-up businesses to the curious employee looking to further skills.
If you’re planning to go to Web 2.0 Expo in New York next month, you can help yourself to a $100 discount on your conference registration, or a free pass to the Expo, compliments of Yuuguu.
All you need to do is use this discount code: webny08com
Hope to see you there
We’ve got some exciting new features to announce, so we’re packing the tour bus, printing some t-shirts and hitting the road. Here are the venues and dates for the forthcoming tour:
Office 2.0, San Francisco, 3-5 September 2008
Web 2.0 Expo, New York City, 16-19 September 2008
Future Of Web Apps, London, 8-10 October 2008
Web 2.0 Expo, Berlin, 21-23 October 2008
If you’re attending any of these events please get in touch beforehand, so we can arrange to hook up.
Has Gordon Brown finally got something right? Well in my eyes, extending flexible working options to parents of children up to the age of 16 can only be a good thing. Already available to the parents of children under the age of 6, this will not become law until April 09. You can read his proposed ideas in the Mail online where he clearly wants to be seen as working towards a smarter way of working for families in the future. The trick is now to get small businesses ready for such a move.
Whilst the Conservatives would extend this even further if in power, to the age of 18, the options of creating a better work/life balance is looking promising.
Desktop events company BroadView has published a report showing how delegates at a conference broadcast from New Orleans saved an average of 3.7 tonnes of Co2 each, by not attending the event in person.
It’s not just big events with attendees from all over the world where reducing travel helps the environment. At Yuuguu, we’re seeing how our customers are reducing their everyday carbon footprint, by collaborating online rather than travelling for face-to-face meetings. A great example is this case study of Remote New Media, who use Yuuguu as a support tool for their customers. Our remote desktop sharing and control features have allowed the company to improve its customer offering while supporting their environmental approach to business.
We’ve just sent out our first newsletter - if you received it, please get in touch with any feedback or suggestions.
The most popular article has proven to be our ‘how to’ guide on group chat and conference calling. We’ve picked up in recent user testing that our conference calling feature is not as prominent as it should be in the Yuuguu application, so we will be addressing that in the near future.
Fifty percent of German workers would like to work at home for several days a week, according to a recent survey by Bitkom, the association for IT, telecoms and new media. Seventeen percent of those surveyed would prefer to work at home all of the time and only 25% don’t like the idea of homeworking at all. The desire for home working was much stronger in younger age groups.
Bitkom’s report points to the obvious advantages of home working: a better balance between work and family life, reduced travel costs and less time wasted on commuting. It goes on to say that the technology requirements for homeworking are minimal - no more than a computer, a phone and a broadband connection, but points out that home workers need a high level of trust and autonomy from their employers in order to be effective.
I feel that these cultural issues within companies are key. It seems that some senior managers are reluctant to allow home working, due to concerns about productivity, despite significant evidence to the contrary. The need to attract and retain talented employees remains hugely important and those who are willing to adopt more flexible working practices may be gaining a significant advantage in the employment market.
A look at ‘screen sharing’ on Google Trends shows some interesting results. Unsurprisingly, searches for screen sharing have risen hugely in the last twelve months. What did surprise me is that India tops the list of countries searching on that topic.
At Yuuguu we love the fact that we are helping to connect people all over the world, so that they can work more effectively together from different locations. And we have quite a following in India – it’s the fifth largest user country for us.
If you are a Yuuguu user and live in India, or work with someone who does, please get in touch and tell us how you are making use of the service – we’d love to hear your story and any suggestions about how you would like us to develop it further for your needs.
We are slowly getting our heads round the constant rises in gas and electricity, but are we ready for oil to soar to $200 per barrel in as little as six months? If you can’t quite work out how that affects us all, then the BBC News online has summed this up for us:
“Oil prices have now risen by 25% in the last four months and 400% since 2001. ”
The BBC states that Goldman Sachs energy strategist Argun Murti successfully predicted rises three years ago to pass the $100 mark when at a price of $55.
This article makes for a very interesting insight into the global demand, driven by the booming expansion of countries such as China and India. Throw them in to the pot with existing demand from the US, the European Union and Japan, it can only get worse as time goes on.
If you are interested to know why these prices are so hi then take a look at this from the BBC
It Just shows how much we rely on things we take for granted when 1,200 workers walk out at the Grangemouth oil refinery, over pension disputes. Scotland have already seen their garages run out of petrol and such, sparked scares of the same happening closer to home. Whilst the assurance from ministers seems to do nothing for the general public, reports from my own father over IM states people close to fighting in his local garage due to large cues and possible rationing.
This all seems a bit crazy. I on the other hand sit here quite calm, knowing that i have enough petrol to go to my meeting tomorrow and even if i didn’t i could easily hold my meeting online. Ok, the trains are another option, but what happens when their workers walk out too? Lets face it, we all know there will come the time that we will have no more petrol and while we wait for scientists to produce the new super-fuel on an affordable global scale, we have to look at working a lot smarter than wasting our resources now.
The Smarter way to work!
Why not try introducing Yuuguu into your workplace and try working from home. At first you could try it one day a week and build it up from there. More and more i find myself saving time by holding small meetings online just like you would in the office. I used to travel 80 miles a day, so believe me i know what it is like spending out on ever increasing petrol prices and almost falling asleep at the wheel. I now save 2 hours a day from traveling and over £40 per week, yet i am more productive than ever as i am less tired, more focussed and most of all not sitting on the side of the motorway waiting for the RAC with a puncture whilst my meeting gets re scheduled.
You never know, if more people held meetings online and traveled less for work we could all get more done and save the chance of making a fool of ourselves, fighting over such things as petrol.