Blogs

Oh dear! How much worse can it get. The Chancellor has got a real problem, a complete lack of growth in the economy and debt not coming down. In only June 2010 he forecast borrowing in 2015/16 to be £20 billion. He now estimates this figure to be £87 billion! Debt was to peak previously during 2014/15 but instead will now peak in 2016/17 and at a much higher level. Austerity has been pushed out by a further two years Growth forecasts for the economy have been reduced again but perhaps the good news is that we should avoid a recession at the next quarter’s release of figures. I bet we do it...

With Social Media marketing taking on a life of its own in recent years, we at The Plum Consultancy ask what is relevant and what isn’t? How many people are drowning under the barrage of tweets, shares, likes, LinkedIn requests and Google+ notifications? Are they all meaningful or are tweets being re-tweeted within an inch of their lives and is anyone taking any notice or is it all going in the spam folder?!

We believe the considered approach is the only approach to have when using and dealing with Social Media for business purposes. Social Media is as much about relationship...

So let’s face it. We are in a huge mess, despite the rose-tinted spectacles used by some of our political leaders who are clearly not well in touch with the realities that most of us face. The neo-liberal economics of recent decades combined with the assault on the ecology of the planet may be reaping dividends for the rich few, but for the majority of us the immediate outlook is bleak.

Our society is fracturing and breaking up, and, in my view, this is being encouraged by a government which seems intent on systematically dismantling the structures which have held us together since...

Don't ignore the benefits of other's experience

The ability to listen to others is not, typically, the entrepreneur’s greatest strength. If you’re the oldest guy in the shop, if you’re the one others turn to when they want to hear about the “old days,” it’s time to find yourself an even older grizzly. When I first bought Mackay Envelope, I was twenty-six. My lawyer, the one I hired after I fired the young hotshot who told me not to buy the envelope company, was sixty. My accountant was fifty-eight, and my banker would admit to being seventy, but I think he was closer to eighty....