A bit of this and a bit of that » work

Would you like fries with that?

owen — Sun, 16 May 2010 03:21:08 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

I love my job, I really do! When I start to feel stressed, all I have to do is to think of the alternatives and I go back to loving my job again. To me, the worst thing I could be doing is doing something mind-numbing over and over again; and serving fries at McDonalds just epitomises that feeling. Not sure if I’d get past their employment screening though, last person I knew who went for a job interview there was turned down because she was “overqualified”.

With my job, I’m lucky in that I’m doing something different every day; issues change, people’s opinions change and navigating through those perceptions is always fun. When I feel the pressure, all I have to do is ask myself “Do I want fries with that?”. Always puts a smile on my face and a positive attitude to face the rest of the day

SocialSpark is LIVE!

owen — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:06:04 +0000

I’ve been a beta user of SocialSpark for a couple of months now, and you might have spotted a couple of posts on one of my blogs talking about it. Anyway, it’s now open for everyone to sign up, create opportunities if you’re an advertiser or pick up opportunities and blog about different things if you’re a blogger.

I’ve gone ahead and created a profile for myself; actually, I’ve created 2 profiles, one as a blogger and the other as an advertiser. You see, if you’re an advertiser you can create a variety of different opportunities, from paid ones, to free ones called Sparks. Sparks can be used by bloggers to get ideas of different things to blog about. I created one of these and got a few posts back about a plugin I wrote called Entredroppers.

From a blogger’s point of view, there are some differences to Izea’s other product, PayPerPost. Probably the biggest different is dynamic pricing. Advertisers can put up an opportunity at a particular price, but this can go up if noone takes the offer. If many people queue up for it, then the price is pushed down again, in an economic model that tries to match supply with demand. It’s not an easy thing to do, so it will be interesting to see how it pans out as more bloggers and advertisers join the fold.

Check it out

Note: This post was sponsored by IZEA

How did that go?

owen — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:29:20 +0000

One of the things that always impresses me when I attend a Microsoft conference is how important it is for them to solicit feedback from their audience. They even go as far as offering prizes and other incentives for people to submit their feedback forms. It’s all about guaging how effective you’re being which is critical for any business. It doesn’t have to cost much and you don’t need sophisticated Audience Response System rentals to get started. All you need is a piece of paper. One thing to keep is mind is that you can always learn from events you go to. Keep an eye on what others are doing and use these as a yardstick for your efforts.

Online Services talk for the BCS

owen — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:11:45 +0000

Andy and I gave a talk last night to the local chapter of the BCS about the work we’re doing to provide businesses and citizens in the Isle of Man with a set of Online Services to facilitate interaction with Government. We had a great time talking about what we do and had quite a few good questions from the audience.

If you were unable to make it, here’s a copy of the presentation material we used.

Business Aspects: iom-online-services-bcs-november.ppt
Technical Aspects: iom-online-services-bcs-november-technical.ppt

If you want to learn a bit more about the Isle of Man Government Online Services project, here’s a short video about the shared service approach we are taking:

Let’s look for a job

owen — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 23:26:18 +0000

Don’t you hate it when you’re using a job site and just can’t find the job you’re looking for? Well, Watch 4 jobs lets you search for jobs in a totally different way, but specifying a set of criteria to look for instead of just searching for a particular keyword. And if you don’t find the job you want, you can watch 4 a job and get the website to tell you when the right job come up.

It’s not that I’m looking for a new job at the moment, but it’s interesting to see how this website works and how it’s different to all the other job search engines out there. So whether you’re looking for jobs in Somerset, jobs in Gloucestershire or jobs in birmingham, Watch 4 Jobs should be able to find you your perfect job.

Things you learn at work

owen — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 22:59:36 +0000

One of the great things about my job is that you tend to learn loads of different things. One day I’m doing development work, other days I’m working with the business and sometimes I’m working with the technology team.

One of the areas I enjoy most is around networks and secure networking. Whenever you’re building a system there’s always the risk that someone will try and subvert what you’re doing. Whether it’s for personal gain, or just to prove something, there’s always someone out there trying to break what you’ve done.

One thing I was reading today is the concept Cisco have of self-defending networks. This involves building intelligence into a system so when an attack is detected the correct counter measures are deployed. Pretty interesting stuff.