Have you become aware of a new trend in raising small sums of money called crowd funding? This allows people to group together and and pool their resources to help fund a busines project. Used carefully, it does provide an extra answer to the problem of raising small sums of genuine risk capital. It is aslo helping companies to side step the banks when looking for loans…at a time when it is clear that banks are not providing new lending to small business.
If you have tried on sites such as Crowdcube, let us know how you find the exeprience…either as an investor or a recipient of funds.

Clocks would move forward by an hour all year round if Scotland consents to the switch, the government announced yesterday. This would mean moving to Central European time and according to campaigners would improve road safety, provide an increase in tourism and cut energy use in the evening, as well as making the winter more paletable for most of us. Most people in England seem to support the change and the evidence from the last experiment carried out in the 70s was favourable in the main. Yet the government seems more concerned about its status in Scotland than in representing the views of the majority of Brtish people. Why should Scottish tail wag the British Dog yet again?

I am going through an unusual experience with Lexus at the moment. It will be interesting to see how they respond to my request for satisfaction over an issue that will reveal how much they value their reputation. I may write more when I have their response.

I cannot watch bank advertisments on TV without either wishing to throw up or alternatively hit someone. They all claim to care about the customer….the reality is they only care about themselves and adhering to their systems. By and large the concept of personal service has gone out of the window and been replaced by computer driven processes and policies. When did you last speak to someone in a bank who responded quickly (and not after minutes spent trying to find out the right phone option and that awful message…your custom is really important to us but we are experiencing abnormal levels of enquiry at the moment ) and who was capable of dealing with the issue that you contacted them about in the first place.
Clearly the leaders of our banks have no experience of what it is like to be a customer using their own product. Neither do the people who write the ads.

What does Rob Andrew do to justify his multiple six figure salary?   Given the events of the last few weeks and all the negative publicity both at home and in New Zealand it is very difficult to tell.  He appears to be the original silent man…….. and another thing, who reviews his performance?

It now appears that the law is so badly drafted that even following the procedure for those who become 65 between January and April may give rise to the people concerned having a case for constructive dismissal. What a mess.

The latest absurdity from Europe, is the plan to use the possibilty of sex discrimination to overule the careful calibrations carried out by highly qualifies actuaries. It is a matter of fact rather than idealogy that women are generally safer on the road than men (and less likely to write off their vehicles when they do have an accident). It is also a matter of fact that men have shorter life expectancy than women at age 60 or 65. But none of these facts sem to matter to the members of the ECJ. It is a nonsense both politically and financially to pretend that women don’t live longer or that men are equally safe drivers as women when the facts say that they are not.
The most important outcome of this nonsense will be to add cost burdens to the UK economy and to raise premiums for women drivers and lower annuity payments to men.
We simply cannot afford such foolishness and need to impress upon the Coalition Government that they need to act….NOW.

More business jargon but I mean small enterprise (SE) and medium sized enterprise (ME).
Nothing winds me up more than the frequently used expression SME. It is such an ill considered classification of business, as it masks enormous differences in terms of management structure, typical business behaviour, performance management and long term aspiration. A typical SE has a flat structure with everybody reporting to the boss (whether a he or a she). Most people do a bit of everything and are masters of nothing. There is no real Board and no real managers (though the titles might exist). Lip service is paid to the art of Budgetting and there is not really a Business Plan. HR is a function often fulfilled by the longest serving Queen Bee. Essentially the business manages to survive but never really thrives. Contrast this with an emerging ME and you will find a differences in most if not all of these areas.
Unfortunately government institutions in the UK can’t think further than criteria based on numbers of employees and turnover and anyway they lump them altogether as SMEs. This would not be such a problem if it wasn’t for the ever increasing legislative burden placed on all companies, irrespective of a company’s ability to handle it. Will Whitehall and Brussels learn the difference and allow for it?
What is your experience and do you agree with my point of view?

I still can’t get my mind around the concept of building an aircraft carrier that we can’t afford to stock with modern aircraft. Can someone explain how the previous government allowed themselves to put us, the taxpayer, in a position where we are funding such a nonsense?
As someone who lost his godson on the Nimrod that crashed in Afghanistan, I can’t understand why we spent billions re-equipping such an old apology for an aircraft.

I wonder if the government has considered the effect of its recent changes to the law covering compusory retirement at 65. Already, I have been witness to cases where people are going to be retired before the end of September because their employer does not want to create an open ended commitment to having to employ them for what seems like forever. In other circumstances, the employees concerned would have been given extensions to their employment for an extra year or in some cases even 2 years.

What has been your experience?

And please, if you are a search engine optimiser, don’t send me a comment, because I am not interested……..really.