Archive for December, 2009

We started this blog to do two things:

1. To get things off our chest, and
2. To show the world that Powwownow was more than just a great conference calling company.

But now, looking back at our first year’s blogging, I’m amazed at the quantity, the variety, and even sometimes the quality of the material we have put out.

The stats back it up too. The Powwownow main site gets many thousands of visitors every day, fuelled by our investment in good SEO and PPC – but now the blog is a powerful contributor to our total hit count. And we like to think that anyone visiting the blog will have an even better reason to sign up as a registered user, when they realise how much we care about – and enjoy – what we do.

But what do we talk about? It’s difficult to pin down. We have offered small businesses advice on HR. We’ve revealed how to spot authentic Italian food. We have listed our ten least favourite jobs, and our ten favourite start-up companies.

We have wavered from one subject to another, talking about everything from Primrose Hill and Bastille Day to why grown men like to run around London dressed as gorillas.

And then we have focused on our favourite subjects, one of which is the environment. We are unashamedly green here at Powwownow and proud of the way our product helps people to save the planet. So our blog has helped us to talk about some of the issues that matter to us, ranging from a critique of Flybe’s irresponsible advertising (and our cheeky parody of the same) to environmentally-minded employers to the attack of the Harlequin ladybirds that hit the UK in October.

And then we have our other obsession, which is finding ways to make businesses more effective, which led to blogs that covered subjects as diverse as the Jevons Paradox [really!], workspace design and why eating frogs is not as bad as it might seem.

And who could forget Cake Club and Movember?

All in all, a pretty full, varied and exciting year. Many thanks for reading, and we hope to bring you more in the New Year.

Love and festive best wishes from the Powwownow Team.

[image courtesy of embryonicboy]

Search online for any amount of time and you’ll find a whole heap of advice on how to make the busy Christmas period bearable. What’s written, however, focuses very much on juggling your own hectic personal life. Little is said about keeping sane while at work. After all, Christmas is often a very stressful time of year and work is often the cause of stress. So here are a few tips on how to get through Christmas 2009.

The weather outside is frightful…

…and the fire is indeed delightful. But, unfortunately, for most of us, we have got some place to go when it snows. Unfortunately, it doesn’t usually wait for the weekend.

And in these colder, darker days, the weather often plays havoc for those who have to get anywhere. Roads become icy while trains and buses are often delayed or cancelled. Then there are the airports. Many of you planning to go away over Christmas with BA will already have the fear of cancelling their trip away. How do you go about planning for that? Well – forgive me for sounding predictable here – but why not do business over the phone? You can organise a meeting easily and with much less expense – and you know you won’t have to cancel because you can’t get there.

Mr Postman’s working overtime

We all know that getting anything in the post at Christmas requires a little more planning than usual. Delivery times are often doubled, or maybe even tripled, at this time of year and the same goes for work documents as it does for Christmas cards. Fortunately, email means we no longer rely on the postal service to get documents to other parts of the world, but sometimes we need to. So when it’s not possible to send attachments, you’ll have to be extra organised.

The day after the night before

Christmas is the party season. And that means hangovers, often during work hours. The morning after the office party down at the Powwownow offices, for example, is a harrowing place. Sore heads, subdued atmosphere and productivity at an all-time low. And, let’s be honest, nobody ever makes it in on time. So why not take care of business from home and have a conference call instead? You can avoid everyone experiencing your hungover face and your boozy breath and you can ignore all the impressions of you dancing on the table with your tie round your head.

The holiday season

Christmas is, of course, holiday season. Which means that half of the office isn’t at work because they’re either skiing, visiting family or sitting at home drinking mulled wine and eating mince pies. There’s not much you can do about that, I’m afraid, apart from prepare for their absence and plan ahead with plenty of time so there’s no last-minute rushes as the Christmas period draws closer.

Everybody’s ill!

Everyone seems to catch a cold or a form of flu during winter. Which, when compiled with the number of people already away on holiday, means the office is a quiet, unproductive place. Sometimes when you’re ill, you know you probably could still get some work done, but the thought of commuting in the cold and wet and the fact that you don’t want to spread your germs around the office means you’ll spend the day at home. That’s where having a conference call can help. Instead of braving the boardroom with a snotty nose and sneezing on your colleagues every 30 seconds, you can arrange to talk with your colleagues over the phone.

NB: We realise that a lot of the advice in this blog involves having a Powwownow, but I’m not sure we should apologise for that. After all, having a Powwownow can really help in the run up to Christmas. So, if you haven’t already, now’s a perfect time to start your office Christmas preparations by signing up.

If you’re like me and the millions of other iPhone owners out there, chances are you’ll spend a lot of your time perusing the App Store to find the best new apps to assist you in seemingly every part of your day.

A good app is often one that helps you do something more productively than you did before you had your iPhone. But with more than 100,000 apps currently available to download from the App Store, the amount of time it takes to find those apps means you’re probably being counter-productive just by taking the time to look!

So I thought I’d save you a bit of your precious time to tell you about a few that have made my day-to-day life at the office a little easier.

LogMeIn Ignition (£17.99)

When I explained what this app did to a colleague the other day, he didn’t believe me. Not surprising because being able to see and control your office computer while you’re anywhere in the world is pretty impressive. Open up files, access your work emails or just spook out someone else who’s in the office when you’re not there. All you need to do is register your computers at LogMeIn.com and you’ll be able to access them over WiFi from anywhere in the world. It’s certainly not cheap, but it’s very, very clever…

Awesome Note + To Do (£2.39)

This one pretty much does what it says on the tin. It’s an app that allows you to make notes and keep tabs of your to-do list. Nothing spectacular in that, you might think, but often the best apps are the simplest ones. And this one just feels easy-to-use and enjoyable in its simplicity. You can tailor the look and feel to suit your personality too, if you so choose.

iXpenseIt Lite (Free)

For those like me who have trouble keeping up with expenses is iXpenseIt Lite, the stripped-down but still very useful version of iXpenseIt. Monthly expenditure and expenses are made a whole lot easier and you can even store photos of receipts. It’s pretty easy to use and there are enough features in the Lite version for you to resist buying the full version.

Daylite Touch (Free)

For those with a Mac and business productivity manager program Daylight, Daylite Touch will let you keep an eye on all areas of your business. Its features include a to-do list, a calendar with push notifications, the ability to manage your own projects with an overview of what members within your team are working on at any given moment. The userface is well-designed and, although you’ll have to pay for the Daylite software if you don’t have it on your Mac already, it does an awful lot for a free app.

Girls throughout the UK are looking forward to travelling on CHIPAIR, following the launch of the cabin crew’s new uniform