IT and Business Thinking from Andrew Seaton (2)

Lenovo Keyboard – Spot the Issue …

December 14th, 2009 4 Comments

So … thought this would make you smile. I have been using my laptop, a Lenovo T61 Thinkpad for about 18 months now, and I was thinking to myself the other day “What a good laptop is has been”. It’s sturdy, fast, has great power (5 hours with the extra battery bay) and has been really reliable. And then I forgot about the slight issue that I had when I first ordered it (the funny thing is that one of the best bits of the laptop is how nice the keyboard is to use) ….

Can you spot the problem? (Free Christmas mints to the first person who comments with the correct answer)

Lenovo_Keyboard_Error

Young Business Person of the Year 2009

December 4th, 2009 4 Comments

Sheffield Business Awards

So … I WON!

I am now “Sheffield Hallam University Young Business Person of the Year 2009″. This was one of the awards at the Sheffield Business Awards – which according to the award is “aimed at showcasing an individual between 16 and 30 years old who has demonstrated entrepreneurial flair and best practice in business and enterprise with a recognised product or service”.

It was a great evening, and I was sat on the table surrounded by my family, friends and colleagues, I realised how lucky I am.

It was great to have won the award, and it is nice to be recognised for all my hard work over the past 5 years, but it was also great to share the moment with everyone else. The whole table erupted when it was announced that I had won — it was great that it meant so much to everyone. A huge thank you to all the guys at Resolve for being amazing – without them there would be no Resolve and no reward … a special thanks to the amazing Freyja, who did such a great job on the application form.

It was a genuinely nerve-wracking experience, as I did really want to win (and given the age category, this would be the last year that I could possibly win !!)

Thanks to all the amazing people who were there and who have supported me over the past few years – special thanks to Andy Hanselman and Jill White, for all the work they do for entrepreneurship and business performance development in the City. For the amazing team from Ruby Slippers, Tracy was our guest and Nicola was there too – it was wonderful to share the evening with them. And for the guys from Benchmark Recruit, Amy and Louisa who are great.

So … a great end to 2009 … and here is to an exciting 2010!

Millionaire Upgrade – Book Summary

November 26th, 2009 1 Comment

Millionaire Upgrade

I have just finished reading this book by Richard Parkes Cordock. It was quite enjoyable, and a very interesting read.

Basically it is the story of a guy who gets “upgraded” to first class, and ends up sitting next to a self made millionaire entrepreneur. Apparently is based on a true story of a mate of his who ended up sitting next to Richard Branson on the way to Australia.

During the flight the millionaire shares his “secrets of success” with the guy sat next to him. Suffice to say the guy learns lots, and ends up going off and being an entrepreneur!

I always write summaries of the books I have read (it helps me learn!) I hope that this is useful for you.

I Believe in Myself

Must develop belief in yourself as an entrepreneur.
Develop self-belief by stepping out of your comfort zone.

Be Passionate and Want it

Passion and Love for your idea is the starting point as an entrepreneur.
Must have a motive for becoming successful — ££ is not enough!

Extend Your Comfort Zone

Must face your fears and self-limiting beliefs head on.
“Whether you believe you can, or believe you can’t, your right (Henry Ford).

Luck and Lies Don’t Work

Entrepreneurs create their own luck – the harder you work the luckier you become.
New opportunities do not come to you – you must go out and create lucky breaks.
Hope is not good enough – action is what matters
You must have personal honesty, integrity, respect and trust.

Install Goals

Must have clearly defined written goals that you are constantly working towards.
Must review the goals regularly.
Written goals program your subconscious mind like no other tool – this is vital.

Enjoy Hard Work

Work must be fun – if you do something you love, believe in and are motivated by then the necessary work becomes easier.
You must have the self discipline to do the things that you do not want to do when you do not want to do them.

Very, Very Persistent

Persistence is not will power – it is stronger – and is grounded in belief, passion and desire.
Most people give up before they reach their goals – successful entrepreneurs do not.

Expect Failure

Must expect failures as part of your journey of success – failure and success go hand in hand.
Wisdom and Judgement come from failure. You can learn more from failure that success – failure is a great teacher.
Failure can always be turned into a positive – make sure you look for the new seeds of opportunity that come from it.

Teamwork

Never think you can do it alone – you can’t.
Entrepreneurs surround themselves with great people and build a fantastic team of people who complement their skills.
The team must share your passion, belief and desire – it’s your job to inspire them.
Great entrepreneurs have great mentors – find yourself a mentor.

Entrepreneurs, Breakfast, Talks and the Sheffield Wheel

November 21st, 2009 2 Comments

Today I had the pleasure of being at the entrepreneurs exchange event in Sheffield. The event, which is superbly run by Jill White, is aimed as entrepreneurs and people who actually run their own business. This makes is very different from other events, as the people you get to talk to are in a similar boat as you, which leads to much more useful discussions and shared experiences.

The other great thing about these sessions is that there is always good quality input — and this session was no exception, in fact it was one of the best I have been to. Four 10 minute talks were given by some great people.

Jonny Douglas did a session on creativity — this was the second time I have heard it, and I was stuck again at the fantastic ideas in the session. It was superbly delivered by Jonny who is a fantastic communicator.

Jessica Zeun then did a session on Social Media which was really informative, and made me realise that we still need to be on top all that is online – there were some great ideas to help us be more effective.

Craig Birch then did a session on getting the message out there, which was very insightful.

And finally, the excellent Andy Hanselman did a session on being different — I am convinced that we still need to be even more different than our competitors, and communicate that difference more effectively.

A View From The Wheel

The sessions were all very good, and were followed by a good few spins on the Sheffield Wheel, which I have never been on – it was great fun (if a little windy!), and I managed to have some great discussions whilst we were spinning.

It was then back for some more breakfast, and a feedback session.

All in all an excellent time, and a fantastic event which is really one of the best events I have been to in a long time – a credit to those who spoke, attended and especially who organised it.

Google Wave Invites

November 18th, 2009 No Comments

Google wave has been on our radar for some while now since we saw the video preview .. this is the abridged version for those of you who have better things to do than spend 1hr 20mins watching the full version!

The good new this week is that Pete has managed to get us all invitations to the preview, and we have been testing it out this week — and we are impressed. It feels slow and a little clunky, but this is to be forgiven as it is still very much in the development stage.

It has some really exciting features, and has the potential to be very useful to a number of our clients, especially those who work remotely and collaborate over a number of projects.

We also have some spare invites, so if you would like to get an invite to the preview, then please drop me a line on the e-mail (andrew (at) andrewseaton (dot) co (dot)uk, and you can see what all the fuss is about too!

Shortlisted for the Sheffield Business Awards

November 14th, 2009 No Comments

Much excitement this week as I was shortlisted for “The Sheffield Hallam University Young Business Person of the Year Award” at the Sheffield Business Awards.

I am very pleased to be shortlisted, and although this is an individual award, it really is a testament to the whole company and all the guys that work in my team for the hard work, dedication, and superb service that we all deliver — without them there would be no Resolve!

Fingers crossed for December the 3rd ….

Windows 7 — Impressive

November 14th, 2009 No Comments

Every year or so I reformat my laptop, reinstall the operating system and then put all my apps back on. This clears out all the rubbish, and keeps my laptop running at peak performance. This time around, because Pete who works with me has been going on about how good Windows 7 is I thought I would try it.

The installation took about 30 mins, with a few reboots. The windows came up with a nice wizard asking me to configure my laptop. So I did the basic stuff, like giving the laptop a name .. and then it asked me to connect to a wireless network … but hold on, the driver for the wireless network was already there! Once I had connected, it went away and pulled a few more driver updates off the internet and windows was installed. In about 40 Mins.

This is impressive … with XP I was used to installing, then spending ages hunting around for drivers — but 7 had detected all the drivers. The whole lot – sound, network, wireless, USB, memory card … . I am very impressed, and is a huge leap forward from XP in terms of drivers.

Windows 7 feels nice and fast too … much, much better than Vista, which we have been telling all our customers to avoid.

I am brand new to 7, so time will tell but from initial impressions it feels like Windows 7 is a step back in the right direction after a wayward time with Vista.

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