Eximium Building Awarded ‘Excellent’ BREEAM Environmental Rating

We take environmental issues very seriously at Eximium, and we are always looking for ways to reduce the impact our work has on our planet.

A key part of our environmental strategy included an objective to house our operation in a ‘green’ building, and we achieved this in 2008 when we moved to the Basepoint Business & Innovation Centre in Luton. 

We’re now delighted to announce that the centre has been awarded an ‘Excellent’ rating and four stars on the international BREEAM standard, in clear recognition of the achievement this building represents.  The BREEAM standard, recognised worldwide, measures a building against 10 key environmental criteria:

• Energy: operational energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2)
• Management: management policy, commissioning, site management and procurement
• Health and Wellbeing:  indoor and external issues (noise, light, air quality etc)
• Transport: transport-related CO2 and location related factors
• Water: consumption and efficiency inside and out
• Materials: impacts of building materials, including lifecycle impacts like carbon dioxide
• Waste: construction resource efficiency and operational waste management and minimisation
• Land Use: type of site and building footprint
• Pollution: external air and water pollution
• Ecology: ecological value, conservation and enhancement of the site

As you can see, the criteria are comprehensive and consider many factors in addition to the building’s design and facilities, including many management measures.

This is an excellent accolade and proves the strong, ongoing commitment of the Basepoint management team to sustainability and conservation.  It also reflects extremely well on our own approach to the environment and to sustainability, and we congratulate the Basepoint team, Luton Borough Council and EEDA on their achievement!

Our next environmental goal is to become Carbon Neutral, which we are currently working towards.  We’ll let you know how we get on!

Strength of convergence shown by growth of business IP phone

Research by In-Stat, showing that 31 million voice-centric business IP phones will have shipped by 2012, demonstrates the popularity of  converged networks that carry both voice and data traffic.

Converged networks offer firms of all sizes great benefits in terms of streamlined network efficiency and reduced maintenance and operational costs as companies need only be acquainted with one, not many, network topologies.

The uptake of IP phones in the business sector is so pronounced  that among voice-centric IP phones, businesses will outpace consumers more than 10 to 1 according to the In-Stat report.

In-Stat analyst Norm Bogen said, “IP-based communications in general are rapidly replacing tradtional networks at a steady pace in the workplace, but adoption is slow among consumers. Within the business market, corded IP phones remain the standard, and will continue to dominate the enterprise IP phone market through 2012. However, WLAN and IP DECT phones continue to grow, especially within some specific vertical and geographical markets.”

In-Stat also found that Wi-Fi integration in cellular phones is growing rapidly even if the majority of Wi-Fi/cellular phones are not designed for VoIP. Cisco, Avaya, and Nortel are leading the market for enterprise IP phones.

How to find the right people for your organisation

Whilst some unstructured discussion is useful in an interview, it’s also important to have some questions prepared in advance that you can ask everybody and use as a direct comparison. Some of both styles works best.

Our New Partners - Procession plc

We are extremely pleased to announce that we have created an exciting and important new partnership with an innovative software company based in Chesham - Procession plc.

Procession plc are the creators of a fantastic software tool, known simply as Procession, which has revolutionised the capabilities of businesses software.  Procession has been developed over the last 20 years and is capable of both computerising and automating any aspect of business process - and it does this in a quick, flexible, and highly cost-effective way.

We will be selling, developing and supporting Procession implementations, using our IT skills and our experience in helping business owners, directors and managers benefit from using IT in their business.  The nature of Procession means that it can benefit any organisation, of any size, and in any sector - and can be used to computerise and/or automate as little or as much of their business processes as required.  It works extremely well when allowed to grow organically in line with the business needs, rather than having to do everything all at once.  The first place to use it is where the most pain exists, and then expand things from there.  The great thing about Procession is that the business themselves can take ownership of their business logic, and can make changes, without technical assistance.

UK Sport have made excellent use of Procession over the last 7 years, to computerise and automate their complex grant management processes for Athletes, and they are delighted with the efficiency, control and flexibility that Procession gives them.  However, there are literally hundreds of other applications that Procession can be used in - there is no limit to the ways in which this tool can be used to benefit businesses.

A major benefit of Procession is the graphical tool that allows processes to be mapped out in a visual environment, using building blocks, which business people can understand and comment on.  Once that is done, and the relevant business people are happy with the process, then the application is ready and can be tried out straight away - there is no coding required to make the process work, so what you see is what you get!  This makes the process quick and easy, provides a permanent view of exactly what has been deployed, means that there is no room for misinterpretation, and even makes ongoing changes and improvements to the process possible simply by changing the picture!  This is an incredible acheivement that has to be seen to be believed.

We are looking at applications for Procession with our smaller customers (one of them is a one man band), both medium sized and large organisations (including a multi-million pound international corporation), and even into public sector tenders.

Procession represents the ideal mixture of the benefits of packaged software (i.e. the work to develop the framework has already been done) with the flexibility of custom-built software (i.e. you can have it reflect exactly the way your business works) but without the drawbacks of either.

This is an important partnership for us, because Procession is exactly the type of tool business owners and managers need to unlock the benefits of using IT to help them run their businesses.  It is a business tool, created by business people, and aimed at business people.  Given these values are absolutely at the core of our business, there is a perfect fit between us and Procession!

There is much work for us to do now, to integrate Procession into our other product and service offerings, and to produce marketing materials, etc. so we can start to spread the word about this fantastic tool.

In the meantime, if you would like a demo, please just drop me a line from our contact us page.

How to find the right people for your organisation

Put the candidate at ease to get past their polished interview technique. You could walk them to their car for instance. Get them to relax. It can tell you a lot.

Further Dates for Business Link Seminars

As previously announced, I have been asked by Business Link East to run a course of 6 workshops called ‘Growing IT in Your Business’.

In addition to this, I’m pleased to confirm another 6 dates for my original Business Link Seminar ‘Getting Maximum Benefit From Your IT Systems’, as follows:

 5th Jun 09 - Chelmsford, Pontins Park
10th Sep 09 - Hatfield, Homestead Hall Hotel
16th Oct 09 - Bedford, Wyboston Lakes
24th Nov 09 - Ipswich, Holiday Inn Orwell
3rd Feb 10 - Cambridge, Villiers Park Educational Trust
30th Mar 10 - Norwich, The Forum Trust

Both of these seminars are part of Business Link East’s ‘Growing Business’ events programme. You can book onto any of the events within this programme online through their Events Booking Service.

Also, I’m delighted to say that Business Link have recently produced the video shown below, to introduce the type of briefings they offer, which features footage from one of my seminars.  As well as showing me waving my arms very enthusiastically, the video shows a general flavour of the events and includes some customer testimonials.

These briefings are really excellent and are all led by expert speakers.  I heartily recommend finding out what events are on in your area, and I hope to see you at one of my seminars soon!

Mobile computing a necessity despite recession

The Nielsen Company has conducted research in the five larger Western European countries and the United States for Tellabs, which shows that the global economic downturn will not hamper the use of mobile computing platforms to access the Internet.

Findings show that more than half of the approximately 200 million mobile data users in those countries expect to increase use in the next two years and mobile computing will flourish as professionals intend to ‘dramatically’ increase use of mobile data services with significant growth over the course of the next twelve months. More than a quarter of those who do not use mobile data services today intend to start using them within a short period of time.

Even though they expressed concerns about cost, speed and quality of service, up to 71% of consumers in the survey anticipate daily use of services such as mobile Internet.

There will be strong growth in network traffic from around 175 million consumers for services such as mobile Internet, E-mail and multimedia services, according to Tellabs.

“Mobile data services are not a luxury, but a necessity that consumers plan to purchase despite economic conditions,” explained Pat Dolan, vice president, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Tellabs. “By planning urgent and strategic network upgrades, operators can quickly and cost-efficiently address users’ issues and meet increasing demands on networks.”

The detailed breakdown of the top five services that non-users intend to start using shows that anticipated demand is not evenly split. Around half of U.S. non-users of the mobile Internet intend to use it in the next two years, compared with a third of non-users in Europe: U.S. consumers will drive more new mobile Internet use than Europeans.

Here at Eximium we would be lost without our mobile computing. We do a lot of our work off site at client’s sites, so we need to be mobile, but also efficient. Derrick has written two articles about the benefits he gets from his Nokia E61 Smart phone, which he uses for his emails and jotting down important thoughts, which can come to you at the strangest of times. It helps you to make the most of your time when you can use the odd five minutes here and there in the day, which would usually be wasted waiting around, doing something useful to you.

Read Derrick’s full articles, Diary of a Nokia E61 User - Making time for creative thinking and Mobile Internet - now this is more like it.

How to find the right people for your organisation

If the role involves meeting your clients, use the interview to assess how suitable the candidate is for that type of role. Would you be happy with them representing your company in the same way as they represent themselves?

Eximium MD Wins Award at Business For Breakfast Annual Awards Ceremony

We are pleased to announce that Derrick Cameron, MD here at Eximium, won the ‘Executive Host of the Year’ award at the Business for Breakfast Annual Awards held on 27th March.  Derrick represents Eximium at the Luton Advantage B4B forum, which meets at The Brache every other Tuesday, and has been the Executive Host of that group for the last 8 months.

The awards evening was a glamorous black tie event and had a James Bond 007 theme.  It was held at the Lancashire County Cricket Club in Manchester and was a fundraising event for Macmillan Cancer Support.  The entertainment was excellent, with a pay per play casino, music provided by Simply Soul and was presented by celebrity Zilpah Hartley, travel and property writer best known for fronting Channel 4’s highly successful series ‘A Place in the Sun’.

There were 9 award categories altogether:

• Referral Master
• Member of the Year
• Venue of the Year
• Moderator of the Year
• Coordinator of the Year
• Executive Host of the Year
• Executive Team of the Year
• Best New Member
• Best New Team
• Franchisee of the Year

We are delighted to say that as well as Derrick winning the ‘Executive Host of the Year’ award, this was only 1 of a total of 3 awards won by groups led by Ryan Tobias, who owns and manages the B4B groups in the Beds, Bucks and Herts areas.  Ryan’s Bedford group won the ‘Executive Team of the Year’ Award and Ryan himself won the coveted ‘Franchisee of the Year’ award, so it was a bumper night for Ryan and his excellent breakfast groups!

Commenting on his award Derrick said, “I’m thrilled to have won the ‘Executive Host of The Year’ award, particularly given the stiff competition - it feels great to receive this recognition from the members, simply for participating in the group in a way I’ve enjoyed so much.  It’s also the perfect end to my term in the role!”

If you are interested in going along to one of Ryan’s productive and friendly breakfast networking groups, or simply to learn how your business can benefit, contact Ryan at ryan@bforb.co.uk

Here is a photo of all the winners and runners-up from the evening, showing Derrick on the front row on the far left:

Also, here is our proud franchise owner, Ryan Tobias receiving his Franchisee of the Year award:

Here is Derrick receiving his Executive Host of the Year award:

Google Earth dives into the deep

Google announced its new release of Google Earth version 5.0 in February, with a map of the ocean floor allowing users to dive beneath the water surface and explore a 3D underwater terrain, making the world’s largest habitat less of a mystery.

In the newest version of Google Earth has the ocean feature is on by default. Users can zoom in on the ocean and will see a dynamic water surface, which they can dive beneath to navigate 3D sea floor terrain.

It also introduces an Historical Imagery feature. This enables users to virtually travel back in time through archival satellite and aerial imagery. It is simple to create a narrated tour in Google Earth using ‘Touring’ and this is shared Google Mars 3D, which features hi-res imagery and terrain of the red planet.

It also contains information contributed by the world’s leading scientists, researchers, and ocean explorers in 20 content layers. These include an “Explore the Ocean” layer containing photos and videos about ocean hot spots around the world contributed by over 80 individuals and organisations; a National Geographic Magazine geo-quiz and overlays from their new Atlas of the Ocean; and videos from the archives of Jacques Cousteau, featuring never-before-seen footage of historic ocean expeditions.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, said: “In discussions about climate change, the world’s oceans are often overlooked despite being an integral part of the issue”, during the launch at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

“About one-third of the carbon dioxide that we emit into the atmosphere ends up in the oceans. Furthermore, biodiversity loss in our oceans in the next 20-30 years will be roughly equivalent to losing an entire Amazon rainforest, but this goes unnoticed because we can’t see it. This is why today’s launch of Google Earth 5.0 is so important - it gives us an opportunity to change everyone’s perspective.”

As the saying goes, ‘knowledge is power’ and we at Eximium think that the use of technology in such a powerful and positive way, which opens up a wealth of information and a capacity for learning by exploration, has to be applauded.

Visit Google Earth today to see for yourself.

How to find the right people for your organisation

To save everyone’s time, ensure that your recruitment partner has confirmed the key attributes of the role, e.g. working hours, amount of travelling, salary etc with any potential candidate, before you see them for interview. This should avoid the situation where you find yourself  interviewing a candidate who is obviously unsuitable, e.g. they are not prepared to travel.

Growing IT in Your Business

I’m excited to announce that we’ve been asked by Business Link East to provide another series of seminars as part of their ‘growing business’ events programme.

We’ll be developing and presenting a 2 hour briefing session for them, aimed at SME business owners, directors and managers entitled ‘Growing IT in Your Business’, in their April 2009 to March 2010 events season. There will be 6 sessions at various venues across the region.

I’m pleased to announce that the dates and venues for each of the 6 sessions are:

• 17th Jun 09 - Thurrock, Orsett Hall
• 16th Sep 09 - Hemel Hempstead, Holiday Hill
• 23rd Oct 09 - Luton, The Leaside Hotel
• 10th Nov 09 - Bury St Edmunds, Ickworth Hotel
• 24th Feb 09 - Wisbech, The Boat House
• 24th Mar 10 - Norwich, The Forum Trust

You’ll be able to book online via their Events Service.