Simon J. Ryan

20 January 2011

Resolution Two.

I share resolution number 2 with a number of colleagues and long suffering fellow commuters, read more fiction.

I am a ferocious consumer of white papers, especially on emerging areas such as business change, marketing, branding d social media. Some of these, while engaging, could clearly be put into the fiction category.

A lawyer colleague sent me a slide deck a consultant had put together for their team on social media. Full of generalisations and characters it essentially summed social media up as mean and risky, completely ignoring the commercial and social benefits of the channel. I accept the author had shaped the document for his audience; it was hardly balanced or especially insightful.

So to balance my frustration with some of the drivel peddled by those claiming to be thought leaders and solution providers, I’m going to spend the last few moments of being awake each day reading the same page 4 times just before gravity wins the fight with eyelids to stay open.

19 January 2011

Wobbly legs

Reflecting on all the subjects I wanted to address in the New Year, I felt compelled to share a story from this year. Please indulge me on a quick look back at how most of our working years end, with a Christmas office party.

Just as I was leaving my company’s version of this festive routine I witnessed my favourite December late night London sight. This example happened to be carried out by a senior colleague. He was battling the gravitational pull of a Moorgate payment brought on by a dysfunctional inner ear and wobbly legs.

My colleague's wobbly legs weren’t the only ones I had seen in this season, but they were all the sweeter as I was close enough to hear him giving instructions to a mini cab to find him that was only in the next street.

Of course, it’s easy for me to say; I came through this year’s Christmas office party with my dignity intact.

Unlike the video of me break dancing at my wedding that leaked into the work place. A dance move commonly known as the caterpillar that my wife has renamed the slug when I perform it.

18 January 2011

New Year's Resolution.

At the risk of boring you, I just wanted to take a moment to talk about my New Years resolutions.

While I can list scores of ways I could enrich my own life by doing things better, faster, cheaper, more often, even less often and not at all; I’m settling for two I can measure and take simple steps to address. The logic of my approach is this year is simple, incremental changes are more sustainable than big bang breakthroughs, and if it can’t be measured by outcomes (not just activity) it doesn’t get done.

So this blog represents resolution number one – blog regularly.

I enjoy the process of writing blogs, I enjoy the feedback I get back and gives me an excuse to shut myself away with a small libation and some soft music. The observant among will have noticed there has been a pause between this blog and the last piece of drivel. The pause was largely caused by circumstance:

August we moved house, September we settled the kids into new schools and got married, October was endless decorating, November I celebrated mine and 2 close friends 40^th birthdays and December is, was December does.

Resolution two in my next blog.

02 January 2011

Incentivise innovative small businesses

Following on from my Frazeresque (Dad’s Army, not Seattle) rant on the state of the economy on Monday, I thought I would set out my simple and innovative approach to saving the economy.

It is pretty well proven that
• Small businesses can generate employment faster than large enterprises;
• Small businesses will seize on opportunities faster than large organisations can bring together a cross departmental working group to even write 2 sides of A4 on what their ‘terms of reference are;’
• Younger people save less and spend more as they start to build a home for themselves and think buying anew car is somehow an investment;
• Iced on top of these universal truths are political leaders that proclaim how to remain competitive the UK must be leaders of the knowledge economy and we have a greater number of graduates today than we have had at any time in the past.

So now, more than anytime in the past 30 years, the Government should use fiscal policy to generate a massive shift in their own and investors approach to small companies that can innovate. What does this mean?

Well, any company that employs less than 100 people should be able to hire up to 1 employee per 10 already employed on a 24 month fixed term contract. As long as they are under 25 years old at and paid least twice the minimum wage (around £23.5k). In return the Government will let them deduct the total tax take for that individual from the company’s corporation tax (around £3.5k excluding NI) for the first or second year as chosen by the employer.

These are generous terms that would contribute to increase the UK’s aggregate demand, generate growth from spending, reduce unemployment and the long term burden on Government spending.

More importantly than benefiting the economy as a whole, is the lasting effect on companies that innovate in a tough environment that will gain the most. These organisations would be able to access bright young talent more cost effectively with a manageable risk profile and have a global advantage to go on and innovate even more.