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матрациWhat do we do with dead computers? Twelve Million computers are throw away each year just in the United Kingdom.

Computer Aid International recycles 30,000 and sends them to the developing world to help bridge the digital divide. But the receiving community needs to find £80 per computer to cover the costs of recycling and transportation.

Meanwhile the cost of new computers is falling. The OLPC project intends to produce computers at $100 and make them available to all children on the developing world.

Most old computers we just dump in landfill, regardless of the laws prohibiting this and  it will continue to happen. Sending our old computers to the developing world sounds like a good option, but receiving countries need to pay £80 per computer to conver the cost of recycling and transportation. As the cost of new computers falls it’s almost cheaper for the poor countries to buy new computers than acquire second hand ones.

At the same time there is a digital divide in the UK. Many low-income families cannot afford new computers. With all the innovation of games orientated learning programmes availability on computers, is it not time we started to make serious attempts to bridge the digital divide in our own country?

As new legislation shifts the cost of eventual disposal from the original purchaser, probably a company, to a household, and finally local councils, one way or other the taxpayer picks up the bill. May be the legislation should be reworked to place the budget of disposal back on the original purchaser.

But we are still left with the problem of 12 million computers a year. Any ideas?

Alvin Toffler’s ‘Future Shock’ stimulated the sixties generation to peer into a fast changing future where the speed of change got faster and faster every year. It helped prepare us for an age of rapid change.

Toffler’s ‘Third Age’ has not achieved the same recognition as ‘Future Shock’ but inside the carefully considered volume is a real nugget. Toffler writes about retirement, a concept I prefer to think about as post work, and he refers to it as the Third Age. He predicts that for a fulfilling and happy past work life we will need three things: Community, Meaning and Structure.

Firstly it appears unpractical as the supply of uranium is running out and thus there will be no fuel to power the new reactors.

Secondly the question of disposal of dangerous radioactive material has not been addressed and thus the total economic cost has not been accurately estimate.

There are many other reservations, not least to say the real question of safety.

However energy needs could be met from other more imaginative and renewable sources specifically tidal power, if only a fraction of the cost of building a new nuclear plant was invested in this technology.

It raises the question that in the face of much scientific and technical information on the potential of renewables that the government is pressured by vested interests to pursuer an option not in the best interest of UK citizens. Just who is paying who??

If only our leaders would seized a vision as imaginative as JFK’s “We will Land a Man on the Moon before the end of the decade” then the the UK might take a giant leap forward in the development and supply of renewable technology that other countries will become desperate for as fossil fuel run out, putting the UK at a real economic advantage.

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RSS (formally “RDF Site Summary”, known colloquially as “Really Simple Syndication”) is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”, contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that’s easier than checking them manually.

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1. Have an IT strategy not just a bunch of computers. Manage this resource.

2. Have an effective disaster recovery plan.  If your computers crash; or your ‘IT’ expert disappears, will your office stop working?

3. Have someone on-call to solve your computer problems. Don’t wait until you have a problem before you start looking for someone.

4. Make your back-up procedure automatic and off site. You do take back-ups? Don’t you!
5. Use your computers power for routine operations. We still see staff addressing mailing envelopes.

Computers can crunch admin. if you ask them too.
6. Use the Internet for your phones calls and slash your phone bills*.
7. Get a good spam blocker.

8. Have a look at project planning software.
9. Maintain your contacts on the computer.

10. Keep your anti virus software up to date.

* See article on VOIP technology.

Good Financial Management

1. Focus on monthly management accounts, not the year-end audit. It’s your decision-making information.

2. Make sure the accounts reconcile to the bank every month.

3. Budget once a year, before the start of the year.

4. Compare actuals to budgets each month and monitor significant variances carefully.
5. Watch your cash flow – keep a sharp eye on when the projection indicates you will run out of money.

6. Put the audit out to tender every 3rd year.
7. Link spending to goals, priorities and objectives

8. Make sure the expected income arrives on time.

9. Don’t waste time trying to save small amounts of money

10. Protect your finance workers with robust internal controls – not trust.

If you want to make quick, sound business decisions, good management accounts are indispensable.

Most organisations plan their financial reporting to meet regulatory obligations at the year-end.

This does not encourage the production of financial management tools for decision-making.

To make matters worse traditional audit firms are not set up to supply good advice on management accounts. Their fee structure is founded around annual audits and they train junior staff around audits at your expense.

Most staff in audit firms know little about management accounts and have even less experience in the interpretation of monthly figures for decision making. This lack of knowledge means they are not the best people to designed the system.

For organisations it’s important that they change the focus of financial reporting away from the year end process from which audit firms profit, to the monthly management accounts.

One bye product will be an improvement of the financial accounting records which in turn makes the year end audit more straight forward and should reduce audit fees.

In other words when you switch your expenditure on accounting away from the audit firm and the year-end process to monthly accounting either undertaken by your own staff or an external firm your will get more relevant information and is should cost you less.

No wonder auditing firms are not being that helpful in devising good management accounting processes for their clients.

Demand the best service, don’t just treat the next approaching audit and a regulatory requirement and let your traditional audit firm carry out the work. Challenge them to improve their service and don’t hesitate to put your next audit out to tender to see if you can get a better service at a lower price.

The Hedgehog is a diagram to help you focus on what you want to be doing with your life.

Nothing more and nothing less.

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Continuous improvement as a method was conceived by the American Edward Deming, but he had to go to Japan where he helped with their economic miracle before his simple brilliance was recognised in his homeland.

The diagram below really sums it up. First you plan, then you implement your plan, next you check it. The checking or the measurement is the crucial phase. You need to measure to see if you are being successful, but whatever the result you challenge yourself to see if you can do better. In other words in the ‘Act’ phase you research for better ways of doing things and you take the results into the next panning phase. Hey presto! You are back at the beginning of the cycle again.

I would prefer it, if the diagram could be represented by the tracks of a tank to give an idea that with each revolution you move forward, rather than spinning on the same spot. For there is a feeling in some quarters that continuous improvement is somewhat academic and that everyone does it anyway.

But that is not true, so often, obvious ways to improve processes are missed. It is the rigorous application of these ideas that brings success.

The area where many managers stumble is the checking or measurement. This leads naturally into a study of performance management on which other articles are available. But a word of encouragement, if you are not sure of what to measure, start somewhere and as you get further into the process you will find better measurements.