Business and Economics

  By Dan Ebanks Behavioural economics has been the emerging  ‘movement’ within the economics discipline for quite a few years, entering the public consciousness in 2008 with the publication of Thaler and Sunstein’s now omnipresent ‘Nudge’. However, Tim Adams suggested, in his article in the Guardian (May 31st 2014), that its demise is imminent. Until relatively recently behavioural economics had made slow and largely unnoticed progress. This may be as a result of the split in the behavioural economics camp....

Mark Russell, CEO of Optimus Performance Marketing- http://uk.optimus-pm.com/ The commercial potential of blogging is, in my opinion, in its infancy.  The barriers of entry to the bloggersphere are very low, resulting in so many bloggers entering the arena. Of course, celebrity and other high profile bloggers have an advantage when it comes to realising the commercial potential of a blog, as they will already enjoy a valuable audience through fan sites. They are also more able to leverage their blog...

By Guy Dorrell @GuyDorrellEsq Steve Jobs never had much of a taste for alcohol, the few references that can be found of him drinking refer to the very occasional glass of wine. But while beer may not have had an effect upon him, he had a profound effect upon it. In the late Seventies, when the idea of Apple was coming to fruition and the incorporated company began to grow, America consumer markets were changing before its eyes. Jobs and...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor “It all began as an inspired accident”, says Duncan James,  a designer for a leading Clerkenwell-based advertising agency. “Doodling is a creative sanctuary for all graphic artists, but during one particularly tedious client briefing, something fascinating started to happen. A cartoon character, began to emerge from my idle scribbling.” From that day on clunkydoodles was born, out of sheer boredom. After months of development Duncan posted his results on Instagram and the response was overwhelming,...

  By Magnus Alm, CMO, Palringo There are more than 1,000,000 apps in the App Store and the same goes for Google PLAY. Needless to say, there is a discoverability issue for developers. A few lucky ones are able to get that global hit which turns into a viral phenomenon, such as Flappy Bird. But what about the rest? Millions, if not billions, of funds are invested into developing mobile games each year. There is good reason for that. Apple...

 By Dr. Emma Mardlin and John Clayton, Trainers and Practioners of Mind Body Medicine, clinical psychotherapy, NLP, health and well-being. Workplace stress is an increasingly prevalent and serious issue that eats away at profits, dramatically reduces efficiency and makes good staff hand in their notice, something most employers are no doubt familiar with. However this isn’t something we should just accept as ‘part and parcel’ of work because ‘stress’ is just the beginning of a very negative cycle in terms...

  By Gemma Johnson CEO of MyFamilyClub.co.uk Everyone from Angelina Jolie to Alan Sugar seems to have strong opinions about working mums – but new research from Microsoft has underlined the vital role we play in the workplace. Over 500 British businesses and 2,000 mums were recently surveyed by Microsoft, and the key findings highlighted what us mums have known all along: we’re valuable assets to any business. Nearly a third of bosses surveyed said mothers managed their time better,...

By Mark Edwards, General Manager at www.rocketlawer.co.uk, an online legal service providing businesses and families with easy-to-use, professional legal documents and affordable help from specialist lawyers. The world around us is changing and the way we do things has transformed over the past few years. Thanks to the internet, we are now able to access almost anything we need or want and almost without any geographical boundaries. Many service industries, from high-street shopping to travel have modernised in the process...

By Guy Dorrell Every turn of the economic cycle seems to bring another fad; 2007, just before the crash, saw food miles as the ‘must talk about’ subject of the moment. The idea that seafood should be fished from Scottish waters, shipped to Thailand for processing and then shipped back to Scotland for sale appeared absurd, because it was. Then came the economic downturn, with the first run on a bank in 200 years, and food miles slipped down everyone’s...