We’ve spoken before about how collaboration through the cloud is definitely on the rise. It’s incredible to think that we might be working with people we may never meet - but this is the way we believe business is heading. One thing we’ve learned about collaboration is that we have to share information and resources to get the best results. But this has often been a stumbling block as firewalls were either extremely restrictive or were very lax.
We’ve launched a new managed firewall to make this a little easier – it’s a next generation product which is here to allow you to scale those digital walls a little easier. It allows businesses to be way more flexible about what they allow on their network.
It’s surprising, but nearly a quarter of the UK’s CIOs still ban some of the leading business...
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What’s going to be the most sought after business skill in years to come, a deep understanding of digital technology or a buzzing business mind? That’s the question we’re looking to debate next week as we host a Virgin Media Pioneers event in Scotland to look at what the Industrial Revolution 3.0 will hold.
The event is taking place at Summerhall in Edinburgh, on 30th April, from 4pm – 6pm and will be hosted by BBC Radio Scotland’s Kaye Adams. The discussion panel represents some of Scotland’s leading business people and entrepreneurs including, Sam Zawadski, the founder of AdvancetoGO and Sir Richard Branson’s ambassador for Scotland. We’re going to explore what skills the next generation of business leaders are going to need under their belt in order to lead Scotland into business g...
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The chill may still be on, but things are certainly heating up in the race to become the UK’s first super-connected city as we provide both Leeds and Bradford with their second free public Wi-Fi zones.
Using our fibre optic network, locals, businesses and visitors across Millennium Square in Leeds and the City Park area in Bradford are being welcomed into the heart of their cities with a completely free and super-fast Wi-Fi service. All that’s needed is a simple, one-time registration and - hey presto – you’re ready to enjoy a high performance connection into the digital world.
City Park, which only opened last year, is part of a big re-generation project in Bradford. The new service will provide an exciting digital dimension to City Park whi...
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PwC has revealed the extent to which the high street is currently changing. According to a report they’ve published, 28 shops a day are closing and things are likely to get worse before they get better. Since the turn of the year, the pace of closures has accelerated from 20 a day at the end of last year. Headlines have been grabbed by HMV’s difficulties and there’s a general feeling of doom and gloom in our shopping centres.
But they say the night is darkest just before the dawn, and this could be true of the current trend on the high street. We’ve talked about this in the past and recently spoke to 500 CIOs with 88 per cent of them telling us more modern technology introduced over the past twelve months is having an impact on making shops more attractive to consumers. Indeed over a third...
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It’s that time of year when we all froth at the mouth marvelling at the latest devices unveiled at CES. This year’s no different and a lot of envious eyes have been reading the reviews and thinking “want” as they run through the list of features on the newest gadgets.
What really stands out this year is that many of the devices offer both personal and professional uses. We’re all now pretty familiar with the idea of consumer tech being used for work purposes, however the rise of the ‘phablet’ means we’re increasingly blending both our work and home lives onto a smaller amount of devices.
But one of the drivers behind this technology becoming more accepted in the workplace is the software supporting them. Windows 8 in particular has been a hot topic. Commentators have debated it at length w...
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1. How important is a super-fast internet connection when it comes to the designing, building and launching of a supersonic car?
BLOODHOUND has a core team of 50 with an extended team of over 250 product sponsors all helping to contribute to the build of the world’s fastest car. Communication with these partners is critical in making sure we can keep the fast pace design and build process moving forward. With a super-fast internet connection we are able to send out design data quickly, ready for manufacture. We can also hold video conference meetings allowing the engineers to discuss/share designs with manufacturers over the web, meaning less time out of the office and more time designing. All in all, this super-fast connectivity is helping us reach our goal of developing...
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The journey towards super-charged connectivity is well and truly underway and it’s a great feeling to be right at the forefront. Today free public Wi-Fi goes live in Leeds and Bradford city centres and thanks to our fibre optic network we're able to provide both cities with super-fast mobile broadband.
This isn't just hugely important to the population of these cities, it's part of a wider government initiative that's helping to make sure the UK is prepared for and can take full advantage of an exciting, super connected future. What's more, the pioneering work we’re doing with small cell technologies is creating exciting possibilities to accelerate 3G and 4G mobile broadband as well as...
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Fifteen years ago today, the term ‘weblog’ was created by Jorn Barger to describe the way he logged web articles on his Robot Wisdom web page. The term "blog" was later coined by Peter Merholz, who cleverly split the word into the phrase “we blog” in the sidebar of his own blog in 1999.
Since then, blogs have come on leaps and bounds from a select group of bloggers. Now there’s a blog for every topic you could ever imagine - traveling around the world, journalists commenting on big news events like the conflict in Syria, and also businesses like ourselves sharing our thoughts on topics that may interest to our customers.
As of April 2012, there were over 164 million blogs on the Internet, and with thousands of blogs created every day, the blog phenomenon shows no sign of slowing down. Most b...
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Has Twitter become the social telephone? It’s clearly proved itself as a great customer service tool and is fast becoming an online call centre for many businesses. Interestingly it’s evolved naturally from what customers have asked for online. This is something we’ve talked about on the blog here in ‘Customer self-service’.
Although many companies may have opened a Twitter account as simply another way to post news and offers, the reality is that, it’s a two-way communication channel. So it’s important to have the right resources to engage with customers effectively. At the end of the day, beyond the logo, the slogan, the jingle, the promise, your brand is simply whatever customers think of you.
This is why social media channels can provide great customer service opportunities. At the...
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Charlie Thomas, Business Reporter at The Huffington Post, talks to us about the wonderful world of social media and tells us what she believes businesses need to think about to make it work for them. Reporting on all things business for the UK arm of the Huffington Post - news website, content aggregator and blog with more than 4 million unique monthly visitors – Charlie’s passion for Twitter (@HuffPostCharlie) has seen her pick up 4k followers! We all know social media can be a minefield for businesses, so we’ve picked her brain for some hints and tips!
What drives you to log on to Twitter every morning?
There's a few reasons why I log on immediately in the morning; firstly, I want to make sure I've replied to everyone who's sent me a message throughout the night - there's usually one...
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