To put it explicitly, when was the last time you were inspired going into an office?

Consider these situations, how inspired have you been: sitting with a glass of wine in a restaurant on the coast of the Mediterranean? Or standing at the summit of a windy mountain with a complete panorama view of the surrounding? Maybe just standing in the middle of Oxford Street and just watching, each individual as they pass. Standing in one single spot and watching exactly what they are doing, wearing, saying. That’s what I consider market research. Try not to come up with a new ideas in these circumstances!

I propose you stop going with the flow in our boring and uninspired lives, go out and experience life. Next time you walk into a board meeting you might sill be inspired enough to actually think of fresh innovative ideas which just might really aid business development.

I was fortunate enough to be educated at Oxford University where they function on 8 week terms. The academic year is made up on, 8 weeks working, 6 weeks on vacation. How is anything done with so many vacations, you might think? Well it is very simple, after a good relaxation period one is ready to work and, does one work, ones certainly does! A focused and dedicated 8 week period where nothing matters other than the content of the material in question. Then at the end, 6 weeks vacation, the time and space to reflex and the option of being creative in surroundings which inspire ready to be pursued in the next 8 weeks.

This is how I believe business development should work. Currently business men juggle multiple aspects of their companies while still trying to generate new and fresh concepts. How is this possible with no time to stop and think. Most of us have heard of work hard play hard – why is the working world any different?

This how top management consultancies work, employees are on a project then “on the beach” till the next project. Why is this? because management consultants need to be creative to move the top companies in the world forward.

This setup is what I believe the management of small and medium business need to execute if they ever want their businesses to be innovative and market leading.

This difference in opinion brings up the Marxist point: has the wealthy French women paid for Picasso time or his skill? The latter is empowering, the former is enslaving.

Time is the only resource nobody can control, no one can gain more and no one knows how much they have. If we pay solely on time then the question is simple: the more one works, the more money they will receive. A fair life but it’s quite frightening – life only dictated by time working. No one can excel in such circumstances.

So how do successful business owners get around this? They buy time. They employee people which gives them the time to develop their business. This a frightening thought for the employees. I guess tell the employees it’s the skills!

In ones working lifetime ones skills are due to an investment, an investment of the golden resource – time. This means the more time you invest in your skills the more valuable your time becomes. So how do you spend your time: investing for money(through working) or investing for skills(through researching)? The decision is easy for the employed – they are paid for training. The decision is difficult for the self employed.

When time has run out which one does everyone wish for – more money or more time? A fine balance. Which do you want to wish for?

There maybe times when you sit on the underground and you will hear something, the bass of the music from the person you are standing (sitting if your lucky enough to get a seat) next to. In fact if you look to the person next to that one your next to and the person after that one, and even after that, you will probably notice more people with their ears plugged in then not. Hence no need to talk.

Stand on an underground train during rush hour and I’m pretty sure you will see the majority of Apples range – I don’t even know why they have stores – iPods, iPhones (all various specs) and the new gadget the iPad. The conversations are all long gone and now, due to iPads, even the paper books are out of the window.

All this new technology is making our daily commutes a better experience, but will it lead to more relaxed commutes or more precious time wasted as commutes are more bearable and thus longer?

Are we less socialable now due to technology? Has Apple made us anti-social? Have a look at this article.  I sit a home and with my laptop in front of me I can talk on Skype, Facebook chat or even Gmail chat. Has technology made me anti-social? No, I don’t think so I can just spend time talking to the people I want to talk to, all of the time. I don’t need to go to the pub (although it is always better to do so) which in these recession and environment friendly times it saves that little bit of petrol.

The worst bit is that due to the frequent tannoys the majority of people pass through the underground like machines programmed by the  announcements which occur at every possible opportunity, removing every single moment which might require some thought. The nature of the technology is removing what makes us human – the fact we have expressions and personality. Why don’t we stand up against such environment?

“a thing that is indisputably the case”
“a piece of information used as evidence or as part of a report or news article”
“the truth about events as opposed to interpretation”

Well that seems simple, but is it? I can cope with things which are empirically verified, but let’s take a much more artistic view on this.

How about facts regarding things which are right or wrong? How can a moral fact fit into any of those definitions? Does the fact you are in love with someone make it a fact? You have decided it; you can make it true or false depending on your feelings at the time. However, the fact that dinosaurs roamed the Earth millions of years ago is still true, regardless of whether anyone discovered it or not; it’s nothing to do with an individual’s perception.

So how does technology fit in with all this? It fits in because, due to the internet and social networking, there are many more platforms for people to express themselves and share facts.

The internet itself is a platform for anyone to publish whatever they wish as facts. It is a platform for anyone, regardless of their views.  Take David Irving, who denies the Holocaust ever happened.  Traditionally such people found it difficult to have a platform to share their beliefs as organisations would not risk providing credibility to such speakers. With the internet, people’s free speech is not limited in this way. Better free speech is a good thing though, right? Even the Oxford Union, the home of free speech, has had issues with David Irving speaking. So how much credibility does the internet and a website bring? Well, when most people find a ‘trusted’ person to provide the service they need through the internet and the look of a website, it seems quite a lot!

So is there anything which is indisputably the case? Any historian knows that even eye witnesses do not always stack up. So how can one know what the truth really is? Maybe we just agree with what the majority say. Well that is the principle of Wikipedia. Wikipedia changes the perception of facts (or, more accurately, what people take as fact). Wikipedia is an enormous collection of information, but here is the catch: it is what the majority perceive to be true. However, we all know there are many examples of things which the majority believe to be true which actually are false.

The concept is that Wikipedia is especially interesting when looking at university professors who are at the top in their field. Many of their new discoveries are simply shouted down by the majority. I disagree with this approach as it means people who have dedicated their whole life to research are silenced due to the majority believing the traditional view – or am I just appealing to authority?

So I leave with one final assertion for you to try and discover: is the Great Wall of China the only man-made structure visible from space?

Are we still evolving? I invite you to read this article; it claims that we are not evolving due to technology replacing the need to evolve. I believe that we are still evolving. It is just that we are evolving in different ways due to technology.

One evolution change is that our brains are changing from a memory and recall focus to an analytical and evaluate focus. With the internet being an easy-to-access encyclopedia of knowledge, why memorise when you can discover in two minutes flat with the aid of your mobile phone?

So while our focus changes from one to another, our brains change to enhance skills in one area and decrease the skills in another. Hence evolution.

The main question is, are we evolving or are there just technological advancements?

Maybe we are becoming impatient with rate of evolution compared with the speed of our lives. Come off it, we do not have the attention span or patience to wait for longer than thirty seconds without getting out a mobile phone.

This is only a short article but hey, you wouldn’t have the attention span to read to the end otherwise.

The internet is an unimaginably vast network. No one would have a hope of finding anything if we did not have the unbelievable power of search engines like Google. The first thing many people do when they surf the internet is to go to a search engine. Just think about your choice of homepage? However, will this always be the case?

Non virtual searching is much harder work

I imagine an internet where there is no need to search, per se. Sure one will have to tell the computer what they are looking for, however one will not have to go through pages upon pages of irrelevant material. What they want will just be there. Sounds great yes? So how on earth will this be possible?

This will be possible simply because of social networks. If your friends like something, there is more chance that you will like it too. This is why we have certain friends; because we all like doing similar things. This principle works for search too. Take for example that you’re looking for a plumber. You tell the computer this and it tells you that your friend has just used a plumber and has written a testimonial saying that their service was great. Do you need to look any further?

The phrase “choose your friends carefully” has never been so important. Not having the ‘right’ friends could mean you become lost in the extensive internet network and unable to find anything useful!

People who happiest in life are the ones who form long term goals, both personal and professional. They then go on to construct a life which makes it possible for them to achieve their ambitions. Goal setting in this manner leads to a merge between work life and personal life.

Work Life Balance

The notion of work life balance doesn’t exist as it once did. Personally, my work is my life, I love it just as much as other activities. I don’t, however, live to work. Simply my concept of work differs to most. It is not a question of what work you wish to do, but instead what lifestyle you wish to have. Does your work conform to your desired lifestyle? Obviously, one has to do things that they don’t wish to do, for money or experience; this is where the balancing lies.

The Beach Office

So why this change? Due to advances in technology it’s becoming increasingly easy to live an entrepreneurial lifestyle. It is encouraging because it offers people freedom in their lifestyle. People will increasingly turn to this freedom, therefore corporations will need to adapt. Corporations will find it increasingly hard to gain employees with entrepreneurial mindsets – those minds which move their company forward.

Take your pick: the traditions of a work life balance or the freedom of lifestyle you desire.

Fortunately, Volkswagen have done something to favour the work life balance. Something which I hope will start a revolution of companies following suit. Volkswagen have allowed their employees to escape their working world by stopping the email server for their employees when they not on shift. Full details here. Once again an employee can enjoy piece from work when not on shift – well accept from any company accounts on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook which they might manage.

Well I guess, with such a technological world making entrepreneurship so easy – there has to be something good about working for a company. But if you love your work, like entrepreneurs do, then constant communications through email, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are more of a pleasure than an hassle. remember they are all social platforms – sociability being another trait of entrepreneurs.

This begs a question: will we ever be in a position where everyone is self employed and everyone has to market themselves and find work for themselves? No public-private divide? Teachers who bid for classes at schools, train drivers who bid for particular train journeys. This is already happening for so many things, from logo designs to collecting shopping lists, all possible due to crowd sourcing websites.

Can you imagine such a working environment? I really believe I can – ok so there is still a long way to go in terms of technology advancements and of course for general society to catch up with the trend. What does this leave us with? This means that people will have to love the job they do otherwise they will never win a bid, they will never be employed, they will therefore never be able to make money from such a job.