We ask everyone who applies for a job with us to fill in an application form – this allows us to get more of an understanding of the applicants personality with questions like “What are you passionate about”, and “if you were to have a superpower, what would it be?”, as well saving us having to hunt through for the same information on 70 or CV’s.

It makes the short-listing process faster, fairer, and more accurate. However, after seeing our fair share of terrible responses over the past few days, I thought I would give my top tips for potential applicants of any job:

1. Check your spelling and grammar – if you can’t spell or write a sentence in an application form then how can I trust you to write an e-mail to my important customers?
2. Make sure you get your capitalisation correct – in the middle or the start of a sentence “I” should always be upper case.
3. Read and understand the job description and demonstrate your understanding in the application form.
4. Take the time to look into the company you are applying to and understand them, and then, as the point above,  demonstrate this in the application form.
5. If you put N/A to 5 questions about your personality, then I will assume you have N/A personality!
6. Get yourself an e-mail address that makes you look professional – if your e-mail is 18pintsbeforeipassout@hotmail.com or hotandsexy_21@gmail.com then get a new one!
7. Don’t apply for a  job that has a salary of  £18 – 20000 and then put “I would like a minimum of £27,0000 salary” in the application form – it’s a waste of your time.
8. Don’t cut and paste from your CV or worse, the internet.

I hope this helps you in your quest for a job … oh, and if you are one of the lucky ones to get through to interview, then please do take the time to learn a little about the company you would like to work for!

Being listed as one of the 42 follows on from my previous successes of being listed as one of the 35 under 35 in the Sheffield Star in 2009, and in the same year winning Young Business Person of the year.

Obviously I am  delighted to be listed feel very honoured to be in this list – it’s great to be noticed for all my hard work.

For those of you would like to read the full listing, you can find the entry below.

I don’t really want to do a full and comprehensive review here, but I do want to give my first thoughts, so here goes:

1. Its sleek, beautiful, and looks amazing – the screen is a real delight to use, and the rotation works really very well.
2. It is very easy to use (the operation is similar to an iphone)
3. Its fast and feels really responsive, and really very quick in operation.
4. The keyboard is surpisingly usable.
5. Web browsing is nice, and most sites work fine.
6. Video looks amazing – apple trailers in HD are fantastic.
7. Email with exchange just works (just like the iphone)

Will it replace my laptop ? – No, I dont think so — you see I am writing this blog on it, and compared to my laptop keyboard, its no comparision. The internet browser doesnt support flash, so lots of websites dont work quite as they should, and there is a real limit on software for it – much of what I use for work won’t run on the ipad.

Perhaps the best way of describing its functionality is as a big ipod, but has a much bigger and better screen.

Whats the point of it then?

It is a gorgeous device — I think if you are traveling loads, and you need something light, powerful but not a full laptop it would be perfect. I would guess that you will see loads of them on trains and tubes.

It does do video, music and most websites really well — it would be great on a trip where you wanted to travel light. It is perfect for video and web on the move. When apple sort out the powerpoint compatibility, it will be great in meetings for presentations (which is what I will hopefully be using it for)

Those are my thoughts — some would disagree, and if you want a full, comprehensive review then look elsewhere, but I hope it gives you some indication of what you can use it for.

P.S. If you are in Sheffield and you fancy coming down to the office to have a look, then drop me a line and we can arrange that!

It also features excellent case studies (!!).

There is something quite special about having your name in print in a “Proper” book …. you never know, I may one day write my own ….

This was really highlighted by a phone call this week from Talk Talk, who provide my broadband and phones at home. The phone call went something like this:

HER: “Can I speak to Mr Seaton Please”
ME: “Speaking”
HER: “Hi, this is Claire calling from talk talk, I am calling to talk to you about renewing your contract with us, but before I do can I please ask you some Data Protection questions – firstly your address”
ME: “Erm … OK … my address is (I gave her my address)”
HER: “And next can I ask you to confirm your date of birth, and the bank account that is setup to pay this account”
ME: “Hold on, I am not prepared to divulge that information over the phone – Can I ask you how I know that you are from talk talk”.
“HER: {Pause} … well I can assure you that I am”
ME: “Ok … can you confirm back to me some details on my account”
“HER: Yes, once you have passed the Data Protection questions …. so can you please confirm your date of birth, and the bank account that is setup to pay this account”
ME: “But you could be anyone …. ringing up from anywhere asking me to verify my details”
HER: “If you could just please confirm your date of birth, and the bank account that is setup to pay this account so I can verify your details ….”

At this point here I told her that I wanted her full name, and direct telephone number (neither of which she was prepared to give!) … and after a long conversation with her supervisor everything got sorted.

The strange thing was that no-one seemed to see that what they were asking was a strange request – that it was normal for them to ask customers to verify who they were. I then asked them what the system was for customers to verify who they were, no-one seemed to know.

If I was a criminal, then imagine the conversation “Hi, this is Claire calling from Llloyds TSB, I am calling to talk to you about your bank account, but before I do can I please ask you some Data Protection questions – firstly your address” … and so on….

The point?

Firstly, companies need to think of a good system for customers to verify who they are, and secondly, “offline” security is as important as “online” security.

These are normally generic, boring and completely ignorable (and in being so, actually defeats the reason they are shown – I bet most people ignore them! The Thompson video but this was a real exeption. I looked up from my book, and gave the video my full attention.

Top marks for Thompson for this, it is clever, and unique. Check out the video below and see what you think.

twinkl (we thought about twinkle, but dropping the “e” is cooler, apparently!)  is an online resource centre for teachers designed for primary teachers. It provides foundation resources and KS1 resources for primary teachers.  It came as an idea from my brother’s wife, who is a primary teacher and we have teamed up with a professional graphic designer and other fellow teachers to produce the site.

The idea is to grow the site to the place to go if you are looking for really top-quality resources. If you know any teachers, then feel free to spread the word.

In case you haven’t seen it yet … I made the front page of the Sheffield Chamber Magazine, FFB.

Feel free to read the magazine – I am on pages 13 and 9.

I have been reading “The Big Switch” by Nicholas Carr recently, and felt compelled to blog about it. I usually stay away from books about computers (!!), mainly because they often get quite technical and therefore bland, and also because they are so quickly out of date. The books I mainly read are business books, preferring to read blogs and websites about IT that are both free, but also up to date.

However, I was recommended this book by a friend who wasn’t in IT, and who really enjoyed it – high praise indeed for a book about the Internet.

Usually, I do a quick “summary” of the book – but this is such a good book, with so many great points that I feel a summary would do it a great injustice. I suggest that you read it, especially if you are in IT.

What stuck me most about the book is the absolute certainty with which he writes about “Cloud Computing”. It’s not a case of if, but of how the changes will affect us. With help from some of the companies leading the move to the cloud (Salesforce.com, 3Tera, Sun, Microsoft, Rackspace, Cisco, Amazon, Facebook and the mighty Google to name a few) it seems that the age of the cloud is truly upon us.

For those of you who are thinking “What the heck is Cloud Computing?” please permit me to offer a simple (and therefore not fully comprehensive!) explanation.

You are used to turning on your computer, and your information being on your computer. Everything from your documents to your holiday snaps from last year are on there. But with the shift to the internet, then we are now used to more and more of what we use being on the internet, and not on our computers. A good example of this is Hotmail or Gmail. But increasingly there is a move to not just have e-mail on the internet, but a variety of other stuff. For example when you log-in to facebook, the information isn’t on your computer. The photos, feeds, messages, and all that makes up facebook is on the internet … in “the cloud”. And other services are the same – Flickr, Picasa Web, Twitter, Google Maps, Bebo, Google Docs, Wiki, Office Live, Live Mesh, and so on … and more and more applications are going to be “in the cloud”.

So, simply cloud computing is about having data and information not on your computer or company servers, but on someone else’s servers – in “the cloud”.

I have been thinking alot about Cloud Computing recently. In the medium to long term it presents a significant threat to my business. However, I am convinced that there are many opportunities that lie ahead for innovative companies. I thought that one of the barriers to Cloud Computing would be trust – but that doesn’t play out in my life. I trust Google not to divulge my e-mail messages, I trust my bank not to allow confidential information escape from “the cloud”, I trust the company that hosts my websites not to allow other people to get at it. Is this trust misplaced? I don’t think so – for reputations are important in this ever connected world.

I am convinced now, more than ever, that the move to cloud computing is going to happen at a fast rate – the challenge I face is how can I ensure that my company is helping others to make the most of all that the cloud has to offer?