– Lynne Irwin, Cornell UniversityFood for thought! We now have driverless cars, or at least Nevada USA does, courtesy of Google.  When I was a teenager this was the stuff of science fiction and now it’s reality. The discussion about the look and format of the car is interesting. Potentially it could look very different, and probably could be made of a lighter material if there are no accidents.  It does raise the question of ‘acceptability’ to customers though.&... [More]

I wouldn’t put myself forward as a legal expert – but I do like to keep up to date with what is going on out there, and why.  I therefore found it quite interesting to read about a possible ‘Common European Sales Law’, and a proposal to standardise contract law across the 27 states of the EU. The Federation of Small Businesses in the UK is championing this proposed legislation as they say that it will cut costs and enable many small businesses to extend their market... [More]

So now we’re talking about the current economic climate as ‘the great recession’. I’ve been involved in a number of interesting conversations on the subject recently, and the contrast was fascinating in terms of consumer behaviour. On one side the theme seems to be ‘back to basics’, where competitiveness has moved away from what everyone has towards what everyone is doing without – for example, how much they have saved by cutting back on fuel, or how of... [More]

It must have happened to some of you as well – you buy new software, download it, install it and then get interrupted. By the time you get around to looking at it again it is ‘after normal office hours’, and, no matter how hard you look on the website you can’t find information to help. I try the Frequently Asked Questions (once I find them as they don’t ‘stand out’), I search and I look under product support, but nothing relevant.Next step – I email with my query, and get very excited when I s... [More]

Was it really only a month ago I wrote about social responsibility and pharmaceuticals versus the drinks industry? Now here we are on the day that the final edition of the News of the World is published – it will soon be no more!!  Corporate social responsibility and the Press – now there’s an interesting one... So, to what degree was Twitter responsible for the demise of the newspaper? Publishers rely heavily on advertising to keep running, and, by all accounts, online p... [More]