SME Blog

Does the UK government understand the world we live in?

Every UK family with a child under 16 is currently at risk. Where are the two data disks with the personal data of 25 million citizens? No one knows. MI5 and the police are no doubt on the case. Let us hope they get there first and the disks don't fall into the wrong hands. There is a real risk that the data will become the property of identity fraud gangs. Worse still our children on the lists could be targeted by gangs of a different kind.

Normally, I try to see the other point of view and be fair minded. On this matter I'm struggling. Whilst SME's have to make do with limited resources the government has huge resources. Whilst I see many SME's that are innovative and understand the IT world we are currently living in, I have huge doubts now about the government. This is jaw dropping incompetence.

We're told a junior official posted the data discs to internal audit. This is staggering in two respects:

1. The junior employee had such easy access to the data;
2. Internal audit requested it in this format.  Even with internal mail the existence of these two data disks outside a secure environment is a risk.

I can only come to the conclusion that when it comes to IT privacy the UK government does not understand or want to understand the world we live in.  No doubt they are rightly going to receive a very painful 21st century lesson.

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Basking in the warm glow

A big thank you to Accountancy Age.  I'm basking in the warm glow as for the second year running my firm, Goodman Jones, won the Accountancy Age Award for Best Use of Internet: Practice.

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Project management made easy

If you have ever been involved in a SME project then the chances are you have used Excel.  For all the sophisticated project management tools available Excel has the advantage of being familiar and easy to use. 

Getting new users to learn project management software is a problem.  For the average person in a SME the regular job will still need to be done.  Placing the project on top will increase the time pressure.  Small wonder that the thought of learning new project management software is unappealing. 

For the project manager Excel is not the best tool.  There will be a constant round of emails to update tasks and the timeline created in Excel.  Different versions will be passed around and there is no instant view by the project team of the level of progress.

A good solution would be an online tool that organises tasks and creates the project timeline automatically.  All users are able to log on via the internet and the administrator can set the system to send automatic email reminders for tasks to be completed.  Once the task is completed the user logs into the system and clicks their task box to say it is completed.  All users then have an instant view of the progress to date. 

I've been looking for a system that will do the above AND be very easy to use.   Wrike is the closest I've seen (thanks for the tip Daniel).  It is not prefect, but it is very good.  It is extremely easy to use and if you're undertaking an SME project coming then it is well worth finding out more.

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