You may feel rested, but what about your skin? September 16, 2014 As you return from your summer holidays relaxed and refreshed, give a thought to your skin. After a long flight that “healthy glow” may not be so resplendent after all. While many symptoms caused by travelling can be solved by simple over the counter remedies, there will be some that are more serious. Stephanie Munn, [...]
The financial A to Z of Scottish independence – CNBC Comment September 15, 2014 A new, independent Scotland might flummox a foreign visitor. So it’s lucky this financial A to Z has turned up – even if some say it’s a parody of the Better Together campaign. A: Alex – Scotland’s official unit of currency, though largely superseded by an informal bartering system, where one barrel of oil [...]
How Google and Amazon workers keep their focus September 15, 2014 Harriet Green examines the Two Pizza Rule and the benefits of workplace mindfulness. Distractions can be crippling to productivity. Gloria Mark of the University of California found that, on average, office workers are distracted every 11 minutes. And worse, it takes 25 minutes to return to a task once you’ve wandered onto something else. [...]
The new rules of career planning: Embrace chance September 11, 2014 Even our best laid schemes have the nasty habit of going awry WHERE would you like to be in a decade’s time? It seems a natural question. Surely the captains of industry didn’t get to where they are today without the requisite amount of career planning and strategic networking? This may have been the case [...]
Wearable tech: Is it set to take over the City? September 10, 2014 Imagine the end of desks, and watches that log your billing time APPLE’S move into wearable tech this week may have disappointed investors (its shares ended the day 0.4 per cent down after the grand unveiling of its unabashedly rectangular Apple Watch), but the hype surrounding the wider wearables market has hardly dampened. NPD Group [...]
Peer-to-peer can help you save up for a house deposit September 10, 2014 How could peer-to-peer (P2P) lending help you save for a house deposit? First-time buyers looking to live in the South East of England will need to stump up an average deposit of around £30,000 according to research released at the end of August by LSL Property Services, and the figure leaps to £62,253 in [...]
How to save up for a house deposit September 9, 2014 With property prices surging in recent years – by 19.3 per cent in London in the 12 months to June, according to ONS data – the amount needed for a house deposit has shot up. The latest figures from LSL Property Services show that the average first-time buyer put down just over £30,000 for a [...]
The simple ways to master your LinkedIn account September 9, 2014 Be cut-throat with previous jobs, but think before rejecting people IT’S SEPTEMBER – the back-to-school month when hiring and switching jobs always cranks up. And in London, hiring is now rising at its fastest pace since before the financial crisis. According to a new study from recruiter Manpower, staff are being taken on across all [...]
Alibaba: Bigger isn’t always better for IPOs – CNBC Comment September 8, 2014 GET OUT your superlatives. The Alibaba IPO is set to be the biggest in history – with an expected $21bn (£12.9bn) offering. The numbers are staggering. The Chinese e-commerce giant could be valued at $163bn, not too far off Facebook’s $200bn valuation. Its profit margins are above 40 per cent, and Alibaba accounts for 80 [...]
What business can learn from the underdogs September 8, 2014 Be positive, and remember that you could be the game changer FROM unlikely World Cup winners, to politicians and Harry Potter – everybody loves an underdog. A 2010 study by Anat Keinan, Jill Avery and Neeru Paharia looked at the sway the underdog business holds with consumers over the big players. Their hypothesis was that [...]