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The Covid-induced lockdowns and restrictions have necessitated a new way of working and accelerated the already growing trend to remote and more flexible employment. With the mass roll-out of vaccines generating hope for a return to some kind of normal in the spring/summer, what are the implications for leadership as staff return to the physical…

So what does that mean? Click-bait? A riddle? Well, it could be a riddle – it is a quote from Kurt Vonnegut’s 1959 book The Sirens of Titan. If you look these words up in a dictionary most of the words between them are to do with time. Now where am I going with this?…

Virtual teams are a new norm across the country – from virtual assistants at small businesses, to teams of architects, designers and engineers within large organisations to companies like Octagon Technology with a fully remote workforce. The benefits are clear but remote working can have its problems too, especially when it comes to tracking remote…

Who knew that this month was Clean up your Computer month?  I looked at resources online relating to this and most of it was about things people had to do before storage was so cheap and all the files they were working on were actually on their own computer rather than in the cloud.  Still, there are…

Yes, it’s true.  January 22nd is the day you sit with your cat and attempt to understand him better by answering all his questions.  Before you think I have gone completely mad, I do know that cats cannot speak human, and humans cannot speak cat.  The idea is to put yourself in the cat’s place, to look at…

Many studies have been conducted around the concept of working from home, and although it is widely believed that remote workers are more productive than their non-remote peers, the working from home environment can have its problems, typically when collaborating on tasks or projects (Chokshi, 2017). Amongst other things this could be one of the…

Before the pandemic a lot was said about remote working, illustrating its great benefits to both employer and employee, and highlighting its huge impact on worker’s productivity and creativity. Some businesses, such as Octagon, have been adapting to this model and have been using it with great success. We decided to go remote in 2007,…

Once again we find ourselves sealed in at home, those of us who can work from home that is, and whether you consider that a good or a bad thing you will have to make the best of it. While working from home will hopefully be a temporary solution, it is important not only to…

At the end of each year many of us slow down and rethink about what happened during the past months, contemplating what went well, what did not so much and what can be improved. I’m sure many of us hugely anticipate the New Year and look forward to starting new plans, achieving new goals and…

Contact form 7 WordPress developers updated their plugin last week to patch a security vulnerability that allowed unrestricted file uploads in all versions up to and including 5.3.1 – so we would strongly recommend that if you are using this plugin for your website’s contact form you run an update asap.  Of course, if you are a…

I’m sure many will agree that 2020 will stay in our memory for a little while! Many of us entered the New Year optimistically with new ambitious plans, promises and goals to achieve. The future looked promising and then the bomb was dropped on us all – the pandemic happened! Many small business owners realised…