Archives for the Guest Blogs category

Today’s guest post comes from Tim Aldiss, Operations & Accounts Director at No Pork Pies. Tim writes for Bloom Social Business and in partnership with Brandwatch, the social media monitoring tool. In this post Tim looks at the rise of the Social Business. What’s that you ask? You’ll have to read on to find out. If you’re not up to scratch with social, you’ll be missing out on all the benefits Tim lists at the end of the post – call us on 01273 622272 to find out how our social media training workshop can help you and your business.

Just as the industrial era heralded the rise of a value chain with a tangible output of product, so the information era heralds the rise of a value chain based on knowledge and connections.

Social business is a misnomer. There are three definitions on Wikipedia. In its first incarnation, a social business was a non-loss, non-dividend company that retained a certain self-sufficiency; then came organisations that were socially minded and cared for their workforce; but the definition that has won through is the one that defines businesses as a network of people.

Traditional business strategy was all about top down control and structures built on hierarchy and need-to-know access levels. Career ascendancy was easily planned and followed a path of aspiration to succeed seniors, whose loftier roles came with a good dose of secrecy and intrigue! Today typical business structure has been turned on its head and all practices and functions are laid bare.

Thanks primarily to the rise and proliferation of cheaper technology, the information age is most easily classified by the one that allowed ease and speed of information distribution, and with this ability, the inherent human desire to share, changed the definitions of privacy, and through brute force brought down those ivory towers put up by the 20^th century’s business leaders. Read the rest of "Traditional Business is Dead: Long Live Social Business"

Posted by Guest Author in Business Skills, Guest Blogs, Marketing, News, Social Media on October 16th, 2012| 1 Comment »

“Never feel bad for being assertive, speaking your mind, and putting your foot down. What you think is anger, others see as a good solid display of self-esteem. ”  – Alison James

This guest post from our Assertiveness & Confidence Building trainer Sofie explains how assertiveness leads to improved self-confidence. The full 2-day workshop covers techniques for confidence building and boosting self esteem.

Positive communication

It is important to note that being assertive is not about being aggressive.

Assertiveness is a form of positive communication that can be learnt and applied to all areas of your life. It is the skill of knowing and defending your rights but at the same time understanding that others have rights too.

When someone is asserting themselves their primary focus should be on reaching a joint solution, which meets the needs of both people involved. In other words ‘I’m OK and you’re OK’. It is not about getting angry or making someone bow to your demands. This type of aggressive communication is manipulative and threatening and not at all considerate of other people. Equally other non-assertive ways to communicate include passive and passive-aggressive behaviours. Read the rest of "How Being Assertive Leads to Greater Self-Confidence"

Posted by Sofie in Assertiveness, Business Skills, Guest Blogs, News, Personal Development on February 10th, 2012| 1 Comment »

Now that the Christmas festivities have finished and the New Years Eve hangover has fully worn off, a certain sense of deflation seems to have settled over the UK. No one’s got any money, there’s no celebrations left to look forward to and the emphasis is very much on cutting back on the booze, getting to the gym and getting early nights. However, even if you are currently in a state of detox, there’s no need to be glum because spring is just around the corner and there’s a whole range of spring festivals and events in Sussex to look forward to.

Why not learn a new skill this spring? It could be the most exciting thing you do this year! If you’re thinking of a career move in 2012, want to dust off some old skills, pick up that new talent you’ve been thinking about for a while or even flourish in your current role then training courses are the best way to start. If you want to get your creative juices flowing then our Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator courses are all perfect. If you want to take the web by storm then our Web Design courses are all tailored to different skill levels and SEO and Social Media are both important as well. If you are looking further up the career ladder or want some help in the corporate environment our range of Business and Management training courses are all very useful. We run everything from Management Skills Training and Leadership Training to accredited PRINCE2 and Six Sigma Training. Spring is not just for learning though! In your time off why not attend some of these great events…

Sussex Beer Festival takes place on 8-10 March and if you’re having a bit of a dry month at the moment then this is something to really look forward to. The festival has around 230 beers on offer, including a range of British and foreign beers, as well as other mouthwatering tipples, such as ciders, perries and wines. Tickets cost between £4 and £7, depending on the day you go, and include a free souvenir glass and programme.

Beer by Tim Dobson on Flickr

2012 sees the 45th Brighton Festival taking place between 7 and 29 May, guest directed by Vanessa Redgrave, and celebrating themes of liberty and freedom. The festival is an important annual event for the town and is the largest multi-art form festival in England. You can expect to find a broad selection of dance, music, art and film on the programme and a wide range of events for all the family. Read the rest of "Spring Festivals & Events in Sussex"

Posted by Guest Author in Brighton, Guest Blogs, News on January 24th, 2012| No Comments »

There’s an app to sort out everything these days. In fact the app development business is so strong we have had to develop two exciting new courses to meet demand. We now provide Android App Development courses and iPhone App development courses in addition to our general Mobile Development and Design workshops.

Feeling angry can be a very scary experience for you and for those around you who have to witness your anger. Everyone gets angry from time to time, but it’s important to manage your emotions and not let them get out of control, or you risk causing emotional or physical damage to yourself or others. You don’t have to be ashamed if you feel you need help. If you have an iPhone, here are some great apps you can download that will help you effectively manage your anger.

Calm Counter

iPhone – £1.99

When you’re feeling like your anger is out of control, use this app to help you take a break. You simply tap the screen, and each time it will say out loud in a male or female voice, “I need a break.” Every tap will make the screen lighten, going from a dark red color and an angry face to something more calm. This tool helps you to visualize calming down, and it encourages you to take ten deep breaths and count backwards, which is a helpful tool in managing anger. There is also a story you can listen to that will help you put your anger in perspective. Designed as an Anger Management Tool for Autism, Down Syndrome and Special Needs, although it works for anyone. Read the rest of "Anger Management Apps"

Posted by Guest Author in Assertiveness, Guest Blogs, Mobile, News, Personal Development on December 16th, 2011| No Comments »

Health and Safety Training is vitally important for businesses to ensure they operate in a safe environment. Our IOSH Training course is accredited by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health and is designed to minimise risk at work to avoid some of the problems in the following guest post.

How to Prevent Workplace Injury

Some of us work in professions that come with the risk of serious bodily danger.  Construction workers, deep-sea welders, and tandem skydiving instructors, for example, may risk their lives each day simply by showing up for work.  Even those that operate a vehicle (for shipping, transport, or other reasons) may be prone to automobile accidents.  But the majority of people work at jobs that are eminently safer, whether in offices or the service industry, and don’t face these same hazards.  As a result, they might not be prepared for the possible dangers lurking in their otherwise safe work environment.  So if you have an occupation that you think could not possibly bring you harm, you might want to think again.  In order to prevent workplace injury, you first need to recognize that it could happen to you.

Be Aware of Dangers

Of course, it helps to be aware of your surroundings and see the potential threat lurking in items as seemingly innocuous as, say, a keyboard, a clean floor, or a box of paper.  These three items, in fact, represent the major causes of injury in an office environment.  “A keyboard?” you may be asking yourself, “How can a keyboard be harmful?” Read the rest of "Health and Safety – How to Prevent Workplace Injury"

Posted by Guest Author in Guest Blogs, Health and Safety, News on November 10th, 2011| 1 Comment »

This guest blog post from Mike A. has some very helpful pointers for complete PHP beginners but if you want to learn more advanced techniques then you should consider PHP Training, one of a number of our excellent Programming Courses.

PHP Pointers for Beginners

With Web 2.0, website visitors expect a full-featured custom website that uses their location and other information to display a unique website.  As a developer or designer, you want to find ways to make your website a unique experience for each visitor.  You can use PHP to create a feature-rich, dynamic website for your visitors.

PHP is a scripting language embedded within HTML.  A PHP processor module, which reads the script, is located on the web server.  The module renders a readable web page, so site visitors do not need special software installed on their own computer to view features on the page.  Used on over 20 million web pages, PHP is one of the most popular languages used to create dynamic web pages.

A few of the most popular Web 2.0 websites use PHP to create customized content for their visitors. Facebook, WordPress, Digg and Wikipedia all use PHP to produce websites tailored to each visitor’s needs and interests.  Web developers can use PHP scripts to pull information from the database about each user, including location and previously saved data.

PHP has many features you can use to customize your website, but listing all of them would make this article too long ,not to mention too boring, to read.  You will learn more techniques in future articles, but this article will introduce you to six easy ways to use PHP, even if your experience with PHP is limited.

Website Appearance

You can change the appearance of your web page depending on the day or any other factor.  For example, show a picture of the sun during the day and a picture of the moon at night.  This keeps your website fresh for returning visitors and keeps it interesting.
Place this code between the head tags in the HTML code:

$day = date(“w”);
$color = array(“white”, “orange”, “purple”, “pink”, “red”, “blue”, “green”);

Place this piece of code inside the and tags of your HTML to change the color:

print(“style=\”color:$color[$day];\”"); Read the rest of "PHP Pointers for Beginners"

Posted by Guest Author in Guest Blogs, News, Programming on October 31st, 2011| No Comments »

Video is a great tool for anything from marketing to in house training as video content starts to replace written content. The way we digest and interact with media is changing and video is playing a huge part in this – you are more likely to see a video go viral than an article. Today’s blog looks specifically at video for training purposes and how it can benefit your company.

We offer comprehensive Video for the Web Training to help you produce web-friendly video content and comprehensive Adobe Premiere Elements Training to help you edit your videos to a professional standard.

However, a lot of people don’t have the time to produce their own video – and there are some great production companies out there who can help you.

In this post Guest blogger Andy Havard explains the benefits of using video for training.

Andy is a Marketing Executive at Skeleton Productions, a UK based corporate video production company.

Why Training Videos Are Becoming A Huge Benefit To Businesses Of All Niches

Andy Havard

Training videos aren’t a new revolutionary training tool, in fact they’ve been around for years and years. What has became revolutionary though is video itself. Gone are the days where only blue chip corporates could afford to create training videos and long gone are the days of having to train groups of staff by a worn out VHS tape on a battered old TV. This article explores the great new benefits of using training video in the 21st century and how it can become an essential tool for employees of any business.

1. Video Is Very Flexible
Video as a media is incredibly flexible. It can be burnt onto a DVD disc, copied onto USB sticks, embedded on Power Point presentations, emailed to staff and hosted on the Internet. Videos ability to be both digital and physical in format allows it to become a very versatile training material. It can be viewed on virtually any platform from phones and tablets to TV’s, computers and projectors. This makes your training video content adaptable to meet the needs of both your staff and your business. Read the rest of "Training Videos – Benefits for businesses"

Posted by Guest Author in Guest Blogs, News on September 30th, 2011| No Comments »