Words and pictures
With John Simmons and Martin Parr
In a world saturated with both images and messages, is a picture worth a 1000 words? Or do a few chosen words still count? Hear from two of the UK’s top practitioners on their work and how it affects society around them.
Martin Parr is a highly acclaimed UK photographer with a reputation for capturing the essence of people, places and landscapes. Martin will reveal some of the secrets behind his articulate images.
John Simmons is one of the UK’s leading copywriters, a brand ‘tone of voice’ guru and author of numerous books on the role of copy in the commercial world. John will speak about the importance of language in business today
Following the presentations there will be time for questions to discuss the tension between words and pictures and whether society is becoming image led.
Thursday 7 June 2007 at The Watershed, Bristol 6pm for 7pm start.
Tickets Watershed Box Office on 0117 927 5100
£10 per head, £5 student concession
Friday, 25 May 2007
Thursday, 17 May 2007
quickbooks, payroll upgrade and sunset policy
This is going to sound a bit random, but I thought it was worth mentioning because as a small business, I'd certainly want to know the options on book keeping software.
I absolutely adore Quickbooks as a package - loads of useful features, control, forgiving of mistakes, does exactly what it needs to and no more. Sage, for me, is too restrictive and actually has less features and flexibility for the same money. But when I tried to upgrade my Quickbooks payroll subscription, I ran into exactly the same problems (and solution) as this chap, namely that:
* I was told that because I was running an old version of quickbooks (Pro 2005) I was not allowed to purchase 11 months of payroll service (which would take me to the sunrise date) for the price of 12 months (for just under £100 which would take me beyond the sunrise date). In short, because I'm not allowed to pay more for less, I would have to pay over £600 more to replace the entire lot.
* so in order to keep running payroll I would have to upgrade all three of my Quickbooks packages one year earlier than the the sunrise date (over £700 through Intuit).
I can't possibly comment about how much is down to company policy, and how much is down to individuals and their interpretation of policy, but it really makes me wonder about the absurdity of certain sales and customer (dis)service practices out there that people come across from time to time for the various different products and services they come to rely on.
I'd just like to summarise my personal opinions of Quickbooks (my version is Pro 5) for those trying assess a whole host of packages.
* a brilliant package for small companies (see above)
* the US version is far better supported that the UK version
* it's always cheaper to buy any quickbooks product from someone other than Intuit because of the deals they do with Resellers. So don't reach for your credit card until you've done some shopping around!
* from what I can tell from the licence agreement, you don't actually buy the product outright because they have something called a sunset policy which seems to state that the product will physically stop working at a date usually three years from the release year of the version you buy (or at least the message on quickbooks states this). So it appears that you buy a licence to use the package for upto three years, at which point you will have to reinvest to continue to use your quickbooks file.
* Make sure you upgrade your payroll subscription before it hits the point where it is less than the date of your sunset date.
I'd really value someone from Intuit getting in touch and clarifying exactly what we as customers are actually buying. I totally understand the issue of supporting old versions of software, but I do think that the current policy needs to be a little less confusing to customers.
In the mean time, respect due to Bruce from 0800Handyman as he saved me from having to spend an unnecessary £500 on new software I didn't need.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect those of anyone else, as they're perfectly capable of speaking for themselves...
Jaya
I absolutely adore Quickbooks as a package - loads of useful features, control, forgiving of mistakes, does exactly what it needs to and no more. Sage, for me, is too restrictive and actually has less features and flexibility for the same money. But when I tried to upgrade my Quickbooks payroll subscription, I ran into exactly the same problems (and solution) as this chap, namely that:
* I was told that because I was running an old version of quickbooks (Pro 2005) I was not allowed to purchase 11 months of payroll service (which would take me to the sunrise date) for the price of 12 months (for just under £100 which would take me beyond the sunrise date). In short, because I'm not allowed to pay more for less, I would have to pay over £600 more to replace the entire lot.
* so in order to keep running payroll I would have to upgrade all three of my Quickbooks packages one year earlier than the the sunrise date (over £700 through Intuit).
I can't possibly comment about how much is down to company policy, and how much is down to individuals and their interpretation of policy, but it really makes me wonder about the absurdity of certain sales and customer (dis)service practices out there that people come across from time to time for the various different products and services they come to rely on.
I'd just like to summarise my personal opinions of Quickbooks (my version is Pro 5) for those trying assess a whole host of packages.
* a brilliant package for small companies (see above)
* the US version is far better supported that the UK version
* it's always cheaper to buy any quickbooks product from someone other than Intuit because of the deals they do with Resellers. So don't reach for your credit card until you've done some shopping around!
* from what I can tell from the licence agreement, you don't actually buy the product outright because they have something called a sunset policy which seems to state that the product will physically stop working at a date usually three years from the release year of the version you buy (or at least the message on quickbooks states this). So it appears that you buy a licence to use the package for upto three years, at which point you will have to reinvest to continue to use your quickbooks file.
* Make sure you upgrade your payroll subscription before it hits the point where it is less than the date of your sunset date.
I'd really value someone from Intuit getting in touch and clarifying exactly what we as customers are actually buying. I totally understand the issue of supporting old versions of software, but I do think that the current policy needs to be a little less confusing to customers.
In the mean time, respect due to Bruce from 0800Handyman as he saved me from having to spend an unnecessary £500 on new software I didn't need.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect those of anyone else, as they're perfectly capable of speaking for themselves...
Jaya
Wednesday, 16 May 2007
musings of an environmentally challenged company
Being a digitally creative sort of bunch, we can't get away from the fact that we use alot of electricity simply running our PCs and Macs. We always knew that it would be a challenge to go zero-emission, but now that we've been in our newly purchased extremely old, grade II listed building a good six months, the reality of our impact on the environment is starting to slap us in the face a little more sharply.
We've taken our environmental policy incredibly seriously which is a good start, but in spite of our best efforts, we've now got our first and scariest electricity bill - and it's not pretty. Time to look at replacing our storage heaters (the building can't currently support a *real* central heating system!), and that's just the first on a long list of things that need to change!
I think we've still got a lot to learn but hopefully our trials and tribulations will help others learn from our mistakes.
It's definitely not easy being green but we're trying....
Jaya
We've taken our environmental policy incredibly seriously which is a good start, but in spite of our best efforts, we've now got our first and scariest electricity bill - and it's not pretty. Time to look at replacing our storage heaters (the building can't currently support a *real* central heating system!), and that's just the first on a long list of things that need to change!
I think we've still got a lot to learn but hopefully our trials and tribulations will help others learn from our mistakes.
It's definitely not easy being green but we're trying....
Jaya
door mat article
well you'd usually find the word "welcome" on a door mat (and probably a load of letters and flyers if you've not visited for a while). Consider this intro as our door mat article - the first of hopefully many semi-random postings on things we care about - especially topics that fall outside the boundaries of conventional company stuff. We're an opinionated bunch, with a weakness for soft cheese (the edible variety as well as our senses of humour), cute furry animals and good coffee.
In any case, wipe your feet, come in and find yourself a beanbag....
Jaya
In any case, wipe your feet, come in and find yourself a beanbag....
Jaya
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