Britain and the Snow!

You may or may not have noticed that winter has come upon us and as usual we are more unprepared to deal with the changes it brings to our climate. People ask questions like, why is it that when it snows in Canada, Norway or Russia it just happens and nothing grinds to a halt.

It isn’t like the salt supply was low. We had record amounts of the stuff for this year, but still we can’t seem to deal with it. The snow has caused distribution not only to people trying to make it to work, but also several thousands of retailers selling Christmas products, delivery services stranded unable to guarantee next day delivery because of the white stuff.

SnowSlow: Everything seems to just grind to a halt when we get a drop of the white stuff!

According to the Derek Quarmby, Chairman of the RAC Foundation, David Quarmby British winters were very unpredictable, with the Met Office suggesting we should expect one in 20 winters to be severe. "We are not generally well geared up to shifting huge amounts of snow, because we very rarely get this intensity of snowfall," Furthermore we do not know when or where the snow is going to come, therefore buying huge industrial snow machinery, would be unnecessary.

The other reason maybe because of our infrastructure, our railways were built in the Victorian ages and many modern trains often are too difficult to run on our prehistoric tracks.

Derek Quarmby suggested there should be two further precautionary measures to deal with the snow next time it happens. Apparently £1 billion pounds is spent on winter reliance, on how to better manage the effects of the snow. On a local level £160 million is spent to better manage the effects, he suggests there should be a little more investment although in this time of precautionary measures, financial crisis he warns this may not be so easy.

He reconciles with fellow commuters and passengers trying to get to work this week, and reassures these people that they all already have good quality information. In most cases local authorities have up to the minute news on the status of roads. He realises that there should be more information for travellers on trains.

So this winter we have proved once more that Britain is adequate to defend itself from the elements once more. We need to be better prepared, we need to be better informed, and we need better analysis. What this comes down to though is the predefining element Money. During this time when resources have to be cut back, jobs are being lost, it is difficult to allocate money to a priority at this moment in time. Some would say that, it is a top priority as the determining weather patterns of the past three years have produced heavy winters there is a need for this investment.

Google Issues

Google's Mission statement is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Originally just a search engine Google has since expanded into mail, browsers, data services, chat, voice messaging, blogging and many other things in between.

It could be said that Google has had it quite easy in recent years; they have a captive audience, the #1 search engine, leading towards a situation where whatever they launch or whatever they do it will be successful.

It hasn't always been plain sailing for Google, many products have had to take a step back because either the cliental they were meant to serve was unacceptable or the design and functionality was inappropriate. A recent example of this Google Buzz. Buzz enables users to to share publicly with the world or privately to a group of friends each time they post. It came under tremendous criticism from both the general and technical press in the manner in which it was rolled out.

Furthermore Google Street View, a web based system where users can point exactly to a real live image of a destination has come under some sticky press in recent months, with whether or not they have the right to broadcast pictures of where people live.

So, Google is fantastic but as always there are two sides to every argument, you can say that with the enormous power of products, as Google has such as Android and other Google products, they have a captive audience. However they maybe not be everyone's cup of tea, particularly legally as organisations, governments can question what they are trying to do with their information and for what purpose.

Graduate Schemes or Jobs or a mixture of both?

My friend recently attended an assessment interview for a finance leadership graduate scheme. When he got there he was startled to find out that the company had over 30,000 applications for all graduate positions within the company he was applying too.

This statistic proves that it is increasingly difficult for perspective graduates to get their foot on the career ladder.

I am in the process of submitting applications for graduate programmes, although this is still my main focus; I am applying speculatively to other companies too, just because they don’t have vacancies on their website, doesn’t mean they don’t have vacancies at all. In some cases they will have vacancies and want people to fill.

Furthermore there are loads of companies out there who don’t have graduate schemes, but have vacancies for jobs instead. Yes graduate schemes are impressive and if you are fortunate to land yourself on one then congratulations, but what’s really the difference between a normal jobs in the industry, than a graduate job? They both still pay equivalent or near enough the same amount. They both allow you to progress within the company.

It seems every article these days in the media is centered on how many graduate jobs there out there for prespective graduates. What is a reality however is that you are probably better off just applying for a normal job in the industry such as a sales executive, marketing executive. These roles aren’t specifically graduate jobs, but the process in which you apply for these may be shorter and may lead you to less competition with other prespective graduates all in the same position as you.

Moreover I am concentrating on finishing my degree. Your degree is one of the most important elements, without a good degree these days you will find it difficult to get on the career ladder. Whilst graduate programmes are important and after you graduate you want to be able to work in several big organisations, the foremost and most important element should be your degree.