SEARCH CLINIC

Dr Search- the Search Clinic’s Principal Consultant has now been recognised by the Association of MBAs as a qualified Member.
The Association of MBAs is the international impartial authority on postgraduate business education and was established in 1967.

AMBA is the only professional membership association for MBA students and graduates, accredited business schools, and MBA employers. The membership network currently includes 9,000 members living in 88 countries.

The accreditation service is the global standard for all MBA, DBA and MBM programmes. They currently accredit programmes at 189 business schools in over 70 different countries.

In June 1967, a small group of business graduates, eight with MBAs from the US and two from the first intake at London Business School, gathered in London to found the Business Graduates Association (BGA).

Recognising that despite the value of the MBA, there was a distinct lack of knowledge about the qualification in the UK and Europe, the BGA’s intention was to promote the benefits of business education through five key objectives: help the development of existing business schools, support the founding of new business schools, encourage employers to take on MBAs, help increase the number and quality of students attending business school, and advocate the importance of professional business education in general.

By the end of their first decade the BGA had grown to a membership of 1,900.

In 1983, in response to the growing number of polytechnic business schools offering an MBA programme, the BGA established an accreditation programme to champion the MBA as a brand and to ensure standards were maintained. It soon became clear that there was considerable demand for this kind of quality assurance in the MBA market.

By 1987 the BGA’s stakeholder group had evolved into graduate members, accredited business schools and MBA employers. To reflect this change the BGA became the Association of MBAs.

Throughout the 1990s, the Association of MBAs continued to grow, adding members and accrediting programmes, including many outside the UK. The Association, until then staffed by volunteers, also adopted a more professional structure, adopting a full-time head and management team.

Jeanette Purcell came on board as Chief Executive in 2003. In 2007, the Association of MBAs celebrated its 40th anniversary as the leading international impartial authority on postgraduate business education.

You can contact Dr Search by clicking here now.

Smart TVs sets with the ability to stream online content, run apps and show television channels simultaneously dominated the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) exhibition.At the end of 2011 there were 82 million connected TVs in homes worldwide according to research group Informa. By 2016 it forecasts that number will have ballooned to 892 million.

For years much of the tech industry has pursued a vision of the computer as the home’s digital hub. Owners used their PCs to copy photos off digital cameras, download music and movies and then transfer the material to other compatible devices.
Camera built into Samsung smart TV Samsung’s built-in camera allows its TV to recognise gestures and identify users

Advanced users might have connected their laptop to their TVs or streamed content to the sets wirelessly, but the televisions were at most at the end of a spur coming off the hub, rather than its heart.

The roll-out of cloud services allied to faster internet speeds now offers televisions the chance to usurp the PC’s place, and offers users further freedom from the confines of broadcasters’ schedules.

Samsung – the world’s best-selling TV-maker – has been at the forefront of efforts to deliver this vision.

One of the promotional videos it showed at this year’s event claimed watching television by appointment would become a foreign concept in the future, and its executives talk of the TV being the centre of the home.

Users are offered thousands of apps allowing them to use social networks, play video games, run educational software and follow exercise routines.

But smart TV makers recognise that people still want a sit back rather than lean forward experience most of the time.

Furthermore they acknowledge that increasing numbers of homes own other connected devices. So users may still find it preferable to tweet about a show via their tablet or smartphone rather than shrink the TV picture to pull up an app alongside.

However, manufacturers insist there are instances where it makes more sense to have everything on one screen.

While Samsung and Panasonic are developing their own system software, Google is taking a second crack at offering its own smart TV service.

At the show, LG and Vizio unveiled new sets with the search firm’s Android-based software built in. Sony also added the facility to two devices – a set-top box and a Blu-ray player.

The first version of Google TV launched in October 2010 to much fanfare, but proved a flop – enabled devices were criticised for being too expensive, and several TV networks blocked the US-only service from accessing their web content.

This time round a focus on apps may tempt content providers to co-operate, but for now it remains reliant on its own YouTube service as well as streams from Netflix, Amazon and several niche operations.

UK-based Canonical was punting a rival Linux-based Ubuntu operating system at the trade show. It says it offers a solution to clients who do not want to develop their own software and content deals, but feel uncomfortable linking up with Google.

Whichever operating system proves most popular, the internet poses a threat to the rest of the pay-TV market.

Furthermore, it says that recent developments have spurred pay-TV providers on to furnish its boxes with more material.

For now, the smart TV market looks fragmented from the point of view of content, and immature in terms of some of the technologies involved.

But as smart TVs become ever smarter, previous generations of unconnected sets may soon appear only slightly less antiquated than the black and white models of yesteryear.

The Irish data protection commissioner has recommended widespread changes to improve personal data privacy on Facebook.They include making its terms and conditions clearer and offering users greater control over how their data is used on the site.

The findings are particularly significant because Facebook Ireland was given responsibility for all non-US and Canadian data in September 2010.

Facebook has six months to implement the changes.

Commissioner Billy Hawkes will conduct a formal review of its progress in July.

Commenting on the report, he said: “This was a challenging engagement both for my office and for Facebook Ireland. The audit has found a positive approach and commitment on the part of FB-I [Facebook Ireland] to respecting the privacy rights of its users.”

The review was conducted partly in response to complaints about Facebook’s data and partly as routine assessment of firm conducted by the commission.

The report suggested widespread changes, including:

• a mechanism for users to make informed choices about how their information is used and shared on the site, including in relation to third party apps
• increased transparency and controls over how personal data is used for advertising purposes
• transparency and control for users via the provision of all personal data held to them on request and as part of their everyday interaction with the site
• the deletion of information held on users and non-users via what are known as social plug-ins, and more generally the deletion of data held from user interactions with the site much sooner than at present
• an update to its data use policy/privacy policy to take account of recommendations as to where the information provided to users could be further improved
• an additional form of notification for users in relation to facial recognition/”tag suggest” that, it is considered, will ensure Facebook Ireland is meeting best practice in this area from an Irish law perspective
• an enhanced ability for users to control tagging and posting on other user profiles
• an enhanced ability for users to control their addition to groups by friends

One of the first changes users will notice in the new year will be prominent notices informing them about the facial recognition tag which suggests names for labelling photos. Users will be offered the chance to disable it.

It’s not that long ago that Facebook felt able to ignore complaints about the way it handled users’ data, confident that everyone would eventually fall in line with Mark Zuckerberg’s exhortation to share more. That has all changed.

Under growing attack from privacy campaigners, governments and regulators, the social network is now doing its best to sound more sensitive to their concerns.

The idea that internet firms could ignore local regulators by simply moving elsewhere now looks out of date. If the likes of Facebook and Google want to operate globally, they are finding that they have to respond to local concerns.

But further clashes loom. Facebook’s business depends on advertisers who want to know more about the likes and dislikes of its users. Balancing their demands for more data with the privacy concerns of 800 million people will be a difficult line to tread.

Yahoo has named Scott Thompson- the president of online payments firm Paypal, as its new CEO.He will fill the vacancy left by Carol Bartz, who was dismissed as chief executive in September after failing to turn around the company’s fortunes.

Mr Thompson has headed Paypal, the payments division of eBay, since 2008, during which time its userbase doubled.

Yahoo is currently undergoing a strategic review as it has failed to keep up with rivals such as Google.

First and foremost Mr Thompson has to define what Yahoo should be. Technology firm? Media company? Online services provider? Search engine? Internet portal? All of the above?

Yahoo has spread itself too thin, both managerially and technologically. It tried to compete with Microsoft, Google, AOL and everybody else at the same time – and failed. Yahoo is not known for innovation anymore. Meanwhile, Facebook snuck up from behind and ate Yahoo’s most valuable asset – the time its users spend online.

Selling troubled Yahoo to some naive investor might be an option, but anti-trust challenges make the outcome of any bid doubtful – unless Yahoo’s Chinese partner Alibaba steps forward. But that in itself would be a political Pandora’s box.

The US firm’s key products, beside its search engine, include photo sharing site Flickr and its webmail platform.

However, its domination of webmail – and the ancillary services it offers its email account holders – is under threat as younger users migrate to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Markets gave the news a cool reception. Shares in Yahoo were down 3.1% at the close of trading in New York.

Shares in Paypal’s parent, eBay, closed down 3.77%. The broader Nasdaq tech index closed up 0.33%.

Yahoo’s share price has stagnated at about $15 ever since late 2008, refusing to go above $20, after it rejected an offer from Microsoft to buy up the company at $33 a share.

Revenues at the firm have stagnated, particularly compared with leading search engine Google, and Yahoo has had to lay off workers four times over the past three years.

The poor performance prompted Yahoo’s board to ignominiously turf out Carol Bartz in September last year.

Tim Morse, who had been standing in as chief executive, will return to the role of chief financial officer when Mr Thompson takes over on 9 January.

It is not just humans that are growing in size- web pages are getting bigger too.

The average web page is now about 965 kilobytes in size- reveals a study of top sites by the HTTP Archive trends.

The figure is 33% up on the same period in 2010 when the average webpage was even then a not so slim 726 kilobytes.

Keeping web pages small is vitaly important as not only are an increasing number of people browsing with smartphones, but also because Google use download times as a key search ranking determinant.

Analysis suggests the bloat is down to user demands for more interactivity, as well as the tools used to watch what happens when people visit a site.

To gather its figures, the HTTP Archive run a series of tests every month on the web’s top 1,000 sites.

These showed that average webpage sizes were trending steadily upward throughout 2011 and jumped sharply in October. Big pages generally take longer to load, which can mean visitors quit if a page takes too long to appear.

The metrics the HTTP Archive gathered suggest some causes for the growth. Images are a big proportion of the average webpage, and the higher resolutions people expect have led these to grow.

However, the statistics reveal that the category showing the biggest growth is that for Javascript.

This scripting language is widely used to make webpages more interactive and responsive.

The growth in the amount of Javascript on webpages may be down to the growing use of HTML5.

This is the latest version of the formatting language that defines how web pages should be written.

TalkTalk remains the most complained about UK broadband service provider according to regulator Ofcom.The ISP has “topped” the list for four consecutive quarters, although it has been reducing the number of complaints over the past six months.

In the same period, Ofcom found that 3 was the most complained about mobile operator, driven by disputed charges and customer service issues.

Virgin Media also saw an increase in mobile complaints over the past year.

Ofcom bases its data on complaints sent to the regulator rather than to individual operators. In general, mobile services are less complained about than fixed line or broadband.

The regulator’s quarterly report aims to inform consumers as well as incentivise telecoms providers to improve their performance. Ofcom only monitors complaints against telecom providers with a market share of more than 4%.

Complaints about TalkTalk’s broadband service peaked for the first three months of 2011 with an average of 0.81 per 1,000 customers. This fell to 0.55 by the third quarter of 2011.

LANDLINE COMPLAINTS Q3 2011

• TalkTalk – 0.77 complaints per 1,000 customers
• BT Retail – 0.29
• BSkyB – 0.28
• Virgin Media – 0.19

A lot of the problems experienced by TalkTalk are blamed on billing errors following its amalgamation with Tiscali in 2009.

As a direct result of the 1,000 complaints it received last year, Ofcom fined TalkTalk and its Tiscali UK subsidiary £3 million  for incorrectly billing more than 65,000 customers for services they had not received.

It was the largest fine that the regulator has given to a telecoms firm.

TalkTalk has since paid more than £2.5 million in refunds and goodwill payments to affected customers. Last month it admitted that it had lost more than 43,000 customers as a result of customer service issues.

The ISP was also the most complained about provider when it came to landline services, with 0.77 complaints per 1,000 customers in the third quarter of 2011, again driven by billing and customer services issues.

MOBILE COMPLAINTS Q3 2011

• Three – 0.14 complaints per 1,000 customers
• Orange – 0.07
• Virgin Mobile – 0.07
• Vodafone – 0.07
• T-Mobile – 0.06
• O2 – 0.02

The least complained about provider for the fourth quarter in a row was Virgin Media with 0.19 complaints per 1,000 customers.

But in mobile, Virgin Media saw its complaints rise from 0.03 complaints per 1,000 customers from of 2010 to 0.07 by the third quarter of 2011.

It has some way to go to catch 3, which was the most complained about operator over all four quarters. Its complaints have been on the rise, up from 0.09 per 1,000 customers from October to December of 2010 to 0.14 by the third quarter of 2011.

O2 remained the least complained about mobile operator over the year.

Western business have been slower at adopting social networks such as Facebook and Twitter than their rivals in developing countries, according to a report by KPMG.The report found firms in China, India and Brazil were 20-30% more likely to use social media than companies in developed countries such as the UK.

KPMG surveyed 1,850 managers and 2,016 employees from 10 countries.

On average, it found that 70% of companies now use social media.

“The emerging markets seem to be quickly finding that social networks offer a relatively low-cost opportunity to leapfrog the competition in developed markets,” said Tudor Aw, KPMG’s head of technology, Europe.

“The rapid adoption of social media in emerging market countries may also be attributed to a lower dependence on ‘legacy systems’,” such as email, he added.

The KPMG report also found that many employees are being banned by their employers from using these networks- but that they often use them anyway.

One third of employees surveyed whose firm had blocked access used workarounds to get onto social network sites.

KPMG’s survey found that 98% managers at firms in China and 95% of managers in Brazil said they use social media at least several times a week, compared with 80% of managers in the UK.

Only 48% of UK companies use networks such as Twitter and Facebook to communicate with suppliers, clients and customers.

That compares with 72% in the US and 83% in China.

However, the report found that UK firms had fewer problems using the internet for social purposes compared with their rivals overseas.

Online banking at Lloyds Bank is the latest compnay to have suffered problems with their online systems.Some Lloyds TSB customers suffered problems getting into the online banking system on Thursday morning.

The bank’s customer services team has been apologising to customers who have complained about a shutdown in the system.

However, they said that the system should now be working as normal.

The glitch comes in the same week as computer problems affected customers with accounts at the Post Office who visited branches.

Last month, maintenance work affected services for customers of RBS and NatWest – the day after HSBC customers faced a shutdown in online services.

A spokeswoman for Lloyds claimed that the glitch affected the online banking system for an hour.

Transactions were affected at the Post Office network on Monday as computer issues caused problems on one of the busiest days of the year.Some transactions were affected for two 30-minute periods, leading to queues.

The Post Office apologised, saying that the service had now been restored across the UK network of 11,800 branches.

The problem came as Royal Mail’s website continued to suffer from a computer glitch.

“We are very sorry for the inconvenience this problem has caused customers. We know how important the Post Office is to our customers at all times, but especially at Christmas,” said Kevin Gilliland, the Post Office’s network and sales director.

This is the second computer problem at the network in six months. In July, a shutdown blocked access for 3.3 million customers with Post Office card accounts.

Some pensioners have their benefits paid into a Post Office card account.

A Post Office spokesman said the glitch affected most services offered by the branches which were hit.

Post offices were expected to be particularly busy, because Royal Mail was predicting its busiest day of the year.

They were expecting 131 million items to be posted, double the usual number. They had taken on thousands of extra staff to cope with the Christmas rush, caused in part by the popularity of online shopping.

Last week, Royal Mail admitted that it had charged some customers twice for postal services as problems continue to hit its website.

Some 600 customers had cards debited twice, at an average of £50 each time, after repeating a purchase in the SmartStamp section which the system told them had initially failed. Various online postage applications – such as Price Finder – have also been down since 21 November.

A Post Office spokesman said the issues affecting Royal Mail were unrelated to the problems at the Post Office network on Monday.

Twitter has redesigned its service layout giving companies a greater presence on its network.The company said the enhancements would make Twitter a more “compelling destination” for brands.

The firm depends on its relationship with advertisers. At present its main source of revenue is “promoted” tweets, accounts and trends sold for cash.

A spokeswoman for Twitter said the main goal of the revamp was to make the service more simple and easy to use, rather than to focus on brands.

“If users don’t want to see a brand’s page, then they can just not visit it,” said Rachel Bremer.

The so-called “brand pages” will bring Twitter in line with similar features offered by Facebook and Google+.

A new “discover” feature highlights content from Twitter based on a user’s interests and location, an enhancement of the site’s existing hashtag system.

“We’ve simplified the design to make it easier than ever to follow what you care about, connect with others and discover something new,” the company said in a blog post.

“You’ll see this new design both on Twitter.com and mobile phones, so that you’ll have a familiar experience any time, anywhere.”

The company said an update to its standalone app Tweetdeck would also be made available. Twitter bought the UK-developed tweeting software for £25 million in May.

Twitter said that the upgrade would be rolled out to all users “in the next few weeks”. The new features can be accessed earlier by downloading the firm’s updated mobile app.

Several brands have partnered with Twitter for the launch including Coca-Cola, Disney, Nike and McDonald’s.

The redesign allows companies more customisation over the look of their pages and the ability to show embedded multimedia.