LOTS OF GOOD NEWS
I have never, ever known so much rain. In fact today I considered buying a boat for my back garden. In the last nine months I haven’t been at home for more than four weeks at a time as I decided to escape the heat of the New York summer to spend a glorious three months working the UK; the work is great. This week has seen two big wins, one with the NY Department of Education and the other was the start of our new office in Afghanistan. It has been a tremendously exciting end to our financial year – where sales have increased and so have the on-boarding of our customers. But where is the sunshine!? Well I believe it is all around us but not in its usual form – I certainly am feeling the rays as business continues to grow and expand.
I was tremendously excited this week that both thebigword U.S. and our Executive Vice President in New York, Josh Gould, won awards at this year’s American Business Awards (The Stevies).
The Stevies are tremendously prestigious awards, recognised the world over for rewarding business excellence and it’s a great achievement for Josh, who is still only 28, to win an award for Executive of the Year – Business Services from a massive entry that includes some of America’s top executives.
thebigword was also among the gongs on the night, with an award under the Most Innovative Company of the Year category. I’m especially pleased to be recognised in this category because innovation is undoubtedly the life-blood of business and is the way in which thebigword has achieved stellar growth despite a challenging economy.
My only gripe is that I didn’t get to attend the dinner!
In the UK, the media is doing its usual trick of turning good news into bad news. On Thursday the Office for National Statistics announced that the private sector in the UK was creating five jobs for every one lost from the public sector. Around 560 posts a day have been created. Overall, between January and March, 205,000 jobs had been created in private firms, the biggest rise for two years.
So 560 people every day are getting a job they didn’t have before. This is great news, isn’t it? Well you wouldn’t think so reading the press, who comment that around half of the new ‘jobs’ (their quote marks, not mine) were self-employed and a significant number of employed people (the implication being that these are ‘proper jobs’) are working part time.
I think working for a company can be a great thing where you can grow through working with other talented people, it can also offer security and the comfort of a regular pay cheque but I also believe that many of our contract workers who are self employed have a number of advantages. I became self-employed during a previous downturn – when we were all being told that the end of the world was nigh. I ignored all the doomy predictions and because of that, nearly 500 people worldwide now have jobs in my company and we are able to give over 8000 other people contracts and temporary work.
This week I have an interview with the BBC regarding our work in China, although I get nervous about interviews they do focus my mind on the subject. I am looking forward to catching up with you then about how things are going over in Asia. I hope everybody had a great weekend – and for those in the UK I hope you kept dry and those in warmer climates kept cool.
Larry
I was tremendously excited this week that both thebigword U.S. and our Executive Vice President in New York, Josh Gould, won awards at this year’s American Business Awards (The Stevies).
The Stevies are tremendously prestigious awards, recognised the world over for rewarding business excellence and it’s a great achievement for Josh, who is still only 28, to win an award for Executive of the Year – Business Services from a massive entry that includes some of America’s top executives.
thebigword was also among the gongs on the night, with an award under the Most Innovative Company of the Year category. I’m especially pleased to be recognised in this category because innovation is undoubtedly the life-blood of business and is the way in which thebigword has achieved stellar growth despite a challenging economy.
My only gripe is that I didn’t get to attend the dinner!
In the UK, the media is doing its usual trick of turning good news into bad news. On Thursday the Office for National Statistics announced that the private sector in the UK was creating five jobs for every one lost from the public sector. Around 560 posts a day have been created. Overall, between January and March, 205,000 jobs had been created in private firms, the biggest rise for two years.
So 560 people every day are getting a job they didn’t have before. This is great news, isn’t it? Well you wouldn’t think so reading the press, who comment that around half of the new ‘jobs’ (their quote marks, not mine) were self-employed and a significant number of employed people (the implication being that these are ‘proper jobs’) are working part time.
I think working for a company can be a great thing where you can grow through working with other talented people, it can also offer security and the comfort of a regular pay cheque but I also believe that many of our contract workers who are self employed have a number of advantages. I became self-employed during a previous downturn – when we were all being told that the end of the world was nigh. I ignored all the doomy predictions and because of that, nearly 500 people worldwide now have jobs in my company and we are able to give over 8000 other people contracts and temporary work.
This week I have an interview with the BBC regarding our work in China, although I get nervous about interviews they do focus my mind on the subject. I am looking forward to catching up with you then about how things are going over in Asia. I hope everybody had a great weekend – and for those in the UK I hope you kept dry and those in warmer climates kept cool.
Larry
