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The most popular article has proven to be our ‘how to’ guide on group chat and conference calling. We’ve picked up in recent user testing that our conference calling feature is not as prominent as it should be in the Yuuguu application, so we will be addressing that in the near future.
Fifty percent of German workers would like to work at home for several days a week, according to a recent survey by Bitkom, the association for IT, telecoms and new media. Seventeen percent of those surveyed would prefer to work at home all of the time and only 25% don’t like the idea of homeworking at all. The desire for home working was much stronger in younger age groups.
Bitkom’s report points to the obvious advantages of home working: a better balance between work and family life, reduced travel costs and less time wasted on commuting. It goes on to say that the technology requirements for homeworking are minimal - no more than a computer, a phone and a broadband connection, but points out that home workers need a high level of trust and autonomy from their employers in order to be effective.
I feel that these cultural issues within companies are key. It seems that some senior managers are reluctant to allow home working, due to concerns about productivity, despite significant evidence to the contrary. The need to attract and retain talented employees remains hugely important and those who are willing to adopt more flexible working practices may be gaining a significant advantage in the employment market.
A look at ‘screen sharing’ on Google Trends shows some interesting results. Unsurprisingly, searches for screen sharing have risen hugely in the last twelve months. What did surprise me is that India tops the list of countries searching on that topic.
At Yuuguu we love the fact that we are helping to connect people all over the world, so that they can work more effectively together from different locations. And we have quite a following in India – it’s the fifth largest user country for us.
If you are a Yuuguu user and live in India, or work with someone who does, please get in touch and tell us how you are making use of the service – we’d love to hear your story and any suggestions about how you would like us to develop it further for your needs.
We are slowly getting our heads round the constant rises in gas and electricity, but are we ready for oil to soar to $200 per barrel in as little as six months? If you can’t quite work out how that affects us all, then the BBC News online has summed this up for us:
“Oil prices have now risen by 25% in the last four months and 400% since 2001. ”
The BBC states that Goldman Sachs energy strategist Argun Murti successfully predicted rises three years ago to pass the $100 mark when at a price of $55.
This article makes for a very interesting insight into the global demand, driven by the booming expansion of countries such as China and India. Throw them in to the pot with existing demand from the US, the European Union and Japan, it can only get worse as time goes on.
If you are interested to know why these prices are so hi then take a look at this from the BBC
It Just shows how much we rely on things we take for granted when 1,200 workers walk out at the Grangemouth oil refinery, over pension disputes. Scotland have already seen their garages run out of petrol and such, sparked scares of the same happening closer to home. Whilst the assurance from ministers seems to do nothing for the general public, reports from my own father over IM states people close to fighting in his local garage due to large cues and possible rationing.
This all seems a bit crazy. I on the other hand sit here quite calm, knowing that i have enough petrol to go to my meeting tomorrow and even if i didn’t i could easily hold my meeting online. Ok, the trains are another option, but what happens when their workers walk out too? Lets face it, we all know there will come the time that we will have no more petrol and while we wait for scientists to produce the new super-fuel on an affordable global scale, we have to look at working a lot smarter than wasting our resources now.
The Smarter way to work!
Why not try introducing Yuuguu into your workplace and try working from home. At first you could try it one day a week and build it up from there. More and more i find myself saving time by holding small meetings online just like you would in the office. I used to travel 80 miles a day, so believe me i know what it is like spending out on ever increasing petrol prices and almost falling asleep at the wheel. I now save 2 hours a day from traveling and over £40 per week, yet i am more productive than ever as i am less tired, more focussed and most of all not sitting on the side of the motorway waiting for the RAC with a puncture whilst my meeting gets re scheduled.
You never know, if more people held meetings online and traveled less for work we could all get more done and save the chance of making a fool of ourselves, fighting over such things as petrol.
Yuuguu has made a key new addition to its senior management team, as Barry Holloway is appointed as Chief Marketing Officer. Barry will build the Yuuguu brand and direct the development of its customer proposition. He will ensure that Yuuguu continues its rapid growth in customer numbers and continues to develop solutions that enable remote teams to work more effectively together.
Barry was formerly Marketing Director at uSwitch, where he was part of the team that formed the company in 2000. As a board director he was part of the executive team that established the company, built the uSwitch.com brand and negotiated the sale in 2006 to E.W. Scripps. He was responsible for the whole customer experience, which included the uSwitch.com website, marketing and brand strategy. All customer communications fell under his remit including advertising, PR and the direct marketing programme. In 2004 he was involved in the acquisition of UpMyStreet.com and took on responsibility for its marketing strategy.
Commenting on the appointment, Anish Kapoor, CEO, Yuuguu says, ‘This is an important appointment for us as we continue to strengthen our management team. Barry will direct all Yuuguu’s marketing initiatives to ensure we offer industry leading solutions to clients across all sectors, from virtual teams, to remote support. I know that Barry is particularly keen on developing the brand at this crucial early stage, so the timing of his appointment is excellent.’
He adds, ‘Barry has years of experience in digital marketing and has honed his skills in brand development, user experience and customer growth at one of the UK’s best known dotcoms, which will make him a strong addition to the team.’
That’s right, if they’re hot they’re here! We are here, in the top 100 Startups of UK businesses. Startups 100 is the definitive list of the UK’s most innovative, inspiring and ground-breaking new companies.
So what was the criteria?
Well, look out UK, Europe and the rest of the World as 2008 is the year for Yuuguu and we are here but soon to be everywhere, making it easy for you to work over the internet together just like you where sitting right next to each other.
After Macworld and a long discussion to reflect, we knew we needed to get to grips with the users and test it out on random people. This coming week we are going to be doing some extensive user testing at our Liverpool office. If in the mean time readers of this blog have any coments about the User Interface and generally using Yuuguu, then go right ahead and comment on here. Alternatively send me an email at support@yuuguu.com.
Wow, we met some great people today, all interested in how we do what we do so well at Yuuguu. Dan Miller (Executive Editor, Press) of Macworld turned up for a chat and so did both David Currall (Partnership Manager - Creative Markets, WWDR Europe & MEA) and Dane Riley (System Engineer - Higher Education) from Apple. I also had a good chat on the screen sharing abilities of Yuuguu and some of the cool features we have lined up for 2008, with Jeff Chen (Product Marketing Branded Products) of Western Digital. These are just a hand full of the people we got to talk to today.
Yuuguu is set in a great position just beyond the announcement area of Apple, so all traffic is heading our way. Initial feed back is that we span more industries than we first thought and people are finding all sorts of ways of using Yuuguu to help them with their work flow, from Desktop Remote Support to teams of Collaboration Editors working on the same document.
Back in a second, new demo needed so chat in a mo!