ISO Certification has documented benefits to large organisations as well as SMEs. However, the benefits that the certification standards have also include the community.
With years of experience working with SMEs the team at Business Certification explain the benefit of Certification to the community within which SMEs operate.
If you want to find out more get in touch with them – LIKE on Facebook, follow on Twitter and Google+
ISO Certification may seem like an expensive exercise that SMEs cannot afford. With time consuming processes and exacting standards the certification process may seem daunting.
With years of experience working with SMEs the team at Business Certification explain the benefit of Certification.
If you want to find out more get in touch with them – LIKE on Facebook, follow on Twitter and Google+
As a life-long Liverpool fan you have seen your club achieve greatness. Arguably the most successful English club both at home, in the Premiership, and in European club competitions. Currently Liverpool has the best record of winning European titles and trophies than any other English Club. The accolades and achievements continue across all the domestic competitions since its inception.
However, the true measure of success for you the fan has to be: winning the English Premiership. Preferably by beating either Manchester United or Everton on the last day of the season by a score of 3 nil.
Going by the form of the LFC so far in the 2013/2014 season there seems to be the proverbial light at the end of a ‘domestic top division title’ tunnel since the 1989-1990 season.
So a well-structured starting 11 with a talented manager in Brendan Rodgers (he was endorsed by former colleague Jose Mourinho the current Chelsea manager) and arguably the best striker on the planet: Luis Suarez Long suffering Liverpool fans are entering the realm of possibilities.
While euphoria might take over some steps need to be taken to temper emotions over the next couple of weeks: Just in Case.
Steven Gerrard is out injured and might not play: There is no Liverpool with its talisman Stevie G so if Liverpool do not end up on top of the ladder on the 2nd of January 2014, fans can always point to the absence of Gerrard in the midfield.
Liverpool’s defence will come up against the Manchester City goal scoring juggernaut: There is no shame in admitting that the M. City goal scorers have humbled the best teams this season. From man-marking to throwing 10 men behind the ball have not stopped the goals. If Liverpool’s last match was anything to go on Martin Skrtel was lucky not to have given away two penalties for his manhandling strikers in front of goal. There will be penalties.
Luis Suarez is genius but he can be stopped: While Suarez has found his form this season he can be frustrated. Remember he took a bit out of Ivanovic because he was frustrated by the excellent defender. This time will be Branislav will be the hungry one: there will be retribution for the loss of an ear.
The season is not yet half way yet and the true test will be game 19, Can Liverpool be the top team? Football fans the world over have said that the EPL 2013-2014 is shaping up to be the closest in many year. The fixtures over the Christmas and New Year period have serendipitously allowed the top four teams to face each other to see who comes out at the top at the half way mark.
Can Liverpool fans begin to hope? Will the dream finally come to fruition? Can the 75 million dollar Uruguayan deliver? To avoid heartbreak Liverpool fans will do well to remember that is it a long walk.
As most offices and businesses on Glenhuntly Road close down for the day one store comes to life. I went to check out what was behind the retail store front at Caulfield Music Centre.
Caulfield Music Centre, located at 593 Glenhuntly Road, Elsternwick, in Melbourne is an integral part of the Elsternwick/Caulfield community. The Music centre operates a retail store offering a wide range of musical instruments, books, and related music paraphernalia. The Centre also offers music lessons and has serviced three generations of students. Currently there are 200 students with 16 teachers who use the Centre’s music rooms for lessons ever week. Finally, the Centre also offers bands and singers excellent and well-appointed rehearsal rooms.
One of the Centre’s permanent fixtures is Julian Crew-Taylor, who has worked as General Manager, customer service and coordinator, and has been at Caulfield Music Centre for 23 years. He has a great rapport with the bands who practice at the Centre as well as parents and students in the community who have been using the facilities for three generations. He has a wealth of knowledge of music that he is always willing to share. He has a close connection with the Music Teachers and students who come to the centre. Caleb Garfinkel is just one of the many students turned Music Teacher, and Slava Grigoryan fan, from the community of Caulfield. Many parents, who as young kids came to Caulfield Music Centre to learn music, now bring their children to the Music School to encourage a love of music in the next generation and are the heart and soul of the Music School.
Caulfield Music Centre has also seen its fair share of celebrities from Slava Grigoryan to Kate Ceberano. There are also some quirky characters who walk through the door. One of the more quirky characters is Ziggy Barrett, he is part of the band The Sweaters. Just one of many bands who practice at CMC. The bands and singers use the rehearsal studios to hone their skills and music to make it big on the world stage. Some of the bands such as The Sweaters, Push Button Auto and Stompy and the Heat play at venues around Melbourne as well across Australia and even internationally. But they still choose to come to Caulfield Music Centre and practice every week.
Come down to CMC any day of the week and you can hear the sound of bands and kids from six to sixty years of age rocking out and honing their craft.
The appointment of the 6th Minister for Small Business in five years was one result of the recent Labor Leadership spill, Dennis Alphonsus wants to know: what the Government has done for small business lately?
The recent Labour Leadership spill on March 21st was the biggest non-event in Labor’s erratic year except for giving the media something to fill air time as well as setting Social media abuzz. According to Twitter analytics the hashtags #spill, #Auspol, #qt and the names of Federal politicos generated more than 247,000 tweets. After all the speculation and opinions the only result of the Leadership spill was the reshuffle of Julia Gillard’s cabinet.
Ignoring the fact that most of the new appointments are novices, the biggest surprise was the appointment of Gary Gray as Minister for Resources and Energy and Small Business. For those not paying attention, Gary is a former executive from energy group Woodside Petroleum. Those in the mining lobby will be very welcoming of one of their own, while those in the small business community will be scratching their heads at Gray’s appointment.
What irks small business owners more than the appointment of someone who clearly will take time to grasp the needs and current issues faced by small business owners, on any high street across the country, is the fact that in the last 15 months there have been 5 different individuals given the Small Business portfolio.
This new decision shows the complete disregard this government has for small business and the empty rhetoric that small business is a key contributor to the economy. Jeremy Clements, Owner of Caulfield Music Centre is damning of the perpetual changes in Federal Government. “The government continuously states small business are the backbone of our economy. Yet they have ministerial changes too frequently, that don’t allow any government focus on mid or long term strategy.”
With close to 2 million small businesses across hundreds of niches the small business owner is not a small subtext in the story of the Australian economy. Rather the small business owner is an integral part and needs to be represented as such at a Federal Level.
“Small business owners deserve a voice in government and a representative who will institute long term policies by assessing the toughest aspects of running a business. An intelligent place to start would be the Rent-to-Earnings ratio,” says Jeremy Clements.
The clear message from small business owners is that they feel the current government does not care about them. Chris Bowen, who resigned from the role, did not initiate any policies relating to small business. One hopes that the new minister engages with small business and initiates policies to ease the challenges faced by small business owners: specifically the high cost of employing staff and the rising rental costs.
You can follow Dennis @DennisAlpho
A Small business owners has his say on the recent appointment of Minister of Small Business @DennisAlpho http://wp.me/p3ejpm-eG
@DennisAlpho asks Do you know who is Gary Gray and what he stands for? http://wp.me/p3ejpm-eG
The life and times of Julian Assange, one of the founders of WikiLeaks, is so fantastical and filled with paranoia that it should be made into a movie; oh wait it has. The movie titled ‘Underground: the Julian Assange Story’ is a feature length biopic about the early years of Assange. I believe the movie will show him as a gifted youth with a passion for the truth and a desire to unmask the secrecy and lies in the corridors of power.
While this is not far from the truth the more pertinent question that has been raised about Assange is whether or not he is a journalist or just a source? Does the existence of WikiLeaks and the track record of Assange releasing secret and sometimes damming documents to the public make him a journalist? Assange calls himself the Editor-in-Chief of WikiLeaks. However, there are many voices that believe he is more of a high-tech source in the digital era rather than a true Journalist.
It is interesting to note that Assange came to prominence or infamy, depending on how you perceive it, in the mid 1990s. Julian and fellow hackers broke into the master terminal of Nortel, a Canadian telecom company. This was one of many activities of the Cypherpunks group of which Julian was a member.
The attack on Nortel was not malicious and in my mind shows two things: Julian is very intelligent and he has a clear disrespect of authority. This incident would bring Assange to the attention of only a handful of people in Australia. However, in 2007 when WikiLeaks, the website set up for dissemination of confidential information, released the Guantanamo Bay operating procedures the world sat up and took notice. In 2010 the release of the ‘Collateral Murder’ and later the ‘Afghanistan War Logs’ was instrumental in stirring up a hornets’ nest in the United States of America. And when the USA is upset the World takes notice.
Thus the saga began: Assange was accused of being a terrorist, a woman in Sweden accused him of rape, and he decided to seek political asylum and to avoid extradition by entering the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK. All this after he received the Martha Gellhorn Journalism Prize and divided opinion in the Journalism community as to his status as a bonafide Hack or a hacker with an agenda.
There are so many holes in the Assange story and dubious claims that it is hard to consider Julian having any integrity and the big issue with releasing sensitive information: Duty of Care. Duty of care is a core component of being a good journalist. As David Conley states Assange isn’t a journalist by practice, education or training. He is a convicted hacker who uses WikiLeaks to publish all information even information that is harmful and jeopardises the life of Afghan informants and soldiers. If Assange were a journalist he would need to have a duty of care as a hacker he does not.
Among all the dissenting voices weighing in on the debate Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, does not believe that WikiLeaks is journalism but data dissemination. I agree with this sentiment and I also believe that Assange is a revolutionary in some ways such as providing a platform for encrypted dissemination of documents. Assange needs to take the time to read the sources and present the information in an unbiased tone of voice while protecting the lives of the innocent. Only then will Assange go from being an ‘Australian diva with his secrets’ to a true leader of the revolution of journalism in the digital age.
i-Write.com.au 