iPads for business use … what do you use?

I absolutely love my iPad and often get asked about how effective it actually is as business tool – here’s my answer… the iPad is like any technology tool it can be very useful but it takes time & patience to find how what best suits you and your industry. I have jotted down some of the apps that I find most useful at the moment – but I must confess that I am fairly fickle and do have regular ‘clear outs’ of apps once I find something better. I’m also interested in finding out which apps you use for business – so please let us know using the ‘comments’ section below and we’ll add them to our list.

Name	£	Description
lino	free	Online ‘stickies’ service for making notes; easy to use and linked to email so reminders are sent to your email account. There are no limits to the number of ‘stickies’ or  noticeboards you can set up – so you can set up different noticeboards for different projects easily and colour code them. Can upload docs, images and web links to the ‘stickies’ – a bit similar to Infinote.
Prezi viewer	free	Used to view prezi presentations (www.prezi.com); can drag to pan and zoom in / out of topics during meetings and add in additional notes, comments. I never use ppt now as Prezi has the wow factor in presentations – syncs with the desktop version, enabling presentations to be created & viewed on both
Pages	£5.99	Word processing app – multi touch gestures for creating letters, reports, project plans, etc. Inserting images, tables and text has never been so easy. Once downloaded a tutorial guide is provided which shows you how to use the application fully.
Numbers	£5.99	Spreadsheet app – can be a bit tricky to start with but the tutorial guide covers all the key points.
Keynote	£5.99	Presentation app and can be connected to a projector to deliver presentation to bigger groups – much slicker than powerpoint and again a tutorial guide is provided.
Infinote	free	Another note taking app which is best used during brain storming activities – you can have multiple noteboards, can print from your iPad and has search functionality too.
Flipboard	free	Social media in a magazine layout which makes it easy to read all feeds from my Twitter, facebook, Google Reader and Flickr accounts – highly recommended
Memeo Connect Reader	?	Syncs with Google Docs and can be used to import from Google Docs to Pages, Numbers & Keynote – some duplicate functionality with Dropbox but I use both
Adobe PhotoShop Express	free	Used to edit and share photos – particularly useful when illustrating projects to clients
iTranslate	free	Universal translator for the iPad
Good Reader	£2.99	PDF reader for iPad – can be synched with Dropbox and be used to ‘read’ books, movies, maps & pictures
Dragon Dictation	free	Easy to use voice recognition app can be used to send voice notes / reminders to yourself / make notes from meetings and update Twitter etc. Works well but you need to talk clearly and needs wifi to work
WordPress	free	Used to update company wordpress blog – moderate comments, create / edit posts and pages
Invoice2go	Free (Lite)	20 built-in invoice styles, can be used to create / email invoices, keep track of payments owing & made and even calculates totals and tax. Need the full version (£8.99) to be able to add your own company logo to the invoices. It also produces an interesting range of useful reports / graphical displays.
Word Web	free	English dictionary and thesaurus
Doceri Remote	free	Needs wifi! Can launch, present and annotate any document / presentation or web page. Need to download the desktop Doceri onto the pc you wish to ‘control’ – at present the desktop Doceri is free
Stanza	free	e-reader app used to purchase and read e-books
TripAdvisor	free	Travel review app – used to find reviews for hotels, flights and restaurants. Very easy to use
Year Calendar	?	All – in – one year planner which syncs with built-in iPad calendar. Lots of icons and colours can be used to plan events easily
LinkedIn	free	This is an iphone app as yet there isn’t an iPad app for LinkedIn however you can still access discussions, send messages and edit you profile easily
Dropbox	free	Free cloud storage service which syncs files between iPad and pc – folders can be shared with others. Email attachments can be saved straight to Dropbox and you can always have access to the files
Twitbird	free	There are LOADS of iPad apps for Twitter – it’s down to personal preference and I do change apps based on functionality – at the moment this is the one I prefer

Pushing envelopes: Paying for university

Higher fees for additional university places could boost the charitable sector – a cartoon by Ros Asquith highlighting potential manipulation that could take place with the introduction of additional places at university being available ‘for sale’ at a higher price.

What are your views? Is this a step too far?

McDonald’s chief tells company directors to hire more school leavers

“The boss of McDonald’s in the UK is urging more businesses to recruit school leavers and end decades of snobbery that favoured graduates.

Jill McDonald said it was time to drop hackneyed clichés that put all teenagers in hoodies and belittled their qualifications by calling them “dumbed down”. She said thousands of teenagers who joined the burger chain each year were bright and desperate to learn.

More than half the executive team at the US-owned business started in one of its 1,200 restaurants and 90% of restaurant managers joined as trainees.”

Read the article by Phillip Inman in full here

This article highlights the impact of the McDonald’s NVQ qualifications which are overseen by the schools regulator Ofsted. It appears that McDonalds currently has around 15 applicants for every one of their vacancies, which can be estimated at between 6,000 and 7,000 at any one period of time.

Jill McDonald said: “We now see the equivalent of six full classes gain adult certificates in maths and English every week and we’ve now awarded 3,000 Level 2 Apprenticeships in hospitality.”

She told the conference, also attended by the chancellor George Osborne and his shadow Ed Balls, that “we need to acknowledge the road many young people take today may not be the one we took in the past.

Our View

It can surely only be a good thing if young people have the opportunity to gain qualifications whilst earning money at a time where the Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures put youth unemployment as  1 in 5 and education opportunities are decreasing as a result of the introduction of increased university fees, etc. Although it’s a shame that these young people haven’t necessarily achieved the Maths & English qualifications they need at school, to have an employer who is prepared to invest time and money in your personal development can only increase your sense of worth.

The importance of developing ‘life skills’ such as communication, teamwork, time management, etc in the hospitality sector shouldn’t be underestimated either and can be hugely beneficial to these workers in future careers.

What’s your view?

Jamie Oliver’s Brain Food Crusade Hit by Price Rise

“Healthy meals mean better grades, insists television’s top chef Jamie Oliver, but price rises put progress at risk

Parents across Britain will be asked to pay significantly more for their children‘s school dinners from Monday, in a move that experts say will lead to thousands of poorer pupils missing out on healthy meals. Prices will rise by up to 17% in some schools, with charges set to exceed £2.60 in the most extreme cases.

The higher charges come amid soaring food costs and in response to the government’s decision to remove protection for a subsidy that has kept prices low in recent years.

Writing in today’s Observer, chef and food campaigner Jamie Oliver says he hopes the government will continue to invest in “quality school food, and the integral support and training of kitchen staff”. He writes: “I believe that any compromise on a child’s right to a healthy school lunch… is child abuse on an unimaginable scale.” “

To read the article by Daniel Boffey in full please click here

Our View

The article includes some interesting key points such as “Children eating healthy school dinners promoted by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver six years ago enjoyed dramatically improved test results, according to research undertaken by academics at Oxford and Essex universities.” and “The chef’s nutritious meals were more effective than the government’s daily literacy hour at raising standards of English in primary schools. Where healthy meals were eaten there was a rise of 4.5% in English Sats results in the first schools where the scheme was tried. This compared with a 3.2% rise linked to the introduction of structured daily literacy lessons. Pupils took less time off sick.” Surely data like this should be considered when making decisions which potentially affect the development of students?

Parents asked to rate schools

“Parents will be able to direct inspectors to failing schools via a new website to be set up by the education watchdog.

Positive or negative feedback from parents in response to a set of 10 multiple choice questions will help Ofsted decide which schools to inspect.

The new website, to be launched in September, will be linked to schools’ homepages and could publish some of the feedback by showing parents’ overall rates of satisfaction for individual schools.

Exact details on how the website will work have not been decided, but it is likely parents will be able to give feedback using only an email address as identification.

It comes as part of a new inspection framework that puts failing schools under greater scrutiny and aims to speed up the rate of improvement where it is needed.

In contrast there will be no more routine inspections of outstanding schools, with inspectors only to be called in if serious concerns are raised.”

Read the article by Nick Collins in full here

Our View

This is an interesting concept and when we first read the article there were several questions that came to mind;

1) Who decides on the 10 questions? Will schools be involved in the decision-making process?

2) Why can parents appear to ‘hide’ behind an email address as the only form of identification? Surely if parents are leaving feedback that could trigger a potential inspection, then schools should be given the opportunity to know exactly who the parent is?

3) As the article highlights, schools will also be able to request parents to ‘go online and give them positive feedback’ – so how will this be monitored and fairness assured?

The first pilot will be taking place in 10 schools before Easter, with a wider pilot to take place during the Summer Term. What are your views?

Ex-Tesco chief Sir Terry Leahy invests in homework site

“Sir Terry Leahy, one of Britain’s best known businessmen, has made his first significant investment since leaving Tesco.

The former chief executive of the UK’s largest retailer has invested in stuckonhomework.com, a video-based online teaching tool for GCSE students.

The first website of its kind in the UK, stuckonhomework.com, will provide homework help for students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Based on the school curriculum, and featuring real teachers, the website launches today.”

Read the article by Emma Wall in full here

Our View

With a hugely successful businessman such as Terry Leahy involved, this new homework site is bound to be a big success. It’ll be interesting to see how the quality of the content is maintained, as that can often be a deciding factor for users. We wish them luck with the new venture.