Course comes to a close

For the last couple of weeks I've been doing my yearly stint at the Royal Institute of Public Administration running their e-government course.
It's a really fun role to take, although hugely hard work - given I also have to deal with my other everyday work of helping the TeamRubber companies.
This year I've had a great group, with civil servants from countries ranging from Saudi Arabia to Botswana to Azerbaijan. A really fun mix of people with interesting views on the world.
Here's a photo of the team, including Fraser - our visiting speaker from ICELE.

Improvements

Getting back in touch with my old buddy Crabbers via Facebook made me think the other day that I should really try to make a better effort at blogging.
During his gap year (or whatever you call it - "break" if you will) he wrote a really very interesting blog about his travels around India and the Far East. You can read it here.
The main reason he got me thinking was that I live a fairly interesting and varied life - doing a load of interesting things (well I think they're interesting!), yet I rarely actually tell people about this . . .
Well - things are going to change. As from today, I will strive to share the joys of my life with all.
I don't expect my scribblings to be literary masterpieces, however the little gems that I share should interest someone (mainly my mum!).

Titbit no.1: me and Catherine went to a v.good restaurant on Friday evening called Great Queen Street - on 32 Great Queen street, Covent Garden.

There you go! I would go on about what I had and how much I enjoyed it - however I'm leaving this to the July edition of ForSir . . .

E-government course lives!

As from Monday I've been working with RIPA giving a course on e-government to a team of delegates from around the world - this is my post to show them how blogging works!

I'll be posting a photo of everyone later in the week . . .

Supply chain management

I never thought I'd utter those words, however I just have!
One of the biggest issues I face running a retail business is how best to manage my supply chain. In the instance of SocksforSir the supply chain is pretty simple - i.e. a chain of one - Pantherella. However, even in a chain of one things can be quite tricky. This is mainly due to the unpredictability of our orders and the need to keep a fairly low stock to ensure low-overheads and capital investment.

Anway, the overall problem is that from time-to-time I run out of stock, and face the embarassing issue of having to tell customers that their sock-delivery will be delayed. Most are OK with this - however there have been situations where it's led to disgruntled customers.

All in all it's quite an interesting situation - and one I'd love to know how the big retailers (e.g. Amazon and the like) deal with . . .

Stallarama

Selling socks online can be quite a lonely job as although it's nice to see orders come in, and see the names of our various customers clock up on our systems we never actually meet them.
Because of this, we're thinking about setting up a market stall at Spitalfields in London - so we can meet potential / existing customers, and also get out and about - as being virtual can (frankly) be pretty dull!
Plans are being drawn up at the moment - however we're hoping to make an appearance in 4 weeks (or so) time.
If anyone's got any ideas then do drop me a mail: info at socksforsir dot com