Author: Graham Bunting

I have been around a while and seen some stuff for sure. I have experienced some good bad, indifferent and some downright fabulous. I am still hugely motivated to get up every day and be curious. I love tech and business and most of all dogs oh and people are ok too ;-) Having been in sales most of my working life I have a real interest in the art and science and am a committed lifelong learner - constantly frustrating my kids with my stock phrase "every day is a school day" Personally, I’m a husband to one, and father to five amazing children (three of them are no longer children, but independent adults) and my golden lab – Archie, who is always pleased to see me. I was blessed with becoming a Granddad in February 2021 (a very proud and somewhat besotted one) and another grandson arrived in October 2022 to keep their parents busy and for me to spoil. I am also a mad keen lover of the oval ball game and a lifelong supporter of Leicester Tigers. As an Englishman, that's therefore England at a national level and the British and Irish Lions. If I can be of service in any way including any area of developing a channel sales and support business or ecosystem partnerships, and or sales coaching or development, you can find me at the link below, and contact me via the form also. One of my favourite "quotes" is Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well-preserved body. But rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, with a beer in one hand, shouting "Whoo, what a ride!!" Views here are 100% my own. https://grahambunting.bio.link/
Business, Personal Management, Social

Together Everyone achieves More – It’s true

I wonder when, during your busy schedule and heavy demands on your time, you last thought about an old (or current) friend or colleague for whom life has dealt a different set of cards!

We all know that we are enduring a tough downturn in the global economy, and the result for employment numbers is not great. However, pragmatically, times of change often present opportunities albeit that uncovering them is sometimes a little more challenging. Thinking about others is a great way of taking some of the personal stress away – especially when licking your wounds because you’ve not had your best day.

I decided recently, as I was thinking about what I could do to help, that I would use my online presence to assist my friends to raise awareness for them. I decided to dedicate a page of my blog to promoting their profiles and CVs as my part in helping them to secure a new role. Follow this Link to review them

I read an article recently that bemoaned larger “corporates” who were taking the lions share of the available “talent” and I felt compelled to comment that this was not the case. There is an fact a lot of talent available, it just doesn’t shout about it. Their CV might not be the best written in the pile, or they might not use sufficient wow words (my daughter in year 6 has used this descriptor recently) to showcase their capabilities, but it is there.

I would urge you to do a couple of things:

1. Think today (and every day) what little thing can I do to help – and do it

2. Doing what I have always done to recruit will get me the same results I have always got, so think about a small change and look beyond the CV and you might strike gold

But what do I know

Personal Management

I wish you enough

This story was emailed to me by a friend a few years ago, and recently the words “I wish you enough” jumped into my conscious thoughts as I was writing a comment on someone’s blog. I love the story and the meaning, so wanted to take the moment to share it with you here and hope that it resonates with you too.

To my family and friends – I wish you enough

via I wish you enough.

Business

Be Audacious (look it up in the dictionary)

It seems counter intuitive to me that at a time where speed is of the essence, so many people within organisations are increasingly slow to make decisions.

Am I being extremely unfair given the tough economic conditions that we are currently experiencing? Is it simply fear that is driving caution, and inactivity? Possibly! However, the issue is less about what is happening, and much more about how we choose to act as a result of the causation.

Opportunityisnowhere – You’ve probably seen this before, so apologies if you have… What do you see, when you look at the words joined together at the start of this sentence….honestly – Did you see Opportunity is nowhere or did you see Opportunity is now here?

If you are frozen by fear, you probably should be shaking yourself out of it and making a decision to move forwards boldly and with audacity, because the spoils are to the bold and brave who dare to succeed and move with velocity whilst their competition are inactive worrying what to do next. When they do make a decision, you could have made significant ground. Go on be AUDACIOUS, and you will be glad you did.

Business

I’m glad I’m not like you

Isn’t it irritating when people don’t do things the way we would do it? I’m sure sometimes you may have given rise to the thought “I wish everybody was like me….” No? Well like most people I do have opinions. Sometimes fairly strong opinions on some subjects, and often views that are at odds with other people’s. Whilst occasionally this can be quite irritating, I’ve come to realise that a difference of opinion can be a good thing. It can be quite difficult however, to make that step change in thinking, when you find yourself in conflict with someone, but it can be so so rewarding. My personal recommendation is that you try the following the next time you find yourself confronted by somebody demonstrating a different perspective to yourself. Try saying something like “that’s fantastic I’m glad that you disagree. Why don’t you help me understand how you see it”. This can be a great way to identify things that you may not have considered but also to defuse a possibly confrontational situation. After all wouldn’t it be dull if we all saw things the same way? I certainly think so.

Leadership, Personal Management

Values and principles

Because we always see and experience 100% of the time through our own eyes, sometimes we may struggle to be truly objective on all issues.
I thought I would begin with that caveat, as I recognise that my rantings are entirely “as I see things” So to my post ……

Through innovation in technology and in how we communicate, we have never had more channels open to us through which to engage and communicate with other people, or not. This is coming to my point; despite the open ubiquitous nature of communications, I have found that rather than improving communications, it has stifled them. There may be many reasons for this and perhaps the very fact that we are spoilt for choice, may well be the issue – communications overload!!!; Perhaps responding to incoming “traffic” has become a firefighting exercise, and if you or your “message” are deemed unimportant to the recipient, then you are possibly going to the bottom of the queue; relegated to the “I’ll deal with it when can” group.
My personal experience of late is that I have seen a rapid surge in periods of deafening silence over not just days, but weeks following commitments to keep me updated. I’m not sure that anyone could argue that this could be viewed as either desirable, or indeed welcome.
Fast forward to some of the social media channels and again it’s a not uncommon experience for an individual or organisation to use, Twitter, for example as a broadcast; automating a series of outbound marketing messages in the hope of hooking some new customers. How they intend to do this is a little puzzling, as I’ve replied a few times to a feed and guess what? Yep, radio silence.
So why is this? Are people so ignorant that they can’t be bothered to respond, or are the tools not in place to support the meteoric growth in channels of communications….. Who knows?

Can I get off my soapbox now before I fall off…

Business

#Bring Your Own Device

I wrote a blog recently about the trend towards BYOD to work, and a thought struck me this morning as I increasingly see pieces about the subject.

The increased use of mobile devices means that increasingly we are mobile (obviously Graham – what’s your point) and not plugged into the mains. I think you are probably ahead of me now – right!

Yup – BATTERIES. My personal experiences with battery life are mixed to say the least, but suffice to say that being mobile all day on a device for calling, emailing, web surfing, document browsing…..etc, does tend to have a fairly profound impact on the battery. So what’s the answer?

I’m not really sure is MY answer, as I have tried several different ways of addressing the issue, mostly unsatisfactory thus far. My attempts have included: multiple batteries – inconvenient and a pain to change on the go, but does provide the life needed; external battery pack – was a complete pain, as the connector didn’t stay in the phone, and it was like trying to hold an octopus with the cables; second mobile – well we all know that multiple SIM and single number isn’t widely available; phone sleeve with battery – not tried this yet, but may well give it a go, as it looks by far and away the most elegant solution.

But what about a better battery – wouldn’t that be the answer? Well yes obviously (presupposing we remembered to charge it before we left home this morning). I heard recently about some research that had discovered a new “way” of producing a battery that had increased power storage and performance, but sadly it indicated that production would commence in several years time. What do we do in the meantime – I suspect this issue will become a bigger one as we all find ourselves out-and-about with a “dead” device, and either nowhere to charge it, or the charger at home “on the side”

But what do I know

Business, productivity

Bring Your Own Device

I was recently pondering technology and specifically the kind of technology that I’ve spent a significant portion of my working life with and that is telecommunications – telephones and data communications if you will.

For a long time the enterprise or business community led the way as far as technology adoption went and especially telecommunications. I’m sure you all recall the first mobile phone “bricks” that were for a long time “status symbols” in the workplace. But now it’s all change,as nearly all of us have I am sure, very “smart” smartphones full of the latest apps, and tablet devices aplenty for our own use, and acquired personally. And so most people have better technology available to them in their pocket than many enterprises have afforded them today. As a result of this “dynamic”, increasingly individuals are deploying their own devices in the work environment (Bring Your Own Device) causing an absolute headache for the IT department as far as security of information is concerned. Notwithstanding this, many enterprises are stepping up to the plate and enabling their workforce to deploy their own devices which on the face of it might seem to be a good thing for the enterprise – allowing them to save money on not equipping everybody with new technology – perhaps?!

However this is only part of the conundrum given that ultimately communication is all about, well …..communication and the very disparate nature of these devices with different operating systems et cetera clearly presents a challenge in terms of integration and of course making them all work seamlessly. And that’s before we even get into a conversation about support. So having said all of this what’s my point. Well my point is this. The Legacy PBX and communications infrastructures are clearly creaking at the seams, in fact many haven’t been updated since the end of 1999 (when the Millennium bug was going to see planes falling from the skies) amidst fears of failure if nothing was done, and I begin to wonder who today is really offering the greatest innovation to meet the needs of the way we’re choosing to communicate and work these days?

Many of the usual suspects are struggling with the very legacy that everyone else is, and I can’t currently see any vendor really rising up to the challenge, however, I can’t help feeling that one of the worlds biggest players albeit not known for their “voice” credentials – Microsoft may well have the answer with their Lync offering and the partnership ecosystem (or ISV ecosystem) that I’m seeing beginning to evolve.

There are increasingly so many compelling reasons to ensure we review and change the way in which we communicate, not least of which the challenges around travel and the drive for organisations to become increasingly more green and create a much smaller carbon footprint. So I guess the biggest challenge here really is the disparate nature of these technologies and the understanding for organisations in order to be able to successfully integrate these technologies to work effectively and of course in these austere times to find an affordable solution. So in the final analysis I can see that we will increasingly see the adoption of the aforementioned technologies and in a “use what you require” cloud supplied utility price model. And it seems to me that for the next few years certainly that this will increasingly be the preferred acquisition model. Services organisation with a heavy bias on knowledge workers will be the “glue” that makes it all work, and ultimately free us from the “desk”??  – well that is I believe a completely different challenge and discussion for another day.

But what do I know…..

Business

Happy Christmas everyone and remember to put your out of office on

I’ve not long finished reading a really interesting book by Tim Ferris titled 4 hour working week and there were some interesting take-always for me which could potentially work in my situation.
I do wonder how some of the concepts introduced would work for most people though, and in particular I’m referring to his slant on email communications. Tim asserts that email is too intrusive and one should aim to read and respond far less frequently than most of us do.
Consider how “helpful technology” has enabled us to receive and read our emails at any time in any location on a myriad of different devices, and the culture this appears to have driven…. A culture of email appearing to be an urgent communication. I have witnessed (and indeed have succumbed to) MS Outlook appearing to drive daily activity of email conversations. Tim suggests that an auto responder should be set to reply with a clear message setting expectations that a response will be delayed to preset times each day, or even each week (over time as part of a transition plan).
Personally I like this idea, as I agree that email has become far too intrusive and that there is no better way of urgently communicating, than the telephone, after all we all have at least one and it is good to talk.
I reckon if we all decided to treat email as a communication tool rather than our god, then we would almost certainly increase our overall productivity, and get far more done.

But what do I know… Happy Christmas everyone and remember to put your out of office on.

Personal Management

Slow Dance by David L Weatherford

I came a cross this poem and wanted to share it as I thought is was beautiful and inspiring. It is by David Weatherford and can be found on his web site

Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round,
or listened to rain slapping the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight,
or gazed at the sun fading into the night?

You better slow down, don’t dance so fast,
time is short, the music won’t last.

Do you run through each day on the fly,
when you ask “How are you?”, do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed,
with the next hundred chores running through your head?

You better slow down, don’t dance so fast,
time is short, the music won’t last.

Ever told your child, we’ll do it tomorrow,
and in your haste, not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch, let a friendship die,
’cause you never had time to call and say hi?

You better slow down, don’t dance so fast,
time is short, the music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere,
you miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,
it’s like an unopened gift thrown away.

Life isn’t a race, so take it slower,
hear the music before your song is over.

Business

The Major Key to Your Better Future Is YOU by Jim Rohn : Inspirational Quotes – Personal Development – Motivational Quotes & More – Jim Rohn International

The Major Key to Your Better Future Is YOU by Jim Rohn : Inspirational Quotes – Personal Development – Motivational Quotes & More – Jim Rohn International.