A Time of Magic

The biggest problem these days with toys is probably that there are so many adverts on childrens’ programmes that the kids have just way too many suggestions for you.

However, the toys that they see on the adverts themselves aren’t the only thing altering their desires in terms of toys as many of the programmes themselves are end to end product placements and merchandising. Probably the worst of these at the moment is Hanna Montana which is probably the largest advertisement that the world has ever seen. I can side-step that particular one as I’ve just got boys but given the success that it’s seen I’m sure that there’s a similar effort planned for little boys too.

What you do need of course is a balance in the toys that you get. Thus you don’t want to be ending up buying only computer games for example. Ideally you should end up with a mix of indoor and outdoor toys, a mix of educational and purely fun ones, etc. Hard to achieve certainly but it’s worth keeping that idea of a balance in your mind when you’re out looking for them.

These days everyone and their dog seems to concentrate on the hi-tech end of promotion but forgetting about the lower end of technology loses out a lot.

For instance, how many people would think about getting a custom rubber stamp these days? Not so long ago it would have been very rare to come across a company that didn’t have loads of stamps with their logo on them yet nowadays it’s equally rare to find a company that does anything other than use computer graphics to print off their stationery and so there are few rubber stamps around with the logo on them.

But forgetting that “old technology” is a mistake. There are lots of places that you can stamp your logo which you’d simply not be bothered to print using the computer and that’s lots of opportunities for marketing that you’re missing out on in the absence of a simple rubber stamp.

With the rapid rise in the number of incidents and sensitivity of information affected through various losses of government information, the profile of information security is on a sharp slope upwards in importance.

Just a few years ago typically those in government information security roles were, by and large, generalists who had the security function bolted on by way of a fairly small number of specialist training courses. However, with the rise in the profile through media attention on various incidents that’s rapidly becoming a non-runner and thus there’s been a fairly rapid rise in the number of university masters courses on the topic.

Why not ordinary degrees? Essentially that’s because those getting into information security are generally very experienced and many of them already have degrees in the computer field. One suspects also the fact that the universities can charge more for a masters course has a certain amount to do with the level of degree too.

Is it just a flavour of the month though? In the sense it is in that a lot of the raising of the profile has arisen from the bad press that the various incidents created. However, those incidents are, to some extent, a reflection of the sheer volume of information that’s knocking around these days and that can only get worse as the power of computers increases.