I'm reminded of a song by The Beautiful South where the lyrics contain the phrase "Carry on regardless". The song is titled Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud), and that's exactly how I feel right now.

In fact I feel so stupid I had to write about it because I even made myself laugh out loud it was so futile, but I thought, what a great metaphor on just how we do things in life sometimes.

Just now, I wanted to try my hand at baking and making some macaroons. You know, that delicate French delight that's been around since the 1800s, the sweet that has toppled many a budding chef and even a few Masterchef contestants.
I failed epically, but it was always doomed right from the start and yet thinking back to it, I "Carried on regardless" as the song states. I bet there have been more times than one when we have all carried on with something that we knew was fatefully doomed.

Small website design companies need to beware, their impending death is coming and I'm predicting this to happen within the next 5-10 years, maybe even sooner the rate technology is moving.
 
So why am I so bullish about this statement, it's because a variety of reasons, all of which combine to forecast a simple truth, that the world of the internet is becoming more and more automated as we speak.
 
Let's begin with what web design and development is all about and see how things have progressed.
 
The original realm of the web developer was a revered one, one which commanded high salaries and utmost respect from people around because it was their job to translate all these amazing brands into fantastic looking websites on the internet.

Ok, we've all woken up from time to time wondering what the hell we've just dreamt, and much of the time it's a mish mash of often weird imagery that doesn't seem to make sense.
One moment you're in a cave eating cupcakes and the next you're on a rollercoaster with your granddad. What does it all mean?
There's lots of different ways out there which people teach about how to interpret your dreams, and I'm going to through my version into the hat for consideration. Loic, it's time to take notes!
Let me first say that this technique was designed using bits from various methods and from a lot of the NLP study that I've undertaken.

As a start-up and business owner, I deal with a lot of emails, so one of the things that I can't stand is people wasting my time with emails that I haven't chosen to receive. As a VC said in the valley, time is the most precious resource we all have, and it's important to do our work in the most efficient way, but this isn't made easy by spammers and people who don't generally understand what you can and can't do with email marketing.

Let me make it clear for you in this blog post, so that you can stop wasting my time and other people's time, and avoid any penalties because I can assure you that all spam email that comes to me, get's reported.

I was fortunate enough to land myself a place on a trip to Silicon Valley recently and this came about through a friend of mine called Rob Lewis who sent me an email literally on the day I was leaving to go on holiday to Thailand last November.

In fact, had the email come in an hour later, or perhaps I did not sign in the read my mails waiting in the airport lounge, I might have missed out on this trip. The trip itself is the brainchild of Jack Gavigan, a mysterious, mischievous networker who has a grand idea of bringing the valley startup culture to the UK startup scene.

This is indeed a grand idea, and it was something I personally wanted to find out more about myself. Having heard many stories about tech startups and about the VCs that fund them, I signed up literally instantly and paid on the spot whilst still in Heathrow.

No matter how hard the choice is, or whether you decide to take it, in every single decision there is always a choice to be had.

I constantly hear all the time how people don't have a choice. They complain that they can't leave their work because they don't have a choice right now, or that they have to take the train to work because they have no choice so they have to just live with the high travel costs.

Truth of the matter is that there is always a choice.

In the case where someone complains about the travel costs of getting to work, perhaps consider taking the bus, or riding a bike, or jogging to work. They might sound like choices you might not want to make, nevertheless they are options.

I just got back from LeWeb in Paris, after having spent 2 weeks in Thailand where I proposed to my girlfriend and she said yes! It was a great holiday and Thailand is a very special place.

This blog isn't about that trip, but I started with that because being in a relaxed frame of mind gave me incredible clarity when I landed in Paris for this tech conference.

For those of you who aren't aware, LeWeb is probably the number 1 European technology event which draws the most influential people from Silicon Valley to come check out what's happening in the European tech scene.

As an entrepreneur, we all suffer from this one fact that we think we can do everything ourselves. The trouble is, we can't and we are not superhuman (although many of us would like to imagine so), and it takes a lot of guts just to do something as simple as admit we are weak in many skills.
 
I do this all the time!
 
I'm absolutely terrible at certain things such as managing people, direct sales, closing deals, public relations etc, but I often find myself doing these jobs because of course as a start-up or when you're on a new project, you want to limit the amount of money you spend, so you make the decision to do it all yourself.

So recently I've been experimenting with lamb and I've had a lot of praise about a lamb dish I make so I thought it's time to share it, seeing as several people have asked for the recipe.

This is one that is going to tickle your taste buds to the highest extent, the depth of flavour and the soft silky texture of the meat is absolutely sublime. You can serve this with rice, couscous or just on its own with some roast potatoes and steamed veg. Trust me you won't need any other flavours on the plate!

The comfort factor is probably one of the best dream killers I've ever known to exist. It works its way into your life quite easily and the next thing you know you're sat in front of the TV watching X-Factor and then the re-runs of Strictly Come Dancing on the +1 channels!

I don't think there is anything wrong with relaxing or chilling in front of the TV. In fact I love a good movie and night in. What I do want to establish though is that this level of comfort must be appreciated and chosen, rather than it being the unconscious norm.