I bumped into an old friend recently and we updated each on other on family health and the like, in the course of which he told me about his son’s approach to exams. His son subscribes to the “Law of Forced Efficiency“. Some of you may remember the original radio shows wherein one of the plot devices was an “artificially induced crisis mode” used by the Lintilla clones any time they had something that they needed to get done. I’ve also observed (and this will get me into trouble) that some cultures in Europe seem to like crises more than others, and prefer to let them arise and then react energetically, rather than proactively head them off. I’ll drop a hint and say that those cultures are in the Mediterranean (must be the heat).

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This is the time of year when all the pundits start making their “technologies to watch in 2009” predictions. I’m lousy at this game – I bought a Playstation 2 just before the Wii shipped, but on the grounds I can’t be wrong all the time, here’s where I’m placing one of the small number of bets I’m prepared to make in ‘09.

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The latest publicity binge around James Bond rings a bit hollow with me. Maybe its age, maybe it’s the actor, or maybe it’s just me, but from my perspective James Bond peaked early with Goldfinger. It had the best Bond actor - Sean Connery, the best plot - Goldfingers ‘operation grand slam’ to break into Fort Knox, but not to steal any gold. Instead he planned to blow up an atomic bomb and make the gold radioactive. (Of course James Bond knew for exactly how long it would remain radio active, and how much Goldfinger’s gold would increase in value as a result). It had the best car, the best bond girl (Honor Blackman) and the best bond baddie - Oddjob with his deadly hat.

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A quick Google of the words “SaaS” and “BPM” will throw up many hits – and they make for interesting but contradictory reading. I’ve spent quite some time recently trying to make sense of it all and to come up with my own opinion.

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