The London team is growing.

The back office team here at Lab49 London is growing to support the growth of our consulting team. We’ve also established QA/Testing and Strategy practices recently too. Let me introduce you to the new members of the team:

Georgia – Georgia is our resident Aussie and provides administrative support and works with Vivake on marketing and communications.

Andrew – our tenacious headhunter!! Andrew comes from an agency background but saw the light and joined us in November of last year.

Jay – Jay is yet another recruiter (I told you we were busy!). He joins us on Monday of next week, again, from an agency background.

 

Work Work Work

We’re recruiting in earnest. If you’re a talented Flex, WPF, Silverlight, .NET, Java, UX Design/Architect expert, get in touch.

 

All in the name of good taste

I ran the marathon; it hurt. It was hot, I am blistered but finally, after a week, no longer sore.

I’d like to introduce you to my team (photos to follow); Alison, Harneet and Daniel sit with me here in Lab49′s back office to support the operations of the company. Whilst sitting at our desks, working like hounds, we try to find time to make a valuable contribution to the culinary world by combining very unlikely snacks to create new, interesting and often vile flavours. Wasabi Peas feature heavily in our experiments due to their strong flavour and texture. Itsu Wasabi Peas are highly recommended.

Current experiments include:

1) Pret chocolate drizzle popcorn with Mana wasabi peas (surely they should be called Wasapeas?)
2) Itsu wasapeas (there, so renamed) with Itsu honey fennel cashews
3) Wasapeas and Jaffa Cakes
4) Toffifee chocolates with wasapeas
5) Aero Bubbles with wasapeas

Verdicts are as follows:
1) Bland. Popcorn is not sufficiently flavoured to make impact and wasapeas are lacking in wasabi.
2) Delicious. Very strange flavour and texture combo but utterly delicious.
3) Alison trialled this. It was as vile as it sounds and apparently a “poor idea”.
4) Again, Alison was Chief Scientist and the verdict was “tasty and the hazelnut added a delicious crunch”.
5) Harneet joined Alison in this experiment; verdict was “good combination with the smoothness of the chocolate and crunch of the wasapeas”.

Alison is strangely experimental with her food but cannot eat anything that is in the shape of an animal; for example, Lindts Easter Bunnies.

Ideas for snack combinations are very welcome.

 

Marathon

For my sins, I’m running the Berlin Marathon on the 20th of September (the day before my daughters’ 2nd birthday!). I’m raising money for CHASE (www.chase.org), a charity that supports life-limited children and their families. You can sponsor me by visiting: http://www.justgiving.com/marie-downes

 

We’ve been busy!

sorry for the lack of updates recently; we’ve been incredibly busy with recruiting but also moving to our new offices.

You can now find us at:

7 Birchin Lane
London EC3V 9BW.

I’ve taken a couple of photos of the new office. Enjoy.

Don't judge me!!

Our cool new reception area complete with Microsoft Surface

 

Try to remain calm

Economic crisis, swine flu, Lily Allen constantly having a pop at other ‘celeb’s. It’s a cruel old world out there at the moment and it’s easy to get a little down because of it. There was an article in the Metro this morning reporting that there had been an increase in sick days due to psychological disorders since the credit cruch started to kick in.

Despite the tough times, there are joys to be had. Enjoy your evenings and weekends with your friends and your families. Try to ensure that you take the time that you need to refocus on what is truly important and switch off from work (at the appropriate times of course!).

Talk to your friends and family, have the odd indulgent lie-in/cream cake/night out, make time for your hobbies and interests. Sure, it’s important to show your employer that you are committed to your job but don’t get committed because of it!

 

Don’t curb your enthusiasm

I just spoke with a very experienced and very sharp candidate regarding one of our Java vacancies. Whilst he did well in terms of demonstrating his considerable technical skills, I was seriously put off by his blase approach to the interview. When I speak with candidates, I work hard to convey enthusiasm, interest and energy. It’s a terrible shame when a candidate can’t reciprocate.
Don’t forget that we are not only looking for people with good technical skills. Excellent interpersonal skills are vital in the kind of work that we do. You must be able to interact with a variety of people and demonstrate knowledge, enthusiasm and interest to end users. Interviews are an opportunity to shine; make the most of them!!!