[(Poles Apart - Challenges for Business in the Digital Age)] [ By (author) Kate Baucherel ] [February, 2014]

by Kate Baucherel

The internet gives us access to the whole world to build business. But many SMEs are Poles sitting in the cold, and missing out on the huge potential that the online space can offer. This is as true for the smallest businesses in the country as it is for large established organisations, where employees themselves are Poles Apart and the clash of cultures is causing turbulence. So, are you a Penguin or a Polar Bear? What skills do you need, and what risks do you face, to make the journey to warmer climes?

Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

I'm a scifi nerd whose day job is speaking, writing and consulting on emerging technologies like AI, realities and blockchain. Combining the two, throwing all the technologies I work with into the near future to see what breaks, is enormous fun.

My first books were traditionally published non-fiction, and I still write technical works under my own name and as a ghost writer. When I was asked to co-author a cybersecurity book in 2016, a friend suggested that it might be less dry as fiction. Cameron Silvera and the Argentum Associates team burst into life and the whole process of writing fiction has become a real joy. One of my biggest challenges is making sure that the future technology I invent doesn't find its way into reports for real live clients - but the future is getting closer all the time, and some of my predictions are already coming to life. Bitcoin Hurricane was the first in the SimCavalier series of near future thrillers, and I have a growing catalogue of short stories that include the odd SimCavalier prequel, some standalone tales, and the adventures of Finch, a naive young avian on a rite of passage round-the-galaxy trip.

Inspiration? I've been embedded in scifi since childhood. My first glimpse of the Daleks from behind the sofa pulled me into new worlds, and I never left. As a child I wrote my own Dr Who and Star Wars stories and occasional scripts on an old typewriter in my bedroom, and I read my dad’s collection of Wyndham, Bradbury, Clarke, Heinlen and Asimov before discovering Iain Banks and David Brin, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I'm still reading and learning and letting my imagination run wild.