June 3, 2020,  News  No comments

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May 29, 2020,  News  No comments

When I was working in BBC News & Current Affairs in the late 80s/early 90s, the internet was in its infancy and there wasn’t Facebook or YouTube or Twitter.

Also, we had the BBC Guidelines, under DG John Birt, that provided guidance on balance, impartiality and how certain news items were to be reported, particularly during election times, etc.  These days, with 24-hour rolling news and the fragmentation of media and audiences, it’s that much harder to be heard, so journalists use social media as another channel to engage with the audience.

It will be interesting to see what former-BBC boss Richard Sambrook advises in how the BBC continues to steer a path of neutrality in wh...

May 29, 2020,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

A brilliant example of Jugaad Innovation for PPE Facemasks for those who need to lip read.

For more on this news story, click here 

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May 29, 2020,  Council of Ministers, data protection, EU General Data Protection Regulation, European Commission, European Data Protection Supervisor, News, Thought Leadership  No comments

Having left the European Union (EU) on 31 January 2020, the UK is currently in a Brexit transition period that runs out on 31 December 2020. Whilst the other 27 Member States of the EU have been grappling with containing the Covid-19 pandemic, you could be forgiven for thinking these countries as well as the UK have taken their eyes off the ball when it comes to striking a Brexit deal.

If you think that to be the case, think again.

If the UK wants an extension, it will need to ask for this by 30 June 2020 and the European Commission has already indicated that in the circumstances this would be granted...

May 16, 2020,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

I was really lucky to have worked with Lynn Faulds-Wood and John Stapleton when the dynamic duo presented Watchdog in the early ‘90s.

In those days, the production office was sandwiched between Kilroy (floor below) and That’s Life (floor above) at BBC Lime Grove Studios in Hammersmith (now sadly long gone). However, my memories of working with Lynn and John and meeting them years after we’d all left the show have stayed with me ever since.

I remember Lynn and John saying to me that they thought I wrote really well for TV and they never changed a word of the scripts I would write for them. That was high praise given it was my first AP job in telly.

I had come across from...

January 20, 2019,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

I would like to mark the sacrifice of the Jewish Community as a result of the atrocities that made the world a darker place in WWII.

November 18, 2018,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

The integrity and protection of personal data is a massive business continuity, risk and technology issue for companies around the world in sectors such as healthcare and banking.

And there’s also a double-whammy.

Organizations must comply with higher global standards in data protection, privacy and security brought about by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other comparable data protection laws and regulations starting to emerge in other countries such as Brazil, California, Dubai, India and Singapore.

A simple explanation of blockchain

Blockchain is a distributed database that exists on multiple computers (or nodes) all at the same time...

November 18, 2018,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

Education is one of the biggest growth markets over the next 25 years, according to research by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

“Technological innovation is fundamentally transforming education, and updating the skills required for the contemporary workplace. Building future-ready education systems requires designing curricula fit for the 21st century, coupled with the consistent delivery of a basic education for everyone that builds a solid foundation for a lifetime of adapting and developing new abilities. Specialized education should provide in-demand skills, and address the disconnect between employer needs and existing instruction in order to optimize global talent.”

November 18, 2018,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

My 16-year-old daughter Zara loves Instagram. So does her 11-year old sister, Aviva.

I hope they don’t mind me sharing that with you! And probably millions of others like them all over the world are aimlessly scrolling through Instagram rather than doing their homework on a wet Wednesday evening when they need a break from studying or are simply bored of checking out vlogs on YouTube – another favourite pastime rather than watching TV (which they don’t).

What’s interesting is the way that, post after post, about fashion, make-up, music, games, staying healthy and what to say to boys tends to have the same captions.

With young children and teenagers, social media is pa...

September 28, 2018,  EU General Data Protection Regulation, European Commission, Legal update, News  No comments

Time has almost run out for EU-US Privacy Shield. It’s highly probable that by 18 October 2018, the European Commission will agree with the European Parliament vote taken in July 2018 to suspend EU-US Privacy Shield, the international data sharing agreement between the US and the European Union.

This won’t come as any surprise within the data privacy community and in many respects has been on the cards since the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal earlier this year that underlined the importance of monitoring mechanisms intended to protect citizens from the misuse of their personal data on an industrial scale.

But it would be wrong to write off Privacy Shield as bein...