What with Royal Mail workers doomed, big banks being frauded, and general recession depression, today we would like to offer you something a little more uplifting.

Sock and Awe is a lovely little web app game where you get to throw shoes at George W Bush.

It's also a stunning example of how quickly the switched-on web entrepreneur can turn out a fun and instantly popular product. In a few hours the guys at soon-to-be-launched comedy website Pop Jam created this on the back of the news that - well, if you don't know the news story you ain't gonna get the game.

Also neatly creating a bit of pre-launch buzz around themselves and reaching a big audience through viral marketing in an incredibly innovative way. A great bit of PR - remembering not to annoy people, to get people involved and make things enjoyable. And using the power of word-of-mouth and the internet to get the name and idea out. Big marketing ticks all round, and pretty big smiles too.

 

Never one to pass up a good PR opportunity, it’s hardly a surprise Richard Branson has something to say about the current economic climate in his new book, Business Stripped Bare. Unsurprisingly, he’s not swallowing the theory that the end of capitalism is nigh."However difficult it might be to accept this in our present global predicament, it is possible to turn a profit while making the world a better place. Things change and the bald fact is that change, most of the time, is a threat.“Always, always have a disaster protocol in place. If the bankers who cooked up so many crazy credit schemes had borne that in mind, we might have avoided the present crisis. Then again, in business, as in life, you can't afford to be afraid of doing the wrong thing. Success in business never comes from inaction."Branson’s in reflective mood in general, taking the capitalism theme back to the core of what being an entrepreneur means to him. He reckons it’s something you’re born with and, as a result, natural entrepreneurs won’t be put off by unfavourable conditions:"To be a serious entrepreneur you have to be prepared to step off the precipice. That is the very essence of capitalism. Failure is not making mistakes but not giving things a go in the first place... I've learned more from people who have tried and faltered than from the few charmed people I've met for whom success came easy.""Entrepreneurship is not about looking out for number one. It's not about getting one over on the customer. It's not necessarily about making a lot of money. Entrepreneurship is something that we are born with - because it's about turning what excites us in life into capital so that we can enjoy it even more."Who are we to argue?

A bad couple of weeks for business? Depends which businesses you’re talking about.Certainly there’s been no escaping, nor denying, what’s been of the most turbulent periods of modern economic history.Yet, strangely, as if almost oblivious to the doom echoing around them, it’s been a fabulous two weeks for tech and web companies.It’d be naive to pretend the current downturn, let alone full blown recession, won’t have at least partly stifled investors’ appetites for traditionally high-risk tech start-ups, but it certainly still feels like a seriously exciting time for tech companies.Last week I wrote about Seedcamp, which has proved a phenomenal success and benefited many other UK companies than those directly involved in the programme. Web 2.0 blog Techcrunch UK held a party for the final night with the cream of web, tech entrepreneurs, peeps and investors flocking for a piece of the action.Alongside it, digital media community Chinwag has kicked-off its Digital Mission in association with UK Trade & Investment, which has seen 25 carefully selected UK tech companies fly over to the US for a series of meetings, networking events and seminars.And last night, London hosted Twestival, a one night celebration of social networking and micro-blogging site Twitter, pulling another impressive crowd.Next month the Future of Web Apps conference returns to London with some superb speakers and, I’m sure, another chance to mix with not just the UK’s, but Europe’s, bourgeoning web and tech scene.I use the words ‘scene’ and London with equal measures of pride and concern, because I know some of you will too. There’s no point pretending London, well the SE, isn’t the most important place for web businesses – and that’s coming from a fiercely proud Brummie.However, in a broader context that’s not a bad thing. Techcrunch editor Mike Butcher talked this week about how in the US, Silicon Valley is a place and everywhere else it’s a ‘state of mind’ and he’s right. He was actually talking about the need for a European hub of activity, but I’m concerned the rest of the UK doesn’t feel isolated from London’s scene and feels happy to join in, because it's essential for everyone that they do.They certainly shouldn't feel put off because, from my experience, it’s completely inclusive. Here’s Techcrunch’s list of similar events coming up over the next couple of months (and they're not all in London!).It might be a bad time for ‘business’ but not necessarily ‘businesses’ – we’ve got a great thing going on here, let’s embrace it.Image: Flickr

‘Managing expectations,’ is a buzz phrase I’m hearing a lot at the moment.At its worst, it’s essentially an pre-empted excuse for not doing something very well: “The job won’t be completely finished by the deadline so let’s ‘manage the expectations’ of the client.” Bullshit, basically.At its best, it’s about doing the basics well first and not shouting so loud you end up disappointing not impressing.Someone, well something, tried to manage my expectations today and failed miserably.Now I’ve always hated ‘press 1 for’ automated phone systems, but I’m resigned to their existence. Trying to book something today I was informed: ‘You have been placed in a queue until an operator is free to answer your call." Oh joy, I thought, but ho hum.It was then I was kindly told: ‘Your call is No.2 in the queue and will be answered in approximately 15 seconds.' Spirits were lifted but tempered with a healthy degree of scepticism.Obviously, 15 seconds passed. About a minute later the voice returned to reveal: ‘your call is No.2 in the queue and will be answered in approximately 1 minute."You can probably guess what happened next. Yep, by minute nine of the call I was still No.2 in the queue with an answering estimation of six minutes. I gave up.Now here I’d normally end the blog as the point is well and truly made. I wouldn’t usually name the company, but seeing as I called Bloomsbury Lanes Bowling and complained about the same problem back in February, I think it’s only fair to.

A challenge to make it illegal for employers to force staff into retirement at the age of 65 has been rejected by an advisor to the European Court of Justice, sparking outrage from anti-ageism campaigners and prompting even the independent BBC to report the news as “a setback”.At face value it’s difficult to disagree with Heyday, the division of Age Concern that raised the challenge, which claims “denying people work because of their date of birth is grossly unfair”.At the moment, two thirds of UK companies operate a mandatory retirement age, which, again at face value, seems archaic.But like most issues, it’s not so simple. The law does dictate that businesses have a duty to consider requests from workers wishing to continue working beyond retirement age. According to research by the CBI, 30% of retirement age staff asked to postpone the move last year with 80% of those requests being accepted.The CBI argues this enables employer and employee to sit and discuss solutions that work for both sides – but Heyday argues this often isn’t how decisions are made, with companies automatically releasing people at 65 regardless of ability to continue working. Some 260 people have cases of unfair dismissal hinging on a ruling.So it’s a toughie. I’d like to say just change the law, most companies won’t be affected and those that do treat people unfairly will rightly face unfair dismissal tribunals. Except it’s not that straightforward is it? Changing the law swings everything too far the other way; opens the way for thousands of scurrilous claims and introduces even more hoops for lawful employers to jump through.I expect the law will eventually change, but fear we’ll end up with a situation where employers avoid any responsibility whatsoever by handing as many people as possible fixed-term contracts they can sever or renew at regular intervals. That, of course, will undo all the good work and it’ll be the lawyers and big companies that’ll be to blame.

“Dictionary.com meets YouTube meets Wikipedia,” is how Bebo founder Michael Birch perfectly summed up Wordia.com, launched last week.Birch should know, of course, because he’s backed founder Ed Baker to get this brilliantly simple idea off the ground.Wordia combines traditional text definitions of words from partner Harper Collins with user-generated videos, such as the one below. Users can edit, submit and rate videos on relevance, accuracy and humour.Launched at the former house of Dr Samuel Johnson, who invented the first dictionary some 253 years ago, Wordia.com already tackles 76,000 words and 120,000 definitions but wants its users to control how it grows.“Over the years we’ve tried many ways to improve our grasp of the English language. We’ve listened, jotted and scribbled down words that have excited, confused and challenged us. wordia.com is our way of improving our own vocabulary and in the process, discovering what words mean to other people,” says Ed.Wordia is supported by Open University and National Literacy Trust and you can just see it being a massive hit with kids and adults alike. As well as a great toy and tool, it’s got massive business potential too. It’s a simple idea with global appeal and has massive branding potential.We reckon Birch is on to another winner and it's great to see him backing other web start-ups.

Now I don’t want to go all GMTV and smother what’s a very serious issue with a ludicrously inappropriate dollop of syrup and glitter, but how much does the average small business owner or sole trader understand about the economic apocalypse that the global media is reverberating at us from every medium?Any more than the average homeowner that understands banks going crash, bang, wallop result in mortgages going up and negative equity? Does the climate at the moment mean anything other to you than higher costs, reduced sales and less access to finance?Is the constant analysis and hyperbole actually any use to you? More so, is it helping the situation? Especially when all the ‘experts’ put together didn’t predict Lehman Brothers going or HBOS before the collywobbles became clear to everyone.One thing is for certain: it's certainly beyond your control.We’d usually find ourselves naturally opposed to anti-capitalist musings, but given its polarisation from all other commentary we thought we’d share Jarvis Cocker’s views on the credit crunch, even if, for us, it’s a bit out of the left field. Over to you JC:“It's really nice seeing capitalism getting its comeuppance. It had gone too far: I think most people can understand capitalism when it's about companies that make real products, but when it's about organisations that just make money ... that's abstract capitalism, it's beyond most ordinary people - and I include myself among them.“I mean, you see the FTSE index, or whatever, running along the bottom of the TV screen and generally it just doesn't impinge at all on the way you live your life, and then suddenly you're told your life is going to take a nosedive. Who understands that?“The truly sad thing is that all this is taking place with a so-called Labour government in power, a government that should have the interests of the majority at heart, but has instead played the role of a pimp.“Maybe a bit of a recession will do us some good. A lot of people have been living beyond their means. We've all done it, I've done it: you feel a bit depressed, you go and buy something. People might now actually talk to each other a bit more, make their own entertainment, all those other great northern clichés.”So good news for social networks, hey Jarvis?!

Worst thing about working for Smarta.com? We were too busy working on getting our own site live to get to the brilliant Seedcamp, Saul Klein's intensive week-long workshop for European technology start-ups.Championed here in July, from afar Seedcamp looks every bit the success this year as it was when first launched 12 months ago.Check out the highlights of day three below, but also visit the site as there's tons of valuable reporting, documentary and user generated links to learn from for anyone looking to establish a new technology business.It's almost as good as being there... well, not quite but we share your pain!

I’ve just completed three whole months without a desk phone. Did I miss it? Well no actually, not at all. The people who needed to get hold of me still did, while less of my time was unnecessarily wasted.Seeing that Tesco plans to switch all of its 40,000 staff to only use mobiles after striking a £100m deal with Cable & Wireless, it makes you wonder if the traditional desk phone is actually now obsolete?After all, with all our data now stored on mobile it’s just so much easier to go the full hog and make the call, isn't it? I bet you’ve made calls on your mobile this week while sat next to a desk phone and I'd wager you've no idea of the cost implications.OK, most companies won’t have a supplier such as C&W prepared to create a GSM network just for them, but fixed mobile convergence is getting really affordable. It’s far too techie for us to explain further, but check it out.Taking it one step further: assuming nobody needs PCs either now laptops are so much easier, perhaps all those innovators that have been screaming for years about hotdesking/virtual working/shared workspace etc were right all along? Maybe...

Who’d be Gordon Brown? A lame duck seemingly not just fighting a losing battle with the public but with rebel MPs plotting from the inside.Ironically, the people most qualified to offer advice are those he’s failed to sufficiently listen to or consult during his reign as either chancellor or PM: entrepreneurs.Like heads of state, sitting at the head of a company can be a lonely experience – especially if that company isn’t enjoying the best of times.While it’s clever old you that’s built everything around you and created jobs for the people who’s wages you pay, it’s also you that’s responsible when things go wrong and, fairly or not, in their eyes you’re to blame.One entrepreneur I spoke to last week was forced to make redundancies for the first time and had been shocked by the reaction not from the staff that left, but those that stayed.“They’re bitching about me and it’s not very nice,” she said with genuine upset. “It’s that situation you experience as an employee and tell yourself wouldn’t happen if you were the boss, but now I realise it’s just the way it is.”And it is just the way it is. As well as all the upsides, being the boss can be a thankless task. Empathy for Gordon? Maybe a tiny bit...