The Weekly Round-Up: 29.09.06

Shock horror! News broke this week that is likely to shake society to its core.

You see, it appears that businessmen are no strangers to the allure of the strip club while they are away from home.

Of course, this is unlikely to be news to many people, not least of all those strip club owners taking money hand-over-fist off lonely businessmen, but it may lead many stay-at-home wives and girlfriends to question responses such as: "It was hectic... back-to-back meetings really... " or: "I just watched TV in my room most evenings and ordered some room service... "

Likewise it might make them question phrases such as: "Of course I missed you dear. Here, I've brought you back a present."

In total 12 per cent of more than 2,000 respondents to a survey by travel portal TripAdvisor admitted they may well stop by a strip club while on their travels... just to pass the time, of course... something to do.

Statistically this implicates around one in four men (think about it)... so have a good look around your office and try to work out which of your colleagues are the likely candidates.

Going off on a tangent, this actually puts the Round-Up in mind of an event in Dublin last year which one of the silicon.com team reported from.

The great and the good of the security industry, and Microsoft, were in attendance and the debate got onto the subject of Eastern Europe being a source of a great deal of malicious code and denial of service attacks.

At this point an employee from a well-known software company piped up, in front of around 300 delegates: "I was in a strip club last night and one of the girls there was from Eastern Europe. I asked her about denial of service attacks... "

But anyway, back to the research which also revealed that 80 per cent of business travellers don't really mind the whole gadding about the world under the auspices of 'work'.

Only 20 per cent of travellers object to the time they spend away from home on business. And when cities such as New York, London and San Francisco are in the top five most common destinations for the business traveller, you start to see why.

Another quirk of behaviour that is peculiar to business travel is a generous hike in the amount that people are prepared to tip.

If it's going to go on expenses 46 per cent of respondents said they discover a new-found generosity towards bag boys, bell hops, taxi drivers and waiters - as well as, we assume, 'exotic dancers'.

Nearly 10 per cent of respondents said they will take 10 or more business trips this year - which is great news for the titty bars of New York and London.

A final point on this research. It seems many of us are in the same boat - or more accurately plane - when it comes to a common annoyance. Almost a third of respondents said their number one nightmare fellow traveller is the child sat behind them kicking their seat the whole way - which on an 11-hour flight could test the patience of St Christopher himself (or Job, even).

The Round-Up finds the best solution in this case is to travel with some sweets and ask the young scamp in question whether they wouldn't mind awfully not kicking your seat in return for giving them some sweets.

... either that or repeatedly rocking the seatback forwards and back while they're trying to eat... if you time this right they will be served the kids meals first which come around separately and you'll have terrorised the infant into submission long before your own meal arrives.

Just a thought.

But talking of kids doing things you'd really rather they didn't, you may well have seen a story in the news this week of three-year-old Jack Neal who almost landed his parents in an expensive bind when his wandering paws went onto eBay and he successfully bid for a £9,000 bright pink convertible... which was frankly a gaudy choice even for a three-year-old.

"Jack's a whiz on the PC and pressed all the right buttons," said a seemingly proud Rachael Neal of her troublesome tot. The Round-Up would actually argue that little Jack actually pressed all the wrong buttons, unless he happened to have a spare £9,000 knocking about his playroom with which to honour the sale - but that's semantics really.

It seems Mrs Neal failed to log off properly and little Jack, who is a real car enthusiast according to a report on BBC Breakfast News (isn't there anything more important going on in the world?), seized his window of opportunity.

Clearly the brightly coloured Nissan Figaro caught the infant's eye and he entered his bid.

"I was just horrified," added Mrs Neal of the moment payment was requested - suggesting she'd changed her tone from the proud mother of the previous quote.

John Neal, her hubby, then called the seller and explained the situation which was thankfully all resolved.

"Luckily he saw the funny side," John told the Beeb of the misled seller.

So a bit of a non-story really, the Round-Up was hoping to get to the bit where we heard how Jack took delivery of the car and was arrested doing 110mph down the A1. But sadly, no dice.

"We now have the parental locks on - and we make sure we sign out of eBay," added Mrs Neal.

Oh how they'll laugh about this in years to come.

And even though the good-natured seller of the car, Paul Jones, has had to relist his car, the Round-Up can't help noticing this story got a lot better for him when he managed to get a very good plug for his "Worcester Road Motors in Stourport-on-Seven, near Kidderminster, Worcestershire" included in the BBC article... in fact the Beeb stopped just short of providing directions to his car lot and adding that he offers 'great motors at low, low prices', or similar.

And speaking further of youngsters upsetting the apple cart with their tech skills, silicon.com columnist Peter Cochrane caused an almighty rumpus this week with his outspoken view that IT departments are soon to become redundant because the kids coming through the ranks now simply don't need tech support.

"The young people coming into your company will know more than the IT department," Cochrane told attendees at this week's startlingly well-attended silicon.com CIO Forum at the Hilton Park Lane.

Putting the boot in further, the former BT man said: "Company IT departments will go the same way as the typing pool because they offer no value."

Ouch. Take that, all you techies out there.

And while the IT department was rolling on the ground hugging its ribs and coughing up blood, Cochrane waded in with the glory blows to finish them off.

"The IT department is like a leper colony," he said, ensuring that - heaven forbid - should his circumstances ever change he will never get any helpdesk support. "Go into any company and there is a real hatred between the CEO and CFO and their IT department," he added with a final flourish of his hobnail boots.

Cochrane's views certainly sparked lively debate and kicked off a day of strong opinions and even stronger defences of the dark arts of the IT department.

The best defence that Neil Cameron, global CIO of Unilever, mustered was the incredibly popular comment that at least IT isn't the most hated department, expressing his undying gratitude towards the HR department for stealing that accolade year-on-year. Even Cochrane had to concede that was the comment of the day.

Cochrane's words have since drawn fierce criticism from silicon.com readers after they appeared on the site.

One reader wrote: "Important decisions have to be made by people that know what they are talking about, not young people who 'think' they know what they are talking about."

While another suggested Peter's words were "utterly naive".

"With software piracy, malware and ever more stringent audit requirements the opposite is becoming true. The last thing business needs at the moment is kids IMing business data over wi-fi to their blogs."

Another said: "I've seldom read such drivel."

And as the troops rallied another branded the comments "total bullshit" - which seems a little unnecessary, though clearly Peter had hit a nerve and it's worth noting that the likelihood of techies rounding in support of their own demise would be right up there with turkeys voting for an early Christmas.

It seems this argument may run and run.

You can read all our coverage of the industry-leading event (we would say that... but it's true) here.

Including the CIO Forum quotes of the day - in words and pictures.

Another milestone for silicon.com this week saw us publish our seventh annual Agenda Setters list naming the 50 most influential people in the world of technology.

Number one this year was Ray Ozzie, the man charged with the not inconsiderable role of filling Bill Gates' shoes at Microsoft. Interestingly Ozzie (not to be easily confused with the bat-eating Black Sabbath front man) was the first ever Microsoft employee to top the list. (For more interesting Agenda Setters' facts, read this article.

Meanwhile Aussie tycoon, Rupert Murdoch made the list for the seventh year running, on the back of his acquisition of MySpace.com, making him the only person to have been included on every single list... we can hear the champagne popping in Murdoch Towers as we speak.

And finally, tired of lugging around a heavy laptop? Frustrated by the size of your 'portable' computer and wish you could just roll it up and slip it in a pocket?

Of course you do.

And soon you may be able to do just that very thing after boffins at Cambridge University announced some giant strides they've taken towards designing a material that can be rolled up like a newspaper ('so that would be paper then?' we hear you point out).

Not a bit of it, it is in fact metal which can hold a number of shapes (that number currently being two, with potential for a third). It will roll and bend like paper but will enable the manufacturing of flexible laptops and computer screens, potentially turning the whole form factor thing on its head.

The potential uses are manifold but sadly we've been told the chances of doing origami or making a 'paper aeroplane' out of your laptop are about as slim as the millimetre thick material itself.

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