Maxim Berglund
Co-founder of StreetHub
www.streethub.com

We hope for another great year for London startups in 2014!

Technology is becoming increasingly location aware on a very granular level. Mobile phones are the perfect technology for location services and so we don’t see the trends for mobile-first or mobile-only startups slowing down any time soon. As more data layers are added on top of the physical world, it is opening up for startups to create solutions to many day-to-day location specific problems. We think this will lead to more disruptive startups in the hyperlocal arena emerging, hopefully many of them in London!

Listen this week for an entertaining 30-minute look at the most interesting technology and science stories from the last seven days, with Wired.co.uk’s Nate Lanxon, Olivia Solon and Liat Clark.

This week:

Top stories
1) Comet-bound spacecraft Rosetta wakes up from hibernation
2) Injecting genes into the eye improves eyesight, could treat blindness one day
3) Google developing ‘smart’ contact lens to monitor blood sugar levels for diabetics

“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional, wait until you hire an amateur” – Red Adair

By Marc Cohen, Director at ConSol Partners

A growing business depends on being able to attract the best talent in their industry to contribute to their future. But often overlooked, both by growing business and those looking to maintain their present scale, is the importance of retaining and motivating the people who you’ve worked hard to get through your doors. The consequences of high staff churn can be devastating, with money lost in productivity, increased recruitment and selection costs, wasted investment in training and a legacy of demoralization and disruption in the team.

This is particularly important in the technology/digital industries, where innovation, consistency and longevity are imperative for staying ahead of the ever evolving competition. In this modern age we are always online, and employees or prospective hires are constantly tantalised by new and exciting opportunities. As an employer you compete with this on a daily basis whether you know it or not. A recent survey by a UK employment website* yielded these figures…

•           70% of employees are either actively searching for or open to a new opportunity
•           69% say searching for new opportunities is part of their regular routine
•           30% search for new jobs on a weekly basis

Take one of our biggest clients, tech giant Cisco. In a recent interview with HR Grapevine, CEO Phil Turner expressed that talent should be the primary priority for technology firms. So how do you go about hiring the best people available, and keeping them happy?

Justo Hidalgo
Co Founder, 24 symbols
www.24symbols.com

The global aspect of any digital business and the flexibility of digital ecommerce provide unprecedented opportunities for new ventures and business models. But these same advantages also mean first comers have the opportunity of coping entire markets by themselves if they execute well enough. Finding niches becomes increasingly difficult as the bigger companies learn to manage the digital adoption life cycle. But they exist and new ones are created as user needs and technologies evolve over time!

Finland has rightfully collected heavy buzz for its gaming industry. The disruptive effects of the ever-expanding Angry Birds machine, and the groundbreaking mobile gaming attack by Supercell has suddenly, and finally, made even the skeptics realise that, yes, gaming is a real business and that the level of talent in Finland is shockingly good. It has been ignored for much too long.

Gaming is not alone in being heavily impacted by this odd, Nordic country. Linux, another Finnish creation, powers more computers (I’m including phones here) than any other operating system kernel in the world. Nokia, before its recent downfall, defined, and largely created, the explosion of mobile.