How strong are you?

All the Happy staff have completed a Gallup's Strengths Finder quiz which aims to discover our five top strengths. These strengths are meant to be the things we should maximise to become truly effective people, rather than wasting time focusing on our, ahem, lesser talents, and never even reaching above mediocre in those.

So, if your tea making skills are weak - don't worry. Just get on with being a fantastic bed maker, if that's more your thing, and you'll enjoy much more success. Sadly tea and bed making skills aren't really on the official list. The real ones include new and bizarre concepts such as: intellection, maximiser, ideation and woo. Which one are you?

Once you know your skills, how does it help you? It could mean you'll get on better with others of a similar ilk. Bossy boots unite! Opposites can also attract and complement each other. Effective working relationships will always develop through a better awareness of others' strengths.

On a personal development level, the radical message is concentrate on what you're good at. Tea, anyone?

Happy in UK Top 10 Workplaces

The Financial Times has rated Happy as one of the top 10 places to work in the entire UK economy.

This was the result of their annual Best Workplaces award, organised with the Great Place to Work Institute.

Happy had previously been rated No. 12 in 2004 and No.11 in 2006. (The top 10 weren't ranked this year.) The company was also, for the third time, one of the top 100 workplaces in Europe.

In its Best Workplaces supplement the Financial Times listed the top 5 in four example categories. In three of these categories, Happy was listed in the top 2:

• Work/Life Balance: Happy equal 1st in UK
  
• Most Trusted Management: Happy 2nd in UK
  
• Most Welcoming Company: Happy equal 1st in UK
  

The Financial Times notes Happy's "passionate belief is in giving staff responsibility, giving them freedom to adapt their way of working to suit their lives and letting them participate in business and financial decisions."

Not bad for a business of 50 people!

How far do you go?

It's all very well being an ethical company, treating your staff well and buying fairtrade pencil holders. But what about the people you do business with, how ethical are they? How much do you know about the people who supply your paper, where do they get it from?

What with multinationals masquerading behind smaller ethical companies (Cadbury's - Green and Blacks) and ethical companies supplying global corporations (Innocent Drinks - Mcdonald's); it can be a moral minefield. We recently had the dilemma of a potential client who was involved in supporting the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In the end, we felt we had to say 'no'. What would you do?

Monopoly, anyone?

With Google set to buy Doubleclick, the leading seller of online banner ads, there are allegations of unfair monopoly practices as they head to dominate the market for online advertising. (Incidentally, spending on online ads in the UK has just overtaken total newspaper-based advertising.)

It is said that, combined with its own adwords, this will give Google domination over 80% of online advertising. But the cries of foul play are coming from none other than Microsoft, you know, that little cornershop. Actually, Microsoft wanted to buy Doubleclick themselves but were outbid.

It's never quite as clearcut as you think, eh? On a less serious note, have you seen the broken Google? Someone send an ambulance!