Dave the Dealer's July musings

Mars maniac Elon Musk makes big promises, dating a celebrity suddenly becomes easier, women are told to get their compassion out, and Facebook enables 24/7 working

‘Nice guys finish last' is a fairly well-worn phrase. ‘Uncaring women don't get promoted', however, is one that I've just coined.

According to research carried out by a German business school, women have to be both confident AND caring to succeed at work. Just being confident and good at their job is not enough.

A professor at the business school drilled down into the findings and provided comprehensive insight, claiming that women can be negatively affected if they show signs of being ambitious. "In other words, they are not liked," they found.

The business school claimed that men are more fortunate, with a warm personality not at all necessary to progress up the ranks - self-confidence is fine on its own. I must be the rare exception to the rule: a male boss who is both ambitious and compassionate, as evidenced by the free Chomps I handed out to all staff last Christmas.

Employers with benefits

At Dodgi we've recently fought off a staff revolt over scrapping our free Nescafé Gold and Tetley teabags policy. With margins constantly strained, we saw no other choice.

Facebook has taken a different approach and hypothesised that they can tackle their struggling margins by not letting their employees leave work.

As part of plans to redevelop a site near its Menlo Park headquarters, Facebook is redeveloping a campus that will include grocery stores, green spaces, a train station, a shopping centre and 1,500 housing units.

The residential housing will be for local workers as well as Facebook staff - meaning that employees can work 24/7.

"Housing is critical to these efforts," said Facebook. "We hope to contribute significantly to the housing supply by building 1,500 units on the campus, 15 per cent of which will be offered at below market rates."

In an attempt to mimic the efforts of millennial-dominated companies, Dodgi's head of HR has taken a trip to Mountain Warehouse and purchased seven four-man tents, which we've set up on the mezzanine floor. From a nourishment perspective, we have a vending machine in the foyer and a Chicken Cottage just around the corner. Dagenham's Silicon Valley is in the making.

Power to the people

It's good to see some of the guys in Silicon Valley coming up with something productive for a change.

While environmentalists are still trying to prove that it is possible to generate electricity from wind and sunshine, Tesla CEO and Elon Musk has hit the nail on the head and announced plans to build a big battery.

Musk said the battery could power around 30,000 homes in Adelaide, Australia, and will be three times the size of the world's second-largest battery - stripping the title of Battery King from the previous holder Duracell.

Musk reassured the people of Adelaide that the battery would not pose an immediate threat to life, saying: "There is certainly some risk because this is the largest battery installation in the world by a significant margin."

He added, though, that if the battery isn't installed and working 100 days from when the contract is signed, he will give it away for free. I don't know how Musk makes his money, but he certainly doesn't drive a hard bargain.

Partner commoditisation

I've long said that dating should be more like the channel: transactional, outsourced and commoditised.

Well, the good guys at Badoo have obviously taken my advice, creating a service that allows people to order lookalikes of their favourite celebrities.

Hopeless romantics can type the name of their celebrity crush into the Badoo app, which will return a list of potential partners who bear some resemblance to that person.

According to the app, the UK's most searched-for celebrity is Robert Pattinson, followed by Cara Delevigne and Fearne Cotton.

Badoo CEO Andrey Andreev said the system will meet the needs of users looking for "new, simple and fun ways to make better connections with a potential match", modestly leaving out the fact that it also eradicates the arduous process of deciding if you find someone attractive.

Badoo has not yet released information on how much the partners on the app will cost to purchase or, more importantly, what the margins will be for partner resellers.

My searches for a Sue Barker lookalike within three miles of Dagenham have so far proved unsuccessful.

Dave Diamond-Geezer, director of Digital Online Deals and Global Integration (Dodgi) of Dagenham Ltd