Marketing Begins At Home

Summary Care Records - Opt in or Opt out?

Its perhaps not surprising that our government organisations adopt the do what I say, not do what I do attitude. In this particular case, I received a very nice letter and leaflet telling me that the NHS are creating electronic Summary Care Records over the next 18 months or so.

Now best practice would indicate that consumers should be specifically asked to opt in for programmes like this. But clearly the designers of the programme have read Nudge. They know that asking for opt in will make it much harder to get people signed up. So the nice leaflet gives you three different ways to opt out, buried at the back of the leaflet and mixed in with the rest of the text. There isn't a clear form with a nice check box and prepaid envelope to fill in.

In this case, I suspect the society good does outweigh the individual privacy concern. My problem is that we are asked, as commercial organisations, to take extraordinary care not to assume the right to contact or sign people up for programmes in an unfair way. New European legislation puts a big onus on organisations to prove they have the right to make contact with individuals and take actions based on opt ins.

Our government agencies seem to believe that none of this applies to them and their programmes.

Managing both inventory AND customer expectations

Recently I have spent a lot of time and effort hunting down a particular Samsung home cinema component. I've tried online, I've tried a variety of stores, I've even tried phoning Samsung themselves. When I get home I will have a shiny new toy to play with, but it was insanely difficult to get.

It seems that Samsung has run its inventory right down in the UK in anticipation of new product announcements and new stock. That is a pretty good trick if you can do it. But they have also decided to keep an embargo on what is coming and when.

There are a whole bunch of complex but boring reasons why I really wanted this specific component, and there isn't really a direct competitor. Now I am wondering if what I bought is going to be replaced by something better and cheaper in four weeks. So instead of being truly excited, I already have some buyer's remorse.

Buying any technology product runs some risk of obsolescence. But I will be really mad at Samsung if I have paid a premium for an end of line product. And given that there is already a Samsung laptop, Samsung monitor, Samsung large screen LCD screen and now a Samsung home cinema already in my small flat, and that I am about go to and buy a second laptop and second LCD screen, I may or may not stay a Samsung loyalist in the next two months. But all my fears could be groundles. More inventory of the same component ae just on a boat and taking a while to arrive. I sure hope so. But if that is truly the case, why not just say so. "We under forecast demand. The product was more popular than we dared hope. And we will have more inventory on XX date."

When do you open?

Went into a food store at St Pancras station this morning. Doors were open. The lights were on. There was someone who looked like a customer sitting at a table.

“We’re not open” was the statement I got from one of two people behind the counter. They missed out on a sale. But much more important, I won’t go back again.

Would it have really hurt them to take my money for a cup of coffee? Or put a closed sign up on the door?
 
 

Great leaders need to listen

"Saturday 15 February 2003 saw what is considered to be the largest public protest in British history." So say the BBC. Depending on who you believe there were 750K or 1M people who took to the streets. This as well as opposition from other EU leaders, members of his cabinet, and lukewarm support from his chief legal advisor. How can he believe that it was still right to go to war?

Great leaders need to be just a little in front of the troops. But too far and you get cut off. Tony Blair lost the chance to be first President of Europe. He has lost all status in the UK. He may yet face war crimes charges.  Because he didn't listen to the largest public protest in British history.

Airline security could learn from marketing

Yet again we see panic reactions to a new, ultimately unsuccessful attack on a plane heading for Detroit. We seem incapable of learning the real lessons, so we substitute by fighting the last war all over again. Airline security organisations have the answer. They just don't seem allowed or capable to implement.

Placing restrictions on how passengers behave on the plane, making them take off their shoes in security, restricting liquids, restricting hand baggage, etc won't prevent the next attack because the next attack won't likely re-use previous tactics.

Adding more expensive scanners at Schipol will just shift the next departure airport to Charles De Gaulle or Frankfurt. Or back to London.

Thank goodness I am not travelling regularly on business now. It was laughable that I could sit in business class to Asia and use metal cutlery, but was forced to use crappy plastic stuff to America. It was ridiculous to make everyone take their shoes off going through security. Heathrow even had a separate shoe scanning area AFTER you had been through the regular security.

It is plain to many that the way to avoid most, but not all attacks is to use good, joined up intelligence to prevent suspicious people from successfully applying for visas and tickets. For those that slip through the net, copying the El Al tactics for profiling and interrogating people at the point of departure is the best proven method for alerting security forces.

In other words, airline security have to segment and profile the differences between regular business travellers, family holidays, genuine emigration and terrorists. Some of it can be done by using positive discrimination. Someone with over 500K miles in their frequent flyer account isn't as likely to be a danger as someone who is flying for the first time. Someone who has renewed their passports multiple times isn't as dangerous as someone who has a brand new passport for the first time. Someone with lots of credit cards isn't as dangerous as someone who has none. Paying cash for your ticket has to raise more questions, as does having someone else pay for a ticket on credit.

So let's make use of the knowledge and technology we have, along with training airport security the way El Al does. I won't mind answering penetrating questions (from someone who is a trained professional and understands how to evaluate the answers I give) if we dispense with all the useless scanning, mind numbing waiting in lines, and delays caused by people on minimum wages playing at security. 

Oh, and perhaps then I can have my cutlery back, so I can cut my rubber chicken.

Seth Godin is mistaken this time

I'm a big fan of Seth Godin, and most of the time I think he is at least interesting, and more than often, right. But his recent post misses the point.

Amazon and the Kindle have killed the bookstore. Why? Because people who buy 100 or 300 books a year are gone forever. The typical American buys just one book a year for pleasure. Those people are meaningless to a bookstore. It's the heavy users that matter, and now officially, as 2009 ends, they have abandoned the bookstore. It's over.

Sorry, Seth. But I think your analogy is mistaken. The shift that you are predicting was predicted by people who said that movies would replace theatre, television would replace movies, and that the internet would replace television. Well, the relative popularity and usage models have certainly changed. And yes, I would expect new usage models to emerge.

Just don't tell me that the heavy users of the Kindle are going to give up consumption of any other forms of reading. Its just not true. Now physical books might become a niche business in a while. It may be true that more books are consumed online. But I bet that some books will still continue to be delivered as physical artifacts through retail channels. Art books for example. Or personalised books. I'm a www.blurb.com fan where I can deliver a high enough quality book, one at a time. Great for gifts, great to remember events, great to deliver a tangible momento.

Actually, Kindle users aren't yet typical book readers. There are a bunch of barriers still. I don't like the fact that Amazon can change content on me after I have bought a book. I don't like their pricing policy relative to real books. Kindle readers are atypical in lots of ways, and I don't think we have got anywhere close to crossing the chasm on electronic books. So are Kindles the next big thing, or just another electric carving knife, bought and abandoned to the back of the drawer?

Seth, you are just a little too advanced in your prophecy this time. Now some bookstores are going to die, just as some retailers are going to die with the advent of internet retailing. The ones that survive will adapt to the customers that still value them, just as theatres the world over survive, despite all the alternatives for consumption of theatrical content, many of them superior in production values and value for money. The magic of theatre is equivalent to the magic of a book. Their value won't change for me, even if I do spend most of my time in front of an electronic screen rather than in front of a book.

Sorry, Mr Osborne, We're NOT all in this together

Recently the British political classes have been trying to persuade us that they are fit to lead us next year and beyond. Most recently, George Osborne repeated numerous times during his speech that we are all in this together. Well,sorry, Mr Osborne.

I'm a pretty classic, middle class, typical swing voter. Well, I think so, anyway. I don't belong to a political party. I have voted differently in different elections. We're NOT all in this together.

Why isn't this phrase going to resonate with me or with many in my position?

I don't have lots of borrowing, so don't feel part of a phenomenon where it is OK to remortage and spend every time your house price has gone up, and where it is OK to max out multiple credit cards and just pay the minimum off each month.

I'm not one of the people who benefited from city bonuses during the boom. I just suffered from inflated house prices because my chosen area has lots of big shots with more money than sense driving up the prices.

My pension is mostly the money purchase type not the final salary type, so it got hammered when the market collapsed. So much so, it is probably a good thing I don't have to retire at 65 and both parties are considering raising the age when my mediocre government pension starts to pay off. I doubt that I will ever be able to retire and still have a decent standard of living.

My savings are also not growing because all the banks are busy recapitalising at my expense, widening their margins by not paying savers a decent return. There isn't much incentive to keep your money in the bank. Nor is there much option where else to put it because I don't have time to earn a living and watch the market for short term volatility gains. Nor does property seem particularly attractive. Nor do bonds.

In short, a plague on all your houses. Look at Canada for a model of how to run the country's finances and how to regulate their banking system. A good start would be to make sure that the future profits that the banks and the bankers make are taxed as windfalls when they are excessive. Then come back and tell us we're all in this together.

My Blackberry is an essential pack item for holidays

I returned to work on Tuesday. In the past that would have meant a lot of stress as I got back up to speed with issues and actions over the past two weeks. But not this time. It was stress free.

As a relatively recent convert to the blackberry revolution, it was the first long vacation where I had my phone with me. My team knew that if they needed help they should put urgent in front of the email or the sms. There were none.

I checked in every couple of days and scanned down the list of new emails. Took about 15 min but meant I had a good idea what was going on, and what issues would need my attention. Reduced stress, made me more relaxed. I also listened to voicemail in that time. Never felt the need to call anyone, and forcing people to make their own decisions was extremely successful.

So, contrary to received wisdom, an email device is now an important part of my vacation plans. I know it works, I know how to manage it for me, and I feel better coming back to work on day one. Thaks RIM and Orange. You made it a great holiday and a great return to work.

Priority: Low for customers at Marinestore Chandlers

Today I got an email with some special offers from a marine store. As a keen sailor in the middle of sailing season, I was pleased to see a special offer on deck shoes. Nice copy, nice picture, good price. So I clicked on the link.

Mistake 1 - the price on the site was different than the price in the email blast. What's even worse, the "normal" or "retail prices were different. Then the discounted price was a LOT different. Higher of course. So what trust do I have in their pricing policies?

Mistake 2 - I forwarded the email to the address that they suggested I contact. What I got was the biggest slap in the face. At first glance the response is just neutral. 

Peter,

Thank you for contacting us. This is an automated response sent to you in order to confirm the receipt of your message. We will attend to your ticket as soon as possible. We've listed the details of the ticket you created below for your records. When replying, please keep the ticket's ID in the subject to ensure that your replies are tracked correctly.

   Ticket ID: JEO-265217
   Subject: Wrong pricing. Mens shoe shows as £52.99 not the advertised price.
   Department: General Enquiries
   Priority: Low
   Status: Open

You can check the status of or reply to this ticket online at: http://marinestore.co.uk/support/
 Please use the following credentials when accessing your account with us: 

   Email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
   Password: xxxxxxxxx
Kind Regards,

Marinestore Chandlers

The text of the email could be better, but they did give me a way to check the status of my complaint online.

However, I do object to their system automatically prioritising my priority as LOW. I think my query was pretty important. It prevented me from making a purchase. I was trying to do them a favour by letting them know they had a problem. 

Would it have hurt to set the default state to HIGH? After all, they could always intervene and change the default down later once they had evaluated the severity.

So, what do you think the likelihood is that I am going to patronise Marinestore Chandlers in future? In a word: LOW.

Apple built brand values by building people

This weekend I met up with two old friends who I hadn't seen for years. In fact, it had been so long there were two teenage children who hadn't even been born the last time we met up. Ooops. 

What we all agreed was that very quickly we picked up where we had left off many years ago and carried on the conversation, almost as though it was a week ago. Lots of things had changed but the personalities hadn't, nor the buzz and excitement of exploring new things.

As you can imagine there was lots of talk about mutual friends, where they were now, who we had kept in touch with. Between us, we were still in touch between us with a broad number of people who had worked at Apple in the UK or Europe while we were there. The people were literally spread all over the globe and ranged from previous bosses and senior managers to people who had been just starting their careers at the time. Many have taken their skills, learning and values to a range of different companies, but there did seem to be a thread that for many, their time at Apple was extremely special, and they tended to stay in touch with a broad range of colleagues.

When we worked there, Apple was in constant turmoil and struggling to find a sustainable market for its products. Lots of change, both people and strategies, tons of uncertainty and reorganisation, just as many companies are experiencing today in the aftermath of the credit crisis. But although we understood the challenges, we approached them with tons of positive energy and enthusiasm and felt able to generate solutions, get them implemented and make a difference.

What our old friends and I agreed was that Apple, in addition to building great products, also built great people and that their values and beliefs were a great foundation for the rest of our working lives. The question is, what are you doing to make sure that your company has the strength of values, shared passion, and skills and are passing it on to everyone in your business? Are your people making a difference to help your organisation cope with the turmoil in the market?

Blurb 2.0 is a good step forward

I first found Blurb about a year ago. They publish books. Your books. I have used it to do a photo souvenir album of my trip to Australia. Recently I decided to do another photo book and discovered that some of the frustrations I had with Blurb have gone away. They now allow you to create your own layouts, mixing text, pictures, etc in your own format. 

This sounds like a simple change, and it probably was a nightmare for them to implement, but it makes a huge difference to the experience. Even if all I want to do is tweak the amount of copy space on one of their layouts or move it to a different part of a page, I can now do it quickly and easily.

I was a huge fan of their ability to make creating the book very easy. Now they just made the whole experience a lot better. They deserve more loyal customers who want to make more books than I will ever create, so go on, give them a try. If you have a recipe book, photo book, souvenir book, or a graphic novel just bursting to get out there, give them a try. Not vanity publishing in the normal way, because you pay for what you order, and they make it easy to publicize your book to other people as well. Blurb - slightly strange name, but they do what they say on the tin. Real books, made by you, order just one copy if you want.

Beken of Cowes - do you know this brand?

Beken are an extremely famous name to a relatively small group of people. If you own a boat and have raced your yacht in the Solent, you may well have a picture in their archive.

A few weekends ago we were sailing off the Isle of Wight and their boat was nearby. The  photographer took a number of photos.

To cut a long story short, we ended up buying an electronic image for an astounding sum of money. But do you know how difficult it is to take a picture of your own boat with you sailing it? How much is that worth? Well for us, quite a lot and Beken have priced their keepsake beautifully. A great example of how to serve a niche market very well. They have been based on the Isle of Wight for years and have a fabulous collection of boat photos in action. Check them out.

Visitors are second class at Port Solent Marina

As a keen sailor I have had occasion to go to Port Solent Marina twice this season. It is a huge marina with a lock that you go through, a number of restaurants, a cinema and housing all surrounding the floating "boat park".

There are some good things that Port Solent do. They charge for fuel at cost, having correctly decided it is a service that they make relatively little money out of. So better to have some goodwill from customers. As a yachtsman I use relatively little fuel, but I am sure the power boat customers appreciate the gesture and understand that Port Solent's pricing power means they won't get the same prices as the supermarkets.

I also was very glad on the second visit to be told that we were going to be moored away from the restaurants. On a nice sunny Saturday evening the noise makes it difficult to concentrate or sleep if you aren't actively in one of the bars or restaurants.

Sadly we then got to experience what it is like to be second class citizens. When we went to use the toilets, berthholders are directed to one way where they get...

"very high quality unisex wet-room style 'bathrooms' being constructed with individual facilities for berth-holders."

Being visitors we were directed to...

 "separate facilities for visitors and those crews involved in large events."

The quotes come from the proud marketing folk at Premier Marinas who trumpet the new facilities for berth holders.

These turned out to be portacabins parked in the parking lot. They were tired facilities with poor lighting, inadequate space in the unisex showers to get changed, and an air of neglect. I know where I am going to spend my money in future, and it isn't likely to be at Port Solent until they have upgraded the facilities for visiting yachtsman. There are too many other options in Portsmouth. Sadly, this marina's loos are anything but premier. And that's not good for their brand or reputation.

More important than MPs' expenses are their outside interests

We have heard lots of stuff about MPs' expenses, but much more interesting and much more important are their outside interests. Below is a list of what John Gummer lists as his outside interests. Without picking unduly on Mr Gummer, how will his vote be affected by legislation on financial services advisors?

When we do get to question future MPs for the next Parliament, the most important question is - who pays you and for what?

GUMMER

, Rt. Hon. John Selwyn (Suffolk Coastal)

1. Remunerated directorships

Chairman, Sancroft International Ltd.; consultants providing advice and monitoring in

corporate responsibility and environmental, social, ethical and planning issues.

Chairman, Veolia (formerly Vivendi UK); water companies.

Chairman (non-executive), Valpak Ltd.; not-for-profit organisation for compliance with

packaging waste directive.

Chairman of the Association of Independent Financial Advisers; a representative trade

organisation.

Sovereign Reversions Limited (non-executive); home reversions.

Catholic Herald (non-executive); newspaper.

Sistema-Hals (non-executive director, corporate governance); Moscow-based real estate

development, management and investment company.

48

2. Remunerated employment, office, profession, etc.

Articles in: Catholic Herald, Country Life, Estates Gazette, Planning, Evening Standard. I

also chair conferences. The subjects in both cases are usually property, sustainable

development and religious issues. The commitments arise largely from my previous

profession of journalism and all payments go to Sancroft which provides research staff,

information services, and all other facilities. Currently Sancroft would expect about £100,000

in payments, in respect of which I would receive some £30,000 in fees and dividends.

5. Gifts, benefits and hospitality (UK)

My wife and I received tickets for the Conservative Party’s ‘Black and White Party’ on 4

February 2009, paid for by Mr Christopher Moran, of London.

(Registered 20 March 2009)

8. Land and Property

A residential and commercial property in London, owned by family.

9. Registrable shareholdings

(a) Sancroft International Ltd.

Why British Airways will never be my favourite airline

To British Airways from a consistently disgruntled customer over many years.

1. Your customer service email responses do not have an email address you can reply to. If I took the time and trouble to write to you, I want to engage in a dialogue. I know it costs you money. But if you answered my questions right first time then we wouldn't need to go back and forth. Putting barriers in my way only makes me more upset. And more upset won't make me feel better about you.

2. You designed a new state of the art terminal at Heathrow where a significant proportion of the flights do not have a jetway attached. So now we have to go back to the 60s and ride around in airport buses. This not only adds to the journey and slows me down, but makes me feel even more like cattle than the rest of the journey. And lets not talk about security lines, check in hassles, baggage reclaim hassles, etc that are still going on every day. Oh, and you screwed up the public transit to all the terminals by the way in which the Heathrow Express/Connect services were designed. Instead of a nice circle between three terminals we now have an abortion of a changeover at T1,2,3. Great.

3. I feel like a third class citizen when I use free miles to travel, with worse seating allocations. Pay attention here - I used your service enough to get enough miles to travel somewhere. Apart from the fact it isn't free because I have to pay significant charges to USE the air miles, please pay attention to the fact that I should be your MOST favoured customer, not some piece of trash that fills up your empty seats.

4. In all the years I have flown you I have been upgraded once. Its not your policy to upgrade people unless it is for your operational convenience. Well guess what? I fly Star Alliance instead. They understand that upgrades are appreciated by their customers and rewarded with loyalty. I like being able to buy exit row seating for a small extra charge in economy. Made my flight to Australia last year much more comfortable.

5. Your cabin baggage space is a joke. Why do you want to have the smallest bins in the air? Expecially when they are using real estate that you cannot cram any more seats into? And why do you insist on putting stuff like oxygen and crew apparatus near the emergency exits when that is the space that is most needed by passengers for their stuff so as to keep the emergency exits clear?

About the only think I really like about BA is the website. Clean, easy to navigate, fast. Good online checkin.  Perhaps your web team should go sort out the baggage problem at T5? Redesign your customer services? Speed up your security checkin?

Good news for consumers from the latest record industry figures

There is a big shift to digital in both North America and Asia in these figures that is probably causing some concern amongst recording industry execs. I'm really glad and really hoping that in future more of the money spent on music will get into the hands of artists and record companies who develop talent.

Today retailers take a third of the retail value of physical music for doing very little. They carry some inventory but send back any they don't sell. Their service is inferior to the online offerings because you can't sample, find out more or get any expert advice. They are crummy at cross selling. So we should all be celebrating that the new business model includes online retailers and the iTunes store. We should also be pressuring the new channels to reduce their prices. I won't buy online digital content for the same price as a physical equivalent. If the record companies want me to buy more, price the content to the new model and the new costs of doing business. Oh, and getting rid of cds will have some benefits for the planet as well.

Love Bad Science

My wife got me a really good book by Dr Ben Goldacre. His website is called badscience.net. Probably the worst thing about it is the slightly cheesy photo. But the book is FANTASTIC. It puts into plain english how statistics get misused and how easy it is to get it right as well as wrong.

This should be mandatory reading for everyone before they are allowed to buy a newspaper or watch a factual television programme. Except that stuff that is mandatory is normally dry as dust and this makes statistics fascinating, as well as giving the best description of the scientific method I have read. Where was this guy when I abandoned maths and sciences?

Just buy it and read it and never be fooled again by misrepresented probabilities.

Canadian Lettuce

Iceberg lettuce seems to be the standard for every salad that i have eaten in Canada since arriving here last week. it is white or nearly so, unless of course it is brown around the edges for having sat around too long.

I think it is popular because you can almost freeze it in the fridge and it remains equally inedible at any temperature. That's popular with restaurants, but certainly not with me.

Salads in Canada also tend to be short on other ingredients, so if you don't like iceberg lettuce you don't find much else to chew on.

The real question is....are Canadian restaurant owners smart marketers or not?

Smart. They offer a salad that no one eats and therefore isn't worth spending good money on ingredients. It does mean they have room for more profitable alternatives.

Smart. Most people say they want to eat something healthy, but aren't prepared to pay for good ingredients for the salad.

Not smart. They are missing a great way to differentiate themselves from the dull offerings of their competitors. And these days good letttuce travels as far as bad lettuce, especially in winter in Canada.

You decide.

Blurb is amazing

Trips are one of the times when you take lots of photos. So when we went to Australia with a brand new SLR (see previous posts for details) it was pretty inevitable that I would take lots of pix.

This time, in addition to trolling through and selecting from over 800 pix, I decided to create a book. I went to Blurb.com, downloaded their software and then spent more hours than I care to admit playing with laying out my photos in a book.

I just received the book this evening and I think it is fantastic. The colour in the pix is great, the quality of the paper is great, and the hardbound cover with front and back pix is AMAZING. If you want to see what the content looks like, go to http://www.blurb.com/my/store/public and preview the book.

You can of course buy it if you like, but that's not the point. If you want a great way to keep and share memories, Blurb is the business. And if what you create is good enough, you could make some money by publishing it. Real books, Great quality, Great price.

Royal Academy does it again

I do really need to learn. Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque: Aimé Maeght and His Artists is an interesting exhibition with too much stuff crammed into the small display space at the top of the Royal Academy. It is also an interesting look at pieces that the Maeght family have bought from their favourite artists. I have some quibbles about the way that the layout works, particularly the inability to see some lovely Miro paintings through a hugh Calder piece.

But yet again, the money grubbers at the Royal Academy have sold too many tickets for the space. The result is miserable for the audience. £10 to peer around, through and over too many people competing to see the art on display. We went at 3 pm on a Friday. Heaven only knows how many people there would be on a weekend. Enough to probably break their fire regulations. New Year's Resolution - avoid the Royal Academy like the plague. Expensive and over crowded, with too much space given over to selling stuff and not enough on displaying art and managing people movement through their galleries. Shame.

A brand that is paying attention

A little while ago, I wrote two posts on my experiences flying the A380 on Singapore Airlines. What impressed the heck out of me was that the airline clearly do monitor the brand very closely in cyberspace and took the time to respond and write a comment on the blog.

http://marketingevangelist.typepad.co.uk/my_weblog/2008/12/great-customer-service-at-singapore-airlines.html has the original article and the comment.

I was impressed with Singapore Airlines before. But now I really think they get brand management in the Web 2.0 era. What are you doing to monitor your brand in cyberspace?

ProDive do what their name says!

  As part of our trip to Australia, we did our first liveaboard dive trip with Prodive of Cairns. Three days, two nights on the Great Barrier Reef. We were a little nervous because we hadn't dived much for about 12 years, although had more than 50 dives under our belts and were PADI Advanced Open Water qualified.

The good folks at ProDive were great. Zach the captain, Chris the chef, and Lindsey the divemaster for the qualified divers on board were thoroughly polished and professional.

After the first orientation dive, we were left to our own devices, something which was a little nerve wracking for a couple of oldies who had not dived much. But their confidence in us, and the back up safety measures they took, gave us the confidence to dive on our own and manage our own dive plans.

The reef itself is definitely suffering in patches. Some magnificent coral and some that is in deep trouble. We didn't see too much that was special in terms of marine life, but definitely enjoyed the ability to cruise around the reef, secure in the knowledge that we couldn't go far from the boat.

The onboard team also managed the process of getting 32 divers in and out of the water very well, getting the novices away first to do their training, then getting the more experienced divers into the water. As a result, we want to do more diving, and will definitely do a liveaboard again. Thanks ProDive!

Tips for flying the A380

I flew to Australia and on three of the four legs was lucky enough to fly the A380. It is mostly great, but there are definitely some issues that you need to be aware of before you decide to fly the beast.

If you get to fly First, there probably is nothing better in the skies. Even Business class looked magnificent, with the seats just four abreast. They are really WIDE. Watch your head on the overhead lockers walking through. If they are open they are very dangerous to moderately tall people.

Sadly I was flying economy. Sadly, only because the A380 flies long routes, and because I don't have enough cash to pay for an upgrade myself. London to Singapore is about 13 hours, and Singapore to Sydney is about 7.  First tip - fly the upper deck if you can. The economy seating is 2-4-2 not 3-4-3 as it is downstairs. Second tip, get seats in row 81. That is the emergency exit row on the upper deck. Lots of leg room, and worth paying extra for. Only downside is that the tray tables are crap, so you feel like your lunch will slide off the table, and there is no stowage nearby so you have to get on board early to make sure you can put your luggage away. Avoid the seats behind this row. The last two rows in the centre are two seats but all of the last row is way too close to the toilets. You will never get any rest.

I really like the fact that the floor is solid, so people walking don't disturb you. Other aircraft flex so much that it is like listening to a herd of elephants every time the staff move around. The entertainment system is great when it works. On all three flights we had to have one of the units reset. Fortunately they can reset each seat individually so you don't disturb other viewers. Selection of films, tv, music is excellent. We used our own noise cancelling headsets - surely it is time that the airlines provided these as standard in all classes?

Seat pitch is pretty poor for long flights. But seat comfort and width is better than anything else I have flown. The firm seat feels hard at first, but is really good once you have been in the air a while. Noise in the aircraft is low, much better than other planes. At the rear of the aircraft you definitely feel the turbulence more, and there is a definite waggle from side to side and up and down. Queasy stomachs should aim for the middle of the plane.

Food on Singapore Airlines is good, and a variety of special meals arrived promptly and were pretty good according to my partner. I managed to get my choice of meal on each flight, so clearly they manage the choices well. Portions are not overly generous, but the timing is good. On the 132 hour trip, I did get hungry and raided the galley where the staff leave a small selection of snacks, even in economy. Ice cream made a nice dessert on two of the trips.

Staff are very tolerant of people standing and moving about the aircraft. There are stairs in economy at the rear so you can go up and downstairs. Downstairs has a little more room to stand near the toilets without disturbing other passengers.

The biggest downside is waiting for luggage. We checked in early for all flights and suffered getting our bags off last. Why can't the airlines use FIFO rather than LIFO for bags???? There are a lot of bags to move on an A380. Travel with hand luggage if you can, although fur us it was impossible on this trip.

The last thing is that we ended up on a 777-400 for one leg. That was a real let down after the A380. If you have to use a mix of planes, try and make sure that the A380 is used on the long legs - otherwise you will be really disappointed by the other aircraft!

Great customer service at Singapore Airlines

Recently I flew to Australia and back with Singapore Airlines on their new A380 for three of the four legs. Their reputation for service was upheld by all the staff we encountered, but was tested on our return from Singapore to London. This is a 13 hour flight to start with, so pretty testing for us economy fliers. But when we encountered a delay, their true qualities came through.

Singapore had maintenance issues on the first A380 so they then moved us over to the second airplane. We loaded late, and then heard from the pilot. "We have a problem with the water pressure on the aircraft and it is causing a leak in the galley that we have to fix. Parts are ordered, and it should take 30-45 minutes". About an hour later, the pilot again. "We thought we were good to go, but the seal didn't hold and we have to get another part delivered and installed." In the end we sat for over 3 hours in the airplane. What was great was the way the staff handled it. The pilot was clearly frustrated with the issue, genuinely concerned about the problem, and it came across in the way he spoke.

But it was the cabin staff who made the whole business bearable. They responded to call buttons and delivered drinks to people who requested them. Once it was clear there would be a second delay they asked and received permission to dole out the mid flight snack to people so that we had something to quiet the rumbling tummies. And they cracked open the inflight bar and gave alcoholic as well as soft drinks to passengers. They were unfailingly polite, helpful and solicitous. What a difference to the experiences I have had on other airlines. BA recently brought out a new slogan - upgrade to BA. Well I would upgrade to Singapore Airlines any time. They are worth a premium, especially when things go bad. 

Sensationalism and Responsibility

The BBC headlines and story about the recent car crash where 3 people died and one remains in critical condition makes me sad. I wouldn't normally be a big defender of the police. But we seem to be heading towards more sensationalism, more twisting of the story. Why isn't the story titled "Three die in escape attempt from police"?

Sadly it seems that our news media have learned too much from advertising copywriters. The more sensational the better. The body of the story tells us that the police pulled over a vehicle, the vehicle stopped, then it took off again. From the reported facts so far, the people in the car have no one to blame but themselves for the tragic outcome. But somehow the focus of the headline is on the Police, not the actions of the people in the car?

I'm sad about the loss of life. I'm more sad that somehow the culture is heading towards wanting to blame anyone but themselves for the messes that people get into. It's not the fault of the people who sped away, it's the fault of the police chasing them. It's not the fault of the Northern Rock business model, it's the nasty bankers who wouldn't lend to them any more. It's not the government economic policies, its the nasty short selling investors that cause a run on the pound.

Chocolate Messenger gives the wrong message

I thought it would be nice to send my Dad some chocolates for Christmas. After all, what do you get a man of 89 who gets most everything he needs in his very nice retirement residence? So I placed an order on the CHRISTMAS page of Chocolate Messenger. Even added a nice Christmas message as the site suggested.

By the time the tax and delivery charges were added, they were pretty expensive chocolates. So I was really upset to discover that my CHRISTMAS gift had been delivered on the 5th November. Do they not know when the holidays are?

Worse still, they haven't bothered to answer any of my emails. If you are going to have an online presence you better do it right. And all I wanted was for them to say OOPS! We're sorry. We have changed our procedures so we won't do that again. Perhaps the offer of delivering another box to my dad on the right day at a discount, or even free of charge?

Good thing he really liked them. Shame that Chocolate Messenger has NO chance of a repeat order.

Some things change, but the emotional resonance of photography is still powerful

  Today I have been going through some of the pictures that I have taken since getting my new digital SLR. I count as a very occasional photographer. I like the idea, and sometimes the muse strikes. And photos do make the strangest connections sometimes.

In reviewing this photo of a park bench, for example, I was taken back to my high school days and my role as team member, sub editor and then editor of the yearbook. Its something I haven't thought about for years, yet really was a formative experience.

Digital photography has changed the picture experience. First, the possibility to edit and post process the image really changes and makes plastic the experience. Second, the way that the internet has changed the publishing environment makes some really great photos and photographers available. I want searching for a couple of extra photos for a website recently and came across a real treasure trove of photos that had been taken by really talented people and made available. Third, it has changed the way people can make use of content and repackage photos for their own purposes. If you are trying to make a living out of photography, all these amateurs publishing their stuff makes it more difficult. But it also shows how much talent there is out there.

But what hasn't changed is the power of pictures to really create an emotional context for both memory of events, but also evoking something to people who weren't there. And now the publishing platforms mean that you can see all the talent out there. Some great photographers, some great emotions. I aspire to be a fraction as good some day.

Ripoff at the Royal Academy - Byzantium

  Its not often that I rant, but my experience at the Royal Academy today was a real disaster. Avoid the new show Byzantium and keep your money in your pocket.

First, the show costs £10 to get in and was grossly overcrowded on a thursday morning. There were so many people that you had to barge your way in to see many of the exhibits. It didn't help that a high proportion of people were using the obnoxious headphones, the ones where you have to have the volume up high enough to be an irritation, but not high enough that you can actually benefit from hearing what is being said. I think having the audio commentary slows down the viewing process and distracts people.

Second, the show is incredibly badly laid out and lit. Dark, dingy, diabolical are some of the words that come to mind. The flow of people around the exhibits seems very poor with lots of bottlenecks where people get stuck in corners. The cases are so big that you can't get close to what are some very small objects. Some beautiful gold coins are absolutely wasted. You can't see any details whatsoever and the poor quality englarged pictures beside them are gross. There are bits of "furniture" to evoke church or home scattered in the middle of the floor that do nothing whatsoever to enhance the experience. There is one row of household items in a long line where instead of spreading the items and their descriptions so they can be seen from both sides, you are virtually forced down one side of the line. Much of the gold and tempura paintings are dull and lifeless. In the rare examples where they are well lit, it is almost impossible to stand and look at the items without casting a shadow on them because the lights are behind you.

Third, the show just doesn't hang together. There is very little sense of chronology in the show with you jumping geography and timeperiods from room to room. Even where the items are grouped thematically it is tough to see progress or difference between the items. There are some magnificent items here, but they are lost in the clutter. And I don't really know what to say about Byzantium after having been to the show.

If there is a redeeming feature it is the last room where some fantastic pieces from the Monastery of St Catherine of Sinai sing out through the dark and the gloom. At the end of a tedious trudge through the crowds, I almost missed how gorgeous they are. If I had been one of the people on the first days who missed them because they had trouble getting to the UK I would have been severely disappointed. They are the highlight of the show. And the shock of going out into the brightly lit gift shop at the end is truly jarring. The new temple of mammon, brightly lit, with cash registers ringing, and better looking copies than the original.

Don't bother going to the show. If you want to spend money, go buy the extortionally expensive book which at least shows off the pieces in all their original colour and glory. Better still, just drop in and spend 30 minutes flicking through a copy in the gift shop. Probably less crowded, certainly better value, and a much better representation of Byzantium. The Royal Academy probably won't care. They are getting plenty of people through the door and willing to be ripped off.

Mobile OS challenges - How open minded are they?

Since we now have Android, Symbian, Limo, Apple and Microsoft Mobile operating systems all available, one of the interesting challenges for them is how do they handle acceptance for and distribution of applications that will be popular but will strain their brand values - I mean here specific apps in the area of pornography and mobile gambling.  Will they allow them to be bought and downloaded from their online stores?

These are clearly applications that people will want and will pay for. And while some societies find them socially unacceptable, they are viewed much differently in other societies.  Note - I'm not an advocate for either pornography or gambling. I just know they are potentially big applications with big audiences. One study says $1BN for mobile pornography today and another says that mobile wagering will be $23Bn by 2011.

Apple versus Symbian - the battle begins

The last two days have seen the Symbian Foundation lay down the gauntlet in the next round of wars in the mobile space. With the prize being 1 billion consumers who already use mobile phones, the stakes are high. Both organisations are fighting for the hearts and minds of software developers, because everyone realises the markets are too big for even a few companies to dominate.

There are subtle differences in approach that make the two "ecosystems" fascinating to watch. Note I didn't say Apple versus Nokia. Clearly Nokia is driving a lot of the enablers and sees it as a way to bring software innovation to their phones. They believe that harnessing independent developers will be good for them. And they claim not to want to exercise as much control as Apple, who reserve the right to refuse to distribute sofware through their online store.

For me the success of Symbian will depend on how they drive hardware prices down and enable more mass market acceptance and volume for their platform.  Apple will not likely play more than a niche role based on their past performance in other sectors. A big niche, but a niche.

Boating casualty

At the recent Southampton boat show, I spent some time on the Raymarine stand. Some of our electronics have been recently unreliable. A nice gentleman from Sea Ventures took our details and said someone would take a look within a week or so. Didn't hear back, but did find out why they haven't been in touch.

Sea Ventures have gone into receivership, meaning that one of the largest Jeanneau dealers in the world has gone. In the scheme of things, our little bit of electronics servicing wouldn't have been high on their list of things to do. I'm very sorry for all the people who will be affected.

What they missed, however, was that they could have turned a one hour service call into a very profitable sale. We were contemplating replacing all the electronics on our boat, including redoing the wiring, the antennas, the gizmos at the top of the mast, and setting up so that we could have the latest charting toys down below as well as new instruments and radio. My guess was that this would have cost between £2000 and £3000 and been a pretty good earner for Sea Ventures. It could have been done in a slow time for them, optimising their work force, because it didn't matter much to us when it happened. They could have probably sold us extra stuff we hadn't thought of. They would have made decent margins on the electronics and great margins on the labour. And they were located about 100 yards from our boat, so not far to travel.

Perhaps one of their skilled installers is looking for work?

Smart and Functional - iRobot

  Every now and then, a new product shows up that really intrigues me. Here is the iRobot Roomba. It sits in a recharger until you press the button or the preprogrammed time arrives, then zooms around cleaning your rugs, carpets and floors. At first I couldn't figure out why it appealed.

Well,it appeals as a great toy to the gadget freaks in the household, and surely has to appeal to the lazy, busy household. And perhaps even to offices, factories, shops as a good way to make sure that cleaning schedules are always maintained. Even better, although it is really an unattended vacuum cleaner, it really doesn't fit in the vacuum cleaner aisle.

It is one example of a bunch of new products that will continue to roll out that combine intelligence and functionality. I like the idea of buying smarter products, but also ones that are incredibly easy to use. I think the iRobot concept is smart and functional. And that's why it appeals. Now I have to save my cash to buy one.

How much confidence do you have?

Right now there is huge effort being exerted by the leaders of the major economies of the world to build your confidence in the financial system. Enormous sums are being talked about. $700Bn translates to about twice the net borrowing of the US government in 2007 or 15% of total tax receipts for that year. The UK and European governments are mounting similar efforts to assist local banks.

Confidence isn't just about savings, retirement plans and house prices. It is all about attitudes at work - how much risk will enterprises take in this environment, how many people will be in work, how much expansion and new business gets written. But if people are worrying about their personal losses, they probably won't make great decisions that will help the economy overall to recover.

So when you go into work today, how much confidence do you have, and how will it affect your business recommendations and decisions?

Is your recruitment a branding disaster?

I have spent the last four months in a recruitment dance with an American company that has European headquarters in Paris. They still haven't hired for the role that we were discussing, and that's OK. Recruiting the right person is important, but running the process badly is very bad for the brand. Sadly, they revealed their real brand values during the interview process. And because they claimed that culture was the reason for not making an offer, I'm happy to tell you what I learned about their culture during the process.

First, their culture is very slow moving. Four months to go from first contact to deciding I wasn't the right candidate.

Second, their culture is very rude. They needed to be chased endlessly by the recruiter working the assignment to get them to move on to the next stage.

Third, the role had two bosses, and they didn't seem to be playing nicely together. One was in Paris and one was in the USA. They clearly wanted an intermediary between them but weren't prepared to agree on a candidate that could do this job. So far they have taken 14 months and still no candidate in sight.

In the end, I'm glad they didn't make an offer. The job was pretty cool, it was well within my capabilities, I would have loved living in Paris. But their real culture and real brand values didn't fit mine.

Sovereign Harbour Showers

We ended up spending a reluctant weekend in Eastbourne because our yacht engine developed a problem. The local engineers were very nice but couldn't get to us until Monday, giving us three unplanned days in Eastbourne. The marina is in the middle of one of the biggest housing estates I have seen in the UK. Everywhere you look there are houses and apartments, some just being finished, others up to ten years old.

The showers in the title refer both to the lousy English weather and to the toilet block for marina use. The toilet block was superb. Clean, spacious, not terribly busy, nice mirrors. They also had the radio blaring through the speakers, but everything can't be perfect. In fact the showers really did reflect the care and attention that the staff gave us throughout our visit. For the first time in 25 years, we needed to be towed into the marina late thursday evening. The staff who came off duty to run the workboat out and tend to us were fantastic. The lock team who manned the radios were sympathetic and friendly. They offered to order us takeaway if we were too late for the restaurants (but fortunately one did serve a very nice pizza and salad!

Sadly the state of the economy can be seen from walking around Sovereign Harbour. Boats, particularly motor boats are up for sale as people try and cut back. Shops were closed, including the chandlery. Now a chandlery that can't make money with a captive boat population of 800 plus is in a mess of trouble. The yacht club was pretty deserted, and the restaurants only did well when the sun came out. Lots of property for sale too. So it will be interesting to see how Sovereign Harbour does over the next few years. Showers ahead, methinks. Hopefully they will be the nice clean ones in the toilet block, not the squally black clouds that hung over us most of the weekend.

Tired Eurostar

Its been a while since I travelled on Eurostar, but yesterday I went to Paris and back. For the first time, I travelled business class at a premium price that was the equivalent of an airfare to Paris from BA.

The staff and service were great. They looked after everyone well, spoke both French and English to a very high standard. The trains departed and arrived on time. This was the first time that I had been on the"new" track on the english side, and arriving at St Pancras. It made a huge difference to the clanky nasty old rails that used to carry Eurostar to Waterloo.

The bad news is that Eurostar really needs to do some urgent refurbishment. Toilets were dirty and doors wouldn't stay shut. One loo on each train was out of order in the section I was in. The business carriages were extremely tired. Dirty carpets, dirty seats, leather arms on the chairs in very poor repair, colours looking extremely dated.

I feel sorry for the staff - they do their best to uphold the brand promise. But they are let down by the infrastructure, and that's a fixable management issue, given that Eurostar traffic seems to be holding up well by my unscientific count of the number of people waiting to travel yesterday. Maybe the management is as tired as the trains. Maybe the people who run the operational timetable at Eurostar should get a job at BAA, and perhaps the BA people who keep the interiors of their airlines could do a lot for Eurostar.

Do travel agents have a future?

Recently I have been planning a holiday in Australia. Fairly complex, lots of options, but tons of opportunity for a travel agent to show that they really know their stuff. What we wanted to do was visit friends in Sydney and Gold Coast, do some liveaboard diving on the great barrier reef, and then see whatever else fitted in with the trip.

One Oz specialist kept trying to put us in places with a 3 day or a 5 day minimum which we didn't want. Another UK long haul agent did a reasonable job on flights but insisted on using Quantas so missed out on better deals from Singapore. They really blew it when they told me inaccurately that the dive boat we wanted was full - I later ordered it online. Presumably they got a better commission from the other boat they offered instead. Instead of selling the positives of the new offer, they tried to tell me that my choice wasn't available. Silly people.

So I ordered the trip online a la carte from a bunch of suppliers. Am I better off? Well, as my partner says, planning the trip is a big part of the thrill. So I guess I am pretty thrilled already. Would I have liked to find a travel agent who would have done the legwork and earned a commission. Yes, but I didn't find one who earned it. What this tells me is that to survive in the travel business today, you had better be very clear what your value is, and make sure you sell it hard to every prospect. I never got a clear message from either travel agent about why they were better than what I could do online myself.

Electronic walking around?

It's Proms season in London right now. One of the concerts I went to was a world music celebration. The last act was from Mali - Bassekou Kouyate and his band. They played a range of music from 17th century traditional to more recent works. What was fascinating to me was to see the thread that connects this music to US black southern music to jazz. The connections were really clear.

Bassekou had wireless mikes on most of the instruments so they could move around on the stage and dance. As the leader he spent a huge amount of the set walking around, looking at and connecting with the other musicians individually. He was definitely in charge and making sure that everyone was connected. My wife leaned across - "management by walking around" - was her comment and it was really true.

As we move away from meetings and offices and more into the electronic, home working, remote office scenarios, I wonder how we create the electronic equivalent of management by walking around? I have been spending more time away from my office location recently and haven't found a really good way yet to replace the eyeball contact with co-workers. IM, phones, netmeetings, email, video conferences, all have their own place. But I haven't found a better way to keep the team focused and positive than physically walking around. Any one else got any better ideas?

like.no.other

Finally bought a new digital SLR yesterday. It happens to be a Sony A200. I'm actually shocked I did buy Sony, because I was going to get a Nikon but...read the reviews, did some research, and the Sony seemed like the right buy for me.

Registered online, pretty painless. Then oops. Got my first email from Sony today. It was a nice email, if content free really. BUT they personalised it as Dear Mr./Ms. Davies. Such a silly thing to do. I told them my title in the registration and they STILL got it wrong.

Will I return the camera because of it? No. But the product experience gave them a great halo that the marketing communications department ruined by inappropriate personalisation. My trust in their communications is much lower. And that's a shame, because on the basis of a couple of hours playing with the camera, it represents the Sony brand well.

A Tale of two sailing suppliers - part 2

Previously I wrote about a bad experience - today is a much happier tale. Our aged rubber dingy for our yacht was not staying inflated. I happened to come across an ad for Suffolk Sailing. Curious name, because in fact what they do is marine safety. Their main business is servicing liferafts and other safety gear. They also run Sea Survival courses where you spend a day trying to get into a liferaft in a pool with all your heavy sailing gear on.

With some nervousness we transported said aging dingy to their premises on an industrial estate not far from where we keep our boat. We were assured that they could look at it. I phoned about a week later, they said they had done a couple of bits of repairs, were testing that it still stayed inflated, and would be ready tomorrow. How much? was my question, but the nice man didn't know. He said, not much. Well, that made me a little nervous.

Let me tell you, here is a company that deserves all the customers that they can look after. Cost was less than £54. That included inspecting the dingy, replacing a crappy patch that I did with a proper one from them, replacing two valves that were leaking, and making sure that everything stayed properly inflated. Lots of people wouldn't get out of bed for that price.

Suffolk Sailing. Need a liferaft, rental or buy? Need marine safety equipment serviced? Cheerful, honest advice? They are gems. I couldn't recommend them more highly. www.suffolk-sailing.co.uk

A tale of two sailing suppliers - part 1

My wife and I own a 28ft (8.6M) sailing yacht which is about 20 years old. So she is increasingly in need of attention for various bits and pieces. Recently we had two very different experiences from two local suppliers.

First, we decided to add a new piece of navigation gear. We looked up their website, phoned all their dealers one Saturday in the East Coast of England and none of them had the product in stock. So we phoned the manufacturer and ordered it direct. They delivered it to our dockyard the next day. So far so good. We then installed it and started to use it. The instruction manual was poorly photocopied and confusingly referred to two different products with different instructions for actions for each. The practice chart that was supposed to be included was not. We tried using it on the first set of charts and all was well. We then tried using it on a second set of charts, those for Solent waters. This area has the highest concentration of sailing enthusiasts in the UK. The charts were not pre-entered.

We sent an email query to the manufacturer over the weekend, but hadn't heard anything by Tuesday afternoon. So I called them. The person who read those emails was on holiday so no one had read the query. It turns out that for our needs we have to have a plastic cover for the charts, cost about 10% of the unit extra. We would also need a software update kit to enable us to update the electronics when charts change. Cost about 25% extra. So our cost of ownership suddenly jumped 35%.

At the time of writing we have agreed with the manufacturer to return the unit and get our money back. Their customer service did not seem very friendly. When I questioned why they didn't have an answering machine for out of hours calls, they said that they expected people to call back during their business hours. I suggested that their website could use a little updating so people understood what the proposition was. This was met coldly. I also told them that I had tried to buy it from every retailer on their list. Not much reaction.

The bottom line - the equipment was designed to speed up navigation while underway (and if you have ever bounced around in a strong sea in a small boat, you will know how important that is). As shipped it would take a lot of work to get all the charts we would use in, and they would not be sequenced in a user friendly way. Only by spending 35% more could one achieve something close. It also didn't make clear how the chart updating service/software would work and how essential that is for successful use. And their customer service attitude was typical of the 1950s in Russia. You are lucky to have us sell you this. Sorry, but no. For that price I am almost in chartplotter territory with additional bells and whistles.

It's the neighbourhood, stupid

Recently we have had a lot of news about knife crime with some really sad deaths. Now Gordon Brown wants to target 110,000 families with "disruptive" youngsters. Other commentators wring their hands and say that fixing some of these issues will take a long time. David Cameron makes a big deal out of family values as well.

At the same time I have been reading The Tipping Poing by Malcolm Gladwell. A couple of quotes from a much longer discussion. "Peer influence and community influence are more inportant than family influence in determining how children turn out. ...  A child is better off in a good neighbourhood and a troubled family than be or she is in a troubled neighbourhood and a good family. ...children are powerbully shaped by their external environment...It isn't just serious criminal behaviour, in the end, that is sensitive to environmental cues, it is all behaviour."

It's pretty tough to intervene directly in families and get results, as well as being hugely expensive for the state. Instead, lets put all those CCTV cameras and other resources to having a zero tolerance for litter, graffitti, and poor maintenance of all buildings in target neighbourhoods. Repair and keep clean the lifts. Make sure that parks are clean, safe, well maintained. Remove abandoned cars and enforce parking regulations. Focus on teen unemployment by incentivising specific job creation. Make it attractive for Tesco or Asda to open a supermarket with lots of part time jobs. Do the little things to make sure that deprived neigbourhoods don't look and feel deprived. Then they will come around, and remarkably quickly as well.

Crossing the Chasm

Recently I had a chance to talk informally to the national council of STAT. What really struck me was that some of the technology marketing models would work really well for promoting personal training/services/wellness. The Alexander Technique isn't very well known, but has a following in certain circles - music, dance, theatre, and is used for back and neck pain as an alternative therapy. We discussed Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm.

Simplistically, your early adopters are willing to accept the tradeoffs that come with being first to use a new technology. The price is high, the product isn't complete, but it is compelling enough for you to put up with the glitches. Then there is a chasm, and you have to get to the early mainstream users. Unfortunately, early mainstream users are completely different. So everything about your marketing, positioning, etc has to change.

That's where I believe the Alexander Technique is now. Their core early users are happy, but not enough teachers have enough work. They need to reach out to a new audience with a new version of the proposition. Its going to be hard for the council to persuade their teachers to change, but if they don't the Alexander Technique will be limited in its appeal or in the Chasm. Crossing the Chasm will require them to think quite differently about which new audiences and how to appeal to them. I think Geoffrey Moore would like the analogy, even if it isn't about technology adoption.

What's your inflation?

The nice people at the government statistics office have a cool new tool. Now you can figure out what your personal inflation figures are based on how much you spend on stuff each month. You can compare yourself to the average and figure out if you can do anything about it.

I'd show you a pretty picture, but the same nice folks who produced this stuff don't let you export it in any manner that allows me to share it. Whoops. How to spoil a nice idea.  Well, lets give them 50% for trying. 

It won't surprise you to know that the official inflation rate has moved from 2.5% to over 4% and that mine has gone from a smidge under 4% to around 6%. Time for that chat about a raise, or else about moving to a new country.

Deconstructing Risk

Malcolm McDonald, Emeritus Professor, Cranfield University School of Management wrote a little article called "Getting Marketing back into the Boardroom". At the heart of the article is the idea that marketers need to be able to deconstruct business risk into three components and then develop strategies that account for each of these risks. 

 

1. Market risk: the risk that the market is not as good as you think it is

2. Share risk: the risk the strategy won't develop the share it promises

3. Profit risk: the risk the profit pool won't allow you to make the margins you promised.

 

I hadn't seen this before and really like it because the implications and actions arising from each are very different. My current employer actually faces a combination of all three. The mobile phone category is largely saturated so switching to a replacement market, the company is reworking it product porfolio to develop its share position, but the economics of the business and the cost of customising for individual markets make it very difficult to drive marginal profits from marginal markets.

Change This!

Just found a cool site www.changethis.com. Its the antithesis of the sound bite. Read their 9 page manifesto. Sounds like a lot, but its a good and compelling read. I haven't dived into any more of the content, but it sounds intriguing. I'd like to have my mind changed with compelling arguments rather than mainstream media content. We'll see.

Insure your new iPhone

Lots of comment on the new iPhone, especially about the more consumer friendly pricing. The 3G/WiFi combination works for me. Some complaints that some features like videoconference make it less attractive to the myspace/facebook fans, but that misses the point. Its not a swiss army knife, its a chef's knife, perfectly balanced for its intended use. Its a music and mobile browsing device with a telephone attached.

But if you do go out and get one, make sure you insure it. There is likely to be at least $300 worth of subsidy being applied by the network operators when you "buy" yours, and if you lose it or get it stolen you will quickly discover just how expensive a device it is. I'd much rather buy the device and then pay a cheaper rate for calls, but that's not how the business model works in most Western countries. Western consumers have an addiction to "free" phones and only discover the real cost when they have to replace a lost or stolen "free" phone.

Free Swimming

A fascinating show on BBC4 last night that tracks a number of kids from birth to adulthood. They are now about 8 years old. Lots of interesting stuff, but one that struck me was that borders have really shrunk for most of the kids. When asked if they would go to the shops and buy a pint of milk, most said no. Most weren't allowed to play outside unsupervised.

This morning brought an announcement that there would be proposals for free swimming for over 60s and under 16s as part of the 2012 legacy. In principle a good idea, although probably not both groups at once! Now the question is how many kids would be allowed to go there and participate by their nervous parents?

Creatures of habit?

It appears from a new study using mobile phones to track the whereabouts of over 100,000 people that we move in pretty small circles. Most people stay within 10km of their homes and return over and over again to the same locations.

Supermarkets could have told you this. They are pretty good at assessing how far people will travel to shop at their stores. And of course, people tend to return to work and home pretty regularly.

What would be more interesting would be to look at the edges as Seth Godin puts it. How about looking for exceptions and seeing what that tells us about people, their occasional habits and their movements?

Sense of humor or humour?

I just came across this - yes, you can accuse me of being slow, but it was such a giggle I wanted to share it. Apparently Richard Branson added an April Fool's Joke into his CTIA speech, but quite a few people didn't get it.

Now Google has got into the act with a website on the "joint" venture. Does show that some Americans do have a sense of humor or are the googlers honorary brits with a sense of humour?