Marketing Begins At Home

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?