At the end if this week I'll be flying out to Dubai to work on some major life sciences events. I'll start posting once I'm out there.
TTFN
Monday, 29 December 2008
Friday, 14 November 2008
In Blogs We Trust
As an academic and "natural born sceptic" I have a problem with blogs and all sorts of other UGC...which I don't have as a marketer. That problem is authority. "Authority" is related to "author" which in turn comes from the Latin word auctor, meaning to originate, increase, promote. Yes bloggers certainly originate and promote their ideas. But today authority (in the sense that a written work has authority) has come to mean "an influence exerted on opinion because of recognised knowledge or expertise". Authority should not be confused with authenticity, which incidentally comes from the Greek "authentikos" which means principle or genuine. What's the difference you say? Well authentic, means something is the original, genuine undisputed article... but something has "authority" because of the relative influence it exerts on others.
This is why as a marketer I have no problem with blogs and their power to shape opinion. In the blogosphere you can say what you like and as long as enough people read what you say and agree/disagree with it it has AUTHORITY.
Take the simple example of hotel reviews. Anyone can review any establishment on the many review sites, and their review can gain AUTHORITY through acceptance by bloggers and readers. However, this does not mean the review is AUTHENTIC. Marketers the world over are writing false reviews of establishments they have never been to which gain authority, promote business, but are essentially untrue. Authority does not equal authenticity.
But fortunately the law of averages kicks in. For every evil genius out there promoting their ideas, product or service through disingenuous blogging, there is another person saying the opposite for equally twisted reasons. The net effect is that for most topics people can gain a view by filtering a number of other opinions. The authority comes not from the single author, but from the mass of authentic authors...so ultimately in blogs we trust.
This is why as a marketer I have no problem with blogs and their power to shape opinion. In the blogosphere you can say what you like and as long as enough people read what you say and agree/disagree with it it has AUTHORITY.
Take the simple example of hotel reviews. Anyone can review any establishment on the many review sites, and their review can gain AUTHORITY through acceptance by bloggers and readers. However, this does not mean the review is AUTHENTIC. Marketers the world over are writing false reviews of establishments they have never been to which gain authority, promote business, but are essentially untrue. Authority does not equal authenticity.
But fortunately the law of averages kicks in. For every evil genius out there promoting their ideas, product or service through disingenuous blogging, there is another person saying the opposite for equally twisted reasons. The net effect is that for most topics people can gain a view by filtering a number of other opinions. The authority comes not from the single author, but from the mass of authentic authors...so ultimately in blogs we trust.
Friday, 7 November 2008
Why I hate the DPA and why it is unworkable
The Data Protection Act 1998 has been with us for ten years now, which in my opinion is eleven years too many.
This unworkable, unenforceable act has become the bane of most professional marketers, the justification to be lazy for most data services departments and the excuse to be unhelpful for seemingly every major UK company's customer service department.
A quick scan through recent prosecutions under the DPA and you'll find the majority relate to companies not registering themselves correctly with the Information Commission. Well, whoopdedoo, what a victory for Mr Average that a Bolton solicitor is fined over £3,000 for not sending in a piece of paper to the Information Commission. No doubt the solicitor in question is in all other respects a highly professional operator who protects the business of his clients with care - oh, but he hasn't filled in a form for the IC so let's slap him with a big fine.
Where are the prosecutions for the real abuses of data - the constant telephone calls from Asian call centres on behalf of UK based companies where our personal data is being sent across national boundaries without our approval or knowledge? Banks putting our information in the hands of people who are not employees of the bank - and are in many cases not even employees of the call centres they work for, but are casual hired help.
Where are the prosecutions of government and military departments for losses of huge amounts of personal data that put our children's identity and safety at risk?
In the last two days I have had two separate reasons to bemoan the total failure of this Act to do what it is supposed to do. Sadly these failures are virtually daily occurrences, in an Act that permeates our every day lives but serves virtually no purpose.
The first was when my son returned from school with a note regarding his forthcoming school trip, which contained details of the "telephone cascade" for when he would return from said trip. The purpose of the cascade is that the teacher on the coach calls the two numbers at the top, tells them that the coach will be back in 30 minutes, then the people called call the next two on the list, etc until everyone is informed, and each person only has to make a couple of calls. In practice a very sensible thing (and in the days before the DPA, totally legal). However, the problem is that the phone number (including in many cases the mobile phone number) of every parent of every child was listed on the page. The school has distributed personal information it has collected, without the permission of the people supplying the information. Some of those numbers may well be ex-directory, and personal information may have been supplied to people who will abuse it.
Some may take the view that "It's a small community [it is a rural village], everyone knows everyone else, so what is the big deal?" and yes, common sense may say that is so. But, imagine this scenario (sadly all too common in a small village). Husband checks telephone bill and notices repeated calls to number he doesn't recognise. Husband thinks nothing of it until little Johnny hands him piece of paper from school which has number on it showing it to be mobile number of single male living 2 miles away. Husband starts to put 2 + 2 together and gets 4 (or 5 depending on whether calls were innocent or not) and "has it out" with wife... matrimonial chaos ensues.
OK, I might be over-elaborating or choosing a particularly nasty scenario, but there are plenty of petty arguments and unpleasantness in small villages where having the telephone number of an individual could be used to harass, bully or stalk someone. My point is the school should not have given out numbers without permission.
The other DPA waste of time is when Financial Services institutions call you to sell you a product and begin by saying "For Data protection reasons, can I take you through security?". Well hang on just one minute...YOU CALLED ME. Therefore, I have no idea who you are, so NO, I'm not going to give you my name, address, date of birth, password, inside leg measurement or anything else, because I don't know who the hell you are. Click - brrrrrrrrrrr. As we all become more and more obsessed by data theft banks are really going to have to find a better way of establishing who we are.
There are so many things I hate about the DPA I could spend all day writing this - especially the power it gives small minded process-driven data services people to stop creative marketers from doing their job properly - but enough for now. We'll save that to another day.
This unworkable, unenforceable act has become the bane of most professional marketers, the justification to be lazy for most data services departments and the excuse to be unhelpful for seemingly every major UK company's customer service department.
A quick scan through recent prosecutions under the DPA and you'll find the majority relate to companies not registering themselves correctly with the Information Commission. Well, whoopdedoo, what a victory for Mr Average that a Bolton solicitor is fined over £3,000 for not sending in a piece of paper to the Information Commission. No doubt the solicitor in question is in all other respects a highly professional operator who protects the business of his clients with care - oh, but he hasn't filled in a form for the IC so let's slap him with a big fine.
Where are the prosecutions for the real abuses of data - the constant telephone calls from Asian call centres on behalf of UK based companies where our personal data is being sent across national boundaries without our approval or knowledge? Banks putting our information in the hands of people who are not employees of the bank - and are in many cases not even employees of the call centres they work for, but are casual hired help.
Where are the prosecutions of government and military departments for losses of huge amounts of personal data that put our children's identity and safety at risk?
In the last two days I have had two separate reasons to bemoan the total failure of this Act to do what it is supposed to do. Sadly these failures are virtually daily occurrences, in an Act that permeates our every day lives but serves virtually no purpose.
The first was when my son returned from school with a note regarding his forthcoming school trip, which contained details of the "telephone cascade" for when he would return from said trip. The purpose of the cascade is that the teacher on the coach calls the two numbers at the top, tells them that the coach will be back in 30 minutes, then the people called call the next two on the list, etc until everyone is informed, and each person only has to make a couple of calls. In practice a very sensible thing (and in the days before the DPA, totally legal). However, the problem is that the phone number (including in many cases the mobile phone number) of every parent of every child was listed on the page. The school has distributed personal information it has collected, without the permission of the people supplying the information. Some of those numbers may well be ex-directory, and personal information may have been supplied to people who will abuse it.
Some may take the view that "It's a small community [it is a rural village], everyone knows everyone else, so what is the big deal?" and yes, common sense may say that is so. But, imagine this scenario (sadly all too common in a small village). Husband checks telephone bill and notices repeated calls to number he doesn't recognise. Husband thinks nothing of it until little Johnny hands him piece of paper from school which has number on it showing it to be mobile number of single male living 2 miles away. Husband starts to put 2 + 2 together and gets 4 (or 5 depending on whether calls were innocent or not) and "has it out" with wife... matrimonial chaos ensues.
OK, I might be over-elaborating or choosing a particularly nasty scenario, but there are plenty of petty arguments and unpleasantness in small villages where having the telephone number of an individual could be used to harass, bully or stalk someone. My point is the school should not have given out numbers without permission.
The other DPA waste of time is when Financial Services institutions call you to sell you a product and begin by saying "For Data protection reasons, can I take you through security?". Well hang on just one minute...YOU CALLED ME. Therefore, I have no idea who you are, so NO, I'm not going to give you my name, address, date of birth, password, inside leg measurement or anything else, because I don't know who the hell you are. Click - brrrrrrrrrrr. As we all become more and more obsessed by data theft banks are really going to have to find a better way of establishing who we are.
There are so many things I hate about the DPA I could spend all day writing this - especially the power it gives small minded process-driven data services people to stop creative marketers from doing their job properly - but enough for now. We'll save that to another day.
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Beware the off-target market
Plenty has been said about the morality or otherwise of the Brand and Ross phone messages saga, but what I have found most interesting as a marketer is how the "off-target" market has effectively determined the outcome.
It has been well recorded that the broadcast itself resulted in only 2 complaints. The media feeding frenzy, the Mail campaign and the BBC's own ability to indulge in self-flagellation resulted in a further 30,000 complaints after the event.
If this was ever a case of the non-buyers dictating to the buyers what they should have, then this is it. I doubt there are many Mail on Sunday readers who regularly download the incredibly popular Russell Brand podcast (or listen to his show live for that matter), but they have effectively censored the BBC's output for those who did.
If the BBC had been a bit more web-savvy they could have surveyed all those who downloaded the podcast before the furore broke, and elicited their opinion. I suspect the customers for Russell Brand would not have been quite so up in arms.
It reminds me of a time when working for a major UK electricals retailer (you'll need to visit my site www.johnwallace.org.uk to find out which one) I had spent a considerable amount of time, money and research effort on developing a new brand for the business. When it went to a certain very senior board member for approval I was told my various proposals had been rejected on account of the fact that his wife did not like the colours. Perhaps I was unaware of the fact that his wife was a regular PC buyer and user of PC support services and therefore in my target market... and then again perhaps she was not.
Marketers should be champions of their customers desires and not the prejudices or predilections of those outside the target market.
It has been well recorded that the broadcast itself resulted in only 2 complaints. The media feeding frenzy, the Mail campaign and the BBC's own ability to indulge in self-flagellation resulted in a further 30,000 complaints after the event.
If this was ever a case of the non-buyers dictating to the buyers what they should have, then this is it. I doubt there are many Mail on Sunday readers who regularly download the incredibly popular Russell Brand podcast (or listen to his show live for that matter), but they have effectively censored the BBC's output for those who did.
If the BBC had been a bit more web-savvy they could have surveyed all those who downloaded the podcast before the furore broke, and elicited their opinion. I suspect the customers for Russell Brand would not have been quite so up in arms.
It reminds me of a time when working for a major UK electricals retailer (you'll need to visit my site www.johnwallace.org.uk to find out which one) I had spent a considerable amount of time, money and research effort on developing a new brand for the business. When it went to a certain very senior board member for approval I was told my various proposals had been rejected on account of the fact that his wife did not like the colours. Perhaps I was unaware of the fact that his wife was a regular PC buyer and user of PC support services and therefore in my target market... and then again perhaps she was not.
Marketers should be champions of their customers desires and not the prejudices or predilections of those outside the target market.
Monday, 6 October 2008
In praise of the NHS
We all hear these terrible stories about people being left for hours on trolleys in hospital corridors, or catching killer superbugs from unhygienic wards, but I have to say my recent experience of our favourite state pensionser, the NHS, has been nothing but fantastic.
My youngest child was "rushed to hospital" (does anyone ever stroll there?) on Wednesday. Without going into personal details which might embarrass youngest sprogg, he had to be put on heavy-duty antibiotics for a few days.
He was given his own room (probably because he looked highly contageous), complete with TV, GameCube, phone, DVD player...in fact more modern creature comforts than he has in his own bedroom. The ward also had a fold-up bed for parents to sleep on.
The nurses were attentive, friendly, professional and helpful.
The doctors were in control of the situation and sorted my boy out.
All in all it was a really great experience (as far as having your child in hosiptal can be great!). So here's to all at the Horton in Banbury. Thanks for everything.
My youngest child was "rushed to hospital" (does anyone ever stroll there?) on Wednesday. Without going into personal details which might embarrass youngest sprogg, he had to be put on heavy-duty antibiotics for a few days.
He was given his own room (probably because he looked highly contageous), complete with TV, GameCube, phone, DVD player...in fact more modern creature comforts than he has in his own bedroom. The ward also had a fold-up bed for parents to sleep on.
The nurses were attentive, friendly, professional and helpful.
The doctors were in control of the situation and sorted my boy out.
All in all it was a really great experience (as far as having your child in hosiptal can be great!). So here's to all at the Horton in Banbury. Thanks for everything.
Thursday, 25 September 2008
I'm luvin' it, again
So yesterday I was loving Google for finding my long-lost blog. Today I'm loving them for putting me at the top of their natural search rankings for a number of terms such as interim marketing solutions and interim marketing in Oxford. Given that my pathetically diddly site has a miserable three pages of which only one is properly editable, I'm pretty chuffed to be on page 1 for anything other that Oxford Events Marketing.
I'm also loving the little add this button (see http://www.addthis.com/) on the future of social media conference registration page http://www.futureofsocialmedia.co.uk/register. Why, because it is the best list of all those social networking sites etc that I've ever seen in one place... I want it on my site...and I want it NOWWWWWW!!!!!
I'm also loving the little add this button (see http://www.addthis.com/) on the future of social media conference registration page http://www.futureofsocialmedia.co.uk/register. Why, because it is the best list of all those social networking sites etc that I've ever seen in one place... I want it on my site...and I want it NOWWWWWW!!!!!
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Why I love Google
Ok, people either love Google or hate it. Right now I'm sitting here feeling BIG LUV for our friends at googleplex HQ. The lovely free Analytics tool allowed me to seriously impress (yes, it's a split infinitive but I'm feeling all warm and glowing towards our cousins across the pond, so am happy to adopt their lax grammar just for the moment) my current paymasters at LexisNexis (http://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/) with some impressive stats comparing their old and frankly embarrassing site with the new site I've just built for them (http://www.conferencesandtraining.com/). The seven-fold increase in traffic over the first two weeks has got to be worth shouting about. Built using EpiServer CMS (http://www.episerver.com/) and by those nice people at Foresite (http://www.fsite.com/) it is all working pretty damn well. Yes there are one or two bugs to sort out, but this site - though it looks simple - is very complicated with lots of content being delivered automatically from a backend legacy database.
All those nice graphs and figures from Google are showing that the site is seriously kicking the butt of the old one...
...but this is not why Im really in lurve with Google this week... No, it's because when I created my Analytics account for my own personal site http://www.johnwallace.org.uk/ the account remembered I had this blog going...which I'd completely forgotten about - and even signed me in. I'm impressed, and will as a result be returning more frequently.
Byeeee
All those nice graphs and figures from Google are showing that the site is seriously kicking the butt of the old one...
...but this is not why Im really in lurve with Google this week... No, it's because when I created my Analytics account for my own personal site http://www.johnwallace.org.uk/ the account remembered I had this blog going...which I'd completely forgotten about - and even signed me in. I'm impressed, and will as a result be returning more frequently.
Byeeee
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