Ewan MacLeod
Editor of Mobile Industry Review, The Pursuit of Quality and a Global Mobile Warrior.
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Tweets
- Liking the look of CapsuleCam -- offers effortless shared photo albums. Installing at the mo... http://t.co/f2YZd9A6
- @tref let me know what you think from a dispassionate point of view of you can. Just done a podcast on it. Post up later on.
- @tref aye. It's a horrific article but there's a key mobile angle: monitoring your child's location. Parents drove around hunting 4 daughter
- FindMyiPhone --> THE parents of a 13-year-old girl had to listen in horror as she was raped by a teen ‘sexual predator’ http://t.co/S2ZBmi8R
- "Location tracking for families" is on @spreaker, tune in now! http://t.co/pCF5xJV3
- RT @edent: Had a crap day at work? Come do funky HTML5 creative stuff with us @inmobi http://t.co/0A5X5m7y… #job
- RIM's Alec Saunders: "If we fill App World with garbage, then we've done ourselves and our users a disservice" http://t.co/K6iTu7fJ
- Not sure I like the idea of an auto-tweet coupon strategy --> At Walgreens, a Mobile Check-in Acts Like a Circular http://t.co/XQkPydau
- Happy Thursday everyone!Feb 09, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- I'm not sure how I feel about 'baby onboard' badges worn on lapels. Thoughts?
- @jmacdonald it's a rather Western focused post, aye
- Remember my predictions about the death of Android? ;-) Heh --> 7 signs that Android is faltering as iOS strengthens http://t.co/YtyfpkP5
- Been saying this for a while: "What’s becoming increasingly clear is that Apple has a success problem on its hands" http://t.co/2Q0MbP52
- Particularly liking the 'pick me up' option --> JetBlue debuts iPhone app as big travel gets social, mobile savvy http://t.co/sLxabq5A
- @patrickjpr still deciding about that!
- @kevwright I don't know, it'll be a lot of work!
- @benroome are you swamped with MWC stuff now?
- Hello to all the o2 employees working from home in today’s flexible working pilot -- details: http://t.co/uipEFrmj
- Are the Canadian networks about to get shot by Apple for leaking? --> Apple iTV detailed: It’s like a 42-inch iPad http://t.co/Eszod4kf
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Info
- Mobile & Innovations; Editor of Mobile Industry ReviewTelecommunications | Slough, United Kingdom, GBSummaryMOBILE:
I'm founder and editor of Mobile Industry Review (MIR) and Mobile Developer TV (MDTV). I'm steeped in the mobile industry -- very well connected -- and very well read. MIR & MDTV feeds are integrated into the intranets of some of the largest players in the space.
DEVELOPER:
I'm really good at web development -- and I'm particularly good at listening to a problem or issue and creating a web portal (for example) to provide a fix. I typically work with PHP and MySQL on top of a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). I'm completely fluent in XHTML, CSS and their related technologies and applications.
VIDEO:
I regularly produce video for Mobile Developer TV and other companies as required. For example I recently created a video for Samsung Mobile demonstrating the features of one of their handsets.
ENTREPRENEUR:
I've participated in -- or, in some cases, founded -- quite a few companies, mostly in the internet space. A good example is Eventscope -- www.eventscope.co.uk -- which provides online networking for the conferences and events industry.Specialties: blogging, content creation, media creation, video, programming, php,Experience- Apr 2009 - PresentFounder / Mobile Developer TVProfiling the movers and shakers across the mobile applications development industry. I thoroughly enjoy capturing smart people and innovative services on camera.
- Jan 2006 - PresentFounder & Editor / Mobile Industry ReviewNews and perspective for 250,000 mobile industry executives. I'm the Editor -- or in effect, 'chief blogger' because although the site does occasionally feature content from others, I'm the prime author, particularly of the opinion pieces.
- Sept 2005 - PresentCo-Founder / EventscopeProvides Eventscope Online Networking services to conference and event companies.
- Apr 2008 - Mar 2009Innovation Consultant / First Data CorporationResponsible for providing and promoting technology innovation, rapid application development and mobile technology services to the business.
- Apr 2006 - Dec 2008Co-Founder / Interactive EnergyProvision of the online community, interactivity and blogging services.
- Jan 2006 - Sept 2008Editor & Co-Founder / SMS Text NewsFounder and chief blogger of SMS Text News (www.smstextnews.com) covering the mobile industry, 180,000+ readers a month
- Jan 1998 - Jun 2007CEO / Neo OneAt one time, the UK's leading provider of moderation and content control services, working with Teletext, Flextech, BSkyB and Disney.
- Jan 1999 - Sept 2003Co-Founder & CTO / Liv4now.comVenture funded daily entertainment online community and magazine aimed at the UK's 18-25s.
Education-
1996 - 1999University College LondonBSc in Information Management
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1989 - 1996Mayflower County High School
Additional Information-
Websites:
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Interests:mobile, technology, gadgets, connectivity, cinema,
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Photos
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Poppy
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My General Location
- Ascot, Windsor and Maidenhead SL5, UK
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Posts
- Feb 09, 12
Kudos to the team at o2 who’re having a bit of fun and spreading the lurrve this Valentine’s Day through a series of personalised video messages from ‘Cupid’. There’s a hot Cupid (look out, ladies) and there’s a panto-dame-style Cupid — have a watch of his introduction and explanation:
It looks like the Cupid service has been up and live since yesterday and already the team has produced an impressive 135 personalised videos. I wonder just how many they’ll get through by the 14th of February? 500 videos? 800? Either way, it’s a brilliant marrying of social media and marketing.
Of course this is similar to what we saw with the Old Spice campaign a little while ago — I don’t think that matters at all though. It’s all about the immediacy and the personalisation. Bring it on.
If you’d like to get one of the Cupids to send out a personalised message of lurrrve, it’s really easy. You just need to tweet with the hashtag. All the details are right here.
Here’s a note of explanation from the o2 team:
Alex Pearmain, Head of O2’s social media love messengers, said:
“You could say it with chocolates, you could say it with flowers. But we thought that if you’re a social media fan then sending a romantic Valentine’s from the messenger of love himself might be a little more original! We hope the O2 Cupids will bring some couples together come February 14th.”
Heh. Love it!
Here’s the o2 Cupid Youtube channel.
- Feb 08, 12
At MEF Americas in Miami I spoke to Marco Argenti, SVP Developer Experience & Marketplace at Nokia, talking about the firm’s focus on and support for developers. We talked through the benefits of Windows Phone 7 (including ‘Live Tiles’), how Nokia helps developers address a broad (and crucially, global) market and how – and this is were Marco became most animated – Nokia’s focus was now on making apps a business for developers… This, he felt, was a key area of differentiation for the firm.
Read more about Nokia’s developer support at http://www.developer.nokia.com/
We recorded four interviews, the highlights of which are below:
Nokia supports developers in ‘being in the business of apps’
Live Tiles offer a direct channel to consumers without opening an app
Nokia’s breadth of devices enable developers to address a wider market
Nokia store offers the biggest opportunity for local developers to monetize apps
- Feb 08, 12
I’ve delighted to bring you this contribution from Theresa Wabler, Marketing Director at incentive solutions firm, Parago. Theresa explores a phenomenon that I’ve been watching closely — that is, discounting for the sake of it. Or, discounting where there’s no specific reason to do so. A perfect example is the oft quoted mobile marketing nirvana situation — “A user walks by a coffee shop and gets an alert on their phone to receive a discount on coffee”. It’s all very nice in concept, but the financial reality of doing this needs to be examined. Over to Theresa:
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We are in an unprecedented era for discounting and promotions. The marketing tactics, designed to lift sales of a variety of consumer electronics products, may actually erode margins if hastily designed. The lagging economy, consumer demand for deals and the rapidly accelerating promotional technology of online and mobile has led to a perfect storm that mobile retailers and manufacturers must be aware of. Enticing and dynamic promotions are now necessary to get customers in the door, but be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water.
How we got here:
1) The Groupon phenomena has taken deal finding to a new audience – 18-35 year old, affluent households. Groupon and its competitors have so vastly changed the consumer psyche with respect to fair market value the trend is shifting – now consumers think paying full price means they are getting ripped off.
2) Extreme couponing has become popular enough to support a prime time television show. This represents another little nudge to the consumer psyche; paying full price means you are being taken advantage of.
3) The economy still struggles. The Great Recession has encompassed a wide swath of middle income consumers that need to price shop now even if they never had to in the past.
4) Technology has not slowed down. This, paired with the mounting consumer demand for deals, means that promotions can spread faster than ever before thanks to couponing websites, mobile shopping applications, daily deal blogs, social network promotions and more.
Mobile retailers and manufacturers have delivered on consumers’ voracious deal-seeking demands that have grown out of the struggling economic situation. But as more shoppers take advantage of deals, margins of the sponsoring businesses are getting taxed. Moving forward, smart mobile marketers need to begin asking for more from their customers in return for these deep discounts. The good news is that a well designed promotion will not only work for the retailer or manufacturer, but offer appealing benefits to the consumer as well.
In 2012 mobile marketers must use promotions as the catalysts for long-term engagement and ROI, versus just temporary sales lift tactics. Deep discounts will migrate from instant deals to redemption-based models like rebates or cash-back promotions, and will require consumers to engage with a brand for a period of time.
The consumer redemption requirements to get a deep discount could be as simple as a Facebook “Like” or an email opt-in, or more detailed like participating in shopping preference surveys. This will give marketers the opportunity to collect critical consumer data, and provide new touch points for ongoing interaction. Plus, consumers hungry for deals seem willing to go that extra step: according to 2011 Parago research, more than 70% of consumers are willing to opt-in for additional emails when redeeming a reward.
Over the last few years this has worked well on Twitter and Facebook, where brands require customers to engage online to receive exclusive discounts. Research from Empathica shows that six in ten consumers follow at least one brand via a social network and forty percent do so to search for deals.
Next year this linking of promotions to information gathering will need to expand more concertedly beyond social networks and become a strategy for mobile retailers and manufacturers to reach all deal finders, on and offline.
Theresa Wabler is director of marketing at Parago, a provider of rewards-based incentive solutions. She can be reached at Theresa.Wabler@parago.com.
- Feb 08, 12
A quarter of o2′s 12,000 employees are working from home today. The company has shut the doors at their Slough HQ for this day only, in support of what they’re terming as the country’s biggest ever flexible working pilot. It certainly sounds like it to me.
The point of the exercise is to test the company’s ability to handle the disruption likely to be caused by this year’s Olympics, especially given the Olympic rowing venue is just down the road from the Slough HQ).
I really, really like the concept of this. It’s a bold step by o2 on a number of different levels and comes after the company recently introduced it’s Joined Up People offering for enterprises.
Here’s the full release:
O2 today has announced the launch of the biggest flexible working initiative of its kind. Today, employees based at O2’s Slough HQ – a quarter of its 12,000-strong workforce – will participate in a flexible working pilot, operating remotely for the day as the doors are shut and lights turned off at the business’ 200,000 sq ft office
The pilot aims to push the boundaries of what is possible through flexible working and will underpin O2’s contingency plans to manage expected travel disruption and delays during the summer’s Olympics games. Meticulous planning has been needed ensuring that 3,000 employees have access to the necessary technology tools, services and support to enable them to work completely remotely, for the entire day. With one third of the UK’s businesses expected to encourage their staff to work flexibly this summer, O2 will share learnings from the pilot with other organisations, to support them in their plans for managing the impact of a range of events during the summer months.
O2 believe the initiative sends a clear signal to O2’s employees, business customers of every size and other UK organisations on the advantages of working flexibly. Earlier this year, O2 launched a new service, Joined Up People, part of its Joined Up Business vision. The service is designed to prepare and equip businesses to maximise the use of ICT and provides businesses with the flexible infrastructure needed to support applications, content and services that their employees need to complete their job wherever they are.
O2 Business Director, Ben Dowd, commented: “We believe a cultural step-change is underway affecting staff and businesses, as work increasingly becomes something we do, rather than a place that we go. Today’s office-wide flexible working initiative is an opportunity for us to take the next step on our flexible working journey and tangibly demonstrate the opportunity and potential available to British businesses today. We practice what we preach, and by asking O2 employees to work together as a team to test the company’s flexible working practices for themselves, we want to show that there are no limits – no matter how big or small your business is. By sharing experiences from across our business, from business divisions to operations, we hope to encourage more organisations to help their workforce become mobile. ”
It is hoped that the pilot will also showcase the wider economic business case for flexible working in helping to drive efficiency, productivity and innovation. O2 has previously saved over £3 million in overheads through such measures. O2 will evaluate reductions to electricity usage, CO2 emissions and travel time as employees swap their usual journey to work in favour of working from a remote location. These learnings will be applied in line with the company’s ambitious three year sustainability plan, in which O2 pledges to help over 125,000 business employees work flexibly, and collectively save over 500,000 miles of travel and over 160,000 thousand tonnes of carbon emissions.
The initiative marks the latest phase in O2’s flexible working journey, following in the footsteps of previous efforts. These include O2’s Tomorrow’s Workspace initiative, which saw the business consolidate its operations into a single campus in Slough. By enabling the workforce to be more mobile, O2 achieved a 53 per cent reduction in its carbon footprint and despite having the same number of people HQ is now operating with 550 fewer desks.
Flexible working has become an increasingly important aspect of British business culture, with a growing number of organisations and employees adopting a more flexible approach to working life as new technologies make it increasingly easy to conduct business from beyond the confines of the office. But figures from O2 suggest businesses’ policies and practices are typically narrow in their focus.
While more than a third (39 per cent) of businesses say that allowing staff to work flexible hours makes their workforce more productive, and 43 per cent believe that it helps to retain employees, existing policies are often outdated and ineffective. 77 per cent of organisations are hindering the sharing of best practice by preventing staff from working flexibly across teams, while 16 per cent still have no flexible working policy at all.
About Joined Up People: O2 has converted it’s understanding of businesses’ needs and objectives into mobile solutions tailored to help organisations address the challenges they face as employees’ work and personal lives become blurred.
Its Joined Up People service helps organisations with widely varying flexible working practices on a journey towards implementing them more consistently and effectively. The service consists of consultancy, security and mobile device management (MDM) in addition to O2’s core portfolio of devices, hardware, mobile, fixed line and broadband. It is supported by technical professional services and end user adoption training to help organisations.Bring it on, o2! It’s going to be fascinating what results you report. I look forward to reading.
And here’s a video from the company outlining what’s going on:
- Feb 07, 12
Have a quick read and see what you think — it looks like someone working at these Canadian networks has been very, very leaky:
In a rather unexpected twist, Canada’s largest newspaper and newspaper of record — The Globe and Mail — has published details of Apple’s upcoming iTV. According to the paper, Rogers and Bell — Canada’s two largest telcos — are already testing the Apple iTV in their labs.
via Apple iTV detailed: It’s like a 42-inch iPad | ExtremeTech.
I’ll have two, by the way. Or maybe three.
- Feb 06, 12
Mobile World Congress isn’t far away now.
The noise has already begun — at least when I’m looking at the avalanche of emails arriving about the planet’s biggest mobile event.
Back in January I wrote about some of the rather cool sponsorship packages we’ve got ready-and-waiting to help boost attention during this period. We’ll be unveiling the sponsors shortly. However I wanted to point out that it’s not too late if you’re looking for a way ahead.
I know from direct experience that one of the biggest problems with MWC is trying to get the ‘buzz’ factor locked down. That can be really difficult in today’s environment when the attention naturally falls on only the biggest brands.
The worst situation for many companies is the week after MWC — or worse, the board-meeting after MWC, when the rest of the company asks you what you achieved for all the money and resource you invested. Sadly, the stark reality is that beyond collecting a lot of business cards and attending some smart parties, it can be difficult to demonstrably ‘break through’ the noise. And this year’s MWC promises to be absolutely filled to the rafters with noise given the status of the mobile industry at the moment.
That’s where we come in.
We’ve got some sponsorship packages ranging from £5.5k to £25k. A video series, a text content series, a mix of both. We’ve designed each package to help significantly contribute to that buzz factor for the duration of MWC. Sponsor a series with us here at MWC and you’ll get our support alongside our usual MWC coverage. If the Wall Street Journal does in fact pick up your announcement — then that will be fantastic. But just in case the only thing you’re guaranteed is some cut-n-pasting on those press release sites, we can be there to make sure that you’ve got a nice chunk of buzz from sponsoring a series here on MIR.
You’ll also receive a warm note of thanks from us and the readers — any revenues we make in sponsorship help augment the site’s on-going running costs (and our legendary Unlimited Drinks events).
I’ve put everything in a PDF file together with a site overview, stats and the like. Shoot me a note (ewan@mobileindustryreview.com) and I’ll send it to you by return — and if any of the packages look interesting, let’s discuss some more.
There’s still plenty of time. And what’s more, we’ve configured the packages so that they can be fire-and-forget — i.e. it’d only require the minimum of time from your point of view. Indeed we can get a sponsorship package up and running with just a 30 minute briefing chat.
(And if you’re a PR, I know that sponsorship doesn’t necessarily qualify as true ‘public relations’ but if you think your clients might have an interest or if you reckon one of our packages might be nice to run alongside your planned campaign, please do also drop me a note.)
Meanwhile: Bring on MWC!
- Feb 06, 12
I’ve had a note in from James Whatley about an upcoming MWC drinks event — with a bit of a difference!
Read on for more details:
Dan and James are doing it again:
Are you having trouble making it to MWC? Have you decided to say ‘BALLS!’ to Barcelona?
Do you have a slight obsession with all things cellular?
THEN JOIN US FOR BEERS AND GENERAL MOBILE MERRIMENT ON THURSDAY MARCH 1st 2012
We’ve got the upstairs at the All Bar One on New Oxford Street booked, but if we over do it we can just flood the ENTIRE PUB with mobile folk and have a jolly good time.
Spread the word – #NotatMWC
The Facebook event page is right here.
- Feb 06, 12
Ed Hodges is a man on a mission for Royal Bank of Scotland. He’s the bank’s Head of Mobile for Business & Commercial and he’s hunting for two permanent staff to join him. He dropped me a note to see if I knew anyone appropriate. I’ve a few ideas — indeed, I think there will be a few prospective parties reading this post.
Here’s what he’s looking for:
Role 1:
The Product Owner is responsible for to driving the lifecycle of the growing number of apps we have from inception to live. The person will be managing multiple third-parties in an agile environment to deliver apps across multiple platforms on time.
Role 2:
I also need a Mobile Business Banking app strategist. This person will help us understand our competitive environment, analyse in depth the growing mobile payment ecosystem offering insight and suggestions on RBS’s mobile roadmap.
What do you think? Are any of them up your street? Or perhaps relevant to a friend or colleague?
Both positions are permanent at a mid-senior level and offer the right person the hugely exciting opportunity to help define the future of the burgeoning mobile banking industry.
If you’re interested in talking with Ed and getting some more information, he’s asked that you email me directly and then I’ll forward your note on or simply give you his email. (I didn’t want to publish it here though.)
My email is ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.
Please do pass this around to anyone you think might want to know.
- Feb 06, 12
You’ve no doubt been hearing all about the Best Buy mobile innovators video series of advertisements they ran during last night’s Super Bowl. I’ve put them all here in one place for you to watch, just in case you were hunting for them.
Super work Best Buy!
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Square Mobile:
The camera phone:
Video sharing:
The first text message:
Text to speech:
Shazam:
Instagram:
- Feb 06, 12
Whilst much of the discussion at MEF Americas 2011 concerned mobile apps and the usual challenges for developers of addressing multiple platforms, there was an interesting panel session which reminded me that SMS is completely cross platform and available to all ‘out of the box’. As obvious as this sounds, I’d missed the implication which John Orlando of Sixth Sense Media outlines in this video – that the long-term future for SMS (as person to person messaging moves to social networks) is ‘application to person’ messaging.
John’s focus is primarily marketing, but the point stands in a wider context too. I’ve written about this and cited some examples of effective ‘application to me’ SMS use over the last month in a post at Tribal Labs: SMS: The ultimate cross-platform mobile app.
- Feb 03, 12
Whilst at MEF Americas 2011 I was amazed to hear the statistic that around 60 million US citizens are ‘unbanked’… that is ‘without a bank account’. I was aware that many in developing economies chose not to or were unable to access banking services, but author Gary Schwartz explained it was also a widespread – and under reported – issue in the US.
Some – a minority he suggested – choose to avoid the banking system for political reasons but for the remainder the inability to perform cash-less transactions was a source of misery as payments required them to visit service providers or to pay higher charges (such as for utility bills). Gary explained that increasingly mobile devices were being seen as a way to store value and a potential way for even those without bank accounts to perform electronic transactions.
In the video Gary summarises the panel discussion and highlights some broader changes mobile is having on the way consumers interact and buy with mobile. SMS and mobile web – he argues – should be the ‘dominant’ channels because they are so widely used (and loved) by consumers.
- Feb 01, 12
Wireless Worker is at MEF Americas 2011 and will be covering the 2 day industry event which covers North & Latin America’s mobile content and commerce ecosystems live from Miami.
- Neil Stiles, president of Variety Group says “You can’t charge more for content just by delivering it to an iPhone” (audio) and Beware the risk of “exchanging analogue dollars for digital dimes” (video summary).
All videos from the event are also available on a YouTube playlist.- Creating Hyper Local App Economies by Marco Argenti, SVP, Developer & Marketplace, Nokia
- Enabling Desire: Content and Its Link to Commerce by Tom Daly, The Coca-Cola Company
- Panel: Mobile Routes to Market – Planning Your Long-term Strategy
- Panel: Opportunities & Complexities of the Evolving Apps Ecosystem
- Panel:Catalysts for Maximising Consumer Engagement on Connected Devices
- Panel: Towards a Connected Future: Building Your Content Strategy in a Multi-Screen World
- Keynote: m-Commerce and Alternative Financial Services to the Underbanked – Big Need, Big Opportunity and Ready Now
- Q&A Session: What is the Wireless Carrier’s New Role?
- Panel: Moving Plastic into the Cloud: Prepaid, Affinity and Wallets
- Panel: Competing Payment Models & How to Choose the Right One
- Panel: Privacy Issues and the Imperative for Maintaining Consumer Trust
- Panel: Growing the Latam Market – Opportunities & Challenges
- Research Presentation: Mobile Shopping & Commerce: Understanding Barriers to Further Adoption of Mobile Usage
- Panel: The Path to Purchase – How Brands and Retailers Can Influence Shopping Behaviour
- Jan 31, 12
Dixons? The retail chain store in the UK?
The dated, dusty and generally dreadful technology store?
Oh dear.
Let’s be clear, Dixons Travel is pretty excellent. I’ve bought quite a lot from them over the years — indeed I even picked up a £1,400 laptop once on a semi-whim. Dixons Travel shops at Heathrow tend to be brightly lit, modern and staffed by (generally) keen folk, ready to help.
Almost the polar opposite, then, to the dive that is Dixons Bracknell, nearby my place in Ascot. It’s a shocking place, stuffed to the brim of old, over-priced technology that’s hardly helping anyone. As for customer service? It’s rare, very rare, to find a Dixons chappy who’s happy to help beyond demanding you ‘enter your PIN’ and querying if you ‘want the receipt in the bag’.
PC World is another flipping tragedy. If John Browett is seriously meant to be the guy who masterminded their development, I’m sorry to say, they’re about a trillion miles away from the quality environment of an Apple Store.
That, I should point out, hasn’t stopped me buying — begrudgingly — from PC World on occasion, especially since it’s rather useful to walk-away with something there-and-then.
Perhaps John was the
loanlone voice at Dixons/PC World? Perhaps he was the chap kicking and screaming and trying to get the dead-end retailer to do something, anything, that might make customers smile? Maybe he focused his attention on the Travel shops first?Either way, the benefit of the doubt is most certainly necessary. It’s a phenomenal role for John and I wish the chap every success. He’ll be inheriting probably one of the most fascinating physical sales environments on the planet.
Here’s how GigaOM reacted to the news:
Tim Cook has made his first major appointment since taking the reins at Apple, bringing in the head of British technology retailer Dixons, John Browett. He comes in to fill the gap left by the departure of Ron Johnson, the man who spent a decade building the Apple Store into a force to be reckoned with.
via Who is Apple’s new retail boss, and what will he do? — Tech News and Analysis.
- Jan 31, 12
It’s simply fascinating to watch just how the iPad has been embraced by all sorts of seemingly unlikely industries. Fast Company reports below on the use of tablet technology to help support and manage rural agriculture. Yet another +1 for the iPad, eh?
The iPad is a luxury toy. It’s also a powerful, adaptable tool. That much has become obvious over the past two years as the device has made its way into classrooms, cockpits, and hospitals.
The iPad’s fairly steep price, however, has kept it firmly entrenched in the developed world. That’s starting to change, as evidenced by efforts from Exprima Media and coffee importer Sustainable Harvest to bring the iPad to coffee co-ops and farmers in East Africa, Mexico, and South America.
via Can The iPad Revolutionize Rural Agriculture? | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation.
- Jan 31, 12
I got together with Ben Smith and Rafe Blandford recently to discuss this multibillion-dollar question on episode 9 of the 361 Degrees podcast: Is Apple the next Nokia?
Now, all the iFans go absolutely nuts, there’s method in this apparent madness, especially given Apple has just completed yet another ridiculously amazing quarter.
If you recall, Nokia was swimming along knocking out millions of handsets a day before it reached what we might politely describe as a market-required-correction. Things got so bad in February last year that the company found itself in a seriously precarious ‘burning platform’ position. It’s of platforms we wanted to talk, though.
In this week’s episode we discuss the ‘technology cycle’ and how the need to refresh a mobile platform every 5 years – something that is currently causing Nokia and RIM so much pain – will eventually come to Apple.
How will Apple handle that?
How will they navigate the treacherous waters? The mobile industry is moving faster and faster — and although Apple is easily knocking back billions in revenue at the moment, it’s conceivable that it could come unstuck rather fast.
We do think Apple is one of the few firms with the vision and experience to navigate this tricky process successfully. That didn’t stop us wargaming a host of scenarios though.
Have a listen and tell me what you think:
[ Direct MP3 download - 34MB ]
There are lots of ways to follow or subscribe to the Podcast using iTunes and other popular services.
- Jan 31, 12This is my iPad running the free Citrix Receiver application, which in turn is connected into my demo account on the CyberlinkASP / Rackspace DaaS service. I’ve been trying it out over the past few days and I have to say, the concept of DaaS (“Desktop as a Service”) really does appeal. The ability to ‘get’ to your desktop immediately, from anywhere, from any device, would seriously increase my productivity. All too often, the native applications on, say, the iPad, iPhone or BlackBerry just aren’t-quite-good-enough to get many jobs done quickly.
Of course, Citrix is nothing new — it’s been around for a long time — what’s new, here, is that this demo desktop is running out a data centre in the Docklands area of London, which means it’s ridiculously fast and ridiculously responsive. Plus the desktop is running on a dedicated blade server that just SCREAMS through the standard desktop applications. Word, Excel, and so on, they all start up in what feels like a few miliseconds. I particularly like the ability to return to my virtual desktop and find it sitting there precisely as I left it. I like the fact it’s online all the time!
I’m hopeful that we’ll see more and more companies begin to adopt this kind of facility for their end-users. I don’t think it will be long before many companies start moving the whole issue of ‘desktop’ into the cloud and simply pay for it like they do any other commodity service.
Are there any readers already using this kind of service in a live environment?
Posted via email from MIR Live
- Jan 30, 12
Neil Stiles – president of the Variety Group, the leading entertainment industry news organisation - knows ‘content’… he both sells news and produces the definitive coverage of the film, music and TV industries.
Speaking to me at MEF Americas 2011 in Miami his take on delivering to mobile devices is blunt:
It’s a really nice idea to think that if you do something on an iPhone with current content you can have an up-charge. The publishing and music businesses went through that ‘brain-fart’ as well and it doesn’t work. Your core business declines at such as rate the news business doesn’t make up for it.
He’s sure there are ways to add new life to – for example – television content on a mobile device, but it’s adding links to purchasing items on-screen (in a TV show for example) that he sees as a more exciting opportunity than charging extra for the show to be made ‘mobile’. Small ‘toe in the water’ experiements won’t cut it he argues… media companies need to be bold, recognise the trends and have confidence in the value of quality content.
Hear the full interview in this supplementary 361 Degrees episode:
[ Direct MP3 download (8MB) / Subscribe by iTunes, Zune or RSS ]
Image credit: Variety.com
- Jan 30, 12
Our good friend Ben Smith over at Wireless Worker was lucky enough to find himself in Miami in December last month for MEF Americas 2011. He filmed interviews with lots of different senior executives from the likes of Coca Cola, Visa and OnStar. We’ll be publishing them here shortly across a number of days so standby!
- Jan 30, 12
A bit of news in from RIM this afternoon that’s sure to a) keep the RIM UK team smiling and b) require a bit of a reset from the hordes declaring RIM-is-dead when it clearly isn’t:
The latest results from data firm GfK show that BlackBerry® was the #1 selling smartphone in the British market for the second year running. It continues to dominate the market, grabbing 26.3% of December sales and averaging 27.7% through 2011.
The BlackBerry® global subscriber base grew 35% year on year in December to 75 million. The UK customer base is going from strength to strength with over eight and a half million active subscribers by the end of 2011.
This is good news for RIM. They surely need it.
I’m going to be posting more about them as I’m due an updated opinion post given the shenanigans over the last few weeks. The short version: RIM is down but most definitely not out. Depending on how the company responds to the new chap, I think RIM could come back very strong.
- Jan 30, 12
An iPad: It’s the gift that keeps on giving! That’s the perspective that Apple has adopted with their most recent newsletter mailing. It echoes the message that Amazon has been advertising recently (see my post from last week) and it’s a compelling story. For anyone who can afford to spend £399 on an iPad on a whim — or a throw-away event such as Valentine’s Day — I think this is acutely good marketing.
If you’re budget is £20 then perhaps some nice flowers might suffice. But if you’re looking to shock-and-awe your other half (or, if you’re like me and looking for any excuse to buy cool technology), then this marketing messaging could well pay dividends. Apple has kept things neutral — however Amazon adopted a rather brazen approach, assuming that anyone reading would be male. Or, at least, specifically targeting males (e.g. “Buy her a Kindle.”)
I reckon a lot of women would be seriously impressed by the arrival of an iPad on 14th of February, as apposed to some beautiful flowers. And if goes both ways. If you’re looking for something to buy for your chap, surely you can’t ever fail buying an iPad or a Kindle Fire for them?
However spare a thought for the poor florists who are less than impressed with this marketing. Valentine’s Day used to be exclusively about (crazily expensive) flowers and (crazily expensive) paper cards. Now, as far as Apple and Amazon are concerned, it’s about (crazily expensive) consumer electronics.
My view: If in doubt, buy her an iPad. If she’s got an Android phone, buy her a Kindle Fire. Job done.
- Jan 30, 12
For a long time I’ve been banging on about mobile operators simply not ‘getting it’. One of the key points I’ve been keen to assert is that dicking about charging me stupid little pennies (or, actually, huge lumps of pennies) for calls, texts and so on, was a total waste of time and resources.
In today’s environment, what you really want is the customer’s money, every month, like clockwork. You can make a lot more cash out of the customer in other ways, for example up-selling smart services or taking a cut of other transactions. Of course, when you’re entire operation is obsessing over how to take an extra twenty pence from me for a particular phone call, they’re not bothering focusing on taking tens of pounds in revenue from other activities.
All operators know this. They know they’re spunking their efforts up against the wall, most of the time. Witness, for example, the numerous industry executives I meet regularly telling me that they’ve no flipping clue what voice revenues they’re going to make this year. Yup. What they do know is that the majority of consumers are doing their level best to stick-one-in-the-eye of the finance bods and be very, very careful about what they do with their phones, so as not to overpay.
Why not stop fighting with the consumer? Why not zero-rate everything for a fixed monthly fee on a 24-month contract? Then at least the finance bods can relax and you can then focus on creating added value services that add significantly to the revenue?
Well that’s what T-Mobile has announced this morning.
It’s called The Fully Monty — and yes, it is absolutely unlimited everything. And before I go into detail, I should point out that this is potentially hugely damaging to Three. We’ll get to that in a moment.
There are four price ‘brackets’ thus:
As you can see there, at £36/month, you’ll get 2,000 minutes to other networks and a fairly good deal on the key smartphone offerings. Beyond £36, it’s now about how much you want to pay up-front for your handset. For an extra £5, you can advance to unlimited everything. And if you jump to £61/month, the 32GB iPhone 4S is free — and it’s just £29 for the 64GB.
Now then. It’s not truly ‘unlimited everything’. No. The finance bods obviously stuck their pins into Ben Fritsch, T-Mobile’s Head of Propositions, preventing him from zero-rating calls to number ranges such as 0800, 0808, 0845 and so on. They’re still a bollock-crushing 40 pence a minute. A FLIPPING MINUTE! And if you’re calling Jersey, that stlll-doesn’t-count.
However let’s stay positive.
Finally, one of the top operators in the UK has decided to dump the “minutes”. For quite a while, unlimited texts has been a popular add-on for most price plans, but usually you’ve had to pick and choose your ‘add-ons’ to try and get, for example, unlimited landline calls, but only 200 cross-network calls. It’s made the whole price plan decision process a bit annoying for everyone for the last decade.
It’s a landmark gesture to just make it all (or, most of it) unlimited.
I think this will appeal to quite a lot of contract customers.
Let’s hear from Mr Fritsch of T-Mobile:
The Full Monty has been designed for customers who want the peace of mind that there are absolutely no limits placed on their allowances, whilst also knowing they’re getting market leading value for money. We believe our Pay Monthly portfolio offers plans to suit anyone’s needs, all at accessible prices – and we’re really proud to be the first to offer a plan like The Full Monty in the UK”.
And for those of you reading, wondering whether there’s a fair-use policy on the data? There isn’t. Here are the words direct from T-Mobile’s release:
Customers signing up to The Full Monty 24 month plan will not only have the reassurance that there are no caps on their calls, texts and internet, they will also have access to unlimited WiFi, and can use their mobile internet for whatever they like – including tethering (using a smartphone as an internet connection for a laptop or tablet), streaming and downloading.
And here, for the sake of clarity, are the little footnotes:
Minutes and texts unlimited allowance apply to all UK mobile networks, voicemail and numbers beginning with 01, 02, 03 (excluding Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man). Calls to 08 (including 0870) or 070 numbers are premium rate numbers and excluded from your inclusive allowances. Calls to 0800, 0808, 0845 and other 08 numbers cost 40p/min. See www.t-mobile.co.uk/help&support/priceplans. Picture messages are not included within the allowance.
The Full Monty plan provides access to our preferred WiFi partner’s WiFi network; presently this is BT Openzone network excluding any sites providing access to any organisation or location which is part of the Olympic Games in London in 2012. The BT Openzone terms can be found at www.btopenzone.com/terms-and-conditions/index.jsp
So, this is good news. It’s about time we had this kind of action from the big operator groups in the UK. I’m interested to see just how long Vodafone will be able to cling-on to their “minutes” obsession as a result.
But there’s a few issues to consider.
First, T-Mobile and Orange have 28 million customers in the UK. Yes, their networks are shared, but just how well can they support data? Is this likely to turn into a One2One-style free-evening-and-weekend-calls arrangement whereby yes, it’s unlimited, but you can’t actually *access* the network because of congestion? That’s going to be interesting to see.
Second, if you’re paying a metered £1 or £2 per megabyte for data on T-Mobile, you’re hardly likely to react very well to other people paying ‘nothing’ but sitting on the internet watching iPlayer from their handsets all day, “cos it’s free”, especially if your data speeds go from good to super-slow.
I suppose that by limiting the spend to £36+/month, T-Mobile will be hoping to avoid the yoof community who are likely to spend a lot of time doing this.
Third, I worry for Three.
Their whole marketing campaign and message has been about their “The One” plan which has been trampled all over by today’s announcement. There’s still some juice in Three’s offer (their plan starts at £25/month, 2,000 minutes, 5,000 texts with unlimited data). For instance, the company’s “Text 500″ plan comes with 500 minutes, 5,000 texts and 1GB of data. For £2 more on T-Mobile, you can get everything unlimited. This is a bit of an arse for Three.
I trust the rest of the UK operator community will now sit up and start dusting off the “what happens when someone else does unlimited, properly” strategy plans.
Good work T-Mobile.
Meanwhile, if Ben Fritsch and his team could see their way to introducing TMOGOLD (full details here), I’d be even more delighted.
- Jan 27, 12I like the way this advert from Amazon speaks directly to me. Valentine’s Day? Nice reminder. Gift? Yeah I need to think about that. Oh, a Kindle? Good idea! I like buying technology. That said my wife already uses the Kindle app on her iPhone. But maybe she needs a stand-alone device? It’s better than flowers…
Posted via email from MIR Live
- Jan 26, 12
Here’s a useful case study on how the city of Austin’s Convention Center team have used iPads to replace their old paper folders. It’s yet another example of the consumerisation of the information technology departments.
The city of Austin’s Convention Center waves goodbye to over-sized, overstuffed paper binders by deploying iPads and developing custom apps with FileMaker Go.
via How the Austin Convention Center saved $50,000 by deploying iPads and Filemaker Go | TabTimes.
This paragraph in the post specifically caught my attention:
In previous iterations, the organization attempted to use Windows-based tablets by Motion Computing and Samsung’s Q1 device. Both proved too cumbersome. A second attempt at mobilization using Dell’s Windows Mobile Axim Pocket PC also fell apart. “There were too many steps involved in turning on the device and using it,” Moore explained.
There’s such pent-up demand for mobilised strategies in enterprise. Since the days of the Compaq iPad (and before), organisations have been trying to implement mobile strategies, but as the chap in this piece points out, it’s always been a little bit too difficult for anyone but the most committed.
- Jan 26, 12
The pre-MWC drinks reception with Hotwire PR took place last night in London. It was absolutely fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to meet everyone and discuss MWC.
There was a simply brilliant array of vendors and brands represented, from e-commerce platforms to aggregators, digital service providers, mobile advertising, telecoms — indeed the selection of innovative mobile companies present was really encouraging.
Perhaps predictably, there was strong enthusiasm for MWC — and I must say a shout-out to James Body of Truphone for having attended 13 MWCs (and 3GSMs as they were own) so far. There were also some MWC-first-timers so I did my best to offer some useful advice.
What was clear from the discussions last night is that there’s a real mix of companies exhibiting this year — not just the usual suspects — so this certainly suggests that MWC will have quite a different look and feel this year.
Given the fact MWC has been pushed back to late February this year, I think it’s fair to say that quite a lot of people are a bit late to the game this year. Some companies I’ve spoken to recently are only JUST getting round to planning things. It’s getting late!! If you’re in need of a bit of assistance for the show, do consider talking to Hotwire. They’re task masters when it comes to MWC so if you’d like a warm intro, please let me know or give Annette Leach a call (+44 207 608 2500) and tell her I sent you.
Thank you to the Hotwire team for hosting the event and taking care of the drinks.
If you managed to make it down, thank you for coming!
- Jan 26, 12
It’s Infographic time thanks to the team at the GSMA. They’ve completed a study of the wide array of product announcements at CES earlier this month. The study shows that more than half of the devices launched are ‘connected‘ in some way (i.e. 3G/4G/WiFi). This is super news for the wireless marketplace. In specific categories, the GSMA noted that more than 90 percent of TVs, 70 percent of automotive devices, 44 percent of healthcare devices and 30 percent of cameras are connected.
We’re not quite there today in terms of ensuring everything will intelligently connect, but I don’t think we’re very far away from that. Witness, for example, the GSMA’s prediction that by 2020 — that’s less than 8 years away — the world will have a networked ecosystem of 24 billion connected devices!
I’m particularly interested in the segment below on automotive connectivity — I think that’s due for quite a renaissance over the next few years. My Range Rover, for example, has a built-in car phone system. So that does count as ‘connected’. But can you imagine if the car had an iPhone or a BlackBerry integrated into the dashboard? The possibilities and use-cases would be far, far more exciting. I’m looking forward to something like that.
There’s a lot more information at the association’s Connected Life website. Here’s the infographic:
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Posts
- Feb 03, 12
- Jan 31, 12
I really don’t know what I was doing. Perhaps it was a subconscious desire to buy a lot more suits that caused me to leave two perfectly good bespoke suits on the train.
You can hear all about this in the inaugural Pursuit of Quality podcast:
Yes, that’s me speaking. I tried to keep it as clean as I could, given the raw frustration I was experiencing!
- Jan 31, 12
I ordered 10 shirts from Hawes & Curtis, the shirtmakers, on Saturday afternoon. They were off-the-peg ones — and what’s more, they were in stock. I know this, because the stupid Hawes & Curtis website made me click through reams of pages like a performing dog, searching for 16.5″ x 36″ shirts that were actually in stock.
WHAT, by the way, IS THE FLIPPING POINT OF DISPLAYING PRODUCTS THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY IN STOCK WHEN I’M TRYING TO BUY FROM YOU? GET A DECENT E-COMMERCE ENGINE.
Or better yet, stop messing around with your own clearly sub-standard back-end order processing system and just get Amazon to do it?
Here’s my problem: I ordered the shirts on Saturday, right? I expected them to arrive on Tuesday morning.
I gave Hawes & Curtis the benefit of the doubt — no, actually, I thought there’d be no-way they’d be able to get the shirts to me on Monday morning. That would entail them running an operation on Sunday night and, you know, being good at logistics. Like Amazon.
Instead I assumed the shirts would arrive on Tuesday. That’s bearable. But really, in 2012, if Amazon can get almost anything to me next day guaranteed by 10am, why can’t you?
There’s really no excuse.
If you can’t figure out a way to deliver the shirts to me this way, Hawes & Curtis, then seriously — dump your existing processes — and get Amazon to handle it all for you.
I spent £110 on shirts — a good deal, if you ask me — and then I saw the silly £9.95 (or thereabouts) postage fee.
I did my very best fake smile when I saw that.
Thanks for nothing, I thought to myself.
Then I remembered there was a special offer displayed on the frontage of the website. Use the coupon code ‘postage’ and your postage fee is reduced to £4.95. Woop. I thought I might as well do that, given the fact it would save me five pounds and produce no other benefit. I’d rather have paid £9.95 to have had the shirts ON MONDAY.
It’s not especially important to me. I wasn’t depending on Hawes & Curtis for the delivery, because I know I can’t.
Online shops like these are really no better than an eBay equivalent. You HOPE they got the order on time. You HOPE they, you know, could be bothered to get out of bed and process it. You HOPE they actually made it to the post office on time before the last post and you HOPE you might even get the product by the end of the week. If you’re lucky.
I really do wonder how long the market will tolerate the likes of these services simply limping along, delivering middle of the road ‘whatever’ service?
Let’s be clear: I haven’t been wronged by Hawes & Curtis. My expectations have been entirely met — I expected this. If anything, I think I’m surprised by how dependent I have become on Amazon.
I now actively shop according to the Amazon Prime listings (I’m a “Prime” customer — which means delivery is ‘free’ and in most cases, next day — or just a wee bit extra to have it guaranteed by 10am etc). I will favour one supplier above another if Amazon fulfils the order. That is, if Amazon has the product sitting in their own warehouse ready to ship to me. Because I know that Amazon doesn’t screw it up. They’ve got the flow. They’re shipping millions of products a week. The Post Office knows them very, very well. So do the courier firms they work with. The whole thing is a beautifully oiled machine as far as I’m concerned.
Unfortunately Amazon is making everyone else look really, really bad — for me, anyway.
Forget the dumbing down and the disappearing High Street thread we’re all being fed by the mainstream media. What about the disappearing e-commerce world? I don’t intend ever bothering with Hawes & Curtis online ordering again. It was almost a novel shopping and check-out experience — it was, in a funny way, quite nice to be exposed to the ridiculous next-next-give-us-your-life-story process.
Why do you need my address? Why do you need my sodding CCV2 card number? Why do you need me to make a username and password? Amazon already have all of this. I can order in ONE CLICK! Come on!
So dear, dear me. The seamless Amazon experience has made me wholly intolerant to any other service that doesn’t either exactly equal the basic Amazon service (e.g. dispatched next day — and I mean NEXT DAY) or involves a chap getting on a bike and hand delivering the product.
I wonder how many Hawes & Curtis customers would pay to have someone bike the shirts to them for a fixed fee of, I dunno, £45? I’d have done it. I just want it done, you see. I don’t want to have to THINK about stuff that isn’t important.
Waiting for my shirts to arrive is an exception that — I’m sorry to admit — niggles at me. It’s the inefficiency of it all that seriously irks me.
Consider this: I placed the order on Saturday afternoon at about 1.30pm. The payment was immediately verified and charged to my card. And then nothing happened, right?
I am willing to bet that NOTHING happened at the Hawes & Curtis end until Monday morning. At some point on Monday morning, somebody will have checked the orders — or whatever — and realised they’d got a request from me. They’ll have messed around checking email and staring at the wall and resetting their desktop screensavers until midday. Then they’ll have picked the shirts and packed them. Then they’ll have either left my package alone or they’ll have dumped it into the postal system that evening, probably at last post, right?
I know I’m making huge, huge assumptions and probably causing a few folk at Hawes & Curtis to seriously question my sanity at this point, but run with me. If my package didn’t arrive TODAY — Tuesday — that means they clearly didn’t ship it yesterday. OR it means they’re sending it via second class post. Which means… well that’s anyone’s guess. Or they’re sending it via some cheapo manner. Or it didn’t make the post on Monday.
Whatever. The point is, if *I* had been fulfilling the order from my home — personally — I’d have got it to the Post Office for 10am on Monday so they could have to my customer on Tuesday morning.
It’s worth pointing out again, for the sake of the team at H&K — I’m a fan. That’s why I bought the shirts in the first place. I own about 20 other H&K shirts (most of which I lost by forgetting my dry cleaning on the train last week, hence the bulk purchase — but that’s another story).
I write this post to highlight the changing nature of the consumer. I’m not a typical consumer. I’m far too geeky for that. But the rest of society will catch up at some point in the next few years — and when they do, they’ll have absolutely no tolerance for anything that doesn’t deliver precisely like Amazon.
- Jan 03, 12
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- Jan 03, 12
I’ve been having a browse around for some really good cufflinks in our continuing Cufflinks series. I came across this ones recently and was thoroughly surprised and delighted. At first, I thought they were simply featuring standard handprints meant to remind you of your children. However when I visited the Gift Wrapped & Gorgeous website, I found that they’re entirely custom!
That’s right! You can get your child’s handprint impression on some cufflinks! As you can see on the image above, each cufflink has the child’s name and their handprint. If you’ve two children, you can opt for one imprint on each cufflink (more expensive) or you can simply opt for the default — the same imprint on both.
The cufflinks are Silver (plated, I assume?) and of course, there’s a bit of homework involved: Rebecca from Handprintz will send you a “non messy” (good) kit to easily take the handprint. Return that to her and she’ll produce the resulting cufflinks.
I absolutely love it!
You should allow 28 days for the whole process — that’s understandable.
I reckon this is one of those gifts that’s nigh on 100% perfect for a wife to give her husband [partner/etc] because it’s the sort of thing that can be done during the day when they’re at work — so it’s a real, super surprise. On the other hand, it’s something that you can instigate directly.
I would imagine that these are both eye catching and touching — suitable to accompany a high-powered pinstripe in the Square Mile or during a relaxed weekend.
The total cost all-in? £130.
Visit the Gift Wrapped & Gorgeous website’s Handprintz entry for more information and ordering details.
- Jan 03, 12
Next week is CES week — and that means that almost every single consumer technology giant you can think of will be showing off their latest devices and services. I can’t wait to see what they’ve got for us.
Meantime, if you’ve been in the market for a TV, you might give some thought to LG’s all new OLED TV. It’s the largest of it’s type — 55 inches — and is a ridiculously amazing 4mm thick. Simply fantastic.
What’s interesting here is that the picture quality is technically impossible to achieve with other technologies. So, depending on your viewpoint, your current TV is now a pile of smoking dung. Here’s what LG’s blog has to report:
Such color capabilities are technically impossible with LED and LCD display panels. And at 1,000 times faster than LED/LCD displays, LG’s OLED TV shows crystal clear motion without any blurring or bleeding.
I like this phrase, too:
…And at only 4 mm thin and a mere 7.5 kg, LG’s OLED TV practically blends into the wall
Yes please.
You can read all about the TV in a little more detail here. It’s due to be launched formally next week. In terms of costs, The Telegraph’s Matt Warman points out that previous OLED TVs from Sony have retailed for around £2k (and that was for an 11″ version!) so set your price expectations to medium-high.
How much would you pay for something like this? 55″ and more or less completely flat? £3,000? £5,000?
That said, I don’t think this will be in the B&O @80k territory. (See my Bang & Olufsen post).
- Dec 21, 11
Now and again I am required to commute back and forth into the city for extended periods of time. For instance the projects I’m working on need me to be in Richmond-Upon-Thames daily. Our recent house move made the commute rather simple: 30-odd minutes on a train that typically 90% full.
On the way back in the evenings at peak time I don’t usually get a seat until a few stops have come and gone. This is entirely doable. And it’s all standard class.
A couple of chaps I know don’t stand for this. They always travel first class. There’s certainly a cost differential, but in the fullness of time and on the basis that you can (in many respects) offset the expense against tax if you’re a contractor, these chaps think it’s a good deal — they always get a seat.
I’ve no trouble with paying for first class. If I’m traveling on a long train journey — to Newcastle, Manchester or somewhere, I always book ahead and always select first class.
But day-to-day? I’m not sure if I see the value for a 30-minute journey.
The one guy I know who always travels first class explains to me that he simply doesn’t want any hassle at all. He likes the idea of never, ever having to stand. He regularly reads and sometimes does the crossword and occasionally he’ll use his laptop. However the value for him is the more or less permanent service level: A seat is virtually guaranteed. (On his line, I should point out). He also travels about an hour each way.
I’m typing this on my MacBook Air on one of the seats in the ‘quiet carriage’ on the South West Train service from Reading and I have to accept that I’m reasonably content. This morning I’m not traveling at peak time either so it’s nice and easy for me to use the laptop. At peak times it might be a little more difficult.
In terms of cost for me, the standard return journey is £14.40. First class is £24.40. An extra tenner.
And what do you get?
On this train line, you just get a dedicated seating area and, I imagine, less turnover of passengers so there’s less disruption if you’re trying to work.
I’m not sold on the value, I don’t think.
[And then my train stops at Staines and fills up with what feels like 100 chattering school children everywhere!]
What’s your view — if you commute, do you do standard or first class and what’s the cost difference?
- Dec 15, 11
Until my good friend presented us with some Montezuma chocolates when he and his girlfriend popped over a few weeks ago, I’d never heard of the brand before.
My wife knows it well though — and, after consulting the website, it seems it’s me who’s rather out of date: They’ve got quite a few stores across the South of England.
I’m pretty particular about my chocolate (especially truffles). Either I want some overtly commercial Galaxy or Cadbury’s, or I want some proper chocolate. I can’t stand the stuff that pretends it’s good but is actually utter tripe. I remember buying some Champagne Truffles from a reasonably well known high street brand and not bothering finishing them as they were so rubbish.
Montezumas is fantastic. I found them fresh, stimulating and thoroughly wholesome. They’re big, you see — and that’s what you want in a truffle — a good big size with excellent flavours. The Grand Collection that my friend selected contained a brilliant array of different types. I even enjoyed the dark chocolate and coffee ones (I am, by default, a milk chocolate only chap). And that, dear reader, is saying something. Normally I avoid those ones like the plague because they’re usually rather poorly done — but the Montezuma ones were excellent.
So, if you find yourself looking for a decent gift that will work for any occasion, head over to Montezumas and take a special look at their Grand Collection.
(You can, of course, order online from their site.)
- Dec 12, 11
I’ve long held the view that proper work shoes — those that go nicely with a smart suit — do not turn up off the floor at the front, nor should they be pointy.
If they’re pointy then your feet will only fit into the main forward section, leaving the rest of the front to turn upwards. It looks shocking.
Hardly a day goes by when I don’t see somebody wearing these kind of shoes.
There’s nothing wrong with doing so. It just doesn’t strike me as professional. Using the traditional footwear of Court Jesters and Santa’s elves is not professional.
It really does wind me up to see them.
I’m guilty of this though. I hate to admit it. A while ago my wife made me buy some utterly shit £300 pair of “smart shoes” (to wear at the weekends). I ended up with this shocker of a pair that she thought looked cool. Me? Well I felt like a fraud, even at weekends. And I was slipping all over the place in them. I was wound up even more given the fact these shoes were piss-poor quality. Made for a tenner and branded at £300. They started to come apart after a few months.
I shouldn’t argue. I hadn’t been organised enough to go to Trickers and sort out some better casual ones so I ended up in Selfridges browsing these abominations.
Casual footwear is, I suppose, ok, when it comes to Court Jester pointy-turn-up-at-the-front shoes. But in a business context? It’s the equivalent of arriving at a meeting in a £75,000 sooped-up 1987 Ford Fiesta: Certainly expensive but fundamentally at the bottom of the rung in quality terms.
My preferred choice for footwear is Trickers — but I’ve had reasonable experiences with stuff from Churchs (is it Churches? Church’s?).
Where do you get your shoes from? And please, dear reader, tell me you don’t own a pair of pointy-lift-off-the-front shoes?
- Dec 08, 11
I was struck by this opinion post on The Telegraph this evening. The author, Martin Stephen, was High Master of St Pauls (School) from 2004 to 2011 and knows a thing or two about education.
His main contention is that the scandal which alleges that teachers have been able to — in effect — buy the contents of upcoming exams in order to better their students’ results. Martin then goes on to point out that this is hardly reassuring for today’s youngsters. Not at all.
Back in my day — I’m 34, so my ‘day’ was around 1995-ish — I studied hard for my GCSE exams. If memory serves me right, I was the second year that went through the new fangled GCSEs as apposed to what was known as ‘O Levels’. Even then, I remember reading about exams getting easier. Since then it’s been a perennial favourite of the media every exam season — the usual suspects trot out declaring that things are getting far too easy. Then, to make matters worse, some of the donkey questions are then included.
I remember experiencing utter blind panic during my GCSE Mathematics exam. You’re constantly reminded that if you start the wrong exam paper, tough. You can’t go back. You can’t change half-way through the exam and so on. So I checked-and-re-checked my paper before I began. I was absolutely horrified to find a question at the end of the paper that read like this:
“Jack is wondering how much paint he will need in order to cover the bottom of his swimming pool. The pool is 6m long and 2m wide. What is the total area in metres Jack will paint?”
Something like that.
I immediately turned to the front of the exam paper to check I was working on the right one. How could a stupid question like this get into the paper?
I wasted 10 flipping minutes on that one, sweating — I do mean full-on-palm-sweating style panic.
6 times 2.
2 times 6.
12.Surely it’s not that simple?
I remember remarking that, yes, I suppose it is important that you do actually confirm that anyone doing a mathematics GCSE should be able to calculate ‘area’ correctly — but, seriously — does the task need to be that simple? Surely finding the area should have been included in a larger more complicated task. Surely finding the area is a given — if you got through X years of decent education, this should be, well, assumed.
I ended up actually drawing out a 6×2 grid and counting the flipping squares on the back of a spare piece of paper to check I wasn’t missing something, I was that worried about misinterpretation.
I’m happy to say that things worked out. One of the rather stimulating geeky things about a mathematics exam is that you can more or less work out your score there-and-then. For instance, if you’re one of the lucky chaps who happens to know that length by width equals area, you’re good. Job done. That’s a win. And if you can go through your paper evaluating each answer in this way, you can work out your rough score.
So I was proud of my results. In total I think I got 6x As and 5x Bs.
I was especially proud of my two A grades for English Language and English Literature. Genius. The virtues of a Scottish (i.e. proper) education, I remember telling myself. When I moved from Scotland to England at age 9 I was astonished that my peers couldn’t write properly. We was. You is. I are going this way. That sort of thing.
I could spell, too. The rest of the class had been brought up with the it will come philosophy. In Scotland, you got a big red pen through the misspellings. There were serious spelling tests every week.
And when it came to maths, I remember people staring at me in awe for the first few weeks when I was able to — magically, as far as my peers were concerned — produce multiplication answers in my head. I was ace at 6 times table. I had everything below that automatically locked and loaded. I was nifty with most of the 7 and 8 times tables. And I just had to think for a few moments about 9, 10, 11 and 12. My peers all used calculators.
So where did this leave me? Well I was hugely unimpressed when one peer at GCSE level got an A*. They were introduced in my GCSE year: One better than A. The student couldn’t spell to save her life. I mean, seriously. She couldn’t spell the word Catholic. Or Protestant. The teacher used to keep the words on the board during history lessons so this student would stop asking how to spell it. Her written prose looked and read like that of a 7 year old. She was not deficient in any way. She was highly skilled and intelligent to speak with. Just not when it came to writing.
How did she get an A*?
Because the examiners were told to avoid punishing students for actually getting things wrong. If you knew what the student meant, that was fine. Petty things like spolling, gramma and punkty-ashin were deemed petty. So no wonder my peer got upgraded.
Me? As far as the examiners were concerned, I delivered a pedestrian performance. I did give some thought to sticking in a catalogue of stupid grammatical errors when it came to my A Level English exam.
So I was flipping annoyed with my ‘A’.
I didn’t really want to be measured against that scale. If I look back and carefully parse my experiences and reactions, I think I was rather embarrassed at the A grade in both English subjects. Because this was telling prospective employers that I was almost good. Not quite brilliant. Not quite capable.
You might argue that the introduction of A* was the beginning of the end in terms of standards. Grade inflation and so on.
Have exams been getting easier?
Well, I suppose you have to look at school league tables. Those were established to help give parents and idea what to expect in terms of a service level. If 70% of children leave a school with grades A-C in English, that’s probably good, right? But a school where 95% leave with an A-C grade in English, that’s even better, right? So goes the logic with league tables.
So Head Teachers and local authorities naturally need to make sure their statistics look good.
So there’s pressure on teachers to deliver a service level measured by exam performance.
And those teachers naturally will naturally seek to deliver as many students into the top mark brackets as is possible.
And an exam board — a commercial entity, wanting to flog exam ‘services’ to schools — has a serious interest in keeping the attention of teachers.
You might say that the whole system is self-fulfilling. It’s in everyone’s interests to see grades go up. Questions need to get easier to keep everyone happy. Or, as the Telegraph has pointed out, teachers need to get access to rather accurate ‘pointers’ to help them coach their students to the necessary service level.
So if, almost 20 years ago, I was feeling a bit shortchanged with my A grades, goodness knows how students are feeling nowadays. I remember getting rather annoyed by the constant media buzz about ‘exams getting easier’ back then because I’d put a ton of work into my results. A serious amount of effort! The last thing I wanted was this effort degraded.
When it comes to quality, then, what is the way forward?
If we assume for a moment that the practice of allowing teachers to pay to attend exam briefing days where they’re more or less hinted in the precise direction of exam content, what does this mean for the current generation of students? Or the students entering high school education next year?
GCSEs are still very much an important reckoner in society. Although I do wonder how employers feel about them nowadays.
How valuable are they, really?
And what’s the solution? Given our son is 18 months old right now, it’s quite far from my immediate concerns but soon I’m going to have to give it all some thought.
I’ve heard of some friends with older children who’ve either exclusively focused on International Baccalaureate and dumped GCSEs entirely or done a mix of GCSEs, AS Level and IB — dumping A Levels too. Who knows?
I’d very much appreciate the perspective of parents reading, especially those with children facing (or about to face) this exam issue. Are you concerned by today’s revelations? And from a quality perspective, what’s your view? Keep chugging away with GCSEs and A Levels? Has anything really changed?
