Bob Browning's blog

My trusty video recorder just packed in. I don’t watch that much TV, but the few things I like tend to be on at inconvenient times so I like to record them. That is what VCRs were for.

They don’t make them any more, and as far as I can make out the popular replacement item is a DVD recorder. However I have heard these are not that user friendly. Also as far as I can tell most of them don’t have a digital tuner, so in the new world of digital television they will be about as useful as a housebrick for recording TV. I have a Freeview box but long ago gave up on trying to record from it. Switch it on, tune to the right channel, set the VCR to the right channel and hope that no-one comes along and switches channels in the meantime. It doesn’t work.

But there is an answer. The PVR. These have a couple of digital tuners (so you can watch one channel while recording another) and record on a hard disk. Basically Sky+ but for free digital TV.

But Currys doesn’t even have a PVR category on their web site. They stock about four models. Most other retailers are the same.

So here we are:

1. The digital conversion program completes in 2012 – just six years away
2. While some Televisions being sold now have a digital tuner almost no recording devices do.

Madness.

This quote was attributed to Epimenides – himself a Cretan. Wait a minute: if his statement is correct than as a Cretan he must be lying – therefore his statement must be incorrect. But the statement can’t be both correct and incorrect, it is a logical loop.

Some logic problems like this are quite hard. Here is another one, not so difficult.

“Growth will require the investment of more money in the company”

“We need growth therefore we should invest more money in the company”

They look the same, and a surprising number of business people think they are the same. However Investment without a clear plan can do the opposite – loading a company with Debt which can’t be repaid.

I always recommend to clients that they put their phone number prominently on every page of their ecommerce sites. I believe it re-assures customers that if they have a problem, the customer can talk to someone.

I just proved to myself that it was the right advice for the wrong reason.

I purchased a print server from a very well-known electronics firm that we have used for years (who shall of course be nameless). It turned up and I could see from the picture on the outside of the box that it was the wrong sort of centronics plug. I didn’t even remove the shrink-wrap. So I went into ‘my account’ => ‘select order’ => ‘returns’ => and the system told be that because I had waited more than 7 days it was too late to return it. This was on the same day it was delivered, the day after I ordered it. But the good news was that there was a form to contest this, which I filled out.

Nothing

A week passed, this wretched box still on my desk, I went back to the site so I could phone them. What do you know – no phone number. Which I hadn’t noticed over many years of visiting the site.

I am sure some accountant thought it was a good idea to save money on support staff by not publishing their phone number, but it means that they have lost my custom for ever because of a £45 item. My experience over many years is that every cock-up is a sales opportunity. A failure handled well can bring you repeat business and recommendations. Handled badly and you have lost your customer.

How can you handle the problem well if your customer can’t talk to you?

In any event I have learned my lesson – I will check for a phone number before I buy anything, no matter how well-known the firm.

Bob
http://www.textor.com

Google calendar is a great piece of work, smooth as silk, very functional. But sadly missing one item I neeed – synchronisation to Outlook. Without this its no use to me.

I will carry on using Plaxo – nice system and syncs beautifully – most of the time.

Web 2.0 and AJAX are the way of the future for sure, Microsoft is about to lose its word processing market as new web-based word processing applications such as Writely take over.

Or not.

I was too late to sign up for writely, but there is a new application at http://www.ajaxwrite.com/ which you can use for free. Sadly no cigar – it is full of bugs. But an interesting demonstration of what is possible.I think it exposes some limitations. I would be interested to know if people who have tried other products such as Writely see the same sort of thing.

1. To edit a file you have to upload it. As most broadband has a 256k upload speed this could take a while for large documents.
2. Can a server-based application ever have anough control over the printer to get things formatted just right?
3. How can the sever-based application save the file to the right path on my computer?
4. I like to edit pictures in my image editor and just copy and paste direct into my word document – will that ever be possible?

These are just a few things that occured to me, I am sure there are more. My feeling is that this is never really going to work 100% unless and until Micosoft decides to get into this market and adapt IE for the requirements of its web-based applications. Thereby opening up yet more security holes no doubt. And why would they do that anyway and open themselves up to real competition?I remain a sceptic.

A phrase often used to critisise a senior politician or corporate manager is “He couldn’t run a whelk stall” – attributed I believe to Winston Churchill. However the skills to run a whelk stall are quite different from the skills to run a major corporate department, and I am not convinced that they are any simpler:

1. Total control of detail. You have to know everything that happens, if you run out of wooden forks you are the only person to blame.
2. Working always on the edge. If you do run out of whelks you are out of business – period. There is no corporate infrastructure to help out.
3. Don’t delegate. You tell people what to do and then follow up to make sure they have done it. If you delegate whelk-ordering to your assistant Jimmy, it is absolutely no help to know that it was his fault you are out of business. Out of business is out of business and no-one else cares the way you do.
4. Results are the only important measure of success. A lot of corporate sales people spend most of their time explaining why they havn’t made their numbers – and if only the product was changed such and such way they would be able to hit the target. In a small business – forget it. You make the numbers or someone else does. A small business can’t afford sales people who are incapable of selling the product you have rather that the one they wish you had. A manager who plays the ‘if-only’ game is heading for the tubes.

I was told once that the most critical period for a growing business is when they pass an invisible barrier at about 20-30 people. At this point you start being an organisation and the management skills needed flip to those required to run an organisation. I have seen this happen and its true.

I had a call from a very nice lady who offered me a trial subscription to a lead-generation service called first rate directory. The price for a lead is low – less than a tenner.I checked it out and the site is a nice piece of work. Looks good, works well and lots of leads.However here is a typical lead:

Lead runs a garage repair business and would like to start selling car parts. He would require the user to search by Type of car then by the type of car part e.g. wiper blades, gear nobs etc then by manufacturer then by part no./type. Then through to the checkout to buy product. He would want to add products himself (but will need some instruction. Will also need hosting and a domain name. Is willing to work with anyone in the UK and has a budget of £1000.

I emphasise that this is typical. Two people have already purchased this lead and they have had 9 leads in the last two days in the category Web Site Development.

Is there some parallel universe out there where people are getting major e-commerce websites developed for £1,000? Is there a bug in their system and all the budgets are missing a decimal point?

I went to the technology for marketing exhibition at Olympia yesterday. Reactions:

1. The subheading was technology for sales, and in fact we were looking for sales force automation tools. Couldn’t find one – except goldmine. This is despite there being 30+ listed in the exhibition index. Tick-all-the-box-itis strikes again.
2. There were however a lot of CRM solutions, email marketing solutions and web analytics.
3. I don’t quite understand what a web analytics tool costing ten grand a year does that the free Google analytics product doesn’t. I asked several to explain but never really got to the bottom of it. Throw-aways like ‘oh – the google product is just a lightweight system’ doesn’t cut the mustard – I want features and benefits and I didn’t get em.
4. Great card trickster on one of the stands – but which company? I have no idea. He left me a playing card as a momento. What a chance missed that the company details were not printed on the back.
5. Some of the people on the stands were not really up to the job. Too many didn’t understand their product or if they did were incapable of explaining what it did. We walked away from several stands bemused and wondering what the product did.
6. Overall marginally interesting. But I am still wanting to find out about web based sales force automation tools other than salesforce.com

bob

http://www.textor.com

Eye tracking is fascinating. They sit users down as a computer screen and measure the bits of the web page that they look at, and how long they look at it. The company who specialise in this is at http://www.e-consultancy.com/out.asp?source=blog&com=global&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.eyetools.com and the company has a new blog at http://www.e-consultancy.com/out.asp?source=blog&com=global&url=http%3a%2f%2fblog.eyetools.net%2f .

Before and after studies on web sites show the effect of different design styles. Every designer should get up to speed on this. A really good example is in the middle of other fascinating data in the teaser slides for the marketingsherpa benchmark study. http://www.e-consultancy.com/out.asp?source=blog&com=global&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.marketingsherpa.com%2ftele%2fEMBG1_24.pdf Spin down to page 12 and see how a change in design dramatically increases the impact of the copy.

Bob
http://www.textor.com

My direct experience is with setting up a closed forum for a large (3,000+) community. The communioty were building contractors and we envisaged the site being used to help them sort out subcontracts. find staff, and other business benefits as well as just discussing issues of the day.Result: nothing, nada, zilch. The forum wasn’t used – at all – for two years until it was closed.

What was missing?

IMNSHO what was missing was a core of enthusiasts who drive the forum on a day to day basis, raising issues and resonding to posts. Nobody wants to be the first poster. We have been discussing a forum for a medical charity last week. Again multiple real benefits of such a tool. However my advice was not to think about it unless the client was willing to put in the time to raise awarenes and most of all – keep it busy.

bob
http://www.textor.com