Whatever...

‘We promise not to screw it up’ and other words of wisdom

By Claire Ayles

For me, the most interesting bit of Yahoo’s mega-bucks acquisition of Tumblr isn’t the size of the deal, it’s the language used to communicate it. 

Marissa Mayer’s line ‘we promise not to screw it up’ is all over my Twitter feed like a rash today, and no wonder.  It’s completely refreshing to hear a corporate spokesperson use plain English. 

In our jobs, we come across more than our fair share of marketing spiel, ‘world’s leading’ phrases and meaningless jargon, and while Mayer’s statement does drop the odd clanger (e.g. ‘seamless experience’), it gives us hope that phrases like ‘brand synergy’ and ‘shared goals’ are at last on their way out.

Milk or cream?

By Ingrid Daschner

Bluetooth, Android and Blackberry apps, instruction DVDs – with features like these, there’s no two ways about it, I’ve got to have this coffee machine! Plus, as the sales assistant kindly explained, for a piece of high-tech wizardry like this, the price means it’s a  ridiculous steal – made by a ‘prestigious international manufacturer’ employing an ‘aggressive pricing policy’ to ease its entry to the German market.

But within just a couple of hours of giving our new acquisition pride of place in the Johnson King kitchen, doubts start to creep in. A super-modern coffee machine with twenty helpful programs for every possible variety of caffeinated pleasure is one thing, but its apparent inability to produce anything other than hot water is quite another.

A careful study of the DVD instructions leaves me none the wiser. The multimedia presentation is delivered by carefully chosen ‘eye candy’ of both genders, but their main occupation is to look pretty, rather than  telling me how this blasted machine (a Golaccia Sellectione 2005Px if you’re interested) actually works! Hope is rekindled when a service phone number flashes up on screen. I grab the phone.

"Good morning! My name is Claire Miller. What can I help you with today?”

“Hi, this is Ingrid Daschner. I’m calling about …”

“Hold on, I’ll put you through.”

"Good morning! My name is Mike Smith. What can I help you with today?”

“Hi, this is Ingrid Daschner. I’m calling about …”

“Let me stop you there. Can you please give me your customer number.”

“What customer number? I bought my Golaccia on Frida..."

"Ah, Golaccia. Hold on, I’ll put you through.”

"Good morning! My name is Flora Gonzales. What can I help you with today?”

“As I said, I’m calling about my Golaccia Espressoma…”

“Let me stop you there. Can you please give me your customer number.”

“As I told your colleague, I don’t have a customer num…”

“Hold on, I’ll put you through.”

 Some hours later, I put down the phone. I’ve called the service hotline four times in the hope of getting hold of someone both competent and friendly – alas, in vain. I have, however, learnt that my call is being diverted to Ireland, but that it will still cost me just 12 Euro cents per minute. I’ve learnt that the service provider places the customer ‘at the centre of everything we do’. And I’ve been reassured that the Sellectione 2005Px really is the very latest device – so new, in fact, that neither Claire, Mike nor Flora on the helpdesk have had any training from the manufacturer. But have I consulted the specially prepared multimedia instruction manual…?

In view of all this I was particularly impressed that, for a meeting the next day, my colleague Oliver success fully managed to produce three steaming cups of frothy, aromatic coffee. That’s until I saw some empty sachets of ‘Instant Cappuccino Premium’ disappear into his jacket pocket.

Photo credit: MiskiSanko

Twitter bids a fitting farewell to Sir Alex Ferguson

By Charlotte Martin 

Sir Alex Ferguson has retired from his 27-year tenure as manager of Manchester United Football Club.  Who knew?  Well, everyone on the planet, so it seems.  I must confess I’m not exactly the world’s greatest fan of the beautiful game, but even I couldn’t help but take notice of the sheer strength of reaction and the outpouring of grief when the news broke midweek. 

Confirmation of the departure came in the form of a tweet from Manchester United’s press office at 9:17am on Wednesday 8^th May, which simply said: “Sir Alex Ferguson retires. #thankyousiralex.”  The 43 character long statement prompted a deluge of tributes from fans, colleagues and even politicians.  Real Madrid striker and former Manchester United player Cristiano Ronaldo took to Twitter simply to say: “Thanks for everything, Boss.”  Even PM David Cameron commented on the news of the football legend’s departure, by tweeting: ‘Sir Alex Ferguson’s achievement at #MUFC has been exceptional. Hopefully his retirement will make life a little easier for my team #AVFC’. 

As was to be expected, the news immediately dominated the traditional news channels and also proved a wider hit on Twitter.  The initial tweet was re-tweeted and ‘favourited’ 18,000 times within the first hour* and the story accounted for eight of the top ten trending topics on twitter and four worldwide – all of which bore the #ThankYouSirAlex hashtag.

The Twitter response to major news stories has become a key indication of public opinion and the extent of national or global interest.  With regards to Sir Alex’s recent announcement, his departure prompted a greater number of Tweets that were posted in response to Lady Thatcher’s death, but less that the number around the announcement of Jorge Mario Bergogolio as the new Pope in March.  Indeed, according to data collected by Twitter, the hour after Thatcher’s death, a million tweets were posted in the first four hours, whereas Sir Alex’s news saw over 1.4m mentions on Twitter within the first hour alone. 

There can be no doubt that Twitter has become a powerful and immediate tool and as a result, it has been used to deliver some of the most significant news stories to the world.  Take the now famous ‘four more years’ tweet from President Obama, which became the ‘most popular tweet of all time’, on US election night. 

The fact that Twitter was used to announce the long dreaded news of Sir Alex’s retirement has even prompted some speculation that it is due to the notoriously love-hate relationship between news organisations and football clubs and players.  Whatever the reasoning, the overwhelming response seems somewhat ironic given Sir Alex’s previous comments that Twitter is a “waste of time”.  I can’t help but wonder what he makes of the Twitter storm created by his retirement!

The virtual fitting room - genius or superfluous?

By Lindsey Challis

Online shopping has revolutionised my frantic weekend shop for a Saturday night garment.  First, I know I won't be emptying my bank account only to find a similar item carpeting the floors of H&M, and second, I won't have spent hours of my life clamouring across parents desperately trying to dress their 10-part family for a particular wedding or christening.  That’s not even mentioning the fact that it is no longer contained to a weekend, the ease, speed and convenience of online shopping means that I could even do it in my lunch-break.  Surfing the web for clothes is the only way, in my view, to get a complete picture of what's out there and what price is reasonable.  Google is a wonderful thing. 

The dilemma when it comes to online shopping however, is whether the hours saved in the shopping process are substituted by hours spent returning unwanted or misfitting items.  This would be true, if I hadn't already been put off the fitting room by the gaggle of teenage girls and the overly attentive shop assistant.  Even if you do have the patience for the fitting room, Virtusize, which claims to offer a virtual fitting room and has recently been introduced by ASOS in the UK, could pack the final punch for traditional shopping.  

Not yet able to show how a garment appears on a virtual you – that would be true genius – Virtusize comes close, by comparing the fit of a garment to one you already have.  Laying the garments over each other, a shopper can see what parts may be tight and where they can afford a bit of ‘breathing room’.  With impressive results, such as fit-related returns being reduced by as much as 50 percent, it’s hard to deny the potential of the virtual fitting room. 

For the hardy shopper, the virtual fitting room may still not match up to the real thing, and may indeed be considered superfluous to the shopping experience.   For an online-enthusiast like me however, online shopping just got a whole lot more accurate! 

When the tech industry does music...

By Claire Ayles

It’s the Friday after InfoSec and frankly we’re frazzled, so for some end-of-the-week relaxation, why don’t you take a look at CIO Magazine’s five favourite IT songs?

The standout performance comes from this guy for his version of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, including the immortal line ‘I hope one day you’ll join DevOps so our world will live as one’.   Yes, really.

 

 

 

The choir of programmers singing along to the tune of ‘Every Breath You Take’ from The Police comes a close second though.  Sting, cover your ears...

 

Time to exterminate automated sales calls

By Mike King

Unsolicited sales calls have long been a source of irritation, but the problem has got a lot worse over the past few years with an increase in the use of automated telephone systems that call and ‘speak’ at you in a voice that makes a Dalek sound warm and friendly.  

Yesterday’s news that UK telecoms firm TalkTalk has been fined for making too many silent and abandoned marketing calls using an automated system is welcome news.

Using such systems for outgoing calls has got to be top of the list of pointless uses of technology. Obviously, these automated systems must be a cheaper way to call thousands of people than the almost equally irritating human telesales call but, surely, the success rate for robotic calls must be close to zero?  

At best, hearing a robotic voice on the end of the line is so hugely irritating that no rational person would do anything other than simply hang-up. At worst, the automated system fails to do anything when you pick up the phone (as in the TalkTalk case) and you’re left with the silent treatment. Either way, nothing has been achieved other than annoying the recipient of the call. 

The web is full of people complaining about this issue and it is clearly a big problem. The UK government has called for a crackdown and, in November last year, the ICO published a list of the worst offenders. All of which begs the question, why do these systems even exist?

It has to be the perception of cost savings - machines are cheaper to run than people, so the telesales effort costs less. There’s some sort of logic there. If the starting point is that the old school, human telesales call was pretty ineffective, the thinking behind automating the process could be that it is a cheaper way to achieve nothing. Chucking the systems out altogether would be even cheaper.

The French media landscape is moving… again

 By Violaine Desmons

At the beginning of April, the NextRadioTV group, one of the most influential and well-known media groups specialising in tech topics in France, launched a new print magazine, a consumer “high tech” monthly publication named 01net.

While this could be considered good news, as very few publishers continue to invest in printed press today, this new publication is due to the merger of two other publications (see article published in LeMonde.fr - in French).

Despite somewhat of a general decline in publication numbers over the years, IT media in France is by no means dead – far from it. The fact is, most journalists working within the IT press before the market declined, still deal with IT news, in some form or another, though perhaps not as much as they would like.  And, despite the apparent gloom, some positives have also arisen from the decline.  New IT publications – some pure play titles such as LeMagIT.com or ITespresso.fr – have been launched by experienced journalists and specialist blogs are becoming more and more relevant for IT organisations.

Social networks (especially Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) have also brought a new dimension to relations between media and PR agencies, who are in the best position to handle and take advantage of this evolution.

The media landscape won’t stop evolving anytime soon and that’s by no means a bad thing! The huge rise in the use of mobile devices has changed the way that people consume news and allows media to be accessed from everywhere. So, the next challenge for the French media is to adapt itself in the face the “mobile revolution”, something it appears they’re not quite prepared for , according to the analysis published in LesEchos.fr (in French) – but they’re going to have to do it anyway, and soon. 

Deal(ing) with it

By Kasia Murphy

The Creative Director of Microsoft Studios recently underestimated the power of a single tweet, causing something of a social media storm around comments linked to a rumoured new computer console.

Adam Orth took to Twitter to express his frustration at the ‘drama’ surrounding the idea of ‘always-online’ consoles.  Specifically, Orth argued "sorry, I don't get the drama around having an 'always on' console. Every device now is 'always on'. That's the world we live in. #dealwithit".  The ensuing exchange with senior BioWare designer Manveer Heir, began the slow-motion car crash:

"Did you learn nothing from Diablo 3 or SimCity?" Heir asks him. "You know some people's internet goes out, right? Deal with it is a sh***y reason."

"Electricity goes out too," Orth replied. “Sometimes the electricity goes out. I will not purchase a vacuum cleaner.”

"You've lived in LA, San Francisco, Seattle... very connected places. Try living in Janesville, WI or Blackburg, VA," Heir countered.

"Why on earth would I live there?" Orth concluded.

While there has been speculation on the side about whether these comments confirm that there is a new console from Microsoft in the works, what’s more interesting from a communications perspective is that telling people to 'deal with it' on Twitter is perhaps not the best idea. 

All brands can use social media to come out from behind the curtain and build meaningful relationships with their followers and, while keeping the corporate hat on is important, this incident goes to show the importance of media training when just one tweet is all it takes to spark a PR disaster.

 

Facebook oversharing: like or dislike?

By Hannah Townsend 

I like social media, and can definitely see the value in it, but what still amazes me is just how much personal information people are willing to share so publicly. This was a topic of conversation when I met some friends for a couple drinks recently, as we ended up discussing what we considered to be Facebook oversharing. While one friend saw no problem in posting detailed accounts of the day, the rest of us were in agreement that letting everybody and anybody know such personal information is not only unnecessary, but in most cases, boring.   

From the likes of Facebook and Twitter, we were able to ascertain that in one day a girl from school had broken up, then got back together, with her boyfriend, another had a bad stomach, while an ex-colleague was about to embark on her second run of the day. Aside from the obvious security issues of oversharing, what bothers me most is the complete lack of privacy. I haven’t spoken to ‘Sarah’ from school for ten years, yet I know that she hates her job, is going to Spain for her holidays and likes to bombard her followers with pictures of her dinner every single day. 

Maybe I’m jealous (I want to go on holiday), guilty (I should go for a run) or simply uninterested (the food), but it looks like I’m not the only one easily frustrated with some fellow social media users. A recent survey looked into the most annoying online habits and found that diet and fitness boasters came up top, followed by meal sharers and cryptic status writers. 

Facebook and Twitter are useful communication tools and, for me, a great way of keeping in contact with friends and family I don’t get to see so often. However, while I like knowing what Facebook friends are up to, I feel there is a line and there’s really no need to broadcast your stomach upset. 

Mind you, maybe I shouldn’t complain. After all, if these people stop, what else will I have to talk to my friends about over a bottle of wine?

Women in tech: From Sheryl Sandberg to can-can dancers

By Claire Ayles

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg sure has been making the headlines recently, discussing what she thinks it takes for a woman to really make it in business (or, to put it more directly, in order to sell more copies of her new book, ‘Lean In’).  Whether you think that she’s a feminist role model or not, her media interviews and book excerpts have once again raised the question of why so few women make it to the top in the corporate world, particularly in the tech sector. 

 I won’t pretend to know the answer to this question, but a couple of things that have happened to me over the last few weeks which have reinforced that it’s still very much a man’s world out there.

A couple of weeks ago I was kindly invited to an industry awards ceremony, attended by about 500 guests.  I’d say there were about 30 women in the room, but that’s nothing unusual.  However, on this occasion the number included the can-can dancers booked as the evening’s entertainment.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way offended by women showing their knickers during some high octane dancing, but it’s clear that they were booked with only the male majority in mind.  Well, as we say in PR-land, it’s important to know your audience...

One company that probably doesn’t know it’s audience quite as well as it should is the firm behind the new ePad Femme.  This ‘less complicated’ tablet has been designed especially for us girls, with a nice pink background and pre-loaded apps that make the problematic business of shopping just that bit easier.  Come on, give us some credit – my four year old can use an iPad – AND she’s a girl.

I’m past getting stroppy about incidents like this, after all – as Sandberg and many other women illustrate – the tech industry is a place where women can and do succeed.  But it would be nice if there was a few more women involved (and I don’t mean more ‘booth bunnies’).