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Digitising history

By Hannah Townsend

This week, the National Archives announced plans to digitise 1.5 million pages of First World War diaries, with 300,000 completed so far.  Marking the centenary, the public record office is making these resources available to a global audience for the very first time with the hope of building a more authentic picture of life in the trenches.

As a history graduate, this is a revelation.  With clear memories of travelling from Cardiff to Kew in order to complete last minute research, this required a lot of time and money that I didn’t really have.  Being able to view documents like these at the click of a mouse not only helps preserve the increasingly weathered diaries, but it makes wartime education that much more accessible, not just to students but to anyone interested in these events.  After all, firsthand accounts, such as letters and diaries, are crucial in understanding history – not only do they allow the reader to make their own assumptions and interpretations about historical events, but they are much more interesting to read than a subjective textbook.

Speculation and interest about both World Wars remains high, however with the death of the last known WWI soldier in 2009, all first-hand recollection has gone.  While remembrance is at the forefront of British consciousness, largely thanks to the upcoming centenary celebrations and annual Poppy appeal, many are concerned that the Great War risks losing its clarity.

With half of young people in Britain (shockingly) unable to name the years the First World War started and ended, it’s clear that awareness can still be raised.  Maybe pushing these primary records into the digital age will help future generations better understand the significance of our grandfathers’ sacrifices.

You can view the first batch of digitised diaries here: http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/first-world-war/

Waste not, want not: a look at responsible technology

By Kasia Murphy 

Speaking at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas a few days ago – amid all the bending TVs and smart mirrors and wearable tech beyond your wildest dreams (smart bra, anyone?) – Intel's chief executive, Brian Krzanich, announced that it would no longer be using materials from ‘conflict zones’ to build new chips. He called on the “entire industry” to follow in its stead. 

While the move by Intel is absolutely admirable and necessary, reading the announcement reminded me of another “responsible tech” story. In the weeks before Christmas, the UN's "Solving the E-Waste Problem" initiative StEP issued a warning that the global volume of electrical refuse – from fridges to mobile phones to hard-drives – is set to grow by 33 percent over the next four years. That’s the equivalent weight of EIGHT great Egyptian pyramids. 

Though technology sales continue to boom, unfortunately once machines and whatnot are deemed obsolete, the disused items will most likely be dumped in developing countries, like Ghana, rather than being safely recycled. Typically composed of an intricate web of lead, zinc, mercury, beryllium, arsenic and flame retardants – each a toxic material – these long forgotten items contaminate land, water and the air. Harking back to the Intel story, a chip in a smartphone can contain around 60 chemical elements.

E-waste is dubbed the fastest growing waste stream in the UK. In 2008 it was reported that 12.5 million computers have been thrown into UK landfills over a five year period. I shudder to think of what it is now, or what the number would be for mobile phones considering we go through them like I go through chocolate Freddo bars.

So, while it’s laudable that the big boys are moving in the right direction, it is a must that we as technology consumers and aficionados exercise and acknowledge our responsibility to making the world a cleaner, healthier place to live for everyone.

Happy New Year.  

Footnote to 2013

By Mike King

There I was happily rolling along towards the Christmas holidays smugly sneering at the thought that the word of the year, ‘selfie’, was an apt footnote to 2013.  

As you may well recall, back in November The Oxford Dictionaries announced that the obsession many people have for posting pouting self portraits on social media sites is so widespread that it had selected ‘selfie’ as its word of the year.  According to its researchers, in spite of the word being around since 2002, instances of its use increased on social media and photo sharing sites by a staggering 17,000 percent during 2013.  Not a great choice, given that those people hardly need any more attention, but anyway, selfie it is. 

However, now it appears that things are not quite so straightforward.  This week, rival The Collins Online Dictionary has announced that its word of the year is ‘geek’.  Geek?  A word that didn’t even make the shortlist for the Oxford Dictionaries selection. Clearly, a month is a long time in the world of words of the year.  Given that both words are directly linked to technology, if nothing else, this is yet another clear illustration of how technology is increasingly dominating all aspects of our lives.

The word Geek, apparently, has been around since the 19^th century when it was used to describe a simpleton. Maybe there is a more of a link between geek and selfie than I first thought.  

Le Web: innovation made in France

By Violaine Desmons

“We are not in California. We’re French” – Arnaud Montebourg, French Industrial Renewal Minister

This week, Le Web conference took place in Paris. More than 3000 participants from 80 countries attended this major event dedicated to international startups and web entrepreneurs. During this, the tenth anniversary of the event, the French web entrepreneur Loïc Lemeur who founded it, put the focus of the 2013 edition on innovations for “The Next 10 Years”.

According to attendants, big trends for the next ten years are mostly related to the spread of connected objects and the erasure of the line between reality and digital worlds. For enterprises, it means the future is linked with “open innovation” concepts: today’s enterprises should work together with employees, customers, providers and also external developers across a common and open network. Trying to develop internally – and secretly – their own innovations through old R&D strategies is not an option any more.

Business models have to be reviewed according to the new technological environment and major trend evolutions in terms of user experience. For example, digital platforms offer a new way to communicate with the whole business ecosystem that allows enterprises to have more interaction with their customers, while also providing an open development environment.

Moreover the increase of interaction between enterprises and their clients and the multiplication of connected devices and objects will generate a huge amount of “Big Data”.

France, the new silicon valley?

Consequently, Big Data – or more accurately the enhancement of Big Data – is listed among key trends for the French industrial innovation programme, recently announced by the French President François Hollande. France understands new technologies and innovations, having hosted for ten years the most important and influential event dedicated to the web industry and its evolution. Even if Loïc Lemeur has moved to Silicon Valley, he continues to organise LeWeb in his home country. 

However, the French government seems to deplore French startups which move over to Silicon Valley, and the fact that US net giants try to acquire promising French startups such as Dailymotion. The French Industrial Renewal Minister, Arnaud Montebourg, who is one of most zealous French partisans of “Le made in France”, participated in a debate with web entrepreneurs at Le Web. As the government representative, he explained – in English – the French vision of innovation. But even in French, he should have kept it quiet…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 To conclude:

Will flying parcels set customer expectation too high?

 By Jonathan Mathias

Reading about Amazon’s delivery drones earlier this week you would be forgiven for thinking that April Fool’s day had come four months early.  If the firm’s ‘Prime’ annual-fee delivery model hadn’t disrupted things enough, the half-hour deliveries claimed by ‘Prime Air’ will surely push convenience and an expectation of near instant gratification from online retail to dizzying new heights.  There are plenty of questions regarding the practicalities and logistics of such a service but, above all that, what does it say about what we as customers are going to come to expect? 

In any service industry, companies must carefully manage customer expectation in order to mitigate any avoidable PR incidents resulting from disgruntled consumers.  This is especially true given that anyone can – and will – air any frustrations online within seconds.  I’m old enough to remember the birth of ecommerce and how amazing it was to buy anything online at all.   Move along a few years and if we aren’t able to find a product online the moment we think to buy it, and if it doesn’t arrive promptly, it feels like some kind of outrageous liberty has been taken away from us.  And God forbid any retailer that doesn’t immediately reply to a ‘where’s my stuff’ query. 

The more we come to expect, the bigger the issue it is when something goes wrong and the bigger the need for firms to be prepared to handle customer queries and complaints instantly.  It will be interesting to see if flying drone deliveries really do take off, but I’m equally curious about the technology that will support the inevitable impact this will have on customer relations.

 

Welcome to Black Friday

Have you snapped up a deal, or got more than you bargained for? 

By Flora Haslam

Just as UK shoppers are so sick of turkey, TV repeats and family squabbles that they traditionally hit the sales on Boxing Day, our American friends do the same after Thanksgiving.  The result?  Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year.

Outside of some sectors – let’s be honest, the tech PR and media community has been capitalising on it for some time – Black Friday has never really hit the mainstream in the UK.  But this might just be the year that changes.

Not many people in Europe celebrate Thanksgiving, but that’s no reason for us to miss out – at least that’s what the major retailers, desperate to bolster their sales, have been telling us.

I guess it’s no surprise that Asda – owned by US supermarket giant Wal-Mart – seems to be leading the charge.  Last year, Wal-Mart stores in the US served more than 22 million customers in one day; Asda stores are presumably hoping to emulate this to some degree.  Sadly if these stories from Bristol and Newcastle are to be believed, it’s not just the deals that have crossed the Atlantic, but the fist fights too.

If you’re scouting for a bargain, The Telegraph has handily rounded up some of today’s best offers.

Too busy to shop today?  Never fear, it’s Cyber Monday in a couple of days.  Oh and then there’s ‘Middle Cyber Monday’ the following week...

Seminar with Tick Tock Social shows how to improve ROI from social

This week, we held a breakfast seminar here at Johnson King with Carole Theriault from Tick Tock Social treating attendees to best practice tips and advice on how tech firms can get better ROI from social media.

Carole drew from her past experience when she led PR efforts at IT security firm Sophos, and also gave examples of some pretty remarkable social media campaigns such as the Blendtec “Will it blend?” YouTube sensation, and the excellent example of Tesco Mobile’s Twitter interaction strategy.

Over pastries and coffee, Carole also spoke to attendees from marketing departments at a wide variety of tech firms about how to create a social media strategy that functions as a natural extension of traditional PR, and how to set measurable goals that can help to prove campaign success.

Those present were also treated to a copy of Carole’s social media strategy whitepaper – if you’d like a copy of this for yourself, you can download it here.

When political parties try to erase the internet

By Kasia Murphy

It was recently uncovered in ComputerWeekly that the Tory party had deleted ten years worth of speeches and press releases from its website. However, it doesn’t stop there – the materials were not just erased from the Conservatives' website and YouTube page, but from the INTERNET ARCHIVE – the world's digital library.

So what terrible, dark and awful materials were deleted? The ‘disappeared’ materials were pre-General election speeches and press releases that discussed how the new Tories were all about modernising conservatism, dedicated to saving the environment and that “cuts would be made to the deficit, not the NHS”, and so on.

Unsurprisingly, censoring the internet isn’t quite like setting a load of books on fire a lá the 15^th century, rather this move was done by altering the Robots.txt file on their Conservatives.com site which instructs web crawlers such as Google about what content it is allowed to access.

However, there are many sophisticated archiving tools and methods out there – thanks in no small part to, you guessed it, technology! For one, the British Library has been archiving a selection of the UK's Web since the mid-2000s.

Fortunately human(electorate)-memory is pretty hard to purge, and there are still plenty of one-liners that can be sourced from articles published in the period between 2000 – May 2010, like this chestnut:

"It's clear to me that political leaders will have to learn to let go... Let go of the information that we've guarded so jealously." David Cameron, 11 October 2007, Google Zeitgeist Conference in San Francisco.

Also worrying is that Labour's current news archive dates back only as far as the start of Ed Miliband's leadership, in 2010 – and it is supposed to be regularly ‘updated’! Even speeches delivered by Tony Blair during his time as prime minister appear to have been deleted. That said, Labour did not use the Robots.txt file meaning it’s all still out there, somewhere.

Blackberry jam

By Mike King

Call me nostalgic, but I’d kind of hoped Blackberry was going to be able to turn things around. I know the writing has been on the wall for a long time but I still have a fondness for the keypad and cheaper international roaming costs that set Blackberry apart from the rest of the smart phone world.  

OK, the handsets are unreliable, battery life is ridiculously short and the need for businesses to set up and run separate Blackberry servers is antiquated and cumbersome, but I’ll still be sorry to see it go. Unfortunately, there’s little doubt that the end is nigh.  Latest figures from research firm IDC show that in Q3 2013 only 1.7% of smart phones sold worldwide ran the Blackberry OS.  That’s a 41% drop in market share for Blackberry when compared to the same period last year.  Ouch.   

Meanwhile, Android continues to go from strength to strength, hitting more that 80% market share for the first time in same quarter.  Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows phone also showed significant growth, confirming that we’re well into a three horse race. 

To put Blackberry’s figures into perspective, another research firm, TrendForce, calculates that a minimum of 3% market share is necessary for any smart phone manufacturer to remain competitive.  Below this level, which equates to 35 million units shipped per year, the economies of scale are not there.  So, in other words, last quarter Blackberry had close to half the market share it needed to stand a chance of competing. And its market share is dropping at a record rate. 

Of course, Blackberry would say different and is pinning its hopes on new CEO, John Chen, who it claims can turn the company around.  Meanwhile, details have just emerged of another Blackberry security flaw.  I can think of less risky places to invest $1 billion. 

Mobile Christmas countdown

By Nicole Melzer

It’s November, which means Christmas is just around the corner, and I am slowly getting into the right mode for the festive period.

A recent survey, conducted by Ernst & Young, reveals how people in Germany will spend approximately €273 on Christmas presents. This got me thinking about my own Christmas shopping and what to buy for my mum, dad, brothers, sister, cousins, grandma, grandpa, sister-in-law, nephew, brother-in-law, my best friend and her husband – wow, that’s a lot of people! With this in mind, I began to panic. A reasonable shopping budget is good, however, I hope that Ernst & Young’s results take into account more than just three family members or friends. Then there is the same dilemma that I’m faced with every year, what can I buy them? My first idea: socks for all of them, but that’s not very creative, so maybe I should think of something else. I decided that I needed some help and a source of inspiration, so I grabbed my smartphone and began my hunt for the latest Christmas apps.

It seems I am not the only one who is resorting to using apps for my Christmas shopping, according to a recent survey, conducted by Inside Mobile Apps, 25 percent of its respondents will use an app for holiday shopping this year. Furthermore, LEAD digital reported that, in 2012, 1.76 billion apps were downloaded all over the world, with the USA taking the lead with 604 million apps.

The range of Christmas apps is growing – for example, there’s special Christmas ringing tones, Christmas countdown, Christmas Tree Live Wallpaper, Funny Santa Videos, Christmas Carols, Christmas with Charlie Brown and many more – however, the latest is the “en vogue” app, which is described as a “relationship-butler”. Not only does the app remind you of important festive days, birthdays and important occasions, but you will also receive a list of suggested gifts. The “relationship-butler” simply looks at your family or friends Facebook profile, as well as your own, and scans your wishes, interests, and personal preferences, to find the perfect gift. Once you’ve found the right one, you can buy it online using your smartphone, which we’ve already discovered many people are in favor of.  

It’s no surprise that mobile shopping has become an increasing trend for 2013 and, with the rapid proliferation of smartphone devices, it will undoubtedly continue to grow into 2014. For example, according to a report, conducted by Toluny QuickSurveys, 24 percent of Brits used a mobile device for shopping in 2012. The USA showed similar shopping behaviours and were 4 percent more likely to shop using a mobile device or tablet.

So, what does this tell us about Christmas today? Mobile devices are certainly playing an increasingly bigger role than previous years – it’s like Christmas in your pocket, where you can listen to the sound of bells, play a Christmas carol, and complete all of your Christmas shopping straight from your mobile device. The idea of a “relationship-butler” sounds interesting, but personally I believe there are two hooks. Firstly, not everybody from your friends or family is on Facebook. Secondly, an app couldn’t possibly take all of your interests or tastes into account, not like a human does anyway. Of course, there is a big amount of personal data on Facebook, but posting pictures of your favorite cocktail bar could potentially draw to the wrong conclusion. Finally, it's all a matter of budget, and so my search begins for an app to help me with my Christmas funds.