Broadband and Me

Amazon in trouble (even more so)

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Amazon carbon sink effect 'slows'

That's georaphical area not the company. For nearly 20 years to my recollection I have heard very worrying stories about the effect that human interventionis having on the Amazon and its subsequent effects on the climate and well being of the earth. It scares me. i do try to do my bit like not eating meat and recycling attempting to buy ethical and environmentally friendly goods, I even contribute when I can to environmental charities but it seems that compared to other people's wanton greed and destruction my little contribution achieves not a lot. Don't get me wrong, I am not going to stop, in fact I attempt to encourage a green approach where I can. I just want to know what more can be done to persuade people?

I think more tree planting is in order but I doubt it has the same effect here as the Amazon...

Pay as you go Broadband on offer

BBC NEWS | Technology | Pay-as-you-go tempts surfers

Always interests me how other companies manage to get this stuff in the news first. Still glad to see the market is expanding and looking at other possibilities for products.

George Michael to shun the Music Industry

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Music | George Michael shuns music industry

Old news now but I think my view is that I applaud his stance in that any new music he produces will be purely for his enjoyment and sold only to donate money to charity - good luck!

Brand as Performance - where ntl goes wrong?

The Ourhouse Weblog: Brand: Promise or peformance?

I admit to having read this a while ago but its taken this time to filter through. Then, because of work on my CIM course (I passed the first two exams BTW) and conversations the other day at work, it became more clear.

A brand is NOT a promise. It's a performance. So let's stop all of the brand ranting and get down to brass tacks.

I keep hearing that mantra that "a brand is a promise" and it's never really worked for me. I've always been left a bit confused, thinking "is it?". The idea of brand as performance certainly engages me more. And it fits my view that brands are social creations, things that are created between people moment-by-moment.

My additional thought: great performances are not simply delivered by a performer but result from some kind of chemistry with the audience.

Companies I value for their products or service don't just promise, they deliver (or perform) and not just in one area but whenever they engage with the customer. Amazon, for example has always performed for me. That is not to say they always meet the promise (sometimes they don't have that obscure book or I have to wait longer than 48 hours for the book to arrive) but they always perform. Even recently when I had to return a product the service was better than that received in most retail outlets. My assumption that the cause of this isn't just good technology (though it obviously is) but also very well trained and motivate employees who are allowed to actually engage with the customer - funny considering its an online store.

In stark contrast I will now never shop in an MVC store (i'm not even linking to them) because they would not exchange goods and were generally unhelpful. Virgin incidently were just the opposite and despite having a similar clientiele and extremely similar workforce in terms of age, attitude was very different. Back to performance. The brand, the image promises much and marketeers work hard to get it there but if the performance from the product or service is poor, it is that the consumer remembers.

ntl has lots of promise and in lots of areas good performance. My main criticism is that it is not consistent in its ability to provide a good performance all the time. I think things have improved and with recent reorganisations will improve considerably further.

For my part in this brave new world, I'm tatooing this to my brain in luminous pink :0

Upgrades

Upgraded to MT 2.661 and MT-Blacklist 1.63RC2
Just thought you might like to know...

Thanks to Six Apart and Jay Allen respectively.

Moving Chairs on the Good ship ntl

Lots of things to say, never the time or the right words...

After a lot of thinking I decided to look around for a new role late last year (well with more committment to finding something) and started applying internally within ntl. Last week this paid off and I was recruited for a new role (eCare Manager). This ends two and a half years within Internet Product Development, a time punctuated by learning a great deal, having some great challenges and unfortunately getting rather fed up with certain people and situations.

These situations contiued today with yet more re-organisation taking place (5 in 6months - how wrong can the management team be?) and compunded by a promise to deliver a new structure for 1st wekk in March and now retracting that and saying it won't be until April. Luckily I am out of the area as from a week tomorrow and while I am very excited by my new role it is with a certain amount of regret that I move on as I don't feel I achieved all that I wanted to within my current role.

On the positive side my new challenge is to deliver online customer care for ntl: Home customers; a not insignificant challenge but one which I have been yearning to do for the last 6 years! An opportunity indeed. It is also a step towards marketing as it is within a Customer Loyalty team. One of my key personal objectives is to listen and hopefully open up dialogue with customers (as I frequently have said I would like to in this blog) in general and specifically around what online tools they would like to interact with ntl. For a number of the more frustrated ones I am guessing a beat the Managing Director game where via a webcam and a robotic arm you can view over the web harm coming to members of ntl: Home's senior management. (If you actually like this idea I will see if I can get an online game commissioned!)

I am also go and try to use the blog to discuss more of what I am doing as its generally less sensitive than new product development - maybe I can even start an official blog... told you I was excited. Anyway in the meantime if you want to get in touch leave a comment or drop me an email!

Weblog to Employment

Ton's Interdependent Thoughts: Hired!

I'm delighted to see that Ton has found himself a new job, not in small part to his wonderful blog. Congratulations Ton and best wishes. If you keep it up maybe this KM thing will catch on (said firmly tongue in cheek).

Farnborough Minis and Juniors Site

Farnborough Rugby Club : Mini and Junior Rugby

Just wanted to highlight Farnborough's minis and Juniors website, particularly as I am the coach shown on the front page! The site was primarily designed and developed by Simon Windle our Under 8s coach who works for a web agency (Enhance) that specialises in Search optimisation.

Anyway, if you are looking for your child to play rugby then bring them down (especially if they are currently in Year 2!)

Rosetta Launches

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Rosetta probe heads for comet

Phew! Rosetta finally launched. Just another ten years until it gets to see active duty when it meets up with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.

Good luck - lets hope you can be the key to unlock some mysteries.

Fairtrade Booms

BBC NEWS | UK | Fairtrade food trade booms in UK

Well done people of Britain, I am impressed. Major corporations should take note. While fair Trade sales still aren't on a par with their cheaper exploitative cousins, a 47% increase is still phenomenal.

I think CEOs should start thinking very seriously about what their brands stand for in today's world and whether they can afford to not consider wider environmental and social issues.Corporate Socila Responsiblity isn't just some pay off to keep the odd person happy, its a real way to make money and dare I say it improve your brand image while doing some real good.

Getting in the way of talking to customers?

The Ourhouse Weblog: Cheap and simple research

John bravely bites the hand that feeds to criticise the marketing research merry go round. While it certainly seems to me research can offer valuable insights, these seem to be few and far between. people , once generally helpful in giving information are now positively turned off, if not aggressively anti-contribution, and results are ever more at odds with reality.

Add this to John's more central point about it creating a barrier between marketing departments and consumers and you have a real credibility gap.

Get out and talk to customers. Its a good idea trust me. Customers are who you serve, they want your products but only if they satisfy a real need and they don't want to be fobbed off with shabby service with an unreliable product. You don't need an army of researchers to tell you that. Just go look on the web or newsgroups and it will give you some feedback. Go sit on the 'shop floor' and listen to how staff treat customers. Go buy one of you products and use it, talk to some of those customers about your experience - see what happens. Unscientific? Maybe. I'm willing to bet it gives you more insight than £500k worth of marketing research.

Low Cost Broadband - Price War?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Low cost broadband battle hots up

Finally BT has woken to the fact it needs to offer something to the lower end of the market and it looks like telewest is going to follow suit.

ntl has offered a variety of tiers for a while now and is generating significant customer acquisition because of it.

Will this new initiative lead to a price war? not sure but could do...

Will it lead to more Broadband customers? I think so and that's good because it forces all Service Providers to think about their offerings and innovate in terms of the access offer and the value added i.e. content, applications and (perhaps most importantly) service.

ntl are certainly not standing still - see chetnet for more details on current technology trials.