BBC NEWS | Technology | Cheap broadband lures UK surfers
BBC article utilising ONS figures on increased Broadband penertration and Jupiter Research views on costs.
Competition leads to cheaper offerings is no real surprise although the fact that offers are confusing should come as no surprise to UK telephony consumers. IT is a point though because although prices have reduced exactly what you get for the price is not always clear, especially when it comes to usage limits. For most that isn't a problem and speed is the issue but for some the amount of data transferred is important.
As usual marketing teams would do better to be clearer on the offering rather than trying to obfuscate the restrictions.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Burt Rutan: Aviation pioneer
BBC article outlining the career and achievements of burt Rutan, the man behind the private company attempting to reach space with SpaceShipOne.
Two points - obviously a very able man, clearly valued by the aerospace community and the US. His focus on achieving spaceflight simply is perhaps a route public agencies should focus on more (as the article suggests).
Second point is that someone like Rutan is revered in the US, yet if he was operating the UK I suspect he would be ridiculed and not valued at all. Strange, the difference between US and UK psyche.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Teleportation breakthrough made
I am not even going to pretend to understand the physics behind this, however the ability to transfer properties of atoms through space seems beyond the fantastic and seeingly into the realms of fiction. The most important short term possiblity is computing speed, which while not amazing does break barriers.
Whether this means physical transport is ever a possibility I don't know but it makes me wonder...
Congratulations to those scientists involved.
Last week I took the second two exams in the CIM Advanced Certificate (although I think htey have now changed its name to Professional Diploma). The two courses in Marketing Communications and Marketing Management in Practice did not go as well as in December. I'll now have to keep my fingers crossed for end of August when the results are due.
I also need to consider whther to continue to the Post Graduate Diploma. I think this would be a good idea but its a lot of work, as I found out this year and if I have to do retakes, its a strain. Oh, well lots of thinking and hoping ahead.
I recently decided to re-visit Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series, primarily because of reading an interview with her in The Third Alternative No.37. It must be 20 odd years since I read the trilogoy of a Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuain and The Farthest Shore (collected here) and it is still magical (pun intended). Le Guin's writing is superb at once conveying the 'other' worldliness of Earthsea and the hopes, thoughts and feelings of the principle characters. These are novels for a young adult audience but they lose no of the wonder for this. The story of Sparrowhawk and his transition from a goatherd on the edge of the world to Archmage on the magical island of Roke is a emotional tale, one told with great sympathy for the characters, and interestingly Ged is not the central figure in the second two books.
My joy at re-discovery the tales is now enhanced by discovering fourth, fifith and sixth books in the series. I hope to get to these soon.
An interesting comparison to Harry Potter in terms of an outsider gaining magical powers and scaring on the face caused by evil powers however different settings and styles. I mention this as I am reading The Goblet of Fire to my daughter and went to see Prisoner of Azkaban at the cinema yesterday. Also very enjoyable but in highly different ways.
Seth's Blog: The Curse of Great Expectations
...benchmarking against the universe actually encourages us to be mediocre, to be average, to just do what everyone else is doing. The folks who invented the Mini (or the Hummer, for that matter) didn’t benchmark their way to the edges. Comparing themselves to other cars would never have created these fashionable exceptions. What really works is not having everything being up to spec… what works is everything being good enough, and one or two elements of a product or service being AMAZING.
My ex-colleague Stuart had a great antipathy towards benchmarking and like Seth Godin noted that you can only get slightly better at what the others you benchmark against are doing. You are not being different, amazing, defining a unique selling point (to use the jargon).
I agree with the sentiment. Somethings you do need to be good at (good enough as Seth says) and perhaps you will want to benchmark these or at least give yourself ways to see whether what you are doing is working well enough.Other things you have to try and innovate and be creative. I don't think you can measure creativity or benchmark it. I could create 200 new things this week but none would be amazing. Next week I could do 6 and 3 would be stunning (obviously not in reality).
ntl look to improve, and have looked to improve over a long period. Sometimes they manage it - like now improvements are happening (I dare say not fast enough for some customers) however benchmarking data is a relatively recent phenomenon here. Bizarre? Yes, well 'no comment'.
I suppose where I am trying to get to is that we do have elements of the amazing product, and perhaps we are good enough at some things (but by no means all) however we lack the culture to really be amazing and to make our customers happy most of the time. I think that truely comes from leadership and having never worked anywhere that has it I can't comment further - its just a feeling I have.
Seth suggests you need 'guts' but I also think you need passion rather than obsession which is the difference between being top of the benchmark or being remarkable. If you have the passion you'll find a way.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Broadband hits four million mark
Ofcom reports that there are now 4m Broadband users in the UK and that means 15% of all households. Not bad but overall no cigar.
ntl I know is braodly in line with that in its coverage areas although amongst its own customers penertration is much higher.
Interesting to note that. I suspect that if connection is simple and straightforward and a cheap connection and ongoing monthly rental is available people will adopt. They (and I to a certain extent) however, still need to be really convinced as to the advantages of Broadband, other than faster download times and always on.
The content and applications are not really here yet, even after all this time. This is where most focus needs to be concentrated. Although products such as ntl's Broadband Plus and presumably BT Yahoo are a start but not the end game.