Okay so not the most original wishes but sincerely delivered.
As I was thinking what to put here other than the 'I doubt I'll post anything until the New Year after today', I spotted a new post from Johnnie here (via Rob Paterson). It links to this blog, with a little story that somehow sums up what spiritually this time of year should mean, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, we should celebrate life.
Clearly the man has nothing, and barely exists. My colleague, who showed a particular kindness to this guy, mentioned to me that we are probably the only contact with reality this guy has, and that comment has stayed with me...Last week I overheard my colleague say “hey Albert, stop by the Wednesday before Christmas, and I will have a little something for you.” He (my colleague) picked up one of those little gift bags and bought a few things - gloves, a scarf, etc and put in in the bag for Albert to pick up...
The contents of the bag just grew and no one saw anyone putting anything in. Today, sitting in our board room were two 5 gallon bags of gifts for a guy that had nothing...
As time permitted each of us spent time sitting in the board room with Albert, as he went through his gifts with a joy in his eyes that I have only seen in kids at Christmas...
I hope over the next two weeks you have the experience of feeling how I felt reading this.
See you in 2005...
I've just spent 2 days at one of the ntl call centres (in Swansea to be precise). Some really good people there, very positive and enthusiastic about helping customers (although ntl doesn't make it easy for them).
I was holding a couple of workshops to improve the content we have online to help customers. The website Help is not as good as it could be in certain areas and hopefully over the next week months it can be improved.
The Internet product help has recently been updated (and continues to be maintained on a regular basis now) so its about time the other areas were refreshed with something more useful.
It was also very interesting (though not surprising) to note how much information call centre agents are expected to know and how much they actually do know. Putting my knowledge management hat on, its easy to say that a lot of good work could be done very quickly and simply to improve the situation. I see no reason why not to give it a go post holidays.
By the way - anything useful you would like to see up within ntl help sections - put something on the comments and I'll add it to my list...
CURRY.COM: Adam Curry's Weblog
Another satisfied customer...or rather could have been but isn't.
Welcome back Johnnie...
Just need to work out how to emigrate now :)
And on an earlier point,
Conversations invite possibilities - rants invite rants
So what do you want from life?
A Committment to Radical Change
Hats off and a deep bow to Dave Pollard for his progress on Saving the World. I know I would find it difficult to emulate him (I have 3 children for a start) but I would like to try.
In terms of his more radical agenda though I am sympathetic in principle, I am not convinced that this is the way forward. Massive change such as he proposes has never succeeded this way histroically and while that is no promise for the future I think a less radical approach would serve better.
Hearts and minds.
Edit: take this for example:
We are here to find meaning. We are here to help other people do the same. Everything else is secondary.
We humans want to believe in our own species. And we want people, companies and products in our lives that make it easier to do so. That is human nature.
Product benefit doesn't excite us. Belief in humanity and human potential excites us.
Think less about what your product does, and think more about human potential.
What statement about humanity does your product make?
The bigger the statement, the bigger the idea, the bigger your brand will become.
We have entered an age, the first in history, where self-realisation is not just possible for an elite few, but for everyone.
Having spent a large amount of time over the last few years looking at management and marketing theory, and working inside a large (ish) firm, it would seem logical that I could identify people and/or practice that fits to theory and (although I dislike the concept) 'best practice'.
Yet often I struggle and from a few conversations over the last week, I am not alone.
These conversations were primarily sparked by yet another round of redundancies and the question 'why?'
Obvious answeer is that the business needs to cut costs because its not making its targets and the shareholders are the driving force behind any management decisions. So why are we meeting the numbers?
Acquisition targets are definitely on-track. Retention could be better but not affecting overall customer number targets. (Not that I am aware of what these are precisely...)
Costs - I am guessing that these are way over budget. But I don't know. There are no communicated targets in terms of costs nor are there targets in other areas.
Communication in total is relatively poor despite various efforts to improve. There seems to be very little vision and very little focus on anything other than short term cashflow. This is bad. This is very bad. Not the focus itself but the conditions that push a business into needing this in the first place.
Compeition is fierce and trading conditions whilst not adverse are challenging.
Public perception doesn't seem to be improving. There is little in the way of PR, advertising or any other promtional or communication channel other than our call centres, and they obviously are not our best asset at present. Of course they could be but performance whilst improved from the summer continues to struggle.
Money for investment that could change the perception ( I guess you could say Brand image) is not going to be forthcoming and I personally worry that in areas where we do have some strong leadership such as product development could suffer in the medium term, after all, any ntl products take time to get to market.
If I sound negative well I guess I am and more so than the usual doom and gloom merchant that I am. I have lost confidence. And I guess that means I should actively look to move on.
So, note to self - set personal objectives for 2005, brush up CV, get in touch with some contacts and look for a new role - somewhere that you can utilise your passion that so often has to be put away or wasted on furstration.
Any advice appreciated, especially on my CVs... my modern version CV is here and my traditional version is here
BBC NEWS | Technology | Google to scan famous libraries
Wow! Not sure about others but I certainly view this as a coup by Google. Putting content of academic libraries online especially (in fact most importantly) the out of print, out of copyright material is fantastic.
Google never cease to amaze me with their innovation.
In the meantime (apparently it will take six years for everything to be online), take a look at the Google Beta site. Via Seth Godin