Cyberbullying In The Name Of...

Sitting at my kitchen table (the warmest place in the house) fighting off the Christmas lurgy, I seem to have a more reflective take on the whole "Killing In The Name Of" vs. Joe thing (I forget the name of Joe's single). For me the whole campaign has some disturbing elements:

1. Who are these people who set up this Facebook group? Do you know them? Do you know who they're connected to? Or their agenda? NO. Remember: "No-one knows you're a dog on the internet".
   
2. I've been into what I would (perhaps pompously) refer to as "serious music" for over 30 years, and in that time I've never given a rat's arse who was number one because the singles chart has always been for kids and old grannies.
3. Simon Cowell isn't evil, he's just tapped into a market that's out there - if you don't like what he does, then just switch it off.
4. There have always been attempts by impresarios to control "the talent"; from the days of Tin Pan Alley, through to Chinn & Chapman, Stock, Aitken, & Waterman, and now Simon Cowell. And people who don't like what's on offer will find something else: The Blues, Bill Hailey, Elvis, The Beatles, Sex Pistols, or RATM.
   
5. RATM are part of Sony.
6. The charity thing looks like smoke and mirrors.
   
7. When I step back from the hype, I get the bad feeling that one million people have just committed the biggest act of cyberbullying yet against an 18 year old boy. Live with that.
8. Lastly, all of this reminds me of the Johnny Rotten quote "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
   

Alistair Darling, Are You Serious?

On the BBC's Andrew Marr show yesterday, Alistair Darling appeared to announce the cancellation of the NHS Connecting for Health IT program. He just slid it into the conversation without further reference. His reasoning was: "because it isn't critical to delivering front line services". I know that the CfH program is flawed, but this is monumental stupidity. A good IT system will give you control, improve accuracy, reduce waste, and increase productivity; in the case of the NHS, this means more time spent on treating patients. I believe that universal healthcare is essential to any civilised country, but I fear that without the implementation of new digital technologies the NHS will not be able to deliver this in the 21st century. And that's a problem for all of us.

Internet Predictions for 2010

They'll be coming thick and fast over the coming weeks, so I thought I'd get my 10 internet predictions for 2010 in now, with a nod to Spinal Tap:

1. The big online retail phenomenon of the year will be carpet.


2. The government will charge a universal broadband tax to be given directly to those poor, hard done by actors, directors, and pop stars.


3. All internet content will be charged for, particularly this blog, with a premium rate for anything deemed 'unsuitable'. Eventually, all of the money in the world will reside with a handful of porn barons.


4. Microsoft will finally admit defeat and decide the internet is not for them. Three months later they will announce a new, patented, product called the 'WINternet' which will cost 500 pounds per seat, will be incompatible with the current internet, and will be replaced by a new version every 3 years. And we'll all buy it.


5. TV will become obsolete, as we all rush to watch (old) programs in a low-res postage stamp window on our computers.


6. Orkut will be the social media application of choice.


7. All government IT projects will be delivered on time and in budget, and will be really useful.


8. Apple and Dyson will team up to add a portable vacuum cleaner to the iPhone - 'The iPhone that sucks'.


9. 2010 will see the death of the PC (you have to predict this every year, it's a given).


10. The election will be cancelled as 'too expensive for the public purse', to be replaced by a UserVoice forum.


11. We'll all buy a government ID card.

Never Go Back

I found myself in Liverpool the other week, alighting at Lime Street Station much as I had in my student days, some 20+ years ago. I haven't been back to Liverpool in a while, certainly not the city centre, and my initial reaction was that nothing much had changed. Years of dust fell away from my memories and off I walked into the city centre, in torrential rain, like some kind of mesmerised salmon looking for my place of origin. I soon realised that the city centre has changed a lot, and for the better, but that just made me plough on further until I got to Dale Street and the business district. By now I was truly soaked, and I was only carrying a minimal change of clothes, but on I trudged. I found that the old business district has not changed too much in 20 years and that's a good thing, because it's fantastic, so on I pressed until I came to the Street where I had my first job after university - Tithebarn Street. I could see my old building up the way, and my heart quickened and my clothes dripped, as I anticipated ascending in the lift to check out my old office. I hurried to the entrance where I was cruelly halted; it was blocked and overgrown with weeds, the windows were boarded, a tower block frozen in the late 1980s, a ghost building - sad, tired and decrepit - the ground floor wine bar locked up, Derek Hatton no longer entertaining his council cronies with lunchtime champagne.

The moral of this story is that you can never ever go back... unless of course you're Doctor Who.

Happily I can say that I enjoyed the new Liverpool very much, the Liverpool Software City event was excellent, and I ended the night as I have so many others in that place, drunk and in a curry house. I hope to visit again soon.

Social Networking Etiquette

Perhaps it's just that I have an old fashioned attitude to these things but recently certain people have begun to bug me, and it all revolves around LinkedIn. Now I really like LinkedIn, after years of subscribing I'd finally begun to get it in recent times, to the point where I find it pretty useful... BUT, recently the behaviour of a small minority of people has irked me. I'm happy to share my network with the people I connect with, because I'm pretty selective about who I connect with, but lately I see a trend of people wanting to connect to me (who I know BTW) who want to keep their network secret and yet are happy to have access to mine. Well, that's just wrong - in my book that's not networking it's data mining. I'm sure these people might have an explanation about still being able to get introductions or whatever, but that's not my point. My point is about shared trust. So, please, don't try to mine my contacts - you know who you are!!!

I might, of course, be wrong. In which case I'd be happy to hear anyone else's opinion on this.

Am I Being Brainwashed? (#TEDxNCL)

Interesting and thought provoking evening at TEDx in Newcastle yesterday (#TEDxNCL). Daniel Pink's video was very interesting, but I was most engaged by the two live speakers who talked about user experience design.

As a business and as a consumer, I can see the need for good design of the user experience. I stood in the bar with a group afterwards where we named umpteen elements of user experience on the web where things could drastically improve for the customer. In business, we all need to find better ways to engage with our users in order to find and retain more customers - and some of the examples of design given during the talks were truly impressive, making me think straight away about how to do things better.

But it also made me think about how I make my buying decisions. These days it seems that companies are using all sorts of subliminal methods to make me buy stuff. I talk on the phone or have face to face pretty regularly with someone who's doing NLP or some other Jedi thing on me. Now I find that the designers are at it as well.

Now, I'm all for buying quality, good value, products that satisfy a need or solve a problem but now I worry about where my need or my problem is coming from. Is it from me, or am I being manipulated beyond my control? I need to think seriously about developing some kind of mental resistance - in the meantime, I'm making a kitchen foil hat to keep those messages at bay and keeping a close eye on my bank balance.

Who Would Win a Fight Between a Lion and a Tiger?

When we were kids, I'm sure we all asked questions like "Daddy, who would win a fight between a lion and a tiger?". Well I did anyway. And so did Malcolm, a friend of mine in primary school, who asked really imaginative versions of the question, for example "Who would win a fight between a lion and an eagle?" which seemed obvious at first but as we bent our infant minds around the problem we conceded that an eagle has the capability to strike at the eyes of a lion and so win the contest. These days, when I see how quickly our common or garden pussy cats can move, I'm pretty sure the lion would shred the eagle.

Another example was "Who would win a fight between a lion and an elephant" a classic match-up of power, speed, and aggression against bulk and strength. I've seen this one on film, where half or dozen or so lions - if they're hungry enough - can bring down an adult elephant, and it's horrible to see. Normally, though, a single lion is aware that it could be stomped or tusked and an elephant is wise enough not to push a lion too far. In nature, it appears, good sense prevails and that a victory isn't a victory if you're mortally wounded in the process.

Which brings me to Microsoft, Google, and Apple. All having spats with each other recently, all seemingly determined to fight it out, despite the fact that they all have the power to inflict considerable damage on each other. Hopefully, this is just testosterone at work and that good sense will prevail eventually, because one thing is for sure: the customer, you and me, will suffer if any of these guys go head to head, all guns blazing.