Author Archives: Jason

About Jason

Innovation | Transformation | Success. And for fun - running, Karate, the universe and Star Wars. Made in Hong Kong.

Simple does work – another good example of how to do great service

Apple have done it again. A nice post from Cult of Mac on plans by Apple to improve their Genius Bar services…

Very simple really – change the tables to get more customers in. I don’t doubt they’ll also bring in more Genius staff to help. Bigger tables with more customers and the same number of staff won’t work – and Apple know that. See my earlier blog post – “How simply should it be?” – that talks about keeping things simple at Apple and it’s part of the culture there and it works. Great services, great technology, great products and the rest.

This table layout change is another great example of this approach. It’s easy to do, very simple and won’t cost much, but the impact on the customers will be huge and very positive – more great service. The Apple Store at the Bentalls Centre in Kingston has done something similar recently but expanded their store at the same time – clearly not always an option. But they’ve now got more tables, with quite a few of these new long ones, lots more staff and the kids’ tables. These stores where they’re testing the new layouts minus the kids’ tables, should think again. The kids love them and they work. Kids are kept quiet, so parents can browse and interact with the Genius staff more (and yes ultimately buy more Apple goodies) and the kids are playing with great apps on the iPads so very quickly learn to love iPads and Apple and become little fan people in their own right. Genius! Getting the next generation into good service from Apple – now that’s long term investment planning at its best.

The challenge – as the Cult of Mac post rightly points out – is providing this improved great service when space is a premium. How do they do it? I’ll tell you how – as they’ve done in Kingston here, have less space geared to selling products, as bizarre as that sounds and more geared towards service. It works. People coming into Apple shops have a good idea what the products are and want to see and play with them – the big ones (like iPads and iPhones and iMac and MacBookAirs). Not so much the accessories that take up lots of space.

Does this approach work for you? Is it about service for retailers like Apple or do you prefer the PC World, Curry’s type approach of products, products, products everywhere and hardly any staff who’ll stop and listen?

On a side note, what do you call more than one (Apple) Genius? Genius’s? Geni-i? Guru’s? One to Google…

Where’s visual voicemail? Come on it’s old technology…

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Having been an iPhone fan (user) since 2008 with O2 I’ve been used to the great technology that is visual voicemail. It makes far more sense than the 15+ year old normal voicemail technology. It’s visual and you can easily see who’s called, when and then listen to which message you want to, when you want to. Nice.

I moved to Vodafone through work on another iPhone and they didn’t have it but I was happy with my own set up on O2. When I then moved from O2 to Vodafone on my personal one, I’d assumed I’d get the same great voicemail service from Vodafone – I mean they provide the best network coverage in the UK, surely they must have the same basic technology services as their competitors – but no, it was back to old fashioned e-mail. But I put up with it for a few months before moving mobile networks again.

This time to Three – they’re offering an amazingly priced deal for iPhones (me providing the phone and them the service) and these guys invented 3G didn’t they? Well sort of, I mean it’s in their name and they were the original 3G network providers in UK.

Signal strength from Three not great – particularly when indoors but their service around data must be the best, surely? And that must include visual voicemail – or so I naively thought. Their voicemail service isn’t even close to Vodafone’s non-visual one. You either have a text message from Three telling you you’ve received a voicemail or no notifications. The text messages I find annoying so don’t want to use them. But the alternative is nothing. Rubbish. And by nothing I mean nothing. The phone might register a missed call but there’s not even a counter on the voicemail icon to say there’s a message. Something’s not right there.

I know, I’ll speak to Three and see what they say. A message to their support team and a phone call back from their very outsourced support team, who try to point me in some direction but end up saying I need to speak to their iPhone experts who then ask me to explain everything from the start again – that sort of service really gets me. They’ve not listened or they have and chosen to ignore me and their processes – yes that word again – mean they can’t link things up properly. Rubbish again. The guy tries to help but eventually just says they don’t support visual voicemail as their customers don’t want it. Really? Aren’t I a customer? I want it and others do as well. How many have you asked?

A quick Tweet to the Three Twitter account and pretty much the same response – but delayed (which is also a little surprising)…

If the new benchmark has been set by Apple and O2 5 years ago when the iPhone was released why on earth aren’t all the mobile networks keeping up with the technology that consumers (yes that’s us) want? It’s all down to money and the commercials – which I guess isn’t surprising. Why aren’t these guys trying to be more innovative and give people useful services that they want?

See a post on Mobile Industry Review by Ewan MacLeod, that very nicely says it like it is…

If you’re interested here’s a very nice how-to guide for how to use visual voicemail on your iPhone – obviously if (and it’s a big if) you’re network supports it…

If not try one of the 3rd party services like HulloMail – that I’ve just downloaded and will be testing – or wait (for how long though we have no idea).

What do you think? Am I expecting too much?

It’s official – the 6 year old’s verdict is that digital magazines are better!

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Without any prompting from me, this morning over breakfast, when I was browsing the Metro app on the iPad, little Miss Noble tell us that magazines and newspapers are better on the iPad than the paper ones. And the Focus magazine from the BBC is right up there as well – we had a quick look at that as well over breakfast.

This is only week 2 or 3 into our digital newspaper experiment but it’s going well and the Metro is without a doubt the clear winner here and leading the way in how newspapers can go digital and do it well.

For my 6 year old daughter to decide in her own mind that the digital versions are better says a lot. Here’s her thinking as well (she told us why it was better)…

It has videos – consumers want more rich media content now
It has clever pictures – hi-res photos you can zoom in on and pan about
The adverts are funny – with videos and links and buttons you can click

All key points and she’s right. For us, it’s a much more interactive family newspaper experience now and it’s so easy for me to show everyone else cool photos and stories. Even 3 year old Mr. Noble needs to see them!

In the Metro today there’s a great story about a cable car in the Swiss Alps where you can sit on the roof for an outside view – see the picture below. This was a great breakfast table topic as daddy (me) took a trip last night on the newly opened (yesterday) Emirates Air Line cable car across the Thames (London). And the photos in the app really added to the conversation. It looks a bit high though (the Swiss Alps one), not sure I’d be jumping to go on it, but maybe – it does look like fun…

Check out the web-site for the Emirates Air Line, it’s a very cool way to cross the Thames – 50m above the river and with some awesome views over London…

And some cool snaps from my first trip across the Thames in a cable car – the perfect evening for it, clear blue skies and the sun just about to set (a bit windy 50m up though).

Another hard run – wrong time of the day

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Yes it’s that time of the year – pollen season is here – and the associated hayfever for millions of people.

This time of year running presents new challenges – avoiding grass and parks and generally nice outdoors type areas. Training plans need adjusting and fine tuning to run in more built-up areas and at different times of the day. The worst time to run is late morning and early afternoon, when the pollen count is generally at its highest. So an early morning or evening run sound good.

Why then did I ignore this advice today? And run on empty again (yes I’ve done this before and know it’s not good)!

An early start today and little breakfast, a busy morning in London (for a very enjoyable Digital Leaders Think Tank roundtable session (more on this in a later post) at the top of 30 St. Mary Axe – otherwise known as The Gherkin – with some spectacular views of London – see below) and hot and muggy weather. Far from ideal conditions to do a 10k run with a decent time.

But it was on the plan so we did it. Same route as the last couple of 10k training runs – nice and easy, and not much grass along the way. Times for my 10k training runs so far vary from 44 1/2 minutes to 47 1/2 minutes – almost a 10% difference. Today was the higher end – just over 47 1/2 minutes. Rubbish. But it should have been expected for all the reasons above. See my earlier posts for some other thoughts on this.

Only just over one week to go until the British 10k. 2 more training runs planned this week and then 3 next. Planning to leave 1-2 days between the last training run and the actual race. With a 9:35am start and in central London, not in the parks, it should be a good time to run.

Just need to remember to eat first…!

Content over consumption – coming soon

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A topic that I’ve been thinking about for sometime now and with my own children growing up immersed in technology, have been wondering if content over consumption is or will be a problem. Is anyone else thinking about this?

Content is everywhere and so accessible and at lower and lower prices, and everybody is creating and publishing their own content. Blogs, videos, photos, apps, web-sites, Facebook pages and more. When we access and consume all this content are as focused as we should be? Are we spending the time the content deserves or needs to understand it properly?

I’m a big fan of digital media and technology and yes I buy into the anywhere, anyhow and anytime philosophy. I like to be able to decide when and where and how I access the content and what content I’m accessing.

Mrs. Noble’s not convinced about my 2 screen policy in the living room – i.e. watching TV and using the iPad or iPhone at the same time (be it for browsing, Twitter, e-mails or anything). Her argument goes that I’m not focused on the one activity – one content consumption activity – so I can’t be getting the most out of it. She has a point and a good one. Yes it does take a lot for a TV programme to grab my attention fully but unless I consume the content and focus on it and nothing else, am I off to a bad start?

What got me really thinking about this was a BBC programme that’s on now, called “The Men Who Made Us Fat“, with Jacques Peretti. The title of this grabbed me and I thought I’ve got to watch it, as it’s surely all about self control so I was dying to see what they had to say and how it can be possibly be someone else’s fault. But I stand corrected – it’s an eye opener to say the least. Some critics of the programme disagree – quite harshly – but it makes some very very good points and there were a number of pivotal points over the last 40 or so years that have contributed to over consumption of food, that you can’t argue with.

Keep with me, this is relevant to the subject of content over consumption as you’ll see…

These pivotal points include:

The availability of cheaper high calorie food – through sugar and corn syrup.
The new idea of a snack – food consumption away from the traditional meals.
Counter service food – fast food and takeaways, food when I want and where I want.
Food manufacturers creating new low fat alternatives but still full of sugar.
And food anywhere, anyhow and anytime – it’s everywhere you go.

And these have all contributed to a growing over consumption of food and yes the related health issues – particularly in the Western world.

Now back to content – let’s look at the similarities…

The mass availability of cheap rich media content – e.g. from YouTube.
Content snacks as cheap small pieces of content – e.g. music tracks and short episodes.
Counter service – content anywhere I want through iTunes, Amazon, Google etc.
New types of content from creators – e.g. apps for £0.69.
And content anywhere, anyhow and anytime – what the consumer is wanting.

Content over consumption is coming and for some it’s already here. Is it a problem though? That’s the million dollar question. I don’t think so if we manage the consumption properly – and this is down to individuals and parents. Moderation is the key word and content is good in the right amounts and when appropriately filtered for the little guys. We don’t want to stop the trends we’ve got now, with everyone being able to create their own high quality content – and build up those associated creative (and technology) skills. But at the same time we don’t want to create a bottomless content pit where you can’t sort out the good from the bad easily and become overwhelmed by the volume.

Yes content is king but it’s about quality not quantity.

And some thoughts from the Dalai Lama to finish on…

The clouds are here to stay

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Following my post last week on cloud computing and reference to Kevin Fielder’s blog post about BYOD and the consumerisation of IT (2 other hot topics), there’s another great post that Kevin’s done specifically on cloud computing and what it is. It’s well worth a read…

It’s a simple but comprehensive introduction and covers key points including:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Software as a Service (SaaS)

And also:

Private cloud
Public cloud
Hybrid cloud

Keep an eye out for future posts here and on Kevin’s blog for more on cloud computing. It is changing the way we use computers – both at home and at work and now you know a bit more about what it is and where it’s going…

The end of content ownership?

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Following on from my earlier post on going digital and what content we’ve gone digital with , I want to go back to the thorny subject of ownership. Do you ever own content? Do you need to own content? What does it matter?

Over the last few years I’ve been reading a series of books called “50 xxx Ideas You Really Need To Know.” – where the “xxx” is not something pornographic but a specific topic or area. Like Digital, Economics, World History, Physics, Maths, Genetics, Management, Philosophy and more. They’re all great books, at a bargain price and very very readable. A little plug here to where you can get them on Amazon – do take a look…

One of these books is aptly titled, “50 Digital Ideas You Really Need To Know”, written by Tom Chatfield (British author, writer and commentator) and is well worth a read. It covers all digital and technology topics in this space, including:

Internet service provision
Web 2.0
Blogging
Aggregation
Privacy
Hacking
Cyberwar
Games consoles
Mashups
Culture jamming
E-commerce
Location-based services
Virtual goods
eGovernment
Crowdsourcing
Free software movement
Digital distribution
Cloud computing
Net neutrality
Semantic web
Augmented reality
Convergence
The internet of things
Distraction

Quite an extensive list and all in nice chunks of a few pages long. Under the section on Digital Distribution, Tom talks about the end of ownership and covers many of the points I wrote about before…

Why are we worried about ownership? Does physical ownership matter? No it doesn’t. The content never really was ours and we’ve simply been granted rights to use it – through payment (by whatever means that was agreed etc). What does physical ownership give us? Something to put on the shelf and look pretty? It’s more from an technical era gone by where physical media was the only way to consume the content – that’s it. Very simple. We’re now in the digital age and we’re making the – sometimes painful – transition from physical to digital.

It is a transition and as I said before, we’re not talking a big bang approach here where one day everything becomes digital. No, we need to make a controlled change that suits us, when the technology is right, at the right price and when it works well (with a nice user experience to it). Some areas aren’t ready yet (e.g. newspapers) and some have been ready for a while (e.g. music).

My on-going experiment with digital newspapers is interesting and the current front runner is the Metro (the free London morning newspaper). It’s available in the Apple Newstand and is fantastic. It’s not just a digital scanned version of the paper (as some other digital newspapers are) but a fully interactive version with great ads that are fun, videos, hi-res photos that you can zoom in on and scan around and lots more. And it’s free every weekday. Interestingly I’m not alone in my high ratings for this app – it actually won the Newspaper App of the Year Award (at the 2012 Newspaper Industry Awards).

The subject of content ownership is one that’s being actively debated and discussed online and elsewhere. Here’s a link to an interesting article by PCMag.com from mid-2011. A few changes since mid-2011 but still relevant…

The Future of Entertainment Summit 2012 was held this week in London, with some great speakers from across the content, entertainment, digital and broadcast space and some great discussions. I wasn’t able to attend this year but was watching Twitter closely for the updates on what was being said. See a few of the Tweets from the day below all around content and consumption…

It isn’t about ownership anymore and it doesn’t need to be. It’s now about consumption and access to content, and yes now the digital consumer! The next challenge is guaranteeing that access – keeping your internet connection (as it is now) up and running and what happens when it goes down.

10 top running tips

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10 tips from my previous blog posts on how to get the best out of your running…

Always use Vaseline – read more (this helps with the infamous runner’s nipples)
Don’t run on empty – read more
Don’t run when not feeling well – read more
Vary your training and run some hills – read more
Ignore the weather and just run – read more
Do some intervals (run slow and then fast and repeat) – read more
Have a plan – read more
Don’t forget to recover – read more
Be motivated – read more
Set a pace and keep to it – read more

These are tips that I’ve found work very well and help you improve – both speeds and distances covered and they help to keep injuries at bay.

One extra one not mentioned – let’s put in as number 0 – so right at the top, get good shoes! So so so important and it makes a huge difference. Go to a specialist running shop – like Sweatshop – and get professional advice. Try the shoes out, test a few pairs and see which suit you best. And the blog post about the good shoes tip is here.

Yes dad does know everything – Happy Fathers’ Day

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As a little boy you grow up convinced dad knows everything there is to know. He answers all the questions you have, with what seem plausible answers and nothing throws him. Nothing.

As you grow up and perhaps study more specialist subjects – e.g. physics like me – dad knows the bits around the edges but less of the details, but still a lot.

Then as you start working and start a family of your own, you begin putting all the stuff that dad taught you to good use and hey it works! And yes when you have your own little ones, dad still knows a lot – he brought you into this world – but he’s letting you have a go now and taking a back seat and watching (no doubt with a smile).

Then as your little ones grow up and they ask you the same questions – and yes they are tricky – you suddenly become the dad that knows everything. That’s part of the job. And if you don’t know something straight way you find out – now a whole lot easier with Google and team. How did my dad figure out things he didn’t know?

Recently my dad’s blown me away with answers to things that I’ve been pondering. Some major stuff and thought provoking and others facts that I needed to know and didn’t.

Infinity

The major stuff – the size of the universe. Having studied physics at one of the best colleges there is (Imperial College) and being fascinated by the subject, probably even more since college, I like to think I have a good all round understanding of it. But infinity throws me – and the ideas that the universe isn’t infinite or is infinite. Neither answer makes sense. And either answer leads to more questions and mind blowing thinking. How can the universe have an edge? What’s on the other side? And if there’s no edge and it goes on forever that can’t be right, can it?

In steps dad – now retired and enjoying life to the full but still the font of all knowledge. A chat with dad about all sorts and we started talking about this, as you do. Not an issue for dad, it’s simply our lack of understanding of what an infinite universe is. We don’t yet understand the answers properly. Genius. That actually makes sense. We’re just not there yet in how we think about this. I’m happy with this explanation – time to move on.

1500m

The race. Why do we run this distance? It doesn’t make sense – why not 1600m which is pretty much a mile? Why this odd distance? A call to dad… 19th century international politics is the answer. 100m we understand, ok it’s Metric, the British weren’t, but it’s a nice number. 200m is just 2 x 100m, 400m is 2 x 200m and 800m is 2 x 400m – logical steps. So the next one would be 1600m yes? No. 1600m is just under an official Imperial mile at 1609m, so pretty much a mile! And a mile is an Imperial (British) measurement – and there was a need for an international compromise on something close – so 1500m was picked. Not too dissimilar from why some countries drive on the left – like the UK – and others on the right. But that’s for another post!

So yes dads do know everything and then soon after you discover that grandad’s know just as much if not more!

Happy Fathers’ Day dad and to all dad’s everywhere!

“A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms even when his hands are empty.”

It’s all about excellent service

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A great post here that talks very nicely about building a culture of service excellence in IT. Written by Glenn Remoreras – another fellow IT professional – and his blog is well worth a read.

Service excellence in technology is what I’m all about and it brings my passions of great service and the latest technology together. There are sadly only a few organisations that provide great great service, in or with technology but Glenn’s post nicely gives some ideas as to what it takes to build a culture that can deliver.

Glenn highlights 5 key points, as values or behaviours, that you need to nurture and develop in your organisation to deliver service excellence:

Putting the customer first always
Creating a culture of collaboration and teamwork
Being proactive (versus just reactive)
Continuous learning
Creativity and empowerment – for innovation and change

Great points and they all make a lot of sense. I’d go even further and say that it’s not just technology services where these are relevant – but any business or organisation who wants to deliver the best service. And today delivering the best service is what your customers are demanding. Are you delivering?