I've been following the story about 'PR guru' James Andrews in the States who rather naively posted a comment about a city on Twitter, incurring the wrath of one of his companies top clients. For those of you that haven't seen it, Andrews was on his way to a meeting at Fed Ex's corporate headquarters in Memphis, when he Tweeted his hatred for the city. One alert Fed Ex employee stumbled on it and retorted with a rather sniffy response, cc'ing in a number of senior Fed Ex employees.
Andrews claims to be a social media expert, but I have to admit that he can't be that savvy if he didn't realise that - out of the near 1000 followers he has on Twitter - one of them might be from Fed Ex.
Yet another example of how companies and individuals need to watch what they say online.
Follow the rule - if you wouldn't say it to their face don't say it online.
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
Thursday, 15 January 2009
Xmas purchases
Yet again, a while since I posted.
As you can expect Christmas purchases were a big news story, with online sales soaring. That Amazon was accepting orders till just a few days before Christmas, shows that the days of online deliveries not arriving are pretty much over.
However, not all online deals are good buys. A friend of mine was telling me about her great experience with www.buymobilephones.net and her combined purchase of a new phone and Sony Playstation.
In these critical economic times, she wisely saw an opportunity to buy a necessity [a new mobile phone package] and get a Sony Playstation thrown in. As her son’s birthday was a couple of months away, it made sense to do the deal, and keep the gift till said date.
Alas, buymobilephones.net didn’t not agree. When my friend’s son’s birthday came, the much-wanted gift was refusing to work. After a phone call to the company, she was told that they were only liable for 28 days and she should take it up with Sony.
The call – according to my friend – was in the tone of “sorry, you may still be paying for this, but not our problem, bye”.
I’m pleased to say Sony, which I have had many dealings with, showed their customary exemplary customer service. Expressing their disappointment that the gift was faulty and arranging a replacement immediately. My advice? Watch for the small print on the deals and remember www.buymobilephones.net when you’re next looking for a deal.
On a more positive note, I continue to be impressed with Argos. A good friend of mine wanted a Nike heart rate watch, and had seen the very one he wanted in the catalogue. A quick surf on the website and I was able to reserve one in my local store, turn up and have the transaction completed in around five minutes. Perfect. Only hitch was that the watch - come Christmas - wasn't performing all the techy wonders it was supposed to. Argos replaced it with no questions. Now that's customer service.
As you can expect Christmas purchases were a big news story, with online sales soaring. That Amazon was accepting orders till just a few days before Christmas, shows that the days of online deliveries not arriving are pretty much over.
However, not all online deals are good buys. A friend of mine was telling me about her great experience with www.buymobilephones.net and her combined purchase of a new phone and Sony Playstation.
In these critical economic times, she wisely saw an opportunity to buy a necessity [a new mobile phone package] and get a Sony Playstation thrown in. As her son’s birthday was a couple of months away, it made sense to do the deal, and keep the gift till said date.
Alas, buymobilephones.net didn’t not agree. When my friend’s son’s birthday came, the much-wanted gift was refusing to work. After a phone call to the company, she was told that they were only liable for 28 days and she should take it up with Sony.
The call – according to my friend – was in the tone of “sorry, you may still be paying for this, but not our problem, bye”.
I’m pleased to say Sony, which I have had many dealings with, showed their customary exemplary customer service. Expressing their disappointment that the gift was faulty and arranging a replacement immediately. My advice? Watch for the small print on the deals and remember www.buymobilephones.net when you’re next looking for a deal.
On a more positive note, I continue to be impressed with Argos. A good friend of mine wanted a Nike heart rate watch, and had seen the very one he wanted in the catalogue. A quick surf on the website and I was able to reserve one in my local store, turn up and have the transaction completed in around five minutes. Perfect. Only hitch was that the watch - come Christmas - wasn't performing all the techy wonders it was supposed to. Argos replaced it with no questions. Now that's customer service.
Tales of travel in terrible taverns
It’s been quite a while since I updated this and that’s due to the time I’ve been spending travelling. Virtually all of it in Scotland. When I was writing this, Celtic were just about to play Hibs. After Rangers’ amazing battering of Hamilton Academicals the previous day, there’s no danger of them making their ways past the mighty Hoops, but nevertheless, the Celtic match is an important match.
So – seeing as Glasgow is a city when football is in the blood of just about everyone here – you’d expect that the airport’s pubs/cafes would make this game available to customers rather than the English-centric Sky Sports. Alas, no. Wetherspoons – that often maligned cheap pub – chooses to pay Sky for dated Sky Sports news, rather than have the more local Setanta channel. Seeing as I counted around ten people asking at the bar whether the football was on, you’d think they’d take the hint. Unfortunately not.
Those Hoop fans that read this will be glad to know I intend to write to Wetherspoons’ esteemed CEO Tim Martin to ask that this be remedied, or at least explained.
My travelling has come about because I’m involved in a fairly exciting new venture. A digital startup, it’s got a feelgood factor and it’s nice to be doing something that’s not mercenary. When I can, I'll reveal more. Let's just say it'll be the biggest media startup in the UK for 2009.
One of the biggest news stories I’ve found while I’ve been back in my homeland is The Herald & Times Group’s astonishing decision to make all its 240 staff redundant.
While I understand the reasoning behind it, morally it’s wrong. D
onald Martin, the new editor-in-chief who’s got the job of doing this redundancy exercise, is a friend of mine and despite the negative press reports of him, he’s in charge of cutting costs and that’s not a pleasant task.
Scottish media needs to change. Not just Scottish media, but media in general. If you’re reading this, then you’re digitally savvy as most people are. While there’s a place for offline media, when the majority of your audience is getting its information offline, you need to adjust or die. Unfortunately – as The Herald said succinctly in its statement – there are a lot of people (journalists and sales staff alike) at The Herald who have yet to adjust to the digital times. I don’t think the mass redundancy route is the right one, but it enables Gannet – which owns the papers – to break the contracts of the senior staff, many of which will have been drafted in more reasonable times with more reasonable benefits.
Will those benefits be reinstated when the applicant is accepted for a new job? I doubt it.
So – seeing as Glasgow is a city when football is in the blood of just about everyone here – you’d expect that the airport’s pubs/cafes would make this game available to customers rather than the English-centric Sky Sports. Alas, no. Wetherspoons – that often maligned cheap pub – chooses to pay Sky for dated Sky Sports news, rather than have the more local Setanta channel. Seeing as I counted around ten people asking at the bar whether the football was on, you’d think they’d take the hint. Unfortunately not.
Those Hoop fans that read this will be glad to know I intend to write to Wetherspoons’ esteemed CEO Tim Martin to ask that this be remedied, or at least explained.
My travelling has come about because I’m involved in a fairly exciting new venture. A digital startup, it’s got a feelgood factor and it’s nice to be doing something that’s not mercenary. When I can, I'll reveal more. Let's just say it'll be the biggest media startup in the UK for 2009.
One of the biggest news stories I’ve found while I’ve been back in my homeland is The Herald & Times Group’s astonishing decision to make all its 240 staff redundant.
While I understand the reasoning behind it, morally it’s wrong. D
onald Martin, the new editor-in-chief who’s got the job of doing this redundancy exercise, is a friend of mine and despite the negative press reports of him, he’s in charge of cutting costs and that’s not a pleasant task.
Scottish media needs to change. Not just Scottish media, but media in general. If you’re reading this, then you’re digitally savvy as most people are. While there’s a place for offline media, when the majority of your audience is getting its information offline, you need to adjust or die. Unfortunately – as The Herald said succinctly in its statement – there are a lot of people (journalists and sales staff alike) at The Herald who have yet to adjust to the digital times. I don’t think the mass redundancy route is the right one, but it enables Gannet – which owns the papers – to break the contracts of the senior staff, many of which will have been drafted in more reasonable times with more reasonable benefits.
Will those benefits be reinstated when the applicant is accepted for a new job? I doubt it.
Thursday, 4 December 2008
Finally
Okay, things have been fairly manic over the last two months, but I'm determined to get more regular with my postings.
I've started working with a startup specialising in sport, and it's proving very interesting. More recently I've been spending a lot of time on Habbo, trying to understand how the kids talk.
I've started working with a startup specialising in sport, and it's proving very interesting. More recently I've been spending a lot of time on Habbo, trying to understand how the kids talk.
Monday, 29 September 2008
Sailing
Well, I'm now bruised and battered after a day's sailing on Friday, with recruitment company Major Players, in Southampton. Great day, but was thrown all over the boat. Needless to say I got no action shots, so these will have to do.
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
romantic interest
It's been some time since I mentioned the romantic interest, so after lots of consultation with friends, I've decided to come clean on what happened. The Boy - J as he shall be known - is a bit confused. All was going well, we'd been spending lots of time together, going out, reading Sunday papers in the pub. All was well. Which is why I should have seen the truck looming over the horizon.
The problems started two weeks before my birthday in August. J had decided to take a week off 'to chill out'. Maybe I should've been more understanding but I guess I was a bit hurt that he'd decided he needed 'some time away from everything' and that included me. But still I tried not to panic. In retrospect, I maybe shouldn't have contacted him and let him chill, but I thought as we were a couple, talking would be okay. The weekend before his week off, which ran into my birthday weekend, we spent a glorious couple of days, and - to my surprise - he made a commitment declaration by giving me a set of keys to his flat. I was surprised, but touched. His week off came around and my assumption that talking was okay, was so wrong. He made it clear that he was planning to be a hermit for the week, and that included not seeing me. His reassurance that he was 'planning something' for my birthday made me think all was okay. Again, how wrong.
My birthday came around, I got a call from J to ask if I was in the office. I said yes, for the morning, then in the afternoon I was out with my team. It turned out he'd sent flowers to me, but to the registered address for the office, which is not where I was. So that was the start.
We - myself and my team - went to the Elbow Rooms to play pool and J called around five asking when I'd be done. I'd still heard nothing about his 'plans' so I'd arranged to go for a drink with a mate back in South London where I live. I told J this and he said, well can I come? Of course, he could, was my response. It had become clear there was no 'plan'. He turned up with a couple of books - a private joke - and a card. I've tried to find an image online, to no avail. I can't scan the card as I've binned it, but let's just say it's probably the most cruel and nasty card I've ever had from someone close to me. But I digress.
My team had got me some lovely presents and a delicious cake - a flan. J suggested we leave the Elbow Rooms and go back to mine, so we jumped in a cab. And that's when it started. I made the mistake of asking why he'd gone into hiding. He said he didn't want to talk about it, and I -stupidly - pushed the issue. We got to Victoria and it was apparent that the whole thing was over. The situation then descended into a Mike Leigh style comedy. We're standing in Victoria Station, he's telling me he can't cope with our relationship and that he needs space to get his head together. I, by now, am crying. I ask him if he's coming home with me and he says, quite honestly, no. So I say fine and turn around to walk off to my train. He's carrying the flan, so he calls after me about the cake and I tell him he can keep it. God knows what the other commuters thought.
I get on my train, sobbing, and go home. I cry on the sofa then ring my best friend who immediately takes me out and gets me drunk. So all was not lost.
Fast forward to Sat morning. Eight thirty am. I'm dying. I've got mascara all over my face and I feel like death. The buzzer goes. The flowers.
I open the door, unaware that I'm still in the Mike Leigh comedy. A middle aged man launches into a tirade. "You need to get proper labelling on your flats," he grumbles. "I've been all round the bloody grounds, and it took me ten minutes to park. I've got loads more deliveries to make and this is a bad start to the day."
I stand. Looking blankly at him. I open my mouth and I can't help myself. "You're having a bad day?", I say. "You? It was my birthday yesterday so the flowers are late. I was supposed to be going away with my lovely boyfriend, but instead he's dumped me and now I've got these shitty flowers to remind me."
He stood. Open mouthed. And then he said, "not much I can say to that love, Happy birthday!". He hands me the flowers and departs. I get showered and arrange to meet some friends for lunch. I call my mother on the way, and she's surprised to hear from me saying, "I thought J was taking you away". No, I say. What happened? she says. He dumped me yesterday. Oh god, she says. Are you all right? I can't talk about it, I say, choking back tears. Of course, she says. Anyway, how was your birthday? Clearly my mother also had a role in the comedy.
All was fine - or as fine as it could be. I fielded the questions about where J was from my friends, I exchanged an email with J where he explained he was in a difficult place and he needed space and time blah blah. Touchingly, after that space and time, he fully expects to be with me. So I'll just wait here, shall I?
It's amazing how when you think you're just almost getting over it when the digital space delivers a killer blow. I get a text from J. "I'm going to hurt you just a little bit more," he texts. "I'm going to delete our relationship from Facebook. I care about you but I just can't do this."
So a kick in the teeth virtually. I think I would have been happier if I'd been allowed that dignity of being the one to declare myself single.
It's now a month on, and frankly the world is easier. I've been quizzed by friends - who frankly would like to see him strung up by his balls for hurting me so badly - who want to know why I don't hate J.
What did he do? Yes, he said things that he clearly didn't mean but we all get carried away with the moment sometimes. He didn't love me and he didn't want to be with me. So he told me. What's bad about that? Yes, if I found out he'd cheated on me, my attitude would change, but he was just honest. And I'd rather that than a fake weekend away for my birthday. But yes, his timing was shit.
The problems started two weeks before my birthday in August. J had decided to take a week off 'to chill out'. Maybe I should've been more understanding but I guess I was a bit hurt that he'd decided he needed 'some time away from everything' and that included me. But still I tried not to panic. In retrospect, I maybe shouldn't have contacted him and let him chill, but I thought as we were a couple, talking would be okay. The weekend before his week off, which ran into my birthday weekend, we spent a glorious couple of days, and - to my surprise - he made a commitment declaration by giving me a set of keys to his flat. I was surprised, but touched. His week off came around and my assumption that talking was okay, was so wrong. He made it clear that he was planning to be a hermit for the week, and that included not seeing me. His reassurance that he was 'planning something' for my birthday made me think all was okay. Again, how wrong.
My birthday came around, I got a call from J to ask if I was in the office. I said yes, for the morning, then in the afternoon I was out with my team. It turned out he'd sent flowers to me, but to the registered address for the office, which is not where I was. So that was the start.
We - myself and my team - went to the Elbow Rooms to play pool and J called around five asking when I'd be done. I'd still heard nothing about his 'plans' so I'd arranged to go for a drink with a mate back in South London where I live. I told J this and he said, well can I come? Of course, he could, was my response. It had become clear there was no 'plan'. He turned up with a couple of books - a private joke - and a card. I've tried to find an image online, to no avail. I can't scan the card as I've binned it, but let's just say it's probably the most cruel and nasty card I've ever had from someone close to me. But I digress.
My team had got me some lovely presents and a delicious cake - a flan. J suggested we leave the Elbow Rooms and go back to mine, so we jumped in a cab. And that's when it started. I made the mistake of asking why he'd gone into hiding. He said he didn't want to talk about it, and I -stupidly - pushed the issue. We got to Victoria and it was apparent that the whole thing was over. The situation then descended into a Mike Leigh style comedy. We're standing in Victoria Station, he's telling me he can't cope with our relationship and that he needs space to get his head together. I, by now, am crying. I ask him if he's coming home with me and he says, quite honestly, no. So I say fine and turn around to walk off to my train. He's carrying the flan, so he calls after me about the cake and I tell him he can keep it. God knows what the other commuters thought.
I get on my train, sobbing, and go home. I cry on the sofa then ring my best friend who immediately takes me out and gets me drunk. So all was not lost.
Fast forward to Sat morning. Eight thirty am. I'm dying. I've got mascara all over my face and I feel like death. The buzzer goes. The flowers.
I open the door, unaware that I'm still in the Mike Leigh comedy. A middle aged man launches into a tirade. "You need to get proper labelling on your flats," he grumbles. "I've been all round the bloody grounds, and it took me ten minutes to park. I've got loads more deliveries to make and this is a bad start to the day."
I stand. Looking blankly at him. I open my mouth and I can't help myself. "You're having a bad day?", I say. "You? It was my birthday yesterday so the flowers are late. I was supposed to be going away with my lovely boyfriend, but instead he's dumped me and now I've got these shitty flowers to remind me."
He stood. Open mouthed. And then he said, "not much I can say to that love, Happy birthday!". He hands me the flowers and departs. I get showered and arrange to meet some friends for lunch. I call my mother on the way, and she's surprised to hear from me saying, "I thought J was taking you away". No, I say. What happened? she says. He dumped me yesterday. Oh god, she says. Are you all right? I can't talk about it, I say, choking back tears. Of course, she says. Anyway, how was your birthday? Clearly my mother also had a role in the comedy.
All was fine - or as fine as it could be. I fielded the questions about where J was from my friends, I exchanged an email with J where he explained he was in a difficult place and he needed space and time blah blah. Touchingly, after that space and time, he fully expects to be with me. So I'll just wait here, shall I?
It's amazing how when you think you're just almost getting over it when the digital space delivers a killer blow. I get a text from J. "I'm going to hurt you just a little bit more," he texts. "I'm going to delete our relationship from Facebook. I care about you but I just can't do this."
So a kick in the teeth virtually. I think I would have been happier if I'd been allowed that dignity of being the one to declare myself single.
It's now a month on, and frankly the world is easier. I've been quizzed by friends - who frankly would like to see him strung up by his balls for hurting me so badly - who want to know why I don't hate J.
What did he do? Yes, he said things that he clearly didn't mean but we all get carried away with the moment sometimes. He didn't love me and he didn't want to be with me. So he told me. What's bad about that? Yes, if I found out he'd cheated on me, my attitude would change, but he was just honest. And I'd rather that than a fake weekend away for my birthday. But yes, his timing was shit.
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Free computers
Originally I was in favour of the news that Brown was to give kids access to computers at home [not at £700, but that's another blog]. While the Daily Mail readers can rant that the wee chavs should be in the library, what is bypassing the commentators that when these wee chavs grow up, they'll more than likely to be working in a company where they will not only be expected to know about computers, they'll be expected to be competent in their use. That's not fantasy, it's fact.
But I'm particularly annoyed that the deal doesn't extend to Scotland. Yet again, this Government has shafted Scotland. There are children in Scotland who will work in computing [BigMouthMedia, one of the most respected SEO companies is based in Edinburgh and run by Scots!] so have they to buy their own? I hope to God that the lunatic will be let off the top chair soon.
But I'm particularly annoyed that the deal doesn't extend to Scotland. Yet again, this Government has shafted Scotland. There are children in Scotland who will work in computing [BigMouthMedia, one of the most respected SEO companies is based in Edinburgh and run by Scots!] so have they to buy their own? I hope to God that the lunatic will be let off the top chair soon.
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