Leaving Wigan Pier for a flash

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All I knew of Wigan was the pier made famous by George Orwell’s book (which I have only just read) and the sight of the tall chimney proclaiming ‘Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls’ as I whooshed by on a train that felt itself too important to stop. I also knew they had a rugby team thanks to Eddie Waring’s strange way of pronouncing ‘Wiiiigan’ in the Saturday sports results on the TV in the1960′s .
A recent family connection, in fact two, has caused me to get to know Wigan and it’s history a lot better. I was surprised to find the pier didn’t exist but despite this fundamental problem it still came to fame following a traveller mistakenly thinking they were in Blackpool, a period as a Music Hall joke then George Orwell giving it a permanent place in history when he wrote ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’. A stub of a ‘pier’ has been built in more recent times to provide a focus for tourist activity.
The 1930′s Wigan described in the book was a dirty smelly place with people living in extreme poverty and working in one of the large number of coal mines in the area. Since then all the mines have gone, the last closing in the 1990′s, and even the ‘Wigan Alps‘ are no more, having been leveled in the 1960′s. Walking in and around Wigan in 2011 it is hard to imagine the scenes in Orwell’s book without the mines, their supporting industries and the dilapidated workers accommodation.
One of the side effects of mining is subsidence caused as the land starts to collapse into the mine workings below. In Orwell’s book this is typified by the poor living in houses whose doors and windows won’t open due to the movement of the building caused by the subsidence. Modern Wigan has taken advantage of the subsidence by allowing holes to fill up with water and transform into ‘flashes’, huge lakes which have now been designated as nature reserves. A look on Google Maps shows the extent of these flashes with the Leeds & Liverpool canal and its Leigh Branch providing a route amongst them. The local council and organisations such as Lancashire Wildlife Trust have worked hard to transform one of these areas into Wigan Flashes Nature Reserve, a home to a huge variety of wildlife, including the rare Bittern. Look around and you will find other similar areas that provide a green band around Wigan.
So, there is now a ‘pier’, you can try ales from Wigan’s two excellent breweries and you can walk home by the flashes listening to ‘booming’ bitterns while sucking one of Uncle Joe’s tasty mint balls. What more could you want, except maybe one of Wigan’s famous pies.

It’s a bank Jim, but not as we know it

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I spent an unusual (for me) but interesting day today visiting two charities who have major projects to enhance their buildings so that they can improve the services they offer in their community.
The first was St Andrew’s Fulham Field Church which, as well as its Church of England duties, provides a hub for its community and a food and clothing service for the homeless.
The afternoon stop was at YMCA Wimbledon which is a place I have walked past many times during the past 35 years. Although I knew it was there it was a real eye opener to see the wide range of services it provides to its community such as childcare, fitness facilities and accommodation for (typically) younger people while they are helped along the path to an independent life.
Both building projects were able to happen thanks to funding provided by Charity Bank who kindly arranged the visits and kept me fed and watered. At the moment banks generally have very bad press coverage, and I can sympathise with those that have a mental picture of overpaid ‘fat cats’ making a mess of the lives and future of the wider population. However, I can see Charity Bank is a very different beast as it exists purely to pay a reasonable rate of interest to it’s investors so that it can then lend the money to charities. While doing this it also seems to avoid the poor loan default rate that has brought other banks to their knees. If this wasn’t enough, it raises itself further in my estimations by using any profits it makes for good causes.
Maybe it’s time to extend this banking model to personal and business customers, anyone got a few million to spare?

Turning customers around, and dumping a few

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You may already have seen an item from the Independent that I tweeted (@rgpmarston) earlier today. It is an article about Public Relations but also contains an example of how to improve your relationship with customers by getting things wrong; a favourite topic of mine.
First let’s get things straight, I’m not implying you should deliberately upset your customers in the hope that by some perverse set of circumstances they will like your business more afterwards. Unfortunately, no matter how hard a business tries it will sometimes upset a customer enough that they will contact you to complain. This act of complaining is in itself good as most people will say nothing and take their business elsewhere; at least you now have an opportunity to turn things around and hopefully learn from the error so that you can stop it happening again.
With some careful handling of the situation, including large helpings of tact and empathy, you should be able to convince the customer that this problem is not usual, you understand the issue (and why it is an issue), you have a plan for resolving the problem and (last but not least) you have a plan to ensure it does not happen in the future.
If a customer believes you are taking their complaint seriously and will resolve their problem they are likely to come away happy and, more importantly, will feel confident about using your business again. They will now feel that IF they ever have another problem you will do the right thing to resolve it, and with this mindset they may use you more or even recommend you to their friends.
There is however a flip side to this as some customer complaints are not reasonable and no matter what you do you will not please them. It is an unfortunate fact of life that some people are unreasonable and in these situations you will just have to accept you can’t win and hope they take their business elsewhere next time. Not all business is good business so be prepared to turn the occasional problem customer away. Just make sure your business is behaving in a proper way and is not morally at fault or lacking the processes to improve itself.
Now your homework for tonight! Think of a business that behaves as I have outlined above then think of one that doesn’t. Next, consider your likely buying patterns in respect of these two businesses. Was I right?

iPad, out on Safari

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What, no zebras? Sorry for those expecting some heavy-duty wildlife gracefully chasing across the African plains but I’m talking about the Safari browser on Apple mobile devices such as the iPad and iPhone.
Have you ever typed something into a form on a web page then nipped off to get some information from your contacts then returned to your browser to find all your typing has disappeared? I have lost count of the number of times I have suffered from this on my iPad and iPhone, although my neighbors may have a count as they hear my screams of anguish as I lose half an hour’s work.
The last time it happened I finally decided to look into what was going on and see if I could solve the problem. After almost 40 years fighting with computers I should have known better.
Having done some research I came to the conclusion that this problem, or ‘facility’ as Apple might phrase it, is caused by the device having insufficient memory to store all the information within the various browser tabs you have opened. The wise people at Apple therefore decided they would throw everything away when you move away from Safari then read it all again from each web site when you return. A cunning plan, except, anything you typed on a form in your browser, but hadn’t submitted to the web site, is lost! If you are on a mobile connection it will also mean delay and a higher data bill.
OK, I now know what is happening but how can I get around it? A look around the App store and a wander around the Internet led me to install three other browsers on my iPad. These were chosen because others seem to think they are worth a go, and they are free! I don’t mind paying for something but I do object to paying to try something out. Come on App writers, give us a free ‘Lite’ version so that we can try your App out before committing to a purchase.
First I tried Opera as it has been around for a while so should be reliable. Bad start; I decided to fill in an online form relating to a planning application which, after much typing, failed to work. So, back to Safari, made sure I didn’t leave the page and all worked fine. Bye, bye Opera, the fat lady has sung.
Some good reviews for the Diigo browser, it looks like Chrome, result! Well no; I was starting to like it but after a while I realised it has the same problem as Safari, it reloads the pages each time you return to the browser.
Finally I tried the free Lite version of Mercury which is limited to two browser tabs if you don’t want to pay. This doesn’t seem to reload pages and otherwise seems fine so I have a candidate for Safari replacement!
Er, no I haven’t, this is of course IT and in particular Apple IT so real world rules of logic don’t apply. If you click on a link in an App such as Mail, Facebook or Twitter it will conveniently let you open the link in a browser, any guesses which browser? Well done the lady at the back, the answer is SAFARI! Can I adjust a setting to convince it to use Mercury instead? Of course not, in Apple land you do things their way, so unless you want to ‘jailbreak‘ your device you are stuck with Safari and losing work if you dare to nip over to another App.
My current ‘halfway house’ plan is to use Safari when it makes me and Mercury when it doesn’t but please let me know if you have a better idea.

It’s good to talk, but how?

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I say ‘talk’ but I was actually thinking about sending messages electronically rather than getting the vocal chords vibrating; the title just didn’t seem to work with ‘message’. So, to get to the point, I want to send someone a message from my iPhone, how should I do it?
Well, I could send a text and as long as the intended recipient has a mobile phone we are in business. The down side is it will cost me money and, from experience, they may not get the message until tomorrow or they may not get it at all.
How about Facebook Messenger? I can send a message, and even a photo, plus we can all get together and have a group bonding messaging session. Ah, my friend doesn’t use Facebook, back to the text.
Hold on though, after wasting a couple of hours of my life I installed IOS 5 on my phone yesterday; part of the reason I had no time to blog. This shiny new version of my phone’s software includes the new Apple iMessage facility which allows you to send messages! Oh no it doesn’t, unless the person at the other end has an Apple device with IOS 5 on it.
I could spend ages working through the various messaging options available to me but it seems whichever I choose I will need to know more about the person at the other end than I actually do. Is Great Aunt Eric on Facebook or IOS 5, does she (or he, I’m not even sure about that) use Google Messenger/talk/chat or whatever it is called?
We now have numerous ways to send messages to people IF we know what THEY use, otherwise it seems we are stuck with a text – I just hope it arrives!

Cloud without a silver lining

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Many international IT companies are changing their business model with the aim of selling their software and services using a Cloud Computing model and others are providing server farms to support this strategy. As an example Microsoft are trying to sell us their Cloud based Office 365 service as an alternative to buying copies of Microsoft Office for installation on our office or home computer.
Cloud based services are, in theory, a great idea but they are dependent on the end user having a suitable internet connection to the computers of their service supplier. Here is the major flaw in what should be a perfect solution, the internet connection.
In the UK we generally have a choice between an ‘up to a lot’ megabit Broadband service which often delivers ‘not a lot’ (have you tried broadband in rural areas?) or a solution based on the mobile phone network. The mobile phone network may provide reasonable speeds if you are stationary and in an area with good network coverage but move around and you will find how patchy the coverage really is.
Both types of broadband connectivity are likely to have a poor service level agreement (SLA) so be prepared for you network connection, and therefore your access to your services in the Cloud, to be missing for days at a time if things go wrong. If you have lots of money you could go for a fibre connection with an SLA appropriate for your needs but I suspect the the numbers who are being sold Cloud solutions are lower than those who have appropriate Internet connections.
So, where does that leave us? Good question, but the answer is less easy. In reality we probably have a lot of sellers of Cloud solutions who won’t meet their sales targets, customers who will have to live with enforced multi-day holidays while they wait for their broadband to be fixed and broadband suppliers who will be under increasing pressure to get their act together to supply the service their customers need at a realistic price.
So, before you float off into the Cloud, away from PC based solutions, make sure you have a cunning plan that will stop your business grinding to a halt while you have no broadband connection.

Are your Social Media targets realistic?

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You are spending time and money on your Social Media but how do you measure if you are getting good value from it? Some companies work on numbers and set targets for their campaigns based on increases in Facebook ‘likes’ or Twitter followers, but is this a good idea?
Assuming your business sells cars, you should reasonably expect that as a result of your Social Media campaign you will sell more cars. So, at the end of six months the person responsible for your Social Media campaign happily tells you you have 1,000 more ‘likes’ and 750 more Twitter followers but have you sold more cars? If you have sold more cars can you tell it is due to the Social Media campaign? If you can’t link your sales to the campaign I suggest you set the wrong targets in the first place or set the correct targets but didn’t have the processes in place to link the sales to the Social media exposure – assuming this is even practicable. The moral of today’s tale … Don’t waste your time and money on Social Media if you can’t measure it’s effectiveness!

It’ good to talk, but better to get personal

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I spent an interesting and productive day today in a meeting with management and staff from FleetPrices.co.uk reviewing their processes, web site and supporting back-end systems. It is always rewarding working with people who are passionate about what they do, have great ideas and are open minded to change that will help them work more efficiently and provide a better service to their customers. Now comes the hard part as we carry out the coding and testing of new software.
With so many forms of communication available to us it is easy to slip into the habit of communicating with customers solely by email or phone. Today has been a good reminder that neither are a substitute for getting together in the same room. Meeting people and the formal and informal conversation that ensues builds stronger working relationships and leads to benefits to both parties that were not on the agenda or likely to have been foreseen.

Does your business know why it’s using Social Media?

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Many businesses are coming to the conclusion that they need to use Social Media. Not a bad conclusion so well done so far! Or is it well done? The conclusion is probably sound but the reason the business reached it may be less so. Did this ‘need’ to use Social Media arise from a properly developed business case or because someone noticed competitors, customers and business contacts are using Social Media?
In these unplanned cases what happens next is likely to include someone rushing off to sign up for company Twitter and Facebook accounts and an email being sent to key staff asking them to sign up to LinkedIn. You now have a set of accounts but are you clear what you want to achieve from using them and will you be able to measure what you have achieved?
You are unlikely to use this approach in other key areas of your business, you are more likely to define a business strategy and goals then come up with a plan and suitable tools to deliver them. Consider Social Media as one of many tools available to your business and use it where appropriate to help deliver your business plan, don’t use it in isolation to keep up with the pack.

I want to be a fly on the wall at Apple

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It has been interesting watching the build up and launch for the new Apple iPhone. Web sites have been ‘leaking’ the launch date for months, and getting it wrong, and we have been told of the new shape of the phone and its cases even though the body has stayed the same as the iPhone 4.
I’ve always felt the iPhone 4 body was a good design and didn’t need much change so Apple’s decision to keep the same shell for the iPhone 4S but improve what’s in it seems a sensible decision. But (and it is a BIG but) after a longer than usual wait consumers were ready, credit card in hand, to buy a sexy, leading edge iPhone 5 not an iPhone 4S. From a marketing point of view I find the launch of the iPhone 4S rather puzzling, and from Apple’s point of view, very risky.
Coming to the title of this piece, I really would like to have been that fly on the wall at Apple towers so that I could find out WHY they took so long and such a huge risk in going for the ‘sensible’ 4S rather than the sexy, leading edge iPhone 5 that the industry and consumers had expected.