BBC's Scottish reports criticised

A BBC news review shows the corporation has been failing to satisfactorily report Scottish issues, according to the Scottish Broadcasting Commission.

A report by the BBC Trust said the BBC was failing to meet its core purpose of helping inform democracy.

Research found that 45% of people in Scotland believed BBC news reports were often not relevant to where they lived.

How is this news? I told you the same info in 1996 and again in 2000

Dear BBC, please pay attention.

Here's the article from 2000, too good to not republish here!


Is a bolt from the blue our only hope?
By Colin Campbell in the January 2000 "Scots Independent"
http://www.freescotland.com/si.html

Just suppose that a millennium meteorite landed on the Greenwich dome and caused and electronic storm so powerful that London, as a centre of communications, was completely paralysed.

And just suppose that the BBC decided it was best to move lock, stock and barrel to Scotland to reorganise its operations under a new Scottish based regime. What would our UK audiences make of having their schedules turned on their heads?

In Scotland, there would be a massive increase in all forms of broadcasting activity and connected industries; and Scottish viewers and listeners would be spoilt for choice with four or five indigenous television and radio stations with which to choose their fare.

In England, the story would be very different. Audiences there would have to get accustomed to merely nominal English output; and to news, analysis and current affairs programmes, being dubbed with the tag "BBC England" when broadcast south of the border. But the real draught would be felt on the radio scene. England's "home service" - Radio Four, would be lost to Scotland - together with their own light, classical and pop channels. In their place they would have one single "national regional" Radio England (probably produced from Manchester when London was disabled). Worse is to come.

Radio England would be set to appeal to the lowest common denominator of the cultural spread. Its morning flagship would be hosted by a comedian and interspersed with reports of England's national weather and national traffic problems. There would be lengthy sports bulletins every half-hour and sport would completely take over the station at week-ends under the slogan "We are the only people who dare to broadcast sport all day long up to the limit that the law allows". The evenings would be dominated by an eclectic mix of pop, rock, funk and jazz music with a strong North American influence. Those listeners not courageous to have switched to the other five Scottish based channels would be greeted with such programmes as the "English Connection" and on Saturday nights "Anglo Saxon connections" with musical contributions from equatorial Africa, the Red Army choir and the Amazon basin. On Sundays they will be spared any religious observance. At every pause between programmes there will be banal and repetitive programme trailers. Their impact will be enhanced by an in house sense of humour redolent of a Primary One pantomime skit. Meantime, back on the tellies, sports reporting will carry detailed Scottish results first followed by a brief "round up" of English ones. Whole selections may be altered to cover shinty cup finals.

The English would soon learn that to complain, with any persistence, to the BBC about any of the contents of their national regional TV or Radio England would result in their being placed on a black list of those deemed unworthy of further communication.

There would be one concession for English viewers. A select panel, chosen by the broadcasters themselves would form the "Broadcasting Council for England". This would at least lend the appearance of some form of consultation with the public over what they require; but, of course, it would have no executive remit - and it would be subject to being over-ruled in such fundamental areas as news provision and political coverage.

It was the English who put up the stiffest fight against Margaret Thatcher's fatal poll tax, although Scotland had tholed it for a full year first. Perhaps if our southern neighbours were to be given a dose of Scotland's broadcasting regime, they might show us how best to dispose of that too. But do we really have to wait for a bolt from the blue to obtain broadcasting in Scotland fit for embarking on the third millennium?

[article ends]

(You missed off a few points - CC)

1. England would be told about going back to work on January 3, the Scottish return to work even though England goes back a day early. On the Scottish August holiday, England would receive children's programmes even though their children are not on holiday. During the summer, the schedules would observe the Scottish summer holiday and articles about "back to school" would be broadcast before English schools have even broken up.

2. Any article about England, particularly ones about high technology would be prefixed with a tired old cliché, an attempt at a joke and some faint Anglo Saxon tune drifting through the mist with battle cries in the background before opening the article with "You wouldn't think that this remote part of England could be hi-tech, but ..."

3. Any article about London would be prefixed with "And now from our England correspondent down in London, what's the weather like down there".

4. In celebration of England's main cultural icons a combined national event would be instigated on St George's day (also the day Shakespeare was born on and died on). To reflect the cultural significance which England has had worldwide, this event will be covered worldwide with English descendants around the globe joining in the fun. This event would be broadcast from Edinburgh with particular emphasis on a new building by the shore in Leith. The main events would of course all take place in Edinburgh as it is the capital (naturally enough). We would go "around the regions" to see how English people in Scotland were commemorating this event and during this regional interlude would receive token input from London, Manchester, Birmingham and in the bard's birthplace there would be traditional morris dancing to anglo-saxon instruments in a small back room.

PRINCE2 Practitioner

I am a certified PRINCE2 Practitioner if anyone knows of any current jobs (pref contracts) on the go just now in the UK.

Alternatively, if you want commission for referring me, you can do so via Zubka

See also the PRINCE2 group on LinkedIn.

Craig

Government CIO demands Green best practice

Government CIO, John Suffolk, demands Green best practice for IT.

That being the case, why is it that all the government jobs I go for, not one has suggested that the interview is held via webcam (which I could do from my house) or even via hi-def video link (which you think I ought to be able to do from a government office in Edinburgh for an interview in London.

Come to think of it, why have none of the dot.com companies I've interviewed for suggested this either? OK to be a trendy dot com Web2.0 company using people on the Internet from all over the world to make your company a success, but still stuck in the mindset that employees all need to be in the same room?

Is it acceptable to have a day trip in a plane to physically attend an interview when the technology is adequate to see what I look like?

Besides the environmental impact, it would save me approx £200 in costs. I'm sure if the government were paying these costs for a permanent position, the tax payer would save in terms of reduced government costs and the environment would also benefit.

So why does noone seem to want to offer video interviews? Surely this is an easy first step to Green IT as the technology has already been around for years.

Craig

The crowdsourcing revolution, users get paid?

In a recent evaluation of some social networking sites, we find that many sites are valued in the $20-$25 per user range for a one off purchase.

On that basis, and the traffic from this site based on unique users, that's me back to being a dot com (dollar) millionaire again then. However, finding a buyer is another matter.

Seriously though, I am rather surprised at the economic model at work here.

1. Clever programmers write some website software. If you're in the UK you're unlikely to get stock options for this.

2. Said website goes onto become hugely successful, clever programmers don't usually get to become millionaires based on this (bebo being one of the few UK exceptions).

3. Said website is then based on active users, who contribute content. This content then drives further user activity fostering a community some of which has commercial value in the form of advertising. Millions of users contributing content = crowdsourcing. Users build up the site "for free" rather than the pre Web 2.0 days of a company having to pay a 3rd party to do it.

We've moved from the Web1.0 days when you needed to pay content editors to have good content on your site (about.com) to Web2.0 when with a decent site site owners get this content for free. So what's next? I would suggest the next economic revolution on the net is that rather than taking the users for a free ride, they should be paid back in shares based on a proportion of the advertising revenue that their content generates. Then when the company is sold, they get cash for those shares and a reward for having built the site up rather than nothing in the way of a financial thank-you for making the site a success.

There's no such thing as a free lunch and personally I am rather surprised at the hundreds of hours people spend on social networking sites, building up value in those sites for a tiny number of shareholders who walk away with 9 figure payouts and the users who created that wealth getting nothing in return.

Crowdsourcing isn't that new, Adam Smith wrote in 1776 in the founding work of economics the wealth of nations that "the division of labour is the source of economic growth". So what about a fair day's wage for a fair day's work in 2008 then? Profit sharing plans for employees are nothing new in the US although still something of a novelty in the UK, is it such a stretch to extend this concept of profit sharing out to crowdsourced content creators?

People aren't slaves. They shouldn't expect to work for nothing. If the contributors to these sites simply downed tools and said "no more contributions until I get paid for them", the Internet would perhaps turn into a different place with more money being distributed out to the original content creators and less of it being sucked into the middle and the search engines that serve up advertising.

Who do you think is more worthy of being paid?

Is this the new economy?

Craig (posting to his own site).

PRINCE2 on LinkedIn

Please visit this link. I used to run a PRINCE2 group on LinkedIn, but have now closed it (no point in duplication)

Craig

Estate agents, time to change business model

Unsurprisingly estate agents are feeling the pain of the credit crunch, with 150 closing a week and monthly sales down from 14 to 7 properties on average. This is despite Scottish house prices continuing to rise.

The problem here is twofold. First of all with agencies closing, there is fewer competition for consumers and secondly the remaining competition will no doubt carry on with the same absurd practices which led their competitors to go bust on the hope that it won't happen to them.

When I received a quote from some local estate agents, I was alarmed that the rates they quoted of 0.75% and 1% of the sale price were at the lower end of the national average which according to this article is about 2%. Using the national average house price of £218,112 and the figures above, here's an estate agent income calculator:

1. Average house price = £218,112
2. Average estate agent commission = 2% = £4,362 commission
3. Average monthly sales = 7. Therefore average monthly income = £30,535

4 Estate agents per office average, average salary £50,000. Total wages bill approx £18,000. This means approx £12,000 per month profit to cover phone calls, office hire and so on.

Certainly in my case, advertising and other extras such as placement on websites, noticeboards and so on was paid for on top.

So what did I get for my 1% deduction on the sale price, according to the bill? "Professional charges including preparation of draft schedule, validated and printed, insertion of photo in local offices, placement on rightmove website and dealing with enquiries".

For that they get 1% of the sale price, and sole selling rights which mean:

"If missives for the sale of the property are concluded during the period in which the company has sole selling rights then the charges are payable even if the buyer was found by myself".

So basically the current estate agent model means that even if I find a buyer, they get to charge 1% of the sale price. Personally I think this is an undue benefit to the agent and as such possibly unfair (and therefore illegal and unenforceable) however the point here is that it's a huge commission when you consider the actual effort to achieve it. To sell a property for 400K for instance, there isn't a lot of actual effort the agent needs to do besides place adverts in papers and on websites and for that they get £4K+, something that I could employ a full time consultant for a week and still have spare change, yet the estate agent sits back for the calls and gets the money even if I find the buyer. Surely something wrong here.

This is essentially why so many agents are now going bust, and why so many went bust in the previous housing downturn in England in the early 90s. They are dependent on a very small number of very high profit margin sales and so they are extremely vulnerable to market fluctuations and in a quiet period, their profits can dry up very quickly indeed.

The solution naturally is to pay estate agents a proper fee. I would quite happily pay £100 to write a schedule and take photos. I would also, maybe, pay to advertise on websites although I think that the age of having to do so will pass in the next 5 years as more free listing sites emerge. I also don't mind paying to advertise in local papers if necessary or on a per viewing basis if the agent shows the house for sale. However, I object to paying £4K just for them answering the phone when I could do it myself.

So all in it should be perfectly possible to sell a house whatever its market value for a few hundred pounds + whatever extra marketing I want to pay for. The days of taking 1%, 2% of the sale price should be a thing of the past.

This of course means that estate agents have even less money coming in which means that they have to deal with a much wider customer base. Fair enough, I think that there are probably too many estate agents and if the numbers stay at their post-crash lows then this would be a good thing. By having more customers and a lower margin on each, they would overall make more money due to scale and also would be more immune to market fluctuations

e.g. selling 100 properties a month over a much wider customer base and making £500 on each means that the agent makes £50,000 per month rather than £30,000 and having the customers spread over a wider area means they are less vulnerable to local downturns. Incidentally £500 is the min fee that my agent charged, so clearly it is feasible at this level.

Am I the only one who thinks its time for a shake up in how house sales are charged?

Evidently not, see House Network. Any more like it?

Craig

DVD forced advertising hell

This picture sums up my attitude towards forced advertising and anti-skip menus on legitimate DVDS

Independent Scotland: £4Bn budget surplus

SOARING oil prices would give an independent Scotland a £4.4 billion budget surplus, making it one of Europe's richest countries, according to a new study.

The surplus would allow Alex Salmond to maintain existing levels of public spending, while cutting corporation tax from 28% to 12.5%, reducing income tax by 5p in the pound and still having £2 billion every year to invest in a Norwegian-style oil fund to safeguard Scotland against a future decline in North Sea oil revenue.

The study, based on Treasury oil revenue forecasts and official spending figures, has calculated that, without money from the taxation of oil and gas, an independent Scotland would have an underlying deficit of £7.8billion. But when £12.2billion of oil and gas revenues are included, Scotland would have a surplus of more than £4billion.

See the link for more info

OGC Logo embarrassment

Certainly made me laugh.

A tale of two websites

Having blogged about a more flexible e-commerce model for e-commerce before let me recap with some history.

The pioneers of e-commerce back in 1995 were Amazon and eBay. Both used a model that now forms the default business model replicated on nearly every other website. That is, you must register on the website and hold an account on the website with a login and password for you to buy anything. This is completely unnecessary, an invasion of users' privacy, does not help in any anti-fraud measures and is simply websites forcing users to hand over long term purchasing stats because they can rather than because it is an integral part of the transaction. We wouldn't tolerate this intrusiveness on the high street and we freely shop there without having to register with shops first, so why put up with this nonsense online?

This forced registration is excess data gathering and contravenes the third principle of the data protection act, namely that the information being handed over - the customer's buying history - is excessive for the purposes of the individual transaction. Sure it's convenient to have an account already set up if I don't want to enter my data repeatedly, but on the other hand it's really inconvenient having my every purchase tracked, and trying to log in when I'm required to have an account have forgotten the password and hate having yet another website where I have to remember yet another username and password.

Argos, a top 5 retail site in the UK is now bucking this 13 year old trend. You can register if you want to, but you don't have to. Well done Argos. Same goes for Visitscotland.com

Let me tell now the tale of two websites. When trying to buy a Chiminea Barbeque tonight, I found two very similar models at the same price.

One was on greenfingers.com which insisted I had an account or registered first, then when I went to register it said I couldn't because I already had even though when I went through the 10 minute forgotten password dance and logged in there was no account info there. The other was castironchimineas.co.uk which didn't require me to register and as an added triple bonus didn't have the other usual website irritations such as a mandatory courtesy title, needlessly separate first and last name fields (i.e. one field for the whole customer name) and finally allowed Scotland as a valid country. Naturally the latter site got my business, it was far simpler and easier to use.

Well done, castironchimineas, someone taking a leaf out of my book not only on flexible e-commerce, but also how to capture a customer name but also website usability guru Jakob Nielsen who said way back in 1995 that customer name fields should be combined into one.

Maybe 13 years after the e-commerce revolution started, we can start to get back to the basics of usability?

Craig

Labour's fortunes

As if things weren't already bad enough for Gordon Brown, this week sees revelations from both Cherie Blair and John Prescott which are entirely unhelpful for Gordon Brown's image and popularity. It's also looking like Labour will also lose the forthcoming by-election, previously a safe Labour seat.

For a government that was so obsessed with spin and image whilst Tony Blair was in power, the publication of these memoirs is clearly something that serves the interests of the authors and who clearly also appreciates the damage it will do to the party as they seek a record breaking 4th successive term.

Clearly they have their own financial interests ahead of such an achievement for the Labour party and would rather be doing their bit to get the Tories elected in 2010 than hold off for a couple of years. An author's fortune or Labour's fortunes?

Coming in 2010. My years with Tony Blair and how my muck raking in 2008 led to Labour's defeat at the polls.

Somehow I don't think that'll be a best seller, unless published by Conservative central office

Craig

Bring it on

In three unprepared words in a throwaway phrase, Labour has removed the biggest obstacle to democratic choice in Scotland: Whether the Scots should be allowed to decided whether or not to remain part of the UK

With those three words, the political process to make the biggest change to the UK for 300+ years really begins in earnest. A process which could see a large portion of the Scottish cabinet lose their seats post 2011, if the Tories haven't done the job first in 2010.

Bring it on indeed.

London curry

Lahore Kebabhouse, E1 1PY

Excellent food and service. Great prices, no pretentiousness. No mandatory tipping or service charge either.

Only slight drawback is that it's yet another place that has a VAT number but doesn't issue correct VAT receipts (with the amount of actual VAT paid on them).

Here's the link Lahore Kebabhouse.

There's also some rather excellent curry to be had at the Noor Jahan 2, 26 Sussex Place, London W2 2TH but again is let down by the inability to produce a correct VAT receipt showing the VAT paid, meaning that the tip amount gets paid to the VATman rather than the staff. Food is excellent here though and there is also a very good pub just across the road, the Victoria at 10a Strathearn Place which has great food (stops at 9:30pm) and great beer. Busy on Tuesday evenings in the pub. Anywhere that gets 5 pints on Fancyapint.com is worth a visit.

Craig

Nokia N95 unable to display message

I like the Nokia N95, the GPS is useful as is the unlimited internet access I have on it. The speakers deliver a pretty decent quality for a phone when I'm playing MP3s, free entertainment in the hotel bedroom when I'm travelling.

However, the most consistently annoying thing is that about half the e-mails I receive immediately present the error "unable to display message" when opening the message and then "Conversion error" when the message is opened. I then have to open the HTML attachment to see the contents, which is obviously nice to look at but since I'm using a browser, the email function of "reply" is no longer available.

What's stranger is that if I do press reply without opening the attachment, there is the text content of the message which a few seconds ago the phone reported it couldn't display because of the conversion error and was unable to display the message as a result of said "conversion error".

Is there a solution to this problem or a known cause? After all, if the phone can read the contents to show them when replying why is it presenting the message when the mail is opened?

thanks

Craig

Website reviews

I'm going to enjoy slagging off a few websites at http://www.reviewcentre.com/, especially next.co.uk who have about the most user hostile website I have ever used.

Let me just say that any website that doesn't use passwords by trying to do things its own way is off to a very bad start indeed. Mandatory dates of birth when they aren't selling age related goods and all I want to do is just pay by credit card is also questionable under the data protection act, 3rd principle.

"Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed". The wide definition of processing should be borne in mind when considering the Third Principle. In complying with this Principle, data controllers should seek to identify the minimum amount of information that is required in order properly to fulfil their purpose and this will be a question of fact in each case. If it is necessary to hold additional information about certain individuals, such information should only be collected and recorded in those cases."

So if I can buy age related goods on amazon.co.uk without telling them my actual date of birth, merely that I am old enough why do I need to hand over material for ID theft when I buy on next and they don't sell age related goods?




Craig

basic search engine failure

Why is it that 14 years after search engines took off, and millions of pounds of research later that in 2008 you still can't do something as basic and necessary as typing in your postcode to find out where the nearest chemist is that opens on a Sunday?

Even the NHS don't publish this info online, yet somehow they manage to give it to their contact centre staff. Staff who require to know your name, address and date of birth to answer a query.

How is this data collection justifiable when the information should be freely available online?

You can't search for post offices open on a Sunday either!

Craig

Better business regulation

I've submitted a few ideas to the better regulation website. If you want to cut red tape in business and improve productivity, why don't you do likewise?

Craig

The three rules of test driven development

A useful first step in proving the functionality of software, websites etc. Now all we need is a link up to ensure that the unit tests ensure what is being tested is actually what the end-user (as opposed to the customer) actually wants to use.

Craig

Tesco, every little helps

Every Friday night when I get back from work about 11pm, the shops have long since closed. The local shops all have lights out, the businesses all have lights out and the only store with lights on is the local Tesco.

Every light on, plain as day, just as if the store was open and full of customers. Yet, the store has been shut for an hour. No dimmer switch, not even just some of them on. Even the staff canteen lights are on long after the staff have left.

Tesco, you are constantly going on about how green you are and isn't it wonderful that your store in Wick is powered by renewable energy and how we'll get green points if we reuse our carrier bags and all that stuff. I actually reuse my carrier bags, I use them instead of bin bags meaning that I don't need to buy use-once bin bags. Back to the point though. Do you not think you might save on the 4.13m tonnes of carbon you eject into the atmosphere every year if you did one simple thing?

TURN OFF THE LIGHTS WHEN THE STORE IS SHUT

You know, like every one else is told to do. Or is your store security more important than the environment?

Remember Tesco, every little helps.

Craig

Scottish IT consultation with Enterprise minister

At an industry consultation earlier this week, ScotlandIS Members, including myself, met with the Enterprise Minister, Jim Mather. Issues raised included the increasing difficulty in accessing public sector contracts, the contribution the industry can make in helping to grow the economy, and the skills challenges the industry faces.

For more details including the White Paper prepared for the Industry Consultation see the page on the ScotlandIS site.

Craig

Paddington Tandoori

Paddington tandoori
Gloucester terrace, London

Avoid. Cash only, mandatory tip and no VAT receipt. Eat elsewhere.

Why do so many businesses rip off consumers with mandatory charges and incompetent billing?

Paypal's contender for most irritating and misleading information on the Internet

If you have a Paypal account linked to a bank account (i.e. so that you can withdraw money) then you are greeted with this abomination every time you attempt to pay by a credit card:

---

It's the default option to pay by bank account and you can't change it. However, I wonder if enough people wrote to customercare@paypal.com and asked them to change this spurious policy they might change their mind. When I want to spend my money, I'd like the option of specifying which account is debited by default, especially if I ever pay by mobile phone the contortions you have to go to to change the payment method from the default are a major pain. As someone with a bit of e-commerce experience (E-commerce lead for Scotland's tourism portal and Project Manager for Tesco.com grocery) I'd like to think that the laughable reasons Paypal gives could do with a bit of comment.

Paypal's text:

Before deciding to fund your payment with a debit or credit card, consider the benefits of paying with your bank account.

Paying with your bank account is instant and your payment will be completed immediately, as easy as paying with cash

My response: Indeed, however since paying with cash isn't an online option this is rather a bogus comparison, no? Paying with a credit or debit card of course is also instant as paypal gets an authorisation code when I pay with a credit or debit card, therefore the vendor can dispatch the goods immediately. No different to paying with a debit or credit card in a shop, as opposed to handing over my banking details there. Furthermore, if I could pay with cash online it wouldn't be as easy because then I wouldn't benefit from any Paypal or credit card protection would I?

Paypal statement:

Paypal keeps your bank account information safe and secure through military-grade encryption and 100% coverage of any unauthorised use.

My response: I hope you're not implying that my other info, such as my card details, isn't held to the same exacting standards? Which military-grade encryption would that happen to be by the way, Ancient Roman Army encryption of letter transposition or 256 bit AES? 100% coverage of any unauthorised use eh, you mean just like all the credit cards I have?

Paypal statemet:

Easy - use the same bank account for making payments and withdrawals

My response: This isn't easy at all. I want to make withdrawals to my bank account so that I can spend the money. I want to make payments from a credit card so not only do I benefit from up to 7 weeks interest free credit and have a few weeks notice of any fraud hitting my actual bank account when the payment is due, I also don't want to use my business bank account for payments because being a business bank account it is charged per transaction fees whereas my credit card is not. So, using the same account for payments and withdrawals isn't easy at all, in fact you trying to make me use the same account for both is a major pain in the arse.


Let me now redo the screen to say what Paypal is probably wanting to write

Dear Customer, please pay using direct payment because it costs us less in fees.

Which does strike me as rather odd, especially since I can go onto numerous websites and legally download MP3s for as little as 79p. Clearly these sites not only have to cover the artists' licensing costs and their own profits but also any credit card processing charges which let's face it must be pretty minuscule. Indeed, companies such as Protx offer flat rate transactions of 10p for high volume users and the kind reader is referred to realbusiness or even an article I wrote for further info on credit card charges and the options available.

So come on Paypal, come clean with customers and give us some choice instead of bogus excuses please. After all, it's our money.

thanks
Craig

p.s. I wonder if Paypal presents the same bogus arguments when you try to pay with one of their own branded credit cards?

All-hotels.com, no VAT

Be careful booking through all-hotels.com if you are a business. The prices may appear cheap, but they don't issue VAT invoices, this then means you don't get the usual 15% discount over the published rates. 15% = 100*(1-100/117.5) in case you were wondering.

There seems something rather odd about paying to stay in a hotel and there being no VAT due. Where did it go and who collected it?

Craig

review of The Ganges, Paddington

Great food, lousy service.

the service really let down the fine efforts of the chef, be warned.

first of all, when I was asking about the menu, the waiter wandered off.
The main course was served while I was still eating the starter.
The empty plates from the starter were left on the table when I was eating the main course.
There was no fresh cutlery brought for the main course.
I wasnt asked at any point if the meal was ok or if I enjoyed it.
Receipt isnt a proper VAT bill, it has to show the amount of actual VAT paid, not just a total.
Service for the dessert and bill were slow.

Great food badly let down by shoddy service - just as well the service isn't included.

See what other diners thought by looking at the reviews at the following link:

Nokia N95 MAC Address

How to get the WLAN MAC Address for a Nokia N95 or Nokia E61
Enter this *#62209526#
Corresponds to this *#MAC WLAN#

Might be even more useful if it was in the phone's help.

Why I don't tip in restaurants

I haven't written a long blog in a while so I thought it was time to post this missive now that I've been living in London for 7 weeks.

I last tipped in a restaurant in December and I eat out 4 nights a week. So strictly speaking I do tip, when there's exceptional service and I want to say thanks (the last time was at Benedicts of Belfast) but so far I've been pretty unimpressed with London. Yet, some restaurants demand a 10% tip, there's no way to remove it from the bill and the service is pretty average.

I don't expect London to be cheap, but working in Whitehall, I can pop up the road from Downing Street and the Palace of Westminster and eat near the corner of Whitehall and Trafalgar Square at the Wetherspoons "Lord Moon of the Mall" for about a tenner including a drink. That's about as central as you can get, a stone's throw from where all the distances to London are measured and a few minutes walk from both the centre of government, theatreland, The Mall and The Strand. A decent (if somewhat basic) meal, a pint of beer and about a tenner. You pay at the bar so there's no tip added to the bill either.

Yet eat at a restaurant, even in more outlying areas such as Aldgate, Pimlico, Bayswater and so on and you'll usually pay over £20 for a meal for one in a restaurant for much the same meal. Eat in a pub, even a good one with "5 pints" on the website fancyapint.com and you get decent food, a drink and it's still around £10-£12. There's clearly a rip off market amongst restaurants who seem to think it's par for the course to whack on at least a 50% premium then look surprised when I don't want to pay the mandatory 10% surcharge on on top of that just because someone has carried a few plates 6 feet from the service hatch to my table then asked me if the meal was OK, cue reference to the "Maharaja Indian Restaurant", Queensway London which indulges in this nefarious practice.

Then you get the bill and have to ask for a VAT receipt. Usually this is some sort of semi-scribbled effort that if you're lucky has the total and the VAT number. Sorry, not good enough. Because goods are rated at different levels, in order to accurately know what the VAT amount is, you can't just guess that 17.5% was added on to the net amount. The receipt actually has to show the amount of VAT paid, just like the receipts I get when I shop in major supermarkets. So even if I was thinking of giving a tip for outstanding plate carrying to my table, the amount of tip I was going to leave has more than been eroded by the fact that the said restaurant is incapable of producing a proper VAT receipt with their VAT number on it, the total VAT paid and the total of the bill. There goes their "tip" - off to the VATman because of incompetency.

So if I get a square meal like I do in Benedicts of Belfast (the sort of food where people come from miles around to eat there) or even basic food such as Wetherspoons and pay £12 then I figure for a restaurant in an expensive area it's going to be around £15 including VAT, assuming I get a correct VAT receipt. I know it's economic to run a restaurant on that basis, the Lord Moon of the Mall in Whitehall shows it can be done for much less.

Any restaurant wanting £20 for the same and especially those with no VAT receipt have just used up my budget and gone over by a fiver. The tip has already been spent on overpriced food.

So that's what I don't tip (in London at least). It's so completely different in the US, where eating in restaurants is much cheaper, the portions are much bigger, the service better and you actually feel tipping is worthwhile and the server deserves it rather than in London where it's a surcharge on top of a rip off.

Comments?

Credit Card Rip Off

Why is it that Easyjet rip me off with a £4.95 minimum credit card fee when I buy something on their site yet I can buy a downloaded MP3 on most UK websites for 79p for no credit card charge at all?

Anyone else feel this is a rip off?

Scotland's bridges are all toll free

The BBC reports that as of just over an hour ago Scotland no longer has any bridge tolls

It took a Labour government to sit on this suggestion for nearly 10 years and an SNP government less than 10 months to make it a reality. See my proposal for banning bridge tolls as they simply penalised the communities they serve.

This suggestion was made to the Labour government in November 1997. SNP, time for change. If only all governments were this effective.

siliconglen.com, Scotland's Internet portal, for sale

I have owned and maintained the content on this site since 1999 and I would like to sell the site, contents, related domains, ongoing traffic etc so that I can work on other projects. The site is profitable, and ranks of the first page of Google results for a wide variety of Scottish business and cultural search terms. I did a list of some of the placements back in 2006 although they will have changed since then. However, more than that, siliconglen is the name synonymous with the Scottish IT sector in the way that Silicon Valley is for the US. The domain alone has a lot of potential for a trade body, a government body, business group, tourism site or a publisher to make into a genuine portal for Scotland. The term is widely used in the media and due to the name and search engine placement receives enquiries from the media and organisations interested in the region and wanting to invest here.

Serious enquiries only please to craig@siliconglen.com

many thanks

Craig

Ageism is illegal. So why do the media make it such a focus?

On 1st October 2006, the UK enacted a law to make ageism illegal. This is only for employment but nonetheless, despite privacy concerns, many employment related websites still ask for it or some equivalent field such as "career start" under the guise of data de-duplication. Today being data privacy day it might be a good time to remind them to get their unique numbers another way.

Anyway, for those sites and application forms that still request it, they claim that it is to ensure compliance with the new legislation. Funny that, before the legislation you didn't have to supply such information, now some agencies ask for it and cite the legislation as the reason. Furthermore, as I blogged in 2006 you are now forced to reveal your age for ID purposes when applying for a job.

So that's the background. Age when applying for a job should just be recorded for "checking purposes" and to ensure that recruiters are playing fairly. In that regard, it is no different to race, religion and other profiling characteristics that are illegal (and immoral) to discriminate on. Yet, the rest of society hasn't really caught up.

Let's take a typical news story from today where the people's ages have no relevance.

The original text:

By Andrew Hough and Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - Five men were found guilty on Monday of kidnap and robbery in the country's biggest ever heist, a daring, 53 million pound raid on a cash depot in Kent.

The robbers, some dressed as policemen and most wearing prosthetic disguises, snatched the record haul after getting past tight security by kidnapping the depot's manager, his wife and son at gunpoint.

They were also helped by an "inside man", who not only provided details of the building's interior layout and security protocols, but also secretly filmed it using a tiny camera hidden on his belt.

Despite the elaborate planning, the gang was rounded up by police within days of the February 2006 raid at the Securitas Depot in Tonbridge, after detectives received a tip-off.

Stuart Royle, 49, Jetmir Bucpapa, 26, Lea Rusha, 35, Ermir Hysenaj, 28, and Roger Coutts, 30, were convicted at the Old Bailey of conspiracy to kidnap, conspiracy to rob and conspiracy to possess firearms.

Another defendant, John Fowler, 59, was cleared of those charges while Keith Borer, 54, was found not guilty of handling stolen goods.

The text if we removed the profiling information and replaced it with ethnic origin (these are made up)

LONDON (Reuters) - Five men were found guilty on Monday of kidnap and robbery in the country's biggest ever heist, a daring, 53 million pound raid on a cash depot in Kent.

...

Stuart Royle, black, Jetmir Bucpapa, white, Lea Rusha, asian, Ermir Hysenaj, black , and Roger Coutts, white, were convicted at the Old Bailey of conspiracy to kidnap, conspiracy to rob and conspiracy to possess firearms.

Another defendant, John Fowler, white, was cleared of those charges while Keith Borer, middle-eastern, was found not guilty of handling stolen goods.

Completely irrelevant, pointless and bordering on racist.


Maybe you could have an alternate version using other profiling information such as religion

LONDON (Reuters) - Five men were found guilty on Monday of kidnap and robbery in the country's biggest ever heist, a daring, 53 million pound raid on a cash depot in Kent.
...

Stuart Royle, catholic, Jetmir Bucpapa, muslim, Lea Rusha, protestant, Ermir Hysenaj, moslem, and Roger Coutts, athiest, were convicted at the Old Bailey of conspiracy to kidnap, conspiracy to rob and conspiracy to possess firearms.

Another defendant, John Fowler, Jew, was cleared of those charges while Keith Borer, protestant, was found not guilty of handling stolen goods.

Again, fairly offensive, pointless and quite irrelevant.

So why do we continue to accept the pointless and irrelevant reporting of the number of birthdays someone has had when it has no relevance to the story? It is just as offensive and wrong as other profiling information that it is illegal to discriminate on.

Comments?

PRINCE2 + AGILE = Common sense?

An article on how Agile can sit alongside PRINCE2 and where DSDM Atern fits in.

In 2007, I put "used an Agile/PRINCE2 development strategy" on my CV. It's been quite the conversation starter at interviews. So I thought it would be of interest to blog about it here and gauge the reaction/feedback.

First off PRINCE2 is an acronym for "PRojects IN Controlled Environments" (version 2). PRINCE2 is a generic project management method for exercising control over a project's startup through to closure (SU1 to DP5 for all you who enjoy punch card like references). It's a generic project management method that had its origins in IT but which now makes no reference to IT and could be used from anything from building a ship to planning your summer holiday. Whether you would want to use it on the latter is entirely up to you. The same flexibility of choice is not however accorded to the large number of public (and increasingly private) sector projects that use it since it is seen as the de-facto project management method and its use is frequently mandated, despite there being other methods that may be more relevant for the task in hand. There have also been a large number of complex and extensive government IT project failures recently many of which would have used PRINCE2 and which highlight that even a refined method such as PRINCE2 can run aground on large scale, long running projects that are subject to considerable change.

On paper, PRINCE2 is logical, reasonable and linear. However, as experience suggests - for example in the long series of failed UK Government IT projects where PRINCE2 is the mandated method - simply being logical, reasonable and linear, is not sufficient. It is not sufficient to make it the effective project management method business and public sector organisations really need."
From PRINCE2 problems by Business Transition Technologies

PRINCE2 is based around project control. Control is clearly a Good Thing, however being a generic method with no reference to IT, the closest IT development method would be the waterfall method, which is very well lampooned on the Waterfall2006 site. It is just these shortcomings of the waterfall method which seem to cause the biggest problems with PRINCE2 projects, especially those which due to their complexity and length of development are prone to large amounts of change. PRINCE2 also does not account for software projects comprising multiple versions and how these are handled, nor for website development and deployment which can be an almost continuous process.

Change is inevitable in projects. In response to this Agile development methods arose to deal with this change more effectively, particularly from a software engineering perspective and unlike PRINCE2, cover in detail the more day to day activities such as sprint planning, daily meeting structure etc. Agile does not have comprehensive cover for project management, however the Agile DSDM development method was developed with PRINCE in mind, as detailed in the paper using DSDM with PRINCE2 [PDF]. Thus the combination of Agile and PRINCE2 is not as contradictory as it might at first seem. One is a development method for managing change, the other is a project management method for exercising control, so the two compliment one another and should result in a management method for control in a changing environment. One can see from this white paper on integrating DSDM into a PRINCE2 environment [PDF] that at the actual delivery level the focus is much more on the agile processes rather than PRINCE2.

Alistair Cockburn (no relation) and others have produced a set of agile management methods however this has grown out of the agile community and consists of a set of principles rather than the sort of detailed how-to that would make it easy to sell to the PRINCE2 diehards.

The most complete agile project management method I have come across is DSDM Atern which is described as follows:

What is DSDM Atern?

Atern is an agile project delivery framework that delivers the right solution at the right time.

Importantly, Atern harnesses the knowledge, experience and creativity of end users. It uses an iterative lifecycle to evolve the most appropriate solution to satisfy project objectives.

Using planned, visible timeboxes with clearly-specified outcomes control is exercised throughout by the project manager and the team members themselves.

Roles are clearly defined and work is divided into timeboxes with immoveable deadlines and agreed outcomes.

Atern Agility
Atern’s agile approach avoids the cumbersome rigidity of ‘big design up-front’ without the inevitable risks of ‘no design up front’.

Since it is worth spending some early time examining the structure of the overall solution before building any components, Atern advocates that projects should do just ‘enough design up front’.

Atern flexibility
Atern can be used to complement other project management disciplines such as PRINCE2 ™ and PMI without duplication of effort.

The description of DSDM Atern on amazon.co.uk explains further:

Atern is the leading, proven, agile approach providing the governance and rigour along with the agility and flexibility organisations demand today. It is also ideal as a wrapper for more limited agile approaches to ensure that the whole project lifecycle is addressed. Atern is a proven 'battle hardened approach' and has been responsible for the successful delivery of innumerable projects around the world. Its provenance across both IT and non-IT contexts goes back to 1994 with substantial productivity gains independently verified by the UK Software Metrics Association.

Making PRINCE2 Agile

So it seems to me that you could use PRINCE2 for the high level governance of a project, Atern for the structure of how the project development is to be organised and prioritised and scrum techniques for the day to day elements of effectively organising the software engineer's time and daily priorities. Although for a true DSDM Atern approach, PRINCE2 isn't needed at all - whilst it is possible to combine DSDM and PRINCE2, DSDM Atern by itself is actually enough and also embodies from the outset the Agile principles which are completely absent from PRINCE2. The particular challenge for Atern lies in integrating Atern projects within a waterfall corporate culture and of DSDM takeup and experience generally, which is unfortunately quite low.

This is just intended as an overview to illustrate that PRINCE2 and Agile are not necessarily contradictory and that is possible to combine elements of both successfully, particularly when it comes to the managing a stage part of PRINCE2 - Agile turns this into many small stages comprising stable components of work suitable for release. However, what remains a mystery to me is why government departments have been so reluctant in the face of the number of IT failures I have blogged about to promote an agile implementation of PRINCE2 and how it can best be delivered for complex IT projects running into billions of pounds. DSDM Atern isn't necessarily suitable for all projects, but certainy for iteratively deployed projects which are happy to embrace change, it should be considered as a more suitable alternative to PRINCE2.

This whole sense approach to software development from project governance to day to day management would seem to be the holy grail for minimising such failures. Perhaps it is time to encourage those who mandate PRINCE2 to understand this in order to minimise further wastage.

Further reading on DSDM is available on the DSDM website and for discussions with the authors of DSDM, I would recommend the DSDM group on LinkedIn.

Craig

Update: in June 2011 I wrote an update covering Agile and PRINCE2.

BarCamp Scotland 2008

BarCamp Scotland is on 1-2 Feb 2008. See the barcamp2008 page for more info or view the event on upcoming.org.

Incidentally, if you are less technically inclined and fancy some music and culture instead, there is the monthly Bothan at the Scottish Storytelling centre at 8:30pm on Friday 1st Feb. £3.

Details:
Bothan meets again this Friday (1st February 2008) at 8.30pm in the Scottish Storytelling Centre, High Street, Edinburgh, when popular singer Mary Macmillan (Uist) who won the Traditional Gold Medal at the Lochaber Mod last year, along with various Bothan instrumentalists, will entertain the company. Please come along and enjoy the music, songs and crack and catch up with news from the Gaelic world. The evening’s entertainment will only cost £3 – a real bargain at today’s prices!


I expect I must be about the only person in Scotland for whom both the above represents a potential diary clash :-)

Government consultation on income shifting

The UK government is currently consulting on income shifting. This is a consequence of losing the Arctic Systems case last year, the government didn't get its way so decides to change the law to suit its needs. Nice job if you can get it eh? Nonetheless, together with IR35 this is yet another tax on the self employed (e.g. IT contractors) many of whom have family members contributing to the success of the business but will be penalised if income shifting legislation is drawn up. The Professional Contractors group has a useful resource page on this for more information and is calling for people to sign the petition to scrap the proposed legislation.

Here is a summary of the Professional Contractors Group (PCG) position for more information. Incidentally, although Scotland has 10% of the UK population, 17% of the PCG membership is in Scotland, indicating that such legislation may have a disproportionate effect in Scotland versus the rest of the UK.

Introduction

The Government has issued draft legislation, intended for inclusion in the Finance Bill 2008, to place a new tax on what it calls “income shifting”. The result will be significant tax increases for hundreds of thousands of small family businesses.

At present, a business owned jointly by a married (and civil partner) couple can distribute profits equally to each: this allows them to use up their tax allowances efficiently, and can create a tax saving. This is a consequence of the independent taxation of spouses that was recognised and accepted by Parliament when it was introduced in the 1980s. Now the Government wishes to impose a tax increase on everyone who has set up a business in this way.

PCG believes that the proposals are unfair

• The Government seems to think there is something wrong with spouses setting up “non-commercial” arrangements and wants to penalise them: in the real world, married couples enter into financial arrangements on the basis of being married to each other and it is wholly inappropriate to expect them to enter into “commercial arrangements”.
• Profits are distributed as a return on risk: the Government fails to recognise that married couples are jointly exposed to the risk of their business failing, and is seeking to deny them a joint share in the rewards if they succeed.
• For years the Government advised people to set up businesses jointly when possible: now they are to be penalised for following the Government’s advice.
• The proposals clearly and directly discriminate against small business and in favour of big business: if a consultant is hired out by a large company, he will be paid for the work and the rest of the fee will go to the company as profit, which can then be distributed to shareholders in the usual manner. If a consultant took exactly the same contract with exactly the same client for exactly the same payment, but the consultancy happened to be one he owned with his wife, the dividends would be taxed more heavily than the dividends of the large company.

PCG believes that the proposals are unworkable

• The proposed measure will make it impossible for businesses to self-assess their tax bills. How can they value every single contribution made to a business accurately and with confidence? Businesses will be left perpetually looking over their shoulder in fear of an aggressive investigation by HMRC, in which they will have to prove that they have done nothing wrong.
• The Government claims that the new rules will not cost businesses anything to administer, and not cost HMRC anything to enforce: this cannot possibly be the case for such a complex and subjective set of rules.

PCG believes that the proposals are inconsistent with other areas of law

• Spouses are entitled to equal shares in the value of a jointly-owned business in a divorce.
• Spouses are entitled to equal shares in the proceeds, under Capital Gains Tax rules, in the event that a jointly-owned business is sold.
• Under the proposals, spouses will not be entitled to equal shares in the profits of a jointly owned business while it is operational.

PCG believes that the proposals are not justified by the consultation paper

Ever since the independent taxation of spouses was introduced in the 1980s, it has been common practice for married couples who go into business to set up the business jointly; the consultation paper fails to show that anything has changed since then to justify the new rules.

Why Silicon Glen isn't Silicon Valley

I came across this interesting report from 2004 covering the Scottish investment scene and it goes a long way to explain why Scotland isn't home to as many successful startups as it deserves. Not much has changed in 4 years and to put some figures on it, we are apparently we are only working at 20% of our economy's potential:

A 1993 MORI poll in Scotland estimated that there were over 90,000 latent, or would-be, entrepreneurs and business owners in Scotland, who were frustrated in their ability to act on their aspirations by a range of factors, including the absence of role models, difficulties (actual and perceived) in accessing resources, particularly finance, and lack of knowledge about the process of business formation. Based on figures from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitoring (GEM) research programme around 5% of the Scottish adult population is actively engaged in business ownership or in activities being undertaken with a view to entering business ownership. This is around one half of the level experienced in the US and around one-third the level in other small open dynamic economies such as New Zealand.
Actually achieving this increased level of entrepreneurial activity will require a quantum shift in culture and attitudes in Scotland, which may only be achievable over a generation: as the experience of the business birth rate strategy in Scotland has demonstrated, this is not a ‘quick fix’ option. Specifically, access to finance is consistently cited as the prime obstacle to entrepreneurial activity in the GEM reports, and also in our research and contact with potential entrepreneurs. As it is, at present Scotland is working at perhaps 20% of its entrepreneurial potential.

Next time I have a decent idea, I'm off down to London. We have some of the brightest ideas in Scotland, some of the best graduates and even some of the world's largest banks. Yet we struggle at 20% of our potential. Why should I as an entrepreneur waste my time with a funding sector that isn't fit for purpose?

Our view is that the 90,000 “frustrated entrepreneurs” identified by a 1993 MORI poll (a figure consistent with the GEM data for Scotland a decade later) do not become active entrepreneurs largely because the funding landscape is not only too empty, but is also perceived as empty by those looking to enter it. While market participants respond (with some accuracy) that it is in fact not empty, and that sensible ideas well advised can usually find a funder, this accurate opinion is not helpful to an individual who is in full-time employment during normal working hours, has few or no contacts with the market, has little understanding of how it works, has little spare time to find out, and has a perception that entrepreneurial success relies on unique and specific skills that they may not have and may not be able to acquire.
A Darwinian approach to entrepreneurship would demand that these 90,000 aspiring entrepreneurs be left to live or die on their merits – let the fit survive and the rest remain in employment. Such Darwinism is, however, founded on the false premise (a) that this process will ‘weed out’ weak ideas and businesses, which is economically efficient, and (b) that entrepreneurship ought by definition to be hard and difficult, not least because today’s successful entrepreneurs and investors did indeed have to face harsh and difficult environments, and associate success with difficulty.
This Darwinian approach to the creation of an entrepreneurial economy is flawed, as can be seen from the failure of the Scottish economy to significantly raise the level of new business starts and the rate of formation and growth of high-potential companies over the past decade. A funding landscape that was visibly and obviously rich in sources of risk capital for businesses of every kind would remove a major constraint (real and perceived) on the formation of new entrepreneurial ventures. As such, it would provide an environment for the successful transformation of the culture of the Scottish economy into one in which entrepreneurial activity is seen as a legitimate career option and economic role.

Looking for a new job

I started contracting last year and in the first week of Jan 2007 started as project manager of tesco.com grocery (Welwyn Garden City). However, following a department wide reorganisation the project I was on was put on hold and as a result the contract ended. Shortly afterwards however I got my next contract in Belfast working for the criminal justice sector. This lasted over 9 months and I obtained security clearance through it but the contract ended just before Christmas. I’ve had a few interviews since then but no joy yet although great feedback, it’s been more a case of there were candidates who fitted the roles in question better rather than anything negative about me.

At the moment, the immediate aim is to get a contract project management / software development manager position, flexible UK wide. Usual stuff I’ve done in the past has been web / e-commerce based but I’m not restricted to those roles and have worked in sectors ranging from banking and public sector to .com start-ups and consultancy. Longer term however, I’m looking to move up the management ladder to a more CTO level position, especially for a smaller company or start-up and as you can tell by the favourable response many of my ideas have had on Cambrian house, I’m not short on fresh ideas. Having been a company director for 13 years I would ideally like to be running my own company to carry some of these ideas forward (one of which was reviewed on Cambrian House as ‘the next Google’) but the current financial climate together with a lack of much of a networking scene in Scotland where you can get together with complimentary members of a management team makes this difficult. I guess I must be doing something right, there can’t be many like me in Scotland who have been interviewed by both Google and Amazon. There’s some more info about me via the links under my profile on this page.

So if there’s anyone out there hiring at the moment for a Project Manager with innovative ideas and great at finding solutions to problems, on the lookout for a CTO or wanting to fund a startup then please get in touch. I realise this might sound like I’m not sure what I want to do, it isn’t meant to be, it’s just being pragmatic. Maybe there wasn't enough of that during the dot com hype days.

Craig

Hotels of quality and distinction

I blogged last year about problems with hotels and after a year of staying in them, I've got a good bit of first hand experience of what really works especially for someone staying for more than a few nights. In the same spirit of my gold standard for contact centres, I propose a similar standard for hotels.

1. Provide Wi-Fi, make it free and unrestricted. Anything password based via a webpage is a major irritation when all you want to do is use an email client, and it is time consuming and not guaranteed to work on a PDA. Wired internet in the bedroom is even better and almost makes it usable to webchat with the family back home.

2. Even if I prefer having a shower to taking a bath, having a room without a bath is cheap. It's a sign you are trying to cram as many guests as possible into a small a space as possible.

3. Provide FreeView, after all it's free.

4. Double beds (4ft 6" wide) are a bit of a joke in a hotel claiming to be quality. King, or ideally superking size is more like it.

5. Have showers that work and have constant decent pressure and temperature. Bit of a basic, but many fall at this hurdle. A glass partition next to the bath is far more preferable to a shower curtain that attacks you.

6. People have laminate flooring in their homes because it is easy to keep clean. Hotels with wooden bedroom floors get the same advantage. Carpets in bedrooms are fine but given the use they get in hotels with people wearing outdoor shoes, they get to look fairly shabby before too long.

7. Good quality pillows only cost a small amount extra and can make a huge difference to the comfort in the bed. The same applies to the duvet. Please provide a sheet under the duvet (comforter for those of you in the US).

8. The sports complexes at Village Hotels in the UK are fantastic and exceed even those I have seen in specialist keep fit centres. Something for other hotels to consider.

9. Friendly, helpful staff really make the hotel. Staff that are willing to engage in conversation rather than just act like robots make a huge difference.

10. Hotels that have bars that locals want to drink in are a huge plus. Not only is this a sign of quality that people choose to drink there because they want to rather than just because it's convenient and they are staying that night but with locals in there as well there is likely to be a decent atmosphere. Most hotel bars have about as much atmosphere as an airport departure lounge.

11. Providing the noise isn't a problem for guests, having a bar with decent live music is a major plus since this certainly relieves the boredom if you are travelling along and unless you are very sad you probably want to do more with your long term stay than just be cooped up in your room watching TV every night.

12. Provide healthy cereals for breakfast. Muesli for instance is supposed to be healthy, so why not supply it in a sugar-free variety but leave a bowl of sugar so that those who like sugar can add it if they want to.

13. The card that opens the door is usually also used to activate the room lights. However, the room light panel is not tied to a specific card, anyone will do. It pays to have a handy card handy (e.g. a gym pass or expired bank card with VOID written on it) so that if you want to go out and leave the laptop charging, you can do so by leaving said card in the light panel thus ensuring the electricity to the room doesn't cut out when you pop out for a few hours. It's handy when you can force the electricity to stay on in the room even when you're out.

14. Just because you provide a quality service there's no need to rip off customers. It's perfectly possible to charge only £10-£20 a night more than the absolutely most basic of hotels and provide outstanding quality and service. I know, I have stayed in such places and not surprisingly they were almost permanently fully booked.

15. Try and make the decor and room layout distinctive. I get a bit tired of the rectangular bedroom with the square bathroom in the corner just next to the door, the beige decor and the dull design. I've stayed in rooms with the bathrooms had windows (nice) and the room was triangular. Makes a nice change.

16. In 2008, there isn't really much excuse for a hotel still having 4:3 ratio CRT TVs. Widescreen TFT should be the norm.

17. Hotels provide TVs for people to watch, including films in the evening. Yet what are we supposed to sit on for 2 hours watching the film? The bed? No thanks, I stopped doing that as a student and the alternative is those uncomfortable hardback chairs. Any hotel that provides a chair on a par with what you might find in a living room (ie soft and comfortable) actually provides something you might want to watch that film in.

18. When I am booking online, give me the option of specifying whether it is a smoking room or not. Surprisingly many hotels still don't do this.

19. Have a help-yourself buffet for breakfast. Saying I can have a yoghurt or cereal for breakfast but not both is penny pinching.

20. Don't hardwire the TV to the aerial socket. I want to be able to unplug the aerial and plug it into my laptop so that I can record TV onto my laptop via the TV card.

21. If you run a busy pub as part of the hotel, you'll want to provide more female toilet capacity than male, otherwise there's a good chance that women will have to queue and the men won't. This is unfair.

22. Friendly, helpful staff really make a huge difference. I want to feel at home, not just that I'm stuck there for the night because I have no other choice. So important I said it twice.

It's also worth mentioning here that the best hotel I've ever stayed in is Benedicts of Belfast. So good, I lived there for 7 months. Everything they do is of the highest standard and it's the sort of place that other hoteliers aspiring to be distinctive, quality hotels with a friendly welcome should visit to learn how it's really done. It's no surprise it's consistently near the top of the trip advisor recommended hotels list, currently it's #2 although #1 doesn't have a bar.


That's all for the moment.

Craig
The author worked for the Scottish Tourist Board/VisitScotland from 2000-2006 although is writing in a private capacity here.

wetherspoons

If Wetherspoons is supposed to be the no.2 food outlet in the UK by volume after McDonalds, why am I sitting here at their Bridge Inn in Belfast, still waiting for my food over half an hour after I ordered it and nearly 10 minutes after I was told it was just on its way down?

Cant we expect better from someone claiming to be no.2?

Towards a more flexible e-commerce model

Argos (a top 5 e-commerce site in the UK) reports on its website when you go to buy something:

Remember, you don't need to register to purchase on this website!

Glory be and hallelujah.

About the only site I know of that allows people to log in if they want to (potentially saving time in the long term) as well as not logging in (thereby saving time for one off purchases and especially if you have forgotten your password etc)

When I go to shop in a normal high street shop, I am not required to log in. Nor am I required in the main to have their store card and use it allowing every purchase I make to be tracked on every visit. Nor am I required to set up a username before I think about putting stuff in my basket. Nor am I required to give my date of birth before purchasing non-age related goods from them.

Yet on-line retailers indulge in this nefarious data gathering just because they can. Tesco.com requires to have a clubcard before purchasing with them (thereby allowing all your purchases to be tracked). Toysrus.com requires a date of birth when registering, even though the vast bulk of their products are non-age related and even though all they need to know is whether I am over 18 or not, see this analysis of their site in terms of the data protection act.

Argos were reviewed as Pants back in 2003 and still persist with the silly practice of requiring everyone to have a courtesy title even when many prefer not to use one. But nonetheless, credit where it's due for being courageous enough to say no to the marketing department's endless quest for customer data "we take your data because we can" and having a site that gives the customer the option of a quick purchase without having to log in as well as using their account if they have one.

A site that offers true customer choice, how long before others follow this lead?

Craig

St Andrew's day

The BBC reports that Scotland is to mark St Andrew's day. For more information see scotland.org or scotland.gov.uk. You can read about St Andrew on the gateway to Scotland site or on the soc.culture.scottish FAQ, the first online guide to Scotland and hosted on this site.

Craig

Scottish Software Awards 2007

News from Silicon Glen (yes, it's more than just electronics), the winners of the Scottish Software Awards 2007 have been announced. Congratulations to all who entered, and especially to the winners.

Craig

Welcome to Scotland

The Scottish Government has just spent £100,000 apparently to come up with a new slogan for Scotland to replace "The best small country in the world". The new slogan is to be "Welcome to Scotland" with the Gaelic translation of "Failte gu Alba" as you can see from the picture in the BBC article.

100K pah, I could have done it for a fraction of that figure. Oh, I already did.

See the comment dated 9:11pm 27 Aug 2006.

The comment was obviously far too ahead of its time and didn't take full account of inflation either.

Aye, right

Craig

Towards a gold standard for contact centre service

I find a good part of my lunch hour is spent dealing with fairly useless contact centres. I would probably get more out of my lunch break and be able to do more interesting things than listen to boring hold music if contact centres improved their quality of service. Things haven't improved much in many years, I recall spending long hours on the phone to Alliance and Leicester in 2001 - often it was half an hour before they even answered the phone.

In response to the lack of initiative and progress in contact centre customer service, I propose the following initial list as targets that contact centres should aspire to, in order to offer gold standard customer service rather than the poor quality crap we have to tolerate at present. No particular order here and feel free to add your own ideas.


1. For an independent company to assess contact centres for typical and peak wait times until you get to speak to someone (including having to work through the menus). Then customers can make informed independent choices regarding which companies waste the least amount of time. These timings should then be published centrally with the worst offenders named and shamed.

2. For companies to aspire to a high level of standard rather than unacceptably long queues and to publish their standard on their website (and on the site mentioned in 1). e.g. "We aim to answer 90% of calls in less than 10 seconds". A standard that some companies actually meet, yet others would laugh at the idea of answering a call within 10 minutes.

3. For information to be available on what the busiest and quietest times are for the contact centre and their hours of opening so that I can make an informed choice about when to call them.

4. To have a facility to turn off hold music. This means that if I am in a long queue I can put my phone on speakerphone and get on with my job without annoying the rest of the office with a tinny version of Vivaldi's concert for hold music annoying everyone around me.

5. When using phone menus, every menu must have a "help" or "none of the previous options apply, I'd like to speak to a real person rather than a robot" type option.

6. Again with phone menus, they must have information on how to go back to the previous menu.

7. An option that if you have waited more than a certain length of time (e.g. a few minutes) in a queue, that there is always the option to leave your number and have someone call you back where your call has reached the front of the queue.

8. A fast track menu system so that you don't have to wait for all the announcements before you can progress to the next menu - you should be able to interrupt any menu and advance quickly without having to hear all the options. Many contact centre menus already do this but it's worth mentioning anyway.

9. To publish the contact centre menus on the company's website so that I can work through them quickly via a web browser, click on the relevant menu option and then to open up Skype or similar and jump straight in the the relevant queue that I've just clicked on.

10. Not having to repeat my details every time the call is transferred, including when I have to transfer from an automated system to an operator. Surely the IT systems at the contact centre can do this?

11. The ability for the contact centre to text or email relevant information in the event that you can't write things down very easily (e.g. driving, walking down street carrying mobile and briefcase, etc.)

12. An acceptance that excessive wait times is not only exceptionally poor customer service but in the false economics of saving money for the company, it actually wastes time for the customers of the contact centre. Since cc operators are usually on less than the average national salary, the implication is their customers' salary average is near to the national average and thus more than the contact centre operator's wages. This means it is a false economy employing insufficient contact centre operators and transferring the consequent wait time onto people whose time is more "expensive" and who would probably be happy to pay a higher premium for shorter wait times.

13. being able to access my account via the same lookup procedure and security procedure used by operators (i.e. if I don't have my policy number, I can just enter postcode, security answers etc). Banning the use of "usernames" for telephone access. My address, security details etc are enough.

14. If you end up in the wrong queue, the centre should be able to transfer calls for me without me having to hang up and start again

15. When the contact centre phones me, they use a legitimate number that accepts return calls and which announces the name of the company (i.e. not like Powergen). This implies the said number is not withheld, a very irritating practice.

16. Operators that have a good command of English. This especially applies to companies thinking of outsourcing their contact centre to Asia.

17. If I don't select a menu, then the options are only repeated twice before I am put through to an operator. They are not repeated indefinitely, nor does the system hang up on me.

18. Being able to easily speak to a manager/supervisor/complaints department.

19. Being able to dial straight into a relevant queue so that I don't have to pay to wait on hold. 20 minutes on hold on a mobile calling internationally is not funny.

20. On completion of a call, being given the option to provide feedback there and then on what I thought of the service given (e.g. press 1 for delighted to 9 for unhappy, etc.)

21. Being able to email the contact centre without having to go through menu spaghetti.

22. Using a phonetic name field (in addition to the usual name fields) in the customer record so that people with names like mine, difficult foreign names etc can have the correct pronunciation of their name recorded, thus meaning that time isn't wasted explaining how to say the name.

23. Treating email as important as fax and phone and providing a response within a "phone call" order of magnitude turnaround. It can be done for a phone call, yet for email response some companies take 5 days to respond. I'm mailing you via a medium that works at close to the speed of light because I want a quick response, not because I want it to sit in a backlog for a week.

24. Employ operators in the contact centre that don't talk over me, listen, and have a good level of knowledge of the topic I am phoning about.


Any more to add to this?

Craig

First year contracting

Today marks the first anniversary of the start of my career full time contracting, so here's a look back on the previous year including some of the things that I did that were by products of that transition and the associated lifestyle and most of which I wouldn't have done had I still been a full time permanent employee in my previous job.

Here goes:

Was Project Manager for Tesco.com grocery, one of the world's leading e-commerce sites

Was Project manager for a major public sector project in Northern Ireland, part of the Causeway programme.

Gained security clearance

Bought laptop for working away from home

Bought PRINCE2 course, studying in my spare time

Went to the gym a lot

Went to over 80 live performances

Considerably improved my singing.

Turnover of my company that I founded in 2001 is now sufficient to require VAT registration. Filed first VAT return, very boring.

Got RBS Black card.

Visited debating chamber at Stormont

Met the Minister for Enterprise in Scotland

Appeared in the Belfast Telegraph, helped with research for programme on Ulster Scots

Learned about what really makes a good hotel and that few hotels are actually worth staying in for more than a few nights before total boredom sets in. Campaigned against rip off WiFi rates.

Significantly increased my income and moved house.

Admired Central Scotland and the Ayrshire coast from 16,000 feet on a clear blue day, several times.

Was Information lead for a Techcrunch 40 company, Crowdspirit.

Met lots of interesting people from all over the world.

Got used to 4am starts every Monday.

Walked from my bedroom to work every day.

I can now drink in a smoke free pub anywhere in the UK, something I campaigned for on national TV in 1990.

Became my own boss.

It's a PIN, not a PIN number

For months we have been told by the banks about Chip and PIN. Chip and PIN this, chip and PIN that. Use your Chip and PIN. Chip and PIN blah blah until we're fed up hearing about it and over 20 months after its widespread roll-out we still have signs telling us about chip and PIN.

PIN = Personal Identification Number.

A PIN IS A NUMBER THEREFORE DOES NOT NEED THE WORD 'NUMBER' AFTER IT
PIN Number = Personal Identification Number Number. How silly is that?

Yet there's a large number of organisations that really ought to know better who think it is now necessary to suffix the acronym PIN with the superfluous suffix 'number'. Maybe we could just change it to PI number instead?

Please enter your PI ?!

Here are the organisations so far that ought to know better:


1. The Royal Bank of Scotland. On their cashline machines, it states "Please enter your PIN number". Also applies to their Ulster Bank cashline machines in Northern Ireland.

2. Orange. No surprises here, fresh from winning the "worst contact centre award" when you call to collect your voicemail, the greeting states "Please enter your PIN number".

Please feel free to add your own examples...

Bollocks security

Continuing the theme of e-mail/Internet security.

Tonight I wanted to set up a new bill payment. The bank, in response to customer paranoia about Internet security and phishing attacks now require me to carry my bank cards and their calculator like number generator that I now have to take with me on business if I want to set up a bill payment. No thanks. No, I don't want to trail a variety of calculator like devices around with me one for each account or service I might want to use. I think the encryption offered by the bank site together with the random letters and digits from a security password is secure enough.

However, aside from that, let us now look at the two options the bank presents:

1. Log onto the website, have it over a secure encrypted channel, type in a customer number securely, random digits from two separate passwords securely and use the calculator device to randomly generate a number. Pretty secure huh?

2. Alternatively, use a phone, have the conversation in clear text, have the audible key presses recordable by anyone in earshot with a microphone, no need for the card reader calculator device either. Set up bill payment successfully.

Does the analogy of having 50 billion million trillion zillion locks on your front door and only 1 on your back door apply here?

Which way do you think a burglar would want to break in?

Why do banks and other sites continue to believe that the phone is a secure means of communication?

Orange wins the worst contact centre award, thanks to this blog

Check the link. Clearly still surpassing themselves in the worst contact centre award stakes and following on from their outstanding showing in this category last year it is clear there is no let up in form in the poor customer services stakes this year either. Why only a few weeks ago I phoned to ask how I collect voice mail for another orange account from my own phone and after 15 minutes of being passed from pillar to post the person still didn't understand the question, never mind actually give me an answer.

Meanwhile I posted the same question on the uk.telecom.mobile group who answered it correctly in less than 30 minutes, without me having to be on hold waiting for an answer and without me having to play irrelevant menu hell either. Maybe Orange should outsource their contact centre to usenet, it certainly provides a more useful service.

Craig

The Untouchables, Belfast

Greatest gig in town. Every Monday, Benedicts Hotel, Bradbury Place, Belfast. 11pm-1am. Best entertainment I've enjoyed in years! Check out their facebook group.

Craig

Program it all

Will we see increasing programmability and customisation around the home? If not just to meet the needs of the consumer perhaps any company seeking to market environmentally friendly products would prefer to be selling products that can be easily upgraded and adapted?

Please vote for this idea on crowdspirit...

Craig

Next big thing for the net to come from Silicon Glen, Scotland?

So says John Giannandrea, a Scot who became Chief Technologist at Netscape and is currently CTO of the hot startup Metaweb.

Watch this space then?

Craig

Rude business communication

I have already blogged about rude e-mails. These are emails sent by allegedly reputable companies who consider email to be a good enough medium to communicate with you, but not a good enough medium for you to reply. In other words, they are rude. Instead of a simple easy reply using the tool you used to pick up their mail, they incorrectly assume you have access to the web (you might be using a slow mobile phone/PDA), they incorrectly assume your device must be compatible with their website (usually not, especially if you are disabled) and they incorrectly assume that you enjoy playing "contact us" droplist spaghetti just as much as people hate playing contact centre multi-option phone queue and hold music hell. "I'm sorry, I didn't get that, please listen carefully to the following options again".

Powergen are one of the rude companies when it comes to email, sending their emails from a "do not reply" email address, however they completely excelled themselves in rudeness when they called me yesterday, hung up the phone and didn't leave a message. So I called them back using the number presented to my phone 01158434900 (0115 843 9400 just to ensure it appears in the search index) only to be greeted with an even ruder "This number does not accept incoming calls". Not even an announcement saying which company it was. Not even a "Thank you for calling Powergen, we'll direct you to someone who can help". Nope, sod off hang up the phone.

Guys, this sort of "crap on the consumer" is completely unacceptable. It's the telephone equivalent of leaving a pile of shit on someone's doorstep with a note saying "left by anonymous ha ha". People actually want to be able to reply, people don't want to be called anonymously by companies hiding behind dead email addresses or phone numbers. People shouldn't have to go to a PC, type the phone number into Google (other search engines may still exist) to find out who it was because the company was too rude to say so.

Dead email addresses, "contact us" drop list spaghetti, long contact centre queues and dead phone numbers may be really convenient for the company but they are really INCONVENIENT for the customer and I for one am getting fed up using a good part of my lunch hour playing these silly games just to get in touch with you (including 3 hours to Demon's contact centre recently trying to figure out why my 5 day broadband service was down for 26 days, my website wiped and my email bounced.

You want to know how annoying this rudeness is? The next time you want to contact me, I'll not give you my email address and any phone calls will go via a service that makes you wait for 20 minutes in a queue listening to "Your call is important to me, please hang on while we try to connect you" without the option of leaving a message, without the option of being called back when you've reached the front of the queue and without the option of hearing a valid email address that works.

Your productivity would go down somewhat and rather than being able to call 20 customers an hour, you might be able to call 2.

Annoying isn't it? SO DON'T DO IT TO CUSTOMERS THEN. In any case, if my phone call was really that important to you, you would make more of an effort to answer it quickly.

DONT email me from dead email addresses, instead email me from a working email address and include a reference number so that my reply goes back to the right place.

DONT phone me from dead phone numbers (or withhold your number like a dodgy scam artist might). Instead, call me from a real phone number than when I call you back allows me to speak to someone.

Don't tell me that you can pick up the phone, deal with my enquiry and resolve it in well under an hour but somehow for an email it takes the best part of a week. Just because I use a different communication method, it makes my issue no less important. I actually had a sore throat recently and preferred to send email rather than speak on the phone. Goodness knows how any disabled people with speech problems put up with this second class service. Can't speak because of a very sore throat? No web access? You might as well not exist.

Above all, don't be rude. You might even find customers being more polite to your contact centre staff when they eventually reach the end of the queue....

Thank You.

Craig

Stopping the junk mail

There are three kinds of junk mail.

1. Stuff addressed to you, you can stop this by writing to the Mailing Preference service

2. Stuff addressed to nobody. Leaflets, etc. You can stop this by e-mailing: optout@royalmail.com. This is the service that a postie was disciplined for telling his customers about. Good old Royal Mail, here to spam you and then discipline anyone who tells customers how to stop the spam.

3. Stuff addressed to a generic address, e.g. "The Occupier", "The Head of Personnel", "The Householder".

The Direct Marketing Association has you over a barrel here, because there is currently no way of opting out of this spam. This means that if you are moving house you can look forward to receiving several spam mailshots a day addressed to "The Occupier" offering you removal and storage services and other stuff you probably aren't interested in, especially if you have moved already.

Dear Marketing spammers. Kindly get your act together and have a "no junk mail" service that actually works.

Craig

peer commerce

Make money from your MP3 collection?

Peer commerce - will it take off?

why demon internet is not recommended

I first promoted Demon in June 1992, the month they set up. I joined them as a customer the following year. This is the first time I have moved house whilst having Demon as a broadband provider. It has been a total disaster and I would recommend that anyone who values their sanity avoids them like the plague.

1. As a business, the internet is important to me. I am changing address, but keeping the same phone number.
2. After a very lengthy conversation on 4 Sept, I explained BT were transferring my line on 18 sept. Demon has no concept of transferring, you have to cancel and set up a new service. Setting up the new service takes at least 5 working days, hence your business will be offline for a week. In this day and age, it is unacceptable.
3. During the call on the 4th, demon set me up with temporary dial up access. They then said to call back on the 13th to minimise downtime.
4. I return from my business trip on the 7th to find the arseholes at Demon had already cancelled my broadband.
5. I then called them on the evening of the 8th to log into the dial up account which was set up on the 4th to find that it hadnt been set up at all, they couldnt help me until Monday (by which time I will be out of the country) and they didnt even know if customer service was open on a Sunday or not.
6. Conclusion. Demon is crap and should know better than to outsource to India.
7. Avoid Demon if you value your sanity.

(posted via Orange WAP). Ha ha, you can take away our ADSL but you can never take away our freedom..... :-)

iPod touch, browser, calendar, personalised news. Patent application 1990.

The story of how an early keyboardless browser for pages and links (called PageLink) from early 1990 was canned by Digital. Has a surprising number of features in common with iPod touch, modern browsers (bookmarks, search), personalised news, calendars, PDAs today. Comments about the internet "revolutionising online advertising" also relevant.

read more | digg story