Tag: communications

Email remains the most important business tech tool

Email remains the unchallenged king of the workplace

Email remains the most important communications tool for workers observes the Pew Research Project’s survey of technology’s impact on the workplace.

Based on a survey of 1066 US adult internet users last september the survey found nearly two thirds of the working respondents described email as their most important communications tool.

Despite the attempts of some companies to kill email, it seems like the service is as much an important part of business life as ever. Whether it remains so in the future as new generations enter the workforce and social messaging tools become more available is a question we’ll be exploring over the next year.

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PR lessons from Uber

Uber has made a lot of mistakes in its latest PR mishap, other businesses can learn from them.

The debacle of Uber’s management proposing to threaten journalists drags on and is becoming a classic case of what not to do during a public relations crisis as the company and its supporters continue to make matter worse for themselves.

What’s notable about the hole Uber finds itself in is that it didn’t need to be there; a bit of maturity and commonsense, not to mention knowing when to shut up, would have helped avoid this self inflicted wound to the business.

Much of the damage done by the story could have been avoided by following a few simple steps.

Stop digging

One of life’s key rules is when you find yourself in a hole then the first step to getting out is to stop digging. When the critics are loud, shut up and take a breather. Instead of exacerbating problems, step back, have a think and, if necessary, get some professional help.

Have some perspective

The most fundamental attribute for managers and owners is not to take criticism too seriously; there are always critics and letting them consume your daily lives is counterproductive and ultimately destructive as Richard Nixon would attest.

Usually in business the critics aren’t diminishing you as a person, in most cases they are making observations about your company’s economic model or its actions in the marketplace. If you’re taking criticism too personally, it might be time for a holiday.

Just because someone is criticising you, it doesn’t mean they are in the pay of your competitors or part of the socialist-masonic-jewish-illumaniti conspiracy to get you, they may actually your best friends and even have a point.

Your business priorities

How do these criticisms affect your ambitions for your business? If Sarah Lacy thinks you’re a bunch of misogynist scumballs, does it matter? Often the critics don’t matter to your business as they are a different group to your customers, investors or staff.

Is there merit?

A key question when confronted with criticism should be ‘is there merit to this?’ Before threatening to smear or sue those pointing out your business’ shortcoming it’s good to have a look to see if the critics do have a point about what you’re doing wrong.

Fix the problem

Should it turn out the critics do have a problem, then fix it. Should it turn out your business has a toxic bro’ culture then fire a few of the toxic bros and hire some people with the backbone to fix the problem.

Be open about things

If the criticisms are legitimate, then acknowledge them and be open about how you’re going to fix them. Some critics won’t be satisfied but that’s part of life, you won’t keep everyone happy.

For those critics who will be happy, admitting you’ve made mistakes and are working on fixing the problems will win more fans and supporters. People love a bit of humility and it probably doesn’t hurt for managers to be a bit humble.

On the other hand, it might be that some of your critics do genuinely hate you, are in the pay of your competitors or part of the Illuminati conspiracy. In which case, use facts and stand your ground. In the battle for public opinion, having the facts on your side always gives you the advantage.

Personally attacking your critics though is always a mistake and, as Nixon found, smearing them turns out to be a mistake. Life is too short and time in running a growing business too scarce to be consumed by hate. Get over it and move on.

Get professional help

In Uber’s case it appears their managers have been frantically calling their buddies to help out — this hasn’t helped and has probably exacerbated an already heated environment. A good professional PR adviser or reputation management company will know how to at least ease the pressure if not completely defuse the situation.

Regardless of how good the PR adviser are though, ultimately a business’ good name comes from its management and how the company behaves. This where Uber has to take more care as it becomes a global giant.

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Reinventing the payphone with WiFi access points

For now though it seems the remaining payphone kiosks are safe from being abandoned

As smartphones have become common, the humble phone box has become a quaint reminder of a previous era. A series of initiatives around the world to use phone boxes to WiFi points may be giving them another lease of life.

For telecommunications companies around the world what to do with thousands of barely used but high maintenance phone boxes has become a pressing question, particularly in markets where licenses require operators to maintain them as part of their service obligations.

A solution may be found in municipal WiFi as cities have found one of the barriers to rolling out networks is where to locate base stations. In Barcelona one of the solutions has been to create hotspots in bus shelters.

The idea of using payphones as hotspots first appeared in the Yorkshire town of Leeds followed by a municipal network in New York and now Australia as the incumbent telco Telstra announced plans to rollout wireless broadband across the country.

In the UK, the Leeds based service includes charging stations in the kiosks with the services based upon advertising. It’s notable the UK service is a private startup while the US experiment is a municipal initiative and the Australian service is an extension of the existing telco network.

It may be that other revenue generators may be to provide electric vehicle charging, secure storage and perhaps neighbourhood collection points for delivery services. The model certainly needs tweaking.

How the utility of kiosks providing WiFi and these other neighbourhood services work will depend upon many factors; the economics may require governments or community groups to provide the services. It certainly is a business model in development.

For now though it seems the remaining payphone kiosks are safe from being abandoned.

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Social media’s dark side

Propaganda has become part of social media. How much can we trust online?

I was asked by ABC Radio Newcastle today to talk about the dark uses of social media – spreading propaganda.

This is an topic that’s come to the fore with the troubles in the Gaza Strip and the downing of MH17; all sides are using traditional propaganda techniques with a thick overlay of new media.

A key part of the social media aspects of the modern propaganda methods is those who want to spread their message only need to confirm the prejudices of their loyal followers.

In turn the loyal foot soldiers will then spread the word through their Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr feeds; a modern Goebbels doesn’t have to control the media, they just need enough useful idiots.

It’s also worth noting the new media tools complement the old broadcast and publishing methods with the most effective modern propaganda – and marketing – campaigns cleverly using the strengths of each medium to create an amplifying effect.

Propaganda is nothing new, many of the Ancient Greeks’ stories were written to discredit their enemies, and every technological advance has seen new ways for people to spread misinformation.

In that respect it shouldn’t be surprising that we should take with everything we read on, or off, line.

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Peak Wireless and the data paradox

Have we reached the limits of wireless internet?

Australia’s government research agency, the CSIRO, released a somewhat alarming media alert this morning warning that our cities are approaching Peak Data.

Peak Data, which borrows from the ‘Peak Oil’ term coined in the 1970s to describe the point where oil production reaches a maximum, is where we run out available bandwidth on our wireless networks.

The release is around the agency’s new report, A World Without Wires, where the agency lays out its view of the future of cellular and radio communications.

“In the future, how spectrum is allocated may change and we can expect innovation to find new ways to make it more efficient but the underlying position is that spectrum is an increasingly rare resource,” says  the CSIRO’s Director of Digital Productivity and Services Flagship Dr Ian Oppermann.

“With more and more essential services, including medical, education and government services, being delivered digitally and on mobile devices, finding a solution to “peak data” will become ever more important into the future.”

The wireless data paradox

It’s a paradox that just as we’re entering a world of unlimited data, we have limitations of what we can broadcast wirelessly as radio spectrum becomes scarce and contested.

With fixed line communications, particularly fibre optics, available spectrum can be relatively simply increased by laying down more cables – wireless only has one environment to broadcast in –  so finding ways of pushing more data through the airways is what much of the CSIRO’s paper addresses.

For telecommunications companies, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity; the challenge being squeezing more data into limited spectrum while the opportunity lies in charging more for guaranteed connectivity.

The latter raises questions about network neutrality and the question of whether different types of traffic across wireless networks can be charged differently or given differing levels of priority.

Distributing the load

This also gives credence to the distributed processing strategies like Cisco’s Fog Computing idea that takes the load off public networks and can potentially hand traffic over to fixed networks or point to point microwave services.

While M2M data is tiny compared to voice and domestic user needs, it does mean business critical services will have to compete with other users, both in the private Wi-Fi frequencies or the public mobile networks spectrum.

Overall though, the situation isn’t quite as dire as it seems; technological advances are going to figure out new ways of stuffing data into the available spectrum and aggressively priced data plans are going to discourage customers from using data intensive applications.

A key lesson from this though is those designing, M2M, Internet of Things or smart city applications can’t assume that bandwidth will always be available to communicate to their devices.

For the Internet of Things, robust design will require considering security, latency and quality of service.

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As seen on TV – where are today’s trusted sources

As seen on TV was a great way to sell in the 1960s, is it still valid fifty years later?

In a local shopping centre over the weekend this business was selling massage tables using the fact they’d been mentioned on TV to enhance their reputation.

Citing an appearance on TV in the hope of improving your credibility is very much a mid-20th Century way of doing things. In the 1960s or 70s an enthusiastic mention from a TV host was the way to get the punters beating a path to your door.

Today, things aren’t quite the same. TV was on a decline as a trusted medium – despite the successes of talk show hosts like Oprah Winfrey – long before the internet arrived. The web bought social media and now buyers can consult their friends and peers before deciding to buy.

What was interesting about the sign was there was no indication of a social media presence or web page and that in itself showed how old school this business’ advertising was.

For the business owner, it would have been hard work getting a mention on TV. Space isn’t cheap to buy and getting a mention on a current affairs show requires either the services of an expensive PR agency or many hours of bugging producers and not a small degree of luck.

Then again, maybe a complete lack of online engagement didn’t matter. The shopping centre I was in would have an average customer age well over forty and, most of the market the business was aiming probably comes from the sizeable retirement village across the road.

How this business ignores modern communication channels is instructive about the generational change in business and society, particularly on how different age groups find their trusted sources.

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Walking Spaghetti Junction’s canals

What does an English motorway junction tell us about evolving trade routes and communication networks?

One of the most maligned places in Britain is Spaghetti Junction, an interchange on the M6 Motorway just north of Birmingham’s city centre in the centre of the nation.

Despite its poor reputation, Spaghetti Junction though has a story to tell — a tale of how physical trade routes change slowly with the motorway being the latest of five major junctions in the area.

Courtesy of Wikipedia
Courtesy of UK Highways Agency and Wikipedia

Immediately below the motorway are the major roads, connecting these and Birmingham were the reason for building Spaghetti Junction in the late 1960s.

Below those are the canals and it’s notable that just as Birmingham lies at the centre of Britain’s motorway network, it also formed the core of the industrial revolution’s canal network and much of the railway system.

birmingham_spaghetti_junction_canal_intersection

Wikipedia describes how critical Spaghetti junction is for the nation’s infrastructure.

Underneath the motorway junction are the meeting points of local roads, the river Tame‘s confluences with the River Rea and Hockley Brook, electricity lines, gas pipelines, the Cross-City and Walsall railway lines and Salford Junction, where the Grand Union Canal, Birmingham and Fazeley Canal and Tame Valley Canal meet.

Despite it’s importance the area is dingy and it’s not a good idea to hang around too long, particularly when you have an expensive camera, but it’s worthwhile to linger for a few minutes to appreciate how important these links were to the industrial revolution.

birmingham-canal-route

Following the canals away from Spaghetti Junction gives a feeling of the post-industrial nature of Birmingham’s economy something that the city, like most of Britain, is still struggling with.

Birmingham-gas-basin-canal-junction

Eventually the canal ends in the city’s convention centre district where a tourist can get a safer, and better, appreciation of Britain’s canal system at the Gas Street Canal Basin.

While the basin is a bit twee and touristy it does also give a friendly overview of the canal network that replicates closely the railway system that replaced it and today’s roads.

How these trade routes evolve in the digital economy will be interesting, the recent PayPal survey on the new electronic spice routes illustrates how economies are changing.

Whether our descendents will wander the abandoned motorways and freeways in two hundred years and wonder at our industrial might is something we might want to ponder. Whether what replaces them is another layer of infrastructure is another question.

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