Sense at last

It is good to end the year on a topic that regulars will know is close to my heart – social networking.

Lily Allen gave me that warm Christmassy glow when I read that she has dumped all her Facebooking and Tweeting in favour of normal face to face communication. “So I put my BlackBerry, my laptop, my iPod in a box and that’s the end. I won’t use email, I play records on vinyl, I don’t blog. I’ve got more time, more privacy. We’ve ended up in this world of unreal communications and I don”t want that. I want real life back,” she has said.

The burning question is how many of the rest of us could actually join her in this radical move? I am a great believer in the phone call rather than email, especially  in personal situations, but there are times when only the latter will suffice – contacting Charles Arthur for instance.

It is really annoying when you are with someone who spends their whole time checking their iPhone/Blackberry – but it does give you the chance to just sneak a glance at yours!

So, in a social networking way may I take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a great 2010 – I would call you all personally but I don’t have your number. (Click here for our special Christmas message http://www.eml.com/xmas_2009.htm )

BBC crash map

Being a sucker for statistics I was taken by the BBC’s presentation of the last 10 years of road accidents based on official statistics released by the Department of Transport. The data presentation, which includes 2008, allows the viewer to select various criteria to see when accidents happen to certain people.

Age, sex, vehicle type, weather, it’s all there and you can enter your postcode to see how the pattern of death on the roads changes year by year. Not by much is the answer, although it is visibly reducing in my area, in spite of the huge increase in traffic over the last 10 years.

Inevitably the overview section covers some of the factors contributing to the improvement in road safety (or the cut in deaths) – “Research shows that 20mph zones can cut injuries by 40%” states one of the captions – oh really? Driving slower cuts fatalities, who knew?

Automotive technology has to make an impact on 2009's statistics.

I wonder if the UK scrapage-scheme’s effect will be noticed in next year’s figures? All these regular people driving round in brand new Euro NCAP 5 super minis where once they had rusty old Astras or Puntos. Technology advances will surely have a measurable effect – all that clever CAD, active safety systems and 21st century materials science must cut fatalities – otherwise technology isn’t serving its purpose and science isn’t being correctly applied.

Anyway my recommendation this Christmas is to be a woman cycling in the snow at about 6am on a motorway – what could possibly go wrong?

The high street is dead. Kick it in the kidneys!

Are you being served? Nope. These days you'd be lucky if Mr Humphries even acknowledged you, let alone tried to flirt with you.

Mobile phone retailers must hate BBC Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan Jones right now. Rory has taken the bold step of describing the difficulty in taking a mobile phone back to a dealership as compared to the experience of buying a phone across the internet.

Right now, when the retail industry is in the worst shape it’s been in for years, and people are being laid-off left, right and centre, this is terrible PR for the retail industry. It’s like Rory has kicked the retail industry’s teeth in, then returned to steal its wallet and insult its Mum.

We’ve all done it, right? Looking into the eyes of an eager phone salesman, knowing you’re using him to test-drive the latest models; then walking home to get a cheaper deal on the intertron.

This is symptomatic of a larger problem; and one that’s not just about price.

I’ve said many times that I’d pay a premium for high-street technology. In return for this premium I would want the personal touch; a bit of face-to-face expertise, a relationship with the shopkeeper, and a bit of take-back value if anything goes wrong, as in Rory’s article. I think a lot of people think this way.

The trouble is, having tried this approach, you don’t really get any of these things any more. You get all of the drawbacks of the shops; having to go slog there through the crowds, deal with the staff, and then lug your goods home. Plus you get all of the drawbacks of an inferior aftersales experience and some extra expense thrown in for your troubles. Perhaps that’s something for shops to consider.

My father always tried to dissuade me from shopping for gadgets, cameras, computer accessories, etc, on the internet. Compared to a store, he thought, you’d have difficulties returning things if ever anything went wrong.

Unfortunately the exact reverse now seems to be true. In fact, I suspect the figures will show that this Christmas has been the most-lucrative-ever for internet retail.

Just as important as the poor after-sales, though, is the poor level of customer service you frequently experience on the high street when actually buying my various gadgets and gismos. And there’s a lesson in this. I had two revealing retail experiences this weekend; both involved polite and courteous customer service; one a taxi driver, the other a shop assistant. In both cases I came away thinking two things:

- Isn’t it nice when the people you’re paying are polite and courteous?
- Why have I noticed this?

This is something our transatlantic neighbours have got right. Though I’ve found American customer service to occasionally be cloying and saccharine, shouldn’t staff be polite if you’re paying them?

In contrast I’ve found that British shop assistants are frequently sullen, rude, unhelpful and often poorly-trained.

Is it any wonder people are turning to the internet in droves?

The British retail industry has been, to some extent, its own worst enemy. So what should we do? Continue to use internet trade to kick the retail industry in the teeth until it learns? Or cut the retail industry some slack, putting up with bad service even more until the storm passes?

Personally, I’m a fan of the model of ‘recession as consolidation and fat-trimming improvement’. I’m no economic conservative; many good and qualified people have been losing their jobs senselessly. But recession would be even more senseless if we didn’t at least draw some hard lessons from it. Treat the customer right, know your stuff, and offer takeback value, and your PR will take care of itself.

[As an addendum to this posting - I'd like to add that I am 100% a fan of the high street, and would hate to see it disappear. I'd love to hear other people's opinions on this.]

Access denied – #nocleanfeed

The Australian government’s attempts to once again restrict internet users’ access to certain sites should be interesting. Do we have a basic human right to access all dangerous illegal content? Maybe not, but it comes down to who decides what’s dangerous and illegal – that is the real question.

The technology challenge is seriously high – a couple of years ago the Guardian covered another Australian attempt, but that didn’t go well. However this time the technology should be better, and according to the BBC they’ve done the trials and it “was 100% effective“.

So once again we have a technology story which is far more about society’s attitude to information, and freedom of access, than the science behind it.

There’s hope for us all yet.

Tweet wars

Twitter and social media has always been used by the police to keep an eye on the less than intelligent ones who decide to brag about whatever crimes they may have committed , but now it’s been taken to the next step with the news on The Next Web that gangs in New York are using Twitter to arrange fights and generally wind each other up.

One tweet said ““I knoe bi**hes from oyg that would dead mob yah s–t in harlem,”  wrote one girl.

Erm, yes, what she said.

The obvious drawback is that the Police can see who is saying what, despite the profiles being made private, although they’re also trying to confuse the police by using complicated slang which has certainly bewildered me.

I doubt this is the first case where fights or worse have been arranged through Twitter, but it’s the first time that I’ve heard about it, and I’m sure Twitter will follow the lead of Microsoft and Google by giving the Police access to data to help them out.

Photo from icanhascheezburger.com