Archives for December 2004
Inside the Dome
As promised, some low-res camera shots of the Dome four years after the millenium. Crisis have tried hard to make it welcoming, but it’s still a big empty tent. See how the roof already looks dirty and decayed. How much longer before it needs replacing?
To get a sense of scale, realise that in the first picture the building in the distance is 300m away and three stories tall. An articulated lorry can fit under each of the pillars. It is an enormous space.
It’s the nearest I’ve come to an alien abduction. Standing right in the middle during a fire drill, looking up I felt as if I was being beckoned into the waiting spaceship. If it were night and all lit up, I probably would have gone.
Dome-less
Up to Greenwich yesterday to give a few hours help to the Crisis setup. This year it’s at east London’s favourite white elephant, the Millenium Dome. I had a good chuckle when I saw that e-Bay is offering Millenium Domes for sale, with a ‘big selection’ available. They should realise it’s taken four years just to get rid of this one.
It is a typically impressive operation but is dwarfed by the size of the empty building. Covering twenty acres without any supporting pillars it was built to house the hapless Millenium Exhibition and little if no thought was given to its subsequent use – the ‘legacy’ as the IOC like to call it. The circumference alone is more than a kilometre, which I can believe having carried things around it several times.
The original exhibition was full of the bastard children of Disneyworld and the Science Museum, but it was all very nicely lit. Oddly, the people at our favourite anarchist website Urban75 quite liked it and took some pictures to prove it.
Hugely disappointing is the state it’s in. Every remnant of the exhibtion has been removed with just a few function rooms left around the edge. The roof is dirty and dark, and the building itself is two degrees colder inside than out. Plans are in place to convert it into two stadia: for now, it’s a unique experience to feel engulfed by the immense empty space.
Saddest of all, for insurance regions we’re only allowed on part of the edge. So no games of football in the centre of the arena. Bah humbug!
I’ll try and take some pics on the camera phone tomorrow before the guests arrive. (And that’s the last I’ll be posting about Crisis, don’t worry!)
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Getaway
I’ve just bought this getaway car for my little cousin for Christmas. Isn’t it great? Little Playmobil gangsters complete with stubble and handguns. Yes, pistols for the 4+ age group. I imagine most kids would rather get a robber than a policeman as a gift.
Are those Euros they’re taking? Very forward thinking of the single currency-rejecting Danes.
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Best of the web
The Guardian has published its list of the best websites in a series of different categories. Reading through it made me realise that the web is a very big place; that I’ve seen very little of it; and that there are few sites that I visit on a regular basis.
Looking at my bookmarks, the only ones that come to mind are:
That really is about it. Other sites I can access through Bloglines or visit when I have a particular query, rather than reading for the sake of it.
Are there sites that I’ve missed?
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Amazon shopping
I haven’t really got my head round Pricenoia yet, but it seems quite useful. It will comparison shop all of the Amazon sites (US, Canada, UK etc.), work out shipping costs and tell you which is cheapest.
There are plenty of flaws – it’s easy to get free shipping in the UK, it doesn’t price in £, and it’s only easy when the product is directly comparable between markets. Which probably means books. Handy, nonetheless.
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Max
I’ve not often found myself rooting for Adolf Hitler, but for one moment in Max I wished success for him and his career as an artist. It’s a peculiar movie, one I chose for the presence of the great John Cusack rather than the storyline. Odder still is Flirting’s Mr Felafel, Noah Taylor*, as Hitler; even more surprising, that Sidney Blumenthal, yes, that bloke from the White House, was one of the executive producers.
The film imagines that Hitler became leader of the National Socialists because his work as an artist was rejected, and his speechifying was an attempt to create the art of the future. ‘I’m Avant Garde’, he crys, ‘My brain is the palette and these people are my canvas’. Worth a peep if it’s in your local video shop. It’s better than Pushing Tin.
[*Who I thought was Australian but nope, he's English]
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Physical attraction
As part of the fun and games of signing up for Match.com, more of which another day, I tried their physical attraction test (what I like in others, not getting myself rated as on Hot or Not). The results were very interesting, and if you can try it without too much registration hassle I highly recommend it. Apparantly, science shows that my ideal woman is the one on the left.
Here are some excerpts from my report.
Are you Picky?
Very Picky: It’s official: You’re “picky.” The fact is you are drawn to the most beautiful of the beautiful. You know what you like in women and are more selective than most men your age. Your tastes seem instinctual. You’d make a great casting agent, because you have a good eye for women who have “star quality.” In real life, your high standards may be an obstacle for you. It’s hard to find a woman with the strong features you like, who’s also well-rounded in other ways. Still, you know the importance of a real physical “spark” in a relationship, and aren’t willing (or able) to settle for less. The challenge is finding a woman who really wows you physically, even if she’s not the most attractive woman in the room.
Spot on, eh? Very picky – that’s me alright, which makes me a rarity, just 2% of men
What Is Your Preferred Age Range?
Based on the photos you selected, you are interested in dating women somewhere between ages 25 and 30. The age of the women you’re attracted to and the age of the women you want to date is about the same. With the right combination of features, you may find women up to age 40 to be personally appealing. However, you only seem interested in DATING women who are no more than age 35.
Too bloody right
Your Favorite Body Types
You liked the body type referred to scientifically as a “Mesomorph.” This is a fancy way of saying that you like slender, athletic women. While you may enjoy looking at different breast sizes, based upon the choices you made, you prefer a woman with ample breasts.
No comment
Clear the runway! You also seem fascinated by women we call “Super Models.”
Nothing wrong with that. It’s just evolution – surely tall women have more chance of surviving?
There’s more, much more, but I was pretty impressed. But enough of staring at women on screen; the tricky part is meeting them.
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I.Q.
Chris’s reference to Myers-Briggs personality types reminds me that I’m a sucker for IQ tests as they tend to boost my own sense of superiority (misplaced, of course, and a reflection of my personality itself in several ways). Generally, the number and logic problem options are relatively straightforward but word-based questions are a challenge. I’m an anagram dyslexic.
Sitting on my parent’s bookshelf is Know Your Own I.Q., a reasonable set of tests with an unnecessary twist. Can you work out the answer to this question, and tell me what it has to do with your IQ?
BAGG is to William the Conqueror as BEJC is to whom?
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Jay’s website and other stuff
My site’s had about eight visitors in the past couple of months (some uninvited 
), with most of the hits coming from Mr Dreyer’s blog reader.
Contrast that with my cousin Jay. He’s 14 years old, a real child of the internet (which I started using when he was two). A fan of an on-line game called Dismount, he noticed a lack of information about and support for it. So he set up his own site, now ranked third on Google, and has had more than 49,000 hits. Jay – respect!
Thinking about successful versus unsuccessful websites, I’ve just watched startup.com chronicling the rise and fall of an internet startup in New York. I remember the days well, even as someone on the fringes. Visiting eleven cities in twelve days and watching sixteen focus groups, only to condense the findings into ten Powerpoint slides. Companies offering equity instead of cash to pay for market research, an option we thankfully never took – wherenow.co.uk was the only client of mine that has ever left its bills unpaid. Plus the rise and fall of e-MORI, a sad story that cannot be told here.
Govworks.com intended to ‘make municipal government efficient’, raising $60m of capital and reaching a peak of 150 employees before in effect folding just 18 months after foundation. Now, I could have told them from the start that selling services to local government is a foolish idea as the whole sector is fragmented, inert and has no compelling reason to improve efficiency except for political rhetoric and budget cuts. Look how long it is taking to implement e-services at the national level in the UK.
The documentary focuses on the relationship between the two founders, Tom and Kelim, high school friends planning to ride the internet wave. They’re chalk and cheese, one brash and thriving on the search for venture capital, the other more pragmatic yet excited to be building a company. Oh, and they’re not yet 30. At first the film is slow and not that interesting for anyone who wasn’t involved in the .com frenzy, but picks up half way through as the business encounters problems and friction increases between the main protagonists. It’s a good exposition on the risks of combining friendships and money.
Unusually, there is no narrator nor interviews with the subjects. This can be frustrating but ultimately the story tells itself, and there’s probably a whole school of documentary film making that explains how this technique works. Now, with digital video and desktop video editing software, making a documentary could be almost ‘free’. Does this mean we all have a story about us that we can now share?
I hope blogs are confessional enough for most people. Despite the brilliance of the BBC’s early self-documentary series Video Nation, the questionable quality of the new genre Podcasting suggests that few have the talent to tell an engaging tale.
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Banking misery
This is just a grumble. If you don’t want to hear whinging, page down to where I try and make a point about big companies and customer service. Or just skip to the end.
I probably shouldn’t admit it here, since potential clients will be able to reach these pages via my business email address, but I’m just going through the process of activating a dormant limited company to meet the needs of a particular new customer. I’d established the company itself before leaving MORI, I suppose as a statement of intent (Abajo Ltd, geddit?).
My goal this week was simple. I need a cheap-to-run small business account that will let me receive payments and handle cash for the business. Not the most glamorous client for a bank since I don’t want to borrow £££, but there’s potential for growth and the proposition is low risk.
There are a handful of high street banks that handle this type of business, offering free banking for the first year and then running something similar to an organised crime cartel to fleece business customers in subsequent years. Their treatment of small businesses in the past has been so bad that the government conducted a review into the industry. Although things have improved a little since then – banks now have to offer interest on credit balances, albeit at a generous 2.5% below the base rate – customer service is no better.
Here’s a brief roundup.
On the high street
On Monday I was meeting Alex on the King’s Road, so took the opportunity to walk into a couple of banks after the lunchtime rush.
Barclays: In Barclays I waited ten minutes to be served at the ‘information’ desk. ‘I’d like information about a small business account please, including details of charges’. The robot gave me a paper-thin leaflet. ‘It’s all in here’, she told me. I flicked through, of course there was no information. ‘Oooh, hold on. Margaret. Margaret! Where do I find the costs for business accounts?’. ‘He’ll have to phone the number’. Great. Thanks.
Score: 3/10. Uninformed and uninterested staff.
Natwest: Walk into their branch. No-one at the information desk. Still no-one there three minutes later. Walk out.
Score: 0/10. Staff? What staff?
Lloyds TSB: Lloyds Bank has a special place in my heart. I hate them. But I wanted to give them a chance, so tried their information desk. Waited a couple of minutes, but at least the woman was friendly. ‘We can’t tell you charges because it will depend on the type of account you get, but we can make an appointment for you’. Then she handed me quite a comprehensive small business pack and pointed out the advisor to me.
Score: 7/10. I didn’t actually get the information I wanted, but at least she told me why. Includes an extra point for having the most attractive staff.
On the phone
Of course I normally turn to the internet to get this type of information. Next day, I browsed the bank websites to look for similar information and try and arrange an appointment.
Natwest: A bit tricky to find the business banking pages, and not enough information, but I did find a phone number. Which I let ring for five minutes without answer, before giving up.
Score: 0/10. Call centre? What call centre?
HSBC: Plenty of information on the website and a phone number. Good news. I put in a call to their business line and waited about three minutes before reaching somebody in India. Now, I have no problem with offshoring, but I do find incompetence annoying. After I’d carefully explained my needs a couple of times, I was put through to another office. Well, I actually got cut off.
Score: 3/10. I got through to someone, but I guess HSBC don’t want me. I did later pop into my local branch for a farcical attempt to arrange an appointment, but thanks to Tracy we got there in the end.
Barclays: Wow! The website gave all the information I need and there was a freephone number and I got through almost straight away and I could arrange an appointment two days later
Score: 8/10, this far at least.
I’m just amazed at how hard it is to get any bank to show an interest in my business. I shouldn’t need to go into the branch or wait on the phone for 20 minutes to make an appointment. First Direct bangs on about its high level of customer satisfaction, but let’s be clear, they really are better than any of these grossly profitable, disinterested high street banks. They’ve really cocked up my accounts before, messing up my house purchase, but at least they apologised, sorted it out and sent me champagne.
Since it was Dad’s birthday, on Tuesday we went out for dinner with a couple of their good friends, Chris and Harriet. Chris is a very successful director of a packaging company, and Harriet is an equally successful retail sales manager at Disney. Discussing the frustrations of working in a large company, we talked about how big companies often become obsessed by The Process rather than the outcome. In these circumstances it’s more important that the ‘right’ things are done, regardless of whether they’re done right or not. As a result no-one takes responsibility for things when they go wrong, and The Process itself that takes the blame rather than the staff.
In these circumstances, it’s only when someone works outside The Process that good customer service can be delivered. It’s the car rental agent who doesn’t charge the one-way fee because he can see it’s not relevant, or it’s the water company engineer who takes responsibility for seeing that your problem is solved, who makes a difference. Few companies seem to foster this culture, and even fewer reward it – perhaps Virgin and First Direct are an exception here, and maybe that’s because their processes are so flexible, and their CRM systems so powerful, that staff are allowed to make a difference.
It seems that for banks, The Process is everything and staff seem to worry more about ticking boxes and meeting targets than creating less tanglible successes in a positive ‘customer experience’.
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