Wit's end on London Underground

There is a very large transport network operator in London that is increasingly out of step with the people it ferries around. The Londoners I know - and I include all the blow ins from around the globe in this group - are savvy, independent, resourceful and grown up. It takes, after all, a fair degree of grit and tenacity to stick it in the smoke.

On the whole, people in London negotiate and survive a thousand different challenges every day. It's a miracle of cooperation and tolerance. The resilience needed is couple with fair peppering of humour too. Tolerance? Cooperation,? Humour? Is this really the London experience we know and love? Well actually yes.

Which makes it all the more dispiriting to learn that the voice over artist responsible for underground announcements has had her contract terminated for allegedly having a giggle at TfL's expense. So offended were average Londoners that her own site fell over under the sheer weight of traffic, rushing online to listen to her very funny skits delivered in the style of a tube announcement.

They maintain the decision to end her contract was not the spoof announcements but still went on to say "Emma is a bit silly to go round slagging off her client's services."

Witless, politically correct, intolerant and uncooprative. Values you should expect from the world's most famous metro system. 2012 here we come.

Update on e-tendering

The good people at the Office for Government Commerce have become responded to my concerns about the e-tendering nightmare. They are coming to talk to me about it. I plan to ask the visitor to use the system, unaided, to see whether it is a. useful and b. usable. My hunch is that it breaks every usability guideline ever thought of. More after the visit.

Pay it forward

I have a thing about value. So many things seem to have a price tag that is disproportionate to the value we derive from it. Why does the cleaner charge more than the experienced Mum that looks after our twins? How come the baby sitter costs more than the night out? Why does GNER charge more to travel on a near empty train just as it's about to leave the station?

We have an intuitive sense of value that makes us feel that warm fuzzy feeling or pinch of anxiety when presented with bill. At least I do. Sculptors talk of us having an innate sense and understanding of scale - a human ability that enables us to perceive an object as pleasing or unsettling because its scale either chimes with our senses or doesn't. Nothing to do with aesthetics - it's more visceral than that. Value works in the same way.

Because of this, I believe there is hugely untapped potential for paying what you think something is worth to enter the mainstream. Yes there are elements of this on ebay and museum entry fees, but what about those rail tickets, holiday lets and, dare I say, consultancy fees?

With this very much in mind, I was delighted with the news that Radiohead are releasing their new album online tomorrow, and buyers can pay whatever they want. I've just paid a fiver. The idea is brilliant, simple, user focused and totally up to the minute, even if the website isn't. Must get my cleaner to check it out.

BBC & 2012 e-tendering nightmares

My in box this morning included a notice that London 2012 is about to post a contract for a range of communication services. Good news, let's have a look. Following the links I eventually arrived at a page containing some basic info. It looked awful - it was unresponsive, it immediately wound me up, and it didn't deliver anything intuitive or useful. My heart sank - this could only mean one thing. London 2012 have outsourced e-tendering to Bravosolution, possibly the worst bit of web technology in existence.
Has anyone seen, or even worse, had the misfortune to have to try use this piece of @%$* that seems to have been built by nerds who never see daylight in about 1985? I cannot begin to describe what a usability crime it is. And what's more, they have spectacularly managed to bamboozle inept and ill informed procurement people into buying into huge public contracts. Their list of clients is certainly impressive which means that the misery of competing for public sector contracts is now compounded and hugely wide spread.
Apart from the usability crime aspect, I am certain that this system actually works against the very principle for which it is deployed. As , rather than make the process smoother, it makes it much much more cumbersome. So much so that I'm convinced many able, talented business that are capable of adding real value to public services will decline to participate, defeated at the first hurdle by this gross mess.
On top of this, if it could get any worse, is the fact that it completely undermines any commitment to accessibility that any of its customers may have. It does not use standards, favours PCs, of course, and will not work on many browsers. The fact that the BBC, TfL, and now, London 2012 have bought into this in order to find business partners to deliver major public services is, for me, professional negligence.

Death or glory

I am not a fan of the use of getting 'it' (or not as the case may be). I find it too simplistic and exclusive. It's like you're in the club or you're out. Trouble is, I have yet to come across a better way to describe those that understand the new web, web 2.0, social web or whatever you want to call it. So I use it, I'm in the club, I get it - hell I might even start putting stickers on my Mac Book to prove just how much I get it. Get it?

Someone help me with this though. How can you tell whether someone really does get it without insulting them? I ask because almost every week I find myself answering enquiries from organisations that are about to invest in a new website. Not wanting to pass up an opportunity I agree to meet and we discuss what they have in mind. Quite soon, in at least 50% of cases, it's clear that they don't get and that the journey to understanding is still a long one in front of them.

The dilemma of course is whether to take the assignment and deliver what they want, or walk away leaving good advice that they wise up and catch up before blowing the budget on an inferior solution that will clearly need to be replaced within 18 months?

If we are to accelerate the pace at which the internet becomes the usable, accessible, social & business medium that we want, then clearly we should only produce the work that fits this vision. But walking away from big client with decent budget is not easy, even if the only way out is via the moral high ground. Tough one.

Inside or out?

A friend and respected thinker in the field, informed me over lunch recently that a client is struggling with social media. His client, a subscription based membership organisation with it's own network of several thousand paying customers, is scratching it's head about a Facebook group made up of it's staff, members, partners, suppliers, students, would be members and competitors.

This group, that sits outside the firewall and therefor any form of control is, by nature, self regulating, informal, human and, above all, FAST.

How long will it be before the people in this new network, that are also members of the client, ask ' why am I paying the subscription to company x when I can get everything I need in here?'

This is another wake up call for the outmoded. Better get their heads together and re-invent.

Two syllables or you're out

Attending the NMK social media conference on Wednesday I renewed my resolve to post more regularly. Little did I know that back in my day job, trouble was brewing, but that's another story. So I'm late. Again.
The NMK newsletter is always a welcome sight in my in box. However, the conference was a little lacklustre if I'm honest. Technical glitches and a few truly awful presenters diminished what could have been inspiring. Dan Gilmore stole the show with a low key presentation full of wit and wisdom and Jason Calacanis railed against just about everyone and, while he came across as a pain the ass, is trying something interesting with Mahalo.com. .
A number of start ups had two minutes to wow the audience. Most didn't. But what became clear is that, to get your thing off the ground in the social media space you have to have a name with two syllables or you're not in the running. Check out:

Rawflow

Reevoo

Playtxt

Webjam

Truth in Advertising

I know I'm not not alone in taking a degree of pleasure watching the ad industry poo its pants over what to do about online. How come this wasn't forecast? They are even bleating about free pitching now which, correct me if I'm wrong, was their creation in the first place.
Anyway, for a glimpse inside the dinosaur check out this very funny film when you have 12 mins to spare.

The new web in a nutshell

Love the term or loathe it, this video is a brilliant intro to web 2.0.

Things that CEOs should know

I know that this really isn't a place for wingeing and whining. That's not the intention here. It is, however, fair game to highlight when business lets you down in a big way, in order that they might improve in future. It's a learning thing, a feedback loop that CEOs would do well to take note of.

True life tales will follow.

It

We have been talking and thinking a lot about how the communications business is changing. Or rather, how new communication opportunities are forcing change on the pillars of our world. The more we think, the more obvious the changing landscape seems to be, and, because so often we work with organisations in a state of flux, how much we have known implicitly for a long time.
The newest member of our development team describes it as 'getting it' or is it, getting 'it'? Whatever it is it's certainly put us in store for a roller coaster ride as we engage in a new conversation with each other and with our clients.
And it truly is a conversation. This is the defining realisation of our era - the emerging understanding that business, education, relationships and all manner of dispersed networks are part of a conversation that is taking place online now, and forever. New products, new communities, new solutions to age old problems, collaborative teaching, learning and research. The crumbling from within of giant brands and oncoming obsolescence of the PR industry. The fact that I'm writing this blog for christ's sake. All this, and more, changes everything now and forever. If I sound evangelical it's because I probably am, a bit.
And yes, there is a degree of playing catch up, for me and especially the organisations I work with. I have reached the first of many summits and the view from here is, at times, too much to take in at once. And I am hugely grateful to big thinkers out there in the blogosphere, others holed up in various enterprises around the world and even some who reside much closer to home in my business and my network.
I am not going to make predictions here in this first post but look forward to looking back from a better world sometime soon.