the lowdown

oh please, one hit wonder?

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:31:14 +0000

“Last week at Venture Capital in the Rockies Winter, Dan gave a great keynote presentation about one hit wonders, entrepreneurs gone bad and the special breed of great serial entrepreneurs. Watch the video at http://www.coloradotechtv.com/dan-caruso-vcir-keynote-video.”

With which I agree. Great presentation Mr Caruso. Except. I want to tell you about Kevin Rowland. Difficult though it is to imagine, musical success can be measured beyond VH1’s US station charts. From Kevin’s myspace:

“ A BRIEF HISTORY : Originally formed by Kevin Rowland with Kevin Archer in Birmingham in 1978, with a brief to look and sound great, Dexys Midnight Runners went on to give us three seminal albums ("Searching For The Young Soul Rebels", "Too Rye Ay" and "Don't Stand Me Down") and a clutch of classic singles including Number One hits "Geno" and "Come On Eileen", which went on to be the biggest selling UK single of 1982 and a US number 1. Dexy’s were famed for their live performances, in the early days for the intensity and power, but also for breaking new ground with likes of the The Projected Passion Revue, going into areas no other band had been before. Their whole approach and attitude towards performance was unique. [...] Don’t Stand Me Down's release and tour saw a downturn in the bands commercial fortunes, the shows were pretty much panned critically and the media paid more attention to the poor album and ticket sales than they did the music or shows themselves. Paradoxically, its hard now to find anyone who was at those shows who doesn’t rave about them, its also hard to imagine now for anybody who wasn’t around at the time, but, the look the band adopted at the time {American Ivy league} caused outrage in the UK music press and overshadowed the albums release. Again, most serious music pundits now agree that DSMD is Dexy’s masterpiece to date. Dexy’s are also known for their uncompromising attitude, which was in many ways their making, but would also later, when applied in the wrong way, prove to be the death of them. They hijacked the master tapes of their debut album in order to renegotiate their deal, they had bitter battles with their record companies {when these were fought for artistic integrity, they were worthwhile and almost always they would be proved right, but when these were fought with an attitude of being belligerent because they felt like it, time would prove that they were wrong}. Sadly, some of this took away attention from the music, but when it comes down to it, it's the music that matters..”

Just for some colour, this is an extract from my iTunes:

I don’t think Dexy’s Midnight Runners are one hit wonders at all. I think they are serial entrepreneurs. And Kevin Rowland’s is a musical genius. So there.

values

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:57:11 +0000

I recently have been around all of our offices and reinforcing our Values, which I followed up by a series of blog posts. A couple of our team wondered why I hadn’t put anything up here. So, I thought about that over the weekend and decided I would put an edited version here. Please note that it was originally six posts so may be a little draining. There is also a lot in here that I have posted about before. I guess that makes sense.

Values are a credo around which the company can be built. However great our assets, or our data, or our processes, without everyone in our company living and breathing the same core beliefs, we will never maximise the value we could create. Our values are these:

•We are here for our customers. We understand that they put their trust in us and we never forget it.
•We speak one truth. Our truth.
•We respect and trust one another and all of our stakeholders.
•We demonstrate integrity in everything we do.
•We are in the game, not just at the game. As one team.  

We are here for our customers. We understand that they put their trust in us and we never forget it. 
Uwe and I travelled from Frankfurt to Amsterdam on Tuesday afternoon on a Lufthansa airbus. Not a great experience, which in trans-European travel isn’t exactly a high bar in the first place. The gate was miles from security. Seriously. I went from London to Frankfurt to Amsterdam to Dublin on Tuesday. I took 10,921 steps and traveled 5.01 miles and at least 90% of that was in airports. And security was its usual pain at Frankfurt airport. But, that is what it is. We sat and waited for the plane. When we boarded we wedged ourselves into our seats. He is taller than he needs to be, and I am wider, so that was also fun. There were already Lufthansa staff on the plane travelling. Nearly every seat was taken and the Lufthansa staff were mostly in Business class. It looked like everyone was on board and we slipped over into the exit row. At which point two off duty cabin staff and a pilot came to sit in the row. As I moved back to our original seats, the off duty steward asked what was happening and I said we had hoped for the extra room and thought the seats were empty. His response was brief:

“Whatever.”

To accommodate their bags the on duty stewardess proceeded to tip our bags from their side to upright. My jacket and coat were on top of my bag. So there wasn’t much space saved. Well, except for the fact that she concluded the best way to deal with that was to keep forcing my bag into the compartment and crush my jacket and coat behind it. She went to get her off duty colleagues’ bags to fill the space created. I took my bag out, reclaimed jacket and coat folded them again and put them into the space created. Suffice to say that on her return she wasn’t exactly enamoured. I pointed out that I didn’t want my jacket and coat crushed into a little ball:

“Well, I will just have to put them in the cupboard at the front.”

And she marched off. The off duty pilot made a lot of noise as he played with his iPhone. He never turned it off. Never. Or put it in flight mode. That’s fine. I have spoken about this before. I know that that the iPhone isn’t about to bring the plane down. As David Sayers commented at that time, one of the great scenes in the The West Wing has Toby Ziegler on an airplane, arguing with a stewardess about whether he has to turn off his laptop, when another stewardess comes up with a message radioed: "POTUS in a bicycle accident." He reaches for his phone but the stewardess won't let him call because they are about to land. Toby responds:

"We're flying in a Lockheed Eagle Series L-1011. Came off the line twenty months ago. Carries a Sim-5 transponder tracking system, and you're telling me I can still flummox this thing with something I bought at Radio Shack?"

By the by. On our plane the cabin crew were very insistent on no electrical items could be on except in the cruise. They didn’t say

“Unless you’re one of our staff. Then you can do what you want. Come and go as you please. Let me know if any customers are disturbing you and we’ll have that resolved quickly.”

I cannot begin to tell you just how I feel about Lufthansa. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me onto their planes now. And I travel a lot.

We are a young company that needs to understand how important our customers are. Every single one of us. Lufthansa completely alienated me and they don’t even know. The story I have laid out above isn’t massively unusual. Maybe a little worse than usual, but I hardly get on a flight anymore where the airlines’ own staff don’t somehow receive preferential treatment over the people who pay to travel. That’s terrible. I understand they need to move around, but surely they understand that that would really upset their customers. We need to recognise that people who buy our services are putting their careers on the line and their business at risk. They are trusting us. We must always remember that.

We speak one truth. Our truth.

I have told you this story before and blogged about too, but I am going to republish it with a few edits.

I have written about Dragon’s Den before. I don’t know why I watch it, other than to remind myself of how not to conduct business. How not to talk to people for example.

Anyway, the episode we were watching the other night had a lady come and pitch a musical about the life of Dusty Springfield. With Adele and Duffy and Amy Winehouse et all the pitch ran, Dusty was the inspiration for so many and interest in her was at an all time high and an ideal time to capitalise on the surfeit of musicals based on individuals or bands. And then another lady sang one of Dusty’s all time biggest hits.

“You don’t have to say you love me,
Just be close at hand.”

What? I must have heard that song three hundred times in the back of my Mum’s car growing up, and the lyrics are quite clearly

“You don’t have to say you love me,
Just because I ask.”

As usual, it bugged me and the next morning I looked up the lyrics on the internet and

“You don’t have to say you love me,
Just be close at hand.”

I have worked in way too many businesses where one person says “Just be close at hand” and another hears “Just because you ask.” It happens. But some rely on it, some trade on it. And it’s a destructive force. It’s important for a business to have ‘our truth.’ Facts that underpin a business that everyone agrees on. Don’t debate the facts. Facts are facts. The minute there is debate, then that’s opinions. Good old fashioned sourced facts. That everyone agrees on. If something doesn’t happen in the way you anticipate it to, then don’t have multiple truths: have one. Have one team. One voice. Congruent goals. Based on one truth. Our truth.

We respect and trust one another and all of our stakeholders.

Great companies are founded on very solid foundations. People are respected. Everyone deserves to be respected. People deserve your respect and your trust. And our customers do. And our Investors do. And the communities in which we operate do. The thing about Values is that they aren’t just blog posts. They are the the absolute foundation upon which we build our company. Repeating myself again:

“Of all the behaviours I see in business, cynicism is the one I despise the most. There is no place for it anywhere, but especially not in the workplace. I would encourage everyone just to do a little test from time to time, and if you’re cynical about your job, your team, your bosses, your environment, then maybe it’s just time to move to the next challenge. You can’t achieve your dreams or your goals when you’re cynical. It’s just a fact. And whilst I don’t agree with everything that Jack Welch has preached, I sure agree with one of his key measures of people. When he was at GE, shared values were intrinsic to all they did. When people lived the values and delivered great results, then great things happened to them. When they did neither, then they left. If they weren’t delivering results, but were living the values, then they did everything they could to help that person up to the stage of delivering. If they couldn’t make that step, they left the business. And if they delivered results, but didn’t live the values?

"There isn't a human being in GE that wouldn't have the Values Guide with them. In their wallet, in their purse. It means everything and we live it. And we remove people who don't have those values, even when they post great results."

We demonstrate integrity in everything we do. 
Integrity. It means a lot of different things. If you don’t believe me, read it’s wikipedia page. In fact one correspondent that this to say:

“In popular culture, people sometimes use the word "integrity" in reference to a single "absolute" morality rather than in reference to the assumptions of the value system in question. In an absolute context, the word "integrity" conveys no meaning between people with differing definitions of absolute morality. It becomes nothing more than a vague assertion of perceived political correctness or popularity, similar to using terms such as "good" or "ethical" in a moralistic context.”

So, I thought I would define what I mean by ‘We demonstrate integrity in everything we do.’ Stephen L Carter is a brilliant writer. He is a brilliant man. He is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale, where he has taught for almost thirty years. He has written numerous books, both non-fiction and four really good thrillers if that is your bent. He also written a quite brilliant book on integrity, called unimaginatively ‘Integrity.’ He wrote the book after doing a commencement address at Stanford University in 1994. To possess true integrity requires three steps, Carter said:

"First, you must know what it is that you believe. Second, you must be willing to act on the basis of what you believe. And third, perhaps hardest of all, you must be willing to say openly that you are acting on the basis of what you believe."

I believe that we play by the rules without hesitation or deviation. Winning is not everything. We will not cheat. Whatever we win, whatever we do, we will do it by the rules. Without hesitation or deviation. Carter again:

“That, in a nutshell, is America's integrity dilemma: we are all full of fine talk about how desperately our society needs it, but, when push comes to shove, we would just as soon be on the winning side.”

Not here, not ever. We will always play by the rules. And if you ever feel that is not the case, then please refer back to the point that you have the right to say openly what you believe. And if you feel compromised by that, then that is why we have a code of ethics and whistleblower policies. Make sure you are heard.

And the gut test? You have heard me to tell this story too. If comes directly from a CEO at one of my previous companies. Whatever you do, whatever decision you take, always reflect that if that action or decision was printed on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times or Frankfurter Allgemeine or Algemeen Dagblad or The Irish Times or whatever then would you feel proud of the company for whom you work. If the answer is no, then don’t do it.

It is as simple as that.

We are in the game, not just at the game. As one team.

Again, I have told this story over and over over the past week. I have also written about Too Big to Fail here. From Amazon:

‘Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment , account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami. From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea, Russia and the corridors of Washington, Too Big to Fail is the definitive story of the most powerful men and women in finance and politics grappling with success and failure, ego, greed, and, ultimately, the fate of the world's economy. "We've got to get some foam down on the runway!" a sleepless Timothy Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve of New York would tell Henry M.Paulson, the Treasury Secretary about the catastrophic crash of the world's financial system would experience. Through unprecedented access to the players involved, Too Big to Fail recreates all the drama and turmoil, revealing never-disclosed details and elucidating how decisions made on Wall Street over the past decade sowed the seeds of the debacle. This true story is not just a look at banks that were "too big to fail", it is a real-life thriller about a cast of bold-faced names who themselves thought they were "too big to fail".

It is a brilliant brilliant book. As I have also said. Over and over. Anyway, all of the Wall Street CEO’s and Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner and their teams were under the most extreme pressure during this time. Paulson would get physically sick from the stress of it. On my reading the person who comes out of the book the best, certainly amongst the CEOs, is Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan. During this tempestuous time when there was so so much to lose and regulators and bankers were trying to work together whilst protecting the many and varied interests of all of the constituents, Dimon took the time out to send Paulson a note. It was from a speech that President Theodore Roosevelt delivered at the Sorbonne in April 1910 entitled “Citizenship in a Republic.’ It read:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

I had heard the speech before when an old colleague and very dear friend Neil Hobbs spoke of it at a conference. It resonates so much. It is not the critic who counts, it is the doer of deeds. Who works hard and fails but tries and picks themselves up again and again. I am not interested in the touchline critic. None of us should be. We are one team. And we are in this game together.

being digital redux

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:28:27 +0000

I have wanted to write this post for some time. And everyday something else makes it more relevant. I don’t have the answers either. Consider,

1, Mark Zuckerberg on Privacy. From ReadWriteWeb:

‘Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a live audience yesterday that if he were to create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public, not private as it was for years until the company changed dramatically in December. In a six-minute interview on stage with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Zuckerberg spent 60 seconds talking about Facebook's privacy policies. His statements were of major importance for the world's largest social network - and his arguments in favor of an about-face on privacy deserve close scrutiny.’

"A lot of companies would be trapped by the conventions and their legacies of what they've built, doing a privacy change - doing a privacy change for 350 million users is not the kind of thing that a lot of companies would do. But we viewed that as a really important thing, to always keep a beginner's mind and what would we do if we were starting the company now and we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it."

2, The buzz about Buzz. From Silicon Valley insider yesterday:

“There is a huge privacy flaw in Google's new Twitter/Facebook competitor, Google Buzz.

When you first go into Google Buzz, it automatically sets you up with followers and people to follow.
A Google spokesperson tells us these people are chosen based on whom the users emails and chats with most using Gmail.

That's fine.

The problem is that -- by default -- the people you follow and the people that follow you are made public to anyone who looks at your profile.

In other words, before you change any settings in Google Buzz, someone could go into your profile and see the people you email and chat with most.

A Google spokesperson asked us to phrase this claim differently. Like this: "In other words, after you create your profile in Buzz, if you don't edit any of the default settings, someone could visit your profile and see the people you email and chat with most (provided you didn't edit this list during profile creation)."

3, Say what you like, as long as it meets with the mob's approval Catherine Bennett in the
The Observer, Sunday 17 January 2010

“Perhaps it's just age, and nostalgia, but one can't help feeling that free speech martyrs used to be a lot more appealing.

[..]

You wonder, really, if it would not have been simpler for the government to let the man in, then leave the task of persecuting, humiliating and hounding him into silence to the merciless forces of Twitter and Facebook. Like Lord West, many thousands of their members evidently believe that extreme obnoxiousness is adequate pretext for censorship and they appear far less constrained by the need for debate. Although online authoritarians have been slow to take decisive action against, say, Islamist groups who demand that the stoning of gays and the subjugation of women be introduced in the UK, they have proved themselves to be fantastically swift and effective when individual illiberal opinions have required shutting down.

In the celebrated case of Jan Moir, for example, which followed nasty comments about the death of Stephen Gately, she was made to apologise within hours of a Twitter mobbing that prompted 25,000 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission. She remains the subject of an online petition: "Jan Moir should get the sack!", in which signatories share concerns about her heartlessness. For example: "I hope she has an unfortunate death like Stephen Gately as karma that she deserves for her 'sleazy lifestyle'." Even connoisseurs of virtual rage had seen nothing like this since hundreds of online readers monstered a Guardian gap-year blog by a naive, teenaged student, Max Gogarty: a "tsunami of hate", his father called it.

Fortunately for the well-being of Gogarty and Moir, virtuous fury appears to be more capricious than government exclusion orders: the moving finger tweets and, having twit, seeks out another enemy of the public good. Someone like Carol Thatcher, with her stupid "golliwog" remark, or the unfortunate "Brumplum", whose treasonous comments on Stephen Fry recently brought down extensive, tweeted retribution ("Wanker. Hope you enjoy the whirlwind of shit that you've invited").

[...]

Regrettably, no doubt, for those who are keener on the purification of public discourse, online censors seem disinclined to regulate with any consistency. For every squashed Moir, there is a rogue Anne Atkins, rap artist or imam, slagging off gays with impunity. Even so, such victories will have an effect. Suspected misogynists and homophobes, careless climate change sceptics and opponents of mass immigration now know what might happen to their reputations, supposing they can't attribute these thought crimes to religious observance. Public figures will become ever blander in their views. So long as massed aggression passes itself off as collective free speech, the exalted motives of an online mob will trump any accusations of organised bullying and cruelty. These days, it piously reminds us, the privilege of free expression carries with it a grave responsibility: not to say anything people might not like.”

The full and excellent article is here.

I have trumpeted on about these things in the past. But, it sufficiently concerns me. I decided to delete my Twitter account, and start again with a protected account. Nothing bad happened, but I concluded that I just would prefer it that way. I don’t have an answer on Privacy other than I would like a vote on it. With people whom I know or have come to know and who engage in a conversation rather than just read about it, that feels OK. Mob rule and Corporate decision making of my behalf just doesn’t. For me. So, I have protected my Tweets. But I still tweet and am happy to connect with you. If you want to sell me something, then Sell. Don’t try to connect to me on LinkedIn and spam me. If you’re my friend, then we can be friends on facebook too. If I don’t know you, we aren’t friends. So, why would be friends on facebook? I don’t mean to sound all hoity-toity. I just feel that it’s important for people to make their own decisions on what they do or don’t do and have the opportunity to decide whom they share that with. I recall the advent of mobile communications and presentations revealing that the boundaries between work, family and social lives were increasingly merging. That’s very true for me. I met my wife at work and most of my friends are people with whom I work or have worked. But again, that’s my call.

I don’t mean to sound all preachy, but I just think choice is important. I love the internet. It has represented the lion’s share of my career and I almost come out in hives when I’m not online. I love Twitter and foursquare and TripIt and facebook and LinkedIn and blogging and ... but I want to decide on the things that I consider to be private and those that aren’t. I think it’s important.

you answer to who, exactly?

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:08:24 +0000

So, yesterday Portsmouth, Southend United and Cardiff City were all in the High Court facing winding up petitions from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC.) Now, I have no allegiance to the various charlatans and despots who ‘own’ those clubs (I obviously don’t include Peter Ridsdale in this description. He obviously remains football’s best loved Chairman and “cemented the special bond he has developed with Leeds fans, earned the respect and admiration of people for whom football is a mystery, and reminded the game's critics that its decent side is not extinct.” But I do to the fans of the clubs. I think they probably ask themselves what exactly was it that they did to deserve all this? And I think it’s an important point.

The people that are serving the winding up petitions are the Government. That’s who runs HMRC. I am not doubting they are owed the money. However, the way that they behave makes it seem that they actually answer to no one. As I have said many times before, football will eat itself. Every one of the deadly sins is available at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. Or, of course, in 3D HD smell-a-vision at a time that suits the money. But that isn’t my point. The person who earns their money and supports their clubs deserve at least something. An explanation. That appears a long and distant dream. HMRC apparently can do whatever they choose. I have the pleasure of a long running tax issue which recently I celebrated with a cake. After all, it was five. The assumption would appear to be: You’re a criminal. You’re trying to steal money. We will litigate until the world ends. Good for them. But it’s just rubbish. Suggs, Nick Moran, Honor Blackman, Janet Street-Porter, Christopher Biggins, Kelly Brook and the voice of Dame Helen Mirren will not change my mind. It’s 2010 for heaven’s sake. We are all deserving of an explanation.

“HMRC are keen to help you if you need to complain and will deal with you in a friendly and professional way.”

Good luck with that.

timelapse

Tue, 2 Feb 2010 06:49:46 +0000

Via the ever excellent Jason Kottke’s kottke.org is this really amazing timelapse video. It is really difficult to describe or define, so I’d just take five minutes our of your day and watch it. It is quite surreal and blends two great cities and actually travels at one point on a street that I used to live on. Prizes for the right timecode for when.

how did you sleep darling?

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:46:20 +0000

In the consistently excellent Hello Wembley! stand-up DVD by Michael McIntyre he notes that the most boring conversation of all is the one you have with your partner that goes along the lines of

“How did you sleep darling?”

Well, it just got a lot more boring in the Rafuse household. In response to the query this morning I answered

“Very well A. I slept with a 96% efficiency, having got into bed at 23:41 I took just two minutes to fall asleep. Whilst waking ten times, I was in bed for 8 hours 30 minutes, whilst I actually slept for 8 hours and 8 minutes. Whilst you thought you didn’t wake me up when you arose to get ready for college, I actually woke up four times.”

The reason I am more boring than usual is the fitbit. “The Fitbit accurately tracks your calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled and sleep quality. The Fitbit contains a 3D motion sensor like the one found in the Nintendo Wii. The Fitbit tracks your motion in three dimensions and converts this into useful information about your daily activities.”

Whilst my colleagues have bet on a range of three hours to 3 days before I get bored of my latest gadget, I am pretty impressed with it.

Obviously I have chosen a day where I have walked the dog and had a work out to illustrate its capabilities. A straight grey line would have been a little boring.

There you go. The fitbit. Not available in the UK yet: “Sorry, but we will be shipping only to the US, initially. We have to pass government certifications for wireless and product safety in each country and we are focused on passing the US tests first. We plan on making the Fitbit available for international orders a few months after our US launch. We will let you know when that happens.” If you listen to the people I work with, you can probably buy mine later in the week.

too big to fail

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:28:33 +0000

I appreciate that I am a little late to this, but if you are at all interested in understanding the financial crisis that engulfed our world, please read Too Big To Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin. I have previously blogged about how impenetrable I found the whole thing. I mean, I don’t need to understand how dense wavelength-division multiplexing actually carries multiple signals across one fibre to do my job. I just don’t. And I don’t understand why I need to be expert in collateralized debt obligations to understand why the world nearly stopped spinning on its axis. Yet every explanation of the crisis seemed to lead me down that rathole. Heck, Alan Greenspan didn’t even understand them:

“I’ve got some fairly heavy background in mathematics, but some of the complexities of some of the instruments that were going into CDOs bewilders me. I didn’t understand what they were doing or how they actually got the types of returns out of the mezzanines and the various tranches of the CDO that they did. And I figured that if I didn’t understand it and I had access to a couple of hundred PhDs, how the rest of the world is going to understand it sort of bewildered me.”

‘Too Big’ is different. I am only 19% of the way through the tomb (I am reading on my Kindle so don’t know how many of the 624 pages I have covered yet, although I am guessing at 118.56 pages) and it is fantastic. I think it has a similar narrative style to ‘Barbarians at The Gate’ and ‘Liar’s Poker’ and is an absolutely gripping read. Seriously. It really is. It’s like a thriller. Go buy it now.

negotiation

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 15:29:51 +0000

Several years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Danny Ertel and Mark Gordon. They had formed Vantage Partners and had worked on the Harvard Negotiation Project (HNP) at Harvard Law School. I was running a team across the US and Europe charged with negotiating big global telecom contracts. I met with Danny and Mark after I became acquainted with the HNP. They had been involved in some pretty hairy negotiations,

“..Mark has worked with President Ortega of Nicaragua on negotiations between the Sandinistas and Contras, President Duarte of El Salvador on negotiations between the Government and the FMLN, and the PLO negotiation support group reporting to Yasser Arafat and then to Abu Masin. In addition, he has worked with the ANC in South Africa...”

Apparently it’s ‘interesting’ to negotiate with people who have Kalashnikovs on the table across from you. They wrote a great book too, ‘The Point of the Deal’ which you should buy if you do any negotiation. It follows from a great HBR article they wrote called Getting Past Yes. And there is a very good audiobook version on iTunes too.

There are many important points made within the article and the book. But I just wanted to refer to the key point. If you are doing a deal that requires you to work with the person that you are doing the deal with on an ongoing basis, then screwing them is just not really the point. Danny and Mark talk about negotiating as if implementation really matters. If it does, then you have to. I know it’s easy to say such things as ‘everything is negotiable’ but actually that really isn’t the point either. The point is acting in good faith, understanding the other party’s needs and not negotiating for the sake of negotiating. If you build the right level of trust, then you have real foundations on which to build. ‘Winning’ the negotiation just isn’t what it’s about. Doing a deal that both parties love is the right recipe for success.

I know this sounds obvious. But it really isn’t obvious to most.

Happy New Year.

best song 2009

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:27:30 +0000

So, after the intense ridicule of my review of 2008, and the hoity-toity stuck up ‘Review of the Noughties’ nonsense I have read thus far, I am surprising myself by even announcing these facts. Why, Clinton will be sharpening his ‘Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells’ pencil as we speak. But, when Kirsty calls, and we all know she will, then I will have to choose my eight favourite songs ever. And as we stand, two of those come from 2009. Whilst it did feel like a year best forgot musically, two songs just took my breathe away. Before you start, please just watch these two videos. And then tell me I’m wrong.

And of course

And then you will realise that I’m not. Have a healthy and prosperous 2010.

foursquare

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:15:57 +0000

Om is sold on it. The seed funders are pretty stellar: Union Square Ventures, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Jack Dorsey, Kevin Rose, Alex Rainert, Ron Conway, Joshua Schachter, Chad Stoller and Sergio Salvatore. They certainly are beginning to gather some users:

What is it? Wikipedia never lets you down:

“Foursquare allows registered users to connect with friends and update their location. Points are awarded on weekends and non-business hours for "checking in" at venues. Users can choose to have their Twitter and/or their Facebook accounts updated when they check in. In version 1.3 of their iPhone application, Foursquare enabled push-notification of friend updates, which they call "Pings." Users can earn badges by checking in at locations with certain tags or for check-in frequency. The company has stated that users will be able to add their own custom badges to the site in the future. If a user has checked-in to a venue more than anyone else, on separate days, and they have a profile photo, they will be crowned "Mayor" of that venue, until someone else earns the title. Users can create a "To Do" list for their private use and add "Tips" to venues that other users can read. Foursquare is currently available in 100 metro areas,”

Liz Gannes offers a contrarian view to the boss:

“Location-based social networking services like Foursquare and Gowalla may eat up a lot of techie mindshare, but they still have very few users — roughly 150,000 and 50,000, respectively. However, by virtue of product design and social norms, users are discouraged from cheating when it comes to the services’ social gaming elements, so the value of their information is high.

On the other hand, an iPhone app called MyTown, which also features a location-based check-in system game, acquired 250,000 users within just two weeks of launching earlier this month. The app already gets 650,000 daily check-ins from nearly 1 million locations. The difference? MyTown is much more of a game. In the span of 20 minutes or so, I “checked in” at tens of locations in my neighborhood, acquired points and virtual cash and bonuses, “bought” (à la Monopoly) nearby restaurants and collected rent on them, and got up to level six of 20 — all from the comfort of my couch. The game is really, really easy. In fact, Booyah, the company that makes the app, says 15 percent of users hit level 20 within 24 hours of first using MyTown.”

So, what about it? I have mentioned before my fascination with location based services. Many years ago back in BT there was constant reference to Japanese mobile services that offered location based services. I don’t know whether or not foursquare is a flash in the pan or a game changer, or something in between. But I remain convinced that services that inform you where your friends and acquaintances are in a latent way offer great opportunity. I enjoy foursquare. It’s nice to see where people are and what they are doing. I think there is quantum reciprocal marketing opportunities. If Starbucks realised how often they visit their establishments, then they could probably just have a pop up shop following me around and make a mint. I think the Facebook Connect link is a great deployment of that technology and opens up a massive audience in very short order.

There have been a multitude of location based apps in 2009. But still no game changers. I am sure 2010 will change that. Will it be foursquare? No idea. But, I am the Mayor. Of five places in three countries.

“You are currently the mayor of 5 places!

+ Cafe A Thai, Cowcross Street
+ Four Seasons Hotel Singapore (Singapore)
+ Pinner Tandoori
+ Starbucks, Fleet Place
+ The College Hotel (Amsterdam)”

Get me.

Oh, and I am Brady R BTW. Just Brady R. Not Brady R BTW. That would be silly.

sufficiently aggravated

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 06:21:41 +0000

Right. I am sufficiently aggravated about something. I appreciate this will be aggravating to some in return. After all, I once wrote about going to see Seth Godin and received a comment on this site from someone called ‘Tricky’ that went thus:

“ ‘I don’t want to sell you anything I just want you to lead’ - can’t you see you donkey that you are just being led..being sold to...oooh let’s go buy more marketing trash books. Of course people like doing things in Tribes...does it really take you to pay go see a marketing man speak to tell you that. Stop trying to look for the next big marketing think and just LIVE.”

[Non-UK Visitors: read this for an explanation of what follows]

Here is the thing. Richard Bacon seems like a nice bloke. But he twittered on Sunday:

“Word on is that Rage Against The Machine has won. Social media campaigns are now more powerful than the 19 million X Factor. Ha ha ha.”

What’s ha ha ha about that? David Quantick saw it a little differently:

• Oh good, an unpleasant, unfestive song that nobody liked when it came out is number one. Thanks, fun eaters.7:28 PM Dec 20th from web
• Well if you don't like Joe Mcwhatever buy something you like. How fu@king dull.7:34 PM Dec 20th from web
• And if it's your so fave song how come you forgot to make it anytime in the last 20 years? Unimaginative, mental-uniform wearing dullards.7:36 PM Dec 20th from web
• It's a negative, snobbish, imagination-hating, crowdfearing, anti-pleasure gesture.7:38 PM Dec 20th from web
• Oh and if you want to give to Shelter, they have been going since 1966. A bit like Sony, who now have even more records in the charts.7:39 PM Dec 20th from web
• If something you don't like is unimaginative it doesn't make you imaginative. Where's your alternative X Factor? Where's your anything?7:41 PM Dec 20th from web

Charlie Brooker was firmly in the RATM camp in his Monday column in the Guardian. I love Charlie Brooker. But I think he is wrong. Andrew Collins agreed with Quantick and got a stream of dog’s abuse. And I could go on for about 17 years.

Here is the thing. I really don’t care about the charts, or Joe from the X-Factor. He seems like a very nice young man and has a nice voice. But, I don’t care. Everybody can buy what they like. But, I don’t see the RATM campaign as a triumph for anything other than negativity. And if you said that on Twitter, then it was like the devil’s own work. And that’s rubbish. Jan Moir’s article about Stephen Gately was amongst the most repellent things I have ever read. I even complained to the Press Complaints Commission. But I don’t think the natural extension of that is for people to publish death threats and her address on the Internet. And I don’t care if Simon Cowell did or didn’t handle the RATM campaign well. I just agree with David Quantick:

“It's a negative, snobbish, imagination-hating, crowdfearing, anti-pleasure gesture [...] If something you don't like is unimaginative it doesn't make you imaginative”

I just think it’s a bad bit of the internet that these anti-isms can sweep in the way they do. I hate negativity. I have no problem with people disagreeing, but give an alternate. Negative campaigns change nothing. I didn’t think Tricky was that helpful either.

time management

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 06:07:13 +0000

I know my sophisticated readership have no truck for time management systems or Getting Things Done or any of that nonsense. I know you hanker for the old days of filofaxes, but that is a penchant for expensive leather goods, rather than a real commitment to the inserts therein. More the look. You remember:

I had a meeting with one of my team yesterday. We were talking about a number of competing priorities and the art of getting everything done. I suggested something that I do, all too sporadically. First up, one piece of paper, or one screen with the next three months laid out with the key priorities in a timeline. What you need to achieve and by when in what duration. Break that down into the next month. Same thing. Then week. Then day. Even just do a day. Just a list. Things I need to do today. And cross them off when you have done them. Next day, don’t do that. Then test which day was more productive. Over time you can look at your three month and one month view and then look at your diary. And cross out all of the meetings that don’t contribute to your achievement of your goals. It’s like David Blaine time. Magic time arriving at the station, unused. And then maybe have something like Reqall, or Things, or Google Tasks, or God forbid, Outlook, to jot down down things you need to do and then fit them back into the overall structure. And if they don’t fit, maybe they’re not quite the priority you thought they were.

I know this is really mundane. But when I couldn’t talk to an ex-boss because I was at a meeting about air conditioning in the office, he pointed out to me that if I wasn’t in that meeting, the air conditioning would still work Almost certainly better.

diagnosis of exclusion

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 09:49:19 +0000

Could be Snow Leopard. Could be dropbox. Could be iWeb and Snow Leopard.

I feel like I am sick and I have had every test and the Doctors are saying, “Yep, you’re sick. We just don’t know with what.”

Which isn’t helpful. I haven’t been blogging because I have spent literally weeks trying to fix the blog. And you know I love those Apple guys. But something has gone wrong, and it is since Snow Leopard was installed. I say ‘was’ like some IT guy did this. Obviously I did it on my three machines which have always worked together like ‘Ebony & Ivory, working in perfect harmony.’ Except, well, there is three of them. And now my blog doesn’t work. And I can’t attach a file to an email or upload a file in Firefox. But I can in Chrome and Safari. Which is also annoying. Because I love foxclocks and foxmarks, or whatever it’s called now, and well, it’s all too much. I don’t care what anyone says. Until someone shows me evidence to the contrary this is all because Snow Leopard was a rushed and very average release. Obviously lightyears better than Windows 7, but anyway.

And yes, anyway. All I meant to say was, I haven’t been blogging because I couldn’t. And I was cycling in this morning (see, you didn’t know about my cycling. Because I haven’t been blogging. Because my blog file....)

So. Breathe. I am going to go back through the 300+ blogs I have previously written and repost the good ones (Won’t take long) and maybe revisit some things with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight and well, we’ll see where it goes. It’s a bit of a pain.