Archive for February, 2008

Putting your fleas on the table

Feb 28 | by mukaumedia | news, smile
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At a meeting yesterday, there were 5 of us sitting around a circular table discussing how ‘mu:kaumedia would provide podcasting services to a web design agency. Someone asked me a question and as I launched into my answer, my eye fell on what I thought was a tiny fly on the table near my coffee cup. I went to flick it away, but it stuck to the end of my finger – and then did that uniquely ‘flea’ thing: it squirmed and pinged straight back onto the table.

For some reason, a wave of irrational, childhood shame and horror washed over me. Fleas! Eeeewwwww! Hide it! Hide it! Despite the fact that no-one else around the table could possibly have seen it, I had to hide it. So I secretly trapped it – thumb and index finger pressed together in what must have seemed like some sort of sudden rigor mortis.

By some herculean feat of self-control, I managed to preserve my pretence of normality and effect a ‘casual’ withdrawal of my contorted claw to safety below the table in order to fling the shameful flea, unnoticed, thousands of feet to the carpet below.

Isn’t it odd the lengths we’ll go to?

Shooting yourself in the foot

Feb 22 | by mukaumedia | GRRRR!!!, business insight, smile
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A piece of marketing advice I often give is that if you’re going to sell yourself by finding fault in others, you’d better make sure that you’re good at what you’re supposed to be good at!

“Does your website pass the 3 second test?” was the headline of one web designer’s listing. “Does yours?” is the first thing that came to mind – and, of course, it didn’t. **Bang!!

“With an unrivalled reputation for attention to detail, we take more care then our competitors….” said the add for a £200k yacht in the glossy sailing mag. **Bang!!

Just as government mandarins should know how to balance the books, so newspapers ought to know how to use English effectively. (And for the strictly pedantic, while ‘can not’ is technically allowable, ‘cannot’ would be the generally accepted term here). **Bang!!

We’re all human and we all make mistakes and most of us are forgiving of those mistakes – with one exception. And that’s when you’ve set yourself up to look good by finding fault with others.

Being vulnerable

Feb 16 | by mukaumedia | business insight, online networking
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An Ecademy blog titled ‘Being vulnerable is good for you…NOT’ prompted me to make the following reply:

“We sometimes talk about vulnerability like its some kind of conscious style decision. ‘Shall I do vulnerable in this or that situation..?’

I prefer to see vulnerability not as a choice but as a consequence of a choice to be open; to be who I am rather than what my ego would prefer others to think I am; to risk being seen; to risk lowering my defenses; to communicate rather than react and create conflict.

To affect ‘vulnerability’ is about as manipulative a strategy as is the deliberate mirroring of body language in order to force ‘rapport’ and influence decisions.

For most people, being invulnerable means hiding behind heavier and heavier armour and striking out before anything or anyone can hurt them. Or hiding from the world in a cocoon of alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, work, anger, relationships… the list goes on.

On that basis, being vulnerable is good for me.”

Successful networking: scientific method or intuitive enterprise?

Feb 11 | by mukaumedia | online networking
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Life: Scientific Method or Intuitive Enterprise? wink

I believe that it’s all Intuitive Enterprise. Even when theory and analysis are at their very best, its at the level of intuition when we synthesise startling new ideas from evidence and observation. I suspect that business management at its very best is the dynamic, in-the-moment opportunism that comes from lived experience and qualities like courage, generosity and passion.

The worst of business and science is a barren terrain of jargon, dogma, masks, labels and hierarchies that offers protection for those for whom emotion and feeling are a difficult – or often painful – experience. In this place, that which cannot be measured (intuition and emotion) has become not only worthless, but dangerous.

I’ve learned that the more I trust, honour and act on what we call ‘instinct’ (the un-measurable, un-nameable sum total of all my experiences, feelings and observations), the better results I achieve and the more interesting my life is. The less we honour that un-measurable component, the less we can ever understand the real driving force behind customer experience and buying decisions – let alone how people interact in the workplace.

Mac – you have lost a lifelong customer

Feb 2 | by mukaumedia | GRRRR!!!, ORM, news
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Its Saturday evening and I’m forced to back up manually every single piece of data from my iMac G5. Why? Because the VRAM is now crumbling (all the Mac icons not only have a cross-hatched box around them, the screen is now blurring everything)* see faults below.

This started to happen before the machine was 2 years old. It’s now 2 years 2 months and its going to be in a skip in a matter of days. Why? Because the repair is £600 – and because I wasn’t prepared to pay the extra £139* for ‘Extended’ Apple Care cover in the first place.

Faults since purchase:

• Fan so noisy that the machine cannot be used for podcasting / recording - known fault

• Power supply failed completely after several months of intermittent shutdowns (Apple replaced under considerable pressure) - known fault

• VRAM failure (renders the machine unusable for anything that requires moving image) - known fault

• * Blurring graphics / text - traced to bug in an obscure ‘Universal Access setting’ remedied only via user forums - known bug

• CD & DVD Burner no longer work

Despite the fact that all the problems this machine has suffered from are well known to Mac – a fact attested to by their ‘limited’ admission of liability in the form of a Repair Extension Programme covering a certain range of machines (not mine of course), Apple have nothing to say about this situation. “You had the choice to take out the Extended Apple Care cover” was their last word on the subject. It appears there are virtually no guidelines as to what length of service should make a computer ‘fit for service’ so Apple and others can continue to manufacture machines that – to all intents and purposes – demand an extended warranty to make them viable propositions as business machines.

As I said in another post, our teenage son’s 5+ year old Packard Bell is still whirring away in his bedroom. Losing our business’s principal computer to a total breakdown is infuriating – but it gets worse. Not only has the VRAM failed almost completely, the CD / DVD burner has progressively given up over the last few months alongside the other problems. So as if to add insult to injury, I am not even able to backup my business data to CD or DVD. As we speak, I’m having to transfer it (painstakingly slowly) across our wireless network to our iBook which itself is not working properly. That means I’m still going to have to back all that data up AS WELL to disk because in all likelihood, I’m going to have to press our PC laptops into service.

A computer that fails twice with known problems before its first two years are up is not, as far as I’m concerned, fit for the purpose. And make no mistake, if taking out expensive extended Apple Care cover is the only way you’re going to be able to depend on this machine still working two years later, then it’s not - as the Apple customer service lady informed me – “a choice”, it’s actually what I would call “a pre-requisite“.

Apple stood its ground and refused to fix this machine. If we did this for you, they said, what about all the other people who had paid for the extra cover?

What they don’t seem to understand is that in turning me from the net promoter I used to be (selling their product for them to cohort upon cohort of students over 10 years lecturing at Universities) to a net detractor, they’ve already lost £900 (the Mac I’m now not going to buy). And that’s before I share my personal – and considered – experience with countless people from this point onwards. So by my reckoning, it’s already lost them financially more than it would have cost them in cash to fix the machine. And that’s before even considering the impact of negative feedback I will be sharing with all the people in future who ask me ‘Mac or PC?’.

I can see that there have been views in to this Blog from the Apple technical forums where I posted my dissatisfaction. People will make up their own minds as to whether or not they’re willing to pay for extended Apple Care or risk their business machine failing with faults that aren’t even worth repairing.

*corrected figure