Catch-up with events

SLK 350 after a comprehensive test run to Thetford

A bit of a catch-up post this one. Am sat at home and have just put Jamiroquai's Funk Odyssey on iTunes. Which is sort of fitting as I forgot to catch up with you after I popped out for the afternoon with a good mate on Tuesday and we ended up taking a brand new Mercedes SLK 350 for a test-drive out to Thetford. Now this thing shifts. My mate's got an S2000 which - to be fair - is a maniac revving engine in a full-on Jap sports car. The Merc however was just rudely powerful. So often the complaint about the SLK was that it was an underpowered hairdressers' car. The prerequisite to owning one being an over-styled haircut and mahogany skin with a texture not unlike that of a rhino. This SLK's different. Not quite the AMG that Clarkson tried to outrun the British Army in but an awesome car nonetheless.

It's certainly more capacious than the S2000, I'm 6' 2" and aside from some unruly buffeting at 120 mph I was comfortable. That might have something to do with the 'air scarf' technology though, oh and the fact that I was boiling the marrow in my skeleton with the heated seats on. The 3.5litre gave plenty of people on the A11 something to think about. Coming off roundabouts we reached 60 in about as long as it took me to remove my Oakleys from the glove box, with the Formula-one nose appearing in your rear view mirror at those sort of speeds you'd better be driving something even better than a Boxster 3.2S to even think about competing. Especially as the one we had was equipped with the 7G Tronic gearbox and paddle shifters on the wheel.

What's more, we hadn't even engaged 'sports' on the box. There was more under that gorgeously sloping bonnet. I have to say I wouldn't contemplate the junior models (200 and 280) and there were faults (the stereo display is unreadable in direct light, the wind deflector is rubbish and it's got a ludicrously daft steering rake adjustor ... but park up at watch that folding roof disappear in 22 seconds and you'll forgive this obscenely efficient Teuton the vast majority of its sins. If I had £38k to spend on a car I'd consdider it. But I'd probably end up getting a brand new Elise 111R and use the change on a used Golf for trips to the supermarket. What the Merc lacked - and the Elise has in spades - is a sense of being a driver. The Merc cosets you along at frightening speeds and you can hear the stereo, but you're a pilot, flying by wire and there's just something about that that leaves you a little bit hollow.

If you think this is a rubbish appraisal, What Car? did a good one.

London Explosions: 21st July

IMAGE: (c) BBC News online


News is emerging of explosions on the tube in London again. The BBC site is running ok on low graphics mode but Reuters, which were talking of a nailbomb is struggling.

** UPDATES BELOW & IN COMMENTS ***

Rumour: dummy explosions using detonators (BBC)

Three stations closed and three lines: Warren St., Oval, Shepherd's Bush.

Also incident on Route 26 bus in Bethnal Green (Hackney Road)

More on its way...

14:18 BST At Shepherd's Bush station, police told reporters that a man had threatened to blow himself up and then ran off. (BBC News)

14:19 BST The Ashes (a major British sporting event in cricket, England vs. Australia) are being held at Lords cricket ground not the Oval ground - site nearby one of the tube evacuations. Current score: Australia: 175-6

14:22 BST Other stations closed: Westminster, Waterloo & Kings Cross Thameslink. Devices have been found that appear to be dummies (Andrew Winstanley)

14:25 BST Reuters struggling to keep up to date. More news from Sky reporters concerning passenger's backpack on fire

14:32 BST COBRA have be convened

14:39 BST Reporters log up on BBC site ... gathering news quickly. There are various reports still coming in of a man with a rucksack either fleeing with it on or throwing it on the tracks. Other sources suggest someone threatened to blow themselves up before fleeing.

14:45 BST BBC, armed officers deployed at UCL hospital.

14:51 BST I'm trying to get confirmation that St. Pauls & Oxford Circus may/may not be closed ... official TFL site is only showing two stations closed

14:57 BST Victoria line closed (Warren Street), Hammersmith & City (Shepherd's Bush) and Northern (Oval). One injury reported - possibly individual with the rucksack (vide supra) .

15:04 BST Met Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair: - there have been 4 explosions / 'attempts at explosions'. He is to join COBRA.

15:09 BST Clearly timed to coincide with the 14 day 'anniversary' of those on 7th July.

15:21 BST news reels slowing down now ... some mention of explosion being consistent with a tear gas grenade . Even if this is a series of elaborate hoaxes, there's going to be an waful lot of people not travelling on the tube tonight. Frankly this situation's going to have to radically improve before I get back on one. (see earlier comments on so-called stoicism). I was in favour of the invasion of Iraq but it's clear to me today that - whilst Iraq cannot be blamed for the emergence of Islamic radicalism it has certainly added fuel to an increasingly uncontrollable fire.

15:28 BST Authorities are dealing with a suspect package on a number 37 bus in St. John's Avenue, Putney Hill. Apparently the Police are trying to ensure valuable witnesses are not ushered from the scene as they were two weeks ago. My radio on my desk has stayed turned off and the online sources are all I'm going with.

15:36 BST Just checking what the situation is with trains up to Norwich from London ... apparently everything on one is running ok. For a change. Would seem Liverpool St. mainline is still open as normal.

15:59 BST apparently the technology is holding up better than a fortnight ago (there was a lot of criticism about their ability to cope) with only Vodafone reporting problems with network traffic. The BBC site is already showing pictures of the events from mobile phones.

16:32 BST Waterloo is open and South West Trains are running a normal service. This echoes an annoucement on the One service line from Liverpool Street that they are running ok too. The emphasis is on getting London running again for the rush hour(s). SPORT: we bowled out the Aussies for 190 and are 10 without loss at tea in return. Oh, and Paolo Savoldelli won stage 18 of Le Tour.

16:37 BST The Times are amongst others producing more complete reports of the afternoon's events. This blog entry ends at 16:45 and any further comment will be hours later.

ENDS: For the latest, use BBC News Online (low graphics version)

A Wiki Way To Waste Time

I love this site. So much information on it … it’s profile was raised (well, raised to the extent that I become aware of it!) after 7/7 when it had already begun to reflect the events of the day in an historical past tense just hours after the blasts. What’s great about it is that it harks back to the contextual hypertext of the original web model. In many ways blogs do too and this is a lost art on so many pages which are just copy and menus … even celebrated news sites such as the BBC News site could benefit from good contextual linking but then there is a risk that text can get swamped with links. The other major selling point for me is that the site is free and users can effectively contribute to its genesis. I, for example, recently contributed an entry for the village of Wormshill in Kent.

Of course, there’s a downside to this in that information isn’t readily verifiable but, and without looking through the FAQs, I’m sure there are ways that Wikipedia overcome this. There is always the possibility that someone can check and amend the entry anyway so hopefully philanthropic users will ensure the validity and reliability of the entries evolves naturally.

In recent weeks the site’s provided me with answers to some of life’s taxing questions such as “What’s the difference between a horse and a pony or a ship and a boat?” and “What’s the Latin for ‘see above’ ?“

My only criticism is the search engine; it’s not quite up to Google standard. A lot of results come through with the same title and the relevance scoring isn’t up to scratch. It didn’t stop me from haemorrhaging about ten hours of my life this weekend though in browsing.

Technorati tag: Wormshill

Commuting's better by bike ...

Bit of a disparate entry this one, cycling, Olympic dreams and more ‘one’ nonsense.

Another observation from our cycling correspondent:

“I was very amused by a recorded announcement at Waterloo this am. ‘Passengers are reminded that cycles are not allowed on this train. Any passenger with a cycle should pre-book before travelling.’ Verbatim. Which made me wonder if the x % of menstruating women in waterloo were stressing about whether or not they should be boarding the train.”

I observed whether such cycle-restrictions included the water cycle or anyone involved in re-incarnation (the life cycle)?

However, his observation does raise the possibility that such officious train announcements are being made as a consequence of an increase commuters unfamiliar with the train-cycle procedure? This would fit in with observations of an increased use of bikes in London as a consequence of the terrorist atrocities. This can’t be a bad thing. I’ve always maintained that if I lived within an hour’s cycle of my workplace in London then that’s how I’d travel.

But then I’ve maintained a lot of fitness nonsense in the past (q.v. SkinnyMan) and recently I’ve become preoccupied with the plausibility that, in seven years, I could train myself from my current condition to be an Olympic triathlete competing at London 2012.

In the meantime I’m stuck with more woes on the London-Norwich line, this week has been appalling. Downed cables yesterday morning, a train failure and cable problems at Trowse last night and this morning a signalling problem at Bethnal Green. Not to mention carriages with no air conditioning. There’s the possibility of one having their own blog rant section. Regular readers will recall my recent fire on one railway posting and one railway’s response.

Taco Bell and Abercrombie & Fitch to launch in the UK

:: NEW! This article is referenced with some updates on the Abercrombie London store on a later posting

Meandering through the streets of Norwich this morning I happened across a discarded drinks cup from a fast food outlet. Nothing ordinary in that you might think but it caught my eye because it was imprinted with Taco Bell. I’ve been to the US on several occasions and, in the past, have tried Taco Bell, I have to say the food (whilst not even close to true Mexican cooking) represents some of the best of the American ‘junk’ food sector. It’s with that in mind that I’d longed for the day when one would open in the UK. But then I remembered the disappointment I felt on trying Subway, a poor imitation of the US version – sloppy service and inflated prices.

Taco Bell is part of the Pizza Hut and KFC group (Yum!) and so I’d originally thought that this cup must have come from the nearby KFC but it turns out it was probably more likely to originate from one of only two outlets in the UK – unsurprisingly behind the security fences at Lakenheath and Mildenhall. Presumably the recent London travel ban has meant that personnel are confined to the base and its environs prompting the need for indulgent Taco Bell excursions whereupon the detritus is discarded amongst our streets as a teaser, like chocolate wrappers discarded by GIs in 1940s London…

That said, there is noise on this blog that franchises are being explored. In the meantime I seem to remember Mountain Dew being launched in the UK a few years ago – presumably that was pulled too? I understand that there are American supply shops available to UK residents but surely the biggest omission in the UK market has been Abercrombie & Fitch. This has long been the preserve of those who have had trips to the US – the logo t-shirts being worn like badges on the High Streets of England alongside the ‘Little Brown Bag’ (or indeed anything branded Macys or Bloomingdales). Of course, you could always shop online for A&F stuff but you’ll pay heavily in customs & excise duties unless you track down one of the poorly stocked ‘distributors’ in the UK. I heard a rumour that A&F are exploring the possibility of launching in the UK (Simmons & Simmons have been advising them). With any luck they’ll displace the ageing (sooo 90s) ‘FCUK’ as the designer for the middle class. Their presence at a London graduate recruitment fair suggests moves are afoot…

Finally,

Other news, good deal on Evo subscriptions for anyone interested:

Get 3 issues of Evo for £1 (instead of £3.95 each) and get a DVD of the Italian Job and a model of a Mini Cooper Dunlop edition.

After the 3rd copy it is then £18.20 for 6 issues (23% discount) and best of all you can cancel after the 3rd copy so it is win win win.

Cambridge Usability Group Event: 25th July

From London-ia mailing list:

Cambridge Usability Group are pleased to announce their next event on Monday 25th July.

William Newman will give a talk on "How can Human-Computer Interaction Research help the User Experience Professional?" at Microsoft Research in Cambridge.

Date: Monday 25th July
Time: 6.30 for 6.45
Venue: Microsoft Research, Cambridge
Cost: The event is FREE and you do not need to be a UK UPA member to attend (note future events may not be free for non-members).

More information on the UK UPA site

Alpine Wolves Disrupt Le Tour

From our cycling correspondent (with ref. to BBC Sport)

"This is precisely why the French didn't get the games: Wolf attacks Frenchman's sheep. Frenchman attacks the one single sporting event in the world that he actually claims he has ever had the slightest bit of interest in.

Presumably French farmers feel the tour organisers are in some way responsible.

'The route of the 10th stage features two Category One climbs. The start of the stage has been modified to ward off farmers who planned to block the riders to protest against wolf attacks on sheep and cows.

The stage was meant to start in Grenoble, but will now begin 11.5 km away in Brignoud at 1100 BST. Farmers had planned to block the race along the route to the ski station of Courchevel to protest against attacks on their herds by wolves in the Alps, organizers said.

Armstrong is hoping Monday's rest day will help to rally his Discovery team, who have shown rare signs of fallibility in the opening stages of the 2005 tour.'

I see fat Jan [Ullrich] stacked it again. Maybe he'll crash into a wolf today. Or maybe T-mobile need to arrange for a wolf to chase him up the mountain. Maybe they could sew I nice steak into the lining of his shorts." ... Quite.

Alertbox Reviews June & July

Finally got round to commenting on Jakob’s ‘Usability: Empiricism or Ideology’ alertbox. I do generally feel a sense of disappointment when opening Jakob’s emails. A bit like watching Top Gear on a Sunday. I look forward to it quite a bit and it takes the wind out of my sails when I discover he’s not covering a topic I’m interested in or, in the case of TG, Clarkson & Co. are looking at a Hyundai instead of a DB9. On June 27th though, Jakob’s mail was a good one.

I remember going to a UK UPA event a year or so ago where Marty Carroll, a charismatic advocate of results-led usability and Director at The Usability Company, talked passionately about having to prove measurable benefit to a business of employing user-centric development. To me this blended my academic perspective with my emerging awareness of the world of business. Until that point I’d assumed that academic usability study, in a sense the pursuit of purely empirical assessments, was not really relevant to the world of commercial web and interaction design. What Jakob describes in his alertbox is that usability is only non-scientific in the sense that it produces guidelines as opposed to exact formulae. In essence usability is still the result of empirical observation upon which conclusions are drawn. Makes for interesting reading.

His alertbox this week ('Scrolling and Scrollbars') is another common-sense statement (makes me assume he writes these pages simply to increase his hit count from Google … ) on usability, covering ground he’s covered before. The article is – amazingly for Jakob – illustrated with examples of scrollbars that work and those that didn’t. I don’t know how much he fussed over which examples to use, but the ones he’s chosen perfectly illustrate his point. There are exceptions to his guidelines (there invariably are) but as a quick reference for the interaction designer this is a good stab.

Nothing to fear but fear itself?

It’s taken five days of reflection before I really felt able to comment on the London transport bombings. Since then I have read acres of coverage in a range of papers. From the profound people-stories in commuters’ paper ‘Metro’, to the analysis and gravitas of the Times, Telegraph, Guardian and Observer. Never before can I recall a time when our capital has, in ten hours, gone from such exultant revelry to profound despair. I’ve saved the sequence of papers from those three days last week: The prelude to an Olympic decision and G8 on Wednesday, the triumphant headlines of Thursday morning and the first reflections on Friday.

The clamour for news on Thursday morning appeared to be painfully slow. Our web connection at work crumbled, we were asked to restrict use to ‘business critical’ (woefully unrealistic). In light of this I switched, as I had done the day before, to Five Live and found myself frustrated by the lack of information. On reflection it’s clear that this was a well managed drip-feed of information to suppress panic and to ensure that the necessary movement of resources and strategy could be achieved. Whilst the first reports were of eye witness accounts and mobile phone pictures/footage the following days brought the most moving tales of individuals euphemistically and optimistically referred to as ‘missing’. This pictoral roll-call, profoundly reflective of London’s socioeconomic DNA, was juxtaposed with grainy pictures captured from phones all purporting to show the ‘moments after’ without much sense of a moral obligation to allow families to begin to grieve [It is in fact interesting to note the need for journalistic control on this unsolicited material]

What these days also brought with them was a raft of survivor stories and David Aaronovitch in the Times deftly commented on our perverse and guilt-laden need to link ourselves in some small part to the tragedy. These ‘could have been’ vignettes seemed to punctuate conversations about the events … “a mate of mine was evacuated”, “I normally catch that train”, “my sister works round the corner”. In some way these are our attempts to form a solidarity and bond with the victims, to announce: “An attack on you is an attack on all of us”.

Though the war in Iraq has undoubtedly exacerbated the worsening perception of Britain in the Muslim fundamentalist world it cannot be the only justification for this event. If Iraq was the reason here, what was the reason for Bali before the march on Baghdad? Afghanistan perhaps? Well, September 11th pre-dated the fall of Kabul, what justified that attack in the West? There are no simple answers and the worsening crisis against a faceless, nameless enemy with a non-specific agenda leaves London and cities like it even more prone to these indiscriminate attacks. Many politicians, public figures and, sadly, celebrities have rushed to echo the legions of bloggers and letter-writers in proclaiming London’s indefatigable spirit. All at once failing to identify that London today represents little of London in the Blitz. The stoicism and humour at facing the Luftwaffe was borne of a less ethnically diverse population who knew the enemy they faced and could, in part prepare for their raids. Furthermore, the London that faced Irish terrorism was one that knew the Republican agenda, that pre-supposed there would be an accented warning and that, predominantly, the payload’s target was stone, steel and glass. No one doubts that people are resilient to these events, but it’s not some dormant wartime spirit conjured up from dusty east-end Anderson shelters.

It’s all well and good for people to defiantly recommend we rejoin the tube and hop on board the friendly red bus, but for many of these taxi-using figures, the feeling of descending into the tube, sitting in a carriage or next to a rucksack-wearing passenger, is one they’ll avoid experiencing. As I travel through the regions, employed outside the capital, I cannot begin to imagine a time when I will travel to London without considering those terrible moments but I can read the papers and hope that so many of those who work in London can and will begin to find some normality again.

A spectacularly beautiful end to a tragic day in the UK. This shot taken in Ipswich at Orwell Quay. 

Sick As A Paris

Try as I might to reign in my enthusiasm with the thought that seven years is a long time, I can’t help but feel swollen with British pride at securing the 2012 Olympics.

This morning was nerve-wracking. I struggle to recall a time when my heart has pounded in anticipation for something I have not been personally involved in. It’s been a strange few years. I started rather nonchalantly believing we had an outside chance but expecting the bid to go the way of the Dome. In many senses it started badly (I got a real feel for this from a Five news report on Monday evening) and we were some distance off the mark until we got to the first elimination. From that point onwards the public awareness and professionalism of the bid team has accelerated ahead (it’s difficult to avoid sporting puns).

London won for several reasons. We displayed a genuine and admirable moral focus on the youth and sporting legacy of the games. This is what makes Australia great at sport and what made their games so extraordinarily successful. London put in place a real strategy for the venue legacy too – a criticism of Athens and just about every Olympics to date. London captured the public’s imagination with great sporting achievements in Athens (Kelly Holmes, the coxless four) and engaging world famous sporting and political support (Nelson Mandela, Cathy Freeman and our own sporting legends). We showed how our transport system would be improved and how we would regenerate as well as recycle to provide the facilities we’d need.

Today we avoided spin. Tony Blair applied text book diplomacy, pressing flesh and talking passionately about the people who the games would effect. Maybe even the effect of G8 and Live8 has shown us to be a nation with a truly global perspective. We benefited from the French bids weaker presentation, their recent mud-slinging and the negative feeling toward France felt by ejected candidate cities New York and Madrid. It would be easy to get jingoistic and talk of the Trafalgar anniversary and so on but frankly this year also see the 60th anniversary of the end of WW2 – an example of us fighting together. Had Paris won the Olympics I would have been proud to say a great city won and would have been in the front of the queue for the Eurostar in 2012. Would we have booed in Trafalgar square? Possibly, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing to hear it from the centre of Paris today. I followed the announcement on BBC online and Five Live and I read with interest that journalists had crowded round a self-congratulatory French team moments before the announcement. Only a handful stood with Britain. Seb Coe had run on the shoulder of Paris until the final bend, but no-one knew until the photo finish.

The Olympics in London is years away but the benefits will begin in months with the creation of jobs, the buzz of enterprise and the ambition of athletes in training. The political wrangling, the tax implications and the soaring budget are all things we’ll have to cope with. But when the flag is passed to us in Beijing and the torch is lit in London, who in this country won’t stand up and be proud to say we won?

Lots of links to be added to this article later.

Toby Young

Was fortunate to finally get to see “When Toby Met Julie” last night on BBC4. I’ve been a ‘fan’ of Toby Young since his appearance on BBC3’s underrated "The Other Boat Race" in 2004. Straight after that series I went out and bought “ How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” which, by that time, was in paperback. It must have soared in popularity again because the book was re-launched in a new cover, the stage adaptation returned to London (with TY rather egotistically taking the lead … “you must be the Toby Young you write so much about”) and Toby re-launched his website – turning it into a weblog and portal for his recent work. It’s funny how you can live years in ignorance of something then, once you discover it, it appears everywhere. In my case, the world of Toby Young is just like that. Barely a week goes by now in my life without an article relating to Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair, The Modern Review, Julie Burchill, or Martha Stewart appearing in some culture supplement or online. The BBC4 documentary was witty (confronting them repeatedly with their alternative versions of the past) and nicely textured with relevant cultural waymarkers during the (boy-band obsessed) cut-scenes (e.g. Duran Duran , Bros & Take That) and featuring all of the main protagonists in the magazine that arguably changed the face of British arts & culture journalism. It even showed a very likable side to both of them – quite self-effacing at times. What I found hardest to watch (other than Julie’s horrific dental portcullis and the numerous shots of bleeding thumbs) was that two coke-addled bohemians were writing with such obvious intellect and wit about such trivial things in much the same way I try to. They still write like this (although without the innovative resonance that they had in the early 1990s) and it puts my attempts at the keyboard to absolute shame. I’m now trawling eBay for copies of the MR…

Observations today:
Ferrari 355 in a sinister black over-taking on Rouen Road, Norwich at 08.30 in the morning. A powerful early morning stimulant. Afternoon was perked-up by the arrival of an Aston Martin DB9 on the same street.
The white gypsy skirt, ubiquitous and, unless adorning the waif-like hips of a nubile girl under 30, quite bilious.

Hair By Doogie

My idiotic sibling suggested a novel hair care routine this weekend. This morning this has left me looking like Neil Patrick Harris in his junior physician days instead of the intended Jenson Button. Good job I’m having it sorted this weekend. Someone suggested I look more like James Harries, which is frankly a grotesque exaggeration.

Isles of Scilly

Just got back from the Isles of Scilly, fourth time visiting and even more enchanted this time. Despite the evident decline in the flower industry (Church Town Farm on St. Martins seemingly the exception) and the resultant increase in overgrown fields, the islands seem to be in a period of prosperity. We visited the recently opened Hell Bay Hotel which (as far as I can tell) is part of the same group that runs the hotel on Tresco and is aligned in the same quality as the St. Martins on The Isle hotel. These hotels undoubtedly provide the greatest luxury (and arguable the best views) on the islands but I don’t feel they reflect the community. Hell Bay is an attractive development but it is just that, a development. It is comprised of mock New England clapboard dwellings and these don’t really sit with the rendered and granite buildings that – until now – were considered typical of the archipelago.

I’d love to stay in the hotel, if only to be pampered with the mainland style benefits of satellite TV, contemporary furnishings and the like. What one appears to miss as a guest of the hotel is the ‘roughing it’ and peculiarities that colour the experience elsewhere – queuing for off-island boats, the little stalls outside houses selling fruit, veg and crafts, the open house atmosphere of the guesthouses and B&Bs, Gig racing on a Friday, going without some of the things us mainlanders take for granted …

Saddest of all is the proliferation of non-local staff – does a hotel like this really plough money back into the local economy or does it fill the pockets of transient Australian, South African and Eastern European youngsters looking for seasonal hospitality work? I saw a room full of local artists’ work, excursions run by local operators and perhaps the odd locally-caught shellfish on the menu but I couldn’t help but feel that this hotel represents Bryher as much as the Sandals resorts represent the Caribbean.

Just up from the hotel is Richard Pearce’s wonderful gallery. I first saw his work on the islands a few years ago and since kept abreast of it though his website and occasional ‘spots’ such as on the yacht Bare Necessities and at a gallery in Lavenham. Unfortunately he was at lunch when we arrived (though his webcam was tracking our motion around the gallery it seemed) . I’d hoped to have a bit of a chat. I think he’s also responsible for the Scilly Webcam. Talking of artists, we had a cracking meal at Juliet's Garden on St. Marys on Thursday night. This converted barn is one of the best restaurants on the islands and is dotted with more great artwork. This time by Jo Probert and Steve Sherris. The Sherris prints in the gents were just right and it’s a shame their not on his website. There’s something about the light, the meteorological drama and the soul of the islands that makes them perfect for photography and painting. Even a rank amateur such as myself was able to produce some pleasing shots given the local conditions.

I’d love to think I could live on the islands but I believe one really needs to spend a winter there first. Given that a three-bed granite townhouse on St. Marys cannot really be bought for under £400,000, there’s a financial issue too. God knows how the government’s key workers and local first time buyers break in to this market. I guess that explains why almost every tourist and retiree was queuing up outside Mumfords newsagent on Saturday morning in Hugh Town and 98% of them bought the Mail or the Telegraph. In the summer at least, blue blood runs through this island outpost.

Good way to get a feel for the islands is to read the forums:
Scilly News Messageboard
Scilly OnLine Forums

Fire on 'one' railway: Their response

Recieved the following response from allegedly the worst rail company in Britain recently in response to the fire in the train carriage I experienced a few weeks ago. Bit delayed in response ... comments at the end:

Dear Mr Gibbard,
Thank you for your email concerning your journey on the 14th June. I was sorry to read that you were travelling in the carriage which had to be evacuated that morning. I appreciate your concern and assure you that on arrival at Norwich, this set was removed to the depot and the carriage concerned was taking out of service.

[JG: That's good - so you didn't let it burn in the sidings like I suggested. Good corporate responsibility. Probably best not to operate rolling stock whilst on fire.]

We are replacing the old stock gradually with refurbished Mark 3 sets. [JG: This means nothing to the customer. What is a Mark 3 set, what does it look like, why does this make a difference?] Unfortunately, we have been unable to refurbish these all at the same time so it is impossible for us to remove all of the old style carriages just at the moment. [JG: Talk about stating the obvious. You can't take all your trains of the tracks to replace them presumably because you still need to run a service? Thanks for that, glad that's cleared up that query. My question was actually why is it taking so long for any of the new rolling stock to appear? Especially as these were 'promised' back at the start of the year...]

I have sent a copy of your comments to the Conductor Manger too so he can investigate why the conductor was not performing his ticket check duties, which resulted in you having to actually go and find him. I apologise for this. [JG: which might explain why 'one' haven't got any new trains and have taken up old Virgin stock ... no-one needs to buy a ticket because the conductors don't check and there are no ticket barriers at stations North of Colchester ... protect your ticket revenue and you might make more money. Revolutionary stuff. Having a mobile and alert conductor might also mean fires get spotted sooner.]

Please accept my assurances that we do not take incidents such as this lightly and the carriage will not be put into service again until it is fully repaired and has undergone vigorous safety checks. Thanks again for contacting me.

Yours sincerely,

XXXXXX
Customer Relations Supervisor

[JG: XXXXXX fails to actually apologise for the event. She's sorry I was in the carriage but presumably not sorry that anyone else was or that the fire occurred in the first place. This response was simplistic, lacking in any sort of detail or true customer focus and wasn't even timely. Allegedly The worst rail company in Britain.]

Second attempt ... preferred the first... 

First attempts at architectural photography with the new Fuji S5500 

Usability Professionals' Desktops

Some time ago (in the days before XP in fact…) I posted to this group asking for people to send me screen dumps of their desktop environments (a la K10k) with the aim of discovering if we practise what we preach in usability … how usable were our desk environments. Well, I was digging out some old back-up CDs the other day and came across the folder with these in and realised I’d done nothing about it. I have pixelated the icons in order to preserve anonymity and can now present a crude slideshow site of them for your interest. I’m more than happy to accept more of these, preferably JPEGs re-sized down to 1024x768 (if smaller than that then no-need to resize upwards). I will reach a server limit and will have to stop at some point but am happy to form a collection. Please post comments on the blog, I look forward to reading them …. Do you recognise your old desktop amongst this lot?

UPDATE: If you want to send me your desktops ... email desktops AT smorgasbord-design dot co dot uk ...

» If you can't view snipurls then the full link is here

Daisy Duke

A childhood fan of the Dukes of Hazzard, I can now enjoy it as an adult. Especially this frankly fantastic video ("These Boots Are Made For Walkin'") from Jessica Simpson as Daisy Duke.

Comments without logging-in

You can now post comments on the blog without logging in ... there's a rhyme in there somewhere.

Idioms, Idiosyncrasies and more Service Failures

ome days you have nothing to say other days you have plenty to say… today is fortunately the latter.

Came across this site this morning whilst trying to determine where we got the phrase “How d’you like them apples” … didn’t give me the answer (we can assume American origin though) but it’s still an entertaining trawl through some of our bizarre idioms.

Secondly, why is it that I continue to measure temperature in two different ways during the year? When I watch the forecast during the winter I want to know how close to ‘0’ it is, but in the summer I want to know how close to ‘100’ it is, despite these being on different scales. The spring and autumn are clearly a difficult time for me, temperature wise. I don’t know whether to think in terms of Celsius or Fahrenheit and invariably can’t rationalise it in my head. In the past year I’ve tried to be disciplined and stick to Celsius but then the forecasters in the summer always say, “that’s .. in Fahrenheit” which makes me think that everyone does it. It is surely borne out of our tendency to make things simple and linear. For instance 0(ºC) represents cold much better than 32(ºF) and 100(ºF) represents hot much better than 37.78(ºC).

Have been thinking of getting a Digital Camera to play with and three stand out to me: Fuji S5500, Canon A520 and Nikon 5900. I’ve been really impressed with DPReview (despite being an American site) for their reviews and WarehouseExpress for their range and prices – though their website is a shambles …. They need to radically simplify their menu structure and devote more room to products and less to site ‘furniture’, margins and white-space.

Talking of which, try looking for Adult Education classes in language in Ipswich via the council website – absolutely shocking. I gave up. Now, I consider myself to be a power-user of the web, having experienced all manner of sites, navigation systems, information architecture and the like but it amazes me that a governmental site that should be so easy to navigate – especially when looking for educational resources (imagine the educationally-poor resident looking through the site at a local library).

Finally, another adventure with ‘one’ railway this morning. Vandals damaged signal equipment between Diss and Norwich so we were chucked off the train at Stowmarket to wait for buses … that were busy on the school run … 45 minutes later we all filed back on to the platform to catch a train to Norwich … delayed by a good one and a half hours. Can’t blame ‘one’ for the vandalism but can blame them for inept and almost silent handling of the issue. If buses aren’t going to run, get people in taxis and pay for it. That’s what exceptional customer service and ‘going the extra mile’ is about and that’s what the rail industry needs to start doing. Talking of which, still had no response to my email to their customer service department about the fire on the train earlier in the week.

Everything Bad Is Good For You

Not known for its journalistic insight, Metro nevertheless resounds each morning with the sort of easily digestible trivia normally reserved for the likes of Heat, Now, Closer etc. This is an effective way to spend a 45 minute journey, one can almost get cover to cover in the time it takes my train to drag its sorry weight north to Norwich. This morning, however, something other than yet another picture of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes caught my eye … a 60 second interview with Steven Johnson, author of "Everything Bad Is Good For You".

60 seconds has always been a bit of an understatement, it’s clearly nothing like a 60 second interview. Whatever ends up in the printed copy is expanded upon online too. Which gives you, dear blog aficionado, the opportunity to read what Steven had to say. It’s quite interesting. His basic premise is that the increased use of video games and the increase of complicated plotlines in TV drama is indicative and instrumental in the rise of IQ amongst Western populations. He cites the intellectual differences between Dallas and The Sopranos (to which I’d add 24 vs. The A-Team) and the video games of the 80s (PacMan) compared to those of today, (e.g. Halo). Clearly, today’s games and TV shows are more complicated and Johnson’s reasons (interwoven plotlines, multitasking etc. etc.) on the surface appear rather interesting. I do want to read the book myself before I comment further but I do have some concerns with his theory.

For example, the undeniable complexity of the Shakespearean dénouement was enjoyed by wide audiences in the sixteenth century (and even wider audiences since), there’s been substantial plotline complexity in popular novels for centuries but no-one’s made this link before … is Johnson suggesting that the birth of TV/video games first brought about an intellectual slump (70s & 80s) as people switched from reading to watching and playing? Presumably the last twenty years has seen this rise? I think Johnson could be focussing too much on his own generation and comparing it to today’s instead of looking for a pattern across a broader time frame. How can he be sure it’s TV and video games and not the wholesale improvement in Western educational standards? Sure, playing video games may improve systematic intelligence (as typified in the male brain) but are these at the expense of emotional intelligence (as typified in the female brain) Does this correlate with rise of autism – the consequence of the ‘extreme male brain’ [c.f. Sacha Baron-Cohen]. Is the reverse true of watching TV or are we still storing up untold problems with a decline in social interaction? I shall order the book and make more informed judgement.

On to lighter things. Metro today also tells us of Mark McGowan, an artist apparently, who intends to pour 15 million litres of water down the drain over the course of a year (by leaving a tap running) to raise the issue of water wastage. As the poisonous Mail reader might exclaim: “World’s gone mad I tell you.” However, never fear, it appears the local water company are trying to put a tap-ban on him. So, point made I presume Mark? For the record, Mark’s the Grade A idiot that pushed a monkey nut along the road in protest at student poverty and, a couple of months ago, told everyone he’d keyed cars for an art project only to retract that statement when challenged by Police.

Innovation Capture

At work we've been thinking about capturing creative energy and innovation from our front-line staff. I read this article and it made me think in simple terms, is a pad and paper enough for capturing innovation? What do we do with it once it's captured? what if all the suggestions are rubbish and who are we to decide that they are rubbish?

My idea, not exactly a bombshell, is to develop a think-pad ... effectively a re-writable mouse pad that's formed of sheets of 80gsm paper and glue-bound so that you can tear them off when full. If you put just enough prompts on there then hopefully people fill them in during the day. If you formalise the process with a reporting line (every evening a line manager collects up the top-sheets and reviews them in the next day's ten-minute meeting) then the ideas get an audience. As long as this feedback is owned and acted upon then momentum is maintained huh? It even regains some valuable desk 'real estate' ... linking in with the 5S guide to visual management.

Are there any fatal flaws in this plan?

Walsh Western, Dell and the Dodgy Delivery

When I got my Dell Inspiron laptop a couple of years ago I had a nightmare with the courier service who actually delivered it. I always thought it was Walsh Western. This is simply down to the fact that it's Walsh Western whose site Dell direct you to to track your order. From the page they send you to you can see minute by minute reports as to where the package is, how many boxes it contains etc. Naturally you assume Walsh Western are thus 'responsible' for your thousand(s) pound PC. Wrong, it's actually just a logistics company that get the PC from Ireland to the UK courier hubs. From there a local carrier delivers it, so when things go wrong, customers are contacting WW and moaning and yet it's another carrier who are screwing things up. Surely this reflects badly on WW and Dell? If you Google for Walsh Western and Dell you get all manner of blogs with negative comments, not good.

The reason I raise this is because my Dad's awaiting his delivery of a new Dell XPS Gen 5 tomorrow evening and my bad experience two years ago has meant he's now trying to find out who the courier is to ensure they're on the ball. I shall update y'all tomorrow with what happens.

.....

Off to the Isles of Scilly next week (don't call it the Scilly Isles) where I've been a few times in the past. Keep checking the webcam (really just a daily photo) to see what the weather's doing. Am hoping to take the laptop and digital camera too, doubt I'll be uploading whilst there but hope to have a good set of pictures to show on return.

.....

Fire on one railway

On the 08:09 service from Ipswich to Norwich this morning I was lucky enough to experience a fire in the carriage I was sitting in.

Just North of Diss (the penultimate stop) I noticed smoke leaking from a vent in the middle of the carriage. A brief nod and the words ‘is that smoke?’ from a fellow passenger prompted me to bound up the train (I was in the carriage next to the buffet car – [in Norfolk dialect the buffy car]) to summon the guard who was part way through a tabloid in his guard’s office. The pair of us trawled through the carriages, hampered by the slow retracting doors and arrived back to find every passenger still sat there amongst what was now thick noxious smoke. He evacuated the carriage – to the adjacent one – and proceeded to attempt to turn something off. Within 5 minutes we were in Norwich and a fellow passenger indicated to me that the carriage was now ‘foggy’, it was more than that, it was filled with smoke so much so that you couldn’t see the other end of it.

I find it incredible that one continue to operate this ageing rolling stock and that such basic procedures such as a carriage fire are dealt with in a seemingly ad-hoc way. As Virgin roll-out their Pendolino trains across their service (though they do have their problems ), we’re stuck with their cast-offs. Back in the early part of the year, with the new livery being phased in, we were told to expect refurbished trains on the inter city line. This morning, a small fire could have gutted one of the carriages for them. Once it got to Norwich they should have shunted it to one side and let it burn.

What’s even more disturbing though is the passenger apathy. Anyone would think a fire to be a serious event. Not so the seasoned commuter, so used to train failures and train company ineptitude it’s now classed as all part of the experience. For my £200+ per month I’d expect more too but I’m not prepared to inhale smoke for 20 minutes just because it’s not worth making a fuss over.

Optimax, An Appraisal

I don’t have a great car (though I do long for one) but nevertheless treat the one I’ve got with respect. Respect in terms of fuel means a regular diet of Shell Optimax. Many of my friends and colleagues assume that I’ve been suckered by the Ferrari-orientated marketing hype and that my 10 year old Volkswagen with its ageing 1.6litre lump will not benefit from this premium fuel. But this is where they’re wrong. Being a bit of a geek, I monitor my fuel consumption with religious zeal. The average cost of Optimax for me over the last year has been about 90p. On average a tank takes me 307.77 miles at 38.39 MPG, an average cost per mile of 11p. Compare this to combination of Esso Super and BP Ultimate (90p, 220 miles at 35.29 MPG, 12p per mile). At 12k miles per annum that’s £120 saved, not to mention the hidden benefits of reduced engine wear. When I hear Novas, Micras and Corsas tearing round the Ipswich one-way system with their exhausts popping and grumbling I can’t help but smile to think of their tanks filled with inferior supermarket fuel (84p, 294.20 miles at 38.09 MPG, 10p per mile). Honest John’s column in the Sunday Telegraph and his website generally shows a dislike for cheap supermarket grade (RON 95) fuel. Optimax gives noticeably more power too. Now, as a premier Optimax customer I get a swanky loyalty card and even more Airmiles. Lovely. By the way I’ve got the Lotus Exige Optimax Card if anyone needs it …

Sony MicroVault

Have been using the Sony Micro Vault since an impulse purchase in PC World. I always swore I’d never shop in there as the prices are inflated and the service clumsy but I can’t fault the product. Here’s a cheaper way of getting one:



and the Sony Japan site has all the tech specs. The other pen drives I looked at were bulky and made by non-descript manufacturers – I wanted something that would be sleek, robust and would have an element of high-end support (such as downloadable tools) hence I got a 256Mb version. They also do mini ones, ones with fingerprint recognition and ones with 2Gb capacity. The floppy disk is dead! Fortunately my company has enabled the USB port on our XP machines making this workable … I suspect that once they realise people are able to use corporate bandwidth to download direct on to these drives they’ll restrict it, but for the time being I carry all my work in my pocket and the whole thing is fully encrypted. Wonderful. Gets passed that old nugget of emailing work home only to find the mail server collapsed after you left and there’s nothing waiting for you when you get in.

Where in the world?

I’m not sure how I feel about PC World. This is a bit like the Tescoisation of Britain. I’m happy to have the benefit of a giant PC warehouse to browse on a slow Saturday afternoon dreaming of Macs, 23” displays, a fully integrated wireless home and gigantic leather office chairs … however it dislike the sheer brazen ‘we know all about PCs’ approach. Maybe this is deeply rooted in people with an IT-bent (myself included). When the tech support guy (typified so wonderfully in ‘The Office’) comes to call he’s invariably a he, is aloof (or painfully peculiar) and labourers over a problem that clearly would take him 2 minutes on his own PC. In PC World the staff are probably recruited from those ‘passionate about PCs’ and their remit is to tell the average Joe what £300 box they need and why. And then cross-sell them a printer, scanner, digital camera and laptop bag (for a desktop). For anyone with slightly more knowledge who’s probably got a Dell on their desk, because they saw it had acres more performance, the store is patronising and over-marketed. And that’s rich coming from Dell customers like myself who probably see 287 Dell adverts in their paper every day and another 456 on TV that evening. I think it’s because the temptation is always to provide the ‘we recommend’ or ‘PC World know best’ approach to service. That said, if you dodge the staff, spend a good time browsing their enviable product ranges and decide for yourself you’ll probably be happy. At least you didn’t have to wait-in for a delivery off the web that never arrived. Within minutes you’ve bought, are out of the store and are on the ring road. Just like Tescos.

Genealogical Update

Thanks to Glen Gibbard, Su Floyd and Celia Renshaw the mystery of the Tingewick, Padbury and Buckingham Nelsons is becoming clearer. My increasing interest in this stuff (and my creative eye) is pushing me toward learning Copperplate calligraphy, not for any reason other than I’ve got ropey 20th Century middle-English round-hand handwriting. Was considering learning it the Victorian way with hours of moribund practise in a poorly lit room with nothing but bread and water. ‘Method calligraphy’ now there’s a googlewhack.

Usability books

I've been asked to recommend some usability books .. so here's a link to Amazon's .Web Usability Literature section. While you're at it ... take a look at my wishlist

Reflections on Hatton Garden

Spent Saturday ring shopping in Hatton Garden ... some experience ... won't share details of our recommendations just yet. Suffice to say amongst the gems (pun intended) there are some horrendous shops. full of 'bling', fronted by hedgehog-haired sales-boys and black-jacketed door staff. rings are plucked from behind crushed velvet curtains amongst silk flowers and acres of faux-marble. Despite today's reports about the decline in our high streets, there's something to be said for regional shopping. That said, the more 'bespoke' services offered on Hatton Garden are worth looking in to ...

Two other interesting developments this weekend (aside from telling all her family about the wedding) ... got Ben Folds new album Songs For Silverman and discovered (through an occassional dabble in to genealogy) that relatives of mine who met in the late 19th Century in London actually had common ancestry in the small village of Padbury in Buckinghamshire. Nothing like a bit of home-counties incest to brighten a weekend. Haven't listened to Mr. Folds yet but, if colleagues are to be believed, I shouldn't be disappointed.

Lean mean service machine

Work wise we’ve been thinking about a few things recently regarding the transfer of the ever popular Lean methodology to the service industry. This philosophy suggests a pared-down approach to an organisation’s systems and processes, introducing efficiencies such as geographical proximity of process (moving things closer together) standardisation, eliminating repetition and loop-backs, regular tempo, workload balancing, complexity segregation and finally, the communication of performance results.

Now, this all seems a bit clinical to me. We’re in the business of creating an exceptional customer experience. This seems to produce an efficient customer experience, but are they the same thing? Consider another Lean objective in the workplace, 5S Visual Management. The principal here is very noble – back to basics. The aim is to produce a workplace that is organised, clear of clutter and is focussed on delivering cost reductions, elimination of waste and errors, standardised and inspires pride in the working environment. Great. But what sort of interactions will this encourage? Robotic, teutonic, monotone ruthlessly efficient customer contact that provides nothing but the task required in as few steps as possible. Whilst this may be ok for some transactions, other requiring more care (e.g. an insurance claim) will require an element of care and interaction. I’m all for making the athlete run harder, faster and for longer – but don’t strip them of their humility, their passion, their desire and their personality. Think of it like the barmaid that never talks to you but serves a pint in 1 minute flat or the undertaker that dispatches your relative to the crematorium with only the perfunctory conversations of where, how and when?

Contact centres where we focus on efficiency measures such as talk time, referral time, abandonment rate, call volume etc. etc. become terrible places to work – like battery hen farms and veal crates. The customers hate it – they know they’re the umpteenth call that person’s had that morning and they’ll get service to match, the advisors hate it – they get penalised for taking time and making sure the customer is fully satisfied at their pace, and the managers hate it – they’re chasing an ever-distant horizon as morale worsens and performance drops. Now, I’m not suggesting that playschool is the answer either. These are nothing more than giant 'Big Brother'-style glasshouses out on ring-roads populated with 500 18-30s all in neon chairs, jeans, t-shirts and having foam parties when they make a sale … I’m thinking more of civilised populations in British towns and cities that are proud to work somewhere where the customer is the focus of their attention and the company understand that everything that surrounds them is there to support the staff and their customer. The organisations that get this right are few and far between…

Which leaves us with efficiency again. Does this work on the web? Do people want an interactive experience when they’re browsing? If so, do they want one when they’re shopping, banking or tracking down some IT support? The same can be said of television – some people thought efficient, pared-down news was the thing we’re all craving: cue 60 Seconds on BBC3 or Five’s news updates … the televisual equivalent of an Aero bar … there’s something to it, but not very much. And finally, to take you back to earlier debates … I bet if you asked the man on the street the following questions:

1. Would you like a news show on TV that was just 60 seconds but contained all the day’s headlines including sports, entertainment and weather?
2. Would you like your insurance company to process your policy in one call, without having to explain anything?
3. Would you like your pint served in your local every time under a minute and at perfect temperature?

We’d end up with news in 60 seconds, a robotic barman and a battery hen administering our car insurance. Progress eh?

Engaged

Since I last wrote, the blog’s reached a slightly wider audience … directors and managers where I work have been ‘made aware’ so to new readers ‘hi’ … also since I last wrote I have got engaged. Proposing on the banks of the Ouse in York, where we both went to university. That bank holiday weekend we stayed at the cracking recently refurbished Guy Fawkes Hotel and had two decent meals at Plunketts and Ask. Also took a trip out around the Dales, spending a very pleasant sunny afternoon in Kettlewell (site of previous mountain biking adventures for me … but that’s another story).

Lotus flowers in the East

It appears Lotus are moving the production of their, as yet unrevealed, Espirit replacement to the Proton plant in Malaysia. It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of the Lotus Elise, having test-driven one (an early series one example) from Motorway Sports a couple of years ago. Fortunately the Elise, buoyed by the success of their 'federalised' Toyota engine, is to remain a Norfolk built car. In fact, the plant at Hethel will expand to cope with demand and it is, in part, a result of this that there is no more room to include their new project. Undoubtebly the replacement will be designed and developed on the track and roads around Hethel and, in essence, it will be born of British DNA, even if it was reared in infancy in the far East. I guess we have to be pragmatic and say that the Eastern economies are better placed to produce this car in a lean, efficient way that will ensure the model provides as much value for money as it can. However it is with some regret that we find we are unable, in this country, to provide a home for higher-volume motor manufacturing - even though we do the extreme stuff with celebrated professionalism (Mclaren, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce ... variously designed, engineered and hand crafted in Britain).

For my part, the dream of owning a 111R inches closer day by day and I'm quite sure that, whilst I jealously survey the pristine Type 25 example parked on my walk-home along Neptune Quay in Ipswich each evening, my time will come to enjoy the roads of East Anglia at the wheel of one of its most famous products.

NEWMU

Keep meaning to post this ... next door to the chaps at Creative Sponge is a fantastic little cafe called Cafe Mu. Been going there since late winter for takeaway Americanos on my walk to work, great personal service, exceptional coffee. Recomend it to everyone in Norwich. There, job done.

* - it's part of the complex around the Museum of Contemporary Art by the way...

Loyalty = Growth doesn't it?

Loyalty = Growth, doesn't it?

Reichheld and his chums in the HBS press espouse the role of loyalty and, more specifically, evangelical referrals as key indicators for growth. I loved this idea, I still do, but I'm beginning to worry that it's not all it's cracked up to be.

To start with, I can see the benefit of a two question satisfaction survey ("Was your experience with us ... exceptional, good, ok, poor, very poor" & "Would you recommend us to others") in terms of the likelihood of faster and more abundant responses but struggle to see the raw benefit of a one-question survey (focusing on referral). My problem is that both of these don't produce anything usable. It produces a headline on the customer's experience but the provides nothing to identify what the problems, solutions or potential innovations are. It might present the patient's symptoms but goes nowhere close to providing diagnosis or curative suggestions .

In a sense (see 'Do Customer's Know best?') it's not for customers to self diagnose, but we can't do this for them if we don't even ask them what's wrong. Well, we might find out by some later ad-hoc research in to the matter but isn't that what the two-question survey was supposed to avoid, a costly 'customer insight' bill? The trouble is we tend to strive towards over-simplification, the 'less is more' approach pervades.

It might be great to walk in to the board room and present the facts that improving top-box satisfaction leads to x% increase in referrals and therefore x% growth, but the first question is going to be "and how do we do that then, what's wrong with us at the moment?" (ok, technically that's two questions, y'see we all do it and it's difficult not to.)

I just want to cite one example, Apple Computers. I bet they could point to genuinely high
top-box scores for satisfaction, they could point to high scores for customer loyalty (people love the iPod and are committed to it) and even high rates of customer referral. How many iPod owners have been overheard telling friends and family that they simply must buy this amazing gadget? Countless. The issue here is then why do Apple only occupy 2% of the $180bn
market for PCs? Why is it that their growth is such that they're not making ground on the likes of Dell, Microsoft, IBM and HP? Reichheld himself acknowledges that referral is a weak growth predictor in the information technology sector but explains this away with a belief that he simply surveyed the wrong people and that senior management choose systems ahead of
employees. Whilst this may be true I'm not sure it gets to the heart of the matter in Apple's case. And there's the rub. I don't honestly know all the reasons why Apple isn't more successful given the emotional satisfaction that people have for its products and the high levels of referral they clearly experience. The same is true of Alfa Romeo, a product so universally liked and placed into a niche by its enthusiastic owners that they even have a name, Alfisti. But by not exploring the customer experience beyond the headlines as Reichheld and chums espouse,
companies would simply believe that a single question survey will help them to grow.

[Possible digression ahead...] In my opinion the reason Apple and Alfa are not the major players in their respective market places centres around rational customer satisfaction, the objective facts are that Apple Macs are expensive and not universally compatible. Outside of the satisfaction sphere, they have suffered at the hands of some catastrophic management decisions not to build upon their innovative momentum to produce a range of products that have mass-market appeal (their competitors churn out boxes at an astonishing rate). Even with the iPod Apple failed to anticipate demand and supply lagged woefully behind. Returning to satisfaction, their iTunes package is adored by its enthusiastic users for its efficient simplicity, but delve deeper - beyond the satisfaction scores - and the shop is poorly stocked, leaving the burgeoning MP3 market to mop-up the wayward customer searching for an elusive tune and wider compatability, they're stunting their own growth (q.v this article). In terms of Alfa Romeo,
they're prone to reliability problems and are expensive. But, before we make another assumption, cost isn't the common factor, look at Linux - technically a superior product to Windows (so I'm told) it's also free, recommended by all who use it and accessible. But it still occupies a smaller personal consumer market share, why, because Windows is ubiquitous, universally accepted and standardised, it's populist and it's marketed aggressively in the way only paid-for products can be. There are many other reasons I'm sure but yet again, asking one or two questions about satisfaction/loyalty/referral will not reveal the answers and will not allow executives to accurately predict and amend growth without first considering the external environment (c.f. 'Burke-Litwin' model of organisational performance and change).

Did I answer the question?

Do users/customers know best?

This has been one that's puzzled me for a long time. I remember a JN Alertbox ("Are Users Stupid" http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010204.html and "Don't listen to users" http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010805.html ) that warned against accepting everything a user suggested and I'm mindful of much of the management-world's concern around suggestion boxes - principally that they generate an awful lot of noise and resentment for very little innovative gain. In essence this boils down to a human trait that we (generally speaking) don't like to hear that someone knows better, that we haven't acknowledged a problem and that, when we believe we're right, that we struggle to accept alternative viewpoints. As usability practitioners and advocates of a customer-centric philosophy are we biting off more than we can chew by attempting to please all of the people all of the time? How do we strike the balance between integrating user-feedback with our own objective (oft empirical) understanding of what works and what doesn't? Customers and users seem to be more able at telling us what they don't like in preference to what they do like, and consequently it's much easier to eliminate and reduce than it is to innovate. When customers do tell us what they want we can often find ourselves (metaphorically) furrowing our brows with the thought "I really don't think that's going to work". Should we be giving in to this thought and applying our own usability spin on it or should we accept the users comments un-appended and without question?

I suppose the answer lies in that old chestnut, 'a bit of both'. Whilst listening to users and customers is useful, actually observing how they behave is absolutely critical. Someone may say they find a site easy to navigate because they are satisfied in the expectation they will need to explore but you may observe them taking a significant amount of time to perform basic tasks. Implication: Make the navigation process more straightforward and you take the user from being satisfied to being impressed. Users may well express satisfaction with a site simply because it looks good (what is beautiful is usable), before they make an assessment on usability. They may over-rationalise their behaviour, assume mistakes are their own ("silly me, I didn't see that link") and play to what they think you want to hear. Is a customer invited to a focus group and plied with refreshments really going to recall their true experience?

All this has come to a head in my mind because we're talking about adopting a suggestion-box scheme (albeit an intranet-based one) here at work to capture employees thoughts about improving the customer experience. I remain cynical. I still think that there's a need for leaders to be leaders and for experts to be expert. The effect of sorting and evaluating the most credible suggestions will be highly resource-intensive, it'll be subjective, it'll create resentment in those whose ideas were rejected and there will be an exponential drop-off in submissions as people feel disheartened that their idea was not taken up. There are ways, of course, to combat this through constructive feedback on suggestions, championing of successful suggestions and other incentivisation but the potential for noise, in my mind, outweighs the potential benefit. The role of consultants in this case must be to see the wider picture, can front-line staff see the processes behind their experiences - do they need to see them to know whether or not they're broken or indeed changeable?

Ultimately I'm starting to feel that pure customer-centricity or user-centricity is not enough and that taking second-person (user) perspective is worthless. The hardest challenge for me will be to ensure that, when in third person perspective I given enough credence to users and metrics alike, performing the role of mediator to ensure that, ultimately the user/customer-experience is the winner.