"Both James and I are looking forward to getting our hamster back."

Just like the rest of us, Clarkson speaks for a legion of Top Gear fans after Richard Hammond's accident.

Tags: top gear + richard hammond + jeremy clarkson

one aware of blog

UPDATE 20.SEP.06
This week I've seen a big increase in people searching for one related stuff and landing on the blog and the IP logs show plenty of hits from 62.172.97.11 which, if you do a simple WHOIS relates to LER, London Eastern Railway, one's official name.

Technorati Tags: one railway + customer service

You Pay For Swedes, You Get Turnips

Regular readers will be aware of my evident joy at laying-in to ‘one’ for their dreadful customer service. I enjoy it because, to some extent, it’s easy to poke fun at their efforts. Today is a different story. For years I’ve told anyone who would listen (and several who weren’t interested) that everything Swedish is great: design, usability, lifestyle. Reading back over past blog entries you can even see me spouting off about Ikea.

Up until the weekend I’d only been a drop-in visitor to Ikea and my impressions were favourable. (I should, at this point, clarify that I’m referring to the Ikea store at Lakeside, Thurrock). I’d managed to wander through the showroom, pick-up minor items and – with my brother – select and buy a self-service chest of drawers which he assembled with no problems. This weekend my experiences were wholly different.

I’d had a fraught couple of visits in the proceeding weeks trying to determine what we needed for our new flat in Chelmsford. We made the mistake of going at the busy peak times at the weekend so, for that, I couldn’t blame the store. On Sunday we got there early, early enough to have half an hour of quiet browsing before the tills opened and the crowds began to build. This is where things started to go wrong. I’m going to break this post up into sections because there’s loads to talk about.

:: The Experience vs. Aspiration
Take a look at the catalogue and you’ll see the items in store set up in show-home situations. Generally these seem to be large lofty apartments or grand drawing rooms with acres of space to fill with rack upon rack of storage solutions. Take a typical catalogue page and itemise everything on it, it would costs thousands to re-create those looks and most of the people that visit the Lakeside Ikea are lower middle-class Thames Estuary dwellers with little sense of design. Not a problem in itself of course but it starts to chip away at the aspirational image you hold in your head of your clean, simple, Scandinavian life-styled room. In all honesty it’s more likely that you’ll recreate a Basildon New Build. Secondly, but related to this point, the images and the showrooms in-store show a level of co-ordination and order impossible in the real world. Few people can present an open clothes rail in their bedroom kitted out with just shades of white and brown. This, of course, makes you buy into an idea but feel let down when you get it home and your room doesn’t look the same. It’s hard to take furniture apart, put it back in the package and bring it back (particularly if it only cost you £45 and you live an hour or more away), so people don’t and Ikea keep the money.

:: The Quality & Consistency
Say you wanted to create a co-ordinated look in a bedroom with matching furniture. Ikea would recommend you select a range (in our case Malm) select a colour and away you go. This doesn’t work. One look at the units side by side show that inconsistencies in the production of the product’s veneer mean that one mid brown is generally quite different from another mid brown. You have to select a shade where the colour variations are easier to disguise, in our case Oak veneer. Again, in terms of quality (and I know the place is supposed to be cheap) take a look at a sofa like the Klippan. It looks great in black in the catalogue and on the website. Go in-store and you’ll find the cover fits so loose it looks like a tatty student room day-bed. The furnishing equivalent of the Big Mac reality not matching the photo on the menu board.

:: The Shopping Experience
We wanted to buy a sofa and a bed (amongst other things). We picked up a product sheet for the bed, which ostensibly listed all items we’d need which – I assumed as it wasn’t clear – that we could pick up from the self-service warehouse. For the sofa I assumed this worked the same That is to say we’d locate it in the warehouse and check it through the till before going to the delivery point. Nowhere was I told that this was a ‘full service’ item and that we’d have to arrange the order in the showroom first. I found that out only by the time we’d got down into the warehouse via the showroom maze, requiring my fiancée to scramble back to the upper levels of the showroom to do so. In addition, when scooting around the warehouse on my own looking for the bed I’d discovered that the mattress wasn’t there, so we’d have a bed – which we’d have to pay to get delivered – with no mattress. We’d have to wait for the mattress, come to visit again and pay another £50 for delivery. Likewise, the bedside tables we were after weren’t in stock … and, by the way, it’s no good suggesting a stock-check before you go if you need to go to work out what it is you want! Finally we got everything on the list and checked out through the tills, over £700 lighter …

:: The Delivery/Fulfillment Experience
The delivery was on time, just after 8am today in fact. The deliverymen dropped the sofa but said nothing to my better half (she’d seen it from the window and hoped they’d mention it). They went through the items and we realised we’d bought the wrong colour bed, evidently picking up the wrong parts sheet from the display. Our fault entirely but the delivery guys wouldn’t take it back for us, neither could we arrange for it to be collected. We’d have to hire a van and take it back (another £50) and pay again to have the right one delivered (assuming it’s in stock when we get there) at another £50. To further compound the issue they told us we’d need fixing brackets – which weren’t on the parts list for the bed. Again, it’s down to us to return to the store to collect these (presumably at a cost).

:: The Customer Service Experience
Being new(ish) to the process I’d hoped that Ikea would show some compassion and support us in returning the items and resolving the orders especially given that we’d spent over £700 there (which must be higher than the average customer), but they couldn’t care less. To resolve the issues will require (assuming some stock unavailability) several trips, at least two hire/delivery charges, petrol and hours of travel time. Probably totalling a couple of hundred pounds. Why can’t Ikea assist in any way? Perhaps at least arranging a redundant delivery van (which, after all, must return from deliveries empty on most days) to at least return the stock or allow us to at least hold the correct colour bed to ensure we don’t waste a trip returning to get the item we have actually paid for. I appreciate it’s not their business model to hold items and so on for cost reasons but – on a case-by-case basis - there should be more after care.

:: We’re not in Sweden Anymore
The trouble is the business hasn’t translated like-for-like from Sweden. It’s staffed with bored Essex teenagers and poorly trained customer service staff. As you walk around you begin to think about how basic and cheap it feels not that it’s customer centric, design orientated, stylishly functional and simple. Ikea in the UK has not got the Swedish friendly air about it other than in the marketing copy and catalogue imagery. When the in-store experience fails it fails badly and the fulfilment has seriously dented the brand’s image. So much so that I’m writing this entry.

In Sweden they can process online orders. I bet they could bend over a bit to help me were I to make a couple of novice mistakes like I did here. Just imagine if, when we’d called them today, the Lakeside store had said “fine, sure mistakes happen and seeing as you’re obviously keen on our products [based on the order value] we’ll ask one of our returning delivery vans to collect your items and we’ll hold an Oak coloured Malm bed for you for 48 hours”. I’d have been delighted and I’d be blogging about that instead. It would have cost them probably £50 but increased the likelihood that I’ll spend several hundred pounds in there again by a factor of ten. As it stands I’m more likely to go round the corner from home to Habitat, spend 25% more and be sure to be taken care of.

There were just two good moments on Sunday. One young warehouse lad who dashed off to get a trolley to help the missus with a mattress and a short bearded chap in the sofa team who said he’d raise a query with head office about why the Ektorp sofa had feathers in the fabric version and foam in the leather.

I’m writing to Jens Johansson in his role as manager at Lakeside in the desperate hope that he can inject those Swedish social principles back into his workforce and acknowledge that cheap products really shouldn’t mean shoddy customer care.

Technorati: Ikea + customer service + customer care

:: Similar rants about Ikea's customer service

Dominic Booth Is Sorry, And He's Cross With Network Rail

Dominic Booth is one railway's managing director and he is failing at his job. In my opinion. As his message today proves. In it he apologises for the debacles of last week and points the finger of blame squarely at Network Rail. However, he simply cannot grasp the scale of disorganisation at Stansted airport on Friday night. He should have been there, he should have experienced it himself and he should be man enough to speak directly to us passengers and determine what went wrong. His hollow statement where he indicated he'd 'review' proceedings is a groundless as the claim by his staff on Friday evening that 20 buses had been ordered to transport us and it is as flimsy as his staff's whimsical voices above the baying mob of disgruntled fare-paying passengers left stranded in a car park.

The experiences continue to prove that one don't think about their customer image - take a look at this screen grab of their site today for example. On the one hand there are no problems ("A Good Service Is Operating On All Routes"), on the other hand there are seven ("There are currently 7 line and service reports").

It's so bad it's almost laughable.

Technorati Tags: one railway + delay + train + customer service + Dominic Booth + Delay Repay

Web 2.0? That's SO Web 1.0 ... Tim Berners-Lee explains ...

Amusing piece from the IBM podcast after it's passed through the web's summarisers ... connecting people with Web 2.0 is nothing new, it's what Web 1.0 (such as it is/was) has done all along. Read Alex Barnett's wonderfully entitled piece, "Sir Tim Calm Down 2.0"

'one' Unmitigated Disaster

Finally got back to Ipswich around 22:35, via a two hour wait at Stansted airport amongst a poorly marshalled baying mob of commuters and weekend passengers. The police were there and one guy from one. None of them had megaphones, the crowd were jostling and three coaches came, filled up and went before I could board one. There was no order of priority, just a bun-fight. I filmed the chaos and have uploaded it (QuickTime 3GP and not great quality). A full four and a half hours after I set off, for the second time this week. I thought Wednesday's lack of information was bad but this complete and utter ineptitude and lack of on-the-ground presence from staff was inexcusable.

:: EveningStar have first online reports.

Technorati Tags: one railway + delay + train + customer service

Twice in one week, overhead lines causing chaos...

Can't quite believe it but I'm sat here on a train at Liverpool Street (the 18:00 to Norwich) logged in via someone's open network as the trains are up the proverbial again, latest message from one:

Points Failure & Overhead wire damage.
Due to a points failure at Shenfield & also damage to overhead wires between Ingatestone &
Chelmsford, all services to/from London Liverpool Street to Norwich, Clacton,
Ipswich & Southend Victoria are being severely delayed. Trains are currently
unable to move forward from Shenfield at present. Passengers are advised not to
travel unless absolutely necessary.
Message received: 01/09/2006 at 18:09:15

Which is helpful if you're on the train. Just Skyped home to let m'lady know. We were supposed to be packing for our big move to Chelmsford tomorrow tonight.

Will update with 'one' service messages, last announcement was a full 30 mins ago...

A Smashing Swedish Design Blog

Adam's swedesres blog has not only got a gorgeous header graphic, it's packed with Swedish design resources. In three minutes browsing I saw this great link to the Volvo S80 site which does a nice job of showing off broadband-optimised immersive brochureware.

It also pushed me towards Starring's website where I saw a portfolio link for the AMF Pension campaign, the 'ageing' technique used here is an uncanny echo the the Norwich Union 'Ready For Tomorrow' campain (43 going on 17 and The Future)....

This blog's feeds are now fixed

Kept checking my Technorati listing to see that it was days out of date, the problem is that Technorati pulls the Atom feed from this site and not the RSS 2.0 one. The Atom one had problems with an incorrect character in the post about DENIM which I've now corrected so hopefully anyone using this feed via an Atom reader will be fine. Let me know if you use a feed reader to subscribe to this blog by the way...

:: RSS 2.0 Spec vs. Atom Spec

:: Technorati RSS + Atom + DENIM + Technorati

'one' fail to ease the pain of another major delay

A few days ago I was checking my blog logs and realised that I was still getting a wealth of hits here for people searching for various gumpf about one railway and their preposterous customer care. I hadn’t written for a while and despite seeing incoming links from monerailway I couldn’t really think of much to say. The service has been below average but not disasterous and I’d changed direction (I’m heading to London from Ipswich these days). The trouble is things can be just ‘ok’ with one but when it does go wrong, it goes spectacularly wrong.

My previous delay record was 2 hours 20 minutes, back in November last year on my way back from London, I beat that tonight with a three and a half hour delay sat just east of Chelmsford when power lines came down (BBC News 31.AUG.06) (can anyone explain how this happens?). We were trapped behind two other trains and could only pass one at a time incredibly slowly. The conductor did his best and told us he couldn’t tell us anything, on one occasion going for 1.5hrs without speaking to us. The trolley passed through once and never re-appeared. We sat in silence, punctuated only by the sound of people speaking to friends and relatives to inform them that, yep, we were still waiting to move. I fortunately had my Nano and laptop with me so I could at least keep myself entertained as long as the li-ion batteries would last.

Eventually we did move of course and passed the stricken train which still had passengers on it. The conductor piped-up with news about our revised ETAs and some arrangements for onward connections which everyone must surely have missed. As people picked up their phones and called to let others know their plight I couldn’t help but feel thankful that I wasn’t on the stricken train. Clearly they were in for a long night. I’m not sure what the evacuation arrangements are but surely a train that’s been stationary for over five hours constitutes a total failure and passengers need to be escorted onto road trainsport?

I know these things happen to some extent but I cannot comprehend why one do not react with more care. Announcements should be made every fifteen minutes – even if it’s to say “we don’t know more” and efforts should be re-doubled for every 15 minutes delay to determine exactly what is going on. The only thing worse than the delay itself is not being kept informed. In addition, arrangements should be made in the event of an exceptional delay (anything over two hours) for staff to board the train at the next station and distribute free refreshments – a small biscuit and some water for example – to anyone who wants it. These supplies could be held at stops along the way for this purpose. Announcements should be made to encourage people to stand and walk about the carriage to reduce the risk of blood clotting.

As a customer all I felt on the train was that people in ‘control’ just think it’ll get fixed eventually, customers can sit tight until then. The only concession to passenger comfort was an unscheduled stop at Shenfield for a cigarette break.

Once again I’d invite anyone from one to comment in response to this post but I’m well aware that will never happen. All I can look forward to is a complete refund of my ticket.

UPDATE: When I got home (around 11pm) I saw the following message on the one website ... can anyone translate? "Cuatomers [sic] are advised to use alternative travel where possible. The LUL and First Capital Connect are passing customers reasonable routes on their Network for travel easements." [see pic included]

Technorati Tags: one railway + delay + train + customer service

When I grow up I want to be a user experience architect.

I wonder if future spawn will utter these words? Does any child aspire to develop class-leading interfaces? Do kids play in the sand box at nursery attempting to create the next big thing in interaction? Possibly not yet, but there are plenty of 'adults' around who are looking to hone their skills in an emerging (though surprisingly resilient) job title in the dotcom industry and this week I've been trying to locate courses in the UK to formalise our training.

Before I get round to posting a summary of these courses (and thanks to everyone who's emailed me) I thought I'd post a link to a pertinent article by Dan Saffer (which is also a thinly veiled plug for his book ... which I'd like a copy of please Dan) and builds on an earlier article by Robert Reimann.

Longitudinal Experience With Sennheiser Results In Great Customer Service

Last week I listened to Tim and Tom’s podcast and picked up on their reviews of the PX100, a pair of headphones I’ve supported on this blog in the past. Well, like Tim’s Shuffle (see also), my PX100s went belly-up a month ago when the jack-plug developed a loose connection. I also own a pair of HD465 which I love and sent them a letter asking for a repair under warranty despite not retaining the receipt. Well, they said ‘yes’ and gave me a repair reference to send them in under and I got a receipt with an ETA for their return.

Then, just as I was about to post this item I get home to discover a parcel waiting for me with a brand new pair of PX100s in it. They did not fix them; they gave me a completely new pair absolutely gratis. So I now have fresh clean ear pads, tight hinges and brand new drivers. Very cool and keeps me happy as a brand advocate.

I told Tim this, by email he speaks about it on this week's podcast and even gives this blog a kind review. Thanks :)

Technorati Tags: sennheiser + px100 + hd465 + design critique + customer experience

DENIM Uses A Pie Menu And Promotes Rapid Prototyping

Just a quick post to reflect on something I mentioned in an earlier piece about Fitts Law. I downloaded DENIM recently to have a play (it’s free, go right ahead…) and discovered they use a pie menu. I loved it, even with a mouse it seemed really natural. Once I’d worked out that the middle circle was active too. There’s a picture of it in action in the tutorial.

A word about DENIM itself. Using a tablet PC or a pen-equipped device you can sketch out web architecture and basic design elements and watch the site build in front of you. I’m inclined to implore you to watch the demo video of this. It think it would be awesome for rapid prototyping in the ‘ideas’ section of a project, gives you the chance of making board-room ideas tangible to stakeholders etc. It’s not going to replace traditionally more labour intensive wireframing and prototype development but it might just be a good way to get your foot in the door.

PhotoSynth Shows Vast Potential to Fundamentally Change Information Navigation

Following on from yesterday’s post about interactive television, I was delighted to see the BBC picked up on the PhotoSynth project. I first heard about this via Alex Barnnett’s blog and downloaded the Channel 9 video and the high-res Live Labs promo package. Clever stuff from the effervescent chaps in Seattle, must be all that caffeine. Once again, like the previous post, the technology is the first step; it is the sheer scale of the possibilities that this opens up that interest me.

The tool, such as it is, takes collections of photographs or images with a common reference point and links those points together taking into account angle, distance, scale, resolution, ambient light etc. etc. rather like a jigsaw to create a 3D virtual world. The environments they present so far are tourist spots navigated at high-speed (all due to progressive resolution encoding I think) and almost seamlessly. I am not explaining it brilliantly but the videos do a great job so take a look at them.

It does not take a genius to see the power that this technology has in terms of its application for information architecture on the web. The algorithm effectively links commonalities and provides a space into which communities can delve to enrich it even further. Imagine, if you will, that pictures are tagged (like in Flickr) or given hotspot areas such that if you submit your photos to the engine for recognition, suddenly the random picture of a statue you took in Florence comes alive in a 3D context with information about the sculptor, the location, the social context and so on…

Imagine too that a piecing together a crime scene from shots taken by members of the public at a given time or that a terrorist propaganda video can be interrogated for common visual landmarks to place it accurately. It’s a case of blending Flickr and Google Earth with Wikipedia and SETI and suddenly you're really unleashing distributed computing power and social networking to provide a virtual earth. At this point, I am sure people are considering the protection and privacy issues but, for the moment, I’m nothing but excited to see where and when I can get my hands on PhotoSynth and start adding every photo I’ve ever taken to the project.

Technorati Tags: PhotoSynth + Microsoft + Live Labs

Using Ambient Audio To Serve-Up Social and Interactive Television

What I plan to do in the forthcoming days is post a regular sequence of smaller posts, all of which will hopefully cover a user-centred topic. In the past couple of weeks I’ve amassed a Targus case full of printed blog articles (I know, I know, think of the trees…), magazine columns and jotted notes about podcasts all of which I’ve intended to post about.

Regular readers and colleagues will know I’m not the greatest ‘completer finisher’ on the planet and am full of good intentions so here’s my chance to produce a consistent, topic-focussed output.

Using Ambient Audio To Serve-Up Social and Interactive Television
Xan passed me an article this month that (despite being a little too CompSci for my simple brain) introduced me to the work of Michael Fink (Univ. of Jerusalem), Michele Covell and Shumeet Baluja (Google Research). The premise, in a nutshell, is to use your laptop’s on board microphone to record the audio of the TV programme you’re watching and match that to a database of broadcasted material to serve up relevant media content from the web. This is quite clever stuff. In the same way that you can point your mobile to a speaker and send music audio to Shazam for identification, this system identifies broadcast content in real-time. There are a host of privacy issues and technical problems that the paper covers, and I’m not going to. I wanted to think more about the social element of this tool. There’s a host of personalisation, tagging and social networking stuff that can be thrown into the mix here. Imagine, for example, watching your favourite sitcom/drama/film and identifying that at that moment 20 other people were watching it too, you could chat about it via Skype or instant messaging or you could add tags to the content to identify places, objects, fashion etc. ABC drama ‘Lost’ is a great example, the online experience for the show is vast and tying this directly to the action feels neater in this model than it would via existing interactive TV channels (red-button etc.) Have a read of their paper and add your comments to this post by clicking ‘comments’ below.

Coping With Scale, Design Critique's Discussion of iTunes Identifies 'The Rub'

Having gorged on podcasts recently (despite my better half's propensity to hijack the Nano for the gym) I have been a keen listener of the UPA and Design Critique (DC) output. Recently the guys at DC (Tim, Tom & Jack) have run a two part show dealing with iTunes. As a keen observer of Apple's development and having previously acknowledged the benefit of their integration of iPod and iTunes, this podcast hit upon the wider issues of coping with scale and diversity in music collections. A fascinating suggestion (and the first one which breaks Web 2.0-style social networking from the 'web' and puts it into an 'application' environment in my mind), was using folksonomy-style tagging to organise huge collections. I'd like to explore more of this - and as I've not got close to using del.icio.us properly, i think that's a good way to understand it. They've also introduced me to OK/Cancel too, which seems like yet another thing to add to my RSS feed reader in IE7 Beta 3 (which I love).

Technorati Tags : itunes + web2.0 + ipod + usability + folksonomy

The Noble Savage. Social Network Sites Display The True Goodness Of Web 2.0

Today's article picks up on some of the noise being created about social networking (SN) sites. A quick scan of the Hitwise data indicates that MySpace, Bebo and FaceParty are clawing an incredible number of hits per day and NMA last week had an interesting piece by Heather Hopkins (typically aimed at advertisers) which detailed some of the differences between the sites in terms of their audience reach. MySpace is popular with the music-oriented and represents a wider age demographic, Bebo focuses on the school, college and undergraduate communities and FaceParty is a bit of a mix between the two. Towards the end of the article, Heather picks up on a particular characteristic of these sites' users, that they tend to be multi-channel and multi-media aware. Elsewhere I have read and heard about the tendency of SN users to be fantastic brand advocates, taking brand items and 'hacking' or customising them to fit within their creative space.

And so we reach my point. But before I get to that, a bit of historical parallelism. Let's consider a bit of 18th Century sentimentalism. Working from ideas first espoused in literature (eg. Dryden's "The Conquest of Granada" (1672) or Rousseau's Emile (1762) ) and developing out of circumstances and media hype surrounding the voyages of Cpt. James Cook, a culture of primitivism took hold. The essence of this was personified by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific and Americas who, in the minds of the Christianised world, represented an Edenic humankind, unencumbered by civilisation - the Noble Savage. Their simple behaviour, carefree manners and proximity to the fabric of nature - the very essence of life set them apart from their corrupted European colonisers.

To me, SN sites are populated by today's Noble Savages. Unencumbered by the 'rules' and self-regulation of web design and development, the teachings/preachings of Tognazzini, Nielsen and the corporate homepage, these SN pages are simplistic, innocent (c.f. below), disdainful of ostentatious luxury. They demonstrate a natural awareness of the technology of the web - apparently without much if any formal education and just because it's executed without much sense of order it is more often than not, perceived as inferior. It's not a parallelism without it's flaws, of course it would be wrong to say that every person with a MySpace page is an Omai, a Man Friday or Chingachgook. There is imorality to be seen, there is bullying and selfishness; even today as I flicked through someone else's ghastly Daily Mail I read a contrived piece about grooming on MySpace.

In addition, much of MySpace - perhaps in keeping with its recent purchase by Rupert Murdoch - is increasingly being hijacked by corporate brands, music publishers and so on with the express reason to sell. Just as in the 20th Century my perception of the exisitence of the true Noble (Web) Savage is becoming ever more flimsy and could be seen as bordering on the patronising. But dig deep enough and you'll find it. The intelligent blog-links, the vodcasts, the del.icio.us linkings, Folksonomies, Flickr postings etc. etc. They may not be the easiest sites to use (though I'd wager that a teen/tween would navigate them at a phenominal level of efficiency) but they're doing things and using things that those of us on cultured sites have some way to go before deploying.

The fact is that, in MySpace's defence, the design doesn't matter. People who know me will often here me refer to FriendsReunited as an ugly site that works. It, like MySpace, works in-spite of it's looks simply because it does the job it set out to do - connect people. If everyone in your class is on Bebo, you will be too. If you want to find an ex-school-friend you'll go to FriendsReunited, to hell with the interface. The kids that use SN sites have all the time in the world, they'll wade through the black text on grey backdrop because it might link somewhere, they'll put up with the blinking animated gif because their favourite song is playing on the page... Joshua Porter explains this well and his post attracted some intelligent comments too.

Of course, I'd love to explore some more by setting up my own MySpace/Bebo/FaceParty pages but frankly I know i'd get no social-linking and I'd fret about the interface. In the same way that Captain Cook probably knew when he was out of his depth I'm not prepared to go on there and get into any hot water...

Technorati Tags: myspace + bebo + faceparty + noble savage + homepage design + social networking

Famous at last? ... Simply blog about the Beeb.

I read an interesting article recently (but I can't remember where) which highlighted key ways to get your blog noticed. I've tried a few, extensive contextual links, out-links to other blogs, recent topics, salacious content and inviting comment via mailing lists. In the past two days it seems to be paying off, first there's a link from Digital Media Minute to my pieces on SEO vs Usability which is extensively accessed and now the BBC have picked up on my review of the Governors meeting last week, there's quite a lot of traffic inbound from an intranet blog. I can't see it of course so no idea what it says so I'm hoping it's pleasant and isn't too critical of the grammar and typo problems which litter the article (re-reading posts is a sure-fire way to expose your own inadequacies...).

Anyway, coupled with a fleeting appearance on BBC Look East on the 18.30 bulletin the day after and suddenly I feel exposed. In a good way. Weirdly, and without wishing to blow smoke up Auntie's proverbial, it's made me even more aware of the Beeb's quality output. Last night I sat and watched a profound "Who Do You Think You Are?" with David Baddiel and (being a fan of his work since he slated Sittingbourne) I watched the interview he had with Mark Lawson on BBC4. A genuinely insightful and thoughtful piece, so diffrent to Parkinsons piece of brief, intense sycophancy. Made a change from my previous intention to watch "Love Island", "Big Brother" etc.

A Distinctly Average Day, And All The Better For It

It’s days like today that you forget when it’s suddenly January 16^th and icy cold. It’s days like today that seem so distant when you’re walking toward the station at 19:30 and you’ve got to go to the supermarket when you get home. It’s days like today that at the age of 49 wincing as you climb the stairs at work to sit in the same desk you’ve sat in for 15 years are a world away.

Today wasn’t remarkable at all. A hot sunny day in Ipswich, a lazy morning in the park and an afternoon of geeky surfing on a shady balcony trying to avoid some left-over work for tomorrow. Top Gear on the TV, some pasta and a bottle of Grolsch as I listen to a bit of Madeline Peyroux and set about my blog. A day where everything thing in the world was just so. Where I was entirely myself and my fiancée and I were entirely content. A day when I didn’t feel unfit, old, aching, tired too hot or too cold, a day when nothing would trouble me. In a lifetime I wonder how many days like this we have.

Either way, today was one of them. So I thought I’d record it for permanent posterity.

BBC Governors Meeting, Norwich. What Happened?

It’s taken longer than anticipated to get round to summarising the events of last night’s meeting in Norwich. Whilst I was there I was suddenly stuck by an overwhelming responsibility to do it right, based mainly on the fact that I was convinced (and will remain so until Technorati tells me otherwise) that I was the only blogger present. So, there I was stood in the mezzanine floor of the Forum watching a preview of the BBC’s HD output (via a Sky box and 50” plasma) when I thought I’d take a panoramic of the stage set-up [left]. This sparked off an intention to take loads of pictures and add them to Flickr, but I got side-tracked by the debate.

The Governors present were, obviously Michael Grade plus Ranjit Sondhi, Anthony Salz, Deborah Bull and Jeremy Peat. But the big surprise for me was to find (Director General) Mark Thompson sat in the front row along with a substantial number of the BBC Exec'. Previously in my mind the subject of Emily Bell’s ire on the Guardian Unlimited podcast, it was nice to finally put a real-life person to the distant victim. I had hoped, with Mark present, that the debate and discussion would centre around the BBC’s well-documented digital future but I hadn't counted on the people of East Anglia.

Silly me, the demographic was entirely skewed in the direction of the retired complainant. In the same way that I’d watched the outlying villages spill into Norwich to celebrate the Championship promotion in 2004 complete with wooden rattles and knitted scarves, so here tonight were the villages of the East. In place of the lithe and hungry farmhands cheering on the Canaries were the walking-stick wielding OAPs - all of whom seemed to have an unwavering belief that the BBC is “not what it used to be”.

Here we were, with News Presenter Jane Hill batting questions from the floor toward the panel ranging from the reception problems in Kings Lynn to the reception problems in Sheringham; and from the over-paid Jonathan Ross (roundly hated with some vitriol) to the under-payment of Test Match Cricket. I thought I was going to cry. Where was the praise for the World’s finest website? Where were the celebrations of exceptional programmes like Planet Earth, Extras, The Office, Bleak House. Where was the acknowledgement of the consistently high standards shown on Radio 4 and the ever-increasing efforts made to broaden digital coverage?

Instead we dwelt on the horrors of celebrity television (not so prevalent on the BBC) the nightmares of no isobars on the weather map (beautifully riposted by Michael Grade) and the apparent “racism” of using “95%” of the evening schedule to show “Americanised” TV. Now I should, at this point, acknowledge that some of these points were rather valid: Jonathan Ross, Moyles and Wogan are over-paid, cricket should be on the BBC (but that’s for Tessa Jowell to sort, not the license payer or the BBC Governors) and Only Fools On Horses was a mistake – regardless of the charity motive. It’s just that the views we heard were not truly representative. The sinlge element of conversation that really struck a chord with me (and not because it was delivered by the chap sitting beside me) was an attempt to raise the awareness that choice is not as universal as the BBC might have us think.

I have naively assumed that the breadth of choice the BBC promote is a positive thing for everyone. An ever-increasing number of channels are emerging both in linear television, analogue, digital and online. But this seems rather worthless when you think of invalid viewers, “trapped” in care homes with no choice but to watch what’s on, when it’s on. They may represent a minority in percentage terms of the viewing figures but given that they don’t have the same ability to choose, their voice needs to be heard incredibly loudly.

As we advance to a state where linear, analogue-broadcasting is marginalised we must ensure that provision is made to safeguard the rights of those without choice to receive quality news, information and entertainment. It’s keeping one eye on the rear view mirror as we hurtle into BBC 2.0.

I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Mark at the end of the session in between a glass of orange juice and a wild mushroom canapé, and I challenged him on the intentions to add advertsing to international versions of BBC sites. It was, I emplored, crucial that this was done as sensitively as possible and did not, under any circumstances, leak onto the British versions of the site. I stated I was proud of the BBC’s digital offerings, having downloaded clips of The Apprentice onto my phone and subscribed to BBC podcasts, RSS feeds and am a player of celebdaq. I have even linked to the BBC Accessibility site as part of my work. I stressed how important it is that the license payer funds this as efficiently as possible, if the BBC needs to justify it’s global face with some un-obtrusive ads, so be it, but it must not become MySpace and it must not become MSN.co.uk. (Ok, so I admit I didn’t have time to say it all like that but I think I got my point across).

Oh, and one final note, Emily I’m not sure he listens to Podcasts (there was no flicker when I asked him which he listens to) but he certainly reacted when I mentioned your name. I’m not sure I’d call it a smile, perhaps more of a wry grin.

UPDATED (21:15, 15th July) : Report on BBC News, "Grade Defends BBC's Independence"
UPDATED (18:42, 23rd July) : Finally corrected the typos in this post. Links here to my follow-up post and the news that this blog was featured on BBC News "The Editors". Finally, the comments on this article mention that the Webcast is now live (RealPlayer required).

Technorati: BBC, Web2.0, Norwich