Archives for category: General
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

When Airlines Flip

August 18, 2014 //
0

I’m not talking, dear reader, about airplane accidents but about when competing airlines flip positions.

The two Irish airlines, Aer Lingus and Ryanair, seemed to have flipped. They seem to have swapped places with each other.

I’ve been banging on regularly in this blog, most recently here, about Ryanair’s blithe disregard for the customer. Something’s changed in the last wee while however.

Ryanair appointed a Chief Marketing Officer at the beginning of the year, a role that many of us senior marketing people could have done and would love to have done, and the changes are already bearing fruit. They were starting from a pretty low bar of course, which is why folk were probably queueing up for the job.

It’s working already though. Those obvious things we all would have done are now bearing fruit. Now it feels like Aer Lingus is the airline that is playing catch-up in customer service. It’s almost like it wants to fill the role that the old Ryanair made its own. I guess that’s OK, except, that it’s not the Low Fares Airline, not by a long chalk, so it’s a dangerous development.

The last thing we want is one Irish airline. Not good for competition…

Tags ,
Categories General, Strategy

I Was Old – I Needed the Money

August 15, 2014 //
0

Desperate times call for desperate measures. There are many people in the public eye, especially entertainment, who regret their entrance into the house of stardom via the less salubrious side door of their industry. I don’t know if this industry gives rise to the phrase ‘I was young; I needed the money,’ but it seems likely that it was so.

When we’re old, however, we’re not supposed to need the money and you’re not supposed to hear us utter this blog post’s title. All our assets are supposed to be paid off, we have a good pension and investments, our kids are self-sufficient – kind of – and we have time on our hands and money to burn.

That now seems a little outdated for most of us. I’ve already talked about the ticking time bomb that is populations and pensions in the next 30-50 years, but it seems to me that unfortunate timing and macro factors have scuppered the plans of many in my generation. To list a few examples:

– Those who chose a long mortgage term or who remortgaged have pushed out their liabilities further than they would like

– The global meltdown and ensuing property slump mean that for many the value of their house is likely to be less than the amount they borrowed, locking them in for longer and meaning they can’t necessarily down-size from their empty nest

– The global meltdown has seriously dented the pension pot of those who are not on a guaranteed pension, which is most of us. Throw in the property slump and those pension funds that were invested in buildings have been more than seriously dented, and in some cases wiped out

– The nature of work has changed. Jobs are more flexible, locations are more flexible, options are more flexible. People are staying at companies less often and changing more, either by design or because they have to. This brings with it great opportunity but also the risk of being in between opportunities for longer, eroding any savings built up while scrabbling around for the next revenue source

– More people are doing their own thing and moving from employed to self-employed. This increased freedom comes at a price, in the form of unpaid holidays and paying for benefits that might have been included as an employee

Even though it’s acknowledged that we’ll be working for longer, we can’t work forever. The alternative is to work until you drop, having forgone retirement, leaving someone else to pick up the pieces.

I mentioned in the linked post above that technology will probably find a way to close the loop for us, to solve or at least assuage the problem. And those of us working in or around technology will probably be able to capitalise on it first, unless it is some immense democratising force.

But my question is this: will the old have to resort to desperate measures like the young once did?

 

Tags , ,
Categories General, Strategy

Adventures in Travel – Not – Part III

August 8, 2014 //
2

Do you ever fly with ‘low fare’ airlines? I do, frequently. We are blessed with 2 in Ireland. One’s called Aer Lingus, the other is called Ryanair.

Aer Lingus used to be quite up-market. It still is up-market to the US, but has joined in the race to the bottom on the cut-throat European routes. The pilots are good too. As my son said to me a few years ago when he was 9 years old, ‘Daddy, can we fly Aer Lingus? Their planes land like shadows.’

Ryanair competes on price and punctuality. When it’s not punctual, you feel cheated, violated almost. The pilots are learning their trade while at Ryanair I think. The landings are as if they lose interest at an altitude of 2 metres and drop you onto the tarmac. Our landing the other day was bone-shakingly hard, even by Ryanair standards. We are talking a free chiropractic session thrown in for the fare.

Vertebra realignment anyone?

Tags ,
Categories Communication, Customers, General

Adventures in Travel – Not – Part II

August 6, 2014 //
0

UK train travel is legendarily expensive, and usually fashionably late.

I had occasion to travel from a major city to London the other day. It’s a major inter-city service, chocka-block full, where not to reserve a seat means you’re making your own seat.

There was no wi-fi on the train. Yes, you read that right, no wifi. This is 2014, in the first world. Heck, they’ve had wifi on Irish trains for years!

I find that unbelievable. For an international visitor, business as well as tourist, you rely on a reliable wifi service. Not to offer one, as part of such an expensive service, boggles the mind.

The train arrived fashionably late too.

Tags ,
Categories Communication, Customers, General

Adventures in Travel – Not – Part I

August 4, 2014 //
0

In the old days of travel, you never really knew when the bus was going to come along. Yes, there was a published timetable, but it only ever bore a passing acquaintance with reality. They came when they came, that was it.

Nowadays, as I observed in the UK recently, you have electronic signs telling you – presumably via GPS – when the next bus is due to arrive. I think this is supposed to manage your expectations better, but it still has only a passing resemblance to the agreed passage of time. This has the opposite effect of what is intended. Sometimes a bus will be 25 minutes away for half an hour, by which time you know it has been cancelled because the next one has turned up.

At other times the bus might be 8 minutes away, but the subsequent minutes are long ones, it being 2 minutes away for 2 minutes, then 1 minute away for 2 minutes, then ‘due’ for 2 minutes. Somewhere there’s an awful lot of rounding going on.

It’s progress, Jim, but not as we know it.

Tags ,
Categories Communication, Customers, General

Clusters are Good

July 25, 2014 //
0

Clusters are good.

Clusters are good for customers, because there is competition for their business.

Clusters are good for companies because they provide a critical mass of talent that you don’t have to retrain.

Clusters are good for employees because there is competition for their talent.

Clusters = choice.  Just as a rising tide lifts all boats, a growing cluster raises the bar all round. That’s why all countries, regions and cities strive for industry clusters.

When you’re in a city that doesn’t have much of a cluster, you don’t have choice. Applaud the company that decides to be the first of its industry in your region. Then work to build the cluster.

 

Tags
Categories General

The Catharsis of Sport

July 21, 2014 //
0

Everyone needs a passion to keep them going through the cycles of work and the seasons of the year. I’m not talking here about loved ones, your family and friends. I’m talking about vices: music festivals, music, live theatre, hobbies, travel or holidays, that kind of thing. These are high points that can anchor a period in your life and stand out from the day-to-day stuff we do in order to afford to enjoy the high points.

For me it’s the catharsis of sport, both playing it and watching it. Participating in sport and attending or watching broadcasts of key sporting events define the time of the year for me. Let me walk you through a typical year of this sports fan, plucked out of my head without the need to check the calendar:

January – dark, miserable, poverty-stricken. Just in time, the Australian Open tennis hoves into view to save the one month that’s pretty much a waste of time. A foreign bonus comes to close the month down, in the form of the Superbowl. We in marketing can kid ourselves we’re working by watching the ads on youtube.

February – when you think Spring will never come, the 6 Nations Rugby championships comes to the rescue, closely followed by the business end of Champions League football.

March – more rugger and more soccer. US Sweet Sixteen and Final Four college hoops if you’re into that stuff. And is that the imperceptibly lengthening and warming days of Spring I detect?

April – the Masters golf at Augusta. The best major, though I’ve never been able to pin down why. Yes, and the snooker world championship too. Stick with it, it’s a drug.

May – the reward of a monster month. The death throes of the football and rugby leagues, the Champions League final, the Heineken Cup final and the best tennis major to attend – apparently; it always sneaks up on me before I’ve thought about summer trips – the glorious French Open. The lung-bursting, clay-drenched minute-long rallies.

June – Ah, the summer is here in earnest. The US Open golf tournament, the toughest major. Anyone for cricket? There’s usually a test series to follow, and the athletics Diamond League circuit winds up. The NBA finals remind me that I’m not ideally built for the hoops. Oh and Wimbledon, aka Wimbers, always the last week of June and first week of July. Happy days.

July – The Open, at the home of golf. Four halcyon days, even if the weather’s howling.

August – The US Open tennis. Hotter than the hinges of Hades, rather like the Australian Open. Supreme athleticism and the lungs of Miguel Indurain required. Sometimes they sneak the US PGA in as well during August, and so our cup over-floweth.

September – The baseball action gets down to the nitty gritty. Decent footie awaits as the Champions League swings into action with group matches to lift the mid-week blues.

October – The Autumn rugby internationals give us an annual reminder of why the southern hemisphere lads are better than us northern folks.

November – More rubgy, the final group matches in the Champions League, and the ATP tennis finals as we wind down for the holiday period.

December – Crimbo! Far too much on to think about sport, kind of, although between Christmas and New Year the good people from the darts world are good enough to give us two rival championships to help us finish off the turkey fricassee. We’re usually getting tonked at the cricket by the Aussies down under as well.

Bonus events in the summer can really make the summer: a world cup or an Olympics every second summer. The autumn is enhanced beyond measure by the biennial Ryder Cup. A Lions rugby tour or a Rugby World Cup can make the winter.

Boy! Anyone would think that there can’t be any time left for family and work. Work hard and play hard is the only way to get through it :-).

Tags , ,
Categories General

It Depends…

July 14, 2014 //
0

I’m all for clarity of communication. I prefer it to innuendo, nuancing and saying one thing and really meaning another. I guess that would make me a poor business person or negotiator in some parts of the world. I’d have to work harder to make progress in those more inscrutable, deferential and stratified societies.

When I can give a simple answer to a simple question, I will. The trouble is, in much of our working lives – and a lot of our family or private lives – the questions are rarely simple, even though the answers might be.

That’s why my favourite answer  – the one I almost always fall back on – is ‘it depends.’ You’re not fudging your answer. You want to give a good answer so you use it to buy more time and seek qualification to the original question so that you can answer it as well as you can.

Here’s an example:

‘Should we hire this person?’

‘It depends.’

‘How so?’

‘Well, it depends on our plans for the role that this person would be filling. If we are looking for someone who has done the job before and who will hit the ground running, then yes I believe we should. If the role is a stepping stone to a more strategic role where someone is looking for ways to evolve the department and where that someone will need to bring broader and softer skills, then probably not.’

Have a try yourself tomorrow with your customers, partners and colleagues. You’ll be surprised how many times this holding answer allows you to give a better answer later than an inaccurate answer earlier.

I guess it makes me more diplomatic than I thought :-).

Tags ,
Categories Communication, General, Language

In a Perfectly Connected World

July 4, 2014 //
2

In a perfectly connected world, where we are all devices and / or IP addresses on the Internet in the so-called ‘Internet of things’, there would be less arguing, fewer disputes methinks.

“Oh, so you think you’ve been doing the dishes more often than me and you put the kids to bed the last 3 nights, do you? Well let’s take a look at the dashboard, shall we? Look, here we can see that I have clearly washed up the last 5 times, and in fact you put the kids to bed the last 2 nights, not 3, and I did the 4 nights before that – hah! Total domestic activities are 561 minutes for you since the start of the week, and 974 for me. You’ve done 1274 parenting minutes, I’ve done 1478, so there!”

I think we’re a long way away from Minority Report and the Department of Pre-Crime, but total 24/7/365 transparency of what we have done must be within the lifetime of at least someone’s reading this. We should be able to report on everything that happens in the past. This will have huge ramifications for society and things like big data. For example a region would know that 1,825 cases of rape were reported, but a further 6,467 cases occurred but were not reported.

This must lead to a safer, truer society, but at what cost?

 

Tags
Categories Communication, General, Technology

Why Big Nations Should Always Win Big Sporting Events

June 30, 2014 //
0

I always find it amazing when a small nation overturns a large nation at a major sporting event.  Sometimes you get the odd upset – of course – but for me the big nations should always win at big sporting events.

I was reminded of this fact recently when England lost a key football/soccer match against Uruguay, a country of some 3 million people. There have been some fantastic books which have debunked this theory, such as the superb ‘Brilliant Orange‘, but for me it boils down to a combination of three important factors:

– the sheer population numbers with access to the game

– the number and quality of facilities to be able to play

– the number of qualified coaches

With decent facilities and great coaches you can go a long way, but you also need people playing the sport in their masses so that the numbers of exceptional players percolate through from an immense group. Take a look at English footie and you see an enormous amount of players, plentiful decent facilities, but in the main very poor coaching. It’s ‘hoof it up to the big guy’ or ‘give it to the dribbler’ on pitches that are far too big, from a very early age. Kids grow up thinking that all you need to do is dribble past half a dozen players or shoot from 30 yards. They don’t know the basics and they are not adequately taught the technical fundamentals of the game.

I’m not sure of the actual numbers, but I have heard a statistic that there are 17,000 qualified coaches in Germany, and 900 in England. Here’s an article which suggests England has nearly 3,000, but Spain has nearly 24,000, Italy nearly 30,000 and Germany nearly 35,000. People blame the English premiership and the influx of foreign players, but that’s nonsense. Why would spend the earth for an overseas star if you were spoilt for choice domestically?

In 50 years’ time, China will probably be the nation that tops all the sports it chooses to compete seriously in. Fifty years ago it wasn’t playing table tennis, now they are comfortably the best nation, and the Chinese diaspora declare for many other countries, making up a huge proportion of the world’s top 100 players, men and women. They have some serious numbers, and a totalitarian government with the will and resources to capitalise on the immense political kudos of being the world’s best at something.

You might think there are exceptions to this, like New Zealand rugby’s All Blacks. It’s a population of nearly 4.5 million. But, rugby is the national sport, they invest heavily in coaches – their coaches hold great jobs across the rugby world – and they have decent facilities. They also have their pick of some of the best giants in the islands like Samoa, Fiji and Tonga to bolster their numbers. My celtic chums will hate me for it, but that’s why England are always there or thereabouts in rugby world cups. The largest playing population in the world and lots of dosh are a pretty powerful cocktail.

It always seems a shame that some true geniuses of sport happen to be from small nations. In football terms, think of Northern Ireland’s George Best, Wales’ Ryan Giggs and of course Liberia’s George Weah, a former world footballer of the year. They never experienced the playing on the global stage that their talent warranted. They never got to win the big global sporting event and be included in the pantheon of world’s greats in the way that Messrs Pele and Maradonna are.

Tags ,
Categories General
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »