When I was a young boy growing up in the 70’s, I wanted to be “The Man from UNCLE” and this was in no small way due to the gadgets you received on becoming a secret agent. Chief among these were the X-ray glasses and in those innocent days seeing through walls was all I wanted to do. Of course as I became a teenager I threw away those childish fantasies and instead wanted to see through clothing.

Now that dream is a reality – well a virtual reality, in the form of an iPhone application that enables the user to see people naked. But don’t take my word for it, check out the video:

And if that isn’t enough for you and you really do want the x-ray glasses you can now get them – although they will set you back about $2,400 US. Check this out: http://www.advanced-intelligence.com/goggles.html

The 4th annual customer engagement report has been published by CScape and I was privileged to be asked to contribute to the report by Richard Sedley, the director of the Customer Engagement Unit. The report can be downloaded from EConsultancy’s website and is free to members and £150 for non-members. A “highlights” report of the key findings can be read at Issuu.

Sooner or later any, and probably every blogger, will pull out a reference to the Gutenberg press. Now it’s my turn. The Gutenberg press was probably the single most important invention in modern times. It came on to the scene in about 1440 and by 1499 approximately 15 million books had been printed across some 3,000 titles. The development of the world wide web comes close and has had a similar dramatic impact on the distribution of knowledge to the masses. Not so, however the electronic book reader.

Kindle was launched in 2007 and on August 25th, as reported by various publications including the Economist, Sony has launched their latest challenger. In the same article it is also reported that “according to some estimates more people use Apple’s iphone to read digital texts than use Kindle”. To me this is no surprise and is the classic single function product problem.

It is as if electronic book readers have been developed by book lovers rather than technology companies. For the same reason the born digital generation don’t wear watches (their mobile phones provide them with the time as well as a range of other functions) they also won’t buy ebook readers. They may well come to buy a device that reads eBooks in an accessible and pleasurable way but also plays audio and video files, store photos, accesses the internet, tells the time and various other tasks but that appears not to be what eBook reader manufactures are producing.

The Gutenberg press created the opportunity to share all the information in the world in the best format available at the time. It happened to be a single function device – printed material. Today’s information requirements are far broader and the sooner eBook reader manufacturers realise they are competing with mobile phones, mini laptops, internet watches, and a whole host of other wearable and static technologies the sooner the consumer will start parting with their cash.

I am on holiday this week and right now I am sat pool side in the beautiful Tenerife resort of Los Gigantes. As usual I am trying to read a book, a page at a time, as I juggle the (not entirely unreasonable) demands of my three children with my own needs. The book I am reading is by three time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L. Friedman titled “The World is Flat”.

It is an excellent book and even though I am only half way through I have found it thought provoking and informative. It is a must read for anyone in business now, whether large or small. My only reservation is that in many ways the book is ahead of its time – despite the various current and historical examples and case studies.

As I write, the third day of the fifth Ashes test is about to get under way. Last night England bowled Australia out for 160. In an ideal world, I’d like to log in to my Sky Player and watch the 3rd day unfold – but I can’t. The licensing laws apparently won’t allow it so despite paying my monthly subscription, Sky is getting two weeks of my money for very little service delivery. In a truly flat world I would be able to access any of my entertainment services wherever I am and when ever I want to.

One of the stories in the book is about Friedman’s daughter searching addresses through Google by using phone numbers and considering her Mum to be almost backward when she asks if she has brought an address book. That was 2004 and I wonder now what would be the expectations of her and other teenagers like her?

I am far from being a teenager and I am already impatient for a flatter world. I am having to type this blog post in open office writer and then copy and paste it in to the blog because the Internet connection is so unstable. Even if it were stable I still couldn’t do what I want to and access my paid for entertainment.

The world may well be flat if you are UPS, Google or Infosys, but if you are an individual there are still quite a few bumps in the road. Having said that, the fact I can sit here, pool side on my laptop and access the Internet at all, is a world away from just a few years ago. In another 5 years I would expect the connections issues to be a thing of the past. Licensing however, is a political issue that won’t go away any time soon.

Hi just interviewed Paul Weald of RXP and Penny Downs, Customer Service Manager at Arsenal FC about multi-media contact centres. Full version will be available at Foviance website soon but an area we explored a little during the interview and more afterwards was “change”.

Arsenal has introduced some funky new web technologies and call centre systems to enable them to provide a joined up customer experience and it seems they have the same passion for being the best off the pitch as they do on it (opinions will vary on this). Interestingly Penny felt that the people change was the most important factor in the entire programme and one area they were yet to cover off was that of the Stewards on match day.

Penny explained that the Stewards are employed by the facilities and security department but have a major impact on customer satisfaction at the ground. The priorities however are not aligned with those of the customer satisfaction team and so this is a new area of focus her.

At another club Paul was able to refer to a similar programme just beginning where they have engaged with the head of security from the outset – something Penny on reflection, would have liked to do. Although it has taken significant time and effort they have managed to turn and major detractor in to a major advocate. The results are starting to be seen on match days with Stewards extending their role from purely security and safety to customer satisfaction.

The start point for the change programme was addressing an organisation that was silo’d and completely lacking in a joined up approach to customer experience. Arsenal has managed to address this and the improvements are impressive, particularly in the area of productivity and cost saving which in these tough times many will be interested in.

What concerns me is how difficult it is to scale this type of programme up. Arsenal FC is relatively small operationally and located in one place. Transfer their challenge to a major retailer or bank and the change programme becomes enormous. As we find in our work, even getting someone to own the overall problem is a challenge and yet the benefits are substantial. I still hope that the recession will force the change that is necessary but time is running out.

What's the big problem?

I recently interviewed Ashley Friedlein for a Podcast for Foviance and the subject of Twitter came up. Ashley and Econsultancy have found an application for Twitter which fixes a problem that many organisations face when trying to get feedback from event or conference attendees.

Ashley explained that whilst they give out feedback forms at every event the response is often poor. Having filled out a few myself, the timing never quite seems right. You often get the form at the beginning of the day and are reminded to complete it at the end. By then I can barely remember which conference I am at let alone how well the individual speakers have performed.

So the solution Econsultancy have come up with is the provide a Twitter “#” tag at the event and to collect input via Twitter during the conference. It relies of course on the venue providing suitable wi-fi or gps reception and despite popular opinion, not everyone uses Twitter so it may not address the entire audience for every type of conference. But, for EConsultancy and the type of digital marketeers they attract I can see it being a viable solution. Thankfully, they haven’t gone as far as putting the comments up on a big screen behind the speaker which could be the modern equivalent of throwing rotten vegetables at an unpopular performer.

Whether there is a revenue model in it for Twitter is unclear. It could be that #-tags are able to be sold and therefore made unique – a current flaw in the approach is anyone can use the same #-tag. One thing I feel certain about is that 140 characters is more than sufficient to provide meaningful feedback about the conference experience.

I was at a lecture recently by Sir Ken Robinson. If you have read my posts before you will know I am a fan but I’d like to make it clear I stop short of stalking him. I did get to meet him this time and he is as enthusiastic and personable one on one as he comes across when speaking and he didn’t put a restraining order on me to boot!

Sir Ken was promoting his new book “The Element” which builds on some of the themes in his last book “Out of our minds” – a review of which you can read in the “what I am reading” section of my blog. (I’ll post a review of The Element when I have read it). During the talk we were asked to put up our hands if we were over 25 and to keep them up if we were wearing a wrist watch. A lot of hands went up and nearly all of them remained up. Next the under 25’s were asked to the same question and although there were fewer of them most of the hands went down when they were asked if they were wearing a watch.

The under 25’s don’t wear watches because they use their mobile phones or other similar digital devices to provide them with accurate information about time. And these devices provide a multitude of other functions that their watch doesn’t. Why carry a compact digital camera and a phone with a decent digital camera built in? You wouldn’t and the same argument, for the young at least, applies to watches.

I have three children under the age of 11 and all of them have been given wrist watches over the years as birthday and Christmas presents but they never wear them. Time at that age, is not important and Mum provides all the scheduling they need. Although I agree with Harwood E. Woodpecker in his blog post “The Wrist Watch and the Digital Age” where he talks about parents using watches and in particular he says Casio Digital watches, to make “our children slaves to time”.

However I think his argument is outdated in device terms. Parents that want to know where their kids are and make sure they come home on time will give them mobile phones and although we are resisting, it is not uncommon at my daughters school for girls as young as nine to carry a mobile phone. There is a dual benefit to this situation. Kids get a device that is cool (like the Casio digital wrist watch once was) and parents make them become slaves not only to time but also to being always available.

The ideas intrigued me and I began to wonder what this could mean for watch manufacturers? As a jewellery item or a statement about our status I should think the watch will have a long life but this is quite a niche market. In 70 years the last of the  mainstream watch wearers will be all but gone and how many people in their autumn years get a new watch other than as a retirement gift?

However if we think about the evolution of the watch it moved from pocket to wrist in the 1920’s and this was for reasons of fashion where women were concerned and the practical demands of war for men. If practical needs drove the humble watch from pocket to wrist could they do the same for the mobile phone? With this in mind I searched for “wrist watch of the future” to learn what developments were taking place.

First item I came across was for the Windows watch of the future which comes complete with Windows CE 5.0, 1.45-inch screen, GPRS, network camera and/or 1.3-megapixel digital camera, Wi-Fi connection, Bluetooth, up to 1 gigabyte of T-flash memory and it also supports Skype, MSN and other applications. And just in case this is actually a joke I also found that HP have a bunch of designers that have actually brainstormed ideas for the watch of the future.

So it looks like the watch may not yet be dead although with the limitations of screen size it will be interesting to see whether what really develops is more an evolution of wearable technology. Thoughts anyone?

Pornography has been behind the rise in adoption of many media forms and is widely attributed with the growth of the Internet. So now, with the launch of iPorn (http://tube.iporn.com/static/iphone/) an iPhone porn site we will probably see an explosion (if I can still use that term) of mobile internet users.

So 2009 will finally be the year of mobile internet and we can all stop predicting each year that it will be this year. What a relief, finally we can get on with some real work. Now where is my iphone….

I love this. We are working with a financial services business (we work with many) and during the registration process you have to select a username. If you choose one that someone else already has the system offers an alternative. Here is what this system suggested:

Not so easy to memorise

The different name was input buy my colleague.

I thought this type of thing became extinct in 2002!

To me the problem goes beyond the initial feeling fo despair that any customer going through the registration process would feel at this point. What if an absent minded customer actually selects this user name? The support costs for the constant reminders and the damage to brand will go on and on. There can be no winners in this scenario and it is just lazy development.

This is brilliant! http://producten.hema.nl/ The website is from a Dutch retailer called HEMA. Their first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam and now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands . The link is to HEMA’s product page and although you can’t order anything and it’s in Dutch if you wait a couple of seconds things start to happen.