Thinking About the Consequences of our Education System, Bullying, our Health System, Coach Azul, Cameron Harold and FREE Publicity

I listen to a lot of podcasts. I was listening to them while commuting to and from work. Then last year I suffered a back injury and I have been waiting at home, consuming pain medications and exercising for what seems like forever, for ACC to approve spinal fusion and a discectomy so that I can get back to work.

Around a week ago they notified me that they are not going to pay for the surgery on the basis that I have degeneration in my discs that was not caused by the injury. It ‘rendered them symptomatic’ and I am now waiting for an appointment with the Waitemata District Health Board, whilst working on a review claim with ACC, New Zealand’s Government Accident and Injury insurer, who I feel could have had me back at work 6 months ago. They are still covering me for the back strain, but my specialist has said that they have tried everything bar surgery. “We’ve painted ourselves into a corner” he said.

I’m told that the North Shore Hospital spine surgeon is fantastic, but they also told me they have to legally see me within 4 months. In other words, just because it says “urgent’ on your case file, doesn’t mean you will even get to speak to someone anytime soon.

So I’ve had a lot more time to listen to podcasts while exercising, strengthening my core, whilst awaiting the needed surgery I still need, so I can return to work. I suspect there are thousands of people like me, numbers that get recycled in meetings focused on saving money. Ironically, when I work I am saving citizens much more money, but I digress.

One of the podcasts I enjoy is from Azul Terronez called Born to Write. If you follow me, you know I am passionate about writing and storytelling as a means of sharing a message on my various blogs and books.

The latest podcast from Coach Azul really resonated with me. The guest was Cameron Harold, a writer, entrepreneur, business mentor and founder of the COO Alliance.

He talked about some struggles he had growing up when he was told that he was  not academically in the top 40% of students and how he battled in his mind with that through school and university.

His story to becoming an entrepreneur resonated with me but from a different perspective, particularly the education part. It fascinates me how education systems seem to fail at both ends of the spectrum, contrasting with today’s apparent dumbing down of some generations whist the skill levels that create our greatest achievements are held back, limited to those who often achieve despite the system, rather than by its design.

I was one of those kids who didn’t fit in school, particularly once I got to high school. This was not because I wasn’t in the top 40%, but because I was in the top 2%. I’m starting to write about it, but not at this stage for publication.

I used my smarts to survive in a school (being a good guitarist helped) where the height of success was failing exams and getting into the school rugby 1st 15. In my school an A+ meant getting bullied for showing up the other kids. We had streaming, but being in the ‘Ac 1’ class also put a target on the back of your head.

Even teachers who tried to encourage kids to do well were on occasion beaten up and thrown down stairwells because the kids they tried to help were embarrassed in front of their peers. I liked sport (I played in previous schools, hockey and club soccer when living in Holland) but the thought of having to stay at school a minute longer than I had to (for training) was anathema.

The podcast I listened to this morning was about getting FREE publicity. I learned similar lessons to Cameron Harold early in my career, when I was racing landyachts as a hobby sport, and I was looking for sponsorship to send a team from New Zealand to the USA.

Me on my Class 5 Winger on 90 Mile Beach

I needed publicity to attract sponsors for a sport where one minute you see the yachts racing over the sand on a long beach or on the tarmac of an air base; and for the next half an hour or so, you sit there waiting to see them briefly again as they would fly around a mark, crashing into each other on 2 wheels. It was a great spectator sport for about 4 minutes of each race that could take up to an hour and a half.

I did two things. I got a well worn small book from the library. I don’t recall what it was called but it may as well have been called “Get the coverage you want by giving the media what they want”.

One of the things it said to do was to ask them what they wanted. That seemed to simple but I did it. I rang radio sports journalists, I rang TV, I rang magazine editors and I rang newspaper sports writers. I introduced myself and gave a quick pitch of why I was ringing, explaining the challenges of a fast exhilarating sport, with yachts on wheels doing over 100 kph on the beach that no one had heard of.

Next thing I found myself in the newsroom of the New Zealand national daily, speaking with the Sports Editor. End result, they got some great stories, we got global TV coverage, we got international magazines and radio stories, we got sponsors and our team (unfortunately I had to pull out at the last minute) went to the Nevada Desert and won the America’s Cup of Land Yachting! And I learned how to get more than my fair share of media coverage for my employers and my modest entrepreneurial ventures.

Ironically listening to Cameron’s story, and despite being very gifted intellectually, I didn’t do any university study until much later in life, because I spent many of those teenage years rebelling against a system that had no place for bright people. I’ve had a pretty exciting life so far and I feel I have made a strong contribution in my endeavours, but I also wonder if I didn’t live in the land of Tall Poppy Syndrome, how much more I could have achieved if the education system had acted on what they discovered about me and nurtured it.

Which sort of brings me back full circle to my ailing back. I have now sat down too long writing this and need to do some stretches and exercise as I wait for my number to be called by the Waitemata District Health Board for my first specialist meeting, so I can have my surgery and get back to my job. When you’re a number in the system, a few pages in a manilla folder, you are equally invisible if you want to work and be productive as someone who will quite happily live on a benefit.

Does any of this resonate with you?

 

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How to Make Money from your Photos AND How to get more interest from Google to your blogs

I have joined a photo site called PicFair which is a stock image site which is a bit different to others. I have done a number of paid photography gigs which is great AND a long time ago. I had one good sale to Getty’s when some boats ran aground in Auckland after a storm, like this one which I took outside Fergus McCormack’s Kayak and Skate Hire in Mission Bay. But mostly the money goes to the famous photographers or get used for free, often via social media.

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to complete the metadata on hundreds of photos that I have taken over the years, but never got around to it and never really saw the reason why I should. This morning in the shower I was listening to the Home Business podcast which featured Elaine Rau AKA LadyBlogger, who had some great information about SEO.

So the key to it was how important the metadata is that you have on your photos because Google doesn’t just look at the content and keywords in your blog, it also looks at your links and the data behind your photos.

So I love sharing my photos (and I’d love to make some pocket money from the images if I can so I can perhaps put it towards a new camera, although these days you can of course take amazing pictures from your mobile (and PicFair is happy to take those too). A disclaimer here, the link I have shared is an affiliate link. That doesn’t mean you would make a cent less if you use it, but if you do use it and sell photos, I can benefit too and of course you can do the same if you sign up.

Anyway I just wanted to share that info and from now on I will include metadata in my photos before I publish them in a blog or on a photo site. In the coming week, I have recorded the video below showing not only how to do that, but also how to work out what keywords to actually use using a fantastic new tool I discovered last week called Ubersuggest. I demonstrate how I used it in this video.

This is Intimidating! I Need Help! A Cancer Journey EP/Video to Help Others Sounded Easy.

The entrance to the radiation therapy room at Mercy Hospital, the start of my days for 8 weeks

Do you know anyone with cancer, depression or other debilitating conditions? Do you suffer yourself? Perhaps, like me you have a health condition yourself; and like me want to create something positive out of it, including coping strategies and fighting to find yourself back.

Would you like to be part of something that resonates with your values and help support me on this HAG (Hairy Audacious Goal)?

Yesterday I posted about Item #2 of 150 on my Life List inspired by Danny Dover author of the Minimalist Mindset, other books I have read like The Happiness Trap, podcasts like The Hidden Why by Leigh Martinuzzi, people I saw on TV programs like The Voice who had been on much tougher journeys than me and dared to dream of achieving lofty goals during the time I have been on my prostate cancer journey.

With the help of some good friends and family, some also still suffering from cancer I dragged myself out of feeling sorry for myself and decided that number #2 on my 150 long Life List of values based activities would be to created an EP and Video set of songs that were part of my catharsys and development, such that it will resonate with and help other cancer sufferers and their friends, family and support network.

I’m wondering if I have created a monster. How will I achieve this and 149 other things to boot, let alone find the energy for it, without detracting from my day job, which I can’t financially do without (and am passionate about)? How will I achieve this when I still frequently have to be woken up in the evening after my day at the office?

The answer, which is the same one as my cancer journey is that I can’t do it alone. In order to help other people, I need help from a team of people with a rich source of experience and some that can help with less specialist areas of support. Everything from project planners, musicians, vocalists, videographers to sound engineers, artists, production, social media, marketing and crowdfunding. Are you one of those?

I also just need supporters who can help spread the word, connect with members of the team, make cups of tea (or Texas Honey), run around after us and keep us on track and provide emotional support. We’ll need studio’s, technology, sound gear, meeting space, This is a pay it back or pay it forward exercise and should be a lot of fun.

Just since yesterday, I have already had firm offers of help from people, which is awesome and I will take them up on it. I’m going to need a pretty big team with a wide range of skills and it’s a labour of love, a not for profit venture.

Check out this short video with Danny Dover and see if it resonates with you. Is your life meaningful? For some of us it takes a reminder of our mortality and human condition to force change. Then you have to do something about it. You might like to take a similar journey and if you do, some elements may overlap. I’d love it to be this one.

So, this morning I started documenting what I am going to have to do in order to achieve this goal and it is huge. It could almost be a full time job in itself, which  is intimidating, but if I can find plenty of experts in different fields who will support me and donate time and energy; and find funds for the parts that I have to pay for, I’m going to make this happen. I’ve done it before with The Wireless Forum, Glenfield Music Centre, parents committees, sport club committees, Auckland ICT, SMEI International and more, all while keeping down a job. Anyway:

This is what I came up with for starters and it’s by no means complete:

Plan for Cancer Music EP / Video Project

1. Concept Document and elevator pitch
2. What help do I need at each phase of the project
   1. How can I even do it while keeping my job and energy?
   2. Project Manager
3. People or organisations that can help me
   1. People who have raised their hands
   2. Influencers
   3. People I would like to approach for help
   4. Mentors
4. Finance
   1. How much do I need?
   2. Where do I get it from?
5. The songs
   1. Finish them
   2. Practice them
   3. Write a story about each one
6. What do I need for each song
   1. Record basic demos
   2. Identify the sounds I want for each song
   3. What instruments / vocals do I want for them
   4. Find artists
   5. Find a producer
   6. Find a studio
      1. Engineer
      2. Mastering
   7. Record in conjunction with videos
   8. Video the entire process, not just the songs
7. The video/s
   1. What is the story for the whole production
   2. What is the story for each song
   3. Find a videographer
   4. Write each song story
   5. Find an editor
   6. Production team
8. Presentation
9. Publishing
10. Marketing
    1. Facebook Page
    2. Promo/merchandise
    3. Raising awareness
11. Launch event and concert gifting the outcome to the Cancer Society
    1. How would they use or benefit from it?
    2. How will it reach patients and their supporters?
    3. How will it endure

Want to be on the team?

Why Would You Want an Amazon Echo and Who Else is Listening

How do you feel about a device that is listening to everything that is being said in your home or office and is connected to the Internet? Especially in this age of cyber terrorism,  when we know that criminals already use tools like Facebook to target people with easy to steal and easy to sell assets.

How do you feel when Gmail bombards you with advertisements for products you have just bought or vacation location deals when you have just returned home from that place? Besides being a waste of time because you already have those things, it shows how Google (in return for giving you free email software and storage) has access to everything you write using their freeware.

So when Amazon had their massive sale on Prime Day, I thought about the Amazon Echo and wondered what I would do with it if I had one and why.

I very occasionally use Siri to save a reminder, a note, perhaps in the car to reduce the risk of having pen and paper in my hand when the lights change, or illegally using my phone because of the inherent risks, even at a traffic light. No joke, my wife has had 2 cars she was driving totalled, both while she was legally stationary at a red light. I’m not saying she could have avoided them, she couldn’t, but the people who hit our cars were certainly not paying attention.

So when I take Siri, and I have to admit it has improved in it’s ability to understand my Kiwi accent, the number of times I have said one thing and Siri has randomly rung a phone number for someone I had no desire to speak with and the fact that Siri has even randomly responded to a sound it heard, when I hadn’t even touched my phone is interesting.

I would love to have an automated home. When I got home last night from dinner in the freezing cold city it was around 6 degrees inside our house and I said to my wife how nice it would be if I could have turned on the heat pump via my phone. It has a timer, but we didn’t know when we would be home and I’m sure we could get an electrician to wire a remote switch into that circuit without having to buy a new heat pump, but I digress.

When everything I write makes a permanent footprint on the Internet and the supplier of that service has access to it all in order to ‘assist me’, I struggle with why I would want another device listening to everything I say.

Imagine living in a country like North Korea where you can be put in jail or worse for just saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, and then having a device that YOU PURCHASED providing access to every word that you said in the ‘privacy of your own home’.

Now I know that Amazon is not a spy agency, they can’t afford for this product to risk your privacy because if it did, they could go broke, but they do want to know what you are interested in and devices like these are supposed to be your personal digital assistant. I used to have an executive assistant in one of my jobs and she knew what I wanted or needed often before I did. It was awesome because I knew and trusted her. this device has to listen, even for the Alexa command to work, so technically it is listening to every word, even if in theory it is identifying most as not relevant.

The biggest issue for me with devices like this, which was also why I digressed a little with the heatpump, is that hacking or cyber crime is easy if you know how,or are prepared to pay someone to do it for you. Whether it is hacking someone’s wireless internal garage door or front door, checking Facebook to see who has a boat in the their back yard AND is on holiday overseas is really simple, because most people don’t know how to or don’t want privacy, because they don’t realise the risk.

I read a CBS story this morning about how some cheap Chinese mobiles are apparently surreptitiously sending information from the mobiles back to China using firmware that was in the phones from the factory.

You could say that Alexa can only be woken by people using the word Alexa, then it starts listening for instructions. So what is the first thing that is going to happen when you buy one of these devices? You’re going to tell your friends about it and show it off, so you are going to be using the word frequently and waking it up frequently and it will start listening.

For now I think I’d at least like to be able to use the fingerprint recognition on my phone and tap a button to turn on an appliance if I can’t be bothered standing up to do something like turn on a light. I am happy that I can have a wireless remote system with security algorithms to do that. I’m not sure I want Amazon or a hacker to be able to listen to everything said in my home and then using data mining tools to look for keywords or information that could be used by criminals, or by advertisers to send me more info I don’t want.

How about you?

 

Give me Strength on my Cancer Journey

One of my friends kindly donated to my Relay For Life  event this morning which runs on the 25th and 26th of March and he made a comment to me which was “Stay Strong”.

 

I wanted to share my reply to him with you. My beautiful granddaughter gave me this rock to put a smile on my face.

 

I literally carry it in my pocket every day to represent strength and when I’m tired or having a tough day (which is pretty much when I’m tired which is most days) I give it a squeeze and feel the strength and solidity of this empathetic gift.

 

It is like a taonga to me. Maybe a little of her tiny bit of her Maori ancestry will rub off it into me; as she can trace her lineage to the canoe Mataatua. It’s not a magic bullet, but I feel love, hope and strength in this little rock, just as I feel it from my friends and family who have donated to my Relay For Life campaign and in many other ways.

 

My granddaughter at one of our first Relay’s. The bag which she decorated contains an LED candle representing hope and remembering loved ones who had or have cancer.

Over the last couple of years I have learned about the strength that comes from having a network of people who care for each other, like those who still send me text messages encouraging me to play guitar. They have been so successful that I have written my second cancer related song and have been playing every day, but because I haven’t had the energy to play for the last year, even an average of 10 minutes every day has given me a bit of tendonitis and with a jam session coming up in a few weeks that I am really looking forward to, I am having to give it a rest for a few days.

I get messages like this every day

I get messages like this every day.

I don’t want to name names, but you know who you are, there are a number of very close friends and a colleague who are way worse off than I am with their battles with cancer and ironically they are right there supporting me. I hope that I have been able to help them a little as well.

I’d like to finish with a little story and I know I get long winded, sorry:) I had two days this week when I really shouldn’t have gone to work, but I had really important meetings. Anyway on Friday I decided to do a little meditation on HeadSpace. I’m not good at meditation and I’m on day 3 of a 10 day program I started a couple of months ago.

So anyway, I go down to the carpark at 2PM for a quick 10 minutes of meditation. About 25 minutes later I get woken up by a very concerned colleague tapping on my window who saw me sitting in my car with my eyes closed and wanted to check if I was OK. Again, that’s another example of the support that is so important and I really appreciate it. As to HeadSpace, the first 10 days are free and you don’t have to use it every day. I like it and understand why so many famous people recommend it. If it works for me, it will work for just about anyone.

So thanks to those of you who are giving me strength with donations to Relay, sending me positive messages or simply asking how I’m doing. For others who are at various stages of your fight with cancer, I am thinking of you, ready to help in any way I can and as I walk around and around the track at the Millennium Centre, your names will be on my lips, in my mind and in some cases on my back on the awesome singlets Empire Promotions have had made for Team Early Birds. Note the number 17 is made up of the names of all the people we are walking for. 

Auckland Kindle Buyers at Dick Smith Beware if You Want to Read Library Books

I have a Kindle, the latest model WiFi 4GB which I bought from Amazon, cheaper than I could buy it locally, which sort of goes to the story I posted this morning about retailers who struggle to cope with change in the way people buy products, i.e. competing with online sales. My wife and I both have iPads, but for reading on long trips or after a day on the computer, I really like the Paperwhite because it isn’t back-lit, so doesn’t cause eye strain.

I am also a happy customer of Auckland Libraries, mostly downloading audio books which I listen to while driving or doing chores like mowing the lawn.

My wife decided after seeing myself and one of our children getting great value from our Kindles, that she would like one too. With the Auckland libraries also having an excellent collection of digital eBooks, I thought this would be a great opportunity for us to get real value, so I went to Dick Smith Electronics in downtown Auckland to see if it was worth buying locally.

Just inside the door is a Point of Sale unit with a Kindle Paperwhite, same model I own and an old model original Kindle Fire (which I understand was superseded quite a long time ago). I looked at the feature display sheet and it says that Kindles including the Paperwhite will allow you to read public library books. Now that isn’t strictly wrong because I know someone who reads them, but they are from Australian libraries. I wanted to confirm whether I could download eBooks from the Auckland libraries onto a Paperwhite. The salesman couldn’t tell me, he was going to check for me, but couldn’t confirm anything and ended up with another client while I went on my iPad to look it up. I asked him to check it out for me. Obviously it was confusing because their POS clearly said I could read library books. When he couldn’t give me an answer, I asked who could. He said that the merchandisers were the people who dealt with the POS so I asked if I could talk to them. That wasn’t possible, so I asked who the distributor was that they worked for. He said they are actually Dick Smith Electronics staff!

Here’s what I found on the Auckland Libraries website. So, given that I wanted to buy a Kindle for my wife, I asked the sales person, when he eventually returned to me to let me see a Kindle Fire to find out whether it would be better on the eye that the iPad, because I didn’t want to buy the Paperwhite at $179 if it couldn’t download the library eBooks.

The sales person said he was sorry, but he couldn’t show me a Kindle Fire because they didn’t have one out of the box; and he couldn’t open a new one because then it wouldn’t be new. I told him in that case he had lost a sale because I wasn’t going to buy one if I couldn’t try it out and see if it was fit for purpose. It’s hard to be a customer at Dick Smith Electronics. I left the store without a purchase. I tweeted that they had lost a sale.

In hindsight I could have bought one because under the Sale of Goods Act, if it wasn’t fit for the purpose I had described to the sales person, I could have brought it back for a full refund. He could have even suggested that, but he didn’t. I also live about 12km from the store and it would be a real hassle if I had to take it back. I hate to think what the customer service level would be for a return after that experience. So my wife still doesn’t have a Kindle.

I subsequently got a Twitter message from Dick Smith Customer Service saying that someone would give me a ring within 2 working days. As you can see, that was just over 2 weeks ago. I haven’t had a call or a message (in case I missed one) since.

So I’m probably going to buy another Paper-white Kindle from Amazon for US119 rather than NZ$179 or $199 depending on where you look, locally from Dick Smith and accept that we can’t download library books. We can buy books on one Kindle and share them with the other and Amazon also have subscription services which are pretty cool. I guess ultimately Dick Smith isn’t local anyway, they are Australian owned, I think, well listed anyway.

My real concern is, if you live in Auckland and you bought a Kindle Paperwhite because you read the POS which says you can read library books, you will find yourself disappointed. I have pointed it out to Dick Smith via Twitter, and the photo above saying you can, was taken in their store in downtown Auckland yesterday, so their in-store marketing hasn’t changed since I first brought it too their attention more than 2 weeks ago.

I did eventually talk to a librarian who confirmed that you cannot download and read library books from any Auckland libraries on a Kindle Paperwhite. It appears the reason you can ‘on some Kindle Fire’s’ is in fact because they are Android Tablets.

So what do you think. Does it help clarify why I sometimes buy things offshore instead of in local stores? Sometimes it’s actually easier.

Retailer Shuts Shop – Why Retailers Fail

I was sad to read a story in my local newspaper, North Shore Times about a Glenfield hardware store McPherson’s Hammer Hardware, which is going to close in a couple of months. Firstly I as going to share a link with you, but the aforementioned newspaper has a system that requires you sign up to their digital version if you want to share a story, and likewise, probably if you want to read from a link. I do not provide links for my readers to sites like that.

I used to live in Glenfield and visit this story and I remember asking them how they stay in business. The owner, John MacPherson told me it was about community, having those little things that the big stores make you buy in bulk, advice on how to do things, friendly service, remembering people’s names, the little things that come with community retail.

The newspaper story goes on to quote that he has probably hasn’t been making a profit for 6-7 years, but hung in there. He points out that the DIY super-stores and Internet have changed the game and that even the major stores/chains suffer from sluggish consumer spending.

He’s not wrong, but the key word is change. I love the world of retail, I used to have the privilege go to the NRF in New York and FMI Connect in Chicago and bring back ideas to write about in retail magazines, share with my resellers and speak about at conferences around the world. This was important because many of our retailers couldn’t afford to go to those conferences, but learning new ideas, particularly from people who have proven experience, is how business evolves.

It doesn’t really matter what business you are in, you have to evolve to meet the demands and opportunities presented as society evolves. As John said in the North Shore Times article, “In Glenfield we had a haberdashery (incorrectly spelled in the newspaper, I had to look it up to find out what it was), greengrocer, butcher, it was a great mix”. It went on to say they were boom times.

So here’s the thing, it is still boom times for those businesses that want to keep up with the times. The problem that retailers used to tell me was that they didn’t have time to keep up with the times. They were too busy starting early in the morning cleaning the shop, doing stock takes, placing and chasing orders, talking to merchandising reps, ringing customers to say their widget had arrived, preparing the float and a myriad of other things. In hindsight, those retailers, from John McPherson’s Hammer Hardware in Glenfield, through to Borders and other retailers should have found the time to look at how some businesses were thriving, while others weren’t.

When they went on their holidays, they could have combined them with visits to businesses and conferences that showed how some retailers were managing in the new world of mobile and tablet, of connected customers. They could have seen new products that aren’t available in NZ, they could have combined bricks and mortar with online themselves. I appreciate how hard it is to run a business, I have run several businesses over the years and worked in companies from small to multinational and the common thread is that those who looked ahead continue to do well, those who looked to their original training and just repeated what they had learned, which may have been best practice in the 70’s or whenever, will have done well for a while, but aren’t there any more.

People still want to have experiential retail, they still want to see and touch, ask questions, they even want to see people like John McPherson stick around and stay in business, but they can’t advise him on what to do to stay in business and get back into the black.It’s tough, but the time to get ahead in business is when you are ahead and you have the resources to go and do some training, bring in a consultant, go attend a conference. I used to speak regularly at retail conferences in New Zealand and what was really frustrating was that the people attending were those that needed it the least, because they were looking ahead and staying up with the times. The ones that needed it the most didn’t go, probably didn’t read the specialist trade magazines, ask their suppliers for knowledge or go to the trade shows. They were too busy. Now they are either out of business or heading out. Is it too late, not necessarily, but it will be much harder, even to change the mindset. When things get tough, many go even farther back into doing what they used to do, even doing it harder. That’s not the answer.

Back when business was booming for people like John McPherson, Bob Dylan was singing The Times They are a Changing. He was so right. “You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.” Listen to the lyrics, they are prophetic. But this is no different to 200 year ago. The times are always changing.

We are still buying all the things we used to buy and more. Some business models have been and gone, but others are growing in a big way. We are still a DIY country, that’s why we have the mega stores, but there is still room for specialists, room to be a community and have community involvement in business, there are so many opportunities. Whether it is classes at the back of the store teaching people how to do things, or a new section selling 3D printers and teaching kids how to make things, using location based mobile services to find people who are looking for what you have, supplementing your business by selling items you can’t afford to stock, online.

I’ll finish with a question. Why is it that I can buy a set of my favorite guitar strings online from a retailer in the USA, 75% cheaper than the same product in New Zealand? The local retailer will say that’s because the guy in the USA doesn’t have a shop to run. But the fact is they do, Elderly Instruments has a bricks and mortar store in Lansing, Michigan, they have bands playing in it, they have workshops for musicians, they just supplement that with online sales. I recently contacted them because I couldn’t get help from local retailers to fix a broken part on my Dobro. I had personal emails, just the same service that John provides in his hardware store and I’ve managed to repair it myself with the parts they sold me. Doing business with them was so easy. If I lived in Michigan, I would go and by from their store and I’d even be prepared to pay a little more, heck I’d buy more anyway just because I like doing business with them and they like what they do and know what they are talking about.

So I’ll finish on a saying that is one that has killed many a good retail business. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Have a look around you right now and ask yourself how many of the things you take for granted would be there if everyone had said that back in 1970, let alone 1870?

Martin Fenwick Should be Gruntled Right Now

Last week I had the privilege of attending a training program run by Martin Fenwick, author of The Change Factor: Insights For Leaders of Change. As a subscriber of my blogs including SoLoMo Consulting and The Future Diaries, you will know that change has been a major motivating factor in my life as a futurist, right back to the promise made to me and my contemporaries, that my problem in the future would be what to do with my spare time, as automation took care  of the majority of our human workloads.

I am passionate about change and the need for traditional businesses to embrace and create change, less it be foisted on them by a competing business model. Some examples of my thoughts on the book industry that you may have previously read are here.

Anyway, I am also passionate about languages and particularly the English language, whether it is new TXT language which can have me ROFLMAO, grokking people or in this case we were wondering if there was a word gruntled, being the opposite of dis-gruntled. One of my colleagues checked on her iPhone and sure enough, there is such a word and it is in all the dictionaries.

I was interested to read on Merriam-Webster that it was first known to be used in 1926. I thought it would have gone back way farther. Never mind. The conversation went on to influence and we thought it would be interesting if we could get other people using it. I, typically suggested that I would see if I could spread it’s use with a #hashtag, which I have duly started doing. So if you look for #gruntled it is likely to stem back to a tweet or a Facebook post from me, which was motivated by the training session with Martin Fenwick.

Why bother? Why do people do flash-mobs or climb mountains? Because it can be fun and interesting. One of the things that really interests me and that I frequently research is fads and trends. How do they start? How are people influenced? What makes some things work and others not? How can you get people to do things that are good for the community (such as pay attention to recommendations about real time traffic and helping avoid congestion).

So here’s your task. Leave a comment or post a tweet with the hashtag #gruntled. RT or share this post and lets see if we can’t get people using the word. It could be a great conversation starter for you. I’m feeling gruntled today, how about you? If you think it’s a cool idea, tell him so on Twitter. Let him know you’re pretty gruntled about it.

Does Your Business Have CIPA? (Read Time 82 Seconds)

I’m just finishing the book Socialized by Mark Fidelman. It is one of the better books I have read of late about harnessing social media. Many of these books date very quickly, but the information in this 2012 book is still very relevant and I recommend you read a copy.

Towards the end Mark relates the story of a girl who suffers from Congenital Insensitivity to Pain, aka CIPA. It was an analogy to businesses who are heading down the gurgler at a rate of knots and don’t even realize it. Those of you who read my blogs will know about how frustrated I was to see Borders self implode, when they didn’t need to. As I mentioned earlier this week, many businesses are being hurt but not realizing it, or not knowing what to do about it. It’s that frog in the pot of simmering water. We all know the story, but many of us are sitting in that pot, enjoying the warmth and then getting severely cooked.

In my experience, it is people who aren’t institutionalized in your business who you need to talk to. If it’s not consultants like myself, at least talk to your customers, the ones you have left. Ask them why they come to your business. What is it that drew them in and how can you give them what they want and stay profitable?. I had loads of answers for the book industry, but they ‘knew what they were doing”. They focused on best sellers, general merchandise goodies and even fluffy toys. The questions you need to ask have to be qualitative, don’t give them choices you think they should answer, have conversations with them. Or get out quick and sell your business to someone while it still has some value. I still maintain if I had been on the management team or board of Borders in NZ, they wouldn’t have floundered, they would have risen like a phoenix out of the ashes of the past and their stores would be full of people, in many cases still buying paper.

Do does your business have CIPA? Are your margins declining, is your stock-turn going down? Are people buying similar products online instead of from you? Are your customers slowly churning to other sources or evolutions of the goods and services you offer? What have you done to future proof your business? As I said in my other blog earlier this week, people are reading more, listening to more music and taking more photos daily than ever before.

Got any questions? Feel free to leave them as comments and maybe we can have a discussion about this.

Who Is Buying Your Personal Information and the Internet of Things?

Who owns your personal information? Who gives companies the right to collect data about you, your family, your friends, your activities, where you live, what you eat, drink, your health, how you travel? Somewhere along the line you probably did, because you didn’t read, or understand the fine print when you signed up for an application, an email newsletter, a loyalty card, or you aren’t worried about your privacy.

There has been much talk about the NSA, and big data monitoring systems in most countries around the world designed to protect us all from terrorism. There has been a lot of talk about how privacy is being eroded with social media. Many of us have the philosophy that if we don’t do anything wrong, we have nothing to hide. But who else is collecting, buying and selling personal information about you?

A recent story in The Futurist called ‘Connecting with our Connected World captured my attention, particularly when it outlined, from a Wall Street Journal article,  apparently fairly common knowledge, that many retail stores track personal shopping habits using loyalty cards and then resell the data to marketers. The Wall Street Journal article ‘confirmed’ that this same data is now being purchased by insurance companies for the purpose of setting premiums and investigating claims.

With the Internet of Things (IoT), we are now being encouraged to buy fridges with built in bar code readers and wireless connectivity, so that we can scan items we use and feed them to our shopping list. Many of us now have grocery applications, such as the Countdown app, which I have blogged about before in my SoLoMo Consulting blog.These apps monitor what you buy, suggest specials, recipes and even navigate you up and down the aisles of your nearest supermarket so you don’t have to backtrack for things you forgot.

As Richard Yonck of Intelligent Future LLC in Seattle points out in The Futurist, “the rate at which a household consumes sugar, salt, tobacco and alcohol would potentially be an open book.” What could your health insurer infer from that?

It names them

Combine the information from your mobile apps that know your location, where you have given permission (which is probably half of the apps you use today), your climate control, light controls (that suggest you might be home, or not), fitness apps, social media (freely searchable with tools like Facebook Graph like the example which names people who like Edam cheese,) the direction Google and Apple are heading, to be able to predict what services you may want next based on your context, profile, time and location, your life is an open book today.

The problem with all this big data that we are ‘willingly’ sharing, is that we really don’t know what we are agreeing to or what the data is being used for. I don’t believe we have adequate laws nationally or internationally to protect us from abuse of this data by any agency, business, government department, insurance company, utility company, finance company, the list is infinite.

According to a story in The Public Herald it’s pretty much a free for all. For example they say:

• Experion sells data updated weekly on new parents, new homeowners and other new event life triggers.
• Have a read of what information Epsilon sells in this PDF. Who reads Science Fiction novels? Ever wondered why your phone keeps ringing with charities asking for donations? They buy lists.
• Back to the Public Herald which says that Disney sells data including who bought what, the age and gender of the children, age and occupation of the people who purchased from them and more.

These are just scratching the surface. It isn’t necessarily all bad, the problem is that there doesn’t appear to be any authority tracking who shares what information with whom. The issues come down to informed consent. When you sign a form, enter a competition online with an attractive prize and you click, ‘yes, you can share my information with partners who may have items of interest to me’ perhaps because you think you might have a higher chance of winning the prize, you are losing control of your data.

There are laws designed to protect us from spam, but we often sign away rights without understanding the implications. Companies selling our data will argue that they have our approval to use and share our information. The flow of data will become so convoluted that it will become impossible to know who has what. Big Data companies will consolidate this data also with our ‘implied’ approval.

Governments need to be thinking about this now, if it is not already too late. Of course they arguably need the data as well in order to provide quality health, education and other services, including planning future smart cities. They need as much data as possible, although they don’t in many cases need the granular level down to individual people.

So as a footnote, think about all the cool Internet of Things you are buying over the next couple of years, like exercise devices, remote controlled security cameras and home access, climate control, sleep and snoring monitors, lighting, car telematics, electronic ticketing for public transport and much more, weigh up the cool with potential risk and consider that if legitimate organizations can access your data, so potentially can people wanting to commit crimes. It is already known that burglars steal product to order based on what they find on social media apps like Facebook (had a great weekend on the jet ski and now I’m off to Fiji for a couple of weeks and I’m putting the dogs in a kennel).