Customer First? Yeah, right.

I see, via the excellent Robert Brook mail-out (do please subscribe), that there’s another site out there trying to cut the biggest Gordian knot of all in the field of customer services. Of course customers want cheapness. Of course customers…

The problem with the TaxPayers’ Alliance

Or let me be more specific: my problem with the TPA. (Also applies to the Tea Parties of this world, and other proponents of what we might term small-state, individual-freedom libertarianism.) It’s this. At the very highest level of political/economic…

Nice one, Trevor Downing

Fate, and the vermin who buy and sell marketing lists, have a strange way of mocking. When money’s never been tighter, my name and address seem to have been tagged with the hilariously inaccurate description: “high net worth, definitely a…

Fare dealing

Remind me again: what’s the purpose of opening up all this public data? Ah yes, that’s it. To create value. And you can’t get a much stronger example of real value in the real world than showing people how to…

Virtually rational?

One of the most fascinating angles to emerge from the LA Fitness story is the differing perceptions people have of the value of goods and services. Specifically, much of the public support for the contract holder undergoing hardship seems to…

Petitions, targets and deadlines

What is it that really makes you sign a petition? I’ve given a lot of thought to this question today. Triggered by one particular petition that has seen an 11th hour surge of promotion through social networks. And I can’t…

Delightful

Doing a bit of writing. Couldn’t remember whether tax payer was one word or two. Didn’t want to bother @danosirra. Googling gave mixed results. And it wasn’t in the ever-reliable Guardian Style guide. So I dropped them a note: From:…

Buzz off

It started with this pre-Christmas story. [Minister says we should strongly oppose discrimination against teenagers. Particularly when it’s done using those mosquito device thingys.] Mosquitos? Those ultra-high-pitched teenager-deterring screeching devices that provoked all that press attention a few years back?…

Scroungers

Great word, isn’t it? And so many of them around, too. I mean, we all know one or two ourselves, don’t we? Don’t we? So, where to start with all this stuff…Mr Byrne and Mr Miliband seem but the latest…

Digital by default

As I write this, I’m sitting on a stationary train. In a station. The rail app on my phone tells me it’s the train I want. But the signs on the platform are totally blank. And the guy in uniform…

Can I take photos at the school play?

The very fine John the Lutheran has dug out and circulated some guidance that many people find themselves thinking about at this time of year: a few advisory notes from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on the fraught topic of…