Planet Marc

Converting to Metric

2009-01-05T05:00:00+00:00

Irish blogger infiltrates Washington DC

2009-01-04T19:35:16+00:00

From the blog of noted Irish blogger Grandad:

And from Wonkette, a US political blog which used to be one of the many, many, many old bits of Gawker which get thrown away once a year (this one is independent now, I think):

Coincidence, or something more? You decide.

Riding the "Best Descent"

2009-01-04T16:57:56+00:00

I've been enjoying a lot of off road riding these last few days now that I'm back home. I had to stop and take a picture of this today - one of the descents in our area. And yes, that is a huge drop to the left - later you actually skirt along the edge.

I had bone dry trails for the last few days, but today things started to get wet again :(

Oh, dear...

2009-01-04T16:26:27+00:00

Is it bad that I think Niles from Frasier is really cute?

The actual actor is in fact gay, but I think it's mostly the character's silly personality I like. If only he were a decade younger and non-imaginary...

For the record, I don't think Frasier or his dad are at all cute.

Spam in the 80s

2009-01-03T19:39:38+00:00

In an episode of Rumpole of the Bailey from 1983, Rumpole refers to a pile of uninteresting cases as 'legal spam'.

I hadn't realised common use of the word in that context was so old.

Dilbert Goes Official

2009-01-03T10:15:03+00:00

Over 200,000 of you subscribe to this feed, and after 5 short years, Dilbert.com finally has an official feed for you: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DilbertDailyStrip

They've also blocked access to the comic images, so you should update this feed address if you want to keep reading! Thanks for all your support over the years - dwlt.

I Know You're Listening

2009-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Twitter; less and less usable

2009-01-01T19:25:36+00:00

When I first started using Twitter, it was actually surprisingly fun and usable; messages would be delivered to your IM account, so you'd always see them and could reply easily.

Oh, how things have changed. Almost a year ago, IM delivery was temporarily suspended; at some point between then and now, all reference to it has vanished from their website. I'm a little puzzled at this, actually; you'd think that Jabber delivery, at least, would be more practical than the pull method used by the various Twitter clients. SMS delivery is also now unavailable in this country, but I can't say that I really mourn its passing that much; it was a bit annoying.

Oh, the clients. Without exception, every client I've tried is either very ugly, has very poor usability, or both. I'm currently using Twitteriffic on my home computer; it says a lot that the iPhone version of the same software is actually more usable than the desktop one. And yet it seems to be about the best available.

That's not saying much, though. It frequently has errors connecting, and when it does get messages, they come in batches, and are awkward to read through. As a result, I barely use the damn thing anymore; even Facebook status updates seem far more usable.

Anyone got any solutions to this? It seems to still be growing in popularity, so presumably there is some nice way to use it?

Party

2008-12-31T05:00:00+00:00

? Yo dawg? Place your bets now!" />? Yo dawg? Place your bets now!" />? Yo dawg? Place your bets now!" />? Yo dawg? Place your bets now!" alt="I wonder what 2008 meme will go bizarrely mainstream in 2009 like Rickrolling did 2007-2008. I Accidentally ? Yo dawg? Place your bets now!" />

Back in town after Christmas

2008-12-30T16:26:38+00:00

And rather bored; anyone fancy a drink or something?

It's weird being back, actually; I've had quite a relaxing few days.

Natural life?

2008-12-30T16:23:55+00:00

Question for any of you who may know a bit more about the law than me. The phrase 'natural life' is sometimes used in criminal sentencing. Erm, why? What does it mean? Does it raise issues for someone who is sentenced at a time when symptom X is considered a sign of medical death, if 20 years later people can be revived after suffering symptom X?

The Internet is oddly unhelpful on the subject.

Decline

2008-12-29T05:00:00+00:00

Waiting for the melt

2008-12-28T11:32:08+00:00

There has been a bit of a cold snap in Monaghan so I'm sitting here waiting for the sun to work it's magic.

Another blue skied day

Oh, no! The Church Van!

2008-12-28T03:43:27+00:00

Please note the last piece of hate mail (addressed to Richard Dawkins) here. "I hope you get hit by a church van tonight and die slowly."

THUS DIE ALL ENEMIES OF SISTER MARGARET.

Google Trends

2008-12-26T05:00:00+00:00

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T21:43:51+00:00

I hope all is having a nice Christmas. Mine started at 7:30am waiting for the kids to wake (my brothers family) to see what Santy brought - who would have thought that I would be up first - that would not have happened in my day! After that, a pre-dinner tempo road ride and then sitting around relaxing for the rest of the day - perfect, with more of the same tomorrow planned.

With 3,000 calories burned, it was time for food :)

Happy Christmas. Have a Glitter Melon.

2008-12-25T02:39:36+00:00

Behold, a Glitter Melon:

It's actually a normal (albeit enmeshed) melon onto which glitter from a very glittery Christmas decoration has fallen.

2008 Christmas Special

2008-12-24T05:00:00+00:00

Best Bits Of 2008

2008-12-22T12:05:12+00:00

Rather than do a runthrough of this year’s PR disasters, I thought I’d highlight the two initiatives that impressed me during 2008 quickly.

Movember - Thinkhouse PR’s Movember campaign was the best PR camaign in Ireland this year in my opinion. The official website encapsulates what the initiative is all about:

Movember (the month formerly known as November) is an annual charity event held during November.   At the start of Movember guys register with a clean shaven face. The Movember participants, known as Mo Bros, have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their Mo, raising money along the way to benefit men’s health - specifically prostate cancer.   Movember culminates at the end of the month at official Gala Partés, Mo-Office and Mo-Town parties where Tom Selleck and Borat look-a-likes battle it out for their chance to be the Man of Movember.

Straight forward enough, but I haven’t seen anything take off as naturally for a long time. Thinkhouse PR position themselves as an agency that specialises in youth communications. Sounds rather fluffy, but through their connections they drew the right crowd for this initiative which made charity cool and resulted in tabloid news editors walking around with handlebar moustaches and an art auction of some amazing images topped off with taches. Lots of media coverage, online buzz and much needed money raised for a good cause. Heck they even employ Chewy, the man who sports Ireland’s finest moustache

Connector - Conor Lynch managed to build a personal brand Connector this year, which developed online and evolved into a monthly meetup. Conor sums it up as follows:

connector.ie was created as a personal blog about the people & communities I connect with in Dublin. I also organise ’social networking social events’ so the Facebook, MySpace & Bebo generation can meet face to face in the real world.

Many of the people at ‘Connector Monthly Meetups’ in Dublin are self motivated web savy professionals with personal projects looking to make new business & personal connections. You can expect to meet a multi-national mix of bloggers, marketers, designers, web designers, photographers, musicians, digital filmmakers, PR people & much more.

I ended up bumping into Conor at countless events this year, got to an early Connector event and marveled at how he managed to scale it to create a regular networking event. This all sounds straight forward, but few people will appreciate how hard it actually is to draw a crowd together. Building an online community is tough, but actually getting them together in real life is another hurdle altogether. Conor literally played the connector by bringing different groups of people together after numerous meetings and hard graft. He has now developed a property to rival traditional networking associations. Seriously if I’m going to attend a number of Connector events next year, but maybe one PRII event only, it makes you wonder. Not to go off on a rant about the PRII, but Olivier Blanchard penned some interesting commentary recently about the rise in new types of business communities.

In the B2B world, doing your part to ensure that your business community is healthy, informed, well connected and engaged is probably the most important thing you can do to foster the type of environment most suitable to create net new clients.

This has traditionally been the role of Chambers of Commerce, but we are starting to see that Social Media are giving rise to new types of business communities (Or as Seth might call them, business tribes.) This isn’t to say that the Chamber of Commerce model is dead or dying - far from it - but it is important to note that the dynamics of how and why business communities come to be are changing.

How can Chambers of Commerce remain healthy and relevant in this new age? Simple: Reconnect with the communities they serve. Shed the “business club” image, let the networking become landscape rather than focus, and engage their communities in a way that will truly elevate them. This is clearly a ‘leadership through service’ type of mission as opposed to a “build it and they will come” vision. Some organizations are already there, but many still haven’t made that transition.

Remember that thing about leadership in action being an irresistible draw? This is what organizations need to tap into. Don’t worry so much about membership growth, “relevance” and networking. Just get out there and make something happen. Act as the catalyst and the connector. Leverage networks to recruit volunteers, not members, and help them connect through projects they can really sink their teeth into. The self-serving rewards will come, but only if you don’t make them your focus.

Individuals like Conor Lynch or Damien Mulley have shown that there’s a gap in the market, with people growing tired of the standard industry events and turning to alternatives which are more of a draw. Less of the sales pitches and awkward handshakes in 2008, more discussion about interesting topics and informal networking opportunities open to individuals from various backgrounds please.

Yay!

2008-12-22T09:05:06+00:00

Excellent news! (figures apply to the UK)

Christian Research, the statistical arm of the Bible Society, claimed that by 2050 Sunday attendance will fall below 88,000, compared with just under a million now.

You could, I suppose, call this mean-spirited of me, but I really think that it is no bad thing that people are losing interest in Christianity. Why, in a mere 40 years, it may be obscure enough that bigots will no longer be able to hide behind stuff written thousands of years ago by people talking to shrubbery in deserts, and will instead just have to say things like "I dislike gay people/women in the workplace/science because I am almost terminally stupid" or similar. Is there actually any non-religious reason to deny gay people rights, actually? I haven't heard one.

I realise that obviously most Christians are perfectly nice people, but I'm pretty certain those ones would still be perfectly nice people if they didn't believe in the beard in the sky. Organised religion does seem to provide endless cover for bigots, prudes and censors, though, and I can't honestly shed a tear for its passing.

Cuttlefish

2008-12-22T05:00:00+00:00

Letting the censors in through the back door

2008-12-21T23:22:06+00:00

From the blurb before some random crap Christmas show on Channel 4: "This programme contains strong language, irreverence, and adult humour".

Wait. I'm sorry. Irreverence? The poor little oh-so-sensitive viewing public must be warned of irreverence now? Whatever about 'strong language' (cursing) and 'adult humour' (reference to naughty adult things like naughty bits and fucking, as opposed to decent wholesome things, such as war) , irreverence is a good healthy concept which everybody should be exposed to from a young age.

But now, it would seem, it is something which must be warned of. Someone might watch it not prepared to hear somebody making jokes about Jesus!

Oh, dear. Must we now be sensitive to the special needs of every fanatical nut-job? I see a future where showing torture and murder is perfectly acceptable (we're getting there; ever seen '24'?), but questioning society in any way whatsoever is taboo (again, it's happening; a lot of Americans seem to be of the opinion now that 'respect for the office of the president' is more important than factual reporting on that president's war-mongering and torture).

On a related note, you've got to love the response of the American right to criticism of the wars and the torture and the 'abstinence-only sex education' and other such evil nonsense; to scream at doubters that they should be grateful that they live in a country where such criticism is allowed. Well, quite. Seems perverse to use the concept of freedom of speech to justify demands that people shut up, though.

Oh no they didn't!

2008-12-21T05:32:38+00:00

Eek. The Americans bailed out their collapsing auto industry. Now, government bailouts are all very well, but really. The auto industry. This is the same auto industry that couldn't make money during the boom with the low oil prices and cheap credit, the same one that under-performed auto industries in such economic powerhouses as France, Spain and Italy. Have you ever seen anyone driving a GM car in Ireland? No, of course you have not. For, yea, they are ugly, and use a lot of fuel, and offer no discernible benefits over better, cheaper cars.

There are industries in the US which, while teetering at the moment, at least seemed vaguely sustainable during the boom. Let the car-makers go. It'll be better in the long term.

11th Grade

2008-12-19T05:00:00+00:00

The Birdcage

2008-12-18T01:33:39+00:00

A really wonderfully funny film. A remake of La Cage aux Folles. Basically, a gay couple's son wants to marry the daughter of a revolting Republican Senator, the vice-president of some moral group. The best bit is, there's somebody for everybody to loathe. Either you'll hate the lovely gay couple, or you'll hate the horrible, reprehensible Senator.

Representative sample (the Senator's colleague has just been found in compromising circumstances):

Senator on phone: He died in bed?

Senator on phone: With a prostitute?

Senator's wife: No!

Senator on phone: A minor?

Senator on phone: A black?!

Senator's wife: Gasps.

Later on in the film:

Senator: Well, I'm not saying that abortion doctors should be murdered, but it's only fair.

Also, in the end, the Senator is more shocked that the parents are Jewish than that they're gay.

Makes you want to vomit, eh? They really are the most dreadful WASPish bigots.

Bizarrely, there's a happy ending.

Focus On Value Rather Than Price During The Downturn

2008-12-17T08:18:04+00:00

We had an interesting discussion last week in the office about discount vouchers which are being emailed on a daily basis by clothing retailers. It’s gotten to the point where female consumers are so overburdened with discounts that they can’t keep track of how many vouchers they have. There are a number of worrying aspects about this:

Consumers are now holding off because they expect that even bigger savings will appear immediately prior to Christmas or in the January sales
Retailers are devaluing their products to the point that when we see an economic turnaround, they will have a tough time to justify charging higher prices when consumers have become paying a pittance for them

The trouble with discounting is that it undermines your brand positioning. If you were a high end brand, it devalues your currency. On the other side of the scale, if your brand was meant to be centered on value for money but you were able to drop price further, it just opens the door for a new competitor to swop in at a lower price and leave you languishing in the middle. Competing on price alone (obviously it is still a key factor) will just lead to a bloodbath. Rather than swim with the sharks in the red sea, businesses should look to a blue ocean strategy and offer consumers something different.

The Amarach Research blog points to an interesting example. A Swiss taxi firm has adopted an “all you can eat model.” Customers pay a flat fee and can avail of unlimited taxi rides. I’m dubious as to their business model’s viability, but it’s interesting none the less.

A better example is that of Pizza Hut. A few years ago when the company was coming under serious pressure to compete on price, the restaurant chain decided to focus on value instead and created their all you can eat lunchtime menu. Their strategy paid off as the company found its own blue ocean and has enjoyed pleasant sailing for some time now.

One thing I hope we witness during the recession is a switch from a focus on customer acquisition to customer retention. Louis Columbus has a great post about using the recession as a “catalyst for delivering exceptional customer experiences Earning trust from customers takes a consistent, passionate level of commitment to delivering customer experiences above expectations.” On the same blog, John Tudor picks up on the same note and points out that people are spending more at Starbucks during the recession than they were before. Tudor reasons that this is because “it is a small personal indulgence that leads to temporary but worthwhile emotional lift. The experience is positive and under our control” and rightly goes on to set out the challenge for companies, which is to help their customers “deal with these emotional needs, help them gain a sense of control and give them a relationship that supports them.“

Marketing strategy in the current economic climate shouldn’t revolve around the thought of ‘How much to I have to drop the price of my good/service for it to be acceptable to my target consumer?’ Instead we should take a hard look at ourselves in the mirror and ask why customers should place a higher value on our good/service and purchase it ahead of a rival or substitute offer.

Flow Charts

2008-12-17T05:00:00+00:00

Wurd Pres

2008-12-16T19:50:04+00:00

Finally got around to migrating my old “home brew” blogging system over to Wordpress. It should be easier to maintain this way. Let’s hope I write more too.

BBC News outdoes itself

2008-12-16T02:40:19+00:00

If there's a prize for best article title, well... this is it.

By the way, the offending article, and various spam copies of same, seem to be the only occurrence of the phrase "the sexiest whales" on the whole Internet. A shame.