The Samsung NC10 Service Story

So, last night I realised my Samsung NC10 (less than 10 months old) had died. So, about 9pm GMT, I emailed Samsung UK, explaining and asking for a warranty repair.

The responses will be on here.

24 hours later - no contact.

Not impressed so far.

The bad advice keeps on rolling...

First things first - I don't have anything against Microsoft. No, really! It's actually years of dealing with so called 'experts' that has put me off Microsoft more than anything that Microsoft has made.

What I object to is being told that things are the right solution when clearly they are not the best option. Of course, I can see why it happens - you're not going to bite the hand that feeds, after all. But when was the last time you heard an IT person tell you, 'don't buy Microsoft Office, OpenOffice is just as good, (as far as your needs are concerned) it can do everything that MS Office can do and is open source and free'?

I do not know a single person who knows about tech who will look me in the eye and say 'Internet Explorer is the best browser on the market which is why I use nothing else'. They wouldn't dare because they would lose all credibility. It isn't and hasn't been for some time. So why do they pretend it is to their clients? It's been the same for over a decade.

Microsoft do some amazing things and have been real innovators since their inception - Gates is an utter visionary - but they've done some ropey things too. Vista and ME being just two of them. The Zune is another. You know it, I know it. Let's leave it there.

So, why is it that it takes such a brave IT professional to say to a company, 'do you know what, you'd be better off if you used some open source software - maybe even switched to Linux'. The slavish following of the 'one size fits all' 'follow the leader' advice that is so often given in the guise of tech advice is awful, tedious, annoying and just plain wrong. The 'they are the market leader' argument is just lazy - just because a lot of people are making the same mistake does not mean you should follow them.

Sometimes the Microsoft option is right but sometimes it isn't. Practitioners would do themselves a lot of favours in the long run if they introduced a bit of better tech, whether it be non-Microsoft commercial software or open source software.

I know that this is going to wind up a lot of my IT professional followers but I am ready, willing and able to take you on over this. I've spent the weekend discussing this same issue with a former client of mine and they are experiencing just the same phenomenon - and it just isn't wrong.

Like Minds - Controversy and Misunderstanding

There seems to be a bit of controversy following the Like Minds Conference in Exeter last Friday. I should, from the start, point out that I was one of the people on the stage as part of the panel discussion on building community.

During the event, one delegate questioned whether it had answered the key questions regarding measuring ROI derived from social media. There are, clearly, those who want a 'formula' approach to give some numerical answer.

The first and most effective answer had to be what was happening around us on Friday. Like Minds was promoted and advertised solely using social media. On Friday, 200 people turned up to Exeter from across the country and another 600 tuned in online to watch the live feed. Now, maybe I am missing something but surely those people who were in the room or online were proof of concept. They provide us with measurable numbers.

But they do not tell us the whole story. Lots of people joined us via Twitter - we could not measure them. My co-host on PhotoLegal, Phill Price, was one of them - he was waiting for a haircut at the time but got involved and gave us a tweet. He interacted - which was the point of the day. Also, uber-tweeter, Stephen Fry sent us a tweet with his good wishes for the event. People talked about the event before, during and answer. We can't measure them. We reached people through coverage online and offline - we can't measure them.

Amongst the 'unanswered' questions, so we are told, are:

• How to carry out online campaigns to compliment offline marketing mix

• How to target online audiences, and best engage current customers and new customers

• How to turn customers into brand advocates through social media

Now, we discussed a number of things, one of which was my own subject of the PhotoLegal social media phenomenon. Our online campaign led to offline coverage within industry publications. We indentified, engaged with and nurtured our online audience - actually, we have also showed them the 'L' word which Daren Forsyth used and was so derided by some. They are our customers and brand advocates and they have become not only evangalists for the podcast but some have recommended me and my firm to their friends and contacts. They also go to my cohosts, Darren Hector and Phill Price for advice on photography issues. How would you measure the 'feeling' that they have towards us and that we have towards them? What would the answer be? 75.3? 26.1? What would it mean? What would it matter?

As someone who has also worked in the PR industry, I know that there are some things that cannot be empirically measured. Print adverts are one of them - you will never know how many people have seen your ad no matter what people say. Brand awareness is also incredibly difficult to measure as people sometimes guess as to whether they know a brand when asked - do you want to be the idiot that hasn't heard of the latest website adhsadjhsdf.com? No? Then you answer 'yes' to the nice lady with the clipboard.

In my opinion, the desire to have 'numbers' to justify campaigns is lazy thinking - brand and issue campaigns can take months or even years to come to fruition - and attempting to measure them will prove pretty much impossible (although we could all find a polling agency that could come up with some questions for a fee!).

Sometimes, you need to step back and see and feel what is around you. Sometimes there are no numbers.

From a standing start, we put together a podcast and an ecosystem that has proved massively popular in its particular industry area. What are the percentages? No idea. Nor do I want to rely on numbers. Sure I know how many downloads we have had but it is much more interesting to know the influence we have when we go live and see people sit with us, online, listening, interacting, talking and promoting us without us even asking. It feels right. We have a relationship with our listeners - the best listeners in the world, by the way! When it doesn't feel right any more, we will know and we will do something about it. We do not need numbers to tell us what is working and what does not.

Now, I know all this sounds a bit defensive and maybe it is. The Like Minds crew put together an amazing conference that proved the importance of social media. The speakers, especially Trey Pennington, Daren Forsyth and Olivier Branchard, did address the ROI questions including why it is difficult to measure, why it may not be right to measure it in 'traditional' ways and what other indicators of success there may be.

The conference is now available online via the Like Minds website, so you can decide for yourself. Go and watch it. See what this social media thing is all about and why using traditional methods to measure new media is about as relevant as putting petrol into a horse and cart.

Update from LikeMinds Conference

It's been a spectacular day so far with some stunning speakers. We even had a bit of interaction with PhotoLegal host Phill Price on the big screen.

But (sorry Phill) that was really overtaken by the fact that we had a bit of interaction with the wonderous Stephen Fry!

Almost 200 people, entirely brought there by social media - no old media advertising. Serious movers and shakers within the social media industry from the UK and US. Not in London but in Exeter.

From huge media companies such as Sky to regional legal firms like Everys, we've had it all.

The beauty of social media is that it does not respect national or any other sort of boundaries. It is an incredible expression of what the internet can be all about - real time engagement and interaction.

Thank you to the speakers, my fellow panelists, the audience and the organisers for what has been an incredible day. Lots of new friends and contacts made. It's what it's all about!

For those of you who could not make it, there will be videos at the LikeMinds website and another conference next year. Hopefully, we'll see you there!

LikeMinds Conference - 16 October 2009

Just been on the panel discussing community building in social networks at the LikeMinds Conference in Exeter.

It's a cracking conference so far with some really fascinating speakers including Trey Pennington, Olivier Branchard, Daren Forsyth and lots of other top top speakers including Devon's own Laura Whitehead.

There is a wealth of experience out there and it has descended on Exeter for a day of collaboration - it's a very social media approach to social media.

More information from the Like Minds website which includes a live feed during the event and videos afterwards.

Oh and me in a kilt.

Well, this is a scary development!

I've just found BlogPress for iPhone. Your only hope of avoiding a deluge of short blogposts is if it doesn't work (and it's only a two star app in the App Store!) - so keep your fingers crossed!
If it does work, I'll post a review. If it goes quiet, it didn't work!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Cloud with a Chrome Lining

Google has just announced its streamlined operating system, Chrome OS, and the blogosphere has gone into some sort of crazy meltdown with quite a few people suggesting that it will be the end of Microsoft.

But is that just wishful thinking?

The move to cloud-esque computing has caught the Redmond behemoth pretty much off-guard but it has started to show signs that it realises that people want to be able to access data and services independently of their own computers, allowing them to login from other access points and share between them. Microsoft is, though, taking its time in getting it right and it seems to be in a state of some denial over what this development means for its operating system – an operating system which remains anything but sylph-like.

Apple are, if the rumours are to be believed (and remember that we only ever know anything about what Apple is up to from rumours), in the advanced stages of putting together a massive, billion dollar cloud based data centre in the States. So we know that they get it and, in any event, the Apple fantopia (of which I freely admit to being a member) will be loyal to the leadership at Cupertino whatever happens.

So that leaves Linux.

Linux has always had underworldly appeal but has failed to break into the mainstream. Its best shot has been with the recent advent of netbooks but Microsoft’s decision to carry on flogging the not-very-well-if-not-actually-dead-yet horse that is XP as a cheap-ish OS option for the dinky devices has meant that users can have the portability of the netbook with the security-blanket comfort of a familiar Microsoft operating system. It was a struggle that Linux could never win but it was one in which, at least, it could increase its market share.

Google seems to have identified that there are a significant number of netbook users who just want to be able to use their netbook for… well, the net. So they have massively stripped down the OS and have made it, pretty much, a ‘browser-only’ party. That could well appeal to a significant number of users who want a cheap netbook (using Chrome OS on a netbook will cut down the price of the device as there will be no need for a Microsoft licence fee) but don’t want the geek chic, command-line-ability of Linux – probably because they’re afraid of it/they’re afraid of their techy mates who keep trying to explain how wonderful and pure the world of Linux is.

So, at the moment at least, Microsoft seems to have little to fear. Sure, they will lose some users that might have bought an XP netbook but they will not lose users who need that added functionality that their ever-so-slightly bloated OS can provide. Linux looks pretty much as if it will be dead in the water as an option, kept alive solely to provide the underlying infrastructure of Chrome OS, ironically. And Apple, well, Apple will be kept afloat by its cultish followers who know in their hearts that Apple can do no wrong.

But (and it’s a big but) if the Chrome OS proves to be more substantial over time than it looks today and, when combined with Google’s excellent cloud data and service offering, if it can provide everything that Microsoft can through Windows and Office, Microsoft have a big problem. If they are seen to react rather than innovate, they will lose traction in the market and, as things currently stand, it is simply impossible to see them doing a major u-turn on their OS and making it small, sleek and sexy.

Microsoft’s demise has been predicted before. But today, there is a big cloud bearing down on Redmond and it is a cloud with a Chrome lining.