What happened to the Stiff Upper Lip?

Posted on February 7, 2010 by Joe

In separate interviews, we heard today that Prime Minister Gordon Brown had openly cried when discussing the death of his daughter in a media interview, and we also found Spinmeister Supreme Alastair Campbell losing his composure during another, rather mild, TV interview. And we’re not talking about losing his composure in a ‘throwing the lapel mike to the ground, stamping on it and cursing the interviewer’ way – it was a tearful breakdown as he defended Tony Blair.

I quite like men (and women) to show their emotional side; I think it shows them to be human, and it takes a big person to demonstrate true emotions in public. But this sudden outburst of emotion and angst from leading politicians makes me rather uneasy – let’s just say that the making public of these episodes so soon after Peter Andre broke down on Sky News, and only a day or so after John Terry was apparently in tears after losing his job and allegedly paying his ex-girlfriend several hundreds of thousands of pounds to not tell her story seems to indicate either a sudden outbreak of male emotional awareness or a cynical use of the media to garner sympathy.

And I’m afraid that I’m going for the latter. Whilst it’s perfectly understandable for anyone to cry and break down in extremis, I’m afraid that there are times when I don’t expect to see it. This is particularly the case with Campbell; the war is history now and tears shed at this stage seem to be tears for Blair and himself rather than the human tragedy of the war. Feeling sorry for one’s self and blubbing in public like this is just not what I expect to see from a man who has spent much of his professional life spinning the truth about political decisions. It just comes over as a cynical ploy to garner sympathy and support, especially with the Chilcot Inquiry and the forthcoming General Election.

What has happened to the stiff upper lip; crying and publically displaying emotion may have become more acceptable but this doesn’t mean it’s compulsory. I want my political leaders to be strong in public – if they want to have emotional outbursts then I’m afraid I expect them to happen in private. Part of the job of leadership is to be aware of the emotional impact of what you’re doing, and deal with it. If you’re involved in a decision to go to war, then crying about it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a high ‘EQ’ – it might just mean that your initial views of what war was like were immature and the reality shocked you.

So. To all my leaders. Lead. Look strong in public. Look like you know what the heck you’re doing. Please don’t turn on the waterworks because if you do I’m likely to think you’re looking for sympathy or my vote.

The Way of the Weasel

Posted on February 7, 2010 by Joe

There is a super book by Scott Adams, creator of ‘Dilbert’, called ‘The Way of the Weasel’. In a semi-lighthearted manner it deals with the less honourable methods that people in the workplace have of ‘weaseling out’ of difficult situations. Well, it’s good to see that our elected representatives here in the UK have managed to achieve a level of Weaseldom that would be hard pressed to match even if you were a fully paid up member of the family Mustelidae.

I refer, of course, to the gentlemen from the Labour Party – Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine – who are facing charges of false accounting under section 17 of the Theft Act 1968 which they vigorously deny. (We shouldn’t forget the Tory peer, lord Hanningfield, who faces similar charges – however, he has had at least the sense of honour to resign from his position as leader of Essex Council in order to defend himself against the charges which he also denies.)

This is hopefully the ‘final act’ of the UK Parliament’s Expenses Scandal that has now dominated political life for nigh on a year. But what have these three fellows done that makes me spend 500 words of prose on them this Sunday? Well, their lawyers have raised the possibility that they may be able to yet again dodge any consequences of their alleged actions, even at this stage, by making use of the 1689 Bill of Rights – in particular the portion that deals with Parliamentary Privilege. Parliamentary Privilege is best known as the legal process that protects an MP from being sued for libel or slander when speaking within the House of Commons on potentially delicate issues. However, it has wider application, as we’re seeing here. The position being adopted by the Labour MPs is that they feel that the whole issue should be dealt with as being a breach of the rules of the House surrounding expenses, and as such shouldn’t actually be an issue for criminal law at all but should be dealt with under Parliamentary Privilege rules.

There’s an old joke that goes “What’s the difference between Tax Evasion and Tax Avoidance?”, the answer being “About 7 years in prison.”. The same thing applies here – the difference between the issue being dealt with under Parliamentary Privilege or under the Criminal Law is that the Parliamentary authorities are unable to send you to prison if found guilty. I can see why this approach is popular….

If these men are innocent of the charges, then surely the best way to prove that innocence, even at this late stage, is to go in to open court and robustly defend all aspects of their behaviour, showing the relevant paperwork, receipts, etc. and telling us in open court why their actions are legal. For the lawyers to go the way of ‘internal process’ in this way may well be legally possible, but will leave these men forever labelled as not being willing to face the same legal process that non-Parliamentarians facing similar accusations would have had to face. David Cameron has expressed “disgust” at the possibility, and Nick Clegg has warned of public outrage if this path is chosen.

Me? Why am I not surprised. The behaviour of so many of these people has been so apalling that one has to wonder whether or not they’ve set out to destroy the whole image of representative democracy in the UK. But that would be TOO paranoid, even for me.

Please guys – do the honourable thing. Stand up, say ‘Mea Culpa’ and face the music with dignity.

The Lost Boys of English football

Posted on February 6, 2010 by Joe

I’ll be the first to admit that my knowledge of football is minimal, and my interest in the game is not that great either. However, for the last couple of weeks it’s been incredibly difficult for anyone in the UK to avoid the story of John Terry, ex-England Captain, and his personal life off the soccer pitch. It seems to be an ongoing saga in the UK over the last decade or so – varying amounts of scandal and titillation around the private lives (often played out in public) of our leading soccer players, and how those issues affect their ability to play the game they get paid handsomely to do.

I’m not going to rehash the stories here; what triggered me to write this was overhearing an interview with Lizzie Cundy on the TV news, in which she referred to various soccer players as ‘boys’ – which immediately hit an old hot-button of mine about infantilisation in society, so here we are!

It really does concern me to hear of young men in their twenties and early thirties being referred to as boys (and also young women in the same age range being referred to as girls, for that matter). Apart form the patronising nature of referring to a man who earns over 100,000 a week, is a husband and a father, and holds line management responsibility in the same way that I was referred to when I was a snot-nosed kid of 8 years old trying to blow up the garden shed, there is a whole raft of cultural and behavioural issues tied up in that word ‘boy’ that is at the heart of the current fuss about the private lives of these men.

The problem is that when you refer to someone as a ‘boy’ it comes loaded with a load of cultural associations. And at the core is that little phrase ‘Boys will be boys’ – just how much of a ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card is that phrase? So much of the behaviour of these people is probably predicated on the fact that they think that because ‘they’re one of the boys’ they’ll get away with all sorts of nonsense because that is what is expected. The problem is that we’re not dealing with lovable, tousle-haired little scamps who’ve kicked a football through the greenhouse window. We’re dealing with adults who, to be blunt, have responsibilities to family, team and country.

Their partners, managers, fans and more often than not large sections of the popular media support this attitude until situations like this involving the allegations around John terry arise; then we start the usual round of ‘It’s disgusting, it’s terrible, it’s shocking, etc.’ I heard a couple of Chelsea fans on the news saying that Terry shouldn’t have been fired because he was the best man for the job, etc. I expected this sort of partisan support, an was incredibly gratified that Capello was able to dismiss Terry in less than 15 minutes. Perhaps Capello is proving to be the stern, parental, father-figure to these ‘boys’ that they sorely seem to need.

In the Peter Pan stories, ‘The Lost Boys’ were Peter Pan’s gang – they literally were little boys that had been lost by their nannies. Like Peter, they never grew up. In the 1980s movie ‘The Lost Boys’, the strap-line on the film poster was ‘Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It’s fun being a vampire’. Party all night and never grow old seems to be the teenage dream still being lived by quite a few Premiership footballers.

Perhaps we need to start addressing our own ‘Lost Boys’ in soccer and encourage them to grow up a little. And the starting point is to refer to them as men, not boys.

Where next for space?

Posted on February 5, 2010 by Joe

I have to admit to being quite saddened by President Obama’s announcement cancelling the NASA project to carry out manned missions to the moon. Perhaps it’s something to do with my age; I can remember the Apollo moon missions as a schoolboy, along with the feeling that by 2001 we might actually have a world something like that portrayed in the movie 2001. And then Star trek couldn’t possibly be too far behind.

Well, to paraphrase the old Apple advert ‘2001 wasn’t like 2001′. The public lost interest, the 70s happened and the money ran out. Governments felt that there were more politically and economically pressing concerns, and space flight became very much a science-driven, unmanned affair with the exception of the Shuttle. And now we have Ares / Orion being cancelled for being over-budget, late and reliant on old technology, and one wonders whether we’re going through the same sort of thing again.

For a President who is supposed to have vision, I’m afraid that Obama is currently looking pretty short sighted on this one. I totally appreciate that the US (like the rest of us) has some significant budgetary issues to deal with. But the ongoing silliness of bailing out banks and large businesses does nothing for national confidence or vision. It benefits bankers, stockholders and the wealthy. It reminds the rest of us across the world that we’re regarded as the ‘bank of last resort’ – you can always whip the public purse for a bit more money. Sure, we can look up to the skies, but all we’ll be seeing are the towering office blocks of the unacceptable face of capitalism that got us in to this mess.

Now, more than any other time in the last 30 years, we need a lead from the US in terms of something with vision and the potential for achievement for all mankind. The human race enters the 21st Century full of fear – of terrorism, economic crash, ecological disaster. Whilst it’s definite that renewed and invigorted investment in space exploration won’t do anything immediate to resolve any of these problems, it offers the possibility of enhanced technical fixes for the future, the possibility of a unified global approach the universe beyond our atmosphere and, probably most important of all, a sense of hope.

We have no heroes today; we have no explorers of world renown that show that the human race is indeed made of ‘the right stuff’. We’re expected to pay our taxes which currently go to pay for bailing out banks and repaying national debt foisted on us by feckless governments who’re trying to Govern the world of today with the attitudes of the mid-20th Century. We have Governments mired in control-freakery, who look towards ‘wars on terror’ and ‘wars on drugs’ as means of burying large amounts of economic production that might otherwise be used in more ambitious and adventurous ways – like space exploration.

Mars is the obvious next destination; I hope that the cancellation of Moon based projects is regarded as a facilitating move to allow more resources to be spent on Mars missions. But my gut feel tells me that sooner or later that too will be dumped. I understand that there are issues to deal with here on earth, but given the ability of the Governments of the world to bail out banks, develop massive and never ending weapons programmes and generally attempt to support the any number of flawed and expensive policy programmes that fail to deliver year on year, the resources are available.

It’s just that Governments choose not to support programmes and policies that give their people hope – and not just in space. And that is saddening and infuriating in equal measure.

Engagement, pandering, patronising or exploitation?

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Joe

education There is nothing new in the efforts to engage pupils at school by combining what is taught in lessons with what interests them in the outside world. In many respects it’s a good way forward – some years ago there were efforts to encourage reading in boys by basically getting them to read anything – comics, football reports, whatever – on the off-chance that they would then start reading books and improving their reading skills and general literacy. This project was geared around encouraging children to read material that interested them, in the hope of that material being a gateway to reading other things. It wasn’t focused on particular comics or films or ‘tie ins’ for example.

So far so good, but when does engagement become pandering? When does it become patronising – and, in some cases, is there an argument to be made for some aspects of this sort of outside world / education crossover actually being exploitative of children and teenagers? For example, developing lesson material like the one mentioned here might work very well with pupils for whom the ‘Twilight’ series is a major interest but would do absolutely nothing for others for whom it means nothing. I have to say that I’d also be concerned about the longevity of such material in terms of it maintaining it’s interest and relevance for future years of students. The last thing that a teacher will want is to either develop material that goes out of ‘favour’ with pupils so quickly that it needs to be revised each year. Maintaining ‘relevance’ is about keeping educational material valid and relevant in the wider world, not in the world of this month’s media hype.

There’s also an element of being patronising here – attempting to second guess what teenagers might be interested in is a dangerous occupation; it can easily fail and be regarded as patronising. Education is surely not about appearing ‘cool’ to the students; surely it’s more important to put ideas and concepts over in an understandable way, that is as far as possible relevant and contemporary so as to engage pupils, but not by jumping on to whatever bandwagon is passing?

As far as I can see, there are some topics taught that are, let’s say, eternal. They’re the basics; the stuff that’s been taught for as long as the subject has existed. In my experience this tends to be confined to the basics of reading, writing and numeracy. Things like the rules of grammar, basic arithmetic and counting, even, dare I say it, things like times-tables. The factual aspects of history and geography (without the interpretation) falls in to this category. Whether we like it or not, any attempt to ‘engage’ pupils with these topics is almost certainly going to be met with resignation or smirks from the class. Perhaps we need to actually get down to business here; the fact is that there are some things we need to learn to get on in life that are just hard work and need to be done. No point in trying to make it cool, or trendy; it just needs doing. best thing we can do is just get on with it.

Of course, it does benefit ‘content providers’ like film companies, computer games manufacturers, etc. to get in to the field of education in this way; it’s cheap marketing to a captive audience, after all. And it’s probably tax-deductible….

Bad Science? Bad Reporting? Or the bleedin’ obvious?

Posted on February 3, 2010 by Joe

I guess that I’m primed for this sort of story at the moment, having spent the last few day’s re-reading Ben Goldacre’s excellent ‘Bad Science’, but when I do read a story like this it makes, figuratively speaking, reach for my revolver.

A study by Leeds university academics of Internet users found that 1.2% of the people in the survey were Internet addicts, and that quite a few of these were depressed. The study goes on to say that there’s no evidence to suggest that there was a causal link, and that most Internet users have no mental health problems. So….hold on here….but….what that says to me is that a bunch of academics have spent money in determining that:

Some Internet users are addicted.
Some of those Internet users are depressed.

At the moment I could have told them that from personal experience, because this sort of bollocks really does depress me, an Internet user, thus making me an Internet user who’s also depressed….

Why am I so peeved? Let me count the ways, and hopefully encourage you to take this sort of research finding with as many pinches of salt as necessary. I must say that I’m not getting at the academics involved; I know that they’re hard working folks who have to publish to survive. Anyway…. the abstract for the paper is here.

Apparently the online questionnaire was filled in by people who’d found it via links on Social networking sites. Now, having an online questionnaire when you’re looking for Internet users is a good idea. Having it linked from Social Networking sites which tend to be the preserve of the Internet’s heavy users would appear to me to skew the sampling towards that type of Internet user – not Mrs Miggins from number 46 who uses the Internet to send flowers to her sister.

The group that was determined to be addicted tended to be younger rather than older, and also exhibited statistically significant more depressive attitudes and behaviours than the non-addicted group. The abstract reports that the Internet Addicted group (IAs) were likely to use more sites that replaced real-life socialising – such as social networks, pornography and gambling.

Let’s just take a step back here. I think that we could just as easily say, based on this, that there are people within society who’re so cut off from normal social interaction for some reason that they’re depressed and that to relieve this social exclusion they turn to the online world. And all of a sudden this study becomes much more interesting for me because it starts suggesting that our society has become so broken that people are being excluded from normal social interactions and are relying on the Internet to self-medicate.

The BBC’s headline doesn’t help ‘Internet addiction linked to depression’ – as far as I can see, I can’t see any causal link being suggested in the abstract, or even, in reading the BBC article, on teh BBC website itself. Sloppy reporting on top of a report that does tend to state the bleedin’ obvious.

Twitter – voluntary spam?

Posted on February 2, 2010 by Joe

In a recent article, it’s been suggested that Twitter is becoming a major route for spammers to peddle their wares. This seems to be a feature emerging of all social networks right now, but in today’s piece I want to focus on Twitter. The view expressed in this article is pretty strong – probably an even more extreme position than I take with regard to spam on Twitter, but it’s worth looking at twitter from the perspective of whether we are participating in a network that is becoming more spam than good quality ham?

As is suggested in the article above, the relationship we have with the people we follow is rather different to the relationship we have with people who email us spam – on the whole the folks who send us wonderful offers of Viagra and millions of dollars on the Beserabian national lottery are unknown to us (and probably to any other human being on the planet). With Twitter, we’ve actually accepted the folks we follow as followers, and when one of those followers does transgress our own definition of ‘spam’ and send us a message we regard as inappropriate, as well as it being annoying there’s also a sense of betrayal of trust to a greater or lesser degree.

When we interact with people on twitter, there are two relationships involved; people follow us, and we may follow then. We only see their content if we choose to follow them. This is why I’m extremely careful in who i do follow. But even then, if someone who normally posts sensible stuff posts a couple of sales messages over a few days I’m not going to break my heart about it – I get more upset by people who ‘flood’ twitter with lots of posts one after each other or who repeat posts at frequent intervals. Such content is much more intrusive, in my opinion. They tend to be the ones who’re more likely to get put off my list of followed people than someone who sends me the odd sales message.

The other interaction is who follows us; until we also follow them, we don’t see any content that these people put up, but I’m equally protective of who I allow to follow me, based on the real world aphorism of being judged by the company that you keep. This is why I regularly screen people following me and block folks who’re obviously doing little else than selling, obvious ‘iffy’ accounts, etc. It’s important to do this as far as I’m concerned because I don’t want any of my other followers following someone based purely on the idea of ‘If they’re following Joe they must be OK!’ Just a quick look at the profile and Tweets of some some folks immediately indicates to me that they’re

The ‘silent spam’ we tolerate by allowing folks to follow us who’re ‘bad’ but whose posts we don’t notice is just as bad as the noisy spam that we’re aware of on a day to day basis. In my view I regard this sort of spam as the true voluntary spam, and as members of the Twitter community we should all be blocking and where appropriate reporting these folks, even if we are not following them ourselves.

The next, next, next thing!

Posted on February 1, 2010 by Joe

Hands up whoever has heard of the Red Queen’s Race? That was the athletic event in Wonderland where the participants had to run very hard to stay exactly where they were. I’m becoming convinced that we’re entering in to that sort of event in the online marketing and PR world – and probably beyond as well. And it worries me.

The article that sparked this off is here – nothing major, really, but it did get me thinking. Does anyone ever give any online or software technique any realistic time to show whether it can deliver the goods anymore? Or is it all a case of ‘MTV Attention Span’? Does everything have to prove itself within a 30 second elevator pitch? If something does the job, does it effectively and meets whatever targets are set for it, why do so many people jump ship as soon as the ‘next, next thing’ comes along?

There seems to be no scope today for a technique or technology to get time to prove itself. Of course, there are going to be some advances that are just so awesomely great that it’s obvious even to a relative techo-Luddite like me that they’re worth using immediately, but for other things, how can you know whether you can get more out of an upgrade when you probably haven’t even measured the value of your current process? If you’re using online tools like Facebook, Twitter, Search Engine Optimisation to market your business, then do you actually know how much business comes to your site via these various channels? Because if you don’t then simply changing techniques to fit with the current ‘fad’ is likely to be a waste of time; you simply don’t know whether the new tool is worse or better than the old one!

Impatience with results from all online marketing methods has always been an issue; people still seem to think that making quick money is posisble on the Internet; I’m afraid the only way to do that is probably to sell people on the Internet ‘Get Rich Quick’ schemes! But flicking from one technique to another and then to another without giving time for them to work or even knowing whether they ARE working is pointless.

So…my advice?

Well, bearing in mind that I am certainly NOT a marketing expert and not a millionaire, all I can say is apply good, sound, marketing techniques, such as:

Measure your traffic to your site or business before you start, using a metric that matters – whether that’s page impressions, money earned, downloads made, whatever suits your business.
Introduce new marketing channels in such a way that business from them is identifiable.
If your business is cyclical in any way, let new techniques run for at least a fair part of that cycle.
When you have your baseline, make changes to the channels one at a time and measure any effects based on those changes.

Just remember the old adage that you cannot manage what you can’t measure; just because the technology changes doesn’t mean that common sense approaches to marketing should change as well.

Google to phase out IE6 support – first shots in their war for browser dominance?

Posted on January 31, 2010 by Joe

ielogo I really dislike IE6. I hate having to support it for some of my clients, and really wish they could work out how to convince their customers to upgrade. But, my clients are real world guys; they deal with nuts and bolts, ironmongery, bank accounts, etc. Their customers tend to be real world people as well – and by real world I mean not software, not media, not technology companies.

I have a client whose website gets 30% of it’s hits from people running IE6. That’s right. 30%. That’s three times higher than the average accoridng to these statistics here – http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp – where in December 2009 about 10% of browsers are still IE6. From my own experiences, these tend to be large corporate sites where machines are ‘locked down’ or smaller non-technical companies who don’t care what browsers their PCs run as long as they can access everything they need to do.

Anyway…Google have finally announced that some features of Google Docs and other applications will soon stop working with IE6. Actually, for once we have a technology company that has delivered ahead of the announcement. Some Google products already fail big time with IE6..and 7…and IE8. Google Wave is a non-starter with IE at all. It isn’t just ‘some features’ or a ‘reduced user experience’. In my experience it’s a big fat ‘no user experience’ at all.

Here’s what I expect Google to do over the next few months. After IE6, the pressure will be placed on IE7 and IE8. Google will probably suggest that people move to the Chrome plugin for using their sites in IE, and then I’d expect a mysterious problem to emerge with using the plugin in IE, so that more pressure is placed on IE users of Google sites to drop IE for Chrome (or at this time another browser). Of course, not all IE users will be bothered about not having access to Google applications; but Google’s applications are rapidly becoming the main game in town for online apps – a very unhealthy situation. Microsoft were hag-ridden for years by various regulatory authorities about their efforts to command the desk top by all means available to them. Google appear to be starting to do exactly the same thing.

Of course, there are other browsers that are more standards compliant than IE is, was or is ever likely to be. And this is the core of Google’s current argument – that IE’s non-standard handling of certain elements of the HTML, CSS and JavaScript standards makes it impossible to properly support IE. Google’s products make extensive use of a protocol called AJAX to provide a desktop style user interface experience; it’s strange that other companies producing AJAX style interfaces are able to make them run happily with IE (albeit with a few tweaks occasionally required to layout). My conclusions at this stage would be that either Google hasn’t got the brainiest guys on the block as far as coding is concerned, and/or that they’re using their market muscle to start dictating their way to a situation in which they own the web ‘desktop’.

After IE, what next? Firefox, Opera and Safari aficionados should be reminded of John Donne’s famous quote at this point:

Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

All Google need to do is start defining their own standards, or push implementation of emerging standards in their products so that only their own browser, Chrome, will be ready to cope. Look at any areas of weakness in other browsers, and code your application to include code that would deliberately break when used on that ‘target’ browser. No browser is 100% compliant; Google need to force each browser manufacturer in to a cycle of fail and fix, whilst each time Chrome is available from Zero Day to work perfectly on Google’s applications.

Microsoft have been bad lads in the past; there’s no reason for Google to start angling for the same accolades. However, if they do, I’ll be interested to see whether the folks who’ve rightly been hard on MS will be equally hard on Google. And if not, why not?

Innovative is not the same as useful

Posted on January 30, 2010 by Joe

I recently found this on my Twitterfeed: @jakebrewer: Yes! Note from newly devised Hippocratic oath for Gov 2.0 apps: “Don’t confuse novelty with usefulness.” It is so true – and that comes from someone who spent part of his MBA working on the management of creativity and innovation. There is a science fiction story by Arthur C Clarke in which two planetary empires are fighting a war. The story’s called ‘Superiority’ for anyone who wants to read it. In this tale, one side decides to win the war by making of use of it’s technological know-how, which is in advance of the opposing side. Unfortunately, each innovation has some unforeseen side effect which eventually, cumulatively, ends up with the technologically advanced empire innovating itself in to defeat.

First of all, a definition. For the purposes of this post, innovation is not the small improvements we all do to streamline and ‘finesse’ a process or product. That’s just maintenance and responding to feedback. Innovation is the equivalent of trading in the bike for a car. It’s a big shift.

Innovation is an important aspect of our personal and business lives; through it we have a vital tool for adaptation and survival, but it’s important to not get hooked on the idea that innovation is always a Good Thing, and fetishise it as being an all powerful tool for all problems. In fact:

Innovation is not always useful.
Innovation is not always indicative of progress.
Innovation does not always benefit all the stakeholders.
Failure to innovate can be expensive and risky; innovating for no reason can also be expensive and risky.
Innovating is not the same as being effective.
Innovation can deliver false confidence.

Innovation is not always useful

This usually equates to ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. If you have part of your life or business process that is chugging along well and is meeting the targets you set for it, then don’t bother innovating it yet. There is no purpose or use to massive change that meets no need. Such innovation is useless.

Innovation is not always indicative of progress

‘Progress’ is one of those words that falls in to the category of ‘hard to define but we all know what it is’. You may think that you have to innovate to stay cutting edge; but do you? Sure, we have to be aware of where our market is going, and risks to our future revenue streams. But innovating to stay on the bleeding edge of technical and social change is likely to expose you to risk. Progress for your business or life does not always reflect social or technological ‘progress’. Innovating purely to keep up with trends is ‘running the Red Queen’s Race’ – you will never finish.

Innovation does not always benefit all stakeholders

Innovation may be great for you, but not great for people whose incomes are affected, whose role is removed and whose job in the organisation is no longer needed. When you innovate, bear this in mind and don’t automatically expect everyone to be pleased they belong to an innovative organisation.

Failure to innovate can be expensive…as can innovating!

Innovation always costs time and perhaps money, especially if done properly. There is no such thing as free innovation, even if the cost is in terms of the time taken to make sure your innovation won’t break what’s already happening. It’s easier to keep existing customers than to create new ones. An innovative approach may scare existing customers away, and not get new replacements. Be prepared.

Innovating is not the same as being effective

I see a lot of people in software engineering spending inordinate amounts of time on new processes, new languages and techniques who don’t seem to always be hitting the market with product. Don’t mistake skilling up with the latest languages and software design techniques as being effective. It’s only effective if you put the techniques to use. I have several clients who make a good living, thank you very much, on maintaining and providing applications that are based on 10 year old technology.

Innovation can deliver false confidence

The German Enigma code machine in World War 2 was a highly advanced and innovative piece of kit for the time. If used correctly it would have been unbreakable. However, the operators tended to use slightly dodgy procedures in operating it and that gave the British code-breakers at Bletchley Park an ‘in’ to the machine that they were able to exploit and hence read German secret messages. Even when the Germans did suspect that someone had broken ‘Enigma’ they were so confident in their technologically advanced machine that they thought it impossible.

Enough said.

I’m not saying don’t innovate; that would be ridiculous. Just think about your innovations and don’t automatically follow the ‘innovate or die’ mantra. Take time out and read ‘Superiority’ and learn from it.

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