What’s wrong with our Salesforce*? Can we sack them all and start again?

ON THE LONDON UNDERGROUND — *You can change the word ‘salesforce’ for just about any business unit or grouping here.  It just so happens that the Sales Team often get it in the neck.  But the questions are often the same.

• Why can’t they just do what I told them?
• It can’t be that hard, can it?
• Why
[...]

Words are important: We can’t escape writing and should stop trying

LONDON — I am very pleased that this is National Novel Writing Month. It is, I think, just a ruse for a book publishing website. But for me, it’s working.

My 13-year-old daughter and I started yesterday morning. We get up early and tap away in the kitchen before the sun comes up. On day two she’s on [...]

Do you know where your employees are?

KINGHTSBRIDGE — Years ago when Johnny Carson was the host of America’s long-running Tonight Show, NBC got a call from a distressed lady…

Through the dark window behind Carson that looked out onto a sleeping LA, she could see her errant husband stuck on the freeway… And there was ANOTHER WOMAN in the car with [...]

The future arrived this week

BELGRAVIA — It’s sometimes worth pushing your chair back and having a moment to think.

What do you make of this picture (above)? 

It’s from this week’s media and is a photo of the Argentina football team coming home.

I love it for all that is obvious about it.  And also all that is incredibly weird about it.  If you left [...]

"Mirror, mirror on the wall…"

PARSONS GREEN — There’s a lady in a business suit sitting reading The GuardianThe Media Guardian is tossed on the bench beside her.  Untouched.

It’s maybe symptomatic of a larger issue. And then again maybe I am just getting old. [Cue rant.] Why do the media need sections dedicated to… the media? 

I [...]

Corporate fan fiction: Why not?

HOME — I used to have a Klingon cookbook.  No, it was Lt. Uhura’s Cookbook.  But there was Klingon it it.  That was in university.  More than 20 years ago.

I never cooked anything from it.

Are you kidding?

But I moved it from dorm to dorm and house to house.  I thought its simple existence was funny enough.  (Yes, not [...]

“I’m down like your Internet connection”: customer service counts

CHELSEA — I realised yesterday that I have not lived in North America for more than a decade. So it’s hard for me to fully understand what companies like Verizon and Comcast are all about. But even from this distance it’s clear they’re having trouble with service delivery.

A few years ago I found [...]

Apple vs Google: Good omens for the new year

“Galloway has been identified as one of the darkest places on the planet.”
The Independent, 05 January 2009

GREEN PARK — There’s plenty to be joyous about at the start of a new year. And it’s not just the FTSE rising to a 16 month high, the pending [...]

Go ahead! Google me!

MARBLE ARCH — I was visited by a charming man from Brussels yesterday called Hugh. We had a nice chat about PR, communications and change management. We talked about schools in Kenya and wine in Kuwait and real estate in Cirencester.

When it came to the subject at hand — work — Hugh blushed a bit and said “I [...]

Google Wave and MS OneNote: Re-program my brain

LONDON — There seems to be quite a bit of excitement out there about Google Wave. Here’s a blog I was sent to earlier today. Look how many comments there are in a few hours.

There’s a lovely short video here too that will show you what Google Wave is all about.

To me [...]