Ever seen one of these scratch cards? They often seem to fall out of magazines or inserted into junk mail. I usually just throw them straight into the recycling bin. But, like the fool I am, I thought "Nothing ventured, nothing gained". I could win some serious cash here... If you can't read the small…
Continue reading →
One of the problems with creating a service which deals with elections, is that boundaries change. One year you might be in the Electoral Constituency of Woking, the next year it might be Guildford. Boundaries have to shift in order to keep each MP with roughly the same number of constituents. The work to determine…
Continue reading →Like many people, I'm upset with the direction the Government has taken with regard to "ilicit P2P file sharing". They've released a document entitled GOVERNMENT STATEMENT ON THE PROPOSED P2P FILE-SHARING LEGISLATION. It's only 5 pages long, I really suggest you read it. Being part of a democracy means you're allowed to talk to the…
Continue reading →Just seen 500 Days of Summer - a perfectly adequate Rom Com. On the walk back, Liz and I were discussing getting divorced. For tax reasons. Neither of us could think of any tax advantages for divorced couples, but it lead us down an interesting conversational route. A fairly standard ploy in movies (and real…
Continue reading →As you may recall from previous instalments of my thrilling blog, I'm trying to find the location of every polling station in the UK. This is proving to be rather tricky - if not impossible. The data aren't centrally held and, in any case, polling stations aren't announced until an election is called. So I…
Continue reading →Where in the value chain are you? This is a question that we're constantly being asked. When a customer is doing something, who is she doing it with? Who is she doing it for? With whom does she hold the relationship. Above all - Who Owns The Customer? This sort of thinking always bothers me…
Continue reading →
A small disclaimer. My mother & the author's mother are great friends. I remember going round to play with Ellie when I was 7 and she was 8 and a half. Back then she towered over me with the intellectual and physical superiority that only children recognise. I was terrified of her. Ellie Levenson has…
Continue reading →
I'm a huge fan of TasteLondon. Their card gives discounts in hundreds of restaurants around London. It's saved me quite a bit of money and I really recommend the service to anyone who likes eating out. There is a small problem with it, though. The directory of restaurants it covers is a fairly heavy paperback…
Continue reading →
If you really don't want people to download your app - put as many barriers in the way as possible. BlackBerry's Facebook app is a classic example of this. A brilliant application ruined by the rigmarole of actually trying to download it. Let's take a look at what a customer has to do in order…
Continue reading →
Monitoring your home or business used to mean having an array of unsightly camera feeding grainy, washed out pictures into a row of VHS machines. In recent years we've seen the move to digital pictures, infra-red beams for night vision and, most recently, viewing over the Internet. What's the next logical step? Viewing on your…
Continue reading →