You would think that it might be reasonable to assume that good companies aspire to provide great customer service, wouldn’t you. Some companies establish customer service as their primary goal. The bigger the company, the more the focus on the customer, in my view. But how much do we, as customers, help them to achieve [...]
This is not really a story about marketing. However it is something that you might want to know and to think about if you like food. We eat quite a bit of fish in our household. I normally buy fish at a little hole in the wall fish shop in Kiama. The shop is tiny. [...]
Have you noticed that even as we see the power of digitization modifying business and, in my view driving productivity gains into the consumer marketplace, we also see regulation of the worst kind creeping into the system? Lets talk about productivity gains for a minute. The power of the smart phone. New apps are coming [...]
Last week I was in Japan for the Nanotech conference. It was very interesting…. I made some new friends and I think that there will be a couple of very interesting business opportunities that come out of it. But that is incidental to what is important in Japan. What is important is trust, friendship, respect, [...]
I have just read one of the most thoughtful pieces about media and the internet… “The Slow Media Manifesto” (and a tip of the hat to Bruce Sterling). Here is the pre-amble to the manifesto: The first decade of the 21st century, the so-called ‘naughties’, has brought profound changes to the technological foundations of the [...]
I wrote a week ago about buying Belgian chocolate, and talking to the chocolatier and finding out about what goes into the average chocolate bar. We all know about the Chinese milk scandals involving replacing milk solids with melamine. If you go to your local supermarket and buy garlic, you will probably find that it [...]
Most people who know me, or who have read this blog for a long time, would know that I love to cook. In fact I would have to say that it is a passion. So much so that I have started writing a recipe book… It's not for mainstream publication. It is actually for friends [...]
Systems evolve over time. Look at the eco-system that drives most of the western world. It has been around for a relatively short time in historical terms. It is a sub-set of capitalism that may now be showing signs of weakness as a continuing driver for wealth creation. I’m talking about consumerism. Consumerism is assumed [...]
The following is about a person and a topic I have written about before… I think that the people, and the time in history are an interesting metaphor for what is happening now politically, economically, and societally. The Story Of A Refugee Have you ever heard of Peter Drucker? He was arguably the [...]
The following is from “The Value Of Nothing” by Raj Patel. The late Oxford philosopher Jerry Cohen concieved a thought experiment that helps us understand how money works, and the way that it intersects with the liberty offered by free markets. When the market rations goods on the basis of money, he argued, there's reason [...]