Archive for category Other
It’s good, but it’s not the one: Why Inkling and other Digital Textbook offerings are missing the mark
Inkling - a new platform for digital textbook delivery
Why would they? Incumbents hold all the cards here. Publishers have the content and they also tie in the authors and adopters. They are an industry under-pressure and, quite rightly, they are looking to secure their own future first.
But is this really moving us forward in terms of education? Last month the UK was awash with the news that Universities are over-subscribed and many ‘would-be’ students will not get a place this year. There is increasing pressure to offer cheaper alternatives to a traditional university education. Textbooks are inherently linked into this scenario; they are somewhat a by-product of a system that is in dire need of overhaul.
Take for example the recently released digital textbook platform, Inkling. It’s without a doubt the closest I’ve seen to what I *think* I want from my digital textbook. I like the interface, the approach, the quality. It suits the iPad perfectly and the team behind it deserve huge credit for bringing it to market and getting funded. In terms of Textbooks, it is one of a few radical innovations that I have seen in the field. But this doesn’t make it a disruptive innovation – it isn’t going to redefine the way we purchase and use textbooks. This is significant because I’m still yet to see anyone come out with a truly disruptive innovation in this marketplace, which is a surprise given how easy it is to articulate the problem.
From a recent conversation with an internationally published textbook author, I found out that of the £50 or so retail price which a textbook might command, as little as £3 of that will make its way back to the authors. The overwhelming majority goes to the publisher and the retailer. Students are forking over hundreds, if not thousands of pounds on textbooks over the course of their higher education. If students had the flexibility to choose their textbooks then we might have seen something akin to a race to the bottom on price over the last few years. Of course this is not the case. Lecturers are the ones with the power and they typically will want to use the best book available, regardless of the price. This is where the opportunity for a disruptive innovation exists, something which redefines the value proposition of the humble textbook. It might just be introductory pricing, but at the moment Inkling is charging me £4.99 per chapter for a textbook. This is not disrupting the industry, it’s sustaining it.
I’d just like to re-visit the term disruptive innovation for a moment because I believe it is used incorrectly by many. First of all we must remember that innovations can be classified in a number of ways; most commonly from the technological view or from the marketplace view. Technologically speaking, innovations can generally be distinguished into two categories, Radical or Incremental (Christensen and Rosenbloom, 1995). Radical innovations are those that occur as the result of exploration into new technology or new processes, whereas Incremental innovations are more the evolution of an existing product or process (Tushmann and Anderson, 1986; Leifer, 2006). Christensen and Rosenbloom (1995: 233) tell us that Radical Innovations tend to “launch new directions in technology”. Recent examples, Inkling included, fit the definition of a radical innovation in my opinion. But this is a description of the technology, not the marketplace into which innovations fit.
The marketplace view takes two different categories; Sustaining or Disruptive. Disruptive Innovation is a much misunderstood concept. Quite often, in my experience, people describing an innovation as disruptive actually mean radical. Christensen (1997) tells us that most technological advances in a given industry are in fact sustaining – disruptive innovations are few and far between. This is because, quite often, disruptive innovations actually result in worse-performance in the near-term (Christensen, 1997). This is largely because disruptive innovations tend not to value the same features as existing market players. Where a disruptive innovation brings a new value proposition to the marketplace, existing players may find themselves unable to compete.
For me, Wikipedia is the flagship disruptive innovation in our field. The value proposition for encyclopaedia’s used to be fairly easy to define. At the high-end you would look to deliver a very high quality product with a large number of entries and then charge a lot for it. This is the Encyclopaedia Britannica model to some extent. Yes it was expensive, but it was also of very high quality. The players in this market acted within some readily defined constraints, such as the price of your publication was directly related to the volume and quality of your work. If you wanted to put something out with a vast number of entries in it, then you would be charging a lot more. Enter Wikipedia. Here was an innovation which broke the constraints of the marketplace; house unlimited entries and do it for free. Quality was bound to be lower than the rivals, but this is the part that shows Wikipedia to be a disruptive innovation. It was actually weaker than the rivals in the marketplace on a measure, quality, which most thought to be fundamental to success. But Britannica had perhaps grown somewhat bloated in its years – did it really matter to anyone that a leading authority wrote the entries? Turns out, no. And as Wikipedia grew, so did its quality, until it reached levels which actually rival the old hands.
We are waiting for an innovation that breaks the constraints within which textbooks currently exist. Will it look like a textbook? I don’t know. Will it be better quality than the likes of Inkling? It certainly won’t be. That’s why whenever I see another really shiny example of the ‘future of textbook publishing’ I know I will invariably end up disappointed.
References:
Christensen, C.M. and Rosenbloom, R.S. (1995) Explaining the attacker’s advantage: Technological paradigms, organizational dynamics, and the value network. Research Policy, vol. 24, issue 2, pp. 233-257.
Christensen, C.M. ( 1997) The innovator’s dilemma: when new technologies cause great firms to fail, Boston: Harvard Business Press.
Leifer, R. (2006) Radical innovation: how mature companies can outsmart upstarts, Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Tushmann, M.L. and Anderson, P. (1986) Technological Discontinuities and Organizational Environments, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 439-465.
Also see:
Christensen, C.M. and Raynor, M.E. (2003) The innovator’s solution: creating and sustaining successful growth, Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.
Kim, W.C. and Mauborgne, R. (2005) Blue ocean strategy: how to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant, Boston: Harvard Business Press.
You can’t ban Facebook
I just thought I’d write a quick note on Facebook and its presence in the workplace. As an advocate of all things social, you can imagine my stance on this topic – I believe no organisation should be blacklisting sites like Facebook. But of course many do.
They need to stop, now. Here’s why:
1. Facebook isn’t a website, its a platform. If you’ve ever tapped into the Facebook Developer tools you’d be well aware of the universe that exists behind Facebook in what is known as the Social Graph. The Social Graph is everything about you; from your name to your picture, to your interests to your friends. Facebook allows developers to tap into this information from websites that aren’t Facebook.
At its simplest this manifests as a “like” or “recommend” button on a webpage. Next time you hit a button like this on a website, go check out your profile afterwards. Most good implementations of the Open Graph Protocol will be sending information back to your profile when you hit a “like” button. You could well find the item you just liked as a part of your Likes and Interests. From here it’s just a hop, skip and a jump to your complete viewing habits being listed as a part of your Social Graph.
Put simply, Facebook will be reaching its claws into the overwhelming majority of websites you visit over the coming months and years. It’s already on many – for example the BBC News website just overhauled to include elements of this. At what point does a website become so integrated with Facebook that you need to block that too? It’s happening.
2. Facebook isn’t just on a computer and it doesn’t always look like Facebook. Building on the above point, because Facebook is a platform it can come in many flavours. For instance, you can block Facebook on workstations, but you can’t block it on people’s phones. I’ve been playing with the incredible new app “Flipboard” on my iPad. It takes my Facebook and makes it into a fantastic looking magazine style layout. It makes my friends look like publishing geniuses.
My Twitter looks even better…
This is just taken directly from my feeds; I’ve done nothing to get it looking like this.
Facebook Zero was brought to my attention a couple weeks ago as being *very* big in parts of Asia. Facebook Zero is a cut-down version of the site, available on mobile phones. But significantly a number of network operators, such as SingTel, offer access to the site free-of-charge – without the need for a data plan. This is a significant driver of business for SingTel and puts Facebook in everyone’s hands.
When Facebook stops looking like Facebook, stops being accessed through Facebook and is available on every screen in the building, how will you ban it?
3. If your people are wasting time on Facebook it is a symptom of a wider problem. Spend your time addressing this problem instead of attempting to treat the symptom. It will become increasingly difficult to police and restrictive to other operations – you will spend a fortune trying to block Facebook in the coming years.
You can’t ban Facebook. That extends to any of the emerging platforms for communication. Don’t bother trying. Look at the opportunities that these Platforms present and work to exploit the benefits, because most anything negative is a symptom of a wider issue; one much bigger than a social networking website.
The beginning of the end for Apple?
I know what you’re thinking, I must be a complete idiot to think Apple is in trouble. Perhaps I am. But the recent fall out from the iPhone 4 release and the Apple response (or more specifically, the Steve Jobs response) strikes me as something symptomatic of a wider issue.
For those of you unaware, the new iPhone 4 has got some issues with signal reception when you hold it in a certain place. That certain place just happens to be an area which a lot of people will be holding the phone – you kinda have to in order to make a call. Now there is clearly a process failure in the testing procedure for this release; it’s a pretty fundamental mistake to make. I actually flashed back to the story of the iPhone 4 that was found in a bar; it had a special case on it which made it look like an iPhone 3GS. This case would have also prevented the problem from occurring, so it seems likely that despite thorough field testing, the problem didn’t surface.
Jobs’ reaction to the problem is key here. Reportedly he said “just avoid holding it in that way”. Arrogance aside, this is symptomatic of the way Apple used to do business. Apple users, specifically Mac users, have been used to their devices not fitting in very well with the rest of the world. Typically, you’re average Mac user is more technically savvy than your average PC user, or at least that used to be the case. As such, they have no problem in working their way around these little glitches, using the approach Jobs dictates. Working around the glitches is the price you pay for a perceived better experience (often manifesting itself as a cloud of smug, but that’s another story).
Now Apple is going mainstream with devices that increasingly replicate and supersede the function of the desktop PC. They are moving from an audience with above average technical ability towards the mass-market. These are the people who don’t do workarounds, they do returns. They lack brand loyalty when faced with technical glitches.
My question is, now that they are producing computing devices with mass-market appeal, does Apple have the ability to adapt to its new market demands? Top of this list of demands is Customer Service and from this episode it would appear to not be a part of the Apple culture. We all know that Culture is difficult to change, especially when you are lead by an enigmatic and charismatic leader like Jobs. Monkey see, monkey do.
Apple could see this as an opportunity to redefine service in the tech industry, which has been historically poor. The very presence of 3rd party companies offering technical help as a middle-man suggests that this much is true – the Geek Squad wouldn’t exist in a market place where tech suppliers excelled at customer service. Amazons recent acquisition of Zappos.com, whose competency lies in its brilliant service, could be seen as a signal of intent. They are aware of the need to improve and are willing (in theory) to radically alter the way they do business in order to achieve this.
For me this could be the beginning of the end for Apple. If they fail to service their mainstream audience then their products brand appeal will suffer. Without the brand appeal I wonder how Apple will continue to differentiate themselves in a world which is increasingly innovative and increasingly design orientated.
Flow and the England Football Team
Last Friday I watched as my beloved England put together the single worst performance I have ever seen the team play. My talents as a scribe will not even stretch close to an accurate depiction of just how awful we were; just take my word for it, it was bad. The weekend’s papers have been full of debate since that fateful night; just what is it that is making this team perform so badly? Like all real England fans, I alone know the answer to this most mercurial of problems. Well, me and a 75 year-old Hungarian Psychologist.
If you haven’t heard the name Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the last year or so consider yourself lucky. First stop on our journey of Hungarian Psychology is the name itself; Csikszentmihalyi. I’ve been reliably informed that the best method of pronouncing the name in my lazy English tongue is to utter the phrase “Chicks-Send-Me-High”. I’m pretty sure that was a joke when it was told to me, but I keep saying it and getting away with it, so in the absence of something better I will stick with it.
Csikszentmihalyi wrote his seminal work on the concept of Flow and it has grown in popularity almost exponentially in the last year or two. Csikszentmihalyi described Flow as the moment of perfect relationship between what an individual has to do and what they can do. The challenge of the task is enough to stretch the mind, but close enough to grasp and succeed. Whilst in Flow participants are almost completely consumed by the task, to the detriment of everything else.
Fast-forward to 2010 and the author Daniel Pink. In his book Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us, Pink is highly influenced by the work of Csikszentmihalyi. Pink tells us that for creative tasks extrinsic motivators, like money, simply don’t work. These types of motivators close the mind to the solutions that a creative endeavour requires of a participant. The most compelling demonstration of this is certainly the Candle Problem – check it out if you haven’t already seen it.
Let us assume that Pink is right (well, more specifically, the psychologists he references are right) and that for creative endeavours Intrinsic Motivators are required. Pink offers up his take on the 3 “legs” of the intrinsic motivation tripod (his words not mine): Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Autonomy is the ability to work to your own schedule, to self-motivate and not be micro-managed. Purpose is the concept that you are working towards a higher ideal than your own personal achievements could allow. And Mastery is the desire to get better and better at something that matters. The concept of Flow, sustained over time (Gladwell might assert 10,000 hours), brings us to Mastery.
Csikszentmihalyi actually studied football players for his original work, but you don’t need to be a prominent Hungarian chap with an amusing beard to realise that the England were not in Flow last Friday. When Wayne Rooney, England’s chief protagonist, failed to control a long ball down England’s left flank by clumsily knocking it straight off his shin and into the path of an opposition player, it hit me. England, both as individuals and as a team, were not in Flow.
This was a team in the midst of a chore. They were supposed to be forgetting themselves; these guys don’t need to think about things like controlling a ball, it just happens. But as they slipped further away from Flow, so they were required to think ever more actively about the routine moves they had to make. And whilst they are busy over-thinking these basic functions, the capacity to be creative diminishes to almost nothing.
Flow is a set of circumstances that exists between being pushed too far and not being pushed far enough. You would be hard pushed to justify that a game against the relative minnows from Algeria was an exercise in being pushed too far. As such we are left to conclude that the England players were bored. This tally’s with what was being asked of them; to play disciplined football in a mundane formation. Capello should ask more of his players; they ARE talented, they ARE capable, but they need the freedom to be expressive, to be creative and to play how they want, not how the manager dictates.
Right now, the England players probably don’t feel like they are being challenged in training and in matches. At club level these guys are the stars. Training and games are almost certainly organised around them. Tasks are tailored to fit with their requirements and to put them into Flow. Playing for England might well be the ultimate honour, but it probably doesn’t add much to a players overall Mastery of the game. In fact, it probably knocks them down a peg or two. They are constrained to work in a system where it isn’t all about them. When they get together for the odd-one off match pre-tournament, like a qualifying match, they probably don’t have enough time to be knocked from their Flow position. But give them an extended period, a training camp and six weeks together and this soon disappears.
Getting back to Flow won’t be easy. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if we failed to achieve it and progress. But if we do manage to beat the Slovenians of this world, it’ll be interesting to see how well we “Flow” on the pitch.
All this does have a big bearing on Learning and Technology, but I’ll save that treat for another week 
Powwow Water bites the dust
Well, I think we all knew it was coming. According to a few news reports Powwow Water was taken into administration on Thursday evening. Deloitte were appointed and decided that the business could not continue operating in its current state.
My heart goes out to those staff who have been made redundant – especially anyone who has been working all month for no pay!
As you may or may not know, I had a bit of run-in with the previous owners over this blog. The running theme amongst those people who responded to that post in the comments (now closed) was that the company “could not be long for this world”.
Turns out they were right. I suspect history will record that cash flow was the cause of death. But we all know that awful customer service policy was the underlying disease…
The Hierarchy of Acceptability and other mind farts.
I’ve just come back from holiday and whilst away I’ve developed a few thoughts that I thought I would share. Consider yourselves positively blessed. It’s a bit of a stream of consciousness, so forgive me, but I think it works better just getting this stuff down on the page!
Thought 1: The Hierarchy of Acceptability
Hierarchy of Acceptability
I’m sure someone will have documented this phenomenon before, but why is it that, socially speaking, we find some activities more acceptable than others? Who came up with the notion of “fresh air”? Is the air in my living room less ‘fresh’ than that in my front garden, next to the road? How is reading a book a more socially acceptable past-time than interacting with my friends online? Is it really as simple as a lack of understanding, or is it something deeper?
For many people, the notion that kicking a ball around is somehow ‘better’ than playing a computer game is common sense. I can’t see the sense in it at all.
Thought 2: The Underpants Gnomes and Cumulative Advantage
Underpants Gnomes
If you haven’t seen the Underpants Gnomes episode of South Park, shame on you. It’s a nice little skit taking on the business models of web 2.0 enterprises. The fundamental premise is this; Gnomes are stealing underpants as a part of their business strategy to get rich quick. Their plan comes in 3 stages. First steal the pants. In stage 2 something will happen (not sure what yet, doesn’t matter) and stage 3 is all profit. Sound familiar yet?
However, whilst I was away I read a bit on cumulative advantage, which suddenly legitimised the business model of every world dominating web 2.0 website. In the olden days it used to be that Cumulative Advantage was all about the rich getting richer. Money was the commodity and if you had a lot of it, you could pretty much rule the world. Of course the same holds true today. But what web 2.0 companies like Facebook, Twitter et al are doing is the same thing. They are just replacing the commodity – exchanging lots of money for lots of users, lots of tweets, lots of anything.
The principle is, if you can reach a critical mass in something which eventually proves to have value, you are laughing. Knowing what exactly people will choose to place value in is an entirely different story. But pants aren’t a bad start.
Thought 3: Why am I so bothered that I can’t come up with a 3rd point?
Nearly all of my postings come with a number of points. They are always odd numbers, 3 or 5 normally. Not being able to come up with a coherent third point for this post has really bothered me. If anyone knows anything academically about the rule of 3, I’d love to hear from you!
Your organisations next Facebook policy
1.a. If at any time during your working day you find yourself with a free moment, it is company policy that you MUST logon to your favourite social network and have a play about. Do this until more work arrives. No exceptions.
I’m getting increasingly frustrated by the attitudes of a wide-range of people when it comes to accessing websites like Facebook at work. Forgive me for incessantly saying Facebook – interchange it for your favourite social network if it makes you feel better – but it is the most popular.
Andrew McAfee, speaking at the DevLearn 09 conference yesterday*, commented that we need to stop jumping on the risks associated with Web 2.0. Currently, in order to get close to any of the benefits that a website like Facebook could provide your company, you first have to jump over all of the associated ‘risks’ that get thrown at you. It’s nearly impossible to do this and even if you do succeed it will be a watered down and caveat-filled experience. Why?
It’s a mindset, one of a previous generation.
Recent UK figures have shown nearly 2.5 million people are out of work in this country. There is significant evidence that being unemployed long-term has severely detrimental effects on both family life and health. People are generally happier when they are in employment. So, reading between the lines here, we all have an inherent will to work. We go into the world of work essentially happy. Then work breaks us down, infringing on the liberties which we take for granted outside of the workplace, for no other reason than to mitigate risk. This sucks.
Eschew risk, embrace opportunity; what’s the worst that could happen?
Browsing social networks is just one liberty that the next generation of worker is going to be denied by most organisations they go to work for. Access to Facebook might not make you happier, but blocking it will almost certainly make you less happy. Social Networks are rapidly becoming a hygiene factor in the minds of new Gen Y workers.
So then let’s look to embrace the opportunity that providing access to Facebook will give us. I’m going to go beyond the normally recognised benefits (of which there are many) and move the discussion to one key area of objection: Time-wasting. If we allow workers access to Facebook they are doing personal stuff on business time and this is wasteful. Yep, I think even I can agree with that.
But let me ask you this; how are you currently measuring employee waste in your organisation? The principles of Lean operations are present in many organisations throughout the world (and many more are paying millions to develop such ideas). The central pillar of this initiative is the cutting out of waste. Some waste is easy to identify. Some waste cannot be avoided. Other waste is difficult to track, like the amount of time a worker involved in a process is not fully utilised. So then, let’s turn the tables on the software packages which track websites visited and time spent. I refer you back to my new policy:
If at any time during your working day you find yourself with a free moment, it is company policy that you MUST logon to your favourite social network and have a play about.
So we insist people use social networks and then we track usage levels to use as Management Information, tracking waste. At the same time as offering great quantitative information with regards to the amount of waste and the times at which it occurs, this system also offers a great visual aid to waste on the shop floor. If you’ve got Facebook open you’re not being utilised. How easy is that from a Line Managers point of view? What a fantastic measure of waste that would be.
Stop evaluating Web 2.0 tools from a risk point of view and start evaluating the opportunities.
*By the way, I did not attend DevLearn 09, all I had to do was follow the Twitter hashtag for a running commentary on McAfee’s keynote.
A response to Blake Lapthorn, acting on behalf of PowWow Water
Please note for context purposes that the below blog is the full transcript of a letter I have today sent in reply to correspondance received from Blake Lapthorn Solicitors, acting on behalf of PowWow Water. I received correspondance from them on September 11th, 2009, in relation to a blog post (see: http://www.ht2.org/ben/?p=17) on this website, which claims that certain comments (appearing after the blog post itself) contain defamatory remarks towards both individual employees of PowWow water and the company itself.
Blake Lapthorn requested that their letter should not be published and I respect this decision. However, I believe it to be in the interest to those individuals who have responded to the post that my response should be available to them, in full.
Reference: PowWow Water Blog
FOR PUBLICATION
Dear Sirs
Thank you for your letter, dated 11 September, 2009 and received 14th September, 2009, with reference to the blog post found at: http://www.ht2.org/ben/?p=17
I must admit I was not surprised to receive correspondence from PowWow addressing the issues raised in this blog post; however I am disappointed that the first approach to me has not come from the company itself, but from you its instructed solicitors, Blake Lapthorn.
By way of background, I thought my blog post the last point of call in my attempts to contact PowWow in regards to the poor customer service I had received (and which I still face today). Throughout the blog posts existence I have sought to be fair and even-handed in the moderation of the general public’s comments, which today numbers over 140 comments. It had been my hope that perhaps PowWow senior management would seek to engage with me to deal with the issues the blog highlights. However, the only engagement that was forthcoming appears to be the fraudulent posts of staff members purporting to be customers (in direct violation of EU law).
Firstly allow me to correct a small issue with your correspondence. The website www.ht2.org does not host a blog where customers can post comments about PowWow. The website hosts the personal blog of I, Ben Betts, which is clearly focussed on the E-learning industry. This blog can be found on the url www.ht2.org/ben and is quite separate to the root www.ht2.org website. Within this blog there is a post, referenced above, upon which it has become popular for members of the public and members of your clients organisation to post their opinions in response to my own. You will also note that my own opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my company (HT2), as highlighted on the “About” page – http://www.ht2.org/ben/?page_id=2
Your letter first advises that some comments from the general public contain personal mobile phone numbers of various PowWow executives and that these numbers are currently subject to abusive phone calls. You list 4 current male employees for whom this is a problem, but then go on to state that these calls are frightening for female personnel. I do have to question the legitimacy of the claim that these are “personal” mobile phone numbers belonging to 4 male workers if female employees of the company are frequently answering the calls.
However, I do not wish to perpetuate any calls which could be thought of “harassment” and as such I have taken measures to remove all mobile phone numbers from the general public’s comments, in complete compliance with your letter. It should be noted that I first solicited confirmation that these were “work” numbers before they were allowed to be posted in the first place (see post #25, September 4th, 2009) and that I have deleted other comments which made no such efforts.
The second part of your letter comments on the so called “Defamatory Comments” made by “alleged former employees, current employees and customers”. You note that these comments extend beyond the company towards individuals, suggesting that “Mr Parks and Mr Kitley are bullies, Mr Parks is dishonest, aggressive and abusive and that Mr Kitley is spineless and ineffective”. You also later draw attention to a comment which states that Mr Parks has a “**** winky” amongst other allegations.
You will of course be aware of recent High Court Judgements made in similar cases to this, such as Smith v ADVFN PLC, where Mr Justice Eady found that Bulletin Board comments made by the general public were “when considered in the context of defamation law…much more akin to slanders”. As your letter takes no issue with the original blog post itself, only with the comments which appear in a “Bulletin Board” fashion, it is fair to assume that this ruling is applicable in these circumstances. Further to this Mr Justice Eady found that in the case of the general public posting to a bulletin board, “opinions may be expressed in exaggerated and strident terms; the only requirement is that they be honestly held” in order for the comments to amount to “fair comment”.
As such, I do not accept that these comments amount to the defamation you claim. However, as earlier demonstrated, I am more than willing to comply with your demands despite this complete lack of grounds. Your letter goes onto list 14 comments to which you deem defamation has taken place. For confirmation of actions taken (or to be taken), I list these comments below. Where discrepancies appear I would appreciate further confirmation of your requirements. By making these amendments I offer no admittance of guilt (either on my behalf, or that of other authors) to the allegations.
1. Comment by “ex-emplyee”, 24th August, 2009 – Last 18 words
This comment has now been edited as required.
2. Comment by “Huey”, 25th August, 2009 – entire comment
This comment has now been removed as required.
3. Comment by “Baz”, 26th August, 2009 – entire comment
This comment has now been removed as required.
4. Comment by “Current Employee”, 27th August, 2009 – “The phrase beginning at the end of line 8,and ending after the first word of line 11”
I assume that ‘the phrase beginning at the end of line 8’ might also be considered ‘line 9’, which states: “As has already been mentioned a good few times, jim park is *** a **** man. In so many ways he’s almost like a **** **** *******, and it would be hilarious if it wasn’t for the” – is this the phrase you require removing?
5. Comment by “ex-employee2”, 3rd September, 2009 – “The sentence beginning at the end of line 13 and ending at the beginning of line 14”
I’m sure you realise the above statement makes no sense, however the sentence which fits the bill closest is “It’s not looking **** for powwow”. Is this the sentence you sought to be removed?
6. Comment by “Saddended”, 4th September, 2009 – “The last 4 lines”
This comment appears to have no defamatory remarks in it, only remarking that:
“I hope Jim Parks & everyone that has bullied & shouted & screamed at decent human beings trying to make a living in a place worse than hell gets their comeuppance soon”. Unless you have incontrovertible evidence as to the nature of “hell”, I would suggest this is personal opinion and therefore fair comment.
7. Comment by “ex-employee”, 4th September, 2009 – “The last three lines of the penultimate paragraph”
I assume that you wish the reference to “their lovely PA Sarah Howes” to be included in the defamatory remarks to be removed?
8. Comment by “MW ex-employee”, 7th September, 2009 – “The last sentence”
Do you also wish for the following link (http://www.alloaadvertiser.com/news/tullibodyandsauchie/articles/2008/07/09/26064-tribunal-awards-manager-11000/) for the article “Tribunal Awards Manager £11,000” as published by the Alloa Advertiser to be removed?
9. Comment by “ex-employee”, 8th September, 2009 – entire comment
This comment has now been removed as required.
10. Comment by “ex-employee”, 8th September, 2009 – entire comment (#46)
This comment has now been removed as required.
11. Comment by “Big Billy”, 24th August, 2009 – “The last line of paragraph 5”
The last line in this comment is “Possible not”. Might I rather assume that you seek the penultimate sentence, “Is an organisation that has over 100 case awaiting an employment tribunal sticking to these policies”, to be removed? If this is the case could you please inform me as to the number of employment tribunal cases outstanding so that I might confirm the defamatory nature of this remark?
12. Comment by “Taste The Difference”, 27th August, 2009 – “Paragraph 5”
I am again unsure as to the defamatory nature of this remark (with the exception of the phrase “**** water in ***** bottles”, which has been edited). The post does make mention of price increases in percentage terms which could be defamatory if found to be inaccurate. As such I would appreciate your confirmation of price rise figures.
13. Comment by “Ernie”, 27th August, 2009 – “The penultimate sentence”
This comment has now been edited as required.
14. Comment by “Big Billy”, 4th September, 2009 – “The first two sentences of paragraph 3”
I am unsure as to the defamatory nature of this comment as it would appear that the weight of comments held within the blog would uphold this comment to be true.
Further to your demands for the above edits/removals of comments, you ask for, “an apology and retraction to Mr Park, Mr Kitley and PowWow water (our client) to be agreed and an undertaking not to repeat the allegations or similar allegations” to be submitted within 7 days from the date of your letter.
Firstly I am unsure as to which “allegations” you refer?
Secondly, you earlier highlighted in your correspondence that your issue was with postings made by persons other than myself. Of course, I cannot apologise on their behalf. You suggest that I am the owner of these defamatory comments, which I am not. The copyright of these comments remains with the person(s) who originally authored and posted the comment. As a means of contacting these individuals it is my intention to publish this letter, in full, on to the blog post. The individuals in question will then be in a position to take the demanded action, should they so desire.
Further to this information, please confirm the addresses or other means of contact which you wish the individuals in question to use in submitting their apology. Many appear to have difficulty getting in touch with your clients senior management and as such a reliable means of correspondence would be a welcome move.
Finally your letter lists 13 anonymous users and tells me that I should provide you with the IP addresses of those individuals, under threat of further action. You refer to these individuals as bloggers which is incorrect. These users are not bloggers (which can be defined as: ’a person who keeps a Web log (blog) or publish an online diary), they are merely commentators on my blog.
How ironic that you have probably come to the conclusion that I am in possession of individuals IP addresses having seen the screenshot of a Murray White worker passing themselves off as a customer in clear violation of False Representation laws. I reserve the right to pursue further action in respect to this violation, should I deem it appropriate at any time in the future.
Users post under anonymous identities for precisely that reason; they wish to remain anonymous. Whilst it has yet to be decided in a UK court of law that an IP address is definitively a piece of “personal identifiable” information, there is significant precedent both in court rulings (Sheffield Wednesday vs Owlstalk) and UK/EU legislation (Data Protection Act & EU Article 29 Working Party discussions) to suggest that this can only be decided by a court of law.
As such I will not release the IP addresses of those users without the order of a Court Injunction.
I am sure you will appreciate that seeking such an injunction would bring unnecessary media attention to this situation. We are in somewhat a “grey area” of the law as it is tested thus far and as such any coverage on this story would likely be significant.
Thus far I believe I have shown good faith above and beyond reasonable measures. I have replied informally, without the involvement of my solicitor. I have acquiesced to your demands on the mobile phone numbers and I am willing to edit the comments you have highlighted to your requirements, despite no wrong-doing having occurred. Furthermore, I will endeavour to prevent personal, defamatory comments from publication to the blog post in question where possible.
As such, I politely request that you withdraw your demand for commentators IP addresses immediately and submit that any apologies your client is lucky enough to receive in light of your request will be the only ones you shall seek, regardless of further action.
An urgent response is required. I reserve all of my rights in respect of this letter and do not acknowledge any wrong-doing. Further to this I once again indicate that the blog in question represents my opinion and not that of my company. I reserve the right to publish this letter as widely as I deem appropriate.
Yours Faithfully
Ben Betts
When bad service turns worse
A little time ago I wrote this blog about my experiences with Powwow water. A few people have managed to find my post and also join me in voicing their displeasure.
We also had a couple of positive comments, which I allowed in the interests of fairness. So imagine my surprise when it was brought to my attention that all of those positive comments were in fact fake, posted by someone on the Powwow network.
Check out the blog to see the posts, the comments and the evidence.
No one from Powwow has legitimately contacting this blog to discuss the post, despite the fact they are obviously aware of its existence. Is it just a case of bad service getting worse?
Why teens don’t use twitter and why it doesn’t matter
Teens and twitter seems to have been all the rage this week, what with Morgan Stanley’s laughable “research” from its 15 year old intern and the subsequent fall out.
The news that Twitter isn’t popular with teens will not come as a surprise to anyone who actually uses the service. As a Twitter user it’s my perception that whilst a few teens are likely to be registered with the site, very few would be considered “active” by any stretch of the imagination.
This morning I saw a blog post with the opinion that teens don’t use Twitter because it isn’t safe. I’m no youth researcher, so I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that’s BS. Some IT savvy teenagers might feel that way, but you only need to look to MySpace, the most popular of teen hangouts, to know that giving away information is de rigour for the teens of today.
The reason they don’t use twitter is this: it’s bloody hard work to derive value from it.
To get Twitter to work well for you, you need to build up a network of followers that are interesting and that share common ground. You need to look at it fairly regularly and build it into your day. You need to contribute to the discussion beyond telling people what you ate for breakfast (which you do on Facebook already). And it needs to have a focus. For me it’s eLearning. For teens the focus could well be their friends. But a teens network of friends probably all live their lives in the same building – school! I don’t know about you, but whilst I have work colleagues on my Twitter, I tend to turn around and talk to them instead of Twittering them.
And so teens derive no utility from using Twitter – its too hard and delivers too little to them, especially when compared to competitors like Facebook and MySpace.
But guess what? It doesn’t matter.
Morgan Stanley’s intern actually came up with a far more salient comment about teen life than his “teens don’t use twitter”. Teens like free. They go out of their way to get something for free. In other words, you’ll never make a penny out of them, so why bother?
Twitter has something which not many other social networks can claim. A user base of work-age professionals who value the service as a part of their working day and have a bit of spare dosh.
That’s why you shouldn’t worry about Twitter’s future cash flow…
-
-
You are currently browsing the archives for the Other category.
More on E-learning:
