Television

Travails in France and Market Research 101 – @bbcapprentice

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homepage_tx8_1I was surprised and caught up in the success of the the Apprentices this week. I honestly thought (being a man with no sense of style) that they’d struggle to sell ANY lamps, and in honesty – those universal grips – always offend me as pieces of pointless, expensive wire and plastic. But they did a pretty good job, all in, and both teams managed to make some reasonable sales – although I do note that La Redoute doesn’t currently stock a transforming car seat – in the UK, anyway – so I’m doubtful as to the honesty of the process.

The losing team suffered on all sorts of counts, but I have two key lessons for Melody, in particular:

  1. If you’re doing market research, you have to be aware of something called ‘sample bias.’ It’s reasonably unsurprising that in the course of interviewing Metro commuters you get the impression that people in Paris don’t like to drive. Just looking around – as she eventually did – revealed the scope of the traffic situation in Paris and answered that question.
  2. If you are biased, you can ask questions to get the answers you want. I suspect Melody knows this one already, but to take a lesson from an even more epic BBC programme, Yes Prime Minister (quotes from here):

"Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?" 
"Yes" 
"Do you think there is lack of discipline and vigorous training in our Comprehensive Schools?" 
"Yes" 
"Do you think young people welcome some structure and leadership in their lives?" 
"Yes" 
"Do they respond to a challenge?" 
"Yes" 
"Might you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?" 
"Yes"

Now onto Survey 2

"Mr. Woolley are you worried about the danger of war?" 
"Yes" 
"Are you unhappy about the growth of armaments?" 
"Yes" 
"Do you think there’s a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?" 
"Yes" 
"Do you think its wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?" 
"Yes" 
"Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?" 

"Yes"

Stuart Baggs on the BBC Blog has a fantastic perspective on Melody’s delivery of the primary market research too:

Her linguistic skills are applaudable, although I’m 97% certain her "selective translation" skills may cause a global war at the UN one day. She should seek treatment for what I call Internal Chinese Whispers, whereby a statement in French such as "Yes I think its a good idea" becomes "She said it’s OK".

A final note: Susan, seriously. "Do French people love their families…?" – that is a whole new level of idiocy that even I didn’t expect to see demonstrated. Just goes to show – given her sales impact – you really don’t need to be clever to get ahead in business.

Comics

The Unwritten – an @ArvD recommendation #comic genius

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storiesaretheonlything

I’ve just finished reading the first three graphic novels in the Unwritten compendium. The series is the latest output of genius British comic book writer, Mike Carey, whose Lucifer and Constantine comics series are favourites of mine, and whose Felix Castor novel series is one of the only bits of dark urban fantasy I’ve read (and loved).

The Unwritten follows Tom Taylor, son of a writer whose works span 13 novels of children-friendly-fantasy starring a ‘Tommy Taylor. The stories are reminiscent of a hybrid version of Philip Pullman’s ‘Dark Materials’ stories and JK Rowling’s Harry Potter. Mike – at the point I’m at – hasn’t revealed enough of what’s going on for us to fully understand the scope of his universe, but the underpinning premise is – our stories define our culture, and become real. In Carey’s universe, literally so, but the metaphor is a fascinating one.

I’m not going to write too much as its almost impossible to tell too much of this story without giving away spoilers. The essence of the story is one of Tom’s journey of self-discovery as he comes to understand his father’s role in defining the culture of an era in a psycho-cultural battle against a shadowy cabal of evil storytellers and manipulators of history.

I will tell you it is an absolutely spectacular bit of storytelling. Carey’s pacing, characterisation and careful and rigorous creation of story structure makes every story in the series an absolute delight. I hope he’s slightly more cheery in real life, though, as despite the occasional, well-executed bit of humour – these books are bleak. Hint of silver lining to be sure, but a lot of cloudy sky.

Disclaimer: I’ve not met him or have any particular bias to say that he’s awesome, so I can assure you these views are my own, but my brother is working with Mike on a movie. Don’t think I can say more than that for now…

Software, Technology

The cracks in the cloud

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crack in the cloudsOn a recent enterprise software concern:

Me: "What browsers does your app support?"
Them: "IE7, IE8 and Firefox 3.6."
Me: "So, no current browser?"
Them: "No. But we’ve no reported issues in Chrome!"
Me: "But you don’t officially support Chrome?"
Them: "No, but we’ve never had an issue with it?"
Me: "Is that a question? What would you recommend?"
Them: "We support IE7, IE8 and Firefox 3.6."
Me: "But Microsoft and Mozilla are both forcing updates to IE9 and FF5 respectively?"
Them:"We support IE7, IE8 and Firefox 3.6. Oh, and we have an iPhone app."

Me: <sigh>.

This post was inspired by this Macworld article and real life experiences.

Observational

Hay fever data visualisation – failed

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I had hoped to find an open source of historical records on pollen levels over the last 10 years ago to establish if there was some correlation between my having felt better this year than in the last 3-4 and general pollen levels. It seemed like it would be a fairly simple bit of data visualisation – line graph up the average monthly levels of different types of pollen over the last decade or so once I’d sourced the data from the National Pollen and Aerobiology Research Unit.

Unfortunately its data is not available to the public and they haven’t responded to my email. Anyone else got any other ideas for sources of open data on this?

Dadblogging

Babydan and babyproofing

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BabydanI’ve written before about the uncertainty of choosing stuff in a new sector and the value of brand shopping, and I seem to have acquired a new brand benchmark – BabyDan is apparently, for me, the BMW of baby products. Whether that’s because its Danish and I have a bias thanks to Amanda’s heritage there, or it’s the good experience of the couple of bits we have from them already it’s hard to say. Amanda finds it pretty funny, but I’m a sucker for this sort of stuff – and prefer to build up trust in a few quality brands than risk wasting money elsewhere.

We’re having to look at a lot of stuff as Emily becomes more mobile (crawling? pah, easy at 8 months. Standing by myself? On it. Walking? Give me a couple of weeks…).

Babyproofing is a fiddly process. I don’t have a solution for my AV stuff or TV, we’ve got some BabyDan safety gates and are getting an oven guard and some cupboard locks. Amanda has some plug socket safety guards. I’m frantically searching eBay for some Ikea wall-fixings for the DVD racks. We’re trying to strike the balance between keeping Emily well away from things that are outright and immediately dangerous and deciding that some things – we’re just going to teach her to steer clear of. After all, we might have a baby-safe house, but when she’s at other people’s houses she should know that pulling the TV down on her head or posting toys through the DVD slot is a no-no.

There’s some clever tech available. Magnetic lock-and-keys for cupboards, heat-dissipating overlays for oven doors and the like, not to mention safety edgings for coffee tables. But it’s a learning process and I’m sure we’ll iterate as we go… anyone got any recommendations on particularly awesome baby-safety kit that we shouldn’t be without?

Personal

From city dweller to country gent

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Many of my friends (and family, no doubt) are probably still somewhat mystified as to how I’ve taken to country life so well. My mother keeps saying "you were such an urban boy…" and smiling when I show off our veg patch.

Whilst I do miss the proximity of friends and family, the transition from city dweller to country gent really hasn’t been a hardship in any way. Apart from the extra space, there are lots of other things that have made it easy on me.

  1. Everything is more convenient. Admittedly its more convenient thanks to having a car, but the truth of the matter is that getting anywhere in London takes a disproportionate amount of time. I had a rule of thumb – if I had to get a tube or bus somewhere in London, it would take at least 30 minutes. And crossing London can take a considerable amount more time, never mind when there’s a disruption, fall of leaves on the track or a light shower of rain. In the countryside? Most things I need to get to are a maximum of 10 minutes drive away.
  2. The pace of life is wonderful. When I get home, it feels like a dramatic gearshift. I’m sure a lot of that is due to being a family man, but even if it wasn’t – walking around in the late evening sunshine in my back garden, bouncing Emily around or looking at the veg… is pretty amazing.
  3. The commute is better. I know, I know, I moan about it… and the SWT guys aren’t great, but, except, for when I was in cycling range of my office, the public transport from other places in London – like my sister’s house – can take longer than the train does to get home. That’s the 5 miles from our offices in Victoria needing an hour and a quarter to traverse (admittedly on a bad day, in rush hour).
  4. I like the structure the trains put around my day – I’m in the office every day at 7.40am and have to be out at 6. Still a long day, but at least without the uncertainty of when I’m getting home (again, except for delays). And obviously I’m able to be productive on the train in and out of Basingstoke in a way that I could never be on any London transport vehicle.
  5. I was never really a ‘true’ urban dweller. I grew up in the suburbs in a country where you had to drive everywhere, spent five years in the deepest countryside, 3 years in a small University town and then 7 years in London. I’m beginning to think that living in London as the unusual part of my life…

All that said, I do still very much enjoy being in London for work. Some of the things that happen here, only happen here, and I’ll never stop thinking of it as one of the greatest cities in the world. It’s wonderful to visit friends and family there, when they’ll have us, but I have to admit, I’m resoundingly and categorically glad I don’t live there any more.

Observational

Disengaging when you get home

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Switch Off My Dad always had trouble switching off when he left the office when he was younger. Being a corporate lawyer defined him to the core of his being, and it was hard to leave behind the challenges and conundrums his work threw at him. He revels in the intellectual challenge.

Me – much as I love both my job and the challenges it present, I generally have no problem turning off the work vibe when I get home. My wonderful family and my myriad hobbies have a way of occupying the time, emotional and cerebral space.

Every now and then, though, when things are particularly busy, it creeps through. Last night’s dreams saw me travelling around London with a former colleague trying to solve some indeterminate and ludicrously complex client challenge.

The worst thing about work-related dreams, even the vague ones, is that when you wake up – you feel like you’ve already done a few hours worth of work. I need to find a cure – the usual process of vegging out with TV / reading a book / hanging out with the family is generally super-effective but when things are extra busy, well… some extra tonic may be needed.

Finance

What are the real inflation rates?

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inflationI was having a discussion with my Dad about inflation rates the other day. He gave an apparently arbitrary figure – 6% – as the benchmark for inflation rates. Checking in on the official consumer price index inflation rates in the UK – calculated by checking the average price increases of a list of 600 commonly purchased household items – has only put the rates beyond 4% a few times in the last 10 years or so.

I then discovered Shadowstats – an ‘alternative’ set of estimates:

The SGS Alternative CPI-U measures are attempts at adjusting reported CPI-U inflation for the impact of methodological change of recent decades designed to move the concept of the CPI away from being a measure of the cost of living needed to maintain a constant standard of living.

They seem to be somewhat on the doomsayer side of things and, well, total economic doom hasn’t quite hit yet (they predicted hyperinflation would start in "the next couple of months" in December). They do have a point, though, in that many items not in the typical consumer price index have become expensive at a far greater rate than inflation – amongst them housing and (apparently) public school education. Now, not everyone needs the latter, but the former, arguably, is probably the single most essential item you could have in your proverbial basket.

So I don’t know quite what to believe. Adding one or two percent to the official estimates on inflation rates doesn’t feel quite so pessimistic when you read the SGS Alternative CPI-U, which puts it at 3-4x the reported rates of inflation.

Dadblogging

First father’s day as a dad

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Sunday was yet another wonderful experience. I still hadn’t shifted into the mindset of being a dad as far as the day itself was concerned so being presented with a set of awesome Superman cuff-links and a railway pass holder was a wonderful surprise at breakfast (which was a bacon sandwich – Emily/Amanda are awesome!).

It was a day spent bustling about doing things, hanging out with Em whilst Amanda did some work, playing in the afternoon sun, searching for bikes with baby seats and visiting the local VW dealer (another indulgence for me from Am/Em), assembling forts in the living room and scrabbling around on hands and knees finding innovative ways of making Em chuckle and Amanda smile. In many ways, a typical Sunday. But absolutely glorious, of course, and tinged with the poignancy of arbitrary significance (Father’s day is largely a Hallmark holiday, after all).

There were a couple of interesting interludes – an unexpected email from my old friend Ellen with the below wonderful song from Ben Folds had me thinking about the future.

This Google Chrome ad also triggered a bit of introspection and future gazing. I wonder if the me of five years ago seeing that advert would have immediately shoved it into the ‘ignore’ pile, or would have welled up with the same, bottom-of-heart feeling that it evoked in me when I saw it yesterday.

A wonderful day. And nice that it started with us speaking to my Dad on Skype before he flew back to Malaysia – his first Father’s day as a grandpa.

Cars

The ROI on @UKVolkswagen Bluemotion

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Dashboard 08

You’ll know from recent posts that I’ve been obsessing somewhat about the ‘new car’ decision. I thought I’d put the new ‘eco-efficient’ technologies to the financial test, trying to get a sense of how much money they’d save me on an average year.

This spreadsheet lays out the detail; but the essence of it is that I worked out the range of a Bluemotion VW Golf compared with a normal diesel car and divided it by the total estimated distance I anticipate driving per year (4000 miles or so). This gives me a theoretical number of refuels per year, on which basis you can estimate a saving.

Well, the saving, taking a pessimistic perspective on fuel prices and rounding up in a few other places to give Bluemotion the advantage, comes to about £250 a year. The tax-free status of the car saves you another £165 a year or so – for a total annual saving of £415.

Given that Bluemotion cars currently cost about £6,000 more than a slightly older, but not ludicrously less efficient 1.9 litre TDI Golf (30% odd), I’m trying to work out if the investment is justified. It comes to an effective return of 6.9% a year on the additional investment, which is not bad.

The resale value point might swing it though. If you enhance the rate of return with the possibility that Bluemotion cars will be worth more on resale (even if that’s only £100 a year more than the older car)  – on account of the desirability of the tax break and presumably the increasing expectation that a car is eco-efficient – then that 6.9% might be more like 8% or 9%- at which point it’ll be doing as much for me as a reasonable rate of return on a regular investment. And given that tax rates and fuel prices are only likely to go one way – it might make good sense.

Is my maths right? What does anyone think? I obviously haven’t allowed for inflation or modelled for tax / fuel price changes beyond fuel at £1.50 per litre.

Armand David's personal weblog: dadhood, technology, running, media, food, stuff and nonsense.