2009: The Year of the Ox

Normal 0 At the risk of showing my age, I'm a survivor of both the '87 stock market crash and the recession of the early-Nineties. On both these bleak occasions, there were copious amounts of hand-wringing and generous dollops of market gloom. But neither saw the end of capitalism or business life as we know it.

Far from it, in fact.

Call me perverse, but I'm quietly optimistic about 2009. Surely, contrary to what our illustrious Chancellor would have us believe, we are at best unlikely to see a return to positive GDP territory until Q4 in 2009 or Q1 of 2010. But better times are certainly ahead - shimmering on the horizon and most definitely within reach. How? Well, below are some suggested Do's and Don'ts that I hope can hold us all in good stead into '09:

Do...

• Tend to the fabled four P's - price, place, promotion and product - as surviving (nay, even flourishing) in a downturn is all about revisiting your business fundamentals;
• Run a tight, 'green' ship (your bottom line and the environment will both thank you);
• Focus on client retention (it costs between three- and ten-times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to retain an existing one);
• Put customers first (emphasising the additional value your goods or services create will provide a winning edge);
• Give rewards (be they small or large) to yourself, staff and clients for their loyalty. Your gratitude will be remembered long after this recession is but a distant memory.

 Don't...

• Shy away from DM and marcoms (why slash budgets when finding the right combination of channels can maximise both your response rates and ROI?);
• Spend what you don't have (cash is always your best friend);
• Retreat from investing;
• Be afraid of change (it's the management thereof that's key);
• Forget that we're all - each and every UK company - in this together.

According to Chinese Astrology, 2009 is the Year of the Ox, so being strong, patient and tireless will indeed be virtues over the next twelve months. But if your business planning and product/service delivery are sound, then in spite of the current market meltdown, opportunities still abound.

This blog will return the week of January 5th, so here's to wishing you and yours a safe and happy Festive Season.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Kids being taught how to live happy and healthy lives - that's surely enough to make even the most hardened cynic smile. So congrats to Sir Jim Rose and his government-commissioned report into what is taught in primary schools for suggesting that children should be taught about emotional well-being and social skills alongside traditional subject areas.

Great to see a holistic, forward-looking education plan for a change, no?

I was happy too to read that the US Supreme Court has rejected an application by retired New Jersey lawyer Leo Donofrio contesting Barack Obama's recent election win on the grounds that he is 'too British'.

Long story short: Even though Obama was born in Hawaii, Donofrio's assertion was that, as Barack's father was a Kenyan citizen, he was subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom - thus making Barack not the 'natural born' US citizen  as required by the US constitution to be president.

A case of 'Only in America', huh? Mind you, if they do want to deport the President-Elect across the pond to Old Blighty, Obama's talent and dynamism would be most welcome. We need an injection of new vision just as much as our American cousins.  

All I Want For Christmas is Obama's 'Big Bang'

Bravo, Boy George!

Coke ‘em, blow ‘em, chain ‘em up and leave ‘em to scurry home in their jocks... I think BG deserves a standing ovation for his treatment of a suspected computer hacker. God knows he's certainly dishing out harsher punishment than the MoJ when it comes to dealing with data thieves.

While we're on the subject...

With personal data the ‘new' black for the entire DM industry (and beyond), I'd like to extend my little fashionista analogy to observe thus: With communism dead, socialism on life support and even our own beloved capitalism looking decidedly recession-wracked at present, welcome, dear readers, to the brave new world of...

Miserablism*.

My thanks to the always finger-on-the-pulse Tom Watson MP for pointing me, via his highly topical website, to recent comments by Tory Deputy Chairman Andrew Lansley. Whilst Mr Lansley's remark that the current recession ‘is good for us' smacks of a certain deranged economic Darwinism ( the Tory's ‘let the recession take its course' line isn't going to be a vote-winner any time soon, methinks), the Member for South Cambridgeshire did make one prescient statement, namely that the UK will likely see a 26 per cent increase in the number of people suffering depression and other mental health disorders by 2010 - much of it unemployment and credit crunch-related.

Misery is indeed the real story of this recession. Unhappiness abounds, with too much of it market-inflicted.

Back in the data trenches, however, there has been a tentative glimmer of hope this last week. As part of the Government's response to the Walport Report, Justice Secretary Jack Straw and the Ministry of Justice have stated their intent to further strengthen the powers available to the Information Commissioner's Office - specifically, bringing fully into force Section 55A of the Data Protection Act (introduced as part of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 but not yet commenced), which will allow the ICO to impose monetary penalties on data controllers who contravene the DPA.

Let's hope this helps put a stop to the many egregious incidents of personal information loss/theft/left-my-laptop-on-the-train (take your pick) by both government apparatchiks and, in a final ironic twist, some of the newly part-nationalised banks. Here's to driving all the data cowboys and cowgirls out of Dodge once and for all.

* Defined by the Pet Shop Boys as being ‘the fine art of wallowing in the miserable'.