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'.

Peace, Not Pieces

Less than a month after the FBI and the Serious Office of Organised Crime (Soca) shut down Darkmarket - a website used by criminals to buy and sell credit card details and bank log-in information – came news this past week of more criminal websites selling ‘pieces’ of personal information (names, addresses, passport and credit card numbers) starting at just £5 a pop and rising to £80 for an ‘entire package’.

We’ve all heard the phrase ‘life is cheap’, but this latest twist in the ongoing online identity theft saga borders on the out-and-out evil – particularly as identity fraud cost  the British economy £1.5 billion in 2005. Add to this the estimated US$53 billion that ID theft costs American consumers and businesses each year (US Federal Trade Commission, 2005); the CAN$5 billion annual cost to the Canadian economy (Brown and Kourakos, 2003); and the AU$1.1 billion afflicting our antipodean cousins (Australian Bureau of Statistics), and the enormity of this international scourge becomes abundantly clear.

If you’ve fallen victim to any form of e-crime, then you have my commiserations.  CIFAS, the UK’s fraud prevention service, estimates that a total identity ‘hijack’ will take a typical victim over 200 hours to resolve; involve contacting between 20 and 30 different organisations; and cost up to £8,000 - a situation no doubt adding insult to injury for the 14,567 people who fell prey to identity theft here in the UK during the first quarter of this year alone.

Speaking of the ‘V’-word… The definition of ‘victim’ apropos ID theft is indeed curious in this country. Here only financial institutions/lending organisations are considered to be the ‘victims’ under current law. For individuals seeking compensation for the considerable distress, out-of-pocket expenses, damage to credit status and long hours spent clearing their names, the only legal recourse is to fight their way through the civil courts.

Kinda sucks the big one, does it not?

Gonna Find Out Who's Naughty or Nice

Hope Springs Eternal

 There are times in one’s life that you know, instantly, you’ll remember ‘til your dying day.  For me, the election of Barack Hussein Obama to the post of leader of the Free World this past week was one such moment.

It is not just the colour of his skin that makes Obama’s election exceptional, although it is critical to remember (and continue doing so) that only 40 years ago, complete segregation ruled in America’s southern states. Neither is it that the President-Elect is arguably the best orator that the world has seen in decades.  Obama’s ability to communicate his heartfelt sincerity and desire to ‘do the right thing’ is second to none.  He is imbued with many attributes that have been the hallmarks of some great men before him, possessing, as Barack does, the sincerity of JFK; the passion of Martin Luther-King; and the intelligence of Bill Clinton.

Much more important, to my mind, however, is Obama’s innate ability to identify what is damaging the troubled world we live in today.  He embodies the desires of not only his own nation but, I believe, the entire globe.  We certainly live in troubled times, and our collective desire for hope and change has been answered with Obama’s victory.

The US$780 million campaign ‘war chest’ the Obama campaign assembled is, on one hand, absurdly high (if not a trifle obscene), but that the bulk of these funds comprised innumerable small donations from ever-hopeful Americans serves as a reminder that, unlike George W. Bush, Obama’s ‘base’ is as genuinely popular as it is inclusive.  And his victory address - which I for one found profoundly moving - clearly laid out his desire for his nation and the wider world in the most inspired and most hopeful terms possible.  Hope begins with belief, and thus it follows that a positive attitude when dealing with even the most challenging of situations will in most cases allow us all to prevail.

The burden of expectation now lies on the shoulders of just one man.  Only time will tell whether Barack Obama can deliver on even half of his election promises, but I, together with millions like me, remain positive, upbeat and ever hopeful. 

So thank you, Barack Obama. Your positive, ‘YES WE CAN’ message is just the tonic the world needed to hear. Hope does indeed spring eternal.

McPolitics

‘Gimme a double-beef Obama burger with a large McCain fries and a supersized Joe Biden shake to go, please. Oh – but hold the Sarah Palin, will ya?’

Across the pond, the long race to the Whitehouse concludes tomorrow (Tuesday). That’s assuming there isn’t massive voter fraud in Florida again, of course. This is without doubt the most closely watched and contested Presidential contest in many years. For good reason, as – to paraphrase our very own Winston Churchill – during such troubled financial times, never have so many in the UK and beyond had a vested interest in the outcome of the deliberations of the (comparatively) American few.

Forget six degrees of separation. We’ve all got a stake in which road America decides to head down for the next four years. Financially, culturally and (perhaps most problematically of all) militarily, the implications for the planet are enormous.

So can I just vent for a moment at the tawdry X-Factor-ness of the whole Democrats v Republicans shebang? My PR guy often reminds me that we live in a ‘post-content’ media environment, but the Yanks seem to have upped the ante by entering what is surely some sort of ‘post-policy’ political environment. Detailed policy-making and robust debate have seemingly gone totally AWOL in favour of Oprah-styled personality sound-bites designed to promote brands ‘Obama’ and ‘McCain’ to the widest possible consumer-base. Whilst it’s heartening to see that the projected voter turn-out for election day tomorrow is likely to be the highest in years, I have to ask: When the choice between the candidates is, fundamentally, only one of centrist degree, wherein truly lies the choice?

After voters have bought the t-shirt, lipsticked a pig and/or slapped a bumper sticker on their SUV, what flavour of McPolitics will they order at the U.S. of A’s great democratic drive-through?

For good or ill, we’ll soon see.

Nice Guys (and Gals) don't always finish last...

Ethics. Amidst all these blank-cheque bank bail-outs of late, it’s a word I’m yet to hear mentioned amidst all the media pundits’ white noise surrounding the current financial quagmire we find ourselves in.

So how heartening it was to read on FT.com recently an article entitled Unethical companies suffer in the long run. A clever Swiss masters student named Julian Kölbel has studied the correlation between negative publicity on environmental and social issues and a company's share price to pose a very timely question, namely: ‘Is dirty business more efficient than ethically sound business?’

The outcome is a heartening shot in the arm for honest business people everywhere. Herr Kölbel, it appears, has found that companies with high levels of critical press coverage outperformed in the short term but underperformed over a longer period.

A case of what goes around, comes around, if ever there was one.

Note to the upper echelons of the international banking community who were all too happy to swap long-term, socially and financially responsible investment practices for quick-fix, what’s-in-it-for-me, bonus-boosting speculation, if I could be so bold: Your Thatcherite, deregulated bubble has well and truly burst.

So, dear readers, if you’d like to raise your glasses/mouses/laptops – whatever! - I’d like to propose this e-toast: Here’s to the return of sound business ethics and making an honest buck.

Because god knows, the community needs these now more than ever if we’re to survive the current monetary merdefest.

Things to make you go ‘Euuwww'…

Rather icky to hear that one in four commuters has bacteria from faeces on their hands, according to a survey by the London School Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. A rather distasteful fact which, curiously enough, makes me wonder if Home Secretary Jacqui Smith catches the Tube into Westminster, given that the Government's controversial Communications Data Bill is destined to be included in the Queen's Speech next month.

No, I'm not questioning the Home Secretary's personal hygiene. But with sensitive personal information leaking from several government departments like a bloody sieve in recent months, the Government's plan to establish a single, giant database to store details of every phone call and e-mail in the UK reeks of you-know-what.

This expansion plan for government surveillance is a massive infringement on our civil liberties and seems entirely inappropriate for a bureaucracy who can't guarantee the security of the existing data it holds, let alone the billions of records the intercepting of all UK communications would create.

But on a more positive note… At a time when the MoD lost another unencrypted computer containing 1.7 million people's data (weary sigh), kudos to Sharon Lemon and her team at the Serious Office of Organised Crime (Soca) for shutting down Darkmarket, a website used by criminals to buy and sell credit card details and bank log-in information. That one individual reportedly had spent £250,000 on obtaining personal data on Darkmarket in just six weeks from which he could have reaped as much £10 million speaks  to the magnitude and sophistication of international cyber-criminals - particularly as access to the site was by 'invitation only' (!) and even featured ID-theft tutorials for beginners.

It's a scary world out there, alright.

Smoke it and see ...

Welcome to my blog. The 2008 story so far: markets are in meltdown; IDMF has gone the way of the Dodo; the Walport Report has  induced a super-sized serve of trade hysteria; the DMA has crash dieted and slimmed its board structure; DM continues to lose channel-share to digital; and Gwyneth Paltrow has started draping herself in fur.

Pretty much business as usual, eh? Perhaps, yes. Except for Gwyneth. She should've known better. But then, what can we expect from an actress who named her first child after a piece of fruit? 

DM's looking a tad tawdry amidst all this chaos, I must say. Maybe we should take a cue from our TV cousins and do some much needed R-work - ie. re-brand, revamp and re-launch. Because at the rate we're going, another R-word - rehab - can't be far away. 

A destination to which, like Amy Winehouse, I say - no, no, no. 

As marketers we're meant to have our hands firmly on the response driving wheel. So why is it that: (i) we collectively suck at being green; (ii) our peak industry body is looking about as united and effective as the England football team; and (iii) according to a recent survey, 70 per cent of UK punters are pissed off by the millions of DM missives - incorrectly addressed, offer-mismatched and poorly presented as they more often than not are - pouring through their letterboxes.

Blessed be the meek and mild consumers willing to pick their way through piles of DM detritus grimly searching for the odd discount voucher, is all I can say. And brickbats to the companies (you know who you are), content to indulge in a veritable orgy of brand damage by relentlessly strafing every UK postcode with promotional materials day in, day out. 

I've been quoted recently as saying that data is the ‘new black'. Well, maybe I should extend this fashionista analogy further and join David Reed in observing that, if left unchecked, DM could indeed be the ‘new Tobacco'.

Here at the end of the Noughties, for a supposedly mature, self-regulating industry, we, like Ms Paltrow and her fur fetish, should know better. Unless we all affect a profound attitudinal shift - towards the environment, data handling, Westminster and consumers - the perception and effectiveness of our industry will only further deteriorate. 

Don't believe me? Well, smoke it and see, folks. Smoke it and see...