DM, Data and Beyond - All Comments

re: Absurdity Rules?

Kevin Gordon — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:16:40 GMT

Hi Mark,

Is there a league table of who owes what to who amongst the superpowers.

It would make interesting reading. A sort of Premier league of debt, with debts for, and debts against, with number of years pending, and goals scored on sustainability and carbon footprint calculations.

re: Helping who, exactly?

Neil Smallwood — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:34:21 GMT

I know of several small businesses who tried to take advantage of those schemes after they were announced and all failed - no-one knew anything about how to apply, find out about them, etc.

I suspect the process of successfully getting one will be the subject of Dan Brown's next book.

Modern life is rubbish – DM, Data and Beyond – Blogs – Brand Republic « Brand Management World

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:43:26 GMT

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re: Modern life is rubbish

Catherine Foster — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:57:01 GMT

I think it is totally unfair to keep saying 'But at least they still have a job'. Just because you have a job does it mean you should be treated however your company feels like and you should be grateful you are even employed? I think that some companys are taking advatage of this and are using it to get away with things ordinarily they wouldn't get away with.

Just because we are in a recession it doesn't mean you should be walked all over.

re: To the Royal Mail Strike: ‘On yer bike…’

Rachael White — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 07:13:26 GMT

E-commerce businesses are hurting badly with this strike, if it continues through Christmas some will lay off staff,some will close permanently. For sure many, many people will be out of work as a result of the strike. As we sell smaller lowe weight items we have no alternative but Royal Mail, which is normally very good.

We have set up a petition to ask the Gvt or ACAS to intervene and end fairly. If Royal Mail have broken agreements then surely a contract lawyer will see this and can then sort out, if there is intimidation / bullying in the workplace then there are employment laws to protect employees. - why is it everyone out! - if you read the CWU and other pro strike websites they wanting the national strike...(but then do CWU get paid when the posties lose their pay for striking?)

petitions.number10.gov.uk/MailStrike

re: To the Royal Mail Strike: ‘On yer bike…’

CF — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:19:20 GMT

I can see the point of the commentors, but the succession of one-day strikes and the threat of a national strike are hurting so many people who are powerless to do anything about it.

It's not just the big marketers, but small businesses that are being affected too. And what can they do to resolve it? Nothing. A little independent business has no sway in governement negotiations and also has no alternative. I know of serveral who are suffering quite badly. The strikes really don't seem to be helping anyone and are breeding resentment rather than support in the general public.

re: To the Royal Mail Strike: ‘On yer bike…’

mary hayes — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:58:54 GMT

I agree with Norman. This is fairly shocking in tone. There are very serious issues at stake. They've had contracts broken, pensions swindled, and a smear campaign in the press. And after all, if my boss was insisting on reserving the rights to switch me to a night shift in another town with only 24 hours notice, I'd be refusing to sign my new contract too. These guys aren't striking just to have a day off.

re: To the Royal Mail Strike: ‘On yer bike…’

Norman Ingram — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:00:38 GMT

Wow! What a post! Not an ounce of compassion anywhere.One of Britains most respected brands which is being systematically destroyed by a succession of clueless leaderships and you single out the humble postmans union as the culprit!

I must point out I have absolutely no association with Royal Mail or any union. Sometimes, even in the most troubled times there are bigger issues than just being inconvenienced because your letters are late.

I suspect you have never tried to bring up a family or had a life on the wages these guys and gals have. I recently read that the vast majority of our postmen have wages so low they are entitled to state related benefits. They work in all god forsaken weather and are continually having their working conditions eroded by incompetant "leadership"

Sometimes there are bigger issues than being inconvenienced, and fairness and decentness towards honest hardworking ordinary people is one of them. If we lose sight of social justice in the self centred pursuit of making a quick buck, then I am afraid we will all be the poorer for it

re: Deutschland, Deutschland über opt-in

Etoain Shrdlu — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:09:23 GMT

Umm, call me an ignorant Yank, Mark, but I have a problem. First you rant about the horror — the "something rotten" horror! — of governments insisting people opt in. Then you decry HSBC's carelessly lost personal information. Methinks you are trying to eat your bile and have it too. Bon Apetit!

Crankily yours,

The New York Crank

re: Game, Set and Match

Jeremy Tracy — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:23:22 GMT

Murray is going to blow most others out of the water when he comes to renewing his clothing sponsor. He will easily get £3 million a year (i would say double), you just have to look at the ratings over Wimbledon when he was on, considering Heman earned somewhere in the region of £70 million in his career i would say Muzza will do ok...from a corporate point of view they want to be linked to success so if he wins endorsements will follow suit...only time will tell but i would back him...compared to the polished, rather bland persona of Federer he is the new 'bad boy' on the tennis circuit!

re: Game, Set and Match

Mike Page — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:34:35 GMT

And to think that Federer won the final by only breaking Roddick's serve once and by winning one game LESS!

re: Bank Swindles and Grateful Dead

Kevin Gordon — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:43:45 GMT

I think you're absolutely right Mark.

Andy Kroll's article is on the money. I'm just hoping we get a bit of an up before the next wave. It all depends on people's attitudes. A friend of mine was concerned some European non-british banks may be the cause of a second wave in Europe in the summer as their asset stripping activities become laid bare for everyone to see. Confidence is key. The economy will bounce back. It always does, it's just the inconvenience of the waiting for things to happen. Out of work, I'm enjoying the sun while I can and while it shines.

However, I've never known it quite as bad as this. Usually there's a few odd jobs available to help pay the bills, but tnis time those jobs are simply not there.

Jobs that people would never dirty their hands with before are simply not there.

So everyone lives in fear of being laid off and confidence wains as a result.

A light will not switch itself on. People who have the power should act, but clearly they cannot. I'm looking at everything to simply pay the bills, to keep the family running, and there are many like me in exactly the same situation.

I am not alone, and soon I fear a lot more people will be joining me. The irony of it all is when I was working I made one hell of a lot of money for every employer and their clients that I worked for. It simply does not make sense.

re: Customer Marcoms: A whole different kettle of Tweets?

James Ainsworth — Fri, 15 May 2009 10:07:18 GMT

I dont think we should be too suprised at the Twitter retention rate. Sites such as Bebo, Facebook and Myspace etc all require you to use the sites themselves as the platform and thusly ensuring a return visit. Twitter has software platforms that do the work for it and sometimes better-in the example of Tweetdeck. If you adopt Tweetdeck or Twitterfon or Twitterfox or any other application with a 'Tw-' prefix derrivative, you dont need to go back to www.twitter.com once you have registerred

re: It’s official – marketing rocks

Kevin Gordon — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:30:08 GMT

I find it quite amusing that 4 out of 5 bean counters favour investing in consumer spending during the recession. I guess that explains the 80 / 20 rule. 80% being bean counters, (the only flourishing industry left) who only spend in a downturn.

My brother used to be an insurance inspector. He visited a factory once where he had to base an insurance estimate based on ratio of white collar

workers to brown collar. He was horrified to discover the factory actually employed 300 workers manufacturing, and 600 pushing paper. How can such a factory compete in such a difficult market? It doesn't.

re: A Bite of the Big Apple

Kevin Gordon — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 09:15:20 GMT

It all started in the UK with an obsession with CCTV cameras. A friend of mine used to spend all day sitting in front of them sticking his fingers up at them as they spied on his personal domain. The sense of self agency of the individual has been badly eroded over the years. People are naturally suspicious of companies motives now to the point of paranoia. I'm not surprised New Yorkers throw half the mail in the bin. They are probably fearful that if they open the envelope and start reading the content, they will become trapped into another deal that will cost them more money with no way out of their debt-ridden society.

Apparently one of the latest ideas to get over the credit crunch over the pond is for banks to offer mortgagees a low interest mortgage to get these millstones from around their necks and free-up money to help them to spend money in the economy. Caviat: However, if you sell your house in the meantime, you must repay the total previous outstanding balance.

US Homeowners find themselves in a dreadful catch 22 situation: Sign-up or die, or die anyway.

With no health state protection to the individual like we have in the UK (The NHS Health Charity for anyone ill in Europe) it's no surprise they don't care about who sees their data. Many like my two New York cousins would probably pay good money for someone to steal their identity so they could become someone else.

When I told them we owned our own property in the UK they almost fell to their knees. Sadly the same is happening here in the UK. A former female colleague who works extremely hard day in and day out told me about six months ago that she never expects to own her own home in her entire lifetime. She is only 30 years of age.