No DMA lunch, but the hangover from hell is still part of the job

So the DMA Summer lunch won't be happening this year. That doesn’t mean we should all hang up our Martini glasses and give up one of the most important and, let’s be honest, one of the most pleasurable aspects of our work: networking.

Having just got back from a fabulous day with clients at Ascot – with the hangover from hell – I can honestly say that this is the best part of the job for me. It's what keeps me going.

The chance to socialise in a non-pressurised environment with some really fantastic people and to do business on the clink of a glass is far better than Twittering or Facebooking by any standard. And those of you that think this is the new way to network, think again. We have just banned Facebook and Twitter and every other social site between the hours of 9 and 5 – get off your backside is what I say. Enjoy the weather and go meet with real people!

Seriously, this is in fact an important part of the job for most of us. Given the business challenges most of face at the moment, we need to take every opportunity to build relationships with everyone from suppliers to prospects. Networking at its best provides all of us with opportunities that otherwise would be lost to us.

Frankly, I’m a bit relieved about the DMA cancelling the annual summer lunch. It means I don't have to buy a new summer suit for a change, and I won't have to sit through another meaningless speech and witness a lot of back-patting. The thing I will miss is the fun we all have when we escape the heat of the Royal Opera House and leg it over to Chez Gerard in Covent Garden – which, let’s face it, is where the real fun begins.

We don’t need an official lunch to do this but we do need to take every chance we can to get out to see and be seen. So whilst the DMA was a date to record in your diary, we don't need it! Maybe we could all just meet up at Chez and have a party without the boring expensive lunch. Any takers?

Let’s try to prevent blame game before the heat is on DM again

So now the Speaker is gone. It’s great to find someone to blame, isn’t it? It’s a game the British media love to play and direct marketers know it only too well – after all isn’t it those pesky “junk mailers” who are responsible for global warming?

Let’s get them. No matter that, in the end, the environmental impact of banning addressed mail from marketers would actually be relatively negligible. Or are we talking about doordrops? Or is it free newspapers? Or is it CRM communications from companies most people are already dealing with?

Does anyone actually know what most people consider to be “junk mail”? Didn’t think so.

But let’s blame “junk mail” for everything from identity fraud to climate meltdown to causing back injuries on our poor old posties. Unless it’s something that we really really want like the latest catalogue from our favourite retailer – then it’s valuable information.

My point here is that, as an industry, we need to get out in front of the debate on these issues – whether through an association or just through our own corporate initiatives – before, once again, the finger gets pointed. A space just opened on the front pages and the summer heat is coming fast – and you know they’ll want to find someone to blame for that.

The check on Swine Flu? It’s in the mail

Not only are our politicians claiming for everything from bath plugs to porn movies these days, they are using direct mail to teach us how to use a tissue when we sneeze – with a glossy five-colour leaflet sent to over 25 million homes in the UK.

What a complete waste of MORE taxpayers money, though I would love to have been the printer that got that job.

Even if Swine Flu does start to spread, will this really help? Personally I don't need to be told how to contain a sneeze and I’m pretty sure a pretty sizable portion of the population doesn’t need to be told either.

Maybe they should have targeted the mailing better by sending it to all the people who live in caves, or have no TV, radio or internet, or those whose only source of news on the world around them is Jeremy Kyle and Trisha Goddard – we could have assisted them with that and reduced the enormous amount of paper and ink used in this disastrous attempt at scare mongering.

In all the panic, our politicians and the media seem to have failed to realise that flu in a bad year kills on average 24,000 people in the UK alone and that so far we have only around 70 confirmed cases of Swine Flu – all treatable with medication.

Honestly, the government and the press seem to collude on anything to take our minds off the banking and political crisis. What’s next, a parliamentary debate on Katie and Peter splitting up?

The DMA’s radical restructuring: too little too late?

It’s about time the Direct Marketing Association did something – anything – radical, and restructuring its management is the place it should have started long ago.

The DMA has been an organisation badly in need of new thinking and it has failed to make an impact over the past couple of years when the industry has been in great need – when it has come under attack from populist politicians and from equally populist newspapers.

The direct mail part of the industry has been particularly battered and no one inside the DMA has been willing to really come out and fight on its behalf. We all know the arguments about “junk mail” being annoying and not particularly green. In response, the DMA has produced a lot of targets and paperwork for its members but has done little to demonstrate that direct mail is actually not doing as much environmental damage as is generally believed and can be useful – and certainly wanted by its recipients – when targeted properly.

Try weighing the free newspapers that drop on your doormat each week – many of which are published by the owners of the aforementioned populist newspapers – or the emails, web pages other online content printed off in the average office each day. Compare that with the amount of addressed mail most people get. Then tell me mail is the real tree-killer.

But no one from the DMA is out there on a daily basis making the industry’s case effectively to the public (through the media) or to the politicians.

Ideally, the new restructuring that was recently announced would see the DMA more focused on those tasks – and hopefully the association would bring in some dynamic, articulate, telegenic and quick-thinking bright spark to lead the charge.

But I have some serious doubts that anything like that will happen. And if it doesn’t, DMA members need to seriously consider taking matters into their own hands – maybe what they should do is simply pull their fees and put them into their own PR to promote the interests of the industry, without all the internal politics.

Come on, is Google Street View really Big Brother in disguise?

I just can't believe all the negative news on the launch of Google’s Street View in the UK – people are labelling it an infringement on data protection, among other more sinister sounding phrases such as “invasion of privacy”.

It’s a bit like the ominous stories we read about in the press whenever they want to have a go at our industry – us with all the creepy information we have on UK households like: they have a car or they buy from mail order companies. Eeek shriek, what a terrible danger!

Then the same people that are sounding the alarm about even the most mundane data being kept complain about the irrelevant direct mail and other marketing communications they receive – but not conceding that you can’t target properly without data. Now they’re worried about some street scenes on the internet.

Isn’t it amazing that in a society that has more eavesdropping devices than anywhere else in the world, where you can be filmed making your daily journey to and from work, extracting cash from a hole in the wall, shopping in your local supermarket and speeding (or not) along the highways of England, we worry about geeky internet sites such as these.

Come on, what’s the problem? We have a government that watches our every move, records every time we take a plane abroad, stores our medical records – yeah, and loses them from time to time too. So why worry about Google Street View? It’s as innocent as we are, but maybe just a little more fun.

Why not leave data security to the DM industry experts

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas is at it again pushing the data security button, raising concerns about how both government and business are handling personal records. This time he highlighted the issue at the recent DMA conference where he said there have been more than 400 breaches in data security since late 2007.

This comes on the heels of the commissioner putting the commercial sector under the spotlight in a report last month – and he clearly wants more teeth for dealing with private companies. But is that what’s really needed?

I’m sorry but let’s face it, the data transgressions of any private organisations still pale in comparison to what we have seen the public sector: HM Revenue & Customs loses personal details on 25 million people, British Council loses personal details on 2,000 employees, Government loses 12 million personal details in pub car park, 25 million child benefit records lost, 7,000 Northern Ireland drivers details, MOD has 658 laptops stolen in just four years, three million drivers details lost from the UK in Iowa in the US, and so it goes on.

So if I seem wary about any public officials criticising the private handling of data, forgive me. But if I get one more piece of bureaucratic claptrap or red tape ruling from some idiotic government related burke sitting in some high rise office in London informing me of yet another guideline or instruction that I should follow in order to maintain ‘data security’ I will blow a bloody gasket.

I have a better idea: why don’t we as an industry offer to train Government officials in terms of security? After all, the DM and data industry is still by far the most successful sector at policing the movement of data.

And if I read one more time that Government is outsourcing its data requirements to places as far flung as Iowa, Bombay or the Philippines I will throw myself against a brick wall. HELLO?! We are here in the UK and we are data specialists, so call me for a quote pleeeeeeeeze. Is it just me, or do others out there feel the same?

Enough about Woolworths already – Rosebys shows there’s hope

I was shopping at Rosebys the other day – I go there for their excellent bargains in bedding, if you must know – and was surprised to see them still open weeks after holding a closing down sale.

Rosebys was just another in a long list of recession closures that the press are so quick to jump on for a cheap news item. What wonderful news then that a buyer was found for over 40 per cent of the stores, securing hundreds of jobs and with a promise to open eight new stores in the next couple of months. Where did I read that? I didn’t. I asked a member of the store staff why they were still open and with an enormous smile on his face he told me the fantastic news. Nothing in the press though.

Asda is opening new stores and creating up to 2,000 new jobs – did you hear about that one? No, probably not. I heard it on a small radio slot and, you know what, the list goes on. All we seem to hear among other stories is the fact that Woolworths has closed all its stores. Hello?! They have been closing their stores for the last five years after burning all their assets – media, media, media please don’t add it as kindling on the ‘recession fire’.

In the DM and data world, we hear a lot about how bad things are too – the same sort of doom and gloom preaching, plus complaints about decreasing marketing budgets.

Well, I’m seeing as many, if not more, opportunities out there as marketers are spending wisely and looking at longer-term data solutions. We are certainly pitching for more long-term contracts than ever. If people want to listen, bow their heads and wait for better times, be my guest – I’m happy to keep pitching and take the new business. And I’m sure I’m not the only one…

Dragon's Den master Theo spotlights what's killing our SMEs

Did anyone see the great Theo Paphitis from Dragon’s Den on Panorama recently, reporting on funding for SMEs? In the programme, Theo took us through the struggles too many small businesses are facing right now – primarily in getting the credit lines they need to grow their businesses – which by the way is how the country will dig itself out of recession.

Scary stuff, particularly as most banks are “making it up as they go along” – Theo's words – and they don't fully understand how the various government funding schemes actually work. So this is suffocating UK small and medium businesses across every sector – including many of the businesses that are at the heart of data and marketing services.

When will the government get it? Stop issuing instructions from your desk and get out there and talk to business, see what’s needed and then go tell it to the banks. It's no good telling us through the press that funds have been made available to pump much needed cash into what is the lifeblood of the country if no one can actually tap into it.

Every day I see another report on government help but have you found a company that can actually get their hands on the cash? The answer is a thumping NO! At a time when we need to get this country moving we could do with some practical hands-on help.

Unfortunately most of our bankers have been in the job since school and most of our government ministers have never been in the commercial sector – and these are the very people who have the power to make a real difference.

The cynic in me would say Theo for Chancellor and Judge Judy for Prime Minister – now that's the kind of combination that might get close to giving everyone a kick start. Does anyone out there have their own nominees?