flash in the can?
Funny. I’ve always had a kind of uneasy feeling about Adobe’s Flash. Maybe because I saw it as some strange black art practised by weird geeks in back rooms. Flash never felt […]
unsocial banking: what I say is what you get
How dare I question. What right do I have. If I know so much, I should start a bank! What had I done – collapsed the economy, started a bank run or […]
MovenBank: can clicks really replace bricks?
Autumn 2011 has been a really interesting time for banking. I mean new banking, not that tired old high street of ours. MovenBank’s appeared, Zopa’s broken more records, Wonga’s won more awards […]
Wonga: how APR has ruffled some headless chicken feathers
You know, no matter how much you explain, some people never manage to get it. Take Wonga and the thorny question of APR, for example. Now I’m not going into compound interest’s […]
identikit banks: the UK’s big four – customer centric or simply self serving?
Here’s a question for you. Imagine all four banks merging. What would we lose? OK – so they wouldn’t share one trough – and no one makes one that big. If our […]
web design: how can we ever move forward by not moving forward?
I worry about web design. We’ve always catered for the lowest available platform. Designing for people who don’t know, or just don’t care about the Web. I mean, there are some great […]
Bosch: what you do isn’t what you should always do – a lesson for banks?
Ever stopped for a moment to consider exactly what is banking really all about? Could a lawn mower be the key to change?Not any old lawn mower. But Bosch lawn mowers – […]
below Standard & Poor: a rumble in US capitalism’s gangland
Once upon a time, we thought US financial policy was decided democratically. That concept was blown away like a dollar bill in Hurricane Katrina. The US government in reality is no more […]
house of cards: how banks ran out of ideas – and talent
They must have made us buy millions of wallets. I’m talking about plastic cards. They became an obsession – even something we collected. Colourful, pictorial, themed, silver, gold, platinum, even black. We […]
social media: bringing everybody together – for better or worse
The inner groans from social psychologists must have been deafening recently. Politicians calling for a messaging platform ban during unrest – really? A typical reaction, of course. Look for something to blame. […]
standing apart: what quality do we have that really makes us special?
This is one of those flights of wonder moments. An idea that came out of the blue. What I’d like you to think about is – what places us apart from other […]
CRM: all the smart money’s on SalesForce, but can the little guys cut it too?
How come most companies think having PowerPoint more important than CRM? CRM comes last, after email, office productivity and accounting. Everybody knows, we’re told often enough, that looking after customers is vital. […]
Tesco Bank: how a new bank suddenly became an old bank
Just a few months ago, I had high hopes for what Tesco bank might achieve. Even with Fred Goodwin fan-boy Benny Higgins in charge. But the recent prolonged outage for so many […]
GiffGaff: hold the line – this one’s for you
If you wanted to take on the big boys, you maybe wouldn’t choose 2011 to do it. Fortunately GiffGaff thinks differently. They think differently about a lot of things. GiffGaff doesn’t sell […]
Smartphone NFC: if one size won’t fit all, don’t wear it.
OK, regular readers will know I’m not buying the hype around SmartPhone NFC. This is for a number of reasons and none of which are about it being new. I’ve talked about […]
Chrome OS: now its not just about tablets – here’s something else to think about!
Hands up all of you who’re thinking about buying a tablet in the coming months? Must admit, an iPad or new Honeycomb tablet are tempting. But… How about Chrome OS – Much […]
SharePoint and the Public Service: when common sense goes up in smoke
I’ve just read a Management Today supplement about West Yorks Fire Service. Remember how Public Service budgets are meant to be getting cut back? Well, it sure doesn’t seem like that’s the […]
iPad: have you got something to tell me?
Everyone knows how good the iPad is to use. Its made reading stuff cool again. But what about when you have something to write about? There’s now a great way to use […]
The Cloud: don’t let a spell of bad weather get you down
Easter of 2011 will probably be remembered as the time the Cloud went down. Bad as it was for Amazon’s EC2, the sky didn’t actually fall on anybody. Maybe the great bank […]
Banking’s darkest hour: why the new dawn seems a long time coming
The financial media all seem to be agreed. The High Street banks are screwed. Restrictive, greedy, self-serving. Banks have been found guilty on all counts. Commercial incompetence kills companies in other markets. […]
Twitter: don’t follow me, follow Socrates
I enjoyed one of those Twitter engagements this weekend. Well, I say enjoyed, maybe more like the engagement one has with the front of a speeding train. It got me thinking about […]
Bing: hey Microsoft, you may find its time to give up the search
It was hailed as the new dawn. Microsoft was squaring up to Google for search. Google looked to have a fight on their hands with Bing. But look at this… This is […]
branch banking: real social networking
Society. We hear that word daily. But basically its all about you, me, everybody. Society is the framework that binds us, defines us. We work best together. Get things done. Our lives […]
NFC mobile payments: behave yourself – we’re watching you
Paying for the things you want in the blink of an eye. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? You don’t sign, or PIN, or even touch. But who’s to say its you buying? You […]
Facebook in the workplace: shooting the messenger
You know, for me, the most frustrating thing in the world has got to be hindsight. And coming up with that great question or comment too late. I’ve just attended the Manchester […]
the Internet unplugged: discovering the web’s off switch
The Internet and freedom. Two words we always believed couldn’t be separated. Recent events have shown otherwise. Now this isn’t a commentary about the rights and wrongs of the Egyptian unrest. This […]
co-operative bank: good with money, bad with everything else
As a bank marketing slogan, the co-operative’s good with money is pretty good. Just a pity then that the rest of the bank’s processes don’t match. Because behind the ethical façade this […]
innovation: just shut up and drive
Its funny how we can sometimes be carried along by the current without realising. Following the innovation bandwagon, for instance. Every businessman knows they must constantly innovate to compete and survive. We […]
getting away from it all this Christmas
Another snowy morning. Another day’s news of travel woes and broken services. Wasn’t this supposed to be the age of technology? Looking around my neighbourhood, middle-management cars struggle past on route to […]
Oracle Cloud Office: great idea, but…
Finally, its here. What we’ve all been waiting for since Sun shone into our lives. Oracle’s launched a Cloud version of Open Office. There’s not much details about it as yet – […]