Communism by Stealth?

With events in the financial institutes of America gathering ever more twists and turns, a quick scan at the news and you'd be forgiven for thinking that there is a suggestion of a shift in viewpoint.

The United States' distrust of ideas like 'socialism' seems to be eroding in the face of such calamitous failures in the capitalist system. And the nationalisation of banks (or at least portions of them) is on the cards.

Take this quote from the Financial Times:

"The US government may have to nationalise some banks on a temporary basis to fix the financial system and restore the flow of credit, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has told the Financial Times.

In an interview, Mr Greenspan, who for decades was regarded as the high priest of laisser-faire capitalism, said nationalisation could be the least bad option left for policymakers."

Much wailing and nashing of teeth ensued.

What I see though is not communism by stealth, or a will to dispose of capitalism, but the merest sliver of a more common sense approach to things. A balancing of attitudes.

So how on earth does this tie in to anything that I do? Well, and stay with me on this one, in some ways the internet has set precedence for this way of thinking.

The web has a long and proud history of 'disruptive' technologies. Google is the prime example. Make a product that works well and people want, then give it away. This is not normal business acumen, but it has worked fantastically well. Skype is another example. The days of information being a commodity in itself are disappearing, but these businesses are doing fantastically well.

So how is this linked to Greenspan's comments, well, as I see it, it is evidence that no longer is greed 'good', it is generosity that brings the rewards. And I see it all the time on the internet, a myriad of companies are developing products and services that are wanted/needed and giving them away for free, then reaping the rewards. Social media is exemplary in this.

And maybe, just maybe, this is the way forward.

Vistaprint Scam

Okay, I know they are really cheap, they offer free business cards and as a graphic designer I wouldn't expect much in the way of quality. What I don't expect however is sneaky small print which leads to my bank account being debited on a monthly basis without my knowledge.

I went on to their site to buy some cheap business cards. That's what I ordered and that's what I got. But somewhere along the line I must have ticked a box saying 'Sign me up to the VP Rewards scheme'. No mention was made of this being a paid subscription service. And no request to use my credit card details for this function.

Of course, I did receive an email after my order confirmation where it did mention that their service was free for 30 days, then my credit card would be charged until I cancelled my subscription. Small print though. And what with sifting through dozens of emails per day I overlooked this fact.

This kind of 'opt out' system really irks me. If your service is good enough I'll buy it. I'll 'opt in'. And at the very least you could remind me when my 30 day trial is up. But no, instead the onus is passed on to the customer, who in this case doesn't even realise that they have opted in. So they carry on taking money until you realise one day that you're paying for something you don't want and didn't know about.

In my case, I filled up the car with petrol and went into the garage only to be told that my card didn't have the necessary funds. An unexpected debit had been taken from my account. This irked me more because I'm a bit anal about knowing what's in my bank account at any given time.

And it isn't just me who frowns on this, the DTI and the EU are both heavily set against the principle of 'opt out' commerce. It generates a lot of distrust.

VP Rewards will say that what they do is not illegal. And of course this is true. But the whole approach is just a bit sneaky. I'm not the only person who has been burned by this and a quick Google of 'VP Rewards' reveals the extent of the bad feeling.

Which is the whole point of this minor rant. No, it isn't illegal. But there is certainly an ethical problem here, and not only from a customer's viewpoint. Vistaprint have built up a reputation for cheap and cheerful, what you see is what you get, style of business. And lots of people are very happy with the product they are buying. But this form of generating income through the back door has created so much bad feeling that word of mouth will eventually bite back at them.

I won't be recommending them to anyone, in fact I'll be recommending that people don't use them and that they tell their friends and colleagues to do likewise.

I learned years ago a very basic marketing maxim: "If you do a good job, the customer will tell someone else. If you do a bad job they'll tell a dozen people".

So it's just plain bad business.

I hope they enjoy the extra £50 or so they took, but I can guarantee that it'll cost them a lot more than that in the long run.

RSS Reason

I thought it was time to delve a bit further into the world of content this week. With the beginning of the school holidays there is always a small lull before the Edinburgh Festival. That, and the culmination of the HIE Moray Seminars has given me a little bit of time to help catch-up or get ahead of the game a bit.

So I've been spending some rainy afternoons exploring RSS feeds.

As I mentioned in my previous post and extensively in the seminars, Content is King.
But it can be difficult to find good content or to generate it easily. Blogs are the first port of call. But then how do you get people to read it.

The simple answer is by using RSS (Really Simple Syndication). This converts the content of your blog, website, podcast etc. into a format which is easy to incorporate into many forms of RSS Readers.

Subscribing to Feeds:

Your email client (Outlook, Thunderbird), your browser (Firefox's Live Bookmarks), Google, My Yahoo, Bloglines and many other stand alone applications can all read RSS feeds.

Simply find a feed you want to subscribe to and you'll receive the content as it is updated.

For example, using Firefox you can see the little RSS symbol in the address bar -


Simply click on this and you'll be taken to a subscription page -



Simply select the application you want to use to read the Feed, in this case Firefox's Live Bookmarks, and hey presto you have a subscription.

So this is part one of the RSS info, the next part is discovering how to generate a feed and how to get it noticed.

Workshop Wonderings

I'm halfway through (well 2/3rds to be exact) our latest series of seminars for HIE Moray, and they're progressing well.

Monday and Wednesday's seminars covered various topics including Search Engine Optimisation and Best Practice Web Design. And the content seems to be have been generally well received.

Well, it's free and it is useful (hopefully).

Which set me to thinking about one of the main aspects which I'm trying to demonstrate in the seminars...Content

Content is King.

In fact, content is King, queen, prince, duke, archbishop, serf and handmaid all combined.

In the process of demonstrating this I've been talking a lot about 'Blogs', and how they are a good way to generate traffic. And this is mainly because they are a quick way to generate content. In an age of 'consultants', it's good to know that there are still people out there who are willing to give you the benefit of their experience for free. It makes us all feel good, fuzzy and warm inside.

The internet can be a breeding ground for cynicism but, as I've mentioned in a previous rant, it only reflects the world around it, and possibly your own outlook on life. So, for me, it's about 75% good and 25% bad. (For others it's Satan in electronic form).

Some people can be very precious about their knowledge. 'Knowledge'='Power' etc. But, the internet has pulled the rug from under this somewhat. There's very little that one individual knows which can't be found somewhere else, so it's best that people visit you for your insights.

But my point is (eventually!)this.... write constructive, creative and informative articles and (most) people will be grateful. They may even pay you a visit on a regular basis, and they may even tell their friends how helpful you are.

If knowledge is power, and power corrupts, then giving away some knowledge can't be such a bad thing.

Forgotten Corners

Like most Scots, when I head northwards it's usually to the coral seas and beautiful beaches of the west coast. It is hard to beat swimming in the Gairloch on a warm summer's day. And no, it isn't tropical, it doesn't compare to swimming in Lake Powell where the water is warmer than our average summer air temperature. But languishing in an atlantic loch with the slight toasting of the Gulf stream, on an august evening, gazing out to the dramatic profile of Skye is somehow more satisfying. Partly because of the rarity of opportunities.

But in recent years I've been exploring less popular parts of the mainland, namely the North East and more specifically Moray. The area is in a huge transition phase at the moment. A last generation of fisherman are slowly phasing out their boats, and the economy is turning its head towards tourism.

I admit I may not have ventured there, were it not for my work for Highlands and Islands Enterprise. But I have begun to find that it has many of it's own charms. There are endless miles of beach along the Moray coast. Ranging from the ever-changing shingle at Spey Bay to the extensive tidal stretches at Lossiemouth. And from there to Inverness lie enormous expanses of sand dunes, some of the highest in Europe. These dunes are held back by a series of forests which were planted to hinder their relentless progress inland.

And,like many parts of the East coast, Moray is dotted with dramatic sea cliffs and charming fishing villages.



Of course if none of this tempts you, then there are the other ethereal charms of the Speyside Malt, with literally dozens of distilleries within a day's drive. Although, maybe driving yourself isn't the wisest choice.

Two things the Moray coast can beat the West coast with is:

A) A very low annual rainfall
B) A lot less midges

So if you've got that 'been there done that' feeling with the West, then Moray isn't a bad alternative.

Special thanks to Don and Eileen Temple for providing me with excellent accomodation at the Granary Wharf villas in Burghead. www.morayhols.co.uk

Bombscare in Lochinver!

Okay, excuse the tabloid style, attention grabbing, and slightly deceitful headline, but there was genuinely a Bombscare in Lochinver on Friday night. This wasn't, however, an upsurge in activity by the haddie liberation front, but the supporting act on an outstanding night of music in Lochinver Community Hall.

'Bombscare' themselves would have been good enough, but a real coup had been achieved with the headline act. None other than the 'Skatellites'. Inventors of Ska, Rock Steady and Reggae as we know it.

Forget the fact that the surviving original members are all in or around their designated 3 score and ten years. And don't let the scale of the venue lure you into thinking this was a mellow night, the place was jumpin, skankin, and rockin. 2 top notch acts worthy of any venue in the country, whipped a couple of hundred lucky and grateful punters into a frenzy which will enter the annals of Lochinver folklore for generations to come.

Not only did they come to Lochinver, but they chose to launch their latest album there as well.

Many thanks from me (and my stiff thighs), to Euan Macdonald for arranging tickets for us, and his friend Neil for somehow organising the gig. He has a long way to go to top this one, but I'm looking forward to it anyway.

Sound-Trek

The West Highland Way started with Jim'll Fix It. Or to be precise, the Jim'll Fix It theme tune. Initially I wasn't sure why, but the seed had been planted in Brian's head when we mentioned that Jimmy Saville had a house in Glen Coe. So, being the sharing type of guy that he is, he told us that, all the way from Crianlarich to Tyndrum, he'd had the tune in his head. And thus began a peculiar and unexpected journey deep into the aural memory banks in all our heads for the rest of the trip.

For some reason I managed to link the 'Jim'll Fix It' theme tune with the opening brass section of 'Sweet Caroline', which looped around for most of the next day. Not a bad tune for a good steady hiking pace it turns out.

Every now and then a shout would arise from one of us, announcing a change of internal soundtrack which led us through Disco, Ska, 'The Bluebell Polka', and many obscure tunes which none of us could remember the title of, or the artist, but the lyrics all seemed to be lodged in some deep mental recess somewhere.

I was expecting the physical challenges, and the accompanying mental challenges but I wasn't expecting either of these to be accompanied by music.

And so, like some bizarre, slow-mo, linear marching version of a techno club, we padded on for 50 miles across the glorious glens and moorlands of Scotland to our surreal soundtrack.