Brian Clegg's Blog, page 118

Addressing the bits we don't talk about

One of the joys of being a green heretic (TM) is that you are able to talk about the bits of ecological theory that traditionally aren't talked about. Because in most environmental issues there are topics that are considered off-limits, either because they result in bad publicity or are considered politically incorrect.

Yesterday a small one of these reared its head on our local radio show. The excellent host Mark O'Donnell was talking about the recent report showing a major decline in some wild species in the UK. I pointed out that one way to improve things was to get rid of cats, as they kill at least 50 million wild birds a year. I was expecting a deluge of complaint from cat-lovers, but even when Mark expanded this to point out that over 300 million wild birds and mammals killed by cats each year, most of the response was in support of reducing the cat population. But despite his personal support, it was also interesting that Mark treated the cat aspect as a humorous adjunct, the sort of skateboarding duck of the item. When he spoke to two experts about what we should do, in neither case did he mention the cats.

The fact is that the impact of cats isn't a joke, it is a real contributory factor to species decline and we need to consider which is more important, the need for cats to roam or the survival of our wild species. It is not ideal for the cat, but it is perfectly possible for a cat to be an animal that isn't allowed to roam wild, like a dog - it only takes a change in attitude in society. (And, as a bonus, those of us without cats would get our lawns covered in cat poo.)

This is a relatively minor example, but there are plenty of others we sweep under the carpet. The biggest by far is the impact of human population growth on the environment. The fact is that when we talk about global warming or our consumption of natural resources, the human population size is a fundamental variable. Admittedly it is difficult to do anything about it, which is part of the reason why it is usually treated as the elephant in the room. Adopting something like China's one child policy is not the answer and is not compatible with most ideas of democracy. But what we certainly should be doing is countering cultural and religious arguments that result in large families that are unnecessary in a modern civilization where so many children survive. It is time, for instance, for environmental lobbies to take on medieval attitudes to contraception and to consider education to encourage smaller families to be as important as setting up nature reserves to preserve the habitat of the lesser spotted, swivel-eyed peewit.

This has been a Green Heretic production.

The great East-West mint debate

Like most people from the North West of England, I might grumble about the people of the North East, especially those from Yorkshire, but also have a grudging respect for them. However there is one subject that totally divides North East from North West. And that is mints.

Each of these great regions has a mint product they are deeply proud of. For us in the North West it is Uncle Joe's Mintballs. For the North East it is Black Bullets. Each comes proudly in a tin. Each is really rather a similar product (though slightly strangely, Black Bullets are more, erm, ball-shaped than Mintballs). They are brown, hard sweets with a strong mint flavour. I've never done a comparative taste test, but my suspicion is that they are very similar. Of course, Uncle Joe's are more sophisticated - they come in wrappers, where the Geordie equivalent is naked - but to be honest the sweet itself is much the same.


I have to grudgingly admit that having discovered they can be bought from Amazon we now tend to have the dreaded Black Bullets in the house, though while researching this piece I discover they also sell Mintballs, so we may see a change. After all, I'd rather they were Uncle Joe's, just on principle.

It's a bit like supporting the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest. It might just be a mint. It might not even be the best mint in the world. But it's our mint.

Top twelve tips for brilliant customer service

Although I don't write business books much these days, I am still passionate about creativity and customer service in business, and I thought it would be useful to occasionally throw in something from my customer service book, Capturing Customers' Hearts . I've called this 'top twelve tips' but really it's more the twelve aspects of customer service you need to focus on if you want your business to have charisma - to actually appeal to customers, rather than be somewhere they go because there's no other choice.

1. Going the extra light year
In a way, this first component pulls all the others together. It’s an attractive trait if someone goes out of their way to help you. Equally it’s attractive if a company goes that extra mile. But for true charisma, to stand out like a beacon, you have to do more – to go the extra light year, the first component of capturing customers' hearts.

2. If it’s broke, fix it
We all get it wrong sometimes. Zero defect is a fantasy beloved of quality circles, but it is not a fact of human life. However good our systems and procedures and staff, things will go wrong – and then the customer measures the company's worth on how well we fix things. All too often, service recovery is grudging, set about with conditions and rules that make the hard-done-by customer feel like a criminal. If this is how you treat your customers, you are missing a huge opportunity for building up charisma.

3. I’m in love with my car
There are some products and brands that produce a reaction in the customer that is wildly disproportionate to their nominal value. It’s true of some cars, for instance, which have an almost fanatical following. Often these aren’t the best products by any conventional measure – instead they have a certain quirkiness that seems to generate such affection. You can’t engineer a product to be charismatic, but you can encourage it in that direction – and make sure that you maintain the benefit once you have a product that has achieved this status.

4. They know me
The whole field of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has built up around the thesis that you can give customers a better experience if you know about them and make use of that knowledge in the way you serve them. Unfortunately, all too often, CRM has been driven by systems (and systems manufacturers) rather than the realities of human relationships. But this shouldn’t be allowed to cloud the reality that the company that really makes the customer feel recognized and welcome has a big stake in the charisma game.

5. Star power
Companies who don’t have a star figurehead tend to be cynical about those who do. The key figures (think Richard Branson) are regarded as unrepentant self-publicists for whom the limelight is more important than the success of the business. Yet this overlooks the fact that the public like a recognizable human face for a company. You can’t identify with a corporation – you can with a famous chief executive. For that matter, you can with any famous employee (remember the Halifax's Howard?) – or maybe the whole team. Perhaps everyone can be a star.

6. They’re people like us
As a gross generalization, people like people. They like dealing with real people. They have relationships with real people, not with companies. So the more it is possible to make your customer contact staff into real people, the better. That means staff who behave like people, not like automata. It means real people with real enthusiasms – especially those that are shared with the customers. And it means people we have to trust to get it right. There can be no charisma from staff in a strait jacket.

7. Surprise, surprise!
Dullness and charisma don’t go together. Once upon a time, consistency was a customer service god, but if everything is the same, if everything is predictable, there can be no excitement, no charisma. The element of surprise, provided it is a pleasant surprise is a key component to keeping your customers intrigued and coming back for more. Don’t bore them until they run over to the competition – keep the creativity and fun flowing.

8. Technical wizardry
It’s often said that men don’t really grow up – they remain enthralled by toys for their whole life. Whether your customers are men or women, technical flair will appeal to their male side. Sometimes charisma needs a little gloss – used correctly, technical polish is a valuable addition. Technology needs to be optional – some customers are turned off by it – but for many it is an effective attractor.

9. They’re mine, all mine
To call someone parochial is usually an insult, and yet we all have a degree of positive parochialism. It doesn’t matter if it’s my town, my country or my football team – we like to see our own do well. The more we can bring customers to feel that they own the company, the more they will feel inseparable from the company and its fortunes. Make the company theirs and loyalty is no longer an issue – it’s a fait accompli.

10. Cute and cuddly
If technology appeals to the male in us all, there’s something about being cute and cuddly that tugs at our female side. To be charismatic is not necessarily to be loveable, but companies that give their customers that warm glow are inevitably charismatic.

11. We keep in touch
Communication is at the heart of human relationships and is equally important in fostering the relationship between a human being and a company. So often the things that go wrong are a result of a breakdown in communications. Keeping up a dialogue and making it obvious that you enjoy that communication makes it difficult for a customer to resist. You should never let up on communications.

12. The twelfth component
That’s eleven out of the way, but what of the twelfth? I have to confess that consideration of a twelfth component arose initially out of a sense of order. There’s something lumpy and unsatisfactory about the number eleven, compared to the serried order of twelve. When I began to think about what a twelfth component could be, I realised it was just as well that I had undertaken the exercise, because I had missed something big. Most people would accept that some companies have attributes that make the unique. What I came to realize, however, is that this statement can be generalized. Every company has its unique attributes, and these form the twelfth component that can bring charisma.

Liquid gold

This is one for the Mac users amongst you (or those with secret Mac cravings) - I have fallen in love with a little app called Liquid.

One of the biggest surprise when you come into the Mac world from the outside is how obsessed the heavy-duty Maccers are with doing things with keyboard shortcuts. Given that the Mac popularised the mouse, it's rather amusing that Macfans just love to do as much as possible without ever taking their hands off the keyboard. Now this works quite well for me - in Windows, I always used to cut and paste using keystrokes, for instance. But when it comes to the Mac much more seems frequently done this way, and there are plenty of helper apps like Alfred to extend the possibilities.

Liquid is a productivity tool for people who often look things up - ideal for a writer. Let's say I'm writing about Jupiter and wanted to check a fact in Wikipedia (yes, it is possible to do this - the science coverage is usually very good). I've just typed Jupiter in Word (say). All I do is highlight the word Jupiter and hit Liquid's activating key combination followed by RW (short for Reference Wikipedia). Zippo zappo and Wikipedia opens on the page for Jupiter.
At the point I've typed Cmd-§R but not the W for Wikipedia
I can equally look things up in (say) a dictionary or Wolfram Alpha, can search the likes of Amazon and Google or can do an instant conversion, say from Celsius to Fahrenheit (something I do quite frequently). This takes a few more key presses, but it's still just select, activate keypress then C(onvert) T(emperature) C(elsius) F(ahrenheit).

It is brilliant. All that I have described so far is in the free version, but I've gone for the paid for 'Pro' version, partly because I think it is worth £2.99 and only fair to pay for it, and partly because this adds translations and the ability to include your own searches. So, for instance, I can now search Amazon.co.uk as well as Amazon.com, can reference the full OED, which I have online access to, rather than the the cut down dictionary, and can make use of my own www.popularscience.co.uk site (or this one).

The app's not perfect - in fact it can be rather frustrating. The default key press is Cmd-@ (for Windows users, Cmd is the equivalent of Ctrl in keyboard shortcuts). But @ is a shifted character, so it takes three fingers to do. I have switched this to Cmd-§, which is just two keys, so practical with one hand. But changing the setting isn't as easy as you might think, as you have to do it in the Mac's services control panel, as Liquid has to act at a low level to intercept keypresses. The other irritation is that occasionally the key press does nothing, and occasionally the text you highlight isn't copied into the app. You can still type what you are searching for, either calling up the app with the keypress or using its little toolbar thingy - and sometimes that is better because you might not have typed the text you want to look up - but it is a real pain when it doesn't work, as to be efficient, you want to type the control keys without needing to check the word has passed through.

Despite these minor moans, though, it's a real winner.

E-volution

If you have a Kindle (or a device you can read a Kindle book on like an iPad, or Android tablet, or smartphone or PC or Mac... you get the picture) today is a momentous day as between now and 21 May, to celebrate the Cromer and Sheringham Crab and Lobster Fest (I kid you not), my friend Henry Gee's dark and gothic crime mystery By the Sea is free! (Check it out at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.)

It's worth writing this post just to tell you this. I mean, it has a creepy museum with a preserved mermaid! However I did have a larger point. I will be rushing to download a copy to my iPad... and yet I have already bought the real, paper version. Why would I do this? I think it represents a fundamental shift. My life is getting cloudy.

It's not that I'm abandoning paper books, but if I can have a book available in e-format as well, I will - because then if I want to look at it and I'm not at home I can do it, just like that. My library is heading cloudward.

The same thing is happening with music - I still sometimes buy CDs, but immediately slam them into iTunes. It's the same with photos. Nowadays if I take a photo it will be native in electronic format, but I am also going through a lengthy programme of scanning my old hard copy pictures. In fact the scanner is getting quite a hammering, as any documents I get in physical format that may be useful go straight into the scanner and via a nifty little app are transferred to PDF and hoovered up by Evernote - which then means I can access them wherever I want, whenever I want.

So don't look at getting a Kindle version of a book as neglecting the old paper friends. You can still keep your hard copies - but consider it a widening of your horizons. How else could you decide at a moment's notice to read about a pickled mermaid for free?

History comes of age

History is not unlike science, an observation made by Richard Carrier, the author of Proving History - and when you think about it, this idea makes a lot of sense. They both involve weighing up evidence, testing hypotheses and drawing up conclusions. In fact arguably cosmology is, in effect history rather than science, as it involves looking into the past and it is rarely possible to subject it to experiment or repeat it to see what happens.

That being the case, to do history properly, historians really ought to be using some of the tools available to scientists, but that they tend to ignore, in part because history has been around longer, but primarily, I suspect, because most historians have neither the training nor the inclination to dip their toes into mathematics. But the message of Proving History, written by a historian, is 'Come on in, guys, the water is lovely!' Carrier doesn't mention it, but there is a precedent here. Until recently biologists were basically natural historians. They merely observed and classified - they were doing Rutherford's 'stamp collecting' - they too avoided mathematics with fear and loathing. Now, though, some branches of biology make heavy use of maths, and have been transformed as a result. Biologists have learned to love numbers and a new breed of historians (it's probably too late for the old brigade) can and must too.

The tools Richard Carrier employs are logic and Bayes' Theorem. The logic is simple enough (though it is surprising how many examples Carrier gives where historians have drawn illogical conclusions). Bayes' Theorem is a little harder to get your head around. This statistical method is something I cover at some length in Dice World , because it is arguably one of the most powerful tools we have for predicting the future. What I didn't really full absorb is that it is also a great way of weighing up historical evidence and hypotheses. (It's odd, now I think of it, that I didn't do this, as the main example I give to demonstrate Bayes is deducing whether or not my dog is a golden retriever, which is, in effect, history, rather than future gazing.)

What Bayes' Theorem does is allow you to work out the probability of something being true with limited information, and modified by secondary evidence. As mathematics goes, it is actually very simple - a doddle compared with calculus, for instance - but for some reason, the way it is traditionally described makes it really hard to grasp, so one essential in selling the value of Bayes to historians is making your description simple. Unfortunately this is where Carrier falls down. If anything he makes Bayes' theorem sound more complicated than it is.

There are a couple of other problems with the book. I'm not quite sure what the target audience is, but the book is far to dry and dull to be anything but an academic text. This is a real shame, as the message is one that everyone should be interested in - here is a tool that could transform the way we assess our historical data, that could transform history. He perhaps should have had a co-author to make the text more approachable. It's not that the content is too complex, just that the way it is put across is often difficult to absorb.

The other problem is that Carrier is setting up this method primarily to be ready for his second book, in which he will dispute the historical reality of Jesus. This being the case, most of the examples in the book are from the Bible. I think this is a mistake, because this approach is so powerful it ought to have been set out in general historical terms in book 1 before he got onto his 'historicity of Jesus' theme in book 2. I think the subject matter will put some people off, who would otherwise benefit greatly from the underlying theme.

So if you are interested in the nature of history and how it can be improved, it is worth wading through the rhetoric to get to the juicy bits. It's a shame there aren't more examples, as the writing comes to life when dealing with specifics - it is only when it is being generic, which is much of the book, that it is hard going. If you are interested in Christian history, well and good - but if you aren't, again I would urge you not to be put off because the underlying approach applies to all of history and is far too good to waste. You can see the book at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Is no stats worse than bad stats?

There's nothing easier than attacking the media for misusing statistics - but I am puzzled at the moment by a major story in which the news media are avoiding statistics altogether. This may be an even worse reality, because the misuse of statistics is usually accidental, where this suppression may be deliberate.

Yesterday's news was full of the outcome of the Oxford trial where seven men were found guilty of grooming and abusing young girls in a terrible fashion. It is notable that the BBC report says nothing about whether the culture of the seven might have influenced this behaviour, not even in a piece headlined 'Who were the abusers?' Last night, though, Channel 4 News bit the bullet that most are dancing around and asked if race, religion or culture could have had an influence. Here Jon Snow asks the Deputy Children's Commissioner the straight question (and this is why I love Channel 4 News) 'Is it race?' Here's the interview:



She responds equally bluntly 'No.' She tells us this is taking place across all parts of our community and in all ethnic groups. The suggestion is that the reason we only see primarily muslim offenders, mostly with Pakistan as a place of origin, is down to the way the media reports the stories, and the way cases have been brought to trial. There was, for example, she tells us, the Derby group, which was primarily white (I wanted to put a link to that, but the only Derby trial I can find details of is clearly not the one she is referring to.) That's useful. But it isn't enough. The question that needs to be asked, but wasn't, is what the statistics are.

The UK population is currently around 62 million of whom maybe 20 million fit into the broad sex/age bracket giving them the potential to commit these crimes. The equivalent numbers for UK muslims is around 2.7 million, giving around 900,000 potential perpetrators, and for those of Pakistani origin 1.2 million in total with maybe 400,000 in the right bracket.

Given these figures, if there is no influence from these factors, we would expect around 4.5% of perpetrators to be muslims and around 2% to be of Pakistani ethnicity. If the actual percentages are significantly more than these,  and with the proviso that to do the stats properly we would have to look at other factors to make sure there is not another hidden dominant influence that needs to be controlled for, we can reasonably draw the conclusion that there is influence from race, religion or culture. If, on the other hand, these percentages are roughly comparable with the distribution of actual offenders, there should be an outcry because the media and the police/courts are grossly distorting the facts.

Let's be clear - I don't have these statistics, so I can't say which is the case. But either way this would be an important fact that needed acting upon. By not giving any statistics, we are being deprived of the key element of this news story. Statistics matter.

The Google Glass is half full

The world is traditionally divided into those who see a glass half full and those who think it's half empty. The optimists and the pessimists. Those who see opportunities and those who see problems. You get the picture. And I think nothing brings this out more than the widely talked about Google Glass product, in development at the moment.

In case you have just emerged from a year in a cave, this is a wearable computer interface that is like (and can be incorporated into) a pair of glasses and features a display, camera, speaker and microphone.

The Glass half full picture is that this is the sensible and wonderful extension of what you can do with a mobile phone. At the moment, when I'm walking about I will quite often ask Siri something on my phone (say to look something up, add something to my diary or reminders, or send a text), or will use maps on the phone to guide myself while walking. Similarly if I want to snap a photo or take some video I just whip out my phone and I'm doing it in seconds. Glass lets you do all this and more, hands free without looking down at the phone. Want to take a picture? Ask it and it's done in a second. Need walking directions? You can see them as you walk. Want to check your diary? No need to drag out the phone and stare at it, just carry on. It sounds life transforming and life affirming.

The Glass half empty picture is that this is the monster Google getting its tentacles into even more of your life - and the life of those around you. As you use it you could potentially constantly be providing Google with information and even images if the camera is live. And it's rude. When someone thinks you are listening to them, you may be consuming information on Glass. It is obtrusive, Big Brotherish and a nightmare. Some locations are already banning the devices.

When it comes to technology I'm largely glass half full - and this extends to Glass. I really want one, though with a number of provisos. It would need to be integrated with prescription glasses, something promised fairly quickly, but which I suspect will only be available in the UK after quite a while. It would need to be affordable - there is no way I would pay over £200 for this, as will probably be the initial price. They would need to work where I am most of the time - I don't know enough about the way they access the internet to know if this applies. And ideally they need to integrate well with my Apple technology, which given this is from the House of Android somehow seems unlikely. But that apart I would love to be able to do all that stuff.

Am I not worried about privacy? No, not really. I happily use mobile devices without panicking about losing my privacy now and I will continue to do so.

Google Glass is half full. And I can't wait to try it. But, strangely, Google is yet to send me a free headset (hint), so I thought I'd do a DIY experiment and see if I can learn anything. I stuck my phone in my top pocket with the camera on as I exited my local supermarket and this was the result:



I think there are some interesting lessons here, both for those who think Glass will give them excellent video and those who think it will be a snooper's charter:

Uncontrolled video is rather bumpy. Okay Glass will 'see what you see' - but bear in mind the brain is very good at editing out jerks and shaking. And this is after YouTube kindly offered to stabilize it for me.There will be a lot of close-ups of things that aren't interesting. If your head is there, that's what Glass will see.You will video/photo people without them realizing you are doing so. A bit worrying - but then, as I just demonstrated you can also do this with a mobile phone without anyone realizing.There's a heck of a lot of ambient noise in the world. I wasn't aware of the child wailing in the supermarket.Videos of your life are boring. This was 30 seconds. Imagine hours of it.Of course, I'm not suggesting Glass wearers will constantly video everything - apart from anything else, it would drain the battery quickly. If I had Glass probably 95% of my use would be information consumption, not capture. But it was still an interesting exercise.

It's not logical, captain!

I saw the new Star Trek movie at the weekend. I really like the new version of the franchise - as a fan of both the original series and STTNG, I think they have really done well in capturing the feel of Star Trek. And, boy, did they load in the references in this one, from a tribble to the lovingly crafted inversion of Star Trek II.

However, most Star Trek movies have had fatal plot flaws. One of the STTNG movies, for instance, had the saucer section crash landing on a planet - no power, yet somehow a) it stayed in one piece and b) the crew weren't killed. They were however, as usual, thrown all over the bridge - so nice to see in the new movie the deployment of seat belts. Clunk, click, Spock! In Into Darkness there was unfortunately also a significant plot point that just didn't make sense.

[SPOILER ALERT, but I won't give too much away]

Towards the end, our heroes are desperate to get hold of Benedict Cumberbatch's character (a great, surprise reveal, by the way), as they need his blood to save one of the crew. Spock and Uhura risk their lives for this. Yet on the Enterprise they have 72 other people who all have the same blood characteristics, all handily frozen and accessible. They even defrost one so they can use his cryo tube. Why doesn't anyone say 'Let's use this guy's blood instead'? Duh.

It's fine to build drama, but not by using totally stupid reasoning. Not with Spock on board.

Image from IMDB

Truth makes great PR

Over the years there have been a number of those irritating photo messages that get repeatedly shared on Facebook showing just how different the hamburgers McDonalds shows in its advertising look from the actual burger bought in a store. In the comparison photos the one in the advert is plump with all sorts of good things visible - the real one is saggy and usually just displays a bit of meat and an ooze of cheese.

Generally speaking, the McDonalds response to this has been to ignore it - the usual corporate approach to bad publicity, but some while ago the Canadian branch of McD's decided to address the matter face on. I think this was a bold and actually very sensible thing to do from a PR standpoint. Once you get over the fact that the burger in the photo is not made in a restaurant, but in a studio (using the standard ingredients) the difference in appearance does make a kind of sense. Yes, the bits and pieces are carefully arranged to stick out of the bun, which is plumper than the real one because it hasn't been steamed in the container. But they are the usual bits and pieces.

Frankly, to moan about deception misses the nature of advertising. Arguably this is less deception than the car ad that implies that if you drive their car your kids will sit in the back enjoying the ride and amazed by the design, as opposed to attempting to skewer each other with pens, spilling drinks on your seats and screaming. You might as well moan that the actors in adverts are wearing makeup. At least the hamburger in the video didn't suffer than indignity.

See what you think: