watch tHe skies

I read a little guide over at Matthew Costello’s blog entitled “Ten Commandments of Customer Service”, by Pat Croce. I thought that it made some very useful points, but I wondered why it was limited to customer service? Surely if you behaved like that to everyone that you come in to contact with (except perhaps that moron who tried to overtake me on a single lane flyover on saturday…), then surely behaving that way with your customer becomes second nature? I believe that no matter how hard you try to be nice to your customer, if it is fake then most people will smell it a mile off.

So I’ve replicated Pat’s commandments, and i’ve given them some of my own flavour. Like them or loathe them, agree or disagree, because, hey, it’s only my opinion… (more…)

You would never guess that I’m stuck in a hotel tonight, given my blog posts. Thank the lord for wireless LAN in hotels, it seems that even Bristol has finally joined this millennium.

Whilst watching the footie, I’m browsing the trailers on the apple site, and I came across Who Killed The Electric Car? A documentary investigating the conspiracy behind the failure of the electric car. Is it slow? Is it uneconomical? Well by the looks of the trailer, it is the saviour of the environment (maybe).

But for the oil companies and the motor industry we would all be driving Sinclair C5s (again, maybe), but this documentary looks like it has some explosive statements to make, so I hope that it is both interesting and as successful at making changes as Supersize Me.

Checkout the website for more information.

Interesting article by Jeanine Byers over at the winning attitude, aimed at helping the reader uncover their life purpose.

Some lovely questions are included, chock full of NLP, but I think that written questions of this kind, particularly ones that attempt to probe some deep, sensitive areas of who we are, are tough to get answers from in print. In particular, the killer NLP question, if you did know your life purpose, what would it be? I have had some results from asking this question face to face, but unless you have worked to take down a fair few barriers, it is unlikely to yield the response that you hope (my experience, at least…).

However they are good questions to bring in to your mind. Mulling them around over time can yield good results once your consciousness no longer sees them as threats. I’ve seen a similar result with the concepts behind the pizza walk.

There are a lot of people wondering what Apple will do next. After all it hasn’t released a new iPod model in six months, which is unheard of in recent years. Speculation over the pointless concept of a video nano continues in the absence of any other information.

But the trouble is, where do Apple go from here? They have the market share, an excellent form factor, great styling and a brilliant music management software (iTunes), plus the ability to watch videos if you really have nothing better to watch them on.

I think that the recent introduction of the Apple iPod speaker and the Nike running add-on could be the sign of things to come. The iPod accessory market is enormous and I think that Apple is going for that area of the market. If you take a look at what people use their iPods for, there are three main areas:

Travelling by car - iPod integration is a huge opportunity to tie in to specific brands of vehicle and target their customers. I think that we will see some pretty tight integration coming in to factory fitted head units over the next couple of years. A standard accessory would be a decent dock, maybe in the glove compartment, because once you have all of the track and playlist data on the head unit, you can tuck the iPod away out of the sight of thieves.

Travelling by public transport - Noise cancellation and wireless headphones are the two areas that stand out. However both will take a chunk out of battery life so that is a challenge. Noise cancellation could be a real selling point. After all, using noise cancellation headphones with an iPod adds a big chunk of hardware and additional batteries. Integrating a microphone and the circuitry in to the iPod could be a goer nowadays.

Exercise - Man my gym is full of people wearing their iPods. Whilst the Nike running add-on appeals to many dedicated runners, I think that a heart-rate monitor add-on would have a wider market. An interface unit to Polar products would capture the marketplace, and allow both companies to sell their products in to new customers. It would certainly save me carrying more gadgets than Batman to the gym.

So there you go, my view of the future that is absolutely true until disproven.

And whilst we are on the subject, here is one improvement that I wish they would get on with: zero gaps between tracks. Is it beyond the wit of man to remove the gap between tracks so that continuously segued albums don’t sound rubbish? You either need to rip the CD as one continuous track, or put up with a stutter every five minutes or so. Personally it puts me off listening to mixed albums on my iPod, which is a bit limiting given my love of melodic trance. So come on Apple, sort it out!!

Damn it’s hot, 8.45 in the morning in the middle of England and already the fan is on max and i’m sweltering the office. The product of global warming? Probably. Although when they told us about global warming they omitted to tell us that we would get more of every type of weather. And quite often it seems, all in the same day.

It is quite sobering to think that whilst the tabloids will be choc full of British lovelies mostly naked on Brighton beach, the upshot is more and more of the planet is turning in to Mars.

Oh well, a little bit of positivity on a monday morning! At least we don’t have to listen to the England team complaining about the hot weather any more… Come on Germany!

My inbox fills with all sorts of junk everyday, but amongst the dull, the pointless and the unsolicited, there is the occasional gem. The following Brian Tracy email was sent to persuade me to buy another book, but it manages to say, in a nutshell, a lot of the stuff that I harp about regularly. I replicate it here on the basis that if I put a link in to the book that he is trying to sell, then he won’t care too much.

You may have a thousand different goals over the course of your lifetime, but they all will fall into one of four basic categories. Everything you do is an attempt to enhance the quality of your life in one or more of these areas. (more…)

Another world cup. Another media frenzy. And somewhere in the middle, a handful of Englishmen who are trying to do their best to satisfy a country overdosed on St George. It is at this point of the competition that I always silently ask our boys to put me out of my misery; either play like champions or go home, because I can’t handle any more lacklustre scrapings-through.

And then there is the inevitable penalty shoot-out. Because there always is. And this time around, we have a pretty solid defence and an inept forward line depending on an unfit prodigy and Mr Bean’s older brother. A draw is going to happen, and penalties will be upon us once again.