Your Office Is Horrible and Your Clients Are Judging You

The perk of being a freelance is you never become bored with your surroundings as you flit about between clients.  The most familiar backdrop is the interior of a train carriage as you move about between meetings.  I get to see a lot of different offices and work environments and the one thing that often strikes me is how the hell do people manage to work there five days a week?

  

Some of them are so scummy and worn.  The trouble stems from familiarity, when you see the same space every day you don’t see the deterioration as it’s gradual, it’s similar to not knowing how old your wife is looking as you see her every day and it isn’t until your sister pays her yearly visit and points out how tired and old your wife is that you realise she is probably getting a bit grannyfied.  It’s the ageing process.  It’s completely natural but please be careful not to point it out to her.  If you take a look at your office in the same way, you will see it has passed it's sell-by date too.  It is also in dire need of a facelift. 

The first thing that hits me when I walk into an office is the smell.  Coffee is acceptable, curry is not.  If you don’t have a separate canteen and allow your staff to eat lunch at their desks, your office will stink.  There is no two ways about it.  Maybe not so much in the summer when people are snacking on salads but as the winter months move in, the reek of minestrone and daal is thick in the air and it’s not pleasant.

Clutter is another way to make your office unappealing to visitors.  If I walk into an office and there are files stacked up in the corner, twisted jumbles of cables, scraps of paper and yesterday’s Metro lying around then I assume you don’t organise your time well.  Are you coping with your workload?  Overflowing bins and shredders and ripped open reams of paper by the photocopier look bad.  If you think you’ll just leave it for the cleaner then you don’t really care about your office, you need to take more pride in your place of work.  

If it’s just you and your staff you can generally get away with it but if you have visitors to the office whether they are important clients or freelance staff then you need to tidy up a bit.  All those books on the floor speak volumes.

Am I an obsessive compulsive?  Not at all, you should see my house but when it comes to work, I always make sure I’m kitted out well to make a good impression. Quality threads, polished shoes, clean fingernails, I’m even careful about what I have for lunch before an afternoon meeting in case it makes my breath smell.  If I go to all that effort and then walk into an office that’s like TK Maxx on a Saturday afternoon, my expectations of that company fall.  Immediately.

Take a look at this blog with pictures of unique office surroundings of start-up companies.  Look at how inspiring they are.  Just for the record, I think half of these pictures are lies, they were taken before they were properly moved in to and became working offices, there is not a single trace of activity in some of them and they all look sparkly new but in the other half where the pictures are populated you can see work spaces that would fill a visitor with awe.  

It’s the little quirky things that make the difference.  Anybody can paint a wall a nice colour or think of funky names for the meeting rooms but the little quiet work areas where you can take you shoes off and lounge in the comfortable surroundings are brilliant, the swings and the telephone boxes are inspired.  I bet they get a better success rate in their meetings and an increased creativity from their staff than the cluttered offices with curried air-conditioning.

Granted, most of these offices are bigger companies who have the money to employ interior designers but in my personal experience here in London, it’s actually the smaller companies who make the effort creatively with their spaces, smaller workforces generally imprint their own personalities more effectively.  I’ve recently been in a management consultancy where they have trees with fairy lights and a children’s branding company full of beanbags, robots and toys - I didn’t want to leave either meeting.  I’ve also recently called in on bigger companies which had sterile workspaces like institutions and going by the staff at a TV production company I frequent, I felt like I was in one.  What is it with media luvvies?  They’re all barking.  I was also recently in a newspaper office and I felt like I was in 1970s Tehran, I was kind of hoping that Ben Affleck would break in and come and rescue me back to normality.

If your visitors feel like they want to leave as soon as possible, it’s obviously not great for your company profile.  Take a leaf out of these companies' books, you don’t need a massive budget, just a trip to Ikea and a bit of creativity (and a big cupboard to hide all of your tat in.)  It will make all the difference and it's actually a much nicer place for you to visit 5 days a week.

How The Bear and The Hare REALLY ended...

HaHa!  I love this, it's exactly what I thought the first time I saw the John Lewis Christmas campaign.   If you wake up a hibernating bear, you're going to have problems :)

How John Lewis Win The Christmas Race - A Simple Story

I came in to the lounge last night to find my teenage daughter in floods of tears.  What could possibly be wrong?  Had JLS split up AGAIN?  No, the cause of my daughter’s distress was the John Lewis Christmas Advert.

Yes, it’s official, the big brands have decided Yuletide has begun and they’ve all come out guns blazing in the fight for our festive funds.

Marks & Spencer want us to ‘believe in magic and sparkle’ with their glitzy fairytale featuring supermodels and Helena Bonham Carter.  Tesco show us one family’s Christmas journey through an Instagram filter soundtracked by Rod Stewart, Boots have their surly Smalltown Boy turned Secret Santa gifting the people that have helped him during the year, Iceland have the Gold Blend couple for the new millennium where boy meets girl but girl doesn’t know boy drives for Iceland yet and Sainsbury’s show us a series of fly on the wall Christmas scenarios, including some young children sending their dad a video message as he can’t make it home for Christmas… or so they think…

There are many other big brand Christmas campaigns - Asda have their snowmen, Waitrose have their farmer, Argos have their aliens and Morrisons have Ant & Dec but these have failed to capture the collective imagination  because they are lacking in something that all of the others have - Story.

My daughter isn’t the only person to cry along to a Christmas ad this year.  Brands have realised to grab an audience you have to connect with them emotionally.  And when it comes to this, one brand is King.  Step forward John Lewis (and their ad agency Adam & Eve).

This year’s ad features the animated tale of The Bear and The Hare.  Its arrival was heralded which saw it trending on Twitter before it had even aired on TV and word soon spread about the cute cartoon pals.  This is also a factor in John Lewis’s success, they understand that TV is no longer the monolith it once was.  A huge proportion of us get our information fix from our portable screens these days.  Premiering a much-anticipated ad on YouTube where people can watch at their convenience and immediately share it with their friends is an extremely savvy move that has helped them keep ahead in the festive race.  Because of this, by the time it premiered on TV in that very expensive X Factor slot, the buzz was sufficient to not only have people watching but paying attention too.  Top marks to all involved. 

Of course, the biggest budget PR campaign in the world wouldn’t work if the content was no good but John Lewis deliver the goods.  On every level.

An animation about woodland friends immediately captivates the younger audience but the clever thing about this ad is its style of animation.  It’s hand-drawn in an Old School 2D style reminiscent of 70s Disney and Watership Down, this lends it an air of nostalgia which shoots straight to the heart of those who grew up pre-CGI, i.e., the mums and dads with the money to spend in John Lewis.  

The first scene is captivating as a snowflake descends onto the bear’s nose heralding the dawn of winter and his hibernation period.  We share the hare’s disappointment as his best friend retreats to his cave to sleep through Christmas.  The hare then sneaks an alarm clock (presumably bought at John Lewis) into the cave and the bear awakens to discover all the joys of the Holiday season.  Yes, it’s twee but it’s genuinely engaging and it’s managed to connect with a wide audience through very simple storytelling.  Just what happens to the bear when he tries to start his year with a messed-up body clock is yet to be seen…

John Lewis successfully connects with a wide demographic by using cartoon animals to tell their story.  A couple of the aforementioned campaigns have come under fire for being very middle-class and free of ethnicity.  Seems they took the White Christmas brief too literally.   Telling a simple story with animal protagonists harks back to early forms of storytelling, it’s very Aesop-esque, most people can relate to the themes and emotions or, at the very least, are not alienated.  Also by having two very different species interacting, a bear and a hare, there is an underlying message of how we can all get along, regardless of race, upbringing, gender or religion.  There is also no dialogue so anybody can follow the story regardless of language or disability.  It truly is a story that could potentially engage anyone.  

The masterstroke in the ad’s success is the story doesn’t end with the advert.  It continues in your nearest John Lewis store where you can have your picture taken with The Bear and The Hare, eleven of their stores have caves so you can explore the characters’ world.  There is a book of the further adventures of the protagonists and you can also follow them on Twitter or buy Bear and Hare merchandise - Yes, you can buy merchandise of the characters in their advert.  Revenue from that and the royalties accrued from their YouTube hits enable a monstrous advertising spend - this is all very clever.  You can also go online and make a Christmas card of your family with the Bear and the Hare and send it to all of your friends, advertising John Lewis every step of the way.  They’ve even thought of those difficult teenagers with a competition on YouTube to record a cover of the ad’s soundtrack with the winning entry accompanying the ad on its Christmas Day airing.  Everything and everybody has been thought of in this campaign.  They have spin-off activities that cover every demographic.  It’s a cross-platform, multi-audience experience based on a cartoon bear and hare.  And it is working.

Most of the Christmas ads are good this year, some are great, they veer from the starry to the traditional, the trendy to the twee.  We are watching them on our TVs and our tablets and are talking about them with our families and colleagues but some of them stand out and why?  Good old-fashioned storytelling.  It’s been part of our society from way before we had mass communication and it’s good to see it not only surviving in this modern world but triumphing.  The simple story still resonates in a world of celebrity cameos and fly-on-the-wall footage.  People are beginning to switch off and fast forward due to information overload and it can be hard to grab their attention but the John Lewis campaign teaches us one very old lesson.  If you want people to listen, Tell them a story.

Smile! You're in Tesco!

And now we get the news that Tesco is rolling-out facial recognition scanners at its petrol stations so advertisements can be tailored to individual shoppers.  Big Brother, or in this case Alan Sugar, is definitely watching you.  Lord Sugar’s Digital Advertising company AmScreen has created the technology that Tesco will be abusing  applying.

When the camera has identified your facial features, the software will determine your gender and age and show you an advertisement directed at your demographic.

Simon Sugar, Son of Lord bleated “It’s like something out of Minority Report” like it was a good thing.  Poor Little Simon, growing up in AmTowers, never mixing with the peasants but peering at them through a microscope like ants in a jar.  Simon will never know the intrusion of having his face scanned at a garage forecourt because he sees the world from the back seat of daddy’s chauffeur-driven Bentley. 

“This could change the face of British retail” he enthuses “and our plans are to expand the screens into as many supermarkets as possible."  Woah!  

Tesco will install these cameras in all of its 450 petrol stations nationwide.  This isn’t a suck-it-and-see exercise, it's a confident roll-out, they know this technology works and as its effectiveness is recorded it will be linked to Tesco’s ever-growing profits and deemed a success which means, indeed, that the screens will be implemented into as ‘many supermarkets as possible.’

Tesco are allaying our fears, pointing out this is not new technology.  They’re right, of course, by the time you’ve driven to a Tesco petrol station chances are your number plate has been scanned somewhere along the way, merely pulling up at a pump means you are on numerous CCTV cameras, if you pay by credit card, your location and the time you were there is logged and if you collect the points on your loyalty card they even know which toilet paper you wipe your arse with.  

Tesco are also saying the system is only going to recognise the most basic features like gender or age group.  It will determine gender by length of hair.  Should we believe this?  Would they really go to all of this expense to roll out a system that would inadvertently advertise tampons to Lemmy?  Shaving Foam to Dame Judi?  Will it show a Regaine commercial to somebody undergoing chemotherapy?  Won’t it be excruciating for a fat girl at the front of the queue to get a Slimfast advert?  I think it’s hard to believe with technology so futuristic that they’ve used an application so basic.

Experts say advanced camera technology is already available, it can match scans of people's faces with their pictures on Facebook so when they walk into a shop they can potentially be confronted with advertising that matches up with their social media ‘likes’.  This is just an extension of what is already happening online, the technology is available but Tesco are only rolling out a very basic version of it?  Hmmm…

Of course, we could baffle the system by wearing a burka or balaclava - actually don’t wear a balaclava into a petrol station, the police will be on you in a heartbeat.  Wear a burka, it’s much less likely to arouse suspicions - any self-respecting terrorist will tell you that.  Actually, I hear a baseball cap covered in tin foil can successfully distort a CCTV image.  Or there’s always face paints.  What a wonderful supermarket trip it would be if all the customers looked like Tigers and Monkeys.  Although once the Government realise the power of these screens they’ll employ them to recognise foreigners and all the Tigers and Monkeys will get “Go Home Now Or Face Arrest” warnings at the checkouts.

The worst thing is the application of this technology.  Why aren’t these cameras being fitted at train stations and problem estates to catch thieves and drug dealers?  Couldn’t Tesco fund the installation of these cameras in a thousand corner shops where the owners have to sit with a baseball bat behind the counter?  Why is this technology being used to primarily sell us shower gel when it could potentially solve crime?  Oh, of course, because the Lord gets a bigger Bentley.

We could always vote with our trolleys and do our shopping elsewhere.  Let’s go back to what’s left of our High Streets.  Your local butcher and baker won’t have facial recognition software, they don’t need it - they will remember you.  They know what you like and they may recommend something new and it won’t be based on the length of your hair or the size of your girth, it will be because they have established a relationship with you and genuinely care about giving you quality products and good customer service.  If the likes of Tesco invested as much in people as they did in technology, they may not have as many detractors.  Like this guy, my hero of the week, who turned the tables and the cameras on Tesco - enjoy!

Why I Will Never Stay in a Marriott Hotel Ever Again

I travel a lot for business and as any world-weary businessman will know, comfort is taken in the familiarity of a particular airline and hotel chain.  My hotel group of choice has always been Marriott, I have stayed with them extensively around the world and even the odd time when there has been a glitch (no hot water, fire alarm at 3am) I've stayed true to them as overall they meet my needs and more.  No matter how gruelling my journey has been, arriving at a Marriott hotel has always afforded me a sense of valuable relief.  Then I read something disheartening today...

Right now, in The Phoenix Marriott Airport Hotel in Arizona, there is an ex-gay therapy conference going on.  This makes me incredibly sad.  As someone who knows what it is like to live a lie based on their sexuality, someone who has hoped and prayed that their homosexuality would go away, it makes me feel sick to think there are organisations making money out of convincing people they can be changed from gay to straight.

Psychologists say that ex-gay therapy is 'ineffective, unethical and often harmful, exacerbating anxiety and self-hatred among those treated for what is not a mental disorder.'  Four US states have already outlawed the therapy and others are set to follow.

A petition with over 53,000 signatures opposing their decision to host this conference has been sent to Marriott but they've still decided to proceed with the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality's (NARTH) hate-filled and damaging event.

A visit to the NARTH website (not recommended) shows that they are woefully misinformed.  They claim not to be a religious organisation yet a heavy Christian influence is apparent with an hour-long video presentation of Biblical Hermeneutics in relation to homosexuality.  They are on a par with backward Bible-bashers, The Westboro Baptist Church.  I wonder if Marriott would host a conference by them?  Or the Ku Klux Klan?  They are all groups who bash minorities in the name of The Lord.

I'm very aware of how supportive Marriott are of their gay employees and was glad to read that they had sponsored The Gay Games which makes their decision to host this dreadful event even more surprising.  It's as if we found out Liza Minnelli goes queer-bashing at the weekends.

I will never stay in a Marriott hotel again.  By renting out their premises to NARTH, Marriott have profited from the shame and hatred of gay people and I will never support a company that makes money in such a despicable way.  Will you?

Where Apple Thrive Yahoo Mail Flounder

I've recently had cause to complain to 2 multinational juggernauts and the customer service I received differed wildly.  I have previously blogged about my gripes with Yahoo Mail and Apple but let's just say I am a loyal devotee to both and have been with them a long time (Yahoo, 15 years and Apple, 7).

Love is blind - you know what it's like when your partner picks their toenails whilst you're watching Eastenders or brushes their teeth outside of the bathroom (Grrrr!), it's maddening but you love them so you can forgive them.  Now, my relationship with Yahoo and Apple has survived a few blips along the way.  I've had reason to contact Yahoo Help and haul my hardware into the Genius Bar on a couple of occasions but I've overall been a happy and satisfied customer so these things never bothered me too much, I was willing to forgive.  Recently though, both relationships have hit a rough patch and the resulting reactions had me renewing my vows with one whilst divorcing another.

Let's start with Apple.  I fired an email to Apple HQ about a recent experience I had in one of their stores.  The branch manager soon contacted me by phone and listened to everything I had to say.  He then invited me back into the store so he could have a chance at putting things right.  I went on a Friday lunchtime when the store was busier than Billingsgate Fish Market but I was promptly met by the manager.  He once again extended his apologies for my previous store experience and we had a long, easy conversation about my relationship with Apple.  He listened to me and I soon felt like part of the gang again.  My visit involved three members of staff and each one made me feel like Prince Charles on a Royal Tour.  The manager then bestowed me with a  handsome discount on some much-needed accessories.  I am now very happy, in fact the happiest I have been throughout my whole time as an Apple fan, we are back on track and I've just confidently bought a new MacBook Pro.  I feel like a valued part of the Apple family, we have a two-way conversation and I feel fully supported which is what's needed when you are investing your money in a brand.  Bliss.

Yahoo Mail are a different kettle of fish.  In the last month they have made some unpopular changes to their email interface which has left tens of thousands of their daily users confused and annoyed, including me.  I struggled along with it at first, sometimes it's easier to try and cope with the changes than pursue a complaint through the Yahoo channels but as it began to affect my work I thought it appropriate to flag it up to head office.  I wrote a strongly-worded but charming email to Yahoo HQ, four weeks later and I'm still waiting for a response.  I tweeted Yahoo and have received no reply, I sent a second email - nothing.

I looked at the Yahoo forums and saw a lot of people similarly dismayed with the changes.  A petition had even been created at Change.org.  Phew, it wasn't just me!  So with all this pressure, I just assumed Yahoo would respond quickly, maybe not to me individually but to the tens of thousands of Yahoo users who complained as a whole...  We're still waiting.  There hasn't even been a glimmer of recognition that the complaints have been made, let alone an apology. 

Apple can deal with one man with one problem.  A senior team member took a chunk of his day and spent time with me fixing the blip in our relationship.  My status of Apple fan has been renewed, I am more reassured and happier than ever.  I will stick with Apple and continue to spend my money with them - and bore the pants off everyone else as I constantly sing their praises.  My partner actually got so fed up with me extolling the virtues of Apple this week that he told me to 'shut up and save it for the blog'!

Yahoo are the exact opposite, after a month, they haven't even addressed a complaint signed by 35,000 of their biggest fans.  The Yahoo Mail users motivated to raise and back up complaints are the ones who rely on the product the most, the ones who have stayed most loyal.  Email whores who flit about between providers don't care enough to sign a petition, they just use their other account - the people that are making a noise are the ones who really matter.  You need to look after them, they are the ones who endorse and recommend you, they are fans.  Presenting them with an arrogant wall of silence is not good for business.  The CEO has to be aware of the discontent among 35,000 of her most loyal customers and she hasn't even acknowledged it.  This speaks volumes.  I have just signed out of my Yahoo Mail account for the last time.  Yahoo Mail made me feel unworthy and they have lost me forever.  I had been with them for 15 years, chances are I would have stayed with them for the rest of my life, I was a devotee, an easy person to get back on side and they couldn't be bothered.  Sad times.

I'm still not convinced Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer isn't still working for Google and deliberately ruining Yahoo Mail in an attempt to drive people towards Gmail.  It's a conspiracy theory I am happy to create and spread!   In all fairness, it's a lot easier to stomach than accepting she is completely ignoring her most loyal customers.  Anyway, it's not my problem anymore.  Vote with your touchpads, people!  Don't stay where you are not respected!

Apple for life!  RIP Yahoo Mail.