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I have written in my tax diary that most accountants don’t get Twitter or other social media. Of course some do and are brilliant at using multiple platforms. I think most that do make a start don’t stay engaged long enough.
Do you think traditional professionals such as accountants and solicitors / lawyers do get social media and do you think that social media activities suit them? Are there other businesses that may find social media uncomfortable? I’d like to know.
Marigot Bay, St. Lucia (pronounced Saint Loo-sha)
A year or so back my wife and I were lucky enough to visit St. Lucia. It is a beautiful island, and if you get the chance to go there, I do recommend it. It is a place where we from the developed world can enjoy great luxury in the sun, buy cheap goods in the market, and generally have a good time.
And yet…
Yes, and yet… And yet the one thought that struck us as soon as we got out of town was the extreme poverty. We had seen appalling poverty before in South Africa, but that didn’t make it any easier in St. Lucia. How can we Westerners imagine living in a wooden shack with no washing or toilet facilities, and perhaps relying on a spring or a stand pipe outside or some hundreds of yards away? How can we imagine having inadequate protection from the weather? It may seem like paradise to us, but when it rains in St. Lucia it really rains, and the winds during the storms are tremendous.
In some ways it took a while for the full reality of life there to sink in. We might have felt condescending in the first place to those in the street who would create an animal out of a palm leaf for one US dollar. Our Western sensitivities were upset along the country roads by men who had captive boa constrictors they wanted to show us for money. “How cruel” was our first reaction!
Bananas
Yet, how are these people to get by? We learned that J Sainsbury, the UK supermarket bought most of the year round banana crops from the plantations, which at least shows that someone cares. Fresh local bananas are delicious. St. Lucia bananas are sold under the Fair Trade scheme in the UK, and since our visit to St. Lucia, my wife and I have always bought Fair Trade bananas. If they are from the Windward Islands we hope sometimes they are from St. Lucia. Of course they are often more expensive than other bananas but we allow ourselves to think we are doing our bit. Are we really, though?
We have been moved to buy other Fair Trade products such as tea, but how much responsibility should we take in our shopping, and do we always know whether we are doing the right thing?
Business aspects
The same applies to business purchasing of course. There are some who boycott products from certain countries and I have done this in the past too, but someone somewhere may suffer from a boycott. Many workers in poor countries may be exploited dreadfully, but as Chris Brogan reminded me (see the comments) that may be the only job they can get to feed their families. It may be that someone has to do the job even if in much worse conditions than Chris’s thoroughly Western mayonnaise factory and unless we are really sure that boycotting or supposed ethical purchasing doesn’t hurt anyone, maybe we should avoid it.
That doesn’t get us off the hook of course. We need to press Governments and NGOs to encourage or persuade poorer nations to tackle exploitation. The main way will be through education and cracking down on criminals who may be involved in the effective slavery of men, women and tragically, children.
Where now?
My take is that Fair Trade is helpful, that we must think very carefully before boycotting products (probably mostly electronic and computer gear in business), that we should press Government and help charities working in the relevant areas.
My, what a thorny issue. What do you think?
In the market in Castries, the capital of St. Lucia
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A couple of my favorite bloggers have talked about the apparent decline in original thought. Danny Brown suggests that popularity can breed sameness in part because of pandering to the masses. Gini Dietrich talks about aggregation and automation which encourages laziness on the part of the bloggers or writers, and, I think, on the part of the readers as well.
Evolution of thought
It’s not all bad news though. More people read more stuff than when we relied on newspapers. We see the same ideas or the same advice being imparted. We can scan or gloss over this. What is exciting, though, is seeing people pick up and run with ideas, and develop them. There is a sort of osmosis where new thought filters through and blossoms. Of course we all have many of the same sources, such as Mashable, and I read many top bloggers though I cannot read everything without giving up work and sleep.
At the same time, many have different slants on the same subject. I think it interesting when I read a post one day and then someone blogs on a similar subject a day or a week later, perhaps having read the previous one. As long as original thinking takes place, I don’t think we always need to worry about the “sameness”. Ideas are there to be built on. “On the shoulders of Giants” and all that.
Plagiarism
That is not to say that it is OK for anyone to just copy an idea and spin someone else’s article as their own, or, even worse, just republish a post as though it were their own. That has happened to me and probably to you too. It is very annoying even if it is sometimes a rather back-handed compliment.
Being ourselves
I am not a top blogger, although of course I have ambitions. Don’t we all? However, I do believe that we can best develop by simply being ourselves. Pamela Wilson put it quite well writing for Copyblogger a while back. Marcus Sheridan, The Sales Lion demonstrates how being ourselves and saying what we believe in a business blog makes for originality and a unique brand. He also shows that we can write about anything we like within reason, which helps our individual personalities to come out.
Yes, in writing this I have dipped into other people’s material. I am being myself, of course. Even if you think I lack originality in thought, maybe I have found you a great blogger you had missed. But perhaps you are already way ahead of the game.
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A week or so back my wife and I were watching the Disney film Sky High with the nine-year old granddaughter. I rather enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun, and in a way it struck me it was an allegory and rang many bells for me.
The story is about a school for the children of superheroes. When the children first go to the school they are chosen on their own ability as potential superheroes and if they do not match up they are put in the side-kick class or stream. Maybe that is how poor Robin learned to be such an idiot.
In the movie, the sidekick children pretty much end up saving the day when an evil Arch Villain threatens to destroy the school and the superhero parents. When they are triumphant the sidekick kids find they have developed superhero powers after all and no doubt they will be a success in the evil world out there.
Sidekick
So at an early age there is a danger that we will all be classified according to our assumed abilities without a great deal of testing. I was certainly classified as a sidekick in my early days in secondary education even though that I had to be quite bright to get into the school in the first place.
Heroes
Very rough contemporaries of mine who became “superheroes” soon after leaving education were a famous disc jockey cum TV presenter, a popular comedian and comedy actor and an author of an extremely well-known series of comic science fiction novels. If you really press me I might put names to these people but I am not a name-dropper (well, OK, I might be). There was also a well-known politician but I am not sure if he is a superhero or an arch-villain. I guess it would depend on your politics.
Comparisons and success
It is easy for all of us to try to compare ourselves to contemporaries as we get older. Of course many have been more successful than I have in their calling or business. Perhaps others less so. However by hard work and dogged determination we can get there and earn our superhero’s cloak (maybe we don’t want those tight pants).
Success is not measured by fame and nor is it measured purely by money, but what we can achieve, and nearly always by how happy we are and how happy we are able to help other people to be.
For most success is not instant. Usually it involves a hard slog, and often success is in enjoying the game; what we do. Our super powers will come and while we may not be as famous as Wonder Woman or Superman, sheer application will get us there.
What do you think?
A place to relax
I have been away for a while taking a holiday, or if you prefer, a vacation. I really needed to step back and it was great to do so.
Due to my actually having a rest from normal in-front-of-computer activities and leaving my HTC Desire alone, I have been less active on Twitter and Facebook, though I have posted on “On our bikes.” I have interacted less with my friends, partly due to having a good rest, and otherwise because I have had a five hour time difference from quite a lot of them, so I have not seen them about and they have not seen me. Fair enough? I was on vacation.
Just for fun I checked my scores on Klout and PeerIndex, and guess what? They have declined. Why? Because I have made less noise on Twitter and elsewhere. I have still read my favourite blogs from around the world and have tweeted them if they resonated with me. I have not been totally absent from the World Wide Web.
Have my on-line networking friends forgotten me? I think not. There is something to the expression “out of sight, out of mind” but even so my reappearance will restore me to their view. Has my influence declined? I doubt it. If I was trusted before I will still be trusted. Friendships off-line are not damaged by a few weeks of not talking, and I cannot believe on-line friendships with or without an off-line relationship are damaged either.
Social relationships are important in managing our lives. Mostly we do not think about them as anything other than how we feel about people. Being able to count friends on a networking site might be fun, and for some a matter to boast about, but in the end a friendship or a relationship, however distant, is something intangible and to do with emotion and empathy.
What a friendship or a relationship is not is a commodity. Are we in danger of losing sight of this given the Next Big Thing in social media? Are people really for buying and selling? Is there a danger of bullying; of making people feel bad? It is not much of a game when that could happen.
I have said before I do not take my social media scores seriously. A pinch of salt is definitely required. I value real relationships with real people with whom I feel I have an affinity. Don’t you?
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In my early days in business I was offered, at the price of a considerable investment, an opportunity to have a very successful business. At the time it really seemed the way to go and I borrowed what was a lot of money to me to pay to have the opportunity.
Guess what! It tuned out not to be the money-spinner I had hoped for. Subsequently I found out that it was not just a failure on my part to grasp an opportunity. I know many who invested their time and money and none who had the success that was held out as a near certainty if we worked hard. And we did work hard!
Ultimately the investment was not a total disaster. I did make some money out of it and in fact still do, though it has not been without considerable application. It is one of the tools I use but was not the get-rich-quick deal I fell for in those days of extreme naivety as an ex-employee trying to survive on his own in the business world. If I had known then…
Context
Of course I had no context when I went for the deal. I believed that I was being told the absolute truth about the opportunity. With the benefit of hindsight that was particularly stupid of me. The joke is that the same “salesman” is now offering a similar great deal to his past “customers”. However, there is an old saying “Once bitten , twice shy”. I doubt there will be many sales this time.
Lesson
The lesson is that there are many offers out there, and particularly on-line which promise great wealth, sometimes for only working six hours a week. They sound tempting, but may well be snake oil with no substance. If you have a great offer or see one, always speak to others who have tried it. Find your own and don’t rely on testimonials from stooges of the sales person and especially not from those on the get-rich-quick website. You need proper context.
The cat
What about the cat in the title? Well, I had a dream in which our cats were playing with a green-and-white knitted woollen cat which was every bit as lively as they were. It was ridiculous, but it was a dream where of course I could place no context or knowledge that the concept was impossible.
Snake oil
If you are offered a dream, check the context and the facts behind the offer, and do proper research before committing. There are a lot of people with redundancy money wondering what to do with their lives and how to earn a living. The sharks are circling. Beware!
We have been travelling recently and within the past week unexpectedly I have been completely cut off from any broadband or internet connection. As I run several small businesses, at first I felt complete withdrawal symptoms.
It is strange not being in touch with the world of business, and yet I guess had I been in business for myself fifteen or twenty years ago I would have thought nothing of it or at least would simply have relied on the phone to stay in touch. Now of course we are accustomed to having a continuous stream of information 24/7 if we want it.
Having re-established connection with the world, of course nothing is awry. It shouldn’t be, because I have arrangements to make sure that all important matters are dealt with in my absence, my phones are answered and there is really nothing that should go wrong.
I will be away for a while yet. I don’t need to worry about business, because although it doesn’t actually take care of itself, I have provided for it to be taken care of.
It really is important to take a step back and relax sometimes. I knew that already, but am pleased to have had the timely reminder. Have a good holiday now if it is your vacation time, or have one when you have time off. Make sure you do have time off, though, because you will be better for it.
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Recently I bought a couple of computer monitors for the office. I inserted the word “computer” in that last sentence to distinguish it from the other sort of monitor, which is someone who keeps an eye out. When I was ten I was the classroom door monitor, which meant I stood by to open and shut the classroom door and could also warn the other kids when teacher was coming for the next class.
Stupid message
Anyway, I digress. The first monitor I plugged into my main machine should have plugged and played, but it didn’t. I tried running the set-up CD, but set-up failed with a stupid message “incorrect parameters”. What was that supposed to mean? I couldn’t get the proper resolution satisfactorily by setting it myself. I called the vendor of the monitor and they referred me to the manufacturer, a Korean company. Their agent was not very polite, couldn’t offer an explanation, and issued a return number so that I could sent the monitor back to the retailer.
Solution
I had purchased a second monitor from another South Korean company, which worked with my other machine. I transferred it over to the main machine, and this didn’t plug and play either. Their set up routine also failed. If I were a real computer geek I suppose I might have started to think, but having failed to find a useful helpline to phone I contacted the customer agent through the chat facility on their website. After being interrogated for five minutes by the agent I was told that the problem was with Intel’s graphics driver, which was faulty. I was directed to the updated driver, and Hey Presto, the monitor plugged and played upon a reboot. Magic indeed!
Satisfaction
So, the larger South Korean company rather let me down with their attitude when surely they could have diagnosed the problem. The smaller one (though not that small) actually came up trumps. I will probably buy my next bit of computer gear from them and not from the first lot. They found a problem which wasn’t their fault and helped me out. I didn’t even need to send back the other company’s monitor.
We will probably purchase our next fridge from LG because Life’s Good and they won out on customer service. There is a lesson and we know what it is.
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A couple of weeks back now, the British Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg said “it was “wrong” that his own career had been boosted by parental connections when he was starting out, getting him time at a bank and his first job in politics.” I thought I should let the predictable press nonsense die down before adding my two-pennyworth.
I don’t write directly about politics and I am sure Mr. Clegg means well and is embarrassed at having had certain advantages from having a successful businessman as a father, and having gone to “posh” Westminster School. However I don’t think he should be embarrassed that his Dad got him an unpaid internship (aka work experience) with a Finnish Bank. It happens all the time. We do our best for our family and we cannot sacrifice them on the altar of political ideals.
Closer to home
My wife’s granddaughter is going to have some work experience with a solicitor soon. The offer has come through a family friend and seems ideal. That has nothing to do with privilege. It is just how society works and has always worked and throughout the strata even when we had distinct social classes. It has always been possible to “have a word” to get a young lad an apprenticeship, to get a poor Victorian girl a post as a housemaid (OK, probably not a great life when women were treated as second class citizens), young Billy help in joining the Army or the Church, and young Lottie into Girton College or the like. I cannot see anything wrong in that even in modern society.
Nepotism or networking?
Why do we network? It is to find people we trust and can very likely work with, or to whom we can make recommendations when they need help. An employer will always want a recommendation when taking someone on, so if there is an offer of an employee they already know something about , that is an added comfort. It is no different from taking up a really good reference which employers would always ask for when engaging a new employee. Should we employ people without knowing anything about them?
I think that these days people can largely get on though their own merit, and that includes using their network, or, shock horror, their family’s network. Someone without ability is unlikely to get a job this way, or if he or she does, is not likely to keep it. Education is given more people more opportunity since the mid twentieth century (disclosure: I went to a posh school as a scholarship boy with a free place as my parents couldn’t have afforded to pay). Modern networks do not amount to nepotism but helping people work with those they feel comfortable with.
I realise not everyone will agree, especially given the fuss over Mr. Clegg’s comments, but let us get over the hair-shirt complex, use our network and move on. What do you think?
It is a lonely affair being in business on your own or just in a small business of a few people. There is also the question of fear of other businesses in the same line, seeing them as competitors. I don’t think that is the right attitude.
Since I have been in business I have got to know many business owners who work in the same areas as I do, especially through networking, but also because I have sought them out at conferences and seminars. Of these people nine out of ten are friendly and we try to help each other with ideas. There is always the odd one who is afraid to give anything away. That is their loss.
Cooperation
It is incredibly useful to have others around us. I work with others in allied businesses such as bookkeepers and accountants, and this means I can provide services which I could not otherwise do, and also have more satisfied clients who get a more rounded service.
So, cooperation can lead to the big project. We always need to use our judgement as to financial risk if something goes wrong, but we do that anyway. If we are comfortable working with other business people we can manage much bigger and more profitable projects than we could on our own. It doesn’t mean we have to make long term commitments to joint ventures, though we might. It does mean we can enter into larger and more profitable projects.
Some people are afraid they will give too much away about their way of working, but that is a bit silly. Unless we have a unique piece of intellectual property, how can it matter? Do you remember those kids at your school who shielded what they were writing from supposedly prying eyes, and even from the teacher pacing around the room. I have no problem showing people what I do and how I do it. It doesn’t necessarily mean they can get to do it as well as I can, but even if they do, there is plenty of business out there. Really there is.
Working efficiently
Working with others is satisfying. It can be very efficient too. My builder friend (he knows who he is, don’t you Trevor?) said that with many jobs it is better to send two people because one might take three days to do it whereas two might well do it in a day. Two heads are better than one as are four hands better than two, and it provides variety as well as profit.
If you get a project you think might be too big for your business, phone a friend before you turn it down. There may be a lot of satisfaction to be had as well as a lot of profit and a happy customer. Do you work that way sometimes?
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