Category: Commentary
December 5th, 2013 by matthias
A #LinkedIn discussion on #PISA got me to pull out one of my anti-competition blog posts
Posted in Commentary
November 5th, 2013 by matthias
The following, as usual well researched piece in Thw Conversation struck a chord with me: “Revealed: immigrants put 34% more into the UK’s economy than they take out” http://feedly.com/k/1aoDpOW
Hence I’m reblogging this today.
Posted in Commentary
September 10th, 2013 by matthias
With the new academic year coming up, we’ve spent a lot of time updating and tweaking our service to improve it for our clients. Fortunately, my university is not driven by the need to cut, so the feeling is one of improvement, not one of the bit by bit amputations many other services have to go through. Like career support in schools. To cut it short, schools have ‘gained’ the ‘freedom’ and the responsibility to find independent providers to cover their obligation to offer careers advice to students. At the same time, council based services like Connexions have been mostly cut to shreds. The national careers service is supposed to jump into the breach and give – mostly telephone, or online-based – support. So a young person needing advice, but not falling under a special needs provision, may never meet a qualified careers advisor face to face, well until they’ve joint a university where advice and guidance are much more coherent. Let’s just hope they get their study choice right. It depends on the financial situation of their school, and the level of commitment and qualification of staff involved. I remember when this happened, and how painful the transition was. Now I know that careers advice in schools never came with plentiful endorsement, but withdrawing it effectively strikes me as foolish. And so does Ofsted, the CBI and the CIPD.
To draw a bit of a parallel (and as it’s one, it’s going to be obviously a bit flawed), let’s just mull this simple sentence for a moment:
Getting careers education from a well developed online portal with some phone support sounds in principle reasonable. It will affect young people in big decisions in their life, and may influence their future significantly.
You’re still with me? Right, now replace the term ‘careers eduction’ in the first sentence of this paragraph with the word ‘sex education’, and mull again how reasonable this still feels. If so – we’re fine. If not, then read on.
This is nothing I’ve learnt recently – it was annoying when it was brought in, and it remains a frustration for the profession – and it’s unknowing victims. What is new to me is how flawed such a service – which is basically a cut price version of something that may have been flawed, but was overall just better – can affect the client: I’ve been always a big fan of NHS Direct – a phone based triage service for GPs and hospitals aiming to reduce the number of people who go to A&E unnecessarily, with a strong backbone of nurses who were able to give solid and credible advice. I have used it for myself and others – and have never been disappointed. Staff always were competent and reassuring.
Recenty, the service is being replaced by NHS 111, which hopes to provide the same service, only cheaper. The triaging is done by call centre operatives, and results have been mostly negative. Why? Because the service has been de-skilled (made cheaper), and the effect has been an actual increase of A&E referrals in some areas. I gave them a call on a minor matter (I wasn’t even sure whether I needed to go to the GP), and my experience was substantially weaker than NHS Direct before: It was like calling my phone provider, only worse. It was clear that the operator had no medical training, and read from a script. It may have been a well written script, but I couldn’t assess that as I had concentrate strongly to deal with the many mispronunciations that made the read out medical advice harder to follow. It was clear that the operator didn’t give advice, but worked off a call, void of any professional authority. It’s probably the equivalent of the apocryphal careers advisor who runs you through an assessment tool and then tells you to become a prison officer, or a research chemist, or a gardener in one session.
To summarise: The presumed need to make cuts has led to a de-skilling of the people involved, which has impacted upon the usefulness of the service. And this is a sobering experience.
Posted in Commentary, Education & Employability
September 2nd, 2013 by matthias
I know it’s fashionable to say that it’s great not to have to be online all the time, and that people wish to leave their gadgets behind – to which I say … hogwash. Sure, you may occasionally feel that your gadgets can be the bane of your life, and while they can help you to stay informed, they may also become a measure to control you – especially if your employer uses them for that purpose. I’ve recently just spent a week at a place that had neither wifi nor a 3g signal – something I wouldn’t have expected in this day an age in the UK. And I learnt from it that I don’t like to be disconnected. I chose not to embrace it – and face possible claims of my inability to ‘switch off’ (see what I did there?) – and seek out a signal at least once a day to conduct my normal life – and do the stuff I like doing on a holiday; and that requires a certain amount of being online.
I obviously got into the discussion about how that shouldn’t bother me, but I disagreed: none of the things I was planning were for work, and I had very much looked forward to doing some of the activities I needed the connection for – and my choice of technology (a chromebook) simply requires a signal to function at its best (or let’s face it – at all). Of course I made do – so no mercy for the student who claims they couldn’t read their emails and therefore missed the important email about that job – I stayed in touch as is required to manage my life. Yes, I missed one important communication – a message in my LinkedIn account that I only found when I was online again (no clue how that happened).
It made me think however, how we relate to technology, but the result puts responsibility squarely back into the user’s hands: it’s not the gadget that controls you, it’s how you use it. No employer should expect to invade your personal space, and you shouldn’t enable them – unless it’s part of your contract, and the agreement was made in advance and with mutual consent (and even then it’s questionable). If it does, it comes down to the user to look at their habits – or indeed consider a less exploitative work arrangement. Yes, I’m aware this isn’t always easy, but the cost of not having real downtime affects both employee and employer in the long term negatively. I’ve written about reducing the stress of the online outreach barrage many of us subject themselves to – often more than is needed.
But while it’s important to manage how the web intrudes upon your life, it’s also a reasonable requirement to have access to it at all times. Such is life in the 21st Century. I’d probably be better equipped to just have cold water for a few days, than not taking part in the lifestyle I have chosen – and that is firmly in the 21 Century. It sucks to be offline, and I’m proud to say so.
Posted in Commentary
August 1st, 2013 by matthias
Read this first, it’s worth it: “Twitter Troll Stops When Someone Threatens To Tell His Mom [thank you @SocialTimes]
I would like to gleefully repeat this endlessly – and I am sure I’ll be able use this example in one of my seminars: the weakness of a troll is exposed not only in his ineptitude at sniping from anonymity, but also the social control mechanisms (the spectre of someone telling his mum) which bring him down. A meme is born.
Twitter is currently in the press for all the wrong reasons – some misogynist idiots are trying to silence vocal women on the internet. Actually, that’s not really news, as it pretty much happens every day, and not only on the internet. What’s different is not even the vile nature of the methods (rape, other violence and murder threats) but how publicly this is conducted. This is obviously well known to the trolls, and they are counting on their supportive audience to join in (and men in pubs to nod in agreement), expecting to overwhelm the victims with the sheer volume of intimidation. What they seemingly haven’t learnt, is that with every account they create, and every tweet they send, they create evidence against them – and duly, reports of arrests are coming in. And in an attempt to ruin someone else’s lives, they have ruined their own.
It’s very possible that the legal consequences will be limited – but they won’t be on the internet. You don’t need to be the NSA (although it obviously helps) to find out about what people do online – being a potential employer who checks the reputation of candidates online suffices. Having seen this troll’s clear name and picture, the impact of the trolling on the troll may even outlast the length of the impact on the victim. The words ‘you will never get a job’ spring to mind – and here’s where the social control kicks the troll again. Never mind what his mum will say – although it’s beautiful to see how just mentioning a dominant female figure in his life brought him down – it’s that everyone can forever see what he’s done, and he most probably will suffer for it.
What’s the lesson? I believe already that we’re living in an age of an anti-feminist backlash, and I know that social media are abused in this way. I’m pleased and fully support those who shout back, and I hope I can do my part. I won’t even be surprised if there’s some ill thought-through attempt by the government to punish the platforms (for the record, yes, I think Twitter’s management response has been fairly lame so far), ignoring the true issues causing the problem. What I’m learning from this is that nothing, absolutely nothing, and no one, is safe on the internet. Neither the victims, nor their trolls. Not those who shun social media, thinking they are safe (see my NSA reference above). Nor the state which thinks it can use it to spy on its citizens (enter stage: Edward Snowden). All our lives are now about the data trails we leave, and how they affect us in real life. I always used to say in my talks so far, that the offline world rules the online world – but I think we’re just about to see that change.
Posted in Commentary, Reblogged Tagged with: #shoutingback, digital literacy, responsibility, social media, thoughts, work
July 24th, 2013 by matthias
My colleague @julianchilds forwarded me an article by Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman of Ogilvy Group UK, in the Spectator (normally not part of my news diet). @rorysutherland made an interesting point – he observed that pressure to succeed in university had led to a culture of drone-like graduates, all driven by the so-called ‘top’ recruiters’ demanding first or upper second class degrees. He stated that there is no evidence that what makes you a great student turns you into a great employee, and therefore thought it would be worthwhile to improve his chances of getting to real talent by looking where none of his peers seem to be looking – the lower seconds and thirds churned out by universities every year, not tainted by conformity and overfishing by large recruiters. In an entertaining way, he describes how he would want to subvert HR’s usual hiring practises by offering references and a fast career track to stoners.
I liked the article a lot (it aligns with my sense of humour, and my disregard for established conventions) – although I don’t really align with his general praise of the economist Hayek (albeit mostly due to lack of understanding on my part), and not really understanding game theory – and it seems to go down a storm with my Twitter followers. And rightly so, as it calls the bluff created by education and recruiters, namely that being told what to learn in advance gives you a) better knowledge, and b) makes you more employable. I didn’t learn this anew, but his quote of Hayek is spot on: ‘Often that is treated as important which happens to be accessible to measurement.’ (see my re-blogged post on performance related pay).
So, what have I learnt? Let’s not even look at the socially exclusive tendency to openly only go for ‘top’ universities – this is a measure to restrict the graduate pool to a manageable number – nothing more, nothing less. I’m not aware of employers actually complaining about the quality of students as students – so his central premise is in my humble opinion a valid one: just being best in class does not make you a good employee. It shows many valuable traits, but the requirements of education and the workplace differ wildly – and from that follows that the degree classification alone is a bad predictor of success as an employee. In fact, in our daily practice at work, we often see high achievers struggle with adapting from a student to a worker identity – and those struggling academically shine in the workplace – especially when given the chance to do a sandwich placement. So I align with Sutherland’s view, in fact I greet it and encourage students to challenge convention – and be proud of their achievements, yes, even if that’s ‘only’ a 2.2 or a third.
PS: This post kind of links to an earlier one on challenging conventions – The power of giving up. Have a look.
Posted in Commentary, Education & Employability, Reblogged Tagged with: challenging conventions, degree classifications, employers, graduates, higher education
July 8th, 2013 by matthias
Another excellent epiphany – this time on thinking errors, created by incomplete transfer of information – by the always highly readable @kleinrules
Posted in Commentary, Reblogged
July 1st, 2013 by matthias
I’m fascinated by this Edward Snowden business: yet another whistle blower gives us a glimpse of what our ‘free’ western governments are up to, namely collecting data (and I pretty much mean all data) to protect us from all sorts of evils – and how this somehow turned into a mechanistic collection of literally all available data. On everyone. You. Me. My cats. Nietzsche talks about how staring at an abyss ends up with the abyss staring back at you. Besides the obvious HP Lovecraft association, this raises an interesting point, often raised by people sceptical of modern technology, especially social media: what if someone uses all this knowledge against us? Should we not try to minimise our engagement, be careful what we post – and hope no one ever interprets what we do in some way that will look suspicious, even though we’re perfectly innocent? Well, I have to say: too late. What’s suspicious lies in the eye of the beholder, and whatever our level of engagement with social media, or the Internets in general – we have created a world in which we are surrounded by technology that observes us on a constant basis. Hell, I have a smartphone that decides not to darken its screen by using its front facing camera to check if I’m still looking at it! Talk about spooky. But, surprisingly, it doesn’t freak me out – I don’t expect anything else than that technology which can observe us, will be used for that very purpose; and if not by the state, then by commercially interested parties. I find it fascinating to see that our ‘modern’ and ‘free’ societies resemble the dystopian visions of 1970s sci-fi more than we would have thought possible then. Am I worried – yes, but I’ve been worried since then. But I must admit, I’m mostly fascinated, given that I have no control over this anyway – I have been probably staring at that abyss for just a bit too long.
Posted in Commentary, Social Media Tagged with: social media, thoughts
May 9th, 2013 by matthias
A couple of months ago I wanted to go to Germany for my father’s birthday. Everything was booked well in advance – including travel to the airport with EasyBus. It was pouring with rain, and and tourists huddled into the sparse shelter available. The bus departure time came and went – no EasyBus. To cut a long story short: the bus never came (although we saw plenty of their orange buses pass), and people were getting anxious. Many of them spoke only little English and had used EasyBus as the cheapest ride out of town. We were using our phones to try to get through to the customer service hotline (which probably is ringing away in some dilapidated warehouse near Ipswich), checked for travel updates on our smartphones. All to no avail. As the local boy, I decided to coordinate the alternative travel arrangements: tell others where to get cash for the other providers on the route, check their timetables, and finally negotiate with their drivers over the few non-booked seats on their services. I gave up a free space to a Spanish tourist who was getting desperate. It went so far that people thought that I was sent from EasyBus to coordinate some kind of relief effort – which I swiftly put right (mostly for fear of getting lynched), and clarifying that there was no support from EasyBus. In the end, I made it to the airport via train (making this the most expensive ride to the airport ever). Of course I lodged a complaint via their portal (no response), I tried to call (the empty warehouse again), posted on their Facebook page (filled with complaints that get deleted – so at least someone’s doing some work at EasyBus central) and tweeted them. As you expect – nothing, zilch, nada. I stuck with social media for a while, and besides getting an apology from an heroic driver (who did more for the company than anyone else – but mostly because he doesn’t want to be abused by the constantly angry and stressed passengers he has to pick up due to cancelled previous services). I intend to hang along for a while (just to see if there’s ever any reaction) – and yes, I’m looking into trade standards – but I’m aware that the company policy seems to be one of ignoring the customer. Many would say ‘you get what you pay’ – and that’s an entirely unfair point to raise: if a service is promised for a price, then you deliver the service. If the price is not enough to deliver the service, don’t offer it. I’ve used the service before, and it never sucked – until it did. Now where’s my lesson in this – except for ‘Don’t use EasyBus’?l The lesson is that some service providers ignore their customers. They may feel strong enough to do so (treating tourists badly seems like a good prospect given that they’re often not hanging around to annoy you later with their complaints). But in a world more and more driven by social media, the smallest infraction does get noted, and will in the long-term bite you in the backside. A point of note: EasyJet doesn’t partner with their other orange family member anymore and have partnered up with National Express – too many complaints maybe? There are not many people who hold a persistent grudge as long as I did – and then tell about 2000 people about it (as I just did), and then tell their marketing lecturer friends about it, who then use it in their lectures about customer relationship management… I don’t think I’ll ever get to the point of ever getting to Dave Caroll with his excellent complaint song ‘United breaks guitars’ (see below) – but I can always try. And yes – that’s also why I take client complaints and requests seriously – and justify unpopular decisions to them in person. So one things become clear to me – while EasyBus sucks, I’m committed to make my service work better. Can we always deliver? Probably not, but we can try, and we can make sure we tell people about it, so no one ends up standing in the rain.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/5YGc4zOqozo]
Posted in Commentary Tagged with: customer service, dave caroll, EasyBus, fail, united breaks guitars
May 3rd, 2013 by matthias
Yet again this week, I’ve seen and half-read some motivational blog post about how important it is ‘never to give up’. Hogwash, I say, folks. This is not a new lesson, but one I learnt about 10 years ago, when confronted with odds I could not beat – first personal, and then professional as a consequence. Yet, a couple of times a year I am reminded of one of the most powerful mantras that I’ve learnt then: ‘give up, when you can’t win; walk away, fight another day – if it’s still worth it then. If not – let go.’ Following my stoic prussian lutheran upbringing – and a diet of pop psychology and Rocky movies – giving up was never an option. There is a heroic attractiveness to the one who fights against significant resistance – in a western context to be rewarded with success in the end. In other contexts, e.g. in Japanese literature and other forms of storytelling, the heroism often lies in giving it all – and dying trying. I find both tomes problematic. Both work on the assumption that there is a prize to be won – success in one, honour in the other. But both are defined by sacrifice and a range of suffering – which is cleansing, cathartic. Yet both, I dare say, are problematic – as they imply some form of reward that will be worth the struggle. Well, life doesn’t work that way – effort does not equate success, and it shouldn’t (as most lecturers marking essays will agree with). Effort can be laudable, sacrificing something may be worth it – but in itself, ‘not giving up’ has no intrinsic value. It may even lead to harm, if not directly by incorporating failure into a self-perception which is based on never giving up until you reach success. And it can leave insecurities and scars – or worse affect your long-term wellbeing. Probably this was one of the most important lessons of my adult life so far – sometimes you can’t win, and the art is in assessing the situation realistically, and walk away from it if needed. It’s very hard to consciously give up in a society which is so defined by (short term) success. Learning to buck the trend, and walking away with more or less dignity, can not only be better for you – but may actually help you feel better about yourself. I don’t know if it’s made me a better regarded individual, but it has helped me in both my personal and professional lives. I dare you – once in a while when you think you can’t go on anymore, just don’t. Have a cup of tea, think it through, give up, and follow a different path.
Posted in Commentary Tagged with: never give up, The power of giving up