Monthly Archives: October 2004

21 Dog Years: Doing Time At Amazon.Com

It’s quite easy to get sucked into Mike Daisey’s ‘21 Dog Years: Doing Time At Amazon.Com‘ as he moves from dilettante to corporate business development guy. On the journey we learn he is one of the (mythological?) freaks that Amazon initially wanted to help launch and then staff its growing customer service division. We learn about the training, the call-time targets, the lack of windows, the Chicken Orzo Salad and Jeff obsessions.

Unlike Robert Spector’s ‘Amazon.Com: Get Big Fast‘ this is a tale from the inside but how much is exaggerated for comic effect is unclear. For sure, life in an under-staffed call centre – where if you don’t work all hours you’re seen as letting the team down – is not the glamorous side of any business and the world of fast growing online books sellers can be no exception. The dreams that all would be multi-millionaires on the back of huge stock rises are also not unusual to any tale of this era. Perhaps the thought of sending the free books to customers on the database isn’t typical of the dot-com boom but the frenzied ‘1-click Christmas’ period will be familiar to many in a start-up venture.

Daisey’s book is flagged as a comic tale but it takes a while for the comedy to warm-up. In fact, it’s only towards the end that I felt there were some laugh-out-loud moments but don’t let that put you off. ’21 Dogs Years’ in well written and compelling. You really do want to know what Mike’s going to do at the end. Don’t look for an insight into business strategies of that time but you will get a view of the craziness of life in the trenches of rapidly growing business.

On this day…

2005: Admonished By A Snack Food Wrapper
2004: Wet London 20
2002: Everything Taboo

Looking Around

While I am taking a short break somewhere a little warmer, keep an eye on the flickr sidebar in case I manage to work out foreign ‘phone networks and picture messaging! In the meantime:

  • e-consultancy’s internet decade seems like a bit of a back-slapping exercise. Certainly, many of the people listed changed something but I would have preferred to see recognition for people who had the vision (and still do) rather than a list of MDs. Still, at least they admit, “the final list is really only some of those who have done so much”.
  • You may not have seen it at your newsagent but The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America has concluded that “differences in the acoustic characteristics of vowels were found as a function of sexual orientation”. Why do people continue to look for differences between gay and straight people. Isn’t it obvious? Gay men fancy other men. What does it matter if there’s a difference in vowel production (who knew there was such a thing anyway?). [via plasticbag]
  • The ‘world’s best radio station‘ that you’ve never heard (according to a report in The Independent): more and more people I know are tuning in here in Central London. I suppose I ought to try it at some point.
  • And while you might not be too bothered about ex-PM John Major’s answer to the question, “Do you think ‘I’m gay and Tory’ is a contradiction?” {Answer: No. Many people who are gay vote Conservative, and over our long history, many who are gay have risen to prominence within the party) [source] you may be interested in some of the other things he has to say about Tony Blair, those ‘bastard’ cabinet colleagues and rail privatisation.
  • According to News.Com: John Doerr is reported as saying that despite speculation Google would not enter the Web browser market. I wonder.
  • Bad news for those friends of mine who work in the business of marketing to mobile ‘phones but, apparently, text messages are twice as likely to irritate recipients as cold calls, according to research carried out by Cable & Wireless and reported at Revolution.
  • Did you know that a “fixation is a very short pause of the eye. A normal viewing of an ad, say, would include multiple fixations and “saccades,” which are the paths between fixations”. No, nor did I, but it’s reported at Poynteronline (everything you need to be a better journalist) in their coverage of the Eyetrack III study which seems, in the main, to state a lot of obvious things – although does back much of it up with some fascinating observations and heatmaps.
  • Also at Poynteronline (still everything you need to be a better journalist) but this time via MarketingVox (no amusing strapline to be found), “a German newspaper started printing blog excerpts as a regular feature”. Apparently the Frankfurt-based paper paper launched a page containing excerpts from weblogs without permission and so the wrath of blogosphere ensued forcing the paper into an apology. Was this good or bad? A feint whiff of hypocrasy to me.

And, no doubt the world will have moved on by the time I am back. A few interesting things are my Bloglines Blogroll.

On this day…

2002: Red Hair Hurts
2002: America’s Fault

Less Clutter On The Air

At last somebody in the commercial radio business has noted that one of biggest reasons to turn off isn’t poor music policy, crap jokes or bad station identity – it’s annoying and repetive radio commercials. Somebody in the UK should take on board the Clear Channel approach of trying to make better radio ads and brodcast fewer of them:

Radio is the most difficult medium because there are fewer senses to work with. For the most part, radio ads are a yawn [source].

With online catching radio in terms of advertising spend (Britain’s Online advertising market will surpass the £500-million mark this year – Independent Online) radio’s revenues may be in for a rocky time. In the UK the online industry may well surpass radio during the next 12 months so it’s important that the industry wakes up and does something to ensure that the recent history of growth and development can be sustained.

On this day…

2005: links for 2005-10-15
2002: Shapes Made By Radio Waves

BBC4 Should Broaden Its Appeal

According to The Independent [Source: BBC’s digital channels are ‘poor value’] ‘BBC4 makes too many programmes which “virtually no one watches”‘. I would say that’s a shame but I have hardly ever watched it. The only reason it is relevant is that last night I dreamt about all the BBC channel identities – those boxes with ‘BBC One’ etc. written in them – I have no idea why but in my dream they were all yellow and none of them had that annoying BBC Three character.

In a tenuous link, the BBC will, of course, be reporting the run-up and the outcome of the American elections next month. It may seem that we are somewhat powerless to do anything about it but The Guardian is giving everybody a chance to say something. The idea is that Guardian readers are matched to an American voter thus allowing them the chance to communicate on a personal basis and tell a real-life voter what the rest of the world thinks. I think it’s quite an interesting idea. What the voters of Clark County, Ohio may think when they get letters from us Brits is another things altogether. More at The Guardian.

Looking at my Flickr photo collection, I see that the first picture is of the water cooler in the office. This takes me back to the warm, balmy days of summer when it was so hot we thought we would melt in the office. Today, I am sitting here thinking I may have to buy a t-shirt in my lunch break to wear under my shirt as I am cold and it’s pouring with rain. Last week (and on Tuesday) I wrote about autumn. I am beginning to think we skipped straight to winter.

Speaking of photos (and linked to the BBC – so it makes sense to write it here) – memories of children’s television and this date seem to be linked. This day in 2002 I was talking about the show Rainbow and today Tom has posted a picture of Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub. Sometimes, it would be nice to be eight years old again!

Finally for now, today’s phone lust: Orange SPV C500. Come on Palm – get your act together – I want a more compact ‘phone that the Treo by the time I am allowed to upgrade again.

On this day…

2002: Up Above The Streets And Houses
2002: Awww

Leaf On The Path

Leaf on the path

I mentioned on Wednesday how much I love autumn and this great photo kind of sums up why. It’s from Flickr and it captures both the colours that I love and the sense of change that brings excitement. Oddly, the as the leaves die and fall I get a much greater sense of comfort that I do with the blossoming in spring. I shall leave you with this as the end of my week is proving so busy. [Leaf on the path]

And I must point it out again for yesterday’s On This Day made me laugh!

On this day…

No other posts on this day.

Value From The Street

Today’s linkage: Todd Grimshaw, the character at the centre of a controversial gay storyline in Coronation Street, is set to return to ITV screens as producers at Granada try to extract more “value” from their biggest brand [Media Guardian]. See also that first kiss.

On this day…

2002: Friday Night’s Gonna Be Alright

Big Match Update

jonathan wilkesI spoke last Sunday about Sky One’s programme The Match. Now I haven’t watched any of it apart from that first episode at the actual game tonight. The celebrities were better than I thought they would be and I thought it was a shame that they lost (2-1). Jonathan Wilkes turned out to be something of a star really and scored the goal for the celebs. Poor old Gary Lucy didn’t do very well – apparently, they kept putting him on the bench all week and was up for the public vote several times. He did, however, survive to play part of the game. Perhaps it was one of the better reality TV shows. [Sky Showbiz Report: Celebs Narrowly Beaten In The Match]

On this day…

2005: Sky One’s The Match
2002: Mussels

Cybill Disobedience

Earlier tonight we went to see Cybill Shepherd at The Soho Theatre. It’s her so-called Cybill Disobedience tour where she performs jazz, her own songs and tells stories from her life – if you didn’t know, she once dated Elvis. Well, I think I should have learnt my lesson from seeing her last year. This show wasn’t that different but it’s a little like watching a car crash (or at least aliens trying to fix a car at the side of the road). It’s billed as comedy and was amusing (although not laugh out loud funny) but, really, you couldn’t keep yours eyes off her. Was she drunk (no, I suspect that was pretend) but she was certainly a little odd. Stephanie Merrit in last week’s Observer likened it to “the experience of watching your slightly pissed auntie making an exhibition of herself at a wedding” [source] which I think sums it up.

Entertaining but scary. Strange and a little unnerving.

Oh, and the picture is from her remarkable promotional appearance on GMTV sometime last week. She may just be a great promoter but I think she needs to think a little more!

On this day…

No other posts on this day.

Autumn Again

Every year I talk about how nice autumn is (see, I did it here in 2003) and how much I like the season. If you have any doubts as to why I like the season then just go look at Flick’s autumn tag – it’s stunningly beautiful. Every autumn in the same with lots of work and me craving a holiday (see, I did that in 2002). This year is no different. But I have to admit – it was very cold this morning.

On this day…

2002: First VHS For Sale
2002: My Big Fat Greek Wedding

The Timewarp Times

Timewarp one – every year we hear the same things: there’s a lot of serious stuff in the news right now – still, The Guardian’s put together a list of Conservative leader Michael Howard’s favourite words in order of the frequency with which he used them in today’s speech: Howard’s buzzwords.

Timewarp two – like it’s the Eighties again: not to be outdone on the list front The Sun lists predictions for top toys this Christmas and they report that Cabbage Patch Kids are making a comeback – and are expected to be among the best-selling childrenÂ’s toys this Christmas. Oh and they have a list too

And if that’s not bad enough, timwarp three – space hoppers are back: 20 space hopper riders are to hop up ArthurÂ’s Seat in Edinburgh this weekend according to The Scotsman.

On this day…

2002: Weymouth