Self-discipline versus a wandering mind and many topics

The self-discipline explains the lack of blogging recently; I have promised myself more focus on the book I'm writing, fixed hours in the day, content targets, and less time getting distracted (interested ... puzzled ... outraged) by current affairs, science, history and anything else that wonders across my vision.

I am fond of saying that "I know a bit about quite a few things, and I have an opinion on everything";  this works well as an ice-breaker in a group of people, whether work or social.  I believe it's true, and I could spend all week blogging about topics I see in just the Saturday Guardian.  Self-discipline is hard!

I watched Professor Brian Cox recently giving a lecture on space & time - yes, it was the Science of Doctor Who, but this was proper grown-up stuff presented in a virtuosic manner.  I used to think Brian Cox was annoying but this lecture won me over.  Since then I have been thinking a lot about past and future light cones and the whole physical structure of the universe ... I haven't quite finished yet, so look out for a blog in, say, 2026.  And you still believe the bit about improved self-discipline?

My name is Nic Vine, and I find (almost) everything interesting and worthy of analysis.

Nevertheless, that one weird old tip (to use a current online vernacular) of assigning certain hours of the day as not just "writing is priority" but actually "writing is all I do" does work.  It's obvious really.  I don't know why I took so long to adopt it.  So the book will be finished in 2014, and no I'll not be tied down any further because I want it to be fun, not a millstone.

O2/Sky broadband saga resolution

So finally the saga is over - the line is fixed and I have been credited a month's charge, a whole £20, and they have promised to take up the communication/management failure between O2 and BT OpenReach.

Taking up from the last blog, then.  The engineers did arrive on 23rd as promised - a he and a she, where it appeared the she was being supervised.  She knew what she was doing, and he was checking.  Everything was alright in the house (of course), and they went off to the Exchange, leaving the pole to later if all else failed.  They could do this because he was 'frame trained' and therefore allowed into the Exchange.  They were back very promptly, it took 5 minutes to find my connection in the frame and remove a strand of wire that had fallen over it causing a short.

Aaaagh - this could have been done a week before if OpenReach had checked the Exchange then as their engineer (not frame trained) requested.  

The engineers were good enough to hang around while I checked that I had a good internet connection, even though their responsibility ends at the test socket in the wall box.  Good service from them.

So I called 800 230 0202 again, told them it was fixed, reinforced the point that we had lost a week for no good reason, and reminded them that they had promised to give me one month's credit.  The young lady in Derry said she'd do that right away.  Oh then later in the day I got another of those emails and texts telling me they are still working on our fault - this was after the text that said the fault should be fixed now - fills you with confidence, doesn't it.

I decided to wait a few days, not least to ensure the broadband was stable, before chasing the credit and entering my complaint about the whole saga.  Frankly it was a relief to not think about O2 for a few days.

Then blow me on 29 Oct we are notified of the next bill and there is no credit applied at all.  Time to immediately write a lengthy letter of complaint to complaintreviewservice@o2.com laying out the whole dreadful saga.  They have a 7-day response commitment, so I duly noted it in my calendar for chasing.

Much to my surprise today, 01 Nov, I get a call from the complaintreviewservice which is apologetic, appears to genuinely understand my frustrations and the fact that errors must have been made between O2 and OpenReach, and immediately applies a £20 credit to my account (which I can see online, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this).

So will I still carry out my threat to remove broadband, home phone, mobile broadband and two mobiles from O2?  We'll all just have to wait and see ...

Broken O2/Sky broadband and poor change management

This is a personal outpouring which nevertheless plays into my professional position as a change strategist.

Over the last 5 years my wife and I have moved to O2 for all our comms: 2 mobile phones, home phone+broadband, and mobile broadband for when we're sailing. You might say that's risky – eggs & basket – however we thought the risk was outweighed by convenience (and discounts) of one supplier, given our perception of the high quality of the O2 brand.

Until 10 days ago the service was great … well, in the sense that we rarely needed service. The occasional call on 202 or visit to an O2 shop went pretty smoothly. One problem using the mobile broadband dongle was resolved through an online chat with a Guru. The broadband in particular just worked – never needed to touch the router, wi-fi the same.

12 days ago on 9 Oct the phone and broadband just went dead. Called 800 230 0202 late in the day and they initiated a 2-hour line test straight away. Next morning it was all working again, so I called and told them this, and off we went. That seemed like good service.

The next day broadband was very slow and got worse until on 13 Oct the broadband and phone were dead again. This is where we entered the madness, and I'll spare you the blow-by-blow. Suffice to say that O2 kept saying they would call back with test results or next action and they almost never did – it was usually me calling them. The only thing in their favour is that they always answer the phone on the first ring, and the calls are free. Other factors in the frustration:

• their telephone equipment is awful because you get huge background noise and distortion, which combined with strong Derry accents makes it hard to understand them
• the number they had in the database to call us on was the home phone which is broken - duh
• an engineer wasn't booked because of some problem on their system
• I have never managed to speak to 'second level' who I believe interface with BT OpenReach, I can only get the call centre who have limited information and influence

An Openreach engineer finally came on 16 Oct, checked everything ok at the house, definitely a line problem somewhere, put in a call for someone to check the Exchange, promised he'd call me with an update … and that was the last I heard of any of that.

On 18 Oct a manager at the call centre said he'd get Level 2 to call me that day to discuss status (after putting my mobile into their database) – never happened.

On 20 Oct I spoke to another manager at the call centre, having been notified of an engineer booking for 23^rd – I expressed my frustration and anger at some length, he sympathised and agreed I was not being unreasonable, I said if it is not fixed by 21^st then I will be going onto social media with this, he said there's nothing he could do to get an engineer earlier. The only offer I got was that he said he'd cancel November's charges as compensation.

Now it's the 22^nd and I'm expecting an engineer tomorrow morning. No pressure, but by golly he or she had better deliver.

The wider background to this, of O2 selling their broadband service to Sky, is where the change strategy comes in.** The irony is that I have just written a general blog about KIS n Tell change management, which means Keeping It Simple and communicating it well. Unfortunately O2 and Sky have failed on this, quite dramatically in my view. In the past few months I have received letters and emails advising me of the sale and reassuring me that the deals will be at least as good under Sky (so I'll still get the discount with Sky for having an O2 mobile, will I? Fantastic), and that the transition will happen by April 2014, with 2 months notice.  The main thing I want is no interruption to service, as well as no cost increase of course.

Not far into the madness summarised above it occurred to me that the transition may have started, and my breakage is a result of that. This is reinforced by the fact that we receive up to 3 emails a day branded Sky but sent from customer.service@o2broadband.co.uk, which simply say “sorry, still working on it” with no contact details other than the head office postal address, and with links to Help and Terms which fail because o2-mail.co.uk is not found! We receive the same number of texts a day, saying the same thing, from 'Mybroadband” and it's not clear who that is. They both give the number of the call centre who when I asked said they ”are still O2”. My only channel of communication is with the call centre who just follow the process and cannot talk to me about the fault. Oh and they suggested I contact the complaint review service.

So in summary it's very confusing, I don't know who I'm really dealing with, and I don't have a decent channel of communication to talk to someone who knows what's really going on with my fault.

** If you are interested in change management and change strategy, you could do worse than to look at my professional site at www.nicvine.com

Syria - still - again

Despite our Commons' vote - the right result albeit perhaps by accident - we need to be vigilant.  With the Americans now beginning to say they will make a bigger strike in which amounts to regime-change, and some UK MPs saying they want another vote, there is still a danger that we will be party to a huge military mistake ... again.

We must continue the pressure on our elected representatives, directly and indirectly, to avoid military action and focus on diplomatic and humanitarian actions.  

It's as simple as that.

If you see two people fighting you don't rush up and stab the one you think is most at fault.  Bombing, no matter how surgical the strike is intended to be, is an escalation of the violence and that is not a humanitarian act and it is not what the British people want. 

 

The cost of a military strike should instead be spent on UN-organised aid all around Syria's borders for the refugees, and the political effort of a military strike should instead be expended upon diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the civil war.  There are no simple answers, as there were none in Afghanistan and Iraq before, both with dreadful continuing violence.  As a nation and a UN member we need to relentlessly support democracy and help in brokering peace at every possible moment.

Syria - NO to UK military action

I sent the following message today to my MP, Nick Raynsford (Lab), Vince Cable (LibDem), and Lord Strathclyde (Con), Leader of the Lords - it's not well researched or cross-referenced, and it's not beautiful English ... it's what I feel and there's no time to spare:

I do not wish the UK to take any action using military force in Syria, nor to support the USA or any other country in so doing.

 

I implore you to search your conscience on the question of the UK becoming involved in the Syrian civil war, and then to vote against any such motion.

 

Chemical weapons are an emotive issue, yet as a country we must proceed logically.  Let me make just a few points:

1. of course our armed forces, and those of the USA and possibly even the French, are eager to do what they are trained for, to exercise their skills to their best ability - which is why their counsel should not be the only one
2. we should listen with equal weight to those with very similar experience who are now retired and therefore have no particular incentive - every one I have heard has counselled against military action
3. it is not logical to think that we can make some kind of strike that will (a) only hit the chemical weapons installations, (b) have the effect of stopping the use of chemical weapons again, and (c) not have any knock-on effects in the region and our relationship with all the players in the Middle East
4. have you stopped to consider why this chemical weapon attack was in a part of Damascus and why the televison coverage of the aftermath was so detailed?  We don't normally see people dying on our screens.  Is it possible that the Assad regime want the West to strike at him, that this will strengthen him and further his agenda?  Furthermore have you considered that by firing upon Assad's forces we are militarily siding with the opposition, and means we are at risk of providing help to Al Qaeda elements
5. finally to say the unsayable:  why is the use of chemical weapons a call to arms for western countries when Syria has been murdering hundreds of civilians with bombs and bullets for months?;  if we are so horrified by death at the hands of government why don't we intervene in Egypt?

Of course civil war is appalling and the deaths of civilians is horrifying;  we should be doing everything in our power socially and economically to calm the 'fire' of civil war, to provide humanitarian aid, to support the surrounding countries in containing knock-on effects.

 

Please vote against any motion that instructs or encourages the UK to use or support military force in Syria.

Improvements to the blunt instrument of Democracy

Here we are, 2 years away from the next General Election in the UK (unless the Lib Dems break the coalition early).  You can feel the attention of the political parties switching from government & opposition to getting (re)elected.  I can feel my frustration rising at the ineptitude and energy-sapping effect of the whole process.

There are a million articles on this whole subject, and I have read a few good ones - why should I add another one?  Partly it's cathartic for me, so it matters little if no-one is reading. 

However I also want to start a campaign for offering solutions rather than just erudite critiques and analyses of the problem.  It doesn't matter that I am no expert on government or political parties, it doesn't matter that my solutions are undoubtedly flawed and lacking in detail.  I am the common man, and I want government in my name.  The more of us who propose solutions, no matter how sketchy or oddball, the more we are contributing to the democratic process and stimulating the right kind of debate.

Government in my name is perhaps the biggest challenge for democracy, because a system of 2, 3 or even 4 major parties ensures that a very sizeable minority did not vote for the government policies in any given government.  This is compounded by governments wilfully failing to adhere to their election manifestos.  Of course government of any colour is a matter of flexibility and compromise, because no country is immune from external economic factors and unexpected events.  They should however stick to their principles.

Before my constructive inputs, let me comment on my frustrations in the political sphere that pertains in Aug 2013.  

• the Conservatives have just hired Jim Messina, an American re-election strategist who worked in both Obama (democrat!) campaigns, and he will stay in the USA and report to both Australian Lynton Crosby (Election Advisor, and co-founder of CTF Partners referred to as a lobbying firm and accused of working for 'big tobacco'), and Grant Shapps (Party Co-Chairman, user of alter egos and founder of PrintHouse Corporation and HowToCorp, accused of plagiarising web content and false testimonials) - so we can believe everything we're going to be told there then
• the Lib Dems are trapped on the underside of the coalition - we hear little about the good they have done, and much about their failures - they will disappear almost with trace unless they are far more assertive in publicising their positive activities and explaining the necessary compromises
• Labour are doing exactly what I am struggling against, they criticise without having credible alternatives - many people, including within their party, are saying they don't know what they stand for now
• the minority parties get almost no coverage in the press - I have no idea what they are thinking and achieving
• the press in any case, even those with the best intentions, acts as a filter - as a common man I don't have the time or expertise to root out the facts behind the issues they choose to publicise, let alone the issues they ignore

Here are my solutions:
1. enforce manifestos to have a common framework of headings under which the party defines their track record, their view of the challenges and their policies for managing and improving the situation nationally - then the electorate can effectively compare credibility, understanding and intention
2. individual candidates must then produce more detail within this manifesto framework, both consistent with the national approach and relevant to their area - then the electorate can compare the local view in the national context
3. a single non-commercial website, managed say by the electoral commission, should allow an equal amount of space to every party and each candidate, or independent, to hold the manifesto information at no cost - then we have a single version of the truth both before and after the election
3. move to proportional representation - then we have a better mix of representation, with more people having cast some kind of vote (2nd or even 3rd choice) for elected representatives (and until then, vote on the basis of your local candidates rather than the national party)
4. severely restrict spending on election campaigns, and also the methods of raising money, using a fixed amount per candidate that is inversely proportional to the number of candidates in the party, which has the effect of supporting minority parties whose voices are so often drowned out - then we have a slightly less uneven playing field
5. monthly live debates on TV between the leaders of all parties to address questions raised by the public (only those public who voted in the last election) - running throughout the life of the parliament, with only the last 3 months devoted to electioneering
6. allow for an electorate to remove their representative

... there's more, this will do for a start.

Wimbledon Ladies Final day

Had a fabulous day at Wimbledon on 6 Jul.  

Started with a veterans match on Court No 3: Leconte & Bahrami, both huge comedians, v. McNamara & McNamee - all still wonderfully skilled, despite it being 30 years or so since their hey day.

Wonderful, perfect weather, our own fizz & strawbs on a bench outside Centre Court.

Then into Centre court, Gangway 513 Row Z - up in the shade, with cool air blowing - a real result.

Then an excellent Ladies Final, Lisicki's nerves taking nothing away from Bartoli's energy and accuracy.















Followed by Men's Doubles which goes so fast, and the Ladies Doubles almost as fast.

Everything in Wimbledon, and on London Transport, worked perfectly.

I've been sailing

Here's what I have been doing for the last 2 months, sailing halfway round the UK in our yacht:  click here

It was a fantastic experience for my wife, Lesley, and I.

Charitable Donations

I’m only a sample of one, and although I know others who think like me this is hardly a scientific or significant analysis; nevertheless I think it’s instructive.

• I never give where I believe government should provide, e.g. systematic gaps in health & benefits – I prefer to pressure government, no matter how remotely for a systematic solution
• I do give to causes I know and trust in terms of the money going to the right place e.g. the Meniere’s Society where I was a Trustee
• I do give spontaneously where I admire the effort and courage of the fund-raising individual e.g. David Walliams’ swimming marathons, Eddie Izzard’s running marathons
• I do give a small amount of money every time I’m asked by a friend or work colleague who is doing a sponsored something – I can afford it and it’s a politeness and a community action
• I have put in effort rather than money, by sponsored swimming, and I have waived money, by singing for charity (no, they weren’t paying me to stop).

What conclusion can we draw from that?  Perhaps that I’m an unsympathetic, inconsistent, knee-jerking, celebrity-influenced egotist.  Instead, or perhaps in addition, I think it’s fair to say that:

• I like to see value for money, as in all my expenditure, and I have a fear of supporting bloated bureaucracies rather than the intended recipients
• I accept the occasional tactical need to support what should be a government responsibility, but much prefer a strategic approach where government more predictably does the right thing on our behalf
• I acknowledge the pleasure in being associated with good social action, very occasionally getting active myself

Projects like HS2 and understanding the case

I am ambivalent towards HS2 (I don't live anywhere near the route), and the recent phase 2 announcements have done nothing to dispel that.  If there was a referendum on it, I would instinctively vote 'no' because it's a huge cost over 20 years (approaching a generation) which delivers only an incremental improvement to travel.

However, there's the problem ... "instinctively". It is very hard, on this and many other issues facing the UK, for even a reasonably well-informed member of the public to get to the bottom of the business case. Quite apart from the technical and financial complexity, there is the political positioning and obfuscation from all interested parties.

I have two radical suggestions:

1.  the government strategy should be more about creating work, communities and culture all over the UK, and less about people constantly travelling between big cities; the technology of the industrial revolution encouraged specialisation and centralisation, whereas the technology of the communications revolution (yes, the one we’re in right now) should encourage de-centralisation and multi-skilled communities.

2.  I should start a 'campaign for clear analysis' (CAMCAN) which will provide a simple business case framework of costs, measurable benefits, quantified risks and alternatives.  This could then be populated for each major UK project for the population at large to understand and meaningfully compare.  (This might just be useful for the upcoming EU Referendum.)

Coalition - a game of Two Halves

Not a 'game' at all, of course - rather the serious business of being responsible, mature public servants engaged in governing the country for the common good of all it's people.

So the endless question from a media that always seems most interested in looking for cracks and driving wedges:  how on earth can two parties govern together whilst gearing up to campaign separately?

I think the answer is simple, so long as the people involved are mature, responsible and dedicated to providing the best possible public service.   (Hmmm)

Each party has to be clear about it's current policies in the coalition context, which it will pursue up to the moment the government is dissolved, and it's future policies for when it is a majority party.  It's not rocket science to be able to have two implementation plans within one consistent framework of principle.

The majority of the electorate surely understands that a manifesto is rarely implemented without constraints ... there are always constraints in the state of the nation that is handed over to the new government, and in the European and global economic and financial climates that prevail.  Being in a coalition is another constraint, which requires perhaps even more negotiation and compromise than is usual ... and in these difficult times I believe the coalition has been a strength for the country, and not least because they have young, energetic leaders who have got things done in appalling financial circumstances.

On a related tack, it would be helpful if the media would sometimes ask positive constructive questions, instead of always trying to find fault and trip up.  A question "why is there an apparent conflict between X and Y" will be answered along the lines of "there is no conflict" which leaves us none the wiser.  Whereas a question "how are you going to achieve the promised x% or £yBn, and how will you measure that achievement" requires an answer of some positive substance. 

Right now I think that if I could vote in 2015 for a coalition, then I would do so.