February 3, 2010

Keep Your PR People Away From Twitter

Posted by cluetrainee under Companies, Twitter Strategy
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No company policy should condone the use of Twitter as a place for spin.

Spin – where one thing is said to mask something else – is the language of deceit.    It involves cover-up and falsehood if not out and out lies.  On Twitter, it’s very, very easy for spin to be used as a day-to-day tool.

Spin is not commercially efficient or effective in the long run.  Company Policy should specifically and explicitly prohibit it.  Especially on Twitter.

So here’s why PR people should not tweet: the Press Release and the PR Stunt are the stock in trade of the PR profession.  Both widely derided by consumers, media and society as a whole, as the tools of spin.  So the people who produce these materials, who think in the way required to create those materials, are often not the right people to Tweet on behalf of a Corporation.

The worst example is the anonymous, cheery tweet, written in the first-person voice, pretending to be “from the Company” but with no clue of the provenance or author.  It should be banned.

Twitter is a place where the extremes of trivia and truth thrive.  Trivia (fun, entertainment, carefree abandon, humour – some abuse – entertainment, chatter, discourse, titilation, interest etc etc etc) and Truth (real opinions, unfiltered information, breaking news, honest and unique insight, new knowledge).   Companies should merrily join in both Trivia and Truth, but should ruthlessly eliminate that nasty middle ground of spin.

The Right Way: (the honest and open Twitter bios say “Katie Colbourne for Volume…” and “Thoughts and updates from Kirsti in the public events team…”):

The Wrong Way: (two mistakes here: the content is lamentably immature – and rightly derided by the Twitter community -  and the author is unknown, hiding behind the anonymity of the brand)

 

February 3, 2010

Leadership 97.968x Sexier Than Curation

Posted by cluetrainee under Corporate Culture, Open Management
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Why don’t management and business schools teach Governance, Custodianship, Stewardship and Curation in the same way that they teach Leadership?

They are not quite as popular or sexy, certainly.  Maybe that’s why.

My intensive research (The Amazon.co.uk book department search facility) shows that Leadership is 97.968x sexier than Curation (Leadership – 146,854, Governance – 54,799, Stewardship – 17,143, Custodianship – 1,633, Curation – 1,499).

Leadership IS popular and sexy (Think: Obama, Buzz Lightyear, John Wayne).  Governance, Curation and the others aren’t (Think: Civil Service, Libraries and Museums).

But I don’t think the Leaders of the UK’s biggest companies are seizing the opportunity to Lead in the online world.  In fact, as a group, I think they’re out of their comfort zone – frightened even. (I say “as a Group” careful to acknowledge that there are exceptions!)

There are global Leaders (Zappos) who have dived in and set the pace.  And there are Curators – firms who are protecting what they have and avoiding risk and adventure.  Online is a new playing field.  An unexplored terrain.  It’s the PERFECT place to demonstrate Leadership and for us to see Leadership at work – a brave new world, full of commercial and social opportunity (and risk), where brave and inspired pioneers can make an impact.

Many of our more placid people and institutions are strutting it online (e.g. The Queen on Twitter).  Our big companies aren’t.  Their Boards, their Leaders, do not yet seem comfortable revealing of themselves online, being accessible, engaging and “coming out to play” (as The Cluetrain Manifesto said).  The online world feels like a Party to which everyone is invited and everyone has turned up.  Except UK plc and the 2,792 CEOs who lead the UK’s largest (stock-market listed) companies.  Or if they have turned up, then they are in the kitchen helping serve the beer.

The British Monarchy, the British Houses of Parliament, every political Party, every MP as an individual, the Government, the British Library, the Vatican, every single film, book, piece of music and cultural show, performance and performer, any and every Charitable cause, celebrities and most brands, not to mention 17% of British small businesses and every single school.  They’ve turned up.

So here’s my point: if Leadership is so sexy, why are the CEOs of big companies not, as a whole, displaying it?  Online, at least, they are acting more like curators and stewards of their enterprises than Leaders.

The CEO needs to get out there.  The CEO needs to lead,  The CEO needs to be brave.  The CEO needs to show that he or she has something of value to say in the The Conversation.  The CEO needs to be where the customers and staff are.  The CEO needs to be approachable and accessible, if not a little accountable too.

The time will come when it’s normal to acknowledge:

  • The positives (engagement, productivity, innovation, cost reduction) outweight negatives (fear, mistrust, loss of control and reduction of hierarchy).
  • Online Thinking should come first and not as an afterthought.
  • Openness and an Open Approach to customers, staff and society improves business.

The Leaders, not the Curators, will recognise that first.  The cascade has started.  2010 will be a decisive year of change for Leadership and each one of the 2,792 CEOs personally – and their collective £3,588bn market capitalisation – should seize that opportunity.

 

January 25, 2010

Twitter – A Refreshment for Corporate Culture

Posted by cluetrainee under Corporate Culture, Online Corporate Culture, Twitter Strategy
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Vision, Mission, Values, Brand.  Those unifying cornerstones of Corporate Culture are due for review, maybe upheaval, as we progress ever more online.

Why? Because most large Firms I know have a Corporate Culture defined ‘offline’ which seems to evaporate online.  They can be confident in real life – but are geeky, awkward and a little old fashioned online.

The two worlds are different, but the online one is ballooning in importance and Corporate Culture just isn’t keeping up with the change.

Twitter offers a chance to refresh Corporate Culture, thanks, among others, to my friends at Comcast who popularised the idea that company culture changes because of Twitter.

Here’s how: Twitter makes a Firm think in terms of short items, not annual reports, stock market filings, press releases or brochures.  Brevity is valued.  They need to be engaging on Twitter – so Firms are learning what it’s like to be interesting and win ‘traction’ with the outside world.  And then they need to react to events, which means they need a responsive decision-making structure, devolved responsibility, empowerment on the frontline.

These can be truly testing criteria.  They pull against every sinew of control which a Firm rightly needs to exert.  Empowerment means risk.  Responsiveness means quicker, rather than considered, decision-making, which increases risk.  And being engaging online means being anything other than ‘corporate’ in the use of language and content.  It actually means being different and unusual – and again, that often fights against control and introduces risk.

But hey, there’s a balance: the benefits outweigh the risks in many cases.  The cost advantages of an underlying internet business model are now coming through in every industry from heavy manufacturing to entertainment, from space exploration to mining and from pharma to finance.

The universal benefits of the internet business model can only be fully gained by also opening the door to an internet culture.

So I predict we will see Firms pledge again their commitment to traditional values such as integrity, diversity and quality, and they’ll follow through on these with more conviction than before.  They are bedrocks.  But they’ll also start to embrace values such as relevance, response, brevity and even levity.  And Twitter will be the learning and proving grounds.

 

January 25, 2010

48 Old Emotions, 3 New, 1 Behaviour

Posted by cluetrainee under Corporate Culture, Online Corporate Culture
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There are officially three new emotions, according to the New Scientist): Elevation, Interest and Confusion.

Why is this relevant?  Because emotions are often neglected in assessing or shaping corporate culture.  We seem to avoid wrestling with them.  But I think being blunt about emotions is both simple and ultraproductive for a Firm.  And these three new ones are especially common online.

Firms create emotions in everything they do online.  There’s no such thing as not making an impact.  Online, a Firm makes an impact (like satisfying an interest or entertaining or meeting a need) or it is avoided.  There’s no such thing as indifference.

Life’s actually got very simple online: Emotions drive recommendations which drive business.

When connected users do things, they share things.  Sharing is now the defining activity online.  People share their emotions: likes, hates, loves and loathes, and when it comes to products, service, brands and companies, they basically share a thumbs up (like/recommend) or a thumbs down (dislike/reject).  The dominant objective for a company online is thus, in my view, to garner recommendations.  All good things online – sales, margin, loyalty, reputation – come from that one key behaviour: recommendation.

So a Firm needs to be ‘good at’ emotions – especially the new ones.

Mind you, there are many and we’re not certain how many.  Wikipedia usefully boils it down to 48 (I’ve put them in a file: 48 Emotions) and New Scientist notes the ‘Big Six’ basic emotions: joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust.

But they boil down to two types online: emotions which make you “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”.  Emotions drive thumbing.

Fast-forward briefly to a definition of corporate culture – I’m a huge fan of defining things by reference to their outputs and so I’d offer: “collective attitudes and behavioural norms…which produce behaviours from staff, suppliers and customers to support the enterprise“.

So now maybe ‘online Corporate Culture’ could be defined as norms which…”create recommendations“.

And creating elevation, satisfying interest and reducing confusion thus become three new ways to measure any online corporate activity.

 

November 23, 2009

10 Things Which Make Social Technologies Dynamite

Posted by cluetrainee under Open Communications
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CEOs are often unimpressed by YouTube or Twitter.  Now, you might say “Well, that’s right and proper – Twitter is a tactical fad and not serious enough to warrant board time.”  But I disagree.  Twitter, the Twitter Culture and the Open Business movement are tightly linked and in some places Twitter is becoming synonymous with corporate change.

But for CEOs to lead on this, they need to be (a) seriously impressed (b) a little worried (c) ready to do something serious.

I maintain that avoidance and denial strategies dominate.  Firms don’t admit to these.  But they mask their denial and avoidance using the Monkey in the Basement strategy: allocate some resource to a junior to “do something” (undefined) on Twitter and let the world see that the Firm is “taking online seriously”.

So here’s my list of why social technologies should be treated as exceptional, different, and very challenging global phenomena:

  1. the majority are utterly free of charge to the user (free)
  2. they are widely available (ubiquitous in use)
  3. the cost of creating some of them is negligible (ubiquitous in production)
  4. they are easy to use (there are no manuals anymore)
  5. new features and new products come available daily (plentiful)
  6. they automatically change and upgrade, no one needs to upgrade (self-evolving)
  7. they work together – every product now provides links to other products as standard (connected)
  8. they give people tools which are more powerful than they have in the workplace (a reversal of prior years)
  9. they tend not to be feature-rich, complex or clever (simple)
  10. their value derives from the sheer numbers of people who connect and contribute content not from clever technology (mass)

The above nicked from our “Open Communications 23rd September 2009” thesis, but made poignant from the blank stare I received last week from one (unnamed) Chief Exec.

 

November 23, 2009

680,500 Reasons Why Business Leaders Need To Think “Online”

Posted by cluetrainee under Thought Leadership
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Having worked with two management consulting firms over the summer on Thought Leadership, and having completed a study called “Thought Leadership: Online”, we were shocked at the lax approach taken by most Professional Services Organisations.  Some of the more tacky illustrations of this are the usual stupid videos on YouTube, including the item ranking most highly (“most viewed”) about PwC, the “Dancing Auditors“.  It has gained 680,500 views – an astonishing number for a firm of auditors.

This video is a dramatic illustration of the wider issue: Professional Services Organisations are a few steps removed from the “consumer frontline” where the social technologies are deployed and they don’t see them a serious tools.  Yet.  If a Professional Service Organisation is going to be treated seriously as a “Thought Leader”, as most seek to be, then 2010 will see a big sea-change.  See my article in B2B Online for more.

 

 

November 23, 2009

When 215 Community Members Is An Endictment

Posted by cluetrainee under Brands, Old Marketing
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On Remembrance Sunday, the Twitter ID @PoppySupport had 1,757 followers.  Another, @poppy_man had 84 followers.  Yet another, @PoppyLegion, had 337.  (By way of scale to help comparison, @BBCQuestionTime collected 13,656 followers just during October).

Guess which Twitter ID was created by The Royal British Legion and guess which wasn’t.  The answer is that @PoppyLegion (337) and @poppy_man (84) were created by The Royal British Legion.  @PoppySupport (1,757) wasn’t.  Yes, the ones with the lowest impact on Twitter are also the official presences of The Royal British Legion on Twitter.

The number of followers is not everything. Quality counts.  But it’s definitely a measure of engagement around fundraising.  The Royal British Legion did a poor job in 2009 because it subscribed to “marketing thinking”.  In this article, I explain why “marketing” is so bad.  And many thanks to mad.co.uk for printing it – a brave move for a marketing website.

 

November 10, 2009

Mediathink Defined

Posted by cluetrainee under Old Marketing
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Just dug out the definition from “Open Communications” white paper back in September.  We define mediathink as “you pay for a message to be delivered through a channel to an audience”   Open Communications 23rd September 2009

 

November 10, 2009

Ideagora Up

Posted by cluetrainee under Open Management, The Conversation Group
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We’ve just completed our first Ideagora for TCG client Symbian.  Called Symbian Ideas, it’s an idea-ranking, suggestion-ranking tool.  It’s a powerful tool in the new way of running companies – and helping companies play a part in their industries.  The days of covert suggestions from staff which are ignored – gone.  Ideas are open, they are worked on and noodled publicly by employees (and in Symbian’s case, the public!!).  A company can use the Ideagora for employees and customer – and it can, as in Symbian’s case, also try and collect and develop ideas which the industry as a whole can benefit from.

The Ideagora idea is – you can make a suggestion which a company or a community can benefit from.  You can see it voted down.  Or up.  You can build a supporters’ club around the idea.  Doesn’t matter who “you” are.  People are sharing ideas and leaders can act on those ideas.  Ideas that attain a certain level of support (number of votes) are then evaluated by experts and developer further.  One stage later, they are ready to be evaluated by management and – even put into practice.  Our version is based on the tool from Spigit.

I think the “Ideagora” concept is a measure of a Board’s conviction.  A Board with conviction will embrace the open approach.  Their conviction will allow them to accept criticism, respond strongly to it, adapt and even benefit from it.  A Board in uncertain times, or with an unclear culture or shaky conviction about what it stands for, will find the Ideagora challenging.

My guess today is that each one of the UK’s Top 250 Firms will be challenged by the Ideagora.  They will say it is not appropriate, not right, too risky or with insufficient benefits to warrant the exposure to “significant reputational risk”.  The arguments can be very logical and very persuasive.

My response case is:

(a) an interactive and open company is much more attractive to staff and customers

(b) “opening up” the company is a differentiator today and all companies will move in this direction in the next 10 years so it’s a safe differentiator

(c) an open company is better run – it is leaner and faster, lower-cost, with better decision-making and the ability for more rigorous execution by securing higher employee engagement.

 

November 9, 2009

£40m – The Value of a Twitter Strategy

Posted by cluetrainee under Twitter Strategy | Tags: |
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Your share price is 260p and the analysts say your target price is 280p.   If your market valuation is £500m today that extra 20p is worth an extra £38.46m to your shareholders.  And what if Twitter was the solution?

Here’s the reasoning: the stock market values leading companies (the “Leadership Premium”).  They are the ones who identify high-growth market niches, follow those niches and consolidate positions in them.  They are companies who lead in operational performance with continued growth and margin improvement.

Now, if you were the CEO, you’d start to embrace Twitter today because it will accelerate the Firm’s progress as a leadership Firm.  That could make the 20p difference.

With Twitter you’ll empower Customer Service and HR to talk directly with customers and employees.  Once competent with Twitter, internal decision-making will speed up, the Firm will learn responsiveness, its culture will strengthen, its product will improve, its customers will love it more.  You’d slowy be able to dismantle the marketing department (with its high cost of print and media spend), the research department (with their strange notions of “surveys”) and the product design and innovation department (though you’d always bring in specialists to help).

It will take two years.  Your business performance will improve.  Productivity will increase, cost will pare.  You will be seen as a leadership firm.   Here’s the secret formula: the impact of a Twitter Strategy on your corporate culture.  Twitter Strategy On A Page

 

November 9, 2009

98.6% of FT Readers Haven’t A Clue

Posted by cluetrainee under Pipesmoking
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Searching for the real number – but assuming it’s around 14 in every 1,000 online FT readers know what Mixx is.  Or Viadeo.  Or stumbleupon.  Yet each and every FT article online is decorated with at least 10 pretty pictures with such names as these.  Maybe they are war medals.  Maybe they are rosettes.  Any ideas what these are?

FT Community Buttons

 

November 9, 2009

682,873 Laughs At PwC’s Expense

Posted by cluetrainee under Pipesmoking
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Business consultants may look professional in real life but often end up looking crass amateurs online.  That’s the verdict of a two-month study entitled “Thought Leadership: Online” we’ve just completed into the “online culture” of Professional Services Organisations (PSOs).  In most online communities, PSOs are either inactive or neglecting their activity.  Worst examples are in the YouTube community: checkout PwC and the “most viewed” video relating to them had a whopping 682,873 views – but it’s the embarassing “Dancing Auditors“.  And top of the cringe list: Ernst & Young’s  “Happy Day” is the “most viewed” relating to EY.  Using a religious song, corrupting the lyrics to represent a commercial company.  Embarassing all the way and attracting 206,020.  Eek.

And just so we’re clear – these are NOT random videos selected for laugh-effect, they are the “most viewed” relating to those companies.  Significant, I think.

 

November 9, 2009

219 Community Members – Why Marketing Sucks

Posted by cluetrainee under Brands, Not-For-Profits
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The Royal British Legion secures only 219 members on its very own online community, LegionLive, yet gets the support of 380,000 members and 300,000 volunteers in the real world to run its annual Poppy appeal, raising around £31m.  How come?

This year it did online in a big way.  But it did it very badly.  Bebo, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, txts, iPhone apps, Twitter and that online community to control and corrale everything.  Today is Monday and we’ve just had Remembrance Sunday, which together with the 2-minute silence to come on Wedesnday 11th November at 11am are the emotional highlights for the UK of this appeal.  We’ve passed the peak of the campaign for 2009.

The Royal British Legion has applied every online trick in the book to this campaign.  But it’s failed.  It’s ripped the heart out of Poppy Day.  The YouTube channel is a desert, Bebo is barren (1 friend), Facebook is a joke.  The online community is unpopulated.  Twitter is unfollowed.  The brand is diffuse.  The brand is wrong.  The messages are commercial with no heart.  The introduction of a cutesy, ditsy cartoon character, “Poppy Legion”, to “host” the community and “act as the community’s resident blogger” bringing us “hot new content” epitomises the worst and is a disaster.  The Community’s links to iChild’s “make your own bravery medal” site which also sell insurance for kids is crass and inappropriate.  I shan’t go on.

I think the campaign was driven by marketeers at a time when it needed to be driven by people who believed in a cause.  I love the legion but I’m angry with them for getting this so wrong.  It has all the hallmarks of branding, and none of the hallmarks of sincerity.  It tries to club people round the head for money rather than appeal to them.  It sought control rather than involvement.  My short article is Why Marketing Fails – Lessons from the 2009 Online Poppy Appeal.  A longer article with the background: How Marketing Destroyed the Soul of the Online Poppy Appeal.  Supporting slides: How Marketing Destroyed The Soul of the Online Poppy Appeal – Slides

 

January 4, 2009

$1.3bn To be Spent on Social Network Advertising In 2009

Posted by cluetrainee under Stats General
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$1.3 bn will be spent on advertising in US social networks in 2009, says eMarketer.  That’s only 8% up on 2008’s $1.2 bn, but 9% down on eMarketer’s previous estimate of $1.4bn

 

January 4, 2009

Why ROI…My Last Post

Posted by cluetrainee under Measuring Return | Tags: , , |
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Karl Harvard at Econsultancy’s Digital Marketing Blog asked for my comments on his post on ROI.  I don’t like the debate about why (it’s a tedious debate).  The debate about how is good.  But there’s more why than how at the moment.  So with gratitude to Karl for flushing me out on this, here’s my summaryview:

  • Senior people in companies measure and are measured and the web makes almost everything measurable to companies – they’re swamped with ROI numbers from the internet so it’s only natural and right and proper for them to ask about Social Media ROI.  Get on with it.
  • Therefore every social media or conversational activity must have ROI of some sort. Get on with it.
  • People who think conversational marketing is “above the law” in this regard, should be eaten by crocodiles with blunt teeth.  Sooner rather than later.
  • Every corporate activity has a cash consequence and if nothing less than the value of a firm (its share price) is the sum of its future cashflows then conversationalists need to get seriously real about showing the same for their activities.  Get on with it.
  • Let me offer “CNPV” as the measure which should apply to all activities – corporate financiers measure the “Net Present Value” of a project by adding incoming and subtracting outgoing cashflows and a “Conversation NPV” is no more than that methodology applied to conversational business. Get on with it.
  • No, I don’t have a back of case studies on CNPV yet.  So I’d better get on with it.
  • That’s why I started this blog.  So I’d better get on with it.
 

January 4, 2009

Zero – The Number of People Who Bought Online

Posted by cluetrainee under Role of Online | Tags: , , |
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Back (again) to last month’s TNS Digital World, Digital Life survey and the shock discovery that of the 10 things that people do most of online, making purchases is not one of them. (“researched” before buying, “visited” a product website and “used” a price comparison site are all perilously close to “bought” – but they are not “bought”)

tns-survey-extract

 

January 4, 2009

63% Are PreBuy Researchers (Global)

Posted by cluetrainee under PreBuy Research | Tags: |
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63% of people* have used the internet in the last month to “research a product or service before buying it” (this from last month’s TNS Digital World, Digital Life survey of 27,522 people across the world).  You’ll recall that this measure is one of my Top 10 measures (see November 18th 2008 post).  I’m calling this “percentage of people who research online before buying offline” the “PreBuy Research” measure.

(* people refers to the 27,522 Universe polled by TNS – it is a fairly active online community in itself by virtue of the fact that its members take part in online surveys)

My number for UK PreBuy Researchers was 86%  “the number of shoppers who will research online before buying in-store”.  This is a UK number from the IMRG and their “e-Customer Service Index”.

[Let's split hairs for a moment - TNS and IMRG use different universes: the TNS number is "percentage of an online audience who participated in an online survey who said that they researched a product or service online before buying" and the IMRG number is "percentage of shoppers who had bought offline who had researched a product or service online before buying"]

More anecdotals from TNS in this vein:

  • 73% (of survey respondents) compare prices on white goods
  • well over two thirds (of survey respondents) compare prices on mobile phones, cars and televisions/DVD players
  • approximately 1 in 10 (of survey respondents) discussed their purchases with others as sought professional advice
  • well over half (of survey respondents) across all product categories researched online the product that they eventually bought.
  • 85% (of survey respondents) who were car buyers did their research online
  • 75% (of survey respondents) who were PC purchasers did their research online
 

January 1, 2009

47% of Housewives’ Leisure Time is Spent On The Web

Posted by cluetrainee under Pipesmoking | Tags: , |
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There’s an index of “percent of leisure time spent on the web” and for students in the UK it’s 39%, the unemployed 32% and housewives 47%. This from the “Digital World, Digital Life” report by TNS (completed in June 2008, issued in press release form on 18th December 2008 and reported by The Guardian today)

The survey took the views of 27,522 people into account, from around the world, so seems robust.  As a profile of online humans it’s fine but it’s not a profile of all humans because it was completed online.

Here’s the TNS summary: TNS completed analysis of the results of its 16-country study into online behaviour and perspectives around the world in June 2008. A total of 27,522 people aged 18 to 55 years old were interviewed online in the following countries: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. 2,500 were surveyed in the UK.

 

December 27, 2008

Professional Ratings – 2009’s Big Theme

Posted by cluetrainee under Ratings | Tags: , |
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This is a special “numbers-lite” post, with apologies.  Despite this, I hope it will provide a basepoint for some significant new numbers during 2009.  Bear with me.

I’m inspired by the news today that the UK Government will introduce public ratings of doctors by patients on Government websites.  Ratings…you know what we mean: “dr spock wuz a crap doctor / removed my arm when he shld have prescribed antibodes / cold stetherscop / I had to wait too long / receptionist is a babe” etc etc etc

The drive comes from Government bods Ben Bradshaw (the Minister of State for Health Services) and Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health) who expressed their enthusiasm for doctor rankings in various forms during 2008, most notably with their support of the iwantgreatcare.org website launched in the year.

The news came from The Guardian which reported that Bradshaw has “asked the NHS” to get the software up and running to make it happen.  Positive step.  It also reports that Bradshaw hopes it will “do for healthcare what Amazon has done for the book trade and Trip Adviser for the travel industry: providing positive and negative feedback, warts and all, from consumers”. (The underlining is mine – the effects of those words are deeply profound, coming from a Government)

This is exciting news.  Government on the front foot.  Doing the right thing.  Impact on the NHS – huge.  Impact for other professionals outside the NHS (at least lawyers and accountants to start with) HUGE.  Read HUGE.  Yes, I said HUGE.  Professional Rankings will be a MASSIVE theme for all Professional Services Firms in 2009 and beyond.  It’s only just starting and I’ve already run out of expletives!

Range of Choice

There are 247,930 doctors registered to practice medicine in the UK according to the List of Registered Medical Practitioners maintained by the body responsible for registering doctors in the UK, the General Medical Council (December 12th 2008 data).  Of this 247,930, there are 42,876 GPs (latest figures from the Royal College of General Practitioners in their annual Profile of UK General Practitioners – sadly only July 2006).  You can visit the NHS Choices website to find which of these 42,876 GPs suits you best – all the data is there, fantastic, like a Facebook or LinkedIn.  But there’s no patient feedback.  Yet.

Ranksites

iwantgreatcare follows in the footsteps of other sites such as RateMDs, DrScore, DoctorScorecard, Book of Doctors, MyDocHub and Vitals.  There are emerging (i.e. newly established and growing but not yet full or definitive) sites such as LawyerRatingz, AccountantRatingz and RateMyTeachers, as well as standard “Yellow Pages” directory services such as Angie’s List which provide feedback and views on doctors in a local area, alongside those for plumbers and gardeners.

The big noise on this subject possibly started when US healthcare firm WellPoint announced way back in October 2007 that it would launch a doctors’ feedback service in January 2008 (Company Press Release), which it then duly did – not public but for it’s paying customers.  This was done in conjunction with the restaurant rating service, Zagat, and scores doctors on four criteria: trust, communication, availability and office environment.

Negative Counterattack

There’s massive backlach to this type of feedback and it’s worth noting the substance and tone.  Future efforts to rate professionals in professional firms will face the same rampant hostility.  The dominant complaint is against anonymous comment and in this, the complainants are absolutely right – anonymity shouldn’t be part of any rating system.  All comments must be open.  The next major issue is the threat and fear of legal action brought by professionals who are “libelled” in customer feedback.

Here’s a taste of the critique (though the sources are generic, not specifically selected for their importance):

  • “there is a significant possibility of it being used in a malicious way” (from the BMA, 138,000 members at the end of 2007 according to the BMA 2008 Annual Report and quoted in Pulse)
  • “disgruntled patients are more likely to submit a survey than happy ones” (from US physician James King, Board Chair of the American Academy of Family Physicians quoted in
  • “a silly idea” as quoted in the FT’s McCartney Blog written by Glasgow-based GP and FT Weekend columnist Margaret McCartney
  • “self selecting feedback (where extremes of views are most common) are hardly going to give a realistic view” (McCartney)
  • “anyone can pitch up and say anything, with no need to declare who they are”,
  • “very non-evidence based” (McCartney)
  • “possibly even dangerous thing” (McCartney)
  • “anonymous, untraceable criticism will [not] have a beneficial effect on a doctors practice” (McCartney)
  • “…could cause distress that has serious consequence” (McCartney)
  • “have the potential to sour already strained relationships between the nation’s patients and physicians” says pundit Delia Chiaramonte (2 recommendations on LinkedIn) quoted in USA Today
  • “there’s a significant possibility of it being used in a malicious way” said Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association’s GPC committee quoted in the Guardian newspaper
  • “leaving [Doctors] open to potential abuse from individuals with a vendetta” (Vautrey)
  • “it would be of great concern if any doctor was put in jeopardy through a malicious campaign, maybe through viral email, to attack or undermine a doctor at a hospital or GP’s practice” (Vautrey)
  • “anonymous online ratings and rants can ruin reputations and destroy trust” Nancy Nielsen, president of the American Medical Association (240,000 members according to their 2007 Annual Report and quoted in USA Today
  • “wise doctors…will either grow very thick skins…or studiously ignore the sites altogether….in both  cases the sites loose any wider value” from the Patient Opinion’s team blog
  • “in the long run  sites like this will devolve to serving the lowest common denominator of outrage” (Patient’s Opinion again)
  • “a website on which people can slander or praise irresponsibly is the wrong approach” said Laurence Buckman (on Facebook but not on LinkedIn), chairman of the British Medical Association’s GPC committee
  • “temptation for doctors to game the system” (Buckman)
  • “this is not the way professionals should interact with their patients” (Buckman)
  • “it has a great potential to be misleading” (Buckman)

But big respect to Professor Chris Bulstrode, of Oxford University, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and member of the GMC, who said: ‘This website is a great idea and will put the cat among the pigeons with the medical profession, which is just what’s needed. Doctors will feel threatened, and rightly, as one or two will find their trousers round their ankles.’

Rating System

It’s worth a quick look at how medical professionals are ranked….on what criteria:

  • Book of Doctors ranks on: Waiting Room Time, Doctor Availability, Returns Calls in a Timely Fashion, Personal Attention During Visit, Shows Caring & Compassion, Ability to Communicate, Explanation/Coordination of Medications, Willingness to Make Referrals, Quality of Referrals, Professionalism of Staff, Accuracy of Billing, Cleanliness of Office
  • DrScore uses a single 0 (worst possible care) to 10 (best possible care) scale
  • HealthGrades provides a ratings system
  • DoctorScorecard uses an overall score out of 10 with Nursing Staff, Office Staff, Cost, media Equipment, Office Waiting Time and Appointment Availability as criteria.
  • Jameda uses the typical German “Gesamtnote” system for scoring on satisfaction, clarity of communication, trust, time spent by the doctor and how friendly the doctor was.
  • Vitals uses:  ease in getting an appointment, waiting time during a visit, courtesy and professionalism of office staff, accuracy in diagnosing a problem, bedside manner, spending enough time with me, following up as needed after my visit
  • iwantgratecare takes three criteria: Do you trust them? Did they listen to you? and Would you recommend them?

Sample ratings from the German jameda.de and Book of Doctors:

doctor-rating-in-german5doctors-rating3

 

December 15, 2008

3.64 Texts (Only 0.02 MMS) Per Day

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A UK Average Bod sent 3.64 SMS messages every day and 0.0246 MMS messages in September 2008 (2.67 SMS and 0.0207 MMS in September 2007).  Across the 61,363,000 people in the UK (60,975,000 last year) that sums to 6.7bn SMS and 45m MMS in the month (4.9bn SMS and 38m MMS last year).

Are we shunning MMS?  (The numbers say AvBod sent 148x more texts than MMS this year and 129x more texts than MMS last year – so proportionately less MMSing going on)

The traffic numbers come from The Mobile Data Association (MDA) and their Q3 2008 UK Mobile Trends Report while the populaiton figures for 2007 come from the UK’s National Statistics with 2008 population estimated by me using the growth rate of 388,000 to extrapolate 2007’s numbers (same as from 2006 to 2007).

 

December 15, 2008

25.6m TV Homes

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The UK has 25.6m TV Homes.   A “TV Home” is a household which has at least one television in working order (or if a TV is broken down, then one for which arrangements have been made for repair within seven days).  There are 26.3m homes. These figures from the UK Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB).

 

December 15, 2008

718,474 Vote For TV Personality – Winner Gets 283,630

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718,474 Brits phone-voted for “BBC Sports Personality of the Year”, broadcast on BBC1 last night, and the winner, Chris Hoy, received 283,630 votes (39.5% of the total).  Lewis Hamilton in second place polled 163,864 (22.8%).  Adlington:145,924 (20.3%).  The rest all under 5% each – Ainslie:35,472, Calzaghe:34,077, Murray:19,415, Cooke:18,256 (my favourite), Ohurougu:7,677, Wiggins:5,633, Rebecca Romero:4,526. (Times Online provided the individual numbers, I did the totals and percents).

 

December 12, 2008

Nearly 100m Blogs

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There are 97,878,447 blogs today, says Nielsen’s BlogPulse.

 

December 7, 2008

0 – the Amount of Economics Discussed in an Economics Conference

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Still in Vienna and still looking for numbers and answers. At the session entitled “The Economics of e-Inclusion” this morning, I felt deprived of any information – there was no reference to money. No economics. Avoidance. It’s full contents were: contained a lovely presentation of people making videos in an Austrian village (no economic impact reported) and it ended with a product pitch from Motorola’s Lizanne Scott – utterly inappropriate, completely off the brief, almost crass. As I said at the end: “Why can’t we talk about economics? I want my money back!” (see transcript).

The session was Chaired by the excellent Paul Timmers (European Commission, DG INFSO – ICT for Inclusion) supported by EC coordinator Loris Di Pietrantonio (DG Information Society and Media – European Commission) and Po-Wen Liu (Austrian Regulatory Authority for Broadcasting and Telecommunications, Staff Unit ICT, Austria). The speakers were the very smart and fullsome Bruno Lanvin (INSEAD, France), the academic folks from Milan, lead by Cristiano Codagnone (University of Milan, Faculty of Political Science with Federico Biagi and Paul Foley) and then the commercial bods who failed to deliver anything which we could see as “economics”: Hannes Ametsreiter (Telekom Austria) and Lizanne Scott (Motorola, Global Government Affairs). Why do corporate speakers so often fail to communicate?

 

December 7, 2008

65% of Adults “Uncomfortable” With Children Online

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63% of adults are “uncomfortable” and 15% of adults are “comfortable” with the children in their households participating in online communities.

This is more data from the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication but from the annual report, the World Internet Project Report 2009 published by the Center’s World Internet Project.

 

December 7, 2008

18% Buy Online “At Least Weekly” (47% Monthly)

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18% of internet users buy online “at least weekly” in the UK. The figure for the US is only 14%. It seems Australia and the Czech Republic are next with 12%. A surprising ranking.

The figure is 47% for internet users who “buy online monthly” in the UK. Again ahead of hte US (46%) with New Zealand at 40% and Australia at 38%.

The data is from the World Internet Project Report 2009 published by the World Internet Project running at the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication.

The report is a source for data on the reliability of information, the importance of the internet, its use for shopping, how much people go online, why people go online and reasons for not going online.

 

December 6, 2008

3m UK households “Don’t Need The Internet”

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There are 25.3m households in the UK and 35% (8.87m) of these do not have internet access.  34.5% of those that do not have internet access, that’s 3.01m, claim they “don’t need” the internet.  In two years, the proportion of non-internet households who say they “don’t need” it has grown from 24% to 34%.  The percentage who say they “don’t want” (as opposed to “don’t need”) the internet has ballooned from 3% to 24%.  It feels like we’re getting down to the hard core, die hard, opinionated households now – maybe this number won’t shift much in the future.

This data from the UK’s Office of National Statistics annual Internet Access 2008 report in August 2008:

  • 71% of the adult population (33.9m adults) accessed the internet in the prior three-month period (up 6.6% from 2007)
  • 69% of the adult population (23.5m adults) access the Internet every day or almost every day
  • 77% of the 16-24 age group use the internet every day or almost every day
  • 15% of the adult population who accessed the internet in the prior three-month period did so using GPRS phone devices (the same proportion as in 2007)
  • 4% of the adult population who accessed the internet in the prior three-month period did so using 3G mobile (up from 3% in 2007)
  • 16.46m (65%) of UK households have internet access (15.23m in 2007)
  • 14.18m (56%) of UK households have broadband internet access (up from 51% in 2007)
  • 14.16m (86%) of UK households with internet access have broadband access
  • 80% of UK Households receive digital TV
 

December 6, 2008

50 UK Online Stats

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Following my failure to find “The Definitive” source of knowledge in Vienna on the economics of digital inclusion, I grasp hold of the Economic Benefits of Digital Inclusion – Building The Evidence report from UK Online – the organisation which runs 6,000 centres across the UK helping people access and use the internet.  Their report is fullsome – with some good numbers.  Having scoured Europe at the conference, I’m pretty sure that this document is as near as we can get to the DEFINITIVE NUMBER SET at this point in time.  So I go through it and pull out everything with a number attached to see if it makes sense.

But there are caveats – there’s a lot of supposition, unclarity, opacity even conjecture and supposition in the report.  And I must admit that I can’t pin down enough of these numbers in a concrete way as I would like.  I don’t even understand some of them.  But it’s a great piece of work and the numbers are BUT THEY ARE POSSIBLY THE BEST WE HAVE NOW.  (You may even enjoy the economic analysis of Domino’s Pizza)

Here are the numbers from that report – all 50 of them (with page numbers in brackets if you want to check them out):

  • The benefits of digital inclusion across the EU might be between €35bn – €85bn over five years (p2)
  • Computer/internet use commands salary premiums of 3% – 10% (p3)
  • An NHS Direct online initiative is predicted to save £68m in 2008 (p3)
  • Companies can increase customer base and sales volumes (online spend is on average 20% higher than offline) (p3)
  • Total cost-saving across UK Online Centres’ “Five Core Groups” tops £2.6bn (p3)
  • The impact on GDP is upwards of 1.54% over three years (p3)
  • Online saving for an individual is 13% for groceries, 15% for travel and 21% for services (uswitch.com) (p7)
  • Online brings a saving of 13% on the average internet shopping basket (£606, Verdict 2007) (p8)
  • Online might save consumers £90.55 per year in monetary terms alone (p8)
  • The benefit of shopping online is approximately £283 per year (Demos/Post Office Ltd) (p8)
  • Computer users benefit from a 3-10% wage premium compared to those who can’t use computers (Centre for the Economics of Education, 2007) (p10)
  • 89% of UK public services are online (Eurostat, 2007) (p13)
  • 27% of the UK population access information from public authority websites (Eurostat 2007) (p13)
  • Online health information is likely to save the NHS £80.87 million in 2008 (p13)
  • The number of consultations for participants decreased by 7% (The Department of Health, NHS and Stanford University, ‘Expert Patient Programme (EPP) Online’ pilot programme) (p14)
  • The number of outpatient visits decreased by 10% (The Department of Health, NHS and Stanford University, ‘Expert Patient Programme (EPP) Online’ pilot programme) (p14)
  • The number of A&E attendances decreased by 18% (The Department of Health, NHS and Stanford University, ‘Expert Patient Programme (EPP) Online’ pilot programme) (p14)
  • £140m could be saved each year by using the NHS online booking system (a missed hospital appointment costs the system £90 per appointment and calculations show 1.7m misses could be saved) (p14)
  • DVLA saves £21m between 2007-08 and 2010-11 by introducing online payments when fixed investment in IT infrastructure is taken into account (p16)
  • A £14.40 saving can be obtained from transactions conducted online rather than face-to-face (Tameside Borough Council) (p17)
  • Online advertising accounted for 18% of total advertising spending in 2007 (p18)
  • 4.4m shoppers ordered online in Christmas Day 2007 (p18)
  • Marks and Spencer sales decreased 2.2% in Q3 2007 but online sales had increase by 60% by November 2007 (p18)
  • E-retailer generated £84m in revenue on Christmas Day 2007 (p19)
  • Shoppers spent an average of £19.09 online on Christmas day 2007 (p19)
  • Household spending on Computer, Printers and calculators is £40m per week (p19)
  • Domino’s Pizza online orders comprise 15% of total sales
  • Domino’s Pizza achieved £32.2m in internet trading in 2007
  • The average spend of a Domino’s Pizza online customer  is 20% higher than for a telephone order
  • The value of additional spending to Domino’s Pizza from internet sales increased total sales by £5.7m
  • The Average Annual Online Spend Per Consumer is £606 (p20)
  • The Internet Premium is 20% or £121.2 (p20)
  • The Number 10 Downing Street website allows petitions to be created for free whereas a manual petition may cost up to £1,600 to run (p24)
  • Lewisham Borough Council saved 18.2 tonnes of carbon each year by transferring information on jobs for its building maintenance service provision to reduce the number of journeys made to central depots by lorries (p24)
  • Nearly one third of parents and grandparents had been taught or encouraged to surf the internet by a young person aged 13-16 (p25)
  • 17,000 older people joined in Silver Surfer events (in 2006) (p25)
  • 20% of the 17,000 older people who joined in the 2006 Silver surfer events did not have access to a computer (p25)
  • Netmums has 345,000 registered users in the UK (p26)
  • Training undertaken at a UK Online Centre can save private sector employers £33 per digitally engaged citizen (p28)
  • 39% of the adult population remain digitally excluded (p28)
  • 1.14% – 1.54% increase in GDP 2008-2010 due to public spending on e-Government and Digital Literacy Programmes (p32) (Source: the EU’s e-Government Economic Project)
  • £90.32m will be saved each year by the DVLA (after investment) as a result 8m = £11.29 £90.32 million saving per annum (p33)
  • There is a £10.5m financial benefit for Individuals from using NHS Direct Online (0.38 x 28m users) (p33)
  • There is a £283 financial benefit for each individual using e-retail (p33)
  • There is a £2.1bn financial benefit to private sector organisations due to 20% extra online spend (p33)
  • There is a £300m financial benefit to Government using online services (DVLA £90m, NHS Direct Online £70m, NHS Choose and Book £140m) (p33)
  • There is a £200m financial benefit to the wider economy “if we raise ICT skills sufficiently” (p33)
  • Thee-retail market was £10.9bn (UK, 2006) (p33)
  • 40% of all retail is expected to be conducted online by 2020 (p33)
  • Government anticipates public spending on e-Government and digital literacy programmes to yield returns of between 1.1% and 1.5% of GDP increase in 2008-2010 (p35)

 

December 6, 2008

198 “National Indicators” – They’re Important

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How many numbers do we need to tell us the social and economic health of a region? The answer is 198. The top-line concept behind these numbers was announced as part of the UK Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review on 11th October 2007 and the detailed measures came out in February 2008.

The important thing is this: They are THE ONLY MEASURES on which Central Government “performance manages” Local Government.

I like them. They’re mostly unequivocal.  Clear.  And they are decisive: they replace all other existing sets of indicators including Best Value Performance Indicators and Performance Assessment Framework indicators. Local Government started reporting against these from April 2008. The indicators are published by the UK Government’s Department for Communities and Local Government and called “National Indicators for Local Authorities and Local Authority Partnerships” (see pdf of definitions or download as spreadsheet)

Our checkout my handy list of “National Indicators”:

1 % of people who believe people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local area
2 % of people who feel that they belong to their neighbourhood
3 Civic participation in the local area
4 % of people who feel they can influence decisions in their locality
5 Overall / general satisfaction with local area
6 Participation in regular volunteering
7 Environment for a thriving third sector
8 Adult participation in sport and active recreation
9 Use of public libraries
10 Visits to museums and galleries
11 Engagement in the arts
12 Refused and deferred Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) license applications leading to immigration enforcement activity
13 Migrants’ English language skills and knowledge
14 Reducing avoidable contact: minimising the proportion of customer contact that is of low or no value to the customer
15 Serious violent crime
16 Serious acquisitive crime
17 Perceptions of anti-social behaviour
18 Adult re-offending rates for those under probation supervision
19 Rate of proven re-offending by young offenders
20 Assault with injury crime rate
21 Dealing with local concerns about anti-social behaviour and crime by the local council and police
22 Perceptions of parents taking responsibility for the behaviour of their children in the area
23 Perceptions that people in the area treat one another with respect and consideration
24 Satisfaction with the way the police and local council dealt with anti-social behaviour
25 Satisfaction of different groups with the way the police and local council dealt with anti-social behaviour
26 Specialist support to victims of a serious sexual offence
27 Understanding of local concerns about anti-social behaviour and crime by the local council and police
28 Serious knife crime rate
29 Gun crime rate
30 Re-offending rate of prolific and priority offenders
31 Re-offending rate of registered sex offenders
32 Repeat incidents of domestic violence
33 Arson incidents
34 Domestic violence – murder
35 Building resilience to violent extremism
36 Protection against terrorist attack
37 Awareness of civil protection arrangements in the local area
38 Drug-related (Class A) offending rate
39 Rate of Hospital Admissions per 100,000 for Alcohol Related Harm
40 Number of drug users recorded as being in effective treatment
41 Perceptions of drunk or rowdy behaviour as a problem
42 Perceptions of drug use or drug dealing as a problem
43 Young people within the Youth Justice System receiving a conviction in court who are sentenced to custody
44 Ethnic composition of offenders on Youth Justice System disposals
45 Young offenders’ engagement in suitable education, training and employment
46 Young Offenders’ access to suitable accommodation
47 People killed or seriously injured in road traffic accidents
48 Children killed or seriously injured in road traffic accidents
49 Number of primary fires and related fatalities and non-fatal casualties (excluding precautionary checks)
50 Emotional health of children
51 Effectiveness of child and adolescent mental health (CAMHS) services
52 Take up of school lunches
53 Prevalence of breast-feeding at 6-8 wks from birth
54 Services for disabled children
55 Obesity in primary school age children in Reception
56 Obesity in primary school age children in Year 6
57 Children and young people’s participation in high-quality PE and sport
58 Emotional and behavioural health of looked after children
59 Percentage of initial assessments for children’s social care carried out within 7 working days of referral
60 Percentage of core assessments for children’s social care that were carried out within 35 working days of their commencement.
61 Timeliness of placements of looked after children for adoption following an agency decision that the child should be placed for adoption
62 Stability of placements of looked after children: number of placements
63 Stability of placements of looked after children: length of placement
64 Child Protection Plans lasting 2 years or more
65 Percentage of children becoming the subject of Child Protection Plan for a second or subsequent time
66 Looked after children cases which were reviewed within required timescales
67 Percentage of child protection cases which were reviewed within required timescales
68 Percentage of referrals to children’s social care going on to initial assessment
69 Children who have experienced bullying
70 Hospital admissions caused by unintentional and deliberate injuries to children and young people
71 Children who have run away from home/care overnight
72 Achievement of at least 78 points across the Early Years Foundation Stage with at least 6 in each of the scales in Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication, Language and Literacy
73 Achievement at level 4 or above in both English and Maths at Key Stage 2
74 Achievement at level 5 or above in both English and Maths at Key Stage 3
75 Achievement of 5 or more A*- C grades at GCSE or equivalent including English and Maths
76 Reduction in number of schools where fewer than 65% of pupils achieve level 4 or above in both English and Maths at KS2
77 Reduction in number of schools where fewer than 50% of pupils achieve level 5 or above in both English and Maths at KS3
78 Reduction in number of schools where fewer than 30% of pupils achieve 5 or more A*- C grades at GCSE and equivalent including GCSEs in English and Maths
79 Achievement of a Level 2 qualification by the age of 19
80 Achievement of a Level 3 qualification by the age of 19
81 Inequality gap in the achievement of a Level 3 qualification by the age of 19
82 Inequality gap in the achievement of a Level 2 qualification by the age of 19
83 Achievement at Level 5 or above in Science at Key Stage 3
84 Achievement of 2 or more A*- C grades in Science GCSEs or equivalent
85 Post-16 participation in physical sciences (A Level Physics, Chemistry and Maths)
86 Secondary schools judged as having good or outstanding standards of behaviour
87 Secondary school persistent absence rate
88 Percentage of schools providing access to extended services
89 Reduction of number of schools judged as requiring special measures and improvement in time taken to come out of the category
90 Take up of 14-19 learning diplomas
91 Participation of 17 year-olds in education or training
92 Narrowing the gap between the lowest achieving 20% in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile and the rest
93 Progression by 2 levels in English between Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2
94 Progression by 2 levels in Maths between Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2
95 Progression by 2 levels in English between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3
96 Progression by 2 levels in Maths between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3
97 Progression by 2 levels in English between Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4
98 Progression by 2 levels in Maths between Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4
99 Looked after children reaching level 4 in English at Key Stage 2
100 Looked after children reaching level 4 in mathematics at Key Stage 2
101 Looked after children achieving 5 A*-C GCSEs (or equivalent) at Key Stage 4 (including English and mathematics)
102 Achievement gap between pupils eligible for free school meals and their peers achieving the expected level at Key Stages 2 and 4
103 Special Educational Needs – statements issued within 26 weeks
104 The Special Educational Needs (SEN)/non-SEN gap – achieving Key Stage 2 English and Maths threshold
105 The Special Educational Needs (SEN)/non-SEN gap – achieving 5 A*- C GCSE including English and Maths
106 Young people from low income backgrounds progressing to higher education
107 Key Stage 2 attainment for Black and minority ethnic groups
108 Key Stage 4 attainment for Black and minority ethnic groups
109 Delivery of Sure Start Children’s Centres
199 Children and young people’s satisfaction with parks and play areas
110 Young people’s participation in positive activities
111 First time entrants to the Youth Justice System aged 10 – 17
112 Under 18 conception rate
113 Prevalence of Chlamydia in under 25 year olds
114 Rate of permanent exclusions from school
115 Substance misuse by young people
116 Proportion of children in poverty
117 16 to 18 year olds who are not in education, employment or training (NEET)
118 Take up of formal childcare by low-income working families
119 Self-reported measure of people’s overall health and wellbeing
120 All-age all cause mortality rate
121 Mortality rate from all circulatory diseases at ages under 75
122 Mortality rate from all cancers at ages under 75
123 Stopping smoking
124 People with a long-term condition supported to be independent and in control of their condition
125 Achieving independence for older people through rehabilitation / intermediate care
126 Early Access for Women to Maternity Services
127 Self reported experience of social care users
128 User reported measure of respect and dignity in their treatment
129 End of life care – access to appropriate care enabling people to be able to choose to die at home
130 Social Care clients receiving Self Directed Support per 100,000 population
131 Delayed transfers of care
132 Timeliness of social care assessment (all adults)
133 Timeliness of social care packages following assessment
134 The number of emergency bed days per head of weighted population
135 Carers receiving needs assessment or review and a specific carer’s service, or advice and information
136 People supported to live independently through social services (all adults)
137 Healthy life expectancy at age 65
138 Satisfaction of people over 65 with both home and neighbourhood
139 The extent to which older people receive the support they need to live independently at home
140 Fair treatment by local services
141 Percentage of vulnerable people achieving independent living
142 Percentage of vulnerable people who are supported to maintain independent living
143 Offenders under probation supervision living in settled and suitable accommodation at the end of their order or licence
144 Offenders under probation supervision in employment at the end of their order or licence
145 Adults with learning disabilities in settled accommodation
146 Adults with learning disabilities in employment
147 Care leavers in suitable accommodation
148 Care leavers in education, employment or training
149 Adults in contact with secondary mental health services in settled accommodation
150 Adults in contact with secondary mental health services in employment
151 Overall Employment rate (working-age)
152 Working age people on out of work benefits
153 Working age people claiming out of work benefits in the worst performing neighbourhoods
154 Net additional homes provided
155 Number of affordable homes delivered (gross)
156 Number of households living in temporary accommodation
157 Processing of planning applications
158 % non-decent council homes
159 Supply of ready to develop housing sites
160 Local authority tenants’ satisfaction with landlord services
161 Number of Level 1 qualifications in literacy (including ESOL) achieved
162 Number of Entry Level qualifications in numeracy achieved
163 Proportion of population aged 19-64 for males and 19-59 for females qualified to at least Level 2 or higher
164 Proportion of population aged 19-64 for males and 19-59 for females qualified to at least Level 3 or higher
165 Proportion of population aged 19-64 for males and 19-59 for females qualified to at least Level 4 or higher
166 Median earnings of employees in the area
167 Congestion – average journey time per mile during the morning peak
168 Principal roads where maintenance should be considered
169 Non-principal classified roads where maintenance should be considered
170 Previously developed land that has been vacant or derelict for more than 5 years
171 New business registration rate
172 Percentage of small businesses in an area showing employment growth
173 Flows on to incapacity benefits from employment
174 Skills gaps in the current workforce reported by employers
175 Access to services and facilities by public transport, walking and cycling
176 Working age people with access to employment by public transport (and other specified modes)
177 Local bus and light rail passenger journeys originating in the authority area
178 Bus services running on time
179 Value for money – total net value of ongoing cash-releasing value for money gains that have impacted since the start of the 2008-09 financial year
180 The number of changes of circumstances which affect customers’ HB/CTB entitlement within the year.
181 Time taken to process Housing Benefit/Council Tax Benefit new claims and change events
182 Satisfaction of business with local authority regulatory services
183 Impact of local authority trading standards services on the fair trading environment
184 Food establishments in the area which are broadly compliant with food hygiene law
185 CO2 reduction from local authority operations
186 Per capita reduction in CO2 emissions in the LA area
187 Tackling fuel poverty – % of people receiving income based benefits living in homes with a low energy efficiency rating
188 Planning to Adapt to Climate Change
189 Flood and coastal erosion risk management
190 Achievement in meeting standards for the control system for animal health
191 Residual household waste per household
192 Percentage of household waste sent for reuse, recycling and composting
193 Percentage of municipal waste landfilled
194 Air quality – % reduction in NOx and primary PM10 emissions through local authority’s estate and operations
195 Improved street and environmental cleanliness (levels of litter, detritus, graffiti and fly-posting)
196 Improved street and environmental cleanliness – fly tipping
197 Improved Local Biodiversity – proportion of Local Sites where positive conservation management has been or is being implemented
198 Children travelling to school – mode of transport usually used

 

December 6, 2008

9.3m Disadvantaged Adults

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The UK has 9.3m disadvanted adults. The UK Government’s Digital Inclusion Team exists to implement the report “Inclusion Through Innovation” – and has got a funky new video to highlight the stats:

  • There are 647,643 people classified as the “most disadvantaged“, split across four main groups they are: Care Leavers (5,300), Offenders (55,408), Mentally Ill (464,780) and those with Learning Disabilities (122,155)
  • 75% of disadvantaged people do not use the internet – that’s 7m adults
  • 35% of disadvantaged people do not use mobile phones
  • We spend £57.9bn each year tackling problems associated with 1.3m most disadvantaged people
  • We are spending an average of £44,538 per “most disadvantaged” person per year tackling these problems (UK)

Other stats from the Digital Inclusion Team’s video, starting with the “haves”:

    • £130bn of business was conducted over the internet (UK, 2006)
    • 7 out of 10 businesses communicate with customers directly through their website (UK)
    • 17m adults manage their finances with online banking (UK)
    • Over 50% of online 16-24 year-olds use social networking websites (Britain)
    • 20.4 m homes have a digital TV services (UK)
    • 1 billion text messages are sent every week (by “Britons”)

    …and the “have nots”:

    • 11% of adults do not use a mobile phone
    • 20% of adults do not have a digital TV
    • 33% of households do not have a PC (UK)
    • 800,000 school children cannot go online at home
    • 10% of 16-24 year-olds do not use the internet
    • 27% of adults have never used the internet

    The site highlights a few “Problem Solvers” – these are organisations who have demonstrably done something about it:

     

    December 1, 2008

    £4.2m Per Day – One Retailer’s Story

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    Who is the UK’s leading online retailer?  It handles £4.2m per day and 273,500 purchases per week.  (£3.36m per day is the revenue generated by Tesco online, with 250,000 purchases per week).

    The answer is the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority in a July 2007 press release DVLA Beats Biggest Online Retailers   The figures are theirs from 2007 and this story inspired by a UK Online Centres report.

    (Actually, Tesco figures conflict: Preliminary Results 2006/2007 from 17th April 2007 claim 250,000 per week but the later Interim Results 2006/2007 presentation on 3rd October say 220,000.  up to February 2007)

     

     

    November 30, 2008

    25% of GDP Growth Comes From Technology

    Posted by cluetrainee under Inclusion | Tags: , |
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    25% of GDP growth in the EU comes from ICT.  Sorry, “came from” ICT – I’m referring to numbers published in 2006 by the EU and I’m eager to hear what has changed since 2006.

    I’m in Vienna today with Derek Wyatt MP among many others as part of my work as Chair and a Trustee of the Charity Citizens Online at the EU’s European Ministerial e-Inclusion Conference.  It’s reviewing work done by a previous Ministerial Conference, ICT Riga, held at Riga, Latvia on 11th June 2006, where the Riga Declaration saw the EU put a clear stake in the ground on the role of technology in our society and its desired future role.

    As far as I am concerned, Riga confirmed two very important things.  It talked of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), though may just as easily perhaps now call it “Social Technologies”, and stated:

    • ICT is a powerful driver of [economic] growth
    • ICT contributes to social participation

    both of which have been an article of faith for me for some time and I’ve been on a quest with Citiyens Online for the proof so that we can get our Governments to accelerate their drive for these social technologies. 

    Here are the numbers which came out of Riga in 2006:

    • 25% of EU GDP growth and around 50% of productivity growth is due to ICT (2006).
    • 57% of individuals living in the EU did not regularly use the Internet (2005)
    • 10% of persons over 65 used the Internet (2005)
    • 68% of those aged 16-24 used the Internet (2005)
    • 24% of persons with low education used the Internet (2005)
    • 73% of those with high education used the Internet (2005)
    • 32% of unemployed persons used the Internet (2005)
    • 54% of employed persons used the internet (2005)
    • 3% of public web sites comply with the minimum web accessibility standards (2005)

    The 2006 conference set itself some targets:

    • Differences in Internet usage between current average use by the EU population and use by older people, people with disabilities, women, lower education groups, unemployed and “less-developed” regions should be reduced to a half, from 2005 to 2010.
    • Broadband coverage to reach at least 90% of the EU population by 2010.

    The Directorate-General for the Information Society and Media convened a meeting in 2007 to put some more meat on the numbers and targets and published the Riga Dashboard which developed some of the Riga thinking and passed some sombre critique on what was achieveable and what wasn’t. 

    And so I’m here now in Vienna expecting to see progress on these numbers.

     

    November 29, 2008

    261.626 – Sounds A Bit Doh!

    Posted by cluetrainee under Pipesmoking | Tags: |
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    “Doh” – or middle C on a piano – is a number – it is 261.626. This is the frequency (number of vibrations per second) of the sound waves which creates that sound in the human ear.

     

    November 29, 2008

    589 – Looks A Bit Yellowish

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    Yellow is a number – it is 589.  This is the wavelength in nanometers of the electromagnetic wave which creates the colour yellow when it hits the human retina.

     

    November 27, 2008

    2.82 hours of Online Video per Person per Month

    Posted by cluetrainee under Stats General | Tags: |
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    The UK population consumes 2.82 online video-hours-per-head-per-month. Loads more than in the US (1.83 online video-hours-per-head-per-month). The figures for number of online videos viewed per month (3.5bn) and hours of online video content watched per month (172m) came from comScore relating to March 2008 in particular. (The UK population is 60,943,912 from the CIA World Factbook)

    The number of online-videos-per-head-per-month for UK (March 2008) was 57.43 compared to 37.52 for the US in June 2008.

     

    November 27, 2008

    Video-Hours-Per-Head-Per-Month: 1.84 (US)

    Posted by cluetrainee under Stats General | Tags: |
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    1.84 is the number of hours every American spent watching online videos in the month of July 2008.

    The comScore Video Metrix service told us in September 2008 that Americans viewed 11.4bn videos online, spending a total duration of 558m hours watching during the month. Combined with the US population of 303,824,640 for that month from the CIA World Factbook and you get 1.84 video-hours-per-head-per-month. You also get a videos-per-head-per-month of 37.52.

     

    November 27, 2008

    Retail Now Down 4% (US)

    Posted by cluetrainee under Market Size | Tags: |
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    Gasp – comScore now says that in this (2008) Christmas period, online retail sales are DOWN 4% compared to the same period in 2007. In absolute dollars the spend was $8.19bn in the period November 1-23 2008 compared to $8.51bn in 2007. [The firm watches the US 'November-December Holiday Season' while CapGemini and the Interactive Media in Retail Group watch the UK Q4 'October-December' period, making like-for-like comparison nontrivial]. Their numbers published in their e-Retail Sales Index this month, by the way, were for a 15% RISE in like-for-like online retail sales in Q4 2008 compared to Q4 2007.

    One of these publishers will have a red face come January 2009.

     

    November 18, 2008

    86% of Offline Shoppers Checkout Online First (UK)

    Posted by cluetrainee under Role of Online | Tags: , |
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    One of my Top 10 critical numbers is the volume of all buyers who use the internet before shopping offline. The number is 86% – “the number of shoppers who will research online before buying in-store”. This is a UK number and relates specifically to retail purchases across all sectors.

    There’s two nice sub-numbers: 59% of shoppers will research in-store before buying online and 77% (56% in 2007) of shoppers are planning to carry out “about half or more” of their Christmas shopping online.

    Data is from the IMRG and their “e-Customer Service Index” reported in a news release dated 25th December 2008 (published in November 2008)

     

    November 18, 2008

    £13.16bn – Online Spend in Q4 2008 (UK)

    Posted by cluetrainee under Market Size | Tags: , |
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    We’re expecting UK online shoppers to spend £13.16bn online in Q4 2008. This is up 15% from £11.44bn for Q4 in 2007. The 2007 figures were up 54% from £8.55bn in 2006. These figures from CapGemini and the Interactive Media in Retail Group from their e-Retail Sales Index published 10th November 2008.

    Checkout online sales in my wiki.

     

    November 16, 2008

    A 30k Authority

    Posted by cluetrainee under Rankings | Tags: , |
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    I’d like to have a 30k Authority for my blog. The Huffington Post blog this month records a Technorati Authority of 29,195 – the highest of any blog this month. Technorati Authority is the number of unique blogs which link to a blog over a 180 day period (provided those blogs are indexed by Technorati and use Technorati’s “Blog Reactions” counter. See my wiki for Technorati Authority)

     

    November 16, 2008

    Global Top Sites

    Posted by cluetrainee under Rankings | Tags: , |
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    Alexa publishes a list (Global Top Sites) of top sites by country and globally. It costs from $1,000 to $6,500 for a list. See more about them on my wiki.

    The November global ranking is Yahoo (at the top), Google. YouTube, Windows Live, Facebook, MSN, Myspace, Wikipedia, Blogger and Yahoo (Japan).

     

    November 9, 2008

    Now There Are 10

    Posted by cluetrainee under Pipesmoking | Tags: |
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    This is my second post.  In binary numbers, that would be written as 10.  I won’t talk of binary much in this blog, but it’s the digital language and if I find cause to refer to it, I might not be able to refuse.

    It reminds me of the Mathematician’s T-shirt which said “There are only 10 types of people in this world: those that understand binary and those that don’t”.

     

    November 9, 2008

    The Number of Posts is Zero

    Posted by cluetrainee under Pipesmoking | Tags: , |
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    When I first observed this blog after my friends at WordPress created it for me, I saw it had no posts. So I thought I’d write a post about there being no posts.

    My post was going to talk about the emptiness of the blog and the general meaninglessness of it without a post. But as I neared the end of my post, it occurred to me that the blog virtually had a post now. While I was writing about meaninglessness, meaning had emerged from my fingertips into the unpublished post.

    It’s an example of “reflexion” or “reflexivity”, and an important issue for i numeri. In short, reflexivity is where an action changes an observation. The act of me commenting on the state of my blog, changed the state of my blog. The commentary is not isolated from the commented-on. The observation changes the observed. Reflexivity.

    Checkout George Soros (“The Alchemy of Finance”) and Werner Heisenberg (“Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle”) for more.