Article: IT’s compliment of complaints procedures

We in the UK have many things to thank America for and arguably the most significant of these are Freedom of Speech and now knowing how to make a complaint about poor customer service. If there is one nation that knows how to complain it must surely be America without whom we simply would not have learned how to take many a supplier to court for failure to deliver a service or for poor product that fails to do what the enterprise says it will.

When it comes Information Technology the provision of contact details for customers to complain is woefully lacking via official channels and instead what we are left with is a trial by media option as a precursor to court proceedings.

If you think about search engine providers, computer programmes and mobile phone providers that we use daily for business, firewall security and website hosts very few supply us with a ‘customer service’ button to click when we have a problem. Even when you manage to find a ‘contact’ button they rarely lead you to a customer service department and more commonly you end up with the home page appearing on your screen sending you back to your starting point. Make no mistake here, this is not by accident, this is by design and wholly intentional on the part of these service providers because if it isn’t, it suggests they are as thick as shit. They are in the trade of supplying information technology services and yet they are incapable of supplying the information of contact details for customers to point out that there’s a glitch. Below are just five examples of what we’re up against... the list is inexhaustible.

Seven examples of IT services that do not have easy access contact details to make a complaint

1. AVG
2. Blogger
3. Facebook
4. Google
5. LinkedIn
6. T-mobile
7. Twitter

When a glitch happens in IT is invariably devastating. To give a couple of examples from recent times banking systems fail to work, emergency response services fail to get informed of life threatening situations and national security systems can also be jeopardised. Fortunately in the latter two examples people are canny enough to get round these things as their stock in trade is dealing with emergencies, so it’s only us ordinary folk that bear the brunt of IT screw-ups. Hands up who has experience of the frustration of not being able to make a call, send an email or even access the internet at a critical moment in your business or personal life?

You might think then that it is time to ditch all things computerised and revert back to the more civilised pace of posting handwritten correspondence, sadly though even that service relies on computers and IT technology and there too you will find there are few contact buttons that will lead you to a satisfactory customer service experience. At this point I am tempted to suggest semaphore, smoke signals, carrier pigeons, Chinese whispers and an assortment of trained pets, though I doubt we’d get far sending our goldfish to deliver our tax information to HMRC tempting though it may be to do so.

“How can you learn what needs fixing if you have no complaints procedure to tell you?”

 What we need is a ‘complaints’ button and a ‘suggestions’ button with full contact details of phone, postal and email addresses. However there is a slight problem with that in that with billions of people complaining at the same time over millions of glitches it would crash the system entirely. This is why we end up with frustrating situation after frustrating situation to wade through and it is also why the most powerful IT service providers of all are somewhat over endowed with their own self-esteem - which is a polite way of saying that they are complacently arrogant.

It used to be that money drove the world and money stems from business, now I think it is more accurate to say that it is IT. We do still have the power to complain via social media but only when it too works. Unfortunately... sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and even blogsites like this one on Blogger also fail to provide easy access contact details when there is a fault. It is perhaps understandable then that we have ended up with what we have now got with update after update to fix glitches complete with new glitches to replace the old ones to drive us all insane.

I personally intensely dislike the invasive nature of Google and Microsoft on my own PC as I now have to work extremely hard to stop them both altering the settings on my personal computer while allowing them to access it enough for the darn thing to work at all. To me it is an invasion of my privacy and right to choose. Most people do not have the knowledge to overcome such invasions and no doubt I won’t be able to for much longer either as I am not an IT guru.

Regrettably we live in competitive times business wise which, when it comes to IT, means we will continue to be swamped with ever more gadgets with ever more shiny buttons and ideas for us all to be seduced by, very few of which we need to function by. The solution might lie in banning all advertising for all IT products and services to reduce the number of problems generated as the more complex/sophisticated any system is the more points of failure it will always have.

“If it works don’t fix IT”

We, as consumers do not help by demanding that things are fixed immediately to provide the system developers no time to do it properly as their bosses do not provide them with the time to do so as they are paranoid about the loss of income during that period. We also do not help by trying to fix systems ourselves when we have next to no knowledge of how it was put together in the first place. Ask ten IT trouble-shooters to remedy your problems and you get ten different answers as to what the problem is let alone how it needs to be sorted. Why then do we assume we know better? In a way we do, as we are acutely aware of what won’t work for our desired use whereas the geeks that come to our rescue commonly pay little or no attention to what our actual needs are as they don’t tend to be up on social skills as it’s not their area of expertise. Personally I prefer things to work properly and for that to happen I would be more than happy to wait until they do (if I was notified beforehand) in preference to the perpetual loop of frustration that we have now.

I say this as one who helped design a bespoke program with a system developer whereby I explained to him how people actually use their computers and he ensured that the program was fit for them to do so their way, NOT his. The last I heard the program is still up and running and has never had to have a fix for any glitch. Tweaking to hone and make improvements is one thing, but that only works if you test drive thoroughly before you roll it out. The moral of the tale being that... if IT works DO NOT fix IT.

One can but dream that the IT sector finds solutions for what currently fails so regularly before it inflicts even more upon us especially with the internet of thingies well underway. I am determined to let as little of those ideas enter my home as possible purely because I could do without the stress of them not working too. 

Founder's Thoughts: The pros and cons of technology

Today has just about finished me off internet and technology wise, as from my own experience in the last couple of months alone what was once wonderful and helpful for all is now becoming almost too problematic to even consider bothering with. Why is that though. Surely all problems have a logical and ethical solution... don't they? Well yes they do but with something as powerful and as influential as the internet that would take some doing.

Think about it... to fix ever single glitch takes not just one highly intelligent team of professional boffins but thousands of them at least. And in the meantime what are all it's customers supposed to do while that is happening? Stop functioning altogether? Nope... we do the sensible thing and stop hounding, moaning and complaining and revert to old tried and tested methods of communication prior to the advent of the internet is what we do. We calm down because let's face it... aren't we ALL rather overloaded by the pace of life and progress anyway? Couldn't we all do with slowing up.

To take one example from today... Twitter is busy trying to improve it's facilities to cope with ever increasing demand and, no doubt in response to what we ourselves are screaming out for. Unlike other services, Twitter can not just close up shop for a week while it does that as it would cause chaos, so it does it's best to fix things 'live'. Being an American company, of course we in Britain get the worst of it because during our working day, most of American (a larger business and social population) sleeps.

In addition to close down for repairs facilities such as social media have to agree globally on a shut-down time schedule which automatically turns it into a global political nightmare if you think about it. Is that really likely to happen in the next 50 years given mankind's history on this planet... I mean... really. We all know it ought to be possible but... realistically, is it in our lifetime.

So my advice on all this is very simple. Take the opportunity to relax, meet people in the flesh and to review your own contingency plans should the internet ever fail completely. Could you cope? I have a hunch you could even if telecommunications failed too. The reason I think that is logical too... it's better than the alternative and we already have functioned wonderfully well prior to the advent of the internet and technological revolution/explosion. They are tools only. Use them if they help. Don't use them if they don't. Simple as that.

Sorry to all those expecting Part 2 of my Jobsite list (for the most disadvantaged), but actually I'd rather get more links in properly listed anyway, so I am grateful for the chance to rest up myself so that I will be in better shape to do just that.

If you can get onto to Twitter though and are in anyway disadvantaged... just see the many organisations, companies and initiatives that I currently follow to help you get started. That's after all the bit I haven't got round to listing anyway, and frankly I could spend all day everyday collecting more, but I know you can do these things (with or without a bit of help) all by yourselves anyway. Eventually I will publish what I've got... maybe even tomorrow just as it is. Be patient (because no one wants to be ill with stress), and take your time to get what you both need and want. Needs always outrank wants.

I think I spend the rest of the day doing more arty things now, or at least until I am ready to try again.

Hope that helps avert a panic!

Article: Skills of the future

In the early 1980s I was involved in typesetting. Back then full colour screens and certainly pictures were not commonly available to most businesses; your business was considered advanced and state of the art if it had green and black screens instead of white and black, but at least floppy discs for storing information had arrived instead of cassette tapes. Mobile phones too were just being introduced and were heavy cumbersome things that few could afford and instead of Internet we had fax and answer phone machines.

It meant that everything that needed to happen had to be done at a much slower pace and in a much more manual fashion. Go back a little further in history and typesetting itself was a process of laboriously physically collecting each individual letter to make up words and sentences to produce a page of text - it was called hot metal as that's what the letters were usually made from. The skills required to run any operation in any industry were extremely diverse.

As technological advancement changes so skill requirements to enable businesses to function and survive do. Take as another example weaving and textiles; in the 19th century it was done by people working at home before the industrial revolution brought about mechanised processes. Whole ways of making, producing and functioning periodically change with the result that many manual skills get lost and forgotten. A wholly handmade pair of shoes made by a master cobbler is today regarded as an artisan product and the prices of them reflect the time and craftsmanship as well as the rarity of them in our use for five minutes and throw away modern world. They stand out as being different from what is commonly available precisely because they are not mass produced.

The question that crosses my mind is that by focusing on being able to produce things en mass and do things with ease are we in danger of losing out on many of the pleasurable things in life that enhance the quality of our existence? To just press a button to make things happen is hardly stimulating work and it can lead to all manner of problems if that button doesn't work as the mechanised process grinds to a halt and that then impacts on profits etc. In addition we might well be in danger of failing to develop a myriad of skills by becoming fixated with technology alone.

Today few people have knowledge of what is actually happen when a switch, lever or button is operated; they take it for granted that it will just work and that if it doesn't someone else will fix it. With many modern systems though there are no cogs to align, no wheels to grease, it is mostly down to knowledge of computers, electronics and electrics to kick start things again. 

The inherent problem with such sophisticated systems is that the more complex they are, the more points of failure they will have. It is hardly surprising that those who are particularly adept in computers, programmes and electronics are among the most highly regarded professionals of all due to their sheer usefulness in ensuring things work in our modern world. Certainly if you are involved in technology of any form you are unlikely to find yourself long-term unemployed compared to other aptitudes of skills. What though, does the future hold for those who are not computer orientated and what will the future hold for their skills?

There are of course many other areas which will never become industries of the past; from health care to education, from farming to construction and from plumbers to law enforcement. However the way in which they all work is becoming much more technologically reliant and that could prove to be a problem because if we do not equally value the non-technically orientated we could (and I would argue already are) missing out on the development of many other areas of skill which are not so heavily reliant on technology. 

A person can be taught things without the aid of computers, a better yield from crops can be achieve without them and as yet there is no substitute for the a person knowing by  through experience whether a person is ill or if they are trying to cover up a crime. There is great value from learning how to achieve things via different means, but in our push-button world we will soon not know how to?

Could we function if we had no technology now? Without any clear and viable alternatives to current energy sources which are finite, if the plug were pulled out so we had no electricity supply how would we be able to function at all? Such is the major pitfall of becoming so push-button reliant. That reliance even extends to our spare time and is already throwing up new problems with people simply not knowing how to socialise because they are continually plugged into a computer.

Technology at is best should always aid us, but it should never govern who we are, how we choose to function or what we do next. We should be commanding it and not be dictated by how it operates.

I recently read that children as young as 9 have 'better' (i.e. more advanced) phones than their parents and knew how to use every facility on them. I found that rather sad to reflect on because if the pace at which we work continues to increase, what time will they have to enjoy the planet that sustains their existence and what experiences could they be missing out on? New prejudices are already set to develop against those who are not interested in technology. Are we as a species about to embark on a split between one half of us becoming technophiles while the other half are manual workers. Many would argue we already are and it's certainly been a recurring theme of many a sci-fi story. Historically such differences in aptitudes have fed into the conflicts and been the basis for class systems. So in the future will it matter less how you are educated but matter more what you are educated in for you to make your way in the world?

The fact remains we need both brains and brawn in order to survive and progress, but my concern is that while I see plenty of hype and praise of all things technological, I see little by way of support for other skill bases which are the bare essentials to all of us being able to function at all. There are a lot of non-technical skills which are responsible for maintaining the real infrastructure by which we can have our wonderfully diverse structure. For this reason, while I am a fan of technology myself, I think we would be wise to invest more in ensuring we have future generations to still, farm, build, install electrics, look after our water supply, heal the ill and educate us all. To be blunt in my opinion, we cannot afford not to.