Too great a burden?

I know. I've gone from 'almost daily' to 'barely weekly'. And I do truly apologise. It certainly isn't intentional, and I've been using my train journeys to do a lot of catching up on other things. Although, no sooner am I to be caught up than I have a well-earned, hard-worked-for, once-in-a-lifetime holiday.

Want another hyphen? Go on then...

-

Anyhow... I was checking my Gmail at work the other day.

Everyone is amazed by Google. Google is so simple, yet so intelligent. You start typing and it predicts what you are typing next, it already knows what you are thinking, fills in the blanks and shows you the answers within seconds.

And this is even without holding an account identifying you, as previously discussed.

So Gmail. Well, I've already ranted about how stupid its ad suggestions are, suggesting Spam recipes purely because you are in a Google-defined spam folder.

But now it gets more daft.

One if the 'innovations' if you can call it that of Gmail is 'labels'. Whereas before you could simply store things in folders, now you could ALSO assign labels. And that, apparently was a crucial difference. You should be able to associate one email with many labels. Whereas before you had to stick it in one folder, now it could be in a folder, but attached to a number of others by way of these labels.

But what that actually means is confusion. Neither the human mind nor the computer mind is adapted to putting one thing into many places. Even with computers at the moment, you have one master copy, from which you make back-up or testing copies, and to which you point shortcuts. I don't know as we will ever quite get there in the current generation, so whilst I am not averse to "thinking outside the box" and entirely new solutions to problems, I don't think this achieves what it is supposed to, or in fact anything at all.

However, one of the things I did notice was a little yellow arrow to the side of each email. Each and every single email. I hovered over this icon and it told me this meant it had flagged the message as 'important'. Not that I had flagged the message as important, that IT had flagged the message as important. Each and every message. So, my 'important' label tab was rammed with every message I had received, not in any particular order.

Gmail told me that I could start deselecting messages, so that Gmail could 'learn' which messages were important to me. But this presents me with two problems...

Firstly, how will I trust Gmail to decide that? If they have defaulted every single message as being important and I have to knock them down, rather than electively bump them up in priority, it shows they don't really understand me. So would it ever learn from me?

And secondly, how much time and effort is it going to take for me to teach Gmail what is important to me? If it isn't even starting out with a basic level of intuition, is it going to take me telling it the same thing more than once? Is it seemingly at random going to start attaching importance or even other labels to things based on one selection a few years ago? The amount of effort seems to me to be far disproportionate to any ultimate benefit. And therefore that icon and that label and that tab are useless to me. Very unimportant, though obviously Gmail will probably miss the irony.

It could be worse though, it could be Hotmail, which seems to spend so long reloading and refreshing so as to make links practically unclickable.

So then I started swimming...

And that has eaten into my time even more than normal.

And it's quite annoying because I was half-way through a post which is now irrelevant.

But that means that I now get home around an hour later.

And that means I have an hour less at home to do my jobs.

So that means I spend an hour less watching tv (not that I usually get to spend a full hour watching tv per night anyway).

But that therefore increases the pressure to watch tv on the train and not do the other tasks.

So that therefore shunts any other tasks to any other spare time I can find or create.

And then there's the gardening: with the spring equinox upon us today, I have started off my seeds.

So damn you council for opening my new leisure centre at the same time as spring.

I'm sure when they shut the old leisure centre down a couple of years ago I was swimming as much, and doing as much, if not more.

So, I'm either doing more; or am somehow losing time.

A hint of a suggestion

So, a little while back I mentioned that I was quite busy at the moment, almost too busy to write regularly.

Why?

Well, a lot of it comes from BNY-BNM. I'm trying to sort a lot of things out. And one of those things is the house: the lighting in the spare room has been completed and is rather masterful (I did that. On my own. With no help. At all.) and now the room is ready to be plastered, painted, carpetted and finished off.

And part of the urgency of sorting the spare room came from a tickle from another prong of BNY-BNM: my search for a new job.

As part of my new routine I ensure that I do my house or garden jobs until around 10pm, then bath, then have an hour before bed working on projects or - on a Monday - searching and applying for jobs.

And one of them twitched. It didn't full on bite, it was playing with the worm, sniffing around to see how tasty it actually might be.

But a long way away.

In Newcastle.

Newcastle and I have a relationship going back over ten years. One of my friends that I met up there told me at the weekend that we were coming up to celebrating ten years of knowing each other, and I met him in my fourth year of university up there. I spent five years in total up there and still travel up there regularly to see the collection of friends that remained.

So the job opportunity seemed ideal: I could go to a city I knew where I already had a fanbase (well, friendship circle) and run with it. I just needed to get the house sorted to sell or rent and I was away. Marvellous (and now hence even further increased pressure on the property DIY).

But then a curious phenomenon occurred.

That of 'The Mention'. Suddenly, out of nowhere Newcastle started cropping up everywhere I looked. In conversation it drifted Northerly, television seemed to focus on it, even inanimate objects like advertising hoardings screamed it into my face.

So, was this some kind of portent?
Was this an indicator that the job was mine?
Was nature somehow nudging me, reminding me, suggesting to me?

Or was it something else, somethingS else?

Heightened awareness
We'll start with this.

The actual frequency of mention is no greater than previously, but because Newcastle is preying on my consciense, occupying my mind, any mention of it draws greater awareness. It is like looking at a swathe of colours and it appearing a murky grey, or just that, a swathe of colours. But if you are told to look for the reds you see them. There aren't any more of them before, but mentally you have been tuned to observe them, rather than just see them along with the others.

Self-introduction
Again, this is all to do with the subject dwelling in the conscious section of the mind, rather than being tucked away in the extra-conscious memory. The subconscious is where things dwell and have an effect on your actions without you being aware. The extra-conscious is an area to store things that have happened, but have no bearing on day-to-day life. It's like a sleeping dog behind a sofa: it's there but you only know about it when he wakes up because his name has cropped up in conversation and woken him up and he comes round the front expecting a pat or a treat.

And in the same was as the conscious brain is now atuned to the idea of 'Newcastle' and it is at the front of my brain, preying on my quiet moments, so it forces its way into conversation. As I flail around, desperately seeking an example for something in conversation, my mind grabs whatever is closest: Newcastle. Where I have been sat quietly thinking away and I am interrupted, my mental process naturally tries to restore me back to what I actually wanted to think about rather than am being forced to think about; and so veers the conversation towards Newcastle.

And so, purely by conscious and subconscious wont, I crowbar it into conversations and considerations with increasing frequency.

Natural fluctuation
For some reason, topics do naturally fluctuate. Some of this is understandable: in summer it is rare for conversations to turn to snow, whereas in winter it is hardly a portent in the increase in frequency of it cropping up in discussion. Some fluctations are more difficult to reason than simply seasonal.

Take politics, media and awareness. The political landscape is in a constant flux and the topic of the day is determined by those in Whitehall rather than myself. And the media report all of this high up in the agenda because, August aside, politics is always happening: it is a reliable, page or time-filling staple. But, depending on the topic, the newsteams have their "babies".

So, for example, if the topic of the day is science they will schlep off to one of the Science Cities. If it is retail conditions they will pop down a high street or off to the Bull Ring at Birmingham. And if the hot topic is the collapse of Northern Rock the teams are dispatched for a week in Newcastle. It is cyclical and - outside of London - long-term the frequencies work out pretty proportionate. But in the short-term they may be perceived as an unnatural weighting or emphasis.

Coincidence
Of course, there is the entirely unsuspicious natural coincidence. It IS cropping up with increasing frequency, but there is no insidious reason; people haven't found out your crafty plan or dirty secret; it's just random: the spice of life.


So, we'll take Newcastle. One of my clients is based in Newcastle. That client didn't contact me with any increased occurance, but I was probably more aware. And then there is football: it just so happened, by coincidence and natural fluctuation, that we were to play Newcastle that weekend. Natural fluctuation because they are in our league: we will have to play them at some point this season, but it is coincidence it is the same week as the job potential comes up.

Of course, if there were some overaching being controlling everything then it is possible they pulled the strings last season and the season before, affected people's behaviour over a long period of time to ensure we landed in the same league, to draw up a fixture list that coincided with the pre-orchestrated economic development that means firms start seeking to recruite after the Christmas shut-down.

But if something is manipulating my destiny with such minutia I would have to wonder: why bother? I can probably cock this up without any greater force becoming involved.

Another day, another motivational video

You'll have seen them if you're on any social website.

You know, the chap who asks for 'change' and uses the dollar he is given (one presumes it was American) to change other people's lives....

Or the non-religious religious one, where a good deed inspires others (some marging on rubbish) to create not just the links to a chain, but a cyclical chain that repays to original do-gooder - a pay-it-forward type. [for which I can't currently find a link].

They are led with simple teasers. "This made me smile" or "I really hope this comes true" or "You'll not be able to watch more than 10 seconds without cryin" such like which are only there to pique curiosity.

Curiosity piqued you then watch, waiting for whatever it was that made people smile or cry or even just share the bluddy thing. And then, before you know it you're committed. You need to know what happens at the end. And after a five minute barrage of emotional blackmailing and brainwashing (or just plain beating into submission) you get to the end, drained, soppy and with a desperate urge to share so that everyone else can feel warm/moist/alive.

At least, that's how it should happen.

Now, I know I am emotionally stunted. I have a tough exterior and quite possibly actually nothing inside. I have watched Marley and Me and was probably the only person relieved when the dog got put down. At least that way I knew I was going to get Owen Wilson off my tele. Apologies if that spoiled the story for you, but essentially it is the story of a couple who don't particularly like the dog-character (played by a number of unconvincing animal 'artists' that change so frequently you don't realise it's supposed to be the same character) which seems to have no redeeming factors, and then - whilst still apparently at the peak of life and bouncing around the set like a puppy- gets put down.

So I know I'm not the target for these film-shorts that have probably been commissionned from a cluster of media-production students to give some out-of-work actors something to do. I don't get drawn in, commit emotionally or anything. I get to the end of the five minute short feeling annoyed at having been conned into wasting five very precious minutes watching something trying to sell me feel-good or worse: do-good.

But the worst one yet has occurred...

Kony 2012.

We'll start by overlooking how slightly creepy people 'liking' Invisible Children on Facebook just sounds.

But this is terrible, far far worse than any of the emotive-motive-shorts for a number of reasons.

Obviously it contains all the standard fare: building, strings-heavy heart-tugging music, a terrible story with a twist, a narrative where every single word has been agonised over for half an hour to ensure that there isn't anything which could draw more tears. It's Pullitzer-aiming self-aggrandising tosh, really.

That's standard. This takes it to a whole new level. To an insipid and incidious level. Beyond brainwashing.
It annoyed me to start with because it was half-an-hour long. HALF AN HOUR. That's a very long time for me. I could have watched an episode of Father Ted in less time.

But it's a half-an-hour ADVERT. It is selling something, and no: not a 'dream'. It is selling the Invisble Children. It isn't about drawing attention to a plight or cause. No, you think it is, because that's how it starts out. No, you get to the end and it is selling a product: a bracelet you buy, a gimmick, a box of tricks, the t-shirt.

Now, you may well watch and say that the situation in Uganda exists.

Correct: it does.

You may well say the LRA is a terrible thing.
I would agree: it is.

You may even think Kony is a machiavellian tyrant.
I don't think he's a good man, I'll say that.

But is this video proposing the correct solution to the problem?

The Invisible Children have a very single-minded, focused aim: international military intervention to remove the Kony and, hopefully, the LRA. But that is very short-sighted. Without a proper and thorough analysis of the full political, economic and social situation, you cannot simply present your simply solution to a single problem as the route to end all evils.

If Kony is removed without proper support plans and wider intervention, all it does is create a hole, a vacuum. And something will fill that. Whether it be a new head of the LRA, or - should the LRA crumbe - a new militia. And, let's face it, there are many, many militia as bad or worse than the LRA willing to move in to that hole.

But even if there weren't? Just abandon the refugees? What about political reform to prevent such insurgencies popping up in the first place? A thorough analysis needs to be undertaken before rushing in with guns and whatnot.

Much is made in the film about the deployment of 100 American military personnel to the region. It was seen as a triumph, a victory!

Now, I shall overrule my sceptical mind that they have anything whatsoever to do with the Presidential election looming; or to do with the recent discovery of oil in the area.

But it's not even a token gesture. It is 100 personnel in an advising - non-combative - role. Now, I quite like that it is non-combative role, but I would rather see a fleet of diplomats and consultants flown in to assess and device a wide-ranging strategy to cure and prevent. But it's 100. The number of domestic Ugandan army personnel who have already perished in the region over the last few years already exceeds 2000. How much of an impact are these stand-back officers going to make?

My major concern really is the ease with which people have just shared this on. Yesterday my Facebook told me that 10 of my friends had shared the link. When I eventually got around to watching it on the train this morning it had had 22m hits on Youtube. And people were so caught up with the message, they ignored the speaker, they ignored the style.

The wordsmith here is Invisible Children: an organisation with very VERY vested interests in the cause. As such the message isn't just weighted, it is so biased so as to lose all respect. They are the only cause mentionned, the sole beneficiaries of tugging at your heartstrings and eyelashes. But they only tell you that when they have your emotional mortgage so high that you have to make a real, financial payment to cover the simple interest.

And many commentators have already identified that the organisation - you will note I have avoided the use of the word 'charity' - isn't whiter than white. In fact, it looks so sludgy you wonder whether it ever has been, or could ever become, white. Clouded accounts, not publically inspectable, and where they are identifying whopping salary and expense accounts, apparently funding private follies. And these are from reasonably independent and external observers.

And yes, a backlash can be expected - in fact, a backlash of itself can assist promulgating the issue further. There may be some of you who would not have seen it but for this (though I doubt it). When anything is held to scrutiny, even simple typing errors are thrown around as if capital offences. But do check the date stamp on the Foreign Affairs article - it is back in November 2011, way before the Buzz.

But this is the thing that really gets me. The people sharing this video have just taken what they have been told as red, taken what they have been given as 'bread'. They haven't questionned whether it looks like bread, or feels like bread, they've just swallowed the whole story without any scrutiny. And some of the 'facts' are just plain wrong. I had presumed better of my friends.

I know this is me as a solicitor starting to take the fore, and that I always question, test, research anything that I am told. I don't take other people's opinions as fact, I take the facts and make my own opinion. But I am scare by how many don't, particularly with such controversial issue. They've taken half an hour to sit down and watch this, yet haven't even taken five minutes to run a quick background check or counter-analysis. Instead they've taken a half-second to click the share button, being so caught up with the suggestion to do so, having been brainwashed by the creators.

But anyway, I'll leave you to make your own mind up and draw you own conclusions. Unless you need me to help you find the pencil?

The Man in the Mask+

So, Google is the latest mega-massive firm to provoke ire over its privacy policy.

Because, as of today, that is what it is: a single, unified policy; rather than a scattered collection of three or four dozen different policies.

Now, I have to say I have no massively huge concerns about the amount of sharing that Google intends to undertake amongst its own companies. I do, however, have a bit of a concern regarding the logic and methodology.

Obviously there is no opt-out. There can't be. It isn't as with a piece of software where you can support two, three or four incarnations, gently nudging (and eventually forcing) people over to the newest version. No, because of people, politics, privacy and other such things as clarity and support, it must be an overaching and universal implementation, if it is to occur.

But ought it?

The argument offered has been that it is better for them to have a single, easily findable and understandable policy. But the problem is that a one-size-fit-all policy is not necessarily appropriate. Look at a few from the 'stable' of Google companies...

Search
Maps
Earth
Adwords
Google +
Blogger
Youtube
Gmail
Docs

Is the same policy really applicable across all of these?

You have 'free-access' sites, where you don't have to be logged in, it doesn't need to know who you are for it to perform its service, it just provides an 'added benefit' if it can relate, say, previous searches to what you may wish to find. But how useful actually is that? Google really makes its money from advertisers paying to be found when you search for terms, and not previous searches: my time there has passed.

And AdWords: when it knows what sites I've been to, it's not actually that useful. In the last week, all of the banner ads that have appeared on sites that I have visited which have been provided by Adwords have been for shirts and screws. A week or so ago I bought some hardware from Screwfix and some shirts from TM Lewin. Apparently, despite all the hundreds of searches I have undertaken, that is all they can sell me. But that's not the worse... or the best of it. Whilst checking my Gmails, the adverts were trying to suggest to me recipes for Spam. Why? Because I was checking my Gmail spam account - the folder that Google itself creates for any spam emails. Either Google or Spam are doing well out of this. I can't wait for them to give me a Viagra folder.

Obviously Google will say the new unified policy will help with this, that they will be able to suggest or advertise better when they can see my blog or videos.

Then there are 'free-plus' sites: sites which anyone can access, but they would love for you to have an account. So the Youtube viewer (though not uploader) can access what they wish without having to sign up, and create playlists for the session; but by creating an account they can save the playlists, subscribe to channels, and (apparently) suggestions and recommendations are more appropriate, though again, I have yet to see anything other than exactly the same half-dozen recommendations time after time.

And finally, there are 'access-only' accounts, which are - very necessarily - entirely private to the account holder. Such as Gmail and Blogger. The last thing you want is anyone else accessing these and reading all your private correspondance or holding out and posting as you.

Does a single policy cover all of these adequately? Can the same terms be applied overarchingly? Whereas 'account' to the Gmailer means one thing, to the casual Youtuber it means another entirely.

Now, one of the benefits of the unified Google account is the simplified sign-in. I have long bemoaned the various differing security requirements across bundles of website making it near impossible to remember usernames and passwords, and the single-sign-in of Google accounts really is a vast benefit; but is this really incompatible with each site being a separate, invdividually identifyable site? Does it all needed to be branded 'part of the Google family'?

These things are very difficult. Brand identity is so tempremental, and though you may try to establish one brand over another, your customers may be reluctant to adopt.

Let us take, for example, shopping centres. There are two big shopping owners: Capital Shopping Centres, and Westfield. Capital loves individuality. Each of their centres has their own name, their own style. You would barely even know it was a child of a corporation. Westfield, however, goes the other way, naming each as a Westfield, with a small sub-title to describe the location. Everywhere inside each of them is daubed with Westfield and sprayed with the red and white corporate colours and youvcould be in Westfield East or Westfield Stratford or Westfield Derby or anywhere.

But by adopting a unified brand, an identity, philosophy, standardsand culture people know what to expect. You buy a big-mac and you know exactly what you are getting whether here, in America or China.

But it doesn't always work. The people of Nottingham have long since rebelled against Westfield's attempt to rebrand the Broadmarsh shopping centre as Westfield (Broadmarsh). I don't think I have heard one person describe it as Westfield. And I think their frustration has evidenced itself with the disposal of the centre to Capital. Capital have performed an immediate u-turn, 'reidentifying' the centre, individualisng and repersonalising it as Broadmarsh. A lot of people are actually wary of big corporations and unless they can see the benefit of a unified identity they will resist it.

There are benefits of unified branding, of integration and any branding expert will be able to wax for years about 'enhanced perception' 'extended awareness and visibility' 'understand unified expectations' 'unified synergies' and such like, but they often forget about being British.

We love the underdog. More than that we like seeing people working hard and will reward people for it, a good-old rags-to-riches story. Hence why the Daily Mail does so well when it fills its pages with the undoings of benefit scroungers and alien invaders (well, immigrants). And hence why we love our local: we still know our pubs by their own names rather than the brewery which owns them. The Crown and Horses will have the name emblazoned big and bold across the front in gold letters, with a swinging sign picturing a fine ned proudly wearing his crown, and then in tiny letters somewhere you will see it tell you it's 'a Bingle and Burtle pub'.


Anyhow, I got distracted onto dichotomous branding strategies when in fact I was supposed to be commenting on the unified privacy policy. There are other ways than simply applying a blanket unified policy. The ends that Google wishes to achieve can be achieved simply by modifying its existing policies - if that is legal. And if not, then even minor amendments to existing policies would be illegal - it is the mere idea of sharing the information between the identities that people find objectionable.


And, despite being a solicitor, I'm simply not going into the legalities of it, because everyone else seems to want to, whether they know what they're talking about or not.