Claim culture?

So it was bonfire night just over a week ago. This is where we celebrate the authorities identifying and removing a threat to our system of governance some 400 years ago. The Americans may find it particularly amusing that it falls at the same time as the presidential elections. (when I started this blog it was actually before bonfire night)

But what it did cause is my colleague to bemoan health and safety legislation and our culture of caution. He used a phrase along the lines of “We used to have much more fun back in my day.” I like to think that the drudgery of the reality of a lifetime of work ahead of him, reflecting the few years he has worked, over and over and over again until he retires, is finally starting to wear down his youthful exuberance.

However, he did make almost half a valid point in his grumble.

His grumble stemmed from the fact that a firework display somewhere seemed to have come to a decision that people were not allowed to take their own sparklers. Quite where this report came from, or the authenticity of the report, I am very suspicious about. The media is all too quick to apply the 'health and safety' label when it is not true, and this is something which the Health and Safety Executive is trying to correct.

But, if it is a true story, then it falls into one or other camps of health and safety.

The first is that it is a legitimate and proportionate measure required to protect people. This may be because of the number of people that attend the event - there are certain displays where, simply because of the density of people, you simply do not have enough room to wave a blisteringly hot piece of metal around at arm's length. And that is understandable. Now, if they could take the same attitude with cigarettes, often held at the level of a toddler's eyes, I would be over the moon.

However, that may not be the case. In order to undertake any organised activity there is currently a responsibility on the organisation to perform a risk assessment. The government is currently looking to relax these rule; however they are only one influencing factor, and often risk assessments are required under the Public Liability or Employer Liability Insurance policies. If the government does relax the requirements, knowing how desperately insurers attempt to decline cover where possible, these risk assessments will still be required, else failing to undertake one will leave you at risk that the insurance refuses to have anything to do with a claim.

And this is where the jobsworth comes to the fore. They are not normally sent by the council to make an assessment, they are normally a very well intentioned - albeit over-zealous, over-cautious or poorly-trained - individual within the organisation arranging the event. And they go around and they look at every tiny little thing, from the pins of a plug lying on the floor to the massive tower-crane dangling a concrete block over the school playground. They are usually, seriously over-zealous. They can file a ten-page report on an inanimate ruler (which may have sharp edges, or may break, or may be grabbed by a passing lunatic and stabbed into someone's ribcage). A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; particularly when the security of your own job involved identifying every dangerous thing and managing the risk associated with it: if there is nothing dangerous, suddenly you don't have a job.

And these are the roots of the stories about “Health and Safety means kids can't play conkers at school” or they may have to wear face protection. There is nothing in a single piece of health and safety legislation requiring face protection or outlawing a fun, if somewhat ridiculous, game (I only ever got up to a 23er at school, despite living next to a tree which produced the biggest conkers in the village. I blame dad's shoelaces). The reason that things get cancelled isn't usually because the Health and Safety Executive step in, it is because someone else considers there to be a risk. It is very, very subjective.

Over the summer, one of the concerts at Hyde Park got cut short at the end. You may have seen this one in the news. The organisers said that it was cut off because of health and safety. Not entirely sure where they got that one from, and neither was the Health and Safety Executive whose deputy chair was there watching it, and who rebuked this blame in an excellent press release. The organisers later said that the health and safety concern was due to road closures around the area which needed to be released as soon as the park closed. That is just pure nonsense:

1. the road closures would stay in place for as long as the police or council thought was necessary. They do not arbitrarily remove barriers allowing the free flow of traffic to plough down masses of people trying to get out.
2. even if there was a specified time for the removal of the barriers, it doesn't happen at once and could easily be managed to free-up the least chaotic routes first.
3. it was actually nothing to do with the road closures at all. The police and the council both confirmed that they would have kept roads closed “for as long as it takes”. It was purely a disingenuous statement from the organisers, because...
4. the real reason for the cut-off was that the gig licence expired at 10:30pm. This is pretty standard anywhere, and with good reason. Premises licences are not granted without some form of objection from local residents. They have concerns about the noise going on late into the night - and reasonably justifyably in some circumstances. Indeed at Hyde Park, complaints about the noise had doubled since 2008, and the council had therefore imposed restrictions on the number, duration and timing of gigs. It is this license condition that the organisers would have breached if they had allowed the gig to reach its natural conclusion. And what is the risk there? Purely commercial: they could have been fined for breaching the licence; or they could have found it difficult to tender for a new licence.

But let's be proportionate here - as ever, it is only the worst of these health and safety assessors that we ever hear about. In the vast majority of circumstances, there are a lot of practical and sensible assessors out there who will actually do what they can do to ensure that an event goes ahead

But why do these people exist in the first place?

Well blame is the main answer.

For some reason, the public seem to have come about an expectation that absolutely all risk can be managed-out. Not just minimised, but eliminated; and where it hasn't and there has been a failing, that there is blame. And where there is blame, there is a claim.

This attitude fails on so many levels.

It fails firstly because it assumes that all humans are - or should be - infallible, and that where they are not they should be punished for that mistake. We all make mistakes, and yet unidirectionally we expect to be forgiven them, have them overlooked, whilst dichotimously holding other people accountable for theirs.

It also assumes that there are no external influences. Sometimes, someone is unable to perform an obligation which is expected of them because they are stuck in traffic. Someone else, entirely outside the bubble of performance, has interfered with the expectations. Or maybe it isn't someone, but something. We've just seen tropical storm Sandy bear down on New York. Is there somebody personally responsible for that destruction? Of course not.

Thirdly it assumes that everything is possible. There are some things which simple are not (certainly yet) possible. There is always a risk that something freak occurs which shatters the windscreen of the car you are driving. Whilst everything has been done to ensure this does not happen - toughening the glass, laminating it, angling the screen to roll things over - it may still happen, and it may shower fragments everywhere. Unless or until we develop another material with the transparent properties of glass, but the strength of titanium, that risk will remain. And then, would the strength of titanium be enough?

And if we eliminate all risk, then we don't challenge ourselves. As a youngster I was allowed (or at least able, I'm not sure my mother actually knew we did it) to climb trees. There was considerable risk there. But, by sustaining those injuries, I knew the limits of my own strength, I understood the flexibility and fragility of the wood. Without taking risks, we wouldn't have the chemicals, materials, pharmaceuticals, innovation and entrepreneurship that we have today. So risk is, actually, a very good thing.

So where has this expectation of blame and claim come from? Well it has been learned. Once upon a time we used to accept that bad things happened, that there wasn't always someone to blame

But then, I am a solicitor and I do get a bit fed up with listening to people whine. I call them the “oh whoa is me” lot.

But does that not mean I am to blame? Is it not the lawyers cashing in on these?

Well, I'll start by making two points.

Firstly, no profession is without its bad-eggs. Just read the back pages of the Law Society Gazette and every week they list the solicitors brought before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for bringing the profession into disrepute. So there will be some who will abuse the system, or will work within the regulations but at the very extremes, pushing ethics and morals to the very limit.

But also, I'm not a personal injury solicitor. I deal with CoCo - corporate and commercial law. I specifically did not want to go down the PI route and being seen as an ambulance chaser. Not least, because I didn't want my friends berating me with their traumatic stories and exposing their scars to me and asking me who they should sue whilst I'm trying to enjoy a night out.

But lawyers have created this blame culture, haven't they?

There are good reasons for PI lawyers. People are injured through the faults of other people. Those injuries can be debilitating. They can require substantial, costly alterations to their accommodation, transport, lifestyle. So there is a particular justice which is obtained through PI claims.

So, are the lawyers harvesting these claims? Fostering weaker claims? Creating claims where perhaps there are none?

A little explanation here as to how personal injury claims work...

Once upon a time, personal injury followed the manner in which all other civil work does: that there is a contract between the solicitor and his client that the client will pay his fees. If a claim is successful, the solicitor would ask the court that his fees get awarded on top of any damages: that it is unfair that the claimant have to pay these legal costs which would not have been incurred if the wrongdoer had paid up at the earliest opportunity. Similarly, where the defender of any claim is held to have done nothing wrong, his legal team would ask that the claimant should pay there costs as clearly there was no claim to defend - it is wrong for the defendant to lose out and have to pay fees when he has done no wrong.

So, originally a claimant stood the risk not only of having to pay their own legal costs; but also - if they lost - the legal costs of the defendant on top. Double whammy.

Well, that's how it was seen. And it was considered that this meant that those that really needed the money, the damages, were prevented from access to justice. Because they couldn't stump up even the initial fees to their solicitors, let alone take the risk that they lose, people with some of the most horrendous of injuries, or subject to the most heinous of medical negligences, were left to foot their own bills.

Then, in 1995 the full relevant provisions (in the UK at least) allowed conditional fee arrangements - that the solicitor's fee was conditional upon the success of the case. Indeed, the solicitor would get a 'success fee' - an additional increase in fee to show the risk that had been accepted by the solicitor. This was coupled with 'ATE insurance' - insurance taken out After The Event that caused the incident, but that would cover legal costs related to it.

ATE meant that claimants no longer stood the risk of bearing the defendant's legal costs - they would be met by the insurer. All that was required was a sufficiently strong case to convince insurers to issue a policy, and the claimant bore absolutely no risk.

And that is the problem. Some solicitors over-stated the chances to insurers, who therefore issued more policies. Some insurers were eager to be seen as more accessible, and therefore issued policies more readily. In a perfect world solicitors with a poor success rate would have seen premiums rise, but it isn't a perfect world.

One of the results of this, was a slightly gung-ho attitude from some solicitors. A kind-of “the claim doesn't stand any chance of success, but we might as well give it a go, see what we can get” attitude.

And how successful was that attitude? Well, this is where perhaps the main problem lies.

Probably 90% of the time the defendants in a case would be insurers, or covered by insurance. When you are covered by insurance, there is an obligation to subrogate your claim to the insurers: you hand it over. They deal with it. They contact you when they need something from you; but as it is their money at risk, they handle the defence.

And this is where the calculators come in.

At the very outset of a claim, the insurers undertake a calculation. They look at the value of the claim and factor in the chances of success of the claim. Then they balance this out against their own cost: they look at the man-hours they will have to commit to any claim up to various points in the case.

So, we'll take a worked example.

Imagine they receive a claim amounting to £10,000. They calculate it has a chance of success of perhaps 10%. So the 'claim risk' is £1000.

Now, the insurers man hours cost, say, £50 per hour. This involves taking all statements, obtaining expert reports, counsel's opinion etc. So, at £50 an hour, if this claim takes up any more than 20 hours of the insurer's time, purely economically it would be better to offer the £1000 and settle.

And it happens. Regardless of the validity of the claim, purely because of the numbers. It happens with no report to the insured defendant - they have subrogated their claim, they do not have to give consent to any settlement.

And this is why, in my humble opinion, the system fails. Insurers. Or rather, economics.

Now, the system is changing. CDAs and ATE is going to be removed, meaning claimants will bear some risk.

It's actually not as bad as we make out. Research conducted for, I believe, the Law Society a year or so ago found that there wasn't a 'compensation culture', and that actually the number and value of claims issued had not changed appreciably since the introduction of no-win no-fee agreements. So where is the truth?

I think that whilst the value of claims may not have changed, the settlements may have.

But also, whilst the regulations may be being de-restricted, how many health and safety requirements come from those regulations; and how many come from insurance obligations? The same insurers who settle quickly apply stringent obligations upon an insured before they will cover a claim, they have created their own claim culture almost.

But I also think it is the reporting by the media which is most at fault. Unless you have a victim and a villain, you don't have a story. And the villain could be the over-zealous health and safety assessor, the insurance industry inflating premiums, or the evil motorist who hospitalised a child. The media portrays an uncomfortable contradiction: one of those dichotomies that keeps the press in press. On the one hand, health and safety inspectors are bumbling jobsworths, preventing “fun” from happening or the vexatious litigant suing for millions of pounds because of a broken fingernail; but when something does go wrong, they are all to quick to ask where the risk assessment was, who was in charge, how could this happen? They can't have it both ways.

BBC bashing

So, the BBC is in crisis, and I’m sure you are desperate to know what my views on it are. Go on, I know you are really.

So, colours on the mast from the outset – I love the BBC.

But I love the BBC. For an independent, yet public service to produce output of the breadth, depth and quality it does, simply for the cost of the licence fee – a considerably lower cost that either the fiscal cost of a subscription service; or the psychological cost of having to watch adverts – is brilliant. But then I have already said that.

So, the BBC is in crisis. Or, more accurately, two crises.

Firstly, it failed to show a report alleging that Jimmy Savile was a paedophile.

Then it showed a report which lead to the erroneous naming of a senior politician as a paedophile.

It almost couldn’t do any right.

But as a result of these two reports (or lack thereof) it has been pilloried. And unsurprisingly – but then I’ll come to that later

Now, the two incidents together have claimed the scalps of around half-a-dozen people within the organisation already, with more almost certain to follow. These include the Editor of Newsnight, the Head of News, Deputy of News and even the Director General – the chap in charge of the organisation. They have also, together, spawned no less than five inquiries within the BBC alone, irrespective of those instigated by MPs or the police.

So, what really are the allegations?

Well, allegation one is about the Savile Scandal. It is now widely acknowledged that Savile carried out a long lasting campaign of sexual assault against girls and young ladies. He did this within a number of different institutions, over a considerable number of years. Yes, he almost certainly carried out some of these attacks on BBC premises. But he also carried them out at children’s homes, in hospitals, even in prisons. He particularly targeted the most vulnerable of people who would not report it; either because they were too young to be believed, because they lacked the mental capacity, or because he could silence them with his celebrity.

There are many investigations into how this was allowed to happen. One of the most important things to remember is that these attacks happened in a different era. The sixties, seventies, eighties were another place to today. That doesn’t mean the attacks didn’t happen – they did. It doesn’t mean that they were any less vicious or that the victims suffered any less – they still were and did. But there were no such things as CRB checks, or risk assessments or things like that back then. Celebrities gained unfettered – and unsupervised – contact with fans simply to giddy to know what was happening, and too eager to be able to say no.

But the fact that these attacks occurred is not really the gripe of the papers.

It is that the BBC dropped the report on the attacks. The BBC had interviews with the victims – they were perfectly credible interviews. They had corroboration of the incidents from people other than the victims. They had a story.

But it was dropped.

Why? Because the editor of Newsnight at the time – Peter Rippon – was actually looking at pursuing a different story to the one the journalist – Liz MacKean – was following. Rippon was concentrating on the failure of various institutions – the police and social services particularly – to investigate at the time.

That may have been a story; but that was not THE story. Failing to run the Savile story itself was a failure.

Do I genuinely believe that Rippon thought there was just one story? I don’t know. He seems naïve enough to do so.

But he reported to Helen Boaden – Head of News – and held a discussion with her about whether to run the story. If she, Rippon and Entwhistle – who was Head of Vision, and therefore Boaden’s senior – are to be believed, Boaden briefly mentioned it to Entwhistle, and he barely batted an eyelid. This is despite a Christmas tribute to Savile planned.

Could the tribute have been dropped? Easily. Should it have been? Yes. The failing here is to identify that there were two stories and that one could very easily have been run without impact upon the second “failure to investigate” story. Or it could actually have ‘lead into’ the second story – asking the question how he was allowed to get away with it so long.

Where did this decision lie? Was it Rippon who decided there was one story? Was the discussion between Boaden and Entwhistle more involved? Was cold water poured on this from a much higher height, either in the hope it would disappear completely, or at least only come to light after the Christmas tribute? If the conversation at the top was not more involved, then why not? Afterall, Entwhistle was in charge of the programme schedule which would pit these two competing interests against each other. These matters are to come out in the wash.

But then the second incident. On Newsnight. Again.

Here, the BBC had been provided with information from a victim as to the perpetrator of the attacks upon him, that the paedophile that committed the attacks was a senior politician.

Let me be clear – the BBC did not name the individual. Indeed, in the run-up to the broadcast of the programme there was a lot of noise on Twitter from seasoned journalists actively criticising the BBC for NOT naming the individual.

In fact, the BBC relied upon the honestly held belief of the victim – Steve Messham. Messham had, in the past, been shown a photo of his attacker by the police, and had then been told the identity of the person. It is uncertain as to whether the photo was incorrectly titled; or whether the person in the photograph was similar looking. Again, remember, the photograph was taken in the seventies before the days of super megapixel cameras. So it was highly possible it could have been a photo of the senior politician, which – due to blurriness or passage of time – Messham did honestly believe was his attacker.

That doesn’t get them off the hook though. The BBC is one of the largest, most trusted and respected journalistic organisations in the world. Do they go to air with just one man’s say-so? Or should they actually have checked out the details – the times and places the attacks were supposed to have happened? Much as I love the BBC, this is a distinct failure. But, in light of the circumstances where they had just been criticised for not going to air to name a paedophile; it is perhaps somewhat slightly more understandable that they were a little quick-off-the-draw. Maybe, however, with journalistic standards already under review, they should have been more cautious. But was it journalistic standards, or simply editorial standards that were under review?

Needless to say, the BBC has received a good kicking from the press. In fact, it has received an undeserved kicking from the press. The reasons for this are two-fold.

Firstly, the press is in between earthquakes. The Leveson inquiry has been undertaken, looking at the failings of the press and the regulators in the phone hacking scandal. The BBC was one of the only journalistic bureaux to escape that entirely unscathed. And they are not happy. They don’t want to be the bad guys, they want someone else to carry some blame, deflect some of the attention. Particularly as the second earthquake – the publication of the findings from the inquiry – is imminent.

But also, the BBC holds a unique position which other media hate. The BBC is independently funded by the licence fee. This means it doesn’t have to generate a revenue by selling papers or advertising space. They see the BBC as in a commercial bubble, and whilst they are facing the ‘perfect storm’ of people turning to free internet pages to consume information; the BBC has perfectly positioned itself as just that…but at the cost of the licence fee payer rather than the advertisers or the shareholders.

Many see its protected position as a reason for it to have a higher integrity, more rigourous journalistic standards. In reality, any broadcast media has to have these higher standards, and it is perhaps for that reason that the broadcast medias were entirely excluded from the Leveson inquiry - they simply could do no wrong, it wasn't possible for them to have a "don't ask how we got it" policy. But there it where regulation by Ofcom differs from self-'regulation' (if it can be called that) by PCC differ wildly. The reason that the BBC actually goes - or aspires to go - even further, is reciprocal. It is expected of the Beeb that it will be the best, and so the Beeb expects to be regarded as the best, but knows that it only holds that position whilst it IS the best. It's the opposite of a vicious cycle. Yes, the principle may have been established by being the first such news bureau, by being independently funded and therefore able to take the time; but the comearound of it is that it needs to work doubley hard to maintain that reputation otherwise it has worse than nothing - it is a drain on the public.

But you can see how easily the BBC gets beaten - and, indeed, beats itself up - over these crises. Look at ITV. ITV pulled what can only be descibed as a pretty base and crass, oportunistic stunt. They ambushed the Prime Minister mid-interview and presented him with a card of suspected paedophiles. The Prime Minister, with tact and credit, ignored the list and instead raised concerns about ITV's attempt to turn this into a witchhunt. Worse still, in performing this cupid stunt, the presenter exposed a number of the names to camera. Has action been taken at ITV? Have people lost their job? Has the head of the organisation been forced to quit? No - no-one has lost their job. "Words of advice" have been given. Nothing more.

And again, the newspaper who actually named the subject - has anything been done there? No. That was handled slightly differently. They only named the person in the course of raising concerns as to whether the report was correct. But up until then, few people had put a name to the allegation.

In the meantime the BBC is having to work doubley hard again to restore its position. It has to be seen as beyond white, and that means taking more extreme steps than those other media organisations who are happy with being seen as grey at best.

Media organisations should never see themselves in a priviledged position. They should never see themselves as protected, or as mere filters and editors of the news. Sometimes they are the news, and when they are they should never be beyond inquiry. This is happening with the BBC now as it has with other outlets and will again in the course of the Leveson inquiry. But whilst they are all too happy to put the boot into the Beeb now, will the Beeb repay them in kind when the report is published? No. It is simply above that level. And rightly so.

Techno no-go

Last week there was another big technology fair, with various companies displaying their latest advances. And before, of course, there was Apple, with the new iPhone 5.

So what was delivered?

Well, with the iPhone, you got essentially a very similar phone to the iPhone 4GS: the operating systems are the same, the hardware actually very similar. Yes, it was longer and thinner and slightly faster; but that was pretty much all.

The big news at the tech fair? That'll be the firm that showed off its latest 86” television screen. How was this a massive development? Well, it was 2” bigger than their previous screen.

Now, I know that there are sometimes huge leaps forward: HDTV, 3D, 4G etc. - in fact anything with an acronym or abbreviation. Brand new technologies that allow us to do so much more. The phone in my pocket lets me take a photo and share it via the internet with millions of people, within seconds and with just the swipe of a touchscreen. Well, ok, a couple of hundred of people. But it's not that long ago when the idea of sharing photos so widely - other than passing them around a group at a party - was unheard of.

But then the phone in my pocket actually isn't that much different to the previous one. I have a Samsung Galaxy Note; and previously had a Dell Streak. They are both the same size; both had a similar camera; both had the same operating system on them and the same availability of apps. In fact, the reason I bought my new phone wasn't to 'upgrade' - to get some technology or function that I didn't have - it was because my other phone had broken.

And when you look at people who do 'upgrade', it isn't usually the 'draw' of any new functionality; but simply the availability. People bought HDTVs because they were buying a new tv anyway, and 'might as well' have HD. There were of course the first few evangelists who bought simply for the new; but they aren't really the drivers behind the technology and are probably 1% of the target market (albeit being 100% of the initial market).

The tech guys create the new technology either because they can (or to see if they can); or because they must. The ridiculously big tvs for example are created purely to show that it is possible to do it; whereas other technologies, like SuperHD are created because there is a need: if you are buying an 86” tv, then 1080HD is simply not good enough, a crisp enough resolution at that size where your pixel will be a massive 2mm tall. Then, once the technology becomes cheap enough, it becomes included as standard - almost a forced migration. One of my colleagues regularly bemoans the lack of absolutely basic mobile phones available these days.

And you have to wonder how necessary - or even beneficial - the progress is. Take cash machines. Is there any need for them to have colour screens? Aside from the pretty pictures advertising their low-rate loans, no - you need the screen to tell you what your balance is, and ask you how much of that dwindling resource you would like to withdraw from your 86” SuperHD tv fund. The reason they have them is because it has now become cheaper to manufacture colour screens, otherwise you need to have and maintain a separate plant for your old monochrome screens.

I saw a car the other day advertised as having a colour touchscreen display. I'm not sure why. I presume it includes an in-built satellite navigation system, but otherwise, why? Is the colour touchscreen going to make me a better driver? Also certainly it would, in fact, distract you from being a better driver. I have seen irons advertised as having LCDs for no apparent reason. I'm sure someone sits in the R&D departments of white goods departments trying to think of things to slap on their fridge, and when someone asks why anyone would want that, they simply reply “why not!”

Indeed as a moot consideration the BBC Click programme recently considered why you would want an IP connected washing machine - one of the reasons behind IPv6 was that we were going to have so many more 'connected appliances'. The most dominant reason was so that the washing machine could send a message to your smartphone telling you that your washing was done. There was, however, one genius idea - that it would only turn on if the weather was going to be fine for the amount of time it would take to dry it.

Within tech circles the running joke is the IP connected fridge that automatically orders milk for you when you run low (it's not very funny, but they don't have many jokes). Lovely. But what are the practicalities of this? Would you have to scan the barcode when you use any so it knew it was milk? And then give it an estimate of how much you use? Or would you have to put it in the same place in the fridge every time so that it could weigh it? What about if you bought something new or wanted to try something different? Perhaps you don't ever try any new food? And what about delivery? Do you have to maintain your Google calendar so very tightly so that it can automatically book a delivery slot in for you? Thereby stifling your spontaneity? After all, spontaneity, experimentation and entrepreneurship are the key drivers behind technological invention and development. If the new technology ends up being less convenient it just doesn't take off.

And there is suitability. Take 3D tv. Not only was timing poor for this – within a few years of the mass consumer base having just upgraded to digital HDTV and therefore unwilling to make a purchase for a while – but it has a number of problems with suitability and practicality.

It is perfect for the all-immersive movie experience; but that is less than 1% of what tvs are made for, and an aspect in which people are willing to compromise: if they want the full experience they go to the cinema.

TV is frequently dip-in dip-out. Getting your eyes used to a 3D screen is not compatible with that. Indeed in Japan a number of authorities are concerned about the effect and strain 3D tvs place upon peoples eyes. And you can't dip-in, dip-out when it involves putting glasses on and taking them off again: it is just plain inconvenient. And even when you are fully committed to a movie, the glasses are a discomfort. Yes, they are now making tvs which don't require glasses, but the 'sweet-spot' in which to sit to achieve 3D is limited and very much not suited to popping your head round the doorframe to catch the headlines inbetween cooking.

But that shows the development progress. It started out offering a feature – 3D – and then they worked to refine that feature, making it as comfortable as possible and removing the need for glasses. Without the initial development of what might have seemed like a gimmick, the ultimate aim would not have been achieved: without the novelty of a super thin screen, your mobile would not be in the same state as it is. And the need to make these novelties, gimmicks consumable is what drives future development; as soon as you can make HDTV a necessity - for the mainstream, as the basic starting point - then you can reap the rewards of developing that technology and investing it into the next big thing.

Of course the tiny, drip-feed, incremental developments are necessary. Yes, HD was a massive step-up for television, and it did convince people to spend more when an otherwise necessary upgrade was required, but it would only have been possible with the steps in between. Yes, the processor in the new iPhone may be only slightly faster, slightly more powerful than the last one; but it is considerably faster than in the first phone. Were it not for this snail-pace progression then my memory card would have been sitting around at the same size - both physically and digitally - as my old 16MB compact flash card, waiting for the next earthquake-sized radical development. There wouldn't have been the step smaller to SD, then to mini-SD, then to micro-SD. The digital increases would possibly have still occurred, but that is the law of digital; and even then they have only been required by other developments - my camera incrementally increased from 3megapixels to 5 and now to 10 megapixels. Without that, there is no need for a bigger memory card so that I can hold 2000 pictures instead of 1000 - 1000 would have continued to be perfectly sufficient.

But that brings me back to the usefulness of the developments. Digital cameras these days are being marketed with 20+ megapixels. How useful is that? Unless you are zooming in stratospherically, or printing the pictures out the size of a bedroom wall (I shall be doing that soon and I still suspect my 10mp pictures will be perfectly adequate) then all that the extra pixels are doing is using up data on your hard-drive. Worse still, it may actually be hindering the consumer experience because more pixels take longer to save, and therefore present a greater lag on refresh times, slowing down your ability to take the next shot. Yes, that degree of quality may be necessary for professional users, but for the general consumer it is bamboozling.

And that, I think, is really the point which I am trying to make. When it comes to technology I am reasonably well educated, and can understand the terms, the benefits and the compromises; but that isn't necessarily the case with consumers. They see each technological development as a concern, a further term or specification to confuse them. It makes them very wary of technology. Human nature being what it is, people are only too quick to come up with problems or failures, where technology (and not - so they believe - the user) has let them down. Unless the creep is so gentle so as to be unnoticeable, there will be a distinct wariness from the potential user. Ironically creep helping to prevent a shock. Unless, of course, like me, they are quite a geek about it. It's all very well putting a colour touchscreen in the car, but if your average driver can't use it to turn the heating on, then it's a step backward from what they want and are used to. It's all very well increasing the definition, but it's another number to remember, and the consumer wonders “is this the three-letter-acronym where a smaller number is better or the bigger? Is Panasonic's HCSD the same as Sony's CSF?”

To that extent there needs to be a happy medium. Just enough information for the consumer so that they understand the development without confusion; and with manufacturers themselves being sensible as to use or necessity of inclusion (or extension) of a technology or the information. If it is included as standard across the industry, consider dropping the information - a company was recently criticised as advertsing its paint as "lead free" dispite the fact that all paints - by law - have been lead-free since the 1990s. If customers are finding themselves forced - or at least encouraged - to adopt a technology that they don't want and can't see a benefit of, then they are going to be reluctant adopters, and certainly not evangelists about it. But then, I think I have probably discussed some of this already with regard to Facebook.