https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dlz7tz/putin-vs-the-west-series-1-1-my-backyard
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dlzcrb/putin-vs-the-west-series-1-2-back-with-a-vengeance
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dlzdwr/putin-vs-the-west-series-1-3-a-dangerous-path
The Doomsday Clock sits 90 seconds to midnight. The closest the clock has been since the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists established the clock in 1947, when two superpowers first developed the means of ending civilisation and life on this planet. The USSR and USA faced off. With around 200 000 dead in the latest war in Ukraine, Putin is in the dock.
The BBC has assembled a star-spangled cast. No Putin, but a Putin representative. Putin’s ‘special military operation’ is now acknowledged formally in Russia as a war, but because Germany are finally offering tanks, it’s rebranded by Putin as another German invasion. A re-running of the second world war in which Russia lost around 20 million combatants. Later called The Great Patriotic War. The difference here, of course, is Putin is the invader. Ukrainians the patriots. But truth tends to be complex.
Boris Johnson. ‘Putin is a very difficult and calculating man. It was very, very difficult to find leverage, and to find ways of constraining him. You know, he threatened me and at one points said, you know, “Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a missile, it would only take a minute”’.
Boris Johnson is an equally difficult and calculating man. Let’s not forget he adopted Brexit. Three years later it has proven to be an increasingly disastrous economic and social policy based on nationalism and racism, but which got him the office he coveted as Prime Minister. The Conservative Party received donations of millions from Russian billionaires and oligarchs who had looted the former USSR and managed to escape with their wealth largely intact. Boris gave a life peerage to a former USSR spymaster and a seat in the House of Lords. Nigel Farage channelled money from the KDP, Russian security services, and into mainstream politics. Johnson was the figurehead that was going to redirect £150 million a week to the NHS. The erstwhile hero that got it done, while enriching himself and promoting brand Johnson. Here he plays Putin’s nemesis while trashing British democracy. Don’t forget, among his lesser crimes, he tried to illegally suspend British Parliament and ride roughshod over the Anglo-Irish Agreement with the EEC.
Jose Manual Barroso, President European Commission.
‘I’ve met Putin 25 times. And to me Putin is someone who knows how to manage risk. When I saw him in the days before the invasion of Ukraine, I think emotion was stronger than rational thinking. Now he’s expressing and very, very deep frustration and resentment against the West—but not only against the West, against the past, against history.’
No President Barrack Obama. His remark about Russia being ‘a regional power,’ was meant to have chaffed at Putin’s pride. Gorbachev was meant to have experienced something similar. But we don’t know because this programme is told from the side of the right and the true.
No moron’s moron and 45th American President. Trump’s election victory in 2016 was celebrated in the Russian Whitehouse. He favoured dogmatism over dialogue. In other words he lied, lied and continued lying as he faces multiple charges ranging from fraud to rape. Money was funded directly to the Trump brand via Russian players in the Great game. Facebook and Twitter aren’t Russian stooges, but Russian bot factories churning out propaganda for the Trump brand proved not too good to be true, but to be true.
Instead we have a low ranking official from Obama’s administration giving the official view, which is Putin is a dictator. We know that. Trump is a would-be-dictator.
Petro Poroshhenko, Former President of Ukraine.
‘After the election, I called the Whitehouse for congratulate Trump. And definitely, er, I tried to prepare for this, er because I doubt Ukraine was among his first priorities. My message to the Trump, was exactly this, from the very first conversation, “Don’t trust Putin”’.
Radek Sikorski, Foreign Minister, Poland.
‘Eastern Partnerships were not always attended by everyone. This time everyone came, including the Prime Minister of Britain, because we knew this would be a historic moment.’
If President [of Ukraine] Viktor Yanukovych signed, it would be his country’s biggest step towards the West since his country leaving the Soviet Union in 1991.
But after a recent trip to Moscow, rumours had started that he was feeling the heat from Vladimir Putin about joining the EEC.’
Catherine Ashton, EU High Representative.
Simon Smith, UK Ambassador to Ukraine.
‘He really had the frightners put on him.’
Dalia Grybustkaite, President of Lithuania, ‘I and Merkel, we had been speaking to him eye-to-eye, And, because we spoke Russian, he was more sincere. And he gave us some kind of understanding that he was under pressure personally, under pressure.’
Christoph Heusgan, Merkel’s Diplomatic Advisor, ‘Chancellor Markell told Yanukovych very clearly, we expect you to agree to it. We believe that also, this is what your population believes. This is what we have been striving for, for the last few years, actually. And not you are backing down. This is incomprehensible to us.’
The same incomprehension could be attributed to Boris Johnson and his decision to leave the EU.
Simon Smith UK Ambassador to Ukraine.
‘There was this expression in the Ukraine about milking two cows.’ Boris milking two [or more] cows?
Radek Sikorski, Foreign Minister, Poland.
Putin was offering cash, virtually the next day. The kind of opportunity Farage, Johnson and David Cameron have recently jumped at.
David Cameron.
‘I was pretty clear that everything I heard from Yanukovych that he wasn’t serious about a partnership with the EU.
I spoke with President Aliyev from Azerbaijan, who I always who I always thought was quite a good reader of the situation.’
David Cameron was clearly not a good reader of the situation in Europe, Ukraine or at home in Britain. After thirteen years of taking money from the poorest in Britain and giving it to the richest, including recent Russian billionaires buying fast-streamed citizenship and property. Cameron and Osborne, the Laurel and Hardy of British politics, without due diligence, pandered to Farage and his rich-wing, Putin-backed, gang of xenophobes. Later, the former Prime Minister of Britain was caught trying to milk his former comrades and contacts for public money to enrich himself—tens of millions—and his chums, hundreds of millions sterling in dodgy deals. Here he’s shown as a great world leader, who is worth listening to. The British version of Viktor Yanukovych.
Obama. The White House, 28th February 2014.
‘Putin has now crossed a line. And there will be costs for any military intervention in the Ukraine.’
Caroline Atkinson, Obama’s Adviser for International Economics.
‘The President was very keen for action, but not military action but economic action- which can be very powerful if the US is doing it. And the natural thing was to turn to sanctions. But we also wanted to be joined together with allies in Europe.’
Kim Darroch, Cameron’s Security Adviser.
‘One country has literally seized a chunk of territory from another.’
[When was the last time Israel has done that?]
‘Number 1, if you talked about energy, a lot of European countries, particularly central European, but also Germany had quite a heavy reliance on Russian oil and gas. Some European countries, notably Germany and Italy, sold a lot of stuff to Russia.’
Francoise Hollande, President of France. ‘in the Italian political class there was a certain indulgence towards Putin.’
‘in London, a number of Russian oligarchs had been welcomed there.’
As there was towards Le Penn. Her nationalistic party and racist agenda came close to the highest office of French political power, and it was recently funded by Putin’s KDP in terms of ‘loans’. Leaving the EU is no longer part of Le Penn’s party appeal. The UK has proven a cautionary tale.
Putin’s invasion has also proven a cautionary tale. His triumphant march towards Kyiv didn’t happen, but might still. The threat of nuclear war increases. But most of his military hardware was found to be outdated and not fit for purpose. His troops unmotivated and ill-used. For very little US investment in money or manpower, the Russian army was largely taken out. Win-win for the US. Another geopolitical win in Europe’s reliance of Russian gas was overstated. Putin’s leverage slackened. Win-win for green-energy policies that took up slack. But with energy for sale at cost price, a closer alliance between Putin and President Xi brought other threats.
But in the same way that even Le Penn would no longer countenance leaving the EU, another dictator President Xi has been shown what could happen if his plans for the reunification of Taiwan with China, despite the increasingly volatile rhetoric, might well be left to wither. Another win for the US.
Dalia Grybustkaite, President of Lithuania.
‘The reaction of Europe at the time was very upsetting. The cheap energy was so comfortable. And so addictive they were not able to overstep their pragmatic policies.’
Obama.
‘Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbours…not out of strength, but out of weakness.’
Jose Manual Barroso, President European Commission.
‘He said that Russia was a regional power and this is not helpful, because it feeds on resentment. And for me, Putin is essentially a product of resentment because of the decline and also humiliation of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.’
What is to be done? As Lenin asked in 1901-02.
NOTES
‘This first episode tells the story of how, when Putin first attacked Ukraine in 2014, Europe’s leaders clashed over how to stop him. Amidst massive demonstrations demanding closer ties with the EU in Kyiv, Ukraine’s president flees to Russia. Putin exploits the power vacuum to make the most audacious move of his presidency to date: sending troops into Crimea.
We go behind the scenes for the critical summits and fraught phone calls as the west tries to find a way to push back. The crisis heightens as the fighting spreads to Donbas in Eastern Ukraine and Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 is shot down. Key players including David Cameron, Francois Hollande, Jose Manuel Barroso and Ukraine’s then-president Petro Poroshenko relive the EU’s indecision and the all-night negotiations with the warring parties: a ceasefire is signed in Minsk, but Russian forces remain in Donbas.
Putin, meanwhile, appears more confident than ever. The lesson is clear, says French president Francois Hollande: ‘When we do not punish at first, we are forced to punish more severely later
Putin turns to the Middle East. After Gaddafi’s overthrow in Libya, Putin shows just how far he’s willing to go to keep his ally, President Assad of Syria, in power.
Leaders including Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and Volodymyr Zelensky discuss how they confronted Putin and manoeuvred to try and prevent his invasion of Ukraine.’
odonnellgrunting 
A rise in data flow
Noika can push themselves into making a great phone they’ll still not challenge Apple dominance, because it’s largely a luxury good, but they will pick up those not prepared to pay large amounts of cash for what is essentially a brand. Price elasticity is a factor here.
Explaining data-flow trends
Your experience of global data flows
Manyika et al. (2016a) suggest that data flows primarily enable the movement of goods, finance, services and people.
I’ve not got an organisation. As a writer I’m a sole trader. Dependent on the trade whims of organisations of publishing, which are dominated by the Amazon algorithm. Amazon are what global capital is about. They hold profit in offshore havens. They pay neglibile amounts of tax. They piggyback on economies while reaping vast rewards. Yet, I indirectly, work for them. They determine how much my labour is worth. The starting price for writing, as content, is zero, and doesn’t rise much above it for most writers. Amazon are great service providers. This translates how they deal nationally and internationally and provide products at rock-bottom prices. Hidden costs are exported to tax payers and suckers without leverage.
How big might data services get?
Graphs are good, but part of the mystique of big data. zetabytes? how much is that? I could google it, but it really makes not a great deal of difference. These numbers seem to have no reality in my life, yet in the internet of things it will be the oil of finance and decision making. Companies will know more about individuals than ever before and not just their credit history, but their likes and dislikes. Advertising is about selling fear -for example of missing out on a great offer – and I’m sure we’ll be manipulated, but massaged and made to feel good about being stupid. It’s happening now. I’m pretty dumb and even I know that.
Marketing and marketing research challenges
Regulating the digital market place
I believe in government, not just in defence of the realm, but in defence of the citizen. Lets face it these monopolies can slay us because we have no leverage. They have money and power and don’t mind pushing us about. Look at Ireland’s ministers turning down around 13 billion euros in compensation because they didn’t want to offend Apple. I’ll take it, if nobody else wants it.
Where insight becomes interference
One of the benefits of mass surveillance is it’s relatively cheap. as storing information moves towards zero all that data sits in silos ready to be unpicked by the next generation of pattern-recognition software. The more frightening prospect is the working class lost the propaganda war against the rich and to be poor is not only to be regarded as guilty until proven innocent, but more than this – expendable. Terrorist threats fuel a convenient backlash of if you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to be worried about.
How do you feel about data collection?
I use google. So they know everything about me. That’s the price I pay for being lazy and not using other software. Google (and I’m talking as if it’s one person) and most other companies gather information which they make money out of . Facebook, knows pretty much everything about me too. Amazon ditto. These are monopolies with vast leverage. They plan to run our roads and cars in the future and run healthcare companies. Increasingly, in the new digital age there’ll be literally nowhere to hide. The future is digital, but at the cost of widespread surveillance, which is already happening and dystopia.
Trends that will shape customer insights
Throughout this course you have read about how research and analysis via digital platforms, increasingly incorporating software with complex algorithms, is helping organisations to develop insights that provide them with competitive advantage. In 2012, marketers depended on data for only 11% of all customer related decisions (Spenner and Bird, 2012). However, as Shapiro (2015) suggests, the days of opinion, intuition or instinct are fast losing ground to predictive analytics based on real models of historical data.
To humanise data is quite simply advertisers being able to push a consumer’s emotional buttons. Fear is the stick they use. But with a bigger and better understanding of what will work carrot and stick can be combined to push and pull purchases. Consumers, us suckers, are the meat in the sandwich between big data, and oligarchy.
The challenge of trust in online selling: bitcoin
Bitcoin is an acceptable currency and the more acceptable it becomes the more like it is to be treated like coins of the realm and used for payment for goods and/or services. It seems to me a kind of Ponzi scheme, but like most stock market listings in which bubbles grow and grow I’m sure it will burst. The block chain arrangement of digital information is however something that could benefit more modern hardware.
Balancing the interests of sellers and buyers online: ad-blocking software
When I can be bothered I go through my facebook and twitter accounts and block ads. I try and block all ads, but it’s not realistic. I’m aware how google positions it’s paid for contact at the top of the screen. I’m also aware that the largely liberal newspapers whose heydays were the sixties where ad space was sold at a premium is now mince. Sky News is the loss making part that Disney does not want to purchase from Rupert Murdoch. News has become dictated by the interests of the rich and that saddens me. Ad-blocking software is a good thing. But the indirect costs are borne by a loss of people power and a reliance on monopoly companies to generate content at a price close to zero. Free is the bottom line. The top line is the cost is deffered and we’ll pay more later.
Setting the scene
Every organisation says it wants to understand its customers. Here, we look at what it means to go beyond this and get real, informed insight into customer wants, needs and habits.
Apple has enormous clout. The world’s most valuable company and a bigger budget than most countries to innovate with. But it’s that old Silicon Valley thing. You’re only as good as your last product. More of the same and its specs and watches were by their standards a flop. Targeting the right customer is, of course, the big thing. Win-win in terms of resources. While I believe that algorithms rule the world I’m not stupid enough to believe I’m the exception to that rule. But I find it interesting that no market research firm hit the right notes with Brexit, gains in the Labour Party or the seismic shock of the Trump presidency. You’ve got to ask the question, value for money? or shysters and looking at the entrails of chickens?
Understanding needs and behaviours
Sales and marketing information systems
Data is the new oil. The downside is the cost is often borne by a salesforce trying to push the latest widget, or extract information from a custom that needs to be translated into gobbedlygook for management targets.
Wider systems for customer management
The richest guy on the planet, Jeff Bezos, $106 billion, give or take a few million sure knows how to track sales, monitor what you buy and suggest other options and screw down on labour costs with digital tracking device that are Orwellian.
Your experience of capturing insight
It depends who you are. Another way of putting that is how big your organisation is. Google algorithms have such a vast database they they can confidently predict way way you will jump politically, sexually and sociology. Such networks, can, of course be gamed.
Approaches to gathering and assessing customer insight
Machine to machine learning is reality. Deep mind that smashed ‘go’ champions no longer relies on analytics of past performances but ‘plays’ itself. First principles, algorithms never die. In fields of health care doctors like pilots will be just along for the ride, their pay downgraded and status smashed. From cradle to grave for those with money to pay for it will be something completely different. We live in interesting times.
Customer insight delivered
In an ideal world there would be no cold callers and everything we want would arrive just in time. Data analytics does look at the websites we open up. Then google gets paid, but that doesn’t mean, as Kay suggests that we buy the product. People may read the blurb on my book, for example, that doesn’t mean they’ll buy it. Advertising is there to nudge customers off that ledge of indecision and create demand. Algorithms and analytics are less of a blunderbuss weapon, but it still shoots wide and sprays the wrong people. I’ve not doubt autonomy will come in the future with the nudges becoming firm shoves.
Market research vs customer insight
I feel a bit of a fudge here. Pattern recognition software shows who is doing what when and anticipates the movement and jumps ahead. That’s standard for any computer. The more data. The more insight. That’s why Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are kings.
The value of co-creation
Ironically, couldn’t get the video to work, said I needed flashdrive. emm. I’m more up to date with this hackathon business. Silicon Valley nerds sleeping under their desks. Here’s a quotation from an old hardware book, from way back in 2000. So it applies to the 1990s. Po Bronson. Every 1000 business plans sent to venture capitalists, 6 are accepted. Of those 6 companies, 4 will go bankrupt. Only one will go public.
Venture capitalist say all the time ‘good ideas come from referral.’
As a writer the odds are even worse.
Incorporating co-creation into your brand
Interesting. reminds me of the Japanese way of working in the 70s and 80s. Helping the company build value. Nice idea. Big concepts like transparency interest me. But it seems to me the same old faces claim innovation and leadership and put themselves first in line for rewards.
Sustaining marketing research with digital insight
Big data, getting the picture you can use. I liked the stories here. I think Lego after its great comeback success has rebounded. And digital doesn’t have an instinct. Only humans have an instinct. Although we might be wrong there too, with the success of Deep Mind in challenges with ‘go’ and ‘Jeopardy’. Perhaps the real worry is most of us are an open book waiting to be read.
Setting the scene
Location, location, location. A familiar refrain. Servants like Siri who are already in our homes will anticipate our needs before we know what we want. The power behind the throne is the ability to manipulate not cognitive intelligence, but emotional intelligence. What we think we need is not as powerful a driver as what we feel we need. For decades advertisers have sold us fear. I fear it will be a smoother ride now, with option a looking very much like option b.
Personalisation in digital marketing
Two-thirds of businesses do not have digital networks. Depends, of course, what is meant be business. My local boozer, for example, like so many other pubs is dying. Getting a digital service here is just a waste of cash. but if you look at Wetherspoons with prime city centre locations, sometimes the pub is so busy it’s quicker ordering a round of drinks and food with an app -click and collect – even though you’re in the pub. Money as a means of exchange will become largely redundant -as in Sweden- even for such small monetary exchanges and my old boozer, well, it will go to the wall. Not because of the digital revolution, but because people don’t drink as much and if they do they tend to drink at home, where it’s cheaper
The impact of interactivity
What a great read. Amazon has the richest man in the world as its head. And pay the least taxes per income per customer head. Even our glorious Queen Elizabeth, who is largely tax exempt and prone to the odd £200 million windfall from the taxpayer to renovate her old palaces shakes her head and calls them greedy tax dodging bastards. But here’s the hump. Like Waterstones, I work for Amazon. Not directly, not like one of those worker drones employed in their out-of-town warehouses whose every movement is regulated and filmed like a porn star, but indirectly. I’ve an author’s page. It lies dormant, mostly. But like any good consigliere Amazon knows its cut will be there or I’ll be cut.
Your online experience and behaviour
Amazon gets almost all my business when buying books. Convenience and cost (they are cheaper and less hassle than other online retailers). I sometimes use Guardian Unlimited for books, but in those two factors they are not as good, but I like their ethical stance more. I also use West Dunbartonshire’s library service, checking my books online, and more often it’s click and collect.
Selling, usually, small stuff, like a computer screen on a local site, but this is done through Facebook. Gumtree is a backup.
I use a Google browser. I know they track my data, as does these other sites, but like many other (suckers) I weigh the cost with the benefits and they come out tops.
I blog on WordPress.com and ABCtales, both free sites. The former generates income by adding ads to user content, while the latter doesn’t.
How user feedback sustains e-commerce
That’s a great chart. humans are visual animals. we like what we see and we want it-now. Amazon is great for feeding that needs. I’ve a stack of books waiting to be read. Click and collect saved Argo. And Amazon are testing pop-up shops. But really, the high street is dead. Little drones will become big drones and direct delivery will happen soon (although soon is an elastic concept). Ironically, universities that are expanding there hardware, or in old fashioned parlance, building and expanding into more real estate like Glasgow, are in the right game, but for the wrong reasons. Just the same as General Motors made more money from finance than it did from selling cars, universities will make more from real estate than teaching. I’m online now, learning. No need to go anywhere. The old Open University model is the future. The future is now.
Amazon’s business models: a case study
As an e-commerce exemplar it’s difficult to ignore Amazon. It was launched in 1995, primarily to sell physical books online, but developed a $5 billion sales base in just eight years (Chaffey, 2014), and by 2015 had around 304 million active customer accounts worldwide (Statista, 2016a).
Maps on mobile, hitting a moving target
Interesting. I get lost in a sandpit, so any help is always welcome. Books are my love. Yep. prefer hard copy. Mostly buy from Amazon. The cheapest and most convenient. Amazon would love it’s readers to go wholly digital. The reproductive costs of producing 1 digital copy and reproducing it is negligible. Sending it to your device is negligible. Profit margins are increased. Digital is good for the pedant who is looking for that word or character and can’t quite remember where it was in the book. One click and you’re there. But, of course, Amazon et al track your every click. Click bait. They want you to buy more. And they easily work out your position better than any OS map. The future of such devices is alluded to here. Three D, or 4 D or whatever version is most compatible with whatever reality we live in. Babies born now will be the most tracked on earth.
From mobile to wearable – Apple Watch
A perceived demand. The interesting thing for me was he had to develop a prototype to test his hypothesis, which is a bit like me having to write a novel to see if it’s a novel, which is fair enough. The real bummer is having to sell it too. The user had to market (his idea) and sell it.
The growth of mobile and contactless payment
Contactless payment such as swipe and go are great for the moneyed but not so great for the unmoneyed. Those with the least are the most discriminated against.
Africa’s digital economy
I guess Sarah Palin who once thought Africa was a country might not understand that is the world’s youngest and therefore I’d guess most vibrant continent.
How mobile supports Kenya’s economy
Digital is the future and old-fashioned money as a means of exchange between consumers will, very shortly, be as old fashioned as using horses for transport.
A final example of effective personalisation
By the simple act of encouraging consumers to put a name on the packaging and share the product (in real-life and digital terms) they offered a new, innovative level of personalisation.
Setting the scene
Move fast and break things enriches the already wealthy. The Schumpeterian idea is our future for better or worse. Children born now will be the most tracked in history. In some novels only the wealthy can eradicate their digital footprint. Paradoxically, not to be known, is to be somebody. The security risk of tracking devices in our home was touched on here. It’s not just phones, but our fridges, washing machines, kettles, cups. The danger of these being hacked increases exponentially. My guess is the future will be better for many, but us poor people, the largely disenfranchised, will be more easily monitored and controlled How ironic that an old blog post from a Tory MP calling for sterilization of the poor should crop up now.
Key trends in online activity
Explaining data-flow trends
Your experience of global data flows
Manyika et al. (2016a) suggest that data flows primarily enable the movement of goods, finance, services and people.
I’ve not got an organisation. As a writer I’m a sole trader. Dependent on the trade whims of organisations like publishing, which are dominated by the Amazon algorithm. Amazon are what global capital is about. They hold profit in offshore havens. They pay negligible amounts of tax. They piggyback on economies while reaping vast rewards. Yet, I indirectly, work for them. They determine how much my labour is worth. The starting price for writing, as content, is zero, and doesn’t rise much above it for most writers. Amazon are great service providers. This translates how they deal nationally and internationally and provide products at rock-bottom prices. Hidden costs are exported to tax payers and suckers without leverage.
How big might data services get?
Graphs are good, but part of the mystique of big data. zetabytes? how much is that? I could google it, but it really makes not a great deal of difference. These numbers seem to have no reality in my life, yet in the internet of things it will be the oil of finance and decision making. Companies will know more about individuals than ever before and not just their credit history, but their likes and dislikes. Advertising is about selling fear -for example of missing out on a great offer – and I’m sure we’ll be manipulated, but massaged and made to feel good about being stupid. It’s happening now. I’m pretty dumb and even I know that.
Marketing and marketing research challenges
There’s a disjuncture between people, for example, who click on a book and those that buy a book. Amazon is good at this. And they can monitor afterwards what the reader is reading. Most books downloaded to Kindle, for example, remain unread.
Towards more insightful marketing
In an article from 2016, Rosie Hawkins (Global Director of Client Solutions at TNS) highlights five key focus areas for marketers in a rapidly changing digital landscape:
For some organisations – and in particular for their public face or brand – more work is arguably needed in order for their marketing to remain appropriate and relevant to customers.
Personalisation is a buzz word. Selling is old as the devil selling Eve an apple. Buy now. Pay later. Digital means using data to highlight which way you might jump. It saves money and time if the devil know you’re going to snack on that apple anyway and he can concentrate on somebody else waiting for paradise.
Regulating the digital market place
I believe in government, not just in defence of the realm, but in defence of the citizen. Lets face it these monopolies can slay us because we have no leverage. They have money and power and don’t mind pushing us about. Look at Ireland’s ministers turning down around 13 billion euros in compensation because they didn’t want to offend Apple. I’ll take it, if nobody else wants it.
Where insight becomes interference
One of the benefits of mass surveillance is it’s relatively cheap. as storing information moves towards zero all that data sits in silos ready to be unpicked by the next generation of pattern-recognition software. The more frightening prospect is the working class lost the propaganda war against the rich and to be poor is not only to be regarded as guilty until proven innocent, but more than this – expendable. Terrorist threats fuel a convenient backlash of if you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to be worried about.
How do you feel about data collection?
I use google. So they know everything about me. That’s the price I pay for being lazy and not using other software. Google (and I’m talking as if it’s one person) and most other companies gather information which they make money out of . Facebook, knows pretty much everything about me too. Amazon ditto. These are monopolies with vast leverage. They plan to run our roads and cars in the future and run healthcare companies. Increasingly, in the new digital age there’ll be literally nowhere to hide. The future is digital, but at the cost of widespread surveillance, which is already happening and dystopia.
Trends that will shape customer insights
In 2012, marketers depended on data for only 11% of all customer related decisions (Spenner and Bird, 2012). However, as Shapiro (2015) suggests, the days of opinion, intuition or instinct are fast losing ground to predictive analytics based on real models of historical data.
To humanise data is quite simply advertisers being able to push a consumer’s emotional buttons. Fear is the stick they use. But with a bigger and better understanding of what will work carrot and stick can be combined to push and pull purchases. Consumers, us suckers, are the meat in the sandwich between big data, and oligarchy.
The challenge of trust in online selling: bitcoin
Bbitcoin is an acceptable currency and the more acceptable it becomes the more like it is to be treated like coins of the realm and used for payment for goods and/or services. It seems to me a kind of Ponzi scheme, but like most stock market listings in which bubbles grow and grow I’m sure it will burst. The block chain arrangement of digital information is however something that could benefit more modern hardware.
Balancing the interests of sellers and buyers online: ad-blocking software
When I can be bothered I go through my facebook and twitter accounts and block ads. I try and block all ads, but it’s not realistic. I’m aware how google positions it’s paid for contact at the top of the screen. I’m also aware that the largely liberal newspapers whose heydays were the sixties where ad space was sold at a premium is now mince. Sky News is the loss making part that Disney does not want to purchase from Rupert Murdoch. News has become dictated by the interests of the rich and that saddens me. Ad-blocking software is a good thing. But the indirect costs are borne by a loss of people power and a reliance on monopoly companies to generate content at a price close to zero. Free is the bottom line. The top line is the cost is deffered and we’ll pay more later.