The Trouble With Stuff

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

During the recent hurricane Irma, a number of Tesla owners stuck in the traffic fleeing the path of the storm were delivered a software update by Tesla which upgraded their cars and extended the battery life and therefore range of their cars. Once the storm had blown over, another update removed the additional capacity and reduced their cars back down to the performance level they had paid for.

In fact, their cars were always capable of the extended range but they had chosen not to buy the full 75kw battery option. Few could have been aware that in fact their cars had the full battery installed, but that it had been effectively downgraded in software. Their cars were always capable of the extended range.

It all caused quite a bit of controversy, as you might imagine. But it's just an extension of a whole range of issues which are linked to the concept that you buy hardware but license software and that when you buy into any ecosystem, your rights are effectively limited. You might own that iPhone, bub, but you don't own the software or any of the content it stores and gives you access to. This is also true of your Kindle and your Apple TV or other box with your Netflix subscription.

We don't buy CD racks anymore and many of us don't have upgrade plans for those bookshelves. Content is digital, always-on and an Alexa command away. The ownership of content has changed forever. Of course, you never owned that book or music, you merely owned a physical medium containing the text or recording. The rights to the content subsisted with the author and publisher. But you could leave a book to your kid - you can't leave your Amazon account.

Worse, your iPhone, Kindle, Echo or Tesla is enabled by software which you only enjoy a grant of limited right to access. Amazon et al can simply turn your super-duper gizmo into a brick of e-waste at the blink of an eye.

Tesla extending that model to cars is sort of interesting. Next step is your house. An integrated home automation suite provided by the developer sounds really cool until you find out that if you break the terms of your licence (install the wrong type of shrub in your garden, say, if you've bought a Shiny) your kitchen will stop working.

Volvo has started down that road in a sort of legacy manufacturer trying to be hip with the kids kind of way with the announcement of a sort of extended leasing package called Care by Volvo.  You can bet other manufacturers are going to start exploring the delights of software/hardware industry models for disempowering consumers and disintermediating insurance companies and others who currently profit from the lack of a car 'ecosystem'. In this, Tesla is Apple.

Forget the threat of AIs and the like to our technological futures - here comes the spectre of the elife (and I don't mean Etisalat's crappy FTTH package) - your existence will be dominated by your parents' choice of life ecosystem for you and your world will be under license to The Man.

You mark my words...

The Great Emirates Laptop Ban

Abu Nidal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is notable that the UK, in slavishly following the 'security advice' of close ally the USA, has not included the UAE and Qatar in its version of the great laptop ban. It takes no great stretch of the imagination or cognitive leap to infer that this ban has a commercial implication, working as it does directly to the detriment of the three global airlines operating a 'feeder flight' model out of the UAE and Qatar.

The biggest threat to the three is a loss of business class travellers, probably the only people who will lose out significantly. While it's great for parents to provide kids with tablets to keep them entertained (those of us without children clearly think this is just bad parenting, but that's quite another kettle of marmosets), Emirates' much-lauded ICE entertainment system offers films, music, games across literally thousands of channels. The big hit comes when you lose that precious work time.

The solution appears to me to be blindingly simple - and if EK moves fast enough, they could get in a massive media hit out of this one. Buy in 100 Chromebooks, 600 Lenovo Ultrabooks and 300 Macbook Airs. Load them with MS Office. Provide them on loan to business class passengers (they could be booked at time of flight booking or even online check-in) who can bring a USB memory stick (or, if they forget, be offered a complimentary little red Emirates one) to bring/save their work on. To be honest, most these days work with online resources anyway, so could log in using any machine. The machines would be cleaned (both hygenically and data-wise) after each use. The IT stuff could be handled by EK subsidiary Mercator, already (quietly) one of the world's great software and services players.

Catch the current news cycle and you've got the solution in seconds. It might not fit everyone's needs, but it'll comfort many - and I think catch the public imagination, too. In the face of a mean-spirited and dubious use of security as protectionism, EK could show it's the customer who comes first and they're willing  - as always - to go the extra mile.

The ban is, of course, quite loopy. For a start, UAE security and civil defence is way better than US security. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are major international hubs and trusted by tens of millions of passengers each year. Their security procedures and capabilities are best practice. And there's nothing to stop a terrorist flying a bomb from Paris or St Petersburg - the idea that only Arab airports could be the source of a threat is as risible as Trump's Muslim ban. Which targets, it should be noted, different nations to the laptop ban.

Not that I, for one, am in any rush to go to the US. I have stamps in my passport showing a lifetime's travel around the Middle East and no desire whatsoever to stand there having some jerk in a uniform shouting at me and asking to look at the contents of my laptop.

This whole thing about making us dance around airports in our socks and ditching Masafi bottles because they could be bombs (presumably the water bomb is these days considered a credible threat) has long rendered me sore amazed. The IRA's last bomb on the UK mainland weighed a metric tonne, was packed in a lorry and blew out the heart of Manchester, doing £1 billion of damage. The concerted and sustained terrorist campaign waged by the IRA against the might and weight of the UK's civil defence and military over thirty years compares rather oddly to the threat posed by a bunch of bloodthirsty yahoos in Toyota pickups. It's what prompted me to write A Decent Bomber in the first place - that odd juxtaposition of the threat from today's water-bomb terrorism to the constant destruction wreaked in the skies by the IRA, PLO, Abu Nidal, the Red Brigade et al.

We have never been so constrained by, or constantly reminded of, the threat of 'terrorism' as we are today. And the credible threats have never been so slight - particularly when set against the efficiency of modern security apparatus. You might argue that we're safe precisely because that apparatus has stopped us bringing water bottles or unscanned heels onto flights, but in travelling outside the UK I have noticed nobody else out there is really bothering that much. And it'll be interesting to see if the rest of the world believes in the credible threat of a weaponised Kindle being stored in the hold rather than being used to read on a flight...

UAE Petrol Retailers Are Breaking The Law It Seems

(Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)

A report in today's Gulf News quotes Omar Bu Shahab, CEO of the Commercial Compliance and Consumer Protection Division (CCCP) in the Department of Economic Development in Dubai as saying that charging 2% fees on credit and debit card transactions is a violation of consumer protection law.

While he was commenting on an attempt by a GEMS school to levy a 2% processing fee on credit and debit card transactions, his clarification also applies to Emarat and EPPCO/ENOC service stations, which charge the fee on credit card transactions for fuel. This surcharge appears to have been the resolution of a spat between the credit card companies and the fuel distributors dating back to 2007 - and the early days of this here very blog. The story from way back then is suitably linked 'ere. Basically, the retailers (not ADNOC, you'll note) have always charged extra for credit card purchases, in violation of the card issuers' agreements and when the card companies kicked off, the retailers just stopped taking credit cards. They've recently started again, but with a Dhs2 'service fee' on any transaction for fuel up to Dhs100. In short, 2%...

“Retailers who are charging extra fees on the credit card or debt card payments are violating the consumer protection law and will be subject to penalties,” Mr Bu Shahab told the newspaper that tells it like it is.*

So it'll be interesting to hear what the petrol companies say when the media come calling, won't it?

*Well, sometimes.

Phished or Hacked?

Image via WikipediaIt's yet another very odd story coming out of Dubai Courts and I'm not sure whether that's because Dubai Courts are an odd place or because the journalism itself is odd. Gulf News reports today on a woman whose account was "hacked by a phishing syndicate". The story's here.

It's a very confusing story indeed - her account is variously described as having been hacked into and she as having been victimised by a phishing syndicate. Well, being hacked is one thing, being phished is quite another - and the core of the story, surely, is whether one or the other situation applies. If she was phished, she willingly gave away her account details which then would have been used by a criminal to access her account - no hacking involved. If she was hacked, someone illegally accessed her account by manipulating the bank's security systems.

And where did a 'syndicate' come from?

The story also makes mention of a mobile notification service which didn't kick in until four days after the transactions, but not why the service didn't kick in. Are we saying that all banks now have to notify all clients of all transactions or face liability for any fraud howsoever caused?

The court brought in an expert, a banker. I wonder why it didn't bring an expert on security in to clear things up a little? The whole report left me with a great deal more questions than answers - and that's not what journalism is supposed to do, is it? It's supposed to give us 'context and analysis'...

Where's Ze Betrol?

Queues during the last 'fuel crisis' here in  2008, when ADNOC was selling fuel for 

Dhs10 a gallon less than Dubai's filling stations. Story here.

It was a funny weekend. After being turned away by EPPCO and ENOC stations, we finally joined the snaking queues at ADNOC and bustled our way through the jostling and aggressive throng of cars competing to get to the ranks of pumps.

'Why no petrol?' I asked the EPPCO guy.
'Government issue, maybe.' He grinned.

Gulf News ran a report on the situation the other day, but has obviously continued to receive nothing but the traditional filibustering, half-truths and downright dis-ingenuousness from spokespeople. For instance, this little classic from ENOC, reproduced by Gulf News:

"Enoc is managing its fuel supplies to meet the current demand. This involves a two-pronged approach of regulating the distribution of fuel through our network, as well as upgrading selected stations."

Luckily, GN has got hold of some third party analysts who confirm that the issue is actually that of subsidies, with petrol distributors in the country losing money for every litre they sell. This has led to problems underwriting the ongoing loss and so we find ourselves in the odd position of living in an oil-producing nation where the petrol pumps have run dry. The assertion is one made by commenters to this here post on the issue back in April - we must have reached some sort of crisis point last week.

You'd think ADNOC would be pleased at the increased business, but looking at the economics, they're just losing more money faster than anyone else.

I can feel a petrol price hike coming up. Now, given I fill my Pajero for a sum of Dirhams that fills a small hire car in the UK in pounds (we pay per gallon what you pay per litre, people), you'd be forgiven for whipping out the world's smallest violin and playing us all a lament. But an increase in fuel would have a huge knock-on effect on things like food prices here.

Even Pepsi and Coke have put up their prices recently. Grief.

Sticker Scratcher

Image by touring_fishman via FlickrQuite properly, the UAE insists that products sold to consumers here are labelled in Arabic - the national language. However, once again, there is trouble in paradise. The Arabic labelling requirements are minimal – the product name, brand name, ingredients and product weight are all that appear to be mandated by the announcement made back in 2008 (which I posted about at the time). Although retailers whinged, the regulation is pretty light compared to elsewhere in the world and, I would argue, does little to help raising awareness among Arabic speaking consumers regarding the food they eat and what's in it.

Another requirement of that regulation is that the affixed Arabic label should NOT cover any of the original language text.

This stipulation is patently not being adhered to – retailers and distributors are constantly handling goods where the Arabic language label does indeed cover part of the original language text. Which is why I found myself the highly unwilling purchaser last night of a pot of Hampshire Sour Cream that did not come, as I had stupidly assumed, from the English county of Hampshire but was, in fact, a brand of American food conglomerate Kraft. The country of origin was covered by the Arabic sticker. I was mildly annoyed, as I consciously avoid using foods from US producers.

This got me going. Fossicking through the kitchen cupboard I found product after product where the Arabic sticker covered crucial information on the original product labels. I also found some products with no Arabic sticker at all – and a few, very few, where the sticker did not impact the original product information.

It’s a rich hodge-podge, a basic regulation that I would argue does not properly serve the Arabic speaking population with full food information and that has been implemented at best sloppily (and somewhat grudgingly, apparently, if you read my 2008 post linked above!) by the companies being asked to conform to a food safety and information requirement. It’s odd, when we can see legislation rolled out here that is no less than draconian, when this piece of regulation – affecting us all – remains implemented so very sloppily and to such a basic standard. It's been two years since the regulation came into force. It's not as if retailers need time to comply.

The reason, I would remind you, that we have such a thriving IT industry in Dubai is that it was here, uniquely, that IP legislation was not only enforced, but enforced on such a scale, with computers confiscated from offending companies and hauled away in flat back trucks, that companies like Microsoft felt able to come here and open up shop. Remember the ruling that walking on the grassy reservations or roundabouts would result in deportation? When Dubai really wants to enforce legislation, by golly it goes for it. But for some reason this one is being half-heartedly applied. So expats and the bi-lingual lose access to product information that bodies like the EU have decided we should really have a right to view. And Arabic-only speakers don’t get access to anything beyond the most basic information – information that wouldn’t satisfy any well-informed consumer let alone EU or US regulations.

The requirements and enforcement of the UAE food labelling regulation as it stands serves us all badly.

Pumped

Image via Wikipedia

The rise in petrol prices that came into force at midnight last night means that my Pajero now costs Dhs100 to fill up. Two years ago, it cost Dhs70.

Given the fact that we still pay roughly per gallon what the UK consumer pays per litre, I can tell that any outbreak of sympathy for those affected is going to be very localised and immeasurably brief. But the move meant that the queue at my local ADNOC station last night backed up into the street, the usual amount of chaos and mayhem resulting.

Having lived through the days of petrol rationing in the UK during the 1970s, I was struck by the irony of queues in the 'Arab Street' as people tried to fill up with cheap petrol before the rise came into force. I can remember as a kid when petrol prices shot up to, gasp, over a pound per gallon. My dad used to drive around for miles trying to find cheaper petrol from garages that were still supplying at the old price. I'd point out to him that he'd burn any savings in the petrol he was using to try and find the lower prices.


I'm going on leave soon. One of my small and wicked little pleasures when going on leave is to strike up conversations with London cabbies about the price of petrol in the UAE. They really don't like it. This time I've got the ideal excuse, too: I can complain about the huge price rises and wait for them to sympathetically ask how much I have to pay for petrol before I tell them that we're getting gouged for something like 30p per litre.

It's an ill wind that blows no good...

FNC Committee Slams TRA, Telcos Bigtime

Image by bbcworldservice via Flickr

We pay 85% more than Turkey, 85.5% more than Ireland and 83.1% more than Sweden for our broadband. This should come as no surprise (consider that the Japanese pay $0.27 per megabit per month for broadband and these other figures look positively benign). What is, perhaps, a surprise is that the news comes to us via Emirates Business 24x7.

A special committee reporting to the UAE Federal National Council has found that prices of telecommunications services are higher than those in several Arab and European nations refuting, according to Emirates Business 24x7, “The common perception that telecom charges in the UAE are low...”

Refuting a common perception among the mentally deranged, perhaps chaps, but I think you’ll find that the rest of us know perfectly well that we’re being gouged on an intergalactic scale by a cosy duopoly buoyed by a compliant regulator.

The EmBiz story reports that telecom prices across the OECD are, on average, 66% lower than in the UAE. The picture’s even more depressing when you look at the prices business users are paying for broadband – 91.1% more than Morocco, 83% more than Ireland and so on. In fact, prices in Europe are, on average, 95.1% lower for broadband connectivity.

The committee has concluded, in telling words, that “...in the past three years there has been no benefit from competition for consumers.”

In fact, the report hands out a pretty comprehensive drubbing to the TRA, pointing to the effective monopolies that the two telcos have established over certain areas, the lack of subscriber focus in regulation and generally accused the TRA of “failure”.

It’s a no-brainer that low-cost, high speed, highly available broadband is a critical element in supporting economic development in the Internet age. Jordan reacted to that need, expressed at the Dead Sea Forum in 1999 with the privatisation of Jordan Telecom, a move that started the country’s march towards being the region’s most competitive telecom market and where significant economic value is being generated by a dynamic and burgeoning Web-based technology industry. Egypt has seen blisteringly fast adoption of broadband and, once again, is seeing significant and growing economic value being generated through its online capabilities.

The UAE, once the leading telecom market in the Arab World (and actually pretty far ahead of the rest of the world at one stage – the UAE was 100% fibre-optic before the UK, for instance) is fast dropping behind. We’re paying too much for broadband at both the domestic and business level and it’s hampering adoption and innovation. We’re seeing an increasing number of Internet-based innovations (including, but by no means limited to, VoIP) being used as a business advantage elsewhere while our operators continue to cling to circuit-switched pricing models at the expense of their customers' business competitiveness.

Low-cost, high speed Internet access could, and should, be a major advantage being offered to businesses wishing to set up in the UAE to serve regional markets. And it's not - it's actually a major disadvantage. A trading economy, the UAE’s businesspeople can’t even use mobile data services when they’re travelling overseas because roaming data tariffs are insanely high. And those mobile services are going to become increasingly key to us all.

It’s good that the FNC committee has highlighted the massive discrepancies in value, despite the operators’ claims that they’re price competitive and great that its work has resulted in a resounding wake-up call for the regulator to be more subscriber focused.

Will anything change as a result? I remain, as always, optimistic...

(Interestingly, the committee found that 6,629 complaints had been logged about Etisalat’s mobile service quality, against a whopping 57,062 complaints about Du’s mobile service quality – a number made even more impressive by Du’s lower subscriber base.)

Official. I Sympathise With Gulf News

Image via Wikipedia

In reporting the recent 'incident' at Dubai's Burj Khalifa today, Gulf News appears to have gone as far as it felt it could. In the face of unhelpful and possibly even mendacious statements made on behalf of the tower's developer and management company, Emaar, the newspaper has managed to collate a number of eyewitness reports of something having taken place that went way beyond the 'routine maintenance' that we are being expected to believe has closed the observation deck on the tower.

The official statement, quoted by Gulf News is: "Due to unexpected high traffic, the observation deck experience at the Burj Khalifa, At the Top, has been temporarily closed for maintenance and upgrade. Technical issues with the power supply are being worked on by the main and sub-contractors and the public will be informed upon completion."

Gulf News reports eyewitnesses as hearing a 'really loud noise and what looked like smoke or dust coming out from one of the elevator doors' and paramedics being called to the scene. That's hardly the stuff of 'maintenance and upgrade' is it?

Once again, I suspect we are about to see an attempt at obfuscation result in widespread media coverage - the eyewitness reports are stacking up and now social media interest is also perking up quite nicely. GN's story was enough to raise some very real question marks - and now people are going to start looking for answers. They're not going to have to look very far, either.

Social Media and Libel

Image by Felipe Bachomo via Flickr

I’ve talked quite a bit on the radio over the past few weeks about Internet libel. It’s an interesting area and one where I think we all are guilty of being perhaps not quite as careful as we should be - particularly on Twitter!

With the ruling by a UK high court judge that blogging is essentially ‘an act carried out in public’, we not only lose the right to anonymity (not that I’ve ever done any of this stuff anonymously), but also have a precedent that social media interactions are ‘acts carried out in public’. That means we are open to charges of libel and defamation where we make assertions regarding people and also companies over social media platforms. There are already cases lodged as a result of material posted on MySpace, FaceBook and Twitter in both the US and UK. Having said that, the world's legal systems are still struggling with the whole issue - so nothing is clear.

Which means that, fine, today’s consumer has a megaphone – but today’s consumer has also to be aware that they may be held answerable for their use of a medium that has the reach (and, let’s face it, potentially way beyond the reach) of a national daily newspaper.

Similarly, any company threatening suit against people for something they have said online has to think long and hard about the consequences to the company’s reputation in the long run. While we are now seeing an increasing number of precedents being established by litigation, they are by no means concrete and supported by a body of established law – certainly not in the US and UK, let alone somewhere like here in the UAE. And companies 'picking' on bloggers, FaceBook users and other social media users are risking disastrous loss of credibility and respect from consumers - who are enjoying the new found freedoms, increased information flow and empowerment that using the Internet is bringing them.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that the removal or alteration of offensive material is often all that is required to mitigate any serious threat of legal action. So online commentary is particularly hard to legislate for in laws that depend on the presence of immutable, physical, media.

In other words, we need to perhaps take a little more care, but companies with brands to protect need to cut consumers a hell of a lot of slack and, by the way, the answer for companies feeling wronged by consumers is dialogue, not 'cease and desist'.

Bank

You’ve issued me with a new Visa card. Can I ask why? The old one doesn’t expire for two years.
You asked for it.

I didn’t.
It’s the new black card.

So’s the old one.
It’s because your wife’s card was taken by the ATM.

No it’s not. Her card’s been replaced, you agreed not to replace mine. And that was months ago.
Pause. It’s a process.

It’s a what?
A process. By the system. It’s the system.

The system?
Yes. That’s it. The System.

Is this because of the security issues you've been having?
No. No. Not possible. I don't know. Yes, it's not. I have to get someone to call you back. Overload. Overload. My mind is going. Dave? Dave? I don't believe you wanted to do that Daaave....

I followed the complaints procedure and faxed a complaint form to my bank after Dubai’s RTA took Dhs750 from me in error and refused to refund it. Over three months later, the bank hasn’t responded.

Almost a month ago, the same bank failed to make a transfer to the UK in good order. The consequence was a botched transfer and an exchange loss, charged for me for some reason, of some Dhs 1200.

Two weeks ago I was suddenly issued with a new visa card, although my old one hadn’t expired. It has a new security number. Concerned, as they have messed up standing payments on the card before and we have, after all, just been asked to change all our PINs because of a security issue, I called the bank to ask them to confirm why they had issued a new card. The conversation above (only the last line is makety-uppity, BTW), is just one of many that ended with me insisting that someone, anyone who could take responsibility and tell me why I had a new card that I didn’t want or need, call me back.

Silence.

For a month I have been leaving messages on the answering machine of my ‘Status’ account manager. For a month I have been leaving urgent messages with the call centre to have someone, anyone call me back to discuss the above. They won’t give me any other telephone number for the bank.

This Saturday I am going to go to HSBC in Bur Dubai in person. Expect to hear about the consequences in Gulf News and other leading daily newspapers. I'll be 'British expatriate A.M.' in case you want to be sure it's me. I’d appreciate if you could all start some sort of ‘Free McNabb’ campaign as soon as the stories break. Thanks.

*Update. We blew this Saturday, so it'll have to be next. The best laid plans of mice and men...

Gumpf

Well, General Motors certainly don't think much about the treatment they've been getting at the hands of bloggers.

According to a report in the Financial Times, carried today by Gulf News, GM's spokesman Tom Wilkinson reckons, "We've found that the travails of the auto industry have spread beyond the business pages to the general media. Bloggers and others tend to pick up misinformation and recycle it endlessly."

So here, perhaps, is an example of a company that didn't just sit back and sulk when it doesn't like what's happening out there in the Internet. It got off its bum and did something about it. GM's GMfactsandfiction.com website not only directly addresses hard questions, it even asks readers to submit rumours!

"If you’ve read or heard something about GM we’d love to know about it so that we can have an opportunity to address it."

It's certainly an agressive and targeted outreach effort that pulled major global media hits when it was announced on the 5th September. The editor of GMFactsandfiction.com is, incidentally, one Tom Wilkinson!

If you Google General Motors Blogs, you'll find that at least the first three pages of results are utterly dominated by GM's own blogs: a nice effort at SEO domination, for sure. A quick search of other coverage shows much of it is 'on message', too. Top marks for GM?

Well, let's not be so quick to go clapping backs.

It's actually quite hard to find the 'negatives' that GM has reacted so strongly to. So at first glance, we've got an impressive piece of PR work that got GM's story out there and shouted down the critical voices quite neatly, apparently addressing their assertions and restoring 'balance' to the debate. But it's done so with such efficiency that there's no debate at all to speak of...

And the GMF&F site doesn't allow people to post comments. So it's not really dialogue: it's just big-budget shout it from the rooftops assertion. And the trouble with that kind of assertion is that you can't really take a realistic tone and address the debate as a participant - you're just blaring your viewpoint and not listening to others. And that's not polite conversation.

There's this blog, for instance, which accuses GMF&F of 'cherry picking' and then goes on to take a sharp cutlass to the site. And, in fact, there is an increasing volume of comment on blogs of a similar nature, although the tone of response is generally cautious and wary rather than condemnatory.

As one forum comment put it: "I looked at that website. It's sad when a formerly proud American corporation resorts to peddling half truths like that on a website. No solid facts are provided about their dire financial situation and yet GM has the arrogance to try and dupe the public into believing they aren't receiving a government handout. Sad, sad, sad."

Perhaps interestingly, the day before the outreach on facts and fiction started, GM apparently recalled almost a million vehicles due to a fire hazard... the recall is also carried on the US NHTSA database under NHTSA Campaign Number 08V441000.

Although GM appears not to have issued a release on that... Almost a million fire hazards wouldn't be as important as 'addressing myths'.

Or am I just being too cynical again...

Blogs

VLPW
Very Long Post Warning

I’m sure there have been gigabytes written on this topic, but I somehow feel the need to add to the weighty wodge that’s clogging up the useful stuff (like this) flowing around the Internet.

What should you do if a blog slags off your company or makes snarky comments about your customer service? What are your rights and how can you fix the damage? Here’s a handy ten point guide for companies that feel themselves wronged by blogs. And it's FREE! It might even help the smattering of dorks that have tried to ‘right wrongs’ on this blog by posting inane comments from behind their corporate firewalls.

1. Think
Before you rush to make a dim-witted comment on the blog, think about it. What has the blogger said that you disagree with? Is it an opinion or a factual error? Can you back up your assertion that there is a fundamental error? Can you provide evidence that the opinion expressed is ill-founded or at odds with the majority of people? If you work with a PR or communications agency, get their counsel before you act.

2. Remember: it’s a conversation
If you’re being attacked by blogs, it may be worth taking a look at the situation they’re highlighting and seeing if the point is valid and addressable – and then addressing it before going online and saying so. If the attack is invalid, then it’s worth acknowledging the point that’s been made before making your, well-argued, counterpoint in a measured, respectful way. The more aggressive the blogger, the more a measured tone will position you as the reasonable and authoritative participant in the conversation. It’s literally just like a face to face conversation – and wagging fingers or shouting will just get people’s backs up – even if in response to someone who’s obviously infuriated. Think how you’d behave in a customer service situation. Well, bloggers are just customers with an audience.

3. Most blogs don’t matter
Before you go making a great big song and dance, consider doing absolutely nothing. Most blogs are read by an average 1.1 people – the 1 being the blogger. Is the blog well respected and well read? Will it influence opinion? Just because someone in the company has emailed a link to the blog around every member of the management team doesn’t mean that the blog is normally well read. And a few hundred visits to a marginal blog prompted by that email, by the way, will just let the blogger know that they’re onto something that gets them more readers. So they’ll likely do more of it, not less.

4. Blogs can matter very quickly
I’m going to be very Delphic now. In deciding to ignore a blog, do bear in mind that blogs can go from zero to hero in absolutely no time. A lot of today’s journalists spend a lot of time on blogs and the oddest things can result in a huge amount of interest. Take a look at this blog, a case study of how a blog can make a fundamental difference – and do note that this is case study from the Middle East. There have been instances of a blog post making national front page headlines within 48 hours in Europe and gaining over 2 million readers as a consequence. And then there are companies that have turned expressions of customer dissatisfaction made on blogs completely to their advantage. The success story is built around actually listening to what people are saying, not ignoring it.

5. Don’t hide your identity
Like the Ray Bans ad says: don’t hide. There may be an urge to post a positive, balancing comment on the blog under an anonymous handle or a pseudonym. Do be aware that most bloggers have access to tools that allow them to track back visitors to the blog. You make a comment on my blog? I know who you are. So if you work for a major daily newspaper or a telco and you don’t like what I’ve got to say, have the guts to say so under your own name. Because I’ll know anyway and just ‘out’ you for being a custard. And so will most other people who write blogs.

6. Find out who the blogger is
No, I don’t mean set the secret service on ‘em. I mean take the time to read some of the blog at least, look at past posts and comments and see if the blogger is authoritative or a loose cannon. There’s nothing more awful than watching some corporate flak try to make a fool out of a widely respected expert because they didn’t bother finding out who the blogger was – regardless of whether they blog under their own names or pseudonyms, bloggers have an ‘identity’ in the overall conversation. Take a look at the blogs that link to/are linked to out of the blog. Look at Technorati and find the blog’s rating. Perhaps do a google or two and find out how the blog ranks on search. Authority is about tone, resonance and reach.

7. Take some time out to understand blogs in general
Know what a troll is? Or a trackback link? Understand the importance of RSS and feed readers? Know what IMHO stands for? If not, find a younger member of your staff and get them to explain it all to you before you start blundering around crashing conversations. By the way, if you want to know what blogs are saying about your company, consider setting up a Google alert.

8. Don’t crash the conversation
Think of it all like you’d think about joining a real-life conversation. In posting to my blog, I’m putting something into the public domain that I think people will find interesting or that I just want to get off my chest. Usually both! It’s a bit like standing on a soap box. People are kind enough to drop by and listen to me – some have a chat with me at the end of the lecture. And I go to their lectures too – to listen and have a chat afterwards. It’s all pretty civilised most of the time. It’s relatively easy to join the conversation as long as you don’t crash in without having bothered to listen to the preceding debate. Again, just as in real life you wouldn’t rudely barge into a group and vent your opinion on a topic without taking the time to find out what the prevailing opinion and tone of debate was like. Well, not unless you want the group to all round on you and tell you to shove off, that is...

9. You can’t make it go away
Barring access to a blog from the corporate network because it has attacked your company will just ensure all your staff go home and take a look at what all the fuss is about. I worked with one company that did just that, in the face of our advice, and we watched in frustration as they embarked on a futile and highly visible witch-hunt that resulted in scoring 11,000 visits to a blog that wouldn’t have got 11 visits otherwise. For one reason or another, you have earned the attention of a blog. Depending on the situation, it’s likely that the best and most advisable course of action is to engage with that blog’s author and balance the POV with your own or even, gasp, act on the input.

10. Consider blogging as a tool
Don’t think of blogs as purely a dangerous manifestation of unfettered opinion and irresponsible ‘citizen journalism’. Blogs are so much more than that. They are a powerful medium of expression that is increasingly becoming an important barometer of public opinion and source of public voice. They are self-correcting in a way that conventional media aren't - people will correct a mistake on a blog faster than you can say 'nmkl pjkl ftmch'. And they're part of the revolution in social media that is changing the way people today communicate. They're not about to go away, in other words. By the way, this post is a very good case in self-correcting point!

You can actually use a blog as a highly effective platform for your company to engage with customers. Take some time out to have a look around and you’ll find that they’re actually a neat tool. You don’t have to have a million readers for a blog to matter, either. It’s better to have a few hundred people that want to interact with you than advertise to 100,000 that don’t. Remember, this is the era of the ‘long tail’. So think about joining ‘the conversation’. I think, after a while, you’ll be glad you did.

Pringles

WHAT'S IN A PRINGLE?

If you’ve been watching the Great Pringles Are Not Crisps controversy, you’d be forgiven for wondering what they are. What are Pringles 'crisps' actually made of? So here, thanks to a 43g pack of Cheesey Cheese Pringles and a few mildly obsessive minutes on the Internet, is a breakdown of what you’re eating when you, errr, 'pop and can't stop'...

Enjoy!



THE INGREDIENT LIST
Just think, every time you hold one of those tasty 'shaped snacks' in your fingers before popping it into your mouth, it's actually an artificially shaped experience consisting of:
Dehydrated potatoes, vegetable oil (contains one or more of the following: corn oil and/or palm oil), corn flour, wheat starch, maltodextrin, emulsifier: E471 (from palm oil), cheese powder* (non-animal enzymes), salt, rice flour, whey powder, dextrose, flavour enhancer: monosodium glutamate, vegetable oil (sunflower, palm, coconut), natural and nature-identical cheese flavour (composed of cheddar cheese and parmesan cheese out of non-animal enzymes), buttermilk powder, onion powder, sugar, dried cream, non-fat milk, sodium caseinate, whey powder concentrate, food acid: lactic acid, flavour enhancers: disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate, yeast extact.
*from cows milk

Energy per 100g: 534 kcal
Fat per 100g: 35g of which 10g saturates


THE SUMMARY
Just in case you didn't click on the link to the BBC story above, Pringles' "unnatural shape" and the fact that the potato content is less than 50% helped Justice Warren to decide that they're not crisps and therefore exempt the UK's 17.5% Value Added Tax.

You’re basically eating a mixture of dried potato and a variety of other processed food starches bound together with some strong fats and stabilisers, then flavoured with powerful artificial flavour enhancers, some processed dairy product extracts intended to create a slightly sour cheesy flavour and a splosh of sweeteners to help it all go down.

Yummy!


THE BREAKDOWNSo what are those delicious looking ingredients, listed in order of weight? Here's a breakdown of every lovingly processed one of them!
Dehydrated potatoes
Apparently, according to media reports, something like 40% of a Pringle is actually potato – and dehydrated potato at that.

Vegetable oil (contains one or more of the following: corn oil and/or palm oil)
Corn oil is just fine, a relatively cheap vegetable oil. Palm oil is cheaper and more insidious, packing a wicked load of saturated fat: see this article over at The Fat Expat for more.

Corn flour
Is what it says on the packet, a starch derived from dried corn. Usually GM corn.

Wheat starch
Another starch, this time derived from wheat.

Maltodextrin
Derived, usually in a process of acidic breakdown, from vegetable starch (typically rice, corn or potato). Apparently a recent trend towards using wheat starch is suspected as a causative in increased coeliac reactions in the US. It’s basically an artificial sweetener.

Emulsifier E471 (from palm oil)
No wonder they call it E471. The ‘E’ numbers are the European Union food additive numbering codes and you can usually reckon, when you see one of these little darlings, that the number is preferable to the actual name. E471, then, is Mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids (glyceryl monostearate, glyceryl distearate). We’re basically looking at a fat, chemically derived from palm oil, being used to combine otherwise difficult to combine substances (emulsification).

Cheese powder (non animal enzymes)
Basically, they haven’t used an animal rennet.

Salt
Sodium Chloride. Salt.

Rice flour
Yet another starch packing out that meagre piece of potato...

Whey powder
Whey is a by-product of cheese production and whey powder is used as a cheap sweetener as it’s rich in lactose – anything up to 75%.

Dextrose
A form of glucose, a sweetener.

Monosodium glutamate
MSG or E621: this is not generally considered to be a terribly good thing. MSG is an artificial flavour enhancer, widely used in Chinese cooking but used in highly processed foods to add ‘zing’ where flavour would otherwise be lacking. There is widespread anecdotal evidence of MSG side effects, including headaches, flushing, sweating, numbness, tingling or burning sensations, particularly in the mouth, chest pain and shortness of breath. However, it is still an additive approved for use in both the US and EU.

Vegetable oil (sunflower, palm, coconut)
Again, sunflower oil is a vegetable oil and is generally considered to be good for you in moderation. Both coconut oil and palm oil are very high in saturated fats and pretty much the same as eating pure animal fat in that respect. Both of the latter oils are more stable at room temperature, being semi-solid – particularly coconut oil.

Natural and nature-identical cheese flavour (composed of cheddar cheese and parmesan cheese out of non-animal enzymes)
Nature-identical flavours are artificially created flavourings, typically a compound of flavoids combined to match a breakdown of components created by spectrometric analysis.

Buttermilk powder
Literally the dried by-product of making butter, buttermilk is used as a flavouring, adding a slightly sour, tangy dairy taste.

Onion powder
Again, a flavouring

Dried cream
Is what is says.

Non-fat milk
Just that!

Sodium Caseinate (from cows)
Frequently used as an emulsifier and stabiliser

Whey powder concentrate
See whey powder above

Food acid: lactic acid
Both a preservative and a taste ingredient (it is used extensively in sour milk products).

Flavour enhancers: disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate
Disodium inosinate (C10H11N2Na2O8P to you) is commonly used alongside disodium guanylate, which results in disodium ribonucleotide or E635: a flavour enhancer that effectively potentiates MSG – ie: it makes the flavour ‘kick’ of the MSG greater. This lets manufacturers get more bang for their MSG buck.

Yeast extact.
Another, slightly more natural, flavour enhancer. Yeast extracts are made in a process that’s just like pouring salt on slugs: you add salt to a yeast suspension and the cells shrivel up and die. They are then heated and the unwanted cellulose strained off.

(I had a few angst moments about whether to post this here or over at The Fat Expat, the food blog to end all food blogs. I plumped for here, given that this is not really a recipe or a review, but something of a rant - and consumer protection is a FPS tag, not a TFE one.)

Microsoft Gets Spanked

I have always been something of a fan of Arab News' Molouk Ba-Isa. Unremittingly grumpy, difficult and highly opinionated, her weekly technology column often informs, interests and generally amuses me. I have worked with her many times over the years and have delivered many a faintly trembling executive into her tender care. I remember one being told, by way of an introduction: "I hope Alexander briefed you about how difficult I am."

Alexander is usually too amused to say much. I've always been a sucker for a misanthrope.

But this week's column is something of a car-crash experience. I don't want to look, but I'm drawn back to it time and time again. It should be required reading for anyone who wants to communicate with Middle East markets. It should be on every international technology PR person's training curriculum. It's linked here and it ain't pretty.

Microsoft doled out a lazy press release on the Xbox 360. Molouk doled out the punishment. To be fair, she could have been a lot worse. But it's worth bearing in mind that this is pretty heavy stuff for a media environment like Saudi Arabia, where it is still rare to encounter a critical tone.

What's interesting to me is that her obvious irritation has been triggered by a thoughtless communication. A little care and this wouldn't have happened at all...

Salik: Wading Through a Mountain of Forms

I was thinking about refusing to babble on about Salik, the Dubai congestion charge, any more simply because everyone's talking about it so much it's in danger of getting boring.

But then I have been giggling quietly to myself so much this morning, I had to share. As predicted in posts passim, Salik is turning out to be far too much fun to ignore.

When you apply for your tag (as I did on Sunday), you fill out a form with your name, address, mobile number and car registration. If the databases were smart, you'd be able simply to give your vehicle registration number and everything else would be pulled from the database. Which rather points to the fact that the registration database isn't linked to Salik. Which rather points to manual data entry of those forms. Which rather points to delays in getting accounts activated.

So I called the nice Salik people on 800 SALIK (800 72545) and asked why I hadn't yet received my SMS advising me that my account was activated, as advertised. And they said there was a data entry backlog and I should kick my heels for a further 2-3 days.

Today's Gulf News (Emirates Today, for some reason is suddenly silent about Salik) reports a four day delay from readers, with one unhappy chappie saying he applied over a week ago and still hasn't got his SMS.

Oh dear, oh dear. There are only three more shopping days to Salik day and I have only yet seen two cars on the roads wearing their Salik tags. Media reports are a little confusing, but it would appear that 200,000 tags have been distributed in total, with reports of sales of 80,000.

Now. Let us assume that each form can be data entered in an average of two minutes (including downtime, error checking & toilet breaks, I think that's more than reasonable). That would mean 333 forms could be processed by one operator in a working day. So 80,000 forms would entail 240 man-days of data entry. If you had a massive data entry operation with 50 people working on entry, you're looking at 6.6 days' work.

However, we've got 200,000 tags out there and, this being Dubai, most people haven't bought their tags yet. Let us assume, then, that the 80,000 already sold have been data entered (although mine hasn't!). From today, we have another 120,000 tag applications to enter. That's going to take our 50 data entry operators ten days. So they'll be entered around about the 12th July given that no more applications are received.

I am, of course, more than happy to be told my calculations are incorrect and do point out that this is all speculation, guess-work and conjecture. But that's what people do when they're not being told what's happening...

So someone, somewhere is likely sitting underneath a huge and growing pile of forms while retailers will be facing the prospect of a weekend of increasingly angry customers demanding their tags and the call centre's in danger of getting flooded and people whose accounts aren't activated are probably going to start triggering fines or just be too scared to go through the gates...

It's all kicking off rather nicely, isn't it? What larks, Pip!

Eat this, sucker!

One of a number of interesting changes to take place hereabouts is the new Consumer Protection Law. A major move for the UAE, which has always cried 'laissez faire' when anything that could be considered bad for business has been suggested, the law insists on things like labels that tell consumers what's in a product and where it comes from. This is, one would conjecture, Not A Bad Thing.

A smart retailer, presented with the fact of the matter, would perhaps roll with the punch - welcome the regulation and even promise to exceed the regulatory requirement in the interests of consumers.

Not so local expat supermarket Spinneys, whose CEO (Mr. Johanned Hotlzhausen) reacted to Gulf News with the begrudging comment: "It's going to cost me money."

Poor darling. Really. But at least he's got consumers' best interests at heart, as his final quote in the Gulf News report demonstrates: "...if it's a law then we will have to adhere to that."

So it's no surprise to find, this weekend, a packet of Lebanese Sausages being labelled in a more fulsome way than ever before. What's surprising is that a) it happened so quietly and b) what's in them.

Lebanese, or sujuk, sausages are traditionally made from beef, with garlic, pepper and spice, including sumak, which gives them a deep purple-red colour and spicy taste. Chili is sometimes added to make 'hot sausage'.

Not when you buy them from a certain supermarket... Ingredients, as per the new super-duper labelling scheme, below:

Fresh beef, vinegar, seasoning, food colour (sodium chloride, sunset yellow E110, Carmosine E122).

Carmosine is a literal - it's carmoisine. And like sunset yellow (E110), it's bloody evil stuff.

E110, Sunset Yellow, is a synthetic dye derived from coal tar (creosote to you and me) and typically used in heated processed foods. It has a horrific list of potential side effects, particularly for children and is, in fact, not recommended for consumption by children in the UK.

E122, Carmoisine, is also a deeply suspect coal tar colour - and also known to cause adverse reactions in up to 25% of all toddlers.

In the 1980s, in the UK, a huge fuss centered around the publication of a book called E for Additives which listed these types of processed food additive chemicals, their origins (Cochineal, a popular red food dye, is made from beetle wings - Brown FK, used to dye electrically smoked kippers, is also derived from creosote - and there's plenty more where they came from - like E110 and E122) and their potential side effects. The reaction of revolted consumers and concerned parents created a new sense of responsibility among food companies and saw natual colours, preservatives and flavourings being used instead.

Insidiously, these chemicals are creeping back into our diets. At least the new law obliges retailers to tell people what they're eating. If you want to keep an eye out for more of this kind of thing, a good reference site is here.