What's New in Marketing - Issue 41, September 2005
How much are you burning on Click Fraud?
How much
are you burning on Click Fraud? Recent reports suggest that if you are
using paid advertising in search engines, it could be a double-digit percentage
in some competitive market categories such as gambling, travel and financial
services, but much lower in others. So it's a question worth asking with
some companies spending hundreds of thousands or even millions on paid
listings in search engines.
In this review I will look at the different types of click fraud, who the potential perpetrators are, and how to assess whether it is happening to you using different measures and software tools. This article is not an introduction to Pay Per Click marketing. If you aren't familiar with the concepts and practice of Pay Per Click marketing, you may want to check this recent WNIM article: http://www.wnim.com/archive/issue3705/emarketing.htm.
Click fraud on Paid Search advertising is nothing new - it has always existed. When I describe the concept of Pay Per Click marketing to any marketer new to it, the light-bulb soon comes on: 'so I can get someone to click on my competitor ads and bankrupt them?' they ask!
The growth in click fraud was brought home to me recently in a session by Mike Grehan of Smart Interactive at the recent E-metrics Summit (summarised in the Net Imperative piece referenced at the end of this article).
Mike revealed that large-scale click fraud is now rife in many sectors beyond the casino sector to which I thought it was largely limited. It is difficult to say exactly how big this problem is, but in some sectors, it is thought that click fraud can account for over 10% of clicks. With paid search becoming more competitive, this volume will certainly affect profitability. Not to mention the sheer waste of paying for ad spend with absolutely no return.
What is click fraud?
Mike explained there are two main types of click fraud:
" Click fraud - this is simply where a third-party generates clicks
on a paid advertising link to drive up advertising costs with no intention
to conduct business. These clicks can occur on ads placed on the search
engine results page (search fake clicks) or ads placed on third party
sites by a search ad network (content or contextual ad clicks)
" Impression fraud - generating false search queries
This type of fraud can potentially occur on any of the main ad networks such as Google Adwords (www.google.com/adwords), Overture (www.overture.com) or Miva (www.miva.com) which are used to place paid search ads.
Fake clicks or impressions can be generated either through manual clicks on the links or automated clicks through illicit software tools that generate clicks fake appearing to originate from different IP addresses, so that they cannot be detected by the search ad networks which watch for repeated clicks from the same source.
Another alternative is to pay a virtual team of clickers to click - this can be worthwhile with ads generating value of several dollars to site owners with context sensitive ads on third party sites.
This idea has been around for a while now - read the Times of India article - India's secret army of online ad 'clickers': http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-654822,curpg-1.cms.
Know your enemy
So, who are the perpetrators of click fraud? They can include:
1. Direct competitors - this activity is typically manual and relatively
small scale for ethical reasons, or perhaps more likely fear of legal
recourse and reputational damage!
2. Affiliates - Affiliate marketing is the arrangement where owners of third-party sites gain commission for leads or sales gained on merchant sites by referring visitors to them. Affiliates tend to be sophisticated in search marketing and will, in some cases, use what ever it takes to compete with other affiliates or even with the brand sites which they promote. Affiliates are more likely to use automated click faking tools. Mike explained three common tactics for click fraud:
(a) Drive up advertising costs forcing you to increase your budget or drop out of competing on advertising
(b) Similarly, to deplete your budget and make the advertiser invisible for the rest of the day if they have set a maximum daily budget in Google Adwords, which is the typical practice
(c) Impression fraud - a more sophisticated approach which involves increasing ad impressions for rival advertisers, but not their clicks, so reducing their clickthrough rate. This can be done by the perpetrator suspending their own ads while impressions are generated. In Google, your ad position is dependent on clickthrough rates in addition to your bidded price per click. So, in Google, impression fraud may lead to your listing position falling and may even lead to dropping of ads by Google if it deems their clickthrough or relevance is too long.
3. Site owners using Google Adsense or Overture Content Match, which display
ads on third- party sites according to the context of content on your
site (like my site, see www.davechaffey.com/Internet-Marketing) may manually
or automatically click on links to generate revenue (unlike this site
owner - no time, too ethical). This is sometimes known as Network Click
Fraud. Incredibly around a half of Google's revenue is from these third-party
contextual ads, yet those in the know sometimes find that clicks from
these sources don't tend to convert at the same rate since customers typically
aren't in research or buy-mode like they are within the main search engines
- they are more impulse clicks. So look carefully at whether you are getting
value from Google contextual Ad Sense ads or Overture Content Match ads.
Warning, Google has recently won a judgement for $75,000 against a site
owner who have used this approach on a large scale!
4. Customers - not
strictly click fraud, but existing customers get into the habit of clicking
on paid search ads to access a site but are not driving new business.
Not much you can do about this, expect
perhaps changing the ad copy, educating about bookmarking or encourage
clickthroughs via E-mail.
Checking for Click
Fraud
So finally, what to do to avoid or at least minimise Click Fraud?
Well - first check your agencies or internal team's knowledge of click fraud - ask them about the different types of problem and see whether they are aware of them.
Second, ask them how they check for and how they will report to you on the extent of click fraud.
Mike Grehan suggested
you should assess these metrics using a combination of your web analytics
software and your software for managing your paid search campaigns:
" Average daily clicks (e.g. an increase from 10 per day to 100 per
day suggests click fraud)
" Click volume trends by hour and day to see spikes in click volume
" Average page views per click (this will fall if people are not
browsing around the site as would be expected from normal search behaviour)
" Average conversion rate per keyword, per click
" Click averages based on specific paid search positions
" Volume of clicks with zero conversions
" Off peak click times or dates
" Look for new competitors for your keyphrases and whether some have
dropped out as clickthrough has increased
" Check the difference between clicks recorded by the ad network
management system and actual clicks arriving at your site identifiable
from your web analytics tool. If there are more actual clicks arriving
than those reported by the ad network, they may have filtered some clicks
out which they regard as fraudulent.
These measures can be used at an aggregate level which is straightforward or you should check whether you have the capability to report these for individual keyphrases or groups of keyphrases. For detailed analysis, it is necessary to have granular data about searches, so that you can report on searches performed for different keyphrases on the different ad networks. In some cases, it may be necessary to refer to raw log-files generated by the web server for each page downloaded to assess the frequency of clicks or even check for someone with a similar IP address or PC/browser setup (e.g browser, screen resolution, etc which are available from tag-based web analytics solutions).Your log files also become important when submitting your complaint to the search ad network, since they act as a form of proof of the click fraud. So for serious investigation of this problem, you probably need to combine different forms of web analytics tools such as tag or browser-based and server-based (See What's New in Marketing http://www.wnim.com/archive/issue04/emarketing.htm for more details on these tools).
To answer this second question, additional software tools specifically designed to tackle this problem may be available that can help. The best known is Who's Clicking Who, but Googling "Click fraud detection" reveals there are now several specific solutions available, plus more general web analytics tools.
What to do when you
think you have been defrauded?
The search engine ad networks take click fraud seriously, since it undermines
their proposition and can potentially do them reputational damage. This
was highlighted at the end of last year, when Google Chief Financial Officer
George Reyes said:
"I think something has to be done about this really, really quickly, because I think, potentially, it threatens our business model"
If you have good evidence to support your claim of click fraud you can typically expect a prompt response from the ad network. If you believe click fraud has occurred, provide a succinct summary of your evidence, but you will also need to back it up with reports from the ad networks reporting software and your web analytics software or log files. Grehan (2005) gives an example of a click fraud problem that was submitted to the network and a refund granted.
Click fraud - The
future
Click fraud is another frustrating issue within E-marketing which seems
as if it can only get worse, hence my highlighting it now. The potential
for unscrupulous folks to make money through click fraud is just too high
and it is relatively difficult to identify if the perpetrator is sophisticated
in generating fake clicks across a range of IP addresses over a period
of time. On the positive side, the search engines are taking legal action
against some publishers generating fake clicks on contextual ads and some
providers of automated click-faking tools. They are also likely to be
boosting their click fraud detection tools, although they are highly unlikely
to publicise this.
Some argue that click fraud is simply a cost that is borne by the advertiser and it should be factored into the overall campaign Return on Investment (ROI). If paid search is still delivering favourable ROI in comparison with other media, then what's the problem? The problem, is that click fraud will always target particular phrases, which means that optimising on these phrases is difficult if they are not generating ROI. Perfectly valid phrases may be deleted as poor performers if click fraud is not taken into account.
Looking further forward, we may see a move to a form of paid search based on Cost per Acquisition (CPA) where the advertiser only pays where there is an event on the web page which demonstrates a lead or sale (for example, completing a registration or enquiry form). With the recent advent of Pay Per Call arrangements, this is effectively a CPA arrangement which is much less prone to fraud. Of course, the search ad networks will resist such a CPA arrangement since it will hit their revenues and it is only really appropriate for transactional e-retail. Maybe it could become an option though for certain e-retail-related phrases and advertisers would bid higher amounts if they are paying for a guaranteed sale.
Whatever happens, it will lead to some difficult strategic e-communications decisions. Perhaps increasing prevalence of click fraud suggests that companies should invest more to become more refined in their search engine optimisation which is not subject to this form of fraud. Another alternative is to increase reliance on affiliate marketing, since this is a CPA deal, and the risk of click fraud is borne by the publishers who are members of the affiliate network. One thing is for sure, it's a crazy situation where a billion dollar economy has grown up based around clicks on the humble hyperlink.
Next months article
In the autumn issues of E-marketing Insights we will move away from the
web for a while, looking at the latest developments in other new media
such as mobile marketing, interactive Digital TV and radio.
References and Further
reading
Grehan, M. (2005) The click, the fraud and the ugly side of search, Net
Imperative, 23rd June 2005. www.netimperative.com.
http://www.netimperative.com/2005/02/01/click_fraud
Lee, K. (2005) Click Fraud - What it is, How to Fight It. . ClickZ : http://www.clickz.com/experts/search/strat/article.php/3483981
About the author
Dr Dave Chaffey is workshop leader for a range of one-day e-marketing
training workshops from the CIM:
" E-mail Marketing (www.cim.co.uk/0766)
" Running Effective E-marketing Campaigns (www.cim.co.uk/0767)
" Improving Your Results from Digital Marketing (www.cim.co.uk/1138)
" Marketing Research Using the Internet (www.cim.co.uk/1135)
Go to www.cimtraining.com for course details and online booking.
Dave Chaffey is trainer and consultant for Marketing Insights Limited (www.marketing-insights.co.uk) and E-marketing Director at Ripe. He is a prolific e-business author whose books include 'Total E-mail Marketing', 'Internet marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice' and E-business and E-commerce Management.
Read Dave Chaffey's
blog (www.davechaffey.com) for E-marketing Essentials - the 5 "must-read"
articles about online marketing from the hundreds Dave reads each month.
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The
Long Arm of the Law: Marketers and Legislation
SUMMARY
In an environment of increasing legislation, marketers have to be more knowledgeable about the law than ever before.
But there is a large number of regulations and codes. Some of these are set by the government, and some by other organisations. Just in the last year, 21 new Acts, regulations or amendments that directly affect marketers in their daily activities have been passed in the UK alone. In addition there are a further 10 Bills before Parliament in 2005-6 that will directly affect marketers if they are passed, including the Consumer Credit Bill, the Equality Bill, the Fraud Bill, the Occasional Sales Bill, the International Development (Anti-corruption Audit) and the London Olympics Bill. [Source: CIM Insights Team.]
And as the global marketplace becomes smaller, and more business is conducted via the Internet, marketers have to have increased knowledge of laws in other countries too. Across the marketing community, who can honestly say that they are fully aware of the extent of the legislation that can affect their work, and that they regularly check to make sure their marketing activities don’t flout any of the regulations that exist?
The fact is that many marketers are woefully ignorant of what is required from them legally. And whilst the vast majority of marketers follow the line of the law as far as they know it, many do not fulfil their legal obligations as much as they should do. Furthermore, a small minority wilfully ignore the law, even when they know their activities are illegal.
If marketing is to be recognised as a responsible profession that has status, and is to be seen as a profession that young people aspire to enter, this situation has to change. The Long Arm of the Law asks marketers to question what they know, consider whether their legal compliance is all it should be – and think hard about the implications for the future.
THE EVOLUTIONARY WAR
Wherever you look, technology is increasing. Increasing technology gives rise to new issues – new ways for marketers to invade customers’ privacy that need to be regulated; new channels for advertising messages to reach consumers.
But this quantity of technology works both ways. As much as it works to marketers’ advantage, it can work against marketers too. Customers have anti-spam software and pop-up blockers on their computers. They can edit out the adverts on TiVO television sets. Or they can use Telephone Preference Services and call minder systems to screen out unsolicited phone calls.
As a result, a kind of ‘evolutionary war’ develops between marketers and customers. Marketers find ways round pop-up blockers, for example, so software manufacturers have to invent anti-anti-pop-up blockers. And so on. As the battle increases in ferocity, the law steps in and tells marketers what they can or cannot do. As marketers continue to find loopholes, so the law will step in more strongly.
It’s clear that something has to be done. Marketers have the choice between working harder and harder to get round the legal obstacles in their way, or self-regulating more effectively, in the hope that short-term restraint will lead to longer-term freedom. If the guardians of our society are not pushed to act, they will refrain from placing increasingly severe restrictions in the way of law-abiding marketers going about their daily business.
Assuming that self-regulation is seen as the way ahead, a further problem rears its head. There is a plethora of regulatory bodies – e.g. Ofcom, ASA (recently submerged into Ofcom) and MRHA (the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) – all of which have different codes. Which set of rules should take precedence? How do marketers choose which set of code(s) to follow?
CRACKING THE CODE
There is much confusion about conflicting codes and regulations. This situation is complicated by differences between legal codes – which companies must obey – and codes of practice, which companies voluntarily support. Many marketers do not know whether a particular regulation is a law or a code. For example, the ASA (the Advertising Standards Authority) is a self-regulatory body with no connection with the government – but it can ban broadcast-media adverts or instruct that they only be shown post-9pm, or be modified, if a specific law has been breached.
And there is confusion too about the interpretation of EU Directives; some countries have more strict requirements for consent to market than others. Consider privacy regulations. CAP’s interpretation of the draft of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive Regulations 2003) revealed a large discrepancy between CAP’s view and what the regulation actually required.
CAP’s broad definition of ‘consumer’ effectively bans opt-out business-to-business email marketing – because CAP considers B2B customers to be private consumers, not business customers. This, whilst seemingly in line with PECR (a further piece of recent regulation that requires marketers to offer an opt-in option rather than opt-out) is at odds with the EC Directive, which does not ban unsolicited B2B electronic mail.
In other words – at the moment, you could carry out an opt-out B2B direct marketing email campaign and be within your rights according to the EU Directive, but fall foul of the ASA.
Similarly, the ASA’s interpretation of the EU code varies. Duncan Smith, MD of icompli, a training company that helps companies with legal compliance, points out how the delicacies of interpretation can lead to dangerous minefields for the unwary marketer: ‘If you purchase a list of business contact email addresses from a reputable broker and email the list with a business proposition like “Come on our e-Marketing and the Law training course, you will stay on the right side of the law. But, change the proposition to “Come on our de-stress your life seminar” and you will fall foul of the ASA’s interpretation of the CAP Code.’
HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE
Just within the UK, there is confusion about what marketers must do, what they ought to do, and how much they can get away with. As the global marketplace becomes ever more accessible, serious issues can arise when marketers in country X do not know country Y’s rules.
In the US, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) states that it is illegal for any commercial website ‘in any state or nation’ to collect personal data about children (defined as persons under 13). ‘It is unlawful for an operator of a website or online service directed to children, or any operator that has actual knowledge that it is collecting personal information from a child, to collect personal information from a child in a manner that violates the regulations… where such website or online service is operated for commercial purposes, including any person offering products or services for sale through that website or online service.’
It’s clear that the US wants to protect its minors against websites targeting children for commercial purposes by using their personal information to get in touch with them. No surprise there. But the significance for international marketers is that the US is saying that other countries and territories are included in the terms of the Act, and that ignorance of the act is no excuse.
COPPA goes on to state that ‘the State, as parens patriae, may bring a civil action on behalf of the residents of the State in a district court of the United States’ if any unwitting marketers violate the Act. In other words, if your website can be accessed from other countries, you’d better make sure that any marketing activities you execute take notice of any laws any country may have introduced – because the first you may know about it is a civil action from the US Government.
GOVERNMENT OR ORGANISATIONS?
To what extent should organisations set their own codes; to what level should marketers be held by them; and to what degree should governments decide? Should there be more government intervention than there is at present, or should governments take a back seat and let organisations (and marketers) govern themselves?
Or should the public themselves be entrusted to self-regulate, and let ‘buyer beware’ apply to the more dubious aspects of marketing? Witness the furore over RFID tagging, which led to calls to boycott supermarkets that were believed to be planning to introduce the system. Some would argue that the government and regulatory bodies should mind their own business and let customers take their own responsibility in the marketplace.
All this is important for marketers to consider because there has never been a common consensus on marketers’ interpretations of the law. We see bad practice all about us, every day – much of this dubious, immoral or even illegal practice was explored in depth in our paper New Year’s Revolution. It’s important for marketers to step up a gear in the pursuit of ethical best practice. It’s important to educate marketers so that companies don’t find themselves served with costly writs; and it’s useful for competitive advantage to be able to show that you are transparent and ‘square trade’.
Being knowledgeable about the law is an important part of that square trade branding. And corporate reputation is aided by being knowledgeable about legal issues and transmitting this. But many marketers are blasé about what they need to know and a few even wilfully behave badly. By improving their knowledge, the good majority can edge out the minority.
EDUCATING MARKETERS
Many marketers are fearful of what their legal obligations are and avoid engagement because of an aversion to numbers and statistics. Evidently, there is a need for marketers to keep up to date. Many companies do not have adequate knowledge of legal matters – a very small proportion, for instance, have knowledge of legal compliance included as part of a job specification. When marketers (or anyone else in the organisation for that matter) need to sort out a legal question, there should be a person within the organisation they can speak to. This does not necessarily have to be someone from the marketing department – but the role has to exist.
In our main paper on marketing and the law, which will be published in January, we will explore what effect these disparate codes and confusing regulations are having on practising marketers. We will consider the problems that technology and increasingly complex legislation create for small businesses and B2B companies (such as wanting to stay within the law, but not having the resources to appoint a privacy manager). And we will offer some solutions for marketers who want to know that their actions are legitimate, but don’t want to compromise on building their business or increasing shareholder value.
If you are concerned with keeping up to date with the mountain of new legislation that piles up at home and abroad, we’d like to hear from you. Email your views to shapetheagenda@cim.co.uk.
About the author
The Long Arm of the
Law: Marketers and Legislation was written by The Insights Team, part
of The Chartered Institute of Marketing.
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The
Key to Winning High Profile Business
But before you start ploughing ahead and firing out those questions, you
need to gain your contact’s permission to ask; it’s both professional
and consultative, and it avoids you being seen by your contact as some
sort of interrogator.
Those you don’t know well, or have met for the first time, won’t thank you for bombarding them with your queries. You have to establish your credibility before they will open up to you. How do you do it without going into ‘tell’ mode and trying to convince your contact how great you are? The secret is to arouse their interest in what you have to offer, make them curious to find out more, and give you some of their time and attention.
If you don’t get your contact’s interest you won’t sell to them
You’ve heard the saying “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink”. Effective selling is the same – there’s no way that you can make your contact buy; rather, your job (metaphorically speaking) is to make them so thirsty that they want to drink!
If you want to get your contact involved in a sales discussion you effectively have only two choices. Either you can try to push your way in by trying to convince them of your value (the ‘tell’ approach) or you can make them so intrigued by the questions you ask that they want to know more … in fact they’ll invite you to tell them. Which method would you prefer - ‘by invitation’ or ‘gatecrash’?
There is, however, a real skill to asking questions which will position you as being better than your competitors, and at the same time help you to build rapport and credibility with your contact.
The seven vital questions to guide your sales zone discussion
If you remember these seven questions you can’t fail to structure your discussions with your contact effectively and come over as thoroughly professional and competent. What’s more, there will be no ‘hard sell’ in your conversation whatsoever. Sound too good to be true? Remember this; if you don’t know the answers to these questions then you will end up guessing what your contact wants, or even worse, assuming you know what they need. The task then, is a relatively simple one. In your discussions with your contact – over one meeting or several – you need the answers to these questions. Get them tattooed on you hand if you must, but remember them, because they are your route map to successfully winning new work. Here goes…
What, specifically, is your contact’s problem, challenge or opportunity?
This isn’t quite as obvious as it sounds. Your contact and their key decision maker colleagues are all likely to each have a different perspective on their situation. They may see it a little, or a lot, differently. It’s your job to get the ‘big picture’ not just one or two ‘angles’ on it.
Why do they see it this way?
Find out the history of the issue or how the opportunity has originated. Who says it’s an issue or opportunity and what’s the evidence for their view? Size it up – what’s the issue costing them in terms of cash, time, resources, reputation etc? What could seizing the opportunity give them in terms of revenue, profile, efficiency, effectiveness etc? What’s the size of the prize?
What would success look like to them?
What’s their vision of a successful result and how will they know when they have got there? In other words, how will they measure their results?
What are their top priorities?
They may have a number of priorities, but which do they see as most important? The answer tells you what matters most to them. Is it growing the top line, or the bottom line (or both)? Is it looking after their people, building their market share, beating their competitors, improving their operations, expansion or what? The answers they give will give you clues about you how you should structure the ways you can help. Your message could be vastly different in each of the above cases … but if you don’t know what their priorities are, and in which order they would put them, you’ll be guessing. You want to base your sales message around what matters most to them.
In what ways can you help?
You’ve heard the saying that ‘there’s more than one way to skin a cat’. It’s the same here. To be truly connective in your sales approach you need to set out the options for your contact and any other decision makers. Sometimes it means thinking laterally and collaborating with them on the pro’s and con’s of each option. Great… that’s far better than proposing a ‘boilerplate’ answer or a rigid approach.
What results can they expect from each possibility?
Think through the outcome each of the options is likely to give them. Will the results match up to their expectations of a successful outcome (see question 3)?
Which do you believe is the best route to take?
Taking into account the answers to the six previous questions, what is your recommendation? It should be a logical extension of what you have said before, having weighed up what your contact and other decision makers want, and the best way you can help them solve an issue or capitalise on an opportunity.
Trying to persuade your contact to do anything without knowing the answers to these questions is like setting off on a 1000-mile journey to a destination you’ve never been before, without a map. Of course, you may get there, but it will be more by luck than planning.
About the author
John Timperley is Managing Director of The Results Consultancy, which specializes in helping clients win high value business through effective consultative selling approaches and ‘hands on’ bid and tender support. He can be contacted on 07710 035890.
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On Cloud Nine
I was flying at five hundred and forty-seven miles an hour when, from
the corner of eye, I caught a glimpse of a delicate cloud whose forefinger
beckoned me to tumble into its subtly perfumed bosom. I wondered what
it would feel like to nestle my head in such a bed of sultry promises.
Then hard reality kicked in. I kept my eyes on my objective: to get across
the Atlantic as a passenger on the 747.
To divert my hankering, I switched on my iPod and listened to Rufus Wainwright. His latest album 'Want Two' massaged my imagination, making me feel even more elated. He whispered: "You travel the world and find all the answers; everything operates on the unobtainable".
Rufus was right. Especially when it came to marketing. Take the very ripe old chestnut about 'Maslow's Pyramid of Needs'. This relates to a series of steps to help consumers fulfil their ambitions. Yet, the methodology, taught by rote by jaded lecturers to generations of Proctor & Gambol wannabes, doesn't lead to a perfect stairway to material heaven. In fact, it goes nowhere. Maslow explained that consumers could never be totally fulfilled. So like watching a lap dancer promising more and more strokes of a silk scarf for greater and greater swipes of a credit card, the market is left craving more yet feeling less satisfied.
Turning
the iPod over in my hand, I re-considered Rufus' lyrics. How many of us
go through life accepting that what once as children we dreamt was a possibility
ends up little more than an unobtainable pipedream? We get older. We stop
taking risks. (Probably forgetting how to take risks appropriately, leaving
us feeling even older and further strained by our Don Quixotic dreams
than when we started). We take on responsibilities so stop taking risks.
We earn a company car and pension, so stop taking risks. We stop trusting
people and instincts instead, cosset against any whiff of a possible risk
by taking, prudent even legal precautions 'just in case'.
I'll sue you in court
Last year I advised one of the biggest law firms from New York on how to deal with awkward clients. "It's so easy back home", they said. "In the States, we just sue 'em or encourage others to sue someone else. Every risk is covered and, if people play their cards right, there's a big fat payout at the end. We hope to bring the philosophy over 'the pond' to the UK."
So this is where we are; somewhere adrift in the mid- Atlantic global community, where despite the rhetoric, every brand, every company and every person strives to be homogeneous. Forget risk; embrace certainty. If it is working, don't change it. Just maintain the pace before someone leaps in from nowhere and takes over.
This is fine in a cosy 'warm milk and antidepressant at bedtime' society (last year over 23 million antidepressants were prescribed in the UK). However, in my experience, taking no risks at all often leads to complacency, accepting anything from bombs in high streets to injustice at work, as simply the way things are (the "whatever" generation). It heads to the depressing realisation that too many inflexible rules or regulations serve few, except lawyers or administrators and their minions of accidental paper-pushers who spend their wretched lives at offices alternating between 'getting the coffee for the department', printing documents on the laser printer, and surreptitiously surfing exotic holiday websites in the vain hope that one day somebody will take them away from it all.
I want it all: I want it now
Occasionally I come across exceptionally unimaginative people demanding 'the rules' and nothing but the rules - all in an instant. One such person recently insisted on 'twenty rules to become a great copywriter'. The client is always right, so I delivered. Which was futile: if you know the rules, unless you are prepared to adapt or occasionally even break rules, especially those of the 'best practice' variety, you'll end up a scrivener rather than creative writer.
In our risk-adverse world, where everyone is encouraged to call a lawyer offering a no-win no-fee service, the possibility to turn virtually any event into a case of culpable negligence means forsaking child-like dreaming and adventure. Few, even venture as far as to question convention or circumstance at all, in case it should affect those fragile self-inflated bubbles that we call 'reality'. Psychologists refer to this as 'perceptual defence' you and I know it better as 'sticking heads in the sand'.
In the wake of life's hurricanes of torment we often either act too late; allow our 'inspiring' leaders to get away with doing too little or too much in the interests of the few rather than the benefit of the many. Risk takers become an endangered species.
The Talmud - probably the world's original guide to law and doctrine - (Menachos 103b) explains that if you buy a year's supply of grain in advance every year, you'll waste your time worrying about risks that may or not occur in a year's time. (Who even knows what tomorrow is going to bring, let alone 12 months!)
Surely,
if you have enough food for today, it's worth more than putting yourself
through the anguish of destroying your quality of life by focusing on
all that may or may not go wrong by this time next year. (The original
source for Nike's "Just do it campaign maybe?)
A better day is coming
Back on the 747, Rufus sung another track: 'Gay Messiah'. Initially, I felt the lyrics were blasphemous, explicitly contradicting the Old Testament. But then, if only to ratify the meaning of the original text I thought 'what if…'
Who better than a gay person to embody the Second (or 'First', depending on your religious view) Coming?
For simply having the courage to realise their feelings or fall in love, they may have been alienated at home and work. Or tragically for some, could have paid the ultimate price for love. With this in mind, who better than such a person to relate to mankind's seething landfill of unspoken universal neuroses and torments?
My
decision as to who the messiah turns out to be isn't as important as having
given thought as to who that person may be. (Assuming I believe in a messiah
in the first place). If the new train of thought shakes my original conviction,
all well and good. On the other hand, if having considered the alternative,
it is not all well and good, that too is fine. Either way, by risking
'a leap of faith' based on material knowledge and non-interventionist
conjecture; I freely explore the meaning of truth rather than being forced
to feel guilty of having subversive thoughts against socially acceptable
dictate and traditions.
Think and do
Risk's embryo is the mind. It either flourishes or dies in the nursery
of imagination. In turn that can mature and kindle fresh sparks of imagination
in others. It all depends on the foundations or your belief, your sincere
faith in its potential good and your commitment to see it through.
For most, disillusion, credit card bills, relationships and mouths to feed, compel settling for a 'steady as she goes' life of risk-free, double opt in, 14-day money back guarantees.
"Hey that's life" (even if in reality, it doesn't come with any money-back guarantees).
However, what if today was the start of your personal messianic era? Perhaps encouraging people not just to follow rules and regulations by rote, but develop them. You could be the one who encourages others to stretch their horizons by welcoming questions and exploring uncharted prospects. You might even disover a few for yourself. Sure you might go against convention. You'll definitely scare a lawyer all the way to writing a new clause in the 'just in case' contract of all eventualities. (Be prepared to pay 'big money' for those extra thirty words.) Yet, even if your journey doesn't lead to where you first hoped, if you really believe in your cause you'll arrive at your rightly deserved destiny, which, at least in part, would have been your own making rather than being dependent on 'theirs'.
Or
perhaps in the rush of it all, you'll let that 'unobtainable' cloud drift
on by…
A healthy and happy new year to everyone in the Jewish community.
About the author
Jonathan Gabay leads several highly popular courses at CIM. Be sure to
check out his website at www.gabaynet.com
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The Business Case for Web Accessibility
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Over
the next twenty five years an increasing population of pensioners
will be supported by a static work force. It is predicted that this
will reduce the proportion of the workforce of the population from
4:1 to 3:1 (without increases in immigration to compensate). Thus
meaning that those in work will need to be a third more productive
for living standards to remain stationary. An increasing healthcare
burden is likely. Falling pension values may also mean that people
remain in work beyond normal retirement age. In relation to this information the Disabilities Discrimination Act (DDA), which came into force in October 2004, makes considerable sense. Many people in the growth age group will suffer from deteriorating eye-sight and dexterity. While the pressure is off, now is a good time to improve services so that less able people can maintain independence. Web accessibility is similar to putting a wheel chair ramp outside an office. A website may be coded in such a way so it can be adapted to suit people with virtually any sight or dexterity disability. A major source of future productivity improvement is thought to be through automation of administration using website databases. Historically many types of administration have relied on databases located in office server computers. The servers could only be accessed by computers networked at one location. The customers relationship with this database would usually be indirect, through an employee who enters or reads the data. Increasingly
organisations and companies are now placing these databases in websites.
This allows customers to increasingly interact directly with the
database via the Internet. Administrative staff have access to the
same website database often through an Internet connection that
may be "filtered" giving access only to websites relevant to work. reduced
administration cost as the customer does part of the data entry
work Broadband Internet lines in the UK have at September 2005 now reached 8.1 million connections. This means that a high speed Internet infrastructure suitable for web services now exists. The greater the numbers of people that can connect to them, the greater the potential value of "web services". Web services have the capability to considerably increase productivity and quality of administrative processes. e.g. Lastminute.com Using search technology a visitor may quickly identify current holiday offers that may meet highly bespoke requirements. A holiday may be booked and paid for online. The entire process may take less than ten minutes. The holiday chosen may literally be the best offer for that person at that time. It is thought that web services may be one way that productivity may be raised to meet the demands of the demographic time bomb. Accessible web design is a method of designing websites so that they may be used under as broad a set of conditions as possible. Each individual user's Internet connection device may customise the website to suit: users
sight and dexterity condition This extends a websites reach to people (irrespective of physical ability) and circumstances. An
example feature is text magnification; preventing the need to lean
forward to read small print. With accessible websites, by holding
the keyboard "Ctrl" key down and rotating the mouse wheel the text
size may be adjusted to make it easy to read. (Most Microsoft products
also work in this way). In 2004 the Disabilities Discrimination Act included websites as one of the areas where "reasonable adjustments" should be made to prevent exclusion of less able people from information services. It seems probable that this is part of a government agenda of preparation for demographic change. Web accessibility is nearing completion in many public sector information resources. Website accessibility is achieved partly by the separation of content and style. The graphic style and layout of the page is held in a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). This may be disabled or modified to suit the Internet user. Without the CSS sheet a web page is pure text and image content presented in a linear form. This allows a website to be listened to on a screen reader. For this requirement pictures have a description in text so that their meaning may be understood. This also allows people with slow Internet connections to use the website with the images turned off as this speeds up download considerably. When
a website has been designed in this way it is possible to have different
style sheets to suit different devices. On a WAP mobile phone the
layout may have reduced width, for printing the width may be adapted
to A4. Should a company wish to "re-brand", the entire website can
be altered in presentation from one point. Complying with accessibility standards also means perfect design for search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN. A search engine robot shares the experience of a blind Internet user. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards indirectly dictate acceptable practice for optimising web pages to suit search engines. Compliance with these standards may prevent rejection from search engines. This means more people find the website increasing its value as a communications tool. Accessibility allows customisation of the website to suit each visitors circumstances. This improves experience for the visitor. If the content itself is relevant then accessibility improves the probability of revisit and referral to others. On the Internet, referral can take the form of providing a hyperlink giving a semi-permanent source of new visitors. Inward links are counted by search engines as an indicator of quality and this influences placing in search engine results. Choice of private sector partners by the public sector may be influenced by web accessibility. Web services bought in by the public sector will now almost certainly have a web accessibility requirement. Beyond the legal requirements web accessibility can be tailored to suit a company's potential customers. Compatibility with Blackberry's is useful for reaching the political and financial elite whilst moving through the corridors of power. Good print presentation allows information to be distributed to people away from the Internet or filed with paper proposals. WAP phone compatibility may allow interactive advertising in virtually any location. Use of web services in the workplace is rising. Roles that require use of particular web services may be deemed discriminatory if those services are not accessible to people with disabilities. Using inaccessible web services in the workplace may also lead to risk of work related injury through poor ergonomics and compensation claims. UK
government policy fully supports the use of accessible web services
within public sector information systems as a means to meet economic
growth targets. Private sector businesses pursuing emerging Internet
opportunities are likely to improve return on investment (ROI) through
specifying web accessibility. Those that don't may suffer an increased
probability of negative ROI from web projects and risk exposure
of prosecution for discrimination. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- What happens when the law messes with customer data?
However, there is still some way to go before we reach the nirvana of customers routinely maintaining their own data for uses or particular companies where they have a strong interest in the world having an updated view of who they are and what they want to do. I eagerly await the emergence of a world in which this becomes the norm, using the Internet. At the other extreme is the paranoid lunacy of anti-money laundering regulation, where it seems that one has to prove one's identity to all parties in a transaction (e.g. a house purchase), irrespective of whether they need to know in order to protect their own interests, or whether the sums and/or transactions concerned are likely to be used for money-laundering. The general climate of concern about security and individual rights has also had the effect of inducing fear and lack of confidence in marketers. Afraid of being non-compliant, they sometimes refuse to use data in ways in which they are clearly entitled to do so, and where customers would want to do so. In some cases, this is caused because companies have planned data collection badly. For example, when opening an account, customers should be asked to nominate a "significant other" with the right to confirm transactions and terminate accounts, because so often the failure to be able to delegate causes customers problems, except on the Internet where they can assume the other's persona provided they have the codes. Not a secure practice, but induced by failure to anticipate requirements to access data. Customers themselves seem to becoming more aware of how they can prevent misuse of their data - the high level of opt outs and registering with preference services indicates this. Media-fed paranoia about what is done with, for example, credit card and loyalty card data occasionally can cause slightly more extreme behaviour, much to the delight of single-issue privacy fanatics. The good news is that this only has a marginal effect, and most customers realise that if they want to do business with a (usually) large organisation, they need to give it some data - but they might also be advised to check how well the organisation uses it, whether in terms of protecting their privacy or in terms of making more relevant and timely offers. About
the author |
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