I was struck by this comment:

thousands of people… working long hard hours, at jobs they hate, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like

OK so this is perhaps a little overly dramatic, but it’s not that far from the truth for many people I think.

There’s go to be a better way. Right?

Whereas Zappos‘ social media policy is “be real and use your judgement”.

Guess which company is renown for great customer care, and which one isn’t.

We saw last week that Twitter have secured another found of funding described as “significant”, and so we assume that at some point these investors are going to want to see a return.

Many ideas for how Twitter might monetise the service have been put forward: paid accounts, premium accounts for brands and companies, advertising on the page, advertising in Tweets etc. But I have another thought about how Twitter might be planning to integrate advertising or paid content.

In the sidebar of the of a Twitter user’s homepage is a trending topics panel which shows the topics, keywords or hashtags being tweeted about most at that point in time. Clicking on one of these takes you to a search for that term or keywords which can be updated as new tweets appear.

Clicking on the trending topic ‘iPhone’ this morning I went to the usual list of tweets but then noticed this new, at least to me, content at the top explaining why ‘iPhone’ was a trending topic:

I’d not really got why Twitter had added trending topics to the site as it just seemed to be a tool for spammers to piggy back upon, but once you see this explanatory content it starts to make a little more sense. I can see this easily becoming advertising (Google keywords anybody?) or paid for content: each use of the word iPhone could be a link to Apple.com for example. This would allow Twitter to start to generate revenue from the service and without a negative impact on the user experience. Interesting…

Of course this would make trending topics even more of a spam magnet and doesn’t address the large number of users accessing Twitter via other clients and applications, but it does point to a potential approach for Twitter to start making money.

What do you think?

It seems that Psion and Intel have reached an “amicable agreement” and that

Neither party accepted any liability. In light of this amicable agreement, Psion has agreed to waive all its rights against third parties in respect of past, current or future use of the ‘Netbook’ term.

I don’t know what deal was done, but I don’t feel that this rather grubby episode has done anything but tarnish Psion’s already diminishing reputation. Shame.

Intel are joining Dell in challenging Psion’s claim to the netbook trademark.

I realise that Dell and Intel’s motives are purely commercial, but I dislike the patent and trademark litigation culture that has grown alongside the technology industry. I agree wholeheartedly that companies ideas and designs should be protected but only when their claims are real and genuine.

I would have thought more of Psion had they contested the netbook trademark as soon as it started being applied to the new generation of netbooks. Instead they waited for it to become thoroughly embedded before doing so. I would have though even more of them if they had released an updated version of the netBook.

It’s too late Psion the netbook horse has bolted.

Via Liliputing

Psion launched the Psion netBook (also badged a Series 7) in 1999. The netBook was a sub-notebook running Psion’s EPOC operating system and discontinued in 2003.

I remember playing with a pre-production netBook giving my feedback as to how I felt the EPOC OS should be adapted to work on the bigger screen and thinking we had a very cool device here. Psion used external design consultants Therefore for their hardware design, and the netBook was another triumph of industrial design.

As with the Series 3 and 5 PDAs that preceded it the netBook had a clever hinge that made the device seem to grow as you opened it revealing a keyboard that seemed larger than it should be. The hinge itself was wrapped in leather so it felt like carrying a leather book or Filofax. As well as an almost full size keyboard the netBook had a touch screen and solid state internals. Writing this now I realise that the Psion netBook really was ahead of it’s time.

A few years ago I bumped into an old colleague who showed me a netBook running Linux pre-dating the Eee PC and co. by some years. Sadly Psion didn’t release this version in yet another moment of corporate short-sightedness and cowardice.

Palm chickened out of the two hottest personal technology markets despite having a massive head start on the competition. I was fortunate to see the designs and concepts for a range of smartphones Psion were working on but ultimately didn’t develop. Then of course Psion pulled out of the PDA market saying they couldn’t beat Palm.

Psion are now a pale imitation of the once great innovators they were; based in Canada Psion Teklogix now produce rugged industrial handheld computers. So their decision to claim the netbook trademark and to threaten websites, resellers and IT manufacturers with legal action felt like the last dieing actions of once great brand.

Shame on you Psion.

But well done Dell for challenging this ridiculous claim; it looks like game over for Psion before they’ve even started.

Update: Dell have accused Psion of “fraudulently” claiming the trademark netbook was still in use.

Note: I was also amazed to see that design of the Psion Teklogix site is largely the same as the one I left behind when I left Psion in 2000 and it was out of date then.

It strikes me that company culture is a key factor in a successful social and community strategy.

The companies that are doing well and really engaging with their customers through communities, social networks and other web 2.0 tools are those that are doing so as an extension of their company culture and their business model if you will.

They are companies that truly value their customers, that really want to engage with them in honest and open dialogue, that want to have fun and that want to create remarkable products and experiences.

They have, to paraphrase Tara Hunt, “made happiness their business model”.

These are not companies that have outsourced their call centres to India, in fact these are companies that have banana phones rather than call centres.

These are not companies that are solely motivated by profit but if you treat your customers with respect and give them great experiences and products the bottom line will naturally follow.

Still here? OK I’ll talk a little about this great book.

I bought this book to read about how Patagonia looks after its staff; the whole “let my people go surfing” flexible working philosophy, I didn’t expect to have my outlook on the environment fundamentally altered.

The book is divided into two main sections, the first looks at the history of Patagonia and the second the philosophies of the company.

The history of Patagonia is very interesting and sets the tone for the future of the company. Yvon wanted to build the best climbing equipment he could and did so. In the process he changed how people climbed – moving them away from destructive pitons and over to less damaging blocks.

Over time his company gradually moved into clothing and grew into the Patagonia of today.

However it’s the company philosophies that I wanted to learn about. Patagonia has eight stated philosophies ranging from product design to the environmenta. I’ll talk first about the human resources philosophy for that is what brought me to this book.

As with the other companies I have featured recently Patagonia fundamentally respects and values it’s staff. Patagonia treats it’s people like adults. There’s the fabled flexible working of course, Patagonia also provides award winning child care facilities on site combined with sixty days paid maternity/paternity which I believe is very generous for a US company. Patagonia will allow it’s staff to take time away from the day job to help fight for environmental causes. Yvon wants to ensure that work is fun, as he says in the book

why on earth would anyone run a company that is hard to work for?

The vast majority of companies could learn much from that one sentence alone; of course those that need to most are those least likely to learn and change…

It’s telling that the environmental philosophy accounts for over a third of the philosophies section. The environment has always been Yvon’s main driver and prime concern and it is this focus on the environment that was the revelation of the book for me.

I thought I was fairly environmentally aware and also pretty “green” but clearly I’m not. The environment has only become an issue to the general public in the last few years really but Yvon and Patagonia have been aware of the issues and campaining since the late sixties. Sadly it’s very concerning to read Yvon’s pessimism for the planet – he clearly feels that too much damage has already been done and there is too little movement to alter human behaviour. The very fact that the US refuse the accept global warming as an issue and the Kyoto Agreement as a way to address it beggars belief.

I’m not going to go into detail here about Patagonia’s environmental work as I feel it would be much better for you to read it yourself and for you to absorb in your own way.

Reading the environmental section of this book was a massive eye-opener for me, possibly compounded by reading it whilst on holiday in Cornwall one of the most lovely parts of the UK, but nonetheless made me question some of my actions and habits and determined to change.

The very last section of the book concerns the 1% For the Planet Alliance. Patagonia have always given a percentage of their profits and then sales to environmental causes. To help other like minded companies do the same Yvon helped found the 1% For the Planet Alliance to administer the donations. They now have 859 companies donating 1% of sales; a good number but 859 out of the thousands of companies worldwide is a poor show.

Read this book; it will make you question how your company functions,thinks, treats it’s staff and the environment.

I’ve just read Seth Godin’s latest post the new standard for meetings and conferences in which Seth says

If you’re a knowledge worker, your boss shouldn’t make you come to the (expensive) office every day unless there’s something there that makes it worth your trip. She needs to provide you with resources or interactions or energy you can’t find at home or at Starbucks. And if she does invite you in, don’t bother showing up if you’re just going to sit quietly.

I’m pleased that it isn’t just me that finds the idea of commuting to a physical office an increasingly outdated concept; surely as the world becomes more environmentally aware this has to stop.

Remember that the nine to five, five day week was designed to maximise production in the mills of the industrial revolution – isn’t it time we updated the way we work for the 21st century?