Skip to main content

NegaTED Update

I'm delighted (if a grombler can be permitted to show delight) that there's a fitting addendum to my previous post about the antidote to TED enthusasteria. You will recall NEGATED was conceived following a chance encounter with a delegate from Sydney at the final lunch. It seems she had put her name down for a TED cycle ride to end the conference - very TED. Skinny exercise fanatics demonstrating zero-carbon transport combined with off-the-beaten-path tourism and a shared sweating experience. Far too positive for my mind.... and, as it turns out, hers too. Here's what she has just emailed me:

Hi, Well actually I managed to squeeze in an extra TED story. One of my shoes spectacularly fell apart on the bike ride, and had to be tied up with a bike strap. The bike ride was actually a bit less organised than I expected and though we were taken there by bus they did not pick us up and, no one knew how to get back. It turned out we had to walk back (strangely challenging for me in the circumstances) and there were hordes of us trotting after someone who turned out to be Jodi Foster, frantically complaining there was no wifi connection so they couldn’t be expected to find a way. Rather comical and oddly appropriate in a way.

She went on to suggest a couple of refinements to the NEGATED charter:

I’m not sure we agree on the Negated Fellows. I thought there were quite a lot of fat 50 year olds at TED, and would not want to encourage accountants, or especially not golfers (one of my bete noirs). I think I’d like talks that are more about thought than feeling. And more ‘the anatomy of melancholy’ than ‘how to win friends and influence people’.

Fine grombling.
Labels:

Comments

Post a comment

Thanks for taking an interest.

Popular posts from this blog

Phillips screws - yes I'm angry about them too

Don't get me wrong. They're a brilliant invention to assist automation and prevent screwdrivers from slipping off screw heads - damaging furniture, paintwork and fingers in the process. Interestingly they weren't invented by Mr Phillips at all, but by a John P Thompson who sold Mr P the idea after failing to commercialise it. Mr P, on the otherhand, quickly succeeded where Mr T had failed. Incredible isn't it. You don't just need a good idea, you need a great salesman and, more importantly, perfect timing to make a success out of something new. Actually, it would seem, he did two clever things (apart from buying the rights). He gave the invention to GM to trial. No-brainer #1. After it was adopted by the great GM, instead of trying to become their sole supplier of Phillips screws, he sold licenses to every other screw manufacturer in the world. A little of a lot is worth a great deal more than a lot of a little + vulnerability (watch out Apple!). My gromble is abo
8 comments
Read more

Introducing Product Relationship Management - it's what customers want.

Most businesses these days have Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems which store and process vasts amounts of information about us. They use this information to generate communications, amongst other things, which target us to buy their products and services. CRM is all about how a business relates to its customers: Past (keeping them loyal through aftersales and service), Present (helping them buy through bricks and clicks channels) and Future (prospecting). Most businesses will at some stage have declared themselves 'customer-centric'. They will probably have drawn diagrams on whiteboards that look something like these: But there's a problem with this whole approach of keeping the customer at the centre of your world and the focal point for everything you do. Is it what the customer wants ? Of course companies who ignore their customers eventually go out of business. And those who treat their customers well, tend to thrive. But is it really in the best in
3 comments
Read more

The Titus Trust Deceives British Parents to Brainwash their Kids

I have a son who went to a well known preparatory school (7-13) in Surrey. He came home one day clutching a leaflet for fun activity holidays that the school promoted every summer. The Titus Trust operate several camps around the UK where they organise fun outdoor activities for youngsters. Something caught my eye in the leaflet hidden in a paragraph in one of the sections describing the holidays. They used the word Christian. It was the only place in the whole leaflet that the word was used. My suspicions raised, I hunted around the leaflet for more clues and found the imprint which said something like 'A Titus Trust Charity' (the name of the camps was on the title of the leaflet). I dug deeper and found some disturbing evidence of who was behind these 'fun' camps. This is what I wrote at the time to the headmaster: Dear Headmaster XXXX came home the other day extremely excited about an outward bound camp next summer that he and his friends had been told about by a r
1 comment
Read more