thinking: relating- celebrating :-)

Down to the wire is an archive project for NZ internet*. A new competition launches on Nov 11 so enter if you would like to be part of that. Watch the video below for more details.

*Down to the Wire is a permanent resource for New Zealand that tells the story of how the Internet has shaped Kiwi lives.

Not just over the past 21 years, but in the future too.

We look forward to evolving both past and future chapters with your contributions. So let’s start with 2010, which we will launch on 24 December.

As it happens I have been working on some music archiving ideas and projects and so I’m very much looking forward to see how this complementary project unfolds.

I’ve worked with musicians all my life and ironically some of the current opportunities that are coming up for musicians are because the “music industry” doesn’t understand that curating a culture is very different and much better than trying to simply exploit it.

Granted not all music business people are the same and there are legal rights issues galore but I’m positive about the future of NZ music and related cultural history.

For more information on the music project follow the deleting music website and a very fine related post by Simon Grigg over here called A Trillion Shades of Happy.

Much of our recent cultural history is disappearing and we shouldn’t let that happen.

“Just to make the point stronger, the following albums, from 1974 onwards, all important musical landmarks (and some are rather good too) are either unavailable or only out there in shitty first generation CD issues with appalling sleeves:

• Car Crash Set
• The Dance Exponents (the Mushroom albums are in print but almost unlistenable, the Ze Disc one has never been on CD)
• The Body Electric
• Grace (wonderful sweet soul from the Ioasa Brothers)
• Fuemana (parts of it are on Amplifier)
• The Deepgrooves Double” etc.

Watch this space as they say. There are a number of music collectors, journalists and other stakeholders who all see a future where contemporary and historical music / culture should not be lost.

Finally – if you are interested in NZ music 1918 to 1960 something go get a copy of Chris Bourke’s book Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn of New Zealand Popular Music 1918-1964:

Graham Reid has a great Lost Dawn summary over here .

Now if I was able to I’d say something dramatic like  – “I’m off to the bookshop – I may be some time…” but its back to work for me.

Thanks to the reader who spotted this paper by  Bronwyn E. Howell which was presented at a conference in Rome, Italy, September 17-20, 2008.

Abstract:
Using an efficiency-based framework, this paper analyses the performance of New Zealand’s telecommunications sector under competition law-based sector governance (the period from 1987 to 2001) and under industry-specific regulation (2001 to 2007). The framework considers the productive, allocative and dynamic efficiency effects of each regime, and the nature of the strategic interaction of sector participants.

The analysis reveals that substantial gains in all forms of efficiency were achieved during the 1990s, both compared to historic New Zealand and contemporary OECD benchmarks.

Under industry-specific regulation, however, transfers to consumers appear to have reduced, transaction costs have increased and delays are being incurred in the deployment of new applications and technologies relative to the competition law regime as participants engage in strategic gaming with politicians and the regulator and respond predictably to the range of incentives offered under the regulatory regime.

The paper concludes that on balance in the New Zealand circumstances, the regime based predominantly upon competition law appears to have outperformed the industry-specific regulatory regime, albeit due in large part to sector participant interaction shaped by contractual obligations imposed by the government on the incumbent which have prevailed unchanged under both regimes.

Keywords: Competition, Regulation, Telecommunications, New Zealand, OECD, Performance, Efficiency

by Howell, Bronwyn E., From Competition to Regulation: New Zealand Telecommunications Sector Performance 1987-2007 (August 14, 2008).
at SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1227862

Is it just me or are these academic papers long in execution and way too diplomatic in their language. (Based on reading a downloadable full copy.)

It is good that someone researches the area and tries to make sense of it but it does seem like a bit of  a sideshow when the policy is being decided elsewhere – most of the time – or am I wrong about that?

Right at the end the author notes

“Pursuit of efficiency, not pursuit of competition, must be the goal.”

Uhuh… still feeling slightly underwhelmed but maybe I’m being too partisan.

As often happens the last post on customer service prompted a flurry of emails. Thanks to Philip for the ideas in this extended sequence as quoted below. In effect a guest post…

“Churn is a well known issue in the telecommunications sector but I was piqued by your comment, “In fact many companies treat all customers the same and that is a fatally flawed strategy”

Yes, I think that’s right too. But equally that’s hard to do and the bigger the company, with systems then the harder to start making exceptions.

So how does a company, medium or larger scale figure out if there something to this idea of treating customers different so that they would be encouraged to translate that into a business action.

I mean it has to ultimately make them some money – somewhere right, even if that initially only comes out as good news stories and praise as decent company ?

How does a company design a loyalty program? or a pricing scale?

or a something that acknowledges and rewards their long term customers?  so that even if the customer service wasn’t great one night/day/weekend, or there is a hot special with someone else, the customer still feels OK to do business with their long term provider.

I don’t think it’s an easily answered but the more I thought about it . . .

How about I counter that while your statement  “In fact many companies treat all customers the same and that is a fatally flawed strategy” appears to be right
- it is fact incorrect.
(dum-a-dum- dummmmm)

Big spending customers get volume discounts, so they ARE treated differently. New customers can get introductory offers to join, so they ARE treated differently, Seniors get a deal ???

So it’s the people in the middle, you are talking about here.

Not big spends in corporate terms, nor people who churn as a way of life as they hunt out deals) but just business people or maybe better put, busy people,  who cannot be blowed, to getting on to new platform, or phone etc  and reprogramming their handsets with all those numbers (do I really have her phone number after this many years?)

So is your point is that there is a market, I mean a dollar in keeping them right?

Now if you could figure out the numbers for that – that would be a business”
Philip

Thanks Philip – what do the rest of you think about this? I’d say that I am in the neglected middle part of the customer group. In my view there is more than a dollar in reaching this group and that is one of the ideas I  was trying to reach.

I still maintain a view that segmenting customers and offering segment messages is the way to go but the temptation is just to go for velocity and hope customers stay for the ride.