Tuesday, 06 December:
Great news! The bureaucratic machine that is government here came through ahead of its promise and I have an appointment to get a National Insurance number ahead of the four weeks it normally takes! I only applied last week, so this is fantastic news (and now we do the dance of joy!). A national insurance number is the equivalent of a social security number in the U.S. and usually takes forever to get.
I spoke to the sales training manager today to see if the company I now work for has a blogging policy. He had never heard of a blog. Mind you, this is the person teaching people how to sell broadband, and he has no idea what a blog is. This is not in any way an indictment of the individual, rather it is an indictment of my experience in London.
Here, EVERYONE has a cell (mobile) phone. And the hot new sexy thing is the Motorola Razr in pink. The black one was a big deal when I was leaving the U.S. two months ago, not so here. Here it is all about the pink and thousands are selling every day. Here is the link. The phone is damn sexy and a great buy for people with two x chromosomes. But it is not the best in terms of features, and most people want it because of the color only. In the U.S. phones sell because of special features like Bluetooth, here Bluetooth is a given, it is features like GPS and downloadable maps that are hot stuff. If you want features galore, you go with one of the many 3g (3rd generation network) phones here. Like this (which allows for video calling, that's right, video calling like in sci-fi movies, not just video messages). And this is just the most popular of the 3g phones right now, not the only one. These phones actually allow for watching TV shows and you can get quite a bit of web content on them. Sophistication is this little number right here. Intrigued by the new ROKR with Itunes? Don't be. This thing blows it away. Music and a 2.0 megapixel camera. That is one hell of a phone and is typically free at the rates that I was paying for cellular service in the U.S. The point to all this (sorry for the REALLY long tangent) is that we are not talking about a technology adverse society here. In my training group, every phone listed above is represented. And yet, of the group of 18, I don't think four of them have a computer with internet access. The entire country does not seem to be all that interested in the internet as anything more than a way to get email, and with video messaging, SMS texting, and GPRS phones, even that doesn't appeal that way it might. Text messaging is huge here. You can even get text messaging on your home phone. I think this grew out of extremely expensive rates (or tariffs) for cellular minutes, so it was easier to text. And you can compose text messages while you are on the subway with no cell service.
Back to the point. The sales trainer seemed to think that there was no harm that could come from blogging, as it is a publicly traded company and transparency is required, however, I want to talk to someone with more knowhow before I discuss my thoughts and feelings. In truth, almost all of my feelings are positive, but better safe than sorry. Look at what happened to Marc Jen from Google, and a score of others. Google it, and you will find more terminations than the defense industry in the early nineties. By the way, better get this out of the way, as it is important. The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, wife, friends, God, or anyone else for that matter.
More happy news today, we got a care package from Suzanne's parents. This was filled with more wonderful things like crushed red peppers, taco seasoning, and airborne. Airborne is a wonderful invention that is sadly missing from the UK. It is not only great for helping to fight off colds, but is by far the best hangover remedy I have ever tried. Not that I EVER get hangovers. And I got news from my parents that more Vodka sauce is on the way! Yay! Another sadly missing food item from UK food purveyors. It is amazing how the little things can make us so giddy.
And now a moment of zen. Blogger.com's spell check does not reconize blog, blogger, and blogging as words. In fact, blogging's recommendation in spell check is "flogging". Hmm... you better believe if I ever create a phenomenon that takes the internet by storm, I will get it into my own spell check and as many as I possibly can. It is branding people!
This "flogger" is signing off.
I spoke to the sales training manager today to see if the company I now work for has a blogging policy. He had never heard of a blog. Mind you, this is the person teaching people how to sell broadband, and he has no idea what a blog is. This is not in any way an indictment of the individual, rather it is an indictment of my experience in London.
Here, EVERYONE has a cell (mobile) phone. And the hot new sexy thing is the Motorola Razr in pink. The black one was a big deal when I was leaving the U.S. two months ago, not so here. Here it is all about the pink and thousands are selling every day. Here is the link. The phone is damn sexy and a great buy for people with two x chromosomes. But it is not the best in terms of features, and most people want it because of the color only. In the U.S. phones sell because of special features like Bluetooth, here Bluetooth is a given, it is features like GPS and downloadable maps that are hot stuff. If you want features galore, you go with one of the many 3g (3rd generation network) phones here. Like this (which allows for video calling, that's right, video calling like in sci-fi movies, not just video messages). And this is just the most popular of the 3g phones right now, not the only one. These phones actually allow for watching TV shows and you can get quite a bit of web content on them. Sophistication is this little number right here. Intrigued by the new ROKR with Itunes? Don't be. This thing blows it away. Music and a 2.0 megapixel camera. That is one hell of a phone and is typically free at the rates that I was paying for cellular service in the U.S. The point to all this (sorry for the REALLY long tangent) is that we are not talking about a technology adverse society here. In my training group, every phone listed above is represented. And yet, of the group of 18, I don't think four of them have a computer with internet access. The entire country does not seem to be all that interested in the internet as anything more than a way to get email, and with video messaging, SMS texting, and GPRS phones, even that doesn't appeal that way it might. Text messaging is huge here. You can even get text messaging on your home phone. I think this grew out of extremely expensive rates (or tariffs) for cellular minutes, so it was easier to text. And you can compose text messages while you are on the subway with no cell service.
Back to the point. The sales trainer seemed to think that there was no harm that could come from blogging, as it is a publicly traded company and transparency is required, however, I want to talk to someone with more knowhow before I discuss my thoughts and feelings. In truth, almost all of my feelings are positive, but better safe than sorry. Look at what happened to Marc Jen from Google, and a score of others. Google it, and you will find more terminations than the defense industry in the early nineties. By the way, better get this out of the way, as it is important. The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, wife, friends, God, or anyone else for that matter.
More happy news today, we got a care package from Suzanne's parents. This was filled with more wonderful things like crushed red peppers, taco seasoning, and airborne. Airborne is a wonderful invention that is sadly missing from the UK. It is not only great for helping to fight off colds, but is by far the best hangover remedy I have ever tried. Not that I EVER get hangovers. And I got news from my parents that more Vodka sauce is on the way! Yay! Another sadly missing food item from UK food purveyors. It is amazing how the little things can make us so giddy.
And now a moment of zen. Blogger.com's spell check does not reconize blog, blogger, and blogging as words. In fact, blogging's recommendation in spell check is "flogging". Hmm... you better believe if I ever create a phenomenon that takes the internet by storm, I will get it into my own spell check and as many as I possibly can. It is branding people!
This "flogger" is signing off.
posted by Unknown at 11:35 AM
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