The Life and Times of the Shirtless Back

Human existence these days is more about paying than about anything else.

You drift back into consciousness one morning in a bed that you paid for, in a home that you pay for.  Your alarm clock-radio iPod docking station multimedia centre stirs into life, slowly but surely filling the bedroom with music and chatter, while all the while consuming electricity that you pay for.

Scratching your nuts or your left boob as you trudge into the kitchen, you pay homage to your Neanderthal roots.  Maslow's hierarchy of needs kicks in at stage one as you acknowledge, "I'm hungry".  When you open the fridge, the light that switches on automatically illuminates either a proverbial Santa's grotto of fruit, vegetables, plastic-sealed leftovers, milk, fruit juices, meat and hopefully a beer or two, or if you're like me, a stark clinically-white gaping expanse not unlike a toy store warehouse on Boxing Day.  But regardless of what's in there, you paid for it.  In short, if we had no money then we would already be without two of the most basic tenets of human existence - food, and shelter.

People often visit the bathroom around this time of day.  You sit on a toilet you paid for, wipe your arse with paper you paid for, and flush away whatever delights you've deposited into a sewer system you pay for.  When you shower, unless you're masochistic or catholic, then the water is hot because you pay for it to be heated.  Little water on this planet arrives hot, unless your bathroom happens to be on the side of Mount Etna.  If it is then please stop reading, pack up your stuff, and get the hell out of there.

Of course you need money so you have to go to work.  You pay for the bus, the car, the train, or even the bike that gets you there.  And even when you're there, you have to pay to be there before you've even picked up a pen or touched a post-it note.  What's that you say?  You don't have to pay to work?  Really?  Who feeds you your lunch whilst at work - your employer?  No.  Your employer, instead, enforces an outdated, counter-evolutionary dress code policy that requires you to go out and pay for clothes that you wouldn't ordinarily buy just so that you can feel as though you share a connection with  the other people you work with.  And when you want to go home at the end of the day, you have to pay to do so or get stuck at the office.

But it doesn't end there.

I still write cheques for things from time to time.  And every time I do I have to pay for it.  OK, so it's somewhere under $3 per cheque, but how many cheques does the average person write in a lifetime?  Now multiply that number by the quantity of people on the planet who have a bank account.  Is that thousands of dollars?  Millions?  Billions?  In short, I have to pay to pay.  I have to pay for the privilege of paying someone else for something.

But the truth is even worse than that.

How do I know if I even have enough money to pay someone?  Well, I tend to use online banking.  Amazingly, neither the TD bank nor the CIBC charges me to access my own bank account details via the internet, but just when you think you've managed to escape it you realise you have to pay for that internet access.  When environmentalism started to get trendy just before the end of the 20th century every insidious corporate entity on the planet got on the bandwagon in an attempt to falsely demonstrate that they were environmentally conscious.  Paper bank statements (which you pay for via taxes that pay the postal service) began to be replaced by e-mails with PDF attachments.  But, in an ironic twist, once that service became available, banks began charging those customers who wished to continue to receive a paper bank statement.  So now you have to pay constantly for everything around you, even the most basic needs of a human being.  And then you have to pay for the ability to pay for those things.  And finally, just in order to establish whether or not you have the money to pay for the ability to pay for those things, you have to pay first.

If you go back now and read what I've written from the start, you will realise that you haven't really achieved very much yet but you've been paying for everything already.  And yet society seems surprised that we as a species don't do better.  Sadly, it's not even the case that very few people ever achieve their true potential before the day they die.  The problem is not only that the majority of people have to pay to do a job they hate, while all the time suffering from an unrealised dream of what they would do if money were not holding them back.

Alas, the whole truth is actually a whole lot worse.

Not only do few people ever reach their potential, but many fall in the opposite direction.  The world's streets are littered with grubby, starving, drunk, injured, ill people who started their lives in such a state of poverty that they never really stood a chance no matter what their work ethic or abilities might be.  I wonder how many geniuses are currently shaking a cup full of copper coins with pleading eyes when they should, instead, be curing diseases, harnessing sustainable energies, or pushing the boundaries of art, of space exploration, or of consciousness?  How many people buy lottery tickets because, despite the ridiculous odds stacked against them, they know that it is their only chance to ever push beyond the point of scratching around for a living instead of fulfilling their potential and making the greatest contribution to society that they could?

But the reality is even worse than that!

Our society is so sinister that even people such as I, brought up with a conscience that hangs around my neck like a millstone for my every waking minute, have to think twice before giving money to these people who need it the most.  I feel regret after I've tossed a few coins in that cup because the thought that goes through my mind is, "Am I really the person who should be donating?  Do I really have sufficient to be able to just give some away?  Am I really that far from being the person on their knees in the street, begging for enough just to keep me alive?"  The answer is no, and the quote I am constantly reminded of is, "There but for the grace of god go I".

The fact is that the system we live in makes it very, very difficult for humans to be equitable.  We have to fight, and pay, to be able to leave the nest.  We have to fight to make the rent.  And then if we ever manage to pool enough capital out of the economy to put a deposit down on a house, by the time we've finished paying for that house we're so old that we can't even eat or go to the toilet without someone helping us to do so.

In order just to consider this issue we have to fight to quiet our mind for a few minutes, desperately trying to avoid a society of bright colours, flashing lights, and babbling over-stimulation that occupies, distracts, and entrances us like the front of a Las Vegas fruit machine.  Yet we are told, and we tell our children, that this is "normal" and then get angry when they struggle to understand.  And if they disagree, we tell them that they are immature.  We tell them, "You'll understand one day," infer that they are stupid, undermine their self-esteem, and beat them down like a nail in a coffin until they are as indoctrinated into this system of blind stupidity as we are.

Yet we don't realise it.  We don't even acknowledge that what we are doing, and what we are doing to our children, is wrong.  And then every birthday and every xmas we bombard our children with materialistic goods as if to say, "Well, if you stop disagreeing with Mummy and Daddy then one day you'll be able to buy all this stuff yourself."  And then we act surprised when people riot and loot in London because they believe that they are owed these things but will never have the means to obtain them legitimately.  We get angry.  We say, "Well I paid for MY stuff so they should have to pay too."  We dismiss them as stupid or criminal.  We insist that the government not only puts a stop to it, but does so in the most inhumane way possible, with riot batons and water cannons, and all the while further angering and aggravating those people who already know that they have been deceived, duped, and royally fucked over by the system.

But the truth is much worse than that.

Why?  Because there is no need for anything to be paid for.  We, as a species, already have enough food, concrete, teachers, lab equipment, books, tools, tarmac, iPads for everyone to have one.  There are sufficient resources on the planet for everyone to have that home, that alarm clock, that bed, that education, that food and that love.  Yet we still continue to stick rigidly with money - an invention that dates back before the internet, before X-factor, before space travel, before Einstein, before Leonardo da Vinci, even before the wheel and almost as far back as the invention of fire.

Why?!  Why do we do this to ourselves and - much worse - why do we force all our seceding generations to make exactly the same mistake that we have, over and over?  I can't speak for you, dear reader, but I have come to the conclusion that we can do better.  I want to live in a world where everyone has more than they do now and, the really sad thing is that we could.  Let me say that to you again: we already have so much that everyone could have plenty.  There is already an idea that has been researched over 75 years and turned into a concept.  And that concept has been turned into a plan.  And that plan has now become a working project.  And that project has a name, "The Venus Project".

And yet the best reason we can think of for not dropping whatever we are doing right now, and starting it immediately, is because we're late for a meeting, or because our favourite show is on HBO and we might miss it.  Or because we selfishly, inconsiderately, naively tell ourselves that it is someone else's job to worry about that and - ironically - we need to get home and look after our kids.

Because we still keep telling ourselves that's the only way we can make sure our children don't lose the shirts off their backs too.

Green is Green

Ghost-written article for Phil Winters, EnWise Power Solutions Inc.
Published in Healthy Living magazine, Canada, September 2007.

It’s human nature to look for the quick fix. However, along with personal fitness regimes and healthy eating, the environment is one of those things that require an ongoing commitment. Hitting the gym seems hard at first but eventually pays off with that toned body. Equally, it might seem like environmentally-friendly home improvements are expensive but in reality, being green puts green in your pocket. Depending on the home improvement in question, it might pay for itself within a matter of weeks by reducing your energy bills by an equivalent amount. So, here are a few tips on how readers can commit long-term to the environment when it comes to preparing the home for the winter.

When you’ve been half-frozen on the way home it’s nice to be able to kick off the boots, drop the scarf, mittens and hat in the doorway, and stroll into a warm cosy house. However, did you know that 54 per cent of the energy consumed in the home stems from basic heating and cooling? That’s more than lighting, cooking, and all other appliances combined. So, if you and your family can reduce your energy use by the equivalent of turning down your thermostat by just two degrees, within one year you’ll have prevented 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from being pumped into the atmosphere. Installing programmable thermostats can help achieve this, preventing your home from using energy when no-one’s there anyway.

Think about the source of heat in the home too. If your furnace isn’t Energy Star rated, then you could be using 93 per cent more energy to heat your home than necessary. At today’s rate that’s almost $500 you could be spending on Christmas presents instead or, if you prefer, a gym membership for the following year to deal with the inevitable excesses of the festive season.

Simply weather stripping, caulking, and insulating other parts of your home properly can reduce heating bills by up to 25 per cent. Add exterior or interior storm doors and you can double that percentage. The other leaky culprits to check on are skylights, the attic, and anywhere that the home’s exterior is penetrated, such as the dryer exhaust, water pipes, and electrical and cable connections. Another 20 per cent can be saved just by sealing and insulating these.

Another great place to seek savings is that old inefficient rental water tank in your basement. Even when nobody is home, it is constantly firing up and re-heating your water, costing you money and contributing to air pollution. Replacing it with a hot-water-on-demand ‘tankless’ water heater will reduce energy use by 50 per cent and save an average of $240 per year (and take up much less space).

Also, by replacing your light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) you can make your lighting 75 per cent more efficient. The average home has 27 lights so specifically:

• Each 60 watt light replaced by an equivalent CFL would amount to $13.14 per year in savings;
• Each 75 watt light replaced by an equivalent CFL would amount to $16.06 per year in savings;
• Each 100 watt light bulb replaced by an equivalent CFL would amount to $20.73 per year in savings.

Note too, that if everyone in Canada switched just one bulb in their home to a CFL, Canada would save over $73 million in energy costs that year alone.

Fridges might seem an odd thing to focus on when considering the winter, but it’s not called the festive season for nothing. You might be tempted to keep your old fridge and just move it to the basement, garage, or games room. But if that fridge was built before 1997 then replacing it with an Energy Star model will save you a minimum of $120 within a year.

These changes might all seem expensive, but if you’re keen to be green then now is the time to commit, with government rebates of up to $10,000 available to homeowners who need help financing those changes for the better. Regardless, many of the home improvements that make your living healthier tend to pay for themselves over time in decreased utility bills, and in fact can make you money right away – and, it’s rare that something healthy in life leads to a healthy bank balance too, even for Christmas.

Xerox Global Services Makes Sun Shine Brighter

Case study written for Xerox Global Services Europe, October 2004.

When leading IT manufacturer Sun Microsystems wanted to find additional ways to streamline the costs of its document production and management processes, Xerox Global Services rose to the challenge.

Sun Microsystems is renowned globally as a market leader in IT hardware, software, and services. In Europe and South Africa the company operates 119 sites in 31 countries, employing 11,500 people, and had a global revenue of US$11.185 billion in the last fiscal year. Larry Matarazzi, director for Workplace Resources EMEA, Sun Microsystems explains, “Over the last few years Sun has been affected by the global down-turn in the IT sector, with 9/11 and the bursting of the dotcom bubble affecting the technology sector as a whole. Even though there was little ‘new business’ activity at that time, Xerox Global Services approached us proactively with an innovative solution at a time when we needed it most and were already looking to cut costs aggressively. It doesn’t get much better than that.”

Documents represent a huge hidden cost to organisations but they are the lifeblood of business operations, coursing through every PC across every department and across every output device. But research carried out by Xerox Global Services and analyst group IDC indicates that a staggering 90 per cent of European companies cannot even estimate the cost of document processing to their organisation. Xerox Global Services estimates that this figure rests between 5-15 per cent of a company’s annual revenue.

Due to Sun’s understanding of technology, the processes it had in place to deal with managing documents was more advanced than many companies, according to Bernie Gooch, service development manager, Xerox Europe.

“When we first visited Sun and carried out an audit of its document processes, we found that there were seven users per device, which is a lot better than average, but we still found that up to 25 per cent savings could be made,” Gooch explained.

An excess of document processing equipment, such as disparate stand-alone printers, copiers, fax machines and scanners, presents significant maintenance costs and unwanted time burdens on the IT department. These disparate devices can typically be replaced with multifunction devices placed strategically about the office premises. In September 2003, a project commenced to reduce Sun’s total document spend, starting with six key sites across Europe in Camberley, Munich, Dublin, Amersfoort, Berlin and Toulouse. The project was implemented by Xerox Office Services, one of three lines of business within Xerox Global Services.

Across these sites, Xerox Global Services found the following inventory when carrying out its due diligence assessment:

Total Devices 1,744
Suppliers 19
Models 174
Annual Impressions 63.77m

Following its audit, Xerox Global Services proposed a rationalisation plan to reduce the quantity of those devices and reapportion them across the offices to ensure Sun gets the best from each individual device. Xerox Global Services is bound by a service level agreement (SLA) to provide 25 per cent savings on Sun’s print-related costs.

The hidden costs of managing all these devices included warranties and printer disposals, time and material repairs, recycling and unserviceable devices. A lot of devices and consumables were not covered by a service agreement, which presented multiple problems. A solution was needed, as Matarazzi explained.

“We had to decide who would take ownership of the budget as the project fell between IT and facilities management,” he said. Xerox Global Services pitched the project not only to Sun’s IT management and facilities management, but also to Sun’s senior management, and then managed the entire programme from its Ballycoolin site outside Dublin.

The process was guided by Xerox Global Services’ “Lean Six Sigma” techniques for resolving problems. Six Sigma involves five steps to successful project implementation including design of solution, measurement of existing processes, analysis of problem creation, implementation of new solutions and a 12-month period of ‘control’ to assess results.

At the same time, Xerox Global Services has also assumed responsibility for liaising with 27 different European device manufacturers, consumables suppliers, and maintenance contractors whose equipment is still in use at Sun, with the sole responsibility for resolving device queries from all the company’s employees through its Xerox Global Services support centre in Ballycoolin.

The multi million Euro project is already yielding benefits, according to Matarazzi. “In effect, the initial benefits we’ve seen already are two-fold,” he commented. “Where sheer financial administration is concerned, we have gone from having to process over 3,000 invoices per quarter across Europe for all our document or device-related suppliers, to just one invoice per country per month from Xerox Global Services.”

Matarazzi added that Sun’s employees have reported a dramatic impact on customer service when it comes to device problem resolution across Europe. “We set Xerox Global Services a target of resolving 80 per cent of issues immediately, but Xerox Global Services is actually resolving close to 99.8 per cent, and Sun has already cut its ongoing European print costs by around ten per cent,” he said.

Sun has also seen major ‘human’ benefits, such as improved morale and better staff productivity, Matarazzi added. “We are also receiving regular management reports and, again for the first time, are aware exactly how much we are spending on printing documents and maintaining these devices,” he continued. “We’re now looking forward to the financial cost savings that will come from having an optimised fleet and document processes that will better suit the needs of our personnel.”

Xerox Global Services’ aim was to bring the number of users per device up to 17, representing a significant reduction in inventory and releasing office space. As part of the project Xerox Global Services employees are dedicated to assisting Sun, including on site visits to help resolve problems, provide productivity and document consultancy as well as make recommendations. This is in addition to the Xerox Global Services personnel providing technical support at Ballycoolin.

Due to the success – and the gains achieved in the initial stages - of the European project, Sun is now considering using Xerox Global Services to manage its document services globally. Matarazzi concludes: “One of the key reasons why we picked Xerox Global Services for the job in the first place was because it was the only company we felt could deliver in every country we operate in. We’ve had colleagues from the Asia Pacific region on the project team since day one, they are now very interested in using Xerox Global Services in their region too.

Retail Banking: Mile Long Queues or Mile High Club?

Ghost-written article for Cisco Systems EMEA.
Published in Retail Banking magazine, UK, October 2003.

There were several set backs along the way – 9/11 most notably – but it is now almost safe to conclude that the travel industry is well on the way to embracing internet protocol (IP) as a quasi-industry standard for IT operations. Major global airlines are migrating their internal networks to IP, the major airline alliances are using IP as a commonality to enable inter-organisational communications, and the internet itself has rewritten the rankings of organisations within the travel industry, as well as creating whole new industry sub-sections.

What can this possibly have to do with retail banking? Well, the impact of the internet on the air transport part of the travel industry in particular has quickly demonstrated those areas where IP can be harnessed to reduce costs, improve operational efficiency, and enhance customer service. By default, it has also determined where IP is not suited. The main issue that determines this in the travel industry also determines it in the retail banking industry.

That issue is simply that there is still only a relatively small proportion of the travel market that will purchase a package holiday or flight online. Despite everything you’ve read or heard, high street travel agents are not going out of business, and they never will. The reason for this is two fold. Firstly, certain types of customer will always prefer face-to-face contact with the seller when making a purchasing decision. It feels more tangible, more ‘proper’, and with a particular person and location associated with the transaction, the customer feels more comfortable because a method or recourse, should something go wrong, is much more obvious. In this case, the quantity of people booking online will not change until the demographics of the target market age with time. The fact is, the younger you are, the greater the proportion of your life has been spent in the presence of the internet, and therefore the more comfortable you are with it.

Secondly, certain types of transaction are inherently complicated. A round-the-world trip using different airlines from different alliances, an expedition that – literally - required planes, trains and automobiles, or a solitary journey where the customer cannot specify either the departure or return date would be examples. This would give even a seasoned IP expert or systems integrator a run for their money, and where the customer is concerned, the human need for reassurance that everything has been booked correctly may require something more tangible than an e-ticket or a pop-up window stating, “Complete. Return to homepage?”.

Humans do not and, in fact, cannot cease this pattern of behaviour when they leave the travel agent having booked their holiday, and head for the bank to get their foreign currency. It’s of little surprise then that according to Datamonitor, in spite of online banking, telephone banking, and mobile payments, 79 per cent of European consumers prefer physically visiting their humble local bank branch over any other channel. Retail banking and travel are very similar in this respect, and it is likely that the more expensive the transaction being made, the more likely the customer will require face-to-face contact. Think about it at a personal level – if you wanted to arrange an overdraft or a loan, wouldn’t your first instinct be to meet the bank manager in person? To a lesser extent, the last time you had a cheque for a sizeable sum to pay into your bank account, did you trust the express pay-in envelope? Or, like me, did you queue in the bank, despite it taking a large proportion of your precious lunch hour, because you felt more comfortable seeing it passed over the counter than sitting at the bottom of a perspex box fixed to a pillar somewhere? Face-to-face contact is still essential where a large or complex transaction is concerned. For some people, such contact is essential for all transactions.

This is a headache for the retail banking industry. Despite investing in online banking, neither the cost of staffing a branch can be reduced nor the efficiency of it increased while customers still prefer to use the branch to any other channel. The most pessimistic banker might decide that IP had nothing to offer the retail banking industry because of this issue, but that is not necessarily the case.

One just needs to turn the problem on its head. Rather than just trying to harness the internet as a method to get customers to complete transactions themselves, IP can be used to improve the efficiency of not only one branch, but all branches in a banking empire. Once one has the opportunity to think about it, the fact that bank branches all over Europe are crammed with impatient customers in their lunch hour is actually a blessing in disguise. After all, how many organisations would love to be able to predict where their customers will be and when, so that promotional offers could be targeted at them? The fact that in retail banking the target customer is most likely to be inside a branch, presents an opportunity to communicate with them. The personnel each customer is exposed to within the branch offers another opportunity for that bank to differentiate itself through provision of superior service. Even the kiosks within the branch could offer revenue opportunities for the bank from third parties, a means to promote complimentary services, or the beginnings of CRM with a personalised experience for each individual.

From the customer’s point of view, imagine approaching the till merely to pay that same cheque in, but then being informed by the cashier that your mortgage quotation was ready to be collected. At the same time, you’re reminded with the gleeful news that there are now only two monthly payments left on the loan you took out 18 months ago (meaning you might be able to afford that skiing holiday after all), and that if you were to open a joint account with your fiancé rather than just having separate accounts, you’d both get a better rate of interest anyway. Before you leave, you’re also given the opportunity to have a quick chat to the manager about that long-term savings plan you’d telephoned a bank branch 50 miles away about earlier in the week, which you’d completely forgotten about.

Conversely, imagine operating a bank where particular products or services could be offered just once to a customer most likely to need it, with a greatly increased possibility of the service suiting that customer and therefore a successful sale. Imagine also that no selling time was wasted – ever. Your marketing department or their local branch targeted customers individually, rather than in a slapdash group of people of the same age, disposable income, or postcode. Also, particular products or services were discussed once and once only with each customer, and at the right time – no, “Didn’t you call me about this last week?” or, “You were supposed to get back to me about this a fortnight ago!” responses. All this is entirely feasible through IP.

So, how would IP let the cashier know about all the banking needs of an individual customer rather than just the one need they have at that moment in time? If your organisation is going to embrace IP, then the return on investment will be greater if the quantity of places where IP reaches can be maximised. Put simply, if your bank’s call centres and branches are both running on IP, then there is no reason why the information used by either party cannot be shared. All in all, this means the customer’s local branch will know when the head office has contacted someone regarding a new promotional offer, or in response to a request for information from that customer. Similarly head office will know how quickly the customer responded by visiting their local branch, what questions they asked, and how the eventual service was tailored when the sale was closed. This is just one possibility though. With the same technology, it is also possible to do this in reverse.

For example, if the customer should contact the head office from outside the branch, then an IP-based telephony system can direct that individual’s call immediately to the personnel with appropriate expertise in the head office. However, the same call could also be redirected to someone working within the customer’s local branch, to the extent that the IP system will intuitively page the particular member of staff needed, wherever they are. This benefits the customer experience by ensuring that query calls are not endlessly transferred to various members of staff not equipped to answer the customer’s questions. It also means that the customer’s local branch will be able to develop a more comprehensive understanding of each customers’ lifestyle and needs, and therefore be able to tailor their overall retail banking experience to suit. In short, IP isn’t just a way to improve your telephony; it’s the start of an enterprise-wide CRM system, and the beginning of the end for missed opportunities to up-sell or cross-sell.

IP does not have to be restricted to its native ground of networked PCs and telephones. In-branch security surveillance could also run on IP, deliver real-time camera footage to the bank’s head office or, if needs be, the police. However, the same footage could be used by the bank’s marketing department to assess the impact of an in-store point of sale or other promotional campaign. Staffing levels could also be monitored, even customer behaviour in relation to new branch layouts and signage. Peak traffic times could be ascertained and staffing guidelines adapted accordingly. There is no limit to what can be done if the appropriate information is shared with those personnel that most need it.

As far as the customer is concerned, a trip to the local bank will never be like going on holiday – there is only so much that IP can do! However, once you accept that until the entire population of Europe becomes so comfortable with the internet that they never need to visit their branch, then the same issue that affects the travel industry will continue to affect the retail banking industry. Even if you ignore the issue, then one still has to accept that there are many opportunities for high street banks. Sales can be increased, customer satisfaction levels can be improved, and generally the bank stands to gain from literally wringing the most productivity out of the information its already has. John Paul Getty once said, “Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells”. Metaphorically, information is the same. Once you realise that the best way to use it is to spread it around your organisation, then the only thing left to do is to decide how - and IP is the answer.