Chip and PaIN

Chip and PIN has been with us since 2004. So why is it I feel no more secure than I did before? And keep having wierd point-of-sale incidents?

I've been having this chat with several people recently: whereas when C&P came in waiters would casually glance away while you punched in the digits, these days many of them brazenly watch your every move.

Then on holiday last week I had the ultimate mockery of the added security that the technology is supposed to provide. In a Swedish supermarket, the cashier wanted to see personal ID, as the PIN alone wasn't enough for a foreign cardholder. The manager came over, glanced at my driving licence and asked "Is your date of birth DATE MAY YEAR?"

"Yes, because I am agreeing with what you are reading off my card," I said while the groceries were bagged.

Chip and PIN can clearly be far more secure than scrawled signatures on bits of paper. But it is a sticking plaster until better technology is applied to securing transactions.

Until then, I'll keep hunching my shoulders and holding the machine at strange angles.

They're not kidding

Last post for a week for me - off to sample the servile delights of Ryanair, the airline that used to let families with small children board first at no cost but now charges 46 quid for this, in what it touts as a 'new family-friendly service'.

Doppelganger almostclanger

PR can be strange. So thinking on the feet helps. Ultimately, spokespeople need to be able to shape their content and message to suit the tastes of the audience/media they're engaging with.

I was reminded of this in no uncertain terms this morning at the opening to a live interview on Country Mix 106.8, Dublin's best-known country and western radio station (how could I say no?). As they led me in I was kept on hold listening to commentary about some compelling and no doubt highly-talented country artistes. I'd done my prep, and was ready for the first question in our chat about Rainier PR's Amy Winehouse media consumption story.

Then came the first question: "Our listeners are dying to know - are you the same Steve Earle who dazzles them regularly with his musical genius and hits such as Galway Girl?" Had me stumped - sometimes the answer is a big fat no but the questions still throws you.

Thankfully other media, inlcuding Perez Hilton, have not been asking such probing questions in covering the story.

A streetcar blamed desire

Have you joined Britain's fastest-growing club yet?

It's a fashion thing, but apparently if - like me - you've been snapped by one of Google's StreetView cars, you can consider yourself lucky.

People across the UK have been spotting what Google has been quietly working on - taking pictures at street level in towns and cities across the country. I was pictured in Soho recently, no doubt looking fairly moronic in an early morning attempt to cross the street.

Today SC Magazine raises an interesting point - putting the rest of the privacy debate to one side, what if you get pictured in a compromising position, like the Arsenal fan outside the Emirates photographed by the Spurs fan who leaves the last three letters out of the frame?

What if half the PRs working in central London get pictured outside a peep show premises as they walk innocently with a client through the streets?

What if journalists who said they didn't want an interview because they were at a press event all day are actually snapped popping out for a sarnie across the road from the office?

Google will no doubt say it's not driving the need for this, that it's people who desire the ability to see images at a street level.

At least it might save me the cost of that webcam above the door to our building, so I can see who's sneaking in late.

Lesson in answering the phone

I'm going to sound like a tw&t now, but the story goes like this. I was booked in for a massage yesterday at this lovely place on Poland Street - I'm not that much of a ponce, I just had a bad back and needed it sorting out.

So when I phoned at lunchtime to move the appointment, the receptionist said: "Steve you are naughty, that's the second time you've done that recently. No worries, we completely understand, come in this evening instead." Service with a smile.

This is just how businesses should be treating (ir)regular customers by phone to encourage them to keep coming back. CTI so they knew who was calling, a quick check on my records, some notes to indicate they could afford to be cheeky with me, etc. It was a new receptionist I'd never spoken to before, but I was made to feel like a cherished customer.

So why is it most PR firms make a hash of this when clients and prospects call? The main switchboard number remains the frontline for most agencies. Yet I've seen countless agencies with receptionists who don't know who the clients are, fumble around when fielding new business calls, etc etc. Front desk needs good training and to be a working part of the business.

We're in the communications industry and our work is supposed to enhance reputations and support sales, so we could at least put some effort into how we answer our own phones. Thankfully Rainier PR doesn't fall into this category and calls get fielded with aplomb. It's just that so many agencies make an arse of it.

PR firms are being shown how to do it right - by a massage parlour (sorry, didn't mean that, it's really not that kind of place).

Inflation: coming soon to a PR budget near you?

Centrica announced its big 35% price hike yesterday ahead of underwhelming results today. As we get into energy and financial services half-year results season, expect more of the same.




All this surely points to inflation 'creeping' up. At the very least, we're like to see pressure on employers to increase salaries, but in order to do so they'll need to increase their fees. And all the normal laws of economics will come into play.



What does this mean for PR firms and PR budgets? For me, one big question - charges will have to go up, so who's going to be first to do it?



If the prices of basic essentials continue to escalate, a growing wage bill is inevitable. Putting prices up is always tricky for a PR agency, particularly when it doesn't come at a convenient point like year-end. Demand for digital PR services may help to soften the impact, but if we see prices going up all over the shop, PR has to follow.


For the small independent agencies, wage pressure will probably initially be soaked up by a big drop in profits rather than fee hikes, but that's not sustainable for too long as banks won't give the credit facilities many will rely on to manage their debtor books. They may look like they have cheap rates for a while. But hold fire for too long and, given they're likely to have relatively high overheads pro-rata, there's a danger they'll go under or struggle to handle larger clients.



For the mid-sized specialists and longer-in-the-tooth firms, there will probably be a need to make sensible increases to ensure charges are aligned with wage inflation. They have quite a comfortable position as they are big enough to be able to stomach a lower profit line.

The big boys, particularly those that are part of a publicly-listed company, will probably have a dilemma. Shareholders will want positive profit growth, albeit more restrained. Yet their cost bases will be higher and will doubtless shoot up fastest, meaning charges will have to increase. Their resource management is normally less effective, so wage bill increases will have less impact on productivity. That trump card of the big listed agency - acquiring in order to hit growth targets - looks hamstrung by a squeeze on profits and banks less willing to back them. It all points to a very tricky time ahead.

So can PRs look forward to pay rises to help them pay those increasing bills? It is looking that way, but agencies are going to need them to sweat harder to offset that. So jobs are likely to be harder to come by over the coming year, recruitment will be muddled and productivity will be a huge asset. We've already seen two agencies make redundancies in the tech sector recently, and firms everywhere will be looking to trim their fat.

The good news is that many specialist markets, particularly technology, still seem fairly resilient.

Agencies that can show their clients they are taking a responsible, sustainable and unselfish approach to these enforced pricing conditions are the ones most likely to come out smiling.

Cuil runnings

Search for 'Google' on http://www.cuil.com/ and you get a full page listing Google's primary services.

Search for 'Cuil' on http://www.google.com/ and the first entry is a story from the Toronto Star newspaper entitled Search engine cuil's splashy debut fails miserably.

With all the talk surrounding how the two services compare, this seems to be a pretty clear indication of how they square up in one area.