It’s been a pretty exciting week out there in digital business. On Monday, a new search engine (www.cuil.com) launched with a great deal of fanfare and the bold claim that it would finally be the one to take on market-leading Google. Their launch, however, turned into a business nightmare filled with web-server errors, empty query results and angry reviewers unimpressed with the overall experience delivered.
Called CUIL (but pronounced “cool”), the search engine does provide some interesting features which Google lacks. However, the results are all that matter at the end of the day. My first Cuil query of “fiji” returned 0 results. Not a good start. By the next day, 21 million results for Fiji were returned so someone must have fixed something. Cuil offers up related information to search queries in a toolbar alongside the page and it is interesting, if not a bit odd. In my “fiji” query, the sidebar included an “Islands of Fiji” section where the islands of Vanua Levu, the Mamanucas, Yasawas and Robinson Crusoe Island were highlighted. Robinson Crusoe??? Viti Levu was nowhere to be found which will no doubt fuel the rumours of the capital’s pending move to Crusoe. You heard it here first.
Users of the popular Facebook social-networking website have come to take advantage of it’s intriguing and wildly popular capacity for connecting friends and colleagues with one-another. Based on an increasing number of “friend requests”, users in Fiji are no exception. A lot of these invitations come from people who I don’t know. Generally, I used to just accept these requests when they came in but I’ve come to re-think that action.
For starters, I don’t know half the people making the request to join my network and that’s a bit odd. It’s not that I’m adverse to meeting new people or finding new friends, though. That’s fine. What ends up bothering me is having to be kept abreast of all these people’s “status” updates. It peaked last week when I was notified that two different people in my network had moved from being married to single, one had gone from being engaged to being “in an open relationship” and one more had updated his status with a description of the impact a bad Indian dinner had on his body.
In a remarkable story which made headlines around the world last week, a Fiji-based news website erroneously reported that Microsoft would be naming it’s next operating system “Windows Fiji”. In response to that report, the country shifted into high gear in order to prevent the rumour from actually coming true.
The issue has since been dealt with and I’m happy to be the first to report that the next version of Microsoft’s product will instead be called “Windows Nadi”. As part of the deal, Microsoft has also promised to not release the software until the entire world knows how to pronounce “Nadi” properly. Fiji will benefit immensely from this.
In September of last year, I wrote a Digital Talanoa about email management or, more specifically, my own attempts at email management. Of all the articles I’ve ever written for the Fiji Times, I still receive comments from readers about this one. Apparently, I am not the only one struggling at times to figure out ways of managing all the digital information in our lives. A few people passed along their own tips but the vast majority of feedback I received were cries for help.
As my visit to the United States wraps up this week and I return to Fiji, I’ve found myself reminded again with the need to properly manage my time and, specifically email, more efficiently. I think this is mostly due to the time difference. When I sleep, Fiji is awake and working so by the time I do get up, there is usually a long list of messages waiting in my INBOX. I manage those by going through them as quickly as possible, deleting the ones which really aren’t that important or relevant and responding to the ones which absolutely need my attention. I’m usually not happy until I have less than five messages left. That, in essence, is what I’ve been doing for the past year or so since I came close to declaring email bankruptcy. That pretty much represents tossing everything that’s in your INBOX into the rubbish bin and starting again. For those readers shaking their head about to make the mental argument “I couldn’t possibly do that. There are critically important things in my INBOX!”, consider this: If they really are critical, they would have been done already. Toss it and live free.
I’m about 12,670 kilometers away from Suva right now back in America visiting family and doing some business. It’s like I’m in another world. Before anyone jumps ahead thinking that today’s column will just be about how fast the Internet is in the US or how well everything works smoothly here, I had to disappoint but there’s more to it than that. Actually, I should probably acknowledge that the Internet has been very fast, plentiful and available just about everywhere. Free access is a great thing and for anyone doing business while traveling, it’s really a godsend.
I’d like to write about a whole bunch of other things today, though. Americans are both great inventors of stuff as well as great marketers. I find the latter a bit more interesting because whether the things being invented are actually useful or not, a marketing genius somewhere will devise a way of making it appealing.
[NOTE: This version differs a bit from the version that appeared in the FijiTimes print edition. I had made some changes but apparently missed the deadline.]
I’m feeling pretty certain there’s a general misunderstanding going on locally when it comes to using the Internet for business communications. Too many organisations seem to be under the impression that just having a website will immediately catapult themselves into a futuristic vortex where “business will never be the same”, customers will love everything they do and world peace can be achieved with nothing more than the click of a mouse. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it’s not going to happen.
The Consumer Council of Fiji launched their own new website this week (www.consumersfiji.org) and for the first time, the general public has access to a method for filing consumer complaints online. That’s certainly something of value and a welcome addition to Fiji’s online presence for anyone that has ever felt ripped off by a business. The section for filing consumer complaints is extremely useful. They even have pre-filled categories for the local companies people love to hate most. That can be useful for the real repetitive complainers.
I enjoy driving very much. After 5 1/2 years, I’ve criss-crossed the country on the Queen’s Highway countless times. Driving relaxes me and when I’m behind the wheel, I can think clearly and often come up with good ideas. My only real problem is remembering the idea by the time I arrive at my destination. If I start my trip in Nadi with a problem on my mind, I’ll usually have a workable solution by the time I pass Sigatoka. The solution will often be considered useless by the time I hit the Warwick Resort and then revived again by Pac Harbour. Plenty of time to think on that road, after all.
After a recent trip to the Yasawas, I found myself in Nadi after sunset and I needed to be back in Suva that evening. I have never done the night drive on the Queen’s Highway. I’ve heard too many stories of livestock sleeping in the road and massive nighttime-potholes opening up to swallow unsuspecting cars to be comfortable making the trek. On this evening, however, I had little choice so I buckled my kids into the back seat, pulled out onto the rain-slicked road in Nadi and started back to Suva.
Apologies for the absence of a Digital Talanoa column last week. It certainly isn’t because nothing has been happening. On the contrary, there is lots happening in the country right now.
The official launch of the ICT Association of Fiji took place last week. One of the organisation’s key goals is to encourage more ICT development in Fiji by representing and pushing the issues that will make a difference for ICT businesses. I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved with this group since the beginning and for anyone in the industry who wants to play a role, I would encourage you to contact the association.
I’ve written plenty of times about the ICT industry here. From my own perspective and experience, we definitely have some challenges ahead when it comes to encouraging this type of investment. I continue to feel that up to this point, Fiji’s existing brand to the outside world has been almost fully defined by the tourism industry (with a smattering of political upheaval) and this does not necessarily help present the nation as an ICT hotbed where things get done efficiently and reliably. That is just one of the issues the country faces when developing ICT capabilities and attracting related investment.
The Digital Talanoa published two weeks ago regarding lacklustre customer service appears to have hit some kind of nerve, spawning people to share their own stories of frustration, for which there were plenty.
One reader commented on a visit to a local movie theatre with her children. Prior to the start of the G-rated film, an adult horror movie trailer was shown, essentially leaving her no choice but to scramble to try and cover the eyes and ears of her kids. Not a great experience.
Another reader was purchasing items from a store that offered a “Buy 4 for $5” deal. She only found three items she wanted so asked if she could just pay $5 for the three. The staff at the retailer, however, were adamant that this was against the rules. They obviously had difficulty fathoming that honouring this request would be actually saving them money. Not a great experience.
[Note to blog readers: This week's Digital Talanoa in the FijiTimes is very much an extension of my "When $1.60 costs $1,680" posting from a few weeks ago. Clearly, I have not gotten it out of my system and my need to have a few hundred thousand read this versus just a few thousand speaks for itself. Thanks for understanding.]
Let me apologise in advance for this week’s column. It appears to be coming from my dark side.
I was recently reminded of a dining experience I had about 15 years ago in New York City. I was with a friend who had been raving about a restaurant run by an old, black woman (affectionately named “Mama”) from Louisiana in the deep American south. The food she served was traditional, southern “cuisine” and my friend’s reviews were mouth-watering. So off we went to eat at Mama’s place.
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