by cameron | Jun 15, 2009 | banksters
The Commonwealth Bank announced that it is raising interest rates by 10 base points (which is 0.1% to the rest of us). Deputy prime minister Julia Gillard called CBA “selfish” and Community services minister Jenny Macklin said mortgage holders had every reason to be furious with the Commonwealth Bank.
Remember that this bank used to be owned by the Government until it was privatized by the ALP under Paul Keating.
Commonwealth Bank announced on 11 February 2009 a net profit after tax of $2,573 million for the half year ended 31 December 2008. This represents an increase of 9 percent on the prior comparative period.
However it has a Net Promoter Score of -40. MINUS 40! Companies obtain their Net Promoter Score by asking customers a single question on a 0 to 10 rating scale: “How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?”Based on their responses, customers can be categorized into one of three groups: Promoters (9-10 rating), Passives (7-8 rating), and Detractors (0-6 rating). The percentage of Detractors is then subtracted from the percentage of Promoters to obtain a Net Promoter score.
According to the NPS site, “Banking had an average NPS of approximately 15%.”
Now, I’ve had a few people say “but their shareholders are happy”. Sure. For now. What’s important to understand, though, is the concept of “Good and Bad Profits” (as Jen Storey mentioned on last week’s banking show).
To quote again from the NPS site:
The right goal for a company is to deliver customer experiences of such high quality that customers recognize the value in the relationship and become Promoters. These Promoters generate good profits and fuel true growth. They become, in effect, part of a company’s marketing department, not only increasing their own purchases but also providing enthusiastic referrals.
By contrast, companies can boost short-term profits by exploiting customer relationships, raising prices when they can get away with it, or cutting back on services to save costs and boost margins. Those practices boost bad profits by extracting value from customers at the expense of loyalty, creating Detractors. Companies can not achieve long-term sustained growth on the basis of bad profits.
Which basically translates like this:
If you screw people over to make more money, it will catch up with you sooner or later.
Congratulations on the -40 score Commonwealth Bank. You must be really proud.
by cameron | Jun 14, 2009 | Cuba, geopolitics
June 14 is the birthday of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna known to most of us by his nickname "Che".
If all you know about Che is stuff you’ve picked up from US media, then take some time today to educate yourself about the other side of the Che story. I’ve added Jon Lee Anderson’s "Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life" to my book recommendations.
I dare anyone to read that book, along with Che’s diaries, and still think this man was a violent, bloodthirsty dictator.
I’ve read them both (along with a few other books about Che) and it just doesn’t add up in my mind. Violent dictators rarely talk endlessly about social justice. Che (and Fidel too, for that matter) spent his life arguing eloquently for the need to equal rights for all people. He put his life on the line to fight for the rights of the poor people in Cuba and Bolivia.
If all he wanted was power (which is usually what motivates dictators), why leave Cuba at the height of his success to go into the jungles of Bolivia? It doesn’t make sense.
Compare Che’s words to the speeches and writing of Hitler or Stalin or even the last half dozen American Presidents and you’ll spot the difference.
And, if you can, watch Steven Soderbergh’s recent film about Che. I don’t think it’s out on DVD yet but I’ve seen Part One and it’s terrific.
by cameron | Jun 12, 2009 | banksters, Podcast
UPDATE: The original audio for this show had a problem (overlapping tracks) so I’ve re-uploaded it here.
We hate banks. (see my recent poll) It’s true. You know it. I know it. The only people who don’t seem to know it are the banks themselves. Although, I suspect they DO know it – they just don’t care. They’ve had an effective oligopoly for so long they think they can just say and do whatever they want and we’ll just sit here and take it.
Well I’m not taking it anymore. I’m going to do a series of shows exploring why we hate banks so much and what the alternatives are. We have a voice. Let’s use it to change things.
Today on the show I interview three people – Jen Storey from Online Banking Review, Mike Jarocki from Credit Card Finder, and Owen Davies, Group Manager, Corporate Affairs, Bendigo Bank, the bank that Aussies seem to actually like a bit.
Show sponsor:
by cameron | Jun 11, 2009 | philosophy, science
Scott Adams tells us about the illusion of time:
People keep sending me links to articles about how time is an illusion and not a quality of the universe. Apparently that is the common view of physicists. Scientists prefer concepts such as warped space-time and whatnot. I won’t pretend to understand any of that. The point is that science doesn’t recognize time — in the way we understand it — as a quality of the universe.
You might say time has something in common with God. Most people have a sense that both time and God exist, and they need both concepts to understand their own existence. Atheists and dyslexics (who experience time out of order) are the minority.
Given that science can’t find evidence for either God or time, it takes a leap of faith to assume either one exists. Therefore, anything in our daily life that depends on either God or time is built on a foundation of faith and not science.
I’ve often thought that time is a property of memory. If you damaged the part of your brain that manages memory, to the hippocampus or surrounding cortices – say a combination of retrograde amnesia and anterograde amnesia – what would your experience of time likely be? If you couldn’t remember what happened five minutes ago – and you couldn’t use your memories to predict the future – wouldn’t your experience be just what’s happening right now? Strangely enough, this is what gurus have been telling us for a long, long time: "What’s wrong with right now?"
by cameron | Jun 11, 2009 | Uncategorized
The reason no record label knows how to market anything to new media is they don’t live there. They don’t get it because they don’t use it. – Trent Reznor
True for most marketing / PR /corporate people. Trent is quitting Twitter. Good. I hate celebrity twitterers anyway. I’ll be happy if they all follow Trent’s example.
