There comes a point when you gain financial freedom which is marked by the ability to purchase without concern for price. That point is where increasing wealth makes no impact on your quality of life. Most people will never reach this point however, and the number of people who will is debatable but the most quoted figure is 1% of the population.
When you reach this level of wealth however, despite the fact it is the level at which increasing wealth leaves little to no impact, it is also the level at which increasing wealth is at its easiest. The old saying "wealth begets wealth" or to put it more crudely "money breeds money" comes into play. At this level, investment and banking offers the greatest return on the money you invest or deposit. When you surpass the million mark the amount of interest you can be paid on that money is more than a sizable portion of the population earns in a single year. Going further still and investing in commodities and other assets whose values appreciate over time you can ensure your wealth never declines.
The Bank of England recently announced its latest round of bond-buying scheme which is intended to stimulate the economy by bolstering liquidity of businesses through direct capital investment in exchange for bonds held against those businesses with an agreed yield - essentially interest. While the idea of this may sound promising to many business owners or entrepreneurs the reality is far from the supposed incentive. The companies which receive this capital are almost always very large organisations deemed to be somewhat stable and guaranteed to provide a return, in other words companies that are already making money and are in good health.
One of the most prominent companies to feature in the Bank of England's latest round of bond-buying is Apple, which is a company that arguably is in no need of capital. Therein lies the problem with calling this a "stimulus package" and the supposed desired effect. To stimulate an economy you need to capitalise the smaller and medium businesses that are faltering. Imagine a 6-lane motorway, where 2 lanes in either direction have stalled entirely and represent small and medium businesses. The third lane in each direction represents the largest businesses which are flowing freely and passing all the others by on the road. The stronger the economy the more traffic the motorway can handle, the weaker the economy the closer to a traffic jam you become or an all out crash that prevents traffic entirely. To increase the traffic the motorway carries you should not pout money into the fast lane that achieves nothing. You need to address the other 4 lanes and determine why those lanes have stalled; determine if they have broken down, or need extra fuel, or have a puncture they need repairing.
If you are going to try and provide a stimulus to keep the country moving then you need to invest that money in removing the barriers that are slowing down the country. Large companies find it easiest to attract investment and to gain access to credit, they are not the companies in need of investment from any public body. This isn't surprising however as the Bank of England, like the Federal Reserve in the USA, isn't actually controlled by the government, and technically isn't even a public body. They are both technically privately owned and while expected to be politically neutral and altruistic, they don't have any obligation to actually do so. Knowing this it's actually counter intuitive to think that any government really has control over fiscal policy or economic policy. The Bank of England will only intervene insofar as to ensure that its private interests are protected. With that in mind one could argue the only reason Apple is on the list is because of its consistently high share price and perceived market value and the recent tax levy placed upon it by the EU, in other words the Bank of England is essentially footing part of the bill for Apple's tax fine - the question is, how much?
I know what your problem is
Most people go through bouts of introspection where they take a step back from their lives, usually when things aren't going to plan, and ask themselves if they are doing something wrong. In these moments we look at our lives and analyse what we say and do and think about our present and our past and how we feel our words and actions have shaped our lives. In these moments we often look back at friendships and relationships that went wrong and wonder why they went wrong, what it was that they or we did exactly.
While we all experience this, our introspection is ultimately incapable of being truly objective, we always have a bias towards our own actions and a desire to believe that we did the right thing. Even when looking back and knowing it was wrong, we like to give the excuse that we thought it was right at the time, so we dismiss the guilt we should feel for the mistakes we made. The problem with doing this is that without accepting the responsibility for our actions we are forever destined to repeat them. If we always say that we did what we thought was right at the time we completely write off the learning process and dismiss what we should have learned from the experience and perpetuate the belief that if we continue to do what we think is right then we will live a life without regret and without guilt.
We might not feel regret or guilt because we convince ourselves we shouldn't, but if we know what we did was wrong and we never learn from it, we will repeat our actions resulting in the same negative outcomes and still show no guilt nor regret.
While our introspection is biased, the same analytical mindset is a lot more objective when we apply it to others. While we may ask ourselves what we are doing wrong and convince ourselves we aren't doing anything wrong and that we are just doing the best we can, when we look at others we can much more clearly define the actions that are causing much of the worry, anxiety, or negative consequences that those people have to endure.
I've seen this in a few people, and I openly admit here that the whole point of this post is about me not them. Using these people as examples I have seen them repeatedly complain about aspects of their life that they aren't happy with, in particular their relationships both amorous and amicable. When I look at the way they treat other people, the way they talk to others, and the way they talk to me, I can see exactly why people wouldn't like them. I know the impression they give is not what they intend yet that's how it looks and how I would interpret it if I didn't know them. It's because of this that I wonder how to break down the bias we show when we analyse ourselves.
If we can look at another person, their words, their actions, their behaviours, and know exactly why people see them the way they do, why can't we do that to ourselves? Why can the behaviours that deter others be so blatantly obvious to us when we look at other people, yet when it comes to ourselves we are almost blind?
I know the people I refer to above are completely oblivious to the way they present themselves. I also know that I'm not as close to them as I would need to be in order to actually tell them - if I did now, it would likely be met with hostility. That beggars the question, if that's the reason I don't tell them what is obvious to me, are there others who see my faults and my negative behaviours with such equal clarity, who for the same reasons never say a word to me about them, out of fear of a hostile reaction?
How can you get close enough to someone who will be willing and able to tell you the truth about your behaviour if that very behaviour is the reason people don't try to get close to you in the first place?
I know what your problem is, but do you know what mine is?
While we all experience this, our introspection is ultimately incapable of being truly objective, we always have a bias towards our own actions and a desire to believe that we did the right thing. Even when looking back and knowing it was wrong, we like to give the excuse that we thought it was right at the time, so we dismiss the guilt we should feel for the mistakes we made. The problem with doing this is that without accepting the responsibility for our actions we are forever destined to repeat them. If we always say that we did what we thought was right at the time we completely write off the learning process and dismiss what we should have learned from the experience and perpetuate the belief that if we continue to do what we think is right then we will live a life without regret and without guilt.
We might not feel regret or guilt because we convince ourselves we shouldn't, but if we know what we did was wrong and we never learn from it, we will repeat our actions resulting in the same negative outcomes and still show no guilt nor regret.
While our introspection is biased, the same analytical mindset is a lot more objective when we apply it to others. While we may ask ourselves what we are doing wrong and convince ourselves we aren't doing anything wrong and that we are just doing the best we can, when we look at others we can much more clearly define the actions that are causing much of the worry, anxiety, or negative consequences that those people have to endure.
I've seen this in a few people, and I openly admit here that the whole point of this post is about me not them. Using these people as examples I have seen them repeatedly complain about aspects of their life that they aren't happy with, in particular their relationships both amorous and amicable. When I look at the way they treat other people, the way they talk to others, and the way they talk to me, I can see exactly why people wouldn't like them. I know the impression they give is not what they intend yet that's how it looks and how I would interpret it if I didn't know them. It's because of this that I wonder how to break down the bias we show when we analyse ourselves.
If we can look at another person, their words, their actions, their behaviours, and know exactly why people see them the way they do, why can't we do that to ourselves? Why can the behaviours that deter others be so blatantly obvious to us when we look at other people, yet when it comes to ourselves we are almost blind?
I know the people I refer to above are completely oblivious to the way they present themselves. I also know that I'm not as close to them as I would need to be in order to actually tell them - if I did now, it would likely be met with hostility. That beggars the question, if that's the reason I don't tell them what is obvious to me, are there others who see my faults and my negative behaviours with such equal clarity, who for the same reasons never say a word to me about them, out of fear of a hostile reaction?
How can you get close enough to someone who will be willing and able to tell you the truth about your behaviour if that very behaviour is the reason people don't try to get close to you in the first place?
I know what your problem is, but do you know what mine is?
Encouragement
I like to encourage people to pursue their dreams and their desires (within reason) and offer help where I think I can and should do so. Whenever I see someone with a talent even when it is something that I would like to be able to do I still encourage them. I don't mind when people do better than me because I understand no matter how well you do there will always be someone who does better. It's unrealistic to believe that you can be #1 and stay there. Even the Forbes rich list isn't set in stone, with Bill Gates and Carlos Slim often exchanging places at the top the conclusion you can draw is that sometimes you're ahead and sometimes you're behind and that's okay either way because that's life.
What matters most is where you are going (or where you want to go) and what you are doing to get there. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses and we often try to pursue these as careers or at the very least we try to capitalise on them. Confidence itself however has become something of a commodity in society today with those who possess it in apparent exultance being the ones who make it the furthest.
The question is as with all commodities, does the person who has it, need it? The inevitability with all commodities is to reach a point where price rises higher than those who actually need it can afford. This is called an economy of scale and an example of such would be insurance. Those who need it most are those who could not afford to replace their belongings, yet they are also the least likely to have it as it's still quite expensive. On the other hand those who need it least are those who could easily pay to replace all of their belongings, yet despite the lack of need, their affluence leads then to be the group most likely to have insurance.
If confidence is a commodity then the question becomes "Who needs it?" - which has an obvious answer, those with the least confidence need it the most, yet they are often the last people who others direct their encouragement towards. Instead they choose to direct it at celebrities, and popular personalities, in an attempt to encourage them further, but this harkens back to insurance, just as those who are richest have it most, here too those who have the most confidence are the ones who receive the most encouragement.
Spin
In the UK we have a profession nicknamed 'The Spin Doctor' which quite simply put is a job within public relations to take any news story or event that happens which may be perceived one way, and spin it in the opposite direction to your advantage. This can be done with events that reflect negatively on you, which you then spin to a positive, or can be done with events which reflect positively on your opponent and spin it to a negative. As the saying goes, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" there is perhaps a revision to be made in the text, one to say "the road to hell is paved with intentions" - whether they are good or bad is irrelevant at the end of the day what matters, at least in the public eye, is the way those intentions are perceived.
In the past 6 months of so since the UK voted to leave the EU I have been watching media outlets intently and it is at this time more than any that their efforts to spin news stories have become the most apparent. The main reason for this is because the majority of neutral events that occur are being spun one way or the other when in reality it has little bearing on either side, yet each side tries to claim each headline as it emerges and spin it into a positive for their side or a negative for the other. As for events that are unquestionably positive for one side and undeniably negative for the other, here you see desperation at it's most apparent. Claims with no basis whatsoever are made, sometimes completely dismissing prior precedent which when questioned is usually met with "but this is different" or "that won't happen this time" - but to this that old cliche arises in retort that Einstein [among others] once said "The Definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
What I have found through this experience however is clarity in seeing which media outlets are actually neutral or indifferent. One example being Bloomberg, which centres around financial markets and the impact of events. One thing I like about their coverage through all of this is the fact that they haven't dwelt on what might happen, but rather they have focused on the visible impacts of what has already happened. Their approach feels a lot more objective because they take an empirical approach to the news they report. Spend a few minutes watching Bloomberg and you will quickly see chart after chart showing choice variables and data visualisations which help you get a better picture of long term and short term trends. Rather than focusing on changes that happened in a day which can be up and down from the one before, they look at comparisons to previous performance.
Taking the FTSE as an example [Financial Times Stock Exchange] which is based in London, throughout the coverage of the UK's tumultuous currency movements in the last few months, bar the flash crash and the initial drop on June 24th, media outlets like the BBC have largely ignored financial markets. A few reports have been made on key events but for the most part what the BBC reports is completely at odds with the analysis you see on Bloomberg. "Since Brexit" is mentioned frequently on BBC yet rarely have you heard a single reporter acknowledge "we haven't actually left yet" - on the flip-side Bloomberg uses language which is markedly different even if it is subtle "Since the UK voted to leave the EU" - and concurrently reporters frequently state "the UK hasn't left yet." You might be thinking this is nitpicking but it is important to make this distinction clear. I wrote a post about the relationship between Y2K and Brexit which stresses the danger of ignorance of what is to come. The misnomer of "Since Brexit" is a very dangerous precedent to make as it will lull many into a false sense of security thinking "the worst is over" when reality the gun hasn't even been fired yet.
One particular event I found the most interesting in terms of the divergence of reporting from reality was the recent approval of Heathrow Airport Expansion plans. Throughout the reporting, BBC repeatedly stated the expansion had approved and that the new runway would be built and operational around 2025. Flip to Bloomberg and the first reaction there was the question "Is this a done deal?" and the answer was categorically "No" and reiteration of the fact this was only government approval essentially outline approval and that local councils still had to approve the plans through their planning process and stressed that local government was opposed to the expansion, moreover it was highlighted that 7 years ago Labour approved expansion of the airport, and here we are 7 years later with another government, Tory led, approving the same plans - the question "Will it happen?" hasn't been answered. Central government and Local Government in the UK do not always see eye to eye.
In the past 6 months of so since the UK voted to leave the EU I have been watching media outlets intently and it is at this time more than any that their efforts to spin news stories have become the most apparent. The main reason for this is because the majority of neutral events that occur are being spun one way or the other when in reality it has little bearing on either side, yet each side tries to claim each headline as it emerges and spin it into a positive for their side or a negative for the other. As for events that are unquestionably positive for one side and undeniably negative for the other, here you see desperation at it's most apparent. Claims with no basis whatsoever are made, sometimes completely dismissing prior precedent which when questioned is usually met with "but this is different" or "that won't happen this time" - but to this that old cliche arises in retort that Einstein [among others] once said "The Definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
What I have found through this experience however is clarity in seeing which media outlets are actually neutral or indifferent. One example being Bloomberg, which centres around financial markets and the impact of events. One thing I like about their coverage through all of this is the fact that they haven't dwelt on what might happen, but rather they have focused on the visible impacts of what has already happened. Their approach feels a lot more objective because they take an empirical approach to the news they report. Spend a few minutes watching Bloomberg and you will quickly see chart after chart showing choice variables and data visualisations which help you get a better picture of long term and short term trends. Rather than focusing on changes that happened in a day which can be up and down from the one before, they look at comparisons to previous performance.
Taking the FTSE as an example [Financial Times Stock Exchange] which is based in London, throughout the coverage of the UK's tumultuous currency movements in the last few months, bar the flash crash and the initial drop on June 24th, media outlets like the BBC have largely ignored financial markets. A few reports have been made on key events but for the most part what the BBC reports is completely at odds with the analysis you see on Bloomberg. "Since Brexit" is mentioned frequently on BBC yet rarely have you heard a single reporter acknowledge "we haven't actually left yet" - on the flip-side Bloomberg uses language which is markedly different even if it is subtle "Since the UK voted to leave the EU" - and concurrently reporters frequently state "the UK hasn't left yet." You might be thinking this is nitpicking but it is important to make this distinction clear. I wrote a post about the relationship between Y2K and Brexit which stresses the danger of ignorance of what is to come. The misnomer of "Since Brexit" is a very dangerous precedent to make as it will lull many into a false sense of security thinking "the worst is over" when reality the gun hasn't even been fired yet.
One particular event I found the most interesting in terms of the divergence of reporting from reality was the recent approval of Heathrow Airport Expansion plans. Throughout the reporting, BBC repeatedly stated the expansion had approved and that the new runway would be built and operational around 2025. Flip to Bloomberg and the first reaction there was the question "Is this a done deal?" and the answer was categorically "No" and reiteration of the fact this was only government approval essentially outline approval and that local councils still had to approve the plans through their planning process and stressed that local government was opposed to the expansion, moreover it was highlighted that 7 years ago Labour approved expansion of the airport, and here we are 7 years later with another government, Tory led, approving the same plans - the question "Will it happen?" hasn't been answered. Central government and Local Government in the UK do not always see eye to eye.
Who do you think you are?
I don't pretend to be anyone I am not, and I don't play a character, I just try to be myself. I find it frustrating however when people draw similarities between me and certain fictional characters and try to insinuate that I am trying to be those characters. If you happen to see similarities between me and other people, real or fictional, the truth is much more likely to be the fact that we are all not as unique as we like to think we are, and not the false conclusion that I am trying to be something I am not.
I've written posts on this blog before about personalities and the classification systems that I would use personally to assess people; I've also written posts about professional classification systems like the Myers-Briggs personality type system. My own system has 4 personalities, and Briggs has 16 personality types determined by 4 attributes - incidentally my Myers-Briggs type was INFP at the time of writing the previous post, it is now INFJ.
What these classification systems show us is that the population as a whole can be sorted into these groupings, no matter how unique you think you really are, determined by these 4 attributes you can be summed up into one of only 16 classifications. By virtue of the fact that authors create characters that are believable, and even when they deliberately try to make them as complex and unbelievable as possible, they still fit into this same classification system. The reason people have similarities with others real or fictional is because they are based on real people and real behaviours. I often see people say "You're trying to be X from Y" where X is a character from a TV show called Y. This annoys me most of all because the majority of people that do this seem to hold this fixation on the idea that those shows were the first to do that or portray that type of personality. Yet, just as with real-life personalities, our fictional counterparts also fit into the same groups, and just as with real life they are never the first person to behave in that way.
There is a website called TV Tropes which is dedicated to listing tropes - in this case referring to the recurring devices used by writers and actors who portray their characters. The great wealth of tropes listed and the abundance of examples of each shows how originality is not something which has been present for a very long time. Even going back hundreds of years examining plays and stories from folklore and legend, the same tropes can be found again and again because the limit of human imagination when it comes to creativity is a lot smaller than we like to think it is.
One example of a trope relevant to this post is the Four Temperament Ensemble which embodies four recurring personalities:
1 - Sanguine: Extroverted, emotional, and people-oriented.
2 - Choleric: Extroverted, unemotional, and task-oriented.
3 - Melancholic: Introverted, emotional, and task-oriented.
4 - Phlegmatic: Introverted, unemotional, and people-oriented.
Source: tvtropes.org
TV Tropes even goes on to provide a listing at the bottom that lets you explore examples of these tropes, the section specific to TV shows can be found here.
Here are a selection of examples:
3rd Rock from the Sun:
Doctor Who (The Eleventh Doctor and his companions):
The Golden Girls:
Sex and the City:
As you scroll through the list and see how common this trope is you begin to see how that show you like to compare everyone to was not the first to do it and won't be the last. Yes the people you see will share similarities with those characters but that does not mean they are pretending to be those characters, and in most cases they have probably never even seen the show to begin with.
I've written posts on this blog before about personalities and the classification systems that I would use personally to assess people; I've also written posts about professional classification systems like the Myers-Briggs personality type system. My own system has 4 personalities, and Briggs has 16 personality types determined by 4 attributes - incidentally my Myers-Briggs type was INFP at the time of writing the previous post, it is now INFJ.
What these classification systems show us is that the population as a whole can be sorted into these groupings, no matter how unique you think you really are, determined by these 4 attributes you can be summed up into one of only 16 classifications. By virtue of the fact that authors create characters that are believable, and even when they deliberately try to make them as complex and unbelievable as possible, they still fit into this same classification system. The reason people have similarities with others real or fictional is because they are based on real people and real behaviours. I often see people say "You're trying to be X from Y" where X is a character from a TV show called Y. This annoys me most of all because the majority of people that do this seem to hold this fixation on the idea that those shows were the first to do that or portray that type of personality. Yet, just as with real-life personalities, our fictional counterparts also fit into the same groups, and just as with real life they are never the first person to behave in that way.
There is a website called TV Tropes which is dedicated to listing tropes - in this case referring to the recurring devices used by writers and actors who portray their characters. The great wealth of tropes listed and the abundance of examples of each shows how originality is not something which has been present for a very long time. Even going back hundreds of years examining plays and stories from folklore and legend, the same tropes can be found again and again because the limit of human imagination when it comes to creativity is a lot smaller than we like to think it is.
One example of a trope relevant to this post is the Four Temperament Ensemble which embodies four recurring personalities:
1 - Sanguine: Extroverted, emotional, and people-oriented.
2 - Choleric: Extroverted, unemotional, and task-oriented.
3 - Melancholic: Introverted, emotional, and task-oriented.
4 - Phlegmatic: Introverted, unemotional, and people-oriented.
Source: tvtropes.org
TV Tropes even goes on to provide a listing at the bottom that lets you explore examples of these tropes, the section specific to TV shows can be found here.
Here are a selection of examples:
3rd Rock from the Sun:
- Dick Solomon (melancholic)
- Tommy Solomon (choleric)
- Sally Solomon (phlegmatic)
- Harry Solomon (sanguine)
Doctor Who (The Eleventh Doctor and his companions):
- The Doctor (melancholic)
- River Song (choleric)
- Rory (phlegmatic)
- Amy Pond (sanguine)
The Golden Girls:
- Dorothy (melancholic)
- Sophia (choleric)
- Rose (phlegmatic)
- Blanche (sanguine)
Sex and the City:
- Carrie Bradshaw (melancholic)
- Miranda Hobbes (choleric)
- Charlotte York (phlegmatic)
- Samantha Jones (sanguine)
As you scroll through the list and see how common this trope is you begin to see how that show you like to compare everyone to was not the first to do it and won't be the last. Yes the people you see will share similarities with those characters but that does not mean they are pretending to be those characters, and in most cases they have probably never even seen the show to begin with.
Take a look at yourself
You have never seen yourself the way others see you. For 99.9% of people I would estimate this to be true. I don't just mean in a metaphorical sense, but in a physical sense too. We are never in a position naturally where we can actually look at ourselves as other people see us. What you see in a mirror is a mirror-image of yourself, it's flipped, and depending on the construction of the mirror, clarity, cut, and thickness, the image you see is distorted. This isn't the same image someone else sees of you when they look at you.
When it comes to cameras there is a saying that the camera adds ten pounds, while many people laugh this idea off as being perpetuated by people who don't like having their photo taken, the truth is, most cameras actually do. The reason they do alter your appearance is largely down to the construction of the lens of the camera, very few cameras beyond high end models with a high price tag actually try to recreate the lens of the human eye. What a camera sees and what a person sees are very different things. If you have ever looked up at the night sky and gazed with wonder and awe at the stars that fill your field of view, only to find an infinite black nothingness blurred and patchy when you try to point your camera at it, then you'll know how things like ISO can greatly alter the image the camera can capture.
The bottom line here is that no camera can as yet perfectly match the human eye. Knowing this, while the vast amount of photos we take of ourselves and other people populate our devices and eat up our storage capacity, the reality is that reality is never truly captured. The only people you could argue even come close to being able to look at themselves as other people would, are identical twins - although the person they look at isn't actually them, and even here while twins can appear identical to other people, the twins themselves often notice differences that can let them distinguish who is who in photos etc. The idea that parents of twins are forever confused about which one is which, while comedic in effect, in practice becomes almost non-existent with age. As two people grow, no matter how similar their lives are, over time differences develop.
So really when you stop and think about it, even if you rig a complex system of mirrors to allow yourself to look at yourself with the correct orientation and flipping, even in a hall of mirrors or a fun-house the fact you can't perfectly recreate the conditions of the perceptions others have of you really does mean that you probably never have seen yourself the way others see you, physically, knowing this, at least for me, makes it somehow easier to accept you have never seen yourself metaphorically the way others see you either.
When it comes to cameras there is a saying that the camera adds ten pounds, while many people laugh this idea off as being perpetuated by people who don't like having their photo taken, the truth is, most cameras actually do. The reason they do alter your appearance is largely down to the construction of the lens of the camera, very few cameras beyond high end models with a high price tag actually try to recreate the lens of the human eye. What a camera sees and what a person sees are very different things. If you have ever looked up at the night sky and gazed with wonder and awe at the stars that fill your field of view, only to find an infinite black nothingness blurred and patchy when you try to point your camera at it, then you'll know how things like ISO can greatly alter the image the camera can capture.
The bottom line here is that no camera can as yet perfectly match the human eye. Knowing this, while the vast amount of photos we take of ourselves and other people populate our devices and eat up our storage capacity, the reality is that reality is never truly captured. The only people you could argue even come close to being able to look at themselves as other people would, are identical twins - although the person they look at isn't actually them, and even here while twins can appear identical to other people, the twins themselves often notice differences that can let them distinguish who is who in photos etc. The idea that parents of twins are forever confused about which one is which, while comedic in effect, in practice becomes almost non-existent with age. As two people grow, no matter how similar their lives are, over time differences develop.
So really when you stop and think about it, even if you rig a complex system of mirrors to allow yourself to look at yourself with the correct orientation and flipping, even in a hall of mirrors or a fun-house the fact you can't perfectly recreate the conditions of the perceptions others have of you really does mean that you probably never have seen yourself the way others see you, physically, knowing this, at least for me, makes it somehow easier to accept you have never seen yourself metaphorically the way others see you either.
Three Types of Twitter Accounts for Marketing
Twitter accounts mainly fall into three categories when it comes to marketing:
Engagement Only Content
What is engagement? Loosely we can define it by interactions with other tweets, this can be via likes, retweets, replies, quotes, and to a lesser extent lists. An Engagement Only Account is characterised by having a low volume of plain tweets originating from that account, and either a high volume of retweets or a high volume of likes. From a marketing perspective these accounts are valuable if and only if they have a large number of followers, or a number of followers greater than the number of accounts they themselves follow. Accounts like this require you to err on the side of caution, these figures can easily be skewed by accounts intended to deliver customer service or setup to automate tweeting or retweeting when certain criteria are met by a program. It is for this reason it is not advisable to look for these accounts in an automated fashion.
Output Only Accounts
These accounts are mainly corporate accounts although they do sometimes involve individuals who have a product they are trying to sell. These accounts are characterised by having a high, near exclusive volume of original plain tweets, a very low number of retweets, and often a very low number of liked tweets. To give a real world example the account @BloombergTV falls into this category. These accounts are very low value for marketing. In the case of @BloombergTV, they follow 446 accounts nearly all Bloomberg partners, and have 412,000 followers. They have liked 142 tweets in the 7 years the account has been active and they have 81,000 tweets nearly exclusively Bloomberg tweets with no retweets other than Bloomberg partners and Bloomberg anchors, the account also does not reply to tweets. When you consider this account it can be categorised as Output Only because it is intended to be an outlet, a point to post and distribute information. These accounts are effectively the twitter equivalent of noreply@example.com email addresses. The only people who will find these accounts useful are people who have an interest in the content, they are not valuable from a marketing perspective and following them won't grow your brand or make others engage with you more, they will only take up space in the number of accounts you follow which not only consumes part of your limit it floods your timeline with content you probably don't want to see anyway.
Mixed Accounts
These are the most valuable accounts of all on twitter. While it can be argued that the other two represent businesses and organisations, these accounts are those most likely to be everyday users of twitter who should be the primary target of any marketing campaign. These accounts are characterised by near even distributions of follower to following and a near even distribution of tweets to retweets with a margin either way of around 15%. While these accounts are the most valuable accounts on twitter they are also the most irritable. Unsolicited replies from any account perceived to be automated will usually be met with an immediate block. Retweets and Likes however are less likely to result in this, quote tweeting is a better option as it will let you retain privacy control over the tweets in the event of being blocked**
Conclusion
It should be obvious but should it need to be pointed out, remember these are not infallible categorisations; there will be accounts which break these rules and others which represent outliers which don't fall into any categorisation. It is also worth repeating these categorisations are relevant to marketing only, there are other types of accounts on twitter not limited to celebrities, fictional characters, trolls, landmarks, parody accounts, spam, and bots among others.
In Summary:
Engagement Only - High Value but be circumspect
- Low volume of original plain tweets relative to other tweets
- High volume of liked tweets or retweets
- High number of followers or more followers than following
Output Only - Lowest Value
- Near exclusive plain tweets
- Very few, if any retweets or retweets only from partners
- Very few, if any, liked tweets
- Very high follower number relative to the following number
Mixed Accounts - Highest Value
- Near even distribution of following and followers
- Near even or 15% margin of tweets to retweets
- High number of liked tweets
* Be aware the number of tweets made and liked tweets on a profile may not accurately represent the number of tweets liked by the profile due to discrepancies in Twitter's counting algorithm caused by privacy changes.
** This is an anomaly and contravenes Twitter's intended power of blocking but it prevents an unfortunate side-affect of the current blocking mechanism. At present if you retweet an account, which then blocks you, that retweet remains on your profile and visible to everyone else except you. This isn't ideal especially since it effectively means you can't remove the retweet. Using Quote tweets rather than simple retweets allows you to retain control of the tweet on your profile, should the other account block you the quote tweet will still be visible to you but the embedded tweet won't be, regardless this allows you to delete the quoted tweet removing it from your profile.
- Engagement Only Accounts
- Output Only Accounts
- Mixed Accounts
Engagement Only Content
What is engagement? Loosely we can define it by interactions with other tweets, this can be via likes, retweets, replies, quotes, and to a lesser extent lists. An Engagement Only Account is characterised by having a low volume of plain tweets originating from that account, and either a high volume of retweets or a high volume of likes. From a marketing perspective these accounts are valuable if and only if they have a large number of followers, or a number of followers greater than the number of accounts they themselves follow. Accounts like this require you to err on the side of caution, these figures can easily be skewed by accounts intended to deliver customer service or setup to automate tweeting or retweeting when certain criteria are met by a program. It is for this reason it is not advisable to look for these accounts in an automated fashion.
Output Only Accounts
These accounts are mainly corporate accounts although they do sometimes involve individuals who have a product they are trying to sell. These accounts are characterised by having a high, near exclusive volume of original plain tweets, a very low number of retweets, and often a very low number of liked tweets. To give a real world example the account @BloombergTV falls into this category. These accounts are very low value for marketing. In the case of @BloombergTV, they follow 446 accounts nearly all Bloomberg partners, and have 412,000 followers. They have liked 142 tweets in the 7 years the account has been active and they have 81,000 tweets nearly exclusively Bloomberg tweets with no retweets other than Bloomberg partners and Bloomberg anchors, the account also does not reply to tweets. When you consider this account it can be categorised as Output Only because it is intended to be an outlet, a point to post and distribute information. These accounts are effectively the twitter equivalent of noreply@example.com email addresses. The only people who will find these accounts useful are people who have an interest in the content, they are not valuable from a marketing perspective and following them won't grow your brand or make others engage with you more, they will only take up space in the number of accounts you follow which not only consumes part of your limit it floods your timeline with content you probably don't want to see anyway.
Mixed Accounts
These are the most valuable accounts of all on twitter. While it can be argued that the other two represent businesses and organisations, these accounts are those most likely to be everyday users of twitter who should be the primary target of any marketing campaign. These accounts are characterised by near even distributions of follower to following and a near even distribution of tweets to retweets with a margin either way of around 15%. While these accounts are the most valuable accounts on twitter they are also the most irritable. Unsolicited replies from any account perceived to be automated will usually be met with an immediate block. Retweets and Likes however are less likely to result in this, quote tweeting is a better option as it will let you retain privacy control over the tweets in the event of being blocked**
Conclusion
It should be obvious but should it need to be pointed out, remember these are not infallible categorisations; there will be accounts which break these rules and others which represent outliers which don't fall into any categorisation. It is also worth repeating these categorisations are relevant to marketing only, there are other types of accounts on twitter not limited to celebrities, fictional characters, trolls, landmarks, parody accounts, spam, and bots among others.
In Summary:
Engagement Only - High Value but be circumspect
- Low volume of original plain tweets relative to other tweets
- High volume of liked tweets or retweets
- High number of followers or more followers than following
Output Only - Lowest Value
- Near exclusive plain tweets
- Very few, if any retweets or retweets only from partners
- Very few, if any, liked tweets
- Very high follower number relative to the following number
Mixed Accounts - Highest Value
- Near even distribution of following and followers
- Near even or 15% margin of tweets to retweets
- High number of liked tweets
* Be aware the number of tweets made and liked tweets on a profile may not accurately represent the number of tweets liked by the profile due to discrepancies in Twitter's counting algorithm caused by privacy changes.
** This is an anomaly and contravenes Twitter's intended power of blocking but it prevents an unfortunate side-affect of the current blocking mechanism. At present if you retweet an account, which then blocks you, that retweet remains on your profile and visible to everyone else except you. This isn't ideal especially since it effectively means you can't remove the retweet. Using Quote tweets rather than simple retweets allows you to retain control of the tweet on your profile, should the other account block you the quote tweet will still be visible to you but the embedded tweet won't be, regardless this allows you to delete the quoted tweet removing it from your profile.
Charisma
Some people are natural born public speakers. No matter the size of the crowd they can speak with confidence unfazed. Throughout my time pursuing academic study and in later years through my work and the many training events I attended, I got to watch and listen to a lot of people. Teachers, Lecturers, Professors, Trainers, and even through observation of the political landscape I have seen many politicians address the public. Through all of this there is a clear division of speakers into two camps, one possessed of charisma and the other distinctly lacking.
You might ask what relevance charisma has in bearing to their ability to do their job, and I would argue if the primary means through which they address and convey information to people then charisma is perhaps the most important characteristic of their jobs. Can charisma be learned? I am undecided on the answer to this question, as it is quite clear that you can indeed be trained in the fine art of public speaking to a point where you can have a crowd eating out of your hand.
The importance of charisma is perhaps at its most imperative when it comes to captivation of the audience and by extension, their attention. A captivated audience will pay much more attention to you than one which is not engaged. It is often said in training courses that what you say accounts for 10% and the other 90% is how you say it. This holds true when it comes to public speaking. One prime example would be the use of breath control, the best example of this in modern times would be the oratory style of Steve Jobs. Throughout his speeches Jobs was acutely aware of his breathing, always presenting a calm demeanour, and where breathing was necessary he paused for impact to make it as unnoticeable as possible. The result is a style of speaking that keeps an audience transfixed, hanging on every word.
In recent weeks in the UK a lot has been said in regards to who should lead the Labour Party. Politics of this decision aside, one of the things that has repeatedly cropped up in this debate are the speeches of former Prime Minister Tony Blair. When you look at Blair's speeches with the same level of scrutiny, ignoring what he actually said and focusing on his delivery, it is no exaggeration to say that his oratory style was charismatic. While his persona and his reputation today are viewed in a very different light, you must look back to the environment that existed when he made those speeches and understand the mentality of the audience of the day.
If someone can employ charisma when speaking then as an audience member the captivation overrides your reason. Whether you have any interest in what they say becomes irrelevant instead you want to continue to hear them speak, in an almost hypnotic trance-like manner. Whenever someone is truly charismatic you could sit and listen to them speak all day, without a single care or interest in what they are actually saying. On the obverse of this the less charisma the speaker has the less willing you are to listen to them and the more emphasis you put on what they actually say which can make lectures and presentations excruciatingly painful to watch and make you feel like they last forever.
You might ask what relevance charisma has in bearing to their ability to do their job, and I would argue if the primary means through which they address and convey information to people then charisma is perhaps the most important characteristic of their jobs. Can charisma be learned? I am undecided on the answer to this question, as it is quite clear that you can indeed be trained in the fine art of public speaking to a point where you can have a crowd eating out of your hand.
The importance of charisma is perhaps at its most imperative when it comes to captivation of the audience and by extension, their attention. A captivated audience will pay much more attention to you than one which is not engaged. It is often said in training courses that what you say accounts for 10% and the other 90% is how you say it. This holds true when it comes to public speaking. One prime example would be the use of breath control, the best example of this in modern times would be the oratory style of Steve Jobs. Throughout his speeches Jobs was acutely aware of his breathing, always presenting a calm demeanour, and where breathing was necessary he paused for impact to make it as unnoticeable as possible. The result is a style of speaking that keeps an audience transfixed, hanging on every word.
In recent weeks in the UK a lot has been said in regards to who should lead the Labour Party. Politics of this decision aside, one of the things that has repeatedly cropped up in this debate are the speeches of former Prime Minister Tony Blair. When you look at Blair's speeches with the same level of scrutiny, ignoring what he actually said and focusing on his delivery, it is no exaggeration to say that his oratory style was charismatic. While his persona and his reputation today are viewed in a very different light, you must look back to the environment that existed when he made those speeches and understand the mentality of the audience of the day.
If someone can employ charisma when speaking then as an audience member the captivation overrides your reason. Whether you have any interest in what they say becomes irrelevant instead you want to continue to hear them speak, in an almost hypnotic trance-like manner. Whenever someone is truly charismatic you could sit and listen to them speak all day, without a single care or interest in what they are actually saying. On the obverse of this the less charisma the speaker has the less willing you are to listen to them and the more emphasis you put on what they actually say which can make lectures and presentations excruciatingly painful to watch and make you feel like they last forever.
Confrontation
Confrontation involves a number of elements, the three most important of these are the trigger, the motivation, and the resolution.
When confrontation is triggered it is usually something small or insignificant that triggers the confrontation. To be clear here the type of confrontation we are talking about is interpersonal, not international or civil. When confrontation happens between two or more people it is easy to look at the trigger and think the reaction is disproportionate. This is an over simplification however and completely dismisses the motivation behind the confrontation in the first place. Triggers are for the most part irrelevant, because in their absence another trigger would eventually be found and would cause the same confrontation.
You need to understand what is behind the confrontation to understand why it escalates. If you only focus on the trigger you'll repeat the confrontation because the trigger is rarely the same twice; however the reasons behind the confrontation usually are though. It is important to understand what the confrontation is actually about by understanding the motivation, if you only focus on the trigger and then avoid that trigger, another will take its place and you'll be destined to repeat it. Until you understand the motivations, you'll keep having that argument over and over.
The easiest way to understand the motivations behind the confrontation is to query it after all parties involved have calmed down. Trying to resolve conflict in the middle of that conflict will not work because every word is amplified. Instead you must wait until all parties have settled down; it can be tempting during that period of false peace to accept it in the hope that conflict will not reoccur but as we said above this is a false sense of security. You must query all parties and listen to what they have to say. You must identify the underlying motivations of each party for engaging in confrontation.
Once you understand the motivations it is only then that you can try and find a resolution to the conflict. Otherwise confrontation will reoccur. Understanding the motivations of confrontation can be incredibly complex. The most important thing to remember in this endeavour is to discard preconceived notions and actually listen to the reasons each party gives because in most cases confrontation is rarely over superficial motivation, and usually the result of underlying issues.
You would think all of this would be obvious and that people would actually know and understand these principles but again this is rarely the case. Nowhere is this more evident than on social media as you see people engage regularly in confrontations over all manner of issues and subject matter, the underlying motivations of those conflicts are rarely about the superficial debates being waged. Arguments over differences in political ideology at their core come down to self doubt and insecurity over the possibility that they might be wrong. If you are completely secure in your belief then you should not need to attack anyone who holds a differing belief than your own. When someone holding an opposing view is sufficient motivation for you to try and change their point of view to the point where you are willing to engage in confrontation to try and achieve this, ultimately the only person you are trying to convince is yourself. True epiphany and revelation do not occur under duress. You will never change someone's mind willingly by forcing your point of view onto them - that is coercion and the very same method of indoctrination used by most cults.
When confrontation is triggered it is usually something small or insignificant that triggers the confrontation. To be clear here the type of confrontation we are talking about is interpersonal, not international or civil. When confrontation happens between two or more people it is easy to look at the trigger and think the reaction is disproportionate. This is an over simplification however and completely dismisses the motivation behind the confrontation in the first place. Triggers are for the most part irrelevant, because in their absence another trigger would eventually be found and would cause the same confrontation.
You need to understand what is behind the confrontation to understand why it escalates. If you only focus on the trigger you'll repeat the confrontation because the trigger is rarely the same twice; however the reasons behind the confrontation usually are though. It is important to understand what the confrontation is actually about by understanding the motivation, if you only focus on the trigger and then avoid that trigger, another will take its place and you'll be destined to repeat it. Until you understand the motivations, you'll keep having that argument over and over.
The easiest way to understand the motivations behind the confrontation is to query it after all parties involved have calmed down. Trying to resolve conflict in the middle of that conflict will not work because every word is amplified. Instead you must wait until all parties have settled down; it can be tempting during that period of false peace to accept it in the hope that conflict will not reoccur but as we said above this is a false sense of security. You must query all parties and listen to what they have to say. You must identify the underlying motivations of each party for engaging in confrontation.
Once you understand the motivations it is only then that you can try and find a resolution to the conflict. Otherwise confrontation will reoccur. Understanding the motivations of confrontation can be incredibly complex. The most important thing to remember in this endeavour is to discard preconceived notions and actually listen to the reasons each party gives because in most cases confrontation is rarely over superficial motivation, and usually the result of underlying issues.
You would think all of this would be obvious and that people would actually know and understand these principles but again this is rarely the case. Nowhere is this more evident than on social media as you see people engage regularly in confrontations over all manner of issues and subject matter, the underlying motivations of those conflicts are rarely about the superficial debates being waged. Arguments over differences in political ideology at their core come down to self doubt and insecurity over the possibility that they might be wrong. If you are completely secure in your belief then you should not need to attack anyone who holds a differing belief than your own. When someone holding an opposing view is sufficient motivation for you to try and change their point of view to the point where you are willing to engage in confrontation to try and achieve this, ultimately the only person you are trying to convince is yourself. True epiphany and revelation do not occur under duress. You will never change someone's mind willingly by forcing your point of view onto them - that is coercion and the very same method of indoctrination used by most cults.
Changing Channels
Now that the dust has somewhat settled I feel comfortable talking about this in more detail from an objective point of view rather than an emotional point of view. There is a television show in the UK called 'The Great British Bake Off' [GBBO] which sees contestants compete in a series of culinary challenges with the aim to find an eventual champion. The show is aimed at amateur bakers rather than professional bakers and is meant to portray talent. The show was aired on the BBC and produced by a production company called Love Productions. The cost of the show to the BBC for the latest series stood at approximately £7.5m [$9.75m] per year which is paid for through the BBC's funding, the license fee.
For those outside the UK who may not be familiar, the license fee is essentially a tax collected from any member of the general public who owns a TV or a device capable of receiving live TV broadcasts, and to an extent, catchup TV services. As such the use of this money is often scrutinised by the public and the question of value for money is often raised. As far as GBBO is concerned it was a TV programme that surpassed 11 million viewers [1/6th of the UK population, US equivalent would be if 53 million people watched it] and at one point surpassed 13 million, which is more people in the UK than tuned in to watch the Rio Olympics. So you can understand how this show is considered a success and kind of a big deal.
When it came to renewing the show for another series on the BBC, the production company, Love Productions demanded £25m [$32.5m] per year for the show and would not accept anything less. That represents approximately 3.5x the current cost. The BBC was outbid by another broadcaster called Channel 4 who bid for 3 series at a total cost of £75m [$97.4m], understandably the BBC could not stretch to this figure and as a result the show was lost to Channel 4. Amidst the backlash from viewers, two of the presenters of the show, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins announced they would not be following the show to Channel 4. One of the judges, Mary Berry went on to announce that she too would not follow the show to Channel 4. That left the one remaining judge, Paul Hollywood who agreed to leave the BBC with the show, an act which many viewers then reacted negatively toward.
With the possibility that both presenters and both judges wouldn't be continuing on the show there was a lot of talk about the wisdom of the decision on both Love Productions and Channel 4's part. Many people claim they have both have "shot themselves in the foot" and it remains to be seen how much this holds true after the show moves. There is some weight to be added to the idea that Channel 4 has paid £75m for a marquee. There are also a lot of questions to be asked of the viewer base and whether one judge alone from the original line-up, and the format will be enough to save the show; although if US adaptations of UK shows have proved anything with UK viewers it is that sharing a format isn't enough to make viewers watch.
Firstly, for those that might not know, the BBC as a publicly funded broadcaster does not carry any advertising. There are no breaks during programmes and there are no product placement agreements or ad-rolls before the programmes, as such a programme allotted a one-hour timeslot usually provides one hour of content.. Channel 4 is an advertising supported broadcaster and primarily funds itself through advertisements before and during its programmes, these can in some cases reduce a one-hour time slot programme to less than 40 minutes of actual content. Both broadcasters also have catch-up services which the same rules apply to and hold the same duration. Whether watching on TV or on catch-up services, advertisements can be a discouraging factor in whether people will watch, especially if it is deemed invasive. Of the two broadcasters catch-up services the BBC version, iPlayer, which is void of advertising is considerably more popular. I personally never watch Channel 4 programming nor do I use their catch-up service because it contains unskippable adverts which I find intrusive. I haven't watched Channel 4 on TV in over 10 years and while I was a fan of GBBO, I will not follow it to Channel 4.
This isn't a political decision and it has no influence over the fact that it is simply a show changing channels; it is down to the channels themselves, their commercial strategies, and predominantly motivated by a disdain for the actions of Love Productions. In my opinion this entire episode is a PR nightmare for the production company. There is no other motivation that will be seen by me or any loyal fan beyond sheer greed to insist on 3.5x the current production cost, or 10x if you take the total amount paid. Ultimately I believe this move will bite Love Productions in the ass.
Shows can change channels and it can be beneficial to do so, as an example, American Dad was carried by Fox from 2005 to 2014 at which point it moved to TBS. After moving, the atmosphere of the show changed noticeably. While it had been on the rocks for a while prior to the move, the aftermath can be considered a resurgence for the brand. The writing became a lot more relaxed and a change in the level of humour was immediately noticeable. The shackles of the Fox censors being broken brought forward a much more risqué approach. In my view the show was always aimed at an adult audience and should not have been watered down for a PG audience in the first place. Since moving to TBS it is noticeable that the broadcaster understands the demographic of the viewer and has allowed the show to adapt.
While this change of channel was beneficial for American Dad and while other TV shows like Big Brother have managed to change channels and survive, I do not think GBBO will maintain its branding. The brand itself has already been damaged by losing the presenters and one of the judges, as such I believe the brand for the most part is now dead, reduced to nothing more than a moniker. The emotional connection to the show has been lost for me, and I am not convinced it will remain for many of the current viewers. I believe it will survive for a few seasons at least, anything less than 3 will be an admission by Channel 4 that they made a horrible mistake in their judgement. I think Channel 4 will feel duped when the reality hits that they paid £75m for a show that wasn't worth it. I loved the show and I do believe it was worth the £7.5m per season the BBC were paying when everything was factored in, but whether I think it can legitimately be hiked to 3.5x the price per season and have the gall to accept 10x the price for 3 seasons, the answer is decidedly no. When Love Productions feels the reality of the damage they have caused to their own brand it will bite hard, this is no longer contained to just GBBO, but to the production company itself, who for many people before this debacle had never heard of before; while wider awareness of a brand is usually beneficial, it is not when that perception is overwhelmingly negative. The show is not expected to retain its viewing figures of 13 million, some estimates have expected the show to reach between 3 and 4 million when it debuts on Channel 4, the question then will be whether Channel 4 feels that is value for money, and whether they can even make a show that would even be worthy of the £7.5m that the BBC had paid for it let alone the £75m they forked out.
For those outside the UK who may not be familiar, the license fee is essentially a tax collected from any member of the general public who owns a TV or a device capable of receiving live TV broadcasts, and to an extent, catchup TV services. As such the use of this money is often scrutinised by the public and the question of value for money is often raised. As far as GBBO is concerned it was a TV programme that surpassed 11 million viewers [1/6th of the UK population, US equivalent would be if 53 million people watched it] and at one point surpassed 13 million, which is more people in the UK than tuned in to watch the Rio Olympics. So you can understand how this show is considered a success and kind of a big deal.
When it came to renewing the show for another series on the BBC, the production company, Love Productions demanded £25m [$32.5m] per year for the show and would not accept anything less. That represents approximately 3.5x the current cost. The BBC was outbid by another broadcaster called Channel 4 who bid for 3 series at a total cost of £75m [$97.4m], understandably the BBC could not stretch to this figure and as a result the show was lost to Channel 4. Amidst the backlash from viewers, two of the presenters of the show, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins announced they would not be following the show to Channel 4. One of the judges, Mary Berry went on to announce that she too would not follow the show to Channel 4. That left the one remaining judge, Paul Hollywood who agreed to leave the BBC with the show, an act which many viewers then reacted negatively toward.
With the possibility that both presenters and both judges wouldn't be continuing on the show there was a lot of talk about the wisdom of the decision on both Love Productions and Channel 4's part. Many people claim they have both have "shot themselves in the foot" and it remains to be seen how much this holds true after the show moves. There is some weight to be added to the idea that Channel 4 has paid £75m for a marquee. There are also a lot of questions to be asked of the viewer base and whether one judge alone from the original line-up, and the format will be enough to save the show; although if US adaptations of UK shows have proved anything with UK viewers it is that sharing a format isn't enough to make viewers watch.
Firstly, for those that might not know, the BBC as a publicly funded broadcaster does not carry any advertising. There are no breaks during programmes and there are no product placement agreements or ad-rolls before the programmes, as such a programme allotted a one-hour timeslot usually provides one hour of content.. Channel 4 is an advertising supported broadcaster and primarily funds itself through advertisements before and during its programmes, these can in some cases reduce a one-hour time slot programme to less than 40 minutes of actual content. Both broadcasters also have catch-up services which the same rules apply to and hold the same duration. Whether watching on TV or on catch-up services, advertisements can be a discouraging factor in whether people will watch, especially if it is deemed invasive. Of the two broadcasters catch-up services the BBC version, iPlayer, which is void of advertising is considerably more popular. I personally never watch Channel 4 programming nor do I use their catch-up service because it contains unskippable adverts which I find intrusive. I haven't watched Channel 4 on TV in over 10 years and while I was a fan of GBBO, I will not follow it to Channel 4.
This isn't a political decision and it has no influence over the fact that it is simply a show changing channels; it is down to the channels themselves, their commercial strategies, and predominantly motivated by a disdain for the actions of Love Productions. In my opinion this entire episode is a PR nightmare for the production company. There is no other motivation that will be seen by me or any loyal fan beyond sheer greed to insist on 3.5x the current production cost, or 10x if you take the total amount paid. Ultimately I believe this move will bite Love Productions in the ass.
Shows can change channels and it can be beneficial to do so, as an example, American Dad was carried by Fox from 2005 to 2014 at which point it moved to TBS. After moving, the atmosphere of the show changed noticeably. While it had been on the rocks for a while prior to the move, the aftermath can be considered a resurgence for the brand. The writing became a lot more relaxed and a change in the level of humour was immediately noticeable. The shackles of the Fox censors being broken brought forward a much more risqué approach. In my view the show was always aimed at an adult audience and should not have been watered down for a PG audience in the first place. Since moving to TBS it is noticeable that the broadcaster understands the demographic of the viewer and has allowed the show to adapt.
While this change of channel was beneficial for American Dad and while other TV shows like Big Brother have managed to change channels and survive, I do not think GBBO will maintain its branding. The brand itself has already been damaged by losing the presenters and one of the judges, as such I believe the brand for the most part is now dead, reduced to nothing more than a moniker. The emotional connection to the show has been lost for me, and I am not convinced it will remain for many of the current viewers. I believe it will survive for a few seasons at least, anything less than 3 will be an admission by Channel 4 that they made a horrible mistake in their judgement. I think Channel 4 will feel duped when the reality hits that they paid £75m for a show that wasn't worth it. I loved the show and I do believe it was worth the £7.5m per season the BBC were paying when everything was factored in, but whether I think it can legitimately be hiked to 3.5x the price per season and have the gall to accept 10x the price for 3 seasons, the answer is decidedly no. When Love Productions feels the reality of the damage they have caused to their own brand it will bite hard, this is no longer contained to just GBBO, but to the production company itself, who for many people before this debacle had never heard of before; while wider awareness of a brand is usually beneficial, it is not when that perception is overwhelmingly negative. The show is not expected to retain its viewing figures of 13 million, some estimates have expected the show to reach between 3 and 4 million when it debuts on Channel 4, the question then will be whether Channel 4 feels that is value for money, and whether they can even make a show that would even be worthy of the £7.5m that the BBC had paid for it let alone the £75m they forked out.
When did that happen?
As a content creator online, whenever I am writing it is often necessary to conduct research on the topics I choose to write about. While many of my pieces are opinion based and as such don't need a great deal of research, there are moments when you do have to check claims that you make. When blogging in particular there is always an expectation that what you write is opinion rather than fact, but for me personally when I cover things such as politics or psychology, and to a lesser extent music, I like to know a bit of background information on the topics I write about, none least of all issues surrounding the LGBT community.
As a web developer, and as someone who has designed and built content management systems [CMS], I often find reliability to be a considerable problem online. It is most often the features that are most useful provided by a CMS that are misused. To give an example, one of the key pieces of information I look for when conducting online research is the date of publication. This is something that is remarkably hard to determine. Now I realise many people will scroll to the bottom of this blog post and see the date and time it was posted and say that wasn't so hard, but the problem is that data is not reliable. Many CMS, this one included, allows the author to set the date and time of publication on any article they write. That value can be set to anything really, which can be useful but it can also be misused and often is. If you were to look through the archive of posts on this blog you'd be forgiven for thinking it was created in 2011 because that's how far the archive goes back at present. This blog was actually created in November of 2015. All posts prior to that date are posts that have been imported from another blog which I have since deleted.
The point is that it is possible to backdate an article and post it through a CMS and it will appear as if it was published on the date that was set. This fact makes it hard to determine when a page was actually created when you try to conduct research online. Posts which claim to make predictions or projections about future events can often be a case of content that was written after the event and dated prior to it. You might be asking yourself why anyone would do that, and the simple answer is SEO - Search Engine Optimisation. At its most basic level SEO is used to make your site appear higher in search results by optimising its content. Sites that are relatively new can use post dated articles to improve their performance, especially if they then create new content that links back to the older post dated content. Search engines prefer content to have a date reference as to when it was posted which can often motivate creators to make their sites look older than they actually are.
There are some websites such as the Internet Archive which has a Wayback Machine which allows you to see what a site looked like years ago, for example Youtube from 2007 but this requires the archive to have been aware the site existed at the time and to have crawled it. In most cases sites appearing in the archive have been manually submitted by their creators. Likewise there are other ways of determining how old a site is in terms of its domain name but those too only take into account the purchase of the domain, not the content of the site.
It demonstrates the point that we often look back at our history with disappointment that certain historical records weren't kept or that certain types of data weren't collected when we come to need that data. Hindsight can be a wonderful thing but writing about day to day life from a specific time period or covering the politics of that time period can be difficult without the data to back it up. Even those organisations that attempt to document our culture such as polling organisations are limited in what they can record by the questions they ask. It's hard to find a specific answer if the specific question was not asked and inferring the result from others can be dangerously misleading especially if you judge historical moments with a modern mentality. As I have said before, when man first set foot on the moon it was a moment of wonder and awe for most of the world, the day man sets foot on Mars is much more likely to be met with "Finally, what took so long!?" which shows how priorities and the impact of events can completely change in the space of a few decades - LGBT rights around the world are another example, modern victories are often met with that same sentiment rather than one of revolution.
As a web developer, and as someone who has designed and built content management systems [CMS], I often find reliability to be a considerable problem online. It is most often the features that are most useful provided by a CMS that are misused. To give an example, one of the key pieces of information I look for when conducting online research is the date of publication. This is something that is remarkably hard to determine. Now I realise many people will scroll to the bottom of this blog post and see the date and time it was posted and say that wasn't so hard, but the problem is that data is not reliable. Many CMS, this one included, allows the author to set the date and time of publication on any article they write. That value can be set to anything really, which can be useful but it can also be misused and often is. If you were to look through the archive of posts on this blog you'd be forgiven for thinking it was created in 2011 because that's how far the archive goes back at present. This blog was actually created in November of 2015. All posts prior to that date are posts that have been imported from another blog which I have since deleted.
The point is that it is possible to backdate an article and post it through a CMS and it will appear as if it was published on the date that was set. This fact makes it hard to determine when a page was actually created when you try to conduct research online. Posts which claim to make predictions or projections about future events can often be a case of content that was written after the event and dated prior to it. You might be asking yourself why anyone would do that, and the simple answer is SEO - Search Engine Optimisation. At its most basic level SEO is used to make your site appear higher in search results by optimising its content. Sites that are relatively new can use post dated articles to improve their performance, especially if they then create new content that links back to the older post dated content. Search engines prefer content to have a date reference as to when it was posted which can often motivate creators to make their sites look older than they actually are.
There are some websites such as the Internet Archive which has a Wayback Machine which allows you to see what a site looked like years ago, for example Youtube from 2007 but this requires the archive to have been aware the site existed at the time and to have crawled it. In most cases sites appearing in the archive have been manually submitted by their creators. Likewise there are other ways of determining how old a site is in terms of its domain name but those too only take into account the purchase of the domain, not the content of the site.
It demonstrates the point that we often look back at our history with disappointment that certain historical records weren't kept or that certain types of data weren't collected when we come to need that data. Hindsight can be a wonderful thing but writing about day to day life from a specific time period or covering the politics of that time period can be difficult without the data to back it up. Even those organisations that attempt to document our culture such as polling organisations are limited in what they can record by the questions they ask. It's hard to find a specific answer if the specific question was not asked and inferring the result from others can be dangerously misleading especially if you judge historical moments with a modern mentality. As I have said before, when man first set foot on the moon it was a moment of wonder and awe for most of the world, the day man sets foot on Mars is much more likely to be met with "Finally, what took so long!?" which shows how priorities and the impact of events can completely change in the space of a few decades - LGBT rights around the world are another example, modern victories are often met with that same sentiment rather than one of revolution.
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