Dr. Neil Hair

Another interesting article that identifies the advances in cell tracking technology. Not that any of this is new as fans of the movie Ronin will be able to tell you. We've been able to triangulate phone signals from masts for some time now. However, just as the internet started out as a government project, marketers will have their time. Pushing text messages to willing users on deals as you pass pizza houses (or more importantly the latest two for one offering of your favourite micro brew). Tourist information (perhaps akin to the tagging spaces article I wrote recently for this blog), the ability to guide a user to a location (gps eat your heart out) and of course electronic surveillance. Its all just around the corner and another channel opens itself to us. Cant wait! www.whereonearthisneilhair.com could quickly become a cult hit! For my fiancee at least (Rose, you better purchase the domain before I do).

Just want to say thanks to my last two classes for being great. Whats great about is it seeing developments over a period of ten weeks, students ready to make some real money at the end of it one always feels the need to crack open a fine cigar and celebrate with a straight single malt over cracked ice in a 19th century Czech crystal glass - I'll let you know how that feels if and when it happens… This quarter has set a new record for me, over 180,000 words of feedback. Thats more then I wrote for my PhD thesis ! (all 300 pages of it). 27/62 students made entire grade jumps between research papers. 6 students made two grade jumps, and 2 students made three whole grade jumps. The last two sets I'm particularly proud of - you know who you are and you did the work to earn it. Of course one of the problems you face when you only teach three different classes is that you rarely get the priviledge of seeing students progress over their career at college. Once bitten… thrice shy. That said, Im ever edging closer with my goal of a 60ft yatch by the age of 40. And Im relying on you lot to provide it.

Finally cell phone makers are starting to get it. The Times reports on the main finding of the 3GSM World Congress show in Barcelona - people prefer form over function. It's got to look and sound good if you're pulling it out of your bag in a club. We don't care so much what it does (it's a phone right?) as what it says about us. This I guess is one of the reasons why people were so unhappy with Apples first jaunt into this arena. There was nothing Ipodtastic about it! I still find myself strangely enamored with my year old HP, I've a couple of gig to store work related files, music, compressed (legally owned) dvd's. My latest project is to work on video casts that will hopefully bring new levels of functionality to blended approaches to teaching. Since all new phones will support video in one format or another, I figure the days of the talking head powerpoint might not be over just yet. And yes, these will be ipod video compatible..

Ever heard of place-tagging? Living in America this is unlikely. Latest craze sweeping the UK and parts of Europe that could have dramatic implications on us poor marketers. Imagine being able to place a virtual note regarding a particular location, your favourite corner of a pub, the best fish fry in town, where Harry met Sally and so on, anywhere you want. Imagine being able to pick up these virtual notes on your cell phones. Enter the age of place-tagging. The technology has the potential to radically change the advertising landscape. It also has the ability to change social networking practices. Similar to 'toothing' in nature (the use of blue tooth to exchange details with others in a small space such as a bus, train or classroom) this could also be used to extend peoples circles. Really interested in a certain book? Place-tag it. The possibilities are practically endless. Especially if you can leave tags that identify your exact location using GPS technology, people with similar interests can find you. The Times has an excellent article on this.

Bigbrother gone mad. I recently advised all of my students to cut out seemingly innocuous radio transmitting tags from their newly purchased clothes. Such a statement sounds like something out of a George Orwell novel, and had I said this back when I started teaching people would have thought me mad. I would have thought me mad. But they’re here, they’re not fictional, and they’re a marketers dream come true (if we could only get over the little issue of privacy). What's not to love? They tell us where you are, (therefore in many cases what you’re doing - even those of you who like to spend time in Craft stores like JoAnnes [you know who you are]), they tell us how many there are of you (provided of course all of you are wearing the little devils) and over time they allow us deep insights into your personal life by enabling us to spot patterns (Neil is for instance, always at home in bed in the zip code 14623 by 3am). Great news for marketers trying to understand how their products are used. Not so great news for those of you who arent at home in bed by 3am in a 14623 zip code. Why not check your clothes now, especially if you have any from the Gap, Banana Republic, Walmart, don't stop there, check your Gillette Razors too (which by the way activate CCTV cameras in stores these days when they are moved to deter shoplifters). Aint technology grand? In the UK they’re now being fitted by Michelin in peoples car tires and several banks are installing them in their credit cards (for security purposes alone of course to ensure that they arrive at pre-defined postal codes). Trust has always been seen as the cornerstone of any relationship, be it personal or commercial in nature. People don’t trust this technology by and large. Nor should they, we haven’t been educated as to the benefits of its involvement. Until such times that this technology is explained and promoted effectively I'll continue to advise you cut these suckers out of clothing. Enjoy the rummage through your wardrobe… dont forget the fridge too.

Update: It's no longer objects being tagged.

21 years old. I could cry. It's not often I find myself harking back to a time when computer games were black and white, involved vector graphics - not just vector graphics but desktop saver space graphics !!! and - it must be acknowledged - OUTSTANDING music to dock to. 21 years ago, I was given a game, not just any game but a game of life changing proportions. Elite. Nothing came close before it, and nothing has come close to it since. Just the thought of opening up it's black box with difficulty, I played it non stop for ten hours on my first day over the summer holidays, moving from novice to competent, quickly to deadly. I loaded up on 'NEW!' cherry flavoured coke back in the UK, and destroyed joystick after joystick (with the odd well deserved SLAP for having incorrectly dumped me into the side of a planet without warning). I played religiously each day for months, knowing I would be ultimately rewarded, moving from galaxy 1 to galaxy 6 with no change in 'deadly' stature, and gradually realising, in between showing of Kilroy Silk and Neighbours, that perhaps I just wasn’t good enough. And so, after about a year of playing this wonderful game, I retired - sadly - and with regret. In my time I'd leant every fighter craft model, studied the history of celestial being as we know it in the Elite world, and could fight my way out of intergalactic hyperspace space mishaps with as many anarchists as you could shake a stick at (including the collection of their precious cargo of antiquities). I was in modern terms, 'da bomb'. Yet still this status of Elite eluded me. And so, with this passing of time, the machine I much loved was dumped, and I purchased an Amstrad. A precursor to the modern machine of the early 90's which ran a windows like OS.

I remember, being in the same bedroom at my mothers. Seven years on. An A level student with self induced 'shakes' at the sight of an IBM compatible (those were the terms back then) brand spanking copy, of an updated 'Elite Plus+'. I remember preparing the room, removing my younger brother with some completely unjustifiable form of gratuitous violence, unwrapping a new joystick, and pre-testing my right index and middle finger for action (critical for evasive maneuvers as I recall, such as the deployment of mega bombs or standard missiles) on my new keyboard. I'd gone cold turkey, successfully for several years. But the sight of the sign (the one you see here) was too much for me. I had no idea I was to become a teacher, I had no idea that my time was better spent preparing for research, studying for a Phd, helping national clients excel in their designs of cutlery. No… all I cared about, was intergalactic world domination. And sod your food and water. I was going to become ELITE if it meant staying in my room for ENTIRE MONTHS AT AN END WITH NOTHING!!!!!! And so I progressed. Door closed. Through the ranks on that machine, becoming increasingly happy with my achievements, my accomplishments, from average.. to competent.. to quite handy in awkward situations.. to deadly.. and then.. after a mere 7 hours of non stop gaming… where I began as a notice… the ultimate prize "Elite" status !!!!!!!. You'd probably think that I would be happy at this life changing event. Something I'd long wished for? Well, had I not spend an entire summer playing this bloody game on a different system you would be right. My reality was far different from yours. I felt cheated. I felt regret. And then amazingly I felt a charleton, a Judas, a cheat, someone undeserving of such an accolade… I had surely earned it too quickly, it couldn't be right, a glitch in the programme, someone somewhere was looking favourably on me surely. Surely? Right? And then I realised… There was a very good reason why I upgraded my commodore 64 to a modern IBM compatible system. The glitches in it’s operational software… And then the realization. That way back when, after only a few hours, I had probably been 'Elite' all the while…

Tell me how to live with this… 21 years onwards… please. I was THE best fighter pilot of my generation, I was THE best docker of my time, I was THE best, and I deserve to this day, to be realised for THIS expertise. PhD's? You can keep them. Just give me what I'm worth, that bloody status - couldawouldashoulda?? if only I'd reinstalled that game, if only I'd asked others how long it had taken them, if only I hadn’t wasted so much time earning 4.2 billion credits in the process of intergallactic trade, oh if only. And forgive me for such a public admittance. It is all coming back, in a flood, at the announcement that this game is finally of age. I'm not sure about the game, but I deserve a drink. Champagne none the less… a bottle of vintage 1985. Consumed to the waltz of the Blue Danube playing in the background…

The angle in all of this you ask? Have you ever wondered why such addictive games don’t have advertising built into them? We’re obsessed with realism right? Why not sell space in these games which add to levels of realism whilst earning additional monies for their creators? It’s not rocket science. I was a captive audience for months (some might say years). A second angle, and no doubt the ultimate demise of your professors career ambitions, would be to take advantage of a fleet of pilots who hark back to the times when there really was only space simulation / trading game. Release the latest version people!