Dr. Neil Hair

So, my least favourite airline Ryan Air has once again done a dirty on consumers. This time, mulling over a charge for the use of toilets. What has always interested me about this company is its full on refusal to put the customer first in any way other than charging low prices for travel. Another interest I have with it is that customers put up with it and I blame the airline industries approach of lowest cost always wins. When companies put cost first and not the experience they are in my humble opinion bound to loose at some stage. I learned that around the age of 30 a personal transformation was made in the way I viewed the experience of travel. I was prepared to pay more for instance for a couple of 'free' Gin and Tonics on a British flight than I was a $100 cheaper flight by an American carrier. It was a simple protest vote that hurt no one but my bank balance at the end of the day, but it also felt good to put my money where my mouth is (literally in this case). Ryan Air has always treated customers with contempt – the CEO gets away with comments such as those he made a couple of years ago after cutting a number of flights to France. When asked how he felt about those Brits who had bought holiday homes near the airports he once served he basically said he didnt feel sorry for them. How nice. So, the issue is at what point do customers say enough and move on to other carriers? Another recent example saw me stuck at JFK waiting to board a jet Blue flight home to Rochester. The cue was ridiculous, the stress it afforded me was also ridiculous. The outcome? I will not fly Jet Blue again and I blog about how awful that experience was. So, marketing angle – focusing on the customer experience has always been and will always be the best way to ultimate satisfaction with a company's service. Low price is great, but if it means you have to pay £1 for the use of the toilet, then I think there's something pretty wrong with the philosophy of the company. It bring a whole new angle to the old saying, 'you should have gone before we got going.'

And so here it is – the most important news of my life so far. My daughter, Lillian Victoria Hair was born Friday 20th of February 2009 at 5.44pm weighing 8lbs 14 and stretching to a whopping 22.5 inches! Rose and Lillian are doing very well and I havent stopped smiling since the successful delivery on Friday. Highland hospital was quite frankly a WONDERFUL experience with great staff, nurses and doctors. I can also say the the whole delivery experience is the most frightening and wonderful thing anyone one can ever go through. Rose you are without doubt my hero for life and thank you so much for our beautiful daughter, looking forward to the ride of my life.  

OK, right at the start of the entry I want to make one thing absolutely clear. I had permission from my wife from the get go and we were several hours away from delivery (honest!). OK. So – its official I LOVE technology. To cut a very long story and even longer process shorter – we went into hospital on Wednesday night as soon as I finished my last undergraduate class (an amazing one with some great people in it at that). Thursday was my last taugh class for my MBA's and with it being week ten the materials were rather essential. So, what to do. I called on the help of two previous online learners of mine – Ashley and Kate – to help me set up class virtually. Everything was in place by 5.45pm and we were ready to go by 6pm despite being ten miles away and kind of tied up with my wife showing very early signs of labor. So this is how it worked. We managed to pull off a whole session using my office hours Adobe Connect Meeting room, I presented my slides and debriefed class as I usually do, with a two way camera conference call complete with text chat for questions and URL links. Despite a few audio glitches their end the session went really well. I took questions over the phone in our delivery room, my wife waved enthusiastically at the crowd (this proved popular!) and we managed to complete class without incident (including the wife going into full labor – that happened a few hours later and Id like to think my lecturing skills had nothing to do with it!). Amusing, whilst I was lecturing, I had three resident nurses come in to see what was going on (seems the news we were lecturing in the room spread pretty quickly), Roses Doctor, and then two OB residents! I can tell you honestly that this proved to be one of the most distracting teaching situations I think Ive ever been in!! But I persevered and it went well – lots of interaction as usual with me asking class questions and then calling on individuals to provide answers. Overall I was really pleased to be part of that experience, my class was fantastic – motivated as usual and seemed to enjoy it all. Amusingly, last night I saw one of our nurses who stopped me and affirmed one of the comments I had made in my lecture to class – 'youre right Neil, there really is only one best way to make money, have more than one job!' She also confirmed that she'd really enjoyed the lecture of course – I also recorded it for my students

Thanks connect, class, Rose and of course little Lillian who is now the most important student to me in the world.

So, after much gnashing of teeth and chomping on the bit Facebook's CEO finally sees how he might use user data to make money. As Ive long said – advertising was never going to work well. Using members however as makeshift marketers, advocates and invertisers does work. That's exactly what Zuckerberg has finally realized – many months of course after companies have been using Facebook for this exact purpose. Now he plans on charging for access and establishing user groups of like minded members. My thoughts are – it wont work – why? because those most innovative organizations are doing it already, why pay? A great example of the use of a Facebook strategy comes from a small company very close to my own heart. Henrietta Animal Hospital's CEO has been on Facebook for some time now. Recently she decided to act of the new Presidents call for help and established a cause called 'Pets in Need Clinic'. This cause related marketing campaign is aimed at helping those with pets that have recently been made redundant or have lost their homes as a result of the current climate. The aim – simply – to help people's pets who by no fault of their own are suddenly not getting the attention or care that they need. You can find the campaign on Facebook by searching for the Pets in Need Clinic. By spreading the word amongst her contacts the CEO Michelle Brownstein is using Facebook as a tool of cause marketing. In summary its a highly innovative, grass roots campaign that I feel passionately for. Its also a hug WIN for small organizations that don't have the budgets for large scale campaigns but still want to get their messages out.