It wasn’t always that way, however. When I first heard of Twitter I wasn’t that fussed. Sounds like ICQ or any of the other instant messaging platforms, I thought. I’d used ICQ extensively in a distributed newsroom setting so we could all stay in touch and because we all used it for everything, even across-the-room chat, those who worked remotely were included in the conversation.

But yet another version of that? “Meh”, I thought. Of course, Twitter differs fundamentally from instant message platforms and it wasn’t until someone re-tweeted a photo of a bunch of people standing on the wing of a plane that was floating in the Hudson River in New York that I realised this was the news feed I’d been dreaming of.

Someone on a rescue boat had taken a photo and posted it straight to Twitter. It was at least half an hour before the New Zealand news websites started carrying ‘breaking news’ banners about a plane crashing in New York, but I knew they were all OK and I had proof.

It was a seminal moment, but Twitter doesn’t just allow me to see what other people are doing right this second – far from it. It’s also my new favourite search engine and the single best way to get in touch with a corporation.

I’ll give you an example – I went to Hong Kong for business about two years ago and when I got to the hotel I couldn’t find my credit card. “Great”, I thought. “I’ve left it in the chemist at the airport in Auckland. Brilliant.”

I called Kiwibank, but of course it was after hours so nobody could take my call. I wanted the card blocked until I figured out where it was, so I tweeted and Kiwibank came straight back – yes, they could help. They called me, we verified identities and the card was blocked.

I couldn’t have done that without Twitter and these days I try not to deal with companies that don’t have a Twitter account. All too often companies seem to put barriers in the way of doing business with them – Twitter cuts through all of the rigmarole in a heartbeat.

It’s also incredibly fast and closes the gap between customer and CEO from a few weeks to mere seconds. In the old days you’d get poor service, you’d demand to speak with a supervisor, you’d be fobbed off and ultimately you’d writea letter. In due course that would find its way to someone senior and you’d get a response, or not if they didn’t think it worth the bother.

These days that’s all gone. Responses have to be immediate and clearly thought out or they become the stuff of legend. Dominos Pizza, United Airlines, Comcast and WalMart have all been caught with their social media pants down in recent years, and closer to home we’ve seen local companies also try to bluff and bluster their way through what is, at its heart, an exercise in customer relationship management.

Social media puts consumers in the driver’s seat. No more interactive voice recognition, or hold music. No more fobbing off and form letters that go nowhere. Any company that ignores social media is ignoring its customers and that’s a business that I don’t want to have anything to do with.

Years ago I asked my dentist about flossing. I’m from the UK and we didn’t have such things when I was a kid. “Which teeth do I floss?” I asked. “Only the ones you want to keep,” he said. Social media is like that. Which customers should you talk to? Only the ones you want to keep.

ABOUT PAUL BRISLEN//

Paul Brislen was the Telecommunication Users Association of New Zealand (TUANZ) chief executive. He left the post in May 2014. Craig Young will be his replacement.

The post Don’t be a twit: tweet appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

I’m reminded in many ways of the early days of ADSL broadband. Back in 1999 there were plenty of nay-sayers who couldn’t understand why having ‘always on’ access to the internet was a good thing. They couldn’t see the value in having a faster internet connection because their dial-up connection was good enough.

And in many respects it was. I worked from home on a dial up connection and then on an early ADSL1 service from Telecom that gave me 600MB of data to use every month. I managed to cope with that because in 1999 the amount of video content was limited, my applications (such as they were) tended towards the minimalist because the bandwidth constraints were so great, and nobody really used the internet for anything more than email and bulletin boards.

But I knew then that I wanted more and that if I had more I could do more. TUANZ put together a three-day session to discuss what opportunities lay on the other side of ubiquitous, cheap access to very fast internet speeds and we wrote a book (‘Survival of the Fastest’) all about what was, back then, science fiction.

Wouldn’t it be good if I could connect with all my friends as they were travelling around the place so I would know who was nearby so I could have a coffee with them? Wouldn’t it be good if I could put on a pair of goggles and see the Coliseum in Rome as it was 2000 years ago? Wouldn’t it be great if I could video-conference not only from the giant telepresence suite at work but also from my home PC?

We dreamt up the likes of Facebook, 4Square, Google Goggles and Skype but without any real thought to make them into real products (aside from Mark Billinghurst who now runs augmented reality company HitLab) but we knew that if we had access to good connectivity, these things would be possible.

A fibre network that connects most of us is the start of the future for New Zealand. It will change the way we communicate with each other. It will enhance our business opportunities. It will improve our health system, give us access to better education, redefine the way we as citizens interact with our government at all levels and hopefully a whole raft of things we haven’t thought of yet because we’re stuck in our 2Mbit/s world.

I could use a 10Mbit/s symmetrical connection today. I’d jump at the chance to get a better upload speed because suddenly I need it. Tomorrow I’ll be looking for 50Mbit/s and the day after 100Mbit/s. My home connection is no longer just something that I use – now my kids use it, my wife uses it, all our devices are constantly going out seeking updates and, if Google gets its way, my house will shortly be connecting to the world, not to mention my car.

In the next decade we’ll see 4K television become more accessible, we’ll see home automation take off, we’ll see the ‘internet of things’ become a reality and for all of that to happen we need fibre.

The problem as I see it is not that “nobody really wants this stuff” as some would have you believe, but rather that not everyone will have access to it. This isn’t a problem of the government demanding industry build a white elephant – it’s a problem of haves and have-nots.

I’d like to see technology become a key issue in the upcoming election. I want New Zealand to do better, to have more and to foot it with the best of them. It’s high time we had a government that saw the opportunity rather than the cost of all this.

ABOUT PAUL BRISLEN//

Paul Brislen is the Telecommunication Users Association of New Zealand (TUANZ) chief executive.

The post The fibre acceleration appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.

The post Security legislation: living in strange times appeared first on iStart keeping business informed on technology.