The inaugural meeting of the European eCommerce Forum (ECF) was held in Amsterdam in April - the culmination of four years of conversations with leading retailers. Ian Jindal and Joris Beckers, co-founders of the Forum, reflect upon the genesis of the ECF, the pressing issues in ecommerce and the next steps for the Forum as preparations start for the next meeting in London this October.

If the first wave of the commercial web was characterised by customer acquisition, then the second was the development of dimensional or faceted navigation (in which retailers attempt to increase online sales by helping customers find the most appropriate products more easily). The current drive is towards cross-channel integration, in which store, web, paper and phone all work seamlessly together from the customer’s perspective. This latest phase simply shows, however, that we haven’t really finished the work started in the ‘browse’ phase - the work of “merchandising” our product to customers.

Online merchandising is often misunderstood, or seen as simply the online correlative of traditional retail merchandising - the organisation, planning and ranging of products online. This is not to denigrate in any way the complex work of merchandisers, but rather to point out that on the web ‘merchandising’ is the very heart and soul of “selling”.

We know that on the web, despite our advances in technology and skills, the two invariable limitations are time and space: the amount of time a customer will dedicate to our site (given the increasing number of calls upon their online attention) and the maximum pixel area of their screen, which limits the number of items we can show at any one time.

We’ve mentioned elsewhere in this issue the notion of the web as a store with ‘elastic walls’. Retailers can now offer hundreds of thousands of SKUs via the web, yet the presentation of these products is akin to letting customers wander directly through an untidy warehouse rather than a flagship store! Online the concepts of ‘visual merchandising’, adjacencies, ranging and category management have some analogies (user experience, site journeys, elementary product grouping, web analytics) but the practices are fragmented.

Thinking of our offline colleagues we could see that the disciplines of category management - product ranging, selection and presentation taken to the level of strategic art-form - and visual merchandising had much to teach us online. We also saw that in some ways we have an embarrassment of riches online: deep and extensive analytics, including insights to behaviour, contexts and of course the in-depth information on products, baskets and profitability. Closing the loop, we could also see information on returns, contacts in call centres and other operational data (either via the web platform or enterprise CRM systems).

The challenge and opportunity therefore were to take the best of offline strategy, online analytics and tools, and to combine these to develop the art and craft of selling online - to present the best combination of products to the customer so as to maximise the retailer’s profits. As Joris pointed out, “online we have a lot more customer interaction data to make Category Management potentially work better than offline where there is less data”.

This was the conversation I had with Joris in 2004 and we enthused about the insights and demands of some of the leaders in etail. Both of us came into contact with other passionate, enthusiastic retailers and during each conversation there was a desire to meet and share ideas with other professionals.

The impetus for finally organising the Forum came as a result of a change in the questions we were hearing. No longer was it enough for retailers to install very capable merchandising systems, nor to learn how to use them well. Rather, retailers were beginning to look to a time when all of their competitors would have equally capable systems and the needs therefore was to develop the insights, approaches and intense customer focus that would distinguish the retailer, irrespective of system.

The Forum

The inaugural meeting was held in Amsterdam. We decided at an early stage that the Forum would be a private exchange for the most senior subject matter experts across Europe. Invites would be personal (and not just “someone from Big Company X or Y”) and we would focus upon companies with complex operations, operating at scale (€70million or more online) and focused upon innovation and excellence. Joris noted how pleased he was that “Over 50 senior online business leaders from across Europe responded to the invitation to work together for a day and attempt to advance the art of online selling in meaningful and practical way”. The Forum is a strictly no-sales, confidential space for peers and this spirit of joint endeavour characterised the day (so much so that Joris didn’t even mention his company when introducing himself!).

The day

We had invited expert speakers from disparate, non-ecommerce disciplines to give us insight into approaches that might inform our work. We took as a theme how research could help us mitigate the challenge of limited ’space’ online.

The first presentation was from Martin Heinsbroek of McKinsey, taking as his theme “From Granular Insights to Targeted Actions”. Martin took as his case study the transformation of Signet Bank into Capital One, and the lessons to be drawn about data-driven insights and the benefits of experimentation (as part of a rigorous and consistent test-analyse-implement business-wide culture). The lessons for retailers were clear, especially given our enviable access to web analytics, trading metrics and the ability to A:B test online.

We then stood back from the data and were treated to an inspiring presentation from Ian Worley, Director at Flow Interactive, on “The power of cross-channel research to uncover granular merchandising insights”. Ian took as a starting point the ethnographic research approach - observing customer behaviour while shopping (covered in Internet Retailing earlier this year). Taking case studies like the Early Learning Centre (and others that we’re unable to quote) Ian showed how significant insights from offline research may have very subtle impacts on the website, yet still be remarkably and demonstrably effective. The learning here was that profit uplift comes from a combination of an holistic view of the customer’s needs, behaviours and preferences; putting the web as part of a cross-channel engagement strategy; robust research and analytics and finally a ruthless focus on delivering the customer’s expectations and needs rather than web design and features in isolation.

In the afternoon we were treated to a tour de force from Ed van de Weerd, VP Merchandising at Albert Heijn Supermartkets. It’s difficult to convey in print the combination of popping eyes, dropping jaws and mental lightbulbs illuminating as Ed took us on an insider’s tour of Category Management within supermarkets. Feedback afterwards was unanimous that the strategic approach to range, stock, pricing and brand positioning was a revelation, and that as a group there was a real enthusiasm to adapt this discipline to etail.

All of the presentations elicited detailed questioning and in between each session we allowed plenty of time for discussion - or so we thought! At each break no-one would leave their tables since they were deep in conversation - in October we’ve taken note and will allow even more time for idea and issue sharing…

Next steps

Feedback from delegates was very positive and the agreement is to come together twice a year with members conducting joint experiments throughout the year and feeding back to the group.

We’ve also been working on the next agenda which - although not yet finalised - will continue our quest to learn everything we can from our offline colleagues. We are looking at present at the area of Visual Merchandising. Joris has been considering the ‘convergence of product merchandising and advertising’ and, via the Forum, his hope is to “achieve a point someday where we know as much about selling online as we know today about selling in the real world”.

At Internet Retailing we’ll be bringing the learning from these sessions, along with the debates and issues, to the pages of the magazine and features on our portal. We’re also interested to hear your thoughts on the key issues, challenges and opportunities in online merchandising - do let us know, and help set the agenda for progress in online selling.

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Fact box.

The ECF was jointly founded by Ian Jindal and Joris Beckers, and is supported by Internet Retailing and made possible by the generosity of Fredhopper.com. Invitation of the Forum is strictly by invite only to senior retailers with experience of complex businesses with over €70million in online sales, but we are always keen to find ways to engage peers and disseminate learning. Please address thoughts, along with suggestions for members that we may have missed in error, to forum@fredhopper.com.

Companies

Some of the companies represented in the Forum are:

Otto, Vergelijk, Telegraaf Media Group, GAME Stores Group, Figleaves.com, Thomas Cook, Conrad, Neckermann, Interflora, E-consultancy.com, V&D, Maxeda, Nedis Group, Marks & Spencer, Clarks, Adidas, Ferio, Bijenkorf, KPN, Waitrose, Quelle, arvato systems GmbH, Mexx, Albert Heijn, Woolworths,  Bol.com, Samsonite, Procter & Gamble, Toys R Us, Acuista, Manutan International, Lovefilm.com, Manutan International, House of Fraser, B&Q, Apple, Amazon, Staples, La Redoute, HMV, Sainsburys, Next, Redcats, H&M.

The paradigm of the web channel being a vast shop with elastic walls has run its course. As Ian Jindal packs his bucket and spade for the summer holidays, he considers a new etailing paradigm: active selling in the network age. Retailers have managed the web for too long - our customers want it back!

The web channel was initially regarded as an infinite warehouse without the costs of shops or space constraints, but customers’ early enthusiasm for clicking through many pages of turgid descriptions soon waned. Dimensional navigation and richer imagery sped filtering and improved product presentation, but where there existed a surfeit of information (electricals, mobile phones and computers spring to mind) the customer runs out of steam after a few clicks and has either reverses or abandons their journey.

“Personalisation” has been the always-just-out-of-reach panacea to these problems for at least a decade: matching the perfect product to the individual customer. Unfortunately, the effort of profiling customers’ requirements requires ESP and clairvoyance as much as raw data and we now see that customers’ behaviour is modal, inconsistent and based upon needs and attitudes as much as upon past activity.

We are in a complex world, with an increased overhead of analytics, data and profiles - yet no increase in conversion rates! While the arms race to improve and tweak algorithms, heuristics and approaches, there is a natural limit to the web’s selling capabilities at present, based upon pixels and time. I’ve been reliably informed that one cannot walk to the back of a supermarket and out again without seeing 300 products (the average family buys some 250 different products in a year). On the web it’s entirely possible to get in and out of a site seeing only half a dozen items. The average supermarket shopping visit is about 25 minutes’ duration yet if a web session hits 2 minutes we worry that customers are lost or have had a narcoleptic episode.

Just as the stretching of elastic walls has given reducing returns on-site, retailers have sought to stretch them via other means: the growth of search the rise of affiliates (based, broadly, on either discounting, search cunning or niche expertise) and site syndication have pushed the retailers’ messages further afield, while also creating a ‘blast radius’ of new sites - whether signal or noise is a matter of opinion and context.

Hitherto it is the retailer who’s been notionally in charge: setting a sales and acquisition agenda - attracting, engaging and monetising customers.

Now, however, there is the start of a shift in power from the retailer to ‘the network’. This is not a redressed “web2.0″ pitch to implement geegaws and widgets on our sites, but rather a qualitative shift - where the data, the discrimination, the added value all reside in the aggregated activity of customers.

The first move comes from portable data - microformats and XML - that allow customers to take and use standardised data off-site. Next, a customer may record their computer usage in a portable, machine-readable format: Attention Profiling Markup Language (APML). Customers may offer to share this with retailers (thereby improving site suggestions and conversion) - in return for incentives.

Another move from the individual retailer to the network comes from review and ratings systems, like Bazaarvoice and Reevoo. Each of these suppliers works for retailers and enrich their sites. However, their reach is greater than an individual brand or site and the insight and value shifts from being retailer-centric and controlled to one based on the network.

Similarly, product recommendations (once the preserve of the on-site retailer systems) are now driven by external and, soon, network intelligence. ChoiceStream, Aggregate Knowledge and others can suggest cross- and up-sell options to customers. If they connect their insight across retailers then their systems would have more insight than any of their individual clients. Phorm, via its arrangements with so many ISPs, can see the aggregated browsing, ad-clicking and product-viewing behaviour of more customers than any one retailer or individual ad network. Finally, let us not forget that Google Checkout can ’see’ every product purchased, at what price and thereby get a better view of ultimate conversion and effectiveness than any retailer - all the while retaining the closest relationship with the customer. In time this insight could power new forms of performance advertising, pricing models and as-yet-unformed commercial opportunities. For Google!

Unlocked data, information exchange, the network effect and new access to hitherto-private stages of the sales cycle mean that customers (and new service providers) have more power than ever. The implication for retailers is that they need to consider ever more carefully the uniqueness and value of their proposition and how they can work within this networked, amorphous world. As we unwind on the beach this summer we should keep a small part of our brains mulling over our approaches: contributive, expert, open and distinctive - hopefully in time to engage in the Christmas season! This is a topic to which we’ll return, but in the meantime “Happy holidays”.

Patagonia Men’s Bollocks Shirt

Honesty? a boast? Or a case of unfortunate product naming?

The image is safe for work, but the title may cause problems with your firewall…

Let me know of any other unfortunately titled products…

The San Francisco Citizen | Google Employees Press 14 Buttons to Operate Their Toilets.

Wow. Admiration and fear.

I don’t understand quite how “Front Wash” can be effective while yet not splashing one’s shirt…

I also have a concern about continued functioning during a power cut. Backup power generation?

For those who’ve read Philip Kerr’s Gridiron - “a story about a highly technical building (nicknamed The Gridiron), which becomes self-aware and tries to kill everyone inside” - your main response to this will of course be fear of a rather horrid way to die…

The Future of Digital Marketing | Events | E-consultancy.com

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• Socialisr from Yell - an interesting take on making their database into a social event organising support thing.
• Microformats.org - the space for little things. Little, structured and portable things. Standards therefore.
• APML - the standard, interchange, thinking space for Attention Profiling Markup Language.
• engagd - useful and early implementations of APML. Worth bookmarking and keeping under watch.
• Tastebroker.org - a place to grab and see your APML.
• Phorm’s “Open Internet Exchange” - read, consider and see whether it’s threat, opportunity or both. And to whom…?
• TrueKnowledge - really interesting take on structured, explicit and inferred knowledge.

Just off to the Mediafutures Conference in Ally Pally (reaches for A-Z) and wondering whether there’ll be great broadband/mobile reception there ‘cos we’re under a mast?

Interesting day lined up but here’s a quick heads up that there’s a twitter channel at (predictably):
Twitter / mediafutures

I’m not going to promise an update since Nico’s notes are generally quicker and better than any notes I’ve taken at his events

Nico Macdonald and the BBC have announced The Media Futures Conference, being…

“… a one day exploration of the dynamics and trends shaping the future of media. As well as an opportunity for lively debate, the conference will feature presentations showcasing innovative projects, showing smart thinking in practice and illustrating the scope of what is possible “

No small promise then

The conference is the culmination of a year’s conversation with the BBC by Nico (of Spy.co.uk), and builds upon the regular series of Innovation Forums (fora?) and the Innovation Reading Circle (as mentioned here previously in my review of Andrew Keen’s book, Cult of the Amateur).

The website - Media Futures Conference 2008 - has information on the agenda and speakers (I’m Chairing a session on provocations).

The tickets have already sold out once so if you’re interested in attending I’d suggest you register promptly (Update: there’s also a “Waiting” list available via the ticketing page).

BBC NEWS | Magazine | The joy of pottering

Sweet and rather apt magazine piece on “pottering”. Starting from Monty Don’s recouperation (aided by pottering) the piece makes an opportunity for a bit of comedy (describing that modern phenomenon ‘working at home’ via the metaphor of gardening…) and a more serious point about self-directed, deadline-free work…

This is the more active version of “quality slobbing time” (QST[tm]), which is a more determined, nay total rejection of structured activity. It’s a close relative of “man time” and shares with it the temporary abandonment of personal hygiene, conversation and a balanced diet, but adds in a particular focus on some activity that other people would consider banal or perverse - eg protestations the Under Siege is the best film ever and must be watched. Again. Or channel surfing for CSI repeats.

Potterers and QSTiados will of course claim that either pastime is simply the inverse of the otherwise manic, pressured, hyper-productive Blackberry Lifestyles they lead. Of course it it.

Now, where’re my shoes…?

Last Wednesday I was pleased to give the keynote at the Buy.at 5th annual “Speakeasy” event, held at 195 Piccadilly, home of the BAFTAs.

It was an eclectic gathering of a couple of hundred people: merchants, affiliates, programme managers and entrepreneurs in a very open, engaged forum.

I spend a lot of time talking to and writing about retailers and the need to engage fully with the digital, demanding customer, and so it was interesting to have an opportunity to examine the role that affiliates play in connecting products and brands with customers’ wallets.

The blend of large-traffic sites, aggregators (like MyDeco or HousetoHome who put a very professional experience design onto the feeds they receive) and very, very niche affiliates (whether MobileShop.co.uk or perfectlyshapedworld) who put retailers to shame in their focus on customers) covered the gamut of retailing.

Given that we had people from the commercial and operational sides of affiliate marketing it was also an opportunity to examine the drivers for profitability, areas of collaboration and the developing needs that affiliates will have from merchants as they seek to remain relevant to customers in an evermore-demanding marketplace.

Following some good questions (both directly, over coffee and then on the subsequent panel discussions) I met some fascinating affiliates and niche businesses who I’m sure we’ll be seeing in upcoming issues of Internet Retailing.

My thanks to the team at Buy.at for their welcome and hospitality. The event was an examplar of stakeholder communication and networking.

It’s also about the only time I’ll ever get to stand on the stage at the BAFTAs…

Update: Ian Jindal’s slides from Speakesy, May 2008 - contents and images are all copyright, but you’re welcome to use with attribution.

Now that the buds are showing for this year’s crop it was time to eat the olives…

I removed them from the brine, rinsed and soaked in fresh water and then covered in oil.

I tried a couple and, tbh, they were a bit bland and the flesh was soft. I think I’d left them too long in the brine. Still, they were palatable, if not entirely more-ish.

Manon went first with the tasting… then Alice… and the overall result was:

Heh.

So - the result is that Manon liked them, Alice hated them. Vicky and I were indifferent.

This coming year, apart from hoping I get more than a few dozen, I think I’ll be more attentive to the water changing, take them out more promptly and consider seasoning them for a period.

If you’ve any suggestions I’d love to hear them in the comments.

Photoset is here: the Quilter Street Olives.

Just over a week ago I managed to spend a day in Amsterdam, having extended my stay at the inaugural European eCommerce Forum (of which, more anon).

After what seemed like weeks of rain and hail the Saturday was a glorious, warm Spring day.

Ian Worley had spoken at the conference - a really good session on ethnographic research aka watching your customers and responding to their needs - and he’d stayed over too. We therefore hit the streets for a 7-hour walk, with the focus on architecture (as you’d expect, given that Ian’s an architect by training and Amsterdam is a design/architecture dream city: dense, varied, compact and photogenic). I was still suffering from my “all manhole covers are ART” affliction, so spent most of my time peering floor-wards or fiddling with the exposure control to try and capture the first feeling of hot, bright sun on these winter-wearied eyes.

The photos are in the Amsterdam 2008 photoset on my Flickr account.

Conversation went from the Founding Fathers and their true intentions, to London Mayoral campaigns, raising kids, ecommerce, gadgets and bbq techniques - interrupted only by cravings for beer and peering at maps.

Amsterdam must surely be one of the most civilised and livable capital city centres in the world.

A discovery on this visit was the FOAM photo gallery. What a wonderful place. A lateral conversion over four floors, facing onto the canal, garden gallery, compact but selective bookshop plus print sales. Saw a great exhibition by Daniel and Geo Fuchs on “Secret Rooms” of the STASI. Jessica Dimmock’s “The Ninth Floor” [book] was a moving and rounded documentary of drug users in New York, taken with integrity and a rounded engagement with her subjects. It avoided most of the sunday-supplement heroine chic images and the exhibition ended - as she describes in the accompanying text - as she lost documentary objectivity at the plight of her (now) friends. Thought-provoking, and a reminder both of the power of photography and the value of a good showing space.

The European bloc is the third most attractive global market - after the US and China - and, despite the differences in culture, language and infrastructure, this agglomeration of consumers is at least held together by the twin factors of relative affluence and a consistent legal system - the pre-requisites for trade.

The UK is well-positioned to be at the heart of international moves into Europe: the relatively well-advanced broadband and computing infrastructure, the credit card penetration levels, the enjoyment of shopping (online and off) and the ready acceptance of brand imports from across the pond makes the UK a natural ‘beach-head’ for US aspirations in Europe (or “rest of world” as our cousins so often term it).

The well-developed markets in France and German also hold attractions but outside the big three markets - each with its own idiosyncrasies - any hope of an homogeneous, easily-addressable marketplace evaporates.

Leaving aside language and culture (which of course one can’t) the plain sailing of the ecommerce front-end so often comes to grief on the jagged rocks of logistics and distribution. While it’s easy to present an ecommerce front-end to any market (indeed, we often scour the websites of US-only retailers and ponder the costs of delivery and import duty) it’s a totally different matter to get the goods to the customers. Legacy national carrier networks, cross-border delivery issues, the siting of warehousing, management of credit cards and returns… Ah - all of the problems of real ecommerce, but with a combinatorial level of complexity. Software alone cannot solve this, nor can marketing. Hence we see GSI’s European team investing in local logistics companies and partnerships, and the growth of ‘end to end’ commerce offerings that can provide a complete ‘click to doorstep’ service in-country.

What is the cause of this sudden interest? At a high level there’s a combination of a search for new growth outside the US and UK, a feeling that the technology allows a foray into Europe, and the growth of the indigenous etail markets growing to a critical, attractive mass.

Within this there are five main categories of activity (based unscientifically on my conversations last month):

1. existing master of the large-scale play who look to extend their efficient supply chain and volume retailing to other territories
2. niche or specialist etailers for whom a global market might exist and who now look to replace lost domestic volumes
3. Global manufacturer, facing demand for their products in many territories, and juggling global marketing/brand ownership with a variable quality of local distributorships
4. a domestic power-house looking for “near-shore” opportunities to support growth.
5. companies who form the local part of a global group coming under pressure to operate in a unified, global fashion.

We will be tracking these developments with interest in these pages in the coming months.

The challenge of Europe is not just one of plugs, pipes and trucks: there’s a ’selling’ challenge too. While it’s trite to note that customer behaviour may differ in regions and markets, what can we learn from this? Furthermore how can etail professionals move beyond obvious promotional mechanisms and enhance profitability? These questions will be occupying Europe’s leading multichannel retailers in Amsterdam this month for the inaugural European eCommerce Forum (ECF).

The Forum is an invite-only, expert peer group for etailers with €70million+ in etail sales, and will provide a confidential space for discussion, experimentation, benchmarking and networking. A joint initiative of Internet Retailing and Joris Beckers (CEO of FredHopper), we aspire to improve in-country selling capabilities as well as a broader European view.

A fortnight later our colleagues at ACSEL, the French association for eCommerce, will be launching their book - “Europe - an Opportunity for eCommerce ” by Jean-Christophe Defline - at a conference in Paris where I’ll be expanding on the European view from the ECF and the UK perspective on eCommerce.

Most etailers will not welcome further complexity when the focus is upon the likely consumer downturn in the UK, so “Europe” may appear an untimely distraction. However, this syzygy of interest in Europe highlights topics of interest to us all: improved brand and customer communications; dealing flexibly with multiple partners and carriers; learning responsiveness to smaller, niche markets and, of course, driving for growth in a tough economic climate.

The event was in a tunnel/underpass under Waterloo Station approach, Leake St. Many years ago I used to park the car there when I worked at Ernst & Young and it was a pretty fruity-smelling, dingy and blade-runneresque bit of London. “Ripe for Redevelopment”, as an estate agent might say. Ironically, much of the work adorning the walls is very much anti-development and anti-gentrification. Still, it’s difficult to be permanently ironic or anti-establishment when “one” has an audience, a following, and collectors of books and prints: Banksy, Eine… Or maybe it’s ironic that the audience lapping up the bitter irony is the audience being attacked? Or maybe it’s not?

Who knows - all I recall is the humour and artistry. Made me wonder why this was any different to the (cleaner) contemporary art seen in established galleries. Social commentary, irony, punning, juxtapositioning to challenge us to see anew… All that plus the smell of solvents.

The kids loved it - Manon really liked touching the (dried) paint and feeling the different textures, Aneirin enjoyed rolling in the dust and brownfield reminders, while Alice was taking it very seriously and pondering the meaning (”why is there a tree growing out of that car Daddy?”) .

The event was well-organised, marshalled clearly and had a friendly feel. I hope it’ll be a regular thing.

You know the target market is middle class, however, when the big signs at the entrance emphasise that there’s nothing for sale

My Flickr photoset is has the rest of the images I took during our visit.

Finally, thinking of puns, I missed the Banksy ‘Tagger’ (a Tiger composed of graffiti ‘tags’, geddit?). Luckily, we have Flickr and the excellent efforts of artofthestate:

I mentioned Nelly Duff (excellent gallery on Columbia Road, E2, that’s a wonderful source of prints by graffiti, stencil, poster and graphical artists. The people who run it are knowledgeable, connected and just lovely - they helped me secure an Eine poster for Valentine’s Day for Vicky - and then helped me keep the secret as Vicky kept on and on about buying it…). Anyway, one of our neighbours has recently launched a publishing company and his latest book is on “Street Art Chile”. The launch party is most appropriately happening at the Duff and very much looking forward to that.

All that remains now is to hone the argument to the kids about how painting on walls at home is naughty, how painting on walls outside is ‘vandalism’ EXCEPT if it’s in a planned, sanctioned space with the support of the art market… in which case it’s Art.

The format is a relaxed one: an external speaker, an ‘open mic’ in terms of topic (I spoke on rich internet applications, underlying data and the challenge of selling in a contracting market) and a group of people all clutching and munching their lunches and throwing in questions. It was a fun and interesting session and I’m grateful to Nick Corston, Agency.com’s Sales and Marketing Director, for the invitation.

Last week I provided the keynote for the Adobe Scene 7 and Bazaarvoice ‘best practice seminar’ for retailers. Held at the wonderfully-located Adobe offices in Park Crescent, London, we were treated to good hospitality, excellent facilities and great company - a broad range of retailers and publishers. Chris Poad, Head of eCommerce for Otto UK spoke in his usual engaging style, and had some really thought-inducing questions about how to replicate the notion of “play” and “playfulness” within internet shopping. Justin Crandall, Commercial Director of Bazaarvoice gave a whistle-stop history of ratings and reviews and then proceeded to move quickly beyond the obvious into the future challenges at the heart of “customer to customer marketing”. I learned a good deal from these presentations - and left with a number of new questions to ponder.

Marty Cornelius and Ijaz Bhattee of Adobe Scene 7 then treated us to a tour of the capabilities of the imaging platform, made all the more memorable by Ijaz demonstrating live the ‘hackability’ of the Scene7 URLs (instructional parameters) and really showing how one could ‘drive’ the application. I always admire someone with the confidence to do a whole presentation ‘live’!

BBC NEWS | Health | Daily caffeine ‘protects brain’

When I was younger, fitter and more devil-may-care I consumed inordinate amount of great coffee and ordinary wine. My long-suffering and healthy partner (now wife) would occasionally take me to task (as she witnessed the umpteenth ristretto of the day) and I would reply that it was part of my "balance of toxins" regime: the red wine and caffeine would cancel each other out, leaving me hale and hearty.

Every other month we learn that wine in moderation is good for us, but I’ve not seen until now any scientific evidence of the beneficial effects of caffeine. Just as well there’s such a catchy phrase for this benefit - the "blood brain barrier".

Sadly, the result has only been seen in (jittery? wired?) rabbits, but I think it’s time I volunteered for the human trials and cranked up my intake from its currently-sensible 3 shots a day. Max. Honest. 

The original case is linked in Sanford’s publication of their joint statment of toadying reconciliation, but - like cheap air freshener - this release simply disguises the one rank smell with the whiff of accommodation.

I initially commented on this case - which is pretty off-topic for me - because I know Sanford and respect his energy, enthusiasm and 110%+ commitment to all the causes into which he throws himself. I’m no softy when it comes to political machinations and manipulations, but I was stunned and disappointed that someone who was standing for a position of trust and authority would use defamation, slur and the conduct of his son in to wheedle out of his agreement. The whole thing reminded me of Jonathan Aitken’s brazen challenging of the media with his sword of barefacedness and the trusty shield of a false familial alibi.

The intervening year or so has simply shown the potentially ruinous costs of defending one’s good name (the maxim seems to be that if you can’t afford redress then you’re not deserving of it), the toll on one’s well-being and two new pressures of our age: an active, vitriolic and partisan blogging community that uses news snippets as excuses for point-making; and the ‘eternal memory’ of Google - a libel, once in the gCache, is there for ever.

My over-riding thought was one of relief for Sanford that the whole process was over, with all of the claims against his character unreservedly withdrawn. It’s a pity that there’s such a frothy love-fest of mutual adoration to pad out the thing: I’d have preferred a more simple “I told porkies thinking I could bully, bluster and slander my way out of trouble but now I’ve been called and I’d rather apologise than lose comprehensively in court”. Or even “Sorry”. Still, maybe his wishing “Sanford Dickert well in his continuing capable national service to Democratic candidates and campaigns” will do.

No, it won’t.

When I said that 2008 would be the year in which the promises of ‘mobile’ and telephony started to be delivered I didn’t envisage so much excitement so soon.

Hot on the heels of Rebtel we have Ribbit.

Ribbit is Rebtel meets Skype meets Adobe Air/Flex, meeting Visual Voicemail meets Unified Messaging meets iPhone meets CTI meets social networking meets Salesforce.

This gives me a tingle!

Still, the time to find and listen to those skills would be <thinks> before printing thousands of carrier bags</thinks>.

Then again, maybe not.

Let the presses roll. Oh, and see if we can find St Christpoher’s Place on Google Maps…

UPDATE: I’ve shown this to 8 people, none of whom found the typo without prompting.

This is a great idea. It’s become axiomatic that there’s a skills-shortage in ecommerce, but a less-well documented problem with the explosion in ecommerce is the lack of entry-level, junior skills.

Such has been the growth that experienced ecommerce people are now looking at senior management paygrades, but there’s not been the investment within companies to grow the skills of young, generalist people, or those from other disciplines, to become the ecommerce practicioners of next year.

This initiative answers two problems for businesses:

1. accredited, dependable training - you’ll have confidence that the graduates have covered the bases
2. there’s a critical mass for recruiting (much easier than a ’spray and pray’ approach to attracting junior staff).

What will the graduates do?

“What’s included for free on our Graduate Academy:

• 3 day residential training placement in July at Reading University
• 15 days of distance and online training during August
• A further 2 days residential training at the end of August at Reading University
• Free access to www.e-consultancy.com for the period of training
• Guaranteed interviews with leading companies”

We’ll take a look at the progress of the Academy in more detail in InternetRetailing, but in the meantime this is a very welcome initiative and sure to be oversubscribed.

Graduate Academy | Training | E-consultancy.com

Mike Butcher’s recently covered the “Feta” (cheesey ‘beta’ pun - excellent) release of Forkd - a fun community/mashup offering for online foodies.

The pun extends beyond the ‘drop all vowels’ approach of flickr, mosaiqr etc and builds on the interesting notion that an individual recipe may ‘fork’ (as in ‘branch’) as well as be approriated (the very visual ‘forking’ of something from another’s plate).

I particularly like the idea that instead of just ‘rating’ or ‘collecting’ recipies the idea is that you amend, develop, improve and share again.

This is a typically rounded, interesting and polished offering from the good folk at Isotoma (sorry, I mean by “Internet veterans Doug Winter and Andy Theyers”). Heh.

TechCrunch UK: Get Forkd - a social network for recipes