Karan Chadda

Global digital marketing and communications leader

Politics

Don’t fence me in

Footballers and politicians have all done their best to keep race and multiculturalism in the news. I don’t seek to provide commentary on what this means about the state of our country or our society, my issue is this: at a time when people move across the globe more than ever before, when we’re hosting the largest event in the world, when our capital is one of the most diverse places on earth, those with the loudest voices are still obsessed by, and trading in, blocks.

Let’s start with footballers. If John Terry’s trial showed us anything it was how common obscene language, of all kinds, is on the football pitch. Rio Ferdinand, however, took it one step further by throwing the term choc ice via Twitter in the direction of Ashley Cole. Choc ice was a new but instantly recognisable term to me. Growing up in West London in the 90s, the preferred equivalent among Indians was coconut. Both items have the desirable structure of being dark on the outside and white on the inside.

If Coconut was the term shot at those deemed as not Indian enough, there were equivalent terms for people deemed too Indian as well. Quite often those who were thought to be too traditional were referred to as pendus (based on the word pendu which technically means villager but more commonly means simpleton in Punjabi). So, you could be too Indian or not Indian enough.

If that’s an example of how some people from ethnic minorities try and force others to fit a certain mould, then there are plenty of examples from outside ethnic minorities too. Aidan Burley, Conservative MP for Cannock Chase, was so worked up by what he perceived to be left-leaning bias during the open ceremony of the London Olympics, that he tweeted the following:

Right in the middle of his tweet he agitates against leftie multi-cultural crap. Now, many people would think it unwise for an MP to tweet something like that. Bearing in mind this MP in particular has already had his political career dented because he went on a stag do where guests dressed as Nazis, it was a particularly poor choice.

The most disappointing part of Mr Burley’s tweet is that he equates multi-culturalism with the Left. I hope he sent a note to his Conservative colleagues with this little bit of insight. I’m sure Conservative Party Co-Chairman, Baroness Warsi, would love to know that she’s accidentally joined the wrong party. That she actually should be a leftie. No doubt Burley’s fellow West Midlands Conservative MP, Nadhim Zahawi, would be keen to learn more about exactly where he fits on the political spectrum.

Burley is no different from those who throw around terms like choc ice. They attempt to peg people into a specific box using simple generalisations based on race. They see the world in a particular way and seek to fit everything and everyone into little boxes that neatly fit their view. It’s lazy, but also damaging. It perpetuates the politics of race. It seeks to define what people of a particular skin colour ought to be like and make them that way. It’s racist, it’s wrong and, thankfully, the world isn’t how they perceive it to be.

UPDATE: This post was cross-posted HERE  on the Liberal Conspiracy blog. Please do join in the debate on this issue over there.

Seeing through the transparency debate

Recently, following the example of Google, Twitter issued its first transparency report. This was move lauded by many and the report’s contents was heavily analysed to see which governments were making requests for details about Twitter’s users, how many they were making and how many were granted.

To properly understand this debate, however, it’s best to take a moment to really understand the two forces at its centre: transparency and privacy.

First, let’s look at transparency. In the context of this debate, transparency is usually shorthand for holding corporations and governments to account; making sure that they’re doing the right thing when holding or accessing data about us. Of course, corporations and governments need to access our data for various reasons, but we don’t want them to have too much of it. Essentially, it’s seen through the prism of personal freedom.

On the other side of this debate we have privacy. This is the domain of the individual. The debate naturally centres on people’s right to live their lives without being surveilled. There is also a distrust of the ability of companies to securely hold private data. The recent spate of data loss by companies, including big technology brands like Yahoo and LinkedIn, have served only to underline this distrust.
The dual forces of transparency and privacy have come to the fore in the internet age; simply, there is more information out there. Companies like Google have been indexing it to make it easy to find. Governments have come under pressure to make more information available. Things are harder to hide, for corporations, governments and individuals.

On social media, data is plentiful but much of it is also personal. Social media companies are constantly under pressure to ensure users are able to protect their privacy but also required by governments to prevent abuses occurring – either online or in the real world. This is when the idea of a transparency report becomes useful. It enables social media organisations to frame themselves as protectors of people’s personal information, while at the same time giving information, which they have a duty to provide, to governments and corporations. The brilliance of such reports is that they not only enable social media networks to honestly tell users about the information they disclose to others, but also allow them to show how many requests they decline. By publishing the number of requests declined, they emphasis they are on their users’ side.

Companies like Google and Twitter should be lauded for launching such reports. By letting us know how much information governments and corporations are asking for, they’re treading a fine line by complying with disclosure requirements, yet keeping governments and corporation transparent while defending individual privacy.

This piece was originally posted here on the Huffington Post UK.

A photo tells of Diamond’s departure

Bob Diamond’s departure from Barclays has, predictably, led to a lot of puns. No doubt headline writers everywhere are celebrating their good fortune at receiving such an obviously mockable name, but at the same time straining their brains in an effort to avoid the most obvious gags. However, take a moment to appreciate the early goal scored by the photo editors and researchers at the FT.

Selecting the right image to go with a story is incredibly important. Photo editors search through thousands of images every day in the hunt for the right image for every story. With news breaking online, there isn’t the luxury of an afternoon to scour the archives and databases, images must be sourced quickly, but quality must not suffer.

It is for this reason, that we must laud the team at the FT for selecting this brilliant image of Bob Diamond.

The dejected look on his face is the classic pose of someone walking away. The positioning of Bob Diamond on the left, with his back partially toward us – simultaneously walking into the image, yet walking away from the viewer – tells us of his departure.

Finally, the defocused background hinting at a sparkly object just screams ‘diamond’. The photo editors have skilfully told the story and made the pun.

This piece was originally posted here on the CommsTalk blog.

Europe’s technology centre?

Europe’s Technology Centre?

Chancellor George Osborne announced his intention to ensure Britain becomes Europe’s technology centre in his Budget speech. In order to make this a reality he announced support in two areas: Digital Content; and Infrastructure.

Digital Content

The Chancellor announced the corporation tax reliefs from April 2013 for the video games, animation and high-end television industries. These reforms will be subject to consultation and will need to pass state aid rules. The film industry already enjoys reliefs of this kind.

The aim of this tax relief is to try and retain these industries, and the jobs they create, in the UK. It is also hoped that it will encourage inward investment from the likes of Disney into the UK. Last autumn it was reported that animation studios were planning to leave the UK because of preferable tax breaks and subsidies in countries including Ireland and Canada. This move is clearly designed to address that issue and signal to similar creative industries that they are valued.

Infrastructure

On infrastructure, the Chancellor confirmed the selection of Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and London to become broadband Super-connected cities. This move is part of a previously announced £100m investment. The Treasury says that this investment will this will deliver ultrafast broadband coverage to 1.7 million households and 200,000 businesses, and high speed wireless broadband for three million residents by 2015.

In terms of mobile networks, rural areas and selected A-roads will see an increase in the quality of coverage. There will also be a government review to decide whether intervention is required to improve mobile coverage for rail passengers.

The UK’s broadband and mobile phone infrastructure isn’t exactly the envy of the world and improving it is essential. As my colleague Charlotte from our Hong Kong office noted recently, we don’t even have wifi on the Tube. The Chancellor also alluded to the fact our network is sub-par when he noted that, “Two years ago Britain had some of the slowest broadband speeds in Europe.”

Verdict?

At first glance, the creative industries can be broadly pleased with the outcome of this budget. The video games developers and animators, in particular, will feel their voice is being heard and the benefits they bring to the UK are being recognised.

On infrastructure, it’s all a little less clear cut. Additional investment is, of course, welcome but until the details are reviewed, it’s hard to judge how significant these announcements are.

The announcements for technology were underpinned with additional announcements about youth training, business loans and development zones. There were also measures supporting scientific and engineering research. It all pointed to the Chancellor wanting to lessen the economy’s reliance on financial services but keep Britain very much as a service-based, intellectual property creating economy.

This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

Switching on competition

The Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) published its final report last week. While much of the reporting focused on ring-fencing and capital ratios, one important part went under-reported: competition.

Politicians and regulators have long seen competition as good for consumers. It is said to drive up standards and drive prices down. However, the retail banking is a very concentrated sector – the ICB report funds that the “largest four banks account for 77% of personal current accounts and 85% of SME current accounts”.

So how can we increase competition?

One answer, according to the ICB, is to make it easier for people to change who they bank with, commonly referred to as switching.

This concept is popular among regulators in a number of sectors, Ofgem, for example, looks at switching rates as one indicator of competitiveness among energy suppliers. It doesn’t require the state to intervene and break up firms, it is easy to measure and it is easy to apply to industries which have large barriers to entry.

However, despite the growth of price comparison websites and national advertising campaigns by energy companies only around half of consumers have switched their energy supplier – and this is during a time of squeezed incomes and double-digit energy price rises.

The Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, recently told The Times (£) that consumers don’t put enough effort into getting the best deal.

“They do not bother. They frankly spend less time shopping around for a bill that’s on average more than £1,000 a year than they would shop around for a £25 toaster.”

If consumers aren’t changing energy suppliers, there’s little evidence to suggest that they’ll switch between banks. So will encouraging switching really switch on competition?