Another month and another monthly mind cleansing Grinds My Gears.  Earlier this month I read a news article that really rattled my cage. Schools are being urged to introduce more ‘female friendly’ physical education lessons into the national curriculum.

Now, when I was in high school, and I’m talking seven years ago now, my understanding of physical education was that it was physical. It was a lesson that incorporated putting into practice what you learnt about how the body works, repairs and can be conditioned. However, it appears that over the years it has changed to be a lesson on learning who kissed who, looking cool and being lazy.

The WSFF (Woman’s Sport and Fitness Foundation) want to introduce activities such as Zumba, the new Latin dance craze that is sweeping the nation, and rollerblading to young girls P.E. lessons. Personally these sound too much like a cop out of sport and exercise. Now I’m not completely cold hearted, I understand that secondary school can be a hard time for some girls and that they are finding themselves and don’t always feel completely comfortable in their skins. However British kids are the heaviest in Europe, there are always new debates on introducing healthy school dinners, increasing tax on sugary snacks and drinks. It is just common knowledge that you should exercise as well as eat a balanced diet to stay at a healthy weight. Modern British kids have got a lazy diet as well as a lazy lifestyle.

Another big part of P.E. is learning how to work as a team, and heightening your competitive drive. These are both characteristics that young girls are going to need and demonstrate when they leave school and enter working life. Within the digital industry, you need to demonstrate a focus to go one better than your competitors, push the boundaries further. To achieve these goals you need to be a key member in a team that share your goal values. All aspects of a digital project are vital, from the initial immersion sessions and briefing to the coding and go live. Pulling together as a team and having a “make it happen” attitude is something that will get you far in the industry, especially for women in this predominantly male industry. Demanding equality in the workplace and simultaneously disadvantaging girls at a key stage in development is a contradiction in terms. The easy way out is not usually the path to success.

The irony with this laziness rant is that I am in the business of making processes easier for people. In a way you could say that I am helping make society lazy.  Peoples lifestyles are all turning mobile, everyone is looking for new ways of altering their lives to be quicker and easier which is great and hugely positive. But even those in the industry know the importance of getting physical, playing a good old fashioned team sport or going for a run. Something that still involves some proper athleticism, not just exercising your fingers updating a Facebook status during PE.

Because, encouraging already dangerous levels of laziness in kids is, my fellow class mates, what really Grinds My Gears.

This month I’m dedicating Grinds my Gears to something that annoys me 100%. That means it annoys me to the ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM. No more of me can be wound up because there is no higher percentage. No, it is not possible to annoy me 110% or 150% or any other higher percent than 100 because that is the limit for me to offer. If I were to use a higher percentage then I would be lying, it just wouldn’t make any sense. It would make me sound like I didn’t understand how percentages work. So why on earth do people find it necessary to go over the 100% limit when trying to express themselves?

Whenever I hear someone say "I give 110%" it makes me want to scream. What do you do stick an extra arm on yourself and give that?

When I’m watching the X Factor or Britain’s Got Talent and Simon Cowell says to a grandma with a dancing dog, "A billion percent YES”, I want to yank his high trousers up even higher and give him the biggest wedgie ever seen.

When I’m playing netball I get asked to “Give 150% for this last quarter” I think well if you're going to go over 100% why stop at 150%? Why not ask me to give a gazillion percent? You obviously don't want me to try that hard. 

Using an impossible percentage doesn't actually mean anything, it just makes the person saying them sound stupid. In fact the business world, especially marketing, is full of people and companies trying to big themselves up with annoying sayings and phrases that, in my opinion, just sound ridiculous and make me think they are full of crap. So why do people insist on using them?

A goldmine for this is The Apprentice, a show full of driven young professionals too busy trying to come up with bullsh*t quotes, that they don't focus on what they are actually supposed to be doing. A girl on the last series announced “Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit if there are footprints on the moon” Which I found hilarious! Not only do you sound like an idiot but what are you actually saying? You want to fly to the moon? You'll need more than Sir Alan’s £250k to do that I'm afraid. The extent to which these exaggerated sayings and arrogance is becoming accepted (and almost expected) really hit me yesterday when I saw an article in the Metro about a bloke who had that very "sky's the limit" quote tattooed all up his arms. Don't encourage these people!!!

In a business sense I'm sure at some point we've all found ourselves sitting in a meeting listening to people use phrase after phrase of meaningless sayings and their point is lost amongst all the crap. And I just think, in a cynical time when everyone appreciates honesty and wants to save time and money, just get to the point. Don’t fluff it up. Don't think "outside the box". Be original. Don't "push the boundaries". Take a risk. Don't "harmonise the brand experience". Be consistent. And most of all, don’t tell obvious lies that make you look stupid. If you're going to try your very best at something, rather than say I’m going to give 110%, say that you're going to do your very best and I might actually believe you.

Because stupid sayings that we now accept as standard is what really Grinds my Gears. And you can trust me on that 110%.

So this month for some unknown reason I put my hand up and volenteered to do "grinds my gears". It's taken longer than expected to find something that actually annoys me but here it is... the subverting of hackathons into investment competitions.

What is a hackathon? In its purest form its a gathering of geeks where you get together, share ideas and build something you find interesting. Ideally you make new friends, team up and help each other to get something in a good enough state that it can be shown working. This is hacker / maker culture in action.

Now there are many different kinds of hackathons. Some are community driven like barcamp or Super Happy Dev House, others are company sponsored like Google hack days. Then there are more business or ideas focused ones like Startup Weekend. All are awesome in thier own way.

So what's my beef? My issue is recently I've seen more events with more emphasis on pitching where the prize is the carrot of seed stage investment. While this may seem like a good thing it changes the vibe of the event for me. Many of us are not really interested in investment or incubation we just want to make friends and hack. If you are ready for investment it's not hard to find and connect with the right people.

Thinking about it from the investor's perspective I can understand it makes sense to host these events. You have money you wish to invest in technology startups. What better way then to invite a load of geeks to come and compete to build startups out of thin air then pick the winners. But if this is the motive lets call it what it really is. It's a pitching / investment / recruitment competition.

Also it should be clear from the events website what the deal for the "winning" team really is. How much equity is expected in return for the investment, what other strings are attached. All too often these questions are left unanswered and that is what grinds my gears.

Hold on! Rather than moan I think it's time I did something positive about it. We haven't had a Super Happy Dev House in Bangkok yet so I'm volenteering to organise one in April (date and location TBC). Lets get back to old school hacker culture. You bring your laptop, we will provide food, beer and enough coffee to keep you awake till the morning. Have fun, make friends, code on whatever you like, just leave the elevator pitch at home.

If you are in Bangkok, tell us which weekend works best for you.

This months Family Guy style light hearted rant is about my irritation of how people have started using Facebook and Twitter statuses as if they were lines in their own personal diary.

The informative nature of the Facebook or Twitter status has been downgraded. Do we really need to know what our 200 plus friends are doing every minute of the day? Do all our online friends want to know what we are doing every minute of the day? I can tell you the answer is NO!

Being part of the Facebook and Twitter generation has been incredible so far. Being able to connect with friends, share photos, and now music through the Facebook partnership with Spotify. Twitter, the social networks micro blogging system has gained over 100 million active users in just 5 years. With popstars such as Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber having over 10 million followers each, it is easy to see that it is a popular platform for fans to get a glimpse at what it is like to be a celebrity on a day to day basis. It gives them a digital friendship with their favourite stars that they never had before. Their followers get to find out what designer dress they are wearing, or what swanky Michelin stared restaurant they are going to for dinner. A far cry from some of the updates I get from my digital friends, who keep me updated very regularly with updates on how their kid just burped, or that they have just eaten a doughnut.

I love social networks, and working in the digital industry when Facebook and Twitter are evolving is great, with timeline for example which could change the way businesses communicate with their customer. Learn all about the Facebook changes in our previous blog post http://codegent.com/blog/2011/10/what_are_you_up_to_the_world_wants_to_know_apparently

I use both Twitter and Facebook every day, they enable me to see what others are doing on other digital platforms, they help inspire me, it could be a Facebook viral like the 'Take This Lollipop' campaign or an article on Mashable being thrown around on Twitter. They have become part of the creative industries modern DNA.

The openness to see and share photos, to communicate with friends in other counties, and of course the occasional stalk, and anyone that says they do not stalk their old friends or partners is a liar. Everyone loves a good self satisfying Facebook stalk.

However, this former pleasant experience has now been tainted by over enthusiastic status updaters. Now 70% of my Facebook newsfeed is clogged up with people telling me that they had beans on toast for dinner, or that they can’t sleep. What do you want me to do about you not being able to sleep, come round, get into bed with you and sing you a lullaby ? You can’t sleep because you are staring at a bright screen in the middle of the night when you should be de stressing and getting away from the technologies you are bound to all day long.

How did this happen? Is it from the influx of younger users on the networks, wanting to show off to their friends about what cool lives they lead? Is it just the users who are bored and just don’t have anything else to do with their free time?
Get out of the house, get some fresh air, go somewhere with no wi fi signal for a while.

The irritation of these insignificant, unhelpful status update is extended further with the use of incorrect, slanged English they are all written in. Incorrect spelling and punctuality is used in all of these ridiculous updates. I’m not sure if this is because of the speed some of them are written, or that some of them are written on smart phones so fat thumb syndrome and auto correct occurs. I have some sympathy for some statuses on Twitter, as there is a restricted 140 max character limit, so abbreviating a few words is acceptable. However, on Facebook you have over 60,000 characters to use, there is no excuse to cut words down, and use slang such as “bby, ppl, da, and bout” you can write a whole bloody monologue in there. It also takes me much longer to read it when it is in slang text like this, it you really want everyone to know and read your status, please write it in a language we can all understand.

I am a believer that I am not the only person that gets irritated by this topic. Some websites and blogs have dedicated whole sections to these pet hates about Facebook statuses; here are some of my favourites courtesy of http://failbook.failblog.org/




So I plead to you social network users, make your statuses interesting for your audience. Give some thought to the topic, as well as the spelling, grammar and punctuation, and we will all reap the benefits.

That my friends is what Grinds My Gears.

This month’s festive grinds my gears is something that I'm only reminded of once a year, but every year without fail it gets to me. Christmas Pudding! Hot, delicious, moist, fruity goodness topped off with a bit of booze and cream. What could be better? Nothing.

So, why if it's so great, are we restricted to only enjoying Christmas Pudding at Christmas?

On Christmas Day millions of us tuck into the Great Christmas Pudding (herein GCP), even when we are ready to burst from a full days eating, we force it down knowing "eat it now, or regret it for another 365 days". Surely I am not the only one that wouldn't mind, after a dinner party in August, being offered a yummy bit of GCP?

I guess a similar thing could be said for mince pies, or even pumpkins at Halloween. Every year in early November there are loads of people serving up delicious pumpkin pie or pumpkin soup, under the pretence that they are just getting rid of the left overs from Halloween and it's the seasonal thing to do. If you look to other countries however, you can buy pumpkin no matter what season, because the fact is people actually like it and people generally buy what they like regardless of the time of year - there is demand all year round.

Which brings me to my tenuous link to agency life. Let's adopt the Christmas spirit all year round. At this time of year everyone is thinking "let's do something festive". Briefs suddenly have that fun factor, with clients wanting to be more humorous and light hearted....because that's the spirit of Christmas.  But do their audience actually change at this time of year? Do people go from being miserable, serious types to jolly, cheerful folk just because it's December? Does what they desire from a brand suddenly change because the sound of The Pogues is in the air? I don't think so.

I think we stay the same. The way to capture our attention and engage with us stays exactly the same. What we like and don't like stays the same. What a brand/product/service is offering should be consistent with the audience, not the season. Fit in with what your customers want, not what tradition tells you to.

In an attempt to reinforce my point I'm going to turn to GQ's chef of the year Mr Heston Blumenthal. Last year his GCP's flew off the shelves, there was unprecedented demand, Waitrose (the only place to buy them) couldn't keep up and in the final days before Christmas the only way to get your hands on one was eBay for over £500. So what did Mr Waitrose do to respond to this demand, to capitalise on this cash cow? Well obviously, because it wasn't Christmas anymore he took them off the shelves.  For 9 months in fact, only making them available again in September. And now EXACTLY the same thing is happening again. I just don't get it. Give us Christmas Pudding all year round!

And that my festive friends, is what really grinds my gears. Merry Christmas!

Welcome to 'what really grinds my gears' - a corner of the Codegent blog to vent about the things that are getting under our skin. Lately for me, a digital Project Manager here at Codegent, it has to be mobile sites, or probably the lack of suitably designed mobile sites.

With more users switching to using the internet on the move, it's now even more important for websites to have a suitable mobile version which can easily be accessed by mobile handsets. We’re not just talking about having a mobile site suitable for iPhone and iPad users. Apps have become a crucial accessory to the Smartphone user. 

The experience for the mobile user should be quick, and smooth. Allowing them to access the content they’re trying to get to without blocking them with functionality limitations, such as “this site requires Flash to access this content” and “sorry, this content isn’t available for your device”. Like every other mobile user, when I am out and about, I need to check my e-mail, reply to messages, and check out a street address on a map. All of these things you can easily do nowadays on mobile sites, except for maybe the mobile maps (you still need an App for that). 

Mobile sites should be friendly for all mobile users. Not everyone is using an app-friendly handset. Remember not to alienate your customers and audience by not considering their needs. We understand you can’t give a user full functionality on a simple mobile version of your site, but give them the crucial elements they need to use your site. 

Bearing that in mind, here are my top tips you should consider when designing a mobile version of your website:

1) Prioritise your content. 
Mobile sites usually include only the most crucial information, including time- and location-specific functions and features. 

2) Keep the graphics light on your mobile site. 
Images take time to download, and when you’re mobile, time is money, quite literally in data fees from your provider!

3) Navigation
Let your user get from A to B and back to A again with a simple navigation. Research shows that vertical navigation works best on mobile sites, with over 90% of sites using a vertical navigation instead of horizontal.

Give me the information I need in a quick and timely fashion, keeping me on time and not wound up by error messages. And that is what will keep me from grinding my gears!

I’m new to Grinds my gears, but was quick to put my hand up for a light-hearted rant about agency life, because something has really got to me this month: sales calls.

I’m one of the Project Managers in Codegent’s London office and nine times out of ten one of us will answer the phone…cue posh phone voice, ”Hello Codegent, Rachel speaking…”.

Now I’m more than happy to answer the phone to a client, someone who wants to talk to us about their digital strategy or even a colleague’s mum phoning to say hello. What I’m really fed up with is the endless barrage of people trying to sell us stuff, every single bloomin' day.

Admittedly they don’t often want to talk to me and that’s fine, no offense taken, its David. He is the chosen one, the untouchable target and just me and my handset stand in the path of victory…cue defensive mode “Who is it, where are you calling from, what’s it regarding?...”

Now I wouldn’t mind if I got Tom from the Apprentice knocking at the door using a gift as a way to get my attention. That’s innovative, yes it’s a bit cheesey, but at least shows some effort. Instead they are more like Jim, full of b*llsh*t and following the top 5 cold calling rules….cue standard responses from me…

1. Keep it casual and sound like a good friend
   You’ll have his mobile number then
    
2. "I’m calling regarding new business”
   New business for us or for you?
    
3. Say companynamereallyquickly so she can’t tell what I’m saying
   Pardon?
    
4. “I’ve sent him an email so I just want to check he received it”
   There’s a 99% he has and is still ignoring you
    
5. Be rude and aggressive and she’ll think I’m important
   (Hangs up)

These all are sure fire ways to wind me up, and not get through to David. But alas! Last week I got a call from someone who was happy to talk to me woo hoo!....

Hello Codegent, Rachel speaking

Hi I’m calling from blahblah business directory and I’d like to update your listing

OK

Is the company registered name still Codegent?

Yes

Are you still at 516 Wandsworth Road, London?

Yes

How many commercial vehicles do you have?

Seriously, that’s the third fact you have in a digital agencies listing?

(Phone goes dead)

Arggghhhh!

I’ve got a job to do and interruptions from pointless calls drive me mad. Leave me alone, let me get on with my work and if we do ever happen to need the service you are offering, we are a digital agency and pretty adept at using Google.

So if you do ever call with a valid reason and get a rather abrupt response from me, sincere apologies, I do want to speak to you. It’s just that most of the time I pick up the phone it’s a sales person wasting my time. And that folks, is what really grinds my gears.

Another month, another time for ‘what really grinds my gears’: a light-hearted take on the things that get under your skin in the world of work and digital. This month: design by committee.

Design by committee happens within agencies and within clients’ organisations and sometimes even spans across both and it is one of the most frustrating things in the world for a designer. It’s not just because I don’t like being told what to do, in fact it’s the opposite of that. Obviously I don’t like “being told what to do” but as a designer I do like being given a very clear brief that everyone understands and isn’t going to get diluted a few weeks down the line.

The biggest problem with design by committee is that it ALWAYS results in the lowest common denominator. The trouble is, on the one hand, we’re all designers and on the other hand  none of us designers. What I mean by that is that we can all have an opinion on design, but we also know that we can’t actually design ourselves so we pay people like me to do it for us. So when it comes to a committee, what happens is that everyone feels they should have an opinion, but a lack of confidence means that if we’re not sure about something we tend to tone things down rather than innovate.   

Imagine you were an ice-cream maker and a customer came into your shop and said, “it’s my daughter’s birthday and I want you to make her a special ice-cream that will show her how much all her family think about her. I want her eyes to light up when she first sees it and I want her to be surprised and delighted when she firsts tastes it.”

So you work all night making what you believe to be the perfect ice-cream for a little girl’s birthday.  Mixing the ingredients, making the colour a riot of pinks and reds, adorned with crushed nuts and chocolate. You chop fondant fruit and mix it up with the cream to give added texture to the dish and you invite the customer and his family back to sample your creation.

Everyone stands back and smiles as you show them what you’ve done – they hadn’t imagined that ice-cream could look this way. But then the dad says that he feels that maybe the chocolate is a bit unnecessary, the mum is worried that one of her friends has a nut allergy so probably best to take those off too. The uncle’s view is that everything is perfect but red and pink don’t go together so maybe lose the pink, everyone nods in agreement. The cousin says he hates fruit, he doesn’t mind the flavour but hates the texture and he’s pretty sure the majority of people would share his view. The sister says she thinks that the taste is a bit too strong and points out that her sister never usually chooses anything but vanilla. Everyone congratulates her on that observation and leave you to ‘incorporate’ those suggestions into the final version…. which of course, in this case, would be a  plain vanilla ice-cream.

I know it’s hard to get consensus, especially where there are lots of stakeholders but if you think that a huge room of people shouting “left a bit, right a bit” is going to get you the best results then you are sorely mistaken. Better to give the task to a few people to work with the design team, to go through all the rationale and thinking together and to trust them to produce something that is right for the end-user rather than something that least offends a committee of onlookers.

Because as a designer, to produce great work, and I know this is a cliché, but you sometimes have to be brave and push the boundaries. Doing this with people who trust you to do that well on their behalf is great. Having your ideas go through a wash and spin cycle of a committee isn’t and it’s that, folks, that really grinds my gears.

It’s time for the regular, light-hearted rant that is Grind my Gears. This month is an extension of last month’s rant from Nick about courtesy. I’m gonna call it common decency in business.

The thing about our agency, or any organisation really that is consultative, is that there is an element of giving something up front for free. It might be an idea, it might be an approach, it might even be some creative execution. It may involve writing a document, working out what things are going to cost, or may require a formal presentation of our thoughts and ideas.

In many ways, the sales element of what we do is the equivalent of test-driving a car, or tasting a bit of sliced sausage in a delicatessens. The view is that you need to have an idea about what it is you’re going to buy before you commit to it.

And just like cars and sausages, it all costs money. Granted, if you don’t buy the car, or the sausage then it doesn’t cost you anything, but it will cost someone. If nobody test drove a car, then the costs of cars would be cheaper. Someone has to pay for the petrol, for the car that they can’t now sell as new, for the salesman’s suit. Moss Bros ain’t giving these things away for free you know. 

Yet, there is a sense – and I know because I probably sub-consciously felt this way when I worked on the client-side – that by asking an agency to write you a proposal or give you a quote you are actually doing them a massive favour. It’s easy to confuse enthusiasm at having the opportunity of finding an interesting new project with a desire on the agency’s part to work for free for a bit. But, they are two different things, believe me. They may just look the same, but nobody wants to work for free. You don’t like to work for free, I don’t like to work for free. We provide free work because of the promise of bigger, better and more interesting work down the line and to prove to people that we have the ideas and talent to take on the challenge. But it’s not free. It actually takes a lot of time and careful consideration, and this in turn costs us money. Money we expect to spend, but money nevertheless that at one point was ours and now isn’t.

Despite thinking that we’re pretty darn good at what we do, we don’t expect to win all the time. We know that some times we may be too big, too small, too expensive, too cheap, too specialist, too generalised, too busy, too English, too funky, too boring… 

You can never always be everything to everyone – we get that, but… when you have approached someone and asked them, in good faith, to do some work for you at their expense and you decide for whatever reason that it’s not for you, would it hurt to acknowledge their efforts? Would it kill you to say thank you, to explain why you have taken the decision you have, to take a little time out to give some feedback as to where you think a response could have been better, more useful? 

If you went for an interview and didn’t get the job, or applied for a mortgage and didn’t get accepted, or emailed your boss about a great initiative you’d had, or anything where you’d put a bit of yourself into it and hadn’t had the outcome you’d hoped for, wouldn’t you expect some sort of response? Of course you would. 

But, for a small minority of people, they think that we are only too delighted to spend weeks of our time considering their businesses and thinking about ways in which we could address their needs. The fact that for whatever reason they choose not to use us, somehow also means that they can ignore us and we won’t care.

Well, the fact is we do care. Because we put a lot of care into what we do and, frankly, it hurts our feelings! Really, it’s just a question of common decency and that, folks, is what really grinds my gears.

It is the day before Third Thursday, I'm sat in the garden at 9am waiting for an electrician to come and fix my lights, delaying a meeting and my work day so that I can actually see when I am in my house at night. The only problem is the electrician isn't coming. He didn't call me to let me know, oh no, that would have been too courteous. Instead I had to phone him (he wasn't there), speak to his wife and find out he is in Malaga, playing golf. I am torn between LMAO and WTFing, although the WTFs are edging it.

Courtesy seems to be one of those things that was thrown out with the Betamax and horse-drawn travel. Left spinning in the wake of the million-mile-an-hour lives that we lead like a hubcab on a motorway hard shoulder.

Well I, for one, want it back. I want to say 'Good Morning' to people on the street without seeming like a deranged social misfit and I want them to say it back (it would be even better if gentlemen wore hats again so we could doff them to passers-by). A 'thank you' when I hold the door for someone or pull into a gap to let another car past shouldn't be too much to ask should it? I want to live in a world where electricians don't disappear to play golf without so much as an apologetic phonecall but turn up, on time, in neat overalls to fix my lights. COME ON PEOPLE!

In part I blame the Internet. It removes the need for social interaction; why talk to someone when you can type what you want to say in 140 characters? The Internet and its bedfellow Brevity have taken our beloved 'yours sincerely' and replaced it with the semantically nonsensical 'best regards', with its cold, disingenuous implications. Suddenly it is fine to not capitalise the start of a sentence because 'it is only an email' (I'm looking at you Aidan Kane) and there are countless other charges to be levied against our digital world. Mrs Elliot, who taught me how to structure correct, courteous English, would be turning in her grave (although I think she still lives in Norwich).

As an Internet professional I suppose I should shoulder some of the blame for this. I do try to rage against the storm of discourteousness in my own little way, haranguing production teams to write sincere and genuine Thank You pages on our sites or penning beautiful, thought provoking and engaging automated emails but I fear I am fighting a losing battle and it saddens me greatly. This shameful passing of courtesy, my friends, is what really grind my gears.