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Seamus K - Irish tech industry expat living in Sweden.

Tag: work

Streaming platforms evolving business models

16th May 2024 / / 0 Comments
All the ways streaming services are aggravating their subscribers this week
Disappointing streaming changes are happening so fast that it’s hard to keep up.

The streaming market continues to evolve, and arguably consumers are getting a worse deal with higher prices for less content. It is not surprising that there are more people adopting the approach of rotating subscriptions – sign up for a month or two, binge what you want to see, then cancel. The streaming platforms have to be putting a lot of effort into addressing this. Which one will be the first to insist on minimum subscription periods of 3 or 6 months?

One approach that was tried here in Sweden was from HBO Nordic a few years ago. They offered a once off 50% reduction in the subscription cost which would be applied for life. As long as you stay with them you get the discount. But if you leave… At the time it drove a very large number of subscribers to their platform. I would love to see the numbers for what it did for churn 🙂

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Bored at a work meeting? Then leave

4th September 2019 / / 0 Comments

I am supposed to be at an all day productivity training session today at work. But I have some other urgent stuff so I left. Funnily enough I talked to a few people at one of the breaks and they had similar feelings. The idea is fine, but there is no way we need to spend an entire day on this stuff. 1-2 hours tops. 

It is a pity when our time is getting tied up (and there were over 30 people in the room this morning) in this way. 

The best advice I have heard on meetings and productivity recently is from Elon Musk. He famously has said:

“Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value.”

“It is not rude to leave. It is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”

It takes a bit of bravery to do it. But you feel better afterwards, and you end up getting more real work done.Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblr

The little things in life that make it all better

8th March 2016 / / 0 Comments

We moved into a new office on Monday. It’s more modern but also open plan and features hot desking everywhere. I hardly need to point out that all the studies show this sort of environment leads to increased sick days, staff turnouver, noise, stress, and distractions. While also reducing productivity, employee satisfaction and performance. It also sends a message to employees that they are seen as just another interchangable resource. But hey, it is about 30% cheaper so that’s all good in the end.

And it is a long way from the worst ever work space I had. Back in my Accenture days I had a length of shelf in the corridor of a client’s office. I worked there for a few months whenever I was in the office.

withsnowStill, if I get in early I can grab a desk with a nice view as we are on the 9th floor. This was it at 0800 on Monday.

withoutsnowThat’s Irish snow though. It manages to quietly sneak away when you are not looking. Four hours later it was all gone.

There was a moment of panic when I discovered that they had only stocked our caffeine stations with Lipton Early Gray tea (as well as the coffee of course). It would be a cold day in hell when I am reduced to drinking that. Fortunately I got a special delivery from home yesterday.

TeaMy productivity will go up a few notches tomorrow I think. Now if only I could get scones, and Ballymaloe relish delivered here as well.

 

 

 

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Mobile World Congress 2016

19th February 2016 / / 0 Comments

Arlanda airport on a February morning as I wait to travel to Barcelona.

Arlanda airport on a February morning as I wait to travel to Barcelona.

Here I am sitting in Stockholm’s Arlanda airport, waiting to board a plane towards Barcelona. I am going to be down there for the week for Mobile World Congress 2016. This is the highlight of the marketing calendar for us. The last few weeks have been occupied with getting ready. Long hours, far too much caffeine and sugar, all the frustration of trying to co-ordinate dozens of people across multiple countries, and aligning different often contradictory messages makes the job stressful and often frustrating.

During the week I will man a stand, organise meetings with employees, media, analysts, customers and partners. I I will act as a spokesman, a bouncer, a recruiter, a foreman, a camera man, an interviewer, an author, a scout and an spy. And I will talk my vocal cords raw (my voice went by the end of the second day last year).

But deep down I will love much of it. I am learning new things every day, about business, marketing and most importantly cloud technology. I rarely consider going back to college, when I learn far more intensively at work every day. I get to do really interesting things, like be one of the small team delivering a huge launch for a Fortune 500 company. But mostly I get to work with really great people. The team is totally international, from and spread around the globe. It is full of smart people who are pushing every day to be better, learn more and do more.

And when it all comes together it is a hell of a rush.Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblr

Blogging for work

22nd January 2016 / / 0 Comments

A blog post I did for work.

A blog post I did for work.

I have been blogging and producing content for work in the past few years.

Some of the highlights are the posts on Ericsson’s Industrial Cloud group over at LinkedIn. There is a blog post I wrote on the massive growth in data being stored in the Cloud and what Ericsson can do to help.

And there are a few videos floating around of me talking at conferences like this one on the economics of NFV at the OpenStack summit in Paris.

Blogging for work is a bit different, and not just because of the longer review process, and the nit picking over your grammar, spelling and punctuation. You need to have a much clearer idea of why you are writing, what it is for, how it will help people, and what you want them to get from the post. There isn’t time for random nonsense (like I can put here). And you need to make sure that the material should tie into everything else that is being published on the topic.

It ads a considerable amount of effort to the process. And certainly robs it of the spontaneity that personal blogging has!Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblr

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