Author Archives: Content in Context

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About Content in Context

Content in Context helps companies to define the market for their products and services, to identify customers and build the business pipeline, and to develop their content marketing strategies. By working with our clients to design, build and grow their business, our primary focus is to extract commercial value from unique assets, including knowledge, data, know-how, processes and transactional information.

False Economies – if it’s cheap, there must be a reason!

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When I was 7 or 8 years old, I asked my parents to buy me a specific brand of toy as a birthday or Christmas present. With the best of intentions, they chose instead a close approximation of the real thing – presumably because it was cheaper, and to them it was exactly the same. Of course, being cheaper, it was badly designed, poorly made, and was nothing like the toy I had asked for. From memory, it only lasted only a few months before falling apart.

This was my first lesson in false economies – cheap and cheerful can quickly become cheap and nasty, rather like some cheaper brands of peanut butter, which are bulked out with sugar, oils, fats and other additives (instead of containing 100% peanuts).

Many years ago I had some shirts made in Shenzhen, because they seemed like a bargain. Sadly, another false economy – after I got them home, I realised the cut was all wrong, and I’m sure they had substituted a cheaper fabric to the one I had chosen. They were unwearable. On the other hand, some jackets I had made in Hong Kong lasted nearly twenty years, because I had paid a bit more to go to an established tailor.

I’m not saying that more expensive branded goods and so-called luxury items are always “better” – but as a general rule, when doing like-for-like comparisons, you get what you pay for. When an item costs more to buy, it invariably lasts longer because of the materials used, the better design, the superior manufacturing and the overall higher quality.

I appreciate that in the current economic environment, consumers are even more cost conscious, and are looking for value for money, if not actual bargains. But just because something is cheap, doesn’t mean it’s the better option. Look at the true cost of fast fashion, fast food, fast money…

Next week: The Law of Diminishing Returns….

Perfect Days – and the Analogue Life

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Last week I watched “Perfect Days”, Wim Wenders’ lyrical film about a gentle soul who diligently goes about his daily labour accompanied by a soundtrack of classic songs. Most of the featured music is 50-60 years old, and all of it heard via cassette tapes – no radio stations or internet streaming services were harmed in the making of this film!

Not only does our hero cling to cassettes, we never see him use the internet, e-mail or a smart phone. We don’t even know how he accesses his money – presumably he gets a weekly wage packet containing cash, so no need to visit an ATM or pay with a credit card. To cap it all, he doesn’t own a TV, and his hobbies include reading second hand paperback books, taking photos with a 35mm film camera, and cultivating plants from cuttings he finds in the course of his daily routine.

We don’t really need to know his backstory, although we get the occasional glimpse. What we are presented with is someone who is living an outwardly simple life, almost exclusively analogue, and with very little technology involved. (In fact, the public toilets he cleans for a living are far more hi-tech than anything in his personal world.) I suspect for many people, our empathy for the character’s disposition may easily become envy at how stripped down and uncluttered a life he leads. The fact that he doesn’t appear to have any family or other obligations (and doesn’t have to spend hours in pointless team meetings or on endless Zoom call) no doubt help facilitate this state of being – yet we suspect there is a lot going on in the inside.

But it is certainly a parable in favour of all things analogue.

In fact, as I write this I am listening to a recent album by Tarotplane on a cassette player. He is one of many contemporary musicians who choose to release their work in this format, and along with the recent vinyl revival, they are helping to keep analogue alive. It’s a trend we can see in events like Record Store Day (and it’s younger sibling, Cassette Store Day), books by Damon Krukowski and Robert Hassan, and symbolic vinyl moments in recent film and TV shows such as “Leave the World Behind” and “Ripley”. In the former, the absence of internet and streaming brings a turntable into play; in the latter, a clutch of 7″ records (in picture sleeves!) are among the few possessions the eponymous hero chooses to take with him. Elsewhere, Lomography continues to find new fans of film photography, and on a recent visit to Hong Kong, I was surprised at the huge display of Polaroid cameras and film at Log-On department store.

Not all this fascination with analogue is about nostalgia, fashion, or fadism (or even fetishism). In some quarters, people are becoming concerned that their favourite films, TV programmes, music and video games may disappear from hosting services and streaming platforms, or their cloud storage may get wiped. So they are keeping analogue versions and hard copies as a back-up.

Finally, and picking up a thread from “Perfect Days” itself, I’m not entirely convinced that a 1975 Patti Smith cassette is worth $100, but I do own an original copy of a very rare cassette that has sold for as much as $180… probably because it has never been reissued, is not available to stream or download, and is a great example of early, DIY electronic music made on basic synths in the early 1980s. You couldn’t imagine an mp3 ever commanding that sort of price, unless it was in the form of an NFT, of course.

Next week: False Economies – if it’s cheap, there must be a reason!

Is it OK to take selfies in the gym?

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Time to discuss personal boundaries when it comes to taking or sharing photos and video.

First, whatever the circumstances, it is usually respectful (and even a legal obligation) to ask a person’s consent before sharing a photo or video of them. And of course, you should only share content that you own, unless you have permission from the copyright holder.

Second, the sharing of third party content pay be permissible (depending on the situation) if it’s covered by established copyright law (e.g., fair use, public domain, creative commons, open source) or other legal principle (e.g., public interest).

Third, there are also legal principles about taking photos of private property from a public place, which largely build on privacy and data protection laws. (See my previous blog on this topic)

But in a selfie-driven and smartphone-obsessed world, I see too many examples of people snapping and sharing photos without a concern in the world (either for themselves or for others).

The gym I attend is a private club. All members and guests must abide by the terms and conditions of entry, otherwise they can be asked to leave (and their membership cancelled).

One of those conditions states that gym users must not film or take photos without the express prior consent of the gym management.

Some users may argue, “it’s only a selfie of me flexing” or “I’m only filming my buddy lifting weights”. But gym walls are usually mirrored, so there is no guarantee that your video or photo won’t inadvertently capture someone’s image without their knowledge or permission, and if you then share it on social media that is a potential breach of privacy.

(I have similar issues when people make audio and video calls, listen to music or watch videos on their smart phones in public places, without wearing earphones – I don’t want to listen to your crap!)

Going to the gym is an important part of my physical and mental well-being. I expect it to be a safe environment, and a small respite from the intrusions of the outside world.

Respect the space and the people who use it!

Next week: Perfect Days – and the Analogue Life

The Five Ws of Journalism

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The importance of a free press within a democratic society cannot be overstated: without the Fourth Estate who will “speak truth unto power”? The role of the printing press was critical to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the great political reforms in nineteenth century Britain.

But lapses in journalistic behaviour and a decline in editorial standards over the past few decades have brought the press and broadcast media into increasing disrepute – to the point that mainstream media (MSM) has become a pejorative term, and social media (SoMe) claims to be the last bastion of free speech.

I think the truth lies somewhere between those two positions – I don’t believe that the MSM is totally devoid of ethics, nor do I believe that SoMe will displace formal journalism (and it certainly isn’t without its own ethical challenges when it comes to dis/misinformation and hate speech).

But what do I mean by “formal journalism”? After all, we have seen a raft of platforms giving rise to “citizen journalism” and other services which rely heavily on community sourced content, but few of these platforms appear to operate to the same professional standards of traditional reportage, fact-checking, investigative journalism or news dissemination. It also remains to be seen whether these new media channels can displace traditional print (and online) news media as “papers of record”.

As part of a career transition, I took a night class in journalism and sub-editing, with a view to becoming a writer or editor. Although I did work as an editor for many years, it was in the field of legal publishing, and not for a newspaper or magazine. Even though the course I completed was not a traditional degree in journalism, communications or media studies, I was still taught some of the key tenets of serious journalism, principally the Five W’s – the “who, what, where, when and why” of any news event (with the “how” also being an important component of any credible story).

This foundational approach to news reporting underpinned many of the most significant pieces of investigative journalism in the late 20th century, some of which changed laws and government policies, as well as influencing public opinion. Think of the role of the press in breaking the thalidomide story, publishing the Pentagon Papers, or exposing the Watergate cover-up. Even the Panama Papers relied on the collaboration of traditional news media outlets to bring the story to public attention. More recently, the work of Private Eye in helping to bring the UK’s post office miscarriage of justice to light is a prime example of the power of journalistic persistence in search of the truth.

On the other hand, a raft of tabloid scandals have dented the public trust in the traditional press, in particular the phone hacking exploits within the British media. Here in Australia, a recent high profile defamation case prompted the judge to put TV journalism under the microscope – and neither broadcaster involved in the case came away covered in glory. In particular, the court questioned whether the journalists involved had breached their own industry code of practice, by failing to check their facts and by inadequately testing the credibility of their witnesses. The grubby practice of cheque book journalism also came under renewed scrutiny, as did an ill-advised speech on TV by one of the parties that could have been prejudicial to a criminal case. More significantly, one media organisation displayed a willingness to believe (and even assert) that there had been a political conspiracy to suppress an alleged crime, when no such evidence of a cover-up had been established. This case (and its associated claims and counterclaims) still has a fair way to go, and has already embroiled senior politicians (some of whom have been accused of lying about what they knew, when and how), civil servants, political staffers, public prosecutors, multiple police forces, so-called “fixers” and “influencers” with their insidious “back grounding” and a number of TV producers who will probably never work in the industry again.

Added to this sh!t show has been the misnaming of a suspected murderer by one of the above-mentioned TV news channels. This major and latest faux-pas is believed to have been the result of “reporting” some false, misleading or mischievous commentary circulating on social media.

Apart from undertaking more rigorous fact-checking, and enforcing the established journalistic practice of getting actual confirmation of events from at least two credible sources, the news media also needs to make a greater distinction between the facts themselves on the one hand, and conjecture, speculation, opinion, analysis and commentary on the other.

Next week: Is it OK to take selfies in the gym?