All posts by Paul Stradling

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Tech Insight : What Is Business Process Management?

In this article, we take a brief look at Business Process Management (BPM), how it works, and how it can add value.

What Is Business Process Management (BPM)?

BPM is also referred to as business process improvement (BPI), business process re-engineering, continual improvement process (CIP), and process improvement. BPM is the ongoing, continuous practice or discipline of improving and controlling the processes of the business using analysis and modelling.

Types

There are different types of BPM including document-centric (built-around a core, particular document), human-centric BPM (humans decide what happens after each step in the process), and Integration-centric BPM (based around the integration of different software systems).

Why?

The goals of BPM should be to keep improving business processes to keep them in alignment with the goals of the business as the business and the business environment evolve. This will help to:

– Enable strategic clarity.

– Keep alignment of the firm’s resources and help executives to determine how to deploy, monitor, and measure those resources.

– Increase discipline in daily operations.

– Remove bottlenecks.

– Align business functions with customer needs, thereby improving marketing.

– Reduce costs and minimise errors and risk.

BPM and RPA

Whereas Robotic Process Automation (RPA) tools let companies configure software bots to capture and interpret applications and are a way to help automate monotonous, routine, and time-consuming tasks, BPM is the overall holistic approach to optimising and automating business processes. RPA is another tool that can be used as part of a company’s BPM strategy and, therefore, BPM and RPA could be thought of as being complementary.

How To Apply BPM

BPM should be based around outcomes and the process is based around 5 steps of the BPM lifecycle which are:

1. Design. This involves a review of current business rules and arriving at desired outcomes by taking account of the views of key stakeholders and management.

2. Model.

3. Execute.

4. Monitor.

5. Optimize.

BPM tools, such as BPM software enable businesses and organisations to use a proven, systematic approach to managing and optimising their business processes. Well-designed BPM software can also help IT specialists to construct business workflows and connect different systems.

Popular BPM Software Tools

Examples of popular BPM software include:

Kissflow – A platform to optimise, manage, and track all company work.

Nintex – The Nintex Process Platform enables standardising of workflows and automation of business processes.

Processmake – Low-Code BPM Software.

Busagi – Enterprise software for Business Process Automation on a low-code development platform.

Monday.com – Enterprise BPM platform.

Process Bliss – BPM software with a drag & drop process flowchart builder.

Other examples include Wrike, Forecast.app, Quixy, Orchestly, Process Street, ProWorkflow, Studio Creatio (free), Trisotech, IBM Blueworks Live, iGrafx, K2 Platform, Kintone (good for non-proftit organisations), Novacura, OnBase by Hyland, Pipefy, and Zoho Creator.

Examples

Real examples of how BPM has been used (from Kissflow and Nintex) include:

– Softbank Telecom using BPM software to create apps to enable authorities to quickly approve requests on their mobile phones, thereby improving upon the old, slow, and disjointed process of using spreadsheets and email for all processes.

– Davenport University (in the US) using BPM to automate the three processes of student course requisitions, academic scheduling, and transport coordination, thereby improving cross-departmental coordination, and operating more efficiently than the old processes which were reliant upon paper and manual intervention.

– New Belgium Brewing Co. using BPM to help it comply with new legislation by standardising and automating how it handled privacy requests from its California customers, thereby freeing up staff time to concentrate on brewing beer.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Using BPM (software and tools) can provide businesses with a systematic approach to managing and optimising their business processes which essentially helps businesses to be more efficient, work smarter, save costs, reduce risk and errors, become better at what they do, and eliminate many of the problems and bottlenecks that may have been preventing them reaching their goals and unlocking their true potential. Investing in BMP can deliver real benefits, add value, and improve competitiveness while giving managers more fuel to make better decisions.

News

Tech News : Computer Says “Guilty”

An error in the HM Courts and Tribunals Service computer system meant that 5,000+ defendants were wrongly assigned guilty pleas.

Accidental Criminal Convictions

The problem that led to 5,000+ people being wrongly given criminal convictions was an error in the computer system’s bulk amendment facility, which was used to update the cases of magistrates’ hearings that were adjourned due to the impact of the pandemic. The error meant that guilty pleas were copied onto cases that defendants were still contesting.

Where?

It has been reported that the error has affected cases related to magistrates’ courts in Westminster, Highbury, Wimbledon, Willesden, Thames, Uxbridge, Croydon, Bexley, and Bromley.

Example

As far back as last October, The Guardian newspaper questioned whether convictions on the Police National Computer were accurate after it uncovered an example of where a mistake appeared to have been made. At the time, a female defendant who had denied an offence related to a violent crime had a guilty plea entered on the PNC. This meant that she gained a criminal conviction which took her lawyers three months to correct, and led to HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) writing to the defendant to apologise for the error.

Investigations by HMCTS following this example revealed that 5,231 individual defendants and 55 companies had actually been affected by the computer bulk uploads error.

The ICO

The error was referred to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) by the Ministry of Justice in October and it has been reported that, after a comprehensive review, the correct ‘not guilty’ pleas were restored by mid-November.

Although an HMCTS spokesperson said that the issue was “temporary” and had been “promptly resolved” with no-one receiving an incorrect verdict or sentence, the ICO has said “People have the right to expect that organisations will handle their personal information… responsibly”.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Under UK GDPR, businesses are expected to comply with data laws and to act responsibly with the data of customers, employees, and other stakeholders or face some serious consequences (e.g. large fines and reputational damage).  Some businesses may, therefore, feel justified in criticising the police over the errors in their computer system which could have caused problems for thousands of people and for businesses. For example, it is possible that before the error was discovered, a criminal record check by a potential employer could not only have resulted in the candidate not getting the job due to a wrongly recorded conviction but may also have robbed the business of the hiring an otherwise great candidate who may have brought considerable skills to the company. There are also, of course, the potential the emotional and social effects to consider of a person being (wrongfully) assigned a conviction to consider.

News

Tech News : Half of Adults Unaware of Medical Records Sharing Scheme

A survey by consumer watchdog Which? has revealed that almost half of adults in England are unaware of plans for their medical records to be shared with a new NHS database.

What Data Sharing?

Back in May, NHS Digital launched its plan for sharing medical data from GP records in England. As part of the General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR) scheme, GP surgeries in England can automatically upload and share the medical records of every patient in England to an NHS Digital platform, unless the person has opted out.

Original Opt-Out Date Has Passed

Although the original opting-out date of June 23 has now passed, a campaign supported by medical professionals and MPs has acquired an extension period to an (as yet) unspecified final opt-out date after it was agreed that the scheme had not been publicised enough, and also, extra time was needed to work on the necessary privacy safeguards.

Confirmed By The Which? Survey

This lack of awareness of the scheme and its implications was confirmed by recent Which? survey where only 55 percent of the 1700 people surveyed said they had heard of it, and 71 percent of them said that the NHS hadn’t publicised it well.

Why Is The Data Being Collected?

NHS Digital says that the data is being collected to support the planning and commissioning of health and care services, such as the development of health and care policy, public health monitoring and interventions, and to help with research (e.g. analysing the long-term impact of COVID-19).

What Kind of Data?

The medical record data that’s being shared under the GPDPR scheme includes your sex, ethnicity and sexual orientation, physical, mental and sexual health, and lots of other data including referrals, diagnoses, test results, medications, allergies and immunisations.

What About Insurance Company Access?

One of the big concerns of those who are aware of the scheme is whether data (that could be linked to an identity) will be shared with insurance companies. However, it has been reported that data from the scheme will not be shared with marketing or insurance companies. Also, data shared in the scheme will be anonymised, thereby replacing some possible identifiers with unique codes making it more difficult to directly link details to an identity.

Still Possible To Identify A Person

The data, however, will not be completely pseudonymised which means that although it is unlikely that anyone can be identified from the data, it is still technically possible.  For example, software could be deployed to decode the data where there is a legal reason to do so.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Since the pandemic and the development of vaccines, many people may be feeling more sympathetic to the need for sharing data, perhaps their own, to be used for medical research and, as such, might be less worried than before about their medical data being shared.  That said, the thought of personal medical data being shared with companies that could use it for marketing (targeting) or by insurance companies to make judgments about eligibility or ramp up premiums is a worry for many, even though there are assurances in this case that marketing and insurance companies won’t be able to do this. The fact that the scheme requires opt-out rather than opt-in and that the opt-out date has long passed with half the population knowing about the scheme at all does feel as though it is something that is being sneaked in. That said, it’s worth noting that UK’s data protection laws already allow access to data when needed for research and scientific purposes. This story is also an example to businesses of the importance of communication, transparency, and giving plenty of information in plenty of time for any important changes to terms, services, or any other factors that customers feel are important, of value, or may influence (have influenced) their decision about choosing or continuing with services.

News

Tech Tip – Minimise All Windows Instantly With The Show Desktop Button

If you’d like to know a fast way to minimise all your open windows with one click in Windows 10, here’s how.

– Look at the bottom far right-hand side of the screen, to the right-hand side of the ‘notifications’ icon. You will see a tiny, vertical line.

– Click on the line and all your open desktop windows are instantly minimised.

– Click on the line again to restore/maximise all the windows.

News

Tech News : Disinformation or Misinformation?

The new Online Media Literacy Strategy from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) is aimed at supporting 170+ organisations to improve media literacy rates in the UK, and thereby help young people to spot disinformation.

As an aside, misinformation is information that is simply wrong, inaccurate or misleading (without necessarily having any intention to propagate the misinformation) whereas disinformation is a subset of it, i.e. information that is deliberately wrong, inaccurate or misleading.

As aside to the aside, mistrust and distrust are roughly the same in meaning (i.e. not to trust someone or something) although, according to Dictionary.com, distrust implies having evidence to support that feeling.

Disinformation Problem

The Strategy, which was promised in the government’s online harms white paper, is intended to help tackle the problem that many young people in the UK are not able to distinguish between disinformation/misinformation and truth in what they read online.  For example:

Ofcom figures show that 4 out of 10 UK adult internet users don’t possess the skills to critically assess content online.

National Literacy Trust research figures show that only 2 percent of children have the skills they need to identify misinformation, half of teachers (53.5 percent) think that the national curriculum doesn’t educate children with the literacy skills they need to identify fake news, and 2 in 5 parents (39 percent) don’t watch, listen to, or read news with their child at home.

Pandemic Highlighted Problem

The fact that many young people may have been deterred from accepting the COVID-19 vaccine and/or have believed misinformation and conspiracy theories about the origins and causes of the pandemic have highlighted the problem. For example, popular stories believed by some in the UK, highlighted in University of Cambridge research (Oct 2020) include that:

– COVID-19 was engineered in a Wuhan laboratory (22 percent believed it).

– The pandemic is “part of a plot to enforce global vaccination” (13 percent).

– 5G telecommunication towers worsen COVID-19 symptoms (8 percent).

Who and Why?

Back in October 2020, Cambridge’s Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication + UK Cabinet Office: Go Viral!, studied correlations between certain beliefs and demographic categories and the perceived reliability of misinformation. They discovered that:

– High levels of trust in science equates to low levels of susceptibility to false information (across all nations).

– Better Numeracy skills are a predictor of greater resistance to misinformation.

– Being older is linked to lower susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation.

– Identifying as more right-wing /politically conservative is associated with a higher likelihood of believing COVID-19 conspiracies.

– With COVID-19, a tiny increase (one-seventh) in how reliably misinformation is perceived leads to a much bigger (23 percent) drop in the likelihood that the person will agree to get vaccinated.

Ultimately, as summarised by the minister for digital and culture Caroline Dinenage last week, “False or confused information spread online could threaten public safety and undermine our democracy.”

Training Trainers

The newly announced strategy is to teach a wide variety of UK organisations to teach others to get a better understanding of the online world, and how to critically analyse the content they see, thereby helping them to spot misinformation.

Criticism and Challenges

Criticism or the strategy includes that:

– It is possibly an opportunity missed and is less of a strategy and more a shopping list of useful actions that mirror what’s gone before rather than charting new directions (says LSE’s Professor Sonia Livingstone).

– The strategy appears to blame the user for the problems of the digital world.

– The strategy may be weaker than it could be because it is linked to the Online Safety Bills, so focuses on reducing consumer harms rather than addressing the breadth and depth of the media literacy agenda.

Challenges for the strategy include:

– Exposure to misinformation and disinformation can be influenced by changes to algorithm design and content feeds, thereby meaning that tech companies have a part to play.

– Motivations for believing (and wanting to spread) misinformation are varied, can be complicated and, therefore, anti-vaxxer mentalities / ‘cult’ type and attitudes are difficult to break down and challenge, even with well-meaning teaching.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

In terms of tackling health emergencies effectively, education and tackling misinformation are vital. Many young people have social media as their main source of news, so giving many other organisations the means to educate young people in how to critically evaluate what they read is well-meaning and could have a value for young people and society as a whole going forward, which in turn will have a value to businesses. However, social media and other platforms use algorithms, which also influence what is presented to young people, which means that tech companies have an important role and responsibility to play in tackling the problem. The problem of misinformation is being tackled to a degree on social media using e.g., fact-checking, and curated news services, but the issue of misinformation is wide, and it is debatable how much of an effect the new strategy will have upon it.  One of the strengths of the new strategy, however, is that it is leveraging the power of many other trusted organisations to help deliver it.

News

Tech News : Google Provides Insights Into Search Rankings

Google has announced that (US first) Google Search users can click into details that show how their search-result matched certain search-terms (context), thereby giving a further tantalising glimpse into how specific rankings/search engine results are arrived at.

‘About This Result’ Panel

Google says that clicking the three dots next to most of its search engine results will now take users to the  ‘About This Result’ panel where they can see “useful context” about how Google returned results for the query, and find “helpful tips to get more out of Google Search”.

Google says that useful displaying of context is a way of showing searchers some more information about some of the most important factors used by Google Search to connect results to their queries.

Help With SEO?

Although Google has announced this latest addition to its search results as being something of value from a search engine user’s perspective in terms of relevance to “evaluate whether a result might be the one they’re looking for”, the implication is, of course, that this could possibly be reverse engineered to feed into SEO efforts.

Which Contextual Factors Are Shown?

Google says that the search ‘context’ factors that users can see by visiting the ‘About This Result’ panel include:

– Matching keywords: Used by Google to determine whether information is relevant is when a webpage contains the same keywords as a search.

– Related terms: Google looks for terms that its systems suggest that are related to the words in a query.

– Looking at links: It appears that relevant incoming links are still important as Google decides that pages linking to a page using similar words as the query, is likely to make a page more relevant to a particular search. Google says that this can also be a helpful indicator of whether online content creators seem to regard the page as useful for a particular topic (i.e. the page appears to have authority and be trusted).

– Local relevance: Google’s systems (algorithms) and a user’s given country and location, plus the language used in a search help to guide the relevance of the content delivered in the search engine results for a user’s area, even if a user does not name their location/area in a query/question that is locally focused, e.g. ‘where is the nearest recycling centre?’.

Google has already stated that factors it considers in establishing a searcher’s location include the user’s device location, a user’s labelled places, the home address (set in the Google Home app for the user’s speaker, Smart Display, or Smart Clock), a user’s Location History, previous activity across Google products, and the IP address of the user’s Internet connection.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Clearly, getting a better understanding of just how Google decides upon its search engine rankings is of value to businesses, suppliers of digital marketing services, and even SEO software suppliers because of how it could feed into the improvement of SEO efforts. Higher rankings tend to translate into more clicks. If Google’s assertion that these new contextual insights are related to relevant choices is correct, then a better understanding of how to create pages that are relevant to specific queries (keywords and questions) could lead to more clicks, a greater likelihood of enquiries (conversions), and even more chance of getting a page in the coveted featured snippets/answer boxes at the top of the search results. For Google, this is also a tantalising new way to engage users, and even help retain them by giving them insights that may appear to be of value, and show Google to acting fairly and taking into account factors that appear to stand up to logical questioning.

News

Featured Article : Billionaire Space Race

In this article, we look at some of the lighter aspects of the technological achievement that was the recent Blue Origin rocket flight, and we look at the vision behind it.

Space Passengers

The recent flight of the rocket containing and funded by (richest man in the world and Amazon Founder) Jeff Bezos yielded pictures of the passengers enjoying an 11-minute space experience, an interesting back story about the oldest passenger aboard, and appears to have provided a source of comic material, criticism, and inspiration.  With this in mind, here’s a look at a few of the lighter and perhaps less-publicised stories about the flight.

Sorry, I’m Busy!

News broadcasts highlighted the story of how Blue Origin’s commercial space flight crew included Wally Funk, an 82-year-old woman who trained to be an astronaut in the 1960s but was overlooked for a space mission because she was a woman, and who has now become the oldest person to go to space. The reports also featured 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, who is the son of Joes Daemen, CEO of Dutch private equity firm Somerset Capital Partners and who has now become the youngest person to fly to space. Daemen paid for the seat on the flight, but what was not widely publicised in reports was the fact that the person who won the auction ahead of Mr Daemen by paying $28 million to go on the flight with Bezos, his brother, and Funk was an as-yet unnamed person who reportedly couldn’t go on that particular flight because they were ‘busy’ due to “scheduling conflicts”!

It has been reported that the unnamed busy person who appears to have double-booked themselves will be able to carry over their auction prize and fly on a future New Shepard mission instead.

Rocket Shape (and Jeff Bezos) Ridiculed

The Blue Origin rocket’s allegedly ‘phallic’ shape has also been mocked. For example, US comedian/host of The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon joked that the rocket looked like “R2D2 took some Viagra”, as well as mocking Jeff Bezos for wearing a cowboy hat saying that he looked like a “mash-up between Buzz Lightyear and Woody”.

Moral Viewpoint

In addition to the comedy memes and videos doing the rounds on the Internet, others focused on how billionaires appeared happy to spend fortunes indulging in their own personal space races while the money spent could have solved some much bigger human problems on earth (e.g. hunger, disease, pollution, etc).

Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000 and funded the space tourism/exploration company using money through selling shares of Amazon stock. Mr Bezos has said that he’ll sell approximately $1 billion of Amazon stock each year to fund the Blue Origin company.

Wings Clipped?

Another part of the mission that may not have gone so well is the possibility that, due to changes in the rules of US Federal Aviation Administration (coincidentally, brought into effect the same day as the Blue Origin flight!), Jeff Bezos and his crew may not be eligible to officially receive their astronaut wings.  It may be this way because the crew were essentially passengers in a rocket that was controlled from the ground (i.e. the crew didn’t have any hands-on control of the rocket and may not have carried out activities during the flight that were essential to public safety or contributed to human space flight safety). It is also unlikely that this particular crew were involved in any science missions.

It has been reported, however, that some of those on board Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spacecraft (who also went to the edge of space shortly earlier) may have been assessing cabin hardware or conducting experiments related to suborbital flight which could mean that they would be eligible receive their astronaut wings.

Beaten By Richard Branson?

Although the world witnessed Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic’s space mission days earlier, tweets from the Blue Origin team appear to suggest that the Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane didn’t technically go high enough to make it into what is commonly understood to be space.

Why?

Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos (plus their passengers) are not the first commercial space travellers / ‘astronauts’, and these have not been the first commercial space flights.  Although these first missions may appear to have done little more than fulfil the ambitions and dreams of the company owners and a lucky few and test the ‘experience’ that future passengers will get for their money, the reasons for the flights are more serious with a vision in mind that’s linked to earth benefits in future.  For example, as stated on the Blue Origin website, “Blue Origin was founded by Jeff Bezos with the vision of enabling a future where millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth. In order to preserve Earth, Blue Origin believes that humanity will need to expand, explore, find new energy and material resources, and move industries that stress Earth into space.”

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Whatever the arguments and criticisms, the flights by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are real technological achievements that appear to have more far-reaching and potentially beneficial visions behind them than simply billionaires offering expensive joyrides to other rich people. These two privately funded crafts are impressive, re-usable, and in a way, may make us feel that we are heading closer to a future that we have been watching in science fiction films for years, where getting beyond the boundaries of our struggling planet is possible for more people. As mentioned in the Blue Origin vision, the flight may be one of many early steps towards opportunities, resources, materials, energy and getting a different perspective that could be of benefit to earth and its inhabitants. Technology is also likely to be advanced as each new space challenge is met, and at the very least, the flights have provided some excitement and interest at a time when the world has been focused on battling some very serious earthbound challenges that have been making the future feel more uncertain.

News

Tech Insight : Why Is Printer Ink So Expensive?

After a recent ‘Which?’ survey found that some branded printer ink costs more than some champagnes, we take a look at the reasons why printer ink is so expensive.

The Recent ‘Which?’ Survey

The survey by consumer watchdog Which? asked more than 10,000 inkjet printer owners about their ink shopping experiences regarding both original-branded and third-party brands.  Not only did the survey find that there were (as has been the case for a long time) big differences between the price of branded and third-party printer ink cartridges, but also that “Branded ink from popular printer manufacturers is crazily expensive. Per millilitre, it’s more expensive than some of the most luxurious liquids, 32-year-old Scotch whisky and champagne included.” In fact, Which? found that Ink bought from the manufacturer can be up to 286 percent more expensive than buying third-party inks.

Reasons

Which? conducts annual surveys about printer ink prices and performance and third-party ink brands often rate at the top of their tables for factors such as ease-of-use (cartridges), print quality and value for money. If cheaper third-party ink cartridges are valued so much by customers, the question must be asked, why is printer ink, particularly branded printer ink, so expensive?

The reasons why some printer ink suppliers can successfully charge higher prices include:

– In buyer-behaviour terms, the general effect of brand-power on consumers perception, trust, and choice, plus the motivation to avoid negative reinforcement, and post-purchase dissonance are reasons why higher-priced branded cartridges may be purchased. Consumers are generally conditioned to believe that ‘you get what you pay for’ and are more likely to trust the ink which has the same brand as the printer and may assume that buying the same brand will give them a better chance of satisfaction and of avoiding a negative outcome and negative feelings about their choices and their judgement.

– Some customers believe that third-party ink cartridges won’t work in their printer.  Which? found that although almost half of printer ink buyers (43 percent) have this concern when, in fact, only 11 percent of printer ink buyers have actually found this to be the case.

– According to Which?, unlike other inkjet printers, HP printers use ‘dynamic security’, which recognises cartridges that aren’t HP branded and stops them from working.  This effectively stops customers from buying cheaper, third-party cartridges, thereby allowing HP to maintain higher prices. It is worth noting however that HP says that customers have the option to use HP Instant Ink, which is a subscription service where, it is claimed, that customers could save up to 70 percent.

– As highlighted in the Which? survey, 30 percent of people think that third-party inks are more likely to leak and could damage their printer. This belief is another reason why higher-priced branded cartridges are often purchased instead of lower-cost alternatives that are equal in performance.

– Selling the printer as a loss leader (i.e. selling the printer at a low price and the cartridges at a high price) is another way of tying customers into buying the compatible ink at a high profit-margin.

– Using distribution tactics such as striking deals with big shops/supermarkets/chain stores could enable big printer (ink) brands to limit the sale of cheaper, compatible, third-party alternatives.

– Using pricing tactics such as price skimming (i.e. simply charging a high price to customers with price inelastic demand) is another way that printer/ink big brands could charge higher prices.

HP Says…

Taking HP as an example of a company that may charge higher prices for its ink, as highlighted in a reported presentation by Thom Brown, marketing manager at HP back in 2010, some possible reasons for the high price of ink are/were:

– The price of the technology involved in making the inks. For example, HP (at the time) was spending $1 billion a year on ink research and development to make inks that could withstand heating, vaporisation, and being squirted at 30 miles per hour/36,000 drops per second through a tiny nozzle to dry almost instantly.

– Each system having a different way of using ink or a different drop size could make it difficult to compare different types/brands of ink, solely based just on the volume of liquid.

– Industry methods for measuring page yield may be confusing to consumers and may not enable accurate price comparisons.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The Which? study appears to show that although some situations may lead some customers to believe that they must buy higher-priced branded inks e.g., HP’s ‘dynamic security’, performance between branded and third-party inks, according to those surveyed, is not different in many cases.  For example, people gave similar print quality ratings for original and third-party inks, with 16 non-branded inks coming out ahead of Brother, Canon, Epson, and HP.  This could indicate that many buyers may be confused by marketing messages and mistaken beliefs. It is, of course, difficult to dispute any claims about the technology of any particular inks pushing up the price but as Adam French, Which? consumer rights expert points out, which ink to put in a printer should be “a personal choice and not dictated by the make of your printer”. It may be fair for buyers to conclude, therefore, that the higher prices of branded cartridges compared to third-party are more based upon consumer-beliefs and marketing differences, although it is up to each customer to choose.  Which? provides its guide to the best cheap ink cartridges and where to buy them here: https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/printers-and-ink/article/best-cheap-printer-ink/best-cheap-ink-cartridges-aaOXG7F0Tgol.

News

Tech Tip – Using The Windows Clipboard History

If you’ve copied and pasted several items today but need to quickly and easily go back and use something you pasted earlier, you can use the clipboard history in Windows 10. Here’s how:

– To open the clipboard history, press the Windows logo key + V (and then select Turn on if it’s not on already).

– Find the item in the list (most recent at the top) and select it. Once selected, this is automatically copied back onto the clipboard and can be pasted again.

– To remove any items from the clipboard history list, click on the three dots next to the item and select ‘delete’.

– If you’d like to sync your clipboard items to your computer and access them from any other Windows 10 device, select Start > Settings > System > Clipboard and then select ‘On’ under ‘Sync across devices’.

News

Featured Article : What Does “Right-To-Repair” Actually Mean?

In this article, we look at the right-to-repair movement, where it comes from, and how it’s progressing.

The Right-To-Repair

The ‘right-to-repair’ is a movement that seeks to have rules/legislation passed that forces manufacturers (e.g. of appliances, electrical products, white goods and more) to make parts (and information) available to end customers, not just approved/authorised repairers, and technicians, so that it is possible for end-users to fix the product at home.  The basic idea is that this could help tackle built-in obsolescence, thereby prolonging product life cycles, creating better value and saving money for consumers, and reducing the number of products going to waste thereby helping the environment.

Built-In Obsolescence

Built-in or planned obsolescence is a policy of designing and making products that have an artificially limited useful life or a purposely frail design, thereby ensuring that they will become obsolete and useless to the buyer within a certain time period/will have a deliberately short lifespan (e.g. a few years). This, of course, will require the consumer to buy another product, thereby ensuring more sales. Part of the setup to support this cycle involves making the product a ‘closed book’ to the end consumer by making parts unavailable, limiting information about the workings of the product, and potentially making repair seem unattractive, too costly, or too or dangerous to consumers.

Although people some cite it as more of a conspiracy theory (preferring to blame consumers), planned obsolescence appears to have started a long time ago (e.g. “Phoebus cartel” in the 1920s) where leading light bulb manufacturers colluded to artificially reduce bulbs’ lifetimes to 1,000 hours.

Software and Apps

Today, it is not just the manufacture of physical goods that contributes to obsolescence.  For example, in the case of many tech items, not enabling the latest apps to run on older versions of a device can seriously limit the usefulness and appeal of the device.

UK’s First Small Step

Earlier this month, the UK government passed laws that mark what many consider to be a useful first step towards the right-to-repair.  The new UK laws mean that manufacturers must make spare parts available to people buying electrical appliances, and those parts must be sold directly by the manufacturer for 10 years, even if the complete products are no longer selling in their range. The new UK laws are accompanied by changes in efficiency standards of products that are designed to cut carbon emissions.

However, the new UK laws are limited to appliances (e.g. white goods) and the kinds of parts that manufacturers are required to make available are fairly simple and safe ones such as hinges or new baskets for fridges/freezers. Also, there is a grace period of the next two years before manufacturers must make spare parts available. Critics also argue that the UK government has not technically given consumers a legal right to repair because the spare parts and repairability criteria only apply to professional repairers, not end users/owners.

Elsewhere

In Europe, the European Commission (EC) has already announced plans to introduce right-to-repair rules for smartphones, tablets, and laptops, and in the US, there are reports that President Joe Biden is soon expected to sign an executive order which will ask the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to draw up some rules for the repair of farming equipment. Currently, however, only Massachusetts has a right-to-repair law which was passed in 2013 and relates to vehicle manufacturers providing diagnostic and repair information in certain circumstances.

Advocate

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is a known advocate of right-to-repair.  In a recent reply to another right-to-repair campaigner Louis Rossmann on Cameo (where video messages and greetings from celebrities can be purchased), Mr Wozniak pointed out that open technology was one of the key factors that led to the development of the first Apple computers and that he believes that inhibiting the right-to-repair could be a way for companies to simply gain power and control over everything. Mr Wozniak highlighted how the ability to build something from parts is also a way for people to afford something that they couldn’t ordinarily afford, help creativity, education/learning, and motivation.

The Safety Argument

One of the big arguments against the right-to-repair by manufacturers is that it may not be safe for consumers to attempt repairs. Tech companies Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are among those who specify who can repair their phones and game consoles on the grounds that there could be safety and security risks if end users attempted repairs of these electrical/tech items themselves. It has also been reported that the John Deere tractor manufacturer has expressed opposition to the idea of end-users repairing its products due to possible safety risks.

Low Price Products

Low prices are another way the motivation to repair an item can be eroded, thereby weakening the right-to-repair argument for many consumers. For example, if appliances are very cheap and go wrong within a few years, buying another one may seem cheaper and less trouble than trying to repair the existing one.

High Price For Parts

Similarly, making the parts (or software upgrades) for repair prohibitively expensive could be another way that companies could erode the motivation of consumers to repair their products.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Even though the right-to-repair movement has some sound reasons behind it (e.g. environmental) and some high-profile advocates, it still has a very long way to go. UK laws have taken one small step this month although there is a long grace period before companies must comply, and there is some hope that the US will make some new laws within weeks that it will advance right-to-repair beyond the very limited automotive areas where there are some rules at the moment, but still just to farming machinery.  As the movement gathers pace it will put pressure on manufacturers and tech companies to find ways to comply, maintain profits, and protect their image by being seen to be acting fairly and responsibly as consumers are becoming more environmentally aware as well as being able to take to social media to influence each other in their purchasing.