Reputation
What springs to mind when you think of McDonalds, Apple or BT? When it comes to the reputation of companies, first impressions seem to matter. But how does a reputation work? Is a negative reputation stickier than a positive one? and how long does reputation last?
In this week’s podcast, we discuss reputation. We unpick company and football statistics and data for listed companies. We also discuss the relationship between reputation and quality, Apple vs Microsoft, the scale vs quality trade-off, the concept of reputation in the judicial system and OBEs. Finally, we present what we consider to be some of the most glaring mismatches between reputation and quality.
For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com
Transcript
Helo a chroeso i'r podcast Cognitive Engineering sy'n cael ei gynhyrchu gan mi, Fraser McGruer, i Aleph. Yn y series o fodcastau rydym ni'n edrych ar ddigwyddiadau ddiddorol a'r hyn rydyn ni'n meddwl y byddant yn ni'n ei ddweud am analysiaeth a gwneud penderfyniad. Rydw i yma gyda Peter Coghill, Nick Hare a Chris Lear o Aleph ac yma'r wythnos rydyn ni'n ymwneud ag adnoddwyr.
Speaker B:Nick, gadewch i ni. Rydyn ni'n gwneud gwaith ar gyfer sefydliad cyffredin ac rydyn ni'n cael ei ddod allan i sefydliad cyffredin sy'n debygol, y gallwch chi ddweud o hynny. Mae'n cael ei enwio fel Brydeinig Telecom. Rydyn ni'n cael ei ddod allan yn fawr i hynny.
Speaker A:Mae'r bobl hynny'n ddiddorol iawn.
Speaker C:Gadewch i'r adnoddwyr.
Speaker B: liad fel ysgol cyffredinol ym: Speaker A:Yn siŵr, rydw i eisiau gwneud yn siŵr, rydyn ni'n siŵr am reputatio. Rydyn ni ddim yn siŵr am grydiau ar hyn. Nid. Nid, iawn, felly rydyn ni'n siŵr am reputatio.
Speaker B:Felly, iawn, ac yna roedd Chris yn ymgyrchu Chris i gofyn cwestiwn. Ac pa oedd eich cwestiwn, Chris?
Speaker A:Wel, rwy'n meddwl mai'r cwestiwn oedd ynglyn â, a yw hi efallai'n gysylltiedig i'r tragediaeth Nick? Rydw i'n dweud, yn amlwg, mae'n stori tragedol am y... Ie, mae'n defnyddio... Rwy'n gallu gweld y tragediaeth. Mae'n ymdrech ar y tragediaeth o'r rhaglen pan oedd Nick yno, oherwydd roedd yn angen y rhaglen hwnnw, yn amlwg, ac roedden nhw'n cymryd 6 mlynedd i'w adeiladu, ac roedden nhw'n gwirionedd yn ymdrech iawn i'r cymdeithas, a'n efallai'n cael ei rhaglennu gan ffyrwyr cymdeithasol neu rhywbeth. Ie. Nid yw'n gallu gwneud gwaith yn well na Aleph ar y data'n analysu nawr. Ac rwy'n mynd i'w ddweud... Ie, mae e'n byth yn mynd, ond rwy'n mynd i'w ddweud... Nid yw, yn wir, maen nhw'n mynd i'r ffyrwyr cymdeithasol neu rhywbeth. Ond rydw i'n teimlo, fel pan dweud Nick, rydw i'n meddwl, ie, dyna beth? Ie, BT efallai yw rhwydwaith.
Speaker B:Ie, nid ydyn nhw, yn fy meddwl, yn eithaf, nid ydyn nhw'n gallu sicrhau hyn, er mwyn, o ran fy ymgysylltiad gyda nhw i fod yn ddiddorol oedol, yn ddiddorol, nid ydyn nhw'n gallu, gallwch chi'n privatiseio ychydig, ychydig o weithiau rydych chi'n hoffi Margaret Thatcher, ond nid ydyn nhw'n mynd i,
Speaker C:nid ydyn nhw'n mynd i ddiddorol hynny. A ydyn nhw'n bwysig arall o'r telefonau sydd ar gael ar hyn o bryd, sy'n ffasiwn newydd a'n effeithiol?
Speaker B:Ie, mae'r cwestiwn yw, oherwydd nad oedden nhw'n cymdeithas telefon gwleidyddol iawn, a oes hynny'n golygu, ar gyfer cymdeithas, eu bod nhw'n cymdeithas fawr na chymdeithas newydd? Nid ydw i'n gwybod. Wel, dyma'r cwestiynau rydyn ni'n ei gofyn amdanyn nhw. Rydyn ni'n ei gofyn amdanyn nhw.
Speaker A:Ie, ond rydw i'n cael fy nghyffredin ar hyn o bryd, oherwydd yn ddiweddaraf, roeddwn i'n ysbrydolwyr i Broadband BT, ac roeddwn i'n cael fy nghyffredin ar hyn o bryd yn ddiweddaraf, ychydig wythnos cyn ein bod ni'n penderfynu ei wneud hyn, ac un o'r sylwadau rydw i'n eu gwneud yw, oherwydd, yn gyntaf, roeddwn i'n cael fy nghyffredin ar sut roedden nhw'n cymdeithasu gyda fi, ac roedden nhw'n fy nghyffredin, roeddwn i'n cyfresu codi nhw ar ôl i ddweud, ac maen nhw bob amser yn cael rhan bwysig, ydych chi'n meddwl, yw, nhodi lles o aelodau yn gwneud hyn, os ydych chi'n meddwl am ni'n mynd. Ac felly rydych chi'n gallu... Oh, maen nhw'n hoffi eich hyfforddwr gyhoeddiwch o hyn i ddeall, Mae yna rhywun sy'n Irish neu'n Geordie neu rhywun fel hynny, mae'n un o'r blwyddyn mwyaf yn y byd, ond rydw i ddim yn cael unrhyw un o hynny.
Speaker B:Na, iawn.
Speaker A:Ond wrth ddweud, oh, rwy'n gallu gweld eich bod chi ddim yn wirioneddol o'n mynd o'n i, ond yr hyn rydw i'n gallu ei wneud yw gwneud half beth rydych chi'n gadael nawr. Mae'n dweud, pam ddywedoddwch chi i mi hynny ddweud ychydig mlynedd yn ôl, dydw i ddim yn mynd. Yn unol, yn unol.
Speaker B:Iawn, felly, yn unol, rydyn ni wedi ddweud hynny heddiw, rydyn ni'n cael ein hysgrifennu gan T-Mobile. Rydyn ni, nid, i fod yn ddiddorol, i BT, rydw i'n ysbrydolwyr o'u brofant a dydw i ddim ond rhywbeth ond gwasanaeth dda odyn nhw, felly. Iawn, felly mae'r Llywodraeth eisoes wedi gwneud brofant. Rydw i am ddweud hynny, mae ni wedi cael profiadau gweddill.
Speaker A:Pa mor rhaid i ni ddod o'r hyn, dwi ddim yn gwybod beth yr hyn y byddwn ni eisiau, rwy'n cofio, roeddech chi wedi cael rhai cwestiynau yno, rydyn ni eisiau ceisio athro'r hynny. Beth fydd dom ni nesaf? Mae gen i ychydig data, mae gen i ychydig data.
Speaker C:Gwnawn ni, OK. Go on Nick, pave the road of speculation with the paving slabs of data.
Speaker B: was in the first division in: Speaker A:Yeah, I'm sorry. I presume you're going to drill down afterwards into the drivers of this kind of stuff.
Speaker B: es out and when. For example,: Speaker C:There's a sort of relative-to-culture effect of reputation going on there.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's right.
Speaker C:So Brinkley's doing absolutely everything right, never getting anything wrong. They're probably still making great tires. If you don't keep up, you're going to lose out to the open AIs.
Speaker B: were booted out themselves in: Speaker A:Yeah, but hold on. But we specifically want to talk about, because, you know, whether the company survives or not, or whether it's profitable or not, or whether it continues to be highly profitable or not is one thing. But what we want to talk about is reputation, right? So BT could be as successful as you want. But they're still going to have that. I'm going to pick up what you're putting down.
Speaker C:I agree that reputation is probably a pretty good proxy for performance. But I don't necessarily think it's perfect. You know, I think you could probably imagine, you could probably think of companies that operate in the background doing a sterling job and nobody's ever heard of them, apart from the… Companies like Cisco. Yeah, Cisco and AT&T. And people who run the backbone of the internet and things, they do a pretty good job. Probably IBM. IBM. Yeah. And they've got a few small, a few customers who give them very large contracts, like government contracts and big business to business contracts. And that's what they go for. They don't need popular reputation and bling to do what they do. But they do what they do very well.
Speaker B:Yeah, I suppose I was answering the question of how long ought the half-life of reputation to be. You know, how much should you care about past performance and for how long? And that isn't the same question as the question of how long do reputations actually last? I'm not sure. So I haven't really looked at that. Yeah.
Speaker A:Also, I want to bring Chris in a second. But also, it's that difference between, you know, positive reputation and poor reputation, right? And is that sort of famous, that sort of trope within marketing or whatever it is, you know, or customer service where, you know, if a customer has a good customer experience, he'll tell, I don't know, two people about it. If it's a bad customer experience, he'll tell ten people about it. And emotionally, you know, where does reputation come from? Where does reputation reside? Well, isn't it in our heads? I don't know. Isn't it in, you know, it feels a bit more nebulous somehow. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Go on. Let's see. Yeah. Peter wants to say something, but I definitely want to bring in Chris.
Speaker C:Yeah. Something that struck me as interesting is-
Speaker A:I want the metric. Sorry. Sorry, Peter.
Speaker C:Something that struck me as interesting was the evolving nature of corporate reputation. So picking up that kind of social change and difference in products, new products, computers coming on, so Intel and things joining the Dow Jones. I think that probably has pretty big effect on your perception of companies, and very quick and particularly in sort of consumer products where it's very fashion driven or very sort of what's the new technology driven. So where am I going? So, yeah, and that's sort of driven by media, social media and good marketing and good exploitation of those to drive your product. But I think there are some, there's some big fish in that in our world today, Apple, for example, that seem to have reached a position where they're difficult to knock. They've got such ideological dominance over their cult that I can't think of anybody sort of suddenly beating them and becoming sort of-
Speaker B:Yeah, although that's what they all, I'm sure every year, people probably said, you know, about these Aramco, Gramcorp mega mining, you know, things. They probably said there's no way that company will ever disappear. So, yeah, I'm not sure. I think that's a really, it'd be good to speculate about that.
Speaker C:They might be there still, but they just might be, and they might be bigger than ever. It's just that they grew relatively slower than Intel.
Speaker A:Again, we need to be careful about what we're talking about here because we want to talk about reputation and half-life reputation, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I suppose this sort of boils down to the question of what is the connection between reputation and quality? Is it, is reputation, does it lead? Does it lag? Does it perfectly track? Is it, does it go on for longer than it deserves? You know, that's the question really, what's the connection between reputation and quality?
Speaker A: g, well, BT's reputation from: Speaker B:Can we just ask, Fraser is like maybe one of the not technical people here. How would you sum up in a sentence or two, what do you think of when you think of Microsoft? What's their reputation?
Speaker A:Yeah, old fashioned, inflexible, vast, unimaginative.
Speaker B:Is that, does that accord with your understanding of their reputation? Sorry, Microsoft, not yourself. Very good.
Speaker A:Well, I was actually thinking a little bit, but where I was thinking was Microsoft has typically had a reputation amongst computer geeks as a company that is incredibly successful at selling shoddy software to people who don't know much about it. So they made loads and loads of money making operating systems that geeks hated, but were really, really successful. And then they made Office. And so they basically made MS-DOS and then Windows and then Office. And all of those things are the kind of things which it was almost a sort of statement of geekdom to loathe and to refuse to use. Sorry to interrupt, but is Apple even more loathed by computer geeks? No, Apple's different. Apple's different. It's, Apple's actually, Apple makes really good software, but it's got this weird cultishness. So it's, it's, it makes good hardware, good software, but it carries this strange cult with it. So it's, it's in a different category.
Speaker B:But if there was a war, which side would the geeks be on? They'd be on the Microsoft side, surely? No, not necessarily. Interesting.
Speaker A:I keep telling you guys how good Apple software is and hardware, but you won't listen to me. Okay, well, anyway, this is an example. Anyway, anyway. This is the, yeah, because you're, you're, I mean, these are the example. Like, I don't use Apple because I don't want to join the cult and I try to avoid Microsoft, typically, or historically I've always avoided Microsoft. In particular, they made a thing called Internet Explorer, which people loathed because it was like forced on you and everyone hated it, etc, etc. And I think we've still got this in our head. So, like, hands up anyone in the literal world who uses Bing knowingly? No hands. And then Peter, look at this. I do. Peter uses Bing for the built-in AI. No, only for maps.
Speaker C:And because you can get OS maps for free from Bing Maps. Bing Maps. And anything else you don't want in your browser history.
Speaker A:And I didn't even know that. I didn't even know that you could get. I paid for OS maps. Is Bing a Microsoft thing? Yes, it is. Yeah. Sorry for not explaining that to all the listeners who were unaware that Bing is what Internet Explorer used to be. Sorry, Bing is Microsoft's version of Google. Internet Explorer is old hat now. They've got a thing called Edge. Okay. And who knowingly uses Edge?
Speaker B:I couldn't even tell you the difference between Edge and Bing to be honest. I think I know. I think I know now you say it, but in my mind they're the same thing.
Speaker A: icrosoft of the sort of early: Speaker B:They haven't helped by making it not look like Microsoft. It's like VS Code, which I think a lot of people quite like. Even geeks like VS Code. This is the thing. That's Microsoft, isn't it? This is the thing, yeah.
Speaker A:And it doesn't tell you that anywhere. No. Now Microsoft have cleverly, because they've pivoted brilliantly, and they've become an incredibly successful open source company because everyone loved, in the olden days, everyone loved open source. And they hated Microsoft, which was closed source. Now they open source everything. Well, loads of things. And in fact, Edge is secretly Chrome in disguise. They've just reused Chrome inside. And they're using loads of open source software. And they're a completely different company from what we still, their reputation is still.
Speaker C:Their biggest earner is cloud services and commercial consultancy services around those cloud services.
Speaker A: o idea. They remember Windows: Speaker C:Yeah. And they've tried, they've been trying to eat some of Apple's chips in the last 10 years or so with their surface range of laptops and tablets and things trying to eat into the MacBook, iPad market. And they had a range, they've tried and failed several times with smartphones to try and eat some of the iPhone kind of market. But I just, I think their heart is just not in it enough. They could probably own it if they wanted to. But they probably not want to call it a Windows phone. They want to call it something else.
Speaker A:Hold on, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's be careful. Let's, because you lot are getting us into like. So I was just going to not do that.
Speaker B:Well. Stop telling me not to do that because that's literally what I was about to do. No, but how am I meant to know that?
Speaker A:But you are the one who stopped me. This is not what the podcast is about. Stop it. Right. So listen. So this is.
Speaker C:I've got, I think I've got something to say. Is it a little more technical stuff? No, no, no, no, no. So we were talking a bit about there about how, so Microsoft is trying to change the meaning of Microsoft as a brand, isn't it? They're trying to develop a new reputation and trying to get rid of this old perception.
Speaker A:Well, I'm not sure whether they're trying to change the reputation or whether they're just changing their behaviour. They've changed their practices and I think their reputation is just lagging. And I don't know whether they're making an effort to change the reputation or not even bothering. Like, this is interesting to me, is whether it's more important to fight for reputation or whether it's more important just to do a better job. But also, sorry to interrupt Peter, but also we're straying into brand identity for obvious reasons. It's pretty sort of close to that. But reputation and brand identity are not quite the same thing. And we're also talking about degradation of reputation and. Well, change. And change and how long that stays with us. Because all I want to say is, is reputation seems to me to be really sticky. And I think it's sticky because of the things I said about, I do, it's definitely, you know, in your personal and public consciousness, it's and it's more difficult to hang it off data because it's more, it's more to do with personal experience and stuff like that. And that's why it doesn't always map very well. It's definitely connected, but doesn't map exactly onto things like, I don't know, share price, for example.
Speaker B:But however, am I bringing this on track? And are you going to help me with this, Nick? I think, I think if anything, this has borne out the idea that reputation is working because the kinds of numbers that we're talking about and the sorts of time lags that we're talking about actually kind of line up, you know, so the thing is, okay, you know, I know Microsoft's enormous. But the point is that Chris touted their five to 10 year time frame. And the fact that young people, you know, now are not going to come with that baggage, for example. I know we'll talk about drivers shortly. But the point is, we're thinking about the 5, 10, 20 year time frame here, right, to get a reputation change. And lo and behold, that lines up with, you know, what it seems to be the case about, you know, a company is in a certain position now, 15 years time, half of companies are in a different position, right? It sort of lines up with that in a way that I don't think is an accident. Because actually, what I'm saying is, I think we're tuning our reputationometers, either individually or collectively, to the correct amount of time. I think it's right. You know, so, yeah, I think, if anything, it vindicates reputation. But I do think we should think about how it can diverge. Can it diverge systematically and in the long run from true quality?
Speaker A:Well, it can individually, because you're still moaning about BT from stuff they did 40 years ago, which is way out of sync of the loop. Anyway. It wasn't quite 40 years ago. Well, I guess I'm thinking about, yeah, so 30 years ago. 45 years ago. But yeah, yeah. And before I went on around there, you did say something quite interesting. I forgot what it was, but I think Peter was about to respond to it.
Speaker C:I think it would be interesting to explore how you, as a company or an individual or group, can sort of cultivate a good reputation. Exactly. Exactly. And I think I haven't got anything complicated. I think the best thought, the best way of doing it is just to do a good job. Right? Is to provide a quality service at a good value for money or to produce good products that are attractive to your customers, et cetera. And then provide good support and good help and good documentation and all the things that your customers want. It's probably the best and most solid way of getting a good reputation. I suspect, though, that's always going to be vulnerable to the scale versus shitness tradeoff that we often talk about on the podcast. Where, you know, as soon as you get big, as soon as you get to a certain size, you need shareholders and you need external stakeholders to get involved in the business. And they're just going to drive you towards profit maximization, which means you squeeze all of the fat and then good service goes away and UK call centers go away. And all the things that make a service kind of markedly better start to disappear. But I think there's, I think there's always a market for that small, a smallish market for that sort of artisan style, high quality and bespokeness that means that you can charge a premium for that quality. But I think the majority of people just want cheap. So you end up with that kind of horrible tradeoff.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I think that's all. I would go further and say the only way to get a good reputation is to do a good job. I don't think you can con people, really. You know, you might. I think there's an argument.
Speaker C:It's got to be action over spin.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think there's an argument that marketing and stuff like communications and those kinds of things and branding can help speed up alignment to, you know, of your reputation. So if you did have a terrible reputation, no doubt. And, you know, let's say you had turned things around. I suspect you can use marketing to convince people, for example, to try again, you know, try your service again or, you know, to put a positive spin on things. But I mean, I don't think, you know, that's it. I don't think you can. Ultimately, your reputation is the experience that people have with your product. And that's that.
Speaker C:Because anyone with a sour experience of a product, if they rebrand and go, oh, we're doing everything better and we're now greener and happier and everything else, the cynics will just go, yeah, but you're still rubbish. You're only going to be doing a lot rebranding and remarketing and things. You're really, really pandering to your diehard fans anyway.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, it's like, I think one of the examples I always think of with rebranding is when they changed Windscale, which is a nuclear reactor which had a famous accident, I think, in the 50s or 60s. They rebranded it Sellafield. And for years, no one cared. No one cared that, you know, everyone, my mum called it Windscale and would never refer to it as Sellafield. And she was kind of anti-nuclear power anyway. But all they had to do, Sellafield, was not have a nuclear accident. And hey, presto, their reputation's fine. When was the last time someone in the pub said Sellafield? What, you mean the nuclear accident, guys? Nobody says that anymore. I don't even know if it's still operating. And that's a good thing. Because if you've heard of a nuclear power plant, it's probably not for good reason. Not in a good way. But that's the point, really. All they had to do was not have an accident. That really, changing the name Sellafield is probably neither here nor there, really. What they needed to do was stop all these nuclear accidents. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they might only have had one. It's very difficult to stop rare events. Well, I mean, that's right. They should get you on the board, Nick. It's interesting. But it is, I think there's a feeling, which I don't think is true. But I'm saying I have this feeling. That negative reputation is somehow stickier than positive reputation. I don't actually think that's true. And I think the common experience people have is with companies that they like, basically getting worse and worse. Things getting worse. Services getting worse. Which is the, you know, I'll give an example. Have you heard of a company? They're a restaurant chain called McDonald's. Now, I think people have quite affectionate memories of McDonald's. More so in the US than here. And I know, you know, obviously no one's claiming it's gourmet cuisine or anything. We did talk about this in Brown Identity. Yeah, go on. But no, but I, even I have sort of, you know, quays. I think there's something, I've got vaguely good memories about going into a McDonald's, you know, and getting your food from the lady behind the counter and sitting down with your mum or whatever and having some nuggets. It's, you know, there's positivity associated with it somewhere. Kids parties at McDonald's were the thing to have when I was a young kid. And whereas every time I've been to a McDonald's for the last five to ten years, it's been completely dystopian. And now it's just screens. It's just a bunch of people standing around in dark coats waiting for their number to come up. And then they get handed a bag full of, you know, a kind of protein and fat product. Reconstituted.
Speaker A:This sounds like a definition of either heaven or hell.
Speaker B:But the point is that I think, you know, it seems obvious to me that in 10, 15 years time, the half-life of reputation, people will see McDonald's in a very different light. I mean, I can't imagine, I can't see how you could get a positive memory from McDonald's. And there's loads of companies like that, you know, where they've kind of gone down the toilet. And I don't think we want to talk about that. But, you know, McDonald's, yeah, it seems to me like they have put in all these changes to become super efficient, what Peter was talking about, you know, to get all those efficiencies. And what they have not realized because of the lag that reputation has is that eventually that will, you know, start to hurt them. But it won't hurt them in a year or two years or ten years. It's going to be a situation of you take your kids to McDonald's because you remember kind of doing that with your parents and you enjoyed it. And it's a miserable experience. And you're horrified.
Speaker A:I mean, of course, in all of us. And I know we're all thinking the same thing, which is Rod Stewart. Yes. Because it's exactly the same. Because in my mind, Rod Stewart has always been deeply unfashionable, awful, like crap sort of music. But it's because I first became aware of him with his early 80s. Do You Think I'm Sexy, which is pretty great song. I mean, it is catchy. I'll give him that. But for me, that's always Rod Stewart. And it was only later sort of I started sort of coming across Mandolin Wind and all this kind of stuff. Maggie Mae. There you go. And actually just how phenomenally huge he was at his height. But I will ever forever have a certain association. So I just, you know, I know you're all thinking that.
Speaker B:So I think we should probably move on to talking about what actually drives two things. Changes in performance. That's the real bit. And changes in perception. Because that might give us an insight into why there might be a lag. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker A:Who wants to do that? Let's have Chris. I was going to mention something slightly related, which might feed into this, which is to do with how reputation works in the court system. Like there's an official version of reputation. And actually Nick talks about positive and negative reputation. I don't think in this country there's no such thing as a positive reputation. Possibly the peerage or possibly being given an OBE or something. But negative reputation you get by doing something like driving your car really fast past one of those cameras.
Speaker B:Into a busload of nuns.
Speaker A:Yeah. And a variety of other ways of getting a negative reputation. And you'll be pleased to hear that I don't even have to tell anybody about all the times that I've driven my car a bit too fast. Because it goes out of date. I think it's five years. Five years? Well, it can't be five years for murder, though. No, but it isn't for other things. So for some things it just disappears. But a criminal record has like an expiry date. But certain aspects, if you try to get a DBS check or whatever, if you want to work with children, that kind of thing. There are certain things which basically make it so you can't. And these things have an expiry date. So there isn't a built in expiry date on certain things for certain cases. But some, and this is the way negative reputation is built into our kind of society. It stays with you for reasonably good reasons.
Speaker B:Yeah, and I think, you know, in a way what you want is, again, that official reputation to track the reality in the sense of, you know, something, let's say that if you're a murderer, you know, it's probably the case that you have certain personality characteristics that are going to change very slowly. But if you committed an acquisitive crime or did a bit of speeding, it may be the case that that's something is much more easy to turn around, you know, that actually it's easier to change. Well, I mean, that's true to the extent that, you know, it probably gives you an insight into their risk appetite and so on and so forth. But we know that those are things that are relatively situational, whereas, you know, murder and things are more fundamental. So in a sense, you know, yeah, you're right. It's interesting.
Speaker A:Maybe OBE should expire as well.
Speaker B:Well, do you think we should get rid of Jimmy Savile's OBE?
Speaker A:You're asking me to pronounce all that? Yeah, we did do that.
Speaker B:I think he was stripped of his OBE. I think on certain circumstances that happens, doesn't it? We strip people of... No, he had knighthood, didn't he? But they don't expire naturally. Well, no, I mean, he was dead when he got stripped of his knighthood.
Speaker A:Yeah. What have you thought about that? He was also, by the way... He's a very nice chap now. From a legal point of view, he's guilty of nothing. He's an innocent man.
Speaker B:Just in case the ghost of Jimmy is listening and is tempted to sue us. We've got to be clear. No, quite. It's all just alleged. So... So drivers.
Speaker A:Yeah. So you were talking about drivers and... Yeah.
Speaker B:So I think something we haven't mentioned yet is regression to the mean, but it's very important. If you are a great company or you're a company who's being particularly terrible, the chances are that you will get worse if you're doing really well and better if you're doing really badly, statistically. If you've got it just intuitively, if you're the best company in the world, you can only get worse. But also, if you're the best company in the world, it's probably because of certain accidental things that it's very hard to maintain. Now, so there's just that statistics, you know, on average, probably football teams, it's just luck, like to some extent. There's certain elements of football which will keep you in the top flight. You know, you can afford better players and so on and so forth. But if you've got a few really good players now, in 20 years time, they're going to be retired. You know, there's going to be things that, on average, push you back towards the average. So there's that. But I mean, having said that, what are those things? And I think one of them, really key one, leadership and, you know, people. So, you know, leadership is a big one. Obviously, you think of, I mean, you know, Steve Jobs, you know, probably pretty instrumental in driving Apple's reputation, but also their performance and their innovation and their culture and all those things. And he's not around anymore. And, you know, I think that has had a significant impact on, you know, Apple's performance. And eventually that's going to have an impact on their reputation and so on. So there's this, you know, and what's the lifespan of a person? Probably, you know, it's that 15, 30 year kind of time span of someone being, you know, in a certain position, in a certain job. So I think there's that. But then Peter also mentioned quite a while ago, environmental changes, which is quite an interesting one. You know, here I think there's an element to which probably really the best companies in the world are more likely to be very specialized to their time and place and environment. And because that time and place and environment changes, you know, their time in the limelight is necessarily limited. And I mean, you could think of going back to things like probably, you know, the Roman Empire was a big deal back in its day. But then, you know, times changed. They didn't move with them. And eventually, you know, they were no longer the kind of technological leaders. Which is another sort of generational effect. Yeah. So you see that, you know, AT&T, you know, those big American companies we've never heard of, which were churning out steel in Pittsburgh. And, you know, people don't want that anymore. You know, they're brilliant at churning out steel. But yeah, boring companies, Goodyear. Well, you know, they probably are still making tires because people still want those things. There's nothing that they did good or bad.
Speaker A:It's just the times change and environment changes. There are a couple of things I could, I want to pick you up on there, but we don't really have time for it. But we need to finish off. We need to round things off. Okay. But and in doing that, is there anything you want to finish us off with?
Speaker B:Yeah. My summary would be, I think reputation works. I think reputation seems to pretty closely match what, you know, what it is it's trying to measure. Not perfect, but it's not bad.
Speaker A:So why are you so bloody anti BT and going into a rage about them because of something that happened 40 odd years ago? Well, the half-life of reputation. I keep telling you this, you are an irrational person.
Speaker B: were in the Premier League in: Speaker A:But being a very successful company is similar. Exactly. Because there's a positive reinforcement. But as Nick says, there's still regression to the mean, despite the positive reinforcement. I think that's the interesting bit right there as well. Anyway, enough. But not quite. Let's have a question. So what's the biggest mismatch between reputation and actual quality of which you are aware?
Speaker B:Yeah. I'd like to nominate the cuisine of the United Kingdom. Okay, go on.
Speaker A:This is going to get controversial. We're going to get emails.
Speaker B:You've only got to look at what Americans say. Still, it astounds me. The American understanding of what British food is, is essentially it's just sort of grey stodge. And we have no food culture. And that's it. And I sort of think, obviously, anyone who thinks that must have not been here for the last 20 years. Now, I live in London. Admittedly, obviously, world-class food city. But everywhere you go now in Britain. All imported from all around the world. Well, you know, but the point is that the quality is high. And you go to even some, you know, little tiny town in like Birmingham or, you know, Liverpool or somewhere. They will have. I was in Manchester a couple of weeks ago. Hamlet. And we went to a Polish restaurant that, you know, the food was incredible. It's like everywhere you go now, even a little pub in the middle of nowhere typically will serve some nice local food. It's unusual to find places with really, really terrible food. And yet I think the standard American view of what British food is like is based on post-World War II rationing or something. It baffles me. I look at it online. I think, why are they describing a world which doesn't exist? It's very strange. So, yeah, that's my nomination.
Speaker A:I think that's a good example. Our cuisine. But also I think with Americans, again, not just with their perception of our food, but of the way we speak and just the way we what we wear and how we sort of just generally carry on. And often when you see an American doing an impression of an English accent, they're actually doing an impression of an impression.
Speaker B:Well, but it's interesting. We're getting into a rabbit hole. But I have noticed more and more that American impressions of British people are aligning gradually to actual British people. We get people doing impressions of kind of the only way is Essex kind of characters and things rather than sounding like, you know, a British actor from the 70s, for example. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're getting there. We're gradually turning it around.
Speaker A:Not so much with the food, but with the accents. Yeah. I've just had the opposite of that happening in France many times where I've had crap food many times.
Speaker C:Let's have Peter. I think not probably our generation, the middle aged guys, but definitely amongst the younger folk, there's a there's a sort of adoration following for tech media companies like TikTok, let's say Facebook these days, but the TikToks of the world. A sort of zombie like tide of people staring at their screens. Now, that might be adoration. There might be some sort of. But I think those companies are they started off well. And I think, you know, things like Facebook in the early days was a was a sort of force for good. But then it became deeply cynical about just grabbing as much attention from people as possible, grabbing as much of eyeball time as possible to sell people stuff. And it's so I think there's a big mismatch there between what they actually do, which is maximize profits by captivating your imagination and turning your brain off versus what they what people the amount of time people sort of spend thinking about it.
Speaker B: companies of the kind of mid: Speaker A: afraid I'm going to go early: Speaker B:But Twitter is gradually aligning itself to your opinion.
Speaker A:I cannot see any value in it. Never have. And yet there it is. Twitter dot com still there.
Speaker B:X as its nickname.
Speaker A:No, Twitter dot com. I'm telling you where you go to, to get there.
Speaker B:No, I agree with you. I don't even understand Twitter when I get on there. I'm like, what happened? Why do I when I press this button? Something I wouldn't expect happens and I get demoralized and I leave.
Speaker A:But I just reach a screen which says you can't look at this.
Speaker B:But I think I think it's always very satisfying when a company lives down to your personal opinion. And I think I think it is. I think the reputation that Twitter has is is gradually, you know, falling off a cliff. Aligning to where it should be. Yeah.
Speaker A:OK. All right. We'll stop there. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Chris Lear, Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph. Until next time. Goodbye.
