Bypassing Parental Controls With BT

Every so often I feel the need to share some 'internet control' experiences, this is my third 'off topic' blog - the first of which concerned turning on parental controls, the second about the prevalence of porn on Twitter. 

Recently I've seen plenty of evidence that inappropriate content is showing up on childrens' computers despite their parents locking down devices and restricting access.

Just to be clear, there are ALWAYS ways to circumvent these controls. But many cannot work out how - and I'm certainly not going to share methods for doing it. That doesn't mean you should ignore the problem though.

If you're a BT broadband customer (one third of UK households are), you are almost certainly providing simplified access to the pornosphere for your children and their friends.

Some background first - if you're of a mind to block inappropriate material, then you have probably enabled parental controls on mobile devices and computers in the house.

You may even have decided to completely stop the flow into your house, and had your provider block it at source. There's a simple way to do this with BT, follow this link, sign in with your credentials, then scroll down to the 'extras' section and click 'Manage' in the BT Parental Control box.

Congratulations, you've successfully blocked inappropriate content coming into the house, (although how porn and alcohol end up in the same filter category is beyond me).

Wrong.

Actually it's very easy to bypass this, not for you, but for your children or for guests in your house.

Part of the BT offering is to allow your home router to be used as a personal hotspot for anyone. Check out your wi-fi network now, and you'll see 'BTWifi-with-FON' listed.

This means that if I am in range of any BT router I can use it as a wi-fi hotspot (by signing in with my BT account credentials).

Many parents give those credentials to their children so they can access wi-fi and not use mobile data plans, so usernames and passwords get passed around at school, enabling your child to use someone else's details to see whatever they want through your router.

The good news is that you can opt out of this, but it's not that easy, and after half an hour of navigating through BT's website to a human I finally got this link, which allows you to opt out of providing a hotspot: https://www.bt.com/wifi/secure/statuscheck.do 

Bizarrely if you don't have a btinernet.com email address you need to find an actual person to do this for you - this link may help. (Click problem with service, then broadband and eventually this magic chat button will appear). 

If all this seems like a huge amount of hassle, then that's because it is. I'm not sure that you should have to 'opt-in' to see adult content, that's a much larger debate, but if you do want to turn off adult content, then BT could make it a great deal simpler (and not leave the open hotspot wide open for abuse). 

Not enabled parental controls yet? Don't think you should? Read this and it may change your mind.

Follow @CultureEffect Tweet

Accepting Poor Behaviour

I've resisted the temptation of posting any kind of 'workplace' blog involving the Top Gear crew or the BBC in general. Not only does it seem to be marginally exploitative, but having seen a progression of death threats aimed at people who dare criticise I wasn't sure that I needed that kind of attention.

But then I caught a few minutes of the Wright Stuff on Channel Five recently, where Richard Madeley and Anne Diamond were discussing the Top Gear 'fracas' and I realised that I was hearing the same old 'abuse' story - but from TV personalities rather than corporate employees.

This shouldn't surprise me - often we forget that the folks staring out at us from the gogglebox are 'real' people with real jobs, mouths to feed and mortgages to pay.

What aggravated me was that both Richard Madeley and Anne Diamond both spoke of this kind of behaviour happening to them in the past, with a degree of implied acceptance that this was 'normal' behaviour in their industry. 

I love Top Gear - I find Jeremy, James and Richard great entertainment. There is no doubt that they provide a huge amount of revenue for their company, have immense talent and will be sadly missed by the vast majority of the viewing public (at least until they appear elsewhere). 

But.

When you verbally and physically assault someone it is wrong. No matter who that person is, but particularly when that person is 'subservient' to you in the organisation, perceives that their job depends on you, or that you have power to make them suffer. There are no excuses - and in case I'm in line for some hate mail here, Mr Clarkson would appear to agree.

Here are just three corporate examples from my experience, and I'd like you to imagine how you'd feel if this happened to you....

• The executive, who when aggravated, stressed, or simply in need of some entertainment thought it was OK to kick chairs at people in their office - or even outside their office door in the corridor. Sometimes I think the Lego policeman in the movie worked for him at some time.

• The senior leader who denied the whole office the right to go home on Christmas Eve if one person dared to ask what time they could leave - holding everyone in a frenzy of discomfort for the whole day (and for several weeks beforehand).

• The divisional head who enjoyed swearing loudly and publicly at staff so much, that even after multiple complaints, and subsequent warnings he continued until he had to be escorted off the premises - permanently.

Behaviour that you accept spreads through your organisation - this works equally for positive and negative behaviours, but the negative ones spread much faster. Simply shrugging it off by saying "well that happened to me too" gives tacit approval to others to mimic poor behaviours, and actually promotes their belief that it's necessary to fit in.

If you think any one of the examples above is even remotely acceptable behaviour, then I suggest you go and find a job where you can work alone, far from others, and if possible far from society in general.


Follow @CultureEffect Tweet

Learning About Student Culture

I've been spending time lecturing second year degree students recently - and it's become something I really look forward to.

Teaching has always been something I've wanted to try, regular readers will note that I have a great respect for the profession and the challenges it faces (mostly from bureaucracy and meddling), so when I was offered the chance I jumped at it.

(Read my blog on 'Disempowerment Culture' to learn more about my views on the teaching profession) 

I've done plenty of adult coaching, auditorium presenting, and of course 'dad teaching' at home - but this has been my first experience of teaching in a formal environment, and I've learned a lot.

I've learned that I need help in lesson planning. Three hour lectures don't work in 'death by presentation' format (actually, half hour sessions don't either) - and there are exams and assessments to teach. Thankfully a fellow lecturer, and the head of the department have been great mentors for me despite my lack of experience.

And then there are the students.

Now let me be clear (and I know some of them will read this), they are a great group of young men and women, and I enjoy teaching them. For the most part they are enthusiastic about what we're doing, ask questions (never enough!) and keep me challenged to find interesting ways to present things.

But, and there is a very big BUT here - the education system is letting them down.

While I've had a learning curve to contend with, my students have it much worse. 

When I was studying at University a lecturer showed up, spoke for a few hours and took questions. Generally they used acetate sheets, projectors and chalk boards (yes I am that old), and when the lecture was over we were expected to go the library and find books to study further.

Assignments were given, but with very little guidance, and the examinations were fierce because you never new the nature of the fiendish questions the professors were going to come up with to challenge your learning. But at the end of the process, if you worked hard enough you left with a degree.

And this was fine, because the school system had prepared me for it. By the time I finished my A' levels I was used to this method of learning. There was a little more structure, but we were not taught everything you needed to know to pass the exam - it was expected that you self taught and broadened your learning in order to get higher grades.

Not so any more. The advent of league tables and inspections, competition for funding and oversight has given way to a learning culture that requires a spoon fed approach. Teachers are teaching to curriculum, and more crucially to get results for league tables.

It is now in the best interests of the school to teach precisely what is expected on the exam paper.  No more, no less. Repeating over and over again the things that teachers know will get more passes. An increase in coursework has further narrowed the 'self study and learning' experience - and no amount of 'learning to learn' lessons will help (yes, children really do that at school).

Now when students arrive at University they have never been asked to struggle with concepts, to learn, to hear - "go and find out for yourself and we'll talk next week" from their lecturers. When things go wrong, answers are expected, not learning.

Add to that the additional complication of the 'funding' system, whereby students have to pay £9000 per year to be taught. (A total betrayal of every value our country has ever had by the way - tax me more and reduce the number of places, but education should ALWAYS be free).

A lecturer friend in London had spoken to me about this before, but in a nutshell it means that there is an underlying feeling amongst students that they are buying their degree. In some sense it's a good thing - there are higher standards demanded from lecturers  but there are major downsides - click here to read my blog on valuing others.

Here's an illustration. The most common question during my first two lectures was a variation on "will this be on the exam", and "will this be part of the coursework". Of course the answer is "It might be", but the fact that it's being asked at all is troubling.

Early on I was asked to post my slides to the University portal ahead of the lectures. This I've learned comes from a strange modern practice called 'reverse learning' where students supposedly go through the presentation and then come prepared with questions.

This won't work with me because firstly I can make six slides last for three hours (we talk, use the whiteboard and paper, and do practical exercises), and secondly because I have a strong feeling that students wouldn't show up if they new exactly what was going to be taught (but maybe that's more about my attitude than theirs).

One thing is certain - if this doesn't change soon, I would question the value of institutional on site learning. University is meant to provide a collegiate learning environment where students learn from their professors (and each other) in many ways - through text, practical experience, conversation, lectures and shared experiences. But the modern education system is not preparing them for that jump.

If we want 'battery farm' learning, then all we need to do is keep doing as we are - but if the UK wants to create future global leaders then we need a rethink.

Follow @CultureEffect Tweet

Tech Free Sunday

We've been experimenting at home with the idea of taking a day off from technology for one day a week - how hard can it be?

Very hard.

Some context - I have four children aged fifteen, twelve, ten & four (boy, boy, girl, boy). My eldest and I take it in turns to be 'most addicted to technology' - but recently he started to edge past me on the league table.

So we decided six weeks ago that Sundays were to be internet, computer, tablet, phone and game console free. We still have the radio, and we still have TV - but that's as far as it goes.

Week 1 - definite withdrawal symptoms, increased levels of grumpiness, especially from my eldest and youngest son (and myself to be honest) for at least two hours - which then resulted in them all pitching a tent in the garden and then sleeping in it for most of the following week. iPhone withdrawal hardest for me.

Week 2 - arguments the night before about whether to try it again ended with my Wife and I pointing out that the reason we were banning technology was precisely because of this level of addiction. On the day - much excitement at having a Nerf war which lasted three hours in a nearby park. Still missing my iPhone.

Week 3 - slight improvement, although new tactic from two children insisting that computers were needed for homework. Internet opened up with a warning that next week they better get their work done on Saturday. 

Week 4 - Acceptance that the rules were not about to change - homework done ahead of time. Much walking with dog, and then National Trust visiting for early evening picnic. Well picnic is too grand a word - more like loads of scones with jam and cream :-)

Week 5 - Day spent cycling. All day. With breaks for the pub.

Week 6 - Yesterday spent predominantly with Frisbee and radio, before settling down for the world cup final, and yes, we let the eldest three stay up and watch it because we're bad parents. Expecting lots of yawning at school today.

So we're carrying on with it. We have a better day for the break, together as a family for the most part. Everyone is less selfish about what they do - rather than retreating into their own world, we all find things to do together - and the world does not stop turning because we cannot use email, or look at the BBC news site, or send texts, or play Minecraft......

The corporate part of this blog, the part that ties this to engagement and culture? We keep doing new things. If you take some time away from the tech and let your brain work properly, you may find some more innovation creeping into your workplace. Live in the moment, connect, look up.......

But why not give it a go at home too? It's not easy, but for us it was certainly worth the initial pain.

Follow @CultureEffect Tweet

HR vs IT - The Battle Of The Sexes?

I've noticed that HR and IT teams don't get along too well (to say the least), which is odd, because experience shows me that they have a lot more in common than most seem to recognise. For example:

• They are both overheads to the company
• They are both blamed for nearly every bad thing that happens
• They are both held responsible for decisions which were made by other parts of the business
• Everyone else in the company thinks they can do their job better
• They both have wildly unbalanced gender distribution in their teams

I spent the first fifteen years of my career in IT, before switching (sort of) to the HR space - and I'm still confused about this. I only have to mention IT to a HR group and they roll their eyes and growl - the same is true within IT.

At the start of every project, I explain to the program team that HR are the custodians of the most powerful culture and engagement data in the company - I'm usually greeted by confused looks, but if you stop and think about this, it makes perfect sense.

I'm not going to get too geeky with this, but everyone needs a base line of engagement to work with, and either you pay an external agency to do a survey, or you try and manage it yourself - but if you're really smart you tap into the data you already have before making those decisions.

Here's one example of how you do that. Let's say I want to know who the most engaged managers are in the company, HR can look at the moment during the performance management window they completed their staff assessments, and how much work they put into them. 

The data is already there. 

Here's a clue - if the process was completed on the last day of the window, and very little text is present in the summary or development plan, that manager is not too engaged in the process, the company, or the staff they manage. 

A simple report from the IT folks will let you crunch those numbers quickly and easily.

Typically you can find a dozen or so 'markers' in company data that build into an employee engagement profile - from time spent learning on the intranet to employee recognition and wellbeing program data. This gives you a 'real' level of active engagement, rather than a 'passive' level of requested opinion (both are valid if used correctly).

The fly in that particular ointment is the friction that exists between HR and IT. There's no common language, so typically the IT 'guy' sees a "I want ALL this stuff" request from the HR 'girl' - and so begins a negotiation in awkwardness that chews up months of time and effort.

Rarely do I see an IT team brought into the wider conversation or requirements, or the HR team attempting to understand the complexities.

It's easier for me - I speak both dialects quite well, so I can ask for report from the performance management system with a few columns - <manager name>, <employee name>, <date manager started>, <date manager finished>, <date employee started>, <date employee finished>,<date employee signed off>, <length of text in summary>, <length of text in development plan> - and I know that the IT folks can grab this kind of thing quickly and easily (OK, I apologise, that was a bit of a geeky paragraph).

DO not ask the IT guy to do the analysis - this is something that you can (and should) do yourself, Excel is really good at this kind of stuff - and someone, somewhere in the HR team should be able to help.

If you're really lucky you have an HR Operations team that is more than just 'the people that are better with Excel than the rest of us' and they'll already be doing this for you.

If not, start building bridges with the IT team - you're going to need to add salary and promotion data at some point, mixed up with some gender and racial diversity statistics and blended in with the sales and profitability data. Culture and engagement (as I say so often) is about building better business results, not fluffy bunnies - and only HR has access to ALL of the information needed.

Do I think that gender has any bearing on this? No. Although I personally know more geeky men than women and humanistic women than men, I suspect it's more to do with the difference in the two disciplines than any underlying sexism.

What I know for sure is that effort needs to be made on both sides to bridge the communications gap, preconceptions need to be put to one side, and by working more closely together, everyone will benefit.

Follow @CultureEffect Tweet

Sugar, Screw-Ups and Accountability

I am fed up with rules, nannying and pointless evasion of responsibility in the UK. It's starting to remind me of some of the more dysfunctional companies I work with.

Recent news stories have drawn attention to plans for removing sweet treats from check out areas and considerations of a 'sugar tax' by the government. This is aimed at reducing the number of obese (fat) people in the UK - especially children, and as this recent article in the Guardian points out, there are more problems (fat people) in the UK than anywhere else in Western Europe.

You can spend as much time as you wish researching this, but there are two facts you rarely see pointed out.

Eating more than you burn off during the day will add to your weight. 

People do not HAVE to consume sugary food and drink.

Typically the press take aim at Coke, Starbucks and McDonalds - but I recently grabbed a can of San Pellegrino Limonata which also has over 30 grams of sugar within - about a third of my daily allowance. It was lovely - but I don't feel the urge to consume six every day. 

Nor to I typically go on to grab a Coke, followed by a Frapuccino and a Big Mac.

Likewise, if I want to grab a chocolate bar at the checkout, I will. Another 30% of my sugar intake for the day - but I'm not of a mind to eat one every time I go out. If one of my children ask me for sweets at the checkout, I can say 'no'. I do not need supermarkets to rearrange because I have no self control or parenting skill.

Kat Cole, the President of Cinnabon has exactly the right attitude to this, Cinnabon sell wonderful indulgences ranging all the way from 90 - 880 calories (and we desperately need more of their stores here in the UK). Here's a perfect common sense quote from her:

"We're not a health food, clearly we're a treat and if you believe people want to treat themselves, and I do, and if you believe they're going to want to do that with sweet treats, and I do, then there's a place in the world for indulgent companies"

Bravo. All companies now have the calorie count of their products on the menu. Don't complain when you find your iced coffee has 600 calories - it's YOUR fault for not reading the menu and taking note, not theirs for selling it.  

It's a responsibility issue. If I choose to get fat by consuming too much sugar it's MY fault. Not that of the government or the company that sells it. I am choosing to become unhealthy, choosing to put a burden on my joints and organs. No one is to blame but me.

Too many companies I work with have little concept of accountability. Email is used as a cover your a** mechanism and 'group' decisions are the norm so if something goes wrong nobody is to blame.

It is OK to blame people for screw ups. It is OK to accept blame. It is right and proper to learn from mistakes and move on. Screw ups are an intense form of critical feedback which should be used for personal and professional development.

If screw ups cost the company money, then you just invested that amount of money in a learning experience. 

If you take the opposite view and decide to punish all screw ups then the behaviour of those in the company will change to 'share' responsibility, avoid risk and ultimately cripple you with indecision.

If you are fat or thin, fit or unfit, then decisions YOU made got you there.

If you are an executive in a company that does not hold your managers and staff accountable for their decisions, then YOU are responsible for their behaviour, and the failure that will eventually follow.

Follow @CultureEffect Tweet

It's Not Sexism - It's Good Manners

I spend more time in London than any other city, with friends, clients or fellow Engage For Success team members, which for me involves a train journey, usually followed by a hop through the tube system. 

Often there are not enough seats to go round - so I spend some of my journey standing up, which is absolutely fine by me.

There are always others in greater need of seating - the elderly, those with injury or disability, families trying to sit together.......but most of the time I give up my seat for a lady. 

Not because I'm sexist or believe women to be the weaker sex, but because I think it's a nice, polite thing to do.

If I was travelling with my Wife, I would not sit down and let her stand - so I find it weird that some men will sit down and watch women standing when they wouldn't dream of letting their girlfriends, wives or mothers do the same.

This is not a generational thing - yesterday I saw an elderly gentleman give up his seat for lady on the tube, a teenage girl did the same on the mainline train. In both cases, many more women were left standing by seemingly fit, able bodied men.

I realise that women have to bear some of the blame here - for decades fear has been instilled into men that by offering kindness to women they may be instantly labelled sexist and publicly humiliated - but I'm pretty resilient to that kind of nonsense so here are my top tips if you feel like developing some manners today. 

If you cannot make eye contact first (while standing and gesturing at the now empty seat),  then stand up, walk over the person you want to give you seat to, smile and say "There's a seat there if you'd like it".

Almost always, they will say "Thank you" and take it. 

If not, the two most common objections are "No thank you, It's OK" or "I'll be getting off at the next stop"

Here are some things you can say in that situation......

On mainline trains this usually means you'll be spending the rest of the journey at the end of the carriage, with a bunch of other people who cannot work on their laptops or spend all their time buried in their smartphone.

An unexpected bonus of this behaviour is that you may find you've started a conversation in the near silence of the modern morgue/library environment of the public transport system - and the journey will pass much more quickly.

Follow @CultureEffect Tweet