UKCruiseJeff

A stunning and moving story with some sadness. How has all that shaped you .. are you able to work out how? I guess you might have an impetus to seize the day? Jeff

Lovely! I saw what you did there! 😀 Proverb: “A full MUG of wine is better than a GLASS half full” Jeff

I think it is mostly the unexpected consequences of many seemingly rapidly convergence of diverse and seemingly unrelated trends. The most influential factor that has changed over the last few decades is that investors now churn more often and more quickly as a result of both electronic transactions in real time by brokers and then latterly the public managing and churning their own investments directly for themselves. People use to hold the shares for a long time and now most hold it for comparatively short times ….. even often measured in hours and days. This means that whereas the main pressure on CEOs and their boards use to be the building of foundations of long-term value and improvement has been replaced by the need to increase the pressure for short-term gains. Shareholders appoint boards on the basis them needing CEOs who can meet this need. The only real moderating influence are often pension funds etc. The consequences of this is that CEO’s pay and rations are no longer more aligned to long-term progress but tactical “this year” and quarterly value growth. This has caused and coincided with more rapid movement of leaders from job to job. People don’t lead their companies for as long as they use to. Overlaying all of this is the further complications of the way that the increasing speed of sudden external and unexpected forces eg natural disaster (eg covid) and geopolitical influences (eg world unrest) have become so rapid and fast and unexpected. This means that the main imperatives might be simply survival and “getting through” and not get overtaken by these unexpected events. This also enhances the tendencies to be short-term and tactical rather than long term strategists, There’s a very clear and palpable reducing value for creating and sustaining and harvesting of long-term customer loyalty, The topic is now largely a corporate pretence and a component of marketing than actual corporate behaviour but as genuinely loyal customers are reticent to believe this to be so, they become complicit in the deception and simply become compliant and tactically exploitable. The trajectory now is towards buyers being more tactical than brand loyal. The explosion of the internet and social media means that customers can find out and determine who best fits them today and less of who do I want to trust with my loyalty for the next decade or two. It now simply doesn’t seem to matter as much if promises are made and not kept. They want your cash today and with the explosion of people cruising there will be enough replacements to replace the single cruise disappointed defectors for a while. Hence the daft scheme outlined in this thread but not delivered is attractive and is adopted irrespective of the longer term obvious consequences. Life is simply changing and sometimes we take a bit longer to catch up and smell the coffee. Jeff

Lovely to read your story Lola. 🙂 I think what makes the more rounded cheerful optimistic glass half full person might be the person who feels secure, wanted and loved as a child and those that are not will likely not be. Never too early in the day is it. 🙂 😄 Jeff

Great performance drron29. 🙂 My suggested next category of excuses to post a link to a particularly well loved Youtube Video is “My Favourite Youtube Video with a few French Words in it”. I never rated Joe Cocker in his time because I simply did’t get it. The wonderful backing singers of his record “I get buy without a little help from my friends” was Sue and Sunny. No one ever remembers or values backing singers but they are the backbone of so much of the music industry. Sue and Sunny use to go to The Gioconda Coffee Bar in Denmark street when it was genuinely Tin Pan Alley of the UK in the 60’s.and where I spent too much time in the 60’s in the hope that something magical might happen for me. Everyone went to the Gioconda. I was nursing what was then called “frothy coffee” until it was cold and I was receiving glares to vacate when I was once chatting to them about my bewilderment of JC’s success and they said “Jeff you don’t get it - don’t listen to what he sings but listen to the silences and what he doesn’t sing. It’s the gaps that make his style”. I then got it and now appreciate him. This is my favourite of all of his repertoire. “N’oubliez Jamais” with the gorgeous Catherine Deneuve. Sleep tight Coolers. 🙂 Jeff

Luccy, luccy you ….. 🙂 Lucca is gorgeous and it must have been lovely to have that summertime concert. As long as you are at the end of a row ….. 😀 Jeff

You do understand that cruisers buying a Silversea cruise are promised a luxury product not a premium product, do you not?

tfred, The actual core issue is an extremely simple one. It is how you meet the reasonable expectations of those things that are important to your customers. And what is important will vary at the edges. Do you meet - or even better exceed them - or have you been complicit in creating a set of expectations that you have wilfully or negligently failed to meet. One set of customers will be satisfied or delighted, the other set disappointed. It is where you are “on that scale” and how you understand it and manage it that defines which direction your organisation progresses. Jeff

GD, What an amazing story. I’m so pleased I asked my nosey question and you posting your extraordinary story. I’ve read it four times slowly and read to it wifey and we’ve noticed new bits each time. Thanks so much. You are exactly the sort of person who one could listen to on a cruise … or in a bar …. and never be bored. I have often pondered and wondered .. mostly both from personal experience and the observation of others … whether in an obtuse and counter-intuitive way .. that those with the hardest and most challenging of starts have a far more interesting path through life than those with a smoother start. I guess your story to a degree supports my theory. I will sit at the bar rather than dance on it if I hopefully reach 80 … and simply learn to shrug more. Without The Cooler I would never have heard such a fascinating story and heard about such an interesting path and so thanks. 🙂 Jeff

It takes a blend of extremely rare management skills to collectively devise an extremely cunning plan that manages to both hack off all of the new high-value customers that they worked hard to attract and ask to defect from their current loved loyalty brand who then buy and find that they were clearly cheated and misled, whilst at the same time managing to make their MOST valued existing long-term customers upset because they feel that these brand new SS customers are more valued and being treated better. Perhaps they aren’t savvy enough to have collectively worked out that disloyalty to their most loyal long-term existing customers might be considerably more expensive than seizing the opportunity to disappoint a few new ones. Whilst at the same time accelerating their luxury brand downmarket as rapidly as possible, Brilliant. 🙂 Jeff

It should never be any other way! You chose wisely. 🙂 Jeff

You had your own Jeff! Jeff’s are best. 🙂

For anyone interested. Trooping The Colour is live on Youtube for non British residents!

Good Grief! I don’t know about others, but I’ve found later in life I hear music now that I didn’t fully appreciate at the time. Eagles were not on my radar then and are in that group. What do you think of this particular performance? Was it their best? Jeff

Lovely performance! admranger- LV …. you lucky thing! Great and inexpensive top notch music and diverse residencies AND some great buffets! My nomination for the best live performance by a band of their own hit is this extraordinary performance by The Eagles of Hotel California. 7 guitars (2 of which are acoustic!) with 6 guitarists (Don Felder with his double-head Gibson Les Paul and EDS 1275 with a total of 18 strings!) two drummers. So many pluckers and thumpers! 😄 Almost an orchestra. Don was fired later for being too argumentative - so they lost two guitars in one hit! 😉 Hope you enjoy this performance. Jeff

Now you mention it - I see the connection! Obviously being rudely nosey - so please ignore - but have you always lived in Switzerland? Jeff

lunch@seaside

Coolers - as the assigned Butler to Seaside … let the canapes begin! Jeff

I have often wondered how much time she spent creating it and how much time rehearsing.

So good to meet a kindred spirit. When I first saw this I was totally captivated. It seemed like a unique combination of totally new sort of modern ballet ie Nederlands Dance Theatre with the song but married together as a single entity. Her use of the diagonal and the “falling off”. Christine was up for several awards following this but didn’t get any which perplexed me. I think her straightforwardness retarded her career. Thanks. Jeff

Purely from originality and creativity viewpoint “Tilted by Christine and The Queens” seems to me to be extraordinary. Jeff

Being moved changes lives. You sometimes do something that you might not have done otherwise and sometimes it is because of empathy for an extraordinary experience or sometimes just empathy for people less fortunate. I think we were given that gene for a purpose and you should always be aware and listen to that voice within that seems sometime to come from someone else. Gosh … I’ve gone all wobbly. Please forgive me. Jeff

Thanks so much. You may find that if you listen to it a 100 times it will be even worst on 101. We never tire. Perhaps counter-intuitively I have always subscribed to the idea that real men can be moved by stuff ( …. if you know what I mean …) and those men that can’t are not real blokes. Jeff

I know exactly what you mean. Some moments of music can be extraordinary. That performance was exquisite. They have an arena tour but I think that they would be great somewhere smaller and “intimate”. https://snowpatrol.com/ One performance we think unique. I never really got into opera or Pav but this performance is extraordinary and he seems to go into a zone that isn’t worldly. He really is somewhere else as the performance progresses. At the end of this performance he looked like he realised it might be the best one of his life. We cannot listen to it without being moved. Jeff

Have a good one PP. 🙂 Jeff