Ever wondered why you dream? There’s no shortage of theories out there, from Sigmund Freud’s view that dreams are disguised fulfilments of repressed wishes, to one that views dreams as a test drive for new ideas, and another that thinks dreaming is just the brain cleaning up mental clutter ready for the dawn of a new day.

Taking Freud’s wish-fulfilment view, how many out there are dreaming of a UK-wide optical fibre-based network? Not many, I suspect, especially after the publication last week of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report.

The thing that really gets steam coming out of my ears, is Gordon Brown’s speeches on how important all this is to the UK economy. Comments such as: “We can’t leave this to chance,” and: “The UK will become the digital capital of the world,” would seem to suggest that he understands how important this is to UK plc. The government’s actions fail to match such rhetoric.

Which other country still has an agency ­ a Valuation Office Agency, to be precise ­ that considers optical fibre in the ground as a taxable asset? In fact, the tax only applies when the fibre has data going through it, and it gets worse, because the rating system favours large carriers with large numbers of fibre connections. For small carriers rolling out a few fibres, the charges are harder to swallow.

There is simply no financial incentive for these smaller ISPs to roll out fibre to the 25 to 30 per cent of the country that Carter has said will miss out because it is currently economically unviable.

Let’s move on to one of the big winners of Digital Britain ­ BT, and in particular its Openreach division. Ofcom is already consulting on proposals that would give Openreach control of those green cabinets you see located on most streets.

Openreach is the organisation that will be connecting up ISPs who want to roll out next-generation connectivity to your house. However, its record for doing the same for businesses in the UK leaves a lot to be desired, according to some ISPs I have talked to.

The main issue is a lack of transparency when it comes to connection charges. You can sign up to BT Wholesale for fibre connections, and then later down the line get hit by Openreach charges for connecting that fibre.

And some of these charges are no laughing matter. An ISP I spoke to recently had a nasty surprise after it checked out how much a fibre connection would cost in a large city centre. “You can use the BT Wholesale pricing tool and come back with a nice figure that looks very good, but when you order it, Openreach comes back with extremely high additional costs indicating excess construction charges,” said my source.

“Look at the charge for drilling a hole,” he added. “More than £300! What type of drills are they using ­ gold-plated ones, badged by Armani?”

You get the picture by now, but remember the government and Ofcom has conceded that BT has to make a return on its investment; the question is ­ just how much? If the Openreach charges relating to connecting up fibre for businesses are any indication, ISPs, and that includes BT Wholesale, should prepare to get stiffed big time.

So instead of dreaming about a Britain with state-of-the-art network infrastructure, I’m reminded more of the Ellen Ripley character in the Alien movies. In the last film of the series, Alien Resurrection, Ripley is once again trying to rid the universe of the bio-mechanoid killing machines. At one point she’s chatting to the obligatory android and says: “I don’t dream any more.” When asked why, she answers: “Because however bad the nightmares get, when I wake up ­ the reality is always worse.”

Ring any bells?

Many firms are still weighing up the benefits of rolling out social media technologies, according to a recent poll by Computing’s sister web site vnunet.com. Only seven per cent of the businesses surveyed use social media tools ­ – a surprise given recent reports that indicate social networks are now more popular than email.

Market research firm Nielsen recently reported that 67 per cent of internet users worldwide accessed social networks last year, compared with 65 per cent who used email.

The growing popularity of these tools means implementing them at work is relatively straightforward in terms of staff acceptance and training. But what do firms have to gain from such a move?

Social networks can be used to distinguish a brand from its competitors, especially now while sophisticated online media strategies are still relatively thin on the ground –­ it’s an opportunity to stand out.

Recently, I’ve been interrogating the collective mindset of the Twitterati, looking for insight into why people use our web sites ­ nearly all of them said our presence on micro-blogging site Twitter was a key reason why they remain loyal our brand. Twitter has helped connect the writers with the readership, making them appear more approachable.

Similarly, by allowing outsiders to contribute their views and influence opinion, a Twitter presence can give a business a reputation for having an open and engaging culture.

Other than marketing purposes, social tools can serve internal functions. One senior executive from a trusted household brand told me she analysed her co-worker contacts to understand relationships that exist in the workplace. She suddenly understood why certain people were getting better treatment than others. Perhaps social networks might contribute to a more level playing field, shedding light on “old boy networks” or other such bastions of inequality.

A growing number of executives are also using social tools to tighten relati ons with outsourcing providers and partners, as well as to better understand their customer base. I have found that I now form contacts through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn before I attend a conference and then use the event to solidify these relationships.

So what is holding companies back from deploying social tools? It is difficult to make a compelling business case for deploying a social strategy in the middle of a deep recession. Although many social tools are free, integrating them with a company marketing programme requires skill, time and investment.

However, done well, social strategies can be incredibly cost effective. For example, the huge publicity confectionery brand Skittles generated when it spent £100,000 on changing its traditional homepage into an online portal of feeds from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube would never have been achieved had the same money been used to pay for TV advertisements. Skittles was rewarded with 4,000 mentions in the news following the launch.

Less-adventurous firms may hesitate because they can’t envisage a formal way of measuring the results of social media marketing strategies. Businesses need to adapt to a new way of doing things, measuring performance through new metrics such as mentions on blogs, comments on content and clicks through to web sites.

Moderating social networks is another obstacle that may seem difficult to overcome. There have been a few scare stories in the news about how the openness of social networks can quickly dent an individual’s reputation. However, such scenarios can be avoided by hiring firms that specialise in managing user-generated content, such as Tempero.

If businesses do not want to jump in at the deep end with the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn, there are social suites available from enterprise vendors that might be a better place to start easing their workforce into the networking mentality.

By Rosalie Marshall - who Twitters at http://twitter.com/RosalieVNUNET

Isn’t it time IT leaders stopped asking where software-as-a-service (SaaS) might be deployed in their business, and started wondering instead where it shouldn’t?

Recently, SaaS pioneer Salesforce.com celebrated its 10th birthday. This year it also became the first enterprise cloud computing company to reach $1bn (£700m) in annual revenue, and has about 1.5 million subscribers.

If you want an alternative snapshot of how far on-demand/SaaS/cloud computing ­ – whatever you want to call it ­ – has come, look no further than Serena Software, an application development tools provider that migrated more than 700 worldwide staff to Gmail, in about the time it takes me to get to and from work.

Here is a sizable company dumping Microsoft Exchange because it can get a cheaper, more efficient and no less reliable service from the cloud. All done in the blink of an eye.

A recent Forrester Research report confirmed that the model has evolved beyond its early roots in customer relationship management and human capital management applications and is now gaining traction in areas such as web conferencing, collaboration and IT service management. These categories will experience significant SaaS success over the next decade, says Forrester, with only business intelligence and integration technology vendors unlikely to adopt the model.

But what of the caveats to this brave new world? Gmail itself was rocked by an outage in February, which had the Twitterati tweeting furiously. It was only out for about two and a half hours, but highlighted the problems, some said, of letting loose consumer technologies in the corporate sphere, and especially of using cloud-based technologies ­ – it’s out of your IT department’s control, you see?

Well, it hasn’t bothered Serena. René Bonvanie, senior vice president of IT, told me that Salesforce, Google et al do a better job of uptime and transparency than most IT departments can manage, it’s just that outages are so much more vis ible with these vendors.

And as for security concerns – ­ they are no greater with Salesforce than they would be with an on-premise Oracle solution, he says. Recent privacy concerns around Google’s cloud computing services may rock the boat for a little while, but too much momentum has already gathered for this to spoil the SaaS party.

By Phil Muncaster

It has become almost a truism that e-commerce 2.0 is all about the customer. I’m sure there isn’t an e-commerce manager in the land who hasn’t read about how blogs can facilitate an informal dialogue between the business and its customers, and how user-generated content (UGC) can be used to encourage visitors to part with their money. But has this message really sunk in yet?

So many retailers, especially those with a strong bricks-and-mortar heritage, still fail to offer basic Web 2.0 provisions. It is probably not ideal to get the web team to slap on whatever technologies they’ve just workshopped their way through at an internet retailing conference. But it is also increasingly misguided to perpetuate the old Web 1.0 ethos that customers are only there to be marketed to and told what to buy, and should never be given an opportunity to criticise.

In these trying economic times, it has become more vital to attract and retain customers than ever before, and obviously the web must play a huge part in this. It offers the perfect platform for engagement with customers. So what should you do?

First, use UGC to show you are willing to take criticism, act on feedback and provide useful information to potential buyers. Blogs can be used in a similar way. The essential thing is to nurture a community, get people involved, and make your sites stickier. Engage with the marketing, legal and other relevant departments to make this happen.

Still not convinced? Well, market researcher E-consultancy recently reported that adoption of Web 2.0 tools was increasing because business leaders are seeing tangible benefits from deploying them ­and not just because they want to be seen as cutting edge. As its annual Customer Engagement Report noted, those firms that can understand the changes in customer behaviour brought about by the economic slump, and then react to them positively, will have a distinct advantage.

There are plenty more developments to convince the sceptics about the i mportance of customer interaction.

Google’s recently updated web search offering, SearchWiki, is one of the most significant tweaks the internet giant has made in web search in a long time. It essentially allows customers logged in with a Google account to add, re-rank, delete and comment on search results.

Perhaps the most interesting part is the comment function ­ you can see what others have written about an entry. If it takes off, this could reduce the significance of search engine optimisation (SEO) and make it more important to create a web site proposition that pleases customers, rather than a Google algorithm.

Finally, those SEO tweaks that have kept web consultants in Birkenstocks and fast cars for the past decade or so could be surpassed, and firms will have to build their sites for users, not Google.

The other technology that could get you thinking about customer engagement a bit more is a reviews aggregator site called Trustpilot. It trawls the web to pick up independent user reviews and other forms of feedback about sites and their goods and services and collates them in an easy-to-read format. It is also possible for consumers to have this information displayed next to the search ranking entry of a site in an easy-to-view colour-coded format ­ green for a generally positive review, red for bad. So the power of the web now rests with your customers. And their expectations are rising ever higher.

Some might say smaller businesses are more agile and receptive to new ideas and therefore more likely to go for customer engagement tools. But this is an opportunity for all, as long as you are prepared to swallow hard and put some effort into making your site more customer friendly.

By Phil Muncaster

It had to happen in the end. “Green” has been replaced on the list of most overused terms employed to sell IT by “economic downturn”. The list of vendors prepared to reinvent their products to highlight just how much money and time they could save you, and how much more efficient they can make your staff, has reached critical mass. The world’s going to hell, but before we get there, you might as well save your firm some money and get a promotion by buying a new piece of IT kit.

Actually, can I shock you for a moment? E-commerce is doing pretty well. Among all the talk of recession, depression and economic regression, there is a success story out there, and used in the right ways, the web channel could be a godsend for retailers. It could help public-sector bodies too. Get citizens to request and pay for council services online, for example, and imagine how many drop-in centres you could close.

A recent report by affiliate marketing firm Linkshare found that shoppers are increasingly turning to the web for the best bargains or to do research before shopping in store. Sites that feature peer reviews of products are also reporting healthy rises in traffic. While 56 per cent of consumers said they are planning to decrease offline spending, only 46 per cent said the same about online buying.

The message is clear get your online store in order, preferably before Christmas, although by now it’s probably too late for this year’s festive period. Improving your online store involves a range of different factors, including a search engine optimisation strategy to ensure you rank high on Google, as well as usability, availability and performance testing. Another key consideration is the integration of online, bricks and mortar, and call centre channels.

But the mistake many in the e-commerce sector seem to make is paying too much attention to the bells and whistles on their web site and spending too little time on the back-office stuff that can make or break the business. They might not be as sexy as web design, with its Ajax this and Flash that, but supply chain management and other disciplines are just as important. You might have made the check-out process as smooth and the site navigation as effortless as possible, but if a customer’s order is left unfulfilled because you’ve run out of stock, you can kiss your next sale goodbye.

It has become something of a truism these days, but in the world of e-commerce the customer truly is king; retention is difficult when switching suppliers is so easy, and prices are so competitive. That’s when factors such as delivery become extremely important.

Industry body IMRG last year launched a new initiative ­Internet Delivery is Safe (IDIS) ­ to combat the woeful levels of delivery service provided by most e-commerce firms. Very few allow you to choose delivery times, or if they do it will come at a premium price.

Retailers displaying the kitemark have to ensure they provide clear information on deliveries before an order is placed, delivery within an agreed timeframe, and clear charges. The emphasis is on convenience and reliability.

Recently, I had the pleasure of ordering a new bed from the Co-op ­like your typical Web 2.0 shopper, I have no loyalty to this company, I just found it through Google ­ and noticed the IDIS emblem proudly displayed.

Available delivery dates were shown on an easy-to-read calendar display, three-hour time slots were offered, then follow-up phone calls to check the address, and finally a text to confirm details. It’s not rocket science, but these things could help your customer retention at a time when, as you know, we’re all headed for economic disaster. Oh, and the bed was delivered on time too, by the way.

By Phil Muncaster

Next month’s Gartner Symposium, to be held in the exclusive Mediterranean playground of Cannes, will explore corporate use of social networking. You could argue that is like meeting up to talk about the opportunity to eradicate the need to meet up in the future, but in a nicer place, with better weather and the chance to enjoy some decent food and wine on business expenses.

But Gartner is serious, and it is predicting that 60 per cent of Fortune 1000 companies will connect to or host a form of online community by 2010. Once you get beyond the headline-grabbing statistics, the key phrase here is “form of online community”, which may or may not resemble Facebook or MySpace, but which could well have something in common with LinkedIn.

Social networking is big business, or at least it is predicted to be in the future. Irrespective of whether Facebook, MySpace, Bebo et al can actually make the sort of money that eager financiers anticipate, the dizzying success of social networking sites to date has made a big impact on the business world.

Marketing executives now worry that their competition is getting better brand awareness by creating social networking profiles, for example. Sales staff are paranoid that deals are being made with rivals on social network sites behind their back. Even HR professionals agonise that potential candidates will go to other firms that make better use of Web 2.0 collaboration technology.

But what is the attraction? Photo and music sharing, contact lists, bulletin boards, classified adverts, email and instant messaging were all widely available from other web sites before.

The difference is that they are accessible at one site that works its socks off at fostering a sense of community among its visitors.

Certainly one of the best uses I have seen for a social networking site ­ which Gartner has also identified ­ is much like an extended customer support platform, basically just one more way for disgruntled users to sling mud at the manufacturer or supplier that sold the latest duff widget.

Another use would be to find more information about a product or service, although it is hard to explain why customers would want to visit a social networking site to find the same information that is on the company web site. The deciding factor could be that sense of user community, which means that other customer opinions can be sought and read at the same time, and people can swap notes about their own experiences.

Even so, the big draw of social networking from the corporate perspective remains the sheer number of people who use them. Web site monitoring resources such as Comscore now report that Facebook and MySpace regularly receive more than 120 million unique visitors per month.

Nevertheless, these numbers call for careful scrutiny. One recent estimate suggests that if these sites are being honest, there would be about 1.3 billion people worldwide using social networks ­ almost the entire internet population.

How many of these registered users are like me? I signed up to the site out of curiosity, discovered I had no friends (at least none that I wanted to contact) and never went back.

So when, if ever, will we know that the use of social networking has really taken off in the business world? Bearing in mind the questionable metrics of the digital world, maybe we should look for evidence of real-world signals, such as when the amount of business travel is vastly reduced. The point when airlines, taxi companies, hotels, restaurants and bars start going out of business in their droves might be as good a reference point as any.