Having  just put up a post on channel integration, I was going to go and do something more interesting in real life with a sense of a job well done.

To my horror, I find that William Heath thinks the very concept is dangerous:

We’ve been asked to talk about “channels”. Already I’m uneasy. Channels are
what broadcasters beam at viewers. The channel is what IT vendors exploit, in
one memorable phrase, to “kill the competition and hoover up their footprint”.
My specific unease about the language of directive marketing mirrors a broader
unease about Transformational Government.

That comes from the beginning of a reflection on language, power and service which is beautifully and economically expressed and is immediately essential reading for anybody interested in the relationship of public service providers with those whom they serve.  Read the whole thing now.

I don’t agree with everything William says.  I am less sanguine that Google and Microsoft will prove to be any more to be trusted with personal data than governments are – and there is a tension with his rousing final sentence:

Our data is with the person who cares for it most: ourselves.

But it is no less rousing for that, and probably even more important for those who might want to argue than for those who agree with every word.