An interesting chat with Rico at breakfast this morning when we touched on the challenges of rationalisation and centralisation in organisations.

Some of our clients are reacting to the current economy (or maybe using it as an excuse) to centralise services so that they can achieve "economies of scale". The two things that we reflected on were that:

- centralising things can lead to some unpalatably big numbers that, even when substantially cut back, can still be seen as too much.

A decentralised spend of x that is invisible because it is dispersed across a number of cost centres globally can be reduced to x minus lots though consolidating. However, x minus lots is still considerably more than nothing, which is what the organisation centrally used to believe that it was spending.

- economies of scale only scale so far...

Something that is all too familiar from the world of ERP is that to do so you need to have consolidation of working practices. If you homogenize your ways of working too much, you end up with processes or services that, rather than just addressing the needs of the common denominator, actually end up meeting the needs of no-one. Guerilla systems and processes then start to spring up and the costs are effectively raised again (without transparency).

Alternatively, a centralised service attempts to cope with everyone's specific needs, and as a result ends up so complicated that it costs more that what you were doing on a decentralised basis in the first place.

There are sweet spots where you can find the right mix of quality of service against cost effective management of that service, but I am increasingly of the view that that comes from being able to slipstream in the shadow of a third party who is providing a service on such a large scale that your incremental usage is a triviality. This, of course, is the model that underpins much of the Software as a Service world...

A couple of years ago, I spent a couple of years helping people to become better leaders, managers and consultants. During that time I was able to pick up such a vast repertoire of tools and techniques that it sometimes surprises me how much stuck with me. (The crappy hours and frequent trips to dull places across the British Isles, thankfully, are less memorable).

One of the people I follow on Twitter put out a request yesterday for ideas for facilitating a session of 15 people. It reminded me of a particularly powerful technique - multiple perspective brainstorming.

It seems that many of us, when confronted by a particular problem, end up staring and staring and, because we tend to be so intrinsically caught up in the day-to-day challenges of the problem, feel unable to identify solutions (or often even unable to clearly articulate what the problem is in the first place). However, given somebody else's problem, we are often all to eager to propose "what you should do is..."

Given that tendency, multiple perspective brainstorming helps people to work at a challenge outside of their normal frames of reference. A simple example...

Imagine that you have decided that you organisation's website just isn't doing anything useful at the moment. A creative brainstorming session might come up with a whole load of ideas, but not necessarily any great insight. Split your creative thinkers into three groups, say, and ask one to look at what would make a great site from one of your clients' perspective, one from that of one of your suppliers', and one from that of a current or prospective employee. I guarantee that this approach will give insights that wouldn't have arisen if everyone attacked the problem from their usual frame of reference.

If you struggle to identify what perspectives to approach the problem from, the client/supplier/staff ones are often a good starting bet, or alternatively de Bono's thinking hats can come in handy. After that, usual brainstorming rules apply...

I lost 30 minutes of my life this week, dealing with a series of emails from a Chinese company trying to get us to believe that some of our intellectual property was under threat (in this instance, some of our domain names).

Whilst it looked immediately obvious to be hokum to me, explaining why proved a bit of a challenge, so I resorted to showing how many incidents of the same text had been referenced on the Internet (including one with the joyously amusing name of Jacques Tits - who says nothing interesting ever comes out of Belgium?).

It's got me thinking, though, about how one might categorise potential scams, and have a quick and methodical way of identifying what should be investigated further, and which should be quickly filed in the bin.

A few years ago, whilst working helping to develop leadership skills in various companies across the UK and Europe, I used a simple framework to explain the factors by which people could build trust in you (and you in them). This four-stage "trust ladder" looked a bit like this:

1. Looking the part.

It's sad to say, but the superficial is so very important. If you don't look like the role that you are supposed to be, then it will be near impossible for people to build trust in you. A solicitor in flip-flops? A plasterer in a three-piece suit? You're not going to give them the time of day.

2. Demonstrating competence.

If the 'face fits', the next stage is to show that you know what you are talking about. Not necessarily the same as actually being competent (because if you are hiring someone with skills or expertise because you don't have them yourself, how would you necessarily know?).

3. Establishing a common interest

Ah, the empathy thing. Empathy is a remarkably powerful thing, and very empathetic people are often perceived as more trustworthy and more intelligent than others, even though there is little to be said about the measurement of either concept. Not, however, to be confused with sympathy...

4. Acting with integrity

AKA not bollocksing the whole thing up. It can be incredibly challenging to build the trust of others, and remarkably quick to see the whole thing crumble. A misplaced joke, too many negative comments or a betrayed confidence, and trust can erode quickly and deeply.

This ladder, when I once explained it to a telecoms field engineering manager, was described to me like "climbing up a telegraph pole in a howling gale. Each step is hard work, and then your clinging on for dear life once you get to the top". There again, he might have had a more complex childhood than me...

So, how can we use this trust ladder to examine and make assessments on potential scams? Let's use two case studies: my domain name emails of this week; and a case where I was well and truly scammed by a plumbing company back in 2001.

1. Looking the part

The domain name company sent a fairly poorly worded email, which was in plain text. However, it appears to have company registration details, a credible ish website, and it was addressed to someone in the company who would have business responsibility for such matters. The perils of the need for companies to publish such information and of having easily guessable (firstname.lastname) email addresses...

The plumber had a half-page display add in the Yellow Pages, all nicely branded and with CORGI details. I had contacted them after my boiler had broken down in September 2001 and subsequently had waited in all day for British Gas to not turn up. The chap turned up on the dot of the time that he was scheduled to do so, and wore a smart, branded polo shirt and "workman's" trousers and boots, and got out of a liveried van. That he'd turned up at all put him well into my good books.

2. Demonstrating competence

For the domain company, technically what they were saying just didn't add up- but only if you know about the way in which domain name registrations work. Hence targetting of a senior business manager rather than a senior technical person.

The plumber took the front off the boiler, banged some things around a bit and sucked air in through his teeth. He obviously knew what he was talking about. He then told me that it might be some months before he could get spares.

3. Establishing a common interest

The email contained a series of alternatives as to how a third party might be trying to steal our domains. The domain name company could help us... Clever stuff.

The plumber got a bit lucky with his timing. I'd been contemplating the replacement of the boiler for some time, so when he suggested that that would be the quickest route to resolving my lack of heating and hot water, I jumped at the chance, paying half up front and half on completion (which would happen two days later).

4. Acting with integrity

For the domain name people, a quick search on Google blew their cover. Copy and paste of a short extract from their mail into the search engine quickly revealed dozens of similar attempts, with exactly the same wording, from various companies claiming to be there to help.

For the plumber... well. If you thought that I never saw him again after he'd taken my first installment, you'd be wrong. Two days later, at the exact time allocated, another liveried van turned up, another plumber knocked at my door, and over the course of the next two days the old boiler and tank were removed and a spangly new combi boiler installed.

At the end of two days without heating or hot water (and during which I'd been working from home) I was in desparate need of a shower. The plumber was packing up to go, and just asked if he could use my loo before he went. Of course, I said. Five minutes later he flushed, left, and I was able to enjoy hot water from my lovely new boiler for the first time.

The stench that the plumber left in the bathroom made my hair fall out. It was horrendous. Quite what he'd been eating, I don't know, and more importantly don't want to find out.

But as we went into the Winter, the boiler worked perfectly.

The following Spring I happened to be watching an edition of the BBC's Rogue Traders when I saw a very familiar face on the screen. The plumber that I'd originally met with - who was being exposed for all sorts of scams that he and his company were up to. It was then I realised that I had paid about double the going rate for the installation of a new boiler...

I had a bit of a "Dur!" moment last night. You know, one of those points at which something that should have been so blindingly obvious suddenly snaps into place?

I had a long-standing engagement with the Richmond, Kew and Chiswick Friends of Beer Society, and was catching up with a couple of mates from school days. Towards the end of the evening, Rich mentioned that he'd found a really good way to find out about the current state of the nation.

Rich is one of the founders of a reasonably successful internet venture, and in recent times they've branched into personal finance, having built the business around brokering insurance, travel services and wotnot. The revelation that he had had had come from the remarkable rate that cash is currently burned if you buy Google adwords that are based around personal loans.

Simply put, an awful lot of people at the moment are spending an awful lot of time trying to find ways to (presumably re-finance) their spending excesses of recent years.

So what was the "Dur?" moment? Well, what I suddenly realised was that the unassailable power to do bad things that Google currently has, for me, rests in their unique ability to track, analyse, and potentially commercially exploit the zeitgeist. Within reason, anyone could build a search engine index to be able to rival or even better what Google have done in the past decade. What nobody can do is to generate the same level of metadata about who is searching for what, and in that real-time information lies Google's position of power.

It seems that Google's common line of defence as they come under increasing monopoly watchdog scrutiny is that 'it's all alright- just trust us'. Trust us that we aren't jigging the system when it comes to positioning of search results. Trust us that we aren't manipulating the adwords system in a way that gives us unfair competitive advantage. And, trust us that we aren't using our privileged access to the data that surrounds the Google search engine to give us monopolistic advantage.

Data about what people are searching for could, I'm sure, answer the vast majority of questions that any marketeer could ever wish to ask. Will anyone outside of the Googleplex get the chance to ask?