David Bowen commentaries

In his regular columns for the Financial Times and ft.com, senior consultant David Bowen has pursued themes ranged from customer relationship management and career marketing to ‘ethical’ retailing and royal family sites. His collected Financial Times and ft.com columns from January 2001 onward are indexed by theme and available for viewing on this site.

You can access articles directly by selecting a link below.

  • How Anglicans fail to spread the word For all that it has no trouble making headlines, the Anglican Church has a way of managing news itself that reveals just how deeply its house is divided. By David Bowen.
  • How the web cultivates the farming community Fresh outbreaks of livestock diseases are an unwelcome dose of déjà vu all over again for the UK’s farmers, but their online lifelines have moved on since the last time.
  • Why big sites are less than brilliant The people who run large web presences know their sites could be a whole lot better. So what’s stopping them doing something about it? asks David Bowen.
  • How companies are warming to spinning the web An extract from the recently published 'Spinning the Web' explains how, after their early traumas, companies and other large organisations have discovered they can develop a fruitful relationship with the web.
  • How the war is being continued by other means In parallel with the military activity on the ground, the latest conflict in the Middle East is being continued online through propaganda campaigns that show a constantly evolving command of the medium.
  • What we can learn from the business of royalty A small to medium-sized family-run business based in central London and led by the same person for more than 50 years is a treasure house of online best practice for businesses of all kinds.
  • How charities give ideas for online development Charitable organisations were among the first to explore the strengths of the web and continue to show ways to use it effectively.
  • How the BBC gets the job of a broadcaster done online A strike last week at the UK’s flagship broadcaster, the BBC, drew more attention to a website that is already among the most visited in the country and provides an unequalled range and depth of content across its three key functions.
  • Why chief executives can't afford not to spend more on the web Before company leaders push back the next request for investment in the corporate website they should consider the five ways they could lose out to competitors by keeping the chequebook closed. An open memo explains.
  • Why the campaign trail is littered with broken promise Optimistic claims that the internet will have an influence on the outcome of May’s general election in the UK are wide of the mark. And not just because politicians’ hopes for the medium are out of line with their command of it.

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