Is Competition Over-Emphasized?

This David Brooks article on competition versus creativity rings true for me.

One of [Peter Thiel's] core points is that we tend to confuse capitalism with competition. We tend to think that whoever competes best comes out ahead. In the race to be more competitive, we sometimes confuse what is hard with what is valuable. The intensity of competition becomes a proxy for value.

Stipulated that competition will always be a big part of business. No doubt. But competition is a means not an end. I remember a former boss--who I never felt much affinity with--saying, "I wake up every morning and think 'let's go beat [Brand X]' ". I thought that was off-base. First of all, what does "beat" mean? Does it mean sell more units, or make more money? (There can be a big difference--just ask Apple.) Does it mean destroy the competition by any means? (Even if it risks violating regulations or laws?) Much better to wake up and think "let's go create, build and deliver great products that will delight customers, who will pay enough to provide a healthy profit margin".

Along the same lines, something I heard in business school has always stuck with me:

In an extended simulation exercise, CEOs would sacrifice up to half of annual profitability, in order to "win"--with winning defined in terms of market share.

Pocket/Read It Later

The app I use by far the most on my phone, Read It Later, has changed their name. I don't love the name change. Pocket is okay, but Read It Later was wonderfully self-descriptive, and well-established.

I am completely indifferent to the snazzy visual stuff they have on their web view. I am text-oriented, and I use it mostly on my phone. The phone app does look a bit nicer, but only trivially so. I am very happy with the long-overdue near-full-screen mode[1] (all apps for which screen space is at a premium should have this). But I still have two ideas for improvement. One is a quibble, one is a legitimate refinement.

1. First the quibble. I don't want to have to long-press the screen to turn on full screen mode, for each and every article. I want "default to full screen mode" to be a Setting. (Also, I bet a lot of users will never discover the ability to toggle this, since it is so hidden.)
2. Now the enhancement. Along with point #1, the perfect implementation would be to automagically display the bottom toolbar when you scroll to the end of the article. So that the checkmark is right there, for me to click "done". They already do this at the top of the article, where you have buttons to toggle between offline text view and full web view.

[1] I say "near" full-screen because the Android notification bar is not hidden, like it is on Kindle and some other apps. I don't see this as a big deal, it's important and not too many pixels. Being able to hide the native Pocket function bar was the key thing.

T-Mobile: 0 for 3 on Rebates

This Valentine's Day I picked up a free-after-rebate HTC Sensation from T-Mobile. So I had to pay $150 at the counter, file the noxious rebate paperwork, cross my fingers and hope the promised $150 Visa card arrived 8 weeks later.

4 weeks after submitting the rebate, I received a letter stating my rebate had been rejected. The reason provided was cryptic, but seemed to suggest I didn't have a qualifying rate plan. I knew I did, though.

I've been through this drill before, so of course I saved all my paperwork. When I called the TMo rebate center, it took the CSR all of 20 seconds to figure out the problem. My rebate had been submitted on the wrong form. The very wrong form the nice people at the TMo store had handed to me. She nicely fixed the problem on the spot.

This is a perfect example of why I think rebates are unethical. It's the third time in 3 years this has happened with T-Mobile. The previous year, I took advantage of their "free data for a year" promotion (really not free, just $10 off per month--still a very nice discount on a family plan). For 5 straight months, I had to call to get them to give me the discount (they seem to have finally fixed it permanently). Then the time before that was another free-after-rebate handset, and again, the wrong form provided by the TMo store.

In all cases, the Tmo people were very nice, didn't argue with me, and came across with the credit. But SO much time and tedium, on my part and theirs. If I didn't know better, I would believe that there was some very powerful labor Union of Rebate Processors, furiously lobbying to require all mobile phone special offers be provided in the form or mail-in rebates!

I am actually a TMo fan, due mainly to their lower prices, but my loyalty is starting to wear thin.

Jargonwatch: (Information) Technology "Lift"

Definition: to enable a business capability through information technology.

Example: Rolling out the new online rebate status tracking system will require about $2 million of technology lift.

Assessment: not inherently objectionable, I think it is a riff on the aerospace term. Like most business jargon, though, it is starting to wear thin. 

Rebates: Unethical?

I think rebates are unethical. Or, at the very least, anti-consumer. One of the reasons that Amazon has my loyalty and goodwill is that I never feel like they are trying to screw me. Rebates are all about screwing the customer (they call it breakage).

Experiential Learning On The Job

This article hypothesizes that Google and Facebook employees are so cossetted that they don't actually experience many of the same mobile technology use cases that ordinary people do, and that is causing them to under-value the importance of mobile design. I don't know if it's true--and it would certainly be ironic in the case of Google, the purveyor of Android--but it stimulated an old thought.

In my early 20s, I read a business book (I think it was Tom Peters "In Pursuit of Excellence", but I can't be sure offhand) and one of the things I remember it talking about was the idea that executives shouldn't be insulated from the day-to-day challenges of their employees. The example I remember was that Disney required its executives to regularly take turns doing very, very mundane things, such as directing in the parking lot.

This has always stuck with me as a great idea. I worked for Otis Elevator the first 12 years of my career. The Otis HQ was in suburban CT. Most of the people who worked there were suburbanites. This matters, because elevators are not very important in suburbs. A suburb-dweller can literally go weeks without needing to take an elevator. So we had no feel for the usage, let alone "culture" of the product. It always seemed ridiculous to me.

Other examples:

• Everyone in IT should regularly take turns using the product and working the Help Desk. I actually suggested this to a CIO once, and they brushed off the idea without even stopping to consider taking it seriously.

• Forbid your insurance company (or any other service provider) from keeping VIP lists. Execs are throwing away a valuable window into quality of service when they allow themselves to experience the Potemkin Village version of the service.

This is all related to the "eating your own dogfood" concept, though not quite the same thing.

Standard Smartphone Feature: Auto-Dim Option

Any app which is likely to be used for extended periods in standby display mode should have the option to auto-dim after an interval. The #1 candidate app for this is the dialer. I use my phone a lot for conference calls, and I need Mute to be handy, so I can't turn off the screen, but it would be fine if it dimmed.

I would also like it in Navigation. Music players is another place it could apply.

It should go without saying that this needs to be a settings option, default to OFF.

Wireless Chargers in Cars

Too expensive, probably not based on the Qi standard, but definitely the wave of the future (in cars, and out).

The wireless charging system consists of a dedicated charging “mat”, placed inside the center console where users can simply toss their compatible devices, start their car up, and begin charging.

What's wrong with "flip-flopping" on the issues?

Conventional political tactics says it's fatal to be viewed as a "flip flopper". There are commentators who lament this, rightly offering observations to the effect that "it can be a mark of growth and wisdom to change one's mind".

I couldn't agree more with that view, but there is a problem with the proposition. They aren't defining their terms. Flip flopping has a strong connotation (maybe denotation) of going back, forth, back, forth. So either changing one's mind, or pretending to, simply to cater to a particular audience or interlocutor. That is an inherently, strongly negative quality.

They are talking about a one-time, directional change of view. The kind of thing that takes time, wisdom, consideration, and, finally, self-honesty and the guts to admit it. A reasonable, honorable even laudable thing, assuming it doesn't happen too often.

Trying the Walled Garden Again

For the most common queries, Dragon Go usually bypasses search engines by taking users directly to Web sites of companies like Amazon, Expedia and OpenTable, which are Nuance partners on the app. If people don't find what they're looking for there, Dragon Go offers traditional Web search.

This is an insta-fail. One of the reasons Google was so successful was the purity of its results--no paid placement. I hate this already.

The benefit for consumers, Nuance executives say, is faster answers in fewer steps. In many cases, Nuance collects a small fee from partner sites when people make restaurant reservations or complete purchases. The app could be construed as a challenge to the likes of Google and Microsoft, which have their own voice products.

Yeah, sure, fewer steps down the walled garden path. Blech.

Phones: Silly, Apple-Inspired Fetish about "Build Material"

I really don't get the fixation so many reviewers and smartphone enthusiasts have on "build materials". It's just a phone, not jewelry, and will likely be replaced in 2 years, max. Subtle aspects of physical appearance are just not that important.

To me, the most important considerations are: 1) reliability--primarily resilience when you drop it; 2) weight; 3) cost. Intangibles about look and feel come a distant fourth, especially since they are largely canceled out when you put your phone in a case of some kind--which is usually still a good idea. A ceramic backplate may help ensure there is no *visible", cosmetic damage when you drop the phone, but I don't think it protects the innards from from the impact, which is the bigger consideration. Nothing protects better than a rubbery coating, and of course that covers up most of the cosmetics related to build materials anyway.

My wife has a Tmo Galaxy S2, the huge one. Yes it is noticeably lighter and thinner than my 4.3" HTC Sensation. Not a deal-breaker difference, but those qualities are more valuable to me than the intangible cosmetics related to build materials.

I "blame" Apple for the obsession with build materials and look and feel.

• Edit
• Reply

People Want Transit-Accessible Housing, But Will They Be Able To Afford It?

People Want Transit-Accessible Housing, But Will They Be Able To Afford It?
Good short article. I think the last sentence nails it: If you build the [transit] lines but don't allow the density, you've really just created a private benefit for people who happen to live near the stations. 

Speaking of Healthcare Reform: Protect Employees of Self-Insured Companies

If you have health coverage through your employer, and your employer self-insures and goes bankrupt, you could wind up being for the bill. I'm not an expert here, I think the intent of ERISA is to prevent this from happening, but it doesn't always do that (you can't get blood from a bankrupt stone).

This strikes me as unfair and wrong. The employee has absolutely no control over this, it is completely arbitrary, and if it happened at the wrong time, could be a complete disaster. I think employees of self-insured companies should be indemnified or insulated in some way. Either the self-insured employer should have to buy backup reinsurance, or the providers that accept the insurance plan should be required to indemnify patients.

Nothing Beats a Parts Washer

I would love to have access to an industrial parts washer. Lacking that, though, I try to make use of my dishwasher. A dishwasher is almost always the most convenient way to clean something--as opposed to manually scrubbing. But if the something in question has lots of acute angles and recessed areas--as so many molded plastic parts do--the dishwasher is more than a convenience, it is the best way to get the job done.

So my wish is that manufactured items would be designed to be dishwasher-friendly. For instance, my microwave has a grille for the air intake. Pretty standard stuff. Unsurprisingly, it collects a lot of grease, and needs to be rinsed and scrubbed at least quarterly. More often would be better, but it is such a nuisance, it has to get to the point where it is very noticeable before we tackle the chore.

The problem is that it runs the length of the over-stove microwave, so is too long to fit in the dishwasher. But if it were of two-piece construction, instead, it would easily fit in the dishwasher. We would probably wash it every week, and it would be almost effortless!

Wegman's

I have been introduced to Wegman's through my visits to my parents and sister in NoVA. It is amazing. I have been threatening to write a feelance article on them. I thought the Slate article and the one it linked to might be the article I have been threatening to write, but they weren't. Too cursory, and also they had a major fallacy--which many commenters pointed out. The really amazing thing about Wegman's isn't how pleasant it is, or what great products, or polite employees. My boutique neighborhood grocery store has those things, albeit on a smaller scale. But I avoid that store if at all possible, because it is so bloody expensive. That is the miracle of Wegman's--it is cheaper than the average grocery store, while delivering high-end in terms of quality, selection and shopping experience.

That, my friends, is a business miracle. And that is why I want to research and write an extended-length article on Wegman's. It seems to me they could march out of Rochester--just as Wal-Mart did from Benton--and conquer the grocery world.

Wireless Charging: Apple Is Missing A Lock-In Opportunity

A big component of Apple's strategy is lock-in. Apple's version of lock-in is somewhat subtler than some--the average Apple customer probably doesn't think "damn, I'm locked in", they just think "hmmm, might be interesting to try Google Music/Android Phone, but I've already got this big investment in iTunes/iOS Apps".

So I'm surprised Apple hasn't targeted wireless charging as a high-potential avenue for lock-in. Wireless charging has been around for a few years, it seems like a clear crowd-pleaser to me. There is a consortium trying to create an industry-standard (Qi), but it seems to be moving very slowly.

I think Apple could swoop in, and make all their devices wireless-chargeable--using a proprietary approach, of course. The wireless-capable batteries would be standard, the profit would come from the external chargers. With their economies of scale and power to move markets, Apple could make it all more affordable than anyone else. Overnight, the huge iOS ecosystem would be committed to Apple's proprietary charging technology, creating one more barrier to Apple users even trying non-Apple products.

"This American Life", Mike Daisey and the Human "Weakness" for A Good Story

In a previous post, I wrote about the human "weakness" for a good story. The core idea was that we humans are very much disposed to welcome, accept and internalize a "good" story. In that post, I didn't spend much time defining the characteristics of a "good" story.

I don't have time and motivation to fully define the term now, either, but I'll flesh it out a bit more. Characteristics that make a story "good" (and, sometimes, "too good to be true") include:

• Linear--the story arc is smooth, steady and in a consistent direction.
• Dense--the critical events occur in a very compressed time or narrative space, typically much richer than you could ever expect (or tolerate!) in real life.
• Drama--the story contains the ingredients--timing, character involvement, utterances--that heighten dramatic effect. Often these involve multiple improbable coincidences.

The NPR show This American Life just broadcast a remarkable episode. It is a program-length retraction of the Mike Daisey episode on work conditions in factories of Apple's China-based suppliers[1]. The episode was based on an adaptation of Daisey's one-man monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.

How does this relate to my theme of humans-and-stories? Two ways. First and most obvious--it is a textbook example of the weakness part. Rightly or wrongly, Daisey seemed to believe that to command the audience's attention, he needed to make the story really good. Ira Glass takes issue with that--he seems to say, "no, just tell the story, no need to embellish".

I'm not so sure. Before I explain, let me make a couple of things clear. First--I hugely respect and enjoy Ira Glass. I don't know that much about him, but from my experience as a listener, he is an amazingly talented storyteller and a journalist with the highest integrity. He comes across as a pretty darn likeable and admirable human being, too. Second--no matter what, the ends don't justify the means. Even if it were provably the case that the only way for Daisey to get audience attention is through embellishment--I still don't approve. No good comes from falsification.

So back to my point. Really good stories, and claims of first-hand personal experience are, unfortunately, excessively arresting. One case in point--James Frey and A Million Little Pieces. It was rejected 17 times when submitted as fiction, before being accepted as a memoir[2].

So if Mike Daisey wanted to stay on safe ground, he would have had to eliminate at least one of the two things that made his story so compelling:

• Remove the claim of first-hand experience.
• Keep the story truthful, at the cost of diluting the qualities that made it such a good story.

In my opinion, when working as a dramatist he should opt for the former--admit that many parts are composite, but stick the the spirit of the truth. On the other hand, when (if) working as a journalist, the latter is preferable. Ultimately, I think the two are not fully compatible. It is too much of a stretch for Daisey, a dramatist, to wear the journalists hat. What would have worked much, much better would be for This American Life to have created the report using their in-house journalists, and heavily featured Daisey's work, acknowledging it as drama.

Okay, that's enough for one blog post. In Part 2, I will look more at the role of This American Life in the incident.
__________
[1] I am writing this having listened to the episode, but without having read about it, other than a few pre-broadcast news items, which alerted me to it in the first place. I added this link after-the fact.

[2] The linked Salon article also does a good job explaining why writers such a Frey or dramatists such as Daisey may be sorely tempted to take liberties.

Time-Zone Awareness: Advanced Calendar Feature

I was on vacation, in a different time zone, and a friend from home asked me to drive them to the airport at 2:45. No problemo, I put it in my calendar right then and there--pick up at 2:45 Wednesday. Only problem--I entered that appointment when I was on EDT, so when I got back home to CDT, that appeared as 3:45. I happened to catch the mistake, but I easily could have blown it.

So what's the solution? I think the best general-purpose short-term solution would be a Calendar program Setting to let users set a home time zone, and then be prompted any time they enter an appointment when not on their home time. The prompt would say "Use Local Time (2:45) or Home Time (3:45)?".

The long-term solution is that we all need to start quoting time in GMT offsets. That's a joke...sort of.

Don't Like Frictionless Sharing

I got a Facebook notification, asking me to validate that I worked with a former colleague at a former employer. Fine, no big deal, I clicked yes. But Facebook--without so much as a "by your leave"--frictionlessly decided that meant that I desired to add my experience at that employer to my own status.

I use Facebook strictly for personal stuff, and segregate professional stuff to LinkedIn. So I don't really have any burning desire to list my employment details on Facebook. I don't really have any objection, so I'm not freaked out, but this is an example of being way too frictionless for my liking. At a minimum, Facebook should have asked me if I wanted to post that.

Urban Dictionary Is Amazing

Like a mini-Wikipedia.

Some Recruiting Ideas for HR To Work With

HR departments at companies I have worked at typically like to remind employees of the referral program. So far so good--I am a big fan of referrals. I have had some real success stories, as a referrer of talent, but other times, I have been rather disappointed by the reception I have gotten from Recruiting.

Don't get me wrong--I don't expect, or even want, anybody to be hired just because I said they were good. I want every candidate to be thoroughly vetted, and a HIRE decision only to be made if they are top-notch. What I do hope is that their resume will be given a very careful look, and if there is any promise at all (which there almost certainly is, or I would not be referring them), that they be given a phone interview. From there, it is all in the hands of the recruiter and hiring manager.

So here is an idea. HR needs to apply some statistics to the case of referrals. Treat all internal referrals with the respect they are due, but treat some more seriously than others. Specifically, keep stats on your referrers. For those with a good track record, treat the referral with even more gravity. You can share this factor with the hiring manager, too.

Android Notifications Have Room for Improvement

Since 1.0, Android has gotten high marks for its notifications bar. It was often the one thing even hardcore iPhone partisans might acknowledge as superior. I like it, but I'm not completely convinced it is so great. My biggest complaint is notification-bar clutter. More and more apps seem to want to take up space there--often to simply tell you they are actively running. The better ones allow you to turn this off as a Setting, but that is tedious, too.[1]

In this case, I don't have an immediate, strong recommendation how to fix the problem, but I am pretty sure it is fixable, if given enough attention.
__________
[1] Similar to the ridiculous clutter of the Windows tray icon bar, except with less real estate to work with.

The Human "Weakness" for A Good Story

Humans love stories. We seem to be wired to learn by stories. For the most part, stories are wonderful, both as recreation, and as a means of learning. BUT.

Sometimes that love of stories amounts to a cognitive flaw. We believe untruth because it makes such a good story. Journalists distort the truth, sometimes perhaps without fully realizing it, in order to produce a story with a satisfying "arc". Politicians constantly over-simplify complex issues in order to boil them down to a good story.

This article truth-squadding the oft-repeated claim that Michael Jordan was cut from his high-school basketball team is a good example. I've heard that story for years, and more-or-less accepted it without thinking about whether it is true or not. Based on the convincing evidence in the article, it's just not true. But it makes such a good story!

It also illuminates "emotional truth" versus Factual Truth. I use that first term very cautiously, because I come down on the side of capital-T, empirical and factual Truth. Still, emotions are also a vital dimension of being human, so it is important to understand their role. In the case of being cut from his squad, to MJ, it probably did feel like he had been cut. Per the article, he used that to his everlasting motivational advantage. That strikes me as perfectly reasonable, and functional. But it still doesn't make it factually true that he was cut.

So what is my point? What difference does it make if a few hundred million people  believe a story about Michael Jordan's high-school career that, while not a wild fabrication, is not fully accurate? About that specific example--I don't know. Maybe it doesn't make any difference at all.

But as the saying goes, practice makes permanent. By training ourselves to question stories that seem too good to be true, and insisting always on verification, we build up our mental muscle so that we have resistance to allowing ourselves to be misled by the power of "a true story", in cases where it does matter.

In the end, no good comes from untruth. 

Dumb Gmail Feature: "Consider Inviting..."

In general, Google is pretty judicious in not adding a lot of feature clutter. An exception is the thing they added to Gmail a while ago, that "recommends" other people to cc: based on who you address an email to. So if I frequently send/receive emails from all the people in my table tennis club, whenever I address an email to some individual member of the club, Google will "helpfully" tell me I should "consider inviiting" all the other people in the club. As useless features go, this one is not too bad, just not helpful.

Why Romeo and Juliet?

My 9th grade son is getting his first exposure to Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet. Same way I was first exposed to Shakespeare. And he is having the same reaction I had--not engaged.

Why oh why does the education establishment keep doing the same, unproductive thing. Can you imagine a Shakespeare play less appealing to a 9th grade male than that one?? There are so many better choices--Othello, perhaps?

Apps I Have Been Waiting For

Sign of smartphones maturing as app platforms, some things I have wanted since before the dawn of Android have become available.

1. Big Mute Button. Crucial for those of us who use our phones for teleconferences. This was actually pretty good by Android 2.x, but I have a new HTC Phone and "Sense" obscures the Android functionality without making a substitute of its own. So back to sereral clicks every time I need to toggle mute (which is A LOT!). But I found an app MicMuter, that gives me what I need--a big, floating, can't miss Mute toggle button. Kind of silly to pay $3.40 for this, but it gives me what I need.

2. A good Alarm Clock. Lots of them actually--though still no single one is quite perfect.

3. The first baby steps to my phone as a universal remote control.

4. A little love for conference calls...not the fully integrated experience I wrote about 4 years ago, but a nice baby step: Conference Caller, an app that turns the process of dialing the access number, entering your conference code and then PIN into a 1-click process.

No Tinkering!!!

This article suggests the U.S. Government should offer a "down-payment protection" insurance plan. It wouldn't be an entitlement, people would have to pay for their insurance. But still, I have a Tea Party-ish mentality[1] on this one. Why should the government be in this business? How do we know this is a net good idea without unintended consquences? Government intrusion (Fannie and Freddie) and mis-guided incentives (mortgage tax-credit) are part of what created the problem. WHY OH WHY do we think more meddling is the solution.

The medicine is bitter, no question about it. But as so many economists say of the mistakes Japan made in the last decade--best to get it over with, not try to dilute it and drag things out.

Now if private enterprises want to offer down-payment insurance, and can attract capital to provide it, then that would be just fine. With the proviso, of course, that they are appropriately regulated. Market forces appropriate regulation--then let the "invisible hand" work it out.


______
[1] Actually, that is just a traditional economic conservative view. But the Tea Party has inherited that mantle.

Bada: Samsung Following the Path of Sony?

I don't think anything more of Samsung Bada's potential now than when I first heard of it. Who knows what they really have in mind, but if they seriously think they have a chance of making Bada a smartphone contender--I think they are smoking the same stuff that led Sony to become a shell of what it once was.

Office 2010

Besides the overall confusion of having all the commands scrambled up and re-arranged, seems like there are many specific, little things to dislike:

The whole ribbon context thing may--may--make it simpler for a new user to absorb. It amounts to applying the old computer science dictum--there is no problem that can't be solved by adding a layer of indirection. The problem is that it also inserts a layer of navigation for many common operations. Things that used to be just a click away require first moving to the right ribbon, before being able to access the function. One example: switching windows in MS-Word.

What is really bad--many keyboard commands don't work, or at least don't work from all contexts (though some do). For instance in Outlook, I was accustomed to Alt-O to get to today. Very useful, very frequently used. No longer works (at least not the way I expect it to).

Went and returned to default a lot of things that I had set--sort order, group by. It's been so long since I upgraded Office, I can't remember if all versions have done this with upgrades, or just this one..

As far as I can tell, there is no option to make updates to a meeting, save but not send. Yes, I understand the logic behind prompting you to send after making updates, but there ARE use cases for updating, saving and not immediately sending. As far as I can tell, that is now impossible!

Then there is the "To-Do" bar, which might be okay in the Calendar pane, but I really don't need in my email window. So the good news is you can minimize it--the bad news is--it doesn't minimize all the way (or down to a vertical bar a few pixels wide)--it still takes up significant space, and the first few events are displayed horizontally. I think the M$ UX people were high when they designed this one.

Things I like:

• Finally, >9 recently-used files (this one is so overdue it almost seems like M$ doesn't actually deserve any credit here)
• Outlook--meeting updates that don't require a response and re-set all response-tracking

Tax Burdens Tilt Coastal, and System’s Fairness Is Debated - NYTimes.com

Definitely interesting to think about, but definitely politically unviable and undesirable--imagine the gamesmanship it would drive in congress, if taxation could be adjusted for cost-of-living. West Virginia, in the Robert Byrd era, probably would have been rated up there with NYC as a super-high-cost area!.

Disruptions: The 3-D Printing Free-for-All - NYTimes.com

Fascinating if a bit overoptimistic. I didn't see even a single example of anything significantly useful and novel made. Still, anything that might help with repairability, especially of plastic, would be welcome.

Idea: Amazon Late-Present Promissory Notes

As a gift buyer, when I can't come across with a present in time, for one reason or another, I typically resort to printing out a picture of it and wrapping that up, with a promise of near-future delivery. That gave me an idea for an e-tailer  feature. Provide a one-page, printer-friendly "promissory note", describing the product that has been ordered, and maybe sprinkling in some humor about why it may be late (It our fault! We ran out! But we are rushing one to you now!), as the best possible proxy for the actual gift item. For good measure, include the tracking bar code. 

I'm pretty sure Ed Morrissey and I are not the only people who are sick and tired of the outsize influence Iowa and New Hampshire exert on the presidential nominating process. It's wrong, malign, sick and evil, in so many ways. To name some:

1. Influence way out of proportion to population.
2. Not playing nice--Iowa and New Hampshire, always wanna be first, and act like spoiled children if anything threatens their cherished status.
3. Distortions due to scrambling to be first have pretty much already ruined the system, and caused us to endure high-cost, two-year election cycles (not all the fault of IA and NH, but they have not helped).
4. Annoying comments by residents about how they "like their politics retail". 

This need to be PUNISHED. So let's hit them where it hurts. How about if all of us residents of the other 48 states agree to a boycott. Namely, let's agree, that we will absolutely, positively not vote, in our state primaries, for a candidate who won either NH or IA?

It seems like the easiest, best way to deal a mortal blow to the out-of-control influence these two states have over the whole nominating process. 

(Note that this applies to both parties.)

Fails Safe Is Such A Great Engineering Concept

[When] a properly designed system fails safe, you can't blow it up remotely by cycling it on and off. 

Fail-safe design has more mundane applications, too. Electronic controls, for example (one of my pet peeves), should fail, wherever possible, leaving the appliance usable in a simple, default mode (which surprisingly often may be just fine).

Auctions Are Passe

This article pretty much expresses my own sentiments regarding online auctions. For any kind of commodity item, they just don't make sense. I do not believe I have ever successfully bought anything in an online auction.

India Eye Care Center Finds Middle Way To Capitalism

"Pursuing efficiency the way Goldman Sachs pursues profits." Love it.

Latest Case for Smartphone Hard Buttons

I recently bought a Logitech Revue (Google TV). It's okay, not a bad buy for the fire-sale price of $100, definitely not worth the original $300 asking price. One interesting thing is that it supports a remote control app for  your Android device. It's pretty good. But anyway, it brings to mind another use for having a configurable hard button, or two, on phones.

The biggest downside to using phone as remote is having the screen go off and so having to go through the lockscreen to get to your remote. I think my first-cut at perfect implementation would be:

• When you first use Google TV Remote on your device, it activates the hotkey.
• Hotkey brings up remote immediately, bypassing lockscreen.
• Hotkey remains active so long as the phone's location remains the same.

I know hard keys are not in favor (flagship Galaxy Nexus being the first smartphone with zero hard keys, not even a home key), but still...

--
Best way to fight terrorism: refuse to become terrorized

Next Feature for MS-Word: Idiom-Checking

It isn't until you start paying attention that you realize just how prevalent idioms are in ordinary professional writing. There are innumerable sports metaphors and analogies, of course. The one that inspired me to write this post was "motherhood and apple pie".

Anyway, I think a really useful, fairly easy and obvious feature for MS-Word would be an idiom-checker. It would cut two ways. First, it would call attention to one's perhaps unthinking use of idioms that are well-known to native speakers, but not to ESLers. Second, it would offer convenient, in-line flagging and translation of said idioms, for the benefit of said ESLers.

(using "said" in this way is a bit idiomatic, isn't it? That would be a harder one for the idiom checker...)

I actually think this could be done really well. In many ways, it seems easier than a grammar-checker. I can see how it could leverage, on an opt-in basis, multiple wiki-style references (somewhat like Urban Dictionary).

For bonus points, maybe eventually--just as grammar-checkers tell you the reading level of your writing--the idiom checker could grade it in different ways. Idiom density, idiom topicality (based on a graph of the age of the citations of the idioms in an internet crawl), and obviously the sky is the limit, depending on how good the tagging is (e.g., "North American English", "all native English", "sports", etc).

This would also make a great open source project. Both for the code--hopefully a plug-in that any text editor could adopt (e.g. Fargo), and for the source content (wiki-style, like Urban Dictionary).

Google should promulgate secure email

PKI, the whole deal. Good way to draw non-Gmail-users into the fold, too. Way overdue for someone to make this happen.

One of the Most Novel Smartphone Apps: White Noise

Relax and Sleep: Not really white noise, but many different sounds to drown out any background noise.

App Idea: NFC for coat-check-style receipts

Bump your phone against the NFC reader, get an instant receipt...that would be kind of convenient.

Problem-Solving in Large Organizations

Instead of starting with Policy and working forward to what needs to be done, start with what is sane and pragmatic, and work backwards to figure out how it can be achieved in compliance to Policy.

Catchy Name

I've written a couple of posts observing the value of a catchy name in branding. Here are a couple more examples:

Ruby on Rails
This one is particularly good. It marries nice, moderate alliteration with an extremely compelling, easily-understood image: anything "on rails" is rock-solid, and won't go astray. As in "we've got the latest project on rails...if anything, we are going to be done several weeks early."

Camel-Bak
Whereas most catchy-name examples involve a significant element of style over substance, this one is pure...the name perfectly captures both the form and the function of the product.

Future of California

Long, fascinating article. I don't want to dance on California's sick-bed, but I still have to keep asking--when will the tech industry decide that California is not the only place to be? What an irony that the industry dedicated to making things virtual is itself seemingly obsessed by place.

What the Steve Jobs profitability paradox reminds me of

I wrote about the paradox of Apple's profitability, under Steve Jobs--maximizing profitability (or shareholder value) seemed to take a backseat to product excellence. Paradoxically, though, through the relentless, uncompromising, somewhat messianic pursuit of profit excellence, in about a decade, Apple grew from being a mid-cap company to vying for the largest market cap on the globe.

This makes me think of the "paradox of happiness". Those who dedicate their life to the pursuit of happiness usually achieve the opposite--a sad, unfulfilling life chasing empty pleasures. Those who dedicate their life to a higher calling--duty, faith, honor,  service--often find consistent, lasting happiness as a byproduct.

Android Fragmentation--Improving Slowly, but Could Be Much Better

Great article. The Android fragmentation issue is an utter disgrace. Google needs to get on the ball, especially now that the iPhone is so widely available. Making Galaxy Nexus available on all carriers simultaneously--instead of a Verizon exclusive--would have been a nice start. :(

This is almost enough to make me as anti-Android as I am anti-Apple. (I'm exaggerating)

Grid or Flow Layouts for Windows and Browser

I have this belief that computer users are not getting nearly the full benefit they could from the ever-increasing monitor space. What has bugged me for years is the difficulty of arranging windows. It is SO tedious to do it by hand.

I know recent versions of MS-Office have arrange-compare features. I haven't used them a lot. They seem ok. But a lot of the arranging I want to do it ad-hoc. I haven't thought deeply about it, so don't claim to have the answers, but I definitely feel an itch.

One idea I have is guidelines, like in PageMaker. So maybe I draw a vertical guidelne 2/3 of the way across my screen. Any app I drop to the left of it fills the left 2/3. Any app I drop to the right fills the right 1/3.  Further refinements, such as tagging one of the panes to be "always on top". Maybe others, like drilling through the panes, or each pane having tabs. Complexity, I know.

I have come across a few utilities that try to do some of this, but none that accomplished much for me. I know there are virtual desktops that might do some of this, too. I tried one years ago.

The other thing I would like to see implemented in certain apps is a form of a flow layout. For instance, we make heavy use of Office Communicator. I have my auxiliary laptop monitor devoted to OC sessions. I would like these to auto-arrange themselves, tiling sideways across the screen. (Actually, there is a lot more organizing OC should be doing for the user, with or without OS-level enhanced window arrangement--but that's another story).

TV is better, yes, but it still has a fatal flaw

The linked Slate article discusses how HBO revolutionized the quality of television shows. As someone who pretty much quit watching TV in 1980, it took me a while to notice that TV was actually getting better. To that extent I agree with the article. Commercial TV c. 1980 was simply un-watchable. It has improved since then.

But, there is a point that all television Criticism seems to miss. There is a fatal flaw that is fundamental to the species. It's a small thing, but it always kills within a few years. The problem? The need to keep the viewer "hooked", and the unwillingness to "leave money on the table" (retire something before it starts to stink), distort any natural dramatic arc, and quickly render the vehicle unsatisfying.

Apple's Re-birth

Post-Steve Jobs death, there have of course been many articles that discuss Apple's comeback. They tend to date it to the introduction of the iMac or the first iPod. I think they are overlooking an important event.

The thing that is amazing to me is that in the last 10 years, the Mac went from being viewed as the sissy computer, to the darling of the geeks. I remember when that happened. It was an overnight phenomenon. It occurred when they introduced OS/X. OS/X was based on the venerable, and venerated, BSD Unix. It was a gigantic, amazing leap. It gave the Mac a terrific technical foundation on which to build all the cool stuff and eye candy. Getting all those thought leaders to embrace Mac was, in my opinion, an essential ingredient in the Apple comeback.

Ironically, even this part of the story does loop back to Steve Jobs. The transition to OS/X was by far the smoothest new OS rollout I can recall. The likely reason? OS/X was created from NextStep, the commercially unsuccessful, but widely praised, OS that had been created at NEXT Computing--where Steve Jobs went after he got booted out of Apple.

Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It’s Just So Darn Hard) - NYTimes.co

I don't think science is intrinsically more challenging than any other curriculum. I suppose it is harder to fake proficiency. But ultimately it is all a question of degree of difficulty and standards. And that is where the liberal arts have shot themselves in the heart.

Liberal arts grading is much more generous, and the curriculum can be even more so. A savvy student can duck hard classes, since there is not much of a core curriculum any longer. So as a credential--and that's 90% of what a degree represents, a credential--a liberal arts degree is a much less reliable marker than a science/engineering degree.

Doesn't have to be that way, but it's how things have evolved.

The Paradox of Apple Profitablity

Dave Winer suggests that products need egos to reach and maintain their potential greatness, of course pointing to Steve Jobs as the premier example. This got me thinking about the paradox of Apple's mega-success.

What is so rare is a consistent, eternal, unyielding devotion to product excellence. That was Steve Jobs. I am pretty confident that he would not release what he thought was a sub-par product, even if he thought it could be very profitable. Who else would do this? He aimed for greatness, not merely rich-ness.

Contrast this with Bill Gates, the embodiment of Microsoft. As Robert X. Cringely observed some years ago, Bill Gates has always been about winning ("a graceless win is still a win"). In business, this translates to profitability, not excellence. No Micro$oft product is ever improved unless there is a clear line of sight to the bottom line.

None of this matters to Steve Jobs. It took me a long time to figure this out, but he is quite content with the status quo [my italics]. That's because Steve's definition of success is different from Bill's, and from that of most other people in the computer industry. Success to Steve means getting his own way. That's all. Forget about market share. It's all about longevity and personal dominance.

So here comes the paradox. I remember reading Cringely's article at the time it was written, early 2002. At that time, the status quo was: Microsoft is huge, rich and dominant; Apple is off life support, and assured of a secure, profitable niche as a boutique computer maker. 10 years later, and how things have changed.

The paradox is that Steve Jobs uncompromising devotion to excellence was eventually rewarded with commensurate financial success. All it took was patience, lots of patience. Unfortunately in the business world, that kind of long leash is unheard of, unless your name is Steve Jobs.

Netflix Karma

Like I have said, there is a lot to like about Netflix, but I will always rejoice when price-raisers are punished. I myself downgraded to stream-only immediately.

Branding is Default

I think branding is all about leveraging default behavior. Consumers would be well-advised to train themselves to have a reflexive "anti-" reaction to branding. Instead of passively internalizing a brand as the default, reflexively assume that any product involving a heavy branding investment is probably over-priced, and seek the low-cost alternative.   

In decision-making, examples of the default preference abound: Workers are far more likely to save in retirement plans if enrollment is the automatic option. And the percentage of pregnant women tested for H.I.V. in some African nations where AIDS is widespread has surged since the test became a regular prenatal procedure and women had to opt out if they didn’t want it.

A study published in 2003 showed that while large majorities of Americans approved of organ donations, only about a quarter consented to donate their own. By contrast, nearly all Austrians, French and Portuguese consent to donate theirs. The default explains the difference. In the United States, people must choose to become an organ donor. In much of Europe, people must choose not to donate.

Defaults, according to economists and psychologists, frame how a person is presented with a choice. But they say there are other forces that make the default path hard to resist. One is natural human inertia, or laziness, that favors making the quick, easy choice instead of exerting the mental energy to make a different one. Another, they say, is that most people perceive a default as an authoritative recommendation.

M$ Never Improves: Printing an Email

I have a personal list of annoying functionality flaws (not code defects) that have been in Micro$oft products forever. They are little niggling things, not showstoppers, but the failure to do anything about them, year after year, speaks volumes about Microsoft's lack of craftsmanship, and contempt for their customer. Here is one item in the list: M$ Outlook doesn't let the user specify the number of pages to print. The typical use case is that I want to print the most recent 2 paragraphs in a long, long email string. If I just hit the print icon and let it go, I will get 10 pages.

There are simple work-arounds of course. Mainly, pasting the snippet of interest into a Word doc. That's not the point, though. This is a pretty basic thing, it should have been fixed a decade ago.

Yes, Quit "Writing What You Know", So Much

I like the drift of this Salon article on why Americans aren't winning any Nobels for literature. Especially laying much of the blame on the pervasive conventional wisdom that teaches authors to "write what you know". That might be okay advice for a first work--so long as it is coupled with "and have lived enough to know something beyond the quotidian features of middle-class life shared by every other young, educated aspiring writer". A career of writing what you know becomes boring quickly.

I am thoroughly sick of books about writers--one very common manifestation of the syndrome. Apparently it is even worse in the world of poetry.

Deal Fatigue

I'm pretty skeptical of Groupon, so I liked this article on Groupon and daily deals in general:

[Groupon's] Competitors are dead or dying… [so] where is the bright side? Nowhere. Consumers are fatigued. They now hate getting a dozen emails every morning offering 10 different Yoga classes at 50% off—over half of Americans have stated they're overwhelmed by the quantity of deals available. 

And that's not all. Running Groupons is all about exposure right? Turns out, it's the wrong kind of exposure: merchants who run Groupons suffer hits to their reputation. And this was the only benefit for businesses—they certainly don't do it for profit. Adding consumer fatigue and merchant wariness, you come up with zero.

Like I keep saying--give me everyday low prices.

Dynamic Email

I have long thought that MS Exchange should make an email more into a dynamic thread...so for instance someone could put in an "I will reply" status--but without having to blast out another email to do it. Would help alleviate Inbox-overload.

Another feature would be "subscribe to this thread" or maybe (depending on how defaults are set up) "unsubsribe to this thread". So if you don't think you are interested, it quits overloading your Inbox. But, by the same token, if you later get interested, then you can go access a thread view of the whole thing.  Sort of like Twitter.

I hate M$. They don't improve anything, unless either a competitor is nipping at their heels, or it is functionality that will make it easy to sell an upgrade. Their karma sucks, I hope they continue their long, slow, Sears-like decline. They have brought it on themselves.

Has NetFlix Lost Its Mind?!

When they say "this storm may pass"--like comparable consumer uprisings against Apple and JetBlue--they are missing a key point. NetFlix has already announced significant revenue impact, due to cancellations from the new pricing. So it is already more than a "passing storm". Now, they are making things even worse. So if (when?) they get more cancellations from the Qwikster side (nothing about this should make a pure NetFlix streaming user care), the impact is that much greater.

This point is also interesting to me:

“People love Netflix,” said James L. McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research. “What other media distributor adds two-plus million subscribers each quarter? Only Netflix and only because people are thrilled with it. But once you arouse such passions in people, you have to expect that they’ll be equally passionate when they feel betrayed. And that’s what has happened.”

I do feel somewhat sympathetic to Netflix. I was drawn to them for foremost for their rock-bottom prices. Usually, the innovation in consumer content is like McDonalds--providing much more food, for a little more cost. Too rarely is it focused primarily on driving down current cost (the ARPU mentality at work).

So I feel sympathetic to NetFlix, because I know they have had a hard time attracting more content, and renewing what they have at the current low prices, and I think their prices are still very low. Nevertheless, I like the implied message from consumers--a big, fat middle-finger to higher prices.

And the latest Reed Hastings move with splitting of Qwikster is just dumb. 1+1=3 and 2-1=1.5 is the logic of the M&A Wall Street crowd--not the consumer-focused company.

(See Cringely for a less fault-finding of Netflix different take.)

Tablet Use Case: Voice-Activated Reader

I like to read a lot. I like to eat a lot. I really like to read when eating, if not eating with a companion(s). But I don't like getting books and magazines and keyboards messy, flipping pages while eating. I am thinking that a voice-activated tablet, with a stand, might be the perfect solution. Instapaper, Read It Later, are you listening?

Stay Signed In - NEVER!

Remember in the early days of 802.11 home wireless, how the out-of-box option was no security? Then, finally, the industry came around and made the default behavior the safe behavior--security on? Well websites really, really need to do the same thing. I hate the "stay signed in" option defaulting to yes. Bad for the innocents, and even dangerous for the paranoid--I have overlooked it once or twice.

Found--Size 12.5 Shoes!

My latest discovery for a reason to love Amazon/eCommerce: odd size shoes! Just TRY finding a 12-1/2 EE in a store. Of course the web page let's you pre-filter for your size--no need to get interested in a model, only to find out it isn't available in your size. First time in ages I have had a shoe that fits perfectly.

New Payment Systems Must Increase Efficiency

Although it would perhaps be nice not to have to carry a wallet, that’s pretty low on my personal hierarchy of wishes. In general, my personal payments system works just fine. Almost every store I shop in accepts my two preferred means of payment: cash, or bank cards. Thus, as a consumer and technologist, I am only interest in new payment methods if they meet the following two tests:

1. They take cost out of the system. I don’t want new for the sake of new and cool. The new thing has to be inherently more cost-efficient.
2. They have to cut costs for consumers. I want lower swipe fees (or maybe “wave fees” would be the more appropriate term  ).

#1 is a necessary but not sufficient condition for #2. I am tired of stuff that is new, but more expensive. I am particularly thinking of service charges to ticketing, such as Ticketron. Or having to pay extra to file your taxes electronically.

POSTSCRIPT: If it sounds like I am a skeptic, it because I am. Just saw this article from the current Consumer Reports, which tends to bear out my skepticism (digital wallet's won't save you money).

Idea: "Not to Exceed" Field on Checks

Sometimes my kids will need a check for something at school, and for one reason or another, they don't know the exact amount. The solution, of course, is to make the check out but not fill in an amount. On principle, I dislike giving out any form of the proverbial "blank check". So why can't checks have a "not to exceed" field? 

Micro$soft Outlook email doesn't let you print only a range of pages!

No option to just print pages 1-2, for example. I don't know about you, but I have plenty of endless email trails where I don't want to print the whole thing, only a few pages or a selection. Just another example of how M$ doesn't improve or even fix much of anything, unless:

1. They have competitors nipping at their heels.
2. They think it will drive upgrade $.

I hold the brand in contempt, for this attitude.

Another Amazon Attaboy: Frustration-Free Packaging

I know this is hardly a news flash, the frustration-free program is at least a couple of years old, but I hadn't thought about it in a while. I know it has gotten some mixed reviews, but my point is--at least Amazon cares! This is an old problem that gets worse, not better, each year, as clamshell takes over like an invasive species. So, tip of the hat to Amazon, again.

No, I Do NOT Want Podcasts Added to My Music Collection!!!

Text of email I just sent to Google:

The Google Music app for Android suffers from the same problem ALL music apps do. Namely, it is too aggressive in automatically adding MP3s to your collection. Specifically, for those of us who are aggressive podcast listeners, we probably don't want our podcasts intermingled with our music. I mean, I love This American Life, but I really don't want it to be part of "Favorite Workout Songs", you know? 

A few ways to solve this. At a minimum, have Advanced Settings that allow the user to exclude directories from auto-discovery.

My Changing Retail Landscape

A really remarkable amount of my household expenditures goes to Amazon, and Sam's Club. Just interesting to think about how much business has migrated away from traditional outlets, in particular electronics retailers (half or more of the Amazon purchases) and grocery stores (3/4 of the Sam's purchases). Not saying it is good or bad, just interesting. (Well, actually it is good, for me as a consumer, obviously, or I woulldn't be shopping there.)

Decision Fatigue

I am just fascinated by this kind of stuff. Especially the sleep connection. I am a strong believer that adequate sleep is one of the four pillars of good health (along with diet, exercise and healthcare). With sleep, there is a big feedback loop into two of the other pillars. I have seen speculation that a factor in the obesity epidemic is lack of sleep. I connect that to the fact that I read the average adult American--in 1900, before the advent of widespread electric lighting--slept an average of 10 hours in the winter. 10 hours, can you imagine!


It also seems clear to me that there is a connection between feeling rested, and having the drive/willpower to exercise. Unless you are confirmed, "addicted" exerciser, it is hard to drag yourself to the gym, or wherever, and put yourself through the paces, when your brain is whimpering "sleep, rest".

No, I Don't Want To Leave Feedback!

In general the Amazon customer experience is simply off-the-charts great. Beyond belief. I have almost never had to call them, but I did the other night for a Kindle order on my son's phone. They have a "call me" button, and they call you. No wait!! Fluent, helpful, smart CSR, problem solved very expeditiously. Like I say, off the charts.

The one thing that irritates me are all the sellers, begging for feedback. I'm sorry, unless they do something exceptional, I'm not taking time to give feedback. Just not interested. Most laughably, I ordered a $2.38 battery, and they wanted feedback! Maybe Amazon already has an "opt me out of feedback" option, and I haven't found it yet, but it's annoying.

Negate NH, 1 Iowa and SC

I am sick of their outsize influence. How about a Facebook group to pledge never to vote for the primary candidates who over focus on those states?

Groupon Follow-Up

Going out on a limb a little bit...I'll predict that 3 years from now, Groupon will rue the day they turned down Google's $5-6 billion offer. 

ACSOI, mentioned nearly 50 times in the document, showed that Groupon made $82 million in the first quarter of the year. But ACSOI left out the hundreds of millions of dollars associated with marketing the service, acquiring other businesses, and bringing in new subscribers. So it left out very real costs of growth—not one-off investments or unusual charges, but expenditures core to the company's expanding business.

Investors noticed—and howled. The Wall Street Journal termed the filing "magic." Tech blogs declared the company a sham. Many commentators hearkened back to the worst days of the late-1990s tech bubble, when out-of-nowhere dot-coms with cloudy revenue streams got billions from IPO-hungry investors. Forbes pointed to one especially salient piece of commentary from 1998. "Certain internet CFOs are pushing investors to look at EBITDAM," Silicon Valley investor Bill Gurley wrote. "The 'M' represents marketing, and is an attempt to get Wall Street to ignore what has become the single biggest expenditure for internet startups. This only makes sense if you truly believe that marketing costs will one day go away, which should be considered unlikely. Perhaps we should make it easier and skip straight to EBE (earnings before expenses)."

Marketing of Vodka: A Case Study

I think that kids, of various ages and up through high school, need some enrichment classes related to personal finance and consumer behavior, to arm themselves against the shysters and charlatans they will encounter, on a daily basis, throughout their lives. By shysters and charlatans, I pretty much mean every company under the sun. There may be exceptions, but they are precious few.

This article about the marketing of premium vodka would make a heck of a case study.

Google+

I've spent my first 10 minutes on Google+. I have my doubts. I think the usability might be better than FB--seems like the usual Google clean-and-lean. Or maybe it is just because it is too new to have grown cluttered. But as far as achieving real success goes, I just don't see the compelling reason to use it. Just like Bing has not been able to interest me in switching away from Google search (and in that case, the switching barrier is far lower).


Like I said, Google shoulda bought LinkedIn. Since that ship has apparently sailed, I think their only other chance is to meticulously identify every single weakness in Facebook, and fix it in Google+. Even then, they will probably need FB to stumble at some point. Some things I am thinking of:

• Security. Facebook hasn't been so strong here, including lack of HTTPS and the Firesheep vulnerability.
• Channels. Circles is a good start. I think I am a somewhat typical middle-aged male techie--I think FB is Face-bore. I just don't want to know what my good friends--let alone vague acquaintances--did over the weekend. I want interesting, and I want useful. So the channels I would like to see are:

• "I need advice..."
• "I need to borrow" 

Bills that ask for CC Security Code

The CVV2 code is that little 3-digit code you usually have to provide when ordering stuff online. The PCI security rules prohibit storing it, which is a good security feature.

Lately, I have been getting some bills that can be paid by credit card, mainly from healthcare providers, that ask for the CVV2 code. While my reading of the regs indicates that this is not an actual violation (they are forbidden from storing the CVV2 once the individual transaction is authorized and completed), it still seems like a bad idea to have it written down. So I never provide it. I've never had the billing party object.

Should require re-insurance for companies that self-insure

I had a friend whose employer went bankrupt in the midst of a family member undergoing surgery. Because the employer self-insured, he got stuck with the bill when they went bankrupt. This just seems wrong to me. Maybe companies that self-insure should have to have some form of re-insurance as a backstop. Or, alternatively, healthcare providers that accept third-party payment  should indemnify their patients in the event the paying party goes bankrupt.

Only recently employed need apply

This seems cruel and wrong.

Lifetime ROI of Once-Thriving Companies that Go Bust

Just 15 years ago, Borders was growing nationwide. They were wiping out the independent booksellers. Now they are going bankrupt. That reminded me of something I have wondered about, each time I hear the story of a relatively young, successful company that goes bankrupt, or is acquired on the cheap (e.g., Borland).

That questions is--if you invested in the company from "Day 1" of its going public[1], and held your investment through bankruptcy, what would your lifetime ROI be? It seems to me it would most likely not be very good. Most high-growth companies pay little or nothing in the way of dividends. So there wouldn't be much time between no-dividend growth company, and falling star, in which you might get nice dividend payouts.
__________
[1] I want to define Day 1 in a way that factors out any IPO bubble hype. So let's say that is defined as 30 days after IPO.

Pork? Earmarks? What Do You Mean? - NYTimes.com

No surprises here, same as it ever was, but that makes that hypocrisy no less appalling. Does not a single one  of these congresspeeps aspire to the chance for greatness, by vigorously denouncing and disavowing the pork in their own backyard? It might cost them re-election, but what credibility in a run for higher office! (Not to mention just doing the right thing and being true to one's ideals.)

Complexity Is the Enemy

From my Android phone, when I click on a NYT link sent to me via email, I eventually get a "Page Not Found" response. Pretty sure this is what is happening:

1. Clicking link invokes the mobile browser.
2. Mobile browser fires up, proceeds to try to open (standard) NYT site (nyt.com).
3. NYT site sees access is from a mobile devices, and automatically substitutes their mobile site (m.nyt.com).
4. The link is different, so the result is instant linkrot-type breakage.

The 3 Dirty R-Words

In business and IT exercises, there are 3 dirty words that all begin with "R":

• Reconciliation
• Retroactive
• Reversals

Reconciliation can be tedious under the best of circumstances. The best of circumstances being situations that were expressly designed, a priori, for reconciliation (e.g., balancing your checkbook). But often we find our ourselves performing reconciliations post-hoc, where there are many factors, small and large, that make it hard to reconcile. 

Retroactivity is a problem because it just completely messes up baselines, timing and common-sense assumptions. It is also one of the things that makes reconciliation hard--those sneaky retro transactions can throw your compares off. [Date Warehouses may have very sophisticated timelining strategies, to allow reliable reporting of "as is" or "as of" (incorporates retroactivity) and "as was" (reproduce snapshot of the situation, as of a given date) states, from the same recordset.]

Reversals are a sophisticated and often complex form of logical delete. One reason they are challenging is just thinking of all the situations that require them. Then there is the question of what data has to accompany the reversal, in order to create the same state that would have existed had the transaction never happened--while still preserving a clear audit trail that the transaction did, in fact, happen. It is usually a quantity that is being reversed, but what related meta-data goes with it? And how do you make it clear that a given transaction is a reversal, while also trying to ensure that any computations or reports pull in all reversals? Reversals are one contributor to retroactivity. 

Old Rituals, Undone by Information Age

• Letters and mail-call started disappearing more than 10 years ago, with the widespread adoption of email.
• The family phone--its competition for the line, knowing who your kids are talking to--started disappearing 7-10 years ago, as it began increasingly common to get cell phones for increasingly young children.
• In my case, at least, the venerable bedside alarm clock--with its need to be set every evening--has been replaced by the multi-alarm flexibility of the phone.

I wonder how long until we don't need to carry a wallet?

Flaw in Smartphone Keyboard Auto-Correct (Don't Fix If It Ain't Broken)

Auto-complete and auto-correct can be very nice. Swiftkey for Android, in particular, can feel like it is reading your mind. However, I would propose that auto-correct should never change a word that is already a valid dictionary word. At best it gets in the way, at worst, it creates weird and occasionally embarrassing results.

Smartphone and Farsightedness: Google Maps Is *The Worst*!

I've complained before about smartphones and farsightedness. Google Maps is positively the worst offender. The street labels are tiny. Not just small (8-10pt) but tiny (4-6pt). And no matter how much you zoom the map--they stay tiny. It is awful. Of all the apps to have this problem, this is the most inopportune one.

Need Better Hyphenation

Reading is one of my major uses of a smartphone. Obviously, screen real-estate is at a premium. There is no room for waste. Thus, as noted, one feature that is crucial, but often lacking, is full-screen mode. Here's another: better hyphenation. Especially in portrait mode, a huge amount of screen real-estate is lost to whitespace, because words don't get divided.

Tablet Use Cases

I suspect #1 is watching movies. #2 may be games. My use case, reading, is probably farther down the list.

As to tablet popularity, I wonder if some of it is attributed to the resolution and beauty of the screen. I find reading on my 4" smartphone not enough words per page, but the phone's resolution is very, very nice. Now, when I use my regular monitor, I find it washed-out and grainy. The crappy screen of our family netbook is even worse.

One more thing to think about...the more a computer activity uses brain-hand interaction, the more we may be drawn to it. I don't have the links at hand, but I have read research in the past about how deeply the human hand-brain connection runs. Such articles have included some degree of finding computer interaction problematic, since it undermines that connection (I don't think mere typing "counts" as hand-brain). So maybe part of the "subliminal" appeal of tablets is stimulating that deep, ancient neural connection.

Feature Idea: Transient Twitter Subscriptions, Driven by URLs

Twitter is a great way to follow breaking details (like a weekend soccer tournament, where the games keep getting re-scheduled due to weather). But the overhead of following, then especially UN-following, is a little tedious. Like Glympse, I would like Twitter subscriptions that automatically expire.

The whole other problem is the slow uptake of Twitter in the non-techie population...we are still a few years away from widespread usage of this type. Currently, posting on Facebook is considered pretty much cutting edge. Not trying to be sarcastic, that is not a bad thing, but Twitter is ideally suited to this use case.

Don't Twist the Facts, Even in Service of Good Policy

The findings from this so-called "pragmatic trial" may change the way British doctors prescribe drugs for the prevention of asthma flares. Patients may be told that it doesn't really matter what controllers you take, although intensive clinical trials suggest otherwise. In effect, the recommendations will be dumbed down, because some (or even most) patients simply aren't very good at following directions. Even savvy patients—the ones who are perfectly able to handle the more complex and better treatments—would be treated the same as everyone else...Should patients be separated by ability groups, as some students are in schools?

I can sympathize with this viewpoint from a pragmatic financial and clinical perspective, but I have a couple of problems with it. One is personal--the dumbed-down, lowest-common-denominator, one-size-fits-all perspective sacrifices too much for those who aren't dumb. For instance, if you don't have high blood pressure and aren't salt sensitive, there may not be much reason to deny yourself the gustatory delight of salt.

The second is more a matter of philosophy, and its long-term implications for public policy. In a nutshell: in the long-run, no good comes from deceit, even deceit borne of the best intentions. People will start to figure it out, sooner or later, and that will breed distrust at best, conspiracy theories at worst.

Samsung Is on the March

I think Samsung is poised to be the a combination of the next Sony, Panasonic and maybe Maytag. In the past few months, we have purchased a Samsung smartphone, a Samsung refrigerator, and a Samsung laptop.

Lead Generation Sites

This NYT article explains a new (to me) form of internet-based scams, Lead Generation sites:

By that, the Haggler means that there actually is a guy named Bob Strom, who is a bonded locksmith. And he owns a business, which you can visit, at 7352 15th Ave NW. This might seem too obvious to note, but it sets Mr. Strom apart from more than 90 percent of his local competitors. According to Yelp, there are — no joke — nearly 3,000 locksmiths in Seattle, though with relatively rare exceptions these operations aren’t in Seattle at all. 

They are phone banks, typically set up in far-off places, often in other countries. Call them and they’ll dispatch a locksmith. Some are legitimate, but others may all too often do shoddy work and/or charge two or three times the estimate.

That is another example of why social recommendations could be very useful.

Idiom checker

Next frontier for word prcessors and text editors: an "idiom checker". Purpose, in multi-nationality work teams, to point out to writers that they may be using idioms unfamiliar to those nationalities. And also to offer right-click translations.

Hate Facebook Email

Third, Google+ conspicuously lacks its own person-to-person message system. It uses its members’ existing email accounts, which don’t need to be on Google’s Gmail system. So if you join Google+, you won’t be saddled with yet another inbox that you need to monitor, and you can reply to messages without having to go to Google+ to do so.

That is a Very Good Thing. Google is doing it this way for obvious reasons which play to their advantage, just as Facebook wanted to bypass normal email accounts, for their own advantage. However, what is good for Google, in this case, is much preferable for me. For multiple reasons, including convenience and control, I detest messaging via Facebook.

(Note: LinkedIn at least makes it easy for its messages to travel via email. If someone sends you a message via LinkedIn, and you have it configured to notify you via email, the notification email is a real email--it contains the full contents of the message, as well as your connections valid email address. So you can immediately take the conversation out of LinkedIn, into email.)

Google Shoulda Bought LinkedIn

Google is taking yet another pass at a social networking product, with Google+. I'm not really up on it, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of buzz about it (pun intended). So I have my doubts about whether it will succeed, at all.

What they should have done--instead of offering $5-6 billion for over-rated Groupon--was to buy LinkedIn. Ideally, back when I told them to, but even if they had done it around the time of LinkedIn's IPO, they might have picked it up for $7 billion or so. That would have given them a winning platform to extend.

Something I Wrote 10 Years Ago

Something I wrote 10 years ago, in a comment on the website of usability guru Jakob Nielsen's. Very interesting to look back, and see where I was way off-base (cell phone's only purpose is voice!), and the areas where I was closer to the mark (PDA size about right; battery-life concerns; desirability of minimizing wasted real estate).


Merge PDA and Phone or Keep Separate?


Erik L. Neu writes:

I am a Palm user. I have read any number of columns recently predicting the demise of the Palm/PDA in favor of cell phone internet access. I think this is ridiculous! The form-factor of the Palm, though great for what it does, is already enough of a usability challenge. I make an analogy between the Palm and a laptop. For the most part, the form factor of the laptop was established nearly a decade ago. Rather than getting smaller, they stay the same size, with more power, functionality and screen area being crammed in the same space. I think the Palm size is about right, it fits reasonably comfortably in the pocket. Now we need the useable screen to expand to fill the footprint of the machine.

As for the cell phone, it has one purpose: voice conversations. So smaller is always better. I would never want to take my Palm jogging, but I just might (usually not, but it is conceivable) want to take my cell phone with me on my run. I am amazed at how small they have gotten already. Besides not being usable, cramming PDA features in them will interfere with this design goal.

Longer-term, yes it would be nice if the cell-phone functionality can reside in the PDA. But I don't see this as being desirable with today's technology--it's not that big a hardship to carry two devices, esp. given the shrinking size of the phone. Plus, their battery-life styles are in conflict--people will be forever finding their PDA out of juice after 2 hours of phone conversation! 

Jakob's reply: Completely agree that we need to recapture the entire surface of the Palm Pilot for screen space. One of the things done right on the Pocket PC. 

I tend to prefer a single, converged device that will be both a PDA and a telephone, especially since the PDA will need to connect to the cellular network anyway in order to get live data. However, as you noted, there is also much to be said in favor of separate devices that can be optimized for their individual features.