I recently posted on Facebook asking if people had a preference between UPS and FedEx. No one prefers FedEx, but several people threw in that they prefer USPS. I hadn't even considered them as a serious option. Perhaps I should look.
FedEx is curious though. They invented the notion of tracking, yet are being beaten at that game by UPS. UPS's tracking info is more up-to-date and if you miss your package you can immediately call it in and have them hold it at the station the same day (which, btw, stay open til 8pm or later as needed). FedEx seems to run two networks: FedEx "real" and FedEx Home. The home service is their regular parcel service and doesn't offer any of the above. The only effective way to communicate with them is through the tags they leave on the door. So, if you are regularly not at home because you, say, work, you have to:
Delivery day 1: miss package, sign tag to authorize drop or have them hold at the station.
Delivery day 2: get package. Unless a signature is required, in which case they will take above tag and act on it.
Delivery day 3: package is at the station. Go pick it up [during working hours].
UPS has managed to condense this to:
Delivery day 1: miss package, call UPS with tag number and have them unload package from truck when it returns to the station that day. That night you go pick up your package. Done.
The company from the northwest wins in customer service! What a surprise.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Does PowerPoint suck?
This is not a technical review. For full disclosure, I find designing a presentation in PPT to be a continuously annoying experience. However, others seem to be able to crank stuff out a lot faster and nicer-looking than I do, so maybe it's just fine on that front. My presentations, however, look like the art-analogs of stick figures and doodled speech bubbles.
Sometime in the late 90s, PowerPoint became the thing to use for presentations. It was to make presentations amazing, dynamic and infinitely informative....assuming the presenter had the vision to know what they wanted to put together and show. In reality, most presentations look[ed] like what I produce. And, PowerPoint ended up not being the answer and plenty of people say "PowerPoint kinda really sucks"
Most of its users never learned how to use it, or ever even figured out what they wanted to make with it. The users' shortcomings infected the impression of the product. Does anyone blame a drill and saw when Uncle Fred's homemade chair is ugly and doesn't work?
Gun proponents should be familiar with this: guns are getting the bad rap because enough of their users are stupid with them.
Sometime in the late 90s, PowerPoint became the thing to use for presentations. It was to make presentations amazing, dynamic and infinitely informative....assuming the presenter had the vision to know what they wanted to put together and show. In reality, most presentations look[ed] like what I produce. And, PowerPoint ended up not being the answer and plenty of people say "PowerPoint kinda really sucks"
Most of its users never learned how to use it, or ever even figured out what they wanted to make with it. The users' shortcomings infected the impression of the product. Does anyone blame a drill and saw when Uncle Fred's homemade chair is ugly and doesn't work?
Gun proponents should be familiar with this: guns are getting the bad rap because enough of their users are stupid with them.
Friday, May 24, 2013
About those tax "loopholes"
Getting mad at companies for taking advantage of tax "loopholes" is like getting mad at extreme couponers.
There's a common sentiment that companies are doing something wrong, unethical or even illegal by doing tax planning that involves multiple states or countries. Most large companies aren't going to do anything illegal in these scenarios. Beyond that, it's just a matter of finding the best deal. If that deal happens to lead to great savings, so be it.
When an extreme couponer manages to pay $3 for 4 grocery carts of food, who do we blame? No one, really, we just marvel that they were able to combine their coupons and store deals and everything. If anyone is at fault, it's the store for having double coupon days or whatever. Practically giving away hundreds of dollars of groceries would be the exploitatoin of a "loophole", and if anyone should shut that down, it's the store.
It's not a company's job to lobby for a state or country to change how they operate. Any preferential tax deals were created because there was a mutual benefit at the time: maybe a state got a company to set up shop there, etc. States and countries need to decide if they're getting a bad deal and change their tax laws if they are. Just keep in mind that changing the terms of the deal may turn off your big client... and then they take their money elsewhere.
There's a common sentiment that companies are doing something wrong, unethical or even illegal by doing tax planning that involves multiple states or countries. Most large companies aren't going to do anything illegal in these scenarios. Beyond that, it's just a matter of finding the best deal. If that deal happens to lead to great savings, so be it.
When an extreme couponer manages to pay $3 for 4 grocery carts of food, who do we blame? No one, really, we just marvel that they were able to combine their coupons and store deals and everything. If anyone is at fault, it's the store for having double coupon days or whatever. Practically giving away hundreds of dollars of groceries would be the exploitatoin of a "loophole", and if anyone should shut that down, it's the store.
It's not a company's job to lobby for a state or country to change how they operate. Any preferential tax deals were created because there was a mutual benefit at the time: maybe a state got a company to set up shop there, etc. States and countries need to decide if they're getting a bad deal and change their tax laws if they are. Just keep in mind that changing the terms of the deal may turn off your big client... and then they take their money elsewhere.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Public transport
I just returned from my second trip to Budapest in the last year, and one key reason the city is a great place to be is its public transport. Specifically, it's breadth and volume of transport options that share a key component: during the day, you never have to wait more than 3-4 minutes for anything. This is key because it reduces the penalty per line exchange and allows for lots of short lines that the user can combine as they need, without getting out a timetable and planning.
In contrast, Seattle's bus system has large gaps between successive buses. When I lived in Queen Anne, I could take the 545 to work from Westlake and be there in about 30 minutes. Not bad, right? I just needed to get to Westlake. Any of the following lines would do: 1, 2, 13, 15, 18. And since any of those would be around any minute, this worked great!
Correction: would have worked great, if that assumption held true. The 2 and 13 ran down Queen Anne Ave and stopped 2 blocks from my place, but only ran about every 15 minutes combined. If I just missed one, I'd have to wait a long time for the next one. The 1 came over on Olympic and also stopped about 2 blocks from my place, but ran equally infrequently. All these lines, however, stop at Mercer and Queen Anne Ave (the 15 and 18 came up Mercer, alternating every 10 minutes). So, to give myself the best shot at catching any of these, I'd walk slightly further and between the 15 and 18 would never have to wait more than 10 minutes (except when a bus would inexplicably never show up) and sometimes I'd get lucky with one of the others. However, there was a mass convergence: all lines were supposed to be at Queen Anne and Mercer at 9:31. If I showed up at 9:32 (after walking about 5 minutes), I'd have to wait 9 more minutes.
For reasons that baffle me to this day, these lines then stop every 2 blocks (are we to believe that asking people to walk one extra block is a big ask??), including through the ride-free zones where all the homeless people add to the bus-stop overhead. Every stop features people getting on one at a time and if you're lucky, tapping their ORCA card, otherwise fishing for change. God forbid a person in a wheelchair want to get on the bus: that's about a 2-minute operation (in contrast, transport stops in Budapest happen in about 10-15 seconds). In other words, these bits of time add up real fast. And somehow, the bus would always get to 3rd and Pine/Pike right as the 545 was leaving (wait penalty: 9-15 minutes, depending on time of day).
Let's recap: walk 5 minutes, wait 0-9 minutes, ride the bus for about 15 minutes, walk 1 minute, wait for the 545 (0-12 minutes), then add 30 more minutes. Getting to the 545 (and lacking control over when I get there relative to 545 departure times) costs me 21-40 minutes.
I lived 2.1 miles away from the 545 stop and after a while decided that walking was the best course of action. It takes 26 minutes to do so every single time, and I can plan my arrival time to line up with the 545 so I don't have to wait as long. Taking the bus from Queen Anne occasionally saves me a few minutes and works out better, and often causes me to miss my connection. Let's call it identical for this exercise. How big of a fail is it that the break-even point for distance where riding the bus becomes worth it is in the neighborhood of 2 miles?
In contrast, Seattle's bus system has large gaps between successive buses. When I lived in Queen Anne, I could take the 545 to work from Westlake and be there in about 30 minutes. Not bad, right? I just needed to get to Westlake. Any of the following lines would do: 1, 2, 13, 15, 18. And since any of those would be around any minute, this worked great!
Correction: would have worked great, if that assumption held true. The 2 and 13 ran down Queen Anne Ave and stopped 2 blocks from my place, but only ran about every 15 minutes combined. If I just missed one, I'd have to wait a long time for the next one. The 1 came over on Olympic and also stopped about 2 blocks from my place, but ran equally infrequently. All these lines, however, stop at Mercer and Queen Anne Ave (the 15 and 18 came up Mercer, alternating every 10 minutes). So, to give myself the best shot at catching any of these, I'd walk slightly further and between the 15 and 18 would never have to wait more than 10 minutes (except when a bus would inexplicably never show up) and sometimes I'd get lucky with one of the others. However, there was a mass convergence: all lines were supposed to be at Queen Anne and Mercer at 9:31. If I showed up at 9:32 (after walking about 5 minutes), I'd have to wait 9 more minutes.
For reasons that baffle me to this day, these lines then stop every 2 blocks (are we to believe that asking people to walk one extra block is a big ask??), including through the ride-free zones where all the homeless people add to the bus-stop overhead. Every stop features people getting on one at a time and if you're lucky, tapping their ORCA card, otherwise fishing for change. God forbid a person in a wheelchair want to get on the bus: that's about a 2-minute operation (in contrast, transport stops in Budapest happen in about 10-15 seconds). In other words, these bits of time add up real fast. And somehow, the bus would always get to 3rd and Pine/Pike right as the 545 was leaving (wait penalty: 9-15 minutes, depending on time of day).
Let's recap: walk 5 minutes, wait 0-9 minutes, ride the bus for about 15 minutes, walk 1 minute, wait for the 545 (0-12 minutes), then add 30 more minutes. Getting to the 545 (and lacking control over when I get there relative to 545 departure times) costs me 21-40 minutes.
I lived 2.1 miles away from the 545 stop and after a while decided that walking was the best course of action. It takes 26 minutes to do so every single time, and I can plan my arrival time to line up with the 545 so I don't have to wait as long. Taking the bus from Queen Anne occasionally saves me a few minutes and works out better, and often causes me to miss my connection. Let's call it identical for this exercise. How big of a fail is it that the break-even point for distance where riding the bus becomes worth it is in the neighborhood of 2 miles?
Rubber rubs me wrong
I hate rubber.
That's not entirely true, but I do think rubber is in far too many places. My primary issue comes with anything that I spend time gripping: kitchen implements and luggage come to mind. Oxo has unilaterally destroyed every kitchen implement they make by rubber-wrapping any part that might be touched. Seriously, why does an ice cream scoop need a rubberized handle??
What's so bad about rubber, anyways?
Rubber is soft. Therefore, it should be comfortable to grip (says marketing), not unlike a plush teddy or idealized cloud. But, most implements don't need this level of cushiness; the flexibility of the rubber actually causes it to move slightly no matter how hard you grip it, more likely leading to irritated skin and calluses. Hard surfaces are uncomfortable only when they cut into your hand. Your hand has plenty of padding in it already. As long as a hard grip doesn't have sharp-ish edges/corners, you don't need the rubber.
Physics aside:
The metal-rubber-hand progression has a contact between two soft surfaces. Mashing two soft surfaces together is inherently unstable and leads to uncontrollable shifting between the two. There is no scenario where this uncontrollable shifting is a good thing: it gives the gripper (the hand) less control.
In addition to it not providing the touted comfort advantage over a well-formed piece of stainless steel, rubber (unlike steel) is:
1. soft (remember?) and therefore pits easily
2. soft (remember?) and therefore wears down
3. grippy (remember?) and therefore picks up tons of dirt, which comes with associated oil, etc
3a. that you then can't wash off as easily
3b. which then accumulates to make your rubber grip gross and sticky
4. heavy, when compared to a replacement steel structure
4a. causing you to have to grip harder, leading to fatigue
Rubber may even have weird chemicals in it too (stainless steel is way on the safe side for those concerned about long-term toxic materials), but I'm not gonna bother looking that up.
I also have one suitcase that has a rubber handle. It's my fault for buying it anyways, but any of the following would be more comfortable and longer lasting:
1. nylon fabric
2. molded hard plastic
3. leather
4. bike chain
The issue is that, again, the additional friction doesn't help me support the weight of the suitcase, makes it harder to slide my hand in and out from the handle and squishes once picked up, guaranteeing that some skin on my hand is now compressed/stretched in an annoying way.
Please leave rubber where it belongs: as a cushion between two hard objects, usually out of sight.
That's not entirely true, but I do think rubber is in far too many places. My primary issue comes with anything that I spend time gripping: kitchen implements and luggage come to mind. Oxo has unilaterally destroyed every kitchen implement they make by rubber-wrapping any part that might be touched. Seriously, why does an ice cream scoop need a rubberized handle??
What's so bad about rubber, anyways?
Rubber is soft. Therefore, it should be comfortable to grip (says marketing), not unlike a plush teddy or idealized cloud. But, most implements don't need this level of cushiness; the flexibility of the rubber actually causes it to move slightly no matter how hard you grip it, more likely leading to irritated skin and calluses. Hard surfaces are uncomfortable only when they cut into your hand. Your hand has plenty of padding in it already. As long as a hard grip doesn't have sharp-ish edges/corners, you don't need the rubber.
Physics aside:
The metal-rubber-hand progression has a contact between two soft surfaces. Mashing two soft surfaces together is inherently unstable and leads to uncontrollable shifting between the two. There is no scenario where this uncontrollable shifting is a good thing: it gives the gripper (the hand) less control.
In addition to it not providing the touted comfort advantage over a well-formed piece of stainless steel, rubber (unlike steel) is:
1. soft (remember?) and therefore pits easily
2. soft (remember?) and therefore wears down
3. grippy (remember?) and therefore picks up tons of dirt, which comes with associated oil, etc
3a. that you then can't wash off as easily
3b. which then accumulates to make your rubber grip gross and sticky
4. heavy, when compared to a replacement steel structure
4a. causing you to have to grip harder, leading to fatigue
Rubber may even have weird chemicals in it too (stainless steel is way on the safe side for those concerned about long-term toxic materials), but I'm not gonna bother looking that up.
I also have one suitcase that has a rubber handle. It's my fault for buying it anyways, but any of the following would be more comfortable and longer lasting:
1. nylon fabric
2. molded hard plastic
3. leather
4. bike chain
The issue is that, again, the additional friction doesn't help me support the weight of the suitcase, makes it harder to slide my hand in and out from the handle and squishes once picked up, guaranteeing that some skin on my hand is now compressed/stretched in an annoying way.
Please leave rubber where it belongs: as a cushion between two hard objects, usually out of sight.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Email needs a like button
I periodically get large-audience mails at work. For example: "hey, we did a great job at some off-site presentation". I want to give the feedback that I, too, think this is awesome, but don't want to be the next in the reply-all chain of brief answers; I also don't want to spam the sender and have them miss the few potentially interesting responses in there. Facebook (and other social networks) solve this by allowing for a real reply and a like. So clean!
The success of Yammer shows that corporations are buying into a microblogging culture. I've tried this out and it's just awful. Good luck finding a thread from 5 months ago that has relevant information. Good luck even seeing all the things that are interesting to you. Most people try to target posts by tagging those they'd otherwise put on a To: line to ensure notifications, but that only solves half the problem. Newsfeed-based communication is only ok for content that is not critical. That's the whole point: I can pop in anytime and interact with recent content or disappear for a while and not care what flew by when I wasn't looking. And nevermind the separate experience around getting anyone's attention outside of my network or group of friends.
The end result is that newsfeed-based communications aren't much different from everyone sending messages to a group distribution list, and sometimes calling out specific names to avoid email filters shoving those messages out of sight. Yep, because that's where mass messages end up: out of sight. And the sender knows this. And wonders if anyone saw their announcement.
Therefore, email needs a like button.
The success of Yammer shows that corporations are buying into a microblogging culture. I've tried this out and it's just awful. Good luck finding a thread from 5 months ago that has relevant information. Good luck even seeing all the things that are interesting to you. Most people try to target posts by tagging those they'd otherwise put on a To: line to ensure notifications, but that only solves half the problem. Newsfeed-based communication is only ok for content that is not critical. That's the whole point: I can pop in anytime and interact with recent content or disappear for a while and not care what flew by when I wasn't looking. And nevermind the separate experience around getting anyone's attention outside of my network or group of friends.
The end result is that newsfeed-based communications aren't much different from everyone sending messages to a group distribution list, and sometimes calling out specific names to avoid email filters shoving those messages out of sight. Yep, because that's where mass messages end up: out of sight. And the sender knows this. And wonders if anyone saw their announcement.
Therefore, email needs a like button.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
The Facebook Dilemma
Since Facebook has gone public and answers to the investors, I've seen a few annoying ad-related things creep in. First came targeted ads in feeds, styled to look like a post from a friend (except these would come from a brazilian clothing maker, or a psychology graduate school, or ... ). Then came elevation of a friend's post with a link to a business to the top spot in my feed for the better part of 24 hours (despite sorting my feed by 'most recent'). And most recently, I received a notification because a friend had checked in at a location near me. In the middle of the work day. 7 miles away. I imagine the new emotion verb in status updates is intended to help them parse reactions to places where I've checked in and so on.
Clearly they are trying to increase the level of interconnectivity between people and exploit that by pairing in businesses. This is how you become an ad firm. Unlike Google which does all the ad research and presenation somewhat on the sly, we give Facebook explicit information about us and see the ads only on facebook.com, thus we associate all of this with them, directly. How in-my-face can they get? Unless it's really useful, people will treat ads as malware and either leave or ad-block it, both of which are bad for Facebook. In either case it raises awareness that Facebook is mining me, trying to get as much out of me as possible. Should I feel creeped out? Should I worry they are hoarding too much info about me, even though I'm the one that placed it up there?
The common reaction of "you can just turn it off" or "just use ad-block" in an interesting reflection of "out of sight, out of mind". This works in Facebook's favor because it means at least some people don't really care that they are being used as long as they don't have to see the consequences right in front of them. They're not worried about the stockpile building in the background. I'm not sure if I am or not, and I feel like as long as it stays on facebook.com, I'm pretty fine with it. Once it starts spilling over and following me everywhere, fueling the giant ad machine, that's when it becomes a huge turnoff (and I suspect would have the same effect on others).
We've established people will not pay for a social network, so pay-per-use pricing models won't work. For advertisement to work, they need to get people to continue creating a rich influx of content. If they start turning away those who post the most (and therefore have the most obvious ad targeting), they run the risk of damaging their ecosystem. Everyone agrees they are sitting on a treasure trove of information, but to clearly exploit that to their gain loses our trust. It removes Facebook as our safe place, our friend, our site where we get to drive what's happening. It makes them into a stalker. By trying to do too much, they run a serious risk of damaging their brand, their user base and ultimately, their bottom line.
And in the meantime, the shareholders are knocking.
Clearly they are trying to increase the level of interconnectivity between people and exploit that by pairing in businesses. This is how you become an ad firm. Unlike Google which does all the ad research and presenation somewhat on the sly, we give Facebook explicit information about us and see the ads only on facebook.com, thus we associate all of this with them, directly. How in-my-face can they get? Unless it's really useful, people will treat ads as malware and either leave or ad-block it, both of which are bad for Facebook. In either case it raises awareness that Facebook is mining me, trying to get as much out of me as possible. Should I feel creeped out? Should I worry they are hoarding too much info about me, even though I'm the one that placed it up there?
The common reaction of "you can just turn it off" or "just use ad-block" in an interesting reflection of "out of sight, out of mind". This works in Facebook's favor because it means at least some people don't really care that they are being used as long as they don't have to see the consequences right in front of them. They're not worried about the stockpile building in the background. I'm not sure if I am or not, and I feel like as long as it stays on facebook.com, I'm pretty fine with it. Once it starts spilling over and following me everywhere, fueling the giant ad machine, that's when it becomes a huge turnoff (and I suspect would have the same effect on others).
We've established people will not pay for a social network, so pay-per-use pricing models won't work. For advertisement to work, they need to get people to continue creating a rich influx of content. If they start turning away those who post the most (and therefore have the most obvious ad targeting), they run the risk of damaging their ecosystem. Everyone agrees they are sitting on a treasure trove of information, but to clearly exploit that to their gain loses our trust. It removes Facebook as our safe place, our friend, our site where we get to drive what's happening. It makes them into a stalker. By trying to do too much, they run a serious risk of damaging their brand, their user base and ultimately, their bottom line.
And in the meantime, the shareholders are knocking.
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