Category Archives: Wondering - Page 17

Shades of Taxes

Posted by on October 16, 2013 No comments

I recently watched a video on the dangers of “socialism.”  It was an animation and was intended to be humorous while delivering its message.  The illustration given was a classroom where it was announced that everyone would get the same grade, averaged from all the tests.  After the first test, everyone got a B, the next test, everyone got a D, the last test, everyone got an F.  This is how socialism works, apparently.

The problem with the illustration is that the subjects are of two distinct personalities: selfish and lazy, which is how anti-socialism people view the world.  You are either selfish and in it for yourself only, which is why you are a capitalist, or you are lazy and don’t want to do anything, which is why socialism is so great for you.

The world is so full of absolutes right now, it’s disgusting.  You are either Left or Right, Pro or Con.  And that designation, aside from having no variance, also has no subsets.  There will always be those that will fight for a cause and those that don’t care about it.  There will always be people who care about doing a good job and those who don’t see the point in it.

Here’s an anti-socialist viewpoint: why have garbage cans on the street?  Eventually everyone’s going to just throw their trash on the ground, because there’s no gain in using the garbage can.  All the effort of trying to keep the streets clean is wasted on those that don’t care, so why bother.  I mean, either you’re 100% for litter control, in which case you’d handle all of your trash needs yourself and have no need for government-subsidized garbage can entitlements, or you’re not, in which case the ground is your garbage can.

Flippant as it is, it exposes the hypocrisy of anti-socialists.  If it’s something they support, good, otherwise, fuck off.  These people want life to be a’la carte.  They want to pick and choose every single piece of their life experience.  So why not?

Yes, why not?  Everyone bitches and moans about their tax dollars going to pay for something that they hate.  So why not let them choose?  Why not?  I think we have enough diversity in America that everything would be funded as it’s needed.  You’d have your rich, educated types diverting their tax money to education programs, earth and hippie types allocating for environmental causes, farmers propping up agriculture subsidies, rednecks and bulletheads giving all their tax dollars to defense.  Despite all the stereotypes, it would all work out.  And you’d have normal people allocating some here and some there, balancing things even further.

So all this stuff about Congress budgeting and allocating and taxing and robbing people to pay Paul, it all goes away.  Each year, the income tax forms are collected and everyone has contributed a flat tax of 10%, 12%, 15%, whatever.  Everyone has indicated on their tax form whether they want their taxes spread equally or according to the category assignments provided.  You will actually have a tangible value assigned to the service, instead of “These people insist their service needs more funding.”

On Community

Posted by on September 26, 2013 No comments

The big, huge, #1, all-important “thing” right now in online business is “community”.  No matter who you listen to, you will hear that you have to build a community with your customers.  There’s one case where I feel this business dream was present long before it became a “thing” and just as the concept of “community” was gaining traction, they went and blew it all away.  That business is Woot.

Woot has had spectacular growth in its relatively short life.  It started as a deal-a-day website, offering one different product every day until it was sold out.  We’ll call that Woot 1.0.  Then there was the idea that Woot could offer more than one product a day, in multiple  specific categories.  Thus became Woot 2.0.  Then there was the idea that Woot could offer many products in each category for periods longer than a day.  This ushered in Woot 3.0, where it continues today.

Back in the 1.0 days, there was a very active community in the product forums.  You could discuss a product all day.  When 2.0 came along, this community became diluted.  And if it wasn’t diluted, it was stressed in that the members had to participate even more.  They didn’t have to, of course, but they wanted to because the brand was fun and all their friends were there.  When 3.0 landed, there was simply no way to keep up with the sheer amount of products begging for discussion.  And it showed.  Products would go days without any discussion on them.  Maybe due to lack of interest, maybe due to people not finding them or maybe not even bothering to look for them.

This change, while certainly increasing the bottom line of the Woot company – because stuff did still sell – created an environment totally different from past versions.  Imagine walking into a room and there’s a product on a display stand in the middle.  Also in the room are 50 friendly (sometimes sarcastic) people chatting.  All of these people have an opinion about this displayed product and you can listen to them talk about it or you can directly ask anyone about it.  Now, imagine a room with 20 products on display.  Still 50 people, but some are huddled around one or another product.  Your source of feedback is lessened and the credibility of the products and your business suffer.

So that’s the business aspect in favor of remaining small.  You have a group of loyal followers and they’re going to support your choice of product (or limited products) because that’s what you offer.  You’ve made the work easy for them to help support because your product offerings are limited.  As much as it pains me to make the comparison, look at Apple.  They have, what, like 5 products?  Anyone can help you to some degree on those.  On the other end of that comparison, just as painfully, look at Microsoft.  Such a massive selection, it’s so difficult to find any assistance with some obscure product like Small Business Accounting.

But getting back to “community” in Woot, you have to look back to the 1.0 days to find where that community really shined: the Woot-off.  Because you had one site, but the products constantly refreshed after being sold out, you’d have people discussing products all day.  And if the products were slow sellers, the people would stick around and chat about anything else.  It was normal for people to admit their work productivity dropping to zero because of involvement in the Woot-off.  Today, in the current 3.0 incarnation, there is a Woot-off happening on five different sites.  How are you going to possibly keep up on conversations on five different sites?  Why would you want to?  And the effect is very obvious.  Products now turn over much, much more slowly during a Woot-off.

So you have a brand community that is stretched too thin over too diverse a product base.  Could it be made any worse?  Sure.  These changes I described are also creating a strong sense of community apathy.  No one really cares anymore because there’s just too much.  I see some people becoming specialists in one category or another,  and bravo to them.  But you have to wonder if there’s any benefit to being a lone expert.  Where are your peers?  If you leave, then what happens?

There’s another change in Woot that is feeding this apathy – actually two changes.  The first change is the “no dead air” policy Woot seems to have adopted.  If a product sells out too quickly, another product is posted in its place.  This goes against the old policy of “you snooze, you lose”.  Yeah, you still lose out on the earlier offering, but there’s still something for you to buy, so no hurries.  The other change is the recurring items.  When you see Gunnar glasses sold for a week on one site, then sold for the next week on another site, then sold in a woot-off, then back again afterwards.  Or if you see another product on a side sale also appearing in a Woot-off, or like what just happened – a product comes back a second time in a Woot-off, what are you supposed to think?  There’s no shortage of supply, there’s no exclusivity, there’s nothing special about the sale at all.  You are cheapening your offerings.  Call it the Starbucks effect; or the Best Buy effect.  When it’s always available, the desire to have it drops.

So in conclusion, just when other companies are discovering how to rally their customer base and make strong advocates for their brand, Woot has figured out how to lose one of the most valuable company assets it could ever have.  If you’ve lived through Woot 1.0 and 2.0, you can see what you need to do with your business (and what not to do).  If you came in with Woot 3.0, you can only read history of what it was like.

Professing Love For One Of Society’s Downfalls

Posted by on September 25, 2013 No comments

I love Dasani.  That’s all.

No, there’s more.  Duh.  There’s a long-standing argument about bottled water.  People are always saying, “why are you paying for water?  You have it in your sink!”  The answer is simple.  That water sucks.  That’s all.

I’m not sure why people don’t understand the concept of bottled water.  I mean, I guess it might be strange if I lived somewhere back up north where I had clear mountain streams at my disposal.  I will forever remember the time I was in a training camp in the Poconos and I happened to drink some water from the sink.  It was amazing!  Smooth and clear.  Not like this limestone and calcium-ridden stuff we have here.  We even bottle this crap as Zephyr Hills bottled water.  It’s called natural spring water, and that’s what you get.  Lots of minerals for a “great” taste.

But Dasani, that’s the real great stuff.  So first, they filter out everything, then they add in certain minerals to give it taste.  Just like the minerals that are in the ground everywhere you go.  If I could find the place that had Dasani-like water from the ground, I’d be in heaven.  You can try different bottled water and it really does taste different between brands.  Aquafina’s good in a pinch, and Fiji is pretty good, too.

So the argument is that some people think other people drink bottled water because those people think their tap water is unhealthy.  That’s not true and I know it.  I’ll drink my tap water without any fear.  I just don’t like the taste.

Responsive and Slow

Posted by on June 13, 2013 No comments

A recent discussion with a co-worker resulted in the phrase “responsive, and slow.”  This came about from using Microsoft Office 2013.  Office 2013 is some kind of a pinnacle of where software development seems to be going, and it seems that’s just a bit too far.

For years now, asynchronous programming has been shoved down developers’ throats.  “It must be done this way! It’s how you achieve a responsive UI!”  Seems like desktop applications have always had background work being done.  The original idea was to do processing in the background, so you could cancel the work if you needed to and so you could display a progress bar.  This is fine. 

Then there’s the case of background loading tasks.  Lets say a dropdown list needs filled, so the dropdown list is disabled while the data is being loaded in the background.  Meanwhile, you have your mouse hovering over it waiting for it to finish and become enabled.  Now we’re starting to see the effects of async programming. 

Now, take everything and make it load async.  Your application opens and nothing is there, then things start magically appearing all over the place as they finish loading.  This is how Office 2013 feels, although that’s not literally what happens.  The best example is marking emails read in Outlook and there is a significant delay in updating the unread message count.

As long as I’m griping about Office 2013, I find the new Lync 2013 client to be ridiculous.  I keep my conversation windows on the left side of my monitor, which Lync is great about remembering.  The problem is, the new message notification shows up in the lower right of the screen, so I have to click there, then the chat window does a wicked-smooth slide all the way across my screen to where I keep them, then it does a fade in.  So, in addition to having to move my mouse the full width of my screen, I have to wait for the animations to finish.

But anyway, back to asynchronous coding.  It’s all supposed to be in the name of responsiveness, so the UI doesn’t get blocked by anything.  The problem is, maybe the UI isn’t ready for use yet!  Have you seen a UI with 20 “loading…” placeholders all over?  if you haven’t yet, you will soon.  T-Mobile’s account management section does it.   This is stupid.  How can computers be so fast and yet so slow?

Thought Followers

Posted by on June 7, 2013 No comments

I got an email from LinkedIn with a title that struck a nerve with me: “Don’t miss out on updates from thought leaders” and it went on to list a bunch of successful businesspeople and a link at the bottom that said: “See more thought leaders".  This newly-coined term, “thought leader” infuriates me.  What does that title mean?  Who designates these people?  Why should we even care?

The title “thought leader” can be taken a couple different ways.  The way that initially perceived it was condescending and elitist, as in “you can’t even think at the level of these people.  You need to listen to them.”  Screw that.  Like I want anything to have to do with Richard Branson and Arianna Huffington.  You could also take the term to mean that these people have ideas that shape the entirety of industry, finance, and technology.  That’s a bunch of crap, too.  Everyone has ideas.  These people are just in a much better position to execute them because of their money, power and influence.  I just did a search on “thought leader” and discovered this is a “thing", going back to at least 2010.  Another Dilbert-world industry buzzterm so we can discover that this is what we must aspire to and buy books and seminars.

From a website: “To be a thought leader, you need to immerse yourself in your professional domain and search for new things to say that add value to your organization’s objectives.”  Search for new things to say…  All you have to do is say shit.  Sorry, this is not sufficient.  It seems to me that you can’t get anything done by having a bunch of “thought leaders” in a conference room coming up with new things to say.  Meanwhile, there’s a bunch of awesome people keeping their mouths shut and getting things done.

Here’s the other issue with this idea.  In our polarized, black-and-white world we live in today, you are a leader or you are a follower.  If you’re not a thought leader, all you are is following someone else.  And that’s exactly what LinkedIn is suggesting I do.  I need to follow these “leaders”.  I need to do what they say, because my thoughts are not at their level.  Obviously, because I’m not a multi-billionaire.  You know what the real thought leaders say (and have said in the past)? “Don’t listen to me.  Think for yourself.”

On Advertising

Posted by on June 6, 2013 No comments

I got into a conversation about email and spam, which led me to think about advertising in general.  I don’t like unsolicited sales pitches – at all.  To me, the amount of effort you put into selling your product or service is directly related to its worthlessness.  Obviously, if something is completely useful, all you should have to do is show it or briefly explain it and it should sell itself.

But on the other hand, I don’t particularly hate advertising.  I actually appreciate and enjoy clever, well-crafted messages.  This difference of opinion made me think of three different types of advertising.

  • Hard Sell – This is the worst kind of advertising, done via phone call, street selling, mall kiosks, or even direct mail.  The ads that urge to to buy and sometimes warn, scare, or threaten you if you don’t.  There is always a consequence to not taking action.  Think about it.  Why would you ever want to attach a negative image to your product or service, even if it’s true?  Some people can’t afford the product or service or may not be in a position to buy it at all.  Now all your advertising has done is made them feel miserable.
  • Informational – This type covers a wide range.  There’s a fine line between Informational and Hard Sell and it usually depends on how much negativity or fear the ad generates.  However, in the median of this range, the primary intent is to simply inform the recipient that your company exists at all.  This type of ad combats the “I would’ve called, but I didn’t know such a place existed!” problem.  This is why I enjoy browsing random shops, because it’s good to know what’s out there.
  • Reminder – This type of ad is for well-established brands, like Coke, McDonalds, and most beers.  All the ad does is make you think of them.  These brands will also use Informational types of ads when they introduce new products, but lots of times, it’s just to evoke a mood or make you consider buying their product again.

The one that I was most interested in was the balance between Hard Sell and Informational.  When you are starting a business, you have to get your name out – Informational.  But at what point does it seem like desperation and start entering into Hard Sell territory?  The exact example I am thinking of is a former co-worker, who fell hard for real estate.  His focus within the broad scope of real estate is kind of in the scummy part: “We buy homes for cash!” “Invest with me and get a great return on your money!”  So, because his business focus is questionable, he’s going to have to push harder and yell louder for anyone to hear him.  This just moves his messages into the Hard Sell, where they are naturally resisted.

Although I do some work on the side, I don’t advertise anything.  In fact, I rarely even bring it up in conversation.  But somehow, whenever I am needed, an opportunity arises.

The Future Is In The Past

Posted by on May 3, 2013 No comments

Today I was forwarded an article about a new computer input device utilizing gestures and the article was teasing with a headline like “gestures replace keyboard and mouse.”  Uh huh.

Go ahead and pile this technology on an ever increasing pile: Stylus, touch, multi-touch, swype, and Kinect.  All of which are supposed to be revolutionary and every one has not replaced the keyboard.  Or maybe that’s not true.

Long ago, computers were for highly-skilled people – researchers, academics, scientists.  Then they went mainstream.  Personal computers took over every household.  Then, people started demanding less “computer-looking” devices, so the style element of PC’s was addressed.  More recently, it seems the public has been clamoring for simpler interfaces, reducing the need for input devices.  Enter gesture and touch input.

Depending on which camp you are in, this advancement – or decline – of computers is only a subset of the reality.  Throughout all of it, the standard computer, with boxy tower case, keyboard, mouse and monitor (or monitors) is the mainstay of the creative computer users.  The alternative input devices are too imprecise and too inefficient to actually create anything of quality, whether it be art, code, or engineering.  The sacrifices made for aesthetic purposes limit the raw power needed to actually do work.  So because of this, the computing landscape has split into creators and consumers.

The media keeps hyping that tablets are the future.  This is actually probably true.  The majority of people are not going to need or want the power of a full computer setup.  Combined with the news that there are fewer students with computer programming skills than in previous years, this forms a scary trend.  In a few generations, it’s entirely possible that the use of an actual computer becomes exclusive, just as it was in the early days of computing.  If you have a full computer, you could be viewed as old-fashioned, or maybe you’d be viewed as a genius.

The media also keeps saying that the PC is dead.  This in absolutely not true.  If this were true, there would be no way to create future software and hardware.  However, if they were to say, the consumer personal computer is dead, they may be on to something.

To me it’s very sad to think that we almost had something.  It’s as if we were right on our way to having a super-intelligent global society and a huge shockwave hit and lowered the bar for everyone.

No News is Good News

Posted by on April 23, 2013 No comments

Having a hyper-connected civilization is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, we have been able to share knowledge and ideas at an unprecedented rate, which has certainly advanced the technology of our world.  On the other hand, we have been able to share stories of misery and fear wider than what is prudent.

Many people are reluctant to consider humankind as a global civilization, but these people are constantly bombarded by news (almost always bad) from other countries around the world.  Even more common, is the reporting of news across our country, again, almost always bad.  I seems it has become normal to worry and fret and become angry over people and situations that we have no connection to and will never have any connection to.

A shooting here, a dying child there, animals running from a wildfire, record cold temperatures way up there.  These things don’t matter.  They are daily trivia and conversation starters.  They do not have an impact on a national scale.  Yet, the news is full of these stories every single day.

It is not helping that the news is becoming more entertainment-oriented.  Fox News is moving towards more of op-ed reporting, instead of reporting the news, they have a personality delivering their opinion and analysis of the news.

In discussing what I felt as strange about my workplace leaving the news channel playing the Boston bombing all the time and my co-workers streaming live news at their desk on the manhunt for the bomber, I created a really long sentence.  No, seriously, it was suspected that these people who were glued to the news coverage were trying to feel connected to a national tragedy, like “where were you when 9/11 happened”?  I can’t really understand why it takes an event of misery to make people feel more connected.  And oddly, it doesn’t really work that way when the event is local.  In those cases, people tend to shut themselves in.

Think local, do local, care local.  Those are the people that really matter.  And if we all do that, everyone is covered.

Deviation

Posted by on April 6, 2013 No comments

In a Talking Heads song, there is a line, “Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.”  In statistical terms, the enjoyment level of heaven would be 100% with a standard deviation – or variance – of zero.  The song tries to express that as long as the deviation is zero, the enjoyment level could be 100%, 80%, 40%, or 0% and it would all be the same.  Because, without variance, how would you know any different?

An oft-used phrase, “It’s all relative,” has more meaning than we typically intend when we casually toss it out.  Any evaluation of any experience is based upon past experience.  Our report of that experience is either expressed in relative terms or, failing a basis of comparison, a threshold evaluation.  How was your day yesterday?  “Good.”  Good, relative to other days I’ve had.  How was your skydive yesterday?  “Awesome!”  Awesome, compared to other activities like working.  Or maybe, “Good.”  Good, compared to dying.  Living through an experience is an example of a threshold evaluation.

I bring all this up in memory of getting over a nasty cold.  I don’t get sick.  Well, although that sounds like an absolute, I mean I don’t get sick with any regularity.  Less than once a year.  Living like that, you forget and take for granted how good it feels to be healthy.  My standard deviation was falling.

This can apply to just about anything in life.  You don’t know how bad (or good) your relationship was until you start a new one.  You don’t know what life can be like when you’re suffering chronic pain.  You don’t recognize how convenient having a car is until your car doesn’t start.  Breaking out of a rut is nothing more than adding a deviate sample to your population in order to increase the mean.

Acknowledgement Received

Posted by on April 4, 2013 No comments

Sometimes it’s difficult to determine what the norm is for service in the current day.  For such a long time, I’ve been told that customer service is the differentiating factor in successful businesses.  Businesses that sell products compete on price, selection, and service.  The way I look at it, you can get anything at any time, thanks to the Internet.  Then it becomes a matter of convenience and time determining what you’re willing to pay.  And with products, service is almost an afterthought, especially in this self-service age.  But what about when the product is a service?  You’re competing on price, quality, and service.  This is the tradeoff triangle, Good/Fast/Cheap – choose any two.

The other day, I called a car dealer near my workplace for some service.  It would be more convenient for me to go there since my local dealer is farther away and I’d need to schedule for a Saturday.  Asking for the service department, the phone then rang a few times and went to voice mail.  I found this odd.  I was expecting to wait on hold for a tech to pick up.  So I left a message.  That was at 12:30.  When I left work at 4:30, I hadn’t gotten a call back.  I called again and ended up in voice mail again.

Like I said, it’s difficult to tell if this is normal, modern customer service.  Personally, I think it’s terrible.  Maybe I’m a snob, maybe I’m unrealistic.  When someone is calling you and they want to give you money – and my voice mail message listed the services I wanted, which would be a decent sized bill – you should jump on the opportunity.  Further, I am a new customer, so this is my first impression, however, I can’t think that an existing customer would feel any differently.

So what was I expecting?  I was expecting to sit on hold.  And I think at some point in the past, this would have been unacceptable for some, but I was fine with it.  Being in a phone queue is pretty normal nowadays.  If things were average, I would just sit and wait for a long time.  If the service level was better than usual, I would ring back to the receptionist, who would ask if I’d like to leave a message or keep waiting.  If the service was even better than that, the service manager would jump on, explain he was busy and ask if I’d like to wait or leave my callback info.  The key here is being acknowledged by a person.  This is why it is very quickly becoming commonplace to be greeted by the whole staff when you walk in the door.  “Welcome to Firehouse!” “Welcome to Rita’s!” “Welcome to Subway!”  It sounds hokey, but it really does work.  But for my experience, I spoke to no people and I ended up talking to a generic voicemail box.  I wasn’t even acknowledged.

It seems that a phone system upgrade could fix this issue, for me, anyway.  My suspicion is that the service dept. knows that calls get kicked to voicemail after 4 rings, so there is a lack of urgency and unless they aren’t doing anything at that moment, they’ll just wait it out.  The phone should keep ringing and not give them an opportunity to ignore a customer.

At this time, more than 24 hours has passed, so I guess they don’t want my business.