Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms

The Digital Divide: Promise versus Delivery

The "digital divide", the gap between those with access to information technology and those without, gets a lot of play in the press and with politicians.  It is always expressed as a problem that must be addressed.  You typically hear of it in socio-economic terms: 

• by the country's development level
• by age
• by economic status
• by race
• by gender
• by all of the above.

It really is an important issue worthy of thoughtful discussion - but I'm not going to discuss this in this post.  At least not this form of "digital divide" anyway.

We in corporate IT may be a little smug about the digital divide because for the most part we don't have to deal with it.  Generally, the groups we serve are all on the same level of access to technology so we don't have to worry about the divide.  There is however a digital divide that we do need to worry about.  In geo-political terms it is not nearly as important as the issues above but it is a local issue for all of us.  It is the digital divide between what technology promises (the potential of technology) and what it delivers (or how we use it).  This divide between promise and delivery expresses itself in two ways.

Zappos: Integrating Systems and Business Processes

When you run across a company the truly integrates their systems with their business processes it can be an amazing experience.  Dealing with these companies borders on fun because they take the effort to make it easy and have anticipated your needs.  Zappos, an online retailer of shoes and other accessories, is one such company.  Or more appropriately as they describe themselves: "We are a service company that happens to sell ________.

• shoes
• and handbags
• and clothing
• and eyewear
• and watches
• and accessories
• (and eventually anything and everything)"

Since I'm a customer of Zappos I'm surprised that I hadn't written about this before.  Fortunately, Seth Godin's recent post, "Zappos wants you to return those shoes" reminded me so now is a good time to talk about them.

Zappos' service is all encompassing in how it is set up.  It includes: policy, processes, customer perspective, vision, attitude and systems.  Customer service for them isn't just putting a "Contact us" or "Customer Service" link on their web site.  Pete Blackshaw explain this in more detail in "Word-of-Mouth Marketing 101, à la Zappos.com"

Don't believe me?  Then check out these examples:

Eight Business Technology TrendsTo Watch

I recently ran across an article at the McKinsey Quarterly that caught my attention.  The McKinsey Quarterly is a business journal published by McKinsey & Company, a large international strategic business consulting firm.  The McKinsey Quarterly publishes both free (with registration articles) and "premium" (for a fee) articles.  The article that caught my attention is a free article published in December, 2007, entitled "Eight business technology trends to watch" by James Manyika, Roger Roberts and Kara Sprague.  These McKinsey consultants have identified some trends that we as IT leaders need to be thinking about.  It's a very thought provoking article.  The trends they identify are:

Managing relationships

1. Distributing cocreation - the Internet offers new ways for people and teams to collaborate in developing new products and services
2. Using consumers as innovators - "crowdsourcing" allows our customers to also be contributors
3. Tapping into a world of talent - it's a big world out there and in the virtual world one with out borders
4. Extracting more value from interactions - technology can help us focus our efforts into more value- added areas and transfer transactional activities to more cost effective solutions

Managing capital and assets

5. Expanding the frontiers of automation - technology has tremendous potential for automating repetitive tasks
6. Unbundling production from delivery - we can use technology to make our fixed assets into reusable components

Leveraging information in new ways

7. Putting more science into management - we now have the ability for data-based decisions more than we've ever had
8. Making businesses from information - "knowledge is power" that can help our business succeed and develop new markets

I'm a few months behind many other reviews of this article so I won't do a detailed review.  For that you may want to take a look at some of the reviews I've listed below.  Instead I'll make a different observation.

Unintended Consequences of Overlooking the Obvious with Technology

A week ago Saturday (March 8) we moved our clocks one hour ahead for daylight savings time (DST)  to give us more daylight in the evening.  The next day I checked into a DoubleTree hotel to attend a conference.  Upon entering my room I noticed that the alarm clock was one hour behind.  My first reaction was that they missed a great customer service opportunity.  Since the housekeeping staff is in the room everyday why not simply have them adjust the alarm clocks for daylight savings?  That should be simple enough, shouldn't it?  Well maybe not.

Since I wanted to use the alarm clock I figured it would be easier to set the time correctly myself.  Upon looking at the clock I noticed 2 things.  First the clock was 53 minutes behind and not 60 as I assumed resulting from the DST change.  Second, and this is the most shocking, there is no way to adjust the time.  That's right you can not change the time.  Some of the features include:

• Four pre-set buttons for local radio stations designated by a graphic of the music type

• Connection cable for use with guest’s personal MP3 player, portable CD player, laptop and other entertainment devices

• Built-in stereo speakers for radio or connected devices

• Large LCD screen with dimmer that adjusts to high, medium or low

• Automatic daily alarm time reset, preventing an alarm set by a previous guest from repeating

I picked up the radio and looked on the top and looked on the bottom and looked all around but couldn't find anything that would let me change the time.  My curiosity got the best of me so I called the front desk and the conversation went something like this:

Me: I must be a complete idiot but the time on the clock is wrong and I cannot figure out how to set it, can you tell me how to set the time.

Front Desk: We'll have to send up someone from engineering to do that.  You have to have a screwdriver and open up the clock to adjust the time.

Me: Am I hearing you correctly?  It takes someone from engineering to set the time on a clock?

Front Desk:  I'm afraid so.  Would you like me to send someone up?

Me: No thanks.  I'll just use the alarm feature on my BlackBerry.

I wish I would have had more time.  It would have been interesting to see if the time setting really can be corrected.  While preparing this post I did a little research and things get even more interesting.

The Importance of Integrating Acquisitions Quickly

A close friend from Chicago knowing my IT connection sent me the following story thinking I might find it interesting.  I certainly did!  Enough so that with the permission I am posting as something of a guest post (anonymously at their request).

My daughter and I had an interesting  experience yesterday, which you might find amusing in your IT world.  She had two checks that she wanted to deposit in her Bank of America account.  Since October 1, when BofA formally acquired LaSalle Bank, they have been advertising that they are one bank and retail customers (the reason BofA wanted to buy LaSalle) could do their business at either bank, regardless of where their accounts were.  The closest BofA facility is about 10 miles away which as you recall can be a long drive in Chicago traffic.  So my daughter goes into the local branch of the LaSalle (a stand-alone bank building, with a parking lot for at least 30 cars) with her BofA card and her checks....to be told that the 'infrastructure' is not set up for them to take any deposits for BofA accounts. (Mind you, she can, with her deposit slip from the checking account, deposit those checks in ANY ATM sponsored by any bank.)  The LaSalle people also mentioned in response to her surprise that the BofA/LaSalle 'infrastructure' was not working smoothly enough for the employees to get their checks in a timely manner, either. (I guess, treating employees badly is a good reason for customers to overlook bad customer service?)  And this is happening in Chicago, the home base of the LaSalle operations--I wonder what happens elsewhere?)

So we go off to Dominick's [a Chicago area supermarket chain] with the checks in her purse.  At Dominick's there is a Chase "office" of about 120 square feet--barely room for a desk, three chairs. the bank officer's computer,  and an ATM. I say to my daughter, "let's try something..."  We tell the bank officer that we have a Chase checking account, but we do not have any Chase cards with us, don't know any account numbers, don't have a deposit slip, but would like to deposit two checks...can she help?  No problem...my daughter entered her SS number into the hand-held device that brought up our accounts on the bank officer's screen, she asked for a photo id to verify that she was the same person as listed on her screen, took the checks, and two minutes after we walked in on the way to the produce counter, the checks were deposited.

I do realize that mergers are a lot more complicated than running off-site locations, but BofA won the LaSalle bank in early summer/late spring 2007 even if it did not get closed until 9/30/07.  That was enough time to get their ad campaign out about it being "one bank" but insufficient time to  merge the IT systems that are the lifeline of their business.

Oh well,..........

I find this interesting for a number of reasons:

Rocky Mountain High with Lost Luggage

Kevin Flynn, Transportation Writer for The Rocky Mountain News in Denver wrote a couple of articles yesterday that caught my interest.  The first one is "Airlines losing more bags" which talks about a 12.5% increase nationwide in mis-handled bags.  He reports that at some airlines the increase is in excess of 30%.  Now that's scary.

His second article, a sidebar article to the one above, "Late connection delayed bag, but airline was ready" discussed how some airlines are handling the situation.  I found two things especially interesting about this;

1. Kevin quoted my blog post of July 30th concerning my lost luggage experience in Denver where I suggested that they use the information they already have and proactively let people know their luggage didn't make the connection rather than make them wait in vain and then seek out the baggage claim people.  As I mentioned, "If you know a bag didn't make the connection, why do you insist on adding to my frustration by making me wait an extra 30 or 45 minutes, and then make me come ask you about it?"
2. The article relates another travelers experience with Delta.  Once they inquired about their missing luggage the Delta agent then consulted the computer printout and quickly handled things which was very similar to my experience with United when I got back to Houston.

What amazes me is that the airlines still seem to think that people really don't care if they get their luggage or not, its like they are saying "Maybe, we better wait and see if they will come ask us about it before we do anything".  As if I'd schlep 40 pounds of dead weight through an airport and then not want it!

I stand by my original suggestion:

An IT Question: Disappearing Car Doors and the Theory of Negativity

Liz Strauss has called me an SOB.  I actually find that very flattering since it doesn't mean what it usually means (which according to Wikipedia is actually quite a few things).  Anyway because of this I try to faithfully check out her weekly listing of new SOBs she's found.  This week iDunzo.com was one and I was floored by the post that happened to be the most current one.  It seems a company called JaTech has developed a disappearing car door - that's right it disappears.  Check out the video.

When I Googled this I was even more floored by the reactions to this new technology.  Most of them were overwhelmingly positive expressing the same amazement that I felt.  However, I was caught off guard by the reaction of some who couldn't help but dwell on problems and issues.

Some examples:

2007 Gadget Guide

With the holiday season in full swing you are no doubt wondering what you can possibly give to your favorite techno-geek.  Fortunately the folks at Scientific American have come to the rescue again this year with their slideshow of "20 Gadgets You Want  - Popular applications of science and technology for you to give and get".  I like Scientific American's guide since it always seems to have cool gadgets that aren't just the latest version of last year's computer device.  It's the kind of stuff that you like but would probably never buy for your self.

This year's guide includes (among other things):

• Limited edition Ferrari Segway - About as close as I might ever come to having a real Ferrari.  The only problem is that although it looks like a Ferrari (within the constraints of being a Segway) it is just a standard Segway tricked out with a Ferrari paint job and logos.  So no zooming down the autobahn on your Segway.
• Powers of 2 Binary LED Clock - for those real IT nerds out there.  " It displays the time in binary—the 1s and 0s of computer language. "

But there are 2 that are my real favorites.  Both are practical and one is just plain cool.

The first is a Hammacher Schlemmer Slide- and Negative-to-Digital-Picture Converter  that allows you to easily convert your old slides and photo negatives to digital pictures.  I realize I'm showing my age but if you have a lot of slides and negatives from the pre-digital age this is a great way to convert them.  The only downside is that when you put them on your wish list it will no doubt generate those embarrassing questions from your kids.  You know the ones - "What's a slide?" , "What's film?" , "You really had to take this 'film' stuff to the store to get your pictures" and "I don't understand, instead of taking it to the store why didn't you just email it to your friends through your cell phone?"  This last one of course takes you down another path of life in the stone age before email and cell phones but we won't go there for now.

There is one gadget that is cool, practical and unfortunately not yet available.

An Over Reliance on Technology

The other day a reader, Mark Siegel, sent me an email about one of my earlier posts on email disclaimers.  He also left a little post-script:

Shouldn't "don't won't" be "don't want"?

He was absolutely correct, it should have been "don't want" (which I've since corrected).  Oops I did it again.  I put my brain on hold and over relied on technology, i. e. the spell checker, to make sure things were right.  That's the problem with technology.  It's so easy to use and so right -- most of the time.  When it doesn't work or we use it beyond its capabilities is when we run in to problems.

A few days later I was listening to a story on National Public Radio about airline safety.  The story detailed how much safer flying was due in large part to improved technology.  Since I fly fairly often I should find this to be good news and I do.  However, at the same time it scares me a little.  I just hope some pilot or air traffic controller doesn't do what I did - over rely on technology.

I'm not suggesting that we abandon technology by any means.  I'm just suggesting that we remember that technology can relieve of us work but not of responsibility.  At the end of the day we and not the technology are responsible for our work product.  This is true whether it is spell checking, flying a plane or writing a program.  Just because the computer says 2+2=5 doesn't make it so.  The Educated Nation | Higher Education Blog  has a post from July of this year entitled "Technology Reverses the Smartness" that references a Telegraph UK article that says in part, "An over reliance on technology is leading to a dumbing down of the nation’s brain power . . ."  Not a very pleasing concept.

Accomodating Those A**hole Censors

I recently spent some time re-editing a post because of the problems it was causing with Internet filtering programs.  Back in July I wrote a post, Take The Test: Are You An IT A**hole Or An IT Hero?  which is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek test based on Professor Bob Sutton's Work Matters blog which discusses his book "The No A**hole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't".

Actually, the problem is that in the original post I used "ss" instead of "**".  As a result I've learned that some Internet filtering programs are blocking my blog due to "offensive language".  When I wrote this I considered self-censoring it but after reading some of Professor Sutton's posts on how his book title was being handled in the media I decided to follow his lead and leave the "ss" in.  Those that know me do know that I do use strong language from time to time but I don't use it as a normal part of my conversation.  However, sometime using substitutes don't just convey the same meaning and intensity which is why I agree with Sutton on using the term.  For an interesting discussion on how Sutton has handled this see "The Decent Thing to Call My Book"

Apparently some IT administrators and/or web filtering providers don't agree and as a result this site was blocked.  Interestingly enough I've been told that when the package blocks my site for "offensive language" it lists the offensive terms which is ironic.  It kind of makes you wonder how you filter the filtering software.

While I do think that Internet filtering should be used in the corporate world I don't think it should be overused.  Here are some suggestions for using web filtering effectively.

Another New Wrinkle In User Interfaces

A couple of months ago I wrote about what I considered the most significant thing about the iPhone, namely its user interface.  The touch screen  concepts of the iPhone along with the  types of technology used in surface computing and Microsoft's Center for Information Work indicate some exciting new possibilities in my opinion [see the original post for videos demonstrating these new technologies].

The folks over at Scientific American blog recently reported on yet another emerging interface, "The keyboard is dead; Long live... Whatever".   The blog references an Electronic Engineering Times article "Text-entry algorithm takes aim at Qwerty".  It seems that the folks at kannuu have developed a potentially easier way to type.  The technology is a one thumb device where after you enter a letter it uses predictive technology to present choices for the next letter and ultimately the full word.  As kannuu describes it:

With our elegantly simple Partial Word Completion™ technology, accessed by using an up, down, left, right and centre choice or 5 way directional selection control such as those commonly found on mobile devices, kannuu delivers a fast, seamless, and error-free search experience. And being software-based, it works with any mobile device.

The Scientific American article shows how the word "technology" can be entered with only 7 clicks using kannuu compared to the usual 13 on a traditional keyboard.  You can also see a demo of this at kannuu.com.

Like these other technologies it is too early to tell if this technology will truly work or if it will catch on.  However, it is interesting to see how computer interfaces are changing from the keyboard and green screens to a GUI/mouse interface to new and different touch and voice interfaces.

It will be fun to see where all this goes don't you think?  Who knows, maybe being "all thumbs" will be a good thing.

"keyboards" photo by DRB62

If this topic was of interest, you might also like these:

• Realizing the Impact of Technology
• What can we learn from our favorite technologies?
• Looking Back - Lessons of the Antikythera Mechanism
• Or the posts in the "Technology" category

Adblock - Savior or Scourge?

There is an interesting little plugin available for the Firefox browser going around called Adblock Plus that has some pretty significant implications for your Internet experience.  This plugin erases all of the ads from web pages - stops them cold.  No more Google Adsense ad, no more annoying pop-ups.  Nirvana, right?  Well maybe not.  If you stop to think about the economics of the Internet this might not be a good thing.  After all it is all that advertising that drives all the "free" sites we love.  We all love Google but advertising is the price we pay to use it.

The NY Times quotes the developer of Adblock Plus as estimating that there about 2.5 million users of Adblock worldwide which is not yet enough to be a serious problem.  He goes on to estimate that it is growing at about 300,000 to 400,000 users per month.  I noted that a simple Technorati search of the term Adblock lists around 25 pages of blog references within the past seven days so it would appear that it is generating interest.

Apparently, for the time being Google is being quiet about all of this perhaps hoping it will not grow to be a significant problem.  However, this does pose a "Sophie's choice" dilemma for them.  As Nicholas Carr states:

The company [Google] is in a particularly dicey position. The broad adoption of ad-blocking software could devastate its business, yet an outright attempt to block the use of such programs would run counter to its often-expressed commitment to give users what they want. If web users decide they don't want to see ads, Google would face an extremely unpleasant dilemma. Either its business or its credibility would end up in tatters.

So what will happen?

Return of the Hanging Chad?

The other day while driving to work I heard an interesting report, Voting Officials Wary About Electronic Ballot,  on NPR (National Public Radio).  The report talked about the potential problems with electronic voting machines.  Like a number of other reports such as a recent New York Times article or Bruce Schneier's excellent analysis from November,2004 on "The Problem with Electronic Voting Machines" the NPR report talked about some of the issues of electronic voting.

The problems associated with electronic voting machines are well-known and Schneier does an excellent job of expanding on them:

• Hacking - someone hacking into the system to commit voting fraud
• Programming errors - software errors causing unintended widespread consequences
• Accuracy - under-counting, double counting etc.

In looking at this I found two thing rather interesting.  The first thing is that we are still seeing technical issues with electronic voting.  We do our banking, manage our 401Ks, buy stock, arrange mortgages and more electronically without these issues (well, OK, hacking will always be a concern).  So why can't we solve the issue around electronic voting?  It just seems rather strange that we haven't been able to address all of these issues yet.

The second and most interesting thing (at least for me) was the reaction of some politicians and journalists to the issues.

Return of the Hanging Chad?

The other day while driving to work I heard an interesting report, Voting Officials Wary About Electronic Ballot,  on NPR (National Public Radio).  The report talked about the potential problems with electronic voting machines.  Like a number of other reports such as a recent New York Times article or Bruce Schneier's excellent analysis from November,2004 on "The Problem with Electronic Voting Machines" the NPR report talked about some of the issues of electronic voting.

The problems associated with electronic voting machines are well-known and Schneier does an excellent job of expanding on them:

• Hacking - someone hacking into the system to commit voting fraud
• Programming errors - software errors causing unintended widespread consequences
• Accuracy - under-counting, double counting etc.

In looking at this I found two thing rather interesting.  The first thing is that we are still seeing technical issues with electronic voting.  We do our banking, manage our 401Ks, buy stock, arrange mortgages and more electronically without these issues (well, OK, hacking will always be a concern).  So why can't we solve the issue around electronic voting?  It just seems rather strange that we haven't been able to address all of these issues yet.

The second and most interesting thing (at least for me) was the reaction of some politicians and journalists to the issues.

Life on the Help Desk; Some Things Never Change

Being a tech support person on the Help Desk is not always an easy job.  Dealing with anxious users some of which are clueless can be very frustrating.  Now we have "scientific proof" that while technology may have changed life on the Help Desk is pretty much the same as it has always been.

Just a little something to start you on your weekend.

Some Technology Suggestions for Airline Customer Service

This past weekend I had the misfortune of traveling on United Airlines.  It was a rather frustrating and difficult process typified with customer service as everyone simply going through the motions.  This does not appear to be unusual.  In addition to this there were two significant instances where United could have easily excelled at customer service but instead chose to needlessly inconvenience their customers.  To be fair to United I've noticed that all the other airlines have also chosen to ignore these opportunities so I'll make this an open post to the airline industry on some simple technology suggestions to improve your customer service.

1. Notify people of their connecting gates while they are still on the plane.  Due to a delay in leaving Vancouver we were late in arriving in Denver and people were naturally anxious about making their connections.  The flight attendants announced that they no longer received connecting gate information and asked people to check the monitors after leaving the plane.  Connections to Kansas City and Chicago were apparently particularly tight.  A few minutes after their first announcement they did announce the connecting gates for Kansas City and Chicago which of course frustrated everyone else that was left with no information.

Announcing connecting gate information used to be commonplace and as this example it can still be done if airlines really wanted to do it.  I'm not sure why the don't do this anymore.  Presumably it is because the attendants are busy with other important duties which makes a prime opportunity to use technology to improve customer service.  Since the data exists and they already know which connecting flights are of interest to each incoming flights passengers why not either use the video monitors (if the plane has them) or put up simple announcement monitors with this information.  It would provide people with the information they want and not tie up the attendants.

If they really want to do it right, they'd also include the connecting flight status.  There is nothing more frustrating to arrive late, make a mad breathless