Noise Between Stations

Month: September 2000

  • Peter makes a similar point I was making to someone today: People HATE work. Peter refers to misguided marketing campaigns, whereas I was referring to the popular Internet strategy that says you should create self-service website to let people do the customer service themselves. What crap, the only reason people like this is because they’d rather get the job done themselves quickly then deal with poorly run customer service systems.


    This genius suffers from incorrect customer service information, a representative who couldn’t take a message and follow up, and a wait of hours. He concludes, “In an imperfect world of customer service, most customers prefer to cut to the chase and help themselves.” While that’s true, what I think people REALLY prefer is customer service that works. The web shouldn’t be a crutch you pick up when you’ve given up on an internal process.

  • generosity: group metalog. One of the most interesting blogs I’ve seen in a long time. different. funny. smart. a little dada, a little e.e. cummings-ish. via sylloge

  • Gloating over my latest stock pick, Qualcomm, which I recently picked up just as it started climbing from the high 60’s.


    My investing strategy has worked pretty well: only touch companies whose products you’re familiar with, and then analyze them technically, ignoring all the fundamental information. Clearstation is a great site for technical analysis.

  • Some raw-like-flesh-after-scraping-against-the-pavement reality from the CHI-WEB list:

    > They don't like bad things. And if sites have bad things, people 
won't go
> there.


sorry peter, but people like bad things that are useful or have 
brittany
spears on them, and companies like bad things that are profitable and 
so bad
things are good things.


    Unfortunate of course, but for me it’s a challenge to work that much harder to improve user interfaces, people, and the whole damn world.

  • I had started this pretty long blog entry when my computer crashed, and it’s too late and I’m too tired to reproduce it. A summary:

  • I found the two guys and their work that led to the Microsoft paper clip.
  • Though most people bash the paper clip, I don’t think it’s really that annoying. I’m trying to relax and learn to love the paper clip. She’s just trying to help me, right?
  • The paper clip is probably usable, and its reputation as annoying probably stems from factors farther flung and more interesting than usability…I’m betting socialogy.


    That’s all. Good night.

  • I finaly added permanent links to each entry in my blog thanks to Blogger’s handy HOW TO. I had tried it back in beta and didn’t realize they had finessed it so well.


    Instead of some cryptic asterisk or other symbol to denote the link, I choose the high affordance “link to this post”.


    Of course I have to test it…check out the birth of my thoughts on Extreme User Interface Design

  • Very cool “Sketching Interface for 3D Freeform Design” called Teddy. via peterme (not someone you want to borrow links from without crediting! ;-)

  • Every time I walk into my local Fresh Fields I think how they picked a great niche and are positioned so well. They appeal to people’s desire to eat well – in regards to health, taste, and quality – without being too upscale or alienating. Some gourmet foods, some organic, some yummy stuff made on the premises, but I still have the choice to buy “regular” food too. I think, yeah, this is going to catch on, people will start eating more organic foods.


    Then I saw a commercial for Fit. Fit is a product you can buy to wash the pesticides off your fruits and vegetables. Instead of buying organic foods, we are going to spray our food with chemicals and then later buy this stuff to wash the pesticides off. I don’t care if it is made from natural materials, it’s going in the wrong direction. This really disturbes me that this product came as far as it has, and will really sadden me if it’s a success.

  • I keep thinking, and telling people, that the most important thing I’ve learned at work in the past few months is the importance of feedback. A fundamental aspect of communication theory, feedback can help improve systems, people, processes…everything. In communication theory, feedback helps ensure that a message was transmitted. In the same way, we don’t know if the work we’ve done unless we hear from the people it affects.


    When it comes to people, it seems that even when we’re good at receiving feedback, a lot of people aren’t good at giving feedback. Specifically, we too often associate feedback with harsh criticism and shy away from it (or put it on our blogs in instead of doing it face to face ;-). Also, most people I’ve seen don’t have any structure to their feedback, so it lacks effectiveness.


    I like the classic, simple, “plus/delta” method taught be such folks as Outward Bound, which is where I learned it. In a group situation, the leader (the person seeking feedback) talks about what she thinks she did well. Then each person in the group takes a turn talking about what the leader did well. Then the leader talks about what she could improve next time, and then each person talks about what she could do better next time. It’s important that the turn taking is strictly enforced; these are not discussions or arguments. It takes some discipline to introduce this to people and to feel comfortable with it, but it’s worth the effort.

  • New book that explains the evolution of culture through sexual evolution: The Mating Mind : How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature.

  • Thomas Locke Hobbs (great name, btw) correctly pointed out that, statistically and probability, if polls now show Gore ahead of Bush in my state I can safely let the electoral college cast its votes while I vote for Nader. My fear below is fueled by my denial that the electoral college really still exists; it seems like such a nasty vestigal leftover of our past. I read Walt Whitman and I crave true democracy.


    Thomas created an interesting home page and blog. I especially like his photography of Torres del Paine and the portraits.

  • A was going to vote for Nader in order to support the an alternative party in Amercia (if a party receives at least 5% of the vote they are eligible for significant federal funding). Just now some co-workers walked by and uttered the time-worn dictum, “A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.” Damnit, I’d hate to think I’m putting Bush in the Whitehouse just for wanting to support a third party. Arrrrrgh.

  • Gorgeous Mac clone. When they actually start shipping I’ll start to believe it reliably runs at 1200 MHz.

  • More great in-yer-face attitude from Phil Greenspun: ArsDigita: Redefining Professionalism for Software Engineers

  • Wow, a whole series of articles on what people say is the one Meeting I Never Miss. I’m liking Fast Company more and more, and letting my Wired subscription expire for the second time.


    A recent issue of Fast Company actually praised people who removed themselves from the rat race and the tech industry to regain their lives; Wired’s attitude seems to be you’re worthless if you haven’t studied at the Media Lab (what, you have to ask which one?) or have rejected the current paradigm, regardless of the worth of your work to humanity.