Picture My World

I finally got out to shoot some photos this morning.  Shula came with me and took her own pictures with our older Sony Cybershot.  I had been dreaming of the time she could accompany me on one of these outings and not be a) totally bored or b) totally annoying.  It was great fun.

Here’s a sample of her work:

 

   

 

  

 

   

We’ve been in Boston for about 6 weeks now. Executive summary: Boston is nice. Moving sucks.

Prior to the move we heard that Bostonians were a little cold or aloof and really bad drivers. So far, the former is false and the latter is true, but they are no worse than Vancouver drivers (and definitely better than Richmond drivers!). One local that we met said Bostonians are obligated to tell outsiders that they are cold and aloof even though it’s not true. I hope they don’t come get me for revealing the truth.

We haven’t had a lot of time to explore Boston proper yet. We spent our first month out in Framingham in a hotel, so didn’t get into the city at all. A couple of weeks ago, we went to the Boston Common which was quite nice. The architecture here is fabulous — and now that I’ve finally unpacked my camera, I hope to start photographing it.

The move has been a series of little pains the entire way - and it’s still going.  The MathWorks provided a really good relocation benefit, but many things outside of their control were imperfect.

We were “professionally” packed and moved from Vancouver by Great Canadian Van Lines.  There were 2 packers - one knew how to pack but not how to keep his trap shut and the other couldn’t do either - he was constantly on his cell phone and, for example, had tossed an unwrapped silver cup carelessly into a box (I only found it because I had to find some things they shouldn’t have packed).  We were not impressed at the time, nor when we had to unpack some of these carelessly packed boxes.

On the other hand, Arpin Van Lines (who sub-contracted the Canadian side) were pretty good overall except for passing on my complaints to Great Canadian before the guys had loaded the truck…  We’ll see how well they respond to my claim for 3 missing boxes, though.  The other headache is our car arrived with a brand new noise.  It’s also to be seen whether the shipper will deal with this.

We nearly didn’t make it into the country because we didn’t realize our daughters needed US passports when entering by air. We thought their Canadian passports were adequate ID, but we got a lecture about how wrong we were about that.  Again, this is something the immigration lawyer should have picked up on. Luckily we just ended up with a stern warning.

Besides the physical move, we’re dealing with starting with essentially no credit here.  AT&T wanted a $500 deposit per phone if we wanted a contract, so we’re on an expensive pay-as-you-go plan until we build up some history.  We’ve applied for some store credit cards and been denied.  It’s great fun.  However, we’re about to get a mortgage, so that should help on the credit problem.

We also had some fun navigating the health care system almost immediately.  First Kim got conjunctivitis and then Lior came down with a fever.  I was so used to walk-in clinics in Vancouver that it was a shock not to have them here.  You actually have to 1) be a member of a doctor’s practice and 2) call your doctor to make an appointment.  If you don’t or can’t do either one you need to go to the ER.

We still need to register our car here.  After that, I think we’ll be done with the biggest parts of the move.

I’m a procrastinator.  As a result, I have discovered a number of online procrastination groups and web sites.  I can’t help but think that all the people visiting these sites are just procrastinating.  Many of them even admit it in their comments.

According to 43things.com, over 19,000 people want to stop procrastinating.  That’s 19,000 people who were procrastinating on 43things.  There must be another 19,000 people procrastinating on a different site. I think almost every facebook user is suffering from procrastination.

Do any of these sites or groups help people with their procrastination? I find that most of them offer simple tips that are not effective by themselves.

Are you a procrastinator?  Are you a former procrastinator?  What was your cure?

It’s true. Read it here. Don’t let the fact that Eileen is a fiction writer give you any funny thoughts.

Where have I been?

The answer, sadly, is that I was immersed in a terribly addictive game. However, I’ve completed my last quest and cancelled my subscription. I had started writing a post about the game when I first started, but I never got around to publishing it. Ironically, I had written that I wouldn’t be signing up for the game after the trial…

I could tell you all about the great job Blizzard did with World of Warcraft, but I won’t.  Read a review or play the game yourself.  However, I don’t recommend it if you have an addictive personality.

Anyway, I’m glad to be back.  Maybe I’ll even write a little.

This blog’s inactivity is interrupted to ask you to say a prayer for Matt’s mom and family during a difficult time.

If you produce a product and people buy it but don’t use it (but also do not return it), is that a successful product?

This Is Broken is a site that captures people’s frustrations with products and services. You can submit a picture a relate a short story of an experience that was “broken” from your point of view.

It sounds good in principle and I’ve subscribed to its RSS feed for a number of months now. But, I’ve come to the conclusion that This Is Broken is broken for me. I had hoped it would provide an entertaining stream of stupid product designs and customer service experiences better read about than experienced. Instead, it’s a constant list of boring blather.

Yes, there is the occasional post that either teaches a lesson about bad design or is funny. But, then we hear from somebody who sees a company’s logo with an acronym they can’t decifer. Who cares? Why did that person even think this is a broken experience? As far as I could tell, they weren’t even a potential customer!

Now, admittedly, I am not the target audience of the site. As the site’s header states, it is a “project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience”. But, as Seth Godin says, if it’s broken for you, it’s broken. (Or words to that effect.)

I am live-blogging from a huge line at the Air Canada counter at Narita Airport. My flight home has been cancelled. I was as surprised as anyone, especially considering the Air Canada web site shows the flight departing on time.

I have no mobile phone anymore (my work phone doesn’t work in Japan) but my colleague in Israel is on the phone with the travel department trying to figure out what’s going on. I am instant messaging with him through the wonder that is the internet. This is the one bright point.

They just announced that the flight was cancelled “due to aircraft maintenance”. I’ve got news for you, Air Canada. You do “maintenance” to prevent this exact problem.

They are putting people on a Northwest flight to Seattle, but there are less than 30 seats left and there are more than 50 people in front of me.  Not good.
More later (if the line ever moves).

Arrived in Tokyo yesterday around 6:30 pm local time. I was exhausted and didn’t stay up much past 7:30 and then, of course, woke up at midnight. I haven’t been able to sleep very well after that and gave it up around 3 am.

I was expecting an utterly foreign land, much stranger than anywhere I’d been in Europe. So are, things are different but not what I expected. Maybe I feel this way because I already knew about the many-buttoned toilets? I suspect things will take on a more alien feel once I leave the confines of the hotel today.

I’m staying at the Tokyo Dome Hotel that shares its location with the Tokyo Dome stadium and a large amusement park (here’s a satellite view from Google). As I was ascending in the elevator, I saw someone descending across from me on one of those faux-parachute drop rides at about the same speed!

The airport (Narita) is about 60 km from Tokyo and I took a shuttle bus in. The surrounding area is quite industrial and, frankly, quite ugly. It didn’t get much better in Tokyo proper as we took an elevated roadway snaking through the dense city and every descent to street level (to get to other stops) led to a collection of dark and dingy viaducts. For some reason I was expecting everything to be shiny and new, but the architecture I’ve seen so far is clearly post-war and not so pleasing. Again, these are first impressions only.

Here’s a night shot from my window (I couldn’t kill the reflections):

The lit curve is one of the elevated roads. It seems every single building has red lights and they form the night horizon. Most of them slowly blink, giving the appearence of a red, roiling sea.

Our first hint that our neighbour is a creative tool user came a number of months ago as her house’s full reno was nearly complete. Unfortunately, she had run a little short on money and needed to finish some of the project herself before she could get a living permit.

One day she started leveling the front yard (which was very uneven, packed-down dirt). She was wittling away at the dirt with a cleaver. Yes, a kitchen knife. She worked for hours on the yard, every day after work.

After a number of days at this, a friendly passer-by suggested she rent a rototiller to do the job properly. She accepted his advice and continued to chip away with the cleaver. He stopped by again a week later and reiterated his suggestion. She thanked him and continued chopping dirt.

(Common sense eventually kicked in and she rented that rototiller.)

Creative Tool Usage #2 — A cleaver (and a little time) can level mountains.

An interesting analysis of modern day anti-semitism.

I think I have the makings of a series of posts here. Our next door neighbor has to be one of the most “creative” tool users I’ve ever seen.

For example, just today I saw her attempting to open a paint can with a gardening spade. She went around and around, trying to get the shovel under the lid’s lip. It eventually worked.

Creative Tool Usage #1 — In the event you don’t have a screwdriver, open paint cans with a spade.

(This one is nothing.  Stay tuned as we crank creativity up a notch!)

I just applied for a new Canadian passport and was in and out of the local passport office in 35 minutes. Really!

Here’s the trick: fill out your application online. Online applicants get preferential treatment and I only had to wait about 5 minutes after I had registered (that line took 15 minutes). I felt bad for all those people that were waiting the whole time I was there. Actually, I didn’t.

Why are online treated differently? As the officer that helped me succinctly put it, “We’re not data entry people. Our primary job is security.”

Note that the online application only works in Internet Explorer on Windows and the whole registration and application is a little clunky, but it’s worth it.

We’re returning from California tomorrow.  We were on vacation, supposedly, but the horrendous heat (causing over 100 deaths) and dealing with my wife’s grandfather’s continuing health problems really sapped that relaxing feeling.

I am so looking forward to the 20 degree temperatures at home!

This is only of interest to my Jewish readers.

Steven Weis points to this Jewish Week article about the demise of Edah.

I attended Larry Constantine’s tutorial titled Breakthrough Design: Innovation That Works for Users. When learning from the “big names” I always look forward to real stories and insight that only experience brings. Larry didn’t disappoint. He’s also a great speaker.

He touched on innovation and then plunged into design topics such as techniques to break away from preconceptions and frames of reference and using abstraction to your advantage. The remainder of the day covered what makes a good interface and how users learn novel interactions. There was, of course, the obligatory hands-on design exercises. As a refreshing change, we worked on real design problems tutorial participants’ were facing at work. (more…)

I always learn something new at conferences, even if it’s not directly related to the conference theme.  Scott Kincaid, a Texan, and I were chatting and he asked me what I thought “don’t mess with texas” meant.  I said something like you shouldn’t attack Texas or they’ll kick your ass.  Another conference goer said something similar.
It turns out that the phrase is part of an anti-litter campaign launched in the 80’s! Who knew?

Happy Honda is a car dealer in Vancouver. Here’s their logo:

I saw it on the back of a car and, because it was just chromed plastic, it looked more like this:

I’ll make it a little more obvious:

I’m not a conspiracy theorist by nature, but that’s just creepy.

Guy points out this video of Steve Jobs speaking to the Cupertino City Council. Guy comments that this is a great informal presentation, but it seemed very awkward to me (especially the conversation at the end). However, in spite of that or maybe because of it, I do think it was a brilliant example of how to influence people.

If you’ve read Cialdini’s book titled Influence: Science and Practice, you’ll be able to pick out what he did. Jobs didn’t ask for anything, but the council gave him a lot.

Cialdini outlines several influence strategies but I’ll just mention two. “Reciprocity” is the you-rub-my-back-I’ll-rub-yours give and take principle that we often react automatically to. When someone gives us something, we feel compelled to return the favor. “Consistency” is the drive for us to stay self-consistent. For example, if someone can get you to state that you’re charitable, you’ll most likely give more charity in the future. The book goes into much more detail, of course.

I think Jobs does a great job exploiting these two influence principles and it really wouldn’t have mattered how poorly he spoke. First, he doesn’t ask for anything — he just wanted the council to hear the good news. I think the council was actually taken aback a bit. Here’s a busy, important, famous CEO just popping by to give them an update. Wow! The council members seemed surprised and went out of their way to tell Jobs how happy they were that Apple was staying in Cupertino. At the very end, the Vice Mayor told him that an Apple employee should visit with one of their planning committees. There’s reciprocity at work.

The more subtle win, I think, was the fact many of the councilors said how happy they were that Apple was staying in Cupertino (and they all applauded at the end). These comments were driven by the reciprocity principle, too, but they feed into the consistency principle. Now that it’s on public record that they value Apple, their future decisions will be based on that. They will be driven to stay consistent with that outlook. For example, they may vote to give Apple tax breaks because of these simple statements.

Brilliant.