Thursday, December 27, 2012

Another day, another Baktun

In spite of the best efforts of Hollywood and shock media, December 21st came and went without catastrophe  or a bang, or even a wimper.  Nope - aside from a raft of humorous Facebook posts, it was not much more that the scheduled winter solstice exactly as predicted.  So the thirteenth long-count of the Mayan calendar comes to an end exactly 144,000 solar days (a Baktun) since the last one started, and we start counting again. This marks the end of the first Great Cycle and presumably the beginning of another. I want to believe the rest of their predictions are accurate as well, in particular the regeneration of the cosmos and the re-ordering of space and time.  It couldn't come soon enough - things have been a little chaotic lately, and not in a good way.

Really, what is wrong with people? Do we crave chaos, and drama so much that we have to twist every amazing feat of science and math into a horrific apocalyptic event?  Okay, well, I guess we know the answer to that is yes.  It is disappointing none the less to know that so much misinformation has clouded the fact that 3400 years ago, the Mayan people were able to build a calendar that accurately predicted every solar and lunar event in a repeating 5125 year time loop.  How did we miss that?  I mean as a society - how is that not the front page news?

There is a great post from NASA here with a commentary on what we should really be talking about.  The world didn't end because that was never the plan.  The calendar did not end, it just cycled, like the one on your office wall does every January 1st. The next 5125 year cycle in our history is just a few days old now and we should be celebrating the coming of the new age.  That is not fringe level crazy talk, that is science.

As we wind down the current version of our modern Gregorian calendar and turn the page on yet another one, I have to wonder how many other ancient sciences we have dismissed and forgotten because they were not convenient to our common religious or political views.  I have to wonder if there are technologies we buried a millennia ago in favor of less accurate, but more socially acceptable ones.  Maybe this Baktun we will set things right and figure it out.


EOF

Saturday, December 8, 2012

$>ReadyPlayerOne__


OMG.

I finished reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline about one o'clock this morning and I would have blogged about it immediately if I was not seriously in need of sleep.  I just could not put it down.  I am already considering reading it again sometime this week.

This is the best cyberpunk novel I have read is quite a while and is likely the best book of any kind I have ever read.  I firmly believe Ready Player One is this generation's Neruomancer or Snow Crash.  Like those other two icons of cyberpunk, William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, Ernest Cline has completely captured the essence of the technology revolution.   The prose is easily readable, the references are relevant and the flow is perfect - every chapter is a cliff hanger.  

I seriously could not put this book down.  At one point on an earlier evening at about midnight, my eyes were blurry and I was fighting off sleep.  Just as I was ready to put the book aside for the night I read the line:

        I lie awake, staring out at the bleakness of Megadon.  
        City and sky become one, merging into a single plane, a vast sea of unbroken grey.
        The Twin Moons, just two pale orbs as they trace their way across the steely sky. 

Recognizing the stanza above from one of my favourite Rush albums, I got up, splashed water on my face and read for another 2 hours before finally being pulled unwillingly into the realm of sleep - book still in my hand.

Cline has managed to touch on the very heart of the technology revolution - not inventing an unimaginable future, but building a realistic model based on the real events of the past.  There are hundreds of references to 1980's pop culture, digital revolution, music, books, movies, and the general philosophy shift that was happening at that time.  That decade was a pivotal point in history on all facets and Cline has capitalized on that while speaking directly to the geeks of that generation.  From WarGames to Pat Benatar to Japanese Anime, this book touches every aspect of the 1980s revolution and does it with very close attention to detail.

That is the thing the bothers me the most about books and movies about technology - the accuracy.  When I watch a show or read a book that tries to sound technical, but their tech adviser is obviously uneducated, I get completely turned off.  Ready Player One has NONE of that, even down to the detail of serial numbers of console games.  This guy is a geek god.

If you are a geek and you lived through the eighties, drop everything and go buy this book now.  Seriously.  If you must actually walk to a physical bookstore, then do so as soon as possible, but as the book reminds us "Going outside is highly overrated".  Even if you have never heard of Zaxxon or Qbert, if you have any interest in reading an amazingly well written book and have any interest at all in technology, then you are welcome to wait a day or so, but then go get a copy and read it anyway - you will not be disappointed.

Okay, that is enough rant ... I have to go re-read that book now.


EOF__



Saturday, December 1, 2012

Ode to the Dash8


This past week I was on a business trip that had me on six different flight segments.  That in itself is not all that unusual, but three of those flights were on "Dash8" aircraft.  I fly on these quite a bit and I started to wonder about the popularity of this aircraft, so I thought I would do and share some research.

I know that somewhere in my travels, I have heard that the "Dash8" (shown at left) was actually an acronym for "de Havilland Air Short Haul version 8 (D.A.S.H.8), but I have found no evidence that is actually true, however it certainly could be from the information I uncovered.  Officially the plane is called a "Dash8" because the official designation is DHC-8 (pronounced: Dee Aech See DASH eight) and it has no other nickname like most of it's predecessors the DHC-1 through DHC-7.  The Dash8's immediate predecessor, the DHC-7 was also referred to by a similar name, "Dash7" and was built as a commercial carrier with a very Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) capability.  Fully loaded, it could lift off in only 610 metres (about 2000 ft) which is pretty amazing for any commercial aircraft.

   
The earlier DHC-6 (image on right) is more commonly known as the "Twin Otter" which will be very familiar to people who often take short hauls from Vancouver to Victoria, or from Toronto to Ottawa.  These commercial "Short Hauls" are a difficult market niche for aircraft manufacturers because they have to balance agility with maintenance costs.  The Dash-7 was popular at the time, but was quickly replaced by the Dash-8 due to it's lower maintenance costs and comparable STOL capability.  The Dash-8 can lift off in only 910 metres of runway (about 3000ft) which is considerably less than the comparably sized CRJ200 which requires about double that (1835 metres).


The "short haul" legacy of the Dash-8 has a familiar successful legacy in the DHC-5 (left) which people in forest fire territory will recognize as the "Buffalo" as well as the DHC-4 "Caribou" (shown below) that earned a place in history for short haul work supplying troops in Vietnam.


The Dash-8 actually comes in 4 distinct flavours including the popular Q400 which is actually the "Dash-8 type 400", a 78 passenger version of the original.  Even Westjet, who's entire fleet consists of Boeing 737's, just placed a conditional order for twenty Q400s to add to their fleet.  Bombardier passed the 1000 unit mark of deliveries of "dash8" aircraft over 2 years ago and they still keep shipping.


An interesting note to this is that even though the Dash8-400 (AKA the Q400) is a brand new aircraft, the Dash8-100 first shipped in 1983 - Twenty Nine years ago - and many of those early birds are still in the air (I think I was on one today).

Anyway, I spend quite a bit of time in that particular make of aircraft and thought I might share some of the detail around why it is so pervasive in the short haul markets.

Hope you had fun reading about it :)




Sunday, November 4, 2012

WAKE UP CANADA!



Adding my voice to the many thousands who are not being heard by our own government.

Are you aware your country was just sold to China?

Our government is about to pass a binding agreement that will extend for the next 31 years and give CHINA extensive rights inside CANADA to the point of potentially being non-constitutional. This was supposed to go into effect November 1, 2012 and you were never even asked your opinion. So much for 'democracy'.  Final ratification has apparently been delayed to November 11, so your voice can still be heard, but stopping this abomination is unlikely.

This '...will permit Chinese state-owned corporations to push through projects that fail to meet Canadian regulatory standards, to use Chinese “guest workers,” and to sue any government that gets in the way.' -Yukon News

This is the biggest trade agreement since NAFTA and you probably did not even know it was happening. The rampant corruption in the Federal government continues unchecked.

If you are Canadian, this should terrify you because your own federal government has just effectively given your job and your children's hopes for the future away to the Chinese.

If you are American, this should terrify you because this effectively sells out all Canadian business to the Chinese government so now the Chinese are ON YOU BACK DOORSTEP!

I fell like I'm taking crazy pills.

Read more and educate yourself then sign a petition, write a letter, call your MP.  This insanity needs to stop.

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/canada-china-fippa-agreement-unconstitutional-treaty-law-expert-says 

http://yukon-news.com/opinions/columns/30665/

http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/prime-minister-harper-stop-fippa-deal-with-china-now-and-allow-debate-in-house-of-commons

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/christophermajka/2012/11/resource-capitulation-fippa-fibs-and-canadian-sellouts-part-

http://www.watershedsentinel.ca/content/you-can-still-comment-environmental-assessment-canada-china-fipafippa

http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/fipa-apie/china-text-chine.aspx?lang=en&view=d



Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Managing White Space



Musicians get it.  
      Creative writers understand it.  
                   Marketing folks thrive on it.  

White space is a concept known in many fields for a number of reasons, but the underlying theme is always to give a mental pause.  In music, a phrase of notes, a movement, can be separated from another with a rest or a pause.  The pause gives your mind time to absorb the melody and accept a change of direction.  In creative writing, whitespace takes the form of blank lines, paragraph markers and tabs.  You can express a great deal in a written story by adding an extra blank line or space in just the right place.  Marketing people live by whitespace. This is why billboards are not crammed with images, but rather have a few select targeted images and words surrounded by clear space. Clarity. White space.

In the practice of people management, the concept of white space is also important.  Over the years I have made a great deal of mistakes and learned from them the hard way.  One of these things was an understanding that people need processing time, they need to gather information, sort it, sleep on it, let all the pieces fall into place.  Several times in my career, I have taken on a leadership role with a team of people who needed some redirection - usually because the company direction and goals were changing.  In these cases it is more important than ever to tread softly, but in all cases when taking on a new leadership role, it is important not to make sudden changes.  After all, the team already has one huge change to deal with  - you.

What I have found is that there is always some upheaval in the initial days, just because you have taken on this new role.  Even if the team knew you before, the relationship changes, the politics have to be recalculated, the pieces all need to be resorted.  What people need is some white space.  People need some mental time to process the change and understand that there is no threat to them or their families or station.  That is what it is really all about when you think about it - 60,000 years of evolution and we still think about tribe hierarchy and wether the new leader is going to cut off your head or leave you for jackal food in the desert.

So what to do in that first several days while you are leaving your new team with whitespace to clear their thoughts?  You ask questions, learn their strengths, research the landscape and do your best to understand the challenges that need to be addressed in the next steps.  No sane person expects a new manager to make immediate changes because that always leads to failure.  People need the clarity of whitespace in between the big announcement that you have taken on the job and the time you need to act on that responsibility, there needs to be some time for processing.  White space.

Another important lesson I have learned is that this pattern repeats when major changes occur even after you have been leading a team for a long time.  When there is a large adjustment to make, make it - but make it with clarity and with all the information, then leave people with time and space to process.  People need whitespace and your job as a manager it to keep it in it's place. 

Be awesome change the world.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Exceeding Expectations (AKA: How to do it like Disney)













Earlier this year I blogged about my admiration for Disney and how they differentiate themselves. Having just come back from Disneyland park (yes, again) I just had to gush some more.  Before you start thinking this is going to be a long advertisement for Disney parks, I want to let you know it is actually about the concept of exceeding expectations in general.  Disney just happens to be exceptionally good at it.

There is this concept in customer service of exceeding customer expectations and it is more than just a passing fad.  Companies that do it well profit enormously from spin-off revenue, repeat business and free referrals.  There is a cost involved and many companies tend to cut corners or not really put any effort into it at all.  One company that does an exceptionally good job of exceeding expectations is the Walt Disney Company.  This is not a particularly easy thing for them since Disney has set such a high bar for excellence already that exceeding it is difficult.  However, they continue to do so and push that bar even higher.

This past week, I was at Disnelyland park in California (again) and took a series of photos of areas that the Disney Imagineers have created that were not necessary for the attraction, but only add ambiance for enhanced customer experience.  This is a key part of the concept - enhance the things that will make your customers love you even if there is no possible financial return.  Sometimes it is purely expense and the only return is increased customer satisfaction - but that is the important thing to remember.  Happy customers will talk, and word of mouth advertising like that is absolutely priceless.  The value from one good verbal, trusted referral is worth 10 billboards of advertizing.

Take a look at the set of photos below.  If you have never been to Disneyland before, these are all shots of places that are not functionally required for the attractions.  They are pathways, or sitting areas, or transitions, or even the back side of an attraction that most people never would see.  These are things that Disney could have easily NOT done and people would still pay to visit and go on rides and buy churros - but how many people would return?  Understanding that return customers are more valuable than new ones is the real key to exceeding expectations.  The incurred expense of the areas in these photos serves only to turn "customers" into "ambassadors", but that has proven to be a valuable formula for Disney Corp.  More companies should understand that concept.

If you are a Disney nut, I challenge you to guess at where these photos were taken.  It is a fun exercise and interesting to see where Disney puts money just to enhance the customer experience. I have posted the answers on a separate page at http://mairs.ca/tom/blog11092012pics.

Be Awesome - Change the world.
















Thursday, August 9, 2012

The Daedalus Diaries

Years ago when I started blogging - before blogging was an actual word - it made sense to post everything in one place.  Today's netizens are more selective and the range of topics I write on are more diverse, so it makes sense to also diversify my blogs.  This week I am launching "The Daedalus Diaries" as a place to explore things that involve gears, wheels and math-like things.

This blog has been a great place for me to vent, educate, stir up controversy and generally spread the message of perpetual awesomeness.  Often this is also a place where I explore more complex things like  energy systems, chaos theory, mechanics and other weird things that involve math.  

While "The Bleeding Edge" will remain an island of controversial opinions, thoughts, and musings, The Daedalus Diaries will focus on alternative energy, automation and other electro-mechanical fun.

Thank you for continuing to follow, I hope you enjoy the posts to come.

As always...

Be Awesome - Change the World.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Recommended Reading


I recently read "My Life as an experiment" by A.J. Jacobs and I have to say I loved it and highly recommend it to anyone interested in improving the quality of their life.  Actually, I think I would recommend this to anyone capable of reading.  This was one of the most insightful and humorous books I have ever read.  By humour, I mean laugh-till-you-fart funny.  Expelling milk through your nose laughing kind of funny.  It was not what I expected from the editor of Esquire Magazine.

In the spirit of chapter three, all about "Radical Honesty", I have to tell my business partner and friend Mike Hillyer that when he recommended this book I was skeptical of its value and I even put off reading it several times, always finding something more important to put on my to-do list ahead of it.  I thought the title was lame (sorry A.J.), I thought the premise was weak (subjecting your life to experimentation?) and I believed there were more important things for me to be reading.   I am sorry I did now because this is one of those books that just "speaks" to you.  At least it did for me, and it did so in a very personal way.  

If you have not read it yet, I encourage you to order it, or go to the library, or borrow a copy from a friend.  The Radical Honesty chapter ("I think you're fat") is worth the price of admission alone, but the chapter on multi-tasking (or actually, uni-tasking) is absolutely priceless.  After reading (and re-reading) it, I am thoroughly convinced my wife needs to meet Julie,  A.J.'s wife, just to prove that I am not completely alone in my insanity.

I don't think I will ever pretend to be a famous movie star for any period of time in order to feel the pressure of fame.  Nor will i likely get a professional photographer to capture me nude to prove a point about vulnerability.  However, I found significant vindication in the chapter "Do I love my wife" now knowing that there is indeed scientific proof of love as a bio-chemical reaction in the brain.  (I told you so.)

For the adventurous thinker, this book is a must.

Be Awesome - Change the World.


Tuesday, June 19, 2012

The day democracy died

In a year that celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we may have also seen the demolition of the very foundation of the democracy that document protects.  While other countries look to Canada as an example of how to protect the rights and freedoms of individuals, our own government has taken the initiative to trample on the trust we place in elected officials and have eroded effective government at it's core.  On Monday, June 18th, 2012 the sitting Conservative government voted to pass the "2012 Budget Bill" against public outcry and opposition protests.

If you are not aware, Bill C-38 also known as "An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures", is a 451 page doorstop of legalese that I am sure no one has actually consumed entirely. You can read the full document here if you have a few days to burn and a law degree to decipher it.  There are so many things wrong with this whole situation, it is hard to know where to start.  Maybe we should begin with the fact that only a portion of this is actually even related to the actual budget handed down by the Minister Jim Flaherty. The rest of the document is additional items that can be considered tangential at best to the actual budget.

Maybe we should just consider the fact that this is a 450+ page document that was expected to be processed in the same manner as the normal 10 to 20 page documents are in the commons.  The average size of a bill passed in the 1990s was a dozen pages.  Even during the current sitting, Bill C-38 can be considered outrageously huge.  Consider Bill C-2 amending the Criminal code at only 16 pages, or even bill C-10 which itself was considered abnormally large at 114 pages.  The full list of bills presenting in the commons in this sitting is available here.

Let's forget the fact that it is huge and unreadable, which in itself undermines government, this bill is also not what it was represented to be.  Canadians were expecting this bill to be about the budget, about "Jobs, Growth and long term prosperity" to quote Minister Jim Flaherty.  They were not expecting completely new acts to be introduced that affect the Environment, or changes to the Nuclear Regulatory Act to be included in a "Budget Bill".  They were not expecting alterations to the Oil and Gas Operations Act, or alterations to the Fisheries Act.  I really doubt that most Canadians were expecting a "Budget Bill" to include releasing entire sections of the First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act.  Add to this alterations to old age security, unemployment insurance, modifications to the parole board, reductions in libraries archives and R&D programs, the list goes on.

So not only has the government blatantly lied to the Canadian public by the gross misrepresentation of bill C-38, they have used their overwhelming majority in the commons to pass the bill against the protests of the official opposition.  The elected representatives who are supposed to be representing the public interest have completely ignored the calls of the vast majority of the Canadian public to break down the bill into smaller components and as a result have destroyed the very concept of representative government.

Congratulations Mr. Harper, you have killed democracy.

Well, the press, including a plethora of bloggers will not be forgetting about this soon and neither should you.  There is really nothing you can do about it - that is the scary thing here.  Your elected representatives have pushed this through Parliament and it will now pass though Senate to become law by the end of the week.  Such is the way of corrupt governments.  What you can do is remember this and when you do get the opportunity to vote (because this really is still a democracy) you can exercise your right to remove the Conservative government from power.  If this government continues to completely disregard their responsibility to fairly represent the populace, then that may be they only democratic right you have still intact.

Be Awesome - Change the world.


Monday, June 18, 2012

The "beautiful is good" effect


 I had the pleasure of spending the past week with three beautiful women on a beach in Mexico.  I know - tough life, right?  Yes, one of them was my wife, and two friends came along for the ride.  I learned two important things from this experience -
    1) SPF 15 is completely useless under the June sun in Cancun
    2) Men are universally predictable around beautiful women

I am accustomed to getting preferential treatment when I travel with my incredibly beautiful wife.  When we go out for dinner, waiters will always treat us (well my wife, actually) with more preference than other tables.  I started noticing this a while ago when we would go to a place that I also tended to visit alone or with male friends - the attention was always better when I took my wife. Apparently there is also a multiplying effect.

This past week I was vacationing in the Mayan Riviera with my wife and two attractive friends when I realized I was experiencing something called "the beautiful is good effect" and it does indeed seem to have a multiplying effect.  The bar tenders at the resort pool treated me like a king with my own harem.  One of them was offering service of some kind every 15 minutes with complimentary drinks, food service, you name it.  The beach crew even came by and offered a selection of activities (para-sailing, scuba, etc).  While these are normally available to anyone, you normally have to go to them for the service, not simply lay there on a deck chair waiting.  We seem to have proven empirically that the "beautiful is good" effect is very real.

It's not fair, and it sucks for not-so-attractive people, but this remnant of our evolutionary path does serve a purpose.  It is completely logical that more attractive people are likely to be healthier mates, better for breeding and propagation of the species.  It also makes sense, in an evolutionary way, for the attraction to be stronger in groups - strength in numbers and all that.

It got even better on Friday when two more beautiful women joined us for a day on the beach in Playa Del Carmen.  Different location, different environment, different service staff, but same effect.  The server came short of offering us complimentary foot rubs, but I am sure they would have been provided if asked. Needless to say, I highly recommend traveling with beautiful people.  I am sure if Hugh Hefner walked into a New York hotel alone and unannounced people would barely recognize him, but when he appears with five bunnies in his entourage, people say "hey, there's Hugh Hefner… with his harem".

I found it fascinating to watch and it stirred a desire to read more on sociology and anthropology in the future.  OK, maybe that is just the Margarita talking :-)











Be Awesome - Change the world.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Refill anyone? (at 28000 km/h)

Congratulations MUST go out to the amazing team at SpaceX today. I have been waiting a very long time to see the day when private citizens had the power to step into space.

Today is a monumental day in the history if space exploration. The SpaceX Corporation successfully completed the first commercial service trip to the international space station and returned safely this morning.

They did it...
1) On Time
2) On Target
3) Under Budget

That is something that NASA has NEVER been able to accomplish.

The drive and determination of private citizens fueled by the immensely creative thinkers at the corporate level made this possible. This was not just a victory for private science development, but for the changing face of corporate power as well. SpaceX is successful because it values the brilliant minds that make up their teams. This is also a victory for the whole new generation of corporate giants that are led by open minded, free thinking, creative people who grew up in a world governed by the rules of the Internet, unbounded by the constraints of governments and borders.

The future is here and now and being shaped by amazingly creative people who work in "teams" not hierarchies. These new companies have names like Facebook and SpaceX and Valve and Google. They don't care much for traditional corporate structure, they are nimble, inventive, and are crushing old-guard competition.

Congratulations to the entire team at SpaceX on an amazing feat that should not be lost in the wash of news today.



Be Awesome. Change the world.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Nerf Gun Meeting Control


I recently participated in a sales skills improvement meeting that ran for 4 days and was very focused on presentation skills as well as the information in the presentation. One of the interesting tools we used in the meeting was the controlled use of Nerf Guns. Mike Hillyer and I concocted the evil plan to keep presentations on track and avoid bad words like "ummm".

"Nerf Guns", you say? Yes, that is what I said - and they work great. We work in a customer facing environment where a good presentation can win a deal and a bad one can mean death (of the sale), or at least leave a bad impression with a client. As Sales Engineers, we are tasked with presenting complex information, typically with PowerPoint and live demonstrations. We need to avoid "death-by-PowerPoint" as well as droning on for too long and overrunning the meeting. Worse is annoying a customer with incessant "ummmm"s throughout a presentation. When the customer stops listening to the information and starts counting how many times you say "ummmm", you have lost the sale. We chose to discourage bad behavior with a little fun and only minor pain.

So the deal is this: all participants with the exception of the presenter, are issued a Nerf gun with ample ammunition. There were 5 of us, so we had 4 guns and about 900 rounds of Nerf darts. The rules of engagement are simple.
1) Your colleagues are armed and dangerous
2) During your presentations, you will be SHOT...
- Every time you say “Umm…”
- Every minute you are over your allotted time
3) Only the presenter can be a target (no shooting across the table)
4) Unlike Zombieland, head-shots are discouraged
5) Reloads are permitted at any time
6) Not wrapping up logically within 3 minutes of overtime is worth a “Double Tap”

It worked like a charm. In the initial sessions, presenters including myself were pelted with darts. It is amazing how many times you fill empty space with that annoying noise and don't even realize it. Running overtime was also a cause for bombardment and as in the real world, bad things happen when you run over your allotted time. However, by the end of the second day, the dart guns were oddly silent. Speakers had learned to slow down, think about the next words and find alternate, more pleasant ways to fill that empty space. Presentations finished within the allotted time with enough room for questions while not impairing the information. By the end of the week, we were all very conscious of our speech patterns and time frames.

I sat in on several client presentations over the next few weeks and was pleasantly surprised to see that the training stuck. Client receptiveness to the information was also up which is a great thing for sales.

It may be extremely unconventional, but hey, that's how we roll. Feel free to adapt this to your own internal training sessions. Credit for the idea would be appreciated.

Be Awesome - Change the world.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

LGBT Internet is here!

I am so excited!

For years the international science community has been working together to create Lunar Guide Bounce Technology Internet (LGBTI) and the wait is finally over. Starting tomorrow, Internet users world wide will have an opportunity to upgrade their internet connections to this new technology and I can hardly wait to be one of the first to take advantage.

Mark your calendars because 01 April 2012 will go down in history as the day Internet access changed for the global masses. LGBTI promises to unite the world through ultra high speed network connections no matter where you live or even if you have an existing Internet service. The promise of near instantaneous communication speed has been lauded as a "game changer" by Internet service providers, mobile carriers, and social network engineers.

This amazing technology is possible through an array of highly reflective light guide tubes strategically placed on the Lunar surface during several secret missions to the Moon over the past decade. These tubes capture neutrinos cast off the Sun, convert them into tachyons and take advantage of the time bending properties of these amazing particles to speed up Internet access here on Earth. Your Internet connection is routed through a satellite array to the Lunar tachyon factory where it is passed back in time to a mere instant after it was generated. The effect is almost instantaneous communication anywhere on the planet.


Several major Internet providers have shown an interest in relocating to the Moon in light of the recent unveiling of the LGBTI station. Lunar real estate prices are expected to rise dramatically in the wake of the announcement.


Have a glorious day netizens.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

What is your service attitude?

The choices we make in business affect customer service even when the actions are seemingly removed from the customer's immediate knowledge. Too often companies make the mistake of believing that customer service is the job of the Sales department or Marketing team, but that could not be farther from the truth. In reality, sincere customer service needs to permeate an organization at all levels and should be part of every decision every employee makes.

As a Sales Engineer, I fly to remote locations almost constantly to present our product offering. When you travel to a customer location, do you book a hotel close to the customer's office so that you can be early to the meeting, or do you book close to the airport for your travel convenience? This may seem like a small thing and the customer will likely never know, but it is a decision that affects how well you are prepared for a presentation. Being close to the customer relieves the pressure of travel before the meeting. It allows you to be more focused and the customer will notice.

A less obvious place for customer service attention is in product engineering. A common misconception is that product development and software engineering are too removed from the customer to really be concerned about it, but in the most successful companies, every engineer is acutely aware of the end user experience. Understanding how the end user actually uses the product gives the developers a deeper understanding of the real customer needs and the developers tend to see solutions as opposed to code.

If you know me, you know I am a Disney nut and a lot of that is about their business attitude. Every Disney employee understands that the goal is exceptional customer experience. Whether it is Cinderella or a popcorn vender, a street cleaner or the shuttle driver, every employee is focused on the end result of providing an exceptional customer service experience. Why should any other organization be any different?

Can you honestly say that every person in your company puts customer service first? If not, maybe it is time to take a closer look at what really matters and how the little things like service attitude mean big things to the bottom line.

Be Awesome. Change the world.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Ideas of March

Fellow blogger Chris Shifflet recently blogged Ideas of March as a call to revive the art of blogging, and I think for good reason. The immense success of Twitter combined with a 140 character limit has created a situation where more people are communicating than ever before, but they are doing it in short, disjointed and poorly spelled blurts.

The internet has done amazing things to expand the ability for people who would not have normally ever been connected to each other to have a conversation about critical subjects. Tools like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the myriad assorted blogs now allow people to communicate on a global scale without having to invest in travel or take valuable time from work, family or school. Even just ten years ago, it would have been difficult to place 100 like minded people from 100 countries in a room together to discuss an important issue. This has changed dramatically in the last few years and we saw the evidence of this in North Africa where protesters literally tweeted a revolution. The recent Occupy Wallstreet protest would likely not have been possible without the massively interconnected society we have today using the vehicles of Twitter and Facebook. However, the short burst nature of tweeted communication creates immediate but disjointed conversation. Having 100 people in a room all talking at once is still conversation, but it is difficult to pull constructive conclusions from.

This disjointed conversation is why I like blogs. A blogger has the ability to form a statement, create an argument for an idea, and share it as a complete thought. Readers have an opportunity to digest the thought and provide counterpoints or questions in an equally thoughtful manner. An intelligent dialog ensues. This is more like having that same 100 people in a room, but moderated with one person having the microphone at a time. Much more civilized.

Blogs also have the added benefit natural archiving. Since the communication is all in one place, on a single page, each blog post adds to a catalogued archive of conversations. A reader can go back months or years in historical blogs to follow a theme or collection of posts to get a full understanding of the conversation.

One of the concerns with 140 character text blob updates is that brevity leads to a perversion of the language (any language). A whole generation is communicating in acronyms, emoticons and abbreviations. They post their statement and watch for replies, but parts of the conversation may be hours or days apart and parts of the conversation get lost. Bloggers have the privilege of using full sentences and real words to express ideas.

I primarily blog about business, technology and customer service with the odd sprinkling of robotics and electronics. Sounds a little spread out, I know, but… oh look a bunny! … yes, I am a little A.D.D. I have been trying to keep to a once a month schedule, but have plans to increase that frequency to help improve the quality of conversation through blogging. As always I am open to sharing ideas and expanding the conversation

Be Awesome. Change the world.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

My Week at Disney


I recently spent a week at Disneyland California with my family and many readers will know that my wife an I are Disney freaks - possibly for slightly different reasons, but fanatics all the same. I have taken some sideways glances for my love of Disney and even left my last job primarily because the leadership did not "get it". I have a Disney watch that I used to wear to work all the time (I don't wear watches anymore) and have taken criticism that wearing a "cartoon" watch makes you look unprofessional. When I left that employer, I made a point of explaining that he was the fool for not understanding what that cartoon mouse actually represents.

So here is the deal - and this will not be news to anyone who does in fact get it - Disney is more than amusement parks or animation studios or a legacy of great movies. Disney is about the experience. It is a philosophy that says "do it right and the money will happen. Give people value and they will pay for it." This is diametrically opposed to conventional business thinking that is geared to extracting the highest profit from the least expense. Running a business that way is like managing a stock portfolio with a "buy-low, sell-high" mentality - it only works in theory.

Good evidence of this is seen every time I visit Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. We usually also visit Universal Studios because we also enjoy that place, but to a much lesser extent and here is why. If you visit both places in short succession, you will likely also notice that Universal is a profit center and Disneyland is an experience. At Universal, it is obvious that they have taken shortcuts with things they think are minor like food, lines, bathroom locations, site maps and the main gate entry process. When you enter Universal for the first time, you say "OK, now what? Lets look at the map to see where we should go first". When you enter Disneyland for the first time you say "WOW" and you migrate to the first (of many) cool things that slowly transport you down main street. You may be halfway across the park before you open the map to figure out what to do next.

Disney spares no expense to create an illusion that completely envelopes you. They do this in their parks, movies, games, and is core to their business philosophy. This comes from a deeply ingrained understanding that if you really understand a person and involve them in a story, they become part of it - there is personal investment and when people feel they are part of something, it is no longer about "product" but "experience". Disney sells the experience and they do it very well.

As a coincidence, I just finished reading "The Pixar Way" which is similar to "The Disney Way" by no accident. These two companies were made for each other (and now are all one family). The top brass at Pixar share the same ideals as Walt Disney did when he was running Disney Corp and these ideals are shared by some of the most successful business enterprises in the world. Pixar's attention to the philosophy is evidenced in their string of extremely successful movies. In each one, the characters are exceptionally endearing because the creators draw them the way they "feel", not the way an opinion panel or marketing report dictates what they should look like. The whole concept breaks down to a simple phrase that I keep churning in my head - "forget the money, just do it right." It is a simple thing, but so often ignored by mainstream business management who are too focused on profit and sales targets to see a much easier path - just do it right.

Doing it "right" means paying attention to details and understanding real customer needs. It means ignoring the cost/profit analysis while you are designing. It means remembering that people are all children inside who forgot how to play and creating experiences to cater to that hidden child.

My favourite Walt Disney quote is "Too many people grow up. That's the real trouble with the world. They forget. They don't remember what it's like to be twelve years old." When I visit Disneyland, I am suddenly 12 years old as soon as I walk through the main gate - it really is a magical place, but they don't force feed you pixie dust, so everyone experiences it in a different way.

One day at Universal is enough for me. After you have been on all the rides and taken the backlot tour, it is just concrete and street vendors. Disney is different in a way that is hard to explain, but easy to experience. I can spend a day in Disneyland park just wandering the grounds and looking for all the small but important details - like the tiny functional vegetable gardens between the attractions, or the live orange groves spread throughout the park. Each attraction spills out into the queue so that you start to experience the ride while standing in line, long before you have to keep your hands and feet inside that car at all times. There is a story behind every rock and tree, each pathway is designed with the surrounding experience in mind. The walkway leading to the new "Ariel's Undersea Adventure" attraction in California Park was torn up and re-poured with seashells at the surface to enhance the experience for people standing in line for the ride. Universal would not have considered such an expense. In New Orleans Square, the pathways are made so that you actually believe you are walking on cobblestone streets in the French Quarter. I barely noticed the ground at Universal because it is all the same bland concrete.

I know it sounds like I am on the Disney payroll, but that is just the side effect of pure awesomeness. Disney does not just want to sell you a park admission or a Mickey Mouse hoodie - they want to turn you into ambassadors AND IT WORKS. To put an extremely fine point on this for you, I was the Los Angeles area for 7 days with my family and in total we spent approximately 8 TIMES as much cash with Disney than we did at Universal Studios. Does the Disney philosophy really need more evidence than that?


Be Awesome - Change the World.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

It's called "The Internet", Dad

I was out for dinner the other night with my friend and his family. He mentioned a new movie that was coming out and said that his daughter, who was also sitting at the table, had already seen the trailer for it although the trailer had not yet been released to TV. He followed up the statement with "I don't know how she finds out about this stuff before we do".

"It's called the Internet, Dad" she quipped from across the table.

This is the new reality. This is the new world. The beachheads of the next war front are not in Africa or Europe or the Middle East, but lie in bit-streams flowing from server farms distributed across multiple data centres in multiple countries. The next generation of humans on this planet are growing up and taking a stand in a place few over 40 can comprehend. The youth of today cannot be localized anymore to a particular country or culture, they live on the net, in a global community that defies borders and transparently crosses cultural differences.

Today's students access information the moment it *becomes* information. They process gigabytes of information daily on portable devices that use multiple protocols. They are not tied by cables to physical places and they don't go to libraries to do research, they google data.

This is why such things as the US SOPA legislation are not only moronic, but completely useless. This is why Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Syria, and other countries have been powerless to stop the political unrest from protesting youth. This is why the entire concept of global commerce is changing, and this is why the geo-political climate of the entire planet is in upheaval. The Internet has tied together bright young creative minds into a whole new community that has no borders or politics or restrictive government. The Internet is pure democracy.

Unfortunately the physical world is mostly governed by politicians and lawyers who are typically over fifty, don't understand the Internet, are funded by protectionist lobbyists, and have to answer to a political structure that was instituted when ox-carts were a common mode of transportation. Pick a country, they are all the same. What the middle aged lawyer-politicians running countries don't understand is that the eighteen year old students tweeting revolutions don't care about politics, they care about right and wrong and morals and fairness and human rights. Those things typically conflict with political agendas.

The global economy is changing and growing. I've said it before and I will say it again - conventional business needs to adapt and embrace the new reality or they will be left behind. The students of today are tomorrow's captains of industry, and I guarantee you they will not be bound by "conventional" business constraints. I find myself becoming a de-facto evangelist for this concept and I am certainly not alone, a quick google search for "internet entrepreneur 2011" reveals a plethora of young creative minds poised to change your perception of the world yet again and as many other evangelists telling the rest of the world about them.

Brace yourself, for 2012 is already shaping up to be a revolutionary year in technology - not just in the internet, but the bleed over into automotive, construction, and communications as well. A few peeks into this year's hot new tech from CES will give you an idea of how your world will change in the next 12 months, like the transparent display from Samsung or the Sony SmartWatch. The future belongs to those who can ride the wave of innovation and avoid drowning in it.


Be Awesome
Change the World

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

2012 Resolutions


January is always an interesting time of year, full of contrast and change. The end of one year brings the beginning of a new one. Resolutions for change are made by people world wide. I have a few resolutions myself.

I will focus on interesting things. I am looking forward to doing more creative work with robotics and automation, reviving some old projects and starting some exciting new ones. There have been many interesting technology changes in the past year and I want to spend more time investigating them. I plan to automate "everything", and of course, document it all.

I plan to give more time and thought to everything through the year. 2011 was a very busy year and I, like many, found I spent more time "doing" than "thinking". Somewhere near the end of the year I had an epiphany - A few extra minutes of evaluation and planning can save hours of wasted or duplicated work. 2012 will be my year for contemplation and think-before-doing.

I will golf more and work less. I have a wonderful family and fantastic friends, but last year I worked an average of 16 hours a day so I never got to spend any time with them. 2012 will be my year for re-connecting - golf with friends, hockey games and picnics with family. Seriously looking forward to it.

2012 should prove to be an exciting year. Are you ready for it?

Be Awesome - Change the world.