Thats right its a Plane!!! Alaska has cancelled flights left and right, rumor running around the airport is that the FTA is forcing them to cancel flights due to problems with pressurization. Alaska has had a ton of problems lately with their planes and these cancelations seems to be stemming from those issues. Luckly my flight is only two hours delayed, but the level of service from them is awful, heads up to other flying alaska you may have to build some flexibility into your plans. It continues to amaze me that Alaska opperates as a major airline and at times has trouble just keeping its planes running. Our plane eventually showed up, but it took them two hours just to move it over from the hanger, you would think that they would do some level of mechanical check on the plane and set up a back up plan if something goes wrong.

Apple is a brilliant designer and marketer, one area where this really shines through is their packaging. In this brilliant spoof, take a look at what the package would look like if Microsoft designed it. If Microsoft really wants to play in the consumer electronics space they need to rethink their design and marketing, and do it quick. 

Back in February I posted about the struggles that we face with current user interfaces. Well just recently I came upon a video on YouTube that shows a multi-touch user interface. The applications of this are almost endless as shown by the video. This screen records the input of multiple touches on its screen; whereas current touch surfaces (screens or trackpads on your laptop) can only record one touch at a time. If you try to touch it in two places at a time you get sporadic, unpredictable response. Check out the below video and keep your fingers crossed that this becomes mainstream quickly! (I know it’s long, but you get to see MANY possible applications of this technology).

So I came across Zillow.com, a much-hyped Seattle area start-up that was founded by the creator of Expedia. I must say, this is the most impressive website that I’ve seen related to home search/buying/selling. It has a logical and friendly user interface and it has an abundance of “data porn”.

The big questions for me is “how are these guys going to make money?” I have it on good authority that the goal of the website is to break down the inefficiencies between the average buyer/seller and the real estate broker. Think about it, what are we, as sellers, really paying that 6% for? If you think about selling a home as an end-to-end process (much like selling a company, raising venture capital, which are the processes I’m familiar with) it would include:

1. Posting the house on the MLS
2. Staging the house to maximize the look/feel and ultimately the price
3. Hosting open houses and showing it one-on-one to perspective buyers
4. Bringing in offers
5. Negotiating the final deal
6. Closing the sale

This may oversimplify things a little, but let’s just call it a 6 stage process - more or less 1% per service.

By day, I’m an Investment Banker, which means that it is my job to prep companies for a sale or financing, take them on the road, collect term sheets and negotiate the final deal. Basically, I do parts 2 through 5 of the list on a daily basis, so why can’t I just hire someone for steps 1 and 6 and only pay them for those services? The reason is that the real estate agent is able to leverage the inefficiencies in the market and as a result doesn’t have to unbundle his/her services.

In my opinion, Zillow is exactly what the real estate market needs - a nice shake up. There are far too many agents that do far too little and get paid far too much money because of these inefficiencies. This is capitalisim at its best.

Are gadgets getting too complex for the average person? My parents don’t even use all the features of their standard Verizon Wireless phones. And I pray that they don’t decide to get a Windows Smartphone because I know I’d be writing a personal FAQ for each of them.

A Netherlands researcher noted that “Half of all malfunctioning products returned to stores by consumers are in full working order, but customers can’t figure out how to operate the devices.” This was reported in a recent Reuters article. It also noted that the average consumer in the United States will “struggle for 20 minutes with a device before giving up,” and even a group of employees from the consumer electronics company Philips couldn’t figure out how to get some new products to work.

What are the reasons someone has to struggle for 20 minutes to get something working the way he or she wants? Is it poor user interface design? Poor documentation? Operator error? I am a big fan of simplicity when it comes to a user interface. Two phrases from former college professors come to mind when I think about this. One: K.I.S.S., which stands for keep it simple stupid! Overly complex hardware or software products are not only confusing for consumers to figure out, but also mask bugs and other problems increasing the chance of a buggy product being shipped. The second phrase that I think of is from a computer science professor. He said to design your code to do one thing and do it well. This is better than doing 14 things half-assed like much software and hardware I see these days.

Ever hear someone say they are “OOF” when they mean “Out of Office”?  You might wonder why it isn’t called “OOO”.  Well, it comes from the old Microsoft email system which had an option “Out of Facility” and was shortened to OOF by users.   This is a great list of OOF replies.  Number 6 is my personal favorite.  Anyone got some more to add?

1) I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Be prepared for my mood.

2) You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn’t have received anything at all.

3) I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless emails you send me until I return from holiday on 4 April. Please be patient and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.

4) Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for the first ten words and $1.99 for each additional word in your message.

5) Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queuing system. You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks.

6) I’ve run away to join a different circus.

7) I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for medical reasons. When I return, please refer to me as ‘Margaret’ instead of ‘Adam’.

8) I am out of the office this week, and will not be checking email.  Please re-send your message to Sally who will pretend to help you until I return next week.

9) Thanks for the email.  I leave my OOF on so you know I was on vacation last week and you were not!

I got most of these from Blake’s post.

The obesity epidemic due to poor eating habits and lack of activity that is strangling western culture seems to be permeating the east.

Search google for ‘obesity’ and ‘america’ and you will find TONS of websites talking about the obesity epedemic that supposedly is taking over America. Well, just today someone pointed out this article to me. It reads, “Girdles for paunchy guys a big seller in Japan…As Japanese waistlines expand, so is the market for girdles — for men.” As you probably figured out, there is now a girdle for men available in Japan. And it is being marketed to men who are more “fashion conscious”… not because Japanese men are becoming more overweight, but becuase they are “starting to pay attention to the lines of their body and their silhouette, just like women” said a spokeswoman at Triumph International, the company marketing the product. Not only is this thing just being marketed in Japan, but they are selling like hotcakes! The article goes on to explain that the boom may be explained by the “growing weight problem among once slim Japanese.” At least the writers of this article are not trying to spin this to be something different than it truly is. Triumph International maintains that “most of the demand is due to new styles in pants that are cut to emphasize the hips. ‘It’s really more about style,’ [the spokeswoman] said. ‘After all, there aren’t that many men in their 20s and 30s whose figures are giving way.’” Is she being serious here?! To be fair, I don’t know what proportion of 20-40 year olds are overweight in Japan, but in America that is a huge portion of the overweight population.

One would think that other countries and cultures would be able to learn from the gluttony of America before it seeped into their own cultures. But it looks like at least a portion of the Japanese population is completely oblivious to our widening waistlines. I would take the introduction of a product like this as a sign of general public health moving in the wrong direction.

Get outside and do something!

So I got around to watching the closing celebration of the XX Winter Olympic Games.  Overall I really liked them, and I enjoy how all the athletes mingle.  I want to know who is in charge of picking the artists.  So I assume Canada was responsible for picking Avril Lavigne since she is from Canada, but did Italy really want Ricky Martin to perform hits from his 1999 album?  Ricky hasn’t performed on stage in 4 years according to his own press release, and he just launched himself on a world tour.  He is promoting a new album, and Sony BMG is giving away the single to get attention.  The Puerto Rico singer’s Latin America tour was sponsored by VISA and would you believe me if I said the Olympics were sponsored by the very same company?  Still remember all those commercials for safe checking?  Corporate America at work at the Olympics where all the athletes care about is equality, fair play, loyalty and respect for one another.  I enjoy the games, competition, and know it would not be possible without corporate sponsors.  I just wish more of the celebration was controlled by the local people instead of influential corporations in the USA.

PS:   I loved the clowns, acrobats and history behind the Torino/Italy.  But do people from Italy really sing YMCA?