The Integrative Stream

Businesspundit: YOU should pay ME – 9 Companies That Don’t Get It

Along the same line as my recent T-Mobile discussion, BusinessPundit has ”
YOU should pay ME – 9 Companies That Don’t Get It“.

Although I’d change his rental car entry from “Every Company But Hertz” to “Hertz”. Hertz has a policy where they won’t rent to people under 25, without a corporate arrangement. I had to rent a lot of cars when I was under 25, and my company wasn’t big enough to strike (or bother striking) a corporate deal. So I developed some loyalty to companies, like Enterprise, that solved my problem. Hertz really lost me when I went down to New Jersey (I must have been 24) to do some consulting for a major pharmaceutical company. The customer had arranged the travel for the trip, which meant a rental car from their preferred agency – Hertz. But since my business card was not issued by the pharmaceutical company, I ended up in a twenty minute negotiation to get the car, which included a condescending lecture from the local manager. Not what you want at 11pm with a long drive in front of you. Rob suggests not treating customers like idiots, and that’s good advice. I’d also suggest not treating them like children. The best customers will remember.

The one time I did try Hertz after I passed the quarter-century mark I was unimpressed; the line to get my car at LAX was longer than any rental car line I can remember.

It’s not a bug…

it’s a feature! That may help people rig elections. Debating the Bugs of High-Tech Voting (The Washington Post).

Apostrophaclypse

Seth’s Blog: Do apostrophe’s matter? You bet.

Software Upgrade

I’ve upgraded the blog software to WordPress 2.x, which shouldn’t have any impact on readers. It should have quite an impact on me, however – this blog probably attracts more visits from comment spam-bots than from actual readers. Given the erratic update schedule this isn’t all that surprising, but it’s certainly been a hassle. I moderate everything, so the spam hasn’t been showing up on the site itself, but on an average day I get 20 or 30 notifications that some “reader” of this blog would like to encourage my other readers to purchase various black market medications.

WordPress 2 has some nice features that should fix that. But if you don’t see your comments, let me know.

World at ones fingertips…

I just did a Google search for “throwing out kitchen sinks in Cambridge MA”. The first page told me everything I need. You can toss one per week. The Internet is amazing.

Japan

In Japan right now. My network connectivity is somewhat limited, and I can’t figure out this keyboard. Great trip so far, however. Probably won’t be able to post much about it until I get home. I have, however, already had the most expensive glass of wine of my life.

And Shibuya is just cool.

Bill Crawford’s Flightlab Blog

Another Crawford blog: Bill Crawford’s Flightlab Blog. If you fly airplanes, ideally upside down, it’s going to be a good blog to read. If you’re not a pilot, these are probably the best posts about spin control that you’re likely to read.

Dad’s been writing columns about aerobatics since opening a flight school down in Plymouth a few years ago. They’ve been published in a local airport newspaper. The web is, perhaps, a better place for them. Mom is thrilled.

Flying, incidentally, is a habit that the men of my family seem to take up in their mid 30s. A few more years and I’ll need to start looking for hangar space.

Moderation Patterns

I think patterns, whether in software development, architecture, or any other repeatable activity, are a very important thing. So much so that I wrote a book about them. So it’s interesting to watch the efforts at creating pattern languages for the social networking sphere. I’m particularly amazed that nobody has come up with a better web based group discussion system than the one I wrote back in 1995. Which was no different or better than the ones a lot of other people wrote at the same time.

Although I missed it, it appears that Clay Shirky gave an interesting talk on social networking patterns at the O’Reilly Emerging Technologies conference. Worth a read, and worth following the links.

Along the same lines, I’ve noticed a massive uptick in the comment spam on this blog over the last few days. Over 20 of them yesterday alone. I’ve closed off comments on some of the more popular posts, and will probably upgrade the blog software this weekend in an effort to cut them back further. Since I pre-moderate everything not posted by an approved user the spam doesn’t actually show up here.

Back from New Zealand

Just a quick note to say that I’m back from my adventure in New Zealand. A great country, very much worth visiting pretty much regardless of your particular interests.

I spent my last week on the ground driving through the South Island, visiting a couple of key spots and jumping out of an airplane in the vicinity of Queenstown. This is probably the best interview preparation money can buy; after leaping from a moving plane at 12,000 feet, there is really no way for a man or woman in a suit to be all that intimidating.

And, of course, it’s interview season. After getting back to Boston on Sunday morning I almost immediately turned around and started prospecting for jobs, averaging a little more than one interview every two days. The process has wreaked havoc on my schedule, and is going to make my dry cleaner a very wealthy man.

Mount Doom

Just a quick update. Spent this weekend down in New Zealand’s central plateau. We did the Tongariro Crossing on Saturday, a 17 km hike through the national park. Or, if you prefer, through Mordor. This was where Peter Jackson filmed most of the Mordor scenes in the Lord of the Rings, and you can see why he picked it. The mountain above is Mt. Ngauruhoe, which, with a little digital fiddling, went into the movies as Mount Doom.

Sunday was a little lighter; we visited the “Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland” in Rotorua. The sulphur springs made it quite possibly the smelliest place on earth.

Green Eggs and Ham

Uncle-Sam-I-Am. Tunku Varadarajan celebrates the classic children’s book-or primer on open mindedness and entrepreneurialism.

IBM DB2 Promotion

Mark Whitehorn over at Reg Developer just wrote a column asking why IBM’s DB2 is so neglected. It is, after all, the best core database platform out there by almost universal acclamation. And it’s the most popular, too, given how well it handles the utterly massive databases required by a company like, say, UPS.

But DB2 never caught on in the small to medium enterprise, even though Windows and Linux versions have been available for years. It’s not on the radar screen for most developers, who don’t need the massive capacity stretch. Oracle tends to win by default (in the Java world) by having better, or at least more visible, developer tools, and, of course, SQL Server does very well in Microsoft land.

It’s a head scratcher. IBM really should think about the DB2 advertising budget, and maybe start coming up with creative ways to get the database in the hands of smaller developers.

Northland Excursion

Yesterday we rented a Toyota Prius and drove 600 kilometers through the Northland. We took highway 1 from Auckland up to the Bay of Islands and Waitangi, and then highway 12 across to the east coast, where we saw the incredible harbor at Ononoie. The trip would have been over a lot sooner if we’d stopped stopping to take more pictures.

We may have had the only Prius in New Zealand. It wasn’t an intentional rental, but by the time we got to the Avis office it was all that they had left. Given gas prices, it wasn’t a bad car to have, and the utterly bizarre shifting and starting process actually made it easier to adjust to the fact that I was driving on the left hand side of the road, which I hadn’t done in over a year.

At Waitangi we visited the Busby House and the Treaty Grounds, where the treaty between the Maori and the British Government was signed in 1840. There’s a nice little museum in the house, along with a capacious gift shop in the visitor’s center, and a really big canoe. The video they show is informative but comical in its production values and general earnestness. They also advertise a Maori cultural show, which was a little lacking: eight people in a small theater. I first encountered the haka, or Maori war dance, watching a New Zealand All Blacks rugby match on TV in a bar in Southeast Asia. It was suitably impressive and intimidating. In this case, I learned that the haka doesn’t have to be intimidating at all, particularly if the dancers can’t keep a straight face. So we’ll have to do that part again.

On the way up we stopped in Waipu for “pie.” Whatever my life expectancy was yesterday morning, it’s less now.

Island Living on Waiheke and Rangitoto

Spent yesterday afternoon and evening on the island of Waiheke, in the Auckland harbor. It’s a substantial little island, with about 7,000 widely scattered inhabitants, a 40 minute catamaran ride from the city center. One of the managers at our client lives out there, commuting in daily, and invited us for a tour and a traditional kiwi barbecue. The barbecue turns out to be just like the American version, except the wine is better and there are some nuances with the sausage. We all had a great time, and took the last ferry back to town a bit after midnight.

One of the highlights was a tour of Stony Batter [sic], a World War II fortification overlooking the Pacific. The fort consists of hundreds of yards of tunnels, dug in two years entirely with pick and shovel. A massive gun emplacement guarded the approach to the island. The complex is almost entirely underground. Approaching it, you walk almost a dirt road for most of a kilometer, with a fenced in cow paddock on your right and a whole herd of sheep, well, right there on the road with you. There’s almost no sign of the fort until you’re right on top of it.

Another high point for me was seeing the Southern Cross; Auckland has enough light polution that I haven’t been able to see the stars. I’ve been in the southern hemisphere before, but circumstances always seem to conspire against my seeing this particular constellation. Waiheke is far enough out that views are unobstructed, and it was a pretty clear night. So that was cool.

Today we took another ferry out to Rangitoto island and climbed to the top of the volcano. It’s about a 75 minute hike, and the grade is pretty easy except at a couple of points. The volcano last blew about 600 years ago, so there are still lava flows everywhere and the caldera is almost perfectly conical. You can see the whole bay from the top, and the city skyline in the distance. Definitely worth doing.

We were originally planning on doing the hike tomorrow, but we switched our plans around at the last minute. When we got to the ferry terminal the boat was still there, but as we were buying the tickets they shoved off. The ticket saleswoman told us no worries, picked up the radio, and the ferry stopped, reversed engines, and came back into the dock, at which point we raced on, to bemused looks from the passengers who had actually gotten their acts together in time to make the first departure. Great customer service.

Quite a few additional photos in my Auckland flickr group, which you can get to by clicking on the picture above.

Auckland Seafood

So far I haven’t had a bad meal in Auckland. Yesterday we had lunch at the SeaMart Deli near the office, which had some of the best fried calamari I’ve ever tasted, along with some great sushi and an incredible prawn* salad.
*shrimp

Mortar Warning

Far and away the best sign I’ve seen so far on this trip. From outside the New Zealand Naval Museum in Devonport, a suburb of Auckland.

First Impressions

After a six hour flight from Boston to Los Angeles, a fast scamper around the circumference of LAX, and another twelve hours in the back of a 747, I’ve made it to Auckland. Took a walk after getting to my hotel, subcumbed to a brief nap after lunch, and then went out to find a cybercafe.

So far–and my observations are strictly limited–New Zealand seems to be an appealing cross between the US East Coast and England, with a little bit of California mized in. The cab driver waxed lyrical on the subject of Seattle as he ferried me in from the airport. Bookstores are stocked with both UK and US editions, sushi is plentiful, and everything doesn’t shut down at 5pm. Quite a few of the coffee shops and cafes are open 24 hours.

I’m currently sitting in a basement cybercafe with a nice fast network connection, surrounded mostly by backpackers and other tourists. I tried to find a WiFi connection and failed miserably; after going online here and checking the jwire list, it turns out they’re all over the place – they just don’t advertise. T-Mobile doesn’t have a footprint here, so it’s local providers all the way, and they haven’t figured out the bit about putting a sticker in the window.

Finally, some thoughts on Air New Zealand. Advertising enhanced coach accomodations is a dangerous thing when you haven’t actually rolled them out to all your planes. The 747 I was on had not been updated, and however nice the new fittings may be, the old fittings are the worst I’ve had on a long-haul flight in a very long time. Maybe Cathay Pacific, American and–mirabile volu–Virgin Atlantic have spoiled me with their seatback TV seats in economy class. And the footrest below the seat in front of me kept falling down. The movie was “The Dukes of Hazzard”. And so on.

Although, to be fair, the flight left on time and arrived a few minutes early, with both myself and my luggage. And the little folding headrest on the back of the seat (which never seems to stay in place) actually stayed in place. So that was good. Not really looking forward to the flight home, though, since I probably won’t be able to sleep going east.

Kiwi Month at Integrative Stream

Tomorrow afternoon I leave bleak, cold Cambridge behind for a month. I’m heading down to Auckland, New Zealand, to spend a few weeks consulting for a medical software company on esoteric topics that don’t belong in the blog. Once that’s done, I’m taking a week to explore the south island and visit some family members who relocated to Wellington after getting their MBAs. Given everything I’ve heard about New Zealand, will I end up doing the same thing? Probably not. But it’s going to be a good trip.

I will have net connectivity for at least the first three weeks of the trip, and plan to keep up a regular posting schedule, with some more photoblogging thrown in. The precise travel agenda for the last week isn’t set yet, and I’m taking suggestions.

Federal Budget Games

Merry Christmas, Alaska. The Bridges are Back. Congress didn’t actually remove funding for Alaska’s two “Bridges to Nowhere.” They simply removed the requirement that Alaska use the $454 million in allocated federal funds for the bridges. And sure enough, the Alaskan state budget has now allocated the money to the bridge projects.

Now, I’d be willing to accept that there might be a little more to these projects than saving 8,000 people a seven minute ferry ride to the airport. I’d buy an argument that building at least one of these bridges will stir economic development in the affected areas. I’m not sure if it’s $223 million worth of development (the cost of that particular bridge), and nobody seems to be visibly making that argument anyway.

As we saw with the attempt to stick ANWR drilling into the end of year defense budget, the federal allocations process is thoroughly broken, and has been for years. The country has grown so much that a “one issue, one bill” policy is patently impossible, but there must be some way to keep bills at least generally focused. Too bad a line item veto would be so prone to political misuse.

Family Friendly TV

This week, the Integrative Stream finally dives into the culture wars! Just kidding. However, I’ve been watching the coverage of the proposed new “family friendly” cable TV tier (link is to WSJ.com, subscription required) with a passing interest.

From a consumer perspective, I loved the original proposal, which was to provide a la carte, channel by channel, service to customers. There are only about three cable channels I watch regularly; the $2.50 a month on my cable bill for ESPN is, from my perspective, a total loss. Bundling means I’m paying a lot more, which, of course, is the point. The bottom line is that I don’t care where proposals come from as long as they’re consumer friendly.

But there’s another issue, largely ignored in the broader discussion of what’s “family friendly.” Sex and violence are out, of course. But what about religion? A few years ago, the cable company around here offered to block individual channels that viewers found offensive. This was when the Family Channel was broadcasting the 700 club, Pat Robertson’s TV platform, and an openly gay friend of mind called up the cable company and asked them to block the channel as he found the show offensive. I’m not sure what happened, and this wouldn’t be an issue with a la carte pricing: if you don’t want to pay for fundamentalist broadcasting, you wouldn’t have to. But it is an issue with bundled services: frankly, the only bundle that would be morally acceptable for everyone would be one consisting of the Weather Channel and, well, that’s about it.