Category Archives: Real life

Getting down to basics

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Last night I had the chance to speak to a group of new media/journalism students at Oregon State University. I always try to be relevant and upbeat about the tools available now to working journalists and the entrepreneurial spirit that defines success now in the field. But I’m always excited about the depth of questions that come from the students, and challenged in trying to respond to them.

We talked about a whole range of topics:

  • The role of professionals in growing sea of amateur journalists (my take: field guides and fact-checkers);
  • Whether tools like Twitter are effective for reporting in rural and impoverished areas (Increasingly, yes, though it’s important to keep user demographics in mind and not report exclusively from the Internets);
  • The critical mass of connectivity (Interesting to see what mobile phones have done in the digital divide);
  • Threats to digital information flow (What’s the bigger threat: a great big government switch, net non-neutrality, “filter bubbles”?)

I’ve been struggling with how to pick up the posting schedule since I left daily journalism and now focus more on audience development and product development and kind of lost my way about what I wanted to say here. Now I see that getting down to the basic elements of building community, developing information products, content strategy and refining workflows might be the way to re-energize.

Thanks to the students for highlighting this.

For them, here are links to some of the items I mentioned:

  • Storify: Make stories using social media
  • CoverItLive: Embeddable liveblogging app
  • Eli Pariser: Beware of online ‘filter bubbles’:
  • Clay Shirky’s now-legend Web 2.0 keynote:

App is the new Web. Yeah, but whose app?

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“App is the new Web.” What happens when the 25-year-old Internet meme “Information wants to be free” bangs up against the power, ease and financial promise of the app?

I’m usually pretty skeptical of claims of “x is the new y,” but the phrase came from a trusted source and linked to an interesting piece from On the Media featuring Michael Hirschorn talking more about his recent article in Atlantic about the future (end?) of information freedom.

IWTBF is credited to Stewart Brand, who made the observation at the first Hackers Conference in 1984:

On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.

The notion of information wanting to be free also changes depending on how you define “free.” Free as in “no cost,” or free as in “no boundaries?” Most of the Internet world chose the former definition on the way to the latter. Now, it seems, apps might offer a way for those companies to get paid for content again. Says Hirschhorn of the New York Times:

I think that The Times will be able to offer what is more a reading than a browsing experience through their apps. It’ll be a more organic multimedia experience. It’s something that feels like you should pay for it. And they will stop putting that content on the Web. They haven’t said that yet, but it’s pretty inevitable because otherwise what’s the point?

There is no point, if you’re the Times. Or any number of media companies that start salivating at the notion that readers will pony up cash for news and information. And Hirschorn more than hints at the image of Apple’s Steve Jobs and his squeaky-clean version of the Internet (in partnership with content producers) battling it out with Google’s approach to wrangling the Web’s chaos.

That’s a fine image, and it probably fairly describes the current landscape. But let’s take a bit longer view, say, 2012, and look at the vision laid out by Robert Scoble in TechCrunch, in which information silos break down into a seamless integration of location-awareness, consumer patters, social connections and spontaneity, an idea that highlights the middle of Brand’s statement and, in my opinion, the most important one: “The right information in the right place just changes your life.”

I’m not sure my life has been changed by an app yet, but I’m incredibly pleased with the idea that I can find nearby restaurants and know how they’re rated. Or make note of places that I want or need to visit and have a reminder in my pocket. None of this continues to get better, however, if information remains in proprietary silos. Maybe you’d get one app-reality on the iPhone and another in Android, each with their own officially-licensed database and user interface. Blah.

All of this may be more true of “produced” content than of We’re only beginning to address the potential of millions of tweets per hour, the 72 percent of bloggers who write for fun and the 24 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute.

The fact is that much of the really interesting and powerful information being leveraged in apps is created by users: Yelp reviews, Tweets, Facebook updates, blog posts (and recommendations) and more. I’d add that the issue of ownership of that data remains to play out.

I think the specific note here is that shared information wants to be shared. I don’t care whether my sister has a Blackberry, my friend an iPhone and myself an Android. If I click to share, I’d like all of them to be aware of it. If not, I (and most others) will look for some way to make it happen. Because one thing we all should have learned about disruptive technologies by now is that they, by definition, won’t favor the status quo.

Get a good deal? Let’s share the details

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I’ve been following the past couple of posts by finance blog Get Rich Slowly about how to negotiate better deals with service providers and more. The latest post outlines, in detail, how guest author G.E. Miller worked with Comcast to cut his bill through a couple of simple techniques.

It’s worth a read to learn from the conversation as well as the takeaway points Miller draws out. But Miller also cuts-and-pastes the complete chat conversation that he had with the customer service rep. What a cool idea.

Companies (ISPs, airlines, insurance, employers) have the upper hand in the marketplace because they limit information. For years, we’ve had to resort to hearsay and rumor about what other customers pay for goods and services in order to have enough information to negotiate anything.

Every time I get on an airplane, I wonder how different my ticket price was compared to others on the flight and why. When I call to order service from my cable company, I just want to know the best price so I can make an informed decision.

So what if everyone who negotiates with companies posted a transcript online for everyone to learn from? What if we post the price we pay for airline tickets and cable service, too? My guess is that this would at least shine light into the pricing structures for services and might head toward a flat rate structure. Simple is better.

Thoughts?

Using twitter for journalism panel

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I’m really pleased to be part of an interesting panel discussion happening this afternoon on using Twitter for journalism. The discussion was put together by University of Oregon Assistant Professor Tiffany Derville Gallicano (@derville) and Instructor Suzi Steffen (@SuziSteffen) and features a great range of folks.

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Snail mail fail

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Here’s yet another another example of why monopolies are no good for customers.

My wife and I recently moved and prepared to change our address with the Post Office, a routine practice of getting a form, filling it out, and dropping it in the slot. Or so we thought.

uspsbs

Yeah, right.

I went online and discovered that an electronic change of address costs $1, charged to one’s credit card for verification. I find that dubious at best, since the old method sent a card to your house as verification; neither quick nor secure. The $2 fee isn’t a huge cost, but the previous process was free and it rankled me to have to pay for it now.

I work near the post office, so instead I strolled over one day to put ink to paper as I have for years.

These days, change of address forms in the lobby have all been replaced with flyers directing people online. I asked an employee about the old forms and he told me it was all done electronically now. “What about people without a computer?” I asked. He looked at me like I just slapped his mother.

Back at the computer, I found a loophole that allows customers to print the change of address and take it to the post office at no charge.

I went back to the post office to deliver my printed forms and, when I commented that the post office seemed to be passing the cost of printing on to customers, a different employee said they had plenty of the old forms, but were, “instructed to hide them behind the counter like pornography.”

Crazy.

On the last day in our apartment, I ran into the mail carrier and asked him why we were still getting mail there, not getting mail at our new address and had never received a confirmation of the change. This change was all news to him and — surprise — handed me one of the old forms to fill out. Apparently, my home-printed forms had hit the circular file.

So I begrudgingly paid the dollar (actually two — one each for Kristi and I — because previous efforts to change our address as a “family” ended up with us getting junk mail addressed to my parents. More fail.) and waited for mail at the new address.

Ultimately, we lodged a complaint with the postal service for poor performance and for taking our money for nothing.

The post office in Salem called mere days after the complaint was filed to say they were contacting the corvallis office and that we should hear from them in a day or two. Almost a month later, Kristi gets a call.

It gets worse.

Apparently, the caller had a checklist of questions to answer and just wanted yes or no answers. When Kristi was trying to explain what had happened, he asked her “Do you think you can be quiet long enough for me to complete a sentence?”

Seriously.

Now we’re apparently going to get a form to fill out and return in order to be refunded our $2.

This whole thing has cost us and the post office time and money, not to mention the bad taste from having to deal with and be insulted by the bureaucracy of this antiquated and insulated monopoly.

So, to companies considering making a switch to an online process:

  • Don’t lie about it.
  • If you’re a monopoly, you still need to make arrangements for people who don’t want to do it your way. Deal with it.
  • If you’re in a serious deficit, you can’t stand to be alienating customers.
  • A customer service note: when you’re trying to make amends, don’t be an asshole.

Lessons from Leatherman

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I had a chance to hear Tim Leatherman, inventor of the multi-tool today (yes there is a guy named Leatherman). He was featured at Speakerlunch a monthly pep-talk for entrepreneurs put on by a local guy in Corvallis.

I came away with a couple of entrepreneurial lessons to consider that I wanted to share:

  • Leatherman had his moment of insight on a European vacation. His Scout knife wasn’t hacking it for repairs on his $300 Fiat 600, so he jotted down a quick note, “Put a pair of pliers on a pocketknife.” Lesson: Carry a notepad everywhere to capture ideas. Even on vacation.
  • Once he’d created a working prototype (after three years of cardboard, wood and metal models) he took the thing to knife and tool makers. Knife makers wasn’t interested because the thing wasn’t a knife. Tool makers called it a gadget. No thanks. Lesson: Sometimes the industry best positioned to capitalize on a good idea can’t tell one when they see it.
  • That prototype looks a lot different from the first PST (Personal Survival Tool). It’s got two pair of pliers mounted to the top and a bunch of other stuff. He also was asking $40 wholesale, which meant retailers would have to sell it for $80. Buyers for mail order house Early Winters took him under their wing and suggested paring down the expensive multiple pliers and scissors. Final price: $24 wholesale. Leatherman was selling a million in 10 years. Lesson: Sometimes paring your idea down to the basics is what people want. Bells and whistles just get in the way and boost the price to unmanageable levels.
  • Once Leatherman got his business rolling, he farmed out some of the knife blade tempering to Portland neighbor knifemaker Gerber (who was the first to turn him down years before). Gerber execs realized exactly how many blades they were subcontracting and learned just how big of a business the multi-tool market had become. They engineered their own tool and became Leatherman’s first prime competitor. Lesson: Be careful who you partner with. Even if you’re the only game in town, it’s a temporary condition.

By the way, Leatherman carries two of his tools at all times: the Charge and the Squirt on his keychain. Are you surprised that the inventor of the American version of the Swiss Army knife wouldn’t be prepared?

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