Have you ever been in a situation when you are cruising on the freeway, and a 18-wheeler is trying to get into your lane? The truck is blinking its turn signal and waiting for you to pass. You notice that you are so close to his tail that you might as well let him get in front of you. So, you flash your headlights, and he glides into your lane. Once he is settled, he blinks his rear running lights to signal his appreciation.
Even though I am quite an aggressive driver on the road, I help out truckers all the time. I don't know why, but I always get a kick out of it when they say "thanks". And, if someone does not thank me, I curse under my breath and move on. I always anxiously look for the signal from the truck. I feel good when I see it. Maybe, that is why I do this. To feel good.
This whole short term shorthand communication between me and the truck somehow helps me to connect (even for a brief moment) with another person on the freeway. There is a sort of community on the freeway. CB radios used to enable this in the by gone days. Nowadays, nobody uses CBs but for truckers. Maybe, not even truckers use them.
Maybe, one day we will have some kind of (bar code?) readers on all cars. They will be able to read the adjacent cars' code and automatically connect to them. This will allow the freeway community to communicate as well as share things. Push a button and you will be talking to the driver in the car adjacent to you. You may be able to share a play list of songs from a fellow traveler. Your car may be able to access the auto analytics of the car in front of you and determine that the car is slowing down or even breaking down. This will help in avoiding accidents. Cops will be able to connect to a car's computer and instruct it to stop the car, avoiding the the whole chase scene.
Of course, the flip side of this is that we don't need to make our cars fancier. With all the global warming and the gas guzzlers, who needs to add more power hungry gizmos. We just need the basic mini car that runs on solar power.
We just have to wait and see what happens..
Monday, April 30, 2007
Paid services come with strings attached!!
Reading this blog by Don Dodge titled Free services come with strings attached, I am reminded of my struggle to get my web pages deleted from a TW RoadRunner server. I had an account with RoadRunner several years ago. Since they offered disk space for paying customers, I created and hosted my web site on their server. Once I moved out of Ohio, I cancelled my account with TW RoadRunner, and assumed (stupid me) that they would purge the accounts and web pages of expired/unpaid/cancelled/terminated accounts.
Boy, was I wrong. My web pages are still around on their server even after two years!!
Some of you might be saying "Hey, that's free web hosting for life. What are you crying about?"
Unfortunately, you cannot modify the pages, and you no longer have control over them. And, worst of all, it is a pain (so far) to get them to remove your pages. Their "tech support" doesn't seem to know how to purge web pages and accounts!
The only reason I want to get rid of my old pages is that several links on the page are stale, and I have pictures of "Our Home" which I no longer own. In order to be fair to the current owner, I cannot even modify the title to "Our former home".
This is a first hand lesson that once you post something on the Internet (even if it is on your own server) it gets a life of its own, and there is no way of bringing it back into the bottle.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Pumping on a swing - how to teach
Some kids learn how to pump on a swing at an early age, while some take a while. My daughter fell in the latter category. Just a few days ago I noticed someone at the local park trying to teach a child to pump on a swing. That is when I noticed how difficult it can be to teach it, especially if the child is not very co-operative. Then I remembered how I taught my daughter to pump.
Everyone who swings knows that you need to straighten your legs out on the forward motion, and bend your legs (and bunch up) on the way backwards. It is quite difficult to teach this to some kids. After several attempts at teaching, as well as demonstrations, I came up with a technique of encouraging the child to learn the motions of pumping without thinking about it. Here is how.
Pus the child on the swing a couple times and build momentum. Once that is done, walk to the front and face the child. Stand back and hold your hand up such that the kid's legs almost touch it (3" away) at the end of the forward stroke. Now, encourage the kid to lean back (on the forward stroke only) and try to touch your hand with her legs. And, obviously, tell the kid to sit up on the backward stroke. This trick did it for my daughter.
The key here is, they have a target to shoot for, and they will become sensitive to their actions and the reaction. They will start adjusting their posture and start sensing the changes in momentum. This is exactly what we intended. Once they get a hang of it, they will never forget it.
And you can kick back and enjoy the sun while they pump themselves on the swing. Not that pushing your kid on the swing is not fun...
Everyone who swings knows that you need to straighten your legs out on the forward motion, and bend your legs (and bunch up) on the way backwards. It is quite difficult to teach this to some kids. After several attempts at teaching, as well as demonstrations, I came up with a technique of encouraging the child to learn the motions of pumping without thinking about it. Here is how.
Pus the child on the swing a couple times and build momentum. Once that is done, walk to the front and face the child. Stand back and hold your hand up such that the kid's legs almost touch it (3" away) at the end of the forward stroke. Now, encourage the kid to lean back (on the forward stroke only) and try to touch your hand with her legs. And, obviously, tell the kid to sit up on the backward stroke. This trick did it for my daughter.
The key here is, they have a target to shoot for, and they will become sensitive to their actions and the reaction. They will start adjusting their posture and start sensing the changes in momentum. This is exactly what we intended. Once they get a hang of it, they will never forget it.
And you can kick back and enjoy the sun while they pump themselves on the swing. Not that pushing your kid on the swing is not fun...
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
New wine in an old bottle - redux
Kathy Sierra makes some smart observations on How to be an Expert. Lot of it makes sense. I agree with most of what she says about being able to become an expert by modifying how and what we practice.
Reading her last paragraph is what brought me back to my earlier post on learning to play the guitar. I agree that we can master activities that need the brain cells at any point in our life. But, where I differ is when other cells (muscles/organs) come into picture. Neurons can be created/linked at virtually any age. That is not so for other cells in our body. Human growth stops abruptly in our late teens to early 20s. So does our body's ability to be nimble and flexible. Anyone who started yoga at the age of 60 knows what I am talking about.
So, it is easy for one to learn new things and become experts at it as long as it just involves the brain (and maybe other organs that age well). It is not really true for things of physical nature.
Reading her last paragraph is what brought me back to my earlier post on learning to play the guitar. I agree that we can master activities that need the brain cells at any point in our life. But, where I differ is when other cells (muscles/organs) come into picture. Neurons can be created/linked at virtually any age. That is not so for other cells in our body. Human growth stops abruptly in our late teens to early 20s. So does our body's ability to be nimble and flexible. Anyone who started yoga at the age of 60 knows what I am talking about.
So, it is easy for one to learn new things and become experts at it as long as it just involves the brain (and maybe other organs that age well). It is not really true for things of physical nature.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Customer Service
When we visited India, we went to a local restaurant to have breakfast one day. We sat down and ordered a few items on the menu. The food comes to the table. I had also ordered bottled water (you should always carry your own bottle of water or order bottled water when you travel) to drink. We start to eat, and after a few mins, a small cockroach (yikes) emerges from the basket containing the nan. I immediately summon the waiter and before he arrives, the roach manages to run under the table. Thank god, no one at our table threw up.
Disgusted, we immediately get up to leave. I go to the manager to lodge a complaint and tell him how horrible the place is. And that we will never be setting foot in this restaurant. I was expecting a sincere apology, and an explanation for what happened.
Nope. I was grossly mistaken (I, like an idiot, expected a businessman to be managing the place).
He immediately calls our waiter and starts questioning him as to how much of each item we have eaten! I was about to raise a ruckus and make my anger known to all the customers (Not that they would have cared). But, I kept my cool to see what is going to unfold next. He proceeds to make some calculations and tells me that he is going to waive a percentage of the bill! At this point, I literally exploded and give him a piece of my mind. I told him to thank his stars that I was not going to complain to the food police (the main reason being, I didn't know where to find one). And, I paid him for only the bottle of water that I had bought (assuming it was not contaminated).
What would have happened if the manager had sincerely apologised, and offered to swallow the tab? Of course, this is an extreme situation (hygiene related) and nothing would have made me visit the place again. But, I would have left the place with a good opinion. The manager could have assured me that this was a freak case, and he will take care of the situation and clean things up. His attitude showed that he didn't care for his customers. He didn't want to build long term relations with his customers.
That was customer service in India. Not to generalize it, but I have seen this kind of behavior one too many times.
Reading Joel's blog on customer service, sparked my memory of this episode. Joel does a great job of listing what one needs to do to provide remarkable customer service. Most steps pertain to the software industry, but the gist of it applies to all things in general.
Disgusted, we immediately get up to leave. I go to the manager to lodge a complaint and tell him how horrible the place is. And that we will never be setting foot in this restaurant. I was expecting a sincere apology, and an explanation for what happened.
Nope. I was grossly mistaken (I, like an idiot, expected a businessman to be managing the place).
He immediately calls our waiter and starts questioning him as to how much of each item we have eaten! I was about to raise a ruckus and make my anger known to all the customers (Not that they would have cared). But, I kept my cool to see what is going to unfold next. He proceeds to make some calculations and tells me that he is going to waive a percentage of the bill! At this point, I literally exploded and give him a piece of my mind. I told him to thank his stars that I was not going to complain to the food police (the main reason being, I didn't know where to find one). And, I paid him for only the bottle of water that I had bought (assuming it was not contaminated).
What would have happened if the manager had sincerely apologised, and offered to swallow the tab? Of course, this is an extreme situation (hygiene related) and nothing would have made me visit the place again. But, I would have left the place with a good opinion. The manager could have assured me that this was a freak case, and he will take care of the situation and clean things up. His attitude showed that he didn't care for his customers. He didn't want to build long term relations with his customers.
That was customer service in India. Not to generalize it, but I have seen this kind of behavior one too many times.
Reading Joel's blog on customer service, sparked my memory of this episode. Joel does a great job of listing what one needs to do to provide remarkable customer service. Most steps pertain to the software industry, but the gist of it applies to all things in general.
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