Archive for December, 2007

taking the late evening train to florida…

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

that’s not quite as catchy.

I am going down to southern Florida for a few days though and to save money (compared to flying) and sanity (compared to driving) Dawne and I are taking the train. I’ve got all my books and movies ready for the 19-hour long trip but it occurred to me that I would be even more content if I could just use my laptop for the whole trip.

Which made me wonder, do US passenger trains even have wifi? And if not, why? A quick google search reveals that people have been asking this question for years. There seems to be some Amtrak stations up in the Northeast that have T Mobile hotspots, but nothing on the trains. This boggles the mind. I know that the train business is in dire straits and all, but adding the ability to work while I sit on the train would make the decision between flying regionally or taking the train simple. Sure, you’d get to your destination faster on a plane (security hassles notwithstanding) but you’d be actually getting stuff done on a train. What busy business person wouldn’t take that opportunity? Sounds like a good way to draw some of those passengers away from the cheap-o airlines…

Regardless, I’m still taking my laptop with me on the train if for nothing else the abilities to watch a movie on something other than an ipod screen, but man I would love the chance to play online games for 19 hours…

my gawd it’s real…

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

Burt Freakin' Reynolds

I expressed my doubts that the Uwe Boll directed Dungeon Siege film was real, but no: it most certainly exists. It even has a site and a trailer, though it’s missing Burt Reynolds. What it does have is a more-than-just-a-passing resemblance to Lord of the Rings. I mean, if I didn’t know better I’d say Uwe straight up stole some of the models and story boards from LoTR.

Still baffled why people give this man money to make movies…

so you’re a business…

Thursday, December 6th, 2007

Saleem suggested a long time ago that I use this blog to share something I learned from SILS every week. I want to apologize to him, because that was a fantastic idea but I was too lazy to follow through. I would have had tons, TONS, of examples of bad system design alone. Why just today I got a call from Mazda which we’ll assume was about my car. We’re assuming this because they never actually told me what they wanted to talk about.

Now if you want to get in contact with a customer what kind of system would you design to so that your representatives can get through? The simplest way would just have a human call the customer. Obvious, but now consider some other factors that might come to play in an call center. Hand dialing is pretty inefficient so you can go with robot dialing. You might be short staffed so you might need an automated voice to do the initial talking or, if it’s a simple matter, just have the robot just announce. Beyond staff and efficiency you have to worry about courtesy, accuracy, being in accordance to agreements and laws, asking for social security numbers, account numbers, personal information, etc. There’s a lot to consider if you’re a big company and it’s easy to see why something as simple as a phone call can devolve into the bland, unfeeling, touch-tone-a-thon that customer service calls have become.

But even if you have to reduce your calls to a robot reading a script you can at least be smart enough not to be like Mazda Credit.

*ring*

Dan: Hello?

Vaguely-female-voiced Robot: Hello. Please call Mazda Credit at 1-800-xxx-xxxx for an important announcement.

*click*

*dial*

Vaguely-female-voiced Robot: Hello. Please enter your account number or your social security card number

*click*

No. I’m not giving a phone number, that I’m not even sure is for real, any damn thing. If you have something to tell me, just have someone call and tell me. If that really was Mazda, they really need to rethink a system that cold calls a customer with a robot that redirects them to another number that gives you nothing but asks for personal information. That is not how you instill trust.

I hope it wasn’t important…