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Tuesday, February 2, 2010

In The Clouds (Part 3)

Cloud There is something about clouds that brings the term into our daily lives. We say "it is a cloudy day", or "there is not a cloud in the sky", or if we feel especially elated or happy we might say "I feel like I am on cloud nine". Nowadays many are talking about "cloud computing". Sometimes we just say something is "in the cloud". It means different things to different people.

In more recent years the larger web application providers, such as Amazon, eBay, Google, Yahoo!, and others have begun to refer to their infrastructure as "clouds". If you create a spreadsheet at Google Docs and then save it, where is it actually saved? In the Google "cloud". We don't know where it really is -- it is just "there" at docs.google.com --- in the "cloud". There are many millions of servers on the Internet but to most people there may as well just be one. That is the beauty of the Internet -- you don't have to know what the infrastructure is or how it works. But suppose the spreadsheet you create and save at Google Docs happens to be your personal financial plan with income, taxes, assets, liabilities and estate plans. Do you trust Google with this information? There are multiple dimensions to the question and answers. From my perspective it is important to compare the risk to that of keeping such data on your own computer. In short, I would say that the risk of your data getting compromised at Google is less than the risk of your hard drive crashing or having your laptop stolen at Laguardia Airport.

Consumer and enterprise interest in cloud computing is on the rise. As security and reliability guarantees of public cloud service providers improve, more businesses are turning to the cloud not only to optimize their own IT infrastructure and workloads but to improve efficiencies in their business models by better integrating employees with clients and suppliers. In January IBM announced the largest enterprise cloud computing deployment in history at Panasonic Corporation. The consumer electronics giant has begun a migration to IBM's LotusLive public cloud services. More than 100,000 employees in various departments will participate initially and the expand to more than 300,000 employees and external partners and suppliers.

The Panasonic users will work together across the Web as efficiently as if they were all down the hall. The company believes that the freedom and cost-efficiencies of the cloud are compelling and that the IBM cloud will provide the security, reliability and privacy they require. The users will get web conferencing, file sharing, instant messaging, project management and social networking for business communications between employees, partners and suppliers. Panasonic has made a strategic decision to unify its brands worldwide under the Panasonic name and the IBM cloud solution will allow the global effort to provide a competitive advantage by helping its multiple business units work together more efficiently.

Is cloud computing for businesses or for consumers? It is for people. Businesses do not buy from businesses. People in businesses buy from people in businesses. Clouds are all about making people more productive. Panasonic appears to be adopting this philosophy in a major way and setting a very good example which will surely be emulated.

IBM, Internet Technology, On Demand February 2, 2010 04:45 PM

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Solar

Alternative energy -- sources that have no undesired consequences unlike fossil fuels or nuclear energy -- are renewable and are often thought of as "free". There are billions of dollars being spent on alternative energy but there clearly are benefits compared to conventional energy sources. The alternative sources include biomass, wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric the tides and other things. There is controversy over how much of the world's total energy needs can be met by the collective output of alternative energy sources but I had thought there was general agreement that even if it is 10% or even less that it was a good thing. I had written a story about wind turbines and much to my surprise there was a lot of pushback about whether it was a good thing at all.

It is reasonable to assume that all the various alternatives have their pluses and minuses, but of them all, it seems to me that solar is the ultimate solution. It may take a long time but solar has the potential to be the dominant -- maybe the only -- source of energy in the long run for the entire world. IBM says that energy saving solar technology will be built into asphalt, paint and windows. There could be huge savings by having solar heat embedded in our sidewalks, driveways, siding, paint, rooftops, and windows. The cost of solar is going to drop with the creation of "thin-film" solar cells that can be 100 times thinner than today's materials. The new material can be "printed" and arranged on a flexible backing, suitable for not only the tops but also the sides of buildings.

I had a catch-up call last week with my friend James Marlow -- founder of a solar startup based in Atlanta called Radiance Energies where he is focusing on solar thermal hot water systems for commercial customers. James sees great potential for solar energy. "Solar is not the only solution for our energy challenges but it is a serious part of the solution", he says. We compared notes on the government role in solar and agreed that there is a hodgepodge at the state level. In Connecticut there is an incentive to install solar but the assistance has an income cutoff level. People who could afford significant systems are not eligible for the assistance. People who are eligible often still can't afford the systems. Go figure.

Energy, Home Automation, On Demand, Public Policy January 19, 2010 10:00 AM

Sunday, April 19, 2009

IBM Happenings: March 2009

The month of March was a busy one at IBM with a flurry of announcements in hardware, software, services, acquisitions, and strategic alliances. See the list here and an index for prior months here. One of the major focus areas for IBM in 2009 will continue to be related to a "smarter planet". See Sam Palmisano's letter to investors for the full story on why the company is so optimistic. The Internet has made the world much smaller and "flatter” and now the next turn of the crank will make the world "smarter". IBM has a vision about introducing intelligence into the way the world actually works -- into the systems and processes that enable goods to be developed, manufactured, sold, bought, transported, and serviced.

IBM intends to help make business decision makers "smarter" too. The company has announced the creation of a new consulting organization that will focus on "advanced business analytics and business optimization". What a mouthful. IBM Business Analytics and Optimization Services will draw on the company’s deep expertise in vertical industries, mathematics and information management to help clients improve the speed and quality of business decisions. The service is designed to help decision makers understand the consequences of actions under consideration and actually see business outcomes that will result.

The IBM experts and their arsenal of tools are able to construct a digital model of the client's business or a functional aspect of their business. For example, some companies have handled their distribution channel in a certain way, well because they have always handled it that way. With a digital model of their distribution channel the IBM experts could then help clients simulate the many "what if" questions. What if we used trains instead of planes, company trucks instead of overnight delivery company trucks, a central distribution center or one in each region, or outsourced distribution centers managed by the overnight delivery companies. Etc. By connecting multiple digital models of the processes of a business, decision makers can see their next year's annual report in advance and in fact see hundreds of them each based on a different combination of "what ifs". While the planet is getting smarter -- with IBM's help -- business leaders can too.

Other IBM Happenings for the month

IBM, On Demand April 19, 2009 11:11 AM

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Credit Cards

There are approximately 1,500,000,000 credit cards in the United States -- an average of five cards for every man, woman, and child. I have always thought it would be great to have just one. If I could have just one it would be the American Express platinum card. The fee is quite high but my experience has been that it pays for itself. Disputes all get resolved. They make you satisfied no matter what it takes. A couple of years ago I reserved five rooms at a hotel for some colleagues and I who were planning to attend a convention in Atlanta. A month before the event I cancelled four of the five rooms due to a change of plans. The hotel refused to give credit for the rooms even though I had emails to prove the cancellations. It is a long story but the bottom line is that American Express gave credit for the rooms. That one incident will pay for a couple of years of the annual fee. I have no doubt that any other credit card would have said tough luck. The card also gives free admission to the airline club lounges.

Speaking of other credit cards, it is unfortunately not possible to have just an American Express card. Many small retailers and restaurants will not accept American Express. It is too bad that they often insult the card holder with comments like "we take anything but" the card you presented. I have resigned to the fact that I need to carry two cards. One easy solution is to have a debit card but credit cards offer two advantages. You get free money -- float -- for 30+ days as long as you pay your balance. Secondly, you get points, miles, or cash rebates. It was my experience that the miles and points are too restrictive to be valuable. I concluded the best deal in the long run is to get the cash rebate which averages out to 1.5% of your purchases. In the summer of 2005 I found the ideal card -- an ExxonMobil Mastercard -- issued and managed by Citigroup. The ExxonMobil card offered a 1% cash rebate on all purchases and 3% on their gasoline purchases for six months and then 2% (and now 15 cents per gallon). One of the prerequisites in selecting this card was that it work directly with Quicken -- which I have been using since 1984 (Quicken 1.0 for DOS). Each time I update Quicken it automatically goes to Citicards (and American Express) and downloads all new transactions.

I have been a loyal user of the ExxonMobil card for almost four years. I pay my balance on time and they are usually helpful in the event of an issue with a merchant -- although much more difficult (write us a letter) than American Express (call and get instant temporary credit while the issue is resolved). A few weeks ago I discovered that my Mastercard transactions were not downloading. The error message delivered from Citicards via Quicken was "Your financial institution has rejected your request". No big deal. I have run into this error before. It will be fine tomorrow I thought. But it wasn't. It still does not work. Technical support at Citicards said the problem was that they do not yet support Quicken 2009. Quicken 2009 hit the market last summer and that did not seem like the right answer because it had been working. Looking around the support forum at Quicken I discovered that a lot of people were having the same problem. The card holders were very clear in their frustration but Citi was not listening. I sent tech support an email and to my delight they answered it the next day -- the email contained 89 words to give me a link to a web page with their answer which only had 63 words. Here is what they said.

We appreciate your inquiry and regret any inconvenience. The ability to download transactions via Quicken previously was a website error that has since been corrected. The ability is no longer available as Exxon Mobil has not authorized Quicken use of the website. At this time no plans for restoration of the service has been identified or released. Thank you for using our website.

In other words the fact that it worked was a bug and the fix is to not allow it to work. I can ignore their "purchase APR equals the Prime Rate plus 14.99% (with a minimum of 21.00% and a maximum 28.99%" because I pay my balance on time, but I can not ignore the fact that Citicards has decided to not allow their gasoline cards to work with Quicken. It really makes you wonder how such a huge organization could be so clueless and send an email that violates common sense. Their own bank and their own credit cards of course do allow Quicken downloads. This huge financial services company has a way of making you feel irrelevant. The only solution is to cancel the card. Now they have 92 million minus one card holders. The online application for a Capital One No Hassle Cash Rebate Mastercard took a few minutes and resulted in an approval within a few seconds. (I first verified with Quicken that the card transactions can be downloaded). The lesson for all businesses is that their customers are only a mouse click away from their competitors.

Net Attitude, On Demand, e-Business March 29, 2009 06:02 PM

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

In The Clouds (Part 2)

In the early days of the Internet we thought of it as made up of three parts. First there was a discrete collection of specialized computers called routers which moved packets of ones and zeroes between origin and destination. Secondly was another set of computers called servers which contained emails and web pages, and finally the networking infrastructure including telephone wires, modems, and various networking devices such as hubs and switches that loosely tied everything together. Users of the Internet today that are not aware of this technical history -- which is the vast majority of the world's billion + users -- know the Internet for it's most popular application, the World Wide Web. In a sense, the web is a "place" that contains all of the information and applications that we want to use.

In more recent years the larger web application providers, such as Amazon, eBay, Google, Yahoo!, and others have begun to refer to their infrastructure as "clouds". If you create a spreadsheet at Google Docs and then save it, where is it actually saved? In the Google "cloud". We don't know where it really is -- it is just "there" at http://docs.google.com --- in the "cloud". There are many millions of servers on the Internet but to most people there may as well just be one. That is the beauty of the Internet -- you don't have to know what the infrastructure is or how it works. But suppose the spreadsheet you create and save at Google Docs happens to be your personal financial plan with income, taxes, assets, liabilities and estate plans. Do you trust Google with this information? There are multiple dimensions to the question and answers. From my perspective it is important to compare the risk to that of keeping such data on your own computer.

I have been using IBM ThinkPads since 1992. They are very reliable -- but they do break. Hard drives are mechanical devices that fail; not often but they fail. How many people keep their data backed up? The minority. Does Google keep your data backed up? I completely trust them on this and have no doubt that their commitment and execution on backup is better than mine. The Google File System is very sophisticated and distributed. I don't know where my data is exactly but I know it is not at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California. In fact I am sure it is replicated around the world and combined on the fly as needed. From a security perspective there are some risks but Google does support document transfer using encryption and I suspect their security will get better and better over time. I suspect they have excellent programs to protect against employee intrusion and disaster recovery.According to Safeware Insurance Agency in Columbus, Ohio, more than 600,000 laptops are stolen or lost every year. I doubt if Google's computers will be lost or stolen.

I was skeptical about using Google's gmail in the beginning because I was hooked on the Outlook client. Not that I really liked Outlook but it has the look and feel of the desktop. Generally speaking Outlook performs well and you can work on things without waiting for the network. Gmail on the other hand is an online web application. The surprise to me has been how fast gmail performs -- especially when using the Google Chrome browser which executes the program instructions which are stored in the gmail webpage at lightning speed. At this point I would say not only does it perform as well as a desktop application but is actually faster for most of the things I tend to do -- like looking for something in my archive of more than 30,000 emails. What about when I am not connected to the Internet? There actually are ways to work offline but in reality, and considering the great gmail support in the iPhone, I am almost always connected. When it comes to email, I have moved to a cloud. My email is still john@patrickweb.com but my server forwards everything to my gmail account which where I access it.

Cloud computing has been around for years, we just didn't call it that. What has changed is that it has become easy. If I add an appointment or a contact to my iPhone, a few seconds later it is accessible at me.com/calendar or me.com/contacts. Likewise if I make a change at me.com, the change is reflected a few seconds later on my iPhone. Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange have had this synchronization capability for many years but it was Apple that has made it really simple. So simple, that they explain it simply by saying that your data is in the MobileMe cloud.

Spreadsheets, presentations, text documents, email, contacts, calendar -- all in the clouds. What is not in the cloud? There still remain, for the moment, some applications that cling to the Windows or Mac desktop. The biggest example is Quicken. It is a large and complex application with intense graphics and sophisticated interaction. Can it be done with javascript in the browser. like gmail? I have no doubt, but not so far. Quicken.com and mint.com and others are going after it but at this stage they have not been able to replicate what Quicken does on the desktop. There are other examples, such as Adobe Dreamweaver and other sophisticated tools, but ultimately everything that most of us need will be in the clouds.

Will everything be in the Google cloud? They make a compelling case, but I don't think so. There was a time when pundits said that IBM was taking over the world. Later the pundits said Microsoft was taking over the world. Now some say it will be Google. The world is a big place. There are billions of people out there and large numbers of clouds they will utilize. In fact more and more clouds are being formed. Startup companies these days do not bother with the details of their Internet infrastructure. Many of them use the Amazon cloud. The Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (aka Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides "resizable" compute capacity in the cloud. For storage, many companies use the Amazon Simple Storage Service (aka Amazon S3) to enable storage in the cloud. The advent of cloud computing has made it possible for startup companies to get from new business idea to a full implementation of their idea in weeks instead of months.

Great for smaller companies but what about the really big companies like GE, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, Bank of America, BP, or Toyota? How about when they have a new web-based idea? How do they deploy it? Generally speaking it takes a lot of detailed planning. The project manager has to specify exactly what resource is needed -- a very specific computing capacity and well defined storage. In many cases it is difficult to be precise when an idea is new. They could use Google or Amazon but chances are they would prefer to have their own cloud. The large companies of the world have vast computing resources and skills and they also have a desire to keep things inside their own tent for various security and intellectual property reasons. Enter IBM and their new plans for "Blue Cloud".

"Blue Cloud" is a series of cloud computing offerings that will allow corporate data centers to operate more like the Internet startup companies by enabling computing across a distributed, globally accessible fabric of resources, rather than today's predominantly local machines or remote server farms. Blue Cloud technology will make it possible to have the computing resource and storage be specified in "virtual" terms and the cloud will do the provisioning in an automated manner using virtual resources. Underneath the cloud there are real resources but the cloud computing environment manages them in an autonomic way. That means that the cloud responds somewhat like the human body. When we get cold we shiver to warm up. When we get hot we sweat to cool down. In a similar fashion, the Blue Cloud will automatically add computing resources and storage on demand and when something breaks the cloud will provide alternate paths to keep things running. The project is based on open standards and open source software supported by IBM's hardware, software, and services businesses.

Blue Cloud will not replace the computing infrastructure of the world's enterprises any time soon but over time, this new approach to IT should dramatically reduce the complexity and costs of managing Internet projects. Ultimately, most computing may be done in the clouds and billions of people will be interacting with data and applications with handheld devices that will be more powerful than the supercomputers of just a few years ago.

IBM, Internet Technology, On Demand December 2, 2008 04:45 PM

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Amazon Does It Right

Amazon is one of the few web sites that really has their act together. In the Fall of 1995, I made a presentation to a group of CEOs about the Internet. I showed them various web sites that I was fascinated with at the time, mostly related to engineering, scientific, government and academic projects. The word e-business had not yet been coined by IBM and there were not many exciting business web sites. One that seemed quite novel though was a site called Amazon.com. I asked for a show of hands from those who had heard of Amazon. Not a single hand went up.

Amazon opened its virtual doors in July 1995 with a mission to "use the Internet to transform book buying into the fastest, easiest, and most enjoyable shopping experience possible". During the next few years Amazon became very popular and it was hailed as not only the best web site, but also as the new model of how businesses of all kinds would operate. The stock climbed from obscurity to a market capitalization of nearly $50 billion. (See other stories about Amazon in patrickWeb)

Amazon customer service is second to none. In more than a dozen years I have never once heard of a disgruntled customer. The company continues to innovate. The Kindle has been a joy. Many of us have talked about "wrap rage" when it comes to packaging. Amazon is actually doing something about it. Fortunately, Jeff Bezos has small children and has experienced the impossibility of opening toys so he has pressured manufacturers to stop their bad packaging habits and has introduced Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging.

Some years ago I enabled an Amazon Store page here on patrickWeb. If someone buys via a link from the site a small commission is generated. It amounts to less than $50 per year and more than all of it goes to charity. I just like the idea of providing a link to a retailer that I think does a really great job for customers. Forecasters are saying that online sales are not going to be so great this year. Could be, but I would not be surprised to see Amazon beat expectations. They are starting the shopping season aggressively with their Black Friday Sale.

Internet Technology, Net Attitude, On Demand, e-Business, patrickWeb November 25, 2008 01:58 PM

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Open, Please!

Mail envelope As more and more things move to email and the web, financial services companies are showing signs of advertising frustration. Since their email gets blocked by our spam filters or we just hit the delete key, they continue to rely on paper mailings. Solicitations to take out a loan, get an investment advisor, set up a new credit card, or change insurance policies abound. The strategy they deploy is to entice you to open their envelope. The techniques vary from innocent to tricky to bordering on mail fraud.

An envelope with a return address of State Farm Insurance in Monroe, Wisconsin looked harmless and very business oriented. There was nothing printed on the back of the envelope. I fell for it and opened the envelope and it was from a local State Farm agent in Connecticut. It was obviously given a return address that did not look it was a local agent.

An envelope from American Express Cardmember Services looked very official. It had a small plastic window behind which were the words "Reminder Notice". It was printed on a background that looked like a check. At the bototm of the back of the envelope an outlined box contained "You may have recently discarded a similar notice. Please open". I knew it was a promtion but was curious enough to open the envelope. It was a reminder notice to order their 2009 Appointment Book and Executive Organizer. If you read the details you find out it is a trap to get you to take these for "free" plus shipping and then you will get them every year for approximately ten times the price of the promotion. If you decide you don't want the suceeding year products you have to take the initiative to send them notice. I would call it a trap.

Many are much more aggressive in their attempts to mislead. One recent envelope said simply "Explanation of Benefits" on the back of the envelope . Explanation of Benefits forms (EOBs) are sent by payors (mostly insurance companies) to both their enrollees and to providers. The EOBs contain information about claim payments and patient responsibility. This envelope turned out to be from Forbes and inside was an "explation of benefits" for those who subscribe to Forbes Magazine. While not legally fraud, the envelope was misleading at best.

I have adopted the practice of assuming a letter is marketing material unless I know it contains something I have been expecting or is from someone I trust. With more and more e-billing and electronic bill payment, there is not much "real" mail anymore. As email protocols and authentication continue to evolve, most really important things will be communicated by email.

On Demand, e-Business October 12, 2008 12:38 PM

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Worms and Potato Chips

Potato Chips Packaging is one of those things that most of us probably don't think about a lot. That set of plastic, glass, paper, Styrofoam, cardboard, and poly-whatever that contains and protects things we buy. I think of packaging in two categories -- that which something is stored in and that which something is shipped in. I am sure that packaging experts have a much more sophisticated way of describing it but that is my simple way of categorizing it. I suppose we mostly take packaging for granted but I am beginning to think it is actually a profound topic.

I began thinking about packaging as something discrete some years ago. Strictly in the "something is contained in it" category. What initially got my attention was a cereal box that I found great difficulty in opening without destroying it and its subsequent ability to keep the cereal fresh. I have since taken it as a personal challenge to be able to open a cereal box with no resulting damage. This is a non-trivial challenge - maybe an art. If it is a science then I haven't found the instructions anywhere. One starts by using a sharp knife with a long blade. You carefully slide the knife under the tab in the center of the top of the cereal box. Then you slice the material to one side while applying a slight upward pressure via the tab. Repeat for the other side. I give being able to do this without damaging the box top about 75% odds at best. You are now almost a third of the way through the task at hand. Now that you have freed up one of the flaps you have to free the other flap by tearing it from the side flaps. Completing this without damage is also about 75% odds if you are quite careful. You are now two thirds of the way to the cereal. Last comes opening the bag inside the box which actually contains the cereal. This is often the hardest part. If you grasp the two sides of the bag and pull very very carefully you have about a 50% chance of opening the bag without tearing it. After opening the main part of the bag you need to open the corners of the bag so the cereal can flow smoothly into your cereal bowl. Putting the collective probabilities together gives you a 50-50 chance at best of having an open cereal box that pours the contents smoothly and can be closed to protect freshness. Some packaging!

I could go on about jars that require a hammer to open, pill bottles that can only be opened by children, fresh fruit containers that have to be squeezed until they break to open, etc. etc. etc. I suspect those who suffer from arthritis of the fingers could make my examples seem trivial.

I received an Open It for Christmas last year tat is used to open things that come packaged in blisters, clamshells, boxes, DVD cases, and numerous other things that are un-openable -- packaged with the vendor in mind -- and with no thought about how the consumer might open the package without injuring oneself. The Open It is made from hardened and plated precision alloy steel, has honed, angled, and offset jaws, and an ergo-comfortable handle. It has a built in retractable utility knife and an interchangeable Phillips & slotted screwdriver. (You can click here to get a complete product data sheet). If you have ever suffered "wrap rage", suffer no more. It really works. The only catch is that the Open It comes in one of those packages that you need an Open It to open it!

But there is a much bigger packaging issue becoming part of our lives. The issue initially struck me when I had received my very first order from net.grocer. I had ordered an assortment of salsa, condiments, and potato chips. An Australian newspaper wrote a front page story (business section) about how an Internet "visionary" had ordered potato chips on the Internet. The amazing part to me was not that the potato chips arrived unbroken but rather the packaging. I feel like I want to signal the future importance of "packaging" in the way the gentleman in "The Graduate" signaled the importance of "plastics" to Dustin Hoffman.

I opened the two large cardboard boxes and unpacked all the items. Everything exactly as ordered. I was quite pleased and proud of my e-commerce prowess (e-business hadn't been invented yet) in walking the talk and acquiring all of my favorite goodies (especially potato chips) online. I was reveling in my predictions about how everybody would buy everything on the Net. Then I got a lump in my stomach. I looked at these two large cardboard boxes on my kitchen floor. And, the piles of poly-whatever "worms" (many people call them "peanuts"; I call them "worms") that were all over the place. Some stuck to my hands, arms, and clothing. What was I to do? My wife would be home soon and have a lot of questions about my plans to clean up the mess I had created in the kitchen. All the glory I felt about acquiring Tabasco and potato chips would be nothing compared to the wrath she would unleash about the mess if I didn't get busy. No problem. I'll just clean it up. All I have to do is separate all the various packaging materials into their respective categories, burst the cardboard boxes, put the "worms" into a bag so they don't end up decorating our lawn, and then stow everything away in our recycling center. Shouldn't take me more than a half hour. Let's see -- how much time did I save with my Net Grocer purchase anyway? Surely I am still way ahead?

Then there is the purchase of something really simple -- say a cell phone battery. What is the ratio, on a volume basis, of the packaging material to the battery? 2 to 1? 5 to 1? 10 to 1? 100 to 1?And then there are the "worms".

So, what is the answer to all this? First of all, shopping on the Net is here to stay and should be. Retail online now exceeds $100 billion. It is more than great -- in spite of the packaging. You can shop when you want. Selection is wide and deep and shipping is generally good (especially with Amazon). At some point web sites will enable us to establish fulfillment models where we can set up a schedule for things we just want to show up outside the garage door on a scheduled basis. Paper towels, a case of oil, printer paper, stockings, and of course potato chips. I envision receiving an email at some point from a web merchant saying "Mr. Patrick, we have been shipping you two bags of potato chips per week for quite some time. We have calculated that you could save considerably on your shipping cost if you were to up that to 12 bags per month instead. Click here if you would like us to modify your fulfillment model as suggested." But then still, there are the "worms".

Hopefully marketing will come to the rescue. Good marketing involves paying attention to the "end to end process", e.g., not just assuming that the job is getting the package to the customer but going the next step and helping the customer unwrap the package, get rid of the packaging material and start enjoying the merchandise that was delivered. There have been many new business models on the Net and I am confident we will see successful marketers keep uncovering more and more ways of satisfying their customers, by looking at possible annoyances, and solving them. We also need some breakthroughs in the packaging area. As more and more arrive at the door via package delivery companies, what will we do with all the "worms"? As people buy more and more on the Net will they get turned off by all the packaging materials they have to deal with? There is room for leadership here and breakthroughs are possible. I used to be so frustrated with opening the half gallon orange juice cartons. Did I say opening? I meant mutilating. Then along came International Paper with a breakthrough idea -- the screw cap on the carton. Great! Now what we need is self destructing "worms" and instantly collapsible cardboard. National Starch & Chemical has a product called Eco-Foam which is a starch-based biodegradable packaging material. Metabolix uses microbial fermentation of sugars to create totally biodegradable alternatives to petroleum-based plastics. The ultimate will be "worms" that do not stick to your clothing and can be put down the drain without hurting the environment.

Note: This story was originally written as a Reflection on July 31, 1999 and then edited on May 28, 2008

On Demand, e-Business May 28, 2008 02:25 PM

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

SOA Las Vegas

The conference in Las Vegas this past week was not like the ones Thomas J. Watson used to hold in Endicott where all the blue suit white shirt male attendees would sing songs about IBM's future. The master of ceremonies for the opening morning was Drew Carey and the "dinner music" was by The B-52's -- the new wave rock band not the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. I don't think anyone wore a blue suit or a white shirt.

What attracted the 6,300 people to fly to Las Vegas and fill every hall, ballroom, salon, patio, and restaurant at the MGM Grand? IBM calls it "Smart SOA". I call it The Application Web.

Only the most brilliant technical people could come up with SOA as a name for something. Let's see, is it safe operating area, School of the Americas, Skies of Arcadia (a Nintendo game), Society of Actuaries, state of the art, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act? Nope. The SOA that brought all these people together stands for "service oriented architecture". It is really important. The wikipedia has a comprehensive definition of SOA but basically it represents a new way for companies -- and hospitals, schools, and governments -- to enable their customers -- and suppliers, business partners, and employees -- to get things done on the web. Actually it is isn't new -- the idea has been around for decades -- but now it is really happening. It is so much a part of the vernacular at IBM that they just matter of factly talk about "so a".

Web In a nutshell, SOA will allow web sites to do much more than “click here to buy”. In fact web sites built with SOA will result in us standing in fewer lines in the physical world and have to endure fewer telephone call centers that want to control us. Fulfillment models at our favorite retailer’s web site will result in the staple goods we need just showing up outside the garage door when we need them. If businesses have the right attitude, SOA will enable them to get closer to the ultimate Internet -- to build a people-oriented and user-friendly experience that is tightly integrated with all the appropriate business processes of the company.

Over the last fifty years there has been an explosion of computer applications, but many of them were built in silos and were highly inflexible. In some cases companies thought decentralization was the answer so they allowed divisions and departments to do their own thing. The result was that many have a hodgepodge of incompatible systems that nobody is happy with. The web took things a big leap forward. At last there was a common way (the browser) for accessing and displaying information, even though the applications that run on the server -- that do the pricing, inventory lookups, shipping estimates, invoicing, etc. -- are still proprietary and usually tied to one particular IT vendor or system. The applications have also been very monolithic; i.e. in order to fulfill the expectations of customers on the web the application has to do the whole job. Soup to nuts; present the right price, confirm if the item is in stock, calculate shipping, and confirm the status of the order. Increasingly, customers want to get access directly into the supply chain and see exactly where their order stands. In short, applications have gotten larger and more complicated -- harder, not easier.

SOA -- arguably the biggest change in information technology in decades -- is poised to change the way applications are created and how they interoperate. Instead of building a monolithic application that takes a customer order, does credit checks, checks inventory, looks through the supply chain, arranges for payment, charges the customer, clears credit card transactions, etc., with SOA these various functions are built as separate "pieces". Think Legos. The individual programs are called "services" and they are called upon as needed. A sales tax calculation "service", for example, could be used by many different divisions of a company thereby eliminating redundancy. IBM has been practicing what it preaches in this regard. It has reduced the number of programs it uses to run the company from 16,000 to just a few thousand -- and declining.

The SOA services do not all have to be developed or acquired internally. Thanks to the Internet, services can be "rented" from others. For example, suppose that a company called American Specialties Inc. (ASI) specializes in selling American goods for delivery mostly outside of America. They want to create an application to sell their products on the web. The trickiest part of the application is determining the best way to ship the product to ensure it gets there when the customer wants it and at the lowest cost. ASI doesn't’t have the skills to write this particular part of the application and they haven’t bee able to find a vendor with a software package that can do it and which is compatible with the rest of ASI’s software.

It turns out that there is another company called Rates and Costs Inc. (RCI), which specializes in the calculation of optimum routes and the associated costs for shipment to places anywhere in the world. RCI offers the calculation as a service on the web and it is the exact function ASI needs to incorporate into their web application. Since RCI follows the SOA standards, ASI is able to see the specifications for RCI’s service – what inputs are required and what output does it produce. RCI could have created their calculation service using any IT platform they choose -- the standards assure that things can work together.

The programmer at ASI likes RCI’s program because it performs exactly the right function that ASI needs and the software has already been written and tested! ASI follows the SOA standards to incorporate RCI’s service into their web application. Whenever a user goes to ASI’s web page and needs shipment route and cost information, a link is made behind the scenes to RCI’s web server to get the information. ASI’s customers don’t know, nor will they care, that part of the job is being done by RCI’s server; not ASI’s server. ASI makes an arrangement to pay RCI each time one of ASI’s customers uses the RCI web service.

Creating programs by linking to other programs without regard to what programming language was used to create the others’ programs represents a whole new paradigm. It is one of the information technology industry’s holy grails. Standards organizations, such as Oasis, have been attempting for years to create a “neutral” programming environment. The UNIX vendors – HP, DEC, Sun, IBM, Data General, and others – formed various organizations, councils and consortia over the years attempting to bring things together. Progress was made but none of these initiatives achieved real openness and true compatibility across the information technology industry -- until SOA. It is not really new but it is time. Open Internet standards and SOA tools are making it happen.

SOA will make it possible for the web to evolve from a web of content to a web of content and applications. SOA will enable server-to-server interaction in addition to browser to server interactions. Servers will negotiate with other servers and even complete transactions by themselves with no direct human intervention. These interactions will replace the paper forms and faxes that flow back and forth from company to company today.

E-business evolved to on demand and on demand has evolved to business and IT "alignment". At this stage many enterprises have bought in to the concept but are struggling with how to get there. This is why many web sites don't fully meet our needs -- they are dependent on many independent applications that the enterprise has had for decades and so far have been unable to integrate them. SOA is the new model -- it offers the first comprehensive, standards based way to get the job done. Adoption of SOA will enable the interoperability within the many functions and departments of enterprises and between enterprises that has been a decades long dream. History has shown that adoption of standards leads to an explosion of usage and that will surely be the case with SOA. The SOA standards will enable entire industries to be brought together. Virtual corporations comprised of a federation of smaller ones will enable “hyper competition” on a global scale.

How does "Web 2.0" fit into all this? Like a ball and glove. Quite the hot topic in tech circles and among venture capitalists, Web 2.0 is basically a style, a model, an approach, and a philosophy wrapped together. It includes a "lightweight" programming model that is more like web page development than traditional programming. A key element of 2.0 is the blog feed -- a way to allow people to look at a web page but also subscribe to it. Another element is AJAX, a technique built on a collection of Internet standards that produces a rich user experience -- kayak.com is a good example -- with pages that don't "reload", they just change while you are looking at them. Another characteristic of Web 2.0 is that it is a perpetual beta -- users are treated as co-developers. At the conference, IBM announced WebSphere sMash which may turn out to be a really key tool for the evolution toward Web 3.0. Jerry Cuomo, IBM Fellow and CTO for IBM WebSphere, described a broad vision for how "smashups" will extend the web in a major way. The idea is to make it simple to combine content from multiple web sites. For example a travel agency may want to combine the best deals from airlines and hotels along with comments and discussion from tourists all in one "seamless" site. The smashup tool is based on a community project called "Project Zero" that has been underway for a number of months and is now ready to go mainstream.

All things considered, IBM really has it's act together with regard to SOA. Every software and services executive at the company is well versed on it and has it baked into their business and development plans. The promise is great and with tens of thousands of software engineers and top management support I think it is fair to expect IBM to continue to deliver on their vision. They have already made dozens of acquisitions to fill in the white spaces and customers are signing up and getting results. There were hundreds of customers and business partners there in Las Vegas to tell their success stories. Nothing is more creditable than having someone else tell your story for you.

great summary of IBM’s “Smart SOA” vision

Conferences, IBM, Internet Technology, On Demand, Travels, e-Business April 15, 2008 08:25 PM

Monday, March 3, 2008

Luggage Back Too

Luggage There is much to write about Africa and Internet technology, but I can not resist sharing about our luggage. We waited in line along with many others to provide information about the size and color of the missing bags. The agent entered the information and gave us a printout that was clearly from a decades-old system. We were told to give a call after twenty-four hours. I called after 26 hours and was told there was no update and that it could take up to five days. The reasoning was that there may not be room in the next few flights for "extra" baggage -- the classic case of taking care of the new customers rather than upset them by helping customers who have already been disappointed. After continuing to get "there is no new information" I thought to myself that tracking luggage would be a great application for the web. I wondered if the airline had thought about it.

I visited South African Airways (flysaa.com) and at the bottom of the "After your trip" page was a link for "Lost/damaged luggage". Could it be? II entered the file reference number from the printout and voila! Information about each of the four bags was displayed along with the status. As the day went on the status changed from "No information available" to "Arrived at airport" to "Delivery process underway". It took thirty-six hours to get the luggage but I was impressed with how South African Airways had integrated a very old application with a user-friendly web front end. Apparently the people at the airport are not aware of it. The airline could certainly take some anxiety away and offload an extremely busy call center by informing their customers about the web application and including the url on the printout. The ideal solution would be to have the application automatically generate an SMS text message to your mobile phone every hour with the status.

The pictures are uploaded to the gallery and the stories will start soon.

Index of stories and pictures from South Africa 2008

Internet Technology, Mobile, On Demand, Travels March 3, 2008 04:58 PM

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Backup To The Rescue

Scream The ThinkPad T60p had been acting strangely for a few weeks and I had a hunch it was going to crash. Unfortunately, it did. I called Lenovo support at 6PM Monday night and they determined that the problem was the "motherboard" needed replaced. The shipping carton arrived on Tuesday, they received the ThinkPad in Memphis on Wednesday and I received the repaired unit on Thursday morning. Nothing short of remarkable customer service. That is the good news.

The bad news is that I continue to learn more about the nuances of backup and "recovery". I should not still be learning after all these years. I suspect I am not alone. There are a number of stories about "backup" here in the blog. I don't claim to be the master of backup but I do take it very seriously. The moral of this story is to take recovery as seriously as backup. This story is a little bit more technical than usual stories but I hope it is helpful. If you are interested, please read on.

Internet Technology, Media, On Demand, Personal Computing January 12, 2008 11:36 AM

Friday, December 7, 2007

Customer Service

There have been many stories here over the years related to customer service. The Internet offers the potential for businesses, schools, governments, and hospitals to offer unparalleled customer service. More and more are doing so but there is a long way to go. When I wrote Net Attitude during the summer of 2001 I thought by now things would be different. This story will summarize two cases -- one great and one much less than great.

In order to end on a high note, I'll start with the not so great customer service from Symantec. Symantec is a great company and their technology protects millions of consumers and businesses daily with their anti-virus and firewall technologies. I use the Symantec Internet Security on some computers but on one of them I decided to try something different primarily because I find the renewal process tedious -- where it could be a mouse click or two, it turns out every year to be long chats with call centers to get a renewal. When the renewal charge showed up as an American Express card transaction I called the 877 number on the transaction. I got a recording saying to call a different number. I called that number and got a recording saying the number was no longer in use and that I should visit http://norton.com/support. I went to that link where it said I could get help with subscriptions, product activation, product download, returns, or rebates. Clicking on subscriptions took me to a customer service page with the same set of choices as the prior page. None of the choices were what I needed so I clicked on "contact us" which showed me option for "Instant Online Chat". I clicked "Chat Now" and then was asked to go through a set of steps to install Microsoft ActiveX technology, which I consider to be close to a virus. The Symantec support structure only works with the Internet Explorer browser, which I do not use. Being a consumer oriented company I am surprised Symantec would impose IE on people when the current browser statistics show that Firefox, Netscape, Safari, and Opera have reached 43% market share. I am sure one of Symantec's challenges is to get people to use their website instead of calling. Making the browser choice for consumers is not a good way to achieve that.

On the flip side of the coin is Amazon.The company started with a vision of great customer service a dozen years ago and continues to get better. A few months ago I bought a Linksys "Wireless-N Gigabit Security Router with VPN" from Amazon. After using it for awhile it became clear that it had a defect. I confirmed this with Linksys technical support. They said they could send me a reconditioned replacement or I could return the unit to the retailer. I chose the latter and followed the simple process online at Amazon's customer service page. The Amazon "Your Account" page has just about everything you can imagine -- return items, combine orders, track or cancel orders, and even change the payment method for an existing order. All of these functions are intuitive and easy to use. I chose "Return an item" and then was asked if it was a gift or if I had ordered it. I was then shown a list of all my orders (they can show you online order history going back more than ten years). Next was a selection of why the item was being returned. It was clear they are using artificial intelligence to then ask questions and take actions based on your responses. When I said the item was defective, an apology was presented, and with a mouse click a shipping label was ready to print, and they automatically notified UPS to pick up the package.

A confirming email asked if I was satisfied and I had to say no because I didn't want to send the router back until I received a new one. When I clicked on "no" in the email a web page showed various options for resolving my concern, one of which was "Click here to speak to a real person". I clicked the button and 1 second later my phone rang. I told the person my concern and he completely understood and communicated to me in a clear and helpful way. He immediately put the UPS pickup on hold and placed an order for a replacement router for overnight delivery. "Is there anything else I can do for you?". What could I say other than thanks. Amazon made just shy of $1 billion in profit last year. Sales were over $13 billion. Is it any wonder? The company has made a huge investment in customer service and has always made this a priority. They were criticized for not becoming profitable soon enough. Now the company is valued at just shy of $40 billion. Many companies talk about customer service but Amazon really delivers on it.

Other patrickWeb stories about On Demand

On Demand, e-Business December 7, 2007 05:39 PM

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Postal Parking - Redux

Mailbox The story about the shortage of parking at the U.S. Post Office in Ridgefield brought some reaction, as expected. Some people feel the electronic alternative is nice if you have time to learn how to do it. Fair reaction but it strikes me that even more time is spent in line to park and even longer in the other line waiting for service inside. I also feel there are much better uses for public capital than building post office parking lots.

Robert Braathe at galaconcierge.com points out that the Backus Avenue post office near the Danbury Fair Mall has 20 parking spots and is very convenient. They have an automated machine and a lobby that is open 24/7. Robert says "I only ship through the automated machine and on off peak hours".

Robert also pointed out that there is something worse than waiting in line for parking and service at the post office -- waiting in line "behind people who still write checks in the grocery store or department store". Quite a few people might agree with him, especially when a person buys a handful of items in the grocery store and then takes their time to fumble around to find a check book, write a check, and then make a detailed entry in their check register. People in line behind them give up their time and the check writer gives up cashflow, points, and rebates on their credit card.

Other patrickWeb stories about On Demand

On Demand August 22, 2007 10:01 AM

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Postal Parking

Mailbox In the town where I live people don't like the shortage of parking at the U.S. Post Office and so a proposal was born to tear down a nearby house and create an expanded parking lot. A debate has now arisen over the merits of tearing down the house, whether it is historic or not, and what alternative uses could be made of the house. To me, the focus is on the wrong issue. Why are so many people compelled to drive to the Post Office in the first place?

For the foreseeable immediate future, there will be a need for postal offices but of all the things that people go there for, many of the needs could be fulfilled by alternative means. I suspect nearly all the people who visit the post office have a computer, an Internet connection and a printer. Both the U.S. Postal Service and Stamps.com offer very easy to use online postal services. You can print your own labels and your own postage, including Priority Mail and even international shipping. You can add delivery confirmation which can then be tracked at usps.com and you can request emails whenever status of package changes. You can also buy all the labels, boxes, and tape online. A simple food scale can provide the weight. For larger packages you can stand on the bathroom scale with and without your package and with some quick arithmetic you get the package weight. After preparing your package you make a request at USPS.com and the package will be picked up at your front porch. For a feee you can even have it picked up on demand. If you do a lot of shipping you can get a nice digital scale and a Zebra thermal printer that makes the 4" x 6" labels you see on your inbound packages. If you put your mind to it you can avoid 90% of your trips to the post office. If we all avoided even a much lesser percentage of trips, I am sure we would not need a new parking lot. I have been using online postage for more than five years and have been more than satisfied with it.

There is also more that the post office could do to alleviate the parking problem. Two weeks ago I sold my Palm Treo 700P phone (replaced by the iPhone) on eBay. On the day the package was to be shipped I was in New York City for a board meeting. I took the package along but wasn't watching the time and suddenly I realized it was just past five PM. The bellman at the hotel told me about the 24x7 post office at 421 8th Avenue. The cavernous building had machines resembling ATM banking machines but with a scale. You place your package on the scale, swipe your credit card, and follow the instructions on the screen. After the postage is printed out you place your package in a bin and you are finished. 24x7. Although not all 24x7 there are many automated postal centers in Connecticut with extended hours. (There is even an Automated Postal Center at an Albertson's supermarket in Las Vegas). If there is a will, there is a way to put one of these automated machines in the Ridgefield post office building.

Between usps.com, stamps.com, and an automated postal machine Ridgefield should be able to easily avoid building another parking lot. Long before our tax dollars would be amortized for the life of parking lot, most people will do most transactions online. The technology is available now. Just think how good you will feel putting a stamped and ready to go package on your front porch and then do something else you want to do instead of driving downtown and waiting for a parking place.

On Demand August 8, 2007 01:15 PM

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Reminders

It seems that the term "On Demand" is not being used as much in advertising as it had been, however the concept is certainly still valid. On demand is closely tied to customer service and we have a long way to go before customer service fully meets our expectations. The concept is simple -- give customers what they need, when they need it, with whatever kind of device they may be using to connect to the Internet. I have had two instances of on demand shortfalls today.Both had to do with "reminders".

Something I purchased this morning had a special discount if I paid the bill in full before December 18. Their system, however, is unable to track this so it would be up to me to remember to call back before the due date and supply my credit card number. The second instance was an insurance matter. No transactions were available via their web site. I spoke to an agent and we agreed on a certain transaction to be effective January 14. The person said they would enter it into their "system" -- hard to imagine a system in the twenty-first century not having web transactions -- and everything would happen from there. An hour later, I received a voicemail message saying that the system was unable to handle a date that far "out" and that I should call them back right around the middle of December. So the bottom line was that their system can't remember something sixty days away and the responsibility was delegated to me, the customer. Fortunately, Quicken can remember things I enter even if they are years away.

The only good news here is for IBM. These examples show how far behind many companies are and how badly they need the latest technologies to integrate their systems and extend them to the web. The bad news is that it all starts with a Net Attitude and there are signs that there are quite a few businesses that haven't adopted that yet.

Other patrickWeb On Demand stories

On Demand November 15, 2006 03:16 PM

Monday, October 16, 2006

The Future of Advertising

The title may sound presumptuous since I am not an advertising expert. However, from a consumer point of view, I suspect my views may be shared by many of my friends, colleagues, and readers. Let's start with television and then consider the web. There are very big differences.

The convergence of the PC and TV has been exaggerated -- so far. Yes, there are some interesting ways to watch TV on your PC or surf the web on your TV but, at least for the immediate future, the PC is something we use at our desk or lap and the TV is more of an entertainment center. (Note: when not in the home, the handheld will be come dominant -- that is another story). High definition TV is great for enjoying a DVD or a HD broadcast. The PC is the place I go to do email, do some research, make purchases, read or write, and read the news. Isn't the TV our main for source for news? Increasingly not.

On days that I am not traveling to board meetings or conferences, I like to exercise. The recumbent bike and elliptical cross-trainer make good perches from which to watch cable TV news. If I am not watching a previously recorded news program -- and I do record several per day -- it is hard to get any news. The official data will show somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes per hour as being advertising. During the day it is closer to 20. That means one out of three minutes is advertising. You can flip between a half dozen news shows and find no news. If you subtract the news channel self-promotions, details on the latest deranged family member who has done something horrible, tabloid stories, and news about the news, then what you have left is a small fraction of an hour -- some critics say slightly less than five minutes per hour of real news. Some people say CNN means "contains no news" and that when FOX says "your station for news" they really mean "your station for advertising". For years, Netflix has been my way to watch movies, but the other night I was watching a movie where there was no digital video recorder or DVD player. The movie was interrupted every ten minutes with 10-12 advertisements.

The advertisements are mostly insulting to one's intelligence. There are no insights into anything and they grate on people's nerves. Honestly, I have to say that most of the ads are obnoxious -- as bad as spam. The shotgun blast ads aren't fraudulent but they add no value to our lives. Zero. Do we need broadcast television to tell us the latest interest rate at ditech.com or to be reminded four times per hour that Scottrade is "all about value" or to be constantly told to ask our doctor about this pill or that pill? The bottom line is that most of us don't rely on the TV as a source of ideas for things we need. There may be some people that actually enjoy advertisements. That is ok, but the rest of us want to "opt out".

Digital video recorders such as TiVo are a step in the right direction. If you want to watch a 7:00 PM news program, you can record it and then start watching it at 7:20 and not miss a thing. When it comes to movies, some people say they use the ads for biological and nourishment breaks, but do we need that every ten minutes? Yes, the premium cable movie channels are expensive, but millions of people would rather pay the monthly fee and be able to watch a movie from beginning to end without irrelevant ads droning at them. The most watched TV show ever is "The Sopranos". I am not commenting on the content of the program -- just on the business model. Although it's available in only a third of American homes, approximately 10 million viewers per week actually paid to watch it. There was no advertising. This is why the percentage of time people spend in front of TV's watching DVD's and subscription based programming will continue to climb.

Meanwhile the Internet is giving us what we want -- control over what we watch and when we watch it. Youtube is the tip of the iceberg. Search based advertising is booming because it is relevant to what we are searching for. It puts us in control. I have been using Weather Underground (the first Internet weather service) since 1995. The thing I like the most is that members -- at a cost of $10 per year -- get no ads. No banners, dancing bears, flashing action bars, or pop-ups that cover the weather. A weather site that has just weather. What a concept. When it comes to news, my source for years has been Google News. The headlines are based on what people are reading. Sometimes a top story is from the New York Times, sometimes it is from Al Jazeera, or a newspaper site in Houston, Philadelphia, or many other places. I feel like I am getting a wide variety of coverage and opinions and not just what the "local" paper has to say.

The Internet has always been about "Power to the People" and the people are sending lots of signals about advertising. They don't like it. They want "options, preferences, no ads" built into their viewing experience. Meanwhile, content executives are looking for even more ways to get in our face, send text messages to our mobile phones, and get into our instant messages and blogs. They have the future of advertising all wrong. Companies have to market their goods and services, but the model has to change. Sponsoring sports events and getting products used by actors in movies are fine but most important is to build great web sites and customer support that surpass our expectations. That is where the investments should be made. The result will be that bloggers and good old fashioned word of mouth will spread the word about how great the company is. Companies that continue to spam us with their ads are going to get a very bad reputation and the media companies that run them are going to lose their readers and viewers.

Internet Technology, Media, On Demand, People October 16, 2006 06:13 PM

Saturday, August 26, 2006

For Your Protection

Bank Ten years ago Bill Gates said that U.S. banks were "dinosaurs". Most of us at IBM thought at the time that this was a harsh comment for an IT industry executive to make about it's customers. However, at this stage, I have to admit that I am quite disappointed with the progress made in the banking industry. Yes, there is a lot of online banking but there still remains a huge amount of paper, faxes, forms, and hassles.

One of the areas that is overdue and ripe for automation is the bank "wire". Whether you have the money, borrow the money, or are receiving the money, it is often convenient to move the money using an electronic funds transfer -- otherwise known as a "wire". A bank wire moves money from your bank account to a car dealer's bank account, a home equity loan account to pay off a bank loan or for a real estate closing, or from your bank account to a son or daughter's checking account for college expenses. Paypal has made moving money really simple -- a few mouse clicks to send or receive payment from an eBay auction. In the world of banking, it seems the goal is to make moving money as hard as possible.

A recent real estate closing convinced me that my bank (a large national one) is truly behind the times. Like the majority of their peers, they seem unable to adapt to the Internet. There are regulatory compliance issues but I am convinced these serve more as a crutch -- an excuse -- to not change faster. Here are the instructions provided to customers who want to make a wire transfer.

In order to make a wire transfer the customer must get "All Wire Forms and necessary paperwork" to the "Risk Management Area" by 3 PM the day prior to the day of the transfer. The overnight package must include "original signatures" and a "copy of a valid driver’s license". If you get through all the hoops the wire goes out the on the third day of the process. But before it goes, and for "further protection", the bank calls and asks a bunch of security questions and the amount of the last check drawn on the account "prior to completing your wire transfer". If you happen to be traveling and can't take their call, the wire does not happen.

You can buy or sell merchandise and trade stocks online but when it comes to moving money, the process is incredibly cumberssome. Is the bureacracy really "for your protection". I don't think so. It is culture and unwillingness to change. Is a really secure electronic funds transfer online possible? Of course. There are numerous technologies available to implement encryption and authentication, including biometric identification such as on the Lenovo ThinkPads. Even the IRS has implemented a secure approach for e-filing tax returns. Tens of millions of people use it. It works.

To add insult to injury I received a letter in the mail the other day from one of the largest banks in the world. "It is our policy to reconfirm the following wire instructions" which they have on file in case they are needed. The letter contained my name, address, phone number, the ABA routing number for the bank, and my bank account number. The letter opened with "For your protection". So for my protection the bank sent a letter through the postal system with their name emblazoned on the envelope containing a lot of valuable information that an identity theft would love to get their hands on. A major source of identity information comes from thieves going through physical mailboxes looking for letters from banks. People have to buy shredders because of their banks. Do the banks have privacy policies? Yes, and most of them say in essence, we have your information and we will use it to develop new business and we will share it with our partners. If you want to "opt out" you have to write them a letter. For their protection.

Epilogue: Ten years ago, some predicted that "local" banks would be gone by now. Today they are flourishing. People know their local banker and if they need a wire, they just call and it gets done. Authentication gets done because the people know each other.

On Demand August 26, 2006 01:21 PM

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Five Percent

Cactus At a speech in New Orleans on Monday I said we were just five percent of the way into the Internet -- that of all the things that could simplify our lives and save us time, only five percent of them are here so far. New companies such as Pandora are pressing the envelope to do great things but unfortunately many existing companies have not kept pace with expectations.

This morning I checked on the status of a medical prescription at Express Scripts, my "online" pharmacy. The web site had an order number but did not show the name of the medication. Clicking on "check status" gave a line that said "In pharmacy" -- since May 6. No information available. Sending an email to them is hopeless -- I have done it before -- they respond to the email by telling you to call if you need information. I called and was told they had received the prescription on May 3 and it then takes them three days to enter it into the system. Four days later they determined that it needs "prior authorization" and so they faxed a form to the doctor requesting that he fax a form to the insurance company who would then need to fax a form to customer service who would then notify the pharmacy it is ok to ship the medication. The pharmacy and customer service are the same company. There is no feedback to the customer at any point. Meanwhile everyone is calling everyone and the doctor's office is so overloaded with calls about prescriptions that you can't get through to them. This is the status of online pharmacy. Five percent would be an overstatement.

Then I made a reservation at Marriott.com. At the end of the form was a "comments" box and I entered some things that I thought would be helpful. Upon hitting the submit button I got an error message saying "Comments too long". The form only accepts 45 characters -- a ridiculous limitation in these days of inexpensive storage. Well designed online forms that limit the text input tell you how many characters you have remaining. Not this one -- there is no indication given of how many characters have actually been entered and the text box actually has four lines of 64 characters each. You just keep shortening and entering submit until it is satisfied. What could they be thinking? The confirming email arrived quickly but because they had embedded some javascript in the email to make it look pretty, it could not be printed. Travel sites generally are getting better but they still do a lot of dumb things.

The point that top management of these and many other companies are missing is that the perception of their company and their brand is no longer based on their past history or even the reputation of their products and services. The way we see them is the way we see their web sites. Unfortunately, a lot of things we see are not pretty. Increasingly our loyalties will shift to the companies who make our lives simpler and save us time instead of frustrating us. Many are trying hard but they have a long way to go.

On Demand May 10, 2006 05:47 PM

Thursday, March 2, 2006

Phone Service

Chris Herot, from Lexington, Massachusetts, wrote in response to the prior post about the telephone services offered at the Stamford Marriott. He agrees there is a "declining number of people will pay those outrageous charges by raising the price for the few suckers who remain". He provided an example where upon checking out of a hotel recently he was confronted with a charge for more than $10 for a two minute phone call. He said the front desk sheepishly acknowledged it was a rip-off. They cheerfully removed the charge from his bill.

On a positive note, the more enlightened hotels are starting to offer a bundle of services people will pay for. The Marriott "Wired-for-Business" connectivity offer which enables guests to "Work smarter with unlimited..." in-room high-speed Internet access plus local and long distance phone calls for $9.95 per day is not a bad deal unless -- you have your own EV-DO service and a good mobile phone plan. There is also some innovation going on In the directory assistance area where 800-FREE-411 is providing a nice alternative to the old-fashioned 411 system.

But what about customer service? This week received two telephone company bills -- both had significant errors -- caused by outdated backend batch-oriented systems. One took 21 minutes to resolve, the other one 49 minutes. Some would say that telephone customer service is an oxymoron, but I have noticed a significant difference in recent months in terms of attitude. Although I have had issues with Comcast, Verizon, and Cingular, the customer service representatives act like they care. Unlike the past, they apologize for service problems, they thank you for your business, they identify with the problems you have, and they sincerely work to get them resolved. At Verizon, the reps are empowered to offer on the spot credits to resolve issues. Competition seems to be driving these companies to start caring about their customers. You can lock customers in with contracts but you can't make them happy unless the service reps show good attitude. I see a real shift in a positive direction. If we can keep the regulators and lobbyists in Washington from reducing competition we can expect to see service and pricing get better and better.

On Demand March 2, 2006 03:37 PM

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Hotel Not On Demand

Hotel Some people don't agree with me that we are only 5% of the way into what we can ultimately expect from the Internet, but everyday I see examples that convince me that it is true. Tonight I visited Hilton Hotels online and tried to reserve a room. I got the following user-friendly message....

We're sorry but we are unable to process your login. You may book your reservations without login. Be sure to provide your HHonors account number on the Guest Information form.

I know I have an account and I know the password. I tried various options and finally gave up and called. After multiple "please pay attention because our menus have recently changed" routines I got to a person. She was very nice and informed me that the "servers are down for maintenance every Thursday evening from 9-11 PM". I could try again after 11PM or try again in the morning. What amazed me most was that this person thought that was ok. She has been convinced by the company that this is just how it is. Don't they realize that for two hours customers will just click on "anotherhotel.com"? And don't they realize in California the "maintenance" is closing out customers from 6-8 PM? And that in many parts of Asia, is prime morning time? What could they be thinking? Certainly not about customers and on demand.

Other patrickWeb on demand stories

On Demand January 26, 2006 10:34 PM

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Power To The People: Still Not Getting It

Toolbox Open source and open standards are taking hold, big-time. Web access to numerous public and private services are also growing rapidly. The ability to search, find and link to information of all kinds is truly awesome. In spite of this, there are many companies that still seem to be in the dark.

GarageTek has a great product and appears to be the leader in garage organization systems. I am really happy with their system, except that their tool holder is not very good and their selection of other hanging accessories is limited and what they do have is not available online. Their franchisees are small businesses that only have hours when I don't so it is hard to buy from them. That's one of the key reasons why e-commerce is booming -- people can buy at midnight or six in the morning. I was sure that by now there would be competitive OEM "garagetek" accessories available online and I found some at Sporty's Toolshop but I was not sure they would be compatible. Even though the Sporty's accessories appeared to be compatible, the product specialist could not say because she "never heard of GarageTek". I asked who the manufacturer of their accessories was but they said it was "against their policy to reveal that information".

Knowing I could return them if they did not fit, I ordered a few accessories from Sporty's. They are very nice -- much better than what GarageTek offers. The products came in packaging that said "Suncast" and so I checked out their website. It said

NOTE: To avoid competing with our retailers, we will only sell replacement parts on-line. For a listing of the retailers where you can purchase our product please click on the Find a Retailer link listed above

The link showed a list of "bricks and mortar" retailers with no websites or email addresses. They did not even show Sporty's as one of their retailers even though that is where I had bought the products.

The "bunker" mentality that ignores "power to the people" was understandable ten years ago but at this point the Sporty's and Suncast approaches seem Neanderthal at best. Whether it is manufacturers who are protecting their retailers, governments who regulate wine sales, or wholesalers who protect unjustified layers in the supply chain, demand from consumers on the Internet will ultimately determine the channels of distribution. The businesses that understand that and create an on demand model will be the winners.

Other patrickWeb on demand stories

On Demand January 18, 2006 04:05 PM

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Two New Books

Books Two new books arrived this week that may be of interest.

Naked Conversation - How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel is very timely with all that is going on in the world of blogging. I know Robert from Microsoft. He has been active in evangelizing the potential of blogging and very much practices what he preaches, even when his postings may at times not be consistent with company practices. The book explores how blogging has changed the rules of communication and competition and gives business owners the tools to launch an effective blogging strategy. Robert and Shel interviewed many business leaders including Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks, Bob Lutz from General Motors and Johanthan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems.

Let Go to Grow - Escaping the Commodity Trap by Linda S. Sanford with Dave Taylor is about strategy and management practices. Normally pretty boring stuff, but Linda and Dave have organized the book in a way that makes it flow very nicely. It is all about driving innovation and gaining productivity -- both urgent topics for anyone in a leadership position today. The book explains the concepts of componentization, outsourcing, and off-shoring in a clear but strategic way and then lays out an approach for leveraging the concepts across an enterprise. Practical case studies about Dell, eBay, GE, Procter & Gamble, and Toyota bring it all home. I have known Linda for quite a few years. She has had a number of top-level executive positions in systems, storage, and global sales and is now Senior Vice President of IBM's internal On Demand Transformation and Information Technology initiatives. In addition to being one of IBM's highest-ranking women, she also serves as a member of the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame and the National Association of Engineers. She was named one of the 50 Most Influential Women in Business by Fortune magazine, one of the Top Ten Innovators in the Technology Industry by Information Week, and one of the Ten Most Influential Women in Technology by Working Woman. She is also a nice lady!

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On Demand August 4, 2005 11:57 PM

Wednesday, August 3, 2005

Mailing Preferences

Dinosaur There are a number of stories about geocaching pending. I have to admit that August is a bit slow with only one speaking engagement, in Dallas, and a trip to Oslo, Norway for the tenth anniversary of Opera Software. I could not resist commenting about an email I received today from the BMG Classical Music Service .

I found BMG very useful some years ago -- actually more like a decade ago -- as I am a fan of classical music. Back then I subscribed to various CD specials for collections of music composed by Mozart, Beethoven, and others. With the advent of iTunes I find BMG to be an artifact. One thing I will say about them -- they don't give up. In fact they are clinging to the past big time.

Their email pushed their latest CD's -- no problem -- but at the bottom said "If you wish to unsubscribe from this email and receive your Featured Selection information via postal mail, simply go to "My Account" and click the Update button under Preferences. Go to the Mailing Preferences section, select Postal Mail, and click Save. Please allow 10 business days for your unsubscribe request to be confirmed. You may contact BMG Music Service at the following address: BMG Direct, Inc., 6550 East 30th Street, Indianapolis, IN 46219-1194, Attention: Unsubscribe Requests". Postal mail? Allow ten business days? How about "Click here to unsubscribe"? Now -- instantly.

I believe "opt-in" is the way to go but if a company chooses "opt-out" then at a minimum they should allow "click here to unsubscribe" and make it really easy. The BMG approach is a clear sign that they are clinging to the past. The issue is not stealing music. The issue is for companies to give us a way to buy music. iTunes is doing that . BMG is off in the weeds. A click on a link in their email resulted in .....

"In order to serve you better, we are currently upgrading our site. We appreciate your patience and apologize for any inconvenience. Please return soon."

Right.

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On Demand August 3, 2005 11:47 PM

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Raising The Bar - Part 2

I don't mean to pick on the telecommunications companies but they really make things hard to ignore. The day after the incident with Cingular, I received a letter in the mail from SBC saying "Your enrollment in the SBC EasyCharge program has been approved for the telephone number referenced above". Above my name it said "Reference #". There was no number. The letter was signed by "SBC Treasury Operations". Makes me wonder at least two things. First, how can a company send out letters to real customers with a blank reference number? Secondly, knowing that every contact with a customer is a chance to sell the products and services of the company, why would the SBC Marketing department allow letters to be sent to customers from SBC Treasury Operations? Since they don't know what phone number they are writing about, they probably don't know which departments are writing letters to customers. As they say, go figure.

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On Demand July 19, 2005 04:36 PM

Monday, July 18, 2005

Raising The Bar

Telephones Cingular just sent an email with the bold title of "Raising the Bar". I wish. The email said "Your wireless bill is ready online. Account Number: ***-****7607. Phone Number: XXX-XXX-0000". The account number was not mine and the phone number obviously belonged to no one. But wait, it gets worse.

My recent email from Vonage (more on that coming up), the Internet telephony service that I use, started out with "Dear John Patrick". The Cingular email started out with "Dear JOHN PATRICK Service". Huh? The all caps look is reminiscent of 1960's technology. The email went on to say "Your current monthly bill is now available at http://www.cingular.com/ocs. If you have chosen to have your Cingular bills paid automatically through our recurring payment option, your payment will be made for you in approximately 10 days". If I have chosen? They don't know?

I had started out with AT&T Wireless and had numerous bad customer experiences with them as has been written about here in the blog (See mobile category). The merger with Cingular was said to have great synergy. That may be true long term, but so far I have seen nothing but problems. The "0000" phone number was a result of the merger. It was a carryover from the prior account. When I called the number on the bill I got Cingular and keyed in my 10-digit phone number. Predictably, when a customer service agent came online, their first question was "what is your ten-digit phone number". After giving it to them, they said it was not a valid number. I said I have been using it for years. They said it might be an AT&T number. Yes, but isn't that now part of Cingular. Well yes, but it is a separate system. "Would you like to be transferred?". Why doesn't the statement say something like, "if you are a former AT&T Wireless customer call the following number"? The finale was that if I want to have the correct number for future reference, "Get a piece of paper and I'll give you the number".

Comcast (which has also appeared in this blog) is struggling with the transition to an on demand world also. I enrolled online to have my monthly charges automatically debited to a credit card. No problem. "The enrollment process for recurring credit card payment can take between 30-45 days". Online. Real time.

The telecommunications industry is under huge pressure from every direction -- regulatory, customers, competitors -- and they are working hard to integrate, improve coverage, move to VoIP and get better at customer service. They are making progress but at this stage I would have to say that consumer expectations are rising faster than what is being delivered.

Other patrickWeb on demand stories

On Demand July 18, 2005 05:34 PM

Saturday, June 11, 2005

Overnight Shipping: Redux

Overnight shipping I got a call from New York this morning. The documents that were overnighted and subject of the comedy of errors were delivered at 9:50 AM in the morning.

While the shipping company web sites and customer service have a long way to go, their shipping infrastructure is nothing short of amazing. Once you engage them, which sometimes can be difficult using their web sites, they truly execute as On Demand businesses.

We sometimes take "overnight" shipping for granted but when you think about a package being dropped in a truck at Dunkin Donuts at 6PM and then being on someone's desk in New York City (if could just have easily been San Francisco) at 9 AM the next morning for less than $20, it is truly remarkable.

Other patrickWeb stories about On Demand

On Demand June 11, 2005 02:23 PM

Thursday, June 9, 2005

Overnight Shipping

The overnight shipping business is extremely competitive and in the end the winner will be the one that does the best job of building an easy to use on demand web site. The overnight companies are all trying hard and have made much progress but, as in all industries, there is quite a hill yet to climb for them to become On Demand businesses.

I receive overnight packages fairly often but don't have much occasion to send things overnight. When board documents need to be "faxed or overnighted", I instead use a digital signature with Adobe Acrobat. It works quite well and more importantly, the auditors and attorneys are satisfied with the approach too. Today I had the need to send some original documents to New York. I was actually in New York almost all day, but as I headed for the train station very early this morning, I left the envelope containing the documents on the kitchen counter. That was just the beginning of a comedy of errors. (read more)

On Demand June 9, 2005 10:25 PM

Monday, February 7, 2005

Operating Systems

A friend of mine at IBM asked my opinion about something Jonathan Schwartz, of
Sun Microsystems, had to say about "operating systems". After reading his blog, I developed two opinions -- one about what he said and the other about how he said it. First of all, what is an operating system? Some readers know a lot about them but others don't. I like to try to make complicated things easy to understand (see On Demand and Virtualization) so let's start with the basics.

The first desktop computer was introduced in 1974 by Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems (MITS). There was immediate demand but it was mostly hobbyists. The personal computer market really took off after IBM introduced the "PC" in 1981. The market was fueled by IBM's decision to make the PC an open platform where many vendors could step in with printers, sound cards, modems, and of course software programs. Arguably, the single most important software application was the spreadsheet -- initially VisiCalc by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston and later Mitch Kapor's 1-2-3. Hobbyists continued their interest but with the spreadsheet, everyday users with business and financial interests got on board. Most of these users didn't know how the computer worked and didn't care -- all they knew is how to use the power of the spreadsheet software. Today's computers are much more sophisticated and there is a huge inventory of software application programs to choose from. What makes today's application programs so useful and powerful is the operating system. (read more)

On Demand February 7, 2005 04:48 PM

Friday, December 31, 2004

Talking To Someone: Reader Feedback

Not everyone agreed with my point about not really wanting to talk to someone. Dale said, "Even the best machine systems fail". He gave an example of how Amazon took his order for a Christmas gift, promised a delivery date, and the gift has still not arrived". His bottom line was, "no dates, no numbers, no satisfaction – and no way to talk to a human". "Even the best sometimes need to engage in human conversation to maintain satisfaction". Charley agrees. He said that my story had missed the point. "When the organization that you are trying to do business with makes a mistake, then you must talk to a human, and one with authority". He says it is an an iron rule in human affairs that organizations do not admit they made a mistake until they are subject to severe duress. "No voice response I have ever heard says 'Press 1 if we made a mistake' and very very few first level order takers or help desk personnel have in their scripts what to do in case of a mistake". Both Charley and Dale pointed out that problems are exacerbated when the organization you think you are dealing with has sub-contracted the actual work to another organization.

These are all good points but I am sticking to my thesis. Talking to a human is not what I want. I want systems and processes that work the way they are supposed to work. I believe that wanting to talk to someone is a response to the frustration that we feel when a system or a process has broken down. Another way to say it is that if I could wave a magic wand and have a company provide live telephone support with humans or make their systems and processes work properly (including integration with their sub-contractors), I would take the latter. I must admit I am quite surprised to learn of Amazon having a breakdown. This is the first I have heard of that happening. It sounds like a transportation snafu and I suspect that the recent airline difficulties are at the root of the problem. Not that this is an excuse. If Amazon guaranteed delivery they obviously relied on some discussions they had with their shipping provider, which I believe is more dependent on the USPS than in the past. One more time, if there was a choice of talking to someone or having Amazon provide a delivery tracking link with every shipment, I would take the latter.

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On Demand December 30, 2004 10:19 AM

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

On Demand Update

Thanks to Wendy Warnecke at IBM for pointing out that my story about On Demand was getting old. I updated the story.

On Demand December 29, 2004 05:27 PM

On Demand Revisited

On Demand In the height of the "dot com" frenzy a class of companies emerged called Application Service Providers (ASP). The ASPs claimed to solve all known business problems by providing applications over the Internet. Solutions covered a wide range of activities from integration of the supply chain to a complete implementation of "office" functionality - spreadsheet, word processor, data base, presentation capability, etc. The value proposition was that you no longer had to buy Microsoft Office – you could just use that functionality via a server over the Internet. The problem with many of the ASP offerings was that they didn’t solve things that were perceived as problems.

Although I continue to be enthusiastic about the vast potential of the Internet, I felt at the time that the ASP model was premature -- primarily because there were not enough people with always on, high quality, reliable, connections to the net. (network computers suffered from the same problem). On top of the network issue was the fact that the ASP solutions introduced were of questionable value and the result was that the ASP model essentially disappeared. What goes around, comes around – the ASP is back. The successful ones will be On Demand businesses. (read more)

On Demand December 29, 2004 05:25 PM

Thursday, December 23, 2004

The Bubble: Reconsidering the Boom and the Bust

Bubble

Rob Norton asked me to write the essay below. Many thanks to Rob for his editing assistance. The essay was published by Booz Allen Hamilton in their magazine, Strategy+Business, Isssue 37, Winter 2004.

Best Business Books 2004

The Bubble - Reconsidering the Boom and the Bust

by John R. Patrick

As Internet companies began to implode in large numbers during the final months of 2000, an early warning sign of the extent of their difficulties was a Wall Street Journal story about the failure of a European e-tailer, headlined "Boo.com's Collapse Further Darkens E-Tailing Picture." The implication was gloom and doom, and it was prescient. Webmergers.com reported that at least 210 Internet companies folded in the year 2000. By December 27, 2001, the Journal reported that the "Dot-Com Death Toll" had more than doubled, to 537. The "bubble" had popped. (read full essay)

On Demand December 23, 2004 10:05 AM

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Weekends On Demand -- Reader feedback

Weekender Yesterday I described my experience with the process of moving frequent flier miles from American Express to Continental Airlines. Paul Shanek, who is vp of sales & marketing at Leapstone Systems, Inc. in Somerset, New Jersey wrote to say he had seen the same message -- saying it would take five days to transfer the points. "It actually took about 5 seconds to get the info into my OnePass account". "It was amazing". "I guess the marketing guys need to know what the techies are doing!". Good point. Another example is that when American Airlines reservation agents send you an email confirmation, they say it will take "up to twenty-four hours". And then there is the post card telling you that your rebate information has been received and will take "8-12 weeks to process" (there may be other reasons why this actually happens). In an On Demand world people are going to increasingly ask "Why?".

On Demand December 22, 2004 09:24 PM

Monday, December 20, 2004

Five Days?

I have written a number of stories in patrickWeb about web services, a set of standards that allow for web sites to send messages to each other. If you have any doubts about whether this is needed, consider the following. I went to American Express's MemberMiles site to move some miles to Continental Airlines. The site was very responsive and confirmed my transaction in less than two seconds. Then I got the following message on the Web page. "Membership Rewards points have been deducted from your account. Allow approximately 5 business days for these transferred Membership Rewards points to appear in your Continental OnePass® account". Five days? Surely they must have meant five seconds, or certainly no more than five minutes. This is why we need web services.

On Demand December 20, 2004 10:23 PM

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Weekends On Demand

Weekender On Demand is a really important concept for institutions of all kinds -- businesses, hospitals, universities, and governments. With more people connected more often in more places with more devices, their expectations are growing by the day. On Demand simply means to make the data and processes available to all constituencies (for which they are authorized) whenever they have need, wherever they are, and with whatever device they may be using to connect to the Internet. Simple to say, very complex to do. The information technology systems of many of the institutions are very complex and therefore their challenge in delivering On Demand is a big one. Many IT vendors are focused on delivering solutions. IBM, for example has been working on the concept of virtualization with the goal of dramatically reducing the complexity of managing vast computing and networking resources. A significant part of the challenge facing institutions, however, is not technical -- it is "attitude".

One of the attitudes that has been around for decades is that there is something different about a weekend. It used to be true. When transactions were down via paper forms (unfortunately a lot still are) the forms would arrive at a company, for example, and people at computer "terminals" would enter the transactions into the central systems. In many cases the people doing this worked Monday to Friday from nine to five. During the "off" hours changes could be made to the systems because consumers were not directly depending on them. Of course this has changed, not just because of the Web, but because of the global availability of the Web. Two AM in New York is three PM in Tokyo. Nevertheless, we still occasionally see messages on a Web page saying "we are down for maintenance". It isn't just maintenance of systems -- it may also be updating of central databases with "batches" of transactions that were accumulated during the prior day(s).

On Saturday I was updating my own data with Quicken. With a couple of mouse clicks Quicken downloads data from American Express, Charles Schwab, CitiBank, etc. I noticed that something didn't look right in a Schwab account so I called their outstanding technical support. They said the problem was that Intuit (producer of Quicken) updates certain securities information on the weekend and if you connect at that time you will get some erroneous transaction data. On Sunday I attempted to move some American Express Member Miles to Continental Airlines. the good news is that AMEX now has a Web transaction page where you can request the transfers. The bad news is that after entering my data I got a messages saying "Please click on the Submit button only once. Your request will take a few seconds to process. Thank you for your patience". I waited five minutes or so and then tried again. Same message. I then called and the always delightful AMEX customer service representative did the transaction for me. She said it would be completed in 24-48 hours (that is another issue and one I have written about before). She also said that the Web transaction frequently doesn't work on weekends because that is when systems are being updated.

I don't know if the reasons given by the support representatives about the source of the problems are correct. I have my doubts about that. All I know for sure is that in both cases I couldn't' do what I wanted to do and in both cases the result was that it took a lot of extra time on my part to fix things. I have no doubt that Intuit and American Express are on the path to becoming On Demand businesses. They are committed. The organizations that become truly On Demand will gain great loyalty from customers. For most of us, weekends are when we have a few minutes to catch up on various transactions. We expect Web sites to be available and reliable. This is not a technical issue, it is a societal issue -- and an issue of expectations.

On Demand December 19, 2004 10:19 PM

Saturday, July 6, 2002

Take A Number And Have A Seat

A trailer for towing motorcycles to and from always seemed like a good idea to me. Getting the trailer was the easy part. Registering it at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Connecticut was the hard part. First I rode to Danbury -- a half hour ride. Then I stood in line for ten minutes to get a form and a ticket with a number on it -- just like at the deli. My number was 462. The wait began. (read more)

Motorcycles, On Demand July 6, 2002 03:23 PM

Friday, June 28, 2002

Working For $1 Per Hour

eBay is a great place. Over the last few years I have sold things from my basement for amazing amounts. As they say, what is one man's junk is another man's treasure. It doesn't always work as expected though. My wife bought a chandellier for a certain room but after installation decided she wanted to change the style. I said "no problem, I'll sell it on eBay". The bidding opened at $5 and seven days later it closed at $5.50. After already having spent non-trivial time getting it out of the box, taking pictures of it, and packing it for shipment I was not too enthusiastic about now having to address it and get it to the post office. I used stamps.com, printed out the postage, and my wife put it outside by our mailbox for the postal carrier to pick up. The carrier picked it up on Tuesday and then another carrier brought it back the next da with a note on it saying that the box exceeded their size guidelines and it would require a $28.89 surcharge in addition to the normal parcel post charge. Increasing the unedning investment in this chandellier, I took the measurements and used myups.com to create a shipping label. It included a surcharge for the "oversize" but was still half of what USPS was going to charge. I took the box to Mail Boxes ETC and it is now on the way to a very nice lady who lives about thirty miles away. My wife says we should have donated the chandellier to charity and gotten the tax deduction. My earnings as it turned out were about a dollar an hour!

On Demand June 28, 2002 10:31 AM

Thursday, February 21, 2002

Please allow four weeks for delivery

A fellow runner friend of mine has occasional leg cramps. The other day I happened to see a story about leg cramps in the newspaper that I passed on to him. At the end of the story it said "Crampers can benefit from the leg cramp report. To obtain a copy, write to Dr. Donohu No. 20, Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475. Enclose a self-addressed, stamped (57 cents), No. 10 envelope and a check or money order for $3. Please allow four weeks for delivery."

Four weeks? Isn't this the 21rst century? I went to my Google search box at the top of my browser and entered "leg cramps". There were 33,700 matches -- the first ten looked quite useful. I copied and pasted the page of links to my friend via email. The email was $3.57 cheaper and the search took .19 seconds!

In my book I suggest we are maybe 3-5% of the way into what the Internet has to offer. Some days I think that estimate is high. There are many great resources and services available via the Internet but when you see examples like the above you realize how far we have to go. Someone sent me an email the other day with a link to the Roots merchandise web site for U.S. Olympic Team Gear. The web page has three steps clearly labeld...

1. Print order form
2. Choose your Roots U.S. Olympic Team Gear
3. Call to order at 1-800-208-0521

Click #3 and the page says "After completing your Order Form, you are now ready to call Roots Direct Toll Free 1-800-208-0521, or fax your completed order form to 1-877-998-6669 to place your order to anywhere in the United States."

Click here to call? Call a U.S.-only 800 #. Doesn't the Net make us global?

We have a long way to go!

On Demand February 21, 2002 08:23 PM

Tuesday, October 23, 2001

Nine to Five

This past Sunday was a beautiful day for a motorcycle ride. The leaves were in full color and the temperature was in the low seventies. We stopped in Katonah, New York for lunch and then took a walk around the town. I don't know how a small town can support two hardware stores within site of each other but they were both great stores. Hardware stores are among my favorite places. One of them had a room full of incredible collection of hinges and cabinet pulls. I was fascinated by one of them and went to the counter to ask where I could find the price. The answer was that the person who knows where the prices are is only in 'Nine to Five, Monday to Friday'. The fact that the store was open at all on a Sunday is certainly a convenience but the idea that the prices of some things I may actually have bought were only available 'Nine to Five, Monday to Friday' really a chord with me. Something I wrote quite a bit about in Net Attitude. I didn't have hardware stores in mind at the time though.

The prior day (Saturday) I got an invoice from my insurance company for the premium on my home. Enclosed with the invoice was a notice that said that beginning next month there would be a fee imposed for anyone wanting to pay the premium in installments. They noted, however, that this could be avoided by using one of their new 'auto-pay' options. To learn more about these new options I would just have to call their agent. The agent, of course, is available 'Nine to Five, Monday to Friday'. Hmmm. Hardware stores are one thing but an insurance company in this day and age?

At least e-businesses on the Web are open around the clock. Not. A major travel site says the following: 'Need help making a reservation online? If you still need assistance, call our Internet Help desk. We're available to help you: Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM, U.S. Central time ' closed holidays.' When is it that busy people might have a bit of spare time to think about and plan some travel? Weekends? Holidays?

'Nine to Five, Monday to Friday' is a big problem. I am sure that like me you have a job and work 'Nine to Five, Monday to Friday'. E-businesses need abandon the idea that their real hours of operation are 'Nine to Five, Monday to Friday' and think about their customers or potential customers. That may mean having a work force that is available to be on call or chat lines at 3 AM Sunday or on a holiday. I suspect there are plenty of people who would be happy to do that as long as they could telecommute.

Some businesses may resist the idea of around the clock service and support. They may feel it is too costly or they may just be clinging to the habitual 'normal' hours of operation. As more commerce moves to the Web, there is an opportunity to both expand business and reduce cost ' if Net Attitude is well established! Much more about this in the book.

On Demand October 23, 2001 12:11 PM

Saturday, July 31, 1999

Worms and Potato Chips

July 31, 1999 (see updated version from May 28, 2008)

Cactus Packaging is one of those things that most of us probably don't think about a lot. That set of plastic, glass, paper, Styrofoam, cardboard, and polywhatever that contains and protects things we buy. I think of packaging in two categories -- that which something is stored in and that which something is shipped in. I am sure that packaging experts have a much more sophisticated way of describing it but that is my simple way of categorizing it. I suppose we mostly take packaging for granted but I am beginning to think it is actually a profound topic.

I began thinking about packaging as something discrete some years ago. Strictly in the "something is contained in it" category. What initially got my attention was a cereal box that I found great difficulty in opening without destroying it and its subsequent ability to keep the cereal fresh. I have since taken it as a personal challenge to be able to open a cereal box with no resulting damage. This is a nontrivial challenge - maybe an art. If it is a science then I haven't found the instructions anywhere. One starts by using a sharp knife with a long blade. You carefully slide the knife under the tab in the center of the top of the cereal box. Then you slice the material to one side while applying a slight upward pressure via the tab. Repeat for the other side. I give being able to do this without damaging the box top about 75% odds. You are now almost a third of the way through the task at hand. Now that you have freed up one of the flaps you have to free the other flap by tearing it from the side flaps. Completing this without damage is also about 75% odds if you are quite careful. You are now two thirds of the way to the cereal. Last comes opening the bag inside the box which actually contains the cereal. This is often the hardest part. If you grasp the two sides of the bag and pull very very carefully you have about a 50% chance of opening the bag without tearing it. After opening the main part of the bag you need to open the corners of the bag so the cereal can flow smoothly into your cereal bowl. Putting the collective probabilities together gives you a 50-50 chance at best of having an open cereal box that pours the contents smoothly and can be closed to protect freshness. Some packaging!

I could go on about jars that require a hammer to open, pill bottles that can only be opened by children, fresh fruit containers that have to be squeezed until they break to open, etc. etc. etc. I suspect those who suffer from arthritis of the fingers could make my examples seem trivial. But there is a much bigger packaging issue on the horizon.

The issue initially struck me when I had received my very first order from net.grocer (www.netgrocer.com). I ordered an assortment of salsa, condiments, and potato chips (I can never remember whether there is an E in potato either). An Australian newspaper wrote a front page story (business section) about how an Internet "visionary" had ordered potato chips on the Internet. The amazing part to me was not that the potato chips arrived unbroken but rather the packaging. I feel like I want to signal the future importance of "packaging" in the way the gentleman in "The Graduate" signalled the importance of "plastics" to Dustin Hoffman.

I opened the two large cardboard boxes and unpacked all the items. Everything exactly as ordered. I was quite pleased and proud of my e-commerce prowess (e-business hadn't been invented yet) in walking the talk and acquiring all of my favorite goodies (especially potato chips). I was revelling in my predictions about how everybody would buy everything on the Net. Then I got a lump in my stomach. I looked at these two large cardboard boxes on my kitchen floor. And, the piles of polywhatever "worms" (many people call them "peanuts"; I call them "worms") that were all over the place. Some stuck to my hands, arms, and clothing. What was I to do? My wife would be home soon and she have a lot of questions about my plans to clean up the mess I had created in the kitchen. All the glory I felt about acquiring Tabasco and potato chips would be nothing compared to the wrath she would unleash about the mess if I didn't get busy. No problem. I'll just clean it up. All I have to do is separate all the various packaging materials into their respective categories, burst the cardboard boxes, put the "worms" into a bag so they don't end up decorating our lawn, and then stow everything away in our recycling center. Shouldn't take me more than a half hour. Let's see -- how much time did I save with my Net purchase anyway? Surely I am still way ahead.

Then there is the purchase of something really simple -- say a cell phone. What is the ratio, on a volume basis, of the packaging material to the cell phone? 2 to 1? 5 to 1? 10 to 1? And then there are the "worms".

So, what is the answer to all this? I don't claim to have all the answers but here is the view of one fellow traveler. First of all, shopping on the Net is here to stay and should be. It is more than great -- in spite of the packaging. You can shop when you want. It is "Power to the People". I am confident that we will soon see the demise of web pages which say "Call us during our normal business hours of 9-5 Monday to Friday" or "Call 800-123-4567" when you are in Europe and can't call an 800 #, or "Print this form and fax it to us". Beyond that web sites will surely soon enable us to establish fulfillment models where we can set up a schedule for things we just want to show up outside the garage door on a scheduled basis. Paper towels, a case of oil, printer paper, stockings, and of course potato chips. I envision receiving an email at some point from a web merchant saying "Mr. Patrick, we have been shipping you two bags of potato chips per week for quite some time. We have calculated that you could save considerably on your shipping cost if you were to up that to 12 bags per month instead. Click here if you would like us to modify your fulfillment model as suggested." But then still, there are the "worms".

Hopefully marketing will come to the rescue. Good marketing involves paying attention to the "end to end process", e.g., not just assuming that the job is getting the package to the customer but going the next step and helping the customer unwrap the package, get rid of the packaging material and start enjoying the merchandise that was delivered. There have been many new business models on the Net and I am confident we will see successful marketers keep uncovering more and more ways of satisfying their customers, by looking at possible annoyances, and solving them. We also need some breakthroughs in the packaging area. The fact is that more and more of what we buy and consume will just show up outside the garage door via package delivery companies. What will we do with all the "worms"? As people buy more and more on the Net will they get turned off by all the packaging materials they have to deal with? There is room for leadership here and breakthroughs are possible. I used to be so frustrated with opening the half gallon orange juice cartons. Did I say opening? I meant mutilating. Then along came International Paper with a breakthrough idea -- the screw cap on the carton. Great! Now what we need is self destructing "worms" and instantly collapsable cardboard. I am no packaging expert but I am sure there are many creative people in that discipline who will figure this out. I hope so. The "worms" are really annoying.

Epilogue: The Glass is Half Full

In fact there are some very interesting things going on in the packaging arena. EcoFoam ( www.eco-foam.com ) has an alternative to Styrofoam "peanuts" that need only be requested when ordering from a supplier. When you're at this site, make sure to look under "loosefill." Another company that is attempting environmental as well as consumer-friendly void fill is Metabolix ( www.metabolix.com ). This company is developing dissolvable plastics made from two of our most easily attainable and renewable sources: Carbon Dioxide and Water! Look under "Technology Profile".

For materials other than starch peanuts, corporations like Sealed Air provide packaging solutions such as air cushions made from LDPE plastic, which only have to be deflated and can then be reused or recycled. Using these pouches, one mail-order fulfillment company (Heartland America) has increased packaging/shipping efficiency processes by 50%, and, in combination with a 3M-Matic case-taper, has saved $30,000 in labor last year. This usually reflects a reduction in cost to consumers in addition to the ease of use and disposal they experience with this system. (Packaging World, 04/99)

A second company that has discovered benefit in using alternative packaging materials is Bone Appetit, maker of gourmet pet treats. This manufacturer uses Sylvacurl (recyclable, biodegradable and reusable wood shavings) provided by Eastview Enterprises for bedding in gift baskets and void fill in corrugated shippers. Bone Appetit initially "chose Sylvacurl primarily for environmental reasons" citing, "our customers wouldn't buy our product because we used EPS foam." The company has decided to stick to the decision after enjoying its savings of 15% over previous packing materials, parchment and EPS. (Packaging World, 01/99)

These are a few examples of technological innovation combined with customer service and consideration that are being introduced to the market and seem to have generally been well received. The next wave of engineers will prove to have more concern for environmental issues and packaging convenience as they move into the global market through on-line vending. Kudos, Mr.Patrick, for the challenge... We accept.

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Brian Carpenter, Bill Sweeney, and Irving Wladawsky-Berger for their comments on my first draft of this Reflection. A special thanks goes to Sarah James, a package engineering intern at Nestle, for contributing the content of the Epilogue.

On Demand, e-Business July 31, 1999 03:10 PM