2006

Spam

  • Tuesday, 24 January, 2006
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January 24, 2006, 1:52 pm

It seemed like a good idea, to have a blog. Never thought I’d have to maintain it beyond entering posts. But Lo! Behold! 250 odd comments, all of which are spam. The blog engine I’m using doesn’t handle spam comments well, so I have to go to the mySQL database and delete them at source. So I am now realising that it is time to use a different blog engine. WordPress comes reccomended. The documentation is all fairly straight forward. So now to estimate how long it will take me to upgrade. Recalling my velocity last time round, to install the engine and update CSS across the whole site, (a bunch of simple stories for seasoned developers) took me on and off 12 months. So maybe I’ll be deleting spam in mySQL for a while longer…

Developing a nervous twitch

  • Wednesday, 18 January, 2006
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January 18, 2006, 4:13 pm

A colleague just IM’d me, she’d lost the last hour’s work on PowerPoint. That has happened to me far too many times in the past. I’ve now learnt a nervous twitch in my left hand. An involuntary spasm causes the little finger to hit the Ctrl button and the index finger to hit ‘S’ simultaneously. I don’t trust Autosave – I trust that twitch.

Carpark experience, learned behaviour betrays innovation

  • Monday, 9 January, 2006
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January 9, 2006, 6:09 pm

I’ve never really considered car parks as places for innovative ideas, yet such innovation exists in the Bentalls car park in Kingston. Every parking bay has a light indicating if it is rmpty or taken. As you drive along the floors you can see the vacant spaces before you get to them courtesy of the green light above the space. in addition, on each floor there is a sign notifying drivers of how many free spaces are available on this floor and the next floors. Excellent stuff!

The immediate question that comes to mind is “what would the business case have been for this?” This innovation can’t have come cheap. I presume there were two overiding factors – firstly to increase the throughput of cars. If drivers can see free spaces they won’t need to sit waiting for the driver of a car in a space to reverse out and eliminate the consequent hold up of traffic. The technology also should provide an improved customer experience – it should make drivers feel better about using this carpark and become repeat users (is there such as thing as carpark loyalty). Problem is, the reality is slightly different to what is intended.

The new technology fails to accomodate existing behaviours. So whilst drivers can see there are spaces available further down the level, when they see reverse lights come on, they still stop and wait for the car to reverse and take that space. There are still hold-ups, still hill starts on the ramps. And we had to wait 20 minutes before we found a space. Bottom line, the technology may be great, but how ingrained are user behaviours that it is designed to replace? Does your business case cover users un-learning those bad habits it is based upon?

It’s been said many times before…

  • Friday, 6 January, 2006
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January 6, 2006, 2:51 pm

So the great new Dell top has let me down. Not even a blue screen, just an endless loading screen and reboot. As I write things are not looking hopeful. The prognosis is bad. Into the valley of dispair I tread. Looks like nothing can be saved, the hard-drive is beyond saving, my data has left this world. Maybe we’ll meet again on judgement day. Judgement day when I’ll be reminded of my mortal sin: “you didn’t back your data up. Did you…” Forvever doomed. Six months of work (for that is how long it’s been since my last back-up) lost. Looking on the bright side, six weeks in plaster have come to end and I’m learning to walk again. My advice? When it is icy look where you place your feet. And back up your work tonight.

So what?

  • Tuesday, 3 January, 2006
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January 3, 2006, 9:29 am

I’ve been in several situations recently when people have been extolling the virtues of their Great New Idea but I’ve been unable to share their enthusiasm. Probe a little deeper beyond their excitement (with a healthy dose of cynicism) and things often get vague and the idea isn’t as bright as it first appeared.

There are three questions that every Great New Idea must surely answer.

1. “So what?”
If you can’t tell me in thirty seconds or so why I should share your excitement, we are on dodgy ground. Successful propositions will have a succinct, easily understood and compelling response to the “so what” question. If a customer comes to your website and they there is no clear proposition for them to stick around that old adage “your competitor is just a click away” is likely to become a reality. If you’re a developer and you’ve got some great new technical wizardry that you want the whole project to get excited about, there must be a clear answer to the inevitable “so what” question from the not so technically minded business sponsors.

2. “Who needs it?”
The next question is “who needs it?” You may think it’s a great idea, your friends and family are equally convinced, but how about the broader market? There may be a niche in the market, but is there a market for that niche?

3. “what’s in it for me?”
The final question that a Great New Idea must answer is “what’s in it for me?” Why would someone else get excited in the idea? Why should someone go with your Great New Idea rather than a competitor? Why should the business buy into the idea of sacrificing functionality for technical stories that speed up the build?

Sadly there are far too many initiatives out there that fail to address these three questions. If someone can’t see the point of your Great New Idea, can’t see what it will do for them and can’t see why they need it, why are they going to use it? Customising software is a good example of this – stakeholders often get excited about the ability of customers to customise the web portal to their needs, but go beyond the technical / business community it’s not something people do. How many people have the same desktop settings that came with their computer? How many people have changed their browser homepage from that their ISP set as default?

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