Victus pro Scientia Opus -- Food for the Knowledge Worker

The Sounds of (Disconnected) Silence

I had the great pleasure to attend this week's U.S. Open Championship golf tournament at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland.  All in all, it was a remarkable experience on many levels: 

• the immense skill displayed by the players (as of this writing, Rory McIlroy was running away with the tournament),
• the beauty and challenge of a U.S. Open-caliber course, and
• the sheer logistical effort associated with getting approximately 45,000 patrons to and from the event, around the premises etc.

But the most interesting thing to me, something I haven't seen in many years, was an almost total absence of mobile devices:  phones, cameras, PDAs, and the like.  The USGA bans mobile phones and cameras from the Open to prevent distracting sounds at inopportune times, and spectators were told that mobile phones and other devices were not permitted on the grounds or even the shuttle buses.  In fact, we were wanded at the entrance to the club to enforce this, and there were "disallowed items" tents where spectators were forced to check their devices.

The downside:

• People lacked access to information they were used to ("Did Havret win the British Open?" "What's Phil Mickelson's wife's name again?" "What time is it?  I don't wear a watch anymore.").
• Coordinating meetups was exponentially more difficult than it had been since, say, 1995.  Something as simple as "Meet me at the concession stand behind the 7th green" had to be planned out before arriving at Congressional.
• A profusion of what looked like spasms from people continually and reflexively patting their pockets or groping for an absent belt-holstered phone. 

The upside:

• People were more engaged with what was going on around them (one of the great events in golf), and with each other, actually looking one another in the eye and mostly listening when spoken to.
• Other than some "overserved" patrons, people were generally walking in a straight line, with purpose, toward their destination, rather than weaving, head down, oblivious to the flow of people around them.

Overall the effect of this grand social experiment was...refreshing.  I don't know when or where I'll see something similar, but it made me cherish the "unplugged" time even as I counted down the hours until I could tweet and blog about it.

[Note:  A great article in the Washington Post about this phenomenon today provided inspiration for this post.]

A Lesson in Customer Service

Wife, at Mall, just bought extra box of dishes for upcoming holiday family meals:  "May I leave this box with you for a few minutes?  I can't carry it though the Mall, and I parked all the way over at [xxx store]."

Customer Service Rep (CSR) at retail store customer service desk: "I can ring you up over here."

Wife: "No, I already paid for it.  Can you just hold it for me while I bring my car around?"

CSR:  "I'm sorry, ma'am, but once you've bought it, it belongs to you.  I can't be responsible for it."

Wife:  "Ummm...OK.  Then I'd like to return this, please.  I'll be back to buy it again in 15 minutes, or not."

CSR:  "Uh, I guess we can hold that for you."

[dialogue, although not verbatim, based on actual recent events :-)]

Policies often have a good reason for existing (e.g., what if someone broke or stole the package while it was being watched?), but as we approach the "shoppingest" time of the year around the holidays, let's not forget to apply a little common sense and treat one another like human beings. 

If you're in customer service, think about what problem your customer is trying to solve and how you can be helpful.  If you're a customer (or, in my business, a client) and you're not getting what you want, tell your merchant/vendor/professional and give them a chance to think about it and make it right.

[Flickr photo credit:  George E. Adams' cake shop, Brisbane Arcade, Brisbane, c. 1938, by State Library Queensland, Australia]

Blog Rally to Help the Boston Globe

[originally based on Paul Levy's idea -- I'm happy to contribute, and to be counted among the bloggers offered the chance to amplify this message]

We have all read recently about the threat of possible closure faced by the Boston Globe.  A number of Boston-based bloggers who care about the continued existence of the Globe have banded together in conducting a blog rally.  We are simultaneously posting this paragraph to solicit your ideas of steps the Globe could take to improve its financial picture.

We view the Globe as an important community resource, and we think that lots of people in the region agree and might have creative ideas that might help in this situation. So, here's your chance.  Please don't write with nasty comments and sarcasm:  Use this forum for thoughtful and interesting steps you would recommend to the management that would improve readership, enhance the Globe's community presence, and make money.  Who knows, someone here might come up with an idea that will work, or at least help.  Thank you.

As an inveterate reader, media junkie, blogger, thinker, and citizen, my visualizing Boston without the Globe is sad and scary.  I think of the role that the media plays as a check and balance to those in power (the famous line attributed to Jimmy Breslin about the media's role being "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable" comes to mind), from government to church to corporations to higher education, and know that Boston needs a world-class daily newspaper.  So, how would YOU propose to save, improve, re-direct or otherwise enhance the Globe?

For the Big Guy

I realize that the purpose of this blog is commerce, not art, and that I haven't posted much lately.  Part of the reason for my lack of focus on this blog is that my father is in declining health, and has been in and out of the hospital recently.  I am taking a few minutes to think of him and honor him here publicly.  Read on if you wish, or you can re-join the conversation when I am able to re-direct to more business-relevant content.

Last week, my father's and my beloved baseball team, the Phillies, won their first World Series since 1980, and just the second in his lifetime.  We were both thrilled to see our team reach the pinnacle of their sport, but at the same time, the end of the World Series, even when our team wins it, means that we're deprived of baseball until the start of spring training.  Winters are longer, colder, and darker if you're a baseball fan.

The late commissioner of Major League Baseball, A. Bartlett Giamatti, wrote a poem called "The Green Fields of the Mind" about the end of the baseball season. I'm thinking of it a lot lately, as it evokes thoughts of my father.  An excerpt is below:

"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops."

My Dad imparted in me an immutable love for baseball and of reading.  I'll have both forever.  Thanks, big guy.

Sometimes the Experts Find You

At this time of year in this part of the world, the Major League Baseball season is drawing to a close.  As in many major sports leagues, a few wealthy teams with long histories and passionate fans (as in Boston and New York) frequently dominate the standings and headlines, but the margin between the very best and the merely mediocre is not at all large.  Because of this, every one is constantly looking for an edge in the game.

One such way hitters can gain an edge in baseball is if pitchers "tip" their pitches. Tipping pitches is like having a "tell" in poker; basically the pitcher, through some small difference in how he holds the ball, positions his body, etc., gives away what kind of pitch he is throwing to the batter.  In a game where the margin for error is so small, a pitcher's deception is important and basically telling a hitter what kind of pitch is coming provides a huge advantage to opposing hitters.

The Boston Red Sox have a pitcher named Paul Byrd who was tipping his pitches by tapping his glove during his delivery when he threw a fastball, and not when he threw a curveball.  The most interesting part of the story to me was how the Red Sox, a rich organization with great coaches, enormous resources dedicated to videotape analysis of their games and their opponents, etc. found out:  a fan on a fans' discussion board identified the "tip," videotaped it, and posted it to YouTube and the "Sons of Sam Horn" discussion board.  Representatives of the Red Sox, who monitor this board, saw the tape, reached out to the author, and voila:  when Paul Byrd pitched Friday night, he changed his delivery to correct this problem.

The lessons in this story for me were:

1.  When people are passionate about something, they will invest their own effort in improving it, even if it officially belongs to your business. 
2.  As a steward for your business, you ignore experts outside your formal organization at your peril.
3.  Channeling that passion and expertise into something constructive for your business can be hugely valuable.

This week's Mass Technology Leadership Council meeting, featuring Paul Gillin's insights on leveraging social media in your marketing strategy, couldn't come at a better time.

Duffy's Cut

Listening to the radio this evening, I heard a story that moved me. It surprised me that I hadn't heard it before, and in honor of St. Patrick's Day, I will share it with you. I'll tell it the way I heard it from some band members of an Irish band called Blackthorn on WXPN radio tonight, with some fact-checking from the website.

In 1832, a group of Irish immigrants left counties Donegal, Tyrone, and Derry and came to the Philadelphia area to work for a fellow Irishman named Duffy on the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, a critically important piece of early 19th-century infrastructure that became what is now known as the "Main Line," the original railroad line around which some of the Philadelphia area's most influential communities came into existence.

Within six weeks of their arrival, they were dead. There was an outbreak of cholera among the workers, and although Nuns were dispatched from Philadelphia to tend to their health issues, the fear of the outbreak getting into the population at large and the feeling that these Irish Catholic laborers were expendable resulted in their being refused medical care.

The laborers were buried (some, apparently, before they died) in a mass grave in what is now Malvern. At the time, there were said to be only 9, but subsequent research by professors at Immaculata University indicates that there were 57 of them. A marker was dedicated to them in 2004 and stands at King and Sugartown Roads in Malvern, and the search for the mass grave itself continues. 

As an Irish Catholic who has lived in this area for much of my life, I never knew this story before tonight, and it made me stop and reflect about things like prejudice and how history will judge us. If you pray on this Saint Patrick's Day, say a prayer for the 57 of Duffy's Cut, and never forget.

For more information:

Website -- http://www.duffyscutproject.com/Index.htm
Book -- http://astore.amazon.com/theduffyscutp-20/detail/0275987272/104-6109925-4407147
Film (Smithsonian Channel) -- http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/smithsonian/show_duffycut.do