Category Archives: DASM

The National Transportation Safety Board wants to ban ALL use of phones in cars, even hands-free phones, except in the case of emergencies. (The NTSB has no enforcement power, but does have an influence on Congress.)

Can someone tell me how a hands-free phone is more distracting and more dangerous than:

• Fooling with the radio and finding different channels.

• Using an iPod for music in the car and finding the right playback.

• Talking to passengers in the car.

• Using GPS while underway.

• Trying to follow written instructions.

• Glancing at notes and reminders in those dashboard holders.

• Drinking hot coffee.

• Eating.

• Applying makeup.

• Daydreaming.

In today’s Wall Street Journal there is an article about how complicated and hard to use certain dashboard music systems can be.

I’m all for safety on the roadways, but I tend to become allergic to overwrought attempts to legislate every part of our lives (there are bills in several states that would prohibit smoking in your own car; and according to several car seat rules concerning weight and size, some petite women would have to go to their college proms or weddings in a child seat).

Dialing a phone and sending text messages while driving is insane, dangerous, and shouldn’t be condoned. Driving without a seat belt creates a greater chance of serious injury and expense in medical costs and insurance. These are legitimate and specific concerns.

But if you intend to try to legislate to the point of absolute perceived 100 percent safety, then you need to arrest every woman putting on mascara and lipstick; anyone with a drink rising from cup holder to lips; those changing their GPS views or looking at the map; and anyone seen glancing at a passenger in the course of conversation.

You can educate people to be careful, but there comes a point where attempting to legislate it clearly abrogates personal freedom. (A police cruiser, ostensibly driven by a careful, experienced, knowledgeable officer was shown on the news last night being towed off a telephone pole which the officer had driven up vertically while his attention was “distracted.”)

The tentative person pulling onto a highway at 25 MPH and not increasing speed immediately, the person rolling through the stop sign, the person not signaling the lane change—they are more dangerous than someone talking on a hands-free phone and, one would think, they ARE paying close attention.

Some people die of peanut allergies. The answer is not to ban peanuts from the marketplace. Some people die in plane crashes. The answer is not to ban flying. We know people die from tobacco, but we’ve yet to abolish its sale.

Careless people will cause accidents. We need to educate them, take them off the road if blatant or repeated. But we need to heed Peter Drucker, who said, “…and laws that result from a ‘scandal’ are invariably bad laws. They punish ninety-nine innocents to foil one miscreant. They penalize good practice, yet rarely prevent malpractice. They express emotion rather than reason.”

Maybe we should remove all those distracting advertising billboards, and clear all the trees and vegetation that cause the eye to wander, especially in the fall when trees turn color. Where does it end?

It ends when people are educated and expected to use good judgment, not when the government acts like a parent trying to control unruly kids. If the government wants to act like a parent, then clean up the tax code. That would be a welcome start. But stay out of my car.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

After delivering my keynote and a special session for an elite group of Canadian speakers last night, I caught a limo from the hotel this morning after a 5:30 am fire alarm trumped my later wake-up call. The limo arrived early and the driver was very polite.

At the airport, I headed for Global Entry. There was a long wait in the regular system, with maybe 10 US immigration officers amidst booths for three times that number, and long, Disneyland lines. I bypassed everything, and then ran into Mr. Ugly American. An officer at the machine, instead of saying the machine was out of order, and he’s sorry, interrogated me as to whether I had Nexus, and why didn’t I know what that was. I said, “Can I use this machine or not?!” and he said, “Go see an officer!” I asked him if he were always that unpleasant. I find this intolerable as an American. It’s humiliating to employ this kind of attitude.

After 15 minutes in the line and halfway through, I saw that the machine was lighted again and Mr. Personality had left. I ducked under the ropes and did my thing in one minute. Then at the exit point, a woman was working slowly to collect forms but a man next to her was doing nothing. “Are you open?” I asked politely. “I’m Canadian police,” he said, “and all I can do is arrest you!”

“That’s the best deal I’ve had since I entered immigration,” I explained, “what can you do for me?” He offered cozy accommodations with three meals and a sound roof, with plenty of security. We both laughed and I was finally at the woman taking forms. He told her not to let me return, and she stopped her mechanical actions and asked him soberly, “Why?”

Security was fast, but I was asked for my boarding pass—I am not making this up—six times before I was finally on my way to the gates. Some of these people were all of 10 yards apart.

Finally, I entered the Priority Club, an Amex benefit. The hostess checked me in and I asked how far my gate was from the club. Incredibly, she replied, “I’m sorry, sir, I’m not familiar with the airport.” She was actually hired and trained and never asked to familiarize herself with the airport, while dealing with passengers! And coming to work every day, she didn’t feel the need to do so!

Never feel that there is no work for consultants and performance improvement. Most immigration officers are fine people, and anyone can have a bad day. But I sensed this guy was in the midst of a bad life. Security is vital, but paranoia is dangerous. (“The price of eternal vigilance is indifference”—Marshall McLuhan, ironically, a Canadian.)

And if you don’t know what’s outside your door, you might as well be a hermit. They don’t have to commute.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

What do airlines, banks, newspapers, speakers bureaus, and publishers all have in common? (This is not a joke, but I wish it were.)

They run their businesses horribly and try to atone for it by gouging the customer, vender, or supplier.

Book publishing, with rare exception, has failed to appreciate, much less leverage, the advent of electronic media. So what do conventional publishers do? They demand that authors buy copies of their own books to reduce the cost of the press run. They refuse to promote books actively, demanding that the author do so. They invest money in promotion with authors who don’t need it (Tom Clancy, Danielle Steele) and don’t invest in new and promising works. They hire such young and inexperienced people to save a dollar, that one permissions editor once told me that she wouldn’t approve production until I had written permission submitted for quotes from Oscar Wilde. The question is no longer, “Where did you go to school?” but “Did you go to school and were you awake the entire time?”

Speakers bureaus, traditional “middlemen” dealing with other “middlemen” (meeting planners, trainers, human resource people) have traditionally received about 25 percent of speaking fees from the speaker, supposedly in return for marketing that speaker. Today, many have raised their rates to 30 percent while reducing their marketing and, instead, charging the speaker. Many bureaus now charge to “evaluate” demo videos, place people in prime spots in a catalog, include people in “showcases” (cattle calls), critique promotional material and so on. Excuse me, but aren’t you supposed to be marketing me for my 25 percent fee?

One bureau, the most unethical I’ve ever seen, actually tried to charge me 30 percent when I beat out a speaker they had nominated to speak at Toyota. I was in their catalog, but they promoted someone else, I still got the job, and they wanted a third of my earnings!

Airlines which have been led abominably and can’t seem to come up with effective labor relations, fuel management, intelligent route structures, efficient baggage handling, and so on, now charge customers for:  pillows, food, a few inches of leg room, boarding sequence, the attention of a live agent, seat location, changing a reservation, and so on. One considered charging for lavatory use. Why not just fly us all at gunpoint? The “friendly skies” have become a bad neighborhood.

Banks are now charging some customers for deposits, and for simply holding their money. I have seven-figures invested in a bank where I also had some small accounts I had forgotten about. One would have disappeared in a year simply due to the monthly charges! The bank treats me as separate computer numbers, instead of a major, diversified customer. Your “personal banker” today has a hand in your pocket.

Newspapers plaster ads on the front page, often with stickers that obliterate a headline. Try to complain to the Wall Street Journal or New York Times about your subscription. You can’t talk to actual people, but an automated service will “credit you for one day” if your paper wasn’t delivered. Isn’t the point better, more reliable service and not a buck? Newspapers in many cities now charge for obituary notices. When I asked a local editor how he could countenance that, he said, “Oh, Alan, we all do it.” Oh, I guess I had missed that logic.

Why the rant? Because Pogo ought to be in charge here.

Entire industries often suffer from poor leadership, because the same crowd kicks around at the same levels (a guy who ran several airlines, Dick Wolf, including United and USAir, would paint all the planes as soon as the board confirmed him as CEO). The exceptions (Kelleher and Bethune in the airline business) are easy to note because they stand out in dull crowds.

It’s time to stop blaming and squeezing the client, the customer, the supplier, the talent. It’s time to look in the mirror. You might just see a reflection with nothing there.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.