Category Archives: In Case You Were Wondering What I Was Thinking

• Wild ducks are pretty well camouflaged, but why would they have orange feet? What’s up with that?

• Do the movie theater people realize that the rote-like question, “Would you like the larger size for just fifty cents more?” is not a sales technique, it’s an annoyance?

• Why do they continue to build both planes and airports that require hundreds of people to board through a single door?

• If you drive in the rain and dark without your lights on, is there any reason you shouldn’t be arrested just for sheer stupidity?

• People who experience fine service but deliberately leave small tips or “stiff” the help by not leaving any tip aren’t frugal, they actually have huge insecurity issues. (I’m going to try to undermine your self-worth so that it’s as low as mine.)

• Do you really feel energized spending a day at a rally listening to Terry Bradshaw, Colin Powell, Bill Cosby, Rudy Giuliani, Zig Zigler, et. al. (some of the others you’d have to Google for an ID)? I feel kind of sad that these successful people have to resort to this kind of road show and motivational fancy footwork. (Some slickster called me about the Boston “rally” and offered “my staff” a $1.99 preferred seating rate if we’d help promote it!) Rudy Giuliani is a member of my cigar club in New York, and I can listen to him easily enough there.

• Has anyone ever won anything by agreeing to take part in a company’s customer survey in return for being entered into a raffle?

• Some banks now charging a fee for deposits and/or maintaining your account is a sign both of desperation and complete lack of customer strategy.

• I find virtually all wine descriptions by experts to be pompous and pretentious, to the point of hilarity: “The 2006 vintage was far more serious, with a less sensitive nose and the vaguest hints of chestnut, frosted wheat and tannin.” Really? Are you on some kind of acid before you sample the wine?

• “Breaking Bad” and “Dexter” are two mesmerizing cable television series.

• When you ask someone to send you something tangible and your email has no physical address, or someone asks that you call them, but there’s no telling what time zone they’re in, why exactly should anyone bother to try to find out?

• I love exotic cars, but watching people drive race cars around an oval hundreds of times is agonizing, as bad as watching other people play poker.

• Metaphysical question of the day: If a tree falls in a city full of people during a vicious storm that’s been predicted for a week, does the power company hear it?

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

• The guy watching the golf game who yells “IN THE HOLE!” after each golf shot should be crammed into a hole, with a rock then placed over it. Of all the bores, this one is near the top.

• Why would you use my first name if I’m a potential customer or client and you’ve never met me? Why not err on the side of manners? It’s especially irksome with some flight attendants who seem to think I should get them a drink.

• Everyone is afraid to say it, but the entire “child safe” and “child proof” movement is WAY, WAY overboard. How did any of us grow up in one piece?

• Of all the stupid state laws passed or not passed by dumb legislators, Rhode Island is near the very top: You must wear seat belts, to cut down on injury, death, and insurance costs; but motorcyclists do NOT need to wear a helmet, although their back seat passengers do. Does it get dumber than that? I can’t imagine how.

• Newspapers are not being put out of business by the Internet. Their slide began with radio, and they’ve simply been on a slow road to oblivion ever since, clawing and and scratching.

• In my experience, the stupidest management by industry as reflected in their lack of profits, lousy customer relationships, and absence of foresight: Airlines, newspapers, banks.

• In a world where people lose the ability to write cursively, and can no longer do math in their heads, a power outage creates a new configuration. It’s called The Dark Ages. (They lasted 400 years.)

• I’m not really that comforted by the technology that’s protecting our identities, providing for our defense, and improving our health when the answer to most computer problems remains, “Unplug it and then plug it back in.”

• When you keep using my first name (“Alan, you should listen to this….” “There is opportunity here, Alan, that you can’t ignore….”), I believe that you are condescending and up to something, trying to manipulate me with false sincerity.

• If a “full service” gas station doesn’t include cleaning my windshield or anything other than pouring in gas and taking my money, shouldn’t the choices really read: “Self-service” and “Pour your gas and take your money”?

• How long before Dyson (which is actually in the air movement business) finally creates a blower that can ACTUALLY dry a car in an automated car wash? How is it we can create wireless technology but can’t create a blower that can dry a car completely?

• Two outstanding books if you’re interested: The Most Controversial Decision (Andrew Roberts) about the actual dynamics of Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb, and Railroaded (Richard White) about the myths of the transcontinental railroads and how Congress conspired with a few rather pitiful industrialists to make them rich.

• In five years on the local planning board, including two as chair, I never once saw a study commissioned by the developers on traffic impact that wasn’t totally false. If you pay enough, you can get experts to see your way despite evidence to the contrary. (“Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?”)

• We’ve purchased via Apple TV the entire seasons of Dexter, Walking Dead, and Breaking Bad, and along with the usual suspects (Damages, Mad Men, Memphis Beat, et. al.), no one needs any more of a reason to justify Cable TV or its cost. This is television at its best.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

When they say…                                They mean….

I could be wrong                                     You’re not even close

You might be right                                  You’re not even close

Can we talk offline                                  I haven’t a clue what you mean

I have various alliance partners            I’m a lone wolf tap-dancing here

Some of my best friends are gay            At least I assume they are, I’m never sure

How are you?                                             Ask how I am, who cares about you?

Let’s collaborate                                        Will you give me money?

Let’s do a needs analysis                          Because I’m completely lost here

We want to go from “good to great”       Since the phrase is easier than thinking

They want a capabilities statement         I’m stuck in HR

We had a great capabilities meeting        I took the HR people to lunch

I’m working on a book                               I’m reading chapter two

This call may be recorded                          Not that we’ll use it for anything

Your call is very important to us              But not enough to answer it live

The feedback has been outstanding          Somebody in Omaha liked it

I’m doing great                                              As if I’d tell you how I’m really doing

No problem                                                    What a pain

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

• When did it become a service standard for the server to provide you with his or her name, as if we were going to be friends?

• Air New Zealand used nude employees in their flight safety announcement videos to try to get people to pay more attention. I wonder if the tax people have considered that for online payments?

• A woman keeps telling people her dog is a Vizsla whenever they ask, which sounds stranger than it reads, and then confronts stunned expressions with: “He’s a Hungarian Pointer.” She did this six times in two minutes. Why can’t she simply say that to begin with? I don’t tell people I’m eating a homarus americanus. I just tell them it’s a lobster.

• Putting a spoiler on the back of a car may be stylish, but they don’t actually work, aerodynamically, below about 135 miles per hour, and most cars I see them on will never approach that speed. Below that they’re usually a drag on gas mileage.

• I’m back in Vegas as I write this, at the MGM Grand Skylofts, and the service is simply superb—attentive without being unctuous. It’s all a matter of management oversight and hiring good people.

• Airplanes are made with reclining seats. Everyone knows this. How can you become incensed when the person in front of you reclines the seat? It may be uncomfortable for you, but that’s not your “air space” to be protected. I find such umbrage a sign of total self-absorption (and many times the protestors have their own seats reclined).

• The Internet is the latest iteration of Guttenberg’s movable type, on an undreamed of scale, Al Gore notwithstanding.

• I’m convinced that there is no relationship at all between the price of a barrel of oil and the price for gasoline at the pump.

• People who turn every story and event into something about themselves are not those who are high on my guest lists.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

• The Air France tragedy highlights the danger of becoming subservient to machinery instead of using machinery as inputs for our own purposes. My dogs have stopped barking when people enter our property, but instead now react to the alarms we’ve positioned that indicate when people are on the property. They’ve adjusted their sensory procedures. That’s what happened to those pilots.

The Air France crew didn’t use the common sense that any solo pilot has ingrained (put the nose down to gain airspeed to avert a stall) because they were too busy trying to figure out the machines and alarms.

Are your computer and smart phone telling you what to do, or are you using them to optimize your efficiency and productivity?

Warren Bennis wrote once that someday factories would be run with only a man and a dog. The dog would be there to make sure the man didn’t touch anything. And the man would be there to feed the dog.

• When someone paid to provide service, as in a restaurant or at an airline gate, tells me “It’s not a problem,” after I say “Thank you,” I’m always under the impression that they feel they went out of their way to do some kind of special favor, instead of merely meeting their job performance standards.

• If there is a great, unacknowledged, universal lie confronting us daily, it is this ubiquitous statement via recorded message: “Your call is very important to us.” If it were, then you’d have the staff to put a human being on the phone, or at least reduce the waiting times to less than half a day.

• A self-published book is to commercial publishing what karaoke is to a live concert performance. There are some very good karaoke singers, but not many, and they’re not known outside of that bar.

• When you tell me you spend four hours on a gorgeous Saturday mowing the lawn because you “enjoy the outdoors,” I’m tempted to invite you over to work on my property and treat you to an entire weekend of euphoria.

• If a dog sitting in a car at a gas station can see the box of dog biscuits in the payment cubicle and start making a fuss to get some, why is it that consultants can’t recognize a buyer when they see one?

• I understand that Simon Cowell, for his new American version of the show “The X Factor,” has removed a highly popular British singer as a judge because of fears her accent wouldn’t be understood easily on television. That would disqualify about 72 percent of existing Americans, including most of those currently serving in that capacity. (I adore Steven Tyler on “American Idol”—he can actually divert my attention for a minute from Jennifer Lopez—but when I try to understand him, well, I want what he’s having.)

• We have three pair of geese parents and one duck mother on our pond with all kinds of kids. The geese parents with the most goslings—eight—are also those who are most aggressive getting to the food I provide each morning, allowing their offspring to get the greatest share (I leave food in other places now to accommodate the others). This leads me to believe they were also the most aggressive in defending their nest, which is why they have more kids than the others.

• On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog. There’s actually some guy blogging that consultants shouldn’t read my new book, The Consulting Bible, because I advocate value-based fees, and his point is that hourly fees are better. I now understand that he probably hasn’t even read the book, because he can’t afford to buy it!

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

I’ve been observing eagerness. You know, the people who put the tops down on their convertibles when it’s 54 degrees. I’ve driven convertibles since 1992, and I can authoritatively state that it’s uncomfortable at less than, say, 65 degrees with no wind and a speed over 10 MPH.

Then there are the people who jump up and clamber over each other as soon as the plane hits the gate and the captain hits that ridiculous “ping.” A few may have tight connections, but most just want to get moving when, obviously, there’s not going to be any movement for some time.

Some people anxiously push their way into theater lines, even though they have assigned seats. Are they afraid there’s an expiration time that allows “seat jumpers” to move in if you’re not planted there by the appointed minute? And what about the people who honk when someone takes an extra minute at a drive-through or a toll booth? What’s really to be gained? Should people ahead leave without their order or their change?

There are people who wait for the mail carrier, or show up as soon as the coffee shop opens, or want to get the lowest numbered dog licenses as soon as they’re issued. There are those who want to hurriedly finish their appetizers to get to the entre in order to get to dessert, and then to the coffee, and then—where?

I think that punctuality and preparedness are great traits. But being overly eager is like Buddy Beagle planting himself in front of the dog treat drawer because eventually I’ll come and open it.

Of course, he has nothing better to do.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

We’re completing our stay at Disney World with the family. We’ve had a wonderful time watching the granddaughters have a ball. The place is really built for two and three year-olds who rejoice in seeing Mickey. I can never turn off my consultant’s sonar, radar, and ESP, however, and here’s what’s surprised me about Disney World, where we first came about 35 years ago and where I haven’t been for over a decade:

• Maybe because of federal laws, or maybe because of fearful company attorneys, the employees here never shut up. On the trams from the parking lot, on the monorail, on a line for an attraction, your are besieged with warnings, advisories, and instructions. How many times do you have to ask me to hold on to a handrail or not poke my head into the water? How did I drive a car over here and learn to eat using utensils, if you have to educate me not to put my fingers in moving equipment? Everyone here is treated as a kid, and we all know that kids don’t listen. Maybe it’s because all employees believe they’re cast members (despite evidence to the contrary, see below) and should be speaking into a microphone all the time? The yakking is incessant and condescending.

• Disney’s ROI on some attractions much be approaching a bijillion percent. From what I can see, not a scintilla of It’s A Small, Small World has changed, and only a single Johnny Depp character has been added to Pirates of the Caribbean. They apparently just dust them off every so often. The Bear Jamboree is so old and unchanged that it actually contains politically incorrect comments that would never be allowed in a new offering today. At one point, a bear’s weight was insulted, and that bear was smaller than three people in my row alone.

• The rides are either continuous flow as the ones above and the Jungle Cruise, for example, or they are incredibly short. Jumbo flies around for only about 60 seconds, as does the Magic Carpet, as twirls the Carousel. The flume ride takes about 12 seconds to roll down the hill.

• Either because of federal law or lax hiring, the “cast members” are not nearly as passionate or lively or even as neat as they once were. I don’t know about you, but an obese person, poorly groomed, serving food is not part of a cast I want to be in. There is a superficial courtesy, but it’s not as genuine or impressive as you’d find in a luxury hotel in the U.S. Disney, which once forbade facial hair, has become lax or frightened of discrimination laws, but there are some unkempt people working in the hotels here. I’m all for diversity, but I don’t think that includes diverse levels of cleanliness.

• There is a tired nature to the place that I never witnessed before, either here or in Disneyland. Some paint is faded. Some of the actors are clearly just going through their paces without any kind of convincing energy or passion. The park isn’t as meticulously clean as it once was. You see plastic bottles left on docks, and room service platters left in hallways. (I know it’s people who leave them, but they were always promptly removed before.)

• A lot of people who ought to be well into retirement or a slower pace of life are working here in menial jobs. Good for Disney for employing them, but try working for six hours or so picking up detritus in 90-degree heat and in a full uniform. They don’t look all that happy to be in the cast.

• The sheer amount of overweight people we saw in the park and in the hotels was staggering. I mean obese and morbidly obese. Men, women, and children. Many are so heavy they ride scooters that you once saw used only by the disabled, and it’s not uncommon to see a dozen or more in close proximity. One woman’s scooter was stopping and starting all the way down the hotel corridor because she was steering with one hand while trying to balance a ginormous sundae in the other. If anyone doubts the fattening of America and the consequent health problems it will engender, come here for a day and watch this phenomenon. Most of these people are relatively young.

Maybe I’m remembering another age with a fogged memory. That could be. And maybe I’m acting too much as a consultant and being unforgiving of relatively unimportant things. That could be.

But maybe since Walt left the scene the money people don’t care as much and the nation’s standards have slipped considerably. That, too, could be.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

I’m sitting in the front of an Airbus A340, and I’m wondering why what I’ve been through is so strange. The plane carries 240 people, but we all go through the same bottleneck, one by one (baaah, baaah, baaah) to get on board.

Planes should really allow people to board through the entire side, so that everyone can get on in three minutes. But the new A380s, which can carry 800 people when configured completely for steerage, will have the same bovine boarding. Who thought this was the way to do it?

When we land, we walk a good half-mile or more, through winding corridors, to reach immigration. Here, at least, they have a multitude of stations, but still huge backups for those without special lines. Then we have to walk another hundred yards and take two elevators to reach the lot where the limo is parked.

The trouble is that airplanes were not built for passengers and neither were airports. Airframe designers, municipal engineers, and immigration officials don’t care about passenger comfort, they care about their own needs and avoiding litigation. How is “Let them walk a mile so that we save building costs” different from “Let them eat cake so we can save the best for ourselves”? (The “cake” to which the lady referred, was actually bread.)

Some years ago, an executive at Ford, appalled when she found she couldn’t gracefully get into one of her own new car designs, ordered her male design team to wear skits during business hours. She told them if they didn’t improve access for women, she’d also put them in heels. The design improved quite rapidly.

What if consumers, clients, customers and all other relevant alliterative categories were involved in the design of the structures, procedures, and processes they’d be using most often? Would the doctor still press a cold stethoscope to your chest? Would you wear those humiliating hospital gowns? Would the division of motor vehicles make you take a ticket and wait around for three hours? Would subway cars have the same kind of seating?

I doubt it.

I try to design experiences my clients find attractive and compelling, which is not hard when you ask them. Why isn’t that a universal endeavor?

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.