Seth's Blog: Who answers the phone?

Seth's Blog: Who answers the phone?: "Shouldn't you be rewarding call center operators by how long they keep people on the phone, not how many calls they can handle a minute? Shouldn't there be an easy, fast and happy way for an operator to instantly upgrade a call to management (not a supervisor, I hate supervisors) who can actually learn something from the caller, not just make them go away?"

It's just managing what you measure. If you measure the wrong thing then you're screwed.

FIRST Robotics Video - New York Regional Competition - Hand-Built Robots - Popular Mechanics

FIRST Robotics Video - New York Regional Competition - Hand-Built Robots - Popular Mechanics: "It wasn’t hard to find the high-octane action of the FIRST Competition at the Jacob Javits Center this past weekend. All you had to do was follow the thunderous cheers erupting from several hundred amped-up high-school students. Inside the exhibit hall, face-painted teenagers waving foam fingers and team flags were packed hip-to-hip on two sets of bleachers as referees circled center court."

They never had anything like this when I was a kid. Heck, the computers we had were Apple ][e. I wonder if they'll get a letterman jacket? Do they even have those anymore?

The Eighth Birthday

Today is the eighth anniversary of the birth of our first daughter. This would have been a special year for her. She would have been ready to be baptized, and I would have done that ordinance and she would be able to receive the Holy Ghost. She would also move into senior primary.

In a rather interesting bit of timing I have a jury summons. I had gotten one just after I was cleared to walk again after the accident that killed her. For some reason the lawyers didn't think I would be objective in a drug related case.
I have forgiven the drunk driver that killed my daughter and the light and live that filled me redefined my life. That said I would not be and could not be an impartial juror for a drug related offense. Loving the sinner is wonderful, but the sin is still a sin and is wrong.

We live our lives and continue and we are in a position to help people who average people are not able to help, so it continues.

On the Future of Publishing

If you are a not so old geezer like me you might remember the PhotoMat a little store out in the parking lot of most supermarkets where you could drop off you roll of film and get them back in 1 day. Now most supermarkets have an automatic developing machine in the store where you can get your photos back in an hour and right next to it is usually a computer for printing out your digital photos in seconds.

Supermarkets usually also have an aisle devoted to books and magazines. Usually limited to the bestsellers and lots of romance fiction. But now with the Espresso Book Machine you would be able to get any book you wanted printed while you shop.
Borders is already in trouble and Amazon is starting up its own print-on-demand (POD) service.

Now it is a race to see if this gets popular enough to compete with purely digital formats. The film companies came out with the APS format film at the same time as digital cameras and now film has moved to a niche status, even Polariod, the original instant gratification camera, has stopped making film and film cameras.

With the Kindle and iPhone it will be interesting to see how the market segments books. The fiercest battle will be for paperback fiction and may never get resolved some people will want a physical book others will be happy with ebooks. Coffee table books will remain real but textbooks and reference works will go electronic.

Cookbooks can be another battle ground, ecookbooks can have different font sizes s you can read it from further away, but there is something special about browsing a cookbook and stumbling on a new recipe. The internet is great for finding something if you already know what you want but not so good when you are not so sure.