Was waiting to board a plane at Ben Gurion Airport. Boarding was by zones, which is a sensible idea but usually involves some confusion as to which zone is up… PA announcements can get drowned in the general hubbub. So this time, they had a young lady announce the zones at the top of her … Read more
I happened to look up and noticed this against the evening sky: These skewed towers with the broken antennas on top used to densely decorate every city rooftop when we were kids; every apartment needed an antenna, and the taller its tower, the better the reception – less “snow” and other interference in receiving … Read more
I was in a shopping center and I saw these two signs on different floors, pointing out the emergency stairs’ entrance. Now, the sign on the left is well drawn and clear – the guy is purposefully descending the stairs. But the sign on the right has something very wrong… It’s a bit hard to … Read more
Every child knows that postage stamps are affixed to the top right corner of the envelope. You lick the stamp, and you press it to the envelope at that corner. And it stays there. Or does it?… I was sending greeting cards recently, putting them in the envelopes they came with. Some of them sported … Read more
Our supermarket provides a large billboard for public use, where people post the usual mix of personal ads of all kinds. So many of them, in fact, that any one ad is likely to get drowned or covered by other ads before the day is out. So here’s one person that solved this problem in … Read more
I’m sure this happened to you: you call the support number of your bank/phone company/whatever, go patiently through all the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menus, get shunted to an “all agents are currently busy” music, waste long minutes listening, and finally get a human to talk to. You explain your request, and the agent politely … Read more
I called someone in the US and he wasn’t at his desk; the system helpfully informed me that the guy was not available but that I could …please leave a message – or, during business hours, press zero for assistance. It was during business hours. I pressed zero. The system cheerfully told me: Please hold! … Read more
As someone who spent a large chunk of lifetime working on improving knowledge worker effectiveness, especially around computer mediated communication and collaboration, I can barely contain my excitement. I’ve just sat through the lengthy video of yesterday’s unveiling of Google Wave in the I/O developer conference. Not only have the good folks at Google integrated … Read more
Last year I reported on the inefficient design of a teleconference system, as far as respect for the user’s time is concerned. Today I sat through a really lovely case of this design issue. This system, speaking with a booming, ebullient voice, took me through the following: System: Welcome to the conference center! System: Please … Read more
Used to be, at the beginning of every (face to face) meeting ten minutes would be wasted on getting the slide projector going. Today many meetings are virtual, but the same time is still wasted while people try to log into the shared meeting workspace… A case in point: I’ve just participated in a meeting … Read more
