Outside Look

I’ve been preparing my old PowerBook G4 to give to my in-laws since I have a MacBook Pro and bought the wife a new MacBook. One of the things that happens with a lot of use of the aluminum keyboards is a build up of grime and oils. There is a lot of information out there about what to do with liquid spills, but not a lot about basic cleaning.

Apple does not recommend using any solvents, and I found a lightly damp towel wasn’t doing the trick. Nail polish remover was out, too strong of a solvent (I assume solvents will take the letters off the keys), and I couldn’t find any rubbing alcohol, but we did have some nice Russian vodka. With a few Q-tips, a shallow dish of vodka and a dry towel, the keyboard was almost like new in 15 minutes of swabbing and wiping. One of the good things about vodka is the purity and high alcohol content - any little over drips evaporate before getting to any circuitry.

I would recommend using only pure vodka - flavored vodkas might smell nice, but I image probably leave a bit of residue. The best part - you can have a shot for yourself

I recently had breakfast at Sally’s restaurant in San Francisco, and was not impressed. My meal was sub-par, so like any young (ish) geeky net type guy, I put it on Yelp. I was going against the stream - most of the reviews were great, and I did assume I had a one off, lousy experience, or my expectations were too high.

But then, something amazing happened. The owners sent me messages on Yelp, and they were entirely apologetic, ready to make things right - they won a repeat customer. They snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, and used social media to do it. Critically, they did not diminish the validity of the review, in fact they acknowledged the problem and shared the steps to improve it. This is in sharp contrast to a few stories I’ve heard of proprietors bashing a negative reviewer.

So here is the point, the Net isn’t going away, social media isn’t going away, and companies can either participate and win customers over, or chose to ignore it and lose customers due to lack of responsiveness and participation. I upped my review from 2 to 3 stars on Yelp purely for the effort to respond and personal attention that went in to the response (not a canned email). I am also now far more likely to come back, and soon, as the owners have demonstrated they care and are invested in their business, and by extension my experience there. In fact, I’ll make an effort (after my meal) to talk to the proprietor(s) if I can and thank them.

Another great example is Get Satisfaction - I hold no love for Comcast, but they are active on Get Satisfaction and Twitter to resolve customer problems. Companies large and small who embrace and leverage these tools will be much better off. You can bet Gen Y and younger will be expecting it rather than surprised and elated when they do.

“Times they are a-changin’” embrace it an grow, ignore it and wilt. I can say that I will be back to Sally’s in San Francisco sooner than later, will further update my Yelp review, and will certainly tell others the owners give a damn and recommend that others go there on that alone.

It doesn’t take more than a quick look at this blog’s archive to see that bogging can seem to be hard. I don’t publish as regularly as I would like, ideas go unwritten daily - and I am not the busiest person around. Sure, I work 16 hours some days, and 12 others, and some Saturdays I hardly work at all. Yet I still don’t manage to get most of my daily ideas in to the blog. And even worse, I still don’t get many of my specifically project related ideas out to my reports. Sure, there are some short emails with a “think about this” theme, but too much gets left unsaid.

This is why I really like this post from Rachel Happe of The Social Organization titled “Executive Blogs Don’t Need to be Difficult.” Talk about a simple way to foster communication from the executive level - just a few sentences based on day to day conversations can do! (I wonder how powerful Twitter could be if it could live behind the firewall in large organizations - I imagine there would be a huge benefit to both executives and mid level employees)

The truth is, there are a lot of kinds of blogs, based on intended (or allowed) audiences - but it is still a format that offers benefits to the publishers and (potential) readers regardless of the context. It is no longer the format or the reach that is important - it is the fact that the tools are so readily available and so easy to use there is no excuse not to blog, at least for specific audience. For executives, there is no reason not to share a few thoughts each day - it can be a release, it can solicit help from unexpected sources, it can tell you who is tuned in and interested, and who is engaged enough to promote.

When it comes down to it, if you are an executive, you should blog (even if only available to an internal audience, though there are benefits to having an external blog too). And as Happe’s article points out, it doesn’t need to be a polished, marketing approved, 6,000 word dissertation - it should be short, real, and ask questions (and of course within the bounds of ethics and SEC regulations) - but it may be surprising the positive reactions and thoughts that come out of the regular posting of what may seem mundane.

I was just reading this article on myOpenID CallVerifiD regarding using phone authentication for online log ins. This made me wonder why the mobile has not become a more common authentication factor.

I’ve talked to too many people who have said that online banking has two factor authentication because you “have” the user name, and “know” the password. This is complete bunk. You “know” both of them, which leaves most online banking logins as single factor, multi-layer solutions. Compare to the ATM card and PIN - you “have” in physical possession the ATM card, and you “know” in your mind the PIN. This is two factors, and you can’t get cash without both. Of course there are white card/skimming schemes of encoding a fake card with legit info, but that doesn’t change the context of multi-factor authentication - there are still have and know components.

As the prevalence of mobile phones has grown over the last decade, it seems nearly everyone has one (or two!), and certainly, nearly everyone prone to using online banking has a mobile phone. So, why hasn’t using the mobile phone become a key part of financial institutions’ approach to implementing FFIEC guidelines on multi-factor authentication?

The most simple answer is that the average online banking transaction (balance inquiry) doesn’t require two factor authentication, and the hit to consumer convenience isn’t worth it. But I’m not satisfied - I’ve yet to see an online banking property that applies vastly different authentication strategies to different sorts of online interactions. I’ll take myself as a use case - I’d be pissed if I needed to respond to a text message every time I logged in to online banking, I’d even be frustrated if I had to do so for every transfer between accounts I own. But, I wouldn’t mind if I had to for transfers to outside accounts. Yet, I haven’t seen or heard about any financial institutions requiring different levels of authentication for different types of transactions. I’m sure someone is and I just haven’t heard about it - let me know in the comments - I can’t have an account with every FI

This all points to aligning security, authentication, and authorization methods to channels/transactions that present the greatest risk to the consumer and the financial institution. A balance inquiry is low risk, a person to person to transfer is high risk. We must authenticate and authorize appropriately for these things. I’d be more than happy to authenticate via SMS or IVR for P2P or P2B transfers via online banking, or for password changes, address changes or any number of infrequent high risk transactions.

The beauty of the multi-layer, multi-factor, multi-context approach is that the convenience need can be met while also meeting the security need. Inconvenience is increased as risk increases, and most consumers will accept this as they know/feel they are being protected.

I think this must be a systems problem in that online banking portals that are in place today just don’t have the flexibility to authenticate/authorize at enough levels to support the granularity required. What do you think?

I really enjoy stories about people who bring a completely outside perspective to what appears to be an intractable problem (and thus the name of the blog and consulting service). One of the things that I notice time and again, even in myself, is the ‘curse of knowledge’ - the tendency to lock in to a myopic view of a problem or industry, and stop looking for solutions outside the traditional box.

It takes some effort and purposeful attention to get out of this view. I hate the phrase, but we need to ‘think outside the box’ sometimes. This story about John Kanzius, a business executive and radio technician who comes up with a new potential method of treating cancer is a great example. The story is a bit sensational, but reading past that it is clear Mr. Kanzius took a problem, motivation, and ideas completely outside the accepted or expected and brought a new idea. It might not work, but then again it might.

We should always challenge ourselves to look at our day to day problems from a different angle, and try to apply our knowledge and experience to new problems.

There has been a fair bit of buzz around decoupled debit products (here is a good write up with many good links from Digital Money Forum). I just haven’t been able to figure out why people would take the time to get one. The points are a nice idea, but most people get those with a credit card, and more banks are beginning to offer points and rewards with their check cards. The user experience doesn’t seem any different (I don’t have one yet), it is a point of sale card that you use like any other. And, who needs another card in their purse or wallet?

I there is a good way to take advantage of decoupled debit, based on the same principle many people use with email (including myself) - single purpose accounts. Here’s an example, since I own my domain, and have unlimited forwarding emails I create a new email address for new sites I register for, and forward the messages to a main account (which for me is Gmail). This way I can remember my login, see where spam is coming from, filter messages from different service providers and just be more organized. I think decoupled debit could help with this too. Much like the good advice to have a card only for online purchases, a decoupled debit card (and more specifically, the card number) can be the single point for any recurring payments that you don’t want to change, so long as that is the only purpose that card number is used for. For example, put all magazine subscriptions, Netflix, newspaper subscription (people still have those?), whatever recurring card based payment that you want to go to the DDA account rather than credit card account. If your ‘normal’ daily use check/debit card is compromised, lost or stolen, there is no need to reset all those recurring payments.

It would be really great if card issuers would give everyone two card numbers, one for only recurring, stable, relatively secure payments, and another, which is on the card that is used for day to day use at merchants, and maybe even a third, ‘high risk’ number for online/card not present purchases - but all linked back to the same ‘master’ account. This way, you wouldn’t need to get a new card if compromised online, wouldn’t need to change recurring payments if the card was lost, and wouldn’t need to manage multiple accounts - all activity ‘forwards’ to one account. Decoupled debit might be one way to get closer to this. There has been some activity around single use/virtual/disposable card numbers which usually expire after a short period of time. These are effective for avoiding fraud in online purchases, but I think they are too limiting, there are too many issues if you want to try to return something, and creates an extra step in the purchasing process most consumers don’t want to deal with.

The financial services industry needs to continue evolving to support the way consumers wish to pay for goods and services, and consumers need flexibility, control, and convenience. This is tough, with competing needs, priorities, costs and profits, but we need to do it.

It’s not what you think - not a bunch of people hanging around a bar, not is it going camping with lots of booze. BarCamps are informal conferences, without an agenda, loosely organized, and incredibly cool. For me, BarCamp Bank SF was my first BarCamp experience, and this is a little bit about that experience for those who haven’t attended one.

Since this was my first time, I didn’t know what to expect beyond what I’d read on the BarCamp wiki and some blogs. At first blush, it seems that it just can’t work - put 40 - 50 people in a room and try to get an agenda for a whole day - but it does. I think much of this is due to the fact that the sort of people who give up their Saturday for something like banking topics are highly motivated and smart. And throughout the day this proved to be true. Topics are posted up on the wall and the group quickly sorts through them, splitting them in to breakout sessions and spending an hour or so discussing the topic. It was just amazing how diverse the crowd the was, and how intelligent and engaged the folks who came out are.

There are many take aways from such an event, but a few for any newbies who may be interested in what BarCamps are all about:

• It is what you make of it - interact, question, speak up - the format of the event strongly favors interaction - there are no talking heads, no keynote speakers. You are the speaker, listener and critic.
• Understand the crowd - somewhat related to the point above, it isn’t about smart people talking to you, it is about smart people talking to each other, and recognizing that everyone has different strengths, background, expertise and experience - and those are valued.
• Get out the cards - bring plenty of cards, and if you don’t have your blog and Twitter URLs on your card, write them on the back ahead of time (I didn’t do this, but should have). Exchange cards liberally
• Follow up - send out some emails following up on conversations, hit LinkedIn for strong connections, subscribe to people’s blogs and follow people on Twitter. There is more to learn.
• Just Go - I’m extremely shy, and any conference is tough, especially one that is highly interactive, but go anyway. The crowd that shows up for this sort of event is really open, and you will likely have people coming up to you, or you can just walk up to a group and start listening. Good things happen either way.

Specifically related to this incarnation of BarCamp Bank, a few thoughts:

• Financial services doesn’t seem sexy and exciting, but there were a ton of ideas in a vast variety of areas. Financial services in the US (especially) are tired and boring. There are so many opportunities globally to do new things with financial services, I have the feeling the US will be a slow follower.
• Mobile payments are the way of the future. Mobile banking and payments will quickly be the norm in emerging economies where wireless, handheld internet access is the norm. Globally, mobile phone internet access is more common than computer based access.
• Crazy ideas are innovation - and by this I mean the difference between a wild and crazy idea and an innovation is that innovations catch on and make money. Just because an idea is crazy doesn’t mean it won’t succeed.
• For one day, set aside “the curse of knowledge” (explanation here of all places). Financial services is one of the industries that is most afflicted by this curse. It needs to be set aside by those who are in the business to open up to new ideas and find new ways of doing things.

OK, that’s it for me on BarCamp Bank SF for this year. If you have any questions or want to connect, send me a note at ben atsign oustidelook dot com or on Twitter.

“The government…expand an airport security program that creates special checkpoint lanes for families and “expert” travelers.” This is great news for everyone involved. Not as cool as, Clear, which is a must for any frequently traveler departing from a participating airport - but provides value to everyone. By asking travelers to self select in to family, intermediate and advanced/expert it is no surprise that all lines move faster and travelers are happier.

I can’t express how many times I’ve ended up behind a family of 4, shoes and liquids in one hand, laptop in the other, ready to speed through but wind up waiting for the family to do whatever it is they need to do. This new method being tested seems to work the way the freeway should - slower traffic keep right - and everyone moves faster.

Let’s hope more airports give this a try.

In November I switched my primary airline from Northwest to United, in part due to moving away from a Northwest hub, and in part because I was tired of the mediocre service. For the first few weeks I was quite happy. The service was generally good, and despite not having the Gold elite status, I was impressed by the better service from the flight attendants, gate crew and customer service people. Sadly, the honeymoon appears to be over.

During the month of January I have had two canceled flights. The first on left me in Denver for 4 hours on a Friday afternoon. I was re-booked on a later flight (not the next flight) automatically, but with no explanation of why the flight was canceled, and hardly a sorry for the inconvenience. After a snack and sitting around for a few hours I arrived at the gate for my seat assignment. Now, I fly a lot and am reasonably tall, so I pay a few extra bucks from my own pocket to upgrade to ‘Economy Plus’ which provides a nice bit of extra legroom. Upon receiving my seat assignment, I find myself in the back of the aircraft in the middle seat - no where near the ‘Economy Plus’ aisle seat I’d paid extra for. Fully understanding that this flight is completely full with others re-booked from the canceled flight, I didn’t expect to get my upgraded seat, but I did expect some acknowledgment that was ticketed in a different fare class and would receive a refund. Oh, not so!

When I pointed this change out to the gate agent I was greeted with the blankest of stares then a ‘I dunno’ shrug. Here is where I got a little upset. Give me a freaking break - can you not provide me with some information on resolving the situation? As my frustration became apparent the other gate agent rudely indicated they could not process a refund with a ‘you’re shit out of luck’ sort of tone and proceeded to continue processing seat assignments. My response was to ask they at least give me a phone number to call to resolve it, which he grudgingly did. And it turned out to be a wrong number.

I didn’t place a real high priority on getting the refund thinking I would just take care of it next time I needed to call customer service, which didn’t take too long. Today, another United flight I was booked on was canceled, and another flight I paid a little extra from my own pocket to upgrade. When I called to get booked on the next available flight they told me they could not process refunds and gave me the refund number. After a solid 20 minutes on hold I was basically told they needed me to fax in a boarding pass for my first flight to show what seat I did end up in (they re-booked me, how can they not know?) before they could process my refund. On top of that, they could not process my refund for the current day’s flight, despite seeing the information in the system for completely inexplicable reason and I would need to call back in 48 hours. I guess they somehow need to prove that I did not actually fly on a canceled flight or something.

United - how can this process be beneficial to the company or your customers, especially business frequent flyers who are your bread and butter? I called in 2 weeks ago to get my status transfered from NWA to United and told the agent I expect to fly over 100,000 miles in 2008 and would like most of them to be with United - I don’t think this is the type of customer you want to lose. In addition, this process is clearly an expensive one for you. It will take me no less than 3 phone calls and time with agents to get this sorted out - that’s not cheap - in fact the cost has to be running close to the amount of the requested refund. In this age of computers and the Interwebs one would think such refunds could be processed automatically when the fare class changes….wouldn’t that make sense? Or are you counting on not enough people actually completing this insane process so you get to keep the money, in which case your business practices are marginal.

Dear United - I am available for consulting if you would like help leveraging technology to make your business more efficient and your customers more satisfied.

UPDATE: I did manage to find a place on the web site to request an upgrade refund. This must happen a lot. I can’t believe no one through this processes, nor the automated on hold messages (which covered a number of things I’m not the least bit interested in when requesting an upgrade) mentioned this. I tried it and it didn’t seem to work too well anyway. The instructions are a bit confusing and it appeared to not work with little explanation of why. Off to the fax machine I go with my boarding pass.

This week I bought a Blue-Ray player. I wanted a new DVD player, and thought it was time to go hi def rather than grab the old technology cheap. So, why did I buy Blue-Ray rather than the equally good HD-DVD format? Two very simple reasons: there ‘appeared’ to be more Blue-Ray titles available, and I could get 5 free titles out of the store, and 5 more free by mail (which isn’t as good as it sounds as the titles are very limited by mail).

It was really nice to see just a few days later that Warner Brothers announced they would be shifting to Blue-Ray, resulting in a significant shift toward the format. But that point aside, it was the marketing that did it - I could leave the store with player and discs in hand - 30 minutes later (long walk) I was watching a Blue-Ray disc in all its hi def brilliance without spending an extra cent. So, what was the HD-DVD option? A player slightly more expensive and 5 free discs by mail.

Oh, also, did I mention I could have gotten a PS3 for the same price as the player, with Blue-Ray capability? One of the hottest gaming systems can handle the format.

The cost of the 5 free discs I walked away with from the store was about $150, but it guaranties that whenever possible I will be buying a Blue-Ray title going forward - and since most consumers skip a generation on technology (e.g. most people replaced LPs with CDs rather than LP-cassette-CD) I will replace my few remaining with VHS tapes with Blue-Ray (for example, I will be getting the excellent Rattle and Hum from U2 on Blue-Ray).

Sorry folks, Blue-Ray more than likely has it, and it was the product marketing, and a bit of a gamble that did it. Sony just had enough reach between consumer DVD electronics and gaming systems to tip it, and frankly that’s fine - there was no discernible difference between Blue-Ray and HD-DVD, we just need to get to one format anyway.