I ate at a restaurant tonight and something wasn't great.  Not that it was bad, it just wasn't as good as it could have been.  So I was thinking about what I wanted to express to this restaurant and it was pretty long-winded (oh, you're kidding).  It was about how I'd eaten there many times and my prior experiences were this and this experience was that, and so on.

As luck would have it, I looked down at the table and there was a customer survey card.  A modern one, to do online when you're back at home.  This got me thinking about the whole concept of surveys.  I have a bit of experience with surveys since I wrote a survey engine for a client.  Of course, he provided the business logic and I turned it into code, but I learned a lot of things about surveying.

One thing about surveying that I didn't really think about until now is:  A survey tells the surveyor what they want to know, not what the customer wants to tell them.  It's obvious when you say it like that, isn't it?  The surveyor writes the questions and provides stock answers.  It all seems a bit biased.  Where's the emotion?  Where do I get to tell you my history with your company?  Oh yeah, there's a "Enter any additional comments below" field.  That's like: "We got what we wanted out of you.  Go ahead and say your piece here.  Huh?  Yeah, we're listening, keep going."

Ugh.  I would love to see a whole new survey format.  The crazy psychologist in me says there has to be a more intuitive way of arriving at an answer.  Maybe something like building powerful statements that express your emotions, Like:

____ went to your ____ business and ____ your _____.

Personally, I _____ whenever I ____ your product, but everyone else _____.

First off, stop thinking like that.  Grow up.  (Yeah, I did it, too.)  Each of these blanks would be drop down lists of common and uncommon words or word phrases.  With enough template statements, the surveyee could pick as many as they wanted to express how they felt.  If they want to say the same thing over and over using different statements and words, that should tell you something.  Let the surveyee format the text of the selected words.  Big, bold, curvey, red, italic, tiny, underlined.  They all say something important; it's expressive.

That's just an idea, and my point is that having a canned survey with a set number of predefined questions and answers is too sterile for the MySpace generation.  These people are all about expression.

Had a thought today which lead to a very interesting conversation with a friend.  Back in my hometown, the whole area is depressed.  Near dead, I would say.  My early thought was, if I was a billionaire and had the inclination, how would I rebuild the city to become successful?  Why is it not successful now?

Because it's my business, I thought tech.  The property values are so low from the terrible economy, I could buy huge buildings and turn them into data centers.  I'd just need to strike deals with the telcos to bring in enough bandwidth.  And with data centers comes the higher-paid skilled labor to run them.  Because the area might not be experienced enough to handle technology at that level, some workers would have to be brought in.

Attracting people to the area would be difficult, because there seems to be nothing here.  So as part of the investment, I'd have to buy a bunch of franchises like Chilis, Outback, Olive Garden, maybe a Dave and Busters, Chuck E Cheese, etc.

Some other thoughts started to jump in.  I don't think the immediate area would like such urban sprawl.  The area markets itself as "Victorian", so technology and chain restaurants just don't fit.  That's not to say everything couldn't be built in adjacent areas, which don't have a persona.  In fact, the areas that don't have a defined style are fairly better.  They attracted a new hotel, a Staples, Walmart (not all that good for the local economy as it killed off a lot of local businesses) and Home Depot (killing off a few other local lumber suppliers).

So I brought this idea up to my friend and we discussed it.  As we talked, I formulated stronger reasons why this wouldn't work.  And I came up with an alternative plan.  The primary reason why the plan wouldn't work is because our home town area is blue-collar.  Strong blue-collar.  My initial plan was to bring white-collar jobs in to boost the economy.  To keep the white-collar talent, I'd have to provide amenities like the chain restaurants and probably some upscale chain shopping stores.

My friend was confused as to why restaurants would change anything.  I distilled the values of white-collar and blue-collar people into a few statements:

Blue-collar workers are family-oriented. They stay in one place, they take pride in knowing all their neighbors and having a big family and extended friend circle.

White-collar workers are career-oriented.  They move frequently, they are always moving to the next job, so they don't create large circles of friends and family.  If they need to see friends and family, they travel.  Their higher salaries afford them this luxury.

That's all.  So what about retaurants and white collar people?  Because white collars move so much and have such hectic lifestyles, chain restaraunts and stores provide comfort and familiarity.  If those familiar icons aren't there, they feel out of place, they have to learn a bunch of new places to eat and shop.  This is different than when they are visiting, because they temporarily give up their comfort for experimentation.  "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there."

So in summary, the local area would frown on having their victorian theme butchered, the new white collar workers would feel out of place in a blue collar area, providing the white collars with the expected amenities would be met with resistance (see point one)... it just wouldn't work.

But, with new clarity, what kind of business would serve a blue collar community and also provide an elevated standard of living?  It's already pretty well known that this community can be exploited.  Telemarkting, call centers, and assembly-line sweat shops already keep the population firmly rooted in low-pay blue-collar purgatory.  My idea was warehousing.  Land is cheap and pretty plentiful, a major interstate is very close by, a blue-collar workforce is readily available (this is important for companies trying to open a warehouse in a white-collar area).  Wages could be highly competitive and might cause an upswing in other industries.  Compare this to the opening of Walmart when it was a mixed blessing to have a company hire hundreds of people at minimum wage.  Does that really help the local economy?

Phew.  This is probably my biggest posting, but it's something I thought was interesting.  I may elaborate on this as I spend more time here.

Yup, Hoss's was good.  That completes the gauntlet of food places I need to experience.  But that success was dampened by something I haven't seen in years: snow.  And a pretty decent bit of it.  A few inches, I'm guessing.  By the time I hit the road this morning, it will be clear, and it wasn't sticking on the roads by the time I got back last night.

It dawned on me why there probably aren't any tolls on that stretch of turnpike I drove the other day.  It is a connector between one of the major interstates and the road to the airport.  It would make sense to not charge airport users a toll to use the most expedient route to the airport.  Wait a minute, no it wouldn't.  This is America.  You have to pay to get an improved experience.  This state gets more weird every day.

Another weird thing noticed while travelling in a neighbor state (The State of Beautiful Women): there's no sales tax on fast food.  What kind of incentive is that?  No tolls, no taxes, I don't get it.  Vistors like me pay these fees because we don't have much choice.  If these states are making up the lost revenue from these tax breaks through city/county/state taxes, they're biting the hand that feeds them.  My (albeit small) savings at Wendy's and on the road is being subsidized by the residents of the states I'm visiting.  Your pain is my gain.  Thank you.  That kind of adds another perspective to "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there."

Ahhh.  It's good to get what you want.  Tonight I wanted Roy Rogers.  I wanted Roy Rogers a few nights ago, but apparently that location was closed.  Or whatever.  That was an interesting, pointless drive.

So now Roy Rogers might be almost exclusively on the turnpike where I'm at.  That means money.  I'm paying money to go to a place that will feed me fast food at an amazingly high price (over ten bucks), then pay to return.  That's a good business practice.  Why aren't there more obsessive junk food lovers like me out there?  I guess they're either broke or dead.

But returning to turnpikes, tonight was different.  I got on the highway and wondered "where's my ticket?"  Where I'm at has a ticket-in, pay-to-leave system.  Well, I haven't been here a while, so maybe they converted it to a pay -as-you-go system.  That would suck.  So I drive about 10 miles and pass an exit.  No toll booth.  Oh hey, there's Roy's... on the other side of the road.  Ok, I might have a rest area on my side coming up. ... No, another exit.  Next exit, I'm turning around.  The next exit says "Toll Road".  Great.  Now, I have to pay to get off, then pay to turn around.  But how do they know where I got on at?  I take the exit - no toll booth.  That was a free trip.  I turn around and head back.  That's going to be free too!

So I got to drive 40 miles on toll roads for free tonight.  And although I did spend over ten dollars for fast food - which could of been a better experience (I didn't go on an empty stomach, so I had to force some of it) - I think the night turned out pretty well.  So I wonder who's paying for these roads...

I've got one more food place to hit while I'm here.  I hope it's good too.

They say you can't go home again.  They're wrong, but there's no mention that once you get there, you realize it sucks.  Or so it did for me.  After a couple years of being back in my home town, I had the opportunity and discovered I'd returned to a city of potholes and derelict buildings..

I was mildly surprised by my recollection of everything as it was, so I only needed to absorb the changes.  This business closed, that's new, that building still hasn't collapsed, that road has collapsed and is now closed, why can't I get a damn 3.5mm stereo cable anywhere around here?

One of the positive aspects of the trip was hanging out with an old friend, which included a requisite road trip to a neighboring town for fast food.  In all my memory, nowhere makes fast food as consistently good as this one.  And although it's pretty pathetic to rate fast food in this manner, it's an honest pat on the back that after so many years, with so many crews working their respective stores, the restaurants put out well-prepared food that has earned the loyalty of two customers.  There must be more people out there that feel the same.  Oh, and I can buy Snyder's of Berlin pretzels here.  And I will.

So I'm sitting here waiting for a store to open.  It's 29 degrees.  Yesterday it was about 42 and I was going around without a jacket on.  Apparently my heat reserve is used up because it's cold now.  I'm up here for the next couple weeks, so I guess I'll have to get used to it.  I'm waiting for the dry skin to kick in.  My nose is dried up and a little raw, so it's starting already.

 

Hey, the Multidraw is back on the Floida Lotto.  *sigh* Yes, I play the lottery.  No, I don't expect to win.  Yes, I've heard the "idiot tax" joke.

So anyway, recently I was informed that you couldn't do Multidraw on Florida Lotto.  Multidraw is where you buy tickets in advance for the same numbers you're playing now.  I liked it because I didn't have to stop at the store twice a week.  So with the news of this change, I was a little upset.  So I tried to get to the store twice a week, but a lot of times I just didn't want to take the time.

Today I had some time and stopped in.  When I handed my ticket sheet (I play the same numbers all the time), the machine rejected it.  The cashier said, "This is the old sheet.  you need to use a new one."  So I went to get a new sheet.  Yes, it is a little different.

 

Old:  New:

Florida lottery players probably are aware that the jackpot rarely goes over $30 mil.  Is it more appealing that you're playing for a $55 mil jackpot, albeit at $3/play?  Maybe that option will be played more often by the players that only play when the jackpot is over say, $15 mil.  Conversely, since your odds are winning never change no matter how many people play, but your odds of splitting a jackpot are greater when the jackpot is higher (since more people play), is it a better strategy to play $3 on low jackpots and sit out on the higher jackpots?

Me, I'm just going to keep playing my usual.  If luck ever happens to come along, I hope I'm young enough to enjoy the winnings.

In other lottery thoughts, I once entertained a conspiracy theory that once the lottery hits $30 mil, it is won.  My theory was that there was one or multiple millionaires that would buy every number combination possible for a guaranteed jackpot win (plus all the 5 of 6, 4 of 6 and 3 of 6 wins).  It makes decent business sense.  The odds of winning the jackpot is about 1 in 23 million.  That's 7 million dollars profit, if you can afford the 23 million buy-in.

Unfortunately, it's logistically near impossible.  You would need to print 7.6 million numbers a day, or around 88 numbers a second.  That's 88 numbers a second, 24 hours a day for 3 days.  That doesn't take into account time to reload ticket paper (assuming you even have enough), time to read the ticket sheet and any other latencies.  Even if you took the conspiracy to an extreme:  there are 100 millionaires all in this together; they all own their own business that is a licensed lottery agent; they all shut down for three days to print tickets for three days straight; they all gather the tickets and find the winning ticket, they all... oh, come on, I can't even continue this.  They would net less than a million for all that effort.  And if they split with a regular player, that cut their winnings in half.

 

 

It has bugged me for quite a while that there is no readily available Zune merchandise.  I don't mean like accessories or other dreck, I mean like shirts, hats, stickers.  There's no way for a proud Zune owner to show they support that product. 

 

Microsoft has a small, strong, loyal following - it echos of early Apple - and they are not giving these people the proper tools to evangelize the product.  It's really a sub-culture, never getting enough press to excite anyone that isn't in the culture already.

 

A perfect example: Christmas 2007.  I saw week after week of Best Buy, Staples, and Circuit City ads roll out with mentioning of Apple and Sansa products, but not a single mention of Zune.  You'd think it didn't exist.  It was a terrible feeling.  Now I know you don't get placed in those circulars without concessions, so maybe Microsoft wasn't ready to pay for play yet.

 

Back to my original point.  The Zune has a clever name and a colorful, creative logo.  I could see these tastefully embroidered on a black polo shirt.  I could see a large Zune logo silkscreened on the back of a tee shirt, or embroidered on a baseball cap.  I could imagine stickers in the rear windows of cars, and since I am MS certified, I could easily imagine the name/logo on anything in the MS company store - like other MS brands like XBox.  I did request Zune merchandise from the MCP store and asked to be notified if any became available.  We'll see.

 

We're trying, Microsoft.  Let us help.