Rail travel on aiaio, the business blog.
I am a big fan of trains, apparently dating back to my childhood, when I’d get unreasonably excited about commuter trains passing overhead (whether this was my own obsession or something prompted by my mother, I am unsure). I still enjoy getting around New York by subway–most mornings, anyway–and have happily explored transit systems in scattered cities around the world.
Taking the Acela this year has been a great discovery. It showcases America’s potential in high-speed rail and the many advantages that come with it. Unfortunately, it also shows the shortcomings: the breakdowns, the slow top speeds, the inexplicably bumpy ride.
The more we can get ourselves to adopt, and appreciate, trains the better our environment will be. I will continue to take trains whenever they’re a viable option. And, yeah, getting excited when they go by. I still do that.
Category: Observed (Page 8 of 24)
In the wake of Tropicana’s disastrous rebranding over the winter, its sales plummeted 20 percent in six weeks. Twenty percent in six weeks!
That’s a disaster on a monumental scale for a brand this size–$33 million in lost sales, plus the millions of dollars in designing, packaging and marketing the new designs, and the funds to clean up the mess.
The sales news also sheds new light on the decision to switch the packaging back, which at the time was called a “deep emotional bond” among Tropicana consumers. Indeed, the exact opposite was true: without the logo, people assumed their juice was gone, and simply bought something else. Neil Campbell, call your public relations department. (via kottke.org and df)
How to Get Hired on aiaio, the Ai blog.
I have long been an observer, commentator and course-corrector when it comes to job interviews. Many moons ago I published a series of job-hunt best practices in this space. Titled “Interdon’t,” many of my pointers are just as relevant today as they were a decade ago.
I am continually amazed by the flagrant violations of basic job-search protocol. Among the things I’ve seen the past two weeks:
- Cover letters with our company name in a different font, copy-pasted
- Saying “this position is a great fit” while having a background in, say, high finance
- Chatty letters with no resumes attached
- Emailed resumes with no accompanying text at all
People expect to (and do) land work like this? How? I suppose they’re hired by people with similar approaches, but that’s not me.
Anyway, read the two links above if you’re looking for a job, and good luck in your search.
Jurassic Web in Slate, subtitle: “The Internet of 1996 is almost unrecognizable compared with what we have today.”
What did people do online back when Slate launched? After plunging into the Internet Archive and talking to several people who were watching the Web closely back then, I’ve got an answer: not very much.
To which I say: bullshit.
The World Wide Web was an invigorating, compelling and, frankly, amazing place in 1996. Innovations were fast, furious and quickly adopted. Clever people did clever things and pretty much everyone noticed, because “everyone” was a rather small and curious community.
I know. I was there. Not “watching,” like the folks Slate’s reporter Farhad Manjoo spoke to, but creating. Designing. Exploring. Sharing. And, pretty much daily, blown away.
The Internet of 1996 was certainly nothing like today’s experience. But to suggest there wasn’t much to do is to ignore everything that was being done.
There was no iTunes; but there were MP3s, and .wav files, and sharing was just as exciting (and covert). There was no glut of information, not yet; but there were unbelievably good reads and finds, large and small, like Suck and HotWired and 0sil8. Tools for online creation were primitive, but that didn’t stop people like me from hand-coding HTML and slicing together animated GIFs frame by frame and putting amazing works online.
No Yahoo Mail? So what? I was sending email with Eudora over high-speed connections back in 1991. And I first used instant messaging in 1992, on an old Mac running OS 7, when young Farhad was still in middle school. Which is not to be a grumpy old man, but to make the point he misses: the Internet wasn’t hamstrung back then. It was just different.
I dare say 1996 was, in certain ways, more interesting online than 2009. The Web was still the great unknown. People didn’t know what to make of it, but they knew it was radical and fascinating. It was the future, happening in real time.
Today the Internet is a mature medium that has become more sophisticated almost non-stop since the early days of its commercialization. But to call its initial era boring is to miss the real story. The Internet has never been boring. Those of us who were there in 1996, shaping what so many people now consider normal, know the truth.
Here’s the thing about the latest auto industry bailout pleas: only under extreme duress are General Motors and Chrysler are making changes to their business plans. And only under the guise of getting more cash are they coming up with them.
I don’t want to see large-scale industrial failure any more than the next guy. But these companies do not deserve Federal assistance. They have proven for decades that their businesses are myopic and wholly resistant to change. While the rest of the world’s automakers adapted and excelled, Detroit was relying on focus groups, creating redundant models, ignoring macroeconomic and environmental trends, and overpaying employees.
The net result is companies that need overhauls and closures. Market forces should create the necessary change. Another $14 billion will only continue the status quo, which is akin to giving a drug addict just a bit more of his drugs in the hope he’ll figure out how to get clean if he’s given just a little more time. It won’t work.
GM in particular has busted its model by overdoing just about everything, starting with a proliferation of models. Take a look at model lineups in 1959, during its heyday:
- Chevrolet: 8 including trucks (Bel Air, Biscayne, Impala, Corvette, Kingswood, El Camino, Suburban, Parkwood)
- Pontiac: 3 (Bonneville, Catalina, star Chief)
- Buick: 2 (Electra, Invicta)
- Cadillac: 3 (DeVille, Eldorado, Fleetwood)
That’s 16 car models in total across their four major brands. Today Chevy has 15 models, Pontiac 7, Cadillac 6 and Buick 3–a total of 31 car lines, nearly twice as many models for less than half the market share. And that’s excluding Saturn and GMC, which heavily rebrand GM platforms for even more product lines. You’d think over the past, say, 15 years GM would realize it’s doing things wrong and try some fresh tactics. None ever came.
So add me to the list of “let ’em fail” naysayers. I’d like to see Detroit’s stalwarts continue to make cars, but only compelling concepts with strong identities that would actually have me consider buying one.
The potential ripple effects are frightening, but more bailout money will only delay the inevitable. Better to swallow hard and work on a Plan B.
Ten-letter words!
Sastrugi
Curvetting
Hagrides
Alforja
Tegular
Queerling
Solonetzic
Atopies
Errhines
Rhamnose
Gisarme
Outhearing
Overholy
Actinas
Stereoed
Pliskies
Grecized
Deforces
Isologue
Markhors
Two days into January and I’ve already got six words on my list. Either the computer is getting more ridiculous or I’m playing too much.
(A bit delayed; December will post promptly after New Year’s.)
Grewsome
Trisemic
Scoriate
Learier
Finfishes
Parerga
Roupily
Vinifera
Althorns
Eyedness
Gleeked
Emeroids
Finings
Thelitis
Stanged
Agravic
Worrited
Frank Bruni writes today how restaurants have shifted from blase to dismayed at his canceled reservations.
I’ve been warily surveying my own neighborhood, and my actions, too. Our neighborhood Italian joint of choice is still jam-packed, even at 5:30 in the evening. But this is a restaurant that can serve two people a three-course meal with a glass of wine for $70. One might expect it to thrive, which so far, it is.
I’ve had a couple of fancy dinners the past few weeks where there’s been no second seating–by 9 p.m. the restaurant has scattered empty tables. Ruby Foo’s in Times Square defied this trend, but countless other restaurants are starting to feel the strain.
At home, I’m ordering in less frequently; the urge to save money is trumping the 20-minute neighborhood quickie once or twice a week more than it used to. (Also, there’s no good Chinese food near me. An open letter to the restaurant owners of New York City: please open a decent Chinese place on the Upper West Side! Everything uptown is mediocre at best, and heaven knows all these people should stop eating at Saigon Grill.)
The city in general is going to look far more bleak next spring than it does right now. Come February, I expect a rash of store closings, restaurants and otherwise, which will leave the city pockmarked like my local stretch of Broadway. One can only hope things don’t get that bad.
Fun videos and gewgaws from assorted other blogs in my reader:
~ Bio-Bak, one of the more insane (and fun) personal sites I’ve seen in many years–it reminds me of Superbad (which I kind of miss)
~ This guy sings “Thriller” in 64 a capella parts… it’s quite a montage
~ And then there’s this guy, who custom built a drum kit to play Guitar Hero 3, then beat the hardest setting. hoo wee!
Washington Post: 5 Myths About an Election of Mythic Proportions. “Exit polling suggests that there was no statistically significant increase in voting among [black or young voters],” and other debunking. Worth remembering that Obama’s victory, as noted here previously, is far from the national mandate given to, say, Ronald Reagan.
Related: I watched and enjoyed Obama’s “60 Minutes” interview last night. Barack is an intellectual man who is not afraid of the truth; he and Michelle are balanced, quick to smile, and down-to-earth. (Although there was some bemused discussion in my home as to how extensively the “mom in chief” runs the Obama family, and what that suggests about the president-elect.)